Postgame Thoughts... Louisville

[IthacaMatt]

Bell is still a net negative for us.

He has the highest usage% when he's on the floor out of the five forwards (including JT, not including Q) that may play.

Out of those five, he has:

Second Highest TOV%
Lowest Steal %
Second lowest Block %
Lowest Assist %
Lowest Rebound %
Lowest PER (It's at like 10.4)
Lowest in WS/40
Lowest in BPM

He's relatively ok in the eFG being second there, but he still has an eFG of 53%.

I'm not saying he can't get better, but right now, having him out there is still hoping to win the lottery to be able to retire. Again, he may be good down the line, but right now he's not worth banking on to start, imo.

Yes, all these things may be true, but last night he played a pretty good game compared to what we usually get from him. I think that's fair to say. Give the kid a pat on the back. He's been pretty bad, and everyone has been saying he needs to do more than sit at the 3 point line and shoot 3's. Last night, he did that. He wasn't great, but he was a contributor.

 

[Eric15]

I know it's water under the bridge but man I wish we could get that Pitt game back. If only Judah didn't make the world's most gentle entry pass to Jesse late in the game.

 

[Cusefan0307]

I know it's water under the bridge but man I wish we could get that Pitt game back. If only Judah didn't make the world's most gentle entry pass to Jesse late in the game.

Pitt/Bryant/St. John’s all had terrible end of game execution….As did last night.

 

[hoopsupstate]

The entire team played too fast last night. They have to slow down and play for each other. Several turnovers were just being impatient.

 

[dollarbill44]

That court was awful. Guys were slipping everywhere.

And Joe was getting rag-dolled all over the place in the first half and no calls.

 

[Sherman20]

Neither Pitt nor Louisville have a true PG and yet JB did little to take advantage of that, except for finally putting the press on in the Pitt game, which he waited too long to deploy. I do think he made a mistake moving totally away from man to man after he said he would play it some this season (lasted for 3 games or whatever). I know this is a broken record for years now, but you need a change up when teams are hitting outside shots and carving up the zone and our activity is poor. We should not have let a terrible Louisville Team score 69 points. Our defense is atrocious. The KenPom numbers are sub-100 and trending where they were last season.

 

[CardiacCuse]

Is pitt good?

yes thyre going to make the tourney imo

 

[capeorange]

That play where Judah sort of quasi-accidentally inbounded the ball, Louisville grabbed it and scored, but the refs reset everything... objectively, was that the correct move by the ref?

Yes. Judah was half in bounds and hadn't even gotten out in order to inbound the ball.

 

[IthacaMatt]

I know this is a broken record for years now, but you need a change up when teams are hitting outside shots and carving up the zone and our activity is poor.

I agree. At the very minimum, if guys aren't making rotations in time to challenge the shooters, then going man-to-man makes them personally accountable for defending someone. And if they still don't cover someone, you can't blame "good ball movement". It's your fault that your man beat you.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

I watched the ending half a dozen times and don't see anything to warrant a foul on Jesse at the end.

Great hustle play. Could have just watched.

 

[djcon57]

Just re-watched the first half to see if Bell was as bad as you said, and Bell’s +/- was 3rd-worst in the first half. Jesse, Benny and Bell were each -9 over the first 7 minutes before JB subbed them all out with L’ville leading 19-10. The replacement trio of Hima, Maliq and Taylor was then +14 over the next 8 minutes - with solid contributions from Taylor and Hima, for sure - and Joe and Judah both got hot at the same time (Joe’s driving layup in traffic and Judah’s prayer off the wrong foot over a defender were both fairly low-percentage shots, but we’ll take ’em).

Benny checked back in first, and immediately gave up an offensive rebound on a free throw that led to a Louisville 3 from Ellis. Jesse came back in next (SU led 29-27), and then both Benny and Jesse checked back out with just over a minute to play after Jesse picked up his 2nd foul with SU leading (32-31). Bol replaced Benny this time and immediately found Joe on a set back door play to push the lead to 34-31. (Nice call by JB, btw.) Then we closed out the half with Judah inexplicably turning the ball over at half court (leading to a fast break layup) and Bol fumbling a pass with under 10 seconds to play leading to Louisville’s jumper at the first half buzzer.

So the starting forwards/center ended up with Benny at -13 for the first half, Jesse was -10, and Bell ended up -9.

For the bench, Taylor was +8 for the half, Hima was +9, Maliq was +14 and Bol was -2.

So in summary, it wasn’t a great 1st half for Bell - but it was worse for Benny and Jesse if you want to go by the +/- numbers. Taylor was definitely the better option in the first half. But in the 2nd half - as I argued in an earlier post in this thread - Bell was pretty good, and I just don’t think he’s worthy of a lot of blame for our struggles (at least not tonight, anyway).

fwiw, Bell‘s BPM was outstanding last night, so sounds like your observations were dead on (Last night specifc)

Syracuse vs. Louisville Box Score (Men), January 3, 2023 | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com

Syracuse vs. Louisville Box Score (Men), January 3, 2023

www.sports-reference.com