Nova vs. Pitt: Make Those *&%^$$# Pay!
16 January 2013
I have never really like Pitt, but after the whole realignment mess I like them even less. Ok, so they were only looking out for themselves and were not trying to hurt anyone else. I guess I just don't really believe that, especially since all 4 of the schools who voted against Nova football are gone.
Anyways, in the game tonight I'll be watching and looking for a couple of things. First, I want to see how the minutes get divided between: Yarou, Ochefu, Sutton & JVP. My guess is that JVP's minutes are going to be light tonight, as Pitt takes a ton of 2-point shots and rebounds extremely well: translation is that Jay is going to go big and play Ochefu, Yarou and Sutton about 60% of the minutes at the 4 which leaves JVP about 18 minutes tonight.
The other thing I want to see is how we handle the second half. One thing I did not mention in the blog post today is that we have been significantly worse on defense & on the glass in the second half of our Big East games so far. We go from creating turnovers on 20% of our opponents possessions to creating turnovers on only 13% of their possessions in the 2nd half. Additionally our rebounding drops drastically as well, while our offensive shooting percentage increases. Is this the impact of playing JVP at the 4 is over a traditional big guy? I sure as hell hope it isn't.
Nova vs. St. John's: The First Game of the Last Big East Season
2 January 2013
It would have been really cool to have won the final Big East regular season ever, oh well. Tonight at the Pavilion, Nova begins its final Big East campaign against St. John's. This is a game I will label as one we 'should' win, although at this point it's hard to put too many games into that category. The thing I will be most interested in seeing is how our 5th worst 3 point defense (in terms of giving up attempts) fares against the St. John's offense which takes the 3rd fewest 3's - all numbers are national ranks. When the numbers are so different it always scares me.
But St. John's is full of odd stats. They are currently the 2nd youngest team in the country and are without any, zero, Juniors or Seniors; yet, they are the 2nd best in the country at offensive TO%. Talk about throwing conventional wisdom out the window. The other crazy thing is how infrequently St. John's gets fouled, even though they take a huge number of 2 point attempts. Nova on the hand tends to foul a lot, as we are 296th in the country at fouling defensively.
All of this leads me to believe that this will be a fairly strange game, as in almost every category St. John's is the polar opposite of us. I'm not sure what strange will mean, but it should be interesting to watch.
Nova vs. Columbia: Is Yarou Alive?
20 November 2012
My season preview Part II on the players should be up tomorrow, but for tonight the thing I am watching for is what's the deal with Yarou's playing time? I am not sure if tonight it will become any more clear, but it will be interesting non the less. Typically in a game against an opponent like Columbia, two things can happen. One option is for the young guys to get minutes, like Ochefu. Another option is for the starters and seniors to get a lot of minutes and put up some impressive numbers. Again, against a small school like Columbia it should not be too hard to imagine Yarou dominating a smaller lineup. But after the last couple of games, who really knows what Jay is thinking. I think that Yarou will get a lot of minutes and touches, and this game should give him some confidence moving forward. Ultimately, we need Yarou to be at least moderately involved and effective in our offense. But if Ochefu gets the minutes, touches and points, it might signal that Yarou will move aside while the young guy and Sutton take more and more of his minutes.
Nova vs. Purdue: Are Any of the Early Stats For Real?
16 January 2013
I have never really like Pitt, but after the whole realignment mess I like them even less. Ok, so they were only looking out for themselves and were not trying to hurt anyone else. I guess I just don't really believe that, especially since all 4 of the schools who voted against Nova football are gone.
Anyways, in the game tonight I'll be watching and looking for a couple of things. First, I want to see how the minutes get divided between: Yarou, Ochefu, Sutton & JVP. My guess is that JVP's minutes are going to be light tonight, as Pitt takes a ton of 2-point shots and rebounds extremely well: translation is that Jay is going to go big and play Ochefu, Yarou and Sutton about 60% of the minutes at the 4 which leaves JVP about 18 minutes tonight.
The other thing I want to see is how we handle the second half. One thing I did not mention in the blog post today is that we have been significantly worse on defense & on the glass in the second half of our Big East games so far. We go from creating turnovers on 20% of our opponents possessions to creating turnovers on only 13% of their possessions in the 2nd half. Additionally our rebounding drops drastically as well, while our offensive shooting percentage increases. Is this the impact of playing JVP at the 4 is over a traditional big guy? I sure as hell hope it isn't.
Nova vs. St. John's: The First Game of the Last Big East Season
2 January 2013
It would have been really cool to have won the final Big East regular season ever, oh well. Tonight at the Pavilion, Nova begins its final Big East campaign against St. John's. This is a game I will label as one we 'should' win, although at this point it's hard to put too many games into that category. The thing I will be most interested in seeing is how our 5th worst 3 point defense (in terms of giving up attempts) fares against the St. John's offense which takes the 3rd fewest 3's - all numbers are national ranks. When the numbers are so different it always scares me.
But St. John's is full of odd stats. They are currently the 2nd youngest team in the country and are without any, zero, Juniors or Seniors; yet, they are the 2nd best in the country at offensive TO%. Talk about throwing conventional wisdom out the window. The other crazy thing is how infrequently St. John's gets fouled, even though they take a huge number of 2 point attempts. Nova on the hand tends to foul a lot, as we are 296th in the country at fouling defensively.
All of this leads me to believe that this will be a fairly strange game, as in almost every category St. John's is the polar opposite of us. I'm not sure what strange will mean, but it should be interesting to watch.
Nova vs. Columbia: Is Yarou Alive?
20 November 2012
My season preview Part II on the players should be up tomorrow, but for tonight the thing I am watching for is what's the deal with Yarou's playing time? I am not sure if tonight it will become any more clear, but it will be interesting non the less. Typically in a game against an opponent like Columbia, two things can happen. One option is for the young guys to get minutes, like Ochefu. Another option is for the starters and seniors to get a lot of minutes and put up some impressive numbers. Again, against a small school like Columbia it should not be too hard to imagine Yarou dominating a smaller lineup. But after the last couple of games, who really knows what Jay is thinking. I think that Yarou will get a lot of minutes and touches, and this game should give him some confidence moving forward. Ultimately, we need Yarou to be at least moderately involved and effective in our offense. But if Ochefu gets the minutes, touches and points, it might signal that Yarou will move aside while the young guy and Sutton take more and more of his minutes.
Nova vs. Purdue: Are Any of the Early Stats For Real?
15 November 2012
The obvious answer is no.
After two games, it would be ridiculous to suggest that any of our
numbers are going to end up being close to accurate by seasons end. With that being said, the early numbers are
really interesting, if only because they are so crazy. I repeat, its only two games, I know these
numbers will not hold up, but its fun to take a look. Plus, these are the style components that I
think should be the most interesting to watch tonight. And of course I am excited to see if JVP can
decrease his turnovers, if Arcidiacono can put up another great game, and if
Yarou is actually alive.
3 Point Shooting
I’m not even going to provide any numbers about how bad we
were last year at 3 point shooting. Just
close your eyes and picture Cheek chucking with 18 left on the clock, or Wayns
shooting a contested three off the dribble while fading away, yuck. Back to the present. So far in two games, yes I am going to
continue to remind you that it’s only been two games, we have shot a whopping 47.8%
of our shots from 3. Point of reference,
our highest season, in terms of % of 3 point attempts, is 39%. I’ll give you a crazier stat though, this
year our two opponents have taken a total of 50.9% of their shots from 3. Last season Marshall took only 31.5% of their shots from
3. If you watched the game on Sunday you
saw first hand why they took so many shots from 3; they were open, ALL DAY LONG. I wanted to kill that Sarver dude. We were running around defensively, like well,
you know the stupid phrase. We have got
to rotate better, and not jump out to quickly on screens, because otherwise we
are going to get killed. Purdue, by the
way, has taken only 27.2% of its shots from 3 this season. So, as I am going to say three more times
before this post is done, it will be interesting to see what gives.
Defensive Rebounding
We have killed it on the defensive glass the first two games.
Our opponents are posting a 9.6%
offensive rebounding%. Point of
reference, the D-I average this year is 32.9%.
And least you think we did that against a bullshit schedule, Marshall ranked 6th
in the country in OR% last season, and they had only two seniors last year who
were both 6-6 or under. This rate is not
sustainable, but we have the size and the skill to be a really strong
rebounding team. Purdue currently sits
29th nationally with a 43.5 OR%.
Is our ridiculously low opponent OR% for real? It will be interesting to see what gives.
Free Throw Rate &
Turnovers
As I wrote about the other day, we need to create more
turnovers. It has destroyed our
defensive efficiency the last two years.
So far our defensive TO% is at 22.5, which is much improved from last
year. We ran the 1-2-2 press last game,
and it resulted in several turnovers, as Marshall
did not have a real point guard and struggled to adjust to the pressure. Purdue over the years has been really good at
NOT turning over the ball. Last year
they were the BEST team in the country at doing this, so again it will be
interesting to see what gives.
Finally, I just want to point out that our FTA/FGA
through two games is off the charts at 80.4, D-1 average is 36.7. This number is going to come down, but
traditionally this has been a strength of ours. In general though, we are still a young team,
and young teams struggle to get calls and play through contact. So the fact that this rate is this high this
early is a good sign that our players understand the game and understand that
the easiest bucket is at the charity stip.
