Drake Scouting Report

[im4wsu]

I think changing up defenses is more effective than learning one that worked for someone else. GW switched often and threw off our timing and cohesion. As someone mentioned; you have to have the athletes to execute it as well. Besides, the more we see of specific defences the better we will execute.

Switching defenses probably contributed to using the freshmen (particularly perimeter players) fewer minutes in the second half, as well, simply because they may have never seen some of the defenses before.

[60Shock]

The concern is not about Drake learning the 1-3-1, but what we have learned about negating it.

[shockmonster]

GW had a 6'8 player with long arms running the point on their 1-3-1. Does anyone remember Paul Pressey running Tulsa's 1-3-1 zone half court press? It worked well then too.

[Ricardo del Rio]

Good point, 1979. Hey, we could probably assemble five SNers who could take a crash course in how to play GW's 1-3-1 moving, aggressive zone. But the Shocks would still score pretty much every time down court against us.

Everyone in the Valley will try to implement some of what's worked against WSU so far, but it will only help (or might help) if their players can actually do what's required to make it work, and do so against a Shocker team that knows what weaknesses they've revealed so far and will be working hard to remedy them.

Make some jump shots and some or a lot of the zone problems go away.

[SB Shock]

Drake does play zone defense - no need to learn it. Not sure which one, or how much they do use it. But you can expect they will use it and keep using it until WSU shows they can score against it.