Combing March Madness film to find improvements for Arkansas's offense
Part One: Isolation in the Cougar Den
Happy Easter!
Eric Musselman loves a ball-dominant isolation scorer. In a vacuum, I can’t say I disagree with him. On Friday night, I watched one such player score 61 points on 47 (4-7!!!) shot attempts for my beloved New York Knicks, and I was in awe of every single move.
Here’s the thing, though: The Knicks lost that game, and Arkansas’s isolation offense didn’t do them many favors this season, either. According to ShotQuality, Arkansas scored just 0.85 points per possession on isolation plays, which ranked 169th in the country. Despite the play being ineffective, Arkansas was 40th in the country in isolation frequency.
This is not just a problem this season. Far be it for me to tell Musselman how to coach. I know the man knows infinitely more about the game than I do, but the data isn’t favorable. In the 2022-2023 season, Arkansas was 299th in isolation efficiency and 65th in frequency. In 2021-2022, the Razorbacks were 280th in isolation efficiency and 51st in frequency. Same problem in 2020-2021. 208th in efficiency, 86th in frequency.
These are what Drake would call “undeniable numbers.”
And not to beat a dead horse, but I will certainly deliver the final blow if it’s still kicking. Here is where Arkansas had players rank in the SEC in field goal attempts in each season of Musselman’s Razorbacks tenure:
2023-2024: No one in the top 20.
2022-2023: Ricky Council (ironically)-4th; Devo Davis-17th
2021-2022: JD Notae-1st (by 50 shot attempts); Stanley Umude-15th
2020-2021: Moses Moody-3rd; Notae-9th; Justin Smith-16th
2019-2020: Mason Jones-4th; Isaiah Joe-10th
The data about the Arkansas offense under Musselman is pretty clear. He will find one or two guys in his nine-man rotation, and they will get all the shots. Efficiency numbers? He spits at efficiency numbers. Just feed the hands whether they are hot or not.
Musselman is old school NBA in that way. Still, basketball is more than just what your numbers say. How you come to that data is critical. So, how does Arkansas get players into isolation?
Typical Arkansas Isolation Alignment
There is nothing wrong with tradition. I cannot wait until my daughter is old enough to watch Scrooged on Christmas Eve, as my family has done for most of my life. Kyle and his brother had some pretty competitive egg hunts on Easter Sunday until they were about 29.
Musselman’s isolation sets are pretty traditional as well. There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you. There’s a reason these sets have lasted through time and the game's evolution. They work.
Arkansas almost exclusively uses a half-court set or alignment for isolation scoring that looks something (slight variations may exist) like this:
A ball handler (denoted with the circle around the number) has the ball at the top of the key. For simplicity’s sake, I have that labeled as the point guard, even though neither Council nor Notae were point guards. The other perimeter players (2 and 3) are positioned on each wing. The two big men (4 and 5) are either on the block or in the dunker spot.
The idea behind this arrangement is that you have cleared out the paint to create driving room for the ballhandler to go to work and get his shot going downhill toward the rim. The philosophy is that pressure on the rim will get you a decent shot attempt or a foul call.
Let’s see a video example of this with Council from 2022-2023’s SEC/Big 12 challenge game against Baylor.
Makhel Mitchell sets a high ball screen that Council waves off, so Mitchell heads down to the right block. Anthony Black simultaneously clears from the right corner to the left wing. At this point, everyone is in position, and Council goes to work off-the-dribble. He converts a difficult, off-balance attempt over two defenders.
Here’s an example from this past season with Tramon Mark:
In this example, after some initial window-dressing and token movement, Chandler Lawson sets a ball screen for Mark and short rolls before cutting to the restricted area. While this alignment isn’t exactly like the one pictured above, their principle is the same. The Hogs have a ballhandler at the top of the key, and the other four players are high and low on either side of the floor. Mark finishes the play with some difficulty.
That last sentence is the key piece, though. In both of these clips, the spacing of the other Razorbacks on the floor makes it easy for their defenders to help with the dribble penetration and recover back to them if the ball handler kicks it out. Go back and watch that Baylor clip again. Whichever direction Council chose to drive, he would have to deal with two additional defenders in strong positions to help cut off his driving lane, one at the elbow and one at the block.
The same thing is true with Mark’s attempt. Khalif Battle is in the right slot, so that is easy help and recovery for his defender. Lawson positioned himself right under the rim, which allowed his defender to front him and close off Mark’s driving lane without even leaving his assignment.
Again, these are made buckets, but the difficulty level is higher than it needs to be. This is especially true when Musselman relies so heavily on one set for his isolation attempts.
Maybe watching a tournament team could help the Hogs spice things up.
Cougars lie in wait on the weakside
I keep kicking myself for being so opposed to hiring Kelvin Sampson when Mike Anderson was fired. The man coaches the Cougars in Houston, but he’s a basketball Phoenix. He spent some time working and learning in the NBA under legends like Greg Popovich and has since been reborn with his previous sanctions turned to ash underneath his triumphant wings.
Oh, yeah, and he’s done nothing but win at a high level since returning to the college game.
In their second-round game against Texas A&M, I noticed Houston getting into isolation with a set that looks something like this:
Here, the ballhandler is in the right slot or wing with the center positioned at the nail or slightly off to the weakside elbow. The other three Cougars are in the weakside slot, wing, and corner. In brief, Houston has overloaded the weakside. Let’s watch it in action:
Do you see the difference? Sampson’s approach has tilted the balance of the floor and changed who is able to provide help defensively. Go back, watch it again, and pause at the ten-second mark once Jamal Shead has beaten his man off the dribble. Look at how much open space he has to get to the rim. Only one man can cut off the driving lane, and he will have to cover some ground to get there. By that point, it’s too late.
What’s great about this setup is that it also allows for variation. Here’s another example from that game:
As Shead moves toward the nail, the help defense comes from where it’s supposed to—low man on the weakside. Shead delivers a fantastic pass to Emanuel Sharp in the corner that the defender just vacated for an easy catch-and-shoot opportunity.
What else can happen when dribble penetration is stopped?
Shead dumps it off to one of his teammates on the weakside, cutting toward the rim. It’s not the easiest look in the world, but again, there is optionality and more forced rotations for the defense.
Here’s one final clip of the whole thing literally flipped on its head with the strongside overloaded this time.
Sharp sets a cross screen for J’Wan Roberts and then pops out to the weakside wing. Every Aggie defender is so focused on Roberts and all the rest of the team on the strongside that they completely forget about Sharp. Roberts delivers the pass to Sharp for one of the easiest looks from deep of the entire tournament.
No one is asking Musselman to go away from what works. Dance with who brung ya, Eric! If you want to be an isolation-heavy team, be an isolation-heavy team, but you can absolutely incorporate more diverse options for doing so to make the offense easier for everybody.
Pig Sty Changes and Summer Programming Notes
Pigs lack the ability to thermoregulate, so they wallow in mud and shallow water to cool their bodies. Here at the Pig Sty, we want to get down in the mud and live in it a bit to make ourselves even better at what we do.
With that in mind, we are announcing our new Wallow approach. Starting effective immediately, we will specialize in covering one Arkansas Razorbacks sport from top to bottom, off the field, and on.
From now on, Kyle will be The Pig Sty’s Football Wallow, and Max will be The Pig Sty’s Basketball Wallow. We are also in the process of recruiting a Baseball Wallow, so we are not ignoring the last (and currently most successful) of the big three sports.
As we move into the offseason for both football and basketball, we will slow down our content to just the Sunday article. Starting next week, Kyle and I will alternate weeks of putting out the Sunday piece, each focusing on our specific sport. The mid-week piece will be reserved for baseball once we get that up and running.
Obviously, we will put out content when something major happens (like a coach leaving, for example). We will also still do crossover and joint pieces because those are fun for us.
Lastly, if you know anyone who might be interested in becoming our third musketeer, Baseballos as it were, send them our way.
Excellent breakdown.