Aggie Strategy: A coach’s explanation of how USU basketball works

Let’s not beat around the bush, Utah State limped to the finish line of the regular season. After beating Boise State on February 10, the Aggies then lost four straight, including disappointing road results at Air Force and San Jose State. USU looked disjointed on offense and lethargic on defense for large stretches of those four games.

The Aggies are bruised, but it’s not time to bury them just yet. As their final game versus UNLV shows, USU can still put a good team on the court that can hang with anyone in the Mountain West.

So can Utah State bottle lightning and make a run in the MW tournament? I recently sat down with USU assistant coach Tarvish Felton to find out what the Aggies would need to do to pull off a dream March run. According to Felton, the magic would have to start on the defensive end.

“Everything we do basically is predicated on how well we’re doing at the defensive end,” Felton said. “If we’re getting stops, that means we’re out playing in transition more … If the other team is scoring a lot, you call a few more set plays to make sure you get the shot you want to get every time down.”

The evidence backs up that notion. This season, when the Aggies have held opposing teams below the 75-point threshold, they’ve gone 12-4. When opponents top 75 points, however, that record becomes 3-12.

But how do the Aggies step up on the defensive end? A clue may be the team’s guarding of entry passes into the post. It’s no secret that the Aggies lack size down low relative to many other teams in the nation, yet USU has managed to guard the post extremely well at times this season.

“The best way to guard the post is to not have to guard the ball in the post,” Felton said. “The thing about being smaller is a lot of times we are quicker at that spot. So we circle and do everything we can to keep it out as much as we possibly canp… It’s been emphasized from day one of practice.”

Head coach Tim Duryea has long focused on the team’s defensive mindset of forcing “tough 2s” this season. Defensively, the goal is to lead teams into taking contested midrange jumpers, analytically the least efficient shot in basketball. Playing defense until a shot attempt is only part of the battle, however. USU’s size restraints again pose a problem on the defensive glass.

“Gang rebounding means every guy’s probably got to get three or four,” Felton said. “I think we have guys that, no matter what size they are, they’re doing a good job on the glass and it’s something we’ve emphasized to our team because we are on the small side, that we have to do a good job and rebound the ball.”

Rebounding the ball isn’t as easy as just “see ball, get ball”, though. The process relies heavily on the team sealing off the paint and allowing guards to sail in unabated for the rebound.

“When we play man to man, you are responsible for blocking your guy out,” Felton said. “If the other team is only sending three players to the offensive glass and we’re sending five, then we’re going to have two guys … they’re going to check if their man is not coming down, then they know they have a free run to go try to rebound the basketball.

The advantage to often having your guards fly in for rebounds is the same advantage enjoyed by NBA players like Russell Westbrook and James Harden. It creates an immediate fastbreak opportunity for the offense to get out and run. Games are most often won by whoever can generate easy opportunities the most. USU out in the open court is a difficult defensive assignment, and the Aggies could swing a game in the tournament if the defense can give them the chances to do so.

If Utah State doesn’t get out in transition, then the offense may bog down as it has so often this season. To avoid that fate, the Aggies will have to focus on their offensive movement. Simply put, if the players are stagnant on offense, USU will be in dire trouble.

“Big part of us being able to have function offensively is our spacing,” Felton said. “It’s all five guys on the floor being in good spacing … It’s very random. I can’t always tell you where (a player) is going to be on the floor, unless it’s in a set play … The worst thing our offense can look like is it looks the same every time down. That’s why you’ll see all three of our guards, Brito, McEwen or Merrill with the ball in their hands coming off a ball screen… It’s very random because it’s not as predictable and easier to guard.”

One of the advantages of USU’s many injuries this season is that the Aggies are often putting three, four, or even five ball-handlers on the court. Brito, Merrill, and McEwen take the majority of that burden, but Julion Pearre, Dwayne Brown Jr., and DeAngelo Isby are all capable enough to lead a fastbreak. That unpredictability, as Felton points out, can be one of Utah State’s great advantages, and at times this season, it has been. Against UNLV in the final game, for instance, the Aggies had six different players tally three or more assists. When the ball moves, good things tend to happen. The most common way that happens in USU’s offense is through the pick-and-roll, where one ball-handler is given an on-ball screen and the offense reacts to the defense.

“The biggest thing is they have to read the roller,” Felton said. “Our guys go through reps working on that daily basis. It’s drilled into them to read the roller …  If my man helps on the roll, then the ball should stay with me. Now, that’s creating a close out situation where we try to have other guys on the floor that can all shoot it, pass it, and drive it and then make plays accordingly from there.”

Put another way, the Aggie offense is mainly centered around an initial action of a pick-and-roll. The ball-handler, typically McEwen or Merrill, reads the two-man defense responsible for guarding that offensive action. Depending on the defense’s focus, that initial action should open up opportunities to enter into the center of the defense. From there, the players read and react, passing the ball and maneuvering until a shot is enticing enough to take. That is a lot of responsibility given to the players, but as Felton says, that’s entirely by design and quite common in college basketball.

“If you watch college basketball nowadays, you turn on any game and you see a lot more ball screens being set,” says Felton. “The players have free rein to to move, space, cut, and do things with or without the basketball as opposed to what you saw 10 or 15 years ago.”

Therein is the problem that has plagued Utah State basketball this season. Without the guidelines of an offensive set, the rhythm and effectiveness of the Aggie offense depends entirely on the players maintaining the movement and crispness of the offense by themselves. If the offense continues to move, then USU can score with any team in the conference. If it stagnates, they can lose to anyone in the conference, as well. Both statements are true.

The Aggies face an uphill battle in the MW tournament, but they’ve laid the blueprint for their success over the course of the season. Their hopes for a magical tourney run hinge entirely on them displaying it in Vegas.