West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

[Columbuseer]

Thru Dec 1:
- WL is averaging 1.32 points per possession (which is better than last year's 1.25 that was best in d1 and d2).
- WL is averaging 82% turnoverless possession, which is amazing, given how fast they play.
- WL is averaging 109 points per game which is behind Nova SE and Glenville State who score 111 points per game. BTW. Brandon Smith (former West Liberty Player) is an assitant coach at Glenville.
- WL is averaging 41.4% from 3 point range, despite have several off shooting nights.

This team still needs a lot of work to reach their potential, but the early results are encouraging.

[Columbuseer]

[Columbuseer]

[Columbuseer]

Why did he only play 7 minutes at Daemen?

I am just a dummy but my guess is that he got 4 personal fouls and had two turnovers in those 7 minutes.
WL has six new players this year and no senirors on the squad. It is a big adjustment to play the WL style as a platoon and not revert to dribble drive to try to make something happen when stressed.
I was pessimistic that we would even be able to platoon until January. They have made huge strides, including Malik. They have a long way to go, but the improvement is significant.
Malik has improved the quality of his fouls while reducing them overall, which allows him to stay on the floor longer. Assists are up and turnovers are down too. He is becoming to WLU what Jevon Carter was to WVU a few years back in terms of defensive pressure. That is due to sheer gut-wrenching effort and desire to play defense.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Lightning fast hands. Picking pockets left and right.

Why did he only play 7 minutes at Daemen?

[Scrub]

Malik McKinney is terrorizing guards-

Malik transferred to wl from seton hill. It is a huge transition to the wl style, with its freedom for players to make rapid real time decisions and its focus on ball movement rather than dribble drive.

Malik is rapidly adjusting. His turnovers are down and his assists are up. His shot selection is much improved.

He has an incredible ability to cleanly steal the ball from guards in the open court. Against him, if you show the ball on the dribble, you do so at your peril. He is creating chaos on the press with suffocating pressure.

His rapid improvement is impressive.

Lightning fast hands. Picking pockets left and right.

[Columbuseer]

Malik McKinney is terrorizing guards-

Malik transferred to wl from seton hill. It is a huge transition to the wl style, with its freedom for players to make rapid real time decisions and its focus on ball movement rather than dribble drive.

Malik is rapidly adjusting. His turnovers are down and his assists are up. His shot selection is much improved.

He has an incredible ability to cleanly steal the ball from guards in the open court. Against him, if you show the ball on the dribble, you do so at your peril. He is creating chaos on the press with suffocating pressure.

His rapid improvement is impressive.

[Columbuseer]

[timbertopper]

Keep in mind that there are only four players on the active roster who played in a West Liberty game last season. Following the Salem win, Howlett talked about the benefits derived from a 2-hour film session on the day after the Daemen game. No question the talent is there. Making it mesh is the challenge.Will be interesting to see what we have in February.

[boatcapt]

Perhaps Daemen was last year's Kutztown game. Big wakeup call.
The press is getting better and better as the players learn to play cohesively.
Guys are taking the jump stop for the open short jumper instead of trying difficult, contested shots.

After four games, WL has 7 players with an effective FG% (3s count 1.5 times two point shot) > 60%., with three over 70% and one over 80%!
(to put in perspective, steph curry was 60% last year, ableit from greater range).
Six players are averaging over 0.5 points per minute played, with two averaging over 0.8 pts/min and one averaging over 1 pt/min!
So offense is not often going to be a problem.

IMHO, this team has a very high ceiling that it is not even close to reaching.

I've seen some of the shoots Dalton has drained...may want to amend the Steph Curry greater range comment!! Some of his shots have been absolute bombs.

[Columbuseer]

Perhaps Daemen was last year's Kutztown game. Big wakeup call.
The press is getting better and better as the players learn to play cohesively.
Guys are taking the jump stop for the open short jumper instead of trying difficult, contested shots.

After four games, WL has 7 players with an effective FG% (3s count 1.5 times two point shot) > 60%., with three over 70% and one over 80%!
(to put in perspective, steph curry was 60% last year, ableit from greater range).
Six players are averaging over 0.5 points per minute played, with two averaging over 0.8 pts/min and one averaging over 1 pt/min!
So offense is not often going to be a problem.

IMHO, this team has a very high ceiling that it is not even close to reaching.

[Columbuseer]

Ball wasn't "sticking" tonight, Columbus! They moved the ball much better and got much better looks for shooters. Press was stout tonight as well. Granted, Salem is hardly Top-25 competition, but it was nice to get look at WLU basketball again tonight.

Great improvenent! I liked dalton doing a jump stop and burying a 10 ft jumper rather than taking it to the teeth of the defense underneath. That is a lay up for him.lol

Malik has some quick hands. He pilfered quite a few balls from guards.
The newcomers are getting more comfortable and the bad habits of aau ball are starting to dissipate!

[Scrub]

Ball wasn't "sticking" tonight, Columbus! They moved the ball much better and got much better looks for shooters. Press was stout tonight as well. Granted, Salem is hardly Top-25 competition, but it was nice to get look at WLU basketball again tonight.

[Columbuseer]

Been doing some ciphering on the WLU versus Daemen game.
Points in the paint were = at 40, which surprised me given that their big was 12 for 13.

IMHO our tunovers hurt us- 19 turnovers resulted in 28 points for Daemen, while we got 19 points off of 25 turnovers - difference of +9.
Also, our shooting % was down by almost 1/3 from its normal % in both FG nd 3pt shooting.
I think the poor shooting was due to Daemen's defense and also our poor shot selection and subpar ball movement.
Daemen had five guys in double figures, so our defense was stressed, often because of the double team on the Sischo.


IMHO WL allowed a two man game to develop between Sischo and his teammate in the corner that he was facring toward, who was left open by the double team by Luke down low.
IMHO, WL needs to rotate all their defenders to cover up the obvious pass to the corner while leaving open a man on the other side behind Suscho and prevent him from pivoting to get the ball to him in the opposite corner. Sischo would only have 3 seconds since he is in the lane, so it could stress him.

I know this is easier said than done, especially for a young team, as it requires the timing of synchronized swimmers to pull it off. :LOL
Real coaches could probably give me 100 reasons why it would not work.

[Scrub]

LOL

Finding decent, relatively nearby non conference opponents to agree to play WL is problematic. Kudos to Daemen. .

Don't get me wrong; I totally agree with you. I think taking this loss to Daemen now serves as a major learning experience for the young guys that will almost certainly pay dividends later in the season. Kudos to Daemen for taking the game, and kudos to Howlett for offering it.

I just know this is one of Boat's favorite hobby horse topics, so consider yourself warned. ; )