[IUFR] Diagnosing Malik Reneau's Foul Troubles

Coach Adragna takes a look at every Malik Reneau foul from this past season to see where things can be cleaned up so IU can keep him on the floor more in the 2024-25 season.

It is no secret that foul troubles have plagued Malik Reneau in his first two seasons at Indiana.

In his freshman campaign, Reneau fouled 6.8 times per 40 minutes. As you’re likely aware, you can only foul five times per 40 minutes before you are disqualified from the game.

Reneau’s sophomore year, while better from a fouling perspective, was still at a higher rate than he or Mike Woodson would have liked. He committed 4.3 fouls per 40 minutes, with some early improvements reverting back toward the end of the season.

When projecting minutes distributions for the 2024-25 roster, many fans have noted that Malik’s fouling issues must play a factor.

While I don’t necessarily disagree, I wanted to look at the film to see all of the fouls Reneau committed and if there are easy things he can clean up — or if he’s just destined for another season of fouling too much.

Trigger warning: there are 95 fouls in the videos below.

Charge Attempts

Starting with the lowest volume of ‘foul type,’ Malik committed four fouls this past season attempting to draw a charge from an offensive player.

In these instances, Malik was typically too late to get to the spot and instead of drawing the charge, he got a blocking foul.

In situations like this, while I’m sure his coaches and teammates appreciate the effort, I think Reneau has to understand his value of being on the floor and let plays like these go.

---

Off the Dribble

Because Malik often plays the ‘4’ for Indiana, he’s tasked with guarding guys who can put the ball on the floor to get to the rim.

This was an area where Reneau really struggled last season, as his initial reaction on drives is to put his hands on the driver, which is an automatic foul.

When he gets beat off the dribble, he also attempts to overcompensate and try to block the shot, which almost never works in his favor.

Being paired with Oumar Ballo, Reneau will again be tasked with guarding stretch-4 types that can put the ball on the floor. This offseason, a big part of his development will be learning to guard these types without using his hands. Malik committed 17 of these fouls last season, so even cutting them in half would be a big win and help keep him on the floor.

---

Cuts

Sometimes on the defensive end, Reneau would get caught being half a step slow in jumping to the ball and would get beat on a cut by the guy he was guarding. Some of these situations in which he was screened probably called for help from a teammate, but it’s impossible to know Indiana’s coverages on those plays without being in the locker room.

Even still, it’s another situation where Malik would get beat and then overcompensate by trying to block shots instead of just staying on his feet to contest.

---

Now let’s look at five additional foul types that have really plagued Malik: offensive fouls, help defense, blockouts/rebounds, post defense … and the dreaded frustration/silly fouls.