goodknight wrote:Up against a hot 3 point shooter. Can we defend against the 3 ball?
Ha! Not likely. We haven’t defended the 3 well for several years. One reason is our awful habit of going below screens.
I have no stats on this but it just seems that visiting teams shoot well above their 3 point percentage in our comfortable cozy little gym. (And against our defense). We on the other hand seem to struggle shooting the 3 in our gym. Norris in particular. L
Harvard will shoot it well. If we don’t do the same - we won’t win.
I was pretty pessimistic going into this but Harvard is currently 16% from 3 and 17% from the floor. Hard to imagine a better first half so far (except the fouls I suppose). We even seem to be handling the zone well.
What a job of defense on Mack. A new career low for him in points, assists, and shooting percentage, and a tie for his career low in made threes. He's going to be an amazing player, but whoever did the game plan and defensive strategy for this game was really on it. Decent job on Okpara as well-- he got 19 points (mostly thanks to 15 trips to the free throw line) but he's scored 20 or more three times this season.
This game really helped us in the metrics. We moved up 19 spots in KenPom, and improved to #75 in KenPom's Defensive Efficiency. You could also see how much better we are with Phil Alston on the court. That lineup we had near the end when the starters came out-- Welch, Edwards, Schweiger, Quinn, and Trey Lewis-- could probably finish around .500 in the MVC.
The A-10 is 6-1 so far today, and leads in the two other games going on now. Tonight, St. Joe's has a chance to win the Big 5 tournament when they face Temple, and Rhody plays at Providence. KenPom has the A-10 ranked 8th among conferences, ahead of the West Coast, American Athletic, and Missouri Valley. Last year the A-10 was 13th, behind a few conferences like CUSA, American, West Coast, and Western Athletic that lost teams to expanding P5 conferences and backfilling.
Long story short, the A-10 appears to have solidified its spot as one of the non-P5 conferences in the Top 10. Dayton currently has an at-large worthy resume with wins over LSU, St. John's and SMU. If two or three of the other top teams in the league can win out the non-con, the A-10 could get back into multi-bid territory.
Has to be one of Drew's best coached games. The defensive plan and execution was outstanding. He was also able to take advantage of LU's depth by rotating new players that didn't miss a defensive beat.
I did get a little nervous early in the 2H because the offense seemed to start standing around again...but they certainly had enough O to win. Hopefully we can start executing more consistently on offense.
That was a lot of fun
1. Team was well prepared...Harvard switched to a zone off and on and we continued to pass the ball well and get good shots....started to press in 2nd half...we were prepared and I do not believe that we turned the ball over against the pressure.
2. Defensive plan was pretty darned good, made it a priority to stop Mack..started with Watson on him and then Mwamba....amazing that he can guard on the floor...Drew was substituting defense.offense in the first half. Mack 3/10 . 10 points...1/2 of his average.
3. IN the first half we had 16 hoops and 13 assists...everyone was looking for the extra pass including Mr. Alston. I think this was his most complete game as a Rambler...and that slam on the out of bounds play...better be on ESPN
4. Defense was relentless..doubling and rotating like a smoothie mixer. everyone hitting the boards..
5. Officiating sucked...and it was one guy...who got into it with one of our managers. There was a play along the baseline and the ball went out of bounds....they awarded it to Harvard. The manager jumped up and said something and the official spent the next 30 seconds pointing and talking to the kid...Do not know if the incident incited the official but he must have made 75% of the calls. Jalen Quinn got into with the same official after getting hammered twice going to the hoop with no call.
6. Harvard shot the ball poorly and I attribute that to the LU defense...flying at shooters , doubling Mr. Mack , stopping drives along the baseline....brought back some memories...anyone say ghost of Ben RIchardson.
that was fun, fun, fun,,,and I got a Loyola santa hat
Last edited by natetheskate on Sun Dec 03, 2023 9:16 am, edited 1 time in total.