Temple

[Queens_NYC]

Sunday, January 1st, 2023
3:00 PM
The Liacouras Center
ESPN

The Bearcats (9-4 [1-0 AAC], #67 KP, #103 NET) kick off the new year with a visit to Temple (7-7 [1-0 AAC], #132 KP #179 NET). The contest will mark the Bearcats' second road game of the season - some 46 days after they lost at NKU in mid-November.

UC will hope to continue the trend of beating teams that got the better of them in 2022 as the Owls won two close match-ups last season by a combined 7 points.

Temple is led by 4th-year head coach Aaron McKee who helped guide a shorthanded squad to a 59-57 win at ECU on Wednesday that snapped a 3-game losing streak.

4th-year 6'5 wing Khalif Battle is the team's leading scorer at 18.6 ppg but has surprisingly only started in 8 of the team's 14 games so far. Another 4th-year 6'5 wing, Damian Dunn, is their next leading scorer at 14.7 ppg but missed the ECU game due to being in concussion protocol. Temple will play their fourth straight game without 6'8 starting forward Jamille Reynolds (11.1 ppg, 6.3 rpg) who suffered a thumb injury several weeks ago and is expected to return after surgery in February.

Temple appears to be a very inconsistent team as they've already beaten Rutgers, Villanova, and VCU this season but have also lost to Wagner, Penn, and Maryland Eastern Shore.

 

[sedziobs]

Last year they posted up DDJ with Dunn down the stretch. Let's see if we learned anything.

 

[Bcatfollower]

Davenport should never play any significant minutes again. He is terrible. Miller continuously playing shows how incompetent he is.

 

[Bcatfollower]

Also Miller seems not to care how poor the bearcats effort level on rebounding is. This guy is a joke… media keeps talking about most wins 40 and under but fail to acknowledge he was gifted a head coaching job at 30 yo with zero credibility to get the job. Other than Roy Williams and daddy’s money.

 

[TheLongHaul]

People are finally starting to realize that he is not a good coach.

 

[skyblade]

I haven't given up on Miller, but this is part of why I was calling to bench Davenport and/or Nolley early in the season. Show that if you aren't giving it your all on the boards, you aren't going to play.

Instead Miller established that he's okay with it. Perhaps he will change after we get blown off floor by Houston.

 

[sedziobs]

It wasn't just effort and rebounding (which was indeed awful as we were outrebounded 46-28). We also took 29 midrange shots. The midrange accounted for almost half of our shot attempts. I hate that I have to repeat this so often, but you can't consistently win games when you aren't getting to the rim or getting open three point looks. And that's what's so concerning about Miller. All of his teams have been midrange heavy. We can fix rebounding issues with better rebounders (Skillings and Reed look pretty good), but I expect the bad shot selection will always be a problem.

We only scored 0.94 points per possession, which is terrible against a defense ranked outside the top 150. We didn't seem to be running anything. It was like a pickup game.

On the defensive side, Temple was isolating and posting up all of our weaker defenders just as they did last year. DDJ, Nolley, and Davenport especially. Temple clearly had a plan and were executing it. The only real bright spot of the game was we forced 15 turnovers while only committing 7.

 

[TheLongHaul]

I haven't given up on Miller, but this is part of why I was calling to bench Davenport and/or Nolley early in the season. Show that if you aren't giving it your all on the boards, you aren't going to play.

Instead Miller established that he's okay with it. Perhaps he will change after we get blown off floor by Houston.

Nolley is one of the few positives of this season so far. Davenport's minutes should have been reduced early on and Wes screwed that up and is still screwing it up.

Hensley should play on this team. There is a reason he came from UNCG. Skillings needs to play more and they need to run the offense through Nolley and Vik. Why Wes continually allows the team to take horrible off the dribble 3 pointers blows my mind.

 

[Queens_NYC]

The 15-0 run late in the first half put us in a hole that we couldn't get out of for the rest of the game.

The offense over the last 10 minutes was horrible as well. We hit 51 points at the 10:08 mark then didn't hit 55 until the 2:23 mark. DDJ hit two meaningless 3s in the final minute, but by then enough damage was done.

The soft December schedule allowed us to find our swagger at home, but we appear to still be the same directionless team on the road that we were last season.

There's a lack of toughness, a lack of composure, and a lack of leadership.

Maybe we're just asking too much of this team with Newman and Phinisee out.

 

[skyblade]

Nolley is one of the few positives of this season so far. Davenport's minutes should have been reduced early on and Wes screwed that up and is still screwing it up.

Hensley should play on this team. There is a reason he came from UNCG. Skillings needs to play more and they need to run the offense through Nolley and Vik. Why Wes continually allows the team to take horrible off the dribble 3 pointers blows my mind.

Yet Davenport continues to lead this team in +/-, both in EvanMiya and most nights, so he must be doing something right.

Using EvanMiya to find +/- per possession, Skillings leads us (+0.21), followed by Davenport, Ody and Vik (+0.16), than MAW (+0.13) and Nolley (0.1). DDJ as was also a theme last year is one of the worst (+0.05) in front of only Reed (0.04) and Hensley (0.03).

The biggest issue I see is that we don't have defensive energy or leadership. Pretty much every Bearcats team prior to Brannen had a couple of guys who might not be great on offense, but they were going to give it their all on defense and at rebounding and demand that other guys do the same. The coach would sub them in for anyone who wasn't giving their all.

Brannen didn't recruit those guys, Miller hasn't recruited those guys (with the exception of Newman).

Nolley has been a positive on offense, but he's not a good defender, he's a bad rebounder and he definitely not a defensive leader. Much like Davenport and DDJ (though DDJ has been stepping up his defensive game lately).

Miller doesn't demand high level defense/rebounding and even if he did, he doesn't have anyone on the bench who brings it anyway. Skillings/Ody are the closest. Hensley is great defensively but horrible at rebounding.

Early in the season I wanted Miller to establish intensity at defense/rebounding as a high priority. Bench Davenport and/or Nolley (our two worst in that regard) and give other guys (Skllings, Reed, Hensley) minutes, even if it made us a worse team to prove the point that energy, defense and rebounding get you minutes.

Miller has been content with poor defense, poor rebounding and just an overall lack of effort on that end of the court. Against competent teams, that means we have to be very good to great on offense to make up for it. We can't afford an off night on offense. But we are going to have off nights (especially on the road it seems).

It doesn't help that our leaders (mostly DDJ and Davenport, less often Nolley) have a tendency to start playing hero ball when things start going poorly.

I'm not sure what the solution for this season (or if there is one). It seems like we are who we are and will be fighting to make the NIT. Miller better start emphasizing rebounding and defense in recruiting though or fans aren't going to be happy with him.

 

[Bcatfollower]

Davenport and Nolley are not the same player. Not even close. From shooting %, basketball IQ, ability, team playing.

Davenport is an unskilled bad shooter with terrible shot selection and a me first attitude.

 

[skyblade]

Davenport and Nolley are not the same player. Not even close. From shooting %, basketball IQ, ability, team playing.

Davenport is an unskilled bad shooter with terrible shot selection and a me first attitude.

Yet Davenport leads the team in +/-, so he must be doing something right and Nolley trails behind most of the team Davenport historically is a better shooter than Nolley as well, though it hasn't evened out (yet) this year.

Nolley and Davenport are pretty similar on defense, neither is very good at it. Neither is very good at rebounding either and I'd argue that lack of effort is more of an issue with Nolley than with Davenport.

 

[sedziobs]

Yet Davenport leads the team in +/-, so he must be doing something right

Not necessarily. There are 9 other players on the floor affecting +/-. I don't think it's a useful stat. Ken Pomeroy agrees with me. You may think it's useful, and Evan Miya agrees with you. Not a given though.

 

[sedziobs]

We can't afford an off night on offense. But we are going to have off nights (especially on the road it seems).

Throwing up 29 midrange shots isn't an off shooting night. It's a bad gameplan.

 

[TheLongHaul]

Yet Davenport leads the team in +/-, so he must be doing something right and Nolley trails behind most of the team Davenport historically is a better shooter than Nolley as well, though it hasn't evened out (yet) this year.

Nolley and Davenport are pretty similar on defense, neither is very good at it. Neither is very good at rebounding either and I'd argue that lack of effort is more of an issue with Nolley than with Davenport.

I think that probably tells you more of the value of that stat than it does about Davenport's performance.

Nolley is better than Davenport in pretty much all aspects. Neither are great on defense but at least Nolley can cause problems with his length.

 

[TheLongHaul]

Throwing up 29 midrange shots isn't an off shooting night. It's a bad gameplan.

Agreed, and that's been the gameplan the last two years. The # of midrange shots that are often contested is mind boggling. When they attack the rim and pass the ball they look good on offense, but then they resort back 1on1 streetball. DDJ, who I like, leads them in this and it stalls the offense.

Unfortunately Miller thought too highly of his UNCG guys and it's costing them now rather than just trying to get more HS recruits and stop gap transfers (although his evaluation of transfer talent has been pretty bad so far minus Nolley).

 

[skyblade]

I think that probably tells you more of the value of that stat than it does about Davenport's performance.

Nolley is better than Davenport in pretty much all aspects. Neither are great on defense but at least Nolley can cause problems with his length.

Nolley can, but usually doesn't. He reminds me a lot of Keith Williams. The potential, the lack of effort, the inconsistency, the over reliance on mid-range jumpers. Keith got to the the rim more and Nolley has been a better three point shooter.

Keith was popular with the fans for quite a while because of his potential, then went downhill when we relied on him to be the main guy. Hopefully Nolley doesn't has better results when we rely on him next season.

 

[sedziobs]

Our assist rate is ranked #332 against top 100 competition (4 games so far). Free throw rate is outside the top 200. Those are signs of being outcoached against good teams. Both offensive and defensive rebounding are also outside the top 200. Our overall efficiency is ranked #161, and that's with 39% three point shooting hiding a lot of holes. Just pitiful.

 

[skyblade]

Our assist rate is ranked #332 against top 100 competition (4 games so far). Free throw rate is outside the top 200. Those are signs of being outcoached against good teams. Both offensive and defensive rebounding are also outside the top 200. Our overall efficiency is ranked #161, and that's with 39% three point shooting hiding a lot of holes. Just pitiful.

Looking just at the statistics from our 4 top 100 games (a small sample size). The only players who stand out as positives are Lakhin and MAW. MAW's rebound rate in those games is almost level with Nolley/Davenport (which I think says more about Nolley/Davenport than it does about MAW), his assist/TO rate is by far the best and he has almost as many close 2 attempts as everyone not named Lakhin, Ody and Skillings combined (he's shooting "only" 50% on them, but that's still better than a far two).

On the negative, DDJ's shooting percentage stands out. DDJ really struggles against big guards. Davenport hasn't made a single two pointer against top 100 competition. Nobody has a good assist rate (MAW is close).

As you said, there aren't a lot of positives to be found. Let's hope the threes keep falling or it will start getting really ugly.