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Very uncharacteristic of BU, they have fallen off the cliff and leaving the door open down the stretch.
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Really hard to put your finger on the problem. The William Jewel game was a complete catastrophe. William Jewell won and played badly. Most of BU's other losses were the result of a team playing very well. The defense has fallen off considerably, although Hamil for Rockhurst was simply unconscious. Most of his threes were either contested or from more than 26 feet out or both. B.U. played well offensively in the Rockhurst, Springfield , and Southwest Baptist losses. Every loss except Indy, Bellarmine had significant second half leads that they could not hold. Execution in the clutch has been poor, although the games should not have been that close in the end. Way too much talent on this team for these results, but I ain't smart enough to tell you who or what is to blame.Comment
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I think the three point shot has become the great equalizer in this league. Guys are not only getting to open spots, they are also jumping up over defenders or stepping back to NBA range. There is a lot of individual talent in this league and I think you have to make those guys work harder on both sides of the ball to take the spring off their jumpers.Comment
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In most of these losses BU has better stats than the opponent, generally, with the exception that the opponent generally makes more 3's. Usually the shooting percentages are better for the Knights but the opponent takes more and makes more threes. I am favor of showing a "shooting effectiveness" percentage, i.e. If you take 10 2 point shots making 5 of them and 6 three point shots making 3 of them, today your shooting percentage would be 50% (16 total shots of which you made 8). A shooting effectiveness would be 9.5/16 = 63.33% (the 3 point makes would have a weighting of 1.5 compared to the 2 point makes with a weighting of 1. (Can you tell my degree at Bellarmine was in mathematics?)Comment
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Well, it's time to figure out if Truman is real, and that starts Thursday night with a trip to Knights Hall. I feel like the 'Dogs are walking into a lions den, as I'm sure stewing on an 0-2 weekend all the way back from Kansas City will have Coach Davenport and the BU guys locked and loaded for this weekend. Obviously Truman's key is Brodric Thomas, who went for 27/12/8 against UMSL on Saturday in Truman's win, but to me, it'll be how Turner Scott plays at the point on whether Truman can get out with a win. This is the start of a tough three game road trip for TSU that finishes at Indianapolis on Saturday and Drury next Thursday.Comment
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Hey there is no question that TSU is "real", the win over UMSL dispelled any doubt on that one. The real question is just how good can they be? Playing at Knights Hall and at Indy will give a glimpse into that.Comment
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I'm intrigued to see how the committee stacks up Truman compared to the rest of the top teams in the region. Six losses, all regional, for TSU, so that's more than quite a few, but all of them but probably 1 or 2 are against teams that will be in regional rankings. Nonconference wins at Findlay, home against Missouri Southern and at Washburn. That win against UMSL looked interesting this weekend - up big at half, then UMSL just chipped away and tied it up before Truman got a foul call with 0.5 left to hit the winning free throw. Saw an angle on twitter where the PG clearly got clocked in the head trying to shoot, so it was the right call, just I'm sure tough for UMSL to swallow in the final second when whistles often go silent.Originally posted by BGrad1971 View PostComment
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BTW...BU is 1-5 in close games. Had the same problem last year.
Both the Springfield and Rockhurst games were won on very late 3 point shots where the defender(the same player, who was inserted for defense)backed off a known 3 point threat. In both cases the opponent was down 1 point, meaning BU still had to prevent the two and could not sell out completely on the 3. At Springfield we made their best player give the ball up, but had sagged off the league's best three point shooter to help prevent penetration. I don't understand sagging off really good three point shooters. BTW everybody does this, not just BU. Your playing man to man but you incorporate zone principles, thereby creating the very weaknesses that a zone has compared to man to man.
Against Rockhurst their unbelievably hot player had the ball out front, no picks were set. The defender backed off when Hamil backed up, which was the fatal mistake. He should have crowded him and tried to make him turn his back to the basket. Instead Hamil took a few unmolested dribbles toward the hoop and stepped back for an open (albeit tough) three pointer.
BTW it looked like BU played some zone against Rockhurst. First zone we've seen from Scotty in a long, long time.Comment
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So is the glass half full or half empty. Easily could have won all 5 losses with a bounce or FT here or there but TO's and poor D opened the door. We gave up 20+ points off TO's in 3 of the losses, tough to win with that stat.
We have not been playing 2 consistent halves of basketball during this streak. Looked at our top 3 subs.......... Chitty, Claycomb and Penny..... getting 10 points from them. Checked in prior years, we were getting 18-20 points off the bench. Probably part of our problems. Parker especially does not look to score when he is in, probably tired of getting yelled at.
Was not able to watch/listen to Rockhurst.... why was Ben out?Comment
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How long has it been since Bellarmine was not in the top 25? Has to have been years, right?Comment
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Ben damages a ligament in his ankle against Jewell. He is only been able to go at half speed in practices this week. He is day-to-day as to whether he can play Thursday. Alex Cook also rolled his ankle at Rockhurst but has recovered nicely and should be at full strength against Truman.Originally posted by Big Smooth View PostComment
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Hamill was practicing his shooting because he is a 39% shooter for the year.
Chitty was not even on the floor when Hamill made the winning 3. Claycomb was guarding Hamill and backed way to far off of him. Chitty must have been talking about some other shot that Hamill made.
It's not clear what happened when Penn attempted to inbound the ball to Bradshaw with 4 seconds left. I couldn't really tell if the pass was so bad that Bradshaw just couldn't get it, or whether Bradshaw was not ready for it. I guess its water under the bridge at this point. Truth is that in both the Springfield and Rockhurst game, BU did a nice job getting the lead back with really clutch shots by Fleming and Penn, but they couldn't make the defensive stop when needed.
I wish I was as confident as you about tonight's game. If Hamill can put up 37 against us, Thomas can put up 50.
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I would agree with KnightFans comment about stopping our motion offense. Early in the year against non-conference teams who have had little chance to scout us resulted in bountiful layups off of the offense. Once you get into GLVC play where opposing coaches know us and have had ample time to look at game "film" the easy shots started drying up. Coaches can see how other teams' defenses are successful. I know the BU staff tries to put new wrinkles in the offense to counteract this, but it doesn't seem to have worked this year. You might as well forget about free chicken, the Knights haven't scored 85 points since Dec 15. Another obvious thing affecting all this is that the early season schedule was against much weaker opposition.Comment
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