On Wednesday night, DePaul handed Arizona State just its second loss of the season, and did so largely because the Blue Demons harassed, confused and pestered freshman guard Jahii Carson into his worst performance of the season. Carson turned the ball over six times, made just five of his 16 shots and was generally ineffective in regularly getting his team into good offense in the half-court. So, how did DePaul do it, and does this serve as a game plan for what Pac-12 teams should try with Carson once conference play rolls around?
Jahii Carson Was Pressured Into His Worst Game In His Brief Career, But Can Pac-12 Teams Duplicate That Strategy (USA Today)
First and foremost, Oliver Purnell’s plan was to have his athletic team pressure Carson all over the floor. The Blue Demons often sent two guys at Carson just when he was bringing the ball up the court, making him expend energy and time in the backcourt and often causing him to give up the ball to a teammate. Then, once the ball was out of Carson’s hands, the plan was to deny him the ball and make other Sun Devils initiate the offense. And DePaul wasn’t all that picky about which defenders they threw at Carson. Sometimes it was smaller, quicker guys like Worrel Clahar and Durrell McDonald; other times it was longer athletes like Brandon Young or Moses Morgan. Sometimes when Carson had the ball, they sent a big up top to hedge on him and keep him on one side of the court; other times they packed it in the lane and dared Carson to shoot over them. And plenty of times when he did drive, they tried to turn him into a scorer, sticking on shooters like Jonathan Gilling and Carrick Felix on the wings and making Carson shoot over bigger guys. But the goal at all times was to harass him, get the ball out of his hands, and when he did have the ball, get him out of his comfort zone.
So, will this turn into the blueprint on which Pac-12 schools will go to school in order to limit Carson? The problem is, there aren’t many teams up and down the conference that can boast the athleticism and commitment to pressure defense that DePaul and Oliver Purnell deployed. Teams like UCLA, California, and Colorado, for instance, aren’t the types of teams that are going to spend a lot of effort harassing ball-handlers 30 feet away from the basket. While Washington has in the past leaned on guys like Venoy Overton and Isaiah Thomas to pressure opposing point guards for 94 feet, that type of defense really isn’t in the makeup of this team. Arizona could send athletic guards like Mark Lyons and Nick Johnson to harass Carson, but even then they seem like a team that would be more likely to use their length in the half-court to pack it in and make the Sun Devils score over them. Perhaps the two teams in the conference that could best adapt the DePaul blueprint to their own squads would be the Oregon squads. One could see Oregon State sending some combination of Ahmad Starks, Roberto Nelson, Devon Collier and Eric Moreland to pressure Carson away from the hoop and get the ball out of his hands, just like Oregon could employ Damyean Dotson, Dominic Artis, Carlos Emory and even E.J. Singler in similar roles. But, then again, expect Carson and Herb Sendek to spend plenty of time going to school on this game tape as well in order to determine what adjustments they can make if they similar strategy in the future.