GDT: WBB vs George Mason

[Lord Elrond]

Education Day, so 11am start and hearing loss anticipated. GM is 17-3, so beating them is a tough assignment, but it’s the assignment we have.  Do not anticipate drunk idiots fighting in the stands today, but that wasn’t on my bingo card last night either, so

FYI, spoke to an usher, their boss was at a seminar out of town last night on how to control fights in the stands. Dr Oberle is now qualified to teach that.

[White Pelican]

7 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

Education Day, so 11am start and hearing loss anticipated. GM is 17-3, so beating them is a tough assignment, but it’s the assignment we have.  Do not anticipate drunk idiots fighting in the stands today, but that wasn’t on my bingo card last night either, so

FYI, spoke to an usher, their boss was at a seminar out of town last night on how to control fights in the stands. Dr Oberle is now qualified to teach that.

Oh, the irony.

I've been to several of these Education Days. I'm watching this one on the tube.

[Lord Elrond]

Todays starters: Calhoun, Gray, Simon, Kennedy, Shavers

[Lord Elrond]

19-13 after 1st. Billikens off to a slow start, but rebounding well.

[Lord Elrond]

40-20 GM at the half. Billikens still out rebounding them and generating more shots, but offensive efficiency is nonexistent, SLU shooting 25/25/40,  meanwhile GM shooting 52/43/78. Must do better, or this gets ugly.

[Lord Elrond]

Dr Oberle appears to have no visible bruises from last night.

[White Pelican]

16 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

40-20 GM at the half. Billikens still out rebounding them and generating more shots, but offensive efficiency is nonexistent, SLU shooting 25/25/40,  meanwhile GM shooting 52/43/78. Must do better, or this gets ugly.

I've turned it off. It is already pretty ugly.

Doesn't seem to be the packed house that they used to have on Ed. day. Upper bowl in use? Couldn't tell from TV.

[Lord Elrond]

28 minutes ago, White Pelican said:

I've turned it off. It is already pretty ugly.

Doesn't seem to be the packed house that they used to have on Ed. day. Upper bowl in use? Couldn't tell from TV.

They didn’t seat the kids in the padded seats, filled out the rest of the lower bowl pretty well. Half of the upper bowl not in use. Chris May actually was sitting next to me talking to someone, so I didn’t feel comfortable getting back on here until he left.

[White Pelican]

Thank you my Lord.

[Lord Elrond]

Peyton Kennedy’s minutes really limited today, only in for 14 minutes.

[Lord Elrond]

80-53 GM final. Shooting was just bad overall, 30/15/60. Marcavia Shavers got the double-double, 10 and 10, so good for her.

[OkieBilliken]

That was pretty hard to watch.  All of the good vibes from Sunday vanished.   I have to say Mason looks like a pretty decent team.   They seem to be a heck of a lot stronger and tougher than Davidson.   

[okay]

It seems we are still struggling to find the right starters. Peytons getting only 15 minutes and we're just throwing players from the bench onto the court and trying them out. 

[White Pelican]

My guess is that Peyton's still not fully recovered from whatever injury she had. Just not the same player we're used to. And yeah, it does look like bench players are getting in for a look-see. We've got some good players, but the team overall doesn't look that good.

[Pistol]

The whiplash of following this team is wearing me out.

It comes down to shooting. They don't take great shots and they don't make shots, period. Tillett has been forced to go bigger so they can actually rebound but young perimeter players like Bergstrom have moved further down the bench.

The 3-point shooting numbers are abysmal:

• Shooting .244 from 3 for the season
• 5 straight games of making only 2-3 per game and the team percentage has been <20% in all 5 games
• Haven't hit 5 in a game since January 2
• Haven't hit more than 5 since December 18
• Have made 10+ only twice this season, against Cal Baptist and Ohio (both wins)
• The best streak they had, basically from the Cal Baptist to the Ohio game, was when Bergstrom found her shot. Now that they're going with a different lineup and style, she doesn't have a chance to find it in limited minutes.
• SLU's opponents have 102 more assists than the Bills this season. The difference in ball movement between SLU and opposing offenses has been remarkable.
• FT shooting is at .805 on the season. I've never seen such a wide gap between FT shooting and 3-point shooting.

Meanwhile, opponents are shooting an excellent .393 from 3 against SLU.

We have to address issues with both personnel and tactics. Too much bad basketball, and I don't think we're going to see any late season magic this time. Hope I'm wrong.

[Lord Elrond]

At this point, just stop trying to make a 3 pt shot. We are trying 21.4 3 pt shots per game, which puts us #122 in the nation. We are at  #338 in 3 pt percentage, as far as I can tell the lowest point ever. Not sure how to fix it, I hope we haven’t completely destroyed Mia Bergstom’s confidence, no one else can shoot one this year, Peyton Kennedy’s injury has probably affected her, she was a 38% shooter last year, now 27.8% this year. Just a complete disaster.

[Pistol]

17 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

At this point, just stop trying to make a 3 pt shot. We are trying 21.4 3 pt shots per game, which puts us #122 in the nation. We are at  #338 in 3 pt percentage, as far as I can tell the lowest point ever. Not sure how to fix it, I hope we haven’t completely destroyed Mia Bergstom’s confidence, no one else can shoot one this year, Peyton Kennedy’s injury has probably affected her, she was a 38% shooter last year, now 27.8% this year. Just a complete disaster.

I agree - redesign the offense to create good looks down low.

I haven't watched them play yet, but Texas is ranked #5 in the country and is also fifth from the bottom in 3PA, with just 11.2 per game. #7 LSU only takes 14.3 per game (I've seen them play). Obviously there are going to be some personnel differences with those programs and SLU and we can't replicate what they're doing exactly, but maybe we should take a look at what teams like Buffalo (18-2, 332nd in 3PA) and North Texas (16-5, 333rd in 3PA) are doing to score without relying on 3-point shooting.

[Lord Elrond]

14 minutes ago, Pistol said:

I agree - redesign the offense to create good looks down low.

I haven't watched them play yet, but Texas is ranked #5 in the country and is also fifth from the bottom in 3PA, with just 11.2 per game. #7 LSU only takes 14.3 per game (I've seen them play). Obviously there are going to be some personnel differences with those programs and SLU and we can't replicate what they're doing exactly, but maybe we should take a look at what teams like Buffalo (18-2, 332nd in 3PA) and North Texas (16-5, 333rd in 3PA) are doing to score without relying on 3-point shooting.

Those teams are good at overall FG shooting though. Texas is #5 in the nation in Field Goal Percentage, LSU is #17, Buffalo is #55, North Texas is #98. They compensate for bad 3pt shooting with making shots in 2 pt range. We are #248 in the nation in that category, which grading on the bell curve gives us a grade of D. 
 

Yet, this is still our best chance.  Looking at the box scores, we are still getting more field goal chances than our opponents in the last 5 games, due to improving in rebounds and limiting turnovers. Even against GM, we took 63 FG attempts, GM took 61.  This worked in the second game against Davidson because we raised our FG% to 46.4%, while taking 6 more FG attempts, while getting Davidson to miss a lot more shots than normal (they shot 32/32 that game, season average 43/40). We weren’t able to affect GM’s shooting, but shooting 46% would have meant 29 instead of 19 made FG’s, which gives us 20 more points, which makes the GM game competitive.  The rest needs to come from disrupting their shooting. 

[Pistol]

Just now, Lord Elrond said:

Those teams are good at overall FG shooting though. Texas is #5 in the nation in Field Goal Percentage, LSU is #17, Buffalo is #55, North Texas is #98. They compensate for bad 3pt shooting with making shots in 2 pt range. We are #248 in the nation in that category, which grading on the bell curve gives us a grade of D. 
 

Yet, this is still our best chance.  Looking at the box scores, we are still getting more field goal chances than our opponents in the last 5 games, due to improving in rebounds and limiting turnovers. Even against GM, we took 63 FG attempts, GM took 61.  This worked in the second game against Davidson because we raised our FG% to 46.4%, while taking 6 more FG attempts, while getting Davidson to miss a lot more shots than normal (they shot 32/32 that game, season average 43/40). We weren’t able to affect GM’s shooting, but shooting 46% would have meant 29 instead of 19 made FG’s, which gives us 20 more points, which makes the GM game competitive.  The rest needs to come from disrupting their shooting. 

Yeah, that's kind of my point. They manage to be really effective scoring despite not taking many threes. We're taking too many of them and missing way too many.

Watching SLU play, shot selection is poor. Ball movement is poor. Too many shots are created off the dribble, not nearly enough off the catch. Spacing, cutting, and communication are all lacking. Easier to diagnose than solve, I know.

[billikenbill]

SLU women defeat Fordham 59-53 in OT and seemingly accomplished the impossible in doing so. They shot 29.6 % from the floor, 23% from three, missed 12 FTs and committed 19 turnovers. How do you win a basketball game with numbers like that?

[BrettJollyComedyHour]

8 hours ago, billikenbill said:

SLU women defeat Fordham 59-53 in OT and seemingly accomplished the impossible in doing so. They shot 29.6 % from the floor, 23% from three, missed 12 FTs and committed 19 turnovers. How do you win a basketball game with numbers like that?

When the other team has worse numbers.

[White Pelican]

I was there. It was pretty bad for both teams. SLU had I think a 14 point lead with a bit over 6 minutes left and managed to lose the lead and then tie the game back up. Had the ball in final seconds of regulation and waited too long to get into the offense. Fell behind in OT but eventually outscored the Rams 10 to 4 I think.

First half sported hardly any offense by either team. Fordham (who has a much better record than us) had more points in the 4th quarter than the first three combined. My usual gripes about our team. Poor shooting and too many stupid turnovers. A win's a win I guess.

ETA: Should have mentioned, Simon a double double, 19 and 12.  Anumele had 11 points in 22 minutes. The only two worth mentioning.

https://slubillikens.com/sports/womens-basketball/stats/2024-25/fordham/boxscore/17901

[Gremio14]

9 hours ago, White Pelican said:

I was there. It was pretty bad for both teams. SLU had I think a 14 point lead with a bit over 6 minutes left and managed to lose the lead and then tie the game back up. Had the ball in final seconds of regulation and waited too long to get into the offense. Fell behind in OT but eventually outscored the Rams 10 to 4 I think.

First half sported hardly any offense by either team. Fordham (who has a much better record than us) had more points in the 4th quarter than the first three combined. My usual gripes about our team. Poor shooting and too many stupid turnovers. A win's a win I guess.

ETA: Should have mentioned, Simon a double double, 19 and 12.  Anumele had 11 points in 22 minutes. The only two worth mentioning.

https://slubillikens.com/sports/womens-basketball/stats/2024-25/fordham/boxscore/17901

We lose this game by double digits without Simon.  She has quietly evolved into this team’s MVP.