West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

[Scrub]

Sine no one else seems to want to play, I'll go for round two. Admittedly, your hints help with some of the hard ones (I would NOT have guessed #1 without your clue--I would have sworn it was Dyer). But also, I'm not familiar with all of your clue references, so some are still guesses. Here goes:

Here are the number of players that are shooting over 37%, which is very efficient shooting from three-point range. Which names do you think go with each 3pt %?
1. 51.2% Moore
2. 50.4% Yoakum
3. 44.5% Robinson
4. 44.4% Dyer
5. 42.1% Bolon
6. 41.9% McKinney
7. 38.9% Boswell
8. 37.5% Hiles

[Columbuseer]

Sine no one else seems to want to play, I'll go for round two. Admittedly, your hints help with some of the hard ones (I would NOT have guessed #1 without your clue--I would have sworn it was Dyer). But also, I'm not familiar with all of your clue references, so some are still guesses. Here goes:

Here are the number of players that are shooting over 37%, which is very efficient shooting from three-point range. Which names do you think go with each 3pt %?
1. 51.2% Moore
2. 50.4% Yoakum
3. 44.5% Robinson
4. 44.4% Dyer
5. 42.1% Bolon
6. 41.9% McKinney
7. 38.9% Boswell
8. 37.5% Hiles

Great job! Just # 5 and # 7 are switched.
Radio show was sergeant Preston of the Yukon.
clue #7 was Dalton Ohio and the Dalton gang.
Dalton had a couple of tough shooting nights but compensated with his rebounding and hustle.
The median for the individuals on the team was 41.9% which is crazy that half of the team is above this %.

[Columbuseer]

I have exhausted wlu replays to watch. So I watched Zach Rasile as a freshman against a good western reserve team. His basketball iq was college level then. He hit 140 threes at a 50% rate to set all time Ohio single season record. Scored 25 points. He dribbled out the last 30 seconds in, around and through western reserve players who were chasing him. Amazing display of confidence and composure.

this young man is extraordinary. Was shooting 60k shots a summer even then. I wonder if he gets the green light at wlu to shoot from 30+ ft! He could really stretch defenses for the other players to go to the rim. Hold on to your hats next year!

[Columbuseer]

[boatcapt]

A little light research for you. How does WLU rank against D3 teams as well as D1?

[Columbuseer]

A little light research for you. How does WLU rank against D3 teams as well as D1?

I found a d3 team that plays high iq basketball like wlu but without the press. Great ball movement and unselfishness. If you think wlu has never won a pre game warmup look at these guys! Perennial doormat. New coach 6 years ago with style based on data analytics. Went 29-1 and was in sweet 16 when it was cancelled. Stats are very competitive with wlu. Create blackouts because they get a good shot every time down the floor. Have a 6-7 pg who could play at wlu.

Yeshiva univ. in Manhattan, an orthodox Jewish school. Games are on YouTube. Beat penn state Harrisburg badly

[Columbuseer]

Here are d3 stats. Anybody familiar with D3 Greenville? Their stats are crazy good, except for one important stat: Their record was 14-13.

WL Statistics through March 8, 2020

Note: The comparison with D1 stats is not to imply that WLU would defeat high-major D1 teams, as the greater raw athletic ability of D1 players would probably overcome their flaws in the understanding and execution of the important concepts of the game. It just demonstrates the quality of basketball at D2, and at West Liberty in particular.



West Liberty Team Season National Statistical Ranking (with comparison to D1 and D3 Stats) 3/20/20^ndrd;rdnd

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Allesandro in the portal. Sure hope he doesn't have D1 dreams.

[Dirtybird]

Probably just dreams of playing more minutes. At 6-7 with a nice skill set he should have options.

[Scrub]

Probably just dreams of playing more minutes. At 6-7 with a nice skill set he should have options.

He certainly does have a nice skill set, but it never seemed like the right skill set to fit with the WLU system. He doesn't shoot well enough to play guard in the WLU system. And he never seemed totally comfortable banging underneath. In a couple of those post-game sit-downs, Jon mentioned playing the point in high school. I think he's more comfortable being a distributor (and you could definitely see this year that he's a very good passer with a high basketball IQ), but at 6'7" in the WLU system, you're a Center. Or if you're a big guy who wants to play guard, you better shoot the lights out (cf. Seger Bonifant). So, I do think Alessandro will make a useful piece at a lot of D2 schools, he was a bit of an odd fit for WLU's system. I suppose good for him that he recognized that "fit" issue, and here's wishing him the best wherever he lands.

[boatcapt]

Any time you lose a player that had 13 starts, it hurts. While it is difficult to assign traditional positions and roles (starter, guard/forward, 6th man) to WLU's players, you can make a case that Alesandro was WLU's 6th Man. Again, a clear loss. But you also have to look at what he did when he was in the game and that is not very impressive. There are a lot of things that a player is expected to do at WLU but probably the three most important are recognizing when you should take a 3pt shot, taking 3 pt shots when you have an open look and making 3 pt shots. Alesandro was woo-full in all three areas. He averaged 17 1/2 minutes in the 19 games he played and only took 39 3 pt tries...that's 2 3 pt shots per game. But even more important than that, he only made 10 3 pt'ers on the season shooting a paltry .256 on the year. Neither of those stats are going to put you in Ben's good graces. Of course, even though WLU doesn't highlight it, there are other ways to score the basketball. But Alesandro was not a demon in the paint either. In his 19 games he only took 64 shots (3.4 per game avg) making 31 of them for a shooting % inside the arc of .484.

So long and short, losing a sometime starter and 15+ minute guy hurts. But replacing what he actually gave to the team should not be that difficult. On a scale of 1-10, losing Alesandro is probably a 3 or 4.

[Scrub]

The other thing not to be overlooked here is that both of the kids who have declared a transfer away from WLU this offseason are "forwards" (at least WLU version of forwards). As has been discussed on here multiple times before, finding "bigs" who can survive in the WLU system (without a recruiting budget to go get a bunch of Eastern European guys who would fit the bill) is a real challenge. So while I'm in agreement with Boat that neither Alessandro nor Shifflett will be hard to replace per se, it does leave WLU pretty thin on the front line with only Moore & Hazelbaker remaining. Now Howlett has to go pound the pavement in search of a "big" who can play WLU-style basketball, and that's never an easy task.

[Columbuseer]

He certainly does have a nice skill set, but it never seemed like the right skill set to fit with the WLU system. He doesn't shoot well enough to play guard in the WLU system. And he never seemed totally comfortable banging underneath. In a couple of those post-game sit-downs, Jon mentioned playing the point in high school. I think he's more comfortable being a distributor (and you could definitely see this year that he's a very good passer with a high basketball IQ), but at 6'7" in the WLU system, you're a Center. Or if you're a big guy who wants to play guard, you better shoot the lights out (cf. Seger Bonifant). So, I do think Alessandro will make a useful piece at a lot of D2 schools, he was a bit of an odd fit for WLU's system. I suppose good for him that he recognized that "fit" issue, and here's wishing him the best wherever he lands.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

That's the frustrating part today. These kids want to be stars immediately. In the old days (not that long ago) you'd be lucky to even play as a sophomore.

He won't have trouble finding a home.

[Columbuseer]