Everything Jim Larranaga Said Before the ACC/SEC Challenge
WIth the Miami Hurricanes looking ahead in the next few weeks, they have one of the most difficult stretches of their season ahead. First they will take on the new look Arkansas Razorbacks led by head coach John Calipari.
Miami head coach Jim Larranaga knows that it will be an NBA style of offense that his defense will have to prepare for as the Canes take on the Razorbacks in the ACC/SEC Challenge.
How To Watch ACC/SEC Challenge: Arkansas at Miami
What Stood Out Against Charleston Southern....
"Well, it's the same issue since we started practice in July. our defense and our defensive rebounding are just not at the level we need to play at. According to Kenpom, who evaluates your efficiency both offensively and defensively, we're 277th in defense and we are right there at the same with our defensive rebounding. So we keep working on that and hoping that we are going to get bettering. We are going to try some subtle changes. What is interesting to me is that we also compare this team to the elite eight team that I coached three seasons ago at this time our defense and rebounding were terrible and we figured out a way to defend better and then all of a sudden we started winning more games and getting more stops. It wasn't from getting better rebounding turnovers so we went from like 277 to ike 107th which is not great but we were scoring the ball at a very high level so it worked right now our offense efficiency is 24th in the country so from an offensive standpoint you know we don't always look good and I'm disappointed that we're not playing better on offense uh but I also see we have a lot of potential offensively if we can get a few more stops and get a chance to to get out on the fast break but when you constantly you know giving up offensive rebounds as we did to uh Charleston Southern where they got 22 points of our off of their missed shots and our defensive backboards and that's a real issue players have to make it a priority."
On Defensive issues with so many new players...
Yeah I'd say that's definitely true um first of all when you have 10 new guys and they all playdefense at different schools we have you know um basically Four Four Freshmen who are just learning everything for the first time and then we have like seven seniors who all came from different programs and played defense differently and are trying to learn our system it's not that ours as complicated but you do have to communicate very well and right now that's that's a real weakness like we had a play the other day where we were planning to switch we called it at the time out said okay we have two like sizes uh and we're going to switch the ball screen the initial ball screen TR so that we we we don't put two on the ball and we didn't switch correctly and the guy who screened rolled to the basket caught it and just made a layup so that's just the lack of communication the players have to do a better job there and we've got to be more demanding in practice to be sure they're doing it right the funny thing is in practice we've been doing a lot of these things correctly and then the game comes and our our mental preparation our mental toughness is is not as good as it needs to be.
Nijel Pack Update...
"Last week we practiced on Wednesday Nigel practiced the whole time we practiced on Friday he practiced the whole time and then on Saturday the injury bothered them so we'll find out today probably around 4:00or 4:30 uh we start practice at 3:30 he'll warm up and start to go and if it bothers him he'll sit out and if he's good to go he'll prepare for the game tomorrow."
What to expect from Arkansas....
"I know Coach Cal very well I have known them for a very longtime um they've got a bunch of NBA guys uh the first is the seven-footer what we call Big Z he's an NBA uh stretch five-man he's a very very good three-point shooter he's shooting I forget what it is off the top of my head but like six 65% from three so you got to guard him even though he's a seven-footer you got to guard him at the three-point line Theo if you remember last year he played at Kentucky at the team that spanked us u in the second half and he was terrific he's there their. Forman who's a phenomenal athlete so we got to keep him and the seven-footer off the glass they're both great at catching lobs so they'll screen and roll and catch lobs but they're the guy that makes him go is Boogie Fland the point guard who is lightning quick he's a freshman who has the ball in his hands a ton he plays almost the whole game um and he's an expert at using ball screens so a lot of those players uh who is going to play in the NBA uh live off of his creativity so it's very hard to slow boogie down because he catches an outlet he's so fast he can be a one-man fastbreak. Dro is the same way he outrebounds and Outlets he just a Carl Malone type guy who runs the court and dunks the ball and then they got DJ Wagner who's a great 64 athlete and John El Davis who everyone should know LED FAU to the final four two years ago so and they've got a very deep bench with alot of tall guys coming in off the bench so we got our hands full they're John avery typical John Calipari team with a bunch of NBA guys and a bunch ofsize so how do you how do you um how do you think you guys measure up to that and do you think maybe the the challengeof playing a team like that maybe your guys will rise to the occasion or well I you know I don't really I don't really look at it that way every every game is a separate entity right so when you play one team that sits in a Zone it's a different style another team that plays pressure man to man and switches everything that's a different style when you when you play at John Calipari team you're talking about a team that devotes a lot of its energy to defense because if they get stops they just score in transition because they're so fast and athletic so our job is going to be don't turn the ball over try to get good shots and score because if we don't score before we ever get back to guard them they'll be trying to out run us.
The challenges with Arkansas ball screens...
"I would say it's very similar to an NBA team if you see Jamal Murray with Nicola Jokic they run that same play constantly. the Clippers with James Harden and Zubiac um you know all these NBA teams with great point guards um Shai Alexander and um the big kid from Gonzaga what's his name um Chet Holmgren so all these NBA reams run that middle pick and roll and I think you know Cal coached in the NBA he's very familiar with NBA type offense and offensive players so he's created an NBA uh you know preschool "
On Matthew Cleveland not seeing the floor in the second half against VCU...
"He's fine I just you know would like him to play better we need him to defend and rebound and make shots and the other day he when he played in the second half I thought the best he played was in a five minute segment and he guarded the point guard so we've got got to look at that as a potential you know change in our strategy because his defense off the ball has not been nearly as good and you know there's really three parts to dewell at least three or four parts of the defense on the ball defense off the ball defense defensive rebounding and and uh is also like team defense just knowing where to be to help um it's off the ball but it's even more than off the ball it's we had we've had players who were not great on the ball defenders but are just terrific team defenders last year we had Keshawn Georgewho was uh a liability defensively when he was on the ball but an absolutely terrific Team Defender uh he help helped everybody and uh our defense was betterwhen uh he was on the court we need more guys like that who are really good at at helping each other."
