Why I like our matchup with Richmond
by Jason Fukuda on Mar 14, 2011 2:42 PM EDT
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PrintFirst attempt at a Fanpost, but here is my take on why I think the matchup is favorable for us - first let's look at this page. Pay attention to the losses and the OR% under Defense - notice anything? Pretty much in all of our losses, we were killed on the offensive glass by our opponents. In 8 of the 10 losses, our opponents grabbed at least 36% of their own misses, a very high number. The other two losses came against Tennessee and Kentucky. The Volunteers were average, but we also turned the ball over on 24% of our offensive possessions and shot the ball poorly. Against UK at Rupp Arena, we basically lost a 1 possession game - could have gone either way.
Sure, we've had some wins against teams that have done well on the offensive glass, but we've had to have heroic efforts elsewhere to get the wins - against MSU most recently. That game featured fantastic shooting and an almost complete avoidance of turnovers. Against Bama, it was living at the line, good shooting, and staying even with them in turnovers to produce a very close win. Against UGA at home, it was 30+ FT attemtps in addition to good overall FG defense.
That brings us to Richmond - again lots of credit to Kenpom.com. I'll focus on one particular stat line:
| Off. Reb. %: | 28.5 291 | 32.6 195 | 32.3 |
I see here that Richmond basically avoids offensive rebounds - they may get them occaisionally, but it is not critical to their gameplan. Now this makes sense when we look at what type of offense they run - modified Princeton - and look at their personnel. As many of us remember, when we ran the modified Princeton, we tended to invert our offense, which resulted in a lot of three point shots for Dawid and Matt. When I look at Richmond's starting frontline, I see a 6'-10" player who's a fantastic (and frequent) three point shooter and another 6'-9" player who also likes to hoist up threes. I also see very small offensive rebounding rates for both players, which makes sense, as it is much more difficult to grab offensive rebounds when starting from 20'-6" from the basket.
Now, this is not saying that we will definitely beat Richmond - they shoot 40% from three and can get hot, but our issue this season hasn't been defending the three. Nor has it been scoring the ball. Even turnovers hasn't really been an issue, as we've won games where we've turned the ball over frequently and lost games where we've taken really good care of the ball. Offensive rebounds have been the most detrimental, because not only is it an extra possession, but it is an extra possession near on our side of the court, with the defense out of position, often times very close to the basket.
We'll see how things go, but from this standpoint, we could have done much, much worse in terms of matchups.
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Great stuff.
I frontpaged it for the excellent analysis.
by Christian D'Andrea on Mar 14, 2011 3:35 PM EDT reply actions
I could be completely off base
But I’ve probably screamed “grab a rebound” at the gym or to the television screen enough times this season to think that there must be some sort of trend here.
There are also reasons why we get abused on the offensive glass that have more to do with personnel and style of play, but against a team that doesn’t pound the boards we can overcome it, because players like Lance and Festus are very, very talented rebounders.
I would add defending quick guards to the list of our biggest problems.
three point shooting we should be okay against, seeing as fuller is our only undersized perimeter player.
I wish there was some obvious pun you could make about Andrew Luck.
Absolutely
It hasn’t been as bad lately, but there are loads of players in our prospective path that can put on a Bruce Ellington type performance and shoot the Commodores out of the tournament.
by Christian D'Andrea on Mar 14, 2011 4:09 PM EDT up reply actions
I can't remember which game
but Mark Gottfried said a hundred times that if you give up drives on the perimeter it forces your help defense to come over and you are out of position on rebounds.
It appears to me that Stallings wants Festus to stop the drive and lord knows he is good at it. However, we often see offensive rebounds on these possessions. After hearing about Richmond’s guard I was quite concerned but Jason’s analysis makes me feel much better. I watched those Dawid and Matt teams and it felt like they were never in position for a missed shot.
Less clear here:
Marquette had a ton of quick guards, and Robinson of UGA has always given us fits. Bost and Warren are as quick as we’ve faced all season, and we did beat UK and USC as well.
UT’s PG is pretty quick, but he’s not really anything special – we didn’t lose to UT twice because of the quickness of their guards.
Almost every team we will face will have guards that are quicker than our guards. Where we have a problem is when we slide Taylor over and expose an equally large mismatch when Tinsley or Jenkins have to cover the PF (see Florida). Neither Smith nor Martel strike me as matchup nightmares for us.
Any mismatch their roster causes is insignificant in comparison to the mismatch Skynet presents with . Very few centers can contain him, and those that try have a propensity to find themselves sitting with foul trouble. Stallings should be looking at this like our mismatch disparity is greater than your mismatch disparity, and hopefully we will maximize our strong points.
A couple posts on a Spider board have said something along the lines of, “if we can contain festus and stop Jenkins from getting open looks, we will win.” I don’t think you’ll ever stop JJ from getting his 18 or so points, but you can limit his efficiency. He’s the kind of player who is going to score his points no matter how many shots he has to take, so there’s definitely a chance there to limit his effectiveness. If you can make him take bad shots where he has a higher chance of missing, then he’s more likely to think he’s having a bad shooting day – and thus will think, “I must continue shooting to get myself out of this slump.” We all know this ends with a 2-15 Marquette performance and 2-11 or whatever against UF. He gets himself into a vicious cycle of taking worse and worse 3s, thinking he’s having a bad day, rather than questioning his shot selection. I do think the Richmond Spideys have the ability to slow him down…
On the other hand, when they say, “if we can stop Festus..” No. No one on your roster can stop Festus. He’s made it through the SEC season against big men of greater caliber than anyone in particular on your team. You may refer to your own future NBA draft pick in citing the quality of your roster, but I have to cite the NBA guys that our crew play against week in and week out. Having a futrue NBA draft big is NBD. Sorry to rant fellas..
But game planning against a 6’10 3 point shootr is nothing new to us. We played Parsons two times in the past 3 weeks. Playing against good driving guards is also nothing new. Nearly every game for the past 2.5 months has been played against opposing guards who are faster/quicker/more agile than our guards. The question is whether you have the experience to deal with Skynet.
JJ really only had two bad games efficiency wise
and I don’t think the other team really had anything to do with it. JJ shot a ridiculous 1.30 ppws in sec play. I always cringe at his shot selection but at the end of the day he makes more than enough to justify it.
I agree that we should not run the offense for JJ. Run it through Fes to make sure he gets his opportunities. JJ will get his shots no matter what. Fes needs someone to pass it to him.
I admit
to completely irrational criticism of JJ. Its just so frustrating seeing Fes without the opportunity to impact the game when he presents such an advantage for us. He plays so physical and with such heart that it seems to get everyone going. I don’t know. I guess I kinda grew too fond of us having an inside game with Fes and seem to forget that John is one of the best shooters in the country.
It's also important to remember that Richmond is really good at slowing down 3 shooters
We WILL NOT win this game by out threeing Richmond.
We win by going inside. That is that.
Scouting
CKS is scouting the Richmond hoops team, and Dore09 is scouting the Richmond Spider fan board. Total team effort…keep it up gentlemen.
by Kimchi Stallings on Mar 15, 2011 9:09 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Hell yeah!
I’m all-in.
I visited University of Richmond on my college trips. They told me the university had seperated the dorm buildings by gender with a giant lake in between. So I got in a car and left. Weak.
Nice job
I’m feeling pretty good about this matchup.
Following our shots seemed to be a big problem on Saturday. It drives me nuts when JJ chucks it up and then scoots back instead of at least following it a little bit. I understand he wants to get back on defense, but I think that would help immensely with rebounding.
I live in the OC.
The one in OH.
I think JT does this more
He shoots those step back long twos that drive me crazy.
Also, he shot at a Mario Moore efficiency level this year which is not where you want to be.
Vandy's Defensive OReb Number
I think it is a bit misleading. Not to say that we don’t occasionally get beat on putbacks that we should have corralled, but we are a very solid 3FG% Defense club, and as we all know, long shots often lead to long rebounds.
Keeping Lance and Fes out of foul trouble is of paramount importance. Thankfully, Richmond is not great at drawing fouls. Their FTRate is very low.
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I don't think that is a large issue
Most of our offensive rebounding issues are due to our center being out of positioni and our reserve post players poor rebounding numberes. Most of the putbacks that I’ve seen are off of two point misses that Festus has tried to block, and rebounded in the area that he just vacated to go for the block. Additionally, Steve and Rod have had a horrible time blocking out, especially against physical or athletic front lines.
Plus, most everybody has struggled against our three point defense, but the level of success on the offensive boards has been mixed at best – style of play and commitment to the offensive glass has be a much larger factor.
by Jason Fukuda on Mar 14, 2011 5:21 PM EDT up reply actions
Agreed, Luke Winn talked about Fes in his power rankings awile back
About how his DR% was surpressed because of his high Blk%. Obviously this strategy burns us at times.
However, when Steve is on the floor his Blk% is only 2.1% (compared to Fes’ 10.8%) and his foul committed percentage is basically the same (Steve 5.1 FC/40, Fes 5.2). Therefore, we should not be utilizing this strategy with Steve. What stinks is even if Stallings is being smart and not utilizing this strategy with Steve, Steve’s DR% is still lower than Fes’ at 13.5% (Fes is 15.9% and Lance is 22.9%, which is best in the SEC).
Odom’s numbers are : 0.7% Blk%, 5.4 FC/40 and DR% of 10.5%.
Basically, if Fes isn’t in the game we need to modify our approach and focus more on rebounding.
I wish I had data on line up combinations, but I don’t think it is readily available. Stallings might want to play Lance at the same time as Steve and avoid playing Steve and Odom together. I don’t have a great feel for how often we use these combinations but I think the latter only happens when Fes has foul trouble. Clearly the more minutes for Fes the better. And if you like rebounds you want Lance in the game.
Anybody have CKS' email?
We need to make sure he’s on the same page as we are
by Bob_Loblaw_Law_Blog on Mar 15, 2011 9:03 AM EDT reply actions
CKS
I’m sure he’s reading every word we write. That’s why he didn’t have time to talk to ESPN.
This.
Or, you could always send VCDW another email and ask him to forward it to CKS. I’m sure he hasn’t heard enough from us in the past 6 months.
by doredarling on Mar 15, 2011 11:29 AM EDT up reply actions
The one defensive concern I have
is that they run the Princeton high cut offense. It brings everyone away from the hoop. Can Fes come out to the perimeter and effectively defend there without getting isolated and in foul trouble?
I’m a bit worried that this game may come down to whether we get their bigs in foul trouble or they get Fes in foul trouble.
I share your concern
on the perimeter defending. It scares the hell out of me every time Fes comes out to guard someone; he tends to play too tight on the perimeter. He just needs to close out with his hands up and it should be enough to deter or at least challenge most shots; the guy was a freakin 7’4" wingspan!
Also, if he is playing too tight on the perimeter, he’s likely to draw a dumb hand-check or blocking foul if the guy tries to go by him. These are exactly the fouls we cannot afford to have him pick up.
On the other end, I’m sure CKS realizes what an opportunity he has with Fes in the post (fingers crossed). If we could pick up 2 fouls early on Geriot (their C), it would force either Smith or Harper to defend Fes in the post. At that point, we should be able to either keep pounding it down low to try to get one of them in trouble or get some more open looks on the perimeter since they’ll have less size out there.
Either way, I think we all agree its going to come down to how well they shoot and how well we rebound. These (esp rebounding) have been the keys all year.
by Bob_Loblaw_Law_Blog on Mar 15, 2011 9:49 AM EDT up reply actions
VandyStu was saying on the Rivals board that he thinks we should use the zone and apparently according to some Richmond folks they’ve struggled against the zone.
I agree with that. Fes coming out a long way is a recipe for foul trouble and Lance following Harper all over the place is a good way to end up with no rebounds.
At first I thought the 3 shooting meant 2-3 was a recipe for disaster, but honestly, as long as we don’t let them just fire away uncontested, the rebounding is much more important than the 3 defense. They’ve shot very well in some of their losses, but in all of their losses they were outrebounded.
And supposedly, they have struggled against the zone before, so I think we’ll see it quite a bit.
The 2-3 crossed my mind
It can defend the perimeter well when folks are hustling. It helps that they don’t have an inside game to worry about.
Match-up zone
I hope CKS has the guys practicing shooting 3’s from the corners. If they’re playing matchup zone—and we have somebody running the baseline from corner to corner like we should—then we’re going to see a lot of shots from the corners after swinging the ball around the perimeter.
Personally, I’d like to see JJ running the baseline with JT slicing up the middle of the zone. Theoretically, their priority will be JJ running the baseline, which should open up the middle nicely for JT to get in there, draw a defender, and kick it out for a 3 from the wing or preferably, dump it down to Fes for some easy dunks. If they start to shade the D toward JT, it should open up some looks for the Flamethrower
I also like that the fact that KenPom lists the Spiders’ defensive OReb% at 32.6. If we have BigDanceLance or StevieT on the perimeter and crashing the offensive glass, it should create some nice offensive rebounding mismatches in our favor.
by Bob_Loblaw_Law_Blog on Mar 15, 2011 9:30 AM EDT reply actions
Princeton Offense
Thank the stars that Stallings spent a few seasons studying it/running it. That should help in planning to defend it.
Anchor of Gold
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Facebook: AOG
Skynet
Give him the ball every time. It is time for judgement day. Good things will happen.
Put Spinmaster(JT) in the middle and let threesus and Brad ‘dont’ tell me white men can’t jump’ tinsley in the corners. Hopefully Fes can get freed up for some huge dunks, and lance can crash the boards.
Here’s to a victory on thursday followed by the St. Patrick’s day debauchery that is to follow.
by Thespanishcommodore on Mar 15, 2011 10:58 AM EDT reply actions
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