Welcome to the Lion’s Den, where we retreat to discuss thought-provoking questions, and provide some occasional food for thought.
Let’s first take a look at Mike Rhoades’ final five seasons at VCU, evaluating his team’s national rankings by two key metrics:
(1) KenPom adjusted defensive efficiency
(2) Turnovers forced
We produce a table that looks something like this:
| Season | Defensive Efficiency | Turnovers Forced |
| 2018-19 | 7th | 15th |
| 2019-20 | 45th | 12th |
| 2020-21 | 14th | 11th |
| 2021-22 | 7th | 10th |
| 2022-23 | 15th | 15th |
The reason this table is interesting to me, is because it is difficult to excel in both of these metrics at the same time. Forcing a lot of turnovers often leaves a team exposed in other ways. Said differently, the highest turnover units are also the ones prone to giving up easy baskets. Not the case for VCU under Mike Rhoades, however.
But a larger question remains. Can this style of play work in the BIG10?
First, it’s important to note that it is not common for the BIG10 to produce a lot of high-turnover teams. BIG10 teams are much more content to sit back in grind-you-to-dust half court defensive looks, think: Tom Izzo, Bo Ryan, Matt Painter, etc. They are often less concerned with turning you over, just so long as you take a contested 17-footer as the shot clock expires.
In fact, looking back through the last ten years of BIG10 data, there are only two teams to ever have finished an entire season in the top-50 nationally in turnovers forced. That would be Illinois, twice. In 2017-18 (5th) and then again in 2018-10 (23rd).
Both of those Illinois teams were early in the Brad Underwood tenure where his defensive style was still heavily influenced by his in-your-face, full-court press Stephen F. Austin days.
Underwood has all but abandoned that approach now.
Why? Because those teams ultimately weren’t very good defensively. Both teams finished outside of the top 100 in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency rating, despite their proclivity for wreaking turnover havoc on their opponents.
The prevailing line of thought is that guards in the BIG10 are far too good to be bothered by an aggressive, in-your-face, full court pressure. That style of defense invites too many easy scoring chances for some of most talented players in America, which is not necessarily a recipe for winning.
So can Mike Rhoades prove conventional wisdom wrong? Brad Underwood’s original attempt and subsequent course correction serve as fair warning.
However, if I was coaching Penn State, faced with the task of slowing down Zach Edey in Mackey Arena, maybe the strategy wouldn’t seem so crazy after all.