Rebounds

[mr.spider]

During the last 3 games of the A10 tournament, we were even on rebounding, and we were only out-rebounded by Iowa by 4. I really wish the coach would notice the impact rebounding has on a game, not just because it gives you another chance to score or cancels the other team's chances to score, but because it produces energy and fire on both sides of the ball.

Season stats:
*We only lost 2 games all season where we out-rebounded the opponent. 2!
*Of the games we won, here's how it breaks down:

W & Out-Rebound	W & Even-Rebound	W & Lose Rebound by <= 5	W & Lose Rebound by <= 7	W & Lose Rebound by <= 13	W & Lose Rebound by <= 17
11	1	6	2 (NC Central, St.Louis)	2 (Odu, LaSalle)	2 (Gmu, URI)

The teams we beat where we were clearly out-rebounded were mostly bottom tier teams. Which of course, also begs the question of why we let them out-rebound us in the first place.

 

[SpiderK]

Friars out rebounded us by 11, but that is slightly misleading because they only missed a couple shots during the game, so there where no defensive rebounds to be had by us. On the other hand, we missed almost all of our shots, and since our team leaves the building after we shoot, we get no offensive rebounds.

 

[SpiderK]

We just have to do too many things in Mooney’s philosophy that have to be done perfectly to make up for forsaking rebounding
on purpose. We have to shoot lights out and win the foul and turnover battle every game to overcome it. It just doesn’t work against good teams. Our kids got out there and rebounded the last four games that they won as Mr. Spider pointed out, and only had a -4 rebound total. That is the stat to beat good teams and not lose to bad teams.

 

[Spider B]

It's so obvious that rebounding is a huge key to success and has been for years. Everyone knows it except Mooney. I too really hope he learned the value of rebounding during the postseason run.

 

[mr.spider]

It is so obvious! We've been saying it for years. I still can't believe Mooney can't figure it out.

 

[SpiderGuy]

It's so obvious that rebounding is a huge key to success and has been for years. Everyone knows it except Mooney. I too really hope he learned the value of rebounding during the postseason run.

This is something I've harped on for years. And I'll take offensive rebounds which at least give a chance for 2nd points over prevent defense or preventing fast break points. We give up way too many rebounds on the defensive side too - sometimes 2 or 3 per possession.

Someone here posted a while back how few a games Grant fouled out in his career. Wouldn't it be nice to see our bigs body up on opposing players more.

I just checked ESPN site, and we are 309 of 350 D1 schools. Not a stat to overlook.

But with everything else in Mooney's approach to fundamentals, I really don't expect change.

 

[mr.spider]

Or maybe, he will notice this time! Think positively like our fans did this post-season!

 

[spiderman]

it starts with recruiting guys who rebound. Burton rebounds absolutely fine in Mooney's system.

a potential lineup of Grace, Burton, Crabtree, Goose and Nelson will not rebound very well no matter who's coaching. and when Burton needs a rest we've got a real problem.

 

[SpiderGuy]

it starts with recruiting guys who rebound. Burton rebounds absolutely fine in Mooney's system.

a potential lineup of Grace, Burton, Crabtree, Goose and Nelson will not rebound very well no matter who's coaching. and when Burton needs a rest we've got a real problem.

Burton does rebound, but I have to believe a lot of it is coaching & Mooney's choices.

 

[VT4700]

We will never have good rebounding stats because of our style of play. We spread the floor, do not crash the boards, and get back on defense to prevent transition baskets. Our offensive rebounds will always be low, causing the overall numbers to be bad, and we are not the only team that plays this way. It's not like our numbers are better the years we went to the tournament.

I doubt anyone would argue with the last three tournament years, or our 24-7 season 2 years ago, so let's look at our offensive rebounding numbers those years:

2009-2010: 334th
2010-2011: 310th
2019-2020: 326th
2021-2022: 325th

We went a combined 103-37 (50-18 in the A-10) those 4 years, so it's not like we can't win with this style of play. It has been other issues, not rebounding, that has caused our other seasons to be not as successful.

 

[Spider B]

it starts with recruiting guys who rebound. Burton rebounds absolutely fine in Mooney's system.

a potential lineup of Grace, Burton, Crabtree, Goose and Nelson will not rebound very well no matter who's coaching. and when Burton needs a rest we've got a real problem.

Right, and who is responsible for filling out the roster?

 

[Spider B]

We will never have good rebounding stats because of our style of play. We spread the floor, do not crash the boards, and get back on defense to prevent transition baskets. Our offensive rebounds will always be low, causing the overall numbers to be bad, and we are not the only team that plays this way. It's not like our numbers are better the years we went to the tournament.

I doubt anyone would argue with the last three tournament years, or our 24-7 season 2 years ago, so let's look at our offensive rebounding numbers those years:

2009-2010: 334th
2010-2011: 310th
2019-2020: 326th
2021-2022: 325th

We went a combined 103-37 (50-18 in the A-10) those 4 years, so it's not like we can't win with this style of play. It has been other issues, not rebounding, that has caused our other seasons to be not as successful.

Maybe the lack of rebounding is why we only have 3 NCAA appearances in 17 years and 1 year as a solid bubble team that you mentioned above. And it is not just offensive rebounding that has killed us in the past.

 

[spiderman]

Right, and who is responsible for filling out the roster?

Mooney, of course. or was that rhetorical?

 

[VT4700]

Maybe the lack of rebounding is why we only have 3 NCAA appearances in 17 years and 1 year as a solid bubble team that you mentioned above. And it is not just offensive rebounding that has killed us in the past.

I could maybe see your point if we had better rebounding numbers in the years we went to the dance, or even in our NIT years, but we didn't. So, wouldn't that mean it was other issues, and not rebounding, that prevented those other seasons from being successful?

 

[Eight Legger]

I guess my question would be: If it's so important to rush back on defense to prevent fast-break points, why is it that most of the other 350+ teams DON'T do this? And when I watch other games, they rarely look like a constant track meet of teams busting ass on fastbreaks back and forth because their opponents were too busy trying for rebounds.

Somehow, other teams are able to try for offensive rebounds AND get back on defense. The two are not mutually exclusive. Here's another thing: It's a lot easier for a team to start a fast-break when it has the ball than when it doesn't. If we fought for more rebounds, we would get more and the other team wouldn't be able to start a fast-break because we'd still be shooting.

It just seems like Mooney has invented a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. Sure, we CAN win this way, but look at how many close games we lose and ask yourself if we cost ourselves more potential points than we saved. Not to mention the emotional bump that comes from fighting for – and getting – offensive rebounds and scoring as a result of them.

 

[mr.spider]

I could maybe see your point if we had better rebounding numbers in the years we went to the dance, or even in our NIT years, but we didn't. So, wouldn't that mean it was other issues, and not rebounding, that prevented those other seasons from being successful?

No, it simply means we overcame it because we were exceptional otherwise. If we had focused on rebounds more throughout Mooney's career here, we would have undoubtedly made more NCAA tournaments and we would have advanced further in the NCAA on the years we did make it. It is not a mutually exclusive option to rebound.

 

[spider23]

It is not a mutually exclusive option to rebound.

Exactly, as you see in the posts, he changed the focus from Rebounding to Offensive Rebounding exclusively. I also understand sman's point, rebounding is going be a result of the players. Burton is an absolute stud athlete/rebounder for a wing. BUT, I do think Mooney's overall philosophy does not emphasize basic defensive elements (not allowing your man to beat you off the dribble) and DEFENSIVE rebounding. Yes, if the man you are trying to box out is bigger, faster, more athletic - it is hard. BUT, you need to enforce that you can't just lose that battle. We did see improvement in our end of year run, so despite not having huge athletic beasts, we can see with motivation it can be IMPROVED, even if not a strong point. Agree mr. spider, being tough and strong and rebounding is not mutually exclusive to the way we play, or should not be.

 

[VT4700]

I think if we consistently did everything well, shot the three well, defended the three well, rebounded well, got back on defense, etc. we would rarely lose a game, but that is just not realistic. It is clearly a give and take with our style of play. We do not get many offensive rebounds, but we prevent transition baskets. Yes, that matters. With our offense, which is not designed to crash the boards, we usually have fewer turnovers than the other team, so, we might lose the rebounding battle, but we win the turnover battle. And, our bigs like TJ and Grant play at the top of the key a lot, so we certainly don't want them wildly crashing the boards from there.

We usually don't have a couple guys underneath the basket. Why do we want to crash the boards, when it might lead to maybe a couple extra offensive rebounds on a couple possessions, but worse transition defense on the other 50 possessions? There's a lot more to it than just saying go get more offensive rebounds. Even in some of our lesser years, our offensive efficiency numbers have been good. So if our offensive efficiency (points per possession) is good, it seems like that would be more important than getting a few extra offensive rebounds a game.

If you want to change our whole offense, that should be another debate. But, you can't just say go get more offensive rebounds, while keeping everything else the same. That can't happen.

---

 

[VT4700]

No, it simply means we overcame it because we were exceptional otherwise. If we had focused on rebounds more throughout Mooney's career here, we would have undoubtedly made more NCAA tournaments and we would have advanced further in the NCAA on the years we did make it. It is not a mutually exclusive option to rebound.

How can you say we undoubtedly would have made more tournaments and would have advanced farther in those we did make had we focused on rebounding? So, all we have to do is just say go get more offensive rebounds, and all other stats would be the same? Leading to more wins and more tournaments? It's really that simple, and Mooney and all of our other coaches don't realize this?

 

[SpiderK]

If nothing else let the guy who shoots the ball go after the shot he damn well knows he missed. Most missed 3’s come back out to foul line, the shooter should be there.

 

[VT4700]

This thread should be titled defense. Not rebounding. Our rebounding is what it is. It usually stays consistent, whether we win or lose. Defensively, which has nothing to do with offensive rebounding, has been the difference in our good years and bad years. Our 12 and 13 win seasons, we were 234 and 287 in defensive efficiency. The last 3 years, which saw us go a combined 62- 29, we had defensive efficiencies of 54, 99, and 94. Our previous NCAA years, 2010 and 2011, we had defensive efficiencies of 35 and 54, then the 2 years after that it was 178 and 154. The year we just missed the tourney and had an NIT 1 seed, we were 52nd. And, defense also is not as easy as just bust your butt and play good defense. Effort does go a long way, but, more often than not, you have to have the right guys out there playing the defense. I think it's pretty clear that our offense is usually pretty consistent, and our offensive efficiency, points per possession, is consistent. What separates us, and makes us a really good team is our defensive efficiency.

 

[spider23]

If 4700 is close to the program, I think we see part of the problem - YES, WE UNDERSTAND - we don't go after OFFENSIVE rebounds. But I do think this impacts are overall mentality for rebounding in general and overall. Per one metric I just looked up , we are 169 in Defensive rebound percentage. Which is not as bad as our offensive rebound numbers, but just average. Combine that with our poor offensive rebounding and it equals getting bullied on the glass.

 

[plydogg]

I don’t think it’s about whether we rebound well, or close out on 3’s well, or play defense well. We typically don’t even try to do those things. Just doing them, or at least attempting to do them will improve the team whether you’re good or bad at them

 

[VT4700]

If we were the only team that played this way, I could see the argument. But, we are not. It's not like only we average seven offensive rebounds a game, and everyone else is at 10 or higher. Davidson and Notre Dame averaged fewer offensive rebounds a game than we did this year. Shocker.....their style of play is similar to ours. But, no worries. We can agree to disagree. Don't worry, I will go back into hiding now. All good.

 

[spider23]

I have heard Mooney explicitly state he models after Villanova. Good program to model after. They play a four out, and there big man, though very strong is not super tall. They do the similar finesse things, but they are tough and rebound. And they are 85 in offensive rebound percentage vs our 330. Yes, sman's point about athletes comes into play here, but they do play a perimeter based game and manage to rebound and play tough D. Wright will not let you on the court or leave you out there if your man give up blow bys. Mooney will. That is a huge difference. Yes, our style does not lend to offensive rebounding, but defensive play and defensive rebounding can be coached and enforced, no matter what some posters say.

 

[plydogg]

Would be nice if we had aspirations to improve in anything rather than just say “this is how we’ve always done it, and here are some other schools who do it too”.

 

[Eight Legger]

If we were the only team that played this way, I could see the argument. But, we are not. It's not like only we average seven offensive rebounds a game, and everyone else is at 10 or higher. Davidson and Notre Dame averaged fewer offensive rebounds a game than we did this year. Shocker.....their style of play is similar to ours. But, no worries. We can agree to disagree. Don't worry, I will go back into hiding now. All good.

If we shoot like Davidson consistently, I'm cool with this approach.

 

[spider23]

Would be nice if we had aspirations to improve in anything rather than just say “this is how we’ve always done it, and here are some other schools who do it too”.

Yes, I do like a lot of things Mooney does, but just like the match up defense that the A10 figured out, need to look at aread to adapt and improve, not just keep carrying on because it gets us to NCAA every so often. Agree with this sentiment Ply.

 

[VT4700]

I don’t think it’s about whether we rebound well, or close out on 3’s well, or play defense well. We typically don’t even try to do those things. Just doing them, or at least attempting to do them will improve the team whether you’re good or bad at them

Hi ply, I just saw this and wanted to respond to you. I agree there are times we can do all of those things better. That is sometimes effort, and sometimes missed assignments, and that is where I disagree with some on here. I don't think it's our style of play, I think it's effort sometimes that we can improve on, or ususally being in the right place at the right time with doubles, close outs, and rotations. But, pretty much every team can say that. "We should have closed out on threes better, we should have rebounded better, we needed to be tougher on defense." But, you do that more often than not, and give the effort every game, and you will win a heck of a lot more than you will lose if you have some talented players. So, I pretty much agree with you here, but I disagree about trying. We certainly try to do these things. Depending on the matchup, we might give up some threes or something so it might look different at times, but I can't say we don't try.

 

[MrTbone]

I could maybe see your point if we had better rebounding numbers in the years we went to the dance, or even in our NIT years, but we didn't. So, wouldn't that mean it was other issues, and not rebounding, that prevented those other seasons from being successful?

Not necessarily, it could mean something exceptional happened that allowed us to make the tournament, like say, winning four games in four days this year.

You're crafting data to fit a narrative and ignoring all of those other seasons where we were crappy at rebounding and also had mediocre or poor results. Gotta look at the whole dataset.

I will say I'll concur with one notion you have though is there may be other more important factors like shooting the 3 well.

 

[SpiderK]

I don’t even care what the rebounding stats are. Everyone of us watches the games and see for ourselves that the ball just drops to the ground and all of our guys are gone with no chance to get a rebound. I can hear the collective groan of 7000 people at the same time. Only Burton and every now and then Cayo don’t have their feet glued to the floor. When we do attempt a rebound we look like seals with Vasoline on their flippers. Our kids need to be taught that getting a rebound is almost as much fun as making a shot. Our job as fans is to cheer rebounds like we do a steal, dunk or a made 3. We can help change the culture by going over Mooney’s head.

 

[SpiderGuy]

If we shoot like Davidson consistently, I'm cool with this approach.

That’s the problem. On balance we didn’t shoot well this year. I believe towards the end of the year I saw we were 10th in A10 in 3 point shooting. If incorrect, someone let me know. The point is if we are a team based upon shooting, if the shooting is subpar, and when we forego rebounding, and don’t do a great job of covering 3 point shooters, we are basically giving away opportunities and not adhering to sound basketball fundamentals. Too much room for things to go wrong. Not stressing rebounding is opportunity costs gone south.

 

[VT4700]

We won 4 in a row in the A-10 tourney and then beat Iowa with offensive rebounding numbers of 3, 5, 7, 3, and 6. All 5 games we were below our average for the year, which was 7.59. Any chance we can maybe stop the tired "our lack of offensive rebounding is killing us" talk, and actually look at the facts?

 

[Spider B]

We won 4 in a row in the A-10 tourney and then beat Iowa with offensive rebounding numbers of 3, 5, 7, 3, and 6. All 5 games we were below our average for the year, which was 7.59. Any chance we can maybe stop the tired "our lack of offensive rebounding is killing us" talk, and actually look at the facts?

The fact is we are and have been a very poor rebounding team (especially near the end of games on the defensive side) and it has cost us games. The status quo isn't working. Instead of the tired excuse of "this is how we play," how about actually addressing weak areas in the program and fixing them in preseason practice. How about building a culture of toughness and not tolerating the lack of effort you refer to. Excuses won't get us in more than 3 NCAA tournaments in nearly 2 decades.

 

[SpiderK]

We won 4 in a row in the A-10 tourney and then beat Iowa with offensive rebounding numbers of 3, 5, 7, 3, and 6. All 5 games we were below our average for the year, which was 7.59. Any chance we can maybe stop the tired "our lack of offensive rebounding is killing us" talk, and actually look at the facts?

That’s because we finally made a few shots those 5 games. While our guys were running the ball actually went in.

 

[VT4700]

The fact is we are and have been a very poor rebounding team (especially near the end of games on the defensive side) and it has cost us games. The status quo isn't working. Instead of the tired excuse of "this is how we play," how about actually addressing weak areas in the program and fixing them in preseason practice. How about building a culture of toughness and not tolerating the lack of effort you refer to. Excuses won't get us in more than 3 NCAA tournaments in nearly 2 decades.

The status quo is not working? I feel like this thread is from 3 years ago and we are coming off of our 12 and 13 wins seasons. The last 3 seasons we have given up 9.7, 9.2, and 9.4 offensive rebounds a game to our opponents. In our tourney seasons of 2010 and 2011, we allowed 13.2 and 11.9 offensive rebounds a game, but I don't remember anyone complaining about our rebounding then. So, if anything, looking back at our previous tourney years, it's gotten a lot better.
Offensively, yes, "this is how we play". That is not a tired excuse. That is a fact. Defensively, our numbers are pretty good considering who we have out there. When I said effort, sure, maybe it's fair to sometimes say it is effort, but our guys give great effort out there way more often than not. A lot of times, rebounding comes down to athletic ability. I probably earlier should have mentioned that instead of effort. A guy like Grant Golden battles in there, and does the best he absolutely can. If a superior athlete jumps higher and gets a rebound, I can't fault our guy. Now, you might say the answer is recruit athletes. Well, easier said than done. If Grant Golden were a big time athlete, he would have been at a high major getting ready to play in the nba. But, I will take Grant's career over a better athlete who might have gotten more rebounds. If we had three Tyler's on the floor, would we get more rebounds? Yes, we most likely would. But, we would do that playing the same way we play now. The only difference is we'd have more athletes out there doing the rebounding. Sorry, I'm not going to turn down guys like TJ and Grant because they can't jump high enough, and can't get an extra one or two defensive rebounds a game. It's amazing how mad and upset some people seem after such a magical run.

 

[SpiderK]

The status quo is not working? I feel like this thread is from 3 years ago and we are coming off of our 12 and 13 wins seasons. The last 3 seasons we have given up 9.7, 9.2, and 9.4 offensive rebounds a game to our opponents. In our tourney seasons of 2010 and 2011, we allowed 13.2 and 11.9 offensive rebounds a game, but I don't remember anyone complaining about our rebounding then. Our rebounding hasn't really changed over the years. If anything, looking back at our previous tourney years, it's gotten a lot better. It's just the anger toward our coaching staff that has changed.

Offensively, yes, "this is how we play". That is not a tired excuse. That is a fact. Defensively, our numbers are pretty good considering who we have out there. When I said effort, sure, maybe it's fair to sometimes say it is effort, but our guys give great effort out there way more often than not. A lot of times, rebounding comes down to athletic ability. I probably earlier should have mentioned that instead of effort. A guy like Grant Golden battles in there, and does the best he absolutely can. If a superior athlete jumps higher and gets a rebound, I can't fault our guy. Now, you might say the answer is recruit athletes. Well, easier said than done. If Grant Golden were a big time athlete, he would have been at a high major getting ready to play in the nba. But, I will take Grant's career over a better athlete who might have gotten more rebounds. If we had three Tyler's on the floor, would we get more rebounds? Yes, we most likely would. But, we would do that playing the same way we play now. The only difference is we'd have more athletes out there doing the rebounding. Sorry, I'm not going to turn down guys like TJ and Grant because they can't jump high enough, and can't get an extra one or two defensive rebounds a game. It's amazing how mad and upset some people seem after such a magical run.

If we had 3 Tyler Burton’s on the floor we would be the Celtics.

 

[MrTbone]

The status quo is not working? I feel like this thread is from 3 years ago and we are coming off of our 12 and 13 wins seasons. The last 3 seasons we have given up 9.7, 9.2, and 9.4 offensive rebounds a game to our opponents. In our tourney seasons of 2010 and 2011, we allowed 13.2 and 11.9 offensive rebounds a game, but I don't remember anyone complaining about our rebounding then. So, if anything, looking back at our previous tourney years, it's gotten a lot better.
Offensively, yes, "this is how we play". That is not a tired excuse. That is a fact. Defensively, our numbers are pretty good considering who we have out there. When I said effort, sure, maybe it's fair to sometimes say it is effort, but our guys give great effort out there way more often than not. A lot of times, rebounding comes down to athletic ability. I probably earlier should have mentioned that instead of effort. A guy like Grant Golden battles in there, and does the best he absolutely can. If a superior athlete jumps higher and gets a rebound, I can't fault our guy. Now, you might say the answer is recruit athletes. Well, easier said than done. If Grant Golden were a big time athlete, he would have been at a high major getting ready to play in the nba. But, I will take Grant's career over a better athlete who might have gotten more rebounds. If we had three Tyler's on the floor, would we get more rebounds? Yes, we most likely would. But, we would do that playing the same way we play now. The only difference is we'd have more athletes out there doing the rebounding. Sorry, I'm not going to turn down guys like TJ and Grant because they can't jump high enough, and can't get an extra one or two defensive rebounds a game. It's amazing how mad and upset some people seem after such a magical run.

I don’t see a bunch of mad and upset people, you’re projecting a bit.

I believe there’s a legitimate argument that our rebounding is a notable weakness that is both systematically driven but also fundamentally not a culture within the program. It’s also not just about offensive rebounding, it’s rebounding in total. We’re not particularly good at either end of the court.

 

[VT4700]

Fair enought, T. Sorry, not trying to stir anything up. All good.

 

[fan2011]

All other things being equal, improving rebounding will improve the team. I don't think anyone belives otherwise. That being said, here is how our defensive rebounding percentage this season compares to the remaining tournament teams:

UNC         78.6
Purdue      76.2
UCLA        75.1
Arkansas    74.8
Providence  72.6
Richmond    72.5 <<<<<<<
Houston     72.2
Kansas      71.9
Villanova   71.6
Iowa St.    71.5
St. Peter’s 71.5
Duke        71.0
Miami       69.8

We rebounded pretty well defensively this year overall, and definitely well within the bounds of what it takes to be successful. For offensive rebounding we would come in last place, but not too far behind Miami.