Originally Posted by
CDu
Worth noting that the No Middle has the same issues as, well, really ANY defense in that it requires great coordination. It heavily relies on the help defense to protect against dribble penetration. I am pretty sure that's a staple of Coach K's defensive philosophy too, but our guys just aren't good at those secondary rotations. It doesn't matter what defensive philosophy you choose, if the rotations aren't there, the defense isn't going to work.
To wit: with the exception of the Miami game, since we switched back to man-to-man we've had our bigs sagging off on the high ball screens, which is in line with the No Middle concept. We did this against Ga Tech, Clemson, and Notre Dame. It worked for us against Tech and Clemson. It wasn't successful against Notre Dame, in part because Hurt and Johnson really struggled (and Williams is just overmatched in terms of quickness right now) and in part because Notre Dame is a really well-coached and talented offense and knows how to get good shots against almost any defense. Against Miami, for some reason we switched things up and pressured high with our bigs, and got roasted. Then switched to the 3-2 zone instead of back to drop coverage. Against UNC, they don't run a ton of high ball screens so it's sort of moot.
Ultimately, the key with all of these defenses is that the guys off the ball have to be really engaged at all times. It's also important that on-ball defense is good too. Not coincidentally, those Texas Tech, UVa, and Baylor teams succeed largely because they have veteran rosters playing those defenses.