JacobPadilla wrote: Ashworth is the best example of this. There's no doubt he's been a miss to this point, but he was also a pretty darn good player before he came to Creighton and there's a reason the staff went after him and outside observers were high on the fit between him and Creighton. Even with the physical limitations, this thing would look a lot better if he was simply hitting shots anywhere close to his normal career rate (Matt detailed the difference in unguarded C&S looks this year compared to last year in the pod, and that has little to do with competition level). The only way this thing works is if he settles in at some point and gets back closer to the guy they thought he could be.
Well, about that.
Ashworth's overall stat line last season was glittering. 46% from the field, an eye-popping 45% from 3land, and 16.2 ppg. Holy cow. Let's back up the NIl truck and sign this guy. But, sometimes, the numbers inside the numbers tell a little different story.
In Utah St.'s three games against San Diego State and their one-and-done NCAAT game vs. Missouri, the glitter came off his stats. He shot 38% from the field, just 28% from above the arc, and 12.7 ppg. In their other six games against tourney teams (3 vs. Boise, two against Nevada, and Oral Roberts), he shot a little closer to his season stats: 41% FG pct, 38% 3pt pct, and 15.3 ppg, but still below his overall numbers (numbers that were even more skewed by his singular performance against Oral Bob when he turned into Steph Curry and fired an insane 8 for 9 triples).
You could reason from all this that maybe he fattened up a little on substandard competition, but hit a bit of a wall against tourney-level opponents, especially our nemesis, SD State. What concerns me is that of the 18 reg season games left, maybe 14 are against teams that are better than anybody Ashworth played against last year, except SD St.
But there's something else. R2 led the team in minutes played in 17 of 38 games last year, by far more than any other one guy. (Scheierman was next with 10). You'd expect that from your point guard. You naturally want him out there whenever the game's on the line, and in nearly every other situation too. Nembhard would have led the team in that category his freshman season too if he hadn't missed the last eight games with a broken wrist. But, so far this year, Ashworth has led in minutes played only once, vs. ND St. Trey's taken on almost all the burden in that department.
Last year, Ryan played 47 of 50 minutes in our double OT game, including all ten min. of the overtimes. His first year, we had another 2OT game, and he played all ten of those minutes. This year, for our OT game, Ashworth rode the bench the entire time. He wasn't in foul trouble, he wasn't hurt. Mac just said later he wanted a bigger defender in there. (For the record, Ashworth is listed as one inch taller than Nembhard). Saturday, when we never trailed by more than six and led most of the way, Ashworth logged 20 minutes, the same as Bello, and by far the fewest of any starter. (The old cliche in football is that if you play two quarterbacks, you don't really have a quarterback. If we're playing two point guards 20 min each, do we really have a PG)? R2 played 20 or fewer minutes once last season, in a 30-point blowout win in early November.
I think the real question isn't what any of us think about our PG, and when, or if, he'll start to consistently put the "point" in point guard. The real question is whether Mac has any confidence in him in high leverage situations after nearly half a season and, if he doesn't (and there are troubling signs that that's the case), then where are we?