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Username Post: Topic Split: Tops in the league on Pomeroy!
mrjames 
Professor
Posts: 6062

Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
12-28-17 11:58 AM - Post#241443    
    In response to HARVARDDADGRAD

I don't disagree. Unless Harvard does something really strong against Minny, Vermont or Wofford, the Crimson will have the lowest game score ceiling in the non-conf (currently 72 in the win over St. Joe's) of any year under Amaker. And the average game score might be the worst of any year under Amaker as well. Yikes.

There is no doubt this team is lost without Bryce. In the 388 possessions he's been on the floor, Harvard is 98 ORAT, 97 DRAT (and with decent three-point shooting, that ORAT would be in the 100s against the No. 84 schedule nationally). Without him on the floor, on 203 poss, Harvard boasts an 85 ORAT, 96 DRAT. Much like Chambers in 2013, the value over replacement PG is absolutely massive from Bryce to the bench. Splits for the folks getting time in Bryce's stead when he's on the bench:

Rio Haskett (120 poss w/out Bryce): 83 ORAT, 112 DRAT
Christian Juzang (140 poss w/out Bryce): 88 ORAT, 94 DRAT

(An aside: Funny that Spencer Freedman will be 20 in June... he could be a massive add to Harvard's bench, umm, right now).

Lost in a lot of the concern is the fact that in 106 poss, the Top 5 lineup of Aiken, Bassey, Towns, Johnson and Lewis is 105 ORAT, 93 DRAT. But that represents just 18% of Harvard possessions (what would equal about 13 poss per game), which needs to rise. From there, you can put less pressure on players that have value but have been pressed into service out of position (Juzang, who is a miserable PG, but a serviceable scorer off the ball; Perez, who could be a nice Jonah-type energy guy, but should only be on when Bassey and other low usage guys are off; etc.). And you can start limiting the minutes of guys who just may not be ready to produce yet (Rio Haskett - 84 ORAT/103 DRAT in 280 poss, Harvard is 102/91 in 311 poss without).

No one knows if this team can actually get healthy, though. They've really only played a few games at full strength, and there's no guarantee that the rotation will magically get there to start Ivy play. There's also no guarantee that Amaker figures out how to maximize the value he can get from his players. If those things don't materialize, it will all depend on which players get time and miss time - Aiken missing time would be a death knell. As would Lewis. Towns might be recoverable if this team shoots the three better, but it would certainly limit Harvard's upside.

All that being said, the peripherals for a full strength Harvard team still look incredibly strong. Harvard's jump shooting has been insanely poor (111 ORAT on poss with a 3, 82 ORAT on poss with a 2PTJ)., but it's at a 145 ORAT on at rim poss and 157 on 2FT poss. Harvard didn't all of a sudden forget how to shoot the ball - it's just luck and it will regress, not just due to regression to the mean, but hopefully because the best shooters will play more. Harvard takes 40% of its shots from 3 and another 27% as 2PT Js, so if it bumps up its jump shooting poss ORATs to last year's numbers, that would be worth about 9.5 pts/100 poss, moving Harvard's current 94 ORAT to nearly 104. Add to that a decline in the TO Rate from 20.9 to 18.9 (as it did last year as well) and you'd get about 1.4 poss back per game, times a ~130 ORAT on non-TO poss, and you'd get another 1.9 pts/100 poss, bringing that ORAT up to the 105-106 range.

Pair that with a defense that has been just south of 100 and you get an efficiency margin in the +6-7 range, which would put Harvard in the 90-95 range nationally. Not exactly where a lot of people thought Harvard would be, but way better than it is right now and enough to take Harvard from a questionable Ivy tourney berth to possible 1-seed.

Still, though, the team is a mess right now. Leave aside the starters from the last two games - the mere fact that Tommy feels it necessary to send that message is NOT good. He's messed around like this in the past, and Harvard has started humming down the stretch. At the same time, you worry that some of players are just in Tommy's dog house, and that's one that's tough to get out of, no matter how much more you'd help the team than the other guys (see: Zena, Kenyatta, etc.). If Tommy continues to send messages into Ivy play, expect Harvard to underachieve, and maybe even miss the Ivy Tourney entirely.
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