New bellarmine thread

[Knightmoves]

Re: New bellarmine thread

So if A.E. leads BU to the championship, is he the new GOAT?

[BellarmineGrad]

Re: New bellarmine thread

So if A.E. leads BU to the championship, is he the new GOAT?

Close, but I say no. Hobbs led the Knights out of the darkness of a truly horrid era of BU hoops; Ebby is sustaining what Hobbs & Co. built.

And I certainly hope we have to revisit this question come late March and April...

[KnightStalker]

Re: New bellarmine thread

So if A.E. leads BU to the championship, is he the new GOAT?

Very close call but I have to agree with Grad, Hobbs was the first. His appearance on the team made them instant contenders when before him it had been over 15 years since BU had really done anything.

[Knightmoves]

Re: New bellarmine thread

I expect Drury to be a tough game tonight. Bellarmine's challenge is going to be on defense. Drury is pretty small, even for a D2 team. No starter over 6'4", with a couple of 6'7" guys coming off the bench. Bellarmine has been very good at pounding the paint and taking advantage of their length. The key is that BU's big guys are not just big, they are very skilled basketball players. If Drury tries to take away Eberhard's scoring by double teaming, he will have double digit assists and C.C. will go for 20+.

Nobody has been completely successful on the offensvie end at exploiting a quickness advantage against Bellarmine. Largely because A.E., and to some degree, Alex Cook have shown the ability to guard smaller players effectively. Integral to that is that the Bellarmine array of guards are extremely strong defensively. Even if Bellarmine goes to a 3 guard lineup, it will still have a big height advantage. Drury is a notch above most of this season's opponents in athleticism. They pass the ball very well, actually leading the conference in assists. If they come out hot, the game may go to the wire. Of course Drury's record in close games is mystifyingly poor, but sometimes you gotta figure they are due.

Looking at Drury's stats, two things stand out as problems explaining their very surprinsing poor record. Poor team free throw shooting. When you have five one point losses (and an overtime loss) just a little bit better free throw shooting may have won most of those games. The other thing is the abysmal play of Isaac Johnson who had averaged more than 12 ppg in his first two seasons and was 2nd team all conf. last year. He is shooting 30% from the field and averaging 5.5 ppg this season. He is only 17/70 on 3's. I don't know if there is an explanation for his play, like he is playing hurt, but that kind of shooting percentage is really hurting his team.

[DUPanther]

Re: New bellarmine thread

I expect Drury to be a tough game tonight. Bellarmine's challenge is going to be on defense. Drury is pretty small, even for a D2 team. No starter over 6'4", with a couple of 6'7" guys coming off the bench. Bellarmine has been very good at pounding the paint and taking advantage of their length. The key is that BU's big guys are not just big, they are very skilled basketball players. If Drury tries to take away Eberhard's scoring by double teaming, he will have double digit assists and C.C. will go for 20+.

Nobody has been completely successful on the offensvie end at exploiting a quickness advantage against Bellarmine. Largely because A.E., and to some degree, Alex Cook have shown the ability to guard smaller players effectively. Integral to that is that the Bellarmine array of guards are extremely strong defensively. Even if Bellarmine goes to a 3 guard lineup, it will still have a big height advantage. Drury is a notch above most of this season's opponents in athleticism. They pass the ball very well, actually leading the conference in assists. If they come out hot, the game may go to the wire. Of course Drury's record in close games is mystifyingly poor, but sometimes you gotta figure they are due.

Looking at Drury's stats, two things stand out as problems explaining their very surprinsing poor record. Poor team free throw shooting. When you have five one point losses (and an overtime loss) just a little bit better free throw shooting may have won most of those games. The other thing is the abysmal play of Isaac Johnson who had averaged more than 12 ppg in his first two seasons and was 2nd team all conf. last year. He is shooting 30% from the field and averaging 5.5 ppg this season. He is only 17/70 on 3's. I don't know if there is an explanation for his play, like he is playing hurt, but that kind of shooting percentage is really hurting his team.

Agree with all of this except how tough a game it will likely be for BU. I have my doubts whether this year's DU team has enough grit to play with Bellarmine in Knights Hall, and our forwards have not been good on either end as a group. Scotty knows this - he'll have his guys get very physical with Drury's guards on the perimeter, the refs will let them, and we'll have trouble mustering enough points in the paint to counter.

Johnson has not been good - his play alone probably cost Drury 2 or 3 games and his playing time has been significantly diminished. Hopefully he can dig in and get his game back, but he looks like he's lost confidence.

[BGrad1971]

Re: New bellarmine thread

Hard to understand how a team like Drury can play so well for 32 minutes and then totally collapse the last 8 minutes of the game. As noted by Moves, their guards are very quick and aggressive on defense. They caused a lot of trouble for BU with their double teams and their belly-to-belly defense (a lot like BU's defense). I can't tell whether they just ran out of gas the last 5 minutes or whether BU just moved their game up a notch and Drury had no answer. They obviously couldn't handle BU's inside game due to their lack of size but they gave it a heck of an effort with their tenacious defense. In the end when a guard oriented team's 3 point shots don't fall it usually means trouble, and it did the second half last night for Drury. I still think Drury will be a tough "out" in the GLVC conference tournament and if they can add some size to their roster they'll be back in the hunt next year (that however is a statement just about every D2 team finds themselves saying!)

[DUPanther]

Re: New bellarmine thread

Hard to understand how a team like Drury can play so well for 32 minutes and then totally collapse the last 8 minutes of the game. As noted by Moves, their guards are very quick and aggressive on defense. They caused a lot of trouble for BU with their double teams and their belly-to-belly defense (a lot like BU's defense). I can't tell whether they just ran out of gas the last 5 minutes or whether BU just moved their game up a notch and Drury had no answer. They obviously couldn't handle BU's inside game due to their lack of size but they gave it a heck of an effort with their tenacious defense. In the end when a guard oriented team's 3 point shots don't fall it usually means trouble, and it did the second half last night for Drury. I still think Drury will be a tough "out" in the GLVC conference tournament and if they can add some size to their roster they'll be back in the hunt next year (that however is a statement just about every D2 team finds themselves saying!)

When one team has much more margin for error than the other, this is the usual outcome - especially on the road, and double especially when the road venue is Knights Hall.

Proud of our guy's effort, though - they showed some grit and kept playing.

[KnightStalker]

Re: New bellarmine thread

Hard to understand how a team like Drury can play so well for 32 minutes and then totally collapse the last 8 minutes of the game. As noted by Moves, their guards are very quick and aggressive on defense. They caused a lot of trouble for BU with their double teams and their belly-to-belly defense (a lot like BU's defense). I can't tell whether they just ran out of gas the last 5 minutes or whether BU just moved their game up a notch and Drury had no answer. They obviously couldn't handle BU's inside game due to their lack of size but they gave it a heck of an effort with their tenacious defense. In the end when a guard oriented team's 3 point shots don't fall it usually means trouble, and it did the second half last night for Drury. I still think Drury will be a tough "out" in the GLVC conference tournament and if they can add some size to their roster they'll be back in the hunt next year (that however is a statement just about every D2 team finds themselves saying!)

I watched the game on TV (not able to go last night) and the announcers (national guys for the D2 showcase, who were definitely a step up compared to local guys even if they didnt know everything about BU) made the point, which I agree with, that BU took control when they "raised" the offense to a 1-4 set with the 4 line up above the free throw line. It allowed Eberhard or Cook to get the ball down low without the pesky double team that Drury was working so well earlier in the second half. I think Drury just ran out of gas after that and their offense began to suffer. It was a very well coached game on both sides.

[Knightmoves]

Re: New bellarmine thread

We all know the other undefeated team in D2 is NWMSU. I have not seen them play yet. Statistically speaking, they are amazing, just a few examples:
Their starting front line, like BU, is 6'8", 6'7", 6'7". Like BU the big guys can shoot, but they shoot and make many more 3's than Bellarmine. They have shot 508 3's on the season, making 44%. Bellarmine has shot 320 3's, making 38%. NWMSU shoots "only" 53% from the field, compared to BU's 56 %. Considering their 3 point efficiency however, makes NWMSU the much more efficient offensive team. By way of example, the starting player with the least 3 point attempts for NWMSU has 71 attempts, making 35. The BU player with the MOST 3 point attempts, Ben Weyer, has 76 attempts and has made 32. Their leading three point shooter is 6'7" Joey Wittus who is 60 for 123 (48%) on 3's.
NWMSU is no West Liberty or Nova Southeastern (meaning all offense, no d). Massey numbers rank them #2 in defense. Bellarmine is 3. Nova Southestern is 290.
Lest you think that NWMSU has played lesser competition, most objective observers would say that the MIAA is the best conference in the country this season.

[Knightmoves]

Re: New bellarmine thread

Should be a good game Saturday against USI. They are going to be desparate and dangerous. The game in Evansville was strange for Bellarmine. BU shot 71% from the field and they had only 1 point lead under 2 minutes to play. BU had 21 turnovers, many of them were offensive fouls. I don't expect a repeat of that. USI got an unusually good performance from big guy Josh Price. Don't think that will happen again, but they will probably get better performance from Caldwell who only had 4 points in the first game. USI has been playing better by playing small, but that has not been an effective strategy against the Knights. Price and Little are going to have to play well for USI to have a chance.

[NWHoops]

Re: New bellarmine thread

We all know the other undefeated team in D2 is NWMSU. I have not seen them play yet. Statistically speaking, they are amazing, just a few examples:
Their starting front line, like BU, is 6'8", 6'7", 6'7". Like BU the big guys can shoot, but they shoot and make many more 3's than Bellarmine. They have shot 508 3's on the season, making 44%. Bellarmine has shot 320 3's, making 38%. NWMSU shoots "only" 53% from the field, compared to BU's 56 %. Considering their 3 point efficiency however, makes NWMSU the much more efficient offensive team. By way of example, the starting player with the least 3 point attempts for NWMSU has 71 attempts, making 35. The BU player with the MOST 3 point attempts, Ben Weyer, has 76 attempts and has made 32. Their leading three point shooter is 6'7" Joey Wittus who is 60 for 123 (48%) on 3's.
NWMSU is no West Liberty or Nova Southeastern (meaning all offense, no d). Massey numbers rank them #2 in defense. Bellarmine is 3. Nova Southestern is 290.
Lest you think that NWMSU has played lesser competition, most objective observers would say that the MIAA is the best conference in the country this season.

I posted this in the MIAA thread but thought it would apply for anyone interested:

I don't see much advanced analytics breakdowns at the D2 level but this is impressive stuff for NW:
https://twitter.com/gyratestats/stat...05136161824768

[Knightmoves]

Re: New bellarmine thread

I posted this in the MIAA thread but thought it would apply for anyone interested:

I don't see much advanced analytics breakdowns at the D2 level but this is impressive stuff for NW:
https://twitter.com/gyratestats/stat...05136161824768

That is an amazing shot chart: https://twitter.com/gyratestats/stat...05136161824768

One thing I noticed besides the great shooting, at the time the chart was done, NWMSU shot a grand total of 8 shots from between 15ft and the 3 point line. That is intelligent basketball.
I wonder where the Tweeter got that chart?

[TSU_Mike59]

Re: New bellarmine thread

I posted this in the MIAA thread but thought it would apply for anyone interested:

I don't see much advanced analytics breakdowns at the D2 level but this is impressive stuff for NW:
https://twitter.com/gyratestats/stat...05136161824768

Incredible. And I'm sure 111 points last night helped those numbers only go further up.

[Augieholic]

Re: New bellarmine thread

That is an amazing shot chart: https://twitter.com/gyratestats/stat...05136161824768

One thing I noticed besides the great shooting, at the time the chart was done, NWMSU shot a grand total of 8 shots from between 15ft and the 3 point line. That is intelligent basketball.
I wonder where the Tweeter got that chart?

I believe it all comes from Synergy which NBA and college teams load games onto and it produces these shot charts and tons of other info.

[BGrad1971]

Re: New bellarmine thread

Should be a good game Saturday against USI. They are going to be desparate and dangerous. The game in Evansville was strange for Bellarmine. BU shot 71% from the field and they had only 1 point lead under 2 minutes to play. BU had 21 turnovers, many of them were offensive fouls. I don't expect a repeat of that. USI got an unusually good performance from big guy Josh Price. Don't think that will happen again, but they will probably get better performance from Caldwell who only had 4 points in the first game. USI has been playing better by playing small, but that has not been an effective strategy against the Knights. Price and Little are going to have to play well for USI to have a chance.

Speaking of desperate and dangerous, I'm sure those words can be used for Lewis and Indy too. BU, Ashland and Findlay look in decent shape to be among the eight in the regional (still time for the wheels to come off for one of those teams however) but assuming no tailspin, that leaves 5 open slots. USI, Indy and Lewis need some big wins to get into the five. No better big win than beating the #1 team in the rankings. Hillsdale, Ferris State and UMSL I guess are in the running plus another GLIAC team (possibly Northern?) but the GLVC contenders have a number of head to head games that will all than likely create some separation from each other. Should be easy for a coach to get his team fired up to fight hard like a cornered animal!