by Chicagojayfan » Sun Jan 28, 2024 9:37 am
The Pink Out is a great event and it shows the best side of Mac, the Team, and all of the Fans
Not the kind of game that will change our KenPom or NET much so I can kind of understand the slower first half for the team. That said, I do think the new coach had them playing harder in some ways and one indication was that we had 0 fast break points in the first half. But that doesn't take away from our D that was a bit lethargic in the first half and how we gave up 1.156 PPP to them in the half
Offense:
I don't think we had a light's out shooting night (although a couple of people were very on target all night), but we moved the ball pretty well, though, and got mostly very good shots (DePaul's D really struggles with more than a bit of movement and passing) and put up a .578 eFG% (slightly below what we did against Xavier .588)
Defense:
First half D wasn't very good, but we tightened up considerably in the second half (1.156 PPP to .735 PPP from first to 2nd). They have some people who can score and last game out they had a good game offensively against Marquette so the D we saw in the second half was a quality outing
Turnovers:
Outside of UConn our Turnovers have been solid since the ugly stretch against Nova, Marquette, GT, and PRovidence, but I thought that especially first half turnovers by us were a bit sloppy and kept us from going into half with something closer to a 10 pts lead
Rebounds
We have some stretches with us giving up Offensive rebounds every game, but last night was another good game on the boards where we outrebounded them 41-30
Individual Play:
Kalk didn't have his best game finishing, but we consistently went to him and it gave us options on offense outside of depending on 3's to fall. They were playing him very physically inside and the refs mostly let the teams play on, and he was able to get the double-double anyway
Alexander was only 25% from 3 PT, but scored 8/12 from 2 PT range, and stuffed the box score with 7 assists and 4 boards
Baylor had a "quiet" 16 pts on only 9 shots, but also got the double-double by adding 10 boards
Ashworth finally started hitting more of those 3's w/ 5/9 from 3 PT range -- if he keeps hitting consistently, that adds an entire new dimension to the offense. As others pointed out, he took Jalen Terry mostly out of the game last night (Terry had put up 15 against Butler and 22 against Marquette in his last 2 games)
the 4's - not a great game for our PF's, but they only got 5 shots. Usually they are the last option on the floor when the game is in doubt and while we look for great shots, if a D gives us great shots earlier on, the 4's won't get as much usage -- and DePaul gives up great shots all of the time. I thought both Miller and Traudt did some good things, though
If anything disappointed me a bit it's that I thought the last few bench minutes weren't as sharp as I like, but Traudt got off the bench and hit a bucket, and we got a game where we had a chance to play King 12 minutes