The Jay Wright Shot

First, I want to thank Terence Mann for his blog post.  Well done.  But for all of those who are heading out to a bar to watch the game or to a game watch party in your respected cities tomorrow, I have a beverage for you, but it needs your help!

I usually have very fond memories of my time at Nova, but sometimes, sure, I have some regrets or frustrations with my time there, the school, and or the other students.  That being said last Saturday was not one of those days for several reasons – a big win, day drinking, etc.  I began the day by attending a game watch with some good friends in the area, including this guy named Skinner.  What was he doing there anyway?  After the game watch we slowly moved from bar to bar maintaining our feeling of happiness while being unsure if we were ready to fist pump at 2:30 in the afternoon.  In any event at our 3^rd stop on this celebration tour, we ran into several other Nova alumni.  It just so happened we graduated the same year, and because it was Villanova, several people either knew each other or knew a close friend.

Once they had left after about 15 minutes of conversation, I realized that only alumni from very few schools would actually go up to alum and a) know friends of each other or b) would actually care and talk to someone else who went to that school.  Sure if two people from University of Idaho met in a bar in Miami they would talk, but I live near Villanova, and see Nova alum a decent amount.  The result is always the same, we talk and get to know each other a little, find a friend in common, enjoy the interaction, and buy each other a drink.  I think it is a very good thing about Nova, and something that I enjoy, at least in theory.

Ah, the drink at the end, and thus the purpose of this post.  So these guys came up with a Nova drink called the Jay Wright shot.  In a shot glass you have mostly blue razz vodka with a touch of blue curacao – for color which is a very vibrant blue.  Next you have your standard Red Bull – like a cherry bomb.  You know what happens next, but while you drink the bomb you are supposed to actually Throw Your V’s up and when you finish you say “I am going to live forever!”

Now I will give you guys credit for the creation of a Nova shot, but let’s be honest, we can do better than that.  First issue.  When you put the shot into the Red Bull it turns green.  Other than on St. Patty’s Day, no one wants to drink anything green.  Next problem.  What they hell does “I am going to live forever!” mean?  We can come up with something better than that.  I’m not going to even recommend the obvious one here – see the name of the blog – but how about “V is for Victory.”  That has to be better right?  Next issue. The name.  Now I love Jay, but what happens when he or if he leaves?  Do we make a shot for the next coach?  I wonder what a Rollie shot would be like. Couldn’t we at least call it a Nova Bomb or a Main Line?  In any event, I believe these 3 things need to change, which really is the whole shot itself.  The taste is not too bad, but I think all you guys get credit for is the idea.

Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions?

Villanova (Doesn’t) Run on Dunkin’

Guest Blogger: Terence Mann

Since the Jay Wright era began in 2001-2002, the ‘Cats are a mediocre 5-5 at “The Dunk” with 2 of the 5 wins requiring OT. They are 4-4 against Providence in those 10 games and 1-1 in the NCAA Tournament including a miracle comeback against Robert Morris and a 75-68 shocking defeat to St. Mary’s to end the Final Four repeat dream in 2010. In the 10 games played in Providence since 2001 Villanova has been favored to win in all but 1 game.

So what gives? Is Jay just more of a Starbucks guy?

In the 5 losses Villanova averaged 15.8 turnovers per game. Not great but in their wins, they averaged 17.6. 3 of the 4 losses to Providence came in Jay’s 1^st 3 years as coach – The ‘Cats led the conference in TO’s 2 of those seasons, so it is ironic that the rate of sloppy ball handling has actually improved over the last decade, and thus likely not the cause for the trouble against the Friars.

Villanova has not shot the ball well in Rhode Island either. 4 times in the 5 losses we shot 40% or less from the field and exceeded 45% only twice in 10 tries. Maybe it’s difficult to shoot in an arena with fewer fans than empty seats. So poor shooting as well as poor shot selection in the most recent loss certainly played a role.

In the end though, I must just chalk this up to overall poor play on the road under Coach Wright. It could be lack of focus or perhaps it’s the comfortable quarters on West Campus that makes us better at home. Whatever the cause, it’s certainly a cause for alarm in my book. Yes the Big East is grueling, and it is important to hold court at home, but championships are won on the road (at least away from the Main Line).

Here is Jay’s record at some other notable Big East venues in his tenure – I think the results speak for themselves:

Petersen Events Center: 0-2

WVU Coliseum: 1-2

Hartford Civic Center: 0-3

I’m not ready to push the panic button just yet, but my fingers are on it and twitching. Hopefully the seniors get focused on the remainder of the schedule, and now. Although we have some home cooking coming up on the schedule, the competition will be tough, and ultimately may determine this team’s fate. This might still be a memorable run – I just hope it is not memorable in the way of St. Mary’s 2010.

Orange Juice & Donuts: The Breakfast of...

An up and down week for the V.  We went into upstate New York, and played an extremely efficient game with an ORtg (offensive rating) of 126.6, however we gave up an ORtg of 109.8.  We followed that up with a trip to the faux Island and gave up an ORtg of 112.47.  Not good to say the least.

However, one of my New Year’s Resolutions was to stay positive and happy.  Why not, right?  I’m tired of getting frustrated and upset over little things, and Nova baskets and this blog should be a place of tranquility and positivity.  So, let’s find something good to reflect on.  It’s only 1 game and we are still 17-3, with a Big East record of 5-2, and after my breakfast of orange juice and a dozen munchkin Dunkin’ Donuts I am full and content once again.

As always, I began with a question:  traditionally, how have we fared on the road during Big East play?  Do we loose to bad teams on the road?

I went back only until 2005 because that was the year the Jay Wright era, as we know it, really began.  This was the junior year of Foye, Sumpter, Ray, and Fraser.  You know the one we lost to UNC on the bull shit call?  Stay positive.  Here is our Big East ROAD record each year, and the Top 50 is according to the kenpom.com rankings.

2005		2008				Top 50
W	L	W	L			W	L
5	3	3	6		2005	2	3
					2006	3	1
2006		2009			2007	2	4
W	L	W	L		2008	1	3
7	1	6	3		2009	2	3
					2010	3	3
2007		2010			2011	1	1
W	L	W	L
4	4	5	3		Total	14	18
	2011
	W	L
	2	2

The important take away here is that we loose almost all of our road games against quality opponents.  In total we have lost 22 games on the road in the Big East and 18 of those 22 have been ranked in the top 50.  I of course would love to win some of those, but taking care of business is important (beating the mutts of the league).  4 of those losses, however, we outside of the top 50 including Providence (71^st), and the ONLY other year in which we lost to a team outside the top 50 was in 2008  (we lost to 3).

Wait there is some good news, staying positive remember.  When we look at the top 25 on the road we are:  4-13.  One of those victories was this year:  ‘Cuse at 16.  And one of those losses was to UCONN at 13 which we could have just as easily won.  On a negative note for 1 sec. though is that it is unclear if UCONN or ‘Cuse will stay in the top 25 for the remainder of the year.  The rankings from the other years reflect a team’s end of the season rank, which in any event is a better reflection of a team than their rank at the time.

All and all it was an up and down week like we all know, but I think we should remain positive.  Not just because of New Year’s resolutions nor because I am one of those totally loyal stupid fans who will never say anything bad about my team (for the record I am not).  We should stay positive because we are still an unpolished team.  In ’06 when we went 7-1 on the road we had a team that had been slowly improving each year, and we had several players with National recognition.  Everyone knew their role, and we simply took care of business.  In ’05 that was not the case.  We were an up and coming team with players who were still developing and learning game by game.  In ’09 we were again an unpolished team.  We had seniors who had been around, but we did not know what type of production we would have from our role and bench players. 

In ’11 we have a similar situation as in ’09 & ’05.  We are still improving and players who are contributing significantly to our team are still a work in progress. That being said we seem to get up for BIG games (see ‘Cuse & even UCONN) but as a team that isn’t whole yet we are prone to slip up.  Looking ahead we are going to learn a lot about our team because with 11 games left, 5 are on the road.  Time will tell.

And remember:  I don’t always stay positive, but when I do, I prefer to Throw My V’s Up!  Keep your chin up my friends.

The Quad

As all Nova alums and current students know, sophomore year can be described by two words: the quad.  Maybe it is the sweet smell of the bathrooms in Sheehan or Sullivan, or the short walk to the pit, or the short walk to the gym, whatever it is the year in the quad treats Nova guards well.  And in case you haven’t noticed Wayns is having a pretty damn good year.  And for the record I am aware that most of the team does not live in the quad but whatever.

So I began with a simple question:  Is Wayns more like Lowry or Foye?  He has that cute and cuddly baby face like Lowry, but if you were to remove his head he has the same body type that Foye has.  So that’s what I started with, however as I slowly began to comb through and collect the data, I started to get curious.  Next question:  Statistically who had the best sophomore year at Nova?  Because stats do not go back far enough and because frankly I do not care that much about pre-2000 Nova (Ok, for anyone over the age of 33 calm down of course I care) I decided to narrow my field down to Scottie, Foye, Fisher, Lowry & of course Wayns.  Who else would even make this list?  Snowden or Nardi I guess, but they are on a lower tier.  Wait, what about Malcolm Grant!?  Oh, that’s right he never had a sophomore year at Nova.  Moving on, again while compiling (which in case you are wondering this task includes me using all the data from kenpom.com and moving it over into a spreadsheet – it’s more fun than you might think) another idea ran through my head:  I wonder how each player progressed from year to year and in which year did they make the biggest jump?  The surprising thing is that what I found really didn’t surprise me too much, but here are the results.  One final note – for Foye kenpom only has data for his Senior and junior year so when I saw sophomore year it is really Foye’s junior year.  Cheating I know.

Here are the basics for each of their sophomore years

	Ht	Wt	Yr	Yr	G	%Min	ORtg	%Poss	%Shots
Wayns	6-1	185	So	2011	17	72.8	105.2	28.3	26
Lowry	6-1	175	So	2006	33	72.7	113.4	22.1	17.8
Foye	6-4	205	Jr	2005	32	79.9	110.1	26.1	29.1
Scottie	6-2	195	So	2008	35	81.4	105.6	25.1	24.3
Fisher	6-1	200	So	2009	38	60.7	106.4	23.7	22.2

So they are all pretty close to the same size and weight, same amount of playing time, similar ORtg’s.  They also all used a decent amount of possessions and took their fair share of shots.  Does anything really stand out? Any surprises?  Not really right.  Maybe the thing that stands out the most to me is how little playing time Fisher had relative to the others, but when he was on the floor he played as efficient as the rest of them did.  Lowry has a low shot% and poss%, but that makes since given the fact that he shared the court with Foye and Ray.  Same for Scottie who had Nardi and Dante along side him.  Nothing too remarkable here so let’s move on.

	eFG%	OR%	DR%	ARate	TORate	Blk%	Stl%
Wayns	43.6	2.2	9.6	38.1	20.5	0.2	2.5
Lowry	48.2	6.8	10.2	25.9	19.6	0.9	4.8
Foye	48.1	6.1	11.6	21.5	15.9	1.6	3.3
Scottie	51.1	1.7	9.6	20.8	21.5	0.1	2.6
Fisher	48	2.7	8.1	22.6	19.7	0.3	2.9

Now here we actually have some differences.  Look how low Wayns’ eFG% is, but look how high his assist rate is!  I think we can assume that his eFG% should increase hopefully this season and most definitely next year as well, but can we also assume his assist rate will drop off?  I am inclined to think so but maybe this is his real strength.  Scottie has the best eFG, but he is also the best 3point shooter of this group.  Take a look at the OR%.  Both Foye and Lowry are much better than the rest.  Foye played more down low so his rate is not too surprising, but Lowry is pretty decent as well.  Not a huge shock because he was always tough and fearless going to the hoop.  It makes sense he did well scrapping away.  Finally, look at Foye’s TOrate.  That is really good for a guard who used 26% of total possessions.  So far we are getting a decent picture but there is more.

	FTRate	FT%	%Pts.	2P%	%Pts.	%of Shts	3P%	%Pts.	%of Shts
Wayns	50.8	82.6%	32.5%	48.8%	52.1%	69.1%	21.4%	15.4%	30.9%
Lowry	61.4	78.6%	33.3%	46.8%	60.1%	92.8%	44.4%	6.6%	7.2%
Foye	26.4	75.2%	17.1%	46.5%	51.5%	64.3%	34.0%	31.4%	35.7%
Scottie	47.7	77.9%	26.7%	44.3%	30.6%	48.2%	38.3%	42.7%	51.8%
Fisher	54.7	77.8%	30.7%	48.0%	47.3%	68.2%	31.9%	22.0%	31.8%

Now we can clearly see a difference in style.  For Foye, his FTrate is very very very low.  I actually thought it was a mistake the first time I saw it, but it is accurate.  Another number that pops out is Lowry took 93% of his shots from inside the arc.  So what if I told you that a 6-1 guard was drafted in the first round after his sophomore year and he only made 13 3 pointers in his entire collegiate career.  Oh and this is not because they just introduced the 3 point line.  Ok, last 2.  Scottie took over 51% of his shots from 3 – good ol’ Scottie, and Wayns is only shooting 21% from deep while 30% of his shot attempts come from downtown.  Come on buddy, who do you think you are Reggie Redding?

So who had the best sophomore season?  I think you have to say Lowry with Foye second.  Lowry had the best ORtg with a solid eFG.  He had the best FTRate and most importantly he played within himself.  He did not shoot 3’s, he had the 2^nd best ARate and he had a respectable TOrate.  For Foye, outside of his FTrate he had everything else going on.  I still can’t get over the FTrate.  After that who do you put up there?  Scottie I guess then Fisher and then Wayns, but did you notice anything missing from any of my analysis?  Fisher is totally middle of the road for this group.  He got to the line ok, shot a decent percentage from 2 and 3, and seemed to take a good variety of shots (not too heavy on 2’s or 3’s)  His ORtg was right there with everyone else’s, but the only thing is his playing time is much less than the other guys.  From an efficiency perspective he performed better than Scottie did his sophomore year.  Scottie has many more negatives like taking way too many 3’s, a low FTrate, and being just as likely to turn it over as he was to getting an assist.

But is Wayns the worst?  So the assist rate is spectacular but likely to decline as the season goes.  The eFG% is bad but that is only because he is shooting terribly and too much from 3.  The TOrate is a little high as well, but we are asking a lot from him (although each of these guys including Fisher we asked to handle the ball a lot).  It’s hard to tell I think.  If we are just judging on sophomore years then he is near the bottom.  My final ranking:  Lowry, Foye, Fisher, Scottie, Wayns.

Alright so what about the future of Wayns and in what season did everyone make the biggest step forward.  Here is the thing about Wayns.  He played the fewest minutes of any of these guys as a freshman.  I do not know Foye’s but I am sure his was higher.

	%Min
Wayns	37.2
Lowry	43.3
Foye	-
Scottie	74.1
Fisher	53.1

He did not have enough time as a freshman to really get used to the game at this level, and sitting behind Fisher and Scottie meant that he was most likely not running the point like he is this year.  This is pretty interesting though:  Here is the % of shot attempts from 2 & from 3 for Wayns in his first 2 seasons.

	%of Shts 2	%of Shts 3
Freshman	69.1%	30.90%
Sophomore	69.10%	30.90%

Identical.  So, he understands his game really isn’t from behind the arc, but he could improve or take fewer shots from there.  Here is the deal.  Foye improved between his junior and senior years but not drastically, while Scottie took his biggest step forward in that time.  Fisher improved most between his sophomore and junior years and Lowry obviously between his freshman and sophomore years.

	ORtg	eFG%	FTRate	ARate	TORate
Foye
Junior	110.1	48.1	26.4	21.5	15.9
Senior	113.6	49.2	31.3	21.3	12.6
Scottie
Junior	107.8	48.9	48.8	20.4	19.3
Senior	117.6	54.4	51.5	21.8	18
Lowry
Freshman	97.8	43.8	48.7	17.3	20.8
Sophomore	113.4	48.2	61.4	25.9	19.6
Fisher
Sophomore	106.4	48	54.7	22.6	19.7
Junior	116.2	51	58	27.5	17.3

For Foye, his biggest jump was probably between his sophomore and junior years when the whole team took of during that same stretch.  Scottie finally got it his senior year.  Fisher if you remember did not play very much as a freshman, so he like Wayns used his sophomore year to get his feet under him.  Lowry needs no explanation of course.  Fisher for the record is playing less efficient in almost every category this year (except ARate and TOrate), but that most likely coincides with the loss of Scottie.

In conclusion, I believe we will see Wayns make a good deal of progress next year.  But his senior year will be when he takes it to a very high level.  Next year without Fisher he will be almost solely responsible for running the show, and so he will have some bumps along the road.  His shooting should improve, and as with every guard his TOrate will decline.  It is unclear if his ARate will stay as high as it currently is, but his overall efficiency will climb as well.  Even though he ranks 4^th in terms of sophomore years (efficiency wise) I think he has a higher ceiling.  Maybe Fisher was stunted with Scottie being here and we are only left to guess about what Lowry would have done as a junior or senior, but Wayns will have the opportunity to really run the show as a senior.