ICYMI: Memphis and Around the A10

[Taj79]

Memphios was just so damn big and athletic.  NC Central really had no answer and the quality of their performance left very little to be seen to the scouting eye.  Memphis is tall and extremely athletic but I could not tell what their real talent/skill level was because they essentially did whatever they wanted to do to the Eagles.   They are deep and protect the rim like no one I've seen so far this year (13 blocks) .  But they do play loose and throw the ball around a lot (19 turnovers) so if they run into similar talent it would be interesting.  They shot 47 free throws and missed 18 of them.  Weakness?   Only 36% from three  so if they don't impose their physical will I think their skill attributes are somewhat weak right now.  Bates and Duran are all they are advertised to be.

Around the A10, the watching was brutal yesterday.  Some observations .......

The Joeys over Mount St. Mary's 80 to 60:  Joe Lunardi thinks Vandy transfer Ejike Obinna is the second coming.  Yes, the guy had a near double-double at half and finished with 16 and 15 rebounds but I attribute that to the fact that the Mount is really soft on the interior.  He has no real offensive game and all his points were dunks and putbacks.  Seven-foot East Carolina transfer Charles Coleman was a non factor, playing a minute but Joey Brackets thinks both make an imposing combo that the Joeys haven't had before.  I don't think so.  Freshman Eric Reynolds had a nice game but the Joeys remain Taylor Funk and Cam Brown.  Funk guns from deep and Brown is wildly up and down, yesterday was an up game for the junior.  Combined they were 7-of-12 from deep with the rest of the Joeys going 3 of 6.  And still not impressed with Jordan Hall as the main PG for this team.  Granted, he was ion foul trouble early but he genuinely seemed disinterested in the game.  Plus, compared to Yuri, he's no slasher and no distributor like Yuri is, but who is?

La Salle 67, Albany 64.  This is who La Salle should be in a league with.  Gola Mausoleum was packed (some sort of homecoming weekend at La Salle) but severely disinterested.  No ooomph.  No passion.  Just blase atmosphere and blase basketball.  Albany was down ten or so late and fouled to make it as close as it was but La Salle was never threatened.  Louisville transfer Josh Nickelberry is the only real new addition to the La Salle lineup but really was a non factor in the game and down the stretch.  La Salle relied on Jack Clark, Shareef Kinney and Christian Ray just as they have done in years past and collectively, they are not that impressive.  La Salle was abysmal from three (4 for 18) and made it close by missing some free throws late but shot well from the line, well enough to win (17 of 21 with three misses coming late).  

If those two weren't ugly enough, Umass Lowell 59 and Dayton 58.  This one didn't surprise me as much as some because we all know Dayton is young and still defining roles on the team.  No one is the alpha male just yet.  Justin Faison was money for the Riverhawks down the stretch.  Lowell led by almost double digits the whole game until the crowd and Elijah Weaver and Malachi Smith (Scoochie's brother) willed the Flyers back to take a 48 to 47 lead.  Faison then three triples down the stretch to keep Lowell ahead.  Weaver made two three pointers in the last two minutes (his only two of the game) his last giving the Flyers a 58 to 57 lead.  Dayton was called for a foul late and Allinj Blunt made both to set up the final score.  But Dayton had the ball and 35 seconds.  Weaver had a TO, fouled, saw the Lowell guy miss, and then Weaver missed two threes, neither a very good shot, the last as time expired.  Faison and Blunt are fifth year seniors.  Daron Holmes II is a load.  He is likely thje best recruit I have seen at Dayton over the years.  He had 13 and 6 rebounds but alos added six blocks.  Much like the Joeys Obinna, he didn't have an impressive offensive arsenal, just worked paint duty with dunks and putbacks.  He is going to be a load for four years.  Dayton still runs the same offense as they have during Grant's entire tenure which puts Camara on the exterior when playing with Holmes.  This limits Camara's true paint-oriented game.  He is not so imposing on the exterior.  Weaver and Smith are mirror images at the guard spot -- both are drivers and slashers and I was frankly surprised Weaver made the threes.  Mustapha Amzil looks lost in this current lineup.  Shooters are sophomores Blakney and Brea and neither is consistent.  Kobe Elvis was shutout in about a half of play.  He is their starting PG it seems; Weaver and Smith came off the bench.  

Wagner 58, VCU 44.  At Siegel Center no less.  I said this last year ad it was painfully obvious last night, I don't know who scores the ball for VCU.  Last year, it was Bones Hyland and pray for rain.  This year, Bones is gone.  And Ace Baldwin is hurt.  Maybe Marcus Tsohonis is the 2G but he seemed to play PG last night despite not starting.  He had five assist with his 7 points but no one else assisted more than twice.  But there are not as lot of offensive options here yet.  Levi Stockard and Hasan Ward are somewhat the same player, and seem to inhibit each other when on the court at the same time.  Vince Williams had a terrible game.  He launched two ill-advised threes late and Rhodes yanked him --- but someone had to shoot with the shot clock expiring.  VCU's slash says it all skill-wise ... 41/27/47.  If Baldwin does return maybe Tsohonis becomes the designated shooter.  Overall, VCU seemed to be who I thought they'd be.

Hofstra 73, Duquesne 63 at the new Palumbo Center.  Hofstra was comfortably ahead in this game the whole second half.  This seemed attributable to Hofstra being upperclassmen and Duquesne being transfers and freshmen.  Kevin Easley, the TCU/Chattanooga transfer was okay but foul prone.  Tre WIlliams, the Indiana State transfer, looked a lot like Marcus Weather.  Amir Spears, a freshman, while leading the team with 19, was a dervish out of control more times than not  Zach Cooks for Hofstra was obviously the bets player on the court..  Duquesne and La Salle seemed to justiofy early thoughts of being PIG participants along with Geedubya nd Fordham.  But it's early.

After suffering through a lot of that, I could not stay up for Geedubya's 20-point loss to UC-San Diego 75 to 55.  Geedubya was again Lindo, Bamisile and Adams with Bishop having a terrible 2-for-14 night.  The result per the box score seems to support my estimation that Geedubya is a four-man team and cannot afford to have one of the four take an off night.

I really wanted to see Davidson and USF play in the 65 to 60 USF win but they were not on any TV that I could find.  Looks like Davidson was Mennenga, Brajkovic and Lee as expected.  Davidson's last lead was 16 to 15 with just under 5 to play ion the first half and then USF got ahead to stay.  Davidson's bench was incredibly weak.  

Two decent games to watch today as the Bonnies and Mason play both on ESPN+.  Can't wait until Tuesday --- it'll be an interesting measuring stick.  Memphis has a brutal schedule after us.  Va Tech, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee all beckon.

[slu72]

Maybe with that schedule they overlook us, and we become a trap team.  I watched some of the game and would agree with most of what Taj Mahal 79 reported. They do play big, so I wonder if Travis is planning on using Okoro and Linssen in tandem. We did see a little of that last week, so it wouldn't surprise me to see us go tall tree against the Tigers, but we're not going to win this game on the inside. We're going to have to find our 3 point shooters and shoot way higher than 20%. But like Taj Mahal 79 so adroitly pointed out UNCC was playing way out of their league. 

A10's performance last night was horrific. VCU and SVU losing on their home courts is hard to understand. They usually defend their turf tenaciously. I'm not ready to say the A10 is a two horse league, ie us and ST B's, because I think these teams will get tougher as the season progresses. Which is what we have to do as well.

We've really got nothing to hang our hats on for last weeks W's unless you think beating  creampuffs by 50 really means anything. To me these were exhibition games that counted. The real season starts Tuesday night. This game will give us a better idea of where we stand and where we need to get to. I don't consider Messphis the old dominant UCLA of the Southland, but it's hard to ignore the talent Penny has harvested.

[bauman]

slu72, maybe a 3 horse league-don't forget about Richmond. 

I hope we can stay with Pennyville on their court, but to do so we will need Jimerson to shoot a lot better from the arc than he did last game, same with JN.  I'm very disappointed with the offense coming from Fred and somewhat disappointed with the O from TJH.  We need both of them to be at least a threat from 10-18 feet.  Big positives so far from Yuri, Linssen, FO (after first game), Nesbitt and GJ (except EI game 3 pt shooting).  Too early to judge our 2 Transfer Portal guards and not enough courttime for Strickland and AL for any thought other than can MS do anything but dunk?

[Old guy]

Hello folks, I did some numbers and superficial analysis of our games and Memphis' games so far and I think I found some interesting data that I would like to point out to you. The spreadsheet I made is at the bottom of this post, just so that I can write before the spreadsheet format screws things up:

I analyzed the  stats of all the games played by SLU and Memphis up to date, expressed the findings as ratios and looked at them:

This is what I found:

1.  SLU controls the number of TOs we make in comparison to the number of TOs the opponent makes a lot better than Memphis does, or has been doing so far.

2. Blocks are a much more important defense tool for Memphis in comparison with SLU.

3. Rebounds and Assists are much more important for SLU than they are for Memphis.

4. Looking at the ratios, it appears to me that SLU's game is more balanced that Memphis' is.

5. One fact I cannot understand is that Memphis allowed 2 players to foul out during their game last night. I cannot understand this.

Please check out the spreadsheet below and come to your own conclusions. The two ratios express as DIV/0 are there because the opposition did not get any blocks. Feel free to think, I am comparing apples to  oranges if you wish. I think we have enough game data for both teams to try to get an overall view of how they play and how well they handle a variety of game situations. The spreadsheet follows, have fun.

		SLU' s data														Ratios SLU/Opp
Opponent
	TO	Blk	Stl	Reb	Asst	Foul Out			TO	Blk	Stl	Reb	Asst	Foul Out		TO	Blk	Stl	Reb	Asst
Rockhurst 10/26	22	0	9	33	10	0		SLU 10/26	11	6	14	52	22	0		0.5	#DIV/0!	1.555556	1.575758	2.2
Lindenwood 10/31	16	0	6	33	10	1		SLU 10/31	13	5	7	39	21	1		0.8125	#DIV/0!	1.166667	1.181818	2.1
Cent AK 11/9	22	6	6	30	11	0		SLU 11/9	12	2	12	44	17	0		0.545455	0.333333	2	1.466667	1.545455
Harris Stowe 11/10	21	3	3	22	5	0		SLU 11/10	5	5	14	46	29	0		0.238095	1.666667	4.666667	2.090909	5.8
East IL 11/12	18	4	6	25	4	1		SLU 11/12	9	2	8	49	15	0		0.5	0.5	1.333333	1.96	3.75
		Memphis' data														Ratios Memphis/Opp
Opponent
	TO	Blk	Stl	Reb	Asst	Foul Out			TO	Blk	Stl	Reb	Asst	Foul Out		TO	Blk	Stl	Reb	Asst
Lemoyne Ow 10/24	30	5	10	27	10	0		Mem 10/24	22	4	18	46	31	0		0.733333	0.8	1.8	1.703704	3.1
Lane Coll 10/31	39	4	11	37	11	1		Mem 10/31	20	5	21	37	22	0		0.512821	1.25	1.909091	1	2
TN Tech 11/9	15	2	10	28	14	0		Mem 11/9	17	11	10	34	21	0		1.133333	5.5	1	1.214286	1.5
NC Cent 11/13	26	4	12	40	6	1		Mem 11/13	13	13	12	44	13	2		0.5	3.25	1	1.1	2.166667

         

[Old guy]

The ratios do not show up in the post above, they are here:

Ratios SLU/Opp
TO	Blk	Stl	Reb	Asst
0.5	#DIV/0!	1.555556	1.575758	2.2
0.8125	#DIV/0!	1.166667	1.181818	2.1
0.545455	0.333333	2	1.466667	1.545455
0.238095	1.666667	4.666667	2.090909	5.8
0.5	0.5	1.333333	1.96	3.75
Ratios Memphis/Opp
TO	Blk	Stl	Reb	Asst
0.733333	0.8	1.8	1.703704	3.1
0.512821	1.25	1.909091	1	2
1.133333	5.5	1	1.214286	1.5
0.5	3.25	1	1.1	2.166667

[Littlebill]

58 minutes ago, bauman said:

slu72, maybe a 3 horse league-don't forget about Richmond. 

I hope we can stay with Pennyville on their court, but to do so we will need Jimerson to shoot a lot better from the arc than he did last game, same with JN.  I'm very disappointed with the offense coming from Fred and somewhat disappointed with the O from TJH.  We need both of them to be at least a threat from 10-18 feet.  Big positives so far from Yuri, Linssen, FO (after first game), Nesbitt and GJ (except EI game 3 pt shooting).  Too early to judge our 2 Transfer Portal guards and not enough courttime for Strickland and AL for any thought other than can MS do anything but dunk?

Richmond already lost to Utah State, which is normally a formidable foe, but they had already lost to UC-Davis. Yikes.

I know it’s early to write Richmond off but it’s enough to certainly be very skeptical

 

 

[Coach314]

Yeah.  That VCU game yesterday was ugly.  I think Stockard and Ward will be more productive offensively when Baldwin comes back.  There were a lot of times yesterday when they set those high picks and rolled to the basket they were wide open and didn't receive the basketball.  I think if they ran the offense inside/out until Baldwin comes back it would give the other guys better looks on the perimeter.  But it seems everyone on the perimeter has the green light so I doubt that happens.

[slu72]

My take on the Spiders is classic underachievers. I’ll believe it when I see it.