Check out this post for a refresher on what I do here.
To start, Mississippi Valley State was a lot more physical than the last 2 teams we played. A good wakeup call. They committed 26 fouls and dragged us into committing 20 ourselves for 46 total in the game. They also sent a few guys to the offensive glass on every possession, and exploited a "feature" in our defense where Clingan will help and contest everything in his vicinity even if his teammate isn't really beat. We've seen this in the past in the Calhoun years as an occasional weakness of leading the country in shotblocking. MVS were "spacing" with Clingan's man and in response we were parking Clingan in the paint and not respecting that spacer at all. They were then having a different player drive and just throwing stuff up at the backboard and crashing hard with Clingan's man into the opening when Clingan moved to contest. and as long as the initial shot was far enough that Clingan or Johnson couldn't block it, it let them try and win the 3v2 or 2v1 on the boards. The old shot as a rebound alley oop play, essentially. But they were also just playing hard and being physical on other rebounds as well, and we had several guys not boxing out (Spencer, Diarra, Clingan... the list is probably almost everyone). That all being said, we outscored them 11-9 in 2nd chance points (off their 14 offensive rebounds) because they aren't very good. But St. John's and Seton Hall among others will likely try to mimic this gameplan and would likely be more successful finishing.
Overall the numbers are positive... because yeah it's a game we won by 34 points. It's hard to be too negative when we crushed the team, even if it didn't feel like a great win when watching live (and wasn't a great result relative to the point spread). We did force 3 shot clock violations, which I don't remember doing too often in one game. That being said, the sum net positive plays was far lower this game than it was in the last 2, about 20% less. Which makes sense. Nobody cracked +20 in comparison to the previous 2 games (and that was pretty rare last year also).
Name (Positive, Negative, Net)
Newton (24, 13, +11) - One of those full box score good and bad games for Newton. Flirted with a triple double with 10-8-7, but also a bunch of turnovers and early foul trouble. Newton got that 2nd foul shortly after his Tech with 13 minutes left, but Hurley brought him back in pretty quickly with 8 min to go (no rigid Calhoun full half benching). Didn't pick up another foul the rest of the game. He was dealing in the first half with 6 assists and another 4 potentials (but also 4 turnovers), but no points. In the second, he only had 1 official and no potential assists (and no turnovers), but he was looking for his own offense a bit more and led the team in scoring. As far as the opponent scoring, he got beat a couple times off the dribble on D, potentially because he was playing less aggressively with the first half foul trouble. He did force a few turnovers and drew a charge, and was generally decent on the boards (came up with a number of contested rebounds, only 1 egregious lack of box out on a scramble play).
Spencer (24, 9, +15) - Offensively, he was definitely the star. He's probably the biggest reason we won the game, especially at that margin. He was 10/1 in the first 10 minutes, and kept us in the drivers seat when we weren't playing that well. My system underrates 3-point makes a bit since it doesn't really consider them worth 1.5 the value of 2-pointers. It's just another positive play. So yeah, you can consider his play in this game underrated (the effect is usually a lot smaller but is glaring when a guy makes 7 threes in a game lol). Another 4 assists+ as well. With his primary backup starting in place of Castle and 2 other starters in foul trouble, he ended up leading the team in minutes. Defensively, it was not as good. He was put in a difficult position under the basket and outnumbered a few times, but his efforts boxing out were probably the worst on the team from what I saw. He got beat once or twice off the dribble as well, but you just have to take that with what he can do offensively, and he usually makes up for it with a couple steals a night.
Karaban (21, 8, +13) - The least negative of the starters despite picking up 4 fouls (and 2 in the first 4 minutes). Close to Donovan's +/- at +30. Karaban came back in at 10:19 of the first half after sitting for a bit with 2 fouls and we were only up 6. He immediately did like 7 good things in a row, and then when he checked out at 2:26 after getting his 3rd foul, we were up by 20. Without him in those last 2.5 minutes the team was -3 and we led by 17 at halftime. He's just really important for us. He does the smart plays and the dirty paint work. The clutch skillful shooting and the rugged And-1 closeout drives. Other than the fouls, there were a couple plays where the defense looked a little confused in rotations in the 1-3-1 and he may have been at fault, but I don't know for sure (he has such a high BBIQ it makes me question my own intuition when he does something I think is wrong lol).
Clingan (28, 10, +18 MVP) - His size just warps the court. Led the team in +/- at 31. Any entry to him is a good pass since he's able to get such good position. Due to their gameplan and our defensive scheme/switching, he must have personally contested like 15-20 of their 45 non-oreb shots (considering 5 guys on a court and he only played 23/40 minutes... a totally even distribution would see him contesting like 9% of shots not 33%). Sucking him out may have been their gameplan, but they only shot 11/23 on layups, so it didn't really work. But he (or maybe Hurley's instructions to him) probably does have to get a little wiser going forward in which shots he challenges, especially if it seems like his teammate has it in hand 17 points in 23 minutes. 7 of 8 from the field. The FT shooting remains his main hiccup at the college level. He may begin to get hacked just to slow our offense down.
Ball (16, 13, +3) - Bit of a tough game for Ball in his first start. He's still giving first to the floor energy and strong effort on defense. He had that sick poster dunk. But he was stripped or lost the ball a few times (only credited with 1 TO because it went out on them a few times but cost us scoring advantage regardless), missed some makeable shots, had trouble finishing in the lane, had some inaccurate passes, etc. He had a stretch at the end of the 1st half that he missed an open 3, fouled the opponent in a non-threatening position on the perimeter in the double bonus, swooped in for an offensive rebound but then was stripped, had a nice cut and drew a foul (made 1/2 FTs), and then missed another wide open catch and shoot 3 to end the half. But I believe he was the only player on the court for all 3 forced shot clock violations. He's definitely having a positive impact on the defensive end, which is definitely an area we'll need considering our starting lineup with Spencer, Newton, and Karaban tilts more offensive. We just need him to shoot in the mid to high 30s% on wide open 3s, not 28%.
Johnson (14, 5, +9) - I thought he played decent in the first half. Similar to Clingan he was active and contesting a lot of stuff, helping force some turnovers with his presence. Grabbing a few orebs (though he was stripped or tied up on a couple) and drawing some fouls. Had a quite nice quick pass to Stewart against the zone that drew a foul. I had him at 12/2 overall as of his big alley oop 6 minutes into the 2nd half. After that was more mixed, with some very loud errors like not knowing who to guard or box out at times, whiffing on some blocks, and an illegal screen. His offensive game RAPM stats are bad, but the team went 2/11 on 3s with him in the game today and he took 0 of those, so not all his fault. He does need to get stronger after he grabs offensive rebounds.
Diarra (15, 7, +8) - Diarra had a great day distributing the ball. I had him down with 8 valuable passes (only 3 actual assists). He closed well as well, had him at 8/0 the last 9 minutes. Overall it was a mix of Diarra stuff: drawing charges, good 1v1 D, denying the ball, getting deflections, while also fouling and laying a couple bricks and an airball. He had a couple bad boxouts early but got the message and had some better ones later.
Ross (5, 3, +2) - He's just not a very impactful player overall right now. Plays very quiet minutes. Only took 2 shots in 17 minutes. In action he was involved in, had more good than bad on defense. But the normal bench lineup (Diarra, Ball, Ross, Stewart, Johnson) lineup was outscored in 2 different stints against this bad MVS team.
Stewart (6, 3, +3) - Got some extended run in the first half with Karaban's foul trouble, didn't show much other than flashes. Manipulated the zone to get Spencer an open 3 at one point. Did have a bad play at the end of the 1st where he lost the ball on a drive and then retribution fouled them 80 feet away from the hoop in the double bonus. Didn't get as much run after that in the 2nd half.
Roumoglou (6, 3, +3) - Someone will have to help me come up with an analogue for the Calhoun era, but Roumoglou has slid into the coach's pet role. Hurley was unhappy with how we were boxing out and he put in Roumoglou. Roumoglou then nearly boxed out a guy into the stanchion on a rebound next time down. He also had a really nice pass while breaking a press that led to a dunk. He did commit a couple of silly touch fouls on post entry passes that the refs were particularly unkind on. Dauster claims he can really shoot, so I was a bit disappointed when he was wide open and then made an extra pass to someone who was more covered. Donny liked him deferring to the regulars when he came in, but I say let it fly if you're wide open!
By RAPM Spencer, Karaban, and Clingan were our clear best 3 today and my stuff agrees.
To start, Mississippi Valley State was a lot more physical than the last 2 teams we played. A good wakeup call. They committed 26 fouls and dragged us into committing 20 ourselves for 46 total in the game. They also sent a few guys to the offensive glass on every possession, and exploited a "feature" in our defense where Clingan will help and contest everything in his vicinity even if his teammate isn't really beat. We've seen this in the past in the Calhoun years as an occasional weakness of leading the country in shotblocking. MVS were "spacing" with Clingan's man and in response we were parking Clingan in the paint and not respecting that spacer at all. They were then having a different player drive and just throwing stuff up at the backboard and crashing hard with Clingan's man into the opening when Clingan moved to contest. and as long as the initial shot was far enough that Clingan or Johnson couldn't block it, it let them try and win the 3v2 or 2v1 on the boards. The old shot as a rebound alley oop play, essentially. But they were also just playing hard and being physical on other rebounds as well, and we had several guys not boxing out (Spencer, Diarra, Clingan... the list is probably almost everyone). That all being said, we outscored them 11-9 in 2nd chance points (off their 14 offensive rebounds) because they aren't very good. But St. John's and Seton Hall among others will likely try to mimic this gameplan and would likely be more successful finishing.
Overall the numbers are positive... because yeah it's a game we won by 34 points. It's hard to be too negative when we crushed the team, even if it didn't feel like a great win when watching live (and wasn't a great result relative to the point spread). We did force 3 shot clock violations, which I don't remember doing too often in one game. That being said, the sum net positive plays was far lower this game than it was in the last 2, about 20% less. Which makes sense. Nobody cracked +20 in comparison to the previous 2 games (and that was pretty rare last year also).
| Players | POS (+) | NEG (+) | NET (+/-) |
| Newton | 24 | 13 | 11 |
| Spencer | 24 | 9 | 15 |
| Castle | Inj | Inj | Out |
| Karaban | 21 | 8 | 13 |
| Clingan | 28 | 10 | 18 |
| Johnson | 14 | 5 | 9 |
| Ball | 16 | 13 | 3 |
| Diarra | 15 | 7 | 8 |
| Ross | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| Stewart | 6 | 3 | 3 |
| Singare | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Roumoglou | 6 | 3 | 3 |
Name (Positive, Negative, Net)
Newton (24, 13, +11) - One of those full box score good and bad games for Newton. Flirted with a triple double with 10-8-7, but also a bunch of turnovers and early foul trouble. Newton got that 2nd foul shortly after his Tech with 13 minutes left, but Hurley brought him back in pretty quickly with 8 min to go (no rigid Calhoun full half benching). Didn't pick up another foul the rest of the game. He was dealing in the first half with 6 assists and another 4 potentials (but also 4 turnovers), but no points. In the second, he only had 1 official and no potential assists (and no turnovers), but he was looking for his own offense a bit more and led the team in scoring. As far as the opponent scoring, he got beat a couple times off the dribble on D, potentially because he was playing less aggressively with the first half foul trouble. He did force a few turnovers and drew a charge, and was generally decent on the boards (came up with a number of contested rebounds, only 1 egregious lack of box out on a scramble play).
Spencer (24, 9, +15) - Offensively, he was definitely the star. He's probably the biggest reason we won the game, especially at that margin. He was 10/1 in the first 10 minutes, and kept us in the drivers seat when we weren't playing that well. My system underrates 3-point makes a bit since it doesn't really consider them worth 1.5 the value of 2-pointers. It's just another positive play. So yeah, you can consider his play in this game underrated (the effect is usually a lot smaller but is glaring when a guy makes 7 threes in a game lol). Another 4 assists+ as well. With his primary backup starting in place of Castle and 2 other starters in foul trouble, he ended up leading the team in minutes. Defensively, it was not as good. He was put in a difficult position under the basket and outnumbered a few times, but his efforts boxing out were probably the worst on the team from what I saw. He got beat once or twice off the dribble as well, but you just have to take that with what he can do offensively, and he usually makes up for it with a couple steals a night.
Karaban (21, 8, +13) - The least negative of the starters despite picking up 4 fouls (and 2 in the first 4 minutes). Close to Donovan's +/- at +30. Karaban came back in at 10:19 of the first half after sitting for a bit with 2 fouls and we were only up 6. He immediately did like 7 good things in a row, and then when he checked out at 2:26 after getting his 3rd foul, we were up by 20. Without him in those last 2.5 minutes the team was -3 and we led by 17 at halftime. He's just really important for us. He does the smart plays and the dirty paint work. The clutch skillful shooting and the rugged And-1 closeout drives. Other than the fouls, there were a couple plays where the defense looked a little confused in rotations in the 1-3-1 and he may have been at fault, but I don't know for sure (he has such a high BBIQ it makes me question my own intuition when he does something I think is wrong lol).
Clingan (28, 10, +18 MVP) - His size just warps the court. Led the team in +/- at 31. Any entry to him is a good pass since he's able to get such good position. Due to their gameplan and our defensive scheme/switching, he must have personally contested like 15-20 of their 45 non-oreb shots (considering 5 guys on a court and he only played 23/40 minutes... a totally even distribution would see him contesting like 9% of shots not 33%). Sucking him out may have been their gameplan, but they only shot 11/23 on layups, so it didn't really work. But he (or maybe Hurley's instructions to him) probably does have to get a little wiser going forward in which shots he challenges, especially if it seems like his teammate has it in hand 17 points in 23 minutes. 7 of 8 from the field. The FT shooting remains his main hiccup at the college level. He may begin to get hacked just to slow our offense down.
Ball (16, 13, +3) - Bit of a tough game for Ball in his first start. He's still giving first to the floor energy and strong effort on defense. He had that sick poster dunk. But he was stripped or lost the ball a few times (only credited with 1 TO because it went out on them a few times but cost us scoring advantage regardless), missed some makeable shots, had trouble finishing in the lane, had some inaccurate passes, etc. He had a stretch at the end of the 1st half that he missed an open 3, fouled the opponent in a non-threatening position on the perimeter in the double bonus, swooped in for an offensive rebound but then was stripped, had a nice cut and drew a foul (made 1/2 FTs), and then missed another wide open catch and shoot 3 to end the half. But I believe he was the only player on the court for all 3 forced shot clock violations. He's definitely having a positive impact on the defensive end, which is definitely an area we'll need considering our starting lineup with Spencer, Newton, and Karaban tilts more offensive. We just need him to shoot in the mid to high 30s% on wide open 3s, not 28%.
Johnson (14, 5, +9) - I thought he played decent in the first half. Similar to Clingan he was active and contesting a lot of stuff, helping force some turnovers with his presence. Grabbing a few orebs (though he was stripped or tied up on a couple) and drawing some fouls. Had a quite nice quick pass to Stewart against the zone that drew a foul. I had him at 12/2 overall as of his big alley oop 6 minutes into the 2nd half. After that was more mixed, with some very loud errors like not knowing who to guard or box out at times, whiffing on some blocks, and an illegal screen. His offensive game RAPM stats are bad, but the team went 2/11 on 3s with him in the game today and he took 0 of those, so not all his fault. He does need to get stronger after he grabs offensive rebounds.
Diarra (15, 7, +8) - Diarra had a great day distributing the ball. I had him down with 8 valuable passes (only 3 actual assists). He closed well as well, had him at 8/0 the last 9 minutes. Overall it was a mix of Diarra stuff: drawing charges, good 1v1 D, denying the ball, getting deflections, while also fouling and laying a couple bricks and an airball. He had a couple bad boxouts early but got the message and had some better ones later.
Ross (5, 3, +2) - He's just not a very impactful player overall right now. Plays very quiet minutes. Only took 2 shots in 17 minutes. In action he was involved in, had more good than bad on defense. But the normal bench lineup (Diarra, Ball, Ross, Stewart, Johnson) lineup was outscored in 2 different stints against this bad MVS team.
Stewart (6, 3, +3) - Got some extended run in the first half with Karaban's foul trouble, didn't show much other than flashes. Manipulated the zone to get Spencer an open 3 at one point. Did have a bad play at the end of the 1st where he lost the ball on a drive and then retribution fouled them 80 feet away from the hoop in the double bonus. Didn't get as much run after that in the 2nd half.
Roumoglou (6, 3, +3) - Someone will have to help me come up with an analogue for the Calhoun era, but Roumoglou has slid into the coach's pet role. Hurley was unhappy with how we were boxing out and he put in Roumoglou. Roumoglou then nearly boxed out a guy into the stanchion on a rebound next time down. He also had a really nice pass while breaking a press that led to a dunk. He did commit a couple of silly touch fouls on post entry passes that the refs were particularly unkind on. Dauster claims he can really shoot, so I was a bit disappointed when he was wide open and then made an extra pass to someone who was more covered. Donny liked him deferring to the regulars when he came in, but I say let it fly if you're wide open!
By RAPM Spencer, Karaban, and Clingan were our clear best 3 today and my stuff agrees.
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