Largely it's the length and athleticism of the guards, IMO.

by KGB, Belly o. the Beast, Sunday, February 05, 2012, 07:55 (5239 days ago) @ BPH
edited by KGB, Sunday, February 05, 2012, 08:01

If you wanted to look at one statistic to explain our unexpected success, I believe that it's 3-point FG defense, where we rate #1 in BE play. This is a significant departure from most of Brey's past teams, and having those two ballhawks in Atkins and Grant defending the top of the circle makes all the difference, IMO.

How it took Brey more than a decade to find two players like this is perhaps a better question. Part of it may be Brey changing his focus w/r/t recruiting, and I think it's safe to say that part of it comes down to cleaning up the shitbox that was the JACC in its prior iteration. That has allowed him the opportunity to recruit a better class of prospects over the past couple years, which he has.

Brey has been ridiculed in the past for his short benches, and this current team represents his shortest yet with what amounts to a 6-man team. Embracing a slower tempo on offense has allowed his guys to exert themselves to a greater degree on the other end, and the result has been a more well-balanced team on both ends of the floor. So much of the credit has to go to the coach not just for the personnel upgrade but also for adapting his philosophy after years of moderate success to address a pervasive shortcoming in his teams. He could have said, "Hey, I'm Mike Brey, two-time BE coach of the year. I've won games like this for close to a decade now, and this is how my teams play". The fact that he's seemingly gone back to the drawing board is laudable.

It's going to be very interesting to see how much Brey's approach will change as another wave of quality athletes joins the team over the next two years. My suspicion is that we'll see a return to a quicker tempo on offense but with a deeper rotation and more substitutions to maintain the level of play on the defensive end. It seems that Brey's philosophy all along has been to get as much out of his best players as possible, which is perfectly justified when you're only carrying 6 or 7 guys at any given time who are BE-quality players. But when you can go 8 or 9 or even 10 deep and the gap between your #2 or #3 and #8 or #9 isn't that significant, it opens a lot of possibilities. And I think that's where we may find ourselves two or three years down the road, which is exciting.

On the women's side, I think it's a confluence of a legitimate star player and a seasoned, experienced team. We won't always be as good as we are this season, but McGraw has an opportunity to raise the water level of the program because the traditional powers like UConn and Tennessee aren't quite what they have been in the past. But she needs to strike while the iron is hot on the recruiting front.