Five-Game Team Assessment

Now that the dust has settled on the Old Spice tourney and that heartbreaking loss on Sunday, I have had a few days to do some more objective analysis. There’s not a whole lot to say about the last second foul call – you usually don’t see a ref call a foul in that situation, but I’m not gonna pretend like its never happened before. In 2005 it happened to Nova twice, first against Georgetown and then in the Big East tournament against West Virginia. We lost both games on opponent’s free throws with under a second to play. (For an interesting objective look at it, check out Seth Davis’ article about the call and these types of situations in general). All of that said, bad call and all, the bottom line is that Nova lost that game due to horrid free throw shooting. Shooting 8-18 (44%) from the free throw line is not acceptable for the local 8th grade rec league team, much less a Top 25 ranked college team. If we had shot just 50% (still terrible), we win that game.

Anyway, despite the loss I think the Old Spice tourney was very good for this team. The young guys got lots of playing time given the 3 games in 4 days, a solid 9-man rotation started to take form and the team got a couple of solid wins against good competition. The George Mason win will look especially good in March, as they should be a solid NCAA tourney team and the NC St. loss is one of those character-building close games that hurts now, but could do wonders for this team’s poise in close games later in the season. Below is my team assessment after 5 games.

Positives
Cassiem Drummond has to be the biggest surprise so far in the young season. The big guy that lost over 50 pounds since last season is having a huge impact for this team on the boards, averaging nearly 10 rebounds per game. In my season preview I wrote “The sooner he gets it all together and earns himself a permanent spot in the rotation, the sooner this team takes the step to the next level.” I didn’t expect that to happen until late this season or next season, but consider it done. This development bodes very well for this team – both RIGHT NOW and in the future. Drummond is still somewhat of a defensive liability, but with his presence we have out-rebounded every team we’ve faced thus far.

Freshman guards Corey Fisher and Malcolm Grant have wasted no time in making their presence felt in the backcourt. They have shown no fear in taking big shots, haven’t turned the ball over and have been aggressive defensively. Jay Wright’s 3/4-quart press is an entirely different monster with these two quick guards in the game. Fisher has already shown that he is a Kyle Lowry-type star in the making and I expect him to earn the starting point guard role by mid-January (sliding Scottie over to the 2-guard spot and bumping Redding or Clark to the 6th man role). And Grant is instant offense off the bench, having already scored 13 points in 13 minutes against George Mason.

With the freshmen stepping up and guys like Clark, Redding and Cunningham contributing more offensively than in the past, I am no longer worried about who will step up and support Scottie in the scoring column. It may be a different guy every night, but we have about 6 or 7 guys on this team capable of going for 20 points on any given night. That is a very good thing to have.

Negatives
Much like early last season, we can’t seem to defend the 3-point line whatsoever as teams are shooting a scorching 44% against us. This is typical of both young teams and Jay Wright’s past teams early in the season, so I am not too worried about it. Jay’s man-to-man defense asks his guys to “switch” on nearly every screen, which prevents the initial shot but it leads to mis-matches which are easy for good teams to exploit with ball reversal and find open shots. In addition, when the young guys don’t know the proper defensive rotation and when to switch, it complicates the problem. But, they will learn both the defensive rotation and to fight through screens as the season progresses. Last year, we had the same problem early in the season with a much slower team. This year, we have a ton of perimeter quickness which should help remedy this problem.

Somehow we went from leading the nation in Free Throw shooting last year at 78%, to a team that is shooting an awful 63% so far this season. Overall I expect that to improve, but guys like Fisher (50%) and Drummond (33%) who should be key contributors at crunch time in a tight game, may be liabilities if that doesn’t improve.

Though the guards played relatively well in Orlando, they haven’t collectively shown that elite skill level that should make them one of the best backcourts in the country. There have been encouraging flashes of greatness from each of them individually, but when they put it all together and play well consistently, look out. Fisher is the only one that has consistently played extremely well so far. That said, I think Fisher’s presence is impacting Scottie’s play a little bit. Scottie has still been very good, don’t get me wrong, but I think he is struggling to adjust to playing off the ball and having other scorers in the backcourt. There were certain times during the tournament when he seemed to force some questionable shots early in the shot clock - which he had to do last year, and I know Jay would never tell him to stop shooting, but this year he can afford to be more patient given all the options we have. I have no problem with him taking the majority of the shots, provided they come within the structure and flow of the offense, as opposed to 25-footers with 25 seconds left on the shot clock. Just seems like he is forcing things a little bit. I am sure he will be fine – he is a stud offensively and its early in the season – there is time to adjust.

Corey Stokes, the McDonald’s All-American and the most highly-touted of our 3 freshmen, hasn’t really found his stroke or much of a rhythm offensively yet. He’s done some good things out there, but after scoring 18 points in the exhibition game against Bloomsburg, he seems hesitant to look for his shot. Hopefully it is just freshman jitters, because once he gets on track his spot-up shooting ability will add a whole ‘nother dimension to the offense.

Overall
I certainly didn’t expect that great play in the frontcourt would be our strength and free throw shooting and inconsistent play in the backcourt would be our weaknesses at this point in the season, but I think that actually bodes very well for this team. I have no doubt that the backcourt will get it together – they are so talented that it is only a matter of time. Combine that with the way the frontcourt is playing and this team will be very good THIS YEAR.
Shane Clark is out for a game or two with a strained/bruised quad muscle, which should give guys like Stokes and Pena more minutes to assert themselves and develop a better comfort level out there. Hopefully that will pay off later in the season. We are 4-1 (#21) and if we can get by some tough Big 5 games and the LSU game, in all of which we should be favored, we should enter Big East play in early January at 10-1 and ranked in the Top 15 in the country.

Plus/Minus
And finally, below are some “plus-minus” stats that I’ve calculated (yes, really…I’m that big of a dork). It is the hockey concept of "all stats aside, how does the team do when you are on the ice (floor)". I like it cause it accounts for things not always reflected in the box score (deflections, good D, hustle, good offensive flow, etc), as well as all the highly visible stats (points, rebounds, assists, etc). For example, Corey Fisher checked into the game against NC St. at the 14:13 mark of the 1st half with NC St. leading 9-7. When he checked back out of the game at the 8:07 mark, Nova was leading 20-16. Whether he had any points, assists, rebounds, steals, etc during that stretch doesn't matter - it is a 6 point swing in the positive direction (-2 to +4) when he was in the game. So that is a +6 for him for those 6 minutes. This is fairly easy to calculate using the "play by play" portion of the box score on villanova.com. Anyway, I know 5 games is a small sample size, but here's what I've got so far for the 9 rotation guys:

Avg +/- per game:
Clark, +10
Reynolds, +8.6
Cunningham, +7.6
Fisher, +6.25 (4 games)
Grant, +6.2
Redding, +6.2
Drummond, +4.0
Stokes, -0.20
Pena, -2.8

And perhaps more meaningful, +/- per minute:
Grant, +0.41
Clark, +0.37
Fisher, +0.28
Reynolds, +0.24
Cunningham, +0.24
Redding, +0.22
Drummond, +0.19
Stokes, -0.02
Pena, -0.34

I'm not saying this is an absolutely perfect evaluation formula, but it shows that so far our best lineup is the "3 point guard" lineup that they mentioned so much on TV last weekend, along with Clark and Cunningham. That also happens to be our quickest lineup and the one Jay likes to use his 3/4 court press with. Not to take anything away from the play of Drum so far, cause this smaller lineup would get killed on the boards if it was used predominantly throughout the game, but it seems like we have made the majority of our runs with those 5 on the floor. We'll see if this trend changes after another 5 games.