JMU’s Biggest Problem: Lousy Defense?
Brady Says ‘D’ Needs To Get Better
Posted: November 27, 2012
HARRISONBURG — Through 205 minutes of action this year, the James Madison basketball team has held a lead for a combined 9 minutes, 26 seconds – or 4.6 percent of the time it’s been on the court.
It’s no secret the Dukes (1-4) have played poorly at the start of games, which has forced them to play catch-up the rest of the way. Coach Matt Brady is still searching for a cure to this malady.
“We have dug ourselves some considerable deficits, some big holes,” Brady said Monday during his weekly press conference. “The problems are easy to see; solutions aren’t quite as noticeable. So we’ve spent a great deal of time as a team and as a staff talking about the answers to getting off to faster starts. And I think our defense isn’t anywhere near where we hoped it would be. And they’re certainly related.”
JMU – on the road for its first five games — now has five straight at the Convocation Center, starting with Wednesday’s home opener against George Washington.
Brady was far more subdued Monday than he was at his last press conference – two weeks ago, just before the start of the season – when he beamed about his team’s depth, energy and willingness to defend.
But the fifth-year coach, who is in the final year of his contract, said he isn’t panicking based on the slow progress of his team through a handful of games.
“I look at it as a young season, no doubt about it,” Brady said. “… I think that we’re not far from being a good team. We just have to shore up some things defensively, and we’ve got a lot of games to go. This is a young season. There’s a lot of growth with our team. If we can get [injured forward Andrey Semenov] back, stay healthy and we can get production from our bench – especially defensively – then we’ll become a good basketball team.”
JMU’s problems, quite clearly, begin on the defensive end, where it is allowing 80 points per game. That’s the worst mark in the 11-team Colonial Athletic Association and ranks 332nd out of 347 teams nationally. JMU opponents are making 52.1 percent of their field-goal attempts (335th worst defensive mark nationally) and 1.124 points per possession (326th).
Brady has said he opted for a challenging early schedule so he could learn about his team. But the ease with which those opponents have scored on the Dukes has been surprising. Madison has been outscored by an average of 80-65.8.
UCLA (4-2) is a supposed powerhouse, but it has already lost to Cal Poly and needed overtime to defeat UC Irvine. Duquesne (2-3) was picked in the preseason to finish last in the 16-team Atlantic 10, but looks a bit stronger than that based on early results. North Dakota State (5-2), picked to finish second in the low-major Summit League, is 5-1. Miami of Ohio (3-2) was picked in the preseason to finish last in the Mid American Conference’s East Division, but both of its losses were to Top 10 teams.
Youngstown State (3-3) was picked fourth in the mid-major Horizon League preseason poll but lost all three of its games to less-than-imposing competition – including JMU – at the Progressive Legends Classic sub-regional in Pittsburgh last week.
Madison’s defensive lapses – while more pronounced this season – are nothing new. JMU ranked 11th in the then 12-team CAA in points allowed per game last season, and it has never finished higher than ninth in that department during Brady’s four-year tenure.
In the past, the coach has stressed to his team the need to quickly retreat into transition defense. Brady thinks a different issue has popped up with his current unit. He said senior forward Rayshawn Goins – the team’s best offensive player but a sub-par defender – has struggled as the anchor.
“The No. 1 thing for us, defensively, hasn’t really – until last game – been conversion defense, getting back on defense,” Brady said. “It had really been guarding ball-screens – Rayshawn, as a five-man, guarding ball screens. We had really gotten hurt in ball screens. We tried a number of different things. I think we’ve settled on one way to guard it and we’ll see if we can guard it that way.”
The team is clearly missing Semenov, both offensively and defensively. The versatile 6-foot-7 forward, who’s missed all but two minutes this year with a groin injury, is both the Dukes’ best 3-point shooter and shot-blocker. His status for Wednesday, Brady said, is “hopeful.”
While the Dukes are unsure when they will have Semenov, they’re just as unsure of what they’re going to get from senior swingman A.J. Davis. The team’s leading scorer last year and a preseason All-CAA second-team pick, Davis is averaging just seven points per game and has entered Brady’s doghouse, logging just 23 minutes in the last two games combined – both lopsided losses.
“It’s not what we thought,” Brady said of Davis’ production. “I think when we came into this season, we expected him to be 12, 13, 14 points per game, where he could potentially break out and get 20 points in a game. But again, this isn’t where I’d hoped he would be. I had a long conversation with him [Sunday night] in my office. He wants to be more productive, he thinks he can be more productive and he’s going to have to be more productive if he wants to get double-digit minutes and beyond. Certainly, this is a lot easier if your fifth-year senior starting guard plays great basketball, and right now he has not.”
Fittingly, the reason Brady initially pulled Davis against North Dakota State last week was because of his defense.
With Davis slumping and Semenov shelved, the Dukes used Arman Marks during Saturday’s loss to Miami (Ohio), ending any chances that the sophomore guard would redshirt. JMU discussed the possibility of redshirting Marks this season, and the 6-4 left-hander was convinced earlier last week that sitting out 2012-13 was the plan.
Plans change when your team is struggling mightily.
“With not getting a lot of production from a couple key guys, we thought we’re not going to go through the same thing with him that we did with another freshman last year,” Brady said, alluding to Keynan Pittman, who redshirted even though he wanted to play, and then transferred after the season. “I think Arman can provide a spark, I think he did that all of last year. … He can rebound the ball, he’s much further defensively than where he was a year ago, and he’s a guy who can make shots, so we decided to play him.”
Marks missed his shots Saturday, as part of a woeful 38.3-percent shooting performance for the Dukes. But it’s defense that’s still Brady’s No. 1 concern.
“The 65 points that we’re averaging is probably enough,” he said. “… Clearly this is going to be about our defensive energy.”
It’s no secret the Dukes (1-4) have played poorly at the start of games, which has forced them to play catch-up the rest of the way. Coach Matt Brady is still searching for a cure to this malady.
“We have dug ourselves some considerable deficits, some big holes,” Brady said Monday during his weekly press conference. “The problems are easy to see; solutions aren’t quite as noticeable. So we’ve spent a great deal of time as a team and as a staff talking about the answers to getting off to faster starts. And I think our defense isn’t anywhere near where we hoped it would be. And they’re certainly related.”
JMU – on the road for its first five games — now has five straight at the Convocation Center, starting with Wednesday’s home opener against George Washington.
Brady was far more subdued Monday than he was at his last press conference – two weeks ago, just before the start of the season – when he beamed about his team’s depth, energy and willingness to defend.
But the fifth-year coach, who is in the final year of his contract, said he isn’t panicking based on the slow progress of his team through a handful of games.
“I look at it as a young season, no doubt about it,” Brady said. “… I think that we’re not far from being a good team. We just have to shore up some things defensively, and we’ve got a lot of games to go. This is a young season. There’s a lot of growth with our team. If we can get [injured forward Andrey Semenov] back, stay healthy and we can get production from our bench – especially defensively – then we’ll become a good basketball team.”
JMU’s problems, quite clearly, begin on the defensive end, where it is allowing 80 points per game. That’s the worst mark in the 11-team Colonial Athletic Association and ranks 332nd out of 347 teams nationally. JMU opponents are making 52.1 percent of their field-goal attempts (335th worst defensive mark nationally) and 1.124 points per possession (326th).
Brady has said he opted for a challenging early schedule so he could learn about his team. But the ease with which those opponents have scored on the Dukes has been surprising. Madison has been outscored by an average of 80-65.8.
UCLA (4-2) is a supposed powerhouse, but it has already lost to Cal Poly and needed overtime to defeat UC Irvine. Duquesne (2-3) was picked in the preseason to finish last in the 16-team Atlantic 10, but looks a bit stronger than that based on early results. North Dakota State (5-2), picked to finish second in the low-major Summit League, is 5-1. Miami of Ohio (3-2) was picked in the preseason to finish last in the Mid American Conference’s East Division, but both of its losses were to Top 10 teams.
Youngstown State (3-3) was picked fourth in the mid-major Horizon League preseason poll but lost all three of its games to less-than-imposing competition – including JMU – at the Progressive Legends Classic sub-regional in Pittsburgh last week.
Madison’s defensive lapses – while more pronounced this season – are nothing new. JMU ranked 11th in the then 12-team CAA in points allowed per game last season, and it has never finished higher than ninth in that department during Brady’s four-year tenure.
In the past, the coach has stressed to his team the need to quickly retreat into transition defense. Brady thinks a different issue has popped up with his current unit. He said senior forward Rayshawn Goins – the team’s best offensive player but a sub-par defender – has struggled as the anchor.
“The No. 1 thing for us, defensively, hasn’t really – until last game – been conversion defense, getting back on defense,” Brady said. “It had really been guarding ball-screens – Rayshawn, as a five-man, guarding ball screens. We had really gotten hurt in ball screens. We tried a number of different things. I think we’ve settled on one way to guard it and we’ll see if we can guard it that way.”
The team is clearly missing Semenov, both offensively and defensively. The versatile 6-foot-7 forward, who’s missed all but two minutes this year with a groin injury, is both the Dukes’ best 3-point shooter and shot-blocker. His status for Wednesday, Brady said, is “hopeful.”
While the Dukes are unsure when they will have Semenov, they’re just as unsure of what they’re going to get from senior swingman A.J. Davis. The team’s leading scorer last year and a preseason All-CAA second-team pick, Davis is averaging just seven points per game and has entered Brady’s doghouse, logging just 23 minutes in the last two games combined – both lopsided losses.
“It’s not what we thought,” Brady said of Davis’ production. “I think when we came into this season, we expected him to be 12, 13, 14 points per game, where he could potentially break out and get 20 points in a game. But again, this isn’t where I’d hoped he would be. I had a long conversation with him [Sunday night] in my office. He wants to be more productive, he thinks he can be more productive and he’s going to have to be more productive if he wants to get double-digit minutes and beyond. Certainly, this is a lot easier if your fifth-year senior starting guard plays great basketball, and right now he has not.”
Fittingly, the reason Brady initially pulled Davis against North Dakota State last week was because of his defense.
With Davis slumping and Semenov shelved, the Dukes used Arman Marks during Saturday’s loss to Miami (Ohio), ending any chances that the sophomore guard would redshirt. JMU discussed the possibility of redshirting Marks this season, and the 6-4 left-hander was convinced earlier last week that sitting out 2012-13 was the plan.
Plans change when your team is struggling mightily.
“With not getting a lot of production from a couple key guys, we thought we’re not going to go through the same thing with him that we did with another freshman last year,” Brady said, alluding to Keynan Pittman, who redshirted even though he wanted to play, and then transferred after the season. “I think Arman can provide a spark, I think he did that all of last year. … He can rebound the ball, he’s much further defensively than where he was a year ago, and he’s a guy who can make shots, so we decided to play him.”
Marks missed his shots Saturday, as part of a woeful 38.3-percent shooting performance for the Dukes. But it’s defense that’s still Brady’s No. 1 concern.
“The 65 points that we’re averaging is probably enough,” he said. “… Clearly this is going to be about our defensive energy.”