Dear Old U.Va.

Tony Bennett and the pack line defense

Thursday, April 23 2009 by Ben

With all the hoopla surrounding the Virginia football team’s transition to the spread offense, I’d like to take a few moments to educate Virginia fans about what Tony Bennett’s quasi-unique defensive strategy, known as the pack line defense, entails.  With the help of Coach Bru from favorite web site of mine, Xs and Os of basketball, I’ll take you through a highly simplified version of it.

The pack line defense was developed by Dick Bennett, Tony's father, and gained prominence when the elder Bennett used it at Wisconsin in the 1990s.  It has a couple of names and is sometimes called a “sagging man-to-man” defense. 

I started out calling this strategy “quasi-unique.” That’s primarily because the pack line shares a lot of principles with your typical man-to-man defense: each defender is matched up with an offensive player;  there’s a significant amount of defensive pressure placed on the ball handler; there’s rotations when an offensive player beats his defender off the dribble, etc.

Below is a diagram of a team playing the pack line defense.  (They're the triangles.) 

The outline of gray area on the court is known as the pack line: defenders who are not guarding the ball are supposed stay within this area at all times.  This principle is often referred to as "keeping everyone on a string."   Essentially, the defense is trying to conserve the amount of space between the defenders at all times.

For example, look what happens when offensive player #1 (O1) passes the ball to offensive player #2 (O2).  Defensive player #1 (D1) sags back to the free throw line as D2 goes out to meet the ball handler.

Traditional man-to-man does not always feature as much help defense.  Often, man defenses will try to prevent passes that are close by, known as being "one pass away." Given the preponderance of Dave Leitao's defensive sets were predicated on low-risk/plain vanilla man to man - after all, Virginia ranked 235th in steal percentage last year - this may not be a dramatic change for the Wahoos.

The pack line defense also makes doubling in the post much, much easier.  The second figure below diagrams a catch by the center (O5) on the block. As you can see, another post player (D4), comes over to double-team.  This leaves his man (O4) open.  Because the defense is so packed in, D2 does not have to go very far to keep O4 from getting the ball. 

Doubling the post leaves 02 open on the outside.  However, O5 has got to find him across the court and through a double team of the two biggest defenders on the court.  It’s a gamble, for sure, but a calculated one that might pay off.

Less athletic teams playing this defense can "ugly up" the game and contend with more athletic teams.  Seeing as how the ACC has athletes in spades (and the current Virginia roster really doesn't), it should keep Virginia within striking distance of their ACC foes next season. 

For example, I think this defense would do wonders against Wake Forest. The Deacons athleticism makes them a hard match-up but their three point shooting leaves something to be desired. The pack line defense would keep them honest.

In sum, I think this defense is an outstanding fit for Virginia’s current roster and going forward, especially because the Wahoos are always going to be at a disadvantage in recruiting to schools like Duke and Carolina.  That doesn’t mean we can’t compete on the court with them, but it’s always going to be an uphill battle on the recruiting trail. 

However, don’t take my word for how great this defense is, take coach Bru’s assessment of Washington State's defense versus Winthrop in the 2008 NCAA tournament:

With the score tied 29-29 at the half, the Cougars went on a 25-1 run to start the second half and of course they never looked back...  It truly was one of the best defensive halves I've seen probably ever...[T]he Cougars probably play as good defense as you'll see in all of college basketball.

Coach Bru is the rockinest.  Please do check out his website, Xs and Os of basketball.  Dear Old UVa thanks him for allowing us to use his diagrams.