Thoughts and Areas of Improvement - Villanova

[auror]

@auror and @navery12 's opinion > facts. Got it.

I posted lineup level data (summarized) as the basis of my claims. You've offered DRTG of individual players and just saying the same thing over and over.

UConn has tried it your way all season, and is 10-6 against a fairly easy schedule. The only really high caliber win UConn has is over USC, when UConn went big. But maybe not playing our bigs will start working for us next game. Sure.

Kinda leaving out that 2 of our best players were hurt for a bunch of those losses. We are 6-2 with Bouk and the one loss we were up with 30 seconds left shooting free throws and the other was an away game against a top 10 team

 

[CTMike]

Nice work @auror keep stuffing Nelson in a locker.

 

[CONN78SEJ]

After watching the first six and half minutes of the game with Whaley and Sonogo out there how can you possibly advocate to play them together MORE in this game, we were getting shredded defensively. Once we went to Whaley at the 5 and started switching Nova struggled to get clean looks, Whaley was tremendous on Saturday when switched onto Nova's guards. And as @auror mentioned earlier we did try to run and had success early on, Bouk drew a good amount of fouls and Nova did a good job getting back and forming a wall against him in transition and in the screen game in the half court. Having two bigs on the floor would have help Nova condense the driving lanes for Bouknight even more, and those easy paint touches and scores for Sonogo resulting from Nova switches aren't there if we have another big in the lineup much easier for Nova to help on that.

Whaley and Sanogo stunk up the court, missed chippies, missed passes, fouling a guy under the basket who is 10 or 11 inches shorter, playing “hot potato” 8 feet from their own basket. Sanogo’s only a freshman, so it’s understandable. Feel bad for Whaley, he couldn’t catch a break from anyone, Hurley, the refs. I think he’d be playing better with a real crowd, cheerleaders, the band, home or away.

 

[EBonz30]

Perimeter defense was ok, no argument there but the interior defense was abysmal. Earl, Samuels, and a slow 6ft white dude named Gillespie ate our lunch in the paint. It’s the reason we lost.

The reason we lost wasn’t our defense- please re-watch the game, take a look at the stats, & check Hurley quotes post game. Once again, we held Villanova way, way below their offensive averages.

 

[weo777]

One thing that drives me crazy is giving up baseline constantly on defense. It always ends up in a problem and getting good defensive position is as important as the shot blocking aspect

 

[Get a Job]

He’s not afraid to shoot the 3, and I’ve seen him drain it after coming off the bench, and he’s just a freshman. He also has not missed yet from the FT line. His mechanics look sound to me either from the FT line or beyond the arc. If Whaley has natural talent at shooting his stats should have improved 2 seasons ago. I like Whaley, he plays his heart out, but his shooting is not his strong point. Although I will give Whaley credit for hitting a timely three Saturday.

You have seen Jackson drain a 3-pointer twice as a Husky. You have seen him brick a 3-pointer 12 times. I hope you're right in saying that he is a better shooter and will show it soon. I am just saying that I don't see signs that he is a good shooter like you do. Squirrel shoots more than two times better from beyond the arc, albeit in a small sample size. I don't recall Jackson ever taking a 2-point jumper, so it's hard to compare there at this point. The one shooting advantage Jackson has over Squirrel is at the charity stripe, where Squirrel is horrendous this season. Then again, Andre has only attempted 4 free throws. Finally, Squirrel's true shooting percentage is better than Jackson's.

TL;DR: Andre may be a better shooter than Squirrel, and I hope he is, but the numbers so far do not support that at all.