VCU game observations

[urfan1]

2011 thanks for your breakdown. You are our resident stats guy. I generally focus on one, the final score. But I was at the game and then watched it again once I got home, my observation was we missed a number of wide open 3s (something we don't normally do). And I believe we were worn out at the end of the game. Remove one or both of those and we win -- good new is we get a second chance to win at the SC

 

[3genspider]

WARNING: This post may cause headaches!

This was one of the best games I have seen all year, and if one of those 3s that rattled around the basket 10 times before finally popping out had fallen instead we would be having a much different conversation right now. I think it is easy to pick certain plays that stand out in our minds as the reason we lost the game, but the truth is every play in basketball counts. If we had made one more shot, or forced one more turnover, or pulled down one more rebound, or had one more block, or committed one less foul, or made one more free throw, or any other number of things we would have won the game. There was no single play that lost it for us.

So how did we do against the vaunted VCU defense? Let's look at turnovers. Some on here are pointing to SDJ's turnover and the easy bucket for VCU as a reason we lost the game. Well, VCU gets those types of turnovers every single game and they usually get a lot of them. They force the 4th most turnovers in the entire country. They only forced turnovers on 14% of our possessions, which is the lowest turnover rate of any team that has played VCU this year. We had fewer turnovers, and gave up fewer points off turnovers, than Duke, Wisconsin, Florida State, Cincinnati and every other team VCU has played. It is actually incredible we didn't turn the ball over more than we did.

Now onto a touchy subject: rebounds. VCU had 40 offensive rebounding opportunities against us, and pulled down 12 of them. We pulled down the other 28. This means VCU pulled down 30% of all possible offensive rebounds. Is this a high percentage? Well, the average offensive rebounding percentage is 30.1%, so it is actually completely average, which is truly an accomplishment for a Richmond team. This season we have held opponents to an average offensive rebounding percentage of 30.3%. When it comes to rebounding on defense we are the dictionary definition of average this year, which is very surprising for a Mooney team. It is also very surprising that an increase in our defensive rebounding performance this season is accompanied by such a huge decrease in overall defensive performance, but I believe that this is most likely coincidence.

The only other stat I would like to point out is our 3pt %, we were 3-18 (16.7%). If we shoot our normal percentage we would have scored 12-15 more points. The amazing thing is that even though the 3s weren't falling we still had an amazing offensive performance. Our offense is not 1-dimensional and we seem to be able to score in many ways, so when one way isn't working we can still put up a lot of points.

Agree with this with one exception, if we had one less technical for 6 men on the court--inexcusable...way too many eyes available to count and way too much experience for an error like this.

 

[spider fan]

Formula has been the same all year - when we make 3's and free throws we win. When we don't we lose. We live by the 3 and we die by the 3. Also overtime exposes our weakness of a short bench and the resulting fatigue.

 

[SpiderGuy]

WARNING: This post may cause headaches!

This was one of the best games I have seen all year, and if one of those 3s that rattled around the basket 10 times before finally popping out had fallen instead we would be having a much different conversation right now. I think it is easy to pick certain plays that stand out in our minds as the reason we lost the game, but the truth is every play in basketball counts. If we had made one more shot, or forced one more turnover, or pulled down one more rebound, or had one more block, or committed one less foul, or made one more free throw, or any other number of things we would have won the game. There was no single play that lost it for us.

So how did we do against the vaunted VCU defense? Let's look at turnovers. Some on here are pointing to SDJ's turnover and the easy bucket for VCU as a reason we lost the game. Well, VCU gets those types of turnovers every single game and they usually get a lot of them. They force the 4th most turnovers in the entire country. They only forced turnovers on 14% of our possessions, which is the lowest turnover rate of any team that has played VCU this year. We had fewer turnovers, and gave up fewer points off turnovers, than Duke, Wisconsin, Florida State, Cincinnati and every other team VCU has played. It is actually incredible we didn't turn the ball over more than we did.

Now onto a touchy subject: rebounds. VCU had 40 offensive rebounding opportunities against us, and pulled down 12 of them. We pulled down the other 28. This means VCU pulled down 30% of all possible offensive rebounds. Is this a high percentage? Well, the average offensive rebounding percentage is 30.1%, so it is actually completely average, which is truly an accomplishment for a Richmond team. This season we have held opponents to an average offensive rebounding percentage of 30.3%. When it comes to rebounding on defense we are the dictionary definition of average this year, which is very surprising for a Mooney team. It is also very surprising that an increase in our defensive rebounding performance this season is accompanied by such a huge decrease in overall defensive performance, but I believe that this is most likely coincidence.

The only other stat I would like to point out is our 3pt %, we were 3-18 (16.7%). If we shoot our normal percentage we would have scored 12-15 more points. The amazing thing is that even though the 3s weren't falling we still had an amazing offensive performance. Our offense is not 1-dimensional and we seem to be able to score in many ways, so when one way isn't working we can still put up a lot of points.

Comments on free throws??????????? We shoot 62% (16 for 26) & VCU shoots 79% (22 for 28).

Just out of curiosity, do you have any stats how our free throw shooting was in the last...say 3 minutes of regulation? We all know how free shooting was in OT.

To me the most critical stats were 1 technical foul which would have prevented OT and us losing by 5.

 

[Ulla1]

One observation was the Spiders seemed to be on a roll prior to the prolonged presentation of our stellar football team. This was an extremely long break after which as I recall we lost momentum. As an alumnus and season ticket holder, I am as proud of our football team as anyone, but all might have been better served to have a proper ceremony at halftime. OSC

Just looked it up; the Spiders were leading by six points 24-18 prior to the time out during which the football team appeared on the floor. Following the time out, UR was outscored 9-4 over the ensuing 2 min 28 sec to decrease the lead to to one point at 28-27. OSC

 

[97spiderfan]

2011, good points you bring up.

You are right no single play killed us, this was a back and forth game. VCU didn't turn us over, they didn't really try to. I'm thought several times throughout the game, where is the vaunted "havoc". I think this was a tactical decision by WW, having seen previous UR-VCU games, where they haven't turned us over and decided that wasn't going to be successful so why do it.

To me the thing that turned the game was VCU decision to largely abandon the jumper in the second half and just take the ball to rack. They did that with ease. Similarily, we tried to take the 3 away from them as part of our defensive game planning, which we did, but we did not make a counter adjustment when VCU decided to score by going to the rack. We continued our same defensive mindset, even though VCU had changed their offensive game plan.

If Marshall is able to make that putback of the Cox block of SDJ, we are not having this discussion, if he don't miss 4 FT in OT, we are not having this discussion, if we don't get T'd up for 6 men on the court, we are not having this discussion, if SDJ doesn't take the last shot of the first half with 10 seconds left. Unfortunately, we did all of these of things, and the culmination is why we lost.

 

[sdspider]

Protect the home court. We didn't do that twice now where we had two good chances to be 4-1 instead of 2-3. Both games were winnable and that's the difference between a high level team and a middle of the pack one. Closing 'em out. Going on the road to the Siegel is not the same as playing at home. Just ask Dayton GW and the Bonnie's about going on the road.

 

[sdspider]

And to make matters worse both St. Joes and us gave VCU 2 big road wins by missing critical free throws. Gave away those games, can't happen if you want to contend for a bid

 

[CarolinaSpider]

2011, good points you bring up.

You are right no single play killed us, this was a back and forth game. VCU didn't turn us over, they didn't really try to. I'm thought several times throughout the game, where is the vaunted "havoc". I think this was a tactical decision by WW, having seen previous UR-VCU games, where they haven't turned us over and decided that wasn't going to be successful so why do it.

To me the thing that turned the game was VCU decision to largely abandon the jumper in the second half and just take the ball to rack. They did that with ease. Similarily, we tried to take the 3 away from them as part of our defensive game planning, which we did, but we did not make a counter adjustment when VCU decided to score by going to the rack. We continued our same defensive mindset, even though VCU had changed their offensive game plan.

If Marshall is able to make that putback of the Cox block of SDJ, we are not having this discussion, if he don't miss 4 FT in OT, we are not having this discussion, if we don't get T'd up for 6 men on the court, we are not having this discussion, if SDJ doesn't take the last shot of the first half with 10 seconds left. Unfortunately, we did all of these of things, and the culmination is why we lost.

Because of depth issues, player personnel, if we don't play a perfect game against strong competition we come up on the short end. I think a huge difference between
us and the more elite teams, is we have more pressure on us to perform at our best. For UR each possession is paramount to our success. If someone fouls out, has
off night shooting or poor rebounding, our lack of depth is heavily exposed.

If Mooney don't start changing the rotation by giving our bench players more playing time, then by the middle of February and then the A10 tournament we are going to
be wiped out and ineffective. Yes, Josh Jones quickness and ball handling is missed.