re: Does WW teach his players how to block out?

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Trapping teams force a lot of turnovers and do give up more offensive rebounds than upper level half court defensive teams. I mentioned Petino’s dominant Kentucky teams, Arkansas’ 40 minutes of Hell teams were the same. If you’re forcing 18+ turnovers per game that’s 18+ possessions where there’s no chance of a rebound happening but still a huge advantage to your defense.

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That may be true. But I look at rebounding % rather than the total number of rebounds. In that regard LSU, under Wade, has always been amount the bottom 1/3 of teams in the country in defensive rebounding %. That is, the % of rebounds they grab in relation rebound opportunities (i.e. number of missed shots by the opponent).

So yes, LSU forcing a high number of turnovers does = less shots for the opponent. But LSU hasn't been good at rebounding a high % (relatively speaking) of their opponent misses. That could be the result of several factors. But they weren't a good defensive rebounding team when they had awful defenses, and they are not a good defensive rebounding team when the have a great defense this year.

My theory why:

Opponents shoot a high number of 3's vs LSU. Long shots often = long rebounds. With long rebounds blocking out in the paint doesn't always help. LSU also switches everything. So on more than a few occasions you have guards underneath or guys having to help on defensive mismatches that take them out of position for the defensive rebound. Plus, LSU is always looking for a runout after a missed basket. Sometimes that causes guys to leave the rebounding area before the defensive rebound is actually secured. Whatever the reason, when something is a trend over the course of multiple years it is likely the result of a team's philosophy on that aspect of the game rather than a player/teaching deficiency.

How do we know this? There have been several times over the years where when LSU is matched up against a tremendous offensive rebounding team they make it a point of emphasis to get on the defensive glass...often at the exclusion of potential fast breaks. Kentucky is the best offensive rebounding team in the SEC this year. Yet, LSU won the rebounding battle with them because they made it a point of emphasis to send 4 guys to the glass. They did the same vs. Miss. St...another really good offensive rebounding team.

On that same token, LSU got thumped pretty good by Alabama on the offensive glass. Part of that was because Days, your most efficient rebounder, left the game with injury. But another part is because Alabama took 34 3's...missing 25 of them. That is a lot of long misses that often time favor the shooting team on rebounds.