Shifting game plan in college basketball: Think small

On a wintry afternoon in December, North Carolina, No. 11 at the time, took on a ranked UCLA team in Brooklyn without one of its two starting big men, Kennedy Meeks, who was laid up with a bruised knee. Making do, Coach Roy Williams started the 6-foot-11 backup Joel James in the frontcourt alongside Brice Johnson, a 6-10 senior.

But a funny thing happened over the course of the game: Williams abandoned his, and most people’s, traditional idea of a five-man lineup featuring two big post players and instead at times surrounded Johnson with four smaller players who were threats to shoot three-pointers. The Bruins responded by guarding the perimeter players and declining to double-team Johnson, and as a result he took advantage of a cornucopia of easy shots near the basket and scored 27 points in the Tar Heels’ 89-76 victory.

“That little stretch where Coach went with the little guys, Brice as the big – it worked,” Tar Heels forward Isaiah Hicks said afterward.

Point guard Marcus Paige took a broader view: “It’s a look everyone’s trying.”

It’s true. More conspicuously than any previous year, so-called small ball – loosely defined as five-man rotations with just one big man – has taken over college basketball. In addition to North Carolina, Top 25 teams like Villanova, Oklahoma, Duke, Iowa and Maryland employ variations on the theme.

Small ball’s great advantage lies in the way the four players who are threats to sink long-distance shots force defenders to guard them closely, even on the perimeter. This stretches the floor, creating the spacing that is the oxygen of most offenses.

“If you can put four shooters around a big guy that has to be talked about at least – Double him? Front him? – then you’re gonna get shots,” said Coach Rick Byrd of Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn.

The downside can be rebounding deficiencies and interior defense at the other end of the floor. But many teams have been seduced by the strain the alignment can put on opposing defenses.

Small ball’s prevalence can be intuited in statistics related to three-pointers. Much as the spotted owl’s status can indicate the entire forest’s health, an increased number of three-point attempts can indicate greater reliance on small lineups, and better three-point percentages point to a higher volume of open looks created by better spacing.

Roughly midway through this month, Division I men’s basketball teams were shooting 34.7 percent from three-point range, with 7.11 buckets and 20.46 attempts per game, according to the NCAA. All three figures would be the highest since 2008, the last season before the three-point arc was moved back a foot to its current distance, 20 feet 9 inches from the basket. Through last week, per the analytical website kenpom.com, teams were scoring 29.3 percent of their points via three-pointers – the highest rate since 2002 (and almost certainly ever).

Some small lineups feature four guards, like No. 1 Villanova’s four-out base look. Perhaps more commonly, a small offense may boast a so-called stretch four built around a power forward big enough to play down low but skilled enough to threaten three-pointers and create advantageous matchups. No. 8 Iowa’s star is Jarrod Uthoff, a 6-9 forward who averages almost as many three-pointers a game as blocks.

“They really put pressure on you defensively anytime you have guys like that at the four position who can step out and shoot,” Virginia coach Tony Bennett said recently, in a reference to the 6-7 Virginia Tech forward Zach LeDay.

No. 15 Duke has just one big man, Marshall Plumlee, playing copious minutes. No. 10 Maryland has a prototypical stretch four in Jake Layman, a 6-9 forward who is shooting 34 percent on three-pointers. No. 13 Oregon’s Elgin Cook and Dillon Brooks read like small forwards but frequently play bigger.

Perhaps most notable is No. 3 Oklahoma, which leads the country shooting 43.1 percent from beyond the arc. The Sooners’ national-player-of-the-year contender, shooting guard Buddy Hield, is the only Division I player averaging more than four three-pointers per game, thanks not only to his devoted practice regimen but also to spacing enabled by the 6-8 Ryan Spangler.

New rules changes, intended to free up offenses, that restrict defenders both around the perimeter and near the basket have encouraged small ball.

“The best thing you can do,” said Byrd, who is also chairman of the men’s basketball rules committee, “is try to drive it against a guy, because it’s so hard to guard a strong driver” under the new rules.

Also influential, Byrd said, have been analytics demonstrating that midrange shots are less efficient than layups and three-pointers. This has led coaches to recruit guards who can penetrate and big men who can pick and pop: set a screen, force their man to defend the driving guard, and then step behind the arc to receive the pass for an open shot.

Bennett said coaches were also adapting to the top prospects.

“The players are just getting better,” he said. “The individual skill development. Guys are shooting the ball – obviously the 3-point line, seeing some of these great players at the pro level being able to do that.”

Indeed, it is difficult to speak of small ball without mentioning how it has mostly taken over the pro game. Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger cited the San Antonio Spurs and the Golden State Warriors, the two most recent NBA champions, as tactical inspirations. Several college coaches have shown Warriors film to their players, according to USA Today.

The Warriors discovered their identity early last season when the starting power forward David Lee was injured and coach Steve Kerr subbed in the more versatile Draymond Green. The move increased the team’s ball movement and handed more opportunities to guard Stephen Curry.

The Warriors’ origin story sounds strikingly like North Carolina’s move to small ball this season during Meeks’ injury. But when Meeks healed a couple of weeks later, UNC reverted to two-big-man lineups.

“I like to play two big guys, because I still think defending around the rim and grabbing rebounds are big parts of the game,” Williams said last month.

Although 22-5, ranked No. 7 and headed for a high NCAA Tournament seed, the Tar Heels have lost three of six. In last Wednesday’s 74-73 home loss to Duke, UNC’s guards appeared unable to feed Johnson in the game’s final 10 minutes, and on defense, UNC had trouble stopping Duke’s Grayson Allen from driving to the basket.

“At the end, they sort of opened the floor and kept driving, and we did a pretty good job guarding the ball, but not enough,” Williams said.

It was difficult not to notice that during crunch time, Johnson and Meeks, the two starting bigs, were both on the court.

This story was originally published February 26, 2016 at 12:57 PM with the headline "Shifting game plan in college basketball: Think small."