Significant improvement on the pick and roll. Mela showed toughness as did Oswin. SHU on Wednesday will be very telling. Edwards played within himself for the first time this year without overplaying.
All around solid game from everyone. For the first time all season I actually saw Jason Edwards with a smile on his face. I thought going into this game we could get a little momentum going into the last 10 or so games. Remember it’s not how you start it’s how you finish. We got this Coach Kim.
I think that's a reasonable hypothetical; there's a really good chance that Edwards changes the Marquette and G'Town games, and I think that they "should be" 12-11 instead of 10-13.
I was happy with the win, but thought DePaul played poorly for long stretches, and thought that the same performance against the top half of the league would have them down by 10 at halftime, leading to the typical second half issues and subsequent dissapointing loss. I don't know how much of this last game was them actually improving, and how much was just them catching a slumping, below-average Blue Demons team at home.
But emphasis on "how much" of it was relative. There does seem to be some visible improvement. They have figured out what to do with Oswin on defense, for starters. His pace-adjusted stats are up all over the place in conference play compared to last year: rebounds per 100 possessions way up from 14.7 to 20, and the jump is there for both OfRB and DeRB's. Fouls have dropped from 8.8 to 7.2 which has been accompanied by a drop in blocks from 5.1 to 3.8 but I'll take it since most of his blocks were directed to opponents or out of bounds and were the equivalent of an offensive rebound for the other team anyway. I do think he's still disruptive even with the way they play him now and this has been a nice development. My lying eyes also tell me he's improving around the rim with the ball on offensive - can't prove it with readily accessible data but it does seem like he's found his voice a bit more down there.
Curious if you have any thoughts on Hargrove's recent play. Fouls dried up in the last two games, but with basically no rebounds and no points...not sure what the value is. Could be some help side D presence and lane deterrence because he's just big that is quantifiable in other ways that don't know of....not sure that's the case because he seems to just be standing there taking up space--but maybe that's worth something. Glad for him on a personal level though, because I felt really bad for the kid (and they are all still kids) during the Villanova game when he was about to set an all time record for D1 fouling rate in a season.
Also, Mela is in fact improving on offense. His repertoire of ways to get to his left by going right is both amusing and effective; I think people are wising up to it a bit now but it still an improvement. He's like that uncle who has mastered those crazy behind the back and behind the backboard shots in a game of H-O-R-S-E except he's doing it in actual games and I love it.
Personally, I think that the team played basically at the same level that they have all season, KenPom 64-ish, and beat a 110 Ken Pom team that didn't shoot well from 3 and had it drift away from them as a result. In actually looked remarkably similar in many way to me that Georgetown game did, except in this case DePaul never got hot like G'Town did. Very similar game, right down the unusually low fouls (14 in this one, only 12 against G'Town).
My questions coming out of this are:
(1) are the fouls dropping from Oswin and Cole because the scheme is adjusted and/or they are playing smarter? Or did we just had some refs who let them play at bit? I have two kids who are college pitchers, one's a lefty who is kinda always a little effectively wild but on the days he has an ump who's giving him that outside corner he can beat anyone. Coaches and spectators alike will tell me how well he did on certain days, but from my spot behind home plate and with my radar gun- it seems like he is usually what he always is, but it's the umps that change.
I think what I see happening is a different combination of help side movements that guard the 3 point line a bit better than it had been with fuller-scale sell outs into the lane when movement was funneled there, but I don't have anything other than my eyes and the rewind button on my remote to instrument this. So who knows. I also think he put some longer, more active arms up top for a greater % of possessions than was done previously - this helped with the early part of possessions on defense.
Loved Edwards's offense. The unorthodoxy of that quick release is a marvel to watch. He scares me on defense though with the mismatches - I can't believe Depaul saw, but didn't exploit him down low trying to 3-quarter front guys 8 inches taller. Something to watch out for against the bigger dogs down the stretch....Pitino will find a way to get Hopkins on him on the switch every single time...
(2) Will these statistical improvements hold up against the top half of league? Are they representative of adjustments English is making, or just a function of playing a couple of below average teams in a row at home. I guess we shall see.
Significant improvement on the pick and roll. Mela showed toughness as did Oswin. SHU on Wednesday will be very telling. Edwards played within himself for the first time this year without overplaying.
All around solid game from everyone. For the first time all season I actually saw Jason Edwards with a smile on his face. I thought going into this game we could get a little momentum going into the last 10 or so games. Remember it’s not how you start it’s how you finish. We got this Coach Kim.
I think that's a reasonable hypothetical; there's a really good chance that Edwards changes the Marquette and G'Town games, and I think that they "should be" 12-11 instead of 10-13.
I was happy with the win, but thought DePaul played poorly for long stretches, and thought that the same performance against the top half of the league would have them down by 10 at halftime, leading to the typical second half issues and subsequent dissapointing loss. I don't know how much of this last game was them actually improving, and how much was just them catching a slumping, below-average Blue Demons team at home.
But emphasis on "how much" of it was relative. There does seem to be some visible improvement. They have figured out what to do with Oswin on defense, for starters. His pace-adjusted stats are up all over the place in conference play compared to last year: rebounds per 100 possessions way up from 14.7 to 20, and the jump is there for both OfRB and DeRB's. Fouls have dropped from 8.8 to 7.2 which has been accompanied by a drop in blocks from 5.1 to 3.8 but I'll take it since most of his blocks were directed to opponents or out of bounds and were the equivalent of an offensive rebound for the other team anyway. I do think he's still disruptive even with the way they play him now and this has been a nice development. My lying eyes also tell me he's improving around the rim with the ball on offensive - can't prove it with readily accessible data but it does seem like he's found his voice a bit more down there.
Curious if you have any thoughts on Hargrove's recent play. Fouls dried up in the last two games, but with basically no rebounds and no points...not sure what the value is. Could be some help side D presence and lane deterrence because he's just big that is quantifiable in other ways that don't know of....not sure that's the case because he seems to just be standing there taking up space--but maybe that's worth something. Glad for him on a personal level though, because I felt really bad for the kid (and they are all still kids) during the Villanova game when he was about to set an all time record for D1 fouling rate in a season.
Also, Mela is in fact improving on offense. His repertoire of ways to get to his left by going right is both amusing and effective; I think people are wising up to it a bit now but it still an improvement. He's like that uncle who has mastered those crazy behind the back and behind the backboard shots in a game of H-O-R-S-E except he's doing it in actual games and I love it.
Personally, I think that the team played basically at the same level that they have all season, KenPom 64-ish, and beat a 110 Ken Pom team that didn't shoot well from 3 and had it drift away from them as a result. In actually looked remarkably similar in many way to me that Georgetown game did, except in this case DePaul never got hot like G'Town did. Very similar game, right down the unusually low fouls (14 in this one, only 12 against G'Town).
My questions coming out of this are:
(1) are the fouls dropping from Oswin and Cole because the scheme is adjusted and/or they are playing smarter? Or did we just had some refs who let them play at bit? I have two kids who are college pitchers, one's a lefty who is kinda always a little effectively wild but on the days he has an ump who's giving him that outside corner he can beat anyone. Coaches and spectators alike will tell me how well he did on certain days, but from my spot behind home plate and with my radar gun- it seems like he is usually what he always is, but it's the umps that change.
I think what I see happening is a different combination of help side movements that guard the 3 point line a bit better than it had been with fuller-scale sell outs into the lane when movement was funneled there, but I don't have anything other than my eyes and the rewind button on my remote to instrument this. So who knows. I also think he put some longer, more active arms up top for a greater % of possessions than was done previously - this helped with the early part of possessions on defense.
Loved Edwards's offense. The unorthodoxy of that quick release is a marvel to watch. He scares me on defense though with the mismatches - I can't believe Depaul saw, but didn't exploit him down low trying to 3-quarter front guys 8 inches taller. Something to watch out for against the bigger dogs down the stretch....Pitino will find a way to get Hopkins on him on the switch every single time...
(2) Will these statistical improvements hold up against the top half of league? Are they representative of adjustments English is making, or just a function of playing a couple of below average teams in a row at home. I guess we shall see.