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Bearcat_NTS said:
Is there any way to check the numbers for this point last year? What those numbers tell me is my fears for this team are a reality. The defensive rebounding has been poor, mainly because the defense is scrambling and there aren't clear box out responsibilities. UC is relying on Jackson and Rubles (SK too) for rebounds. I am also a little concerned that they were only able to force 8 turnovers against NC State. Against NC State and NC Central, UC shot under 40% as well.
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Mick encourages his bigs to go for blocks and expects the 2's and 3's to do the boxing out and help with defensive rebounds. I used to always complain when Jackson goes for blocks and takes himself out of rebounding position but after hearing Mick in a postgame say its the guards job to rebound missed opponents shots because the bigs are going for blocks, I cut JJ some slack because he is doing what he is instructed to do even if I don't fully agree with the philosophy. I think our bigs need to be smarter about when to go for blocks and when to stay down for rebounds. Its frustrating seeing him leap up for every shot when some aren't blockable, but if this is the team's strategy then I won't argue with Cronin. This D has more than shown to be good and in past years rebounding hasn't been a liability and I love our ferociousness on going after shots and the ball. SK and Thomas are the ones that need to step up their efforts in the defensive rebounding department as it seems that is who Mick is giving the responsibility of it to.
 
Forget the defense...

Im concerned about where points are going to come from this year???

SK will get his, but then who? Titus HAS to score... Shaq HAS to attack. Justin HAS to dunk the ball. Sanders and G HAVE to hit wide open threes.
 
TheLivingLegend said:
Forget the defense...

Im concerned about where points are going to come from this year???

SK will get his, but then who? Titus HAS to score... Shaq HAS to attack. Justin HAS to dunk the ball. Sanders and G HAVE to hit wide open threes.
Click to expand...

Good question. We should get some extra points off the press. Outside of that we are looking weak at 3 pointers so far (other than SK). We lost some reliable outside shooters. What's left? Taking your man off the dribble and creating. Outside of SK...here is what we are looking at.

TR...probably option #1. He is a mismatch and can beat his man. He will have to step up and finish at a better %.

ST...probably option #2. Same as above.

JS...is probably our next most reliable shooter (of guys getting significant minutes) but can only shoot when wide open since his release is super slow. He's not going to create much for the team on O outside of that.

GG...He needs to get even more aggressive when SK is being shadowed. I think he can do a decent job of this but maybe not great. He's maybe worth about 1-3 from long distance at best.

TC...Same as with GG. Just getting us into our offense won't be good enough against better competition.

KJ...I think this is the wildcard right now. He has BB skills and quickness to beat his man. He does a lot of moving without the ball and is decent finishing around the rim and passing. If we could somehow get him knocking down just 30% from outside the lane it would go a long way. I know it seems impossible to some...but I think he is still rushing his shot.

JDIII...if we are playing against zone...he may need to get a little more time since he is our next best shooter to SK. He also has nice court vision and sees things before they happen that other players can't.

Lawrence...I think he will do well to get rebounds and put backs as well as wide open jumpers inside 15'. Right now he's losing the ball too much when he tries to create.

JJ...will do well to keep up 75% of his current pace in more competetive games. He just needs to choose the right moments and not force things.

At this point I am not expecting a whole lot more offense than last year...but we are still working out the kinks and the light will go on for one or two of our guys. Against NM we will find out a lot more.
 
david aka the TYZ said:
Mick encourages his bigs to go for blocks and expects the 2's and 3's to do the boxing out and help with defensive rebounds. I used to always complain when Jackson goes for blocks and takes himself out of rebounding position but after hearing Mick in a postgame say its the guards job to rebound missed opponents shots because the bigs are going for blocks, I cut JJ some slack because he is doing what he is instructed to do even if I don't fully agree with the philosophy. I think our bigs need to be smarter about when to go for blocks and when to stay down for rebounds. Its frustrating seeing him leap up for every shot when some aren't blockable, but if this is the team's strategy then I won't argue with Cronin. This D has more than shown to be good and in past years rebounding hasn't been a liability and I love our ferociousness on going after shots and the ball. SK and Thomas are the ones that need to step up their efforts in the defensive rebounding department as it seems that is who Mick is giving the responsibility of it to.
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I understand where you are coming from TYZ. It's tough to find that athletic BIG who can step out to the perimeter to disrupt movement and have the quickness to get back to the block AS WELL AS being able to go toe to toe with banging against the better bigs in D1. Add a little offense to that and you probably have a guy that Cronin would give anything for.

Looking back over the years we have had guys like Martin, Blount, Little, Long, Fortson, Maxiell, Hicks, Gates, Brannen, Mooj, etc at our C/low block position. Martin could clearly do all of these things well. Fortson, Gates, Mooj, and Brannen may not have fit Cronin's model but I would take 3 of the 4 right now. Hicks and Max might fit pretty well. I wouldn't mind Blount, Long or Little either. Guys like McClain and Nuyarcuk simply don't fit. Gaines might have if he wasn't so raw.

I don't think JJ is too far behind some of these guys in that he's serviceable at 3 of 4 and we will see how he does defensively against better bigs. I think we are still going to need some backside help.
 
ervins84 said:
If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times... Points per possession is what matters, not total points. Tempo confuses many on what is good D and good O.

Right now the offense is serviceable at 1.08 PPP adj for opp, but the D is elite at 0.94 PPP adj for opp.

So far this year UC has forced turnovers on 26.6 % of possessions which is top 10 in the country. Last year was only 20% which was 153rd.

The offense is also always going to look worse than it is wrt execution bc it is heavily dependent on O Rebd. Uc is currently 2nd in the nation in off rebd percentage ( literally as simple a stat as the name).

Defense is elite against 2pt shots, average vs 3s, and surprisingly very poor defensive rebounders despite being good on offense.

Tempo is way up this year to just over 69 possessions a game after last year averaging 64, and this team also shoots the least amount of 3s per FG att of any Cronin team.

I am not sure what predictive value any of this has, especially with only a 5 game sample against pretty poor competition, but i do like the general direction.

More steals
High level D
Up tempo (especially with recruits who all want to play fast and bc more possessions means more shots for everyone and tends to breed a happier selfless team not concerned with getting their shots)
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Great info! Where do you get these stats from? I'd like to track them over the season.
 
One of my favorite sites is StatSheet. It seems to be program generated but it gives a lot of the stats you could want to track as well it gives you the option of comparing any team we have played or will play (or don't play). There are system generated articles (I would guess) but lots of sortable stats.

http://statsheet.com/mcb/teams/cincinnati

Right now our SOS is pretty sucky but it also gives our potential SOS for the season. It gives our stats for the nation and our stats for the conference etc. It also gives cool stats about what happened "on this day" in our past giving stats from big games from one of our past players.
 
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