22-23 Team Discussion

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Nolley is by far our biggest addition in the transfer portal. Glad he came here. I'm a bit surprised he didn't get an NIL deal to go elsewhere (or maybe we are getting in the NIL game).
 
Looking at the Memphis forum thread on Landers there are two things that stand out. One is they say he's inconsistent, hit-or-miss type player (similar to DDJ and Davenport I guess). The other is that he played with a knee injury during the season, so if he gets healthy he may be better than he seemed to be last year.
 
skyblade said:
Nolley is by far our biggest addition in the transfer portal. Glad he came here. I'm a bit surprised he didn't get an NIL deal to go elsewhere (or maybe we are getting in the NIL game).
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We are in the NIL game to some degree. It would seem to a degree that’s good enough for a big pickup! This is a big get!!
 
As always once we sign a guy I look more closely at his stats.

The big reason for optimism with Nolley is his assist rate. It was excellent and 2nd on Memphis. Combine that with a guy who's big enough and moves well enough to play multiple positions (2-4) and there's a lot of versatility. He seems to be a good, but not great defender and average rebounder. Not particularly bouncy and doesn't really play above the rim (though the rumored knee injury may have something to do with that).

Shooting wise, I don't like what I see. He shot an almost identical percentage from three as Newman. From two his close 2 to far 2 ratio was 1:5.3, meaning he shot 1 close 2 for every 5.3 long 2's. Only 22 close 2's to 118 long 2's. Newman in comparison shot 67 close 2's and 57 far 2's (1.1:1 ratio). Translation, Nolley really likes pull up jumpers and not to take it to the rim. Unfortunately he doesn't shoot them that well and the long 2 (as I've harped on with DDJ and Ezikpe as well) is the worst shot in basketball.

TO's are a little high and from what I've watched and based on his EFG% his shot selection is questionable (shooting a bunch of long 2's is the big problem). I really hope Wes gets better shot selection out of guys next year, because it seems like we increase the number of guys who like to chuck bad shots (DDJ, Davenport, Ezikpe and Nolley).

It boils down to we want Nolley passing (which he does very well, though with a more TO's than would be ideal) and not shooting. Which means like with DDJ he needs guys around him who he can pass to and they can finish. On paper we have fewer three point shooting threats than last year, which may make the finishing part difficult.

Looking at three point shooting percentage is quite frankly scary for next years team. We have one guy who shot better than .336% last year and that's Davenport. Last year we had 3 who shot .359% or better (Mason, Saunders and Davenport). This year our best shooters are Newman .333%, Nolley .336% and Davenport .359%. Skillings/Reed (or Vik/Hensley/Ody) may earn more playing time than expected if they can knock down threes at a somewhat reasonable rate.
 
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Nolley is a good enough ball handler and passer that he could play a point forward role. In an ideal world, that means DDJ could be an off ball 1 and we could run a longer guy like Newman out there at the 2. If we did that I'd be more comfortable with Davenport at the 4, which would give us more shooting while having enough length to compensate for defensive weaknesses.

To Skyblade's point, he's not an efficient scorer with only a 50.6 career true shooting percentage. While that's not great, it's in line with most of our team. But he is a creator, which is something we have been lacking.

We are bringing in 4 players between 6'5" and 6'8", and we didn't lose anyone in that range. We're moving towards a versatile positionless basketball type of roster.
 
skyblade said:
Shooting wise, I don't like what I see. He shot an almost identical percentage from three as Newman.
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He's a much better shooter than Newman. Newman is a 30.6 career 3 point shooter on 222 attempts. Nolley is 34.5 % on 493 attempts. So 1.035 points per shot vs .915 points per shot, big difference. He's also a 79% ft shooter vs newmans 67%.

The part you're dead on his is shot selection. He takes a lot of bad ones, but Wes is gonna let him do it here cause thats what we do.

If somehow we have a philosophy change and work to get those awful midrange shots out of our game, he's gonna see his efficiency go way up. But when you take more long 2's than any other shot, your efficiency is going to be bad.
 
cincrulz11 said:
He's a much better shooter than Newman. Newman is a 30.6 career 3 point shooter on 222 attempts. Nolley is 34.5 % on 493 attempts. So 1.035 points per shot vs .915 points per shot, big difference. He's also a 79% ft shooter vs newmans 67%.

The part you're dead on his is shot selection. He takes a lot of bad ones, but Wes is gonna let him do it here cause thats what we do.

If somehow we have a philosophy change and work to get those awful midrange shots out of our game, he's gonna see his efficiency go way up. But when you take more long 2's than any other shot, your efficiency is going to be bad.
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Landers had a really good season as a Sophomore shooting 38.6% from 3 which is what pulls his average up. Though he still shot 98 long 2's to 40 close 2's.

The big difference in that season is that 93.8% of his threes were assisted (Bartorvik). Last year only 73% of his threes were assisted, as a freshman he shot 31.6% with 85.3% assisted. This would seem to indicate that he can probably make a high percentage of open, catch-and-shoot threes. But he is not a guy you want creating his own shot (from anywhere frankly).

As you say, shot selection is the biggest issue. Take only open catch-and-shoot threes and cut out the long 2's and he'd likely be a really good shooter. Though if he did that his usage would probably go way down. If Wes doesn't do something about shot selection (for him, Nolley, Ezikpe and DDJ), we are in for a long season of bad shots.
 
Great Addition!

Could Davenport be squeezed out of the starting line up? Or see a sizable decrease in his minutes?

Hopefully he's putting the work in, knowing that there is now more in house competition. This may also get the best out of Davenport going forward.

Only time will tell.
 
Loser Mentality said:
Great Addition!

Could Davenport be squeezed out of the starting line up? Or see a sizable decrease in his minutes?

Hopefully he's putting the work in, knowing that there is now more in house competition. This may also get the best out of Davenport going forward.

Only time will tell.
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I've become less convinced Davenport's minutes will go down. Davenport is the only proven sharpshooter on the team. Hard to put the only shooter on the bench when you've got a team full of not very good shooters.

If some other guys can knock down 35+% from three, it becomes easier to move Davenport to the bench. But until other guys prove it, Davenport is the only one you can really trust to knock down threes.
 
skyblade said:
I've become less convinced Davenport's minutes will go down. Davenport is the only proven sharpshooter on the team. Hard to put the only shooter on the bench when you've got a team full of not very good shooters.

If some other guys can knock down 35+% from three, it becomes easier to move Davenport to the bench. But until other guys prove it, Davenport is the only one you can really trust to knock down threes.
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True Statement..But is it worth what we are giving up on the defensive end? Plus, he has to work overtime on his handle and motor this offseason. Teams realized late in season to crowd Davenport, and his 3pt ability dipped. I'm praying he works on his handle, that would make him more deadly, and his Free Throw attempts would skyrocket.
 
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Loser Mentality said:
True Statement..But is it worth what we are giving up on the defensive end? Plus, he has to work overtime on his handle and motor this offseason. Teams realized late in season to crowd Davenport, and his 3pt ability dipped. I'm praying he works on his handle, that would make him more deadly, and his Free Throw attempts would skyrocket.
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Yeah, Davenport with a better handle would be big. But even if they are crowding him out, at least they have to extend one guy outside the three point line on defense.

The scouting report on everyone else on the team from three is at best don't give up open catch-and-shoot threes and at worst play off and let them shoot it.

Without Davenport on the court (and even with him on the court) teams are going to crowd the paint, dare us to shoot over them and hope DDJ, Nolley and Ezikpe follow their historical shooting patterns and jack up a bunch of long 2's.
 
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sedziobs said:
Nolley is a good enough ball handler and passer that he could play a point forward role. In an ideal world, that means DDJ could be an off ball 1 and we could run a longer guy like Newman out there at the 2. If we did that I'd be more comfortable with Davenport at the 4, which would give us more shooting while having enough length to compensate for defensive weaknesses.

To Skyblade's point, he's not an efficient scorer with only a 50.6 career true shooting percentage. While that's not great, it's in line with most of our team. But he is a creator, which is something we have been lacking.

We are bringing in 4 players between 6'5" and 6'8", and we didn't lose anyone in that range. We're moving towards a versatile positionless basketball type of roster.
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This would be my preference or DDJ for a spurt at the 1. Not a long time but for 10 minutes get Rob and MAW off the floor. Allows 3 best scorers and Newman to be on the floor with whoever our best big ends up being.
 
skyblade said:
This would seem to indicate that he can probably make a high percentage of open, catch-and-shoot threes. But he is not a guy you want creating his own shot (from anywhere frankly).

As you say, shot selection is the biggest issue. Take only open catch-and-shoot threes and cut out the long 2's and he'd likely be a really good shooter. Though if he did that his usage would probably go way down. If Wes doesn't do something about shot selection (for him, Nolley, Ezikpe and DDJ), we are in for a long season of bad shots.
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You can't say that about everyone on our team though, even the guys shooting good shots. Just look at their true shooting percentages. MAW was only 45.9 last year and 50.0 for his career despite much better shot selection. Same with Newman at 48.0 last year and 49.2 for his career (though he did have a good sophomore season). Ody was 50.2, Hensley 47.5. Lakhin, at 54.9, was the only efficient scorer on the team.

Players who can put up similar efficiency numbers on higher volume with poorer shot selection are clearly better shooters. With that in mind, Davenport, Nolley, Ezikpe, DDJ, and Lakhin are our best scorers, I would say in that order. Nolley will easily be the best if he can repeat his sophomore form. Lakhin could be really good but his volume is too low to tell so far.

Since we don't have a good system here, someone has to create offense. Last year DDJ and Davenport were the only options. Now we have Nolley and Ezikpe, plus Phinisee as a distributor. So even though we're bringing in two more guys who take bad shots, the offense should improve. Obviously nowhere close to our 2017 team that had 3 guys at 58.5 or better.
 
We are now ranked #47 on Torvik's RosterCast (you have to add DDJ and Newman back in). The depth chart looks something like this:

PG: MAW 25 / Phinisee 15
SG: DDJ 30 / Skillings 10
SF: Nolley 15 / Newman 25
PF: Davenport 25 / Nolley 15
C: Ezikpe 20 / Ody 10 / Lakhin 10
 
I'm with Skyblade, we need more shooters. I think keeping McGinnis or Madsen over Phinisee was better option. Rather had a guy like McNeil over DDJ also. We still have ZERO above rim guards or shooters.
 
I know basically all teams are older now in CBB but MAw, DDJ, Newman, Davenport basically all 4th or 5th yr players. We need all four to step up to plate or develop Reed and Skillings over them.
 
sedziobs said:
You can't say that about everyone on our team though, even the guys shooting good shots. Just look at their true shooting percentages. MAW was only 45.9 last year and 50.0 for his career despite much better shot selection. Same with Newman at 48.0 last year and 49.2 for his career (though he did have a good sophomore season). Ody was 50.2, Hensley 47.5. Lakhin, at 54.9, was the only efficient scorer on the team.

Players who can put up similar efficiency numbers on higher volume with poorer shot selection are clearly better shooters. With that in mind, Davenport, Nolley, Ezikpe, DDJ, and Lakhin are our best scorers, I would say in that order. Nolley will easily be the best if he can repeat his sophomore form. Lakhin could be really good but his volume is too low to tell so far.

Since we don't have a good system here, someone has to create offense. Last year DDJ and Davenport were the only options. Now we have Nolley and Ezikpe, plus Phinisee as a distributor. So even though we're bringing in two more guys who take bad shots, the offense should improve. Obviously nowhere close to our 2017 team that had 3 guys at 58.5 or better.
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Nice assessment. I would add that a Wes style vs a Cronin style is drastically different in shot selection and tempo. Therefore I would assume our efficiency will lag behind once again. But it's also possible that some of these guys would have much better efficiency in slower tempo with much safer shot selections. We aren't doing that style so we won't know.
 
DDJ his 1st year was probably best all around PG we've had since Satterfield. No idea why Wes or him decided to switch roles. We need him and Nolley be top 4 on team in rebounds. The best teams are those that have players that can get rebound and start break by themselves. DDJ not going after boards last year was just as criminal as Davenport shot selection.
 
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