Film Study: Houston Cougars

Welcome to a new series I want to start called Film Study.

In this series, I want to watch film on the teams I choose, or you all choose, and try to see if I can find what is going wrong or what is not working. In our first edition of this new series, I decided to start with the Houston Cougars.

The Cougars are currently ranked #5 in the latest AP rankings and only dropped a spot after losing to Kansas on the road. While the Cougars were able to score against Kansas, that has not always been the case this year.

Currently ranked as the 188th-best scoring offense in college basketball, the Cougars leave a lot to be desired on that side of the court. I dove into their game against Iowa State, a top defense in college basketball, to see what was happening on the offensive end for them. I found two common themes in Houston’s offense that I think are holding them back.

Film Study: Houston vs. Iowa State 

Houston starts the game by running a lot of pick-and-roll action. Shown below is one of their pick-and-rolls, which breaks down into isolation, but I want you to notice something between the two screenshots.

One of the common themes I noticed with Houston was little off-ball movement on isolation and pick-and-rolls. 

As you can see in the screenshot here, L.J. Cryer has the ball on top and is looking to go one-on-one. Unfortunately for him, none of his teammates move, allowing all their defenders to focus on the isolation, and Cryer turns the ball over.

They are almost in the same spot they were before the drive started. An offense predicated on pick-and-roll and isolation is never going to work if the off-ball players are not moving. There needs to be some type of movement to get their defenders to lose focus on either the ball or them.

Here is another screenshot to show you exactly what I mean.

Again, we have another pick-and-roll set. This time Jamal Shead is the ball handler, and the screener is the big on the same side block (white shoes). He will pop up and set the screen for Shead.

Look at how every defender is looking straight at the ball. Not one of the Iowa State defenders is seeing man and ball. So, what should Houston do?

Houston should be sending someone to flash in the open middle (Big 12 logo) and score an easy floater or layup. Instead, everyone watches Shead get trapped on the baseline, and this ball gets kicked out and swung to the corner for a missed three.

Houston cannot recognize when to move and where. For a team that ranks 135th in three-point percentage, they like to hang out around that area instead of flashing middle and getting the easy ones.

Here is another example of an off-ball player not moving. Here, we have Shead in the corner. As the drive is happening, his defender has his back to him. Instead of backdooring his defender or floating along the three to an open spot, he stands there with his hands on his knees.

When you are a team that already struggles to score, you cannot have players that can be wide open if they move, flat-footed with their hands on their knees.

Another key theme I picked up from Houston was the big rolls every single time. Variety from the ball screener is huge for keeping the defense honest. If he rolls every single time, the defense will notice that and eventually figure out what to do.  

For Houston, they ran pick-and-roll action almost every time on offense, and the first time the screener did something else besides roll was when the score was 20-8 in favor of Iowa State, over 10 minutes into the first half.

It is not only the screener that likes variety, but their entire offense does as well. The entire first half, Houston ran one-ball screen action or isolation, besides trying to score in transition.

The first time we ever saw anything else that was not high-screen ball action was with less than three minutes left in the half. We saw this double-down screen action for Shead and Emanuel Sharp.

While this play led to a one-pass missed three, it was at least something the defense had not already seen.

In the second half, Houston did a much better job of running a variety of offensive sets. Which allowed them to outscore the Cyclones in the second half, but by then, the lead was too much for Houston to overcome.

Houston’s offense looked the best when it had the three following things:

One, someone attacking the rim.

Often, I found Houston hanging out around the three-point line and settling for not-great shots. This team is not big, as both guards are listed at 6’1 and Sharp is only 6’3. But they are aggressive when they attack the rim. They cause the defense to move and allow for easy drop-off passes or kick-out threes.

Second, when they are moving off the ball.

While this team struggled with this throughout the game, some of their best possessions came when players were cutting off drives. This goes hand in hand with the idea of getting to the basket. Houston is also such a great offensive-rebounding team that they can tap in so many of those missed layups.

Third, when there are multiple passes before a drive or shot.

Houston can look rushed on the offensive end. At times, they run one pick-and-roll, and then a shot comes off the first pass. I get the idea of playing fast, but you are hurting yourself when you are taking shots like this. Kelvin Sampson is a wonderful coach, and every one of his teams is extremely disciplined. This team needs to trust that they can out-discipline and execute teams, not try and play hero isolation ball.

The Houston Cougars have a team that can win it all. The question remains: will their offense hold them back from winning their first-ever National Championship?