Syracuse Differential Graph & Observations

Last Friday, I did a guest post on the Nova Blog about what missing Corey Stokes means to our team, (note:  it does not include stats from the DePaul game).  So if you missed that here is the link: here.

Also, I am going to try after every game and provide the Differential graph along with 5 notes/observations.  They will be tied to the game, but they also might be more along the lines of current trends and issues that I have discussed earlier in the season.  So, you should still obviously continue to check out Villanova by the Numbers for your typical tempo-free analysis of each game.

Observations

1. Armwood is the man.  He got his first double double of his career and he will likely get many more of those in the next several years here at Nova.  He is the type of player who everyone on other teams hates because he has an attitude, some nastiness, and does all of the dirty work.  I originally believed Jay included him in the starting line up for these characteristics that he possesses, but now I believe there is another reason.  It is clear from the games that he has a great attitude in my opinion:  tough, fearless, and selfless.  He also is very vocal.  So next year who will be the leader of this team?  I think Armwood is clearly the one I want it to be, and I think Jay does to.  So by playing him and starting him, he has created a role for him on our team, gained the respect of the older players and more importantly the younger players.  As long as Armwood emerges as our unquestioned leader next year, we will be a much more mentally and physically tough team.  Example:  Near the end of the game in a big spot Armwood stepped up to the line to hit 2.  Didn’t you just know he was going to drill those?

2. Cheek.  Why is it that Cheek continues to see extensive minutes?  Last night he went 2-9, and took 39% of the teams shots while he was on the floor!  Are you serious?  39%?  For anyone out there who thinks, hey Cheek just needs to get his confidence back, you are crazy.  If taking 39% of a teams shots while your on the floor when you had made only 1 FG in the last 3 games isn’t confident, then I don’t know what is.  Talent and brains not confidence is the issue.  Is he a jump shooter or a slasher?  We see his body and say slasher and a scorer, yet rarely does he do these things.  Still he is taking over 40% of his shot attempts from 3.  He also has a very long release which I noticed last night.  Translation:  he is not a spot up shooter, nor do I think he can come off of screens that well.  His best shot is when he is on the dribble, and that is something I do not want to see him do.  However, I have a theory why he gets the minutes he does.  Cheek is from where?  New Jersey, right?  He was an All-American there, from a pretty good program.  If we are going to be successful recruiting, especially with Lavin at St. John’s (By the way for everyone giving Lavin all of this credit this year:  St John’s is the 2^nd, I repeat 2^nd most experienced team in the COUNTRY.  So yes, Lavin has done well, but if there was ever a year St. John’s would do well it would be when they have a very old experienced team) we need to keep getting top Jersey kids.  Cheek being a very good HS player means that he is looked up to in the state, by younger kids in his program and by other players who played against/watched him.  They will pay attention to Nova games, and will eventually become big fans and want to go to Nova as long as Cheek gets PT.  Jay must be thinking about this because there is no other explanation that I can think of that explains Cheeks continued floor time.

3. Stokes & Fisher:  So, as I talked about in my guest post, we need Stokes on offense.  He provides stability and he is a senior who makes good decisions.  Fisher is still our best player, but sometimes he is just off.  Last night was one of those days.  Here is the thing about these 2 players in my mind.  Fisher is the heart of our team.  When he is off, everything else seems to go kind of crazy, and he has yet shown the real leadership and also ability to get everyone else going even if he isn’t.  You can see it when he came to the bench last night, he wasn’t terribly upset but just shaking his head and he seemed frustrated.  (And in case you were wondering, I am not a body language expert for the Bill O'Reilly show.  Really how stupid is that?)   We need him to shake off bad starts, bad calls, and get people involved and make smart decisions.  As far as Stokes is concerned, he feeds off of energy but he doesn’t create it.  Everytime we had a big defensive play, he would come down and drill a shot, but if we needed him to hit a real big time shot while the chips were down, I don’t think he makes those.

4. Wayns.  With Armwood’s move into the starting line up and Jay’s insistence on playing Cheek around 20 minutes a game, Wayns has been hurt the most.  His minutes in BE play before Marquette – which marked the beginning of Armwood’s rise in PT – were 77.7% of minutes played.  Since Marquette and excluding the games Stokes missed (because clearly he got some of Stokes minutes while he was hurt) Wayns is playing only 62.5% of available minutes.  Also, since the Marquette game he has an eFG of 35.5%, which is very, very low.  I would need to look more in depth into what exactly has changed for Wayns, but I think he is struggling in his new role.  I like Armwood in the starting line up, but we need Wayns.  He needs more minutes not less.

5. Yarou – After the DePaul game I looked at the box score and saw that Yarou – who was not in foul trouble – only played 26 minutes.  He had 8 of our teams 15 offensive rebounds, and watching the first 5 minutes of the game (which I did before going to help a friend move) he was unstoppable down low.  It was clear they would not be able to keep him off the glass.  Flash forward to the game last night, and Yarou only played 17 minutes – again not in foul trouble.  This past game Jay went with a lot of different looks, and I think that in the next 2 games or so we are going to see a lot more consistency in the rotations now that Stokes is back.  However, we need Yarou.  I can’t think of why he only got 26 and 17 minutes in back to back games without foul trouble.