Karaban Second Matchups

[husky429]

Karaban mentioned in his presser that he did better in the second matchups vs the premier PFs in the league. I got bored at work and did the math. #s are the average of game between Hopkins, Kaluma, Freemantle, and Prosper--best PFs on the best teams in the league.

Opponents Game 1 Average:

18.4 PTS
9.5 REB
1.5 AST

1.8 TO
0.8 STL
1.0 BLK
2.8 PF

47% FG (11.5 attempts)
43% 3FG (1.8 attempts)
79% FT (8.5 attempts)

Opponents Game 2:

7.5 PTS
4.0 REB
1.0 AST

2.3 TO
1.5 STL
0.5 BLK
3.3 PF

27% FG (5.5 attempts)
33% 3FG (2.3 attempts)
79% FT (3.5 attempts)

Karaban Game 1:

9.0 PTS
5.0 REB
1.2 AST

0.8 TO
0.0 STL
0.5 BLK
3.5 PF

45% FG (7.3 attempts)
37% 3FG (4.8 attempts)
100% FT (0.8 attempts)

Karaban Game 2:

9.8 PTS
5.0 REB
1.5 AST

1.0 TO
0.8 STL
0.0 BLK
1.8 PF

57% FG (7 attempts)
50% 3FG (3.5 attempts)
0% FT% (only 1 attempt)

Takeaways:

• Defense is clearly better. Karaban went from getting his Asimov kicked to more than holding his own vs. the cream of the crop at his position in the league. I knew he had played better in second matchups, but not HOW MUCH better. I don't see how there's a better power forward in the Big East next year if Karaban keeps developing like this.
• Opponents averaging less than half the amount of points and rebounds as the first matchup. 18.4PTs --> 7.5 PTS and 9.5 RPG --> 4.0 RPG is ridiculous. These are all guys averaging efficient double-digit scoring every night.
• Fouling much less in second matchups. Opponents went from 8.5 FTs to 3.5 attempts in the game. When Karaban defends well and stays in front of guys, and we don't have to help in the post, OTHER players foul less too. It's a win-win for the entire team.
• Forcing some more TOs and fouls on the opponent.
• 47% from the field to 27% from the field is a HELL of a turnaround on defense.
• Pure #s on offense stayed about the same for Karaban, but his effeciency went from good to fantastic. +12% from the field, +13% from deep.
• Still would like to see Karaban getting strong/fast and learning to draw more fouls in the off-season. 4 FTs in 8 of our most important games is not going to cut it as a more experienced team leader next year.
• Along with that strength/speed, I would like to see some more steals and block from Karaban. He's never going to average 3 blocks a game like Clingan could, but it's not unreasonable to ask for 1 STL and 1 BLK a game from your PF.

 

[Luna]

Hope we have him for 4 years…he’s going to be a nightmare for the rest of the big east

 

[Jaydumo20]

Thanks for doing this. It's a microcosm of what is happening this year in general with our group of underclassmen/ transfers: as of this point, I would say the majority of the guys have gotten better (coach included) and have solidified their respective roles. Best news yet.

 

[Hurleyman216]

I’m a fan of Karaban taking more than 7 shots a game. The past few games he has shown that he can get by defenders and drive to the hoop. When he does he is one of the best finishers around the rim we’ve had in awhile. I’d like to see him getting 10 shots a game minimum, we’ll be a better team for it.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Karaban, not surprisingly, was so efficient around the rim last night. Even the one shot he missed, he immediately got the tip in.
When UConn posts him up against smaller defenders he is very good at going straight up and not getting suckered in to a charge. Keeps the ball high and, as many of us BY beezuns love, he uses the glass.
Pulling Sanogo away from the hoop to open up the lane for Jackson on the baseline and for Karaban around the rim has been great.

 

[OkaForPrez]

We need an original content award to hand out for stuff like this. It’s the reason to sift through all the pissing matches and bellyaches. Great stuff!

 

[Umami Zen]

Saw Hopkins chirpin' in his ear after his first two or three made shots.. Then AK decided to do something about it rather than back down.. Mano-mano..Sign of growth.. Will need him to perform like this in BET/Tournament.. My money is on him..

 

[imno1]

Just a reminder that that we should thank Alex's agent @Ricker for him even being here

 

[husky429]

Saw Hopkins chirpin' in his ear after his first two or three made shots.. Then AK decided to do something about it rather than back down.. Mano-mano..Sign of growth.. Will need him to perform like this in BET/Tournament.. My money is on him..

In the later shots he made, Karaban forced tough shots too. I recall Hopkins making 2 or 3 long, contested mid-range shots. We can live with that over letting him sling it from 3 or bulldozing his way to the hoop. He shot a low %--only 4/10 from the field. The 16 points he had last night were misleading. Foul shots (2 of which were on a total BS call) were what made the difference.

 

[REB1094]

His defensive improvement this year has been great. Hurley left him out to the fire in those first matchups, but it seems to be paying off with experience

Once he adds a bit of size and muscle, he'll be able to be more effective off the jump against these guys. Hopkins was pushing him around early, but Karaban adjusted by shading him left and playing strong. Help defense from everyone was great too, after the first few minutes AK was rarely left on an island. Especially Sanogo who recognized when Karaban was in a bad spot and immediately rushed over to help a few times

My favorite play from him was when he got the ball on the 3 point line and took Hopkins all the way to the rim for a layup. He's a FRESHMAN PF doing that to a BE POY candidate

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

He’s a future All American if the NBA doesn’t come calling early.

Lazy white comparison is a slightly shorter, less fluid Franz Wagner. Which I hope means we get to keep him.

 

[Umami Zen]

In the later shots he made, Karaban forced tough shots too. I recall Hopkins making 2 or 3 long, contested mid-range shots. We can live with that over letting him sling it from 3 or bulldozing his way to the hoop. He shot a low %--only 4/10 from the field. The 16 points he had last night were misleading. Foul shots (2 of which were on a total BS call) were what made the difference.

Agree with you.. What I've noticed about AK's D over the course of the season as he's seeing guys for the second time (with film study and scouting) and learning how to read different refs and their tendencies.. Is that the fouls he gets called on are not cheap/sloppy fouls but " good" fouls based on good fundamentals/defensive positioning..

Also looks to me like he's taken some notes from the Nova playbook on being congenial/polite with the refs.. Settin' them up for that next favorable call coming his way.. Growth

 

[Ricker]

Did order an official NIL Karaban Caravan sweatshirt a couple days ago from NIL store. The artwork lets my imagination believe I'm in the picture in the front of the bus with everybody now getting on board. Tongue in cheek fun. Love that this is working out. Also love that Alex took it hard to the basket on occasion last night. 2-3x a game will move that scoring average from 9-10ish to the low-mid teens. Also 8 rb lead the team.

 

[aburks41]

He’s a future All American if the NBA doesn’t come calling early.

Lazy white comparison is a slightly shorter, less fluid Franz Wagner. Which I hope means we get to keep him.

His better comparison is Brady Manek. Their freshman year stats are damn near identical.

 

[selles]

Karaban, not surprisingly, was so efficient around the rim last night. Even the one shot he missed, he immediately got the tip in.
When UConn posts him up against smaller defenders he is very good at going straight up and not getting suckered in to a charge. Keeps the ball high and, as many of us BY beezuns love, he uses the glass.
Pulling Sanogo away from the hoop to open up the lane for Jackson on the baseline and for Karaban around the rim has been great.

Speaking of St. Johns...AK was often guarded by a much shorter player last game, but we didn't take advantage. If it happens again we should post him all day.

 

[husky429]

His better comparison is Brady Manek. Their freshman year stats are damn near identical.

Karaban is a way better passer, but a couple inches shorts and 15lbs lighter. But overall I can see it. The beard probably helps too, lol. Where Manek could play at the 5 (and never the 3), I think the opposite is true for Karaban. I expect Karaban will end up a better driver by the time he's an upperclassmen.

Average athlete, high IQ, good cutter, high volume shooting... definitely some common skills.

 

[PNolanFan]

I have been talking up his second half of the year defense.... Thank you for proving the point. One thing I also do want to mention is that I have noticed Sanogo helping better on defense lately as well. Early in conference play i felt like he was sleeping alot letting karaban get toasted and now it seems he recognized when the play is going poorly and he will rotate over better

 

[SellersElbow]

Wow, this is a great analysis!

Given how many minutes he's played as a freshman I would not have been surprised to see him tire out and hit the proverbial wall. To instead see such improvement is really impressive.

I wonder if this indicates the value of the semester he spent training with the team last winter? I'm guessing the strength and conditioning he gained helped him blast through that wall players often experience coming right out of high school.

 

[OkaForPrez]

The defense in general has been much much better by everyone in February vs. January.

In the non conference, we were getting 2+ Kill shot runs a game (10-0 or more). Those largely went away in conference not because we weren't scoring as effectively but because we weren't doing it on the defensive end. Last night we had a 10-0 that spanned half time and a 14-0 mid 2nd half. Heck Providence didn't score from the field for like 10 minutes.

In the first half they weren't much better on O. If it wasn't for a superhuman effort form Bynum going 4-4 from three the doors could have been blown off this thing very early.

I believe there was an adjustment period in conference to the way its officiated. There is certain physicality that is allowed (holding off ball cutters, bodying a post up player so long as you don't use an arm bar, lowering your shoulder on offense so long as you don't use an arm bar) and there is physicality that is not allowed (arm bars on offense and defense, roofing a guy going up in the paint, etc.)

This type of officiating (along with the AFJ Saga) broke our offense for a short time. Teams like providence extremely overplayed our perimeter motion and prevent both the three point looks as well as the post passes to Adama.

But more disruptively so, it stopped our defense from stringing together 3-4 possessions in a row on stops because teams getting down hill on us were getting an auto whistle in the paint. A perfect example of this was back to back plays on the road at creightion two weeks ago. On one end of the floor Hawkins is bear hugged coming off a curl, no call (geno would have thrown his water bottle). On the other end Shyerman gets in the circle with no real intent on actually scoring from the field, he gets into "fouling position" flails his arms and drops the ball in a way that would make J.J. reddick blush and goes to the line.

So whats been changing?

Offensively - We've added wrinkles to punish not guarding AJ - Running him on the baseline from the corner (first bucket of last night) and using him to hand off ball screen for open 3's where the help isn't there to hedge because its doubling the low post.

We've started penalizing teams for overplaying the perimeter by attacking off the dribble (Hawk, AK, Newt primarily).

We've changed how we feed Adama so he gets the ball moving in motion instead of slowly backing down so teams can double and triple team him as soon as the ball hits the floor.

Alleyne has fixed our bench issue and we use Diarra and Clingan in combination to get deep dribble penetration and allow Donovan to crash low enough to score.

What's changed on defense?

For the most part (our freshman are the exception) we're doing a better job of guarding dribble penetration without fouling.

We're doing a better job of preventing guys getting down hill in the first place.

AFJ is AFJ'ing again and we're putting him on the point of attack alot.

Alleyne is a + defender and taking Joey's minutes is getting us 1-2 extra charges drawn a game.

I'm confident that there were real strategic problems that resulted in our slide, and I'm confident we are demonstrating a recurring pattern of having solved them. Can they pop up again? Sure. But I feel like we are much more consistent then we are being given credit for.

The "this team could go to the final four or lose in the first round takes" are either lazy or not paying attention.

Defense strategy and a change in the way our games were being called broke us.

We've adapted.

Buckle up.

And yes I still love this team.

 

[Edward Sargent]

Did order an official NIL Karaban Caravan sweatshirt a couple days ago from NIL store. The artwork lets my imagination believe I'm in the picture in the front of the bus with everybody now getting on board. Tongue in cheek fun. Love that this is working out. Also love that Alex took it hard to the basket on occasion last night. 2-3x a game will move that scoring average from 9-10ish to the low-mid teens. Also 8 rb lead the team.

Damn Ricker you've been driving the Karaban Caravan for more than two years now!!

 

[Umami Zen]

Great analysis.. IMO..One of the key benefits of last night's game is the way DH is starting to utilize the bench guys.. Esp. Alleyne and Diarra.. Giving them confidence vs better teams and letting them play through any mistakes.. Our bench is going to be a major competitive advantage (in the minutes they play) come BET/Tournament time. Having those guys ready to perform and produce is huge.. DC is learning the ropes as well.

It was great to see the "seniors" get some meaningful PT at Gampel last night vs a strong opponent.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Karaban mentioned in his presser that he did better in the second matchups vs the premier PFs in the league.

• Defense is clearly better. Karaban went from getting his Asimov kicked to more than holding his own vs. the cream of the crop at his position in the league.

His defensive improvement this year has been great. Hurley left him out to the fire in those first matchups, but it seems to be paying off with experience

In Jared's regular podcast with him, Alex said that what he was most looking forward to from Samson's return was "getting some help." In last night's presser, he strongly highlighted that his defense was the product of lots of help, and by no means an individual effort. By whatever means . . . help.

 

[RichZ]

Karaban mentioned in his presser that he did better in the second matchups vs the premier PFs in the league. I got bored at work and did the math. #s are the average of game between Hopkins, Kaluma, Freemantle, and Prosper--best PFs on the best teams in the league.

Opponents Game 1 Average:

18.4 PTS
9.5 REB
1.5 AST

1.8 TO
0.8 STL
1.0 BLK
2.8 PF

47% FG (11.5 attempts)
43% 3FG (1.8 attempts)
79% FT (8.5 attempts)

Opponents Game 2:

7.5 PTS
4.0 REB
1.0 AST

2.3 TO
1.5 STL
0.5 BLK
3.3 PF

27% FG (5.5 attempts)
33% 3FG (2.3 attempts)
79% FT (3.5 attempts)

Karaban Game 1:

9.0 PTS
5.0 REB
1.2 AST

0.8 TO
0.0 STL
0.5 BLK
3.5 PF

45% FG (7.3 attempts)
37% 3FG (4.8 attempts)
100% FT (0.8 attempts)

Karaban Game 2:

9.8 PTS
5.0 REB
1.5 AST

1.0 TO
0.8 STL
0.0 BLK
1.8 PF

57% FG (7 attempts)
50% 3FG (3.5 attempts)
0% FT% (only 1 attempt)

Takeaways:

• Defense is clearly better. Karaban went from getting his Asimov kicked to more than holding his own vs. the cream of the crop at his position in the league. I knew he had played better in second matchups, but not HOW MUCH better. I don't see how there's a better power forward in the Big East next year if Karaban keeps developing like this.
• Opponents averaging less than half the amount of points and rebounds as the first matchup. 18.4PTs --> 7.5 PTS and 9.5 RPG --> 4.0 RPG is ridiculous. These are all guys averaging efficient double-digit scoring every night.
• Fouling much less in second matchups. Opponents went from 8.5 FTs to 3.5 attempts in the game. When Karaban defends well and stays in front of guys, and we don't have to help in the post, OTHER players foul less too. It's a win-win for the entire team.
• Forcing some more TOs and fouls on the opponent.
• 47% from the field to 27% from the field is a HELL of a turnaround on defense.
• Pure #s on offense stayed about the same for Karaban, but his effeciency went from good to fantastic. +12% from the field, +13% from deep.
• Still would like to see Karaban getting strong/fast and learning to draw more fouls in the off-season. 4 FTs in 8 of our most important games is not going to cut it as a more experienced team leader next year.
• Along with that strength/speed, I would like to see some more steals and block from Karaban. He's never going to average 3 blocks a game like Clingan could, but it's not unreasonable to ask for 1 STL and 1 BLK a game from your PF.

I suspect that the coaching staff has a lot to do with that -- studying tapes and coaching up what needs to be addressed leading up to the rematch.

 

[husky429]

I suspect that the coaching staff has a lot to do with that -- studying tapes and coaching up what needs to be addressed leading up to the rematch.

He mentioned the scout helping in his presser yesterday. I suspect he's a kid who is really focused on the scout and learning opponent's tendencies.

 

[jpeakin]

In the presser, Alex said he read or heard something that he took personal (paraphrasing here). Does anyone know what that was?