Hoiberg Offense

What made Hoiberg’s offense so difficult to defend in the early 2010s was how unique it was at the time. With the help of Lutz, Hoiberg implemented an offense with a new position that ISU called the H. Instead of classifying Royce White or Georges Niang as a forward, guard or center, they were just called H’s, because they played all five positions.

“My best team was with 6-7 Georges Niang, when he played the five spot and he was such a matchup nightmare on the perimeter,” Hoiberg said. “He pulled the big away from the basket with his ability to shoot; he’d pump fake and go by guys.”

Niang and White (6-8) would run sets as point guards or spread out to the perimeter, which threw off opposing bigs like Jeff Withey, Joel Embiid or Quincy Acy. It crumbled Bill Self’s, Bruce Weber’s and Lon Kruger’s game plans and led to two conference titles.

“They move Georges around so much,” Self told KUsports.com in 2016. “We can’t play that way, because we don’t post our guards.”

It is positionless basketball, Lutz said. And it’s no longer unique, or a surprise, as it was to the Big 12 from 2011 to 2015.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Good old positionless basketball!  

He made it work, there is no doubt about that.  It is tough to do though.

 
internetman said:
how do you think the other words that don't get caps feel?

i'm not gonna subject them to that anguish. 


I hear ya !!!  I have a relative that went to ISU and every time I went to see her it was a blast - however I still give her a hard time about going there....

 
I think the uptempo offense and the emphasis on 3 point shooting will help quite a bit with the lack of size.  Defense is where we might have more of an issue.
One thing that I firmly believe is important with a team that shoots a lot of threes is rebounding.  You need at least enough size with athleticism under the basket to get a good share of the rebounds.  If you're making 45% of your threes, and that's the majority of your first shots at the basket, you better be getting a lot of second shots......and preventing the other team from getting them on their end.

 
One thing that I firmly believe is important with a team that shoots a lot of threes is rebounding.  You need at least enough size with athleticism under the basket to get a good share of the rebounds.  If you're making 45% of your threes, and that's the majority of your first shots at the basket, you better be getting a lot of second shots......and preventing the other team from getting them on their end.
That's a good point and I agree.  Aside from that though, we hopefully won't have as much of a need for a big post player to score as we will be taking more outside shots.

 
That's a good point and I agree.  Aside from that though, we hopefully won't have as much of a need for a big post player to score as we will be taking more outside shots.
You need enough of a presents under the basket to keep the defense honest in the paint.  Now, you can accomplish some of that with guys slashing and driving.  But, having a guy with at least some size in there you can dish it to if the defense cheats to the outside to shut down the 3......is awesome and I'm confident Hoiberg wants that.

And...a lot of these second shots off of rebounds can be put back up with the right guy getting them.

What I'm getting at is that even though Hoiberg has an uptempo offense that shoots a lot of threes, to be successful with that, you need an inside presents that's effective.  It's not just a matter of putting 5 guards out there and throwing balls up from la la land.  

 
Last edited by a moderator:
One thing that I firmly believe is important with a team that shoots a lot of threes is rebounding.  You need at least enough size with athleticism under the basket to get a good share of the rebounds.  If you're making 45% of your threes, and that's the majority of your first shots at the basket, you better be getting a lot of second shots......and preventing the other team from getting them on their end.
Rebounding is important, but with guys shooting 3's, that means LONG rebounds which favors the more athletic players who can get rebounds with speed and jumping ability rather than just brute height and size with interior rebounding.

 
Back
Top