Bulls' Donovan: College game doesn't translate to NBA
The Bulls have been starting five players who spent just one year in college, which helps explain their struggles early this season and really ever since the rebuild began.
Billy Donovan, a longtime college coach at Florida, talked about the difficulties before Sunday's game.
"There's so much of the NBA game that just doesn't translate to college at all," he said. "It's so much different. You see in college a lot of times these big guys that are playing near the basket, and that's not the way the game is played up here anymore.
"I think there's a lot of difficulties because of one, the widening of the lane; (and) two, the 3-point line and how deep it is. And then the fact that there's no defensive rules. So you can just stand in the middle of the lane. I think that's why the scores are so drastically low in college basketball."
The Bulls did have limited success last season on defense. The ranked fifth in defensive rating until center Wendell Carter Jr. went out with a severe ankle sprain in January. This year with a new coach and new plan, defense has been a struggle, for Carter as much as anyone.
"A lot of guys, especially big guys, when they come in on pick-and-roll coverage it's drastically different because they have to do things; understand that a lot of times pick-and-roll is going to be guarded with two people. In college you can stand guys in the lane and really, really shrink the floor."