Final Look: Michigan State Box Score
by Peter Bean on Dec 23, 2007 1:22 AM CST
in Texas Longhorns Basketball
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This game was a template
on how to beat the horns.
If you have the talent, stop the penetration of DJ. The offense stagnates and all the others can't be relied on to get or make their shots.
The horns defense is not good enough to hold back the other team when the offense sputters.
This is less a problem and less apparent during the regular season. But when tournament time comes around more defenses will have the talent to take away your first or second options putting the pressure on the other players to make shots to to win.
Creative offense against man-to-man?
We set consecutive ball screens up top and run AJ and Mason on the baseline setting off ball screens for them down low. Sometimes the posts (or occasionally Mason) will make a backdoor cut but that's rare. Our offense is generally very effective because we've gotten very good at it. However, against teams that defend ball screens well we'll struggle.
We need some "creative" plays to keep the defense honest. Maybe creative is not the right word, but we at least need to mix it up a little bit when our offense is struggling
Haven't read all the post-game react yet
but it seemed to me that the three things that killed us the most were lack of depth, rebounding, and free throw shooting (mostly just James). Fortunately, if GJ ever plays, he'll help with two of those three. Every bench player we brought in was exposed for their weaknesses (credit to Izzo for going after them). It's a shame that we don't have better guard depth (Dogus would be nice right now). I love Dexy as much as the next guy, but I just can't see where he's going to fit in and against whom. I see him on the scoresheet, but I don't remember Chapman ever being in the game.
If there's one other factor that contributed to our lack of productivity, it's not creating enough opportunities for Atchley and forcing too much of our offense through Abrams. He needs to be more patient and not force his shots. He proved against UCLA that he doesn't need to be the primary scorer to be a factor in our office.
The note on the result is true though. Losing this game is not the end of the world by any means. It would have been a huge win, but we already have a nice non-con resume, which should only get better, assuming we can take care of business against Wisconsin and St. Mary's. Hopefully by tournament time, we'll have Gary Johnson in the lineup and some of the other bench players will develop into a functional role. It's sad to say, but I'm glad we fought back and made it a single digit game, that way everybody will remember it as a hard-fought loss on the road, not a double-digit blowout that it could have been.
RPI rankings... huh?
Can someone explain how these rankings even work?
I know we lost, but how do we drop from #1 to #13 in RPI after playing another top 10 ranked team?
How is A&M ranked 4th, and how is their strength of schedule 28th, while ours is 56th? I guess the other teams we played neutralized the top 10 teams we played and then some.
If we beat St. Mary's, who's the #2 ranked RPI team, I'm guessing it's going to help our RPI by a lot.
by goingforthecorner on Dec 24, 2007 3:49 PM CST reply actions
Figments on parade
The losing was real but the RPI drop is an abstraction.
The formula on the page of your link:
The basic RPI formula is 1/4*(Winning Percentage) + 1/2*(Opponents' Average Winning Percentage) + 1/4*(Opponents' Opponents' Winning Percentage)
Ken Pomeroy's explanation about the logic of the calculations. Really, I can't do any better.
How is A&M ranked 4th, and how is their strength of schedule 28th, while ours is 56th? I guess the other teams we played neutralized the top 10 teams we played and then some.
Right. This indicates that A&M general schedule is stronger even even though the Horns may have played some higher ranked teams than A&M. The ranked teams were not able to compensate for the relatively low ranked teams the Horns played. These are relative standings and do not indicate A&M's schedule is necessarily twice as strong: these are rankings, not purely power stats. Plus, this will change as the season progresses; they are based on actual results in terms of percentages, plus the relative adjustments for home losses and road wins. So there is also a level of abstraction to balance the results in real world terms so these stats aren't quite absolutely accurate per se but are a relatively good approximations, which is the thrust of Pomeroy's efforts to give us a better reading of where each team stands.
Sure, beating St. Mary's will help us; the big, mean Agros will have to beat a couple of weak sisters to keep up. Notice that Kansas's SOS is not substanially different than ours - but they haven't lost yet. So, the first loss seems to have a stronger impact. There's a close gradient in the top 35 teams; a little difference goes a long way.
I don't remember us being #1 in the RPI but in offensive production. Considering that we didn't expect this level of success so early, this is a gift at this stage. I would expect the Horns to make some regressions as team weaknesses are exposed and exploited, then improve to be even better.
Breathing this rarified air of success can make you giddy but the lack of oxygen can diminish brain function. Hopefully you got some O2 for Christmas.
Loss #1
Tough to take a loss after so many great wins, but this wasn't to tough to take.
Our starters played about 90% of the minutes. We looked dog ass tired on D. MSU shot lights out when it counted, and AJ shot lights out when it didn't.
We missed lay-ups, dunks, a couple rebounds and several open looks. It would be nice if Mason could find his offense. We actually outrebounded this physical team. Rick and the players should take a lot away from this win. Foul 2 on DJ really hurt in the first half.
We need work on D and we need depth, but we already new that. Our offense needs some tweaking. All in all, I thought this was an easy game for us to lose. The score was much closer than it should have been thanks to AJs late heroics.
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