Forum › Forum › Lehigh Sports › Lehigh Men’s Basketball › Holy Cross – Game 27 (PL's 14th)
This topic contains 26 replies, has 12 voices, and was last updated by LU65 10 years, 11 months ago.
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February 14, 2014 at 10:45 pm #13629
KenPom
HC (15-10,9-4) Ranked 140th
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LU (13-13, 6-7) Ranked 225th
HC wins 64-63 (54% chance)Since we last met up in Worcester, we have won 5 of 7 but got hammered in our two losses – by 19 to Army and by 20 to American. On the other hand, Holy Cross has won 8 of their last 9 with their only blemish being a 6 point loss to American. The Crusaders are riding a 3-game winning streak and look nothing like the team that started PL play going 1 and 4.
It safe to say that based on our showing against American two nights ago and the effort we put forth up up in Worster on January 18th, our team has a lot to prove to themselves, to their fans, and to loyal contributors to this Board. No better time than tomorrow. A win puts us back in the running to finish in the Top 4; a loss would bring us closer to 7th thru 10th consideration when it’s all said and done and with it the need to start our Playoff run on March 3 and not March 5. Not the end of the world, but as tired as this team looks, every off day is important. As for “something to prove to themselves,” remember in Game 1 of our HC series this year, our starters went 10 for 38 (.263) “led” by Mackey’s 1 for 11 showing. I would expect Mackey and others are chomping at the bit to get this game underway.
Great Day of Action on Saturday
HC @ LU 2pm
AU @ LC 2pm
Army @ Bucknell 7pm
CU @ Navy 7pm
BU @ Loyola 8pmFebruary 15, 2014 at 10:53 pm #13634Another weekend,another sweep. A bit depressing. The right spot ,we played an entire game. Have to learn how to close. WBB, well they just cant shoot.
February 16, 2014 at 12:16 am #13635Another rough loss. Kempton had a nice day. I think we win this game if we get the Good Justin Goldsborough. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the good version today.
If Austin makes a big improvement in his finished before next year, he immediately becomes a 12-14 ppg guy. I’m really hoping he makes that jump. Right now he is so slow,soft, and tentative when he goes up to finish.
Really like what we saw from Simelton today. He is going to be real good by the time he’s done I think.
February 16, 2014 at 4:01 am #13638This game was one of those win-able once, but unfortunately LU lost it.
Actually, one thing bothers me, and it makes me confused at the same time. If you take a look to 3-point stats, it is easy to figure out who’s on the top with 45.8%. The next best is 39.1% and so on. If you isolate PL games only, SC is actually 50% from 3-point line. How many shooters in D1 have % so high, I’m wondering. How could you afford not to place the ball to his hands to let him to shoot at least 7-8 times per game (no play for him at all). Last two games he had only 2 “accidental” shots in each game (1of2). As far as I understand this game 3-point shot is a very powerful weapon. Do we use it properly?…I don’t thinks so, sorry.February 16, 2014 at 5:50 am #13641Hard to identify anything specific in this one – just came up a bit short. Hard to play from behind the whole game, but HC just shot the lights out early on. Ball security was better, but still room to improve.
Biggest things that jump out in the box, to me: HC had 21 free throw attempts to our 8; I’m not clear on the cause of that. We had plenty of attempts and points in the paint. Next biggest thing was 3 for 11 on 3s in the 2nd half. Live by the 3, die by the 3 I guess. I still feel like we need to find a way to turn more misses into 2nd chance points. If you start missing all of your 3s, you’ve got to put some back. HC got us 12-5 on 2nd chance points.
The most painful part to me were the two fast breaks with numbers in the 2nd half, back-to-back, where we came away with nothing. A 3-on-1 and a 3-on-2, as I recall, and we didn’t even draw a foul on either.
On the upside, we get Navy next…P.S. Foul trouble certainly hurt too. TK was very good, but only 27 mins; and JG only had 10 mins.
February 16, 2014 at 4:13 pm #13644Naim, I couldn’t agree more…………
When it comes to guard play alone, our best shooters (shown below with both their season-long FG% and season-long 3FG% shown after then initials) are taking what appear to be a disproportionate number of shots over the past four games (1 win/3 losses). Here are the numbers listed in order of season-long FG% and season-long 3FG% followed by the % of guard FGAs over the last four games.
CS (.451) (.391) – 16.0%
SC (.410) (.458) – 11.8%
MM (.407) (.324) – 32.8%
AP (,386) (.390) – 28.6%
DC (.375) (.000) – 5.0%
MS (.365) (.231) – 5.8%As for the playoffs, while it may look like we’re closer to slipping into 7th than rising to 4th, the latter is not out of the question given 4th place Army’s recent troubles (3-game losing streak) and the fact that 5th place Bucknell has BU and AU still to face along with, of course, a game against us. Our last four are against teams with a combined W-L record of 18-38. So, as they say, anything is possible.
February 16, 2014 at 4:23 pm #13645Thanks 65
Never fails to give us some hope to look forward to, apt after another negative weekend sweep for LUBB. TK and MS do appear to be adapting.
February 16, 2014 at 6:16 pm #13646Thanks LU65, but I just wanted to add another interesting look at the stats regarding 3FG.
Total minutes/Total number of scored 3’s ratio
AP – 715/48 = 14.9
MM – 948/33= 28.72
JC – 736/32 = 23
CS – 898/27 = 33.26
SC – 254/22 = 11.54
MS – 251/3 = 83.66
If you don’t respect all these numbers, you have a problem in your concept.February 16, 2014 at 6:21 pm #13647Quote: “Actually, one thing bothers me, and it makes me confused at the same time. If you take a look to 3-point stats, it is easy to figure out who’s on the top with 45.8%. The next best is 39.1% and so on. If you isolate PL games only, SC is actually 50% from 3-point line. How many shooters in D1 have % so high, I’m wondering. How could you afford not to place the ball to his hands to let him to shoot at least 7-8 times per game (no play for him at all). Last two games he had only 2 “accidental” shots in each game (1of2). As far as I understand this game 3-point shot is a very powerful weapon. Do we use it properly?…I don’t thinks so”
A few comments:
1. SC is a spot-up 3-point shooter, who is not a threat to take the ball to the basket and who doesn’t really create his own shot. So whether he gets a lot of open looks from three – or a few or none at all – mostly depends on the defense. Do they give a lot of help inside? Do they switch on picks? How do they defend ball screens? Etc. The only way LU could guarantee him 7-8 three point attempts a game would be to tell him to chuck up bad shots while closely guarded.
2. Three-point percentages from year to year are very inconsistent for many shooters – since the number of attempts is usually fairly low and a lot of it depends on usage, game context, confidence, and whether a player has a couple of hot streaks. SC hit 37% of his threes his first two years – on 130 attempts. That’s reasonably good (the PL average this year is 36.4%) but certainly far from great. It may be that Reed, from watching SC in practice for three years, views that as his natural level and doesn’t want any forced threes from him. In PL play this year, he is hitting 47% – but that is on a sample size of 36 shots. Not a lot of shots to draw any dramatic conclusions. Had he missed three more shots, he’d be close to his historic 37%.
3. One example of the context of the game was SC’s 3-point streak vs Bucknell when he hit 4-4 from beyond the arc in a fairly short time span in the second half. He got those open looks because Bucknell has no true center and opted to double-team Kempton whenever he established good post position. Good ball movement then led to open shots for SC. Had Bucknell opted to play SC straight up with a good defender, he wouldn’t have had those open looks – but Kempton (and Goldsborough) would have scored more. So the big men and the ball-handlers deserve a fair amount of credit for those threes.
February 16, 2014 at 6:50 pm #13648Thanks Bison for your input, but, please tell me who else on this team creates own 3-point shot except MM, none. CS is possible next one, but take a look to his total min/3-point ratio, so the answer is right there, but the ball certainly spends a lot of time in his hands. CJ is gone long time ago, you probably saw him yesterday, but he was cheering for his teammates, so I don’t buy into that story at all. I’ve seen a lot of good shooters coming after single/double screen getting the ball snapped into their hands, they don’t need to necessarily create own shot. You do have some points about samples, I agree, but that may only work for SC, because he missed all those sloppy pre-season games, when it’s easy to trigger with no much of the responsibility. He could be even higher in his %, unfortunately he had to deal with his injury’s. We all know that PL games are different animal with different responsibility.
I am not trying to say here that this would solve all the problems in this world, but small adjustments sometimes mean a lot in this critical stage of the season.
This team lost another game that put me into deep depression, sorry.February 16, 2014 at 9:30 pm #13649I am one of those who does not understand why SC is not getting more time or for that matter MS. The question is why AP continues to get a pass on this blog as well as with playing time. Over the last 10 games AP is 26-78 from the field if you discount the game at American he is 18-64 (28%). Along with this he is averaging 2.7 RBs (improvement for sure but not great) less than 1 assit, less than one stl, and 1.4 turnovers per game, while averaging 26.7 minutes. I like APs potential but can’t understand why he continues to warrant unproductive minutes. One or two games can be an considered ups and downs but 10 games is a trend. I am not a college basketball coach and you cannot argue with Coach Reed’s success he has been great at Lehigh. Just looking for thoughts.
February 16, 2014 at 10:00 pm #13651Love the postgame discussion and wanted to add a few thoughts.
I think SC is very valuable as a catch-and-shoot player, but I don’t think he is an elite shooter. He shoots a good %, but only limited attempts as 137 cited. Additionally, when a shooter is one dimensional (as SC is), the only option is to back up and shoot deeper threes. Bryson Johnson at Bucknell was a great example of this. Everyone knew he was a shooter but he still got attempts because 1) he had a quick release and 2) he would shoot from anywhere. SC has neither of those traits. Also, while SC might not have “plays” run for him, no one else does either. Next time Lehigh runs a set play to get a designated guy an open look will be the first time this season. This is a motion and pick & roll offense. Mackey usually gets a pick from a big, and that IS the offense. You can freely critique that, but I think is totally unfair to make it sound as though SC is getting an unfair shake in the offense. He played 23 minutes yesterday and got up two shots. I don’t think that is a reflection on anyone but him.
As far as AP is concerned, I have tried to be pretty fair. As I said above, he has been really poor at finishing this year. His 38% 2 pt shooting is a reflection at just how poor. Additionally, he has not contributed much in other parts of the game. Through the first 5 games he had 3 total rebounds and I made a joke that he must be running AWAY from the ball. While he still has a LONG way to go, he has improved in this area to average 2.9 boards a game in league play. That is a significant step up from the <1 per game through the first 5 games of the year. He’s also second on the team in steals. He can be a great player if he works on finishing in the paint and midrange and making better decision when driving (i.e. pass it every once in awhile).
I’m on record as saying I think MS can be a weapon for this team and is underutilized. He brings a dynamism that no one else on the team does. Did anyone else see the block he had in the second half yesterday? Amazing for a guy his size.
February 16, 2014 at 10:20 pm #13652I’m sorry StablerBum, I always respected your comments a lot but this time I totally disagree, how deep SC can shoot. He was never allowed to use that weapon. You need support from your coach to gain that kind of confidence to be able to shoot from deep. I was watching last year warm up before one of the games, and he was shooting farther than NBA line. He made probably 10 in raw from the same spot. One of the refineries was watching too, and he came to chat with him obviously impressed how he does it. I remember BJ missing 6 in raw, but Paulsen would still keep him in the game, BR is a different coach. Your observation is based on what, something that you have never seen, I would say.
BTW, he scored some very deep 3’s even when he was freshmen, you might’ve forgotten it.
Back to AP, he is very talented kid, but he is not ready at the moment to take the load. It is not only on offensive side, he’s very weak defensively too. If you take a look when he is in the game with CS, CS has to guard 2-3 inches bigger guy instead AP. We should wonder why.
Bottom line, we are loosing games that we should not, at least in my opinion. Is there any room for improvement, I think so.February 16, 2014 at 10:28 pm #13653Sorry Naim. Agree to disagree. I know you are an SC apologist, so I don’t expect you to come around.
If SC can shoot it from deep as well as you say, then he should let if fly. If he makes them, I guarantee you that he stays in the game. If he misses, then Reed is right to take him out. I don’t care how he shoots in warm-ups. Irrelevant. If he can shoot so well from NBA range, then he should let them fly. If he still shoots a high % then we can bash Reed to the end of time for taking him out. Reed watched SC shoot every single day in practice. In every interview where SC is mentioned, Reed makes a comment about what a great weapon he is. I’m not sure what you want. SC played 23 minutes, shot two 3’s and made one. If he can back up and therefore get more shots up, he should do it.
February 16, 2014 at 10:58 pm #13654What we see and what coach does could be like day and night.
We all think that we understand it, but there is more inside what’s available only to the coaches.
I can agree on those things.Thanks for reminding me StablerBum. I should not be here at all, as I wear “SC” glosses losing sense of being objective. I felt at one moment that I owed some info to this forum, but I’ve got sucked in somehow.
I am read only mode again.
Go Lehigh!-
This reply was modified 10 years, 11 months ago by
Naim.
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