I just wrote this as a question for the podcast, but in the likely event that they won't have the time to address a specific question like this one, I thought I would put it out for members through a new thread. Specifically, all of us have focused on the match ups issues Niang presents. I've been toying with the idea of why don't we try to be the aggressors and force ISU to match up with us? It potentially exposes us defensively, but we have a huge advantage with our bigs offensively and with rebounding, and shouldn't we try to exploit that advantage? See below.
On the Niang point, I know everyone is expecting for us to put IW out on Niang with the possibility of switching Brogdon (with a four guard lineup) to him in the event he becomes too difficult to guard. I definitely think those two options give us our best defensive lineups.
But what if we try to exploit our interior advantage by putting Gill and Tobey together? We would dominate inside offensively. McKay and Niang couldn't do much in terms of defending either of our guys and could potentially get their bigs into foul trouble. The huge downside is that this would mean Gill would need to guard Niang, but is this that crazy? Gill could cover whatever Niang wants to do in the post. Niang, however, can certainly move to the perimeter with pick and pops, and absolutely get hot from three. He also could try driving to the basket on Gill, but Niang isn't a Blossomgame or Ingram with the same level of athleticism and speed as those guys. In other words, I don't think he'd blow past Gill. He definitely has a great skill set of spinning and making incredible layups, but with Tobey helping inside, it seems we could neutralize that advantage somewhat.
I know this is unconventional, but it would allow us to have Gill and Tobey on the court at the same time, which allows us to exploit our one huge advantage on offense (and with rebounding). Admittedly, it allows for Niang to go off on us from beyond the arc, but I think he'd have to hit a much higher percentage of shots from three because (A) he'd find it more difficult to drive inside with Tobey helping Gill and (B) any jump shots he or other ISU players miss would be easily scooped up by us given our advantage underneath the basket.
I just wonder if we've been giving too much thought on how to match up with Niang and not enough thought on how we can create match up issues for ISU.
On the Niang point, I know everyone is expecting for us to put IW out on Niang with the possibility of switching Brogdon (with a four guard lineup) to him in the event he becomes too difficult to guard. I definitely think those two options give us our best defensive lineups.
But what if we try to exploit our interior advantage by putting Gill and Tobey together? We would dominate inside offensively. McKay and Niang couldn't do much in terms of defending either of our guys and could potentially get their bigs into foul trouble. The huge downside is that this would mean Gill would need to guard Niang, but is this that crazy? Gill could cover whatever Niang wants to do in the post. Niang, however, can certainly move to the perimeter with pick and pops, and absolutely get hot from three. He also could try driving to the basket on Gill, but Niang isn't a Blossomgame or Ingram with the same level of athleticism and speed as those guys. In other words, I don't think he'd blow past Gill. He definitely has a great skill set of spinning and making incredible layups, but with Tobey helping inside, it seems we could neutralize that advantage somewhat.
I know this is unconventional, but it would allow us to have Gill and Tobey on the court at the same time, which allows us to exploit our one huge advantage on offense (and with rebounding). Admittedly, it allows for Niang to go off on us from beyond the arc, but I think he'd have to hit a much higher percentage of shots from three because (A) he'd find it more difficult to drive inside with Tobey helping Gill and (B) any jump shots he or other ISU players miss would be easily scooped up by us given our advantage underneath the basket.
I just wonder if we've been giving too much thought on how to match up with Niang and not enough thought on how we can create match up issues for ISU.
