Bryant

[Queens_NYC]

Tuesday, December 12th, 2023
7:00 PM
Fifth Third Arena
ESPN+

The Bearcats (7-1, NET #25, KenPom #30) return to Clifton to take on Bryant (6-5, NET #193, KenPom #216) as they hope to shake off another post-Shootout hangover.

The Bulldogs are led by first-year head coach Phil Martelli Jr who took over for Jared Grasso in mid-November after Grasso resigned due to an off-the-court incident stemming from several months back.

Bryant has played two common opponents of UC so far having lost 100-75 at Xavier while also defeating Howard at home 67-61. They've already played 7 true road games with their most notable result being a 61-52 upset victory at (nationally ranked) Florida Atlantic.

The Bulldogs mostly play a rotation of 8 players with 7 of those players standing between 6'4 and 6'7 in height (the 8th is 6'2). Their leading scorer is 5th-year 6'4 guard Sherif Gross-Bullock (16.7 ppg, 5.5 rpg). They also get a lot of production from 4th-year 6'6 wing Earl Timberlake (12.2 ppg, 8.8 rpg, 4.1 apg).

Bryant are a team built on extremes as they play fast (24th in Adjusted Tempo) but are very inefficient on offense (306th nationally in Adjusted Offense). They rank much higher defensively (102nd in Adjusted Defense) but are a very poor rebounding team (having lost the rebounding battle against every D1 opponent so far except FAU).

The Bearcats will look to replicate (if not improve upon) last year's 97-71 blowout victory over Bryant in early December 2022.

 

[Queens_NYC]

-20.5

 

[sedziobs]

Bryant is a horrible offensive team. They've only put up more than a point per possession once this year, against #315 Boston University. A big part of the problem is personnel usage. Withers and Timberake are the only efficient scorers, but the other three starters all have much higher usage rates despite effective field goal percentages under 44%. The highest usage player, Sherif Gross-Bullock, puts up more than 8 threes a game at only 30%, and he only converts 44% at the rim. And to top it off they are one of the worst offensive rebounding teams in the country.

They're a pretty good defensive team, ranking in the top 15 nationally in opposing field goal percentage. But they're below average in rebounding, forcing turnovers, and keeping opponents off the free throw line. They held FAU to only 0.72 points per possession, including just 9 for 27 at the rim and 5 for 30 from three. How did they hold a top 20 team to 33% at the rim? They also held Rutgers under 50% at the rim, so something is working. I'm guessing with their positionless size they double everything in the lane.

Withers is their tallest player but he mostly just shoots threes, similar to Howard's Seth Towns. Our bigs need to be aware of that. Timberlake does most of his damage at the rim, so I'd rather have a big on him instead.

On offense I think looking for the dump off pass might be important when attacking the rim. If we do that and attack the glass we should be able to score even if the outside shots aren't falling.

 

[sedziobs]

Bryant is indeed very aggressive doubling everything in the post. They're similar to Houston in that way. Lakhin is getting the ball in good spots but not looking for an immediate quick pass to a cutter. It think we might be better off running some 5 out, or high low. Very sloppy game over the first 12 minutes.

 

[sedziobs]

Aziz should not be guarding Withers. He should be on Timberlake.

 

[sedziobs]

Finally Simas with a good dump off pass. That's avaliable all day against this defense.

 

[sedziobs]

Good adjustment by the staff in the final 15 minutes. We stopped running the offense through Vik and instead went to a 5 out PnR with Aziz. The change led to a bunch of clean rim looks. I just wish we did that from the start. Nice work by Simas and Newman in the PnR.

 

[Queens_NYC]

Bryant is a horrible offensive team. They've only put up more than a point per possession once this year, against #315 Boston University. A big part of the problem is personnel usage. Withers and Timberake are the only efficient scorers, but the other three starters all have much higher usage rates despite effective field goal percentages under 44%. The highest usage player, Sherif Gross-Bullock, puts up more than 8 threes a game at only 30%, and he only converts 44% at the rim. And to top it off they are one of the worst offensive rebounding teams in the country.

They're a pretty good defensive team, ranking in the top 15 nationally in opposing field goal percentage. But they're below average in rebounding, forcing turnovers, and keeping opponents off the free throw line. They held FAU to only 0.72 points per possession, including just 9 for 27 at the rim and 5 for 30 from three. How did they hold a top 20 team to 33% at the rim? They also held Rutgers under 50% at the rim, so something is working. I'm guessing with their positionless size they double everything in the lane.

Withers is their tallest player but he mostly just shoots threes, similar to Howard's Seth Towns. Our bigs need to be aware of that. Timberlake does most of his damage at the rim, so I'd rather have a big on him instead.

On offense I think looking for the dump off pass might be important when attacking the rim. If we do that and attack the glass we should be able to score even if the outside shots aren't falling.

Another on-point scouting report.

We went on a 31-5 run over the final 8:33. The (phantom?) foul on Aziz followed by the technical shifted the game in our favor for good.

I can't remember the last time we dominated a team on the boards like that (57 to 33).

Happy to go into the Dayton game on a high note.

 

[sedziobs]

We went on a 31-5 run over the final 8:33.

Aside from one three by Day Day, all of our points over the last 12 minutes were scored at the rim or the free throw line. It was nice to see an effectively implemented mid game adjustment.

 

[sedziobs]

Bryant is a horrible offensive team. They've only put up more than a point per possession once this year, against #315 Boston University. A big part of the problem is personnel usage. Withers and Timberake are the only efficient scorers, but the other three starters all have much higher usage rates despite effective field goal percentages under 44%. The highest usage player, Sherif Gross-Bullock, puts up more than 8 threes a game at only 30%, and he only converts 44% at the rim. And to top it off they are one of the worst offensive rebounding teams in the country.

They're a pretty good defensive team, ranking in the top 15 nationally in opposing field goal percentage. But they're below average in rebounding, forcing turnovers, and keeping opponents off the free throw line. They held FAU to only 0.72 points per possession, including just 9 for 27 at the rim and 5 for 30 from three. How did they hold a top 20 team to 33% at the rim? They also held Rutgers under 50% at the rim, so something is working. I'm guessing with their positionless size they double everything in the lane.

Withers is their tallest player but he mostly just shoots threes, similar to Howard's Seth Towns. Our bigs need to be aware of that. Timberlake does most of his damage at the rim, so I'd rather have a big on him instead.

On offense I think looking for the dump off pass might be important when attacking the rim. If we do that and attack the glass we should be able to score even if the outside shots aren't falling.

Much of this game went as expected. Despite Withers and Timberlake clearly being Bryant's best players, three other guys who went a combined 6 for 26 exceeded them in usage. Gross-Bullock attempted 7 threes and made 29% and went just 1-5 at the rim. We killed them on the glass, as their philosophy seems to be chuck up a three before any offensive rebounders are even down the court, and getting out in transition rather than securing the defensive board.

They held us to just 41% at the rim, which was probably more like 30% in the first half. They aggressively doubled everything in the paint. Pretty impressive that they are able to consistently do that against good teams, but they don't have the size to rebound like Houston.

Execution of my scouting report was terrible in the first half. We had guards on Timberlake and bigs on Withers, and they took advantage. Timberlake went 6 for 8 at the rim and Withers hit several threes. We weren't doing anything to counter the double teams early, running our standard offense through Vik in the post. He really struggled, going just 2 for 7 at the rim with 4 turnovers. I don't blame Vik if the coaching staff didn't prepare him for the defense.

During the first half I suggested we switch to a 5 out offense, and thankfully we did that at the under 12 timeout in the second half.

 

[Lefty]

Much of this game went as expected. Despite Withers and Timberlake clearly being Bryant's best players, three other guys who went a combined 6 for 26 exceeded them in usage. Gross-Bullock attempted 7 threes and made 29% and went just 1-5 at the rim. We killed them on the glass, as their philosophy seems to be chuck up a three before any offensive rebounders are even down the court, and getting out in transition rather than securing the defensive board.

They held us to just 41% at the rim, which was probably more like 30% in the first half. They aggressively doubled everything in the paint. Pretty impressive that they are able to consistently do that against good teams, but they don't have the size to rebound like Houston.

Execution of my scouting report was terrible in the first half. We had guards on Timberlake and bigs on Withers, and they took advantage. Timberlake went 6 for 8 at the rim and Withers hit several threes. We weren't doing anything to counter the double teams early, running our standard offense through Vik in the post. He really struggled, going just 2 for 7 at the rim with 4 turnovers. I don't blame Vik if the coaching staff didn't prepare him for the defense.

During the first half I suggested we switch to a 5 out offense, and thankfully we did that at the under 12 timeout in the second half.

Great comments- will have to review your take on the Xavier game.
So, with what you have said & what I felt about our game plan vs X,
are we not scouting our opponents well ? Seems like we’re not !?

 

[sedziobs]

Great comments- will have to review your take on the Xavier game.
So, with what you have said & what I felt about our game plan vs X,
are we not scouting our opponents well ? Seems like we’re not !?

Right, this isn't new for Wes Miller. My biggest complaint about him after the hire was that his teams are too midrange heavy, and it's extremely difficult for an offense to be efficient like that. To my surprise, we have drastically adjusted our offensive approach this year.

But my biggest gripe since has been poor gameplans. I think part of that is we all got used to Cronin and his meticilous strategies for shutting down opponents. Wes doesn't seem to implement scouting reports. It became obvious to me in several games over the last couple years (mostly the way we defended Temple's Damian Dunn and Memphis's Kendric Davis), and it hasn't improved.

Reading through last year's Memphis thread was depressing:

Davis is actually not very efficient from the floor, with only a 46% effective field goal percentage. He takes a lot of midrange shots and is only 31% from three. But he gets to the free throw line 8 times per game where he shoots 87%. That gives him a 55% true shooting percentage. So the strategy should be to play off of Davis and let him shoot, but don't foul him or let him get into the paint where he will convert at 56% or dish out a 31 assist rate.

We're doing the opposite of what I suggested. We're playing tight on Davis beyond the three point line, inviting him to drive. He's drawing contact and finding open shooters.

Davis just wants to drive all the time. We've got to stop going over the top of screens and falling for pump fakes. Just back off and keep him out of the lane.

Defensively we I thought we had the wrong gameplan against Davis. We played him as if he is a shooter, but he only scored 9 points from the field on 10 shots. But he scored 12 at the free throw line and had 6 assists (and probably a lot of hockey assists).