West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

[Columbuseer]

Uc is a very well coached team, who nearly always gets a good shot. Good ball movement on offense.
great rotations on defense.
With sarson hurt and hinds with a bad knee, our 3 point threats were all around 6-0 ft.
Uc's starting five only had one player under 6-4. One shadowed rasile. With their size advantage, Wlu had trouble getting that 6 ft buffer to allow an open look 3pt shot. Our forced turnovers and tremendous efforts by west, korte and Woodward kept us in the game. Tremendous effort on offensive glass.

UC played the odds by leaving low % shooters open when a choice had to be made.

To wlu credit, they played good half court defense even though they were outsized. Just fewer leakouts allowed in transition and it could have been a victory. There Is just a small margin for error when short handed and playing a good team and not shooting well.

imho wlu has to find a way to get rasile and company open looks.

[boatcapt]

Hat tip to UC. They put on a defensive clinic tonight. Boat is right that WLU didn't shoot well, but I firmly believe that UC caused that poor shooting performance. These weren't just unfortunate misses with guys' feet set. UC made everything difficult tonight. Heck of an effort by the Golden Eagles. All respect to Dwaine Osborne--that's an incredibly disciplined and well-coached team that came in here and put on a defensive clinic tonight.

Hope WLU gets another crack at them in the MEC tourney.

But right now, WLU has to get some things figured out and finish this regular season strong enough to build a tourney resume.

Obviously, this doesn't really matter in the long run, but I'll be sad to see their streak of top-25 appearances end this week. 10+ years in the rankings is pretty impressive and worth celebrating. Again, rankings don't win ballgames, and I know it doesn't matter, but it was a fun ride.

Time to start a new streak!

I would rather NOT get another crack at UC in the MEC tourney.

UC beat us defensively outside knowing we had little chance of beating any of their bigs inside.

[Scrub]

Hat tip to UC. They put on a defensive clinic tonight. Boat is right that WLU didn't shoot well, but I firmly believe that UC caused that poor shooting performance. These weren't just unfortunate misses with guys' feet set. UC made everything difficult tonight. Heck of an effort by the Golden Eagles. All respect to Dwaine Osborne--that's an incredibly disciplined and well-coached team that came in here and put on a defensive clinic tonight.

Hope WLU gets another crack at them in the MEC tourney.

But right now, WLU has to get some things figured out and finish this regular season strong enough to build a tourney resume.

Obviously, this doesn't really matter in the long run, but I'll be sad to see their streak of top-25 appearances end this week. 10+ years in the rankings is pretty impressive and worth celebrating. Again, rankings don't win ballgames, and I know it doesn't matter, but it was a fun ride.

Time to start a new streak!

[boatcapt]

WLU ;loses to UC.

WORST 3 point shooting game I've seen from the Toppers. 5-26 (19%) ain't going to win many games for us. Montegue 1-5...West 1-5...Risile, Spadfora and Korte each 1-4 from 3.

We had no answer for UC's three bigs who combined went 13 for 20 from the field and grabbed 17 defensive rebounds.

For all their 100 point games and stunning advanced stats, this team comes up small against good opponents.

[boatcapt]

UGLY game going on vs UC.

[Columbuseer]

Fyi
construction company owner bought A-B land and bldings for $5m

[Columbuseer]

Anyone hearing anything about Sarson's injury? If he's out Saturday that's a serious problem against UC. If he's out for the season, that's a serious problem. Period. Full stop.

Although, I did really like what I saw from Woodward last night (as did the WVSU announcer who waxed rhapsodic over Woodward's contributions at one point during the second half). He's developing well this year and making strides compared to what we saw last year.

Yep, hard to believe woodward is just a soph.
he makes 60% effective fg% , which is amazing given that he rarely shoots threes.
Like other teams, UC will likely shadow Rasile with a big guard. wlu might use a lineup with rasile, cmont, Dante and optionally hinds like they did in 2nd half against wvsu to free up shooters.
I was impressed that they nearly beat wvsu without Sarson.
one advantage of 5 out positionless basketball.

[boatcapt]

Cut to the facts...
for individuals , 35% is a good three pt. Shooter. An elite 3 pt shooter is 40%
shooting 40% or higher
spadafora
Montague
Rasile
Hinds 39.5%



Team average for season 36.8%, which is very good.

So the slumping shooters are not taking an inordinate amount of shots or the average would be much lower.

That said, shooting fluctuates significantly game to game, which is true for all teams. One reason why it is hard to go undefeated.

It's a game to game League. Looking at season long performance points to potential but when you look at individual game performances, somewhat lacking in big game production.

Big game coming Saturday against a team that has already beaten us once. Do we see 40+ (or even 35+) 3 point shooting from our "big four" as their season long numbers say...our do we see much less? That will tell the tale of weather we win or lose. And by extension, do we limp into the post season or roar in like last year?

[Scrub]

Anyone hearing anything about Sarson's injury? If he's out Saturday that's a serious problem against UC. If he's out for the season, that's a serious problem. Period. Full stop.

Although, I did really like what I saw from Woodward last night (as did the WVSU announcer who waxed rhapsodic over Woodward's contributions at one point during the second half). He's developing well this year and making strides compared to what we saw last year.

[Scrub]

Cut to the facts...
for individuals , 35% is a good three pt. Shooter. An elite 3 pt shooter is 40%
shooting 40% or higher
spadafora
Montague
Rasile
Hinds 39.5%

Absolultely. Those are 4 guys I have the utmost faith in. When they pull up from 3, I always feel like it's going in. Mont was in a serious funk last night, but when he got that good look with 15 seconds to go and a chance to tie, I still felt confident that he would drain it. Sometimes they don't fall.

[Columbuseer]

Live by the 3 die by the 3. Plenty of Toppers had multiple 3 point attempts...only 4 actually made a 3 point shots.

Cut to the quick...This is NOT a good 3 point shooting squad. We have a couple of players that can shoot very well, but from top to bottom of the roster, plenty of shooters in season long 3 point slumps.

Unfortunately for the Toppers... Doesn't get any easier Sat vs UC. Already lost to them once so clearly they "know how to beat us." WLU will need many players to suddenly break out of their shooting slumps Saturday to pull out a W.

Cut to the facts...
for individuals , 35% is a good three pt. Shooter. An elite 3 pt shooter is 40%
shooting 40% or higher
spadafora
Montague
Rasile
Hinds 39.5%



Team average for season 36.8%, which is very good.

So the slumping shooters are not taking an inordinate amount of shots or the average would be much lower.

That said, shooting fluctuates significantly game to game, which is true for all teams. One reason why it is hard to go undefeated.

[boatcapt]

Live by the 3 die by the 3. Plenty of Toppers had multiple 3 point attempts...only 4 actually made a 3 point shots.

Cut to the quick...This is NOT a good 3 point shooting squad. We have a couple of players that can shoot very well, but from top to bottom of the roster, plenty of shooters in season long 3 point slumps.

Unfortunately for the Toppers... Doesn't get any easier Sat vs UC. Already lost to them once so clearly they "know how to beat us." WLU will need many players to suddenly break out of their shooting slumps Saturday to pull out a W.

[Columbuseer]

The two concerning things that occur to me after tonight's game is:

1. The Sarson foot injury is concerning. When it occurred, he was helped directly to the locker room (not the bench), and he still couldn't put any weight on it when he came back out to sit on the bench after half. Here's hoping it's not a season-ender.

2. The other concerning thing is that this edition of the Hilltoppers hasn't really shown the ability to counter when a team punches back. They're just fine at finishing the job when the opponent folds. But when the opponent punches back, they haven't shown the typical WLU ability to weather the storm and counter back. This game had such a similar feel to the two in Daytona. Strong team punches back, WLU doesn't have an answer.

If this edition of the Hilltoppers wants to go anywhere in the postseason (where every team will be capable of punching back), they're gonna have to figure out how to respond when a strong team refuses to fold, and I haven't seen enough of that this year. You might argue that the first WVSU game or the D&E game were evidence of this, but I need to see a bit more.

As someone pointed out earlier in the year, this is the kind of game where Bryce Butler would have put the team on his back and refused to lose. This year's edition doesn't have that guy or the attitude that he represented.

So in some ways, this might be the kind of night these Hilltoppers needed to get them prepared for the playoff run. As Hopper pointed out, they did show enough fight to get it to one possession with a good look to tie, so maybe this is a growth game. Here's hoping.

I would not draw too many conclusions from this game.
Regarding punching back, I would consider a 17-2 run in 5 minutes while missing a key player a very effective punching back. Concord closed the gap to 2 pts and they responded. They don't fold and they don't give up.

Regarding Daytona, opponents shot 58% and 64% from three. They are good teams, and this % makes them practically unbeatable.

Against a team like wvsu, who is really tall and athletic, one has to shoot at least an average %. Wlu started out at 18%, which put wlu in a deep hole. Even in the bryce butler days, the scores were very close with wvsu.

The troubling issue for me are the technical fouls. Players have to think team first and not respond to provocations.

[Columbuseer]

Haven't shot free throws well all year unfortunately.

Actually, they have shot ft well at times, but just inconsistently. For season, 74.9% avg.
Last 6 games:
90.5%
92.3%
84.2%
50%
87.9%
66.7% at wvsu

https://hilltoppersports.com/sports/...all/stats#game

[Layton]

Yuck