CHARLOTTE, N.C. – “They don’t switch nothing.”

Belmont coach Rick Byrd said that was part of what guard Taylor Barnette remembered about his days at Virginia before transferring to the Bruins. Film study certainly would support that recollection. UVa rarely uses full-time switches on perimeter assignments in the Pack-Line defense. Faced with a 3-point shooting spread attack from Belmont, however, the Hoos altered their typical approach and switched certain assignments routinely Friday.

“I think when you have at least one big that can pop back and make it, they can’t have nearly as much help on the screen-and-roll as they ordinarily would,” Byrd said. “I watched a lot of their games and a lot of people they played. I watched a ton of ball screen clips and there aren’t many people at this level of basketball that really have – Wisconsin obviously does – but really have the bigs that can pop back out and shoot 3’s. I know they were ready and I know they talked about it, but it’s one of the hardest things to guard in basketball is a big guy that can set a ball screen and pop back. You can ask Tony [Bennett], but I think they did some things they haven’t done all year long about switching ball screens with Nick Smith in for us that at least I haven’t seen, [or] Taylor either didn’t tell me the truth but he said they don’t switch nothing.”

Sometimes that even went all the way through possessions with switch after switch after switch. They essentially had the freedom to switch assignments on any screens involving players one through four (point guard, wing, wing, stretch forward in Belmont’s case) on the perimeter.

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