Post by lmills72 on Dec 26, 2019 17:00:40 GMT -6
I just spent too long looking at some numbers and stuff. Apologies for the length.
Here we are 13 games into the season at 7-6 with 18 conference games left.
So what do we know now that we didn't know before the season started. I probably should say nothing since it basically looks like another middle-of-the-road Whitford coached team. However, for shits and giggles …
-- We have no or very little depth, certainly not the 10-deep depth the Kid assured us we’d have after Costa Rica. And if we’re talking interior depth, we’re even worse than we were last year since we’ve lost Moses and basically added nobody (at least who plays).
-- Despite having no depth, non of our players are of the workhorse variety. We have only one player (El-Amin) in the top 25 in minutes played among MAC rosters so far, and not even Ish is getting 30 minutes. Well, I guess they’ll be fresh for MAC play.
-- Only 2 of our wins (Indiana State and Ga. Tech) have come against teams ranked higher than 200 in most services. Most MAC teams are ranked between 100-200; only 2 are ranked below 200.
-- Teague is having a pretty good year, but I think back to an earlier thread where it was suggested that he might be HOF material if he played well enough to be first team All-MAC and a POY candidate. Well, despite how well he’s played in general so far, he’s going to have to turn it up several notches in MAC play to make either of those happen. He’s currently 18th in the MAC in scoring and 7th in rebounding, neither of which are bad, but among big men Knapke (UT), Johnson (WMU) and Williams (AK) are all putting up better numbers. Since Taj also adds some oomph to his game with steals and assists, he may get a boost there but not sure it’ll be enough to overcome a lack of dominance in the categories you expect big men to do well in.
-- We’ve done a lot of lamenting about Bumbalough’s lack of 3-point accuracy, which I think is justified. However, he’s now at 34% from 3, which puts him 13th in the MAC. Overall the team is shooting 34.6%, 5th in the MAC. Ish and Mallers are shooting at a higher percentage and I’d suspect they’ll sustain that, but if Bum could knock down 1-2 more a game it could make a difference in MAC play (especially since he leads the team in attempts).
-- Some folks say we’ll go as our 3-point shooting goes. Well, maybe. 4 of our wins (and 2 losses) have come when we’ve shot better than 30%. We are 3-4 when shooting below 30% from 3.
-- We are 0-4 against teams ranked in the top 100 in scoring defense. There are 3 MAC teams in the top 100 (NIU, Akron and EMU) and Kent is at 103. On the other side there are 5 MAC teams ranked 200 or worse in scoring defense.
-- Statistically, we’re pretty solidly mediocre among MAC teams entering league play: 10th in scoring offense, 2nd in scoring defense, 5th in 3PFG% but first in 3PFGA, 10th in FT%, 9th in total rebounds, 7th in Assist/TO ratio, 5th in blocks, 6th in steals. I’d say most of those pretty accurately reflect our team, but the one stat that’s been pretty misleading recently is FT%, where we’ve been over 80% in something like 5 of our last 6 games.
-- Going into MAC play we have one of the worst records in the league. I think only Miami has a worse record, but there’s not a ton of difference between the best and worst, and some of that might be attributable to various strength of schedules. Our 260 strength of schedule ranking is about mid-pack in the league.
-- We beaten one team on the schedule I expected to lose to (Ga. Tech), lost to one I expected to beat (W. Ill.) and generally underwhelmed (gone 1-4) in games I would have considered toss-ups beforehand. These would be Evansville, Indiana State, N. Kentucky, Loyola and UTEP.
-- For a reminder, league coaches picked us 3rd preseason in the West. Toledo had 11 first-place votes. Overall, we were around 5th. We open at home with Toledo, then host Buffalo (picked second in the East). I’m not sure what those predictions are good for since EMU was picked last in the West and now stands at 9-2 with one of the strongest SOS in the league. Kent, also picked behind BSU, is 10-2 with the weakest SOS in the league.
Here we are 13 games into the season at 7-6 with 18 conference games left.
So what do we know now that we didn't know before the season started. I probably should say nothing since it basically looks like another middle-of-the-road Whitford coached team. However, for shits and giggles …
-- We have no or very little depth, certainly not the 10-deep depth the Kid assured us we’d have after Costa Rica. And if we’re talking interior depth, we’re even worse than we were last year since we’ve lost Moses and basically added nobody (at least who plays).
-- Despite having no depth, non of our players are of the workhorse variety. We have only one player (El-Amin) in the top 25 in minutes played among MAC rosters so far, and not even Ish is getting 30 minutes. Well, I guess they’ll be fresh for MAC play.
-- Only 2 of our wins (Indiana State and Ga. Tech) have come against teams ranked higher than 200 in most services. Most MAC teams are ranked between 100-200; only 2 are ranked below 200.
-- Teague is having a pretty good year, but I think back to an earlier thread where it was suggested that he might be HOF material if he played well enough to be first team All-MAC and a POY candidate. Well, despite how well he’s played in general so far, he’s going to have to turn it up several notches in MAC play to make either of those happen. He’s currently 18th in the MAC in scoring and 7th in rebounding, neither of which are bad, but among big men Knapke (UT), Johnson (WMU) and Williams (AK) are all putting up better numbers. Since Taj also adds some oomph to his game with steals and assists, he may get a boost there but not sure it’ll be enough to overcome a lack of dominance in the categories you expect big men to do well in.
-- We’ve done a lot of lamenting about Bumbalough’s lack of 3-point accuracy, which I think is justified. However, he’s now at 34% from 3, which puts him 13th in the MAC. Overall the team is shooting 34.6%, 5th in the MAC. Ish and Mallers are shooting at a higher percentage and I’d suspect they’ll sustain that, but if Bum could knock down 1-2 more a game it could make a difference in MAC play (especially since he leads the team in attempts).
-- Some folks say we’ll go as our 3-point shooting goes. Well, maybe. 4 of our wins (and 2 losses) have come when we’ve shot better than 30%. We are 3-4 when shooting below 30% from 3.
-- We are 0-4 against teams ranked in the top 100 in scoring defense. There are 3 MAC teams in the top 100 (NIU, Akron and EMU) and Kent is at 103. On the other side there are 5 MAC teams ranked 200 or worse in scoring defense.
-- Statistically, we’re pretty solidly mediocre among MAC teams entering league play: 10th in scoring offense, 2nd in scoring defense, 5th in 3PFG% but first in 3PFGA, 10th in FT%, 9th in total rebounds, 7th in Assist/TO ratio, 5th in blocks, 6th in steals. I’d say most of those pretty accurately reflect our team, but the one stat that’s been pretty misleading recently is FT%, where we’ve been over 80% in something like 5 of our last 6 games.
-- Going into MAC play we have one of the worst records in the league. I think only Miami has a worse record, but there’s not a ton of difference between the best and worst, and some of that might be attributable to various strength of schedules. Our 260 strength of schedule ranking is about mid-pack in the league.
-- We beaten one team on the schedule I expected to lose to (Ga. Tech), lost to one I expected to beat (W. Ill.) and generally underwhelmed (gone 1-4) in games I would have considered toss-ups beforehand. These would be Evansville, Indiana State, N. Kentucky, Loyola and UTEP.
-- For a reminder, league coaches picked us 3rd preseason in the West. Toledo had 11 first-place votes. Overall, we were around 5th. We open at home with Toledo, then host Buffalo (picked second in the East). I’m not sure what those predictions are good for since EMU was picked last in the West and now stands at 9-2 with one of the strongest SOS in the league. Kent, also picked behind BSU, is 10-2 with the weakest SOS in the league.