OGT-MBB Nov 24 (Thu) 5:30 PM vs Xavier Portland, OR Radio: ESPN2

I see a team that can make a run for the conference championship and the final 4. Or were you wanting me to take off my orange and blue colored glasses? The season is way too early for that.

 

I think we need to put Alex on the floor and let him shoot some threes. Only and Tre and Will are better long range gunners, maybe Kowacie, if he is open. It is early and let him feel the ball in his hands when the bright lights are on. I bet he would surprise some people.

 

Unfortunately, I see a bubble team right now. Weak D and mediocre 3 point shooting are a bad combo. Weak D maybe can be adjusted/improved (it better be!), but the mediocre shooting is going to be a liability that keeps cropping up.

 

We scored 83 points tonight and we were shooting a decent clip until the end, when our guards got a little trigger happy trying to catch up. Offense isn’t the problem.

Defense, though, is a problem…

 

It looks like we had around 76 possessions, so 83 points is ok but not great.

KenPom currently has our offense ranked 43rd and defense ranked 52nd. Not too much of a difference.

2023 Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings

 

I like the flow of the offense compared to recent years of bizarro offense.

I agree defense seems to be the bigger issue, but nonetheless our pedestrian shooting % from outside might have us coming up short in games where we don’t defend (or it’s just a team that shoots really well from 3).

 

I saw a team that has some nice pieces and it plays an entertaining offense, but it is limited. If I had to make a snap judgement, it is there are too many new pieces to get everything to work to its best, both offensively and defensively. Defense especially. It is funny/strange how they can make great steals and runout layups and then watch the other team cut to the basket and make layups. It has to be tuning up instead of defense-adverse.

Offensively, can we make some close-in shots, please? It feels like they are sped up too much to be effective. Call it "Kasey Hill Disease". Kugel is getting close to having the light bulb turn on. If anything, he can take over the offense in the wings. I do hope Reeves is in a place that he can overcome. We shall see.

I said after FSU, Lofton is The Man. It is too simple, but he did not have a very good game overall and we lost against a pretty good team. My hypothesis is still in play. I thought Felder had about as sound of a game as I have seen from him. He may be upgraded from "brain fart" status to "given" status, which is not as good as "X-factor" but definitely something to build a team with. Jones is still in the "aw crap" mode, although he did score a couple of points.

I am SO glad we saw some CC and JJ playing together. You can't figure it out if you don't use it from time to time. Obviously, no one can get into foul trouble otherwise we don't have enough depth. I am not sure CC has a role in the NBA as a 4. He feels not quite quick enough. And X's big men were telling. He has some real work to do. At least he can block shots with authority. That may park him at the end of the bench there from time to time (probably a two-way contract player).

I think, besides Reeves getting up to speed (whatever that means), I think we need to get Fudge and Kugel hitting 3s, along with Richardson and occasionally Lofton, to make us a better offense. Nothing wrong with the play of Bonham, just that the other guys can do more. JMHO

 

If we could somehow combine the effort (emphasize on the word effort not scheme) on defense that Mike White's teams had at times with the offense of Golden, we would be cooking. To much to ask? Lord I hope not.

 

Did coach say anything about Reeves in the post game?

 

In the middle of the game, the announcers said he was asked about Reeves not playing and they were told it is/was a coaching decision (ie, not an injury). Telling.

 

Again, we would have scored even more had not started taking such bad shots at the end. We had a couple of droughts offensively, but generally we found ways to score.

I think our improved defensive rebounding has helped our defensive efficiency, but we are not where we want to be in terms of ball screen coverage, help defense, communication, and transition.

 

Yep, we're leaving too many shooters open from 3, and letting too many uncontested shots go in the paint. I don't know if that can be fixed during shoot-arounds between games in the PK tournament.
When I watch, I see the biggest defensive lapses are mostly by the younger dudes. Kugel, Fudge, Reeves, Richard, Bonham. These are all athletic guys with scoring ability so they need to play, but will be defensive liabilities for a while. As they start to recognize what's going on, I think our defense will start improving bit by bit. Team defense is the hardest thing for the newcomers to pick up, especially when they're ALL in a new system.
The only consistent defenders I see right now are Colin, Lofton, and Lane. Felder isn't bad but struggles against the bigger post guys, and JJ gets position but has trouble with foot speed and fouling. Myreon...well...7th-year seniors shouldn't be fooled by that backdoor cut.

 

I don’t disagree. But we always knew this team would struggle from the outside. The best returning shooter was Felder, and everyone else was 34% or lower last year. We hoping some would improve with development (Reeves, Richard, Fudge), fewer minute (Lofton), and more confidence (Jones), but we were never going to be a team that excels at the three point line.

 

I'm not the coach (obviously), but Kowacie's demeanor on the bench last night tells me the message was received. I don't know if he starts today, but I expect he'll see plenty of minutes.

 

The camera dwelled on him quite a bit. Maybe my imagination but it appeared that he could see himself in an arena monitor somewhere and he looked like he wanted to crawl under a rock. Probably not fun for Lane either being on camera next to him.

 

Xavier held to 64 today by Duke. Huge difference in the intensity on defense between our Gators and Duke.

 

What is this defense you speak of?

I'm not sure the offense has gotten better than the defense has dropped off.

 

This offense is immensely more productive. Defense looks bad, but again there are a ton of new pieces and it is generally less experienced than the group we had last year. Lots of 4- and 5- year guys in Appleby, McKissic, Fleming, Duruji, plus Jones and CC. We only have CC, Jones, Lofton, and Felder in that category this year. That makes a difference when it comes to defensive intensity and ability to identify and change this up on the fly.

 

The defense is worrisome. We can look good against lesser teams but against hood teams, we'll have to see. One 50% 3pt shooting team makes me think they just got hot because nobody is guarding them. Although I missed the game, two in two weeks makes me think nobody is guarding them and it could be a trend. Good grief, we gave up 50% more points than Duke did, 50%. If that's the mythical standard, we got a long way to go real soon.

 

They were very different situations, IMO. Three of Xavier's non-shooters (0-7) on the season went 6-7 in that game. Their decent shooters went 4-13. We got whipped by FAU's small ball, but I think our strategy just backfired on us against Xavier.

Also, comparing us to Duke is a little unfair. They play a much, much slower brand of my ball. By my count, they had about 20% fewer possessions against Xavier than we did. And at halftime, we have already scored 80% of the points Duke did against Oregon State.