Hoyas vs. Vandy Regional Semis Pre-Game Discussion

[PopeJohn2]

guru said:

You should be called MisanthropeJohn2. Show some confidence in this team and stop acting like a weasel, Chicken Little. At this point, the team is what it is - and through this massive "shooting slump" you fear so much the Hoyas have managed to win 17 of 18 games. Try to enjoy the ride, Misanthrope

LOL. you must be feeling really silly about your belmont statement to start insulting me with 3 syllable word that you need a dictionary to understand. misanthrope. roflmao!

ive got money on georgetown against vandy btw but doesnt mean i cant give objective observations.

[philipvu94]

fotp said:

The key to me is Vandy doesn't play zone much so they won't be great at it. It's hard to play zone and teams like ND and Cuse play it a lot and get very good at it (cuse way more than ND). That and its very hard to rebound out of a zone defense and that is an area we have a huge advantage anyway.

We don't play zone as our base defense, but the staff has generally not shied away from it when they felt it to be tactically warranted. If "zones as much as Syracuse" is on one pole and "just started praticing it this week" is on the other, I'd say we're squarely in the middle of the spectrum. We've used it throughout the season, and my casual observation is that it's often worked when we've used it. I can't cite specifics off the top of my head because I'm just not good at that kind of recall -- I seem to recall it was part of how we slowed down Florida's big guys -- but maybe others can be more specific.

[guru]

If you really had to look that word up in the dictionary, that's very sad.

There was nothing silly about my statement. And there's nothing silly about 17-1 in the last 18. Keep worrying, misanthrope.

[YB]

I actually think our normal defense is a "Zone-trap" that involves a lot of zone in the paint and baseline and our guards running around like crazy between the circles trying to make things happen. This does leave guys open for the 3 sometimes, but also makes passing and layins tougher. Lots of switching.

[AvantGuardHoya]

popejohn2 said:

the problem is, with the exception of wallace, we havent shot well since february 21 against cincy. hopefully our 30 day cold-streak has come to an end.

when we shoot well from outside we are among the best in the nation. when we dont, we arent.

What's the expression, "beauty's in the eye of the beholder"? The Cincy game on 2/21 is cited as the last time we shot well. The line for that game reads as follows:

FG % -- 54
3pt % -- 40
FT % -- 71

In the BET semis and final the lines were as follows:

vs. ND

FG % -- 52
3pt % -- 33
FT % -- 85

vs. Pitt

FG % -- 52
3pt % -- 41
FT % -- 78

In our opening round game agains Belmont, here's what our shooting looked like:

FG % -- 55
3pt % -- 44
FT % -- 75

Those are all acceptable numbers at the very least and strike me as fairly compararble to, if not better than, the Cincy game. We'd all love for the team to shoot lights out every game, but I wouldn't say we've been in a month long cold streak by any stretch. Our only recent difficulties were encountered last Saturday against BC. Am I missing something or do I need my annual vision check earlier this year?

[TX Hoya]

Vandy has no real fans. They are all more like "casual observers."

[HoyaLingus]

guru said:

You should be called MisanthropeJohn2. Show some confidence in this team and stop acting like a weasel, Chicken Little. At this point, the team is what it is - and through this massive "shooting slump" you fear so much the Hoyas have managed to win 17 of 18 games. Try to enjoy the ride, Misanthrope

Hey, remember... the hoyas, along with the dollar, are doomed.

You heard it here first.

[Saxifrage]

avantguardhoya said:

What's the expression, "beauty's in the eye of the beholder"? The Cincy game on 2/21 is cited as the last time we shot well. . . . I wouldn't say we've been in a month long cold streak by any stretch. Our only recent difficulties were encountered last Saturday against BC. Am I missing something or do I need my annual vision check earlier this year?

One way to look at is to take (from www.kenpom.com/expsked.php?team=Georgetown) the effective field-goal percentage.

There's something a little arbitrary about the statistic, calculated by giving 50% more credit for made three-pointers: eFG% = (.5*3FGM + FGM) / FGA. But it's useful, I think, as a quantitative representation of that subjective feeling you have about whether or not a team is "shooting the lights out" during any given game.

So, here's the effective field-goal rate since Georgetown began winning consistently:

Jan 17 Rutgers 61.1
Jan 19 Seton Hall 61.8
Jan 24 DePaul 62.2
Jan 27 Cincinnati 58.5
Feb 1 St. John's 65.2
Feb 7 Louisville 63.0
Feb 10 Marquette 52.7
Feb 12 West Virginia 63.3
Feb 17 Villanova 50.0
Feb 21 Cincinnati 62.5
Feb 24 Pittsburgh 51.3
Feb 26 Syracuse (L) 35.1
Mar 3 Connecticut 45.4
Mar 8 Villanova 49.1
Mar 9 Notre Dame 56.8
Mar 10 Pittsburgh 58.0
Mar 15 Belmont 61.3
Mar 17 Boston College 46.1

Admittedly, there's a 50% game in there before Cincinnati (Feb 17 against Villanova), and there's a 60% game there after Cincinnati (Mar 17 against Belmont).

But through the Cincinnati game the average was 60.03%, and since it has been 50.39%. That's a large difference, and it seems to put a number, as I said, on the sense many fans have that the Hoyas' shooters haven't given us that "on fire" feeling for a month now.

Which makes the team's victories all the more impressive, of course.

JB

[SFHoya99]

What arbitrary about weighting 3 point shots 50% more than 2 point shots? They are worth 50% more. What's missing in eFG% is FT shooting -- every FTA is roughly equivalent to .43 FGA so it isn't hard to add in the positive effects of getting fouled.

As for shooting, I'd think our offensive strategy should be to go with the consistent inside performance against a smaller team and get to the line.

Anyway, what I notice about JB's table isn't lack of shooting after a certain date, it is that we shot well against poor defensive teams and shot poorly against good defensive teams. The correlation is about as strong as timing, I'd think.

[PopeJohn2]

avantguardhoya said:

popejohn2 said:

the problem is, with the exception of wallace, we havent shot well since february 21 against cincy. hopefully our 30 day cold-streak has come to an end.

when we shoot well from outside we are among the best in the nation. when we dont, we arent.

What's the expression, "beauty's in the eye of the beholder"? The Cincy game on 2/21 is cited as the last time we shot well. The line for that game reads as follows:

FG % -- 54
3pt % -- 40
FT % -- 71

In the BET semis and final the lines were as follows:

vs. ND

FG % -- 52
3pt % -- 33
FT % -- 85

vs. Pitt

FG % -- 52
3pt % -- 41
FT % -- 78

In our opening round game agains Belmont, here's what our shooting looked like:

FG % -- 55
3pt % -- 44
FT % -- 75

Those are all acceptable numbers at the very least and strike me as fairly compararble to, if not better than, the Cincy game. We'd all love for the team to shoot lights out every game, but I wouldn't say we've been in a month long cold streak by any stretch. Our only recent difficulties were encountered last Saturday against BC. Am I missing something or do I need my annual vision check earlier this year?

yes, you are missing something, which are the clause "with the exception of wallace" and the statement was citing 3 pfg%, not just fg%, as that is the better gauge of outside shooting. if you were to exclude wallaces performances, you will see that the rest of the team was shooting under 30% (maybe even <25%) from 3. the "rest of the team" used to shoot > 40% from 3. there has been a dramatic drop off. and as we established before, belmont does not have a strong enough defense to make our shooting performance relevant.

yes, i expect reactive know-it-all readers will reinterpret this as me saying that the hoyas are doomed. and did you see what happened to the usd today!

[Saxifrage]

sfhoya99 said:

What arbitrary about weighting 3 point shots 50% more than 2 point shots? They are worth 50% more. What's missing in eFG% is FT shooting -- every FTA is roughly equivalent to .43 FGA so it isn't hard to add in the positive effects of getting fouled.

You're right, of course, that there's nothing arbitrary about eFG% in terms of judging the production toward a score, and adding in a factored FTA makes it even more precise about offensive production.

But when I said "a little arbitrary," I meant for giving us a sense of a teams' knocking down a lot of shots, and for that sense, there's a way in which a shot is a shot: two inches inside the three-point line, or two inches out. And free throws don't contribute much to that feeling, one way or another.

On the other hand, I have to admit that, subjectively, three-pointers feel more impressive, while you're watching a game, and a team that's missing all its free throws is probably not going to be hitting its jumpers. So maybe they are all related.

JB

[FewFAC]

1. FTAs in college basketball are now weighted at .475 FGA, up from .44.

gigafan99 said:

philipvu94 said:

I don't know much about the internals of your team, but I'd say that's a very unorthodox gameplan against Vanderbilt. The only way that could work is if Byars, Foster, and Cage all come out ice cold and heaving up misses. It could happen, but inviting three good shooters to do their thing doesn't sound like smart basketball.

Yeah I'll go with the Vandy guy here and say that giving up threes to a team that only shoots threes isn't the best gameplan.

Ball pressure to slow their reversal, free switch to always have a man on the shooter, and for us use methodical offense establishing the post.

If they want to roll to the basket and challenge Roy, that's their decision. But we're not going to let them shoot for any period of time considering that's their #1, 2 and 3 weapons.

I normally would agree with you, but looking at the Vandy 3FGA leaders, I would make them demonstrate they can actually hit some 3FGAs before I really began to get concerned, hoping I could steal some game time to avoid foul trouble.

Vandy's 3FGA leaders:

Foster, 72-208, 34.5%
Byers, 76-205, 37.1%
Cage, 77-174, 44.3%
Gordon, 51-129, 39.5%

So your main 3FGA guys are coming in at 35.9%, your top 3--including your best % shooter--still only shoot at 38.3%. I think I could live with forcing them to demonstrate they can actually make shots.

[wildhoya]

Camille

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032102106.html

"Maybe better than any team in the country that I've seen, they contest shots," Vanderbilt Coach Kevin Stallings said. "At the end of the day, it goes back to something I heard Bob Knight say: Essentially the game comes down to the quality of shot you get, as opposed to the quality of shot that your opponent gets. They're great defensively because they really distract and minimize the quality of shot that their opponent gets."

[hoyaesq]

locker said:

popejohn2 said:

the problem is, with the exception of wallace, we havent shot well since february 21 against cincy. hopefully our 30 day cold-streak has come to an end.

This is a good point. Wallace has been money over the last month (made 18 of his last 36 three attempts -- 50%), but our other main perimeter shooters have gone cold:

Summers (9 of his last 46 -- 19.6%)
Green (5 of his last 23 -- 21.7%)
Sapp (6 of his last 36 -- 16.7%)

We're due to turn this around.

Not confidence-inspiring. I'm sure teams gameplan to shut down JW and we need people like Sapp to step up. Which he did against Belmont, but against Vandy, etc., it's necessary, not a luxury, for someone to pick up the slack.

[hoyaLS05]

wildhoya said:

Camille

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032102106.html

"Maybe better than any team in the country that I've seen, they contest shots," Vanderbilt Coach Kevin Stallings said. "At the end of the day, it goes back to something I heard Bob Knight say: Essentially the game comes down to the quality of shot you get, as opposed to the quality of shot that your opponent gets. They're great defensively because they really distract and minimize the quality of shot that their opponent gets."

Barker: washtimes.com/sports/20070322-124926-5947r.htm

I will continue to defend Camille, but seeing as they've both written on defense today, I must say Barker's piece is a bit better, though I wonder if he didn't make a bit of a mistake at the end.

Enter Ewing. Against lineups with multiple sharpshooters and no true center (see also Notre Dame and West Virginia), the Hoyas have benched the slower Hibbert for Ewing, who can defend all five positions.
"My dad told me, 'You're not going to make it to the next level as a big forward, so you've got to develop your guard skills and be able to defend guards,' " Ewing said. "So I spent most of last year trying to guard Brandon [Bowman] and Jeff [Green] and Ashanti [Cook], and I feel like that experience of playing three great players has helped me this year in guarding whomever coach puts me on."
Tomorrow night, Green's assignment could be Byars. The deciding factor could again be Georgetown's defense.

I feel like Green in the last graph should have been Ewing, but in any case, great piece.

[NickSixers]

Was just down at the Tombs for the daily stop (99 days). The song that started playing as soon as the CSN story on the Hoyas came on the TVs: "Don't Stop Believing." It's a sign.

[Boz]

nicksixers said:

Was just down at the Tombs for the daily stop (99 days). The song that started playing as soon as the CSN story on the Hoyas came on the TVs: "Don't Stop Believing." It's a sign.

Yeah, a bad one!

[Deleted]

I just had an aneurysm trying to get through all of the statistical analysis above.

Seriously, does anyone have a similar analysis of our defense? I don't, but to my (admittedly untrained) eye, our defense is notably better now than it was at the beginning of the season.

And....if that's the case, does our offensive "slump" matter as much?

[vcjack]

nicksixers said:

Was just down at the Tombs for the daily stop (99 days). The song that started playing as soon as the CSN story on the Hoyas came on the TVs: "Don't Stop Believing." It's a sign.

Excelent, my ChiSox luck has followed me here

[swflahoya]

I noticed that the ESPN simulation has us winning. I know this is completely meaningless, but there was one thing that caught my eye. The image they use is a computerized Jeff Green ready to dunk....and he's got the cornrows back!!!!

Should I post this under breaking news?