Bryant – Game 13

[LU65Participant]

Game Time: Monday, Dec. 30th @ 7pm
Chance Athletic Center, near Smithfield, RI

Watch it live
http://necfrontrow.com/schedule.php?sport=MBB&home%2Caway=BRYWatch live on NEC Front Row

We await Game Notes from Lehigh and Bryant

KenPom Rankings and Chance of Winning

Bryant (7-7) 137th
Northeast Conference
@
Lehigh (7-5) 201st
Patriot League
Lehigh wins 74-67 (76% chance)

A look behind some of the Bryant numbers ………

> Six of their seven losses were teams in KenPom’s Top 100. Namely: Gonzaga, Harvard, No. Dakota St., Notre Dame, Ohio St., and Delaware. The seventh one occurred this afternoon (Sat) as Bryant, coming off a 7-day holiday break, fell to lowly Binghamton (ranked #343) by the score of 67-62. Apparently, the 3’s failed them, going 5 for 24. Heading into the game, the Bulldog’s Strength of Schedule had been #37.

> The NEC Coaches selected Byrant to finish 3rd in their conference this year behind Wagner and Robert Morris.

> 2012-13 season: first year eligible for D-1 postseason and appeared in the 2-13 CBI

> 4 do it all for the Bulldogs, or nearly so, as Jrs. Stark and O’Shea together with Srs. Francis and Maynard provide 84% of the scoring.

> 53.7% of the Bryant 2’s fall. Good for 37th in the nation.

> 87.9%….time you can expect to see 6’6” sr. forward Alex Frances on the court. He played 40 minutes in the Bulldog win over Navy and 45 in their OT loss to Delaware. I can only assume he’ll be up for us based on his 21 pt./14 reb. game at Stabler last year.

> When Francis isn’t shooting, you can expect the ball to come out of the hands of #12, 6’2” jr. guard, Dyami Starks who averages over 17 FGA/game with >40% accuracy rates from both inside and outside the arc. Only 18 players across American take a greater percentage of their team attempts.

> 34.2 rebound/game with a – 2.6 rebounding margin. Numbers we can perhaps live with.

> Only two Bulldogs stand @ 6’8” or taller and neither start. The pair average a combined 1.9 ppg and 2.9 rpg. Again, numbers we can perhaps live with.

> 931 = average home attendance. Just what we’re used to.

> Lucky 13? Triskaidekaphobia, anyone? At 7 and 5, this will be our 13th and final OOC game before starting PL play up in Hamilton, NY next Thursday. Everyone no doubt remembers the bad luck CJ and the team experienced when we went up against VCU in our 13th game last year. In case you need a reminder, here’s that fateful video of CJ’s final assist made to D’Orazio. http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-basketball/story/2013-01-05/foot-injury-knocks-cj-mccollum-out-of-game

> 00 as in LUHoops00 – the guy whose reports we await as he’ll on hand Monday night in Rhode Island to take-in the game.

[LUHoops00Participant]

Should be a good game and another good test to see how far we have come in past few months. Bryant got their layoff hangover out of the way today, in a brutal loss as 65 noted, so they’ll be fired up and ready on Monday. Francis has done well against us, he’s an active undersized big, good mid-major player. We need to open up featuring TK frequent and often on offense, and have him post or kick out if double comes. I didn’t get around to commenting on it last game but it was very evident versus Q that when SW is on the floor they were doubling with his man, and making SW shoot from outside, scouting report has been written that SW likes to attack off the dribble. For those watching, make note early Monday night where the double comes from, as my hunch is they will double and it will be SW man early.

As 65 noted, I’m thrilled and happy to report I’ll be live on Monday night. The gym is nothing special at all, a definite DII gym playing in DI hoops, as Bryant transitioned to DI within last 7-8 years if memory holds. It is all general admission and there will be a ton of seats behind LU bench. I went two years ago on new years eve and if there were 200 people there I probably missed 150 of them….too bad no one showed because CJ was ridiculous that game, just filthy, probably hit for 34/35 if memory holds as LU rolled up on Bryant.
Also – I recall we lost to them last year, on buzzer beater, so we owe them a nice win here in return trip.
Is anyone else going? I’ll be at Parentes pre-game for a few soda’s and light grub for anyone interested. I’ll be the guy dressed in brown. I’d love to see anyone who is attending.

00

[LU65Participant]

Sorry about that…………..KenPom’s forecast was reversed in my initial posting. It should read that Bryant is favored to win 73-67 (72% chance).

[LUHoops00Participant]

I will go lehigh 74-68.

[StablerBumParticipant]

Watched the live stream and that loss was a little disappointing. In the last few minutes some bad turnovers and missed opportunities on offense, along with an inability to wrap up lose balls and defensive rebounds on the other end of the floor. The game winning play was unfortunate, but the coaches should tell the guys to never save the ball under your own basket like Jesse did. He handed them a wide open layup as the game winner. Overall, I don’t mind the loss heading into conference play as it will certainly keep the team from being overconfident off a long win streak.

One thing that I think needs to be discussed is Mackey’s shooting. He is shooting <40% from the field and <30% from 3, and I think he is struggling with the increased burden on offense. He is a tremendous player, and absolutely fantastic in transation. That said, he has trouble finishing in the halfcourt and so far this season he has not been shooting very well from 3 (after a very hot start). I don’t think he should feel as though he needs to take over games offensively, since that really isn’t his game. He did hit some VERY big shots last night in the stretch run, but still only shot 5-14 and had some bad turnovers.

CB came back to earth with an ugly 3 turnovers and 4 fouls in 8 minutes. The big guys need to be more careful with the illegal screens as I have seen a number of them called on Lehigh this year, and unfortunately I think in every case it was the correct call.

[StablerBumParticipant]

Also, getting outscored 41-28 in the paint against a team we had a significant size advantage over was not fun to watch.

[gohawks63Participant]

Several head-scratchers from a coaching perspective. I watched the internet feed and the Bryant announcers commented the team had just come off a poor performance where the Bulldogs had struggled against a zone d. They were *surprised* that Lehigh did not employ the zone. Second, although TK and JC had decent numbers, it seemed Lehigh had gotten away from the low post game. Normally, Lehigh seems to try to feed the low block and establish an interior game. For some reason – in spite of a big size differential – Lehigh did not seem to do that in this game…

[vanParticipant]

TK really needs to work on pass out from double teams. When he continues to shoot against the double team it is essentially a turnover.

Team looked out of synch, passing was not crisp.

JC was a bright spot all night. Not impressed by anyone else on the floor.

When does AD get back?

[LUHoops00Participant]

I don’t have the time to give you guys a fully loaded recap, but it was a tough loss, really disappointed we came up short again in crunch time on the road. If you had told me we outrebound them and hit 50% from 3 and lose, I’d have called BS on you all day everyday. But, we couldn’t lock up on D and we had so many turnovers, especially in first half where we were really sloppy coming off the layoff. SBum, I had checked out MM shooting % before the game so it was fresh in my mind at the game, and agree, just trying to do to much sometimes, he was really getting the ball in guys hands at the wrong times…I hope we realize that TK isn’t GK in that he shouldn’t be used in pick and roll and cut to the basket only to receive a missile from MM while cutting to the rim, as it puts in in a bad spot catching while running to the hoop with bodies around him…we have to post TK up traditionally, and we weren’t doing a great job of getting him on the block and then getting him the ball. And when we did, I agree on the recognition of the double, I think he was frustrated a bit by some of the calls and getting ball in tough spots, so he kept going up with doubles and triples, to me this is coaching as much as it is the kid, as I saw him recognize some doubles earlier in the year…when we were getting him ball in right spot…this will get fixed and improve I believe. No reason he shouldn’t have had 30 against this team, no one in gym couold stop him, we did bad job executing on this mismatch, that was concerning.

SC shouldn’t be playing right now, lack of D and rebounding too much of a burden to play him with other options. I want more MS, one minute of action as we fell down 10 in 1st half and reed put MM back in. MS is maybe our best on ball defender and he’s not in and Reed and staff kept huddling trying to figure out how to slow down Maynard and CS wasn’t getting it done.

JC showed some brilliant flashes, man his upside is huge. Still so much promise, just has to come together here sooner or later, this year can be great still….starts tomorrow with big league opener.

[LU65Participant]

SB and Hoops00 bring up a valid and perhaps a worrisome concern when discussing Mackey. He’s not shooting well – particularly from long range as the stats below will show. And, in my humble opinion, he may start to fail us by trying to do too much. In other words, be “Mr. Everything” from leading shooter, assist man, defender, and on court floor general. No on to my knowledge is asking him to do it all. Maybe just stop trying. Something’s got to give and it appears after 13 games to be his shooting. To our pleasant surprise (maybe shock is a better word) we have other and talented scoring options in the guard corps alone – many first year men – able to shoulder the scoring load. Witness: AP 1st in FG% @.440 and 1st in 3FG% @.400. And, CS 2nd in FG% @.436 and 3rd in 3FG% @.351. In fact, MM is 3rd among our backcourt men in FG% and 4th in terms of 3FG%. To highlight the difficulty, seven of Mackey’s 14 made threes came in games 1 and 2. For the last eleven games, he’s gone 7 of 37 (.189).

Maybe spelling MM at the point is the answer to his shooting woes – if, in fact, we look to him for point production. I seem to recall Macky doing quite well at times last year camped out in the corner and coming off screens. It’s not like we don’t have others capable of executing the pg duties. CS, who you might refer to as “MM Lite,” is certainly one. With a career A/TO ratio of 2.18, he won’t hurt you. MM’s similar number thru 3 ½ seasons stands at 1.97. And, then there’s the need to see what we have in MS at the point. Off to a slow start (admittedly a small sample size of 129 minutes in 13 games), the jury is out with an A/TO ratio of 0.69 and a shooting percentage that ranks 4th among the guards.

Guard / AtoTO / PPG / RPG / FG% Ranking

MM / 2.21 / 13.8 / 3.0 / 3rd*
CS / 1.65 / 9.3 / 2.8 / 2nd
AP / 2.00 / 10.5 / 0.9 / 1st
MS / 0.69 / 2.5 / 0.8 / 4th
SC / 0.40 / 2.4 / 1.8 / 5th

MM is 4th when it come to the three-point shot with an average success rate of .298.

[StablerBumParticipant]

I want more MS, one minute of action as we fell down 10 in 1st half and reed put MM back in. MS is maybe our best on ball defender and he’s not in and Reed and staff kept huddling trying to figure out how to slow down Maynard and CS wasn’t getting it done.

100% agree on this. I understand MM is the only senior right now, and a 4 year starter at point guard at that. But you need to find a way to get Miles a little more run than that. Bryant was small and they could have played together. Also, Mackey wasn’t playing especially well and could have had a 2-3 minute break in each half.

[Author]

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