I'm not sure what Milliman meant by that quote, but I can tell you this was the exact strategy Rutgers used against Ohio St. prior to the Hopkins game. Next to no sliding and force Hopkins players to win individual match ups. In talking to some of R players, as the game wore on, there was more and more belief that Hopkins didn't possess the ability to do that with any regularity.Ruffled_Feathers wrote: ↑Tue Apr 26, 2022 9:49 amYeah it may be counter intuitive but this is definitely the problem I think many make when they are evaluating "what is our offense trying to do?". You likely need to look more at the games where they did well or were at least competitive in some capacity to see the proper picture of what the plan is. Doing a post mortem on the Maryland game you run head first into a skill gap problem where nothing is going to look right because we are simply outclassed. I think it was the Rutgers postgame presser or something where Milliman had the quote of "we thought they were going to slide more". Whether that quote is to be taken as "we couldn't win our individual matchups" or "we gameplanned wrong" I suppose is left to the viewer to decide but I'm not entirely sure what kind of offensive set you are supposed to run effectively against a near as makes no difference man to man defensive scheme when no one is getting the defense rotating.HopFan16 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 26, 2022 9:19 am News flash, Maryland's defense is really freaking good. Are you shocked the offense looked decent against Michigan and Penn State but bad against Maryland? Please let me know what strategy that should be running instead when you don't have a player who can draw a slide or beat their man.
The boys are dodging straight up, they are trying to dodge off a pick, from up top, from behind, from the wings. When you never actually win a matchup and gain a step Its all going to give you the same results of nothing gained and a pass to the adjacent man on the outside so he can also give it a shot or move the ball along to the next guy. Admittedly I do think the guys who end up on the inside during a set are perhaps a little more stagnant off ball than they should be but its hard to do a backdoor cut or find space when the guy covering you doesn't have much concern that he might need to slide somewhere.
It seems obvious that Hopkins lacks speed and athleticism. According to people in this thread, that's being addressed through recruitment, so the staff must see this soft spot too. Being the case, seeing two great athletes that were at Hopkins and left for Uva and Maryland is a headscratcher.
