Bryant

[Queens_NYC]

Sunday, November 4th, 2022
12:00 PM
Fifth Third Arena
ESPN+

The Bearcats (5-3, KenPom #75) welcome Bryant (6-2, KenPom #176) to Fifth Third tomorrow on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the first ever match-up between these two schools when UC won 73-58 last season.

This year's Bulldogs team looks a whole lot different as they've added 8 new transfers to this squad. The most notable of the new additions are former Memphis Tiger and top 40 recruit Earl Timberlake along with 2022 NCAA tournament favorite Doug Edert - the guy with the "stache" from St. Peter's.

After a bright start to the season that included 4 wins away from home, with the most notable one being a 73-72 win at Syracuse, the Bulldogs suffered a shock 72-60 home loss to Brown on Friday night - a game they were favored to win by 12 points.

The Bulldogs don't have great length in the post and mostly play line-ups with 4 guys between 6'4 and 6'7 on the floor. They do like to play fast and currently rank 22nd in the country for Adjusted Tempo.

This will be the Bearcats' last game before the Crosstown Shootout next Saturday.

 

[sedziobs]

Bryant plays modern basketball under Jared Grasso, who I think is one of the best young coaches in basketball. They play a fast pace, crash the boards, and don't take midrange shots. Only 17% of their attempts are from the midrange, compared to 28% for us. They take 46% of their shots at the rim (we are only 32%) and 37% from three.

Bryant's defense is really bad. They foul a lot and give up a lot of threes. We are terrible at getting to the line though since we don't attack the basket, so we might not take advantage of their main weakness. If we aren't hitting threes we might struggle to keep up.

 

[skyblade]

Jon Rothstein just tweeted that half of the Bryant team is out due to an undisclosed illness. https://twitter.com/JonRothstein/status/1599441045825024001

Edit: Only one of their starters is out, so it may still be a competitive game. They may wear down due to lack of a bench though.

 

[skyblade]

Also, apparently Phinisee broke his foot. Likely out for the year.

That might be a blessing in disguise though, as it will force DDJ to play some PG, which is what many of us have been hoping for. Either that or CJ Anthony gets real game minutes, but that seems unlikely.

Our already bad defense loses it's best defender. With Newman and Phinisee both going down to injury, it seems like defense just isn't meant to be our thing this year.

 

[skyblade]

I wish Hensley could play offense. His defense is impressive. At 6'9ish" we put him on Bryant's top scoring 6'4" guard and Hensley completely shut him down.

 

[skyblade]

They have no answer for Lakhin.

 

[Queens_NYC]

They have no answer for Lakhin.

Their back-up "big" is an ECU transfer who played 6 total minutes last season across 4 games.

 

[Queens_NYC]

Nice to see Skillings hit some jump shots after a rough start to the season.

I'm glad he fought off his case of Ben Simmons-itis.

 

[skyblade]

Sage Tolentino first time in a game. Ezikpe hasn't entered the game.

 

[Queens_NYC]

Shooting 10-14 on 2 pt shots through the first half.

Hopefully the team is made aware of that stat.

 

[sedziobs]

The defense was great in this one. 97 points looks really impressive but this game had 89 possessions. We scored less than 1.1 points per possession. It helped that Bryant wasn't hitting threes, but we also held them to under 50% at the rim.

 

[waterhead]

I wish Hensley could play offense. His defense is impressive. At 6'9ish" we put him on Bryant's top scoring 6'4" guard and Hensley completely shut him down.

Yah Hensley is no slouch and can probably guard all 5 positions if he had to so that's kinda nice. Maybe we can get Newman back around mid season IDK.

The frosh are looking well ahead of where most frosh are usually at. 13 and 9 rebounds is awesome for the whole game let alone for half the game. Good to see Daniel hit some 3's...the early practice reports were that he can shoot a ball so Hopefully that's what we get from now. Reed seems to make everything he looks at right now...except for the FT's.

As for Rob's injury...I would expect some kind of 25-15 split with MAW and DDJ at PG...maybe 30-10 but that's 10 more minutes to divide up for Skillings and more indirectly Reed.

 

[sirthought]

I saw that Sage got in the game at the end with the walk-ons. Maybe he won't take the red shirt.

 

[waterhead]

I saw that Sage got in the game at the end with the walk-ons. Maybe he won't take the red shirt.

Unless he gets injured he can't I don't think

 

[skyblade]

Yah Hensley is no slouch and can probably guard all 5 positions if he had to so that's kinda nice. Maybe we can get Newman back around mid season IDK.

The frosh are looking well ahead of where most frosh are usually at. 13 and 9 rebounds is awesome for the whole game let alone for half the game. Good to see Daniel hit some 3's...the early practice reports were that he can shoot a ball so Hopefully that's what we get from now. Reed seems to make everything he looks at right now...except for the FT's.

As for Rob's injury...I would expect some kind of 25-15 split with MAW and DDJ at PG...maybe 30-10 but that's 10 more minutes to divide up for Skillings and more indirectly Reed.

I think Hensley is our best defender with Rob/Newman out. He can guard almost anyone and gets into position well off the ball as well. EvanMiya pretty much agrees with me (only Reed is higher rated, on pretty few possessions). The problem is Hensley's rebounding is horrible for his size (his rebound percentage is worse than Phinisee's) and he doesn't bring a lot on offense either. I'm not sure why he struggles so much at rebounding, he has the physical traits to be good to great at it, but seems very hesitant to pursue the ball.

Skillings release is pretty slow. My guess is that he misses when he tries to rush to get the shot off in time. But he doesn't need to be great on offense (yet) when his rebounding is excellent and defense is steadily improving. Bryant's poor defense gave him time to not have to rush. Reed's release on the other hand is quick and smooth. But he needs more work on the defensive end.

I'm guessing the split will be closer to 30-10 in competitive games. Wes has been been reducing the bench steadily. Though if Skillings can play well enough at SG, it may get closer to 25-15.

 

[waterhead]

I think Hensley is our best defender with Rob/Newman out. He can guard almost anyone and gets into position well off the ball as well. EvanMiya pretty much agrees with me (only Reed is higher rated, on pretty few possessions). The problem is Hensley's rebounding is horrible for his size (his rebound percentage is worse than Phinisee's) and he doesn't bring a lot on offense either. I'm not sure why he struggles so much at rebounding, he has the physical traits to be good to great at it, but seems very hesitant to pursue the ball.

Skillings release is pretty slow. My guess is that he misses when he tries to rush to get the shot off in time. But he doesn't need to be great on offense (yet) when his rebounding is excellent and defense is steadily improving. Bryant's poor defense gave him time to not have to rush. Reed's release on the other hand is quick and smooth. But he needs more work on the defensive end.

I'm guessing the split will be closer to 30-10 in competitive games. Wes has been been reducing the bench steadily. Though if Skillings can play well enough at SG, it may get closer to 25-15.

My worry is that Hensley can only play one guy at a time...I guess whoever is heating up. Really need Skillings and Reed to get up to speed fast to see if they can help on D. A team like X will have multiple guys to keep track of but we have one stopper now. Hoping Newman can come back at some point as well. Offensively I think we can hang.

Rob going out may move DDJ to the PG more....but I think it also means Hensley will have to play more if Skillings and Reed aren't capable of picking up the slack on D. We know what all the starters are capable of.

 

[TheRealMick]

Aye Skyblade, Waterhead, Sedziobs, or anybody else that might know. Is Kenpom good site use for sports gambling? Are the lines on point?

 

[waterhead]

Aye Skyblade, Waterhead, Sedziobs, or anybody else that might know. Is Kenpom good site use for sports gambling? Are the lines on point?

For one site I think Kenpom is a good choice especially as the year goes on. But the early season is weighted for what happened last season and I am not sure when that data cuts out from last year. The Massey Composite accumulates metrics and data from many many different "expert" sites so that could be better early season and maybe even all season.

Also you gotta obviously figure in injuries etc (for betting) and I am not sure most of the metrics sites can do that. So Rob is out and Newman is out but the metrics aren't accounting for that on a game by game basis. Metrics have no idea who is out.

In short the lines are on point as you can get probably...Kenpom is better than Sagarin. But maybe not better than Vegas. Check Kenpom and The Massey compared to Vegas lines and see if there is any noticeable difference. Checking 2 sources gives you a tie breaker on your own gut feel. they will likely be very close in spread...but not always

 

[sedziobs]

I'm sure oddmakers use sites like Kenpom to set the lines. But Vegas can factor in things like injuries that stat sites aren't built to handle. Kenpom is a good starting point. If the Vegas line is way different than what Kenpom shows, there is probably a reason for it.

 

[TheRealMick]

For one site I think Kenpom is a good choice especially as the year goes on. But the early season is weighted for what happened last season and I am not sure when that data cuts out from last year. The Massey Composite accumulates metrics and data from many many different "expert" sites so that could be better early season and maybe even all season.

Also you gotta obviously figure in injuries etc (for betting) and I am not sure most of the metrics sites can do that. So Rob is out and Newman is out but the metrics aren't accounting for that on a game by game basis. Metrics have no idea who is out.

In short the lines are on point as you can get probably...Kenpom is better than Sagarin. But maybe not better than Vegas. Check Kenpom and The Massey compared to Vegas lines and see if there is any noticeable difference. Checking 2 sources gives you a tie breaker on your own gut feel. they will likely be very close in spread...but not always

Thanks! Didn't know injuries weren't factored into the numbers. So does vegas factor in injuries on college level?