SWC75
Bored Historian
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- Aug 26, 2011
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- I came into both this and the Pitt game with low expectations. We seemed to be a flawed team playing two of the better teams in the conference on the road and not only unlikely to win but likely to get badly beaten. My pessimism anesthetized me from the pain of defeat to some extent but I was concerned about the attitude of the team coming out of these games. Then the games turned out to be very winnable. We lead through much of them, only to let them slip way down the stretch. Now I see these games as major opportunities for big wins that would have held us in very good stead in all our goals- continuing the streak of winning seasons, competing for the conference title, getting back to the NCAA tournament, etc. But our hands are empty.
- Michael Gbinije has grown from a supporting player to a star before our eyes. The downside of that is that the other teams are gamep0lanning to stop him. They’ll have multiple defenders in his face for 40 minutes. That produces constant discouragement and fatigue beyond just him minutes played. He also feels the pressure of having to “carry the team” because his teammates either don’t have the ability to do so or aren’t consistent enough. These last two games two very good defensive teams have been certain to make his on-court life as difficult as possible. The result is that he’s been 7 for 26 from the field and 1 for 11 from three point range. In this game he also had 8 turnovers. It’s worked so obviously they’ll keep doing it. It does help that when Mike’s gotten to the line he’s been unable to make them pay: 9 for 19. They’ll keep putting him on the line, too, until he finds a way to make that a bad strategy.
- Our “net points” for this game: Mal Richardson and Tyler Lydon each 15. Very good Tyler Roberson: 3, Chinoso Obokoh: 0, DaJuan Coleman: -1, Trevor Cooney -3, Kaleb Joseph: -4, Michael Gbinije, the team’s star: -5. That’s bad, very bad.
- Our backcourt consisted of Michael Gbinije, Trevor Cooney and Kaleb Joseph. They were a combined 5 for 24 from the field and 1 for 13 from the arc with 10 turnovers.
- Our three point shooting in the first 6 games: 60 for 146 (.411). The 9 games since: 67 of 215 (.312). it’s not so much a team strength as it is, in the words of the Geico commercial, “what we do”.
- Our lack of a true point guard really hurts us against the aggressive defensive teams like Miami. And with the word out, aggressive defensive teams are likely to be all we will face the rest of the way. Gbinje can bring the ball up and they ever had to take him off that because it was wearing him out. They actually had Richardson bringing the ball up in his place. Frank Howard: get well- and get good- soon!
- Mike Hopkins is now 4-4 in his coaching tenure. I think it’s too short a sample under far less than ideal conditions, to make any judgements about his abilities as a head coach. Nut one trend I’ve noticed has been a tendency for the team to get off to bad starts in games. We were behind early against both St. John’s and Georgetown and never quite made it back into those games. We were ahead of Colgate 33-22 and Cornell 30-26 at the half. Vs. Texas Southern it was 40-36 at halftime. Against Pitt we were down 5-13 and struggled the rest of the half to get back to even at halftime, 30-30, (which was actually pretty good, considering. In this game you could say we were off to a good start because we had that 15-0 run to take a 20-9 lead. But both teams were playing horribly at that point. If we’d taken advantage of all our opportunities we’d have been up 30-9, not 20-9. Both the Miami and Pitt games were full of blown lay-ups, early turnovers, (which continued in the Miami game), and loose balls the other team always seemed to get. We have a thin team that’s probably going to struggle down the stretch. We can’t afford to dig holes for ourselves at the beginning of games. Comebacks always take more than the normal output of energy and we have a limited supply.
- Our formula is to stay close enough to the other team on the boards that our advantage in turnovers will make up for it. Against Pitt we got outrebounded by such a margin that that was impossible, (25-43 with turnovers 10-9). In this game the rebounding numbers were absolutely the same for each team: 12 offensive, 29 defensive. Nice. But we had 19 turnovers to their 12. So we were -17 and -7 in what I call “manufactured possessions. And that doesn’t count lose balls, which should be a stat and certainly didn’t favor us.
- We were called for 25 fouls to Miami’s 14. We went to the line 14 times and the Canes went 34 times. Mike Gbinije said after the game that he asked the refs “Why are calling touch fouls on this end and we’re getting hammered on the other end?” and the ref told him “I know, I know, you’re right”. So I guess the refs screwed us. We scored the same number of two point field goals as Miami and four more three point field goals. We were out-scored by 17 points from the foul line. Ball Game.
- There are three statistics I look at in an attempted to see if the officiating seemed one-sided. Players are more likely to get fouled on two point attempts than three point attempts. They are more likely to get fouled in the paint that outside of it. You can compare the number of two point attempts and points in the paint to the number of times the team is fouled. You can also look at the number of fouls shots the fouls produced. Syracuse attempted 4 two point shots and got fouled 14 times. That’s’ a ratio of 2.4 to 1. Pittsburgh attempted 27 two point shots and got fouled 25 times, a ratio of 1.1 to 1. That seems further proof that the refs were biased. But look at the second stat: Syracuse had 16 points in the paint and got fouled 14 times, a 1.1 ratio. Miami had 30 points in the paint and got fouled 25 times, a 1.2 ratio. Pretty close. We attempted 14 free throws on 14 fouls, a 1.0 ratio. They attempted 34 free throws on 25 fouls, a 1.4 ratio. So the refs “put them on the line” more than they did us. Now consider our turnovers: 19 to their 12. Steals were 7-12 and blocks 1-7. Fast break points were 2-20. Miami beat us at our own game: stealing the ball, blocking shots and fastbreaking off those pays for baskets- and trips to the foul line. It wasn’t biased refs that put them on the foul line 34 times. It was our own mistakes and their great defensive plays.
- Michael Gbinije has grown from a supporting player to a star before our eyes. The downside of that is that the other teams are gamep0lanning to stop him. They’ll have multiple defenders in his face for 40 minutes. That produces constant discouragement and fatigue beyond just him minutes played. He also feels the pressure of having to “carry the team” because his teammates either don’t have the ability to do so or aren’t consistent enough. These last two games two very good defensive teams have been certain to make his on-court life as difficult as possible. The result is that he’s been 7 for 26 from the field and 1 for 11 from three point range. In this game he also had 8 turnovers. It’s worked so obviously they’ll keep doing it. It does help that when Mike’s gotten to the line he’s been unable to make them pay: 9 for 19. They’ll keep putting him on the line, too, until he finds a way to make that a bad strategy.
- Our “net points” for this game: Mal Richardson and Tyler Lydon each 15. Very good Tyler Roberson: 3, Chinoso Obokoh: 0, DaJuan Coleman: -1, Trevor Cooney -3, Kaleb Joseph: -4, Michael Gbinije, the team’s star: -5. That’s bad, very bad.
- Our backcourt consisted of Michael Gbinije, Trevor Cooney and Kaleb Joseph. They were a combined 5 for 24 from the field and 1 for 13 from the arc with 10 turnovers.
- Our three point shooting in the first 6 games: 60 for 146 (.411). The 9 games since: 67 of 215 (.312). it’s not so much a team strength as it is, in the words of the Geico commercial, “what we do”.
- Our lack of a true point guard really hurts us against the aggressive defensive teams like Miami. And with the word out, aggressive defensive teams are likely to be all we will face the rest of the way. Gbinje can bring the ball up and they ever had to take him off that because it was wearing him out. They actually had Richardson bringing the ball up in his place. Frank Howard: get well- and get good- soon!
- Mike Hopkins is now 4-4 in his coaching tenure. I think it’s too short a sample under far less than ideal conditions, to make any judgements about his abilities as a head coach. Nut one trend I’ve noticed has been a tendency for the team to get off to bad starts in games. We were behind early against both St. John’s and Georgetown and never quite made it back into those games. We were ahead of Colgate 33-22 and Cornell 30-26 at the half. Vs. Texas Southern it was 40-36 at halftime. Against Pitt we were down 5-13 and struggled the rest of the half to get back to even at halftime, 30-30, (which was actually pretty good, considering. In this game you could say we were off to a good start because we had that 15-0 run to take a 20-9 lead. But both teams were playing horribly at that point. If we’d taken advantage of all our opportunities we’d have been up 30-9, not 20-9. Both the Miami and Pitt games were full of blown lay-ups, early turnovers, (which continued in the Miami game), and loose balls the other team always seemed to get. We have a thin team that’s probably going to struggle down the stretch. We can’t afford to dig holes for ourselves at the beginning of games. Comebacks always take more than the normal output of energy and we have a limited supply.
- Our formula is to stay close enough to the other team on the boards that our advantage in turnovers will make up for it. Against Pitt we got outrebounded by such a margin that that was impossible, (25-43 with turnovers 10-9). In this game the rebounding numbers were absolutely the same for each team: 12 offensive, 29 defensive. Nice. But we had 19 turnovers to their 12. So we were -17 and -7 in what I call “manufactured possessions. And that doesn’t count lose balls, which should be a stat and certainly didn’t favor us.
- We were called for 25 fouls to Miami’s 14. We went to the line 14 times and the Canes went 34 times. Mike Gbinije said after the game that he asked the refs “Why are calling touch fouls on this end and we’re getting hammered on the other end?” and the ref told him “I know, I know, you’re right”. So I guess the refs screwed us. We scored the same number of two point field goals as Miami and four more three point field goals. We were out-scored by 17 points from the foul line. Ball Game.
- There are three statistics I look at in an attempted to see if the officiating seemed one-sided. Players are more likely to get fouled on two point attempts than three point attempts. They are more likely to get fouled in the paint that outside of it. You can compare the number of two point attempts and points in the paint to the number of times the team is fouled. You can also look at the number of fouls shots the fouls produced. Syracuse attempted 4 two point shots and got fouled 14 times. That’s’ a ratio of 2.4 to 1. Pittsburgh attempted 27 two point shots and got fouled 25 times, a ratio of 1.1 to 1. That seems further proof that the refs were biased. But look at the second stat: Syracuse had 16 points in the paint and got fouled 14 times, a 1.1 ratio. Miami had 30 points in the paint and got fouled 25 times, a 1.2 ratio. Pretty close. We attempted 14 free throws on 14 fouls, a 1.0 ratio. They attempted 34 free throws on 25 fouls, a 1.4 ratio. So the refs “put them on the line” more than they did us. Now consider our turnovers: 19 to their 12. Steals were 7-12 and blocks 1-7. Fast break points were 2-20. Miami beat us at our own game: stealing the ball, blocking shots and fastbreaking off those pays for baskets- and trips to the foul line. It wasn’t biased refs that put them on the foul line 34 times. It was our own mistakes and their great defensive plays.
