Will the Cats turn it around on Defense?

Most Men's College Programs these days are turning over well over half, even two-thirds of their roster every offseason. Life is even tougher for true mid-majors like the A10 schools, who see their best players get bought away by power conference programs and their bench guys get nabbed for bigger roles by the small-majors. Even Davidson, long a bastion of roster continuity, cannot escape this new reality. According to T-Rank the Cats return just 30.7% of their minutes, a statistic that somehow ranks smack-dab in the middle of the A10. Looking at production paints an even bleaker picture, as the Cats have lost about 90% of the production from last year's team. This uncontrolled level of movement has made preseason prognostication a fool's errand these days... but as a fool would be apt to do, we will try to push forward anyway.

Last year, the Cats excelled at taking care of the ball on offense, assisting buckets, and making 2-pointers. In fact, the Cats were top 30 in the nation in turnover rate on offense, and top 100 in 2pt FG% and assist rate. That's the good news! The bad news is that the team struggled pretty much everywhere else, especially in A10 play. In particular, the Cats were horrific in 3pt FG% (shooting just 31.9% from 3 in A10 play) and almost everywhere on defense; the team was bottom 100 in the NCAA in 2pt FG% defense, 3pt FG% defense, block%, steal%, and turnover%. Simply put, the team could not stop a nose bleed.

Luckily, I think it is fair to expect the Cats to be much better on defense. Maybe to the point where defense is even a strength, as it was in 2023/24 when the Cats finished 86th in defensive rating on KenPom. The first argument for why is that last season multiple Cats were asked to play out of position, and it showed. Reed Bailey was tasked with guarding centers and being the Cats' lone big on the floor for large stretches once Sean Logan went down, Zach Laput oftentimes found himself guarding 4s in the paint and having to rebound like a big, and Hunter Adam was even forced to play as the Cats center on multiple occasions. All three of these guys fought their tales off but just didn't have the size to hold down the role they were forced into. A lot of this was not Matt McKillop's fault, as he was forced to make due with what he had once Sean Logan went down and it was apparent that the staff did not trust Joe Hurlburt, the Cat's only true backup center, to play significant minutes.

Coach McKillop and the staff seemingly vowed to not let a lack of size doom the team again and went and landed two capable centers in the offseason, the uber-athletic JQ Roberts, a transfer from the SEC, and skilled Spanish 7' Ian Platteeuw. JQ in particular has the chance to transform Davidson's interior defense with his athleticism and physicality. Davidson has not seen a raw athlete like him at his size since Nathan Ekwu was healthy. It is not unreasonable to expect him to have a similar impact on defense that Ekwu or Nelson Boachie-Yiadom had on past Davidson teams. Ian does not project to be as dynamic athletically as JQ, but he has shown in his European career that he knows how to use his 7' size to impact shots and pull down boards, in a similar vein to what Luka Brajkovic brought to the Cats in his playing days. It will also help considerably to bring back Sean Logan, who graded out as the team's best defender by a country mile when healthy last season.

The Cats also struggled on the perimeter, in particular with lateral quickness and keeping guys in front of them. The Cats starting guard duo, Connor Kochera and Mike Loughnane, combined to provide a ton of skill on offense and smarts as off-ball defenders but had a lot of trouble as on-ball defenders. Way too many times opposing guards would beat their Davidson defender off the bounce, leading to the Davidson defense scrambling (which in turn would usually result in an open three). Connor in particular finished with a negative defensive rating by almost every advanced metric. Sam Brown could struggle in a similar fashion but the staff made sure it would have quite a few athletic 2s who could take on the primary on-ball defender role (such as Grant Huffman or Angelo Brizzi did in the past). This would allow Sam Brown to instead defend primarily off-ball, where he could use his longer wingspan for a guard and excellent basketball IQ to be a net positive on defense (like Connor Kochera did during the 2023/24 season). Roberts Blums, RJ Greer, and Parker Friedrichsen are all options as combo guards who have the athleticism to stay in front of most A10 guards and handle the duties of guarding the opponent's primary creator.

The Cats should also be loaded defensively on the wing. The Cats return a healthy Manie Joses and Hunter Adam, and add Josh Scovens and Devin Brown. If last year is any indication, Manie is the most exciting of the bunch on defense with his incredible athleticism, but the others cannot be overlooked either. Hunter Adam's advanced metrics should see a bump in year 4 now that he (hopefully) won't have to guard centers, Devin Brown was known throughout Ohio high school basketball for his defensive prowess, and Scovens is an athletic, gritty player who won't be afraid to put his nose in the grindstone (similar to Adam).

Finally, to end a possession you have to pull down the defensive rebound. This was an area where the Cats had struggled in 2022/23 and 2023/24, ranking outside the Top 100 in opponent's offensive rebounding % both seasons, but improved in a big way last season, jumping all the way to 45th nationally. This might be surprising to some as the Cats were forced to play one big for most of the year, and even then that one big was really a 4 instead of a true 5. That is incredibly encouraging and there is reason to think it'll carry over to this season as Sean Logan returns and the team adds Roberts, whose athletic profile bodes well for him being able to clean the boards, and Ian Platteeuw, who was a plus rebounder in Europe. The Cats continuing to clean the defensive boards would be a huge boost any hopes they have of fielding a much-improved defense this season.

A lot of the preceding analysis is based on the fact that under the McKillops Davidson has always emphasized team defense. The best Davidson defenses have operated as a cohesive unit, employing a version of Tony Bennett's UVA pack-line (as told to me by Matt McKillop in a Davidsonian interview years ago). The Cats have typically packed the paint, focused on communication, and made opposing teams shoot over length. Then when the shot went up, each player would find their man, box-out, and gang-rebound as a team. Defense at Davidson has always been about the team, not the individuals. I can't imagine that changing now, but it's impossible to ignore that the Cats have some dudes on defense this season. In particular, JQ Roberts and Manie Joses. Both guys pop with their athleticism and can single-handedly change the fortunes of a team's D if allowed to. It may be unreasonable to expect, but I truly believe that with enough run, JQ's shot-blocking and rebounding down low and Manie's ability to disrupt everywhere could team up to reverse this team's defensive slide from last season.

It appears clear that the staff knew last year's defense was not good enough and made a concerted effort to bring in the skillsets and profile necessary to turn that around. All-in-all, I think that the Cats achieved their goal. Across the board, the Cats profile as a much improved defensive unit. The advanced statistics agree, as T-Rank thinks the Cats' defense will improve ~40 spots to around top 150 in the nation this year after finishing 193rd last season. Hopefully the Cats will be even better than that, replicating the 2023/24's success when they finished in the top 100 defensively. That will require multiple talented, athletic guys taking a step forward. In particular, there will be a lot of pressure on Roberts Blums and Parker Friedrichsen to grow into guys who can successfully fill the role of the team's primary on-ball defender. If either can't that pressure will fall to younger, less proven guys like Nick Coval and RJ Greer or Matt McKillop will have to get creative like he did last season when he went to the 1-3-1 zone with Manie Joses. Either way, the pieces are there for the Cats to be much better on defense this season.