The Jekyll/Hide Invitational and What's wrong with Josh

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, if that's true, here's a 2,000 word post about this weekends tournament:


Courtesy of ESPN.com, you can see that we had two incredibly different games against roughly equivalent teams. Friday night (left side, against UT Pan Am) saw arguably the sloppiest performance of the year. There were numerous lead changes, and we never really could get on track and get the offense rolling. You can tell by the flat line for UT Pan Am over the last few minutes that they actually panicked when they realized they had enough of a lead to win the game. Josh Young at that point ceased his Charles Barkley like Space Jam problem that had been plaguing him most of the season. By getting his mad roundball skills back, he was able to drill a three and then hit a pull up jumper to win it. Fortunately, thanks to some help from our friends at Pan Am, we got an absolute gift at the end and we were able to pull it out.

To follow that insanity up, we started Sunday's game (right side above) against NC-Central appearing to throw down a repeat performance, and then subsequently decided out of nowhere it was time for the real Drake Bulldogs to suit up. We absolutely hammered down the pedal and made it rain from three en route to a blowout win that virtually doubled up NC-Central's score. We shot 15-29 from three as a team, and had seven different Bulldogs hit one. It was quite an impressive display from the outside.

So what's the deal with this team? Well, it's obvious that consistency is an issue. We're still feeling out our identity and trying to get better with each game. With so much lost from last team, leadership is an issue as well.

But that wasn't good enough for me. For me, while I see that 15.1 PPG average from Josh Young, I think we're absolutely kidding ourselves if we think he's been playing at the same level as he did last year. I keep wondering, "What's wrong with Josh?" Why is he just not as dominant as he was last year?

After digging through the numbers, I think one breakdown I looked at spoke for itself. Below is a breakdown of Josh's shooting when we look at games when Drake has either 0-19 or 20+ team assists:

	FGM	FGA	3PM	3PA	PTS
20+ Team Assists	6.3	11.3	4.0	7.0	20.3
0-19 Team Assists	2.8	9.8	1.2	5.8	12.0

It should clearly stand out that he's both getting more shots and hitting them at a much higher rate when our offense (and the point guard especially) is generating more assists. When we get 20+ team assists, Josh shoots 56% from the field and 57% from the three. When we don't have all of those assists, Josh shoots 29% from the field and 21% from the three.

I think this is a pretty easy point to visualize. When other people are causing the defense to collapse, Josh gets more shots and he nails them. When he has the ball in his hands for 10 seconds at a time and has to force a shot, it's just not going to be as good of one.

Another interesting look that helps explain this:

	FTM	FTA	AST	TO
20+ Team Assists	3.7	4.0	1.3	1.3
0-19 Team Assists	5.2	5.6	1.6	3.2

To me, I think it makes sense that the more we force Josh to create the offense, the more he's getting to the line. That's fine and all, but it's taking away from more of his set shots that he is better at.

Even more noticeable is that, his assist to turnover ratio is right at about 1.0 (roughly his career average) when we are getting great point guard and offensive play. When we don't, you can clearly see that he's forcing things and that ratio drops to about 0.50 - which is brutal. Comparing that with the stats above, you can see when we have to force our offense, Josh is averaging more turnovers per game than field goals.

To me, I think it's clear that (a) JY should never EVER play the point guard position (b) Stanley/Parker need to continue to develop at the one, and (c) the offense and the flow on that end need to continue to improve. We need more consistency and production out of this team.

Overall, Josh is just not the type of player that can score points in a Kobe Bryant type fashion. It's not meant to be a knock - he is absolutely a dynamic player - but you have to use him the right way. I think we saw how that works when he has an Adam Emmenecker at his side, and how much he can struggle when you take that away.

For me, this team is going to continue to improve. As that continues to improve, I'd not be surprised if we don't see Josh's scoring average start creeping back towards that 20 PPG mark.