Fordham's defense is difficult to prepare for because it is so unorthodox. It's like trying to stop the triple-option offense in football -- you just don't face many teams that do it the way they do.
I've always thought we should be able to get open shots at will because they gamble and double-team the ball so randomly, but they consistently produce tons of turnovers so the system clearly works.
I gif'd the Fordham game here:
http://giantkiller.co/ByGeorge/2017/02/20/peteys-bucket-of-knowledge-the-weekly-breakdown-3/
There are a ton of instances of us getting open shots by swinging the ball around. Fordham throws insane three and four man traps at the ball, all but conceding layups if they don't come up with the steal. They generate a ton of turnovers (#2 in the country in opponent turnover percentage) and have actually made great strides defensively - they're top 100 in the country in defensive rating now.
I didn't capture it in the breakdown but I think Fordham closed the gap in the second half by relaxing into more conventional two-man traps at odd spots on the court. They have a tendency to look conventional for a moment then blitz the man who catches the first pass, or blitz in spots like the baseline. In the first half when they would send three defenders at the ball, in the second half they started sending two defenders with the third guy playing free safety and trying to pick off the pass. You can see how this would be overwhelming.
It kind of depends on shaky guard play and shaky ball movement to work. It's definitely exploitable but I don't feel great about it given that we've turned the ball over an average of 15 times per game against vcu, GW, Dayton, and Rhode Island in four of the last five games. We turned the ball over 18 times against Fordham last time and they got ten more shots up than we did. Definitely don't want that to happen again.
One thing that helps is that Boyd was suspended last game and he's been coming on strong lately. He's the kind of player who can help take advantage of Fordham's nonsense by putting the ball on the floor against a stretched out defense and getting to the rim.
