February 16th, 2020. Conor McCaffrey drops 41 points in a brutal 50-53 loss without Jace Easley vs Concordia Peoria. This season was at a crossroads, and things were heading downhill fast. After this defeat, Captain Jeremiah Perkins spoke up against Coach Phillip Heppe and began a heated arguement between the team and coach. Conor McCaffrey another team Captain was forced to get involve and would eventually take over the reigns at the true team leader.
The Eagles had lost 3 straight for the first time all season, and there record now stood at 23-8. A spot at a State Play-in game looked out of the equation, things were going very bad. Injuries had plagued the Eagles, Conor McCaffrey broke his nose vs Pleasant Plains, suffered a concussion vs Calvary and missed 1 game due to Covid-19. Jace Easley on the other hand, missed 3 games in a row with a dislocated thumb and also tested postitive for Covid-19.
Coach Phillip Heppe and Assistant Coach Brian Mercer had to figure things out quickly. Conor McCaffrey would call a players only meeting that night, in hope of trying to bring hope back into a badly defeated basketball team. We will never know what was said in that meeting, but the Eagles would go 10-2 over the next 13 days, and finish the regular season 33-10.
The Eagles defense was actually above average, and their offense was about as efficent as it could get with the players it had on the floor. McCaffrey and Easley were the most efficent players in the state, but the rest of the rotation were much lower and way below the average marker, making the offense seem to stall from time to time.
Being a net neutral with superstars in an uber-athletic Jace Easley and an offensive mastermind such as Conor McCaffrey made sense, but it was arguably the highest degree of underachieving seen in recent years. There was absolutely no excuse for a team with these two, to be performing well below their own expectations, but slowly time would work itself out, and the Eagles found themselves back in the postseason.
Offense --- particularly half-court offense -- was an adventure for them. A common sight would be the Eagles running their typical sets, which included the usual "HORNS" fare, "Iverson" cuts, "Exit" screens, etc. The first options would work, and McCaffrey and Easley were able to generate there offense, and get others involved.
But the crux of their half-court woes came whenever the first option didn't work. Second-side options and off-ball movement from the rest of the team were rare. Plan Bs -- well thought-out and scripted ones, at least -- would rarely manifest.
If there was a Plan B, it would often be McCaffrey and Easley working by themselves or in their own 2-man game, sometimes even their own isolation on their own island. A your-turn-my-turn mindset began to settle in for McCaffrey and Easley. Even if Easley and McCaffrey were good enough to create their own shots, it was far from being a sustainable form of scoring, specially if the rest of the team was nowhere to be found when it came to creating their own offense for themselves.
But after Jace Easley returned from Covid-19 right after the players meeting that McCaffrey called, the team got healthy, and a lot of things began to click for the Eagles. The defense, already middle of the pack at the time -- vaulted into the top of LSA. Their offense started to find the playmaking and flow that was conspicuously absent in the first half of the season.
And all of this success was triggered by one personnel change. Conor McCaffrey in the first half of the season was a good player, but after that players meeting, McCaffrey vaulted himself into the elite stratosphere, and found himself averging 31 points per game over the final 12 games of the season.
Attacking the Eagles defense
The Eagles' counters, first and foremost, are founded upon their personnel.
Lucas Schmidt is the hound at the point of attack. Jace Easley and Conor McCaffrey provide the requisite combination of speed, length, and switchabilty to blow up screens and other off-ball actions. Also they both can crowd the passing lanes, and seamlessly move up and down the postional spectrum.
Jeremiah Perkins is a versatile switch big who can hold his own on the perimeter, as well as provide competent rim protection, even though McCaffrey and Easley do most of the contesting and shot blocking. Noah Oldham on the other hand is dropped on the weakest offensive player and provides enough of comptent defense, and he stays out of the way of McCaffrey and Easley.
Off the bench, Ian Klockenga and Tristyn Carlove don't provide a defensive upside to the team, and seem to hurt the team more than they help them, a big part as to why Perkins and Schmidt are going to have to stay on the floor.
The Eagles bank on stagnating offenses and making them become impatient. They want to force inefficiency and just bad shots -- and that means switching almost everything on and off the ball. Per Second Spectrum, the Eagles switched the most on-ball actions per 100 possessions (28.8) during the regular season. Even though the Eagles switch everything, McCaffrey and Easley will also locate the other teams best offensive players and switch back quickly.
Switching requires discipline and utmost concentration. Keeping assignments in front is paramount to their scheme in order to flatten out actions, keep things strictly an east-west endeavor instead of north-south, and force the other team to rely on shot creation. McCaffrey and Easley are the best defenders in the State in forcing other players into east-west actions.
The Eagles aren't much of a deep drop team, and it won't be something they are going to plan on in the postseason, it's pretty far-fetched to think that they are going to up the frequency against teams with good shooters from the perimeter. The Eagles only have 3 defenders who can navigate screens at a high level (McCaffrey, Schmidt, Easley) so them dropping off with their bigs could lead to disaster.
Instead of dropping, the Eagles late switching with their bigs, with the on-ball defender "peel switching" back toward the screener. Perkins and Oldham can hold their own on the perimeter, and their ability to keep drivers out of the paint, results in opponents setting for tough mid-range jumpers.
The Eagles gave up the 3rd most mid-range shots (35.9% of opponent attempts) during the regular season -- including the most "long" mid-range (shots outside of 14 feet from the rim but inside the three point line). That speaks to their philosophy of running teams off the line, walling off the paint, and making opponents settle for the long two.
An intresting subplot between the Eagles is how effective they are at walling off the paint and limiting shots at the rim. The Eagles were second in opponent rim frequency (27.7%) during the regular season. The only team that beat them in that category: was Christ Lutheran (27.0%)
For example: Conor McCaffrey was able to keep Trinity Springfield's Torry Kistner in the mid-range, and every time Kistner had a step on McCaffrey, Easley would slide over and force him into a tough 12 foot pull-up jumpshot. Kistner shot 3-18 in the game, 1-12 from the mid-range and the game finished 64-28 advantage to the Eagles.
The Eagles also allowed the 2nd-least amount of points in the paint (12.5) during the regular season; only the Christ Lutheran Comets (9.8) allowed fewer points in the paint per game.
The Eagles much like Christ Lutheran subscribe to a prevention-is-better-than-the-cure philosphy when it comes to shots at the rim. They prefer to keep things controlled at the point of attack and prevent ball handlers from getting two feet in the paint.
You're probably seeing a theme develop when it comes to the Eagles' defense. If they're allowed to set their defense in the half court, it becomes quite an uphill battle to generate an advantage against them, let alone score.
Opponents can't afford to turn the ball over against an Eagles team with McCaffrey and Easley who have the capacity to punish careless mistakes. Taking care of the ball and preserving possessions in the half-court are going to be obvious points of emphesis when scouting out the Eagles.
Another avenue where the Eagles can be beaten on defense is through offensive rebounding, something other teams have excelled at lately. The Eagles were a middling defensive rebounding team during the season, which gives other teams more chances at high quality looks. Attacking a non-set defense, doesn't allow time for McCaffrey and Easley to get set up and stop them.
Even while the Eagles try not to drop back with their bigs, the trust they have in their on-ball defenders and help courtesy of stuns at the nail is high enough that they'll certaintly be conservative with their coverages on some possessions. While dropping back on LSA State teams isn't generally a good idea, the Eagles may take a calculated risk, if only to run ball handlers off the line, force them to take tough mid-range shots, and prevent the other 3 defenders from being put in rotation.
As for the Eagles constantly throwing two defenders toward oppoent ball handlers, it highly depends on how often they can be punished while in their base coverages. McCaffrey and Easley are very good defenders and will more than likely hold their own against good ball-handlers. If opponents can consistently make shots against the Eagles 'switching' -- or if they target the correct matchups, where Carlove and Klockenga are taken advantage of defensively, Heppe may force Easley and McCaffrey to have to resort to agressive blitzs and traps.
If their screen navigators are constantly hung up on the screens -- a possibility when oppoents go with two bigs on the floor -- the Eagles may have to eschew more conservative coverages in favor of (at minimim) stepping up to the level of the screen, which can trigger 3-on-2 sequences and put pressure on the Eagles back line of McCaffrey and Easley to get a stop.
Forcing the Eagles to unsheathe their pressure-oriented aggressive coverages is a possible avenue for other teams to find open shots on the perimeter. The Eagles were a middling team in terms of opponent three-point-attempt rate -- but most of those attempts consisted of above-the-break threes; they allowed fewer corner threes.
In any case, if the Eagles can help it, they won't bring out the agressive sell-out defense. They have the personnel to defend one-on-one and switch in a near unlimited capacity,
(as long as McCaffrey or Easley are involved). As forementioned, there isn't really a weak defender in the Eagles starting lineup, but if Klockenga and Carlove are in the game, expect opposing teams to target them.
The Eagles won't give away pressure points willingly, so other teams will have to create some themselves -- something these teams in the LSA State tournament have been able to do.
Defending the Eagles Offense
Stopping Conor McCaffrey and Jace Easley, is like trying to stand in front of a buzzsaw and hoping that your body is going to be able to stop the blades, it's just not going to happen. The Eagles are one of the only teams in the State tournament who only have two shot creators on their team. Now, Lucas Schmidt had shown potential to get to his spots and get up good shots, but not at the efficent rate that Easley and McCaffrey have gotten too.
McCaffrey and Easley can both score on an island, they both shoot the 3-ball from over 44%. Easley can get the rim a lot quicker, but he also can pull-up in the midrange game. McCaffrey is domiant from the outside, which can give other teams problems, but his ability to pullup in the midrange over any defender is what makes his game so impressive at this level. Given the right matchup and ample room to work with, Jeremiah Perkins can get to work as a low-post banger.
Noah Oldham has virtually zero value as a shot creator, but he can potentially feed off of shot creation. McCaffrey and Easley would rather shoot a pull-up jumpshot, or just pull the ball out of the paint and set up another play than pass to Oldham, who has struggled offensively all season and just hasn't found a way to score yet.
Jeremiah Perkins, in particular, provides a versatile playmaking element to the Eagles that makes him an especially valuable part of their half-court offense. Much like Christ Lutheran, they are fond of running "Delay" sets -- a trailing big receiving the ball at the top of the arc and initiating action -- that allow Jace Easley and Conor McCaffrey to sometimes operate off the ball and get to their spots.
Jeremiah Perkins handling things up top allows the Eagles' wing duo to curl around wide pin-downs or staggered down-screens, or execute "Chicago" actions (pin-down into DHO) with Perkins acting as the second screener.
Like almost every other LSA State team, the Eagles also depend on plenty of "HORNS" sets. The versatility of HORNS places a versatile hub such as Jeremiah Perkins in a postition to see weak-side action from the elbow and pass to Easley or McCaffrey curling around down-screens.
On the other hand, while Jace Easley playmaking this season is heads and shoulders above where he was last season, he is still prone to turning the ball over, mainly against double teams and teams that bring a tremendous amount of tenacious ball pressure. Jeremiah Perkins as well has had his own turnover problems in games where he has been benched.
Zone (1-2-2 and 3-2) is still a very viable option against the Eagles, who didn't score at nearly an efficent clip as they did against Man. But unlike other teams, the Eagles are very smart with how they approach zone defenses, partially because of McCaffrey's own AAU experience. They won't hesitate to attack the middle and collapse the zone from the inside-out.
Just like how the Eagles are most likely aiming to stagnate the opposing teams on the defensive end, other teams should also aim to funnel the Eagles' actions into late isolations and inefficent pull-ups by both McCaffrey and Easley. Having those two use their own 2-man game are good as last resorts, but they cannot be the whole offense.
Overall
The Eagles are really a two-man team, with three others on the floor to help with what they are trying to do. Easley and McCaffrey are going to gaurd the opposing teams best players night in and night out, while also carrying a majority of the scoring load and also breaking presses, another problems where Easley's ball-handling woes could be a problem, expect Conor McCaffrey to really handle the ball in the backcourt versus teams like Immanuel Palatine and Christ Lutheran.
Defensively, the Eagles are going to be able to force teams into tough shots, but their rebounding issues and the problems of getting Perkins and Schmidt to stay on the floor are going to cause issues. McCaffrey and Easley are really going to have to buckle down and not get beat off the dribble by teams that have faster guards than them, the Eagles switching nature will come back to hurt them, if Oldham or Perkins get switched onto a faster athletic guard.
Offensively, the Eagles are going to rely on McCaffrey and Easley looking for holes in the defense and being able to break through and score points, but that doesn't always work. Jeremiah Perkins is going to have to protect the ball at the top of the key, if the Eagles are going to run delay sets to try and free McCaffrey up off ball for 3s. The Eagles could also have Perkins hold onto the ball, while McCaffrey sprints off into a HORNS set and frees Easley up with picks, allowing Easley to drive the basket with an advantage over both of the defenders.