College basketball’s sharpest defensive masterminds: T.J. Otzelberger, Steve Pikiell top the charts

Business is booming for college basketball offenses. Last offseason’s tweaked block-or-charge rule certainly gave the offensive player another edge, and college basketball responded with its most efficient offensive season ever.

How can opposing defensive coordinators punch back? There’s a push-pull for many between adopting an aggressive or a passive defense. Both can work. We’ve seen plenty of examples of it. You know which side of the aisle Mick Cronin-coached teams are on.  The bite and downright nastiness that his defenses play with is so noticeable. Rick Pitino and Tom Izzo have a lot of those same undertones, too.

You feel them, and if you don’t match it, you’ll walk out with an L and a split lip (or worse).

Creighton is almost the opposite. Greg McDermott’s teams want to win the shot-chart game. Opponents take the shots that Creighton wants ’em to take. No team allows more midrange jumpers. Creighton refuses to foul and give up easy points at the stripe. 7-foot-1 big man Ryan Kalkbrenner, the king of verticality, builds a “Do Not Enter” wall at the rim, but you’re welcome to take as many two-point jumpers as your heart delights. 

Creighton beats you with math, not muscles.

There are plenty of other innovative coaches out there doing whatever it takes to get a stop. Marquette’s ball-pressure under Shaka Smart is relentless. Joe Gallo’s 2-3 zone at Merrimack is absurd and highly entertaining. Bruce Pearl has prioritized elite-level rim protection in the portal, and now Auburn’s defense is vicious. Porter Moser uses a variety of well-timed blitzes to generate turnovers against post-ups. Seton Hall’s Shaheen Holloway and Providence’s Kim English have excellent defensive minds. McNeese State’s Will Wade uses unique triple-switching to shut down pick-and-rolls. Wade is known for his talent-accrual chops, but his defensive techniques are awesome.

Sundance Wicks led Green Bay to a remarkable bounceback season with the best 3-point defense in the Horizon League. Opponents shot just 31% on unguarded catch-and-shoot 3-pointers against Green Bay’s defense because Wicks had a rubric to decide which players he would simply not guard and bait into taking wide-open 3-pointers. 

“If a guy is shooting 50% from 3, but he’s made eight of them all year, you’re going to have to make eight tonight,” Wicks said. “Or a guy shoots 29% from 3, you’re going to have to go beat us tonight by making 3s all night long. You’re shooting all the shots for everyone else. They’re not going to get them. We’re trying to distort your rhythm or your flow or your identity. If you don’t have an identity, we’re going to make you have an identity crisis.”

That strategy, dubbed ‘dorking’, has been around for a little bit. Micah Shrewsberry, then at Penn State, did it to Illinois‘ Da’Monte Williams. Xavier’s Sean Miller did it to UConn’s Andre Jackson Jr. in an effort to slow down Dan Hurley’s machine. Michigan State did it a little bit to UNC’s Elliot Cadeau in the NCAA Tournament, and then Alabama’s Nate Oats took it to the next level by flat-out ignoring North Carolina’s five-star freshman point guard. 

Wicks got the head coaching job at Wyoming, and it’s probably a safe bet to assume ‘dorking’ might be featured early and often in Mountain West play next year.

Let’s dive into 10 of the top defensive masterminds in the country and what makes ’em so successful.

(No particular order.)

Randy Bennett, Saint Mary’s

Top strength: Limiting 3-point attempts

There are shooters galore in the West Coast Conference. The WCC was the second-best 3-point shooting league in America last year and ranked first in 2022-23. 

It helps to have a 6-foot-10 monster like Mitchell Saxen on the back end, but Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett has constructed a defense that builds an iron wall around the perimeter to combat the 3-point assault. Since Bennett took over at Saint Mary’s in 2002, the Gaels have been one of the premier teams in college basketball at taking away 3s. In 17 of the last 22 seasons, less than 30% of opponents’ shots come from 3-point range against Saint Mary’s.

Saint Mary’s just refuses to give up open catch-and-shoot 3-pointers. It goes over screens. It stays connected to shooters off the ball. It tries to stay out of rotation. The Gaels allowed just 3.7 unguarded catch-and-shoot 3-pointers per game last year. That was tied for second-best in the country, just a smidge behind Liberty. 

Oh, and it rebounds. Very rarely will you see Saint Mary’s ever try to leak out for a cheap bucket in transition. Saint Mary’s usually sends all five guys to the glass. It allowed the fewest offensive rebounds last season, which limits the opportunities for those kickout, back-breaker treys. Saint Mary’s has rated inside the top-10 nationally in allowing the fewest offensive rebounds in eight of the past 10 seasons.

Asking all five guys to box out and rebound comes at a cost. Saint Mary’s rated just 335th in transition offense last year, averaging 8.1 points per game. But the recipe is working.

If it ain’t broke …

T.J. Otzelberger, Iowa State

Top strength: A turnover-forcing machine

T.J. Otzelberger is a ripped-biceps menace. While many collegiate defenses have backpedaled into embracing passive defensive gameplans, Iowa State is the complete opposite. The ‘Clones want to make your life a living hell.

Iowa State has leaned on forcing turnovers to build one of the best defenses in the country. Since Otzelberger took over at Iowa State, the Cyclones have finished first, eighth and fifth nationally in KenPom’s defensive efficiency ratings. 

Pretty, pretty good.

Former Iowa State big man Robert Jones transferred into the program from Denver when Otzelberger took the gig ahead of the 2021-22 season. Jones would tell you Iowa State’s defense isn’t all that nuanced. They just practice so hard so when the games roll around, playing ridiculously hard is just a rite of passage. 

Iowa State’s conditioning is off the charts, and it shows up on the defensive end. Iowa State wants to trap everything. They blitz pick-and-rolls. They trap the post. They speed you up and make you so uncomfortable. That takes an absurd amount of effort. 

Otzelberger has empowered standout guards like Tamin Lipsey and Keshon Gilbert to roam and be jackals. Lipsey has the freedom to just come out of absolutely nowhere for a double team that wrecks chaos.

The number of awkward turnovers that Iowa State forces is remarkable.

Iowa State can wreck teams who don’t have big men who can pass. Iowa State funnels the ball into non-decision-makers hands and gives them half a second to pass, dribble or shoot before its flying-around defense can recover. 

The results have been spectacular. Baylor has had the Big 12’s best offense in back-to-back years, but it has had little-to-no answer for Iowa State. Otzelberger has won four of his last five head-to-head matchups against Scott Drew and it could’ve been 5-0 if Milan Momcilovic’s would-be, game-winner didn’t come just a hair after the buzzer sounded last February. 

Iowa State’s turnover-forcing ways get the well-deserved attention, but Otzelberger uses all that pressure at the point of attack to push teams farther and farther away from the basket. 

No team in recent history has been better at limiting the number of shots at the rim than Iowa State.

The number of shots Iowa State’s defense allows at the rim, per Synergy

• 2023-24: 16.6, No. 1 nationally
• 2022-23: 13.6, No. 1 nationally
• 2021-22: 16.8, No. 9 nationally 

Otzelberger has used the success on the court to crush it on the recruiting trail. Iowa State is getting both Gilbert and Lipsey back for 2024-25. It landed Saint Mary’s transfer Joshua Jefferson, one of the portal’s best defenders. Long-armed, rangy junior wing Demarion Watson is another excellent defensive prospect who Iowa State is just waiting to fully unleash.

This Iowa State defense might be — gulp — even better.

Steve Pikiell, Rutgers

Top strength: Elite pick-and-roll defense

Even dating back to his Stony Brook days, Steve Pikiell has prioritized rim defense. Season after season, a Pikiell-coached team has always had a back-line anchor.

That’s helped Rutgers build one of the best defenses against pick-and-rolls. 

The data does not lie.  

Rutgers’ pick-and-roll defense, per Synergy

• 2023-24: 98th percentile
• 2022-23: 70th percentile
• 2021-22: 73rd percentile
• 2020-21: 85th percentile
• 2019-20: 78th percentile
• 2018-19: 88th percentile
• 2017-18: 98th percentile 

Rutgers is solid all the way through. It is so well-coached on that end of the floor. Rutgers guards actions so well without making mistakes. Their switches are on-point and Rutgers is always plugging gaps and bogarting the space. Rutgers constantly forces opposing offenses to kick it back out and start over on the next action. That’s frustrating and time-consuming.

Rutgers’ defense repeatedly forces opponents to work late in the shot clock to find any cracks or openings. 

This past season might have been Pikiell’s best-ever defensive coaching job. Sure, shot-swatting big man Cliff Omoruyi was on the floor, but the rest of Rutgers’ personnel wasn’t all that special defensively. Rutgers had multiple small guards. Stud defensive wing Mawot Mag missed 15 games. Jeremiah Williams, another plus perimeter defender, played in just 12 of 32 games. And yet, Rutgers finished with the fifth-best defense in the country and the second-best defense in Big Ten play.

Absurd.

Preston Spradlin, James Madison

Top strength: Forcing tough shots

Making jumpers off the bounce is not easy. Only 13 out of 362 teams shot 40% or higher on off-the-dribble jumpers. 

Data suggests that the more dribbles a player takes before uncorking a jumper, the lower the percentage gets.

It’s a hard shot. Maybe the toughest in basketball.

Preston Spradlin’s Morehead State club forced a bazillion of them. Nearly half (49.6%) of opponents’ shots against Morehead State were … off-the-dribble jumpers.

Penn State had one of its five worst offensive efficiency ratings this past season against Morehead State. Indiana needed a furious second-half rally to knock off the Eagles, 69-68. Morehead State had a borderline-elite Illinois team sweating well into the second half in the NCAA Tournament.

Spradlin is a very good coach on both ends of the floor, but those strong defensive undertones are impossible to ignore. It’s why he earned the James Madison gig this past coaching carousel. Morehead State finished as the OVC’s top defense in league play in three of the past four seasons, and it finished second in defensive efficiency behind Murray State in 2022. 

Morehead State’s halfcourt defense has been one of the best units in the country in three of the past four seasons because of Spradlin’s ability to tweak the defensive gameplans to account for his roster’s strengths (or weaknesses). When he had Johni Broome, Spradlin was comfortable funneling everybody to his elite shot-blocker. When he had to go small this past season, Spradlin needed all hands on deck to shut off the paint. Spradlin is a bit of a chameleon in a good way.

James Madison lost a darn good coach in Mark Byington, who left for Vanderbilt. But it hired a really good one, too.

Jerome Tang, Kansas State

Top strength: 3-point defense

Jerome Tang was in charge of the defense at Baylor before he took the Kansas State gig ahead of the 2022-23 season. He’s been the architect of five-straight top-30 defenses, per KenPom, and it could’ve been even better. Tang’s last two Kansas State teams have been phenomenal halfcourt defenses, but its defensive rating sinks moreso because of its turnover-prone offense routinely gave up runouts in transition. 

But when Tang’s defenses get set? You’re in trouble. For the last five years, Tang’s defenses have rated in the 85th percentile or higher in halfcourt defense, per Synergy. 

(Baylor’s defense also dropped off big time after Tang left but that’s another story for another day.)

Here’s where a Tang-coached defense has finished in 3-point defense during Big 12 play in the last decade.

• 2023-24 at Kansas State: No. 1
• 2022-23 at Kansas State: No. 1
• 2021-22 at Baylor: No. 2 
• 2020-21 at Baylor: No. 7 (won the National Championship)
• 2019-20 at Baylor: No. 2 
• 2018-19 at Baylor: No. 5
• 2017-18 at Baylor: No. 1
• 2016-17 at Baylor: No. 1
• 2015-16 at Baylor: No. 10 (yikes!)
• 2014-15 at Baylor: No. 1 (back to our previously scheduled programming)

That’s five first-place finishes and a couple second-place notches on Tang’s belt. You have to be doing something right, and the tape rarely lies. 

Every Kansas State defender is taught to close out to the 3-point stripe with a hand up. Even the staff is usually doing it on the bench. Giving up a “hand down, man down” 3-pointer is a good way to earn a spot on the pine. 

Some coaches prioritize under-control closeouts. Not Kansas State. Tang’s group aggressively flies out to would-be shooters and goes for the ball.

It’s working.

It can’t just be fortunate shooting variance when there’s almost a decade-long batch of evidence to support that teams just don’t shoot well from downtown against a Tang-coached club.

Kelvin Sampson, Houston

Top strength: Everything

In a season when offenses erupted, Houston’s defense got … better? In a season when Houston joined the best league in America, its defense didn’t get exposed, it got … even nastier? Mind-numbing stuff.

Kelvin Sampson has this thing cooking. Year after year, teams somehow struggle to make shots against Houston. It’s just not happening. Houston’s effective field goal percentage allowed has ranked inside the top-six nationally for seven straight seasons because of its ball pressure and ability to make teams so uncomfortable for all 40 minutes.

Oh, and Houston is simultaneously able to hit the offensive glass at one of the highest rates in the country while also having the best transition defense in the nation. Those feel counter-intuitive. Usually, when you send extra guys to the glass, you’re conceding a few extra runouts.

Not Houston. The Cougs have their cake and eat it too. 

New Mississippi State staffer Jordan Sperber has had the best breakdown of Houston’s elite defense to date. It’s special, special stuff.

Rick Barnes, Tennessee

Top strength: Mistake-free defense

Texas‘ pick-and-pop combination between sharpshooting guard Max Abmas and net-shredding big man Dylan Disu turned into a lethal, 1-2 punch. In the first minute of the Round of 32 game against Tennessee, it worked to perfection. Abmas drew two defenders and whipped it over his shoulder to Disu for a 3-pointer. Splash.

But that was as good as it would get. For the next 39 minutes, Tennessee put a blowtorch to Texas’ ball-screen offense in the eventual 62-58 win to advance to the Sweet 16.

Texas had 23 more possessions where a pick-and-roll led to a shot, foul or turnover. It scored just 12 points on those 23 opportunities. Tennessee’s defense will take that 0.52 points per possession mark. Texas had more turnovers (seven) than buckets (five).

Abmas and Disu combined for 22 points on 7-for-28 shooting. 

Welcome to the Rick Barnes defense. 

The Vols are so connected defensively and rarely make the same mistake twice. Tennessee does a phenomenal job of helping each other and then flying around to cover up open gaps.  Tennessee was so well-scouted defensively. There were times when a Vols’ defender beat an offensive player to the spot because they knew what play was coming.

In five of the last seven years, Tennessee has finished inside the top six nationally in defensive efficiency, per KenPom. 

Tennessee grinds opponents to a pulp with on-ball pressure, long sturdy wings and real rim protection that ranges from either really good to borderline elite.

Tennessee has been one of the elite defensive units for years. That won’t change anytime soon. Tennessee’s combination of Zakai Zeigler, Felix Okpara and Jahmai Mashack gives Barnes three All-SEC-caliber defenders at three different levels. Tennessee has the pieces in place to be the SEC’s best defense in 2024-25. Another top-six finish feels entirely too predictable.   

Dan Hurley, UConn

Top strength: Win the shot chart

We got a glimpse into Dan Hurley’s philosophy defensively even in 2010-11 when he took his first collegiate head coaching gig at Wagner. The Seahawks weren’t very good, finishing 13-17, but they closed with the best block percentage in NEC play and allowed just 27% of opponents’ field goal attempts to come from 3-point range. That was also the best in the league and one of the top marks nationally.

Wipe out the rim and limit 3-point attempts? Seems like a sound strategy.

Hurley has risen to the top of the sport using a lot of those same ideas. UConn has won back-to-back National Championships with some of the best rim defense in college basketball and a refusal to give up many looks from 3-point range.

In the national championship game against Purdue, UConn yielded only seven 3-point attempts. Calling it a clinic feels like an understatement, but that had been the plan for long stretches all year. UConn had a two-month stretch from Dec. 15 against Gonzaga to Feb. 17 against Marquette where it allowed just 77 combined treys in 16 games. Opponents made just five or fewer 3-pointers in 10 of those 16 games.

UConn has recruited to keep those themes alive. UConn’s roster-construction game plan of building a center platoon gives the defense a chance to have an elite rim protector on the floor for all 40 minutes. 

UConn wins the shot-chart game, but it also has loads of positional size at every single level and plays with the grit and tenacity that all good defenses feature. Hurley’s blend of new-school approaches with an old-school mentality is sharp.

Brian Dutcher, San Diego State

Top strength: Plugging the gaps 

San Diego State has used a rock-solid defense to build itself into one of the most consistent programs in the country. San Diego State isn’t a mid-major program. Brian Dutcher has built five-straight NCAA Tournament teams with five consecutive top-21 defenses as its calling card.

Nathan Mensah, a former San Diego State defensive whiz center, described going up against the Aztecs’ defense like “five guys all on one guy,” per The Seattle Times.

That sounds like a suicide mission for an opposing would-be bucket-getter.

They are so connected and so well-schooled on their principles. San Diego State constantly shrinks space, limits angles with smart stunts and quick recoveries and douses fires with perfect switches.

The Mountain West is such a grinder league, and San Diego State is one of the grimiest teams out there. Remember Colorado State‘s elite offense that averaged the sixth-most points per game off cuts? It didn’t work against San Diego State. The Aztecs allowed just five points total off cuts in two games against Colorado State this past season. That’s no outlier. San Diego State’s defense has ranked inside the top-30 in allowing the fewest points per game off cuts in four of the past five seasons.

Oh, and the next time a San Diego State defense allows more than 0.85 points per possession in halfcourt settings over an entire season will be a first.

San Diego State’s halfcourt defense points per possession allowed, per Synergy:

• 2023-24: 0.849, 84th percentile
• 2022-23: 0.839, 80th percentile
• 2021-22: 0.76, 99th percentile
• 2020-21: 0.791, 97th percentile
• 2019-20: 0.768, 98th percentile
• 2018-19: 0.846, 72nd percentile
• 2017-18: 0.848, 77th percentile

Tony Bennett, Virginia

Top strength: Pack the paint

It might be fair to have some questions about the staying power of a pack-line defense in an offensive era that is exploding with better perimeter shooting, but Virginia is still elite on the defensive end. It’s so hard to make layups against this team.

Field goal percentage on layups vs. Virginia, per Synergy.

• 2023-24: 51%
• 2022-23: 54%
• 2021-22: 52%
• 2020-21: 51%
• 2019-20: 44%
• 2018-19: 51%
• 2017-18: 46%
• 2016-17: 49%
• 2015-16: 50%
• 2014-15: 43%

Virginia just wears you out. It tied with Texas A&M for forcing the highest percentage of possessions to last until the final four seconds of the shot clock. Virginia is constantly making teams take rushed shots against the timer and it rarely bails you out with a foul. There are stretches where it takes opponents 25ish seconds to even get a paint touch against Virginia.

Bennett has hinted at changes coming to his offensive system, but his defensive system is more than fine — for now.

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