The shitty thing about rebounding is it's just "want to". Hustle and box out, just get the rough ridin' rebound
This isn't true at all, I hate when people say it. There is technique to rebounding, like everything else effort certainly helps but you have to know how to rebound, our bigs don't.
In our case, guys don't box out a lot of the time. It isn't hard. Just go box out at least. Against ASU our guys just stood there and let the other team get boards it seemed like.
Boxing out isn't important; being in proper position, eating space on a horizontal plane, anticipating where the ball is going, and having good hands are essential to being a good rebounder. You can also use your guards to pinch in, not crash to help the bigs but I don't think we do that. The guards are actually the players who box out but not in the traditional sense like putting their butts on someone's front, but you can use guards to crowd the space of the bigs by trying to move them under, out of position.
The dboarding issues are absolutely a matter of effort. The bigs were simply moved off their spot and out hustled. That can and should be cured. It's the only thing keeping us from being very good.
Effort and technique aren't mutually exclusive, you can't be a good rebounder by just trying hard, you can certainly be a bad one if you don't want to fight for space. Most of these young dudes didn't need to rely on technique and effort to rebound in high school, size and athleticism were enough. I was undersized as a big, given the level I played. I had to learn how to properly rebound and defend our I would have never played