How Xavier grounded the shot blocker against Creighton

The Musketeers opened up their offense after a slow start on Saturday

After Saturday’s win over Creighton, Xavier Head Coach Travis Steele talked about how Xavier “grounded the shot-blocker” during the game. “It means you want to seal him as much as you can. You want to put a body on him as much as you can so he can’t just come over and block all the drives that are happening,” Steele explained about the concept. If you’re a Boston Celtics fan, you might be familiar with the Theis Screen, which is basically exactly what Steele described.

Xavier was getting dominated in the paint early, and Steele said his team was tentative to drive to the hoop. He specifically singled out Creighton’s 7’1 center Ryan Kalkbrenner as a reason why. Kalkbrenner finished the game with five blocks, three of which came in the first half. I went back and rewatched the Creighton game to look for instances where Xavier noticeably sealed or had some sort of motion to get Kalkbrenner or other potential shot blockers away from the hoop. It’s an inexact measure because such an instance can be hard to quantify, but I was looking for any instance where there was a clear seal or action intended to prevent someone from getting a block.

In the game, there were eight instances I could see where a direct action was taken to ground the shot blocker, with six coming in the second half. Of the eight instances, five led to positive outcomes (a basket or a drawn foul), with a sixth leading to a putback. Creighton had five blocks in the first seven minutes of the first half, and Steele talked in the huddle about the importance of players using their bodies and maintaining their space on the floor to help prevent their shots from being blocked. The first instance I saw a clear seal to ground a shot-blocker occurred with 12:42 left in the first half, when Jack Nunge sealed off KeyShawn Feazell which led to an Adam Kunkel jumper that was no good. With 11:20 left, Nunge and Kunkel ran a pick-and-roll and Nunge’s roll at the last second was just enough to draw Kalkbrenner away from Kunkel and he made the shot.

For the rest of the first half, there wasn’t a lot of clear action to seal the shot blocker, but Kalkbrenner didn’t get a block for the rest of the half. Grounding the shot blocker was likely a focus of Xavier’s halftime discussion because there were three such instances in the first three minutes of the second half. Zach Freemantle sealed off Kalkbrenner which led to a Scruggs made floater just 26 seconds into the half. With 17:52 left, Freemantle was behind Kalkbrenner but subtly grabbed him at the waist and pulled him back a bit while Scruggs drove. It was probably a foul, but officials aren’t really going to be looking off-ball in a situation with a player driving to the hoop and it was a blink-and-you miss it motion, so it was a really smart play by Freemantle. Scruggs missed the jumper so it ultimately didn’t matter. With Creighton leading 39-36, Freemantle grabbed an offensive rebound at the free-throw line and Jerome Hunter sensed a drive coming, so he angled himself between Freemantle and Kalkbrenner. Freemantle missed the layup, but Hunter grabbed the loose ball after a Colby Jones rebound got knocked out of his hands and converted a layup.

With 13:88 left, Nunge again had a seal that led to a Kunkel layup, and then with 12:21 left Nunge’s seal on Feazell helped Jones drive and get fouled. Freemantle had a really nice seal on Kalkbrenner with 9:13 left in the game that allowed Dwon Odom to draw a foul.

In the first half, Creighton had five blocks and in the second half they had three. Obviously, that can’t solely be attributed to grounding the shot blocker, as Xavier also played with two bigs for a large portion of the second half and they spread the floor and drew Kalkbrenner out to the perimeter a lot too. However, it definitely helped Xavier become more aggressive on their drives and helped open up the offense after a lackluster first half. It will be interesting to see what Xavier does to try to get looks in the lane against a DePaul team that features two talented shot-blockers in Nick Ongenda and Yor Anei.