Breaking Down Baseline Out of Bounds Plays in College Basketball and What Programs Excel At It

We’re just about two weeks away from Midnight Madness starting across the country, which means it’s time to talk more college basketball. I broke down the value of pressing over the last five years in college basketball and took examples of West Virginia’s and Villanova’s different looks. I plan on doing more of those types of blogs heading into the conference previews and all that good stuff. So today we’re looking out baseline out of bounds plays (blobs).

I’m sticking with the five year evaluation as that’s a far enough time to truly grasp some tendencies with teams. From there I charted 12 different teams (Michigan, Kentucky, Duke, UNC, Michigan State, Villanova, Arizona, Wisconsin, Syracuse, Kansas, Xavier and Louisville) who people tend to think are either good or bad in these situations. These teams came to mind after a somewhat Twitter question asking what people tended to think of this situation. I also threw in some teams that just known throughout the country. I wanted to chart them in their points per possession average vs the national average over this time frame and then their average national rank for PPP on blobs. The national average on PPP for a season over the last 5 years is right at about .835. Here are those teams PPP’s over that same time frame:

Right off the bat a couple observations I had looking at these numbers and going through and charting them. I’m not surprise to see Michigan so high. I’m going to go in depth on them a little bit later and what makes their out of bounds plays so good, but John Beilein is one of the (in my opinion the best) best offensive minds in the games. He runs his 2-guard offense, where everyone moves with a purpose and it transfers over to blobs as well. Xavier is another team that I’m not surprised to see so high in terms of PPP’s, especially over the national average because of Chris Mack. Similar to Beilein, he’s one of the smarter minds in the country and it shows in play design. On the flip side, Kentucky being low is not a shock nor is Arizona. Both teams pretty much give up out of bounds plays to get the ball where they are more comfortable. UNC and Michigan State being at national average is shocking to me. Izzo usually has about 1,000 different plays and it’s surprising to see them not be effective.

I know some people don’t love points per possession numbers and prefer rankings instead. So I went ahead and charted where these same teams ranked nationally (out of 351 teams) on average over the last five years. Michigan led the way as they were No. 1 in the country in PPP for two different seasons. The only other teams to rank in the top-10 nationally during the course of a season was Villanova (3rd in 2014-15) and Duke (6th in 2013-14).

I think we need to start with the good here when looking at plays. I want to start with Michigan and just take a look at a few of their plays and sort of break down why they are always ranked fairly high nationally in this situation. For sake of knowledge, out of bounds plays are worth about five points a game on average (just under), Michigan is well over five a game. What Beilein does is just take advantage of small mismatches that doesn’t really seem like much and put his guys into open areas. Take a look here against Wisconsin. It’s nothing crazy, just a well-designed play to get Walton open for three. The play design starts by bringing Mo Wagner to the complete opposite side of the ball and away so his man has to play out of the lane, due to Wagner’s ability to shoot the ball. You have Irvin inbounding the ball, with a staggered line of Wilson/Walton/Robinson. Here’s a view of the set:

I like this set because it gives Michigan a couple of reads. If Vitto Brown was to cheat in or get stuck out of place, Irvin has the right angle for an easy bounce pass to Wagner. From there the first design of the play is Robinson just creating noise. He starts to act as if he’s going to run off a Walton screen and a Wilson screen to the corner (you can see the beginning step above). Instead he cuts directly at the basket, bringing his defender with him. That leaves just Showalter and Hayes playing 2v2 with Wilson and Walton. Walton takes a step to where his back foot is on the free throw line, giving him a great angle to run his guy off of Wilson, who is coming up to set the screen. Because of the positioning, Showalter is already behind Walton making the screen that much easier. Here’s the end spacing. Notice how open Walton is, plus how Wilson pops out to provide a safety just in case.

Here’s the play as a whole:

Taking a look at another team who thrives in this situation – Xavier. They have been well over the national average in PPP on blobs and similar to Michigan, the large part of that is due to Chris Mack. He likes to run a variety of out of bounds plays, with different looks. He’ll throw guys in the traditional box set, staggered, cluttered together or a direct line across. He’s never consistent with his call, which makes it tougher to guard against. The one thing Mack will do is use a bunch of screens no matter what set he’s in. He likes his shooters running off of screens and will use a variety of screens to get them open. Going to take a look at this play against Arizona in the Sweet 16. It starts in your traditional 4 across set:

Nothing too crazy about this design. You have your big on the inside here. Your go-to guy ball side in Bluiett. Now, where this play design starts to get really cool is bringing Bernard across as if he’s going to run a screen the screener type play with O’Mara. O’Mara dives opposite side at the basket and Bernard runs to the corner as if he’s the first option for a corner three. As Gates clears the space and provides a safety spot, Bernard circles past the corner to run a pin screen for Bluiett. Bluiett, who sets the original screen for Bernard, is already on the outside of his guy and with Bernard’s guy trailing all he has to do is pop out. Notice here – this is all a scouting report. Arizona’s guys aren’t going to switch and are woefully out of place:

Here’s the full play:

Last team I want to look at who really thrive in blobs is Duke. Not a surprise given K’s background and ability to design plays. He’s one of the better in-game coaches at that. Similar to Mack, he likes to run his guys off of screens, just not as much. He also likes to have his guys cut, really opening up the floor. Each of the three teams that succeed in blobs do it differently, which is what makes it unique. Again, it’s not a huge part of the game, but it’s free points that can give a team a win (or a cover).

I want to look at a play they ran quite a bit last year out of this situation. They started in a somewhat diamond set since Kennard would start a foot or two lower, with the play design for Luke Kennard. They would put Kennard right underneath the basket with a big on one side and a wing on the other. Duke almost always had a guard throwing the ball in, in this case it’s Frank Jackson. Here’s the beginning set:

Almost every time they ran this, Tatum would be where he is above and simply not move. Part of that was because Kennard is open, but also using him a little bit as a decoy. He simply stood there and you can see how high up Blossomgame is playing him. That leaves quite a bit of open floor space. Kennard sets the first screen for the wing. The wing clears to ball side corner, bringing his defender with him. Most often this was either Grayson Allen or Matt Jones – both threats to shoot, so the defender couldn’t leave him. The other thing I noticed while watching Duke this play is Kennard always got himself to where he had a foot on the low block. He did a great job staying in position and creating more floor space for him to operate.

Once he got his foot set, he’d turn, face the ball and wait for Jefferson. He’d then come set a screen just above the restricted area, letting Kennard run shallow off of him. Every time Kennard would catch the ball about 12 feet out and either have an open look or make a move to the hoop. You can see two examples (both against Clemson) below:

So as I stated above, these are just three of the better teams that run these blobs. A team like UK who struggles in this situation is because they simply don’t care. Talking to some former players, the strategy is to look for lobs and try to use athleticism. They want to seal in the short corner with a big, throw to the outside hand, swing up top, look for the week side backdoor lob. When that’s not there they go into the half court offense. Michigan State, I’m still trying to figure out. They should be better at this. They are quite literally  right at average when it comes to out of bounds plays over the last five years.