NCAA Tournament Breakdown: Mississippi State's weave, snug actions

Mississippi State lost four players to graduation after an exhilarating run to the national championship game last season. The Bulldogs made it through the 2017-2018 regular season without blemish and earned the No. 1 seed in Kansas City. With a win on Friday over No. 4 seed NC State, only the winner of UCLA-Texas would stand in their way of a return trip to the Final Four.

The team’s three leading scorers from last season all returned. Roshunda Johnson and Blair Schaefer started a combined 13 games last season. Both have been elevated into full-time starting roles.

Per HerHoopStats, Mississippi State has continued to defend at an elite level (opponents have scored 80.1 points per 100 possessions, the 11th best mark in the country) while becoming more efficient on offense. They have Victoria Vivians in particular to thank for the latter. Last season’s leading scorer has taken her game to another level.

For starters, Vivians is now a wing playing the four position. Simply put, teams that start two traditional bigs don’t stand much chance of defending her in isolation when she decides she wants to get to the rim.

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A bigger player can just sag off of her, right? Wrong. Three seasons into her career, Vivians had been a sub-33% three-point shooter. She’s shooting over 40% on threes this season, and has become more discerning in when to take them. Her three-point rate has declined each of the last four seasons. That number started at 45.4% her freshman season and now stands at 28.7%.

In part, consider that a perk of her new position. Vivians was going to find some success blowing by slow-footed defenders regardless. But here we are in March, where teams have to respect her as a threat from beyond the arc.

Let’s walk through some plays from the Bulldogs most recent game — Monday’s second round NCAA Tournament contest against Oklahoma State.

Oklahoma State’s 6’3 forward Mandy Coleman drew the primary assignment on Vivians. Coleman did well at times to keep Vivians in front of her, but it became clear early on that she was fighting an uphill battle.

Let’s open with Mississippi State’s first possession of the game, which shows us several elements of Vivians’ game that make her so dangerous:

She and 6’7 Teaira McCowan screen for point guard Morgan William. Vivians pops to the top of the key. Her defender can’t spare any time to help on William. Vivians gets the ball from William and initiates Mississippi State’s dribble weave action.

That sequence ends with Vivians drilling a deep three off a pass from William. The defenders got their signals mixed up for a moment before switching, giving Vivians all the daylight she needed.

That dribble weave action is especially helpful to Vivians. She has a great left-to-right crossover that she can bust out when her defender relaxes for a split second, hoping she’s only dribbling toward a teammate to kick off that action:

No surprise, Vivians is a right-handed player that attacks with her strong hand a majority of the time. Per Synergy, she’s going right more than 60% of the time she puts it on the deck out of a spot up.

Plenty of good stuff happens on offense for Mississippi State even when teams manage to force her left. They unleashed a snug pick and roll with Vivians and McCowan for three possessions in the second quarter against Oklahoma State, a great option for Vic Schaefer to have at the ready:

This action accomplishes a few great things for the Bulldogs. Teams will aim to push Vivians to her left hand to try to limit the damage she does at the rim. That opens the door for her to start this snug action in deep. A solid screen from her big center gets her going back toward her strong hand. Vivians will see all five defenders to know where the help, if any, is coming from.

Given a sliver of space, Vivians is tossing in a layup or short jumper. If both defenders sell out to her, it’s an easy lob over the top to McCowan.

Another fun thing you’ll see: subtle ‘rubs’ Vivians and William use to open up a driving lane for one another:

They’ll meander slowly into the lane rather than outright setting a screen. It accomplishes the same thing. When done right, it’s even better. Defenders aren’t going to see those “screens” coming quite as well, making it tougher for those defenders to tell one another how they’re going to defend it in time to make a difference.

Back to the weave. It is very taxing to try to defend this kind of action. There’s little margin for error, either. McCowan lurks along the baseline the entire time waiting for a dump off or a chance to crash the offensive glass for an easy put back. Sometimes, Schaefer doesn’t even get involved, opting to use her gravity as a spot up shooter to pull her defender 23+ feet from the rim.

So when Mississippi State is humming, you’re asking your team to play a lot of three on three in a spread floor. That’s a tall task to cover so much ground against ball handlers that are chugging along at full speed the second they catch the ball.

This action puts a lot of pressure on the Bulldogs’ guards to generate dribble penetration. Height is not an asset of this backcourt. Driving in amongst the trees is tough for those guards, though they should probably just do it more anyway, knowing they’re drawing help and giving McCowan a head start to collect their misses.

Driving from the corners out of this action can be especially tough. Vivians did so Monday with mixed results:

Not all of those shots were good ones. But Vivians has been wonderfully efficient overall this season. She often has to create something from nothing with the shot clock winding down.

Rewatch that last one and you’ll notice a theme from an earlier clip. Teams will try to get away with switching that weave action. With Vivians’ emergence as a knock down shooter, both players need to be on the same page. Hesitate for a second and you’re toast.

A few more fun X’s and O’s things from this game:

Watch Vic Schaefer at the end of this clip.

I think it’s safe to say that was a moment in which he did not want Vivians to hand it off to a teammate.

Here’s a ‘hammer’ set they ran at the end of the half for Blair Schaefer:

A hammer set involves one player penetrating toward the baseline. On the opposite side, a big will set a screen for a shooter (Schaefer in this case) to bolt toward the corner. The goal is to hit that shooter with a pass across the baseline for an open three.

Mississippi State went to this ‘side elevator’ play for Schaefer three times in the second half, which involves a nice wrinkle to keep the defense guessing:

It starts as a William/Vivians pick and pop. It’s up to William to make a read. You saw her take it in once for a layup, then look to Schaefer the other two times. Vivians and McCowan are the closing ‘elevator doors’ that Schaefer runs through with hopes of getting up an open three. Stanford has run that ‘side elevator’ action often this season for Brittany McPhee or Kiana Williams as well.

Kansas City is the only region in which chalk has won out thus far. Mississippi State will hope to see the trend continue in order for them to come away with two wins this weekend and punch their ticket to Columbus.

Unless otherwise noted, stats obtained via HerHoopStats.

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Breakdown: Mississippi State’s dribble weave, snug pick and roll actions

By Ben Dull | Mar 23, 2018

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