Northern Iowa U. Game thread 11/22/17

[tacitus]

X was incredibly lucky to get the W. If Bluiett didn't foul out I doubt X would have won. He played absolutely terrible other than rebounding. The shot selection and turnovers was pure ignorance. Mack needs to lay down the law and tell Q to never shoot a 3 with more than 4 seconds left on the shot or game clock. There is no excuse for him to ever take that shot with any time remaining. I would rather have O'mara take that shot or just about anyone else on the planet.

What are you talking about? As the marked guy, he only took 7 shots from the field. He shot 60% (3/5) from three. Fine, he missed two contested two-point shots, but you do realize that most of his two-point shots this year have been step-back jumpers, and he hits about half of them and leads the team (and tied for 4th in the BE) in scoring as a result. He won the game against ETSU for us with one. Without his 12 points we would have lost. Kudos to NIU for sticking on him on D and taking it to him on O and fouling out our scoring leader, who only averages 2 PF per game, for the first time this season.

[finalfourorbust]

We also need Q to stop shooting threes

I don't think you'd get many people to disagree with you.

Scruggs needs to come out of the game.

You have to play Scruggs. Xavier cannot survive the season with only one point guard. He will get better with playing time.

[kyzrex]

You have to play Scruggs. Xavier cannot survive the season with only one point guard. He will get better with playing time.

Couldn’t agree more. Let’s keep in mind that Xavier hasn’t loaded up with a bunch of easy schools, yet Scruggs and Nazi have both gotten a lot of playing time. This will probably really pay off in March, and certainly will in years to come.

[Anti-Homer]

Byron is losing it on the radio about the officiating. 5 fouls+ 2 travels called on Xavier. Just now th first foul on uni

Xavier has shot 302 free throws this year.
Opponents 216.

The refs cant always be on the Muskies side.

That can be a misleading statistic.

For example, up until the final 1:47 of the game, UNI shot 14 FT's to 9 for X. Then, in the final 1:47 UNI fouled X on five separate occasions, leading to X shooting 10 FT's down the stretch. Therefore, at the end of the game X outshot UNI from the line 19-14. However, had UNI possessed the lead, X never would have had more FT's than UNI, and UNI would have padded its FT advantage.

Teams with good records shoot an inordinate number of FT's in the last two minutes of games. Good teams usually lead heading into the final 2 minutes, when foul-a-thons break out in the vast majority of their contests.

302-216=86. Probably safe to say that X shots about 6 more FT's in the final two minutes of a game than its opponents due to the intentional fouls (which are treated as common fouls) as opponents attempt to catch up. 12 wins x 6 = 72 - 6 (the loss) = 66 additional FT's likely attributable to those clear "Stop the clock, catch up" fouls.

So maybe X has a season long advantage of 20 or so FT's (86 - 66 = 20) during the first 38 minutes of games. A bit of a hypothesis here, but grounded in watching enough College Basketball since Jimmy V deployed the "unintentional, intentional" fouling tactic to know what customarily occurs down the stretch.

A disparity is to be expected for teams with winning records. Basketball fouling strategy embeds the differential.

Great analysis. 67 made a very simplistic conclusion. Another reason for the disparity is because X is a top 5 offensive team, and has a lot of guys who can create shots and stress defenders. It's like trying to defend a team with Randy Moss and Antonio Brown at wide receivers, and Gronk at tight end. I suspect there would a disproportionate number of holding calls against the DBs, relative to most other teams.

[Anti-Homer]

X was incredibly lucky to get the W. If Bluiett didn't foul out I doubt X would have won. He played absolutely terrible other than rebounding. The shot selection and turnovers was pure ignorance. Mack needs to lay down the law and tell Q to never shoot a 3 with more than 4 seconds left on the shot or game clock. There is no excuse for him to ever take that shot with any time remaining. I would rather have O'mara take that shot or just about anyone else on the planet.

Officials were just bad. They missed fouls that should have benefited both teams and made up many calls in favor of UNI. The close game however was much more related to X just playing stupid. The team took turns taking bad shots and making other offensive and defensive errors.

Despite the bad play and bad officiating there were many big time shots today. The team found a way to win. Q was fantastic at the line and I love his ability to get to the rim and find open teammates. He is having a great year but he needs to stop shooting 3s. Nice to see Macura have a good offensive showing as well as create extra possessions.

He played poorly the first five minutes, as he had three turnovers. However, he also hit 3 treys (7 shots) including a huge one with minutes to go to slow down a UNI comeback, and also had 7 boards. I think X survived without him.

[Anti-Homer]

We also need Q to stop shooting threes

I don't think you'd get many people to disagree with you.

Scruggs needs to come out of the game.

You have to play Scruggs. Xavier cannot survive the season with only one point guard. He will get better with playing time.

Of course, you do. However, He just isn't playing well enough to be in during crunch time. He turns it over at a very high rate.

[kyzrex]

You don’t learn how to play in crunch time unless you play in crunch time. In addition, a coach never knows how a player will play in crunch time unless he plays them in crunch time. It’s the job a coach to not just think short term (the game they ar playing that day) but to also think longterm (the games to come). The only real way to prepare the players is to play the players. Teams like Xavier, coaches like Mack, do that very well. They allow the players to fail sometimes because they are willing to challenge the players to succeed. Would you rather that Scruggs get his first taste of crunch time when it really matters? Say against Villanova, at their place? Or should he wait until March? I think that Mack does an excellent job of putting his freshman in at times when they have the luxury of not having to be “the man”, but can be complimenting players to the more experienced players on the floor with them.

[finalfourorbust]

I don't think you'd get many people to disagree with you.

Scruggs needs to come out of the game.

You have to play Scruggs. Xavier cannot survive the season with only one point guard. He will get better with playing time.

Of course, you do. However, He just isn't playing well enough to be in during crunch time. He turns it over at a very high rate.

In a game that is almost even all the way when is crunch time?

[Anti-Homer]

You don’t learn how to play in crunch time unless you play in crunch time. In addition, a coach never knows how a player will play in crunch time unless he plays them in crunch time. It’s the job a coach to not just think short term (the game they ar playing that day) but to also think longterm (the games to come). The only real way to prepare the players is to play the players. Teams like Xavier, coaches like Mack, do that very well. They allow the players to fail sometimes because they are willing to challenge the players to succeed. Would you rather that Scruggs get his first taste of crunch time when it really matters? Say against Villanova, at their place? Or should he wait until March? I think that Mack does an excellent job of putting his freshman in at times when they have the luxury of not having to be “the man”, but can be complimenting players to the more experienced players on the floor with them.

"Would you rather that Scruggs get his first taste of crunch time when it really matters? "

Yes,

If it is the difference between a win and a loss. Would you rather have had Scruggs running the team with his high turnover rate, and also be the guy taking the free throws at the end of the game last night? I think X loses if he was in instead of Goodin.

Goodin wasn't in during crunch time at all last year. It was always Sumner. He was forced into it after Sumner got injured, and grew into the role just fine. I'd love for Scruggs to get as much p.t. as possible, but he has been a clear net negative right now, unfortunately. Would you also suggest that we play Harden a lot more instead of Bluiett or Macura, as he hardly plays at all?

[Anti-Homer]

You have to play Scruggs. Xavier cannot survive the season with only one point guard. He will get better with playing time.

Of course, you do. However, He just isn't playing well enough to be in during crunch time. He turns it over at a very high rate.

In a game that is almost even all the way when is crunch time?

Good question. It obviously varies, but usually the last five-minute mark. However, if X is down 8 with 7 minutes to go, I would keep him on the pine unless Goodin gets injured or fouls out.