Pre Western Michigan Thoughts

[Marsh01]

All Otto does is move around looking Orange. And we were voted the #1 mascot!!

Well he does do some nice somersaults

 

[shandeezy7]

Shane Whittington is the best player on the team by a mile. He's a 6'11 center with a quick spin move that reminds me of Rick Jackson's go to move as a senior, and he is capable of hitting mid-range jump shots to go along with it. He's not a strong guy at all, and I expect him to have trouble establishing position against Christmas (who will be a much better weapon against him than Keita will), but he is crafty enough and enough of a veteran to get some points anyway. I expect him to score double figures against us, at least.

At least?!? You thinking possible triple figures?!?

Appreciate the all-encompassing write-up, as always. I knew very little about WMU, so this helps a good deal.

 

[CorduroyG]

im with marsh. i want dayton, no doubt about it. if we play well against dayton we'd win comfortably, i have no doubt the ohio st game would be a low scoring 1 possession game with 2 minutes left.

 

[LAOrange]

I have Iowa State in my Final Four but (obviously) have Syracuse winning it all.

ditto

 

[SoBeCuse]

My opinion is that Dayton has the potential to be both the easiest and the hardest game of the two. I am rooting for Ohio St. because I think we can beat them and I don't want to run into the "good"version of Dayton.

There is no doubt though, that Dayton has some pretty bad losses and if we get one of those performances we are lucky.

Yeah, it's a tough prediction and wish for me. The 'good' Dayton you definitely don't want. They are athletic as well. OSU is what it is. Excellent defensive team and a bad offensive team like Syracuse. If Syracuse had more firepower and more guards/ballhandlers then I would feel better about the matchup. You can make the argument that EITHER Craft, Scott, or Smith would be the best defensive guards Ennis/Cooney have faced.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Very true. What worry about with Ohio State is that they are familiar with us having played us in 2012 (with a day turnaround time) and the fact that is by some miracle they have a great offensive game we will be cooked. I guess I still have nightmares of Lenzelle Smith Jr raining three pointers on us as I sat shell shocked in my seat in the TD Arena back in 2012.

Yeah and Joseph turnover city.

 

[LAOrange]

This is playing devils advocate here.

This is a NO brainer, give me Dayton, all day every day, and then twice on Sunday.


You always want the non-BCS school without the McDonald’s All Americans, Top 50 recruits, and loads of NCAA experience. And you ALWAYS want the team that gives you a chance to score. Grant and Fair would have room to operate because of Dayton’s lack of size.

I don’t care about OSU’s offense or shooting woes. This team would SHUT US DOWN and those non-stop empty possessions would provide them all the fuel they need. Also, remember they went UNDEFEATED in non-conference play. That’s right, no losses to teams that are not in the B1G and don’t know them as well.

And they have players with like 15 games of NCAA Tournament experience under their belt.

Absolute no brainer, we pray for Dayton. And then pray again.

And I absolutely hate Aaron Craft. If the officials call hand-checking and forearms we can get around the little twerp, otherwise it's Pittsburgh with rosy cheeks.

 

[zhanjuzi]

Greatly appreciated General and as always "I salute you!"

 

[MSOrange]

Thanks General! Another fantastic write up. One question - you say you expect Whittington to score double figures on us AT LEAST. Does that mean he might go for 100 on us? Just kidding - This might be one of my jokes that's only funny in my head. I have quite a few of those.

 

[Timonen]

I expect him to score double figures against us, at least.

So he might score TRIPLE digits? I don't like our chances if that happens!

Brilliant as always!

 

[Timonen]

Thanks General! Another fantastic write up. One question - you say you expect Whittington to score double figures on us AT LEAST. Does that mean he might go for 100 on us? Just kidding - This might be one of my jokes that's only funny in my head. I have quite a few of those.

NUTS! I just made the same joke hours later...so clearly your joke was funny in my head, too...and i'll read through better next time.

 

[ORRange]

This is playing devils advocate here.

This is a NO brainer, give me Dayton, all day every day, and then twice on Sunday.


You always want the non-BCS school without the McDonald’s All Americans, Top 50 recruits, and loads of NCAA experience. And you ALWAYS want the team that gives you a chance to score. Grant and Fair would have room to operate because of Dayton’s lack of size.

I don’t care about OSU’s offense or shooting woes. This team would SHUT US DOWN and those non-stop empty possessions would provide them all the fuel they need. Also, remember they went UNDEFEATED in non-conference play. That’s right, no losses to teams that are not in the B1G and don’t know them as well.

And they have players with like 15 games of NCAA Tournament experience under their belt.

Absolute no brainer, we pray for Dayton. And then pray again.

Almost always agree with Marsh. Not this time. Dayton has 5 rotation players that shoot over 38% from three. Yes 5. Ohio St can't shoot at all. I'll take on rosy cheeks with our PG please, not 5 bombers. Dayton can beat almost anyone when making threes. Dayton is our worst nightmare and OSU can't score against any team. LGO.

 

[shandeezy7]

NUTS! I just made the same joke hours later...so clearly your joke was funny in my head, too...and i'll read through better next time.

And I made the joke hours before MSOrange haha Good to see I wasn't the only one who thought that was funny!

 

[Timonen]

And I made the joke hours before MSOrange haha Good to see I wasn't the only one who thought that was funny!

See, I still haven't read through it all. After a typical General post, I need a cold shower and to step away from it all for a bit!

 

[MSOrange]

And I made the joke hours before MSOrange haha Good to see I wasn't the only one who thought that was funny!

You did beat me! Hey I actually had to fit some work in today before my 4 day weekend so I was a little slow to respond today.

 

[Toga]

See, I still haven't read through it all. After a typical General post, I need a cold shower and to step away from it all for a bit!

I'll usually have a smoke.

 

[realorange]

I'll usually have a smoke.

Damn, he is good but is he that good!?

 

[OrangeTown]

Marsh vs. General!!!

My dream matchup! Two titans collide. I love it!

 

[Consigliere]

Outstanding analysis. Thanks, General.

Looks like if we manage to get Whittington in any foul trouble it's lights out. Couple of very limited 6-8s behind him. How aggressively does he defend? With the athleticism mismatches at the 4 and 5 will he slide over to help much or stay with Rak/Baye?

 

[BuffOrange]

Good write up and good bit of tournament advice. For the same reason I am advising people to pick UVA to make a deep run. You'll be picking a team that few others are considering, and they're actually good! Like, number 1 seed good.

Yah I think fading Mich. St in that region is a must. Iowa St is the next most popular pick in that region. For all the talk of being the hot team, they needed a miraculous 3 to force OT vs Ok St at home on Sr day, and trailed Baylor most of that title game. They were fortunate to beat Iowa at home in the non-conf. I'm not sure how good their A game really is.
I think I'm just going with Arizona even though that's obviously not a rebel pick - they seem to be less popular than the Sparty/Fla/L'ville picks.

im with marsh. i want dayton, no doubt about it. if we play well against dayton we'd win comfortably, i have no doubt the ohio st game would be a low scoring 1 possession game with 2 minutes left.

This completely. I keep imagining the tv screen when cbs is coming back from the under 4min time out vs Ohio St. I cannot possibly see a scenario where the score is anything but 43-41. I do not want to be vulnerable to a phantom charge or bank shot so I'll take my chances with Dayton.

 

[Dave85]

As requested, I've provided a preview of the Western Michigan game, but I'm going to change my usual style up a bit to fit the tournament setting. Since this is such an unfamiliar opponent, it seems best to start with the overly basic stuff, then move gradually into a more broad discussion both of the game itself and of the tournament as a whole.


The first thing I always ask myself when Syracuse plays a mid-major is if they have the height to guard us. When the answer is no (like it was with Montana last year) things usually get ugly rather quickly. Unfortunately, Western Michigan does have the height to guard us, and is actually quite a big team. Their starting lineup runs 6'3, 6'4, 6'6, 6'6, 6'11, and even their bench is big at 6'1, 6'5, and 6'7.


The second thing I always ask myself is how the mid-major performed against other high-major competition. Its more unusual than you think for a mid-major to pull an upset in March without already having accomplished a similar feat earlier in the year. The good news here is Western Michigan only played two high-major teams this year, and lost both games. A bad 51-35 loss to a bad Northwestern team, and a halfway decent 66-60 loss to a halfway decent Missouri team.


The third thing I always ask myself is how they match up with us stylistically.


Most of Western Michigan's scoring comes from two players, Brown and Whittington, who are both fifth year seniors.


Shane Whittington is the best player on the team by a mile. He's a 6'11 center with a quick spin move that reminds me of Rick Jackson's go to move as a senior, and he is capable of hitting mid-range jump shots to go along with it. He's not a strong guy at all, and I expect him to have trouble establishing position against Christmas (who will be a much better weapon against him than Keita will), but he is crafty enough and enough of a veteran to get some points anyway. I expect him to score double figures against us, at least.


David Brown is a big muscular 6'4 shooting guard that will physically remind you of Brandon Triche. He averages 19.4ppg and is Western Michigan's (and the MAC conference’s) leading scorer. Brown is by far the most athletic player on Western Michigan (and the only player on the team you could comfortably label as athletic) but his game has a lot of holes. Brown is not an efficient shooter and needs a lot of shots to generate his nineteen points per game. Even against mid-major defenses Brown is only averaging 41% from the floor and 32% shooting from three. Against the two high-major teams Western Michigan went up against, his numbers are even worse - shooting just 8-33 (24%) from the field, and 1-16 (6%) from three against Northwestern and Missouri. Brown is at his best when he is driving to the basket and drawing fouls. Against MAC competition he was pretty good at doing this, but I have little doubt that Syracuse is going to go behind screens and force Brown to take deep jump shots which is something he is not afraid to do despite the fact that he is clearly not very good at it. Brown averages 8 three point attempts a game, which is far more than anybody else on the team. In fact he has taken almost 50% of the entire team's three point attempts for the season.


Brown and Whittington are going to take the VAST majority of Western Michigan's shots. The other three starters are the epitome of role players and the bench almost never scores. Though they go eight to nine deep, their bench serves the same role Gbinije and Keita do for us, which is essentially to give the starters a rest and fill in defensively but take over very few offense responsibilities.


Austin Richie is Western Michigan's point guard, and the only good shooter on the team (averaging 41% from three for the season). However he is not a volume scorer at all, only averaging eight points per game and one made three per game. He is a pass first point and is very unlikely to put up big scoring numbers himself.


Tucker Haymond is a relatively unathletic 6'6 freshman forward who averages seven points per game and only shoots a mediocre 32% from three, but if you are looking for that random nobody who might have a career day from three against us, he is the most likely candidate.


Connor Tava is the 6'6 forward who will play inside more often. They will alternate putting him in the high post and having him try to feed Whittington in the low post, and putting him in the low post as a decoy to give Whittington open shots. Tava is a solid mid-major player, but he's not big, strong, or athletic enough to bang with Grant or Fair and should be out-classed in this game.


To sum up, Western Michigan will play three out (Richie, Brown, and Haymond) and two in (Tava and Whittington) against our zone. Brown will take most of their perimeter shots, and will try to find driving lanes and draw fouls whenever he can. Whittington is going to alternate between the high post and the low post and is a threat to score in either position.


The last question you want to ask about Western Michigan is how they performed against Eastern Michigan, who, of course, is coached by Syracuse's own Rob Murphy and plays the same 2-3 defense that Syracuse does.


The first game against Eastern Michigan did not turn out too well for Western. They lost 56-37 and only managed 28% shooting for the game.


The second game was quite a turn around. Western scored almost 40 points more, winning 75-67. So, did Western Michigan figure out the zone? Despite the score, the answer seems to be no. Even though they put of 75 points, Western Michigan only managed 40% shooting for the game. A substantial improvement from the 28% they shot in the first game, but still a poor number. The real reason for the offensive explosion in this game was the 44 trips to the free throw line they earned. Think about how many free throws that is. In the first game they only scored 37 points total. In this game they had 44 free throws.


This was not such an unusual outcome for Western Michigan. They are not an efficient offensive team, and their wins are generally the product of solid defense and a propensity to get to the line a lot. These are probably the two worst qualities a mid-major team trying to upset a major conference team can have. Any basketball fan will tell you that the best athletes make the best defenders, and any referee will tell you that the best athletes get generally get the most calls (and thus shoot the most fouls). The things that Western Michigan could do in the MAC – namely shut people down and draw a lot of fouls - are things they simply should not physically be able to accomplish against a team like Syracuse.


Western Michigan is going to play tough man to man defense, but Grant and Ennis are going to have big time mismatches (I am assuming that Brown will be assigned to Fair, even though he could cover either Fair or Ennis. Technically Fair could be the one with the big mismatch if Western Michigan chooses to put Brown on Ennis) that will undoubtedly throw their defense rotations out of whack.


On offense, Western Michigan is going to need Brown (a very low percentage shooter) to shoot a very high percentage to even stand a chance.


Obviously Syracuse is not inspiring a lot of confidence with its play, but in my opinion Western Michigan simply does not have the horses to pull this upset. I make no claim as to what the margin of victory will be (we know that more often than not with Syracuse its not overly large), but this is a game Syracuse wins ninety-nine times out of a hundred.


If Syracuse pays exactly like they did against NC State (in a word, bad) they will still come away with a win. It will take a performance unlike anything Western Michigan has shown itself capable of so far to beat even a cold shooting Syracuse team.


Odds are I'm not going to have time this weekend to write up anything for our next game, so I will touch on it here. I'm rooting for Ohio State. They are as bad offensively as Syracuse is. They rely on their defense to win, and especially on forcing turnovers. Syracuse simply does not turn the ball over much, so they eliminate Ohio State's best weapon. Ohio State is arguably the best match up for Syracuse in the entire tournament. Obviously this is not guarantee of victory (if Syracuse played bad enough to lose to BC then then can play bad enough to lose to Ohio State) but I think there is a real possibility that Syracuse can play as poorly as they did against NC State and still come away with a close win in this match up.


Dayton is an interesting team. They remind me a little of a poor man's Duke in that if they are an offensive team that plays little defense, so when they hit shots they are very tough to beat, but when their shots are not falling they can lose to anybody. My guess is Ohio State's defense bothers them, and Ohio State gets the win, but there is a very good chance that Dayton gets hot, and if that happens they will most certainly win the game, because there is no way Ohio State can score with them.


Unless Syracuse plays Dayton AND Dayton happens to be hot from three, Syracuse probably only needs a C performance to reach the Sweet 16. Syracuse has shown they are capable of D and performance's recently, but you have to be happy knowing that its unlikely Syracuse needs to bring its A game to win.


If Syracuse reaches the Sweet 16 I will have another write up then covering how they got there and what they have ahead of them. Until then, I want to take a very quick look at the tournament as a whole. For the first time in my memory there are literally no favorites. The good teams fall into two groups. Teams that pass the eye test and have great records but have beaten NOBODY (Florida, Louisville, Wicihta State) or teams that have some good wins but also some major blemishes to their records (Kansas, Duke, Syracuse).


I believe Lousiville is the best team in the tournament and has the best chance to win it, but only by the tiniest of margins. If last years Louisville team (which was the best team in that tournament) had a 30% chance of winning it all, this year's Louisville team has maybe a 5% chance. There is a much better chance that something crazy happens than there is that any of the favorites win. If you haven't filled out your bracket yet, I recommend staying away from Louisville, Michigan State, and Florida (to win the championship, its fine to have any one of those three in the final four, especially Florida who does not have much competition in their bracket). Sure they are among the best teams but together they probably only have a 10 or 15% chance of winning, and almost everybody is going to pick one of them. I say go for broke and pick an underdog. If you choose right, you will almost guarantee you win your bracket. If you choose wrong but none of Lousiville, Michigan State, or Florida win, then you still have a chance.


Choosing an underdog this year (when nobody is a prohibitive favorite) greatly improves your odds, because when you choose the same teams everybody else chooses, you have to be right AND win the rest of the bracket too. That's a losers bet.


I personally wanted an underdog that was capable of getting hot and scoring in bunches for 6 straight games. I wanted someone battle tested and playing good basketball. I chose Iowa State to win it all. Do I think they are the most likely team to win it all? No. Do I think they give me the best chance of winning a bunch of money? Yes.


That's my tournament two cents.

General, do you think this is the year Pitt actually beats a higher ranked team in the NCAA tournament? Assuming they don't choke the first round, does Pitt have any chance at all beating Florida?

 

[Nicknack]

All Otto does is move around looking Orange. And we were voted the #1 mascot!!

First of all, General, hell of a job. I appreciate the effort and time you put into that post as much as anything. I gave you 10 LIKES, although I had to give you 9 unlikes to do it.

Hey Dave, glad to see you're drinking the Orange Kool-aid again, although I'm going to miss your pessimism.

As for Otto, hogwash, you must not have seen all of his moves. Pretty sweet down low move, I must say.

 

[torque]

i need help fellas! live streaming online is geoblocking, outside of the US. Can anyone get me the back door link so that I can watch the game back in Taiwan. Thanks!

 

[SoBeCuse]

Outstanding analysis. Thanks, General.

Looks like if we manage to get Whittington in any foul trouble it's lights out. Couple of very limited 6-8s behind him. How aggressively does he defend? With the athleticism mismatches at the 4 and 5 will he slide over to help much or stay with Rak/Baye?

I doubt he stays with Rak or Baye much. No need. We don't look that direction often.

 

[Consigliere]

I doubt he stays with Rak or Baye much. No need. We don't look that direction often.

Then that would be a good thing if we want to get him in foul trouble.