Observations from the Natuzzi on Boston College

[Sheltiedave]

In yet another painful game to watch, a horrible start, and a second horrible transition from a blowout to a chicken bone stuck in a Billiken throat, we still managed a win.

A few points on the radar screen to note include:

1) Ford must stop coaching to kill time while up big. As soon as Collins starts walking the ball up the court, all urgency and offensive flow is lost, and the opposing team gathers energy and regains equilibrium. If we are going to go five or six possessions without scoring, let loose with a couple Jimerson threes and elbow shots in the flow of an offense, and not a dreaded weave where we burn gas, while the defense gladly rests.

2) Overall, our bench has become a great strength. The line to this point is incredible. We have outscored every bench, with the following key stats...pts for/against, rebounds, min

Fgcu 33/24, 10, 90 min

Valpo 26/17, 11, 87 min

Ewu 35/32, 14, 94 min

SH 24/19, 12, 87 min

Hpu unavailable

Belmont 19/14, 8, 72 min

BC 24/16, 14, 81 min

It is a godsend to know your bench can average 26 ppg, 11 rpg, and cover 85 mpg, and be +39 pts in the six game stats I have.

3) in the SH, Belmont, and BC games, Bell has pulled 14, 11, and 16 minutes. Perkins has pulled 22, 15, and 33 minutes. Collins has pulled 26, 35, and 29 minutes. Perkins grabbed the majority of French’s bench time, with Bell pulling about 4 minutes of solo coverage today. These three, along with Jimerson and Jacobs, are the main short rotation while Thatch and Hankton recover.
 

4) Both Belmont and BC got dominated by French in the second half. In all the caterwauling over our vanishing press, some people need to realize that Ford first and foremost pushed the press to build conditioning, and he succeeded in this regard. We are a second half team that can dominate lesser teams physically, and win games in the paint.

5) The is a small concern that Jimerson is not comfortable with a catch and shoot at the line. If he is at 40%, chuck it. Chuck it on the move, right after clearing a screen, right after a dribble feint. Be unconscious and greedy with your ability, it will help the team.

And a side note, the end of game inbounds tosses are going to Jacobs frequently, due to his proficiency at the line.

[Sheltiedave]

At end of game, there is no one less likely to lose an inbounds pass than French. He is too big to sneak around, and when he plants facing the inbounds passer, he will not get knocked off balance. He is so strong otherwise, you have to build his confidence that he is the man.

Do this and he will become THE man at the line as well.

[MichaelC]

1 hour ago, Sheltiedave said:

In yet another painful game to watch, a horrible start, and a second horrible transition from a blowout to a chicken bone stuck in a Billiken throat, we still managed a win.

A few points on the radar screen to note include:

1) Ford must stop coaching to kill time while up big. As soon as Collins starts walking the ball up the court, all urgency and offensive flow is lost, and the opposing team gathers energy and regains equilibrium. If we are going to go five or six possessions without scoring, let loose with a couple Jimerson threes and elbow shots in the flow of an offense, and not a dreaded weave where we burn gas, while the defense gladly rests.

This is exacerbated by the fact that when teams get down big they start playing desperate and fast, so we're slowing down while they are speeding up. Also, it can be difficult to speed back up once you've started playing slow. I agree that walking the ball up kills the flow but more importantly it's unnecessary. Even if you plan to milk the clock you can still push the ball up court and then get into your offensive set.  

[slu72]

I hate the weave. It's a nothing exercise. It doesn't confuse or fool anyone. We are just playing keep away for 15 seconds and allowing the opponents D to catch their breath. 

[almaman]

It seems Olly oops would be easy with the weave and this group.

[SLU_Nick]

1 hour ago, MichaelC said:

This is exacerbated by the fact that when teams get down big they start playing desperate and fast, so we're slowing down while they are speeding up. Also, it can be difficult to speed back up once you've started playing slow. I agree that walking the ball up kills the flow but more importantly it's unnecessary. Even if you plan to milk the clock you can still push the ball up court and then get into your offensive set.  

Good write up @Sheltiedave .  This situation occurs nightly in college basketball with most teams capable of beating each other.  The slow down feels like we are playing not to lose but every D1 coach teaches not to take a quick shot with 4 mins left up double digits bc they analytics shows its bad business.  I watched all of the game sans for the last 4 mins so the fact that I didn’t have to go through the agony might be the reason I can smugly type this.  I don’t mind Yuri methodically running the offense in that spot 

[Sheltiedave]

11 hours ago, Sheltiedave said:

 

2) Overall, our bench has become a great strength. The line to this point is incredible. We have outscored every bench, with the following key stats...pts for/against, rebounds, min

Fgcu 33/24, 10, 90 min

Valpo 26/17, 11, 87 min

Ewu 35/32, 14, 94 min

SH 24/19, 12, 87 min

Hpu unavailable

Belmont 19/14, 8, 72 min

BC 24/16, 14, 81 min

It is a godsend to know your bench can average 26 ppg, 11 rpg, and cover 85 mpg, and be +39 pts in the six game stats I have.

This strength is illustrated when we compare this year’s bench with last year. I pulled data from our first four OOC wins, and then our four game losing streak in conference, as follows:

pts us/them, rbds, minutes

SEMO 24/23, 7, 57 min

Troy 6/15, 10, 43

UNA 12/11, 5, 56

SH 27/13, 5, 58

Duq 14/15, 11, 45

Dav 8/8, 0, 8

Rich 18/4, 7, 47

URI 11/7, 3, 43

OOC line was 17/15.5, 7, 54 mpg

in conf was 13/9, 5, 46 mpg

compare to this year at 26, 11, 85

The bench will drive our success this year, as we lost four seniors who could all pop to the leading scorer. We will take our lumps this year, but as our bench develops offensive knowledge and guards the 3, we will transition from a W on the good team schedules to a struggle.

[willie]

11 hours ago, slu72 said:

I hate the weave. It's a nothing exercise. It doesn't confuse or fool anyone. We are just playing keep away for 15 seconds and allowing the opponents D to catch their breath. 

Almost every game I watch on tv,and I watch a lot,teams run the weave. It is a way to get the players moving before they run a set. It also makes the defense move. 

[slu72]

3 minutes ago, willie said:

Almost every game I watch on tv,and I watch a lot,teams run the weave. It is a way to get the players moving before they run a set. It also makes the defense move. 

Not if they're in a zone. They just lay back and watch us run in figure eights. The one thing about Rickma's offensive schemes was to probe the defense right from the get go with on ball screens. Speaking of which, I did notice us trying to set some screens, both on and off ball yesterday, not a lot but more than I've noticed from previous games. We're not real proficient at it, but at least we're trying to set them. I've yet to get a handle on Travis' offensive schemes other than the weave. It still seems to me a lot of it is left to the individual player to create his own openings. 

[slusam]

We set picks everytime we have the ball against man to man and a lot of times against zones

[slufanskip]

22 minutes ago, willie said:

Almost every game I watch on tv,and I watch a lot,teams run the weave. It is a way to get the players moving before they run a set. It also makes the defense move. 

+1 and we don't generally run it for 15 seconds. The one thing I see during the weave though is our spacing gets a little compact. I'd like to see us spread out a little when we run it.

[Sheltiedave]

We ran our weave when they were in a 2-3 zone, so BC gazed at us in grateful befuddlement, and their outside guards shifted a step every five seconds.

Ford only has so much practice time available. As others have noted, between Collins’ injured wrist, the need to get everyone trained up on D, and the yearlong + gestation period to get an understanding of screen offenses(it took Two years to get Majerus’ system installed,) we won’t see a high level pick/screen offense until late next season at best.

[RiseAndGrind]

I love this team. I love that we have 2 absolute bulldogs in Goodwin and French, and that we seemingly have a 3rd teammate step up depending on the game. I love that we COULD do 10 deep. I love how much better Bell is in game 7 than he was in game 1. I love that TJ is keeping the positive attitude and is rapidly improving. Inject this team right into my veins.  Bring on SIU-C.