{"id":2673,"date":"2011-01-12T16:04:54","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T22:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nsr-inc.com\/\/?p=2673"},"modified":"2011-01-12T16:04:54","modified_gmt":"2011-01-12T22:04:54","slug":"in-basketball-score-score-score-but-defense-grabs-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/in-basketball-score-score-score-but-defense-grabs-attention\/","title":{"rendered":"In Basketball, It’s Score, Score, Score, but Defense Grabs Attention"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defending Has Become a Lost Art at the High School Level<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a>\"\"<\/a>Say all you will about the faster pace of basketball today and the higher scores being put up, but in the end, college coaches still want to recruit high school prospects which are fundamentally sound on the defensive end of the floor.\u00a0 Time and again, when we talk to college basketball coaches about prep players, they address kids’ defensive abilities second in terms of skill set.\u00a0 First?\u00a0 Athleticism.\u00a0 Second, how well they defend.\u00a0 Shooting and offensive skills typically come third in the conversation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Athleticism is something all coaches\u00a0talk about first.\u00a0 The pace of today’s game calls for players to run\u00a0the floor, jump well, move laterally and\u00a0be coordinated.\u00a0 Coaches believe they can teach good athletes with poor fundamentals to\u00a0contribute by their\u00a0second year\u00a0in college.\u00a0 The trait, though, which will get a good athlete on the floor faster than anything else?\u00a0 Solid defensive skills.\u00a0 When a freshman can walk through the doors from\u00a0Day One with the ability to stop an opponent from gaining\u00a0position, scoring and rebounding, that freshman will get significant playing time.\u00a0 A shooter who cannot defend will see spotty action at best.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Certainly, offensive skills are desired, but prospects today have put so much\u00a0emphasis on being able to\u00a0find creative ways to put the ball in the hole\u00a0that they have ignored their defensive responsibilities.\u00a0\u00a0Their thought is, If I can score, I’ll play.\u00a0 To make\u00a0matters worse,\u00a0there are not as many high school and travel coaches concerned with defense or with a clear understanding of defensive fundamentals, so their players do not receive sound defensive instruction.\u00a0 Spread the floor and score, score, score is their mantra.\u00a0 Get it and go.\u00a0 Good defense has been diluted to zone presses where the object is to intercept cross-court passes or steal the ball from behind with a slap-away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Need proof?\u00a0 Watch\u00a0just about any high school\u00a0or travel game\u00a0and you will be hard pressed to\u00a0identify any player whose talent rests on their\u00a0defensive game.\u00a0\u00a0Posture, footwork,\u00a0base line coverage, two-on-one or three-on-two\u00a0strategies and rebounding fundamentals are simply not there.\u00a0 But, find one player that does focus on those things and can\u00a0consistently do them well?\u00a0 That kid sticks out in the crowd of all the other kids who can’t wait to get their hands on the ball to show off just how quick their first step is to the basket\u2026and then miss the layup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defending Has Become a Lost Art at the High School Level Say all you will about the faster pace of basketball today and the higher scores being put up, but in the end, college coaches still want to recruit high school prospects which are fundamentally sound on the defensive end of the floor.\u00a0 Time and … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[13,14,222,94,111],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}