West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

[Layton]

Bit of a rough broadcast today

[Layton]

[Columbuseer]

FYI

Luke Denbow tied a 50 year old scoring record at ashland.
Great range as a shooter, slashes and finishes at the rim, sees the whole floor and unselfishly finds the open man. Strong defender too. Cant wait to see Spadafora and him on the floor next year!

ASHLAND 78, ONTARIO 67 Ashland's Luke Denbow tied the school single-game scoring record in a nonleague win over Ontario. The senior scored 42 points, tying Tom Malone's mark that was set against Brunswick in 1970. Denbow made seven 3-pointers, grabbed 10 rebounds, dished six assists and recorded five steals. Grayson Steury added 21 points for the Arrows.

[Columbuseer]

FYI
Out of curiosity, I watched 2nd half of AB game, looking at made shots that were unassisted to determine if they were good shots.
Out of 21 made shots, only 9 were unassisted. All 9 were good shots, such as scores off rebounds, or on-balance shots. No contorting, high degree of difficulty shots.
Missed shots were reasonable shots too,
Players were looking for the easy shot, even though they can score under duress. It is a promising sign.

[Columbuseer]

Some Stats from WLU at Alderson Broaddus 1/19/22

• WLU had an incredible 4.0 team Assist to Turnover Ratio
• 6 turnovers on 77 possessions is amazing
• 57% of FGs made came from assists; nearly a maximum practical %, due to run outs and steals, where assists are not realistically possible..
• Forced 22 turnovers, of which an incredible 59% were steals.
• Offensive rebounding efficiency was a modest 26%, at least partially reduced by the great shooting %. AB also played a tall lineup for a substantial portion of the game.
• Incredible 1.39 points per possession
• No one played more than 24 minutes in the game., everyone scored and 5 players in double figures.

Opponent	Date	Score	w/l	FG	FGA	FG Pct	3 FGA	3 FG PCT	FT	FTA	FT PCT	Off Reb	Def Reb	Tot Reb	Reb Per Game	PF	Assist	TO	Blk	Stl	Pts
at Alderson Broaddus	01/19/22	107-70	W	42	75	56%	32	47%	8	9	89%	8	23	31	38.8	21	24	6	4	13	107

Opponent	Date	Score	Avg Pts Per Game	Steals per Forced TO	Assist to TO Ratio	Assist per FG	Points Per FGA	Points Per Possession	Num Possessions	OppDefReb	Off Reb Effic	Forced TO
at Alderson Broaddus	01/19/22	107-70	98.6	59%	4.00	57%	1.43	1.39	77	23	26%	22

[Columbuseer]

There are two strategies when breaking the wlu press:
1. Attack the rim in the open court. Its success depends on the athletic open court skills and ability to finish contested shots.

2. Hold the ball and run the half court offense.

Fairmont used option 1 with great success with dobbs, sanders and von handorf. They scored often or drew fouls. It requires wlu to value every possession like gold and get a great shot with teammates in rebounding position.

Charleston tends to use option 2, since they are a great shooting team.

[boatcapt]

Once again our players took the bait and went one on one. On many occasions, all 5 fsu players had at least one foot in the lane in a pack line defense. Also teammates quit moving without the ball, leaving no one to kickout the ball to in 2nd half.

When will our players learn that one on one is not a winning strategy against good teams? The system, not the players' individual skills, is what make wlu hard to beat

Fsu chose to leave our best rebounder open outside and take their chances with his open three; if he misses, he is no rebound threat. Many shots were taken with no one under to rebound. Losing viktor with 4 fouls really hurt the team as no one could guard him.

I have no patience with players getting technicals by mouthing off to the ref. It is childish, self centered and fruitless. No ref ever changed a call. Let the coaches do the talking.

While WLU is much more athletic than in the past, they are not athletic enough to win games vs top tier teams playing that way. But you can't seem to convince them of that...All they seem to know is that they can win one-on-one contests against the Willmington's and WVW's of the world so they assume they can do the same vs the Fairmont's of the world. Then they are shocked when Fairmont with it's better athletes punches them in the nose on the offensive and defensive end, gives them a weggy, takes their lunch money and makes them look silly in the second half of the game...And they did it with basically 6 players.

Guess the "basketball IQ" of the current Topper's is not as high as we thought it was!

If this game doesn't wake them up, nothing will.

[Columbuseer]

FYI
West Liberty national ranking jan 17, 2022

• 90th percentile in 13 categories
• Top 10 in 7 categories
• If they can improve moving without the ball and rapid passing for a full 40 minutes, it is scary how good this team could be.
• Viktor and Bryce are starting to dominate, which will keep opponents from focusing on Patrick and Malik.
• Ben Sarson continues to improve with each game, expanding his contribution and making better decisions. His ceiling is very high.

Date	National Ranking	West Liberty rank	Value
1/17/2022	Assists Per Game	2	20.50
1/17/2022	Scoring Offense	2	98.10
1/17/2022	Turnovers Forced	3	20.12
1/17/2022	Steals Per Game	4	11.40
1/17/2022	Turnover Margin	4	7.20
1/17/2022	Scoring Margin	6	18.00
1/17/2022	Assist Turnover Ratio	8	1.59
1/17/2022	Three-Point Field Goals Per Game	11	10.90
1/17/2022	Three-Point Attempts	12	461.00
1/17/2022	Offensive Rebounds per game	13	13.81
1/17/2022	Free-Throw Attempts	14	346.00
1/17/2022	Field-Goal Percentage	19	49.83
1/17/2022	Free-Throw Made	22	240.00

[Layton]

Spadafora article, tore his labrum the first practice

https://www.timesonline.com/story/sp...ii/9154889002/

[Columbuseer]

https://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com...cc/9170102002/

[Columbuseer]

That's a very bad--potentially season altering--loss. Up 15 at home, you have to close that out. They simply stopped sharing the ball and stopped playing Hilltopper basketball in the second half. They got dribble-happy in the second half and paid the price for it against a very good Fairmont team. Gotta learn from that. But the damage is done. Now, you have to go into Retton Arena and win the second match-up against the Falcons, and that's an incredibly tough place to win a road game. And now there's no room for a hiccup (such as, say, a loss at Concord--and make no mistake, Athens is a very tough place to emerge with a win). Really disappointing second half performance after an almost perfect first half. Gotta put two good halves together to beat good teams.

Once again our players took the bait and went one on one. On many occasions, all 5 fsu players had at least one foot in the lane in a pack line defense. Also teammates quit moving without the ball, leaving no one to kickout the ball to in 2nd half.

When will our players learn that one on one is not a winning strategy against good teams? The system, not the players' individual skills, is what make wlu hard to beat

Fsu chose to leave our best rebounder open outside and take their chances with his open three; if he misses, he is no rebound threat. Many shots were taken with no one under to rebound. Losing viktor with 4 fouls really hurt the team as no one could guard him.

I have no patience with players getting technicals by mouthing off to the ref. It is childish, self centered and fruitless. No ref ever changed a call. Let the coaches do the talking.

[Scrub]

Was anyone at the game to see what happened after the handshakes? On the feed, it looked like a Fairmont bench player (in a full warm-up suit) got in Sarson's face after the handshakes as Sarson and McKinney made their way toward the locker room. The camera never panned to the "action," but the announcer did make a cryptic reference to the AD having to go down to the floor to clear up a situation. So, I'm wondering if a little scuffle ensued. Anyone have any intel?

[Layton]

Wowzer, I was shocked at the final score after seeing what it was in the second half

[Scrub]

That's a very bad--potentially season altering--loss. Up 15 at home, you have to close that out. They simply stopped sharing the ball and stopped playing Hilltopper basketball in the second half. They got dribble-happy in the second half and paid the price for it against a very good Fairmont team. Gotta learn from that. But the damage is done. Now, you have to go into Retton Arena and win the second match-up against the Falcons, and that's an incredibly tough place to win a road game. And now there's no room for a hiccup (such as, say, a loss at Concord--and make no mistake, Athens is a very tough place to emerge with a win). Really disappointing second half performance after an almost perfect first half. Gotta put two good halves together to beat good teams.

[Columbuseer]

FYI

West Liberty National Rankings in 90^th percentile as of games completed 1/13/2022 (after Frostburg)

• More rapid passing and and movement without ball are resulting in FG % climbing from 47% to over 50%.
• Assists per game are steadily climbing.
• Turnover margin and assist to turnover ratio are deceptively low, as many WLU turnovers are unforced and due to playing new combinations of players for extended minutes after the outcome has been decided. However, this playing time for younger players will pay dividends in March.

Date	National Ranking	West Liberty rank	Value
1/13/2022	Scoring Offense	2	98.10
1/13/2022	Steals Per Game	3	11.70
1/13/2022	Turnovers Forced	3	20.40
1/13/2022	Assists Per Game	4	20.20
1/13/2022	Turnover Margin	4	7.30
1/13/2022	Scoring Margin	6	19.00
1/13/2022	Free-Throw Attempts	10	337.00
1/13/2022	Free-Throw Made	12	234.00
1/13/2022	Assist Turnover Ratio	14	1.55
1/13/2022	Three-Point Attempts	14	424.00
1/13/2022	Offensive Rebounds per game	16	13.67
1/13/2022	Three-Point Field Goals Per Game	17	10.70
1/13/2022	Field-Goal Percentage	19	50.09