STARKVILLE — Ben Howland’s shot blockers — and he’s had many of them over his 21-year head coaching career — don’t necessarily have the green light to execute their craft. If they do it the Howland way, they do it with a high conversion rate more than a high attempt rate.
Howland’s Mississippi State men’s basketball team, now through a third of its Southeastern Conference schedule, ranks 20th in the nation in blocked shots per game and even better in Ken Pomeroy’s block percentage, which measures how often a team blocks its opponents’ 2-point shot attempts, where MSU ranks 17th. Yet, it doesn’t block shots like most teams do. MSU will continue its method as it takes to the road 8 p.m. Tuesday (ESPN) to face Kentucky (14-5, 4-3 SEC).
The most common approach with proven shot blockers, both in the NBA and some of the nation’s more advanced defenses such as Duke’s, is to let rim protectors stay where they are most comfortable — near the rim — and let them swat away whatever comes.
Howland doesn’t want MSU’s (14-5, 2-4 SEC) forwards letting anything come to them.
“If you’re going to block a shot, you have to go meet the guy, you can’t let him come to you,” Howland said.
His approach to post defense against penetration values positioning more than the block, as he showed in how he coach junior forward Aric Holman over the offseason. A year after finishing fourth in the SEC with 64 blocks, Howland encouraged him to play the man more than the potential block.
It’s not the easiest of transitions to make for a natural shot blocker, but Howland thinks he’s done it and Holman’s block numbers are still good: his 23 blocks in 19 games ranks just outside the top 10 in the SEC.
“It’s very tough. Guys like me and Abdul that like to block shots, sometimes we have to let them go by because we can’t afford to get in foul trouble and put our team in a bad situation,” Holman said. “If you’re going to go get it, make sure you get it, be 100 percent into it.”
Howland added the new approach has helped Holman stay away from goaltending calls, which he estimates Holman got roughly a dozen of last season.
“This year, it’s been far less, which is very good, a very good improvement,” Howland said.
On the surface, it may seem like asking Holman and freshman forward Abdul Ado, who ranks fourth in the SEC with 38 blocks in 18 games, to play more conservatively is an odd move given their combined 61 blocks is more than 133 Division I teams to date. Howland does it for a simple reason.
“If you can’t get it 100 percent, your man is dunking going in because it’s too late to rotate down,” he said.
Continuing its blocking trend against the Wildcats will be a tough task given only 7.7 percent of Kentucky’s 2-point attempts are blocked, which ranks fourth in the SEC and in the top 70 nationally.
One way to make it happen would be an Ado not hindered by foul trouble for the first time in weeks.
Ado is still on pace to set the MSU record for shots blocked by a freshman in a single season and end up in the top 10 in school history in single-season blocked shots, but his last five games have been lacking on that pace as he’s struggled with foul trouble. While racking up 18 personal fouls in the last five games, he’s only tallied six blocks, 1.2 per game; for contrast, in the 13 games prior, he was averaging 2.4 blocks per game and had more than three fouls in a game only twice.
Howland doesn’t blame Ado’s defense for his fouls, pointing out that two of his four fouls in Saturday’s loss to Alabama came on a screen and while diving for a loose ball. The non-defensive fouls are part of it, but another is a fact of life for almost every freshman in college basketball.
“This is the first time in his life playing with a restricted area,” Howland said. “You see a lot of guys in our league that are super aggressive, jumping up like a human wall. As long as they’re going up and down, it’s a legal play.”
Ado recognizes it: “I’m not used to just jumping every time. I’m used to standing up straight to stay out of foul trouble, but now it’s the other way around.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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