by Chicagojayfan » Thu Nov 23, 2023 10:28 am
Nice article Jacob!
Team is still a bit of a work in progress, but through it all the offense is scoring at a great pace against just about anything our opponents have thrown at us. We simply have a lot of weapons, we share the ball, and have a lot of guys who can make plays.
I think yesterday was a good experience in the way they played Alexander. In some games that will lead to defenders picking up a lot of fouls, but there will be games in the BE and the Tourney where teams try to do that against us, and against Armstrong in particular, and we will have to be ready because the refs won't always call that
- Kudos to Baylor for what he did in the offseason - he did what he needed to do physically and the kind of year he's having could propel him higher in the NBA's estimate. He's showing us a more polished and wider range of offensive abilities this year, and is much more physical and confident with the ball in the paint
- We also saw what Kalk's been working on this year. Him taking 8 3PT shots isn't high on the list of game plans for Mac, I'm sure, but the fact that he can make them give us a lot of options and will force teams to think hard about who to leave open
- I think Mac made the smart move with Traudt and going to small ball yesterday. We know that Traudt simply isn't made to be chasing around small wing players and while I'm sure he'd have some advantages, Mac went with the safer choice of playing Bello.. and hard to argue given how well Bello's played this year - .471 from 3 this year, and he will continue to get a lot of open shots with this team!
- Miller was missed yesterday, IMO. I think he plays more minutes than Traudt as he can Defend those wing players more effectively, and I think he's more active in scrapping for loose balls and keeping rebounds alive with his mobility and length right now
I think some of the thinking about what people were saying around the team's energy yesterday and believe a few things feed into that. I personally think the team is playing hard, but still learning to play without thinking too much on both ends of the court:
1. The Defense has been generally pretty good, but not to the level we want it to be this season (Kenpom has us as 29th adjusted D vs. 14th last year). First half yesterday was a relatively poor defensive performance, IMO (1.057 PPP), and overall we didn't really hold them under their yearly offensive performance, but the second half was definitely better (.903). I think missing Miller hurt us defensively a bit, but the new faces will take time to gel with the Team defensively - it's telling that the halftime adjustments the coaches made were so effectively implemented to start the second half. I really think this D can be top 25 and a bit better this year as they get locked in more
2. We are a work in progress on offense. We are still adjusting to having 3 new guys on the floor a lot and while everyone moves the ball and is a good passer, we still haven't really hit our stride (something that should be scary to other teams!).
3. But, despite that, our offense is so good that it is still exploding for pretty long stretches and taking/extending leads because teams really do have to pick their poison, but we do it almost so easily that we don't look super fired up sometimes as we systematically pick apart the opposing defenses. Kenpom has us as the 2nd ranked Adjusted offense, and while competition will get more difficult, that isn't a mirage, as the competition goes up, this offense can adapt
As an example - yesterday we blew apart Loyola's D in a way that not even Florida Atlantic did this year (105.6 offensive rating versus 127.5 for us (1.354 PPP per Statbroadcast) while the other 3 games they played they held teams under 1 PPP. That's pretty similar versus the other teams we've played this year - even Iowa's D had been pretty good against every one else (worth watching to see how well Oklahoma does against their D today, though)
Last edited by
Chicagojayfan on Thu Nov 23, 2023 11:47 am, edited 1 time in total.