I'm calling last Saturday's win against Austin Peay the biggest game of the year so far for us. With only six in our belt, that may not be that fascinating of a statement, but consider the following two takeaways that stuck out to me:
Takeaway #1: The potential to rebound is there
Probably the biggest takeaway from last Saturday's game is that we really do have the potential to hold our own on the boards.
It was the first game we outrebounded an opponent, 37-32. That is absolutely huge for this team, considering how much we struggled in our first few games.
Still, you might take the point of view that we’re such a great shooting team that we should be out-rebounding our opponent because we’re likely to give them less opportunities for defensive rebounds (which are far easier to get than offensive boards). To that accord, consider the four factor scorecard from the last game:
Adjusting for opportunities, we still won the offensive rebounding battle 35.5% to 31.6%. In addition, giving up 31.6% to the other team is pretty acceptable as far as I am concerned.
Think about how much we improve on the offensive end of the floor if we can start to consistently offensive rebound more effectively. We are such an exceptional shooting basketball team that if we combine that with the ability to get our fair share of offensive rebounds – we have the potential to really become a force on the offensive side of the basketball. Our chances greatly increase when Seth Van Deest or Adam Templeton get putbacks to go, or if they feed the ball to someone spotting up from behind the three, like Ben Simons or Ryan Wedel.
I don’t think we are going to rebound at a 35% clip for the remainder of the season, but now that they’ve shown us they can do it, it really makes me excited about the possibility of where this offense can go.
Takeaway #2: We really broke out of the nasty funk our offense was headed towards
This is a chart that shows adjusted offensive efficiency.
What is that? Well, think of it as how many points we score divided by the # of possessions we have. The higher that number is, the more we (or the opponent) score each time down the floor. The standard is to show this number per 100 possessions. In addition, the national average for 2009 is 99.6, so consider about one point per possession to be a good proxy for average.
Why is it adjusted? Well, we want to take into account how good or bad an opponent is. For instance, we did a fair job holding Georgia State to 58 points, but consider that they are the #306 offensive team according to Ken Pomeroy. There were a fairly low amount of possessions in that game, so in reality that’s not that much of a gold star for our defense.
Let me now clarify the chart. I have shown offensive efficiency in blue, and defensive efficiency in red. Recall that 100 is virtually average, so when we’re above 100 on offense – that’s a good thing (we're scoring more points in our possessions than the average). Conversely, when we’re over 100 on defense, that’s a bad thing (we're allowing more).
It shouldn’t surprise you that we haven’t been below 100 on defense on an adjusted basis this year. No example should illustrate this better than Iowa State dropping a 90-spot on us, then later in the season being held to 60 against UNI. At this particular point in the season, UNI is a far better defensive team then we are, and it shows (in case you’re wondering – Ken Pomeroy has their defensive efficiency at 96.7 – it’s probably not the exact same way I would calculate it but its in the same range).
The game by game results are the following:
Game 1 = IUPUI
Game 2 = Iowa State
Game 3 = Georgia State
Game 4 = Akron
Game 5 = UCF
Game 6 = Austin Peay
We started off the season REALLY hot on the offensive side of the ball, which is no shock. With three games in the 115+ adjusted offensive efficiency area, we were flat out clicking along – primarily due to exceptional shooting (our EFG% was 61.4% for the first three games. The national average is 48.8% so far this season… shows you how incredible this team can shoot the rock).
However, things really took a turn for the worse once that Daytona tournament got to Saturday and Sunday. Our offensive ratings dropped below 100 and then down to 80! In particular, that fifth game saw us shoot 18-58 (31%) from the field. You can chalk it up to a bad day or two, but clearly the way those bars were going was a clear cause for concern.
Our ability to really turn things up (on the road nonetheless) was absolutely huge. I think it suggests that we’re a young, inconsistent team – but when we’re on we can really be fantastic on the offensive side of things. That is a breath of fresh air as far as I am concerned.
LOOKING FORWARD
Switching gears, let’s look forward to this weekend. I have the following thoughts on our matchups:
(1) SIU Edwardsville is very bad
- They’re 0-6 and many of those look pretty brutal. They were got dropped by 30 by Evansville.
- On the road, they’re 0-3 with an average margin of “victory” of -22.3 points.
- Mark Yelovich, #33, 6-6 So F, stands out to me. He’s averaging 13.3 PPG and 7.3 RPG in their six games. He’s only shooting 33% from the field, but to be fair their whole team is shooting 38.3% from the floor for the season. With two double digit rebounding games already under his belt this year, he could be pesky on the boards.
(2) I REALLY hope we play UT-Arlington in the Saturday game. They are a better team on paper than North Dakota (UTA is 3-2 so far with a narrow loss to North Texas, while NoDak is 1-6 with their only win over “Where’s” Waldorf).
Why do I care? Four of their five games have had at least 70 possessions, and they had an 80 possession game and a 95 possession game (granted, it was double OT). Initial thoughts are that they seem like a team that really likes to get the ball up and down the floor. I think our team would match up really well with an opponent like that.
In addition, UTA is among the worst rated defensive teams (when using adjusted defensive efficiency). With how well we shoot the ball, I am absolutely mystified at how a game like this would go. Assuming UTA keeps the tempo up this baby could be in the 80s or 90s – which would be an awesome treat. Long story short, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that UTA can take care of business against North Dakota so we can see some fireworks on Saturday Night.
My favorite part: Prediction Time
We should be way too much to handle for SIU-E, particularly on our own home floor. Might be close for part of the first half, but then I think we coast to a comfortable victory.
Drake 76, SIU-Edwardsville 59 (2-1 on season)
I don’t want to make any predictions for the other game or for Saturday, because I really want to see us play UTA. Like I said, I am keeping my fingers crossed.
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