West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

[Columbuseer]

FYI - Some WL Individual Stats
The encouraging aspect is that these stats include the growing pains earlier in the season. The level of play has significantly increased since mid December as players are now much faster at recognition, processing, and reacting to situations in real-time.

WL stats 1/12/2020

Individual Statsall 6 players would be in the top 50 nationally. Two players would be tied for 6^th nationally

[Columbuseer]

Coming off their third conference loss, Fairmont needed to win this game. Likewise, WL needed to keep pace with Charleston in a tie for first place.
Fairmont has some talented players, who are both athletic and can shoot the three.
Throughout the game, WL had mini-runs, where the lead would get to 10-12 points, and fans were anticipating a blackout. To their credit, Fairmont would respond and whittle the lead down to four, but could not get closer. Fairmont did a good job of limiting the back-door cuts and trying to keep the ball rotation on the perimeter. In addition, Fairmont focused on preventing Dalton Bolon from getting good open looks and limited his scoring opportunities.
It was a sub-par game for WL defensively. They allowed too many run-outs in transition for layups. Uncharacteristic fouls plagued the hilltoppers, which required Yoakum, Dyer, and Robinson to spend considerable time on the bench in foul trouble.
It would seem that these factors were the perfect setup for a loss. However, this game demonstrated how much parity exists in both platoons. WL continued to score and players were hitting open looks and did not break under the pressure of the game. Very impressive.
WL won 105-99 (Fairmont hit an unguarded 22 ft shot at the buzzer to narrow the lead to 6).
WL played at their season average efficiency at 1.31 points per possession, despite not having their typical turnover margin and steals as well as encountering serious foul trouble. WL shot 60% effective FG % for the game, which along with 85% turnover-less possessions, provided the margin for a narrow victory.

Kudos:
Areas of Improvement:

[boatcapt]

Hop Bellermine for #1.

I'd be happy hopping Catawaba right now...until the regional polls start coming out.

[IUPalum]

Hop Bellermine for #1.

[boatcapt]

Well WLU just defeated a game Fairmont squad 105-99. While the score was close, it was effectively a wire to wire W for the Toppers. Fairmont was only able to tie the score once in the first half. To their credit when WLU was able to extend their lead to double digits on several occasions, Fairmont was able to whittle the lead down.

[Scrub]

If there's such a thing as a mid-January MUST-WIN game, this is it. Toppers can't afford to drop another home game at this point in the season. It feels like their status in the top-8 of the region is on the line tonight. It could be very difficult to dig out of the hole if they don't take care of business tonight (especially with a trip to Retton still looming later in the season).

Oh and looking at the rest of the conference's schedule (in which all the other quality teams are playing bottom feeders), WLU could end tonight as either tied for the top spot in the conference . . . or they could end up with the same record as about 5 other teams in that second-tier logjam. Gotta get outta that logjam and distinguish their season from the likes of WV State & Glenville.

[Scrub]

FYI - WL is starting to come on strong. Big challenge tonight against Fairmont.

If there's such a thing as a mid-January MUST-WIN game, this is it. Toppers can't afford to drop another home game at this point in the season. It feels like their status in the top-8 of the region is on the line tonight. It could be very difficult to dig out of the hole if they don't take care of business tonight (especially with a trip to Retton still looming later in the season).

[Columbuseer]

FYI - WL is starting to come on strong. Big challenge tonight against Fairmont.


Here are some WL Team stats as of Jan 12, showing the quality of WL basketball. I am not implying the WL would defeat high level D1 teams, as D1 teams are much larger and generally have greater raw athletic skills. But it does make the argument that the overall quality of the game is better. Also, there are other D2 teams besides WL that could make the same argument from a statistical perspective.



West Liberty Team Season National Statistical Ranking (with comparison to D1 Stats)^ndthththth)

[Columbuseer]

Beginning with the Ohio Dominican game before Christmas, WL started showing significant progress toward internalizing the WL style of offensive and defensive play. The improvement continued through the Concord game, where their half-court defense and offensive rebounding effort overcame a sub-par shooting night and higher than usual turnovers (they actually had more TOs than Concord).

Would the upward vector of play continue against a dangerous, but erratic team in Glenville? They have arguably the player of the year in Bledsoe, who appears to have slimmed down and improved his 3-pt. shot and a talented freshman scorer in Verplancken from the Dominican Republic, as well as some other 3 pt. shooters. Since former WL player Brandon Smith has joined them this year as an assistant, they have started adapting some WL pressure concepts. Glenville was averaging 100 pts a game, while WL was scoring at a 104-point clip. Everyone knew that a high scoring game awaited.

The first three minutes ended with Glenville ahead 7-2. Bledsoe demonstrated a great 3-pt. stroke, even when contested. At the 15:00 mark, the score was tied at 9 apiece, which was a pace for an 80 to 90-point game. However, WL was playing with high intensity at both ends of the court, with rapid passing and ball movement and great effort on defense, which inevitably takes its toll on the opponent.

Fans were about to witness one of the longest sustained blackouts in a long time, which were reminiscent of the Alex Falk days of years past.
In the next 3 minutes WL went on a 20-8 run, leading 29-17 at 12:00. Glenville was starting to stand around on offense and exerted only minimal effort to get offensive rebounds (probably due to fatigue and concern about WL getting run-outs in transition).

The next 3 minutes were more of the same, with a 13-4 run. At 9:05 WL led 42-21. By the 4:52 mark, the lead was 30, at 62-32, with no signs of the scoring and turnover barrage abating.

The half ended at 83-52.
Glenville was shooting well, with an effective FG % of 66% and FT at 82%, but they had only 5 assists and had turned the ball over 17 times.
WL shot well at a 78% Effective FG% and FT of 92% with 16 assists and only 4 turnovers.

We were witnessing the domination of an opponent, mentally and physically.
The intensity of WL was like a school of piranha and the opponents were like cattle trying to cross a stream, where the piranhas attack in waves. In a few minutes, nothing is left but bones.

With memories of WV Wesleyan, WL started the second half strong, extending the lead to 41 at the 15:18 mark. WL stopped the trapping and worked on their half court defense for the rest of the game and experimented with different combinations, which slowed the scoring pace such that the ASRC record of 158 (set against Glenville last year) was safe.

Glenville made a good run using a hot shooting streak to cut the lead to 30, but WL responded to end the game at 129-89.

Kudos:

• Assist to Turnover ratio is better than all but 3 players in the nation in D2!
• The scary part is that they can play at an even higher level. This could be just the appetizer, given the skills of this team.

Areas of Improvement:

• Glenville was a good shooting team. We need to contest more shots regardless of the score. They averaged 1.08 points per possession, which would win many games.
• I understand that referees are trying to curb flopping. However, I suspect that they are not calling legitimate contact because they think the player is "overselling" the call. This may require some players to do jump-stops and do up and under shots or easy bank shots to score.
• This might be picky given the score at the time. Remember a dunk counts the same as a layup and take into account your fatigue. We missed two dunks and left 4 points on the table.

[Layton]

Looks like the blackout happened for 40 minutes straight tonight

[Ship69]

Over the last 6 years (that as far back as I cared to look) the higher seeded team has a .694 winning %. But there have been a couple of first round upsets in the 1 v 8 and 2 v 7 games. In 2016 #8 Mercyhurst beat #1 WJU and in 2015 #7 Slippery Rock beat #2 Gannon.

Shippensburg as the fifth seed in 2018 beat fourth-seeded West Liberty in the first round and top-seeded Virginia State in the second before losing to second-seeded conference foe East Stroudsburg in the regional final.

[Columbuseer]

WL has a license to steal ....

WL has four players in the top 180 nationally in steals - Dyer, Robinson III, Boswell and McKinney, with the highest ranking at #20.
More bad news for opponents - if one looks at steals per 40 minutes, there is some serious incentive for opponents to protect the ball, as these players must have gone to the Javon Carter school of defense at WVU. LOL

Normalized for 40 minutes:
Dyer - 4.3
McKinney - 3.8
Robinson III - 3.3
Boswell - 2.9
Butler - 2.7
Yoakum - 2.5


IMHO, these stats are impressive, given that they foul so infrequently on the steal attempts.
At one point, Concord put in a young, inexperienced sub at guard to give the starter a breather. Dyer harassed him so completely that the Concord coach had to take him out early and put the starter back in.
It is no fun bringing the ball up the court against these guys.

[Scrub]

A good analysis overall, Columbus. I agree with all of your assessments. I, too, saw those gaping holes in the Concord defense for most of the game. You'd have thought WLU could have capitalized for backdoor cut after backdoor cut, but they didn't seem to recognize it and/or they misfired on the passes when they did recognize it.

To me, the big plus was the defensive pressure. There was a whole new level of intensity last night, it seemed to me, compared to pre-break games. Last night's defensive effort looked a lot more like those classic chaos-creating days of Corey Pelle and Alex Falk.

McKinney & Hazelbaker were particularly impressive in elevating their games from their pre-break performances. Perhaps something has "clicked" within the system for those two newcomers.

Overall, a solid win in a building that has given them trouble in the past. This had the markers of a classic trap game (solid opponent, well-coached opponent, long trip, a gym that has given WLU trouble in the past, first game out of a break, etc.), so to come out with that kind of intensity and not fall into the trap was really impressive. Good start to the second half!

[Columbuseer]

WL at Concord Novelette Version
WL eventually put away a persistent and well-coached Concord team in the second half, primarily due to a huge rebounding advantage and very good half-court defense. The ball movement and player movement on offense continues to improve.

Concord led 15-14 with 14:30 left in first half, when the first mini-blackout occurred. In less than 2 minutes, WL went on a 13-0 run to lead 27-15. It felt like a blow-out was impending.
But give Concord credit. WL entered a scoring drought at about 8:30 in the first half and scored only 2 free throws in the next 3 minutes. It seemed like WL lost defensive focus, which allowed Concord to get easy looks or get fouled. At 4:30, Concord led 42-39.
WL righted the ship and finally got the lead back for good with 1:36 remaining and ended the half leading 51-46.
Concord did not have a deep bench and they had expended huge amounts of energy in the first half. The open question for the second half was whether the effects of their effort would affect their shooting and rebounding.
Int the first 4 minutes of the second half, WL extended their lead to 63-49. Slowly, WL extended the lead over the next 4 minutes to 20 points, 80-60. Concord was seeing it slip away. The lead seesawed between 16 and 20 points for most of the remaining time, mainly due to deep threes by Johnson of Concord who hit 4 in a row. Concord also got to the foul line often, but could not capitalize, probably due to fatigue affecting their FT percentage. WL hit some threes late for the final score of 104-79.
KudosAreas for Improvement

[Scrub]

Any word on whether Moore has recovered from his high ankle sprain during the break? Or will we likely see Alessandro in the starting 5 again tomorrow?