SCU doesn’t often get to be #1 at something, but per Torvik, SCU is the best team in the country right now at preventing offensive boards. So happy Boxing Out Day to all who celebrate and go Broncos!
Source: 2023 Team Stats & - Customizable College Basketball Tempo Free Stats - T-Rank
Yep. Bediako and Braun are rebounding well. But Podz deserves much of the credit, leading the team in Def rebounding rate and overall rebounding. Great rebounding teams generally get good rebounding from their guards/wings.
And all of the bigs off the bench have also chipped in even with their limited PT.
On a related note, our offensive rebounding has also been much improved, currently ranked 104 on Torvik. While that may not knock you socks off it, it’s worth noting we’ve been ranked in the 300’s every other season under Sendek including 340 or worse twice. Relatively speaking that’s a huge improvement.
Agreed, 92. I whined a lot through those seasons about our seeming refusal to ever go for offensive rebounds. Sendek just loved transition defense to a fault. I think that he didn’t trust the athleticism of the players those first few seasons enough. I think that was a miscalculation on his part: we got zero offensive boards and the opponents against whom transition D was so important (like Gonzaga) basically ran us over regardless. So net negative with relatively little gained on transition D compared with almost no second chance points. He eventually loosened up to realize that the big guys could get back on defense even after making an attempt to secure a board. Maybe having Jalen’s length and defensive ability gave him a bit more confidence.
Anyways, I’m glad it has changed–offensive boards secured the Wyoming win and just make the team more fun to watch in general.
The rebounding has been excellent. I just have one pet peeve - the fly byes when challenging the 3’s. Seems like a lot of those misses are short the come right back to the shooter and we’re out of position for the box out.
As a corollary, early retreats by Bronco shooters after an attempted 3 may be depriving us of some additional offensive rebounds.