By Ray Curren (@currenrr)
NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — Joe Gallo doesn’t mind being called crazy, especially when it pertains to his defense.
As Merrimack’s zone confounded Princeton and the Warriors built a 14-point lead midway through the first half Sunday afternoon, there weren’t too many people at Lawler Arena calling him anything but a genius.
Alas, Princeton is not the heavy Ivy League favorite for nothing, and the Tigers stormed back for a 68-57 victory. But in an age where you can count the Division I teams playing exclusively zone on one hand (two hands tops, you certainly wouldn’t need your toes), Gallo isn’t changing any time soon.
“Nobody zones Princeton, they think you’re crazy,” Gallo said. “We had to dig back like three years to find any 2-3 zone possessions against them. Why would anyone zone a team that’s as good at shooting threes as Princeton is? But those are the teams we usually do a great job against.”
The proof is in the analytics, of course. Merrimack led the NEC in defensive efficiency in three of its five seasons there (as you likely know, the Warriors have moved to the MAAC) and finished second once as well. The last two seasons weren’t even close, the Warriors led the league by .066 and .075 points per possession, respectively. Although last season ended with a heartbreaking loss to Wagner in the NEC championship game, Merrimack was 79th in defensive efficiency nationally, fifth in forcing turnovers, and 10th in shooting percentage.
Will a step up to the MAAC make things tougher? Maybe, but the MAAC probably won’t throw any shooting teams like Princeton at them.
“We’ve played some teams over the years that we could break down a little, but then overwhelm them with a late closeout, they rush it and they miss it,” Gallo said. “This was if you slide one foot the wrong way, they were going to hit a shot. (Princeton) wins our league, to be perfectly honest with you. They’re a Top 75 team in college basketball, and we weren’t too far off. It wasn’t like we couldn’t play with these guys.”
Gallo’s zone has fairly simple rotations, but they are unorthodox. Merrimack essentially leaves the high post open and then matches up everywhere else, trusting its center (mostly junior Bryan Etumnu with a little of senior David Murray) to take the high poster 1-on-1. If the high poster shoots it, it’s a long two-point jumper. Many of the Warriors’ steals are passes coming out of the high post or on late help when that person gets indecisive on drives.
“We told our guys let’s make (Princeton star) Caden Pierce get 50 if they were going to play him at the high post,” Gallo said. “When we did that, we were effective. I give them credit, they adjusted in the second half, they dribbled it out of the high post and they can all shoot it.”
Any pass with air under it is also ripe to get picked off, and Merrimack does a fantastic job contesting shots. The Achilles heel is rebounding, as it is with many zones. Even last season, the Warriors were 351st nationally on the defensive glass (65.5 percent), but the overall data says the risks are worth it.
While Merrimack’s defense gets most of the attention, its offense has held it back from being even stronger since the move to Division I, never finishing above 325th in offensive efficiency, which was last season. The Warriors finished fourth in the NEC in that category in 2023-24, highest in program history.
Merrimack shoots lots of threes, and looks great when it makes them, as it did in the first half against Princeton when Matt Becht and freshman Tye Dorset each hit a pair of threes and the Warriors led, 29-15. But the team hit only two more threes the rest of the way and finished 7-for-30 from behind the arc after going 1-for-19 in a lopsided loss to a very good VCU squad earlier in the week.
“I thought we had some pretty good looks,” Gallo said. “We even passed up some good looks. I went back and watched our 1-for-19 against VCU, me and Budd (Clark) watched it yesterday, two of them got blocked and we took five or six bad ones. I don’t remember saying, ‘I can’t believe we took those shots.’”
It was a surprise to some that Budd Clark was not among the mid-major players that took their talents to a bigger school after an outstanding freshman year (teammate Jordan Derkack did, he is at Rutgers, who just happens to be Merrimack’s next opponent Wednesday night). Clark led all scorers with 24 points, and is amazing at getting his shot off against really good defenders. He worked really hard on his outside game after shooting 6-for-41 (14.6 percent) from behind the arc last season, but was 0-for-3 Sunday.
Merrimack took 38 threes (making 10) and just 19 twos in the 54-47 loss to Wagner last March. But just like on the defensive end, Gallo isn’t apologetic for what the Warriors do.
“We can try to get Budd into the paint a little more, but really that’s what the game has become, that’s what our personnel is,” Gallo said. “Get (Franklin Pierce transfer Sean) Trumper a little in the post, but if they’re out there thinking too much, we just have to let them fly if they’re open and shoot them with confidence. It would be different if I was watching in practice and we couldn’t shoot at all.”
A vicious non-conference slate still awaits, with visits to Rutgers, Butler, UMass Lowell, Troy, Stanford, and Saint Mary’s to come. Merrimack was picked sixth in the MAAC preseason poll, but currently sits second in KenPom, largely on an eye-opening dismantling of Vermont in its opener. Despite what the record will say when conference play starts in earnest, it would not be a shock to see Merrimack go deep in the MAAC Tournament in its first trip to Atlantic City.
“What we can’t do is look at the overall record this time of year,” Gallo said. “Maybe they just don’t update our record on the website because I’m just looking at, ‘Did we get better today?’ We have to understand if we lose three in a row to some really good teams, it’s not the end of the world. We have to keep things in perspective. We don’t have many 50-50 games on our schedule until league play.”
And the Gallo trademark zone is coming to a MAAC arena near you. Your team may think it’s ready, but it’s probably not.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.