Reply To: Article on Lehigh's young players and rebounding struggles

Forum Forum Lehigh Sports Lehigh Men’s Basketball Article on Lehigh's young players and rebounding struggles Reply To: Article on Lehigh's young players and rebounding struggles

#12682
Bison137
Bison137
Participant

I’d guess that the extreme emphasis on getting everyone back on defense is by design. The Patriot League in general is one of the best defensive rebounding conferences in the nation and definitely the worst for offensive rebounding. This is true every year – and a lot of it is simply that teams rarely send anyone to the offensive boards unless they’re already there.

So far this year the MEDIAN ranking for PL teams in offensive rebounding is 283rd. Only one team (Lafayette) ranks in the top half, and they are 150th. Not by coincidence, Fran O’Hanlon is probably the coach who focuses the least on defense.

Being really bad on the offensive boards is OK if you’re really good at the other end. For example, Bucknell ranks 333rd at the offensive end but they are 3rd at the defensive end – despite starting only one true forward. (Bucknell, like LU, almost never sends anyone to the offensive boards.) Likewise HC is 263rd at one end and 27th at the other, and both Army and Navy are also much better at the defensive end. Loyola thus far is a huge exception, however, since they rank 224th at the offensive end but an atrocious 351 (dead last) at the defensive end.

Unfortunately so far LU has been really bad at both ends – 322nd on the offensive end and 321st at the defensive end. When you combine the two, that ranks in the bottom five of the 351 D1 teams. With Kempton, Chuku, Baltimore, Goldsborough, etc, I have to think it will improve over time.