[Stardust]

The problem with the Cats' defense on Saturday was not that they were playing man. The problem is that they came out loafing in the first half. They did not hustle back on defense and UT got nearly every loose ball. Had they played a zone with the same effort, the result would have been the same.

When a team has superior size and athleticism, nothing beats a good man to man defense, IMO. Zones are good for hiding weaknesses, but well coached opponents eventually find those weaknesses anyway. Playing a man defense makes it easy to determine who is hustling and doing their job and who is dogging it.

Part of the reason that Kentucky leads the nation in rebounding is their defense. When UK plays up to their potential, nobody is better defensively but they are still very young and tend to go on cruise control too often.

Excellent post. I don't care what defense we would have played. If you don't play inspired, you won't win period.

Everone got on BCG last year and absolutely ate him up for staying with M2M because that is his style of play. Now, we are teh #3 team in the nation, we lose a game at a very tough place to play, and now we want to switch defenisve strategy that has won us more games than we have won in many years????

It's personnel. We have the players to play the style we want. But, with Freshman, you don't always get consistent effort. We have all know that this team does not have a consistent three shooter. You don't win a National Championship without being able to shoot the three. Shooting 2/22 from beyond the arc has to be fixed before we worry about the defensive set we play. Bottom-line, as bad as we shot, a little more effort period on the defensive side and we would have won that game Saturday.