AfterShocks | 7/22/2022 10:45:00 AM

 
While it leans on college loyalties, The Basketball Tournament is driven by professional basketball.
 
The best teams are loaded with pros – current ones playing overseas and/or ex-NBA athletes – and the style of play is influenced by the pro game. Screen for the dribbler. Create mismatches. Drive to the basket or shoot three-pointers.
 
The AfterShocks roster is built with that strategy in mind, as it was last summer. Three former Shockers on the team excel at switching assignments on defense to combat ball screens. Zach Brown, Rashard Kelly and Markis McDuffie form the team's first line of defense with their hustle, size and quickness. They are agile enough to stay with guards and physical enough to bother bigger opponents.
 
That versatility removes many of the mismatches opponents seek and limits the indecision by the defense that can create openings for shooters and drivers.
 
"We can defend multiple positions," AfterShocks coach Zach Bush said. "We can just switch, and then it takes people out of schemes. The whole purpose you run pick-and-rolls is to gain a 2-on-1 advantage in some area. When you switch, now that's taken away. They've got to go to something else."

The AfterShocks open TBT play against We Are D3 at 8 p.m. Friday (ESPNU) at Koch Arena. The winner of that games plays at 7 p.m. Saturday against either Air Raiders (Texas Tech alums) or B1 Ballers.
 
The AfterShocks went 3-1 in last summer's TBT and advanced to the quarterfinals for the first time. In the 92-63 quarterfinal loss, Florida TNT's experienced guards and excellent shooters handled the AfterShocks defense. In the three wins, however, the AfterShocks thrived by taking opponents out of their system and forcing them into guarded shots and turnovers.
 
 

Trust the work pic.twitter.com/hZ3sOtNzH2

— AfterShocks (@AfterShocksTBT) July 21, 2022

They held all three opponents under 42 percent shooting. The Ex-Pats (20 percent) and Team Challenge ALS (26.7) also struggled to make three-pointers. When the AfterShocks desperately needed stops late in a victory over Blue Crew, they forced turnovers that turned the game with McDuffie, Kelly and Brown causing havoc.
 
The best TBT guards run ball screens over and over for their professional teams. They know immediately how to create a mismatch and torture the defense by moving the ball. Switching defenders, instead of fighting through screens or double-teaming, can negate some of that advantage.
 
"You've got a lot of professional guards, high-level scoring guards, that as soon as somebody gives them enough space or isn't sending them in one direction, it's a three," Kelly said. "They're going to make the right play. When they have an aggressive body that jumps out in front of them, they're not able to make that same reaction with the same amount of comfort."
 
The careers of Brown and Kelly (2014-18) and McDuffie (2015-19) overlapped at Wichita State. The Shockers played dominant, aggressive defense and those practice sessions continue to help. Brown, Kelly and McDuffie competed for playing time and learned how to work together in a cohesive, intense defense.
 
"We were our best opponents in college," Kelly said. "Pushing each other at the same position. Iron sharpens iron."
 
Newcomer James Dickey, a 6-foot-10 center who played at UNC-Greensboro, fits defensively. Bush said Dickey is agile enough to handle guards and big men in a switching scheme.
 
"Very athletic," Kelly said. "Talks. High energy. Tough. Long. He contests every shot."
 
Guard James Woodard, who played at Tulsa, is the other newcomer on the roster. He earned all-conference honors twice in the American Athletic Conference and shot 35.6 percent from three-point range for his career.
 
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Story suggestion? Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.