IUPUI 88, Drake 82

Well, that will teach me to leave DSM when Drake has a home game. Apparently while I was in AZ, Drake and IUPUI played one of the most offensively efficient games the Knapp Center has ever seen. I was only able to catch bits and pieces on the radio, but it seems like a shootout is an understatement for what I missed.

Since I did in fact miss the game, no real first hand feedback on how the guys looked. That said, here is the Four Factors Scorecard for Saturday's loss:IUPUI shot an unbelievable 33-49 (67.3%) from the field, and a sizzling 10-17 (58.8%) from three. That combines for a ridiculous 77.6% EFG% for the GAME. I have a hard time visualizing what that looks like in person, other than pretty much scoring at will, particularly inside the arc.

The thing about it is that Drake had a fantastic shooting day with an EFG% of 62.7%. A lot of that was driven by Ryan Wedel's line of 8-13 from the field and 4-6 from three, but there were others that had strong shooting days as well (Simons, Eaddy, Stanley). Tough to believe that we shoot that well and lose.

The offensive rebounding is clearly a determining factor here as well. IUPUI got an amazing 7 offensive rebounds considering they only missed 16 field goal attempts. With that, they won the battle of the boards and also managed to keep us off the boards fairly well with an OR% of 16.7%.

Drake did manage to force 17 turnovers, an effective rate of 25.8% -- which was above average. Looking through the numbers, it seems to me like the only way we were able to stop them from scoring was to get them to turn the ball over. If they got a shot up, it seems likely they were putting points on the board. We also took great care of the basketball in this game. In addition, with a 17/11 AST/TO ratio, we appeared to really set others up. Frank Wiseler had a fantastic 7/0 line of assists to turnovers.

Still, that win for DU combined with a push on getting to the line were not nearly enough to overcome the rebounding and shooting disparity that they put themselves into. By outshooting and outrebounding us, IUPUI took this game from us despite not managing to take care of the basketball as well as us.

TAKEAWAYS

With how well we shot the ball, I'm not even all that concerned with our offensive rebouding % being so low. I think that's always going to be a flaw with this team, and I'd consider it to be a success if we can get to the low to mid 20%s. In addition, the 36.8% doesn't bother me for the same reason. We shouldn't expect to be winning this battle given our roster makeup, but if we can close the gap (maybe target low 20%s for us and 30% for opponents) I think that puts us in a position we can overcome with our strengths in other areas.

The EFG% disparity absolutely shocks me. Drake should not ever trail in this by 15% to anyone, regardless of whether or not we're missing Josh Young. In addition, a team like IUPUI should not shoot 10-17 from beyond the arc, considering the two guys that drained 10 combined threes are career 42% and 30% three point shooters.

If Robert Glenn drops 37 points on 15-17 shooting, I am now absolutely fearing the type of line that Craig Brackins could drop on us. Hopefully this becomes a wake up call to our interior defense and we pick it up, or else this could become an even more exposable weakness for upcoming foes.