Two of the NCAA’s best defensive teams square off Saturday afternoon when Texas A&M hosts Tennessee. Both defenses succeed despite giving up plenty of 3-point attempts. We explain how and reveal our Tennessee vs. Texas A&M prediction.
The 3-point shot has become a staple of almost every college basketball offense. The degree to which teams shoot them may vary, but every team needs to generate some attempts each game to be successful.
It stands to reason that a lot of defenses focus on limiting the number of 3-pointers opponents can shoot. If you run players off the line, you’ll take away a lot of valuable shots.
But several teams have adopted a different approach this season to some success, and there are no better examples of that than Tennessee and Texas A&M, who face off Saturday in Bryan-College Station.
Tennessee allows the fourth-most 3-point attempts per game among major conference teams and Texas A&M allows the fifth-most. Although the two teams go about allowing 3s in different ways, they’ve both decided to prioritize different parts of their defense over limiting 3-pointers.
Here’s why these teams have chosen to go in a different direction, and how they’ll look to attack each other:
Volume vs. Comfort
One of the bigger differences between modern college basketball and modern NBA basketball is the amount of great movement shooters. There are players in college capable of knocking down 3-pointers when in the flow of an offense, but if a defense forces a lot of them into uncomfortable long-range shots, their hit rate drops precipitously.
In the NBA, there are many shooters capable of shooting under any kind of duress, so it’s harder to justify building a defense around allowing 3-point shots. There are exceptions (Oklahoma City has the best defense in the league and allows 3s at a rate that is slightly higher than league average), but, for the most part, defensive success has a strong correlation to 3-point attempt rate.
Six of the top 10 teams in defensive TRACR are also top 10 in 3-point attempts allowed. The two teams that allow the least amount of 3-point attempts per game (the Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers) are top five in defensive TRACR.
In college, it’s not so clear cut. The five teams that allow the fewest 3-point attempts per game among major conference teams are all ranked outside the top 50 in D-TRACR. But four of the five teams that allow the most 3-point attempts per game among major conference teams are ranked inside the top 50, with both Texas A&M and Tennessee much higher than that.
Some of that is due to the playing in the SEC. The Big Ten, for example, has three teams averaging under 20 3-point attempts a game; the SEC has none. But a lot of it is by design as well.
It’s not like these teams want opponents to shoot a lot of 3-pointers; they just have bigger points of defensive emphasis. Since the offense controls the ball, defense isn’t usually about what you do when everything is going right. It’s about what you absolutely cannot allow when you are scrambling to make things right.
Defense is looking at five holes in a boat and deciding which ones are most likely to sink you. Teams like Texas A&M and Tennessee have decided to allow 3-point attempts, but only on their terms.
Aggies All-Out Blitz
When you watch Texas A&M, the first thing that will jump out at you isn’t 3-point attempts. It’s perimeter pressure.
There aren’t many teams that utilize a three-quarters press as often as Texas A&M. And if the Aggies doesn’t trust the ball handling and passing of the guards or the decision-making of the forwards behind them, they send more bodies to the ball and into the primary passing lanes.
When an offense gets to the half court, the Aggies’ pressure doesn’t end. The team puts two on the ball longer and more frequently than most, trusting the flailing arms of their athletic perimeter lineup to clog up the easiest passes and the layers of help behind them to neutralize threads while everyone recovers.
Basically, Buzz Williams wants his team to take away the primary play on everything. The Aggies are above average at forcing turnovers, but the main goal of the press is to wind the shot clock down before anything positive happens for the offense. And the main goal of the aggressive help on the ball and rotation behind it is to take away the primary play and make teams use their safety hatches.
The two plans in concert force the offense into a precarious situation with the clock. It takes time to get set up and to get the ball to the weakside against an aggressive defense. The Aggies bank on, more often than not, the offense not having the time, discipline and snap-decision making required to beat their pressure. That can lead to some open 3s, but it’s a gamble they’ve won a lot this season.
To beat the Aggies’ aggressive defense, an opposing team has to have players who can make the right reads and have the ability to get off the ball quickly when there’s an opening. Fortunately for Tennessee, Zakai Zeigler fits that mold. He’s an excellent decision-maker who isn’t shy about getting the ball to wherever the defense is most susceptible.
Zeigler is second in assists per game among major conference players and can do damage while penetrating or on the perimeter when the defense sends an extra man after him.
Texas A&M will try to force the other Tennessee offensive players to burn it by taking the ball out of Zeigler’s hands, but Zeigler may be smart enough to put the rest of his team in greatly advantageous positions before he gets rid of the ball. That will be the cat and mouse game to watch.
Tennessee only has one shooter that raises alarms for Texas A&M. Chaz Lanier takes a lot of 3-pointers and hits them at a 40.2% clip. If Zeigler and Co. can force the Aggies’ defense to break enough that Lanier has open looks with his feet set, the Volunteers will be in good shape.
But Texas A&M knows Lanier’s ability and will try to send as much help as possible from the rest of the team on the perimeter. And Tennessee must not fall into the trap of having mediocre shooters stay stationary on the weak side. If Texas A&M has aggressive rotations, then Tennessee needs to make the recovery as complicated as possible. And that complication starts with off-the-ball movement.
It’s easier said than done, of course, but the only way to defeat Texas A&M is with movement and purpose.
School of Hard Knoxville
Texas A&M hasn’t played a team better than it defensively this season. That changes on Saturday.
Tennessee has had the best defense in the country and the Volunteers do it without the same kind of aggressive pressure that the Aggies use.
While Texas A&M blows up plays with pressure, Tennessee blows up plays by refusing to bend. The Volunteers navigate screens as well as any team in the country.
Jahmai Mashack leads the charge as a coach’s dream and an opponent’s nightmare. He’s ninth in the nation in defensive VAPR (D-VAPR), and his internal clock is as good as it gets when it comes to helping.
When an opposing team gets the advantage on offense, Tennessee doesn’t panic and forces everything away from the basket. The Vols focus on interior defense and are sixth among major conference teams in blocks per game.
Tennessee is extremely disciplined with where it sends help. When possible, the Volunteers send help from above the break, refusing to allow opponents easy shots from the corners. Even when opponents shoot a high volume of 3-pointers, they can go whole games without corner 3-point attempts if they’re unable to get heavy dribble penetration.
There are two ways teams have beaten Tennessee this season. The first is to be like Kentucky and shoot 50% on 3-pointers for the game. The Wildcats have done it twice against the Volunteers and won both games.
That seems unlikely for Texas A&M, which is in the bottom five among major conference teams in 3-point percentage. The Aggies may shoot a high volume of 3s out of necessity, but they’ll likely be tough 3s and Texas A&M can’t rely on an outlier shooting game to pull off the victory.
The second way is much more likely. Texas A&M has been the best offensive rebounding team in Division I, averaging 15.9 per game. For all the great primary defense that Tennessee has played this season, it’s been a bit below average at securing defensive rebounds. In the Vols’ three losses to teams other than Kentucky, they’ve given up 15.67 offensive rebounds per game.
Long shots generate long rebounds and the Aggies will have to take advantage of these to win. Because on first shot defense alone, Tennessee is a brick wall.
Win Probability: Tennessee 52.9%
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