Rather than hitting the beach with 4 days off in Charleston, FAU coach John Jakus met with the media on Monday afternoon while speaking a variety of topics as his team prepares for the Charleston Classic.
The Owls are in the midst of a much needed break following a high intensity double header in the Field of 68 tournament. Also taking place in Charleston, the Owls bounced back in the latter half of the doubleheader, defeating Liberty 77-74 in overtime and putting together a solid defensive performance after struggles against Charleston and UCF.
The offense has been clicking in all 5 games so far for FAU as they’re averaging nearly 100 points per game and they are above 50% from the field, and 40% from 3. Oklahoma State has rebuilt their squad this offseason under first year Head Coach Steve Lutz and Jakus mentions many potential threats that this OSU team will bring to the table.
“We’ve gotten into that now behind the scenes, Isaiah, Austin’s been getting ahead of schedule, and we kind of schedule out the scouts in that way, so he has a better handle on it than I do, but I’m getting there. We’re going to present the personnel to the team tonight, so we’ll be 2 and a half days ahead of schedule. Part of the oy of being here for two straight weeks is that you can use your hotel time and stuff like that to get ahead of pace. So we feel good about that. They got a new coach. He’s a great coach, honestly, a lot of respect for him. He was in Texas for a little bit prior to that, he’s won Purdue assistants, and obviously Purdue has been doing a good job for a long time, and then really quick turnaround at Western Kentucky, but certainly deserves that coaching job at a high major like oak state. And I know his kids play hard. Their guard plays really good. They still have Bryce Thompson who is kind of left over from there, and an older guard can really put up points. We faced him a bunch of times at Baylor. And we recruited a kid, Brandon Newman, who’s from Valparaiso, Indiana originally, but he started at Purdue and then Western Kentucky, and has also gone with, really good shooter, and I would say his shooting kind of separates him. And they got a bunch of really quick, high major guards, and then a big kid who transferred in who can impact the game. I believe he’s averaging 17 and nine, but we’ll organize our thoughts on that, how we’re going to guard, and how we can get out and run. It’s a good defensive team that puts a lot of pressure though the night of the basketball. So you got the pressure release plans when you go against that team. So we’re not 100% there right now, but we’ll get there, and we feel like it’ll be a good challenge, and we’ll take that on over the next couple days,” Jakus said.
During the past 3 matchups, the Owls experienced extreme opposites in terms of pace of play as UCF and Charleston both ran up-tempo offenses which went along with the Owls pace of play, while Liberty slowed things down and looked to limit FAU’s offensive chances as much as possible. This gave FAU an early wake-up call as although their offense was able to keep up in all 3 matchups, UCF and Charleston’s offensive barrage gave them problems on the other end.
Against Oklahoma State, it can be expected that it will potentially be an up-tempo game as both squads come into this game with a top 50 pace of play in the country. Jakus is aware that this game will be up tempo and he notes that the Cowboys look to speed things up on both ends of the court through pressure, which is something FAU will have to adjust for.
”UCF and Charleston were “willing to run with us, and then Liberty was trying to almost stall the game as much as they could, yeah, lengthen their possessions, not let us get out and pace. There was a dead ball. They’d hold it a little bit if they could roll the ball up the floor. They’d do it if they could call a big time out by getting the refs to go to the media table. They would do anything to slow the game down. I think, you know, OK State’sgoing to maybe not be as quick as the Charleston game as far as exchanging baskets, but they’ll lean more towards the UCF game as far as pace. So it won’t be as slow as slow as liberty. I mean, 77 against Liberty is like scoring 107 against Charleston, 47 so styles make fights. I think this will be more of an up tempo game, but they’re going to do it through pressure, where we’re going to do it probably through shot selection and running, and we’ll just have to find the balance from there.
This 3 game stretch gave FAU a valuable opportunity to iron out defensive issues that plagued them at times. In the first 2 matchups, UCF and Charleston were finding open shooters through FAU’s zone defense and in both matchups both squads were above 50% from the field.
In the final game against Liberty early on the Flames were getting similar looks and slowing the game down which led to an early Owls deficit, however FAU adjusted. In the second half, FAU held liberty to under 40% from 3 and were closing out on shooters much more consistently and they were able to outlast the flames in overtime.
The necessary adjustments were made as the Owls figured out how to slow down Liberty and allow less open looks from their zone defense. After the game against Liberty, Jakus mentioned his staff handled the scout, which gave him time to figure out issues in the defense and the adjustments he made were a team effort that identified holes.
“Yeah, I think for us, we kind of break the shot clock up into three sections, so it’s getting back on defense. We didn’t do a good job that against Charleston, but we did a much better job at that against Liberty, they didn’t even have 10 points in transition. So that’s a step forward. The second part is the middle part, where we’ve got to guard a ball screen or get through a set. And I actually think the scouting, like Todd Abernathy did the Liberty Scout, I thought he did a great job the scouting piece, as far as getting through the coach’s actions and through that first ball screen, I think we’ve done a good job with our breakdowns. Has been after the ball screen rotation or after the switches. Teams seem to be finding an individual that they can drive and pick on one on one, and then when the help comes, they’re able to kick out for assisted threes. And then if the help doesn’t come, they’re able to finish at the rim. And so our one on one defense, once we get back in transition into our sets, it’s going to be a focus for us moving forward. We feel. Good about our plans. We met today with the team, and then also as a staff, as far as making adjustments and how we’re going to guard our gaps and how we can help that defender who’s on an island, like you said, with 10 new guys and the injuries we went through in the off season, we’re having to play a lot of more small ball than we expected to get through these games, and we didn’t spend as much time on that because some of the wings we had were injured. So we’re playing big lineup versus big lineup in practice, but as we get into our, small package versus our big package, I think we just got to make some defensive choices so we’ll get there, we feel good about it. Specifically, we just got to guard that last 10 seconds of each shot clock better,” Jakus said.
The rotation has been expanding recently as Max Langenfeld has slowly increased his minutes, averaging 3.7 points 2.3 rebounds, across 10 minutes a game and still yet to return is Jakel Powell, a redshirt freshman who has the ability to stretch across multiple positions. Max’s role will continue to increase as doctors allow, however Jakel’s return has potentially been delayed until some point after thanksgiving.
“I would say two through four. We kind of line them up in the wing package. We want positional, size and length and our goal. And you can see with Max playing some two and Ken Evans playing some two, our twos are 6’5 and 6’6. Jakel at 6’4 to us is in that group. We want as many guys between 6’4 and 6’11, from the two to four spot as we can so we can switch and be interchangeable. So Jakel is in that group. Jakel’s injury is a little bit farther off on the recovery and for Max, it was eight minutes, then it was 12, and then we’re going to have to decide if we can push it above 15 or not. But so much of that is just out of our control, that comes down to the doctors and the trainers. So we’re doing it as we can. We’ll see when the knee brace comes off and when he can be fully free, but having them back a little bit is certainly going to help,” Jakus said. “The timeline for that has changed (Jakel’s return) there’s two surgery options, and both those are above my head. Okay, there was a shorter time recovery, and the longer time recovery, the longer time recovery was, was chosen, but that’s for Penny our trainer and then our doc to decide, I don’t think it’ll be anytime soon, and it certainly won’t be by Thanksgiving,” Jakus said.
FAU will be off until Thursday at 2:30 pm, when they match up with Oklahoma State kicking off the Charleston Classic. The Owls will look to earn a p4 win out of the gate and should they win that, they could potentially matchup with Miami on Friday.
