Arizona (White) | Utah (Red) |
---|---|
10 Mike Bibby | 34 Drew Hanson |
34 Miles Simon | 50 Alex Jensen |
42 A.J. Bramlett | 13 Hanno Möttölä |
21 Bennett Davison | 51 Mike Doleac |
23 Michael Dickerson | 24 Andre Miller |
Why I think it worked
Rick Majerus plays almost exclusively a man-to-man defense. The
Arizona team certainly prepared for man-to-man and they did not
have a good offensive strategy to break this "junk" defense.
Unsung heros Drew Hanson, Alex Jensen and David Jackson did their
job shutting down the vaunted Arizona superstars. With the close
guarding,
Bibby was 0-7 from beyond the 3-point line.
The defense is weighted toward defending the star guards, so
breaking the defense was up to Dickerson, Bramlett and Davison.
Dickerson was particularly frustrated, shooting 2 for 12 from the field.
He normally scores 21 points per game. Bramlett
and Davison took only 12 shots combined. The 'Cats may have been
thrown out of their offensive set plays to the inside, or one could
credit Möttöläa and Doleac for protecting the basket.
With all the shots Arizona was missing, they only had 8 offensive
rebounds.
The Utes had three players with double-digit boards.
Miller was positioned well for rebounding, leading the Utes with 14
rebounds, 13
on the defensive side; Doleac vacuumed up 11 and Jensen 10.
In his defensive position at the charity stripe Miller was not
required to chase the Arizona players on defense and was relatively
fresh to lead the offense. He took advantage with aggressive
dribble drives on the offensive end.
AP story about the
triangle-and-two
e-mail: kbrews@cox.net
Original material © 1998-2007 Keith Brewster. Others as noted.
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