PennFan10
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03-04-18 03:29 PM - Post#250778
The rubber match is on the neutral floor for the ILT with the home team coming out of the women's team locker room.
The Quakers will be motivated for this game (who wouldn't be). My concern is for Coach Donahue's shift in strategy over the last third of the season. He has gone from playing guys (and saying) Penn is an elite defensive team, to migrating back to his old ways as a 1 big lineup. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of merit to adding octane to the mix, however we must realize there is a trade off. This team went from ranked in the mid 50's nationally in defense leading up to the Harvard game in Cambridge, to now being ranked around 72, which is still very good.
More alarming is the fact that through the first 24 games, only 8 teams had scored more than 70 points against us. Over the last 6 games, 4 teams have more than 70. Last night Brown scored 39 of their points in the last 10 minutes of the game. Antonio (4 of last 10 min) and Max (0 of 10), two of our best and most versatile defenders, were mostly not on the floor. In fact, over the last 6 games, Antonio and Max's minutes have gone down significantly and the benefactor has been Dev Goodman, a little more Caleb and more recently Jackson Donahue (at the expense of a defensive minded Silpe). These choices have a trade off. We may get away with it but I am worried about our ability to outscore people, especially down the stretch as evidenced by our Yale game (giving up 80 pts, 35% of which were in the last 10 minutes) and then again at Brown.
If we shoot 60% from 3, its a great strategy. My concern is this team is founded on grit and defense and our two big strategy, with Antonio as a 30 minute a game defender and Darnell an on the ball hawk, has made it very hard for teams to score and these newer lineups are changing that dynamic. We get more offense, but what's the cost? Seems like a subtle identity shift.
We will see.
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Charlie Fog
Masters Student
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03-04-18 03:33 PM - Post#250781
In response to PennFan10
We got this!
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Chip Bayers
Professor
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03-04-18 03:44 PM - Post#250783
In response to PennFan10
The defense on the year was primarily built on denying the 3, which hasn’t suffered in this stretch.
There’s no significant trend in 2% surrendered.
Not sure you can even find a common factor in the four games where teams went 70+. The Yale and Brown scores this weekend included heavy volume from the line for those teams. But that wasn’t true in the recent Harvard and Cornell games.
Total point surrendered is kind of a useless stat anyway.
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PennFan10
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03-04-18 04:04 PM - Post#250794
In response to Chip Bayers
The defense is built on keeping teams from getting assisted baskets. That, by definition means we don't double much and rotate/hard hedge to 3 pt shooters.
We were out rebounded in all but 1 of those games. Total point surrendered is useless, unless you surrender more points than you make, which is bad.
I am not coming to any conclusion here, just pointing out we have had a subtle shift in strategy over the past 6 or so games.
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Penn7277
PhD Student
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03-04-18 04:05 PM - Post#250795
In response to Chip Bayers
Also, I think AJ or Max or both have gotten two fouls in the first half in many of those games, which necessitated a change.
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SomeGuy
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Re: Yale 3 03-04-18 04:13 PM - Post#250799
In response to PennFan10
Hard to know whether the shift you describe is intentional. I’m not sure Max has been 100% down the stretch, so that may be some of it. Fouls have a big impact too — if he gets 2 early, he’s not playing much. As for the stretch against Brown, I think that is just playing with a lead — we like to get the ballhandlers in at that point (and because Brown plays small, once you are in a situation where they are trying to play from behind 2 bigs may invite turnovers).
That said, Dev’s re-emergence changed the rotation by adding a 7th guy to the major minutes rotation. There is a chicken and egg to this though — Max and Antonio, who have seen their minutes reduced some, haven’t played particularly well of late. Max may have some physical issues, and Antonio may have just hit a bit of a wall after so much time off. So I think to a degree the reduction in overall efficiency isn’t just that they aren’t on the floor — it’s also that they haven’t played as well when out there. Against both Yale and Brown, it appeared that we kept switching Foreman to whoever seemed to be the hot hand, because both Woods and Betley were getting lit up. And we’ve discussed our difficulties stopping the primary interior presence of late.
Finally, it will be interesting to see what happens with Donahue/Silpe. My guess is that what you saw was a matchup call based on Jackson shooting the lights out against Brown last year, rather than a broader strategic decision or preference. But it is also possible that Silpe’s performance Friday night was an issue. I hope not, because Silpe has played a lot better when given the chance to play through errors. But I think back to Goodman’s long time in the wilderness, which started with an awful series against Columbia. My guess is that we only go 7 deep on Saturday, and we won’t see either Silpe or Donahue outside of a very specific game situation. And we are more likely to see Jake.
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Chip Bayers
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03-04-18 04:14 PM - Post#250801
In response to PennFan10
Interesting that this past weekend it was the opponent’s bigs who generated a big chunk of the assisted baskets, which were both around 50% overall. Reynolds and Atkinson combined for half of Yale’s 14, while Choh had 6 by himself on Saturday.
Cornell had the highest assist rate in the 70+ games at 67%. Harvard was all the way down at 31%.
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Streamers
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03-04-18 04:18 PM - Post#250802
In response to PennFan10
I'm with PF 10 on this one. I like the fact that SD is adjusting game-game and not always showing the same looks, and all for changes of pace mid-game, and all for using bench depth in back-backs; but I'd favor the 2-big starting lineup that got us here.
Against Yale, those of you who follow such things tell me: what has worked better for us: 2 bigs or 1?
My eyes tell me AJ is a better matchup on Atkinson, Woods on Oni, Goodman/Foreman on Phills, Betley on Copeland... but without Max out there, we got crushed on the boards.
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PennFan10
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03-04-18 04:37 PM - Post#250806
In response to Streamers
I dont' know the answer. Max had a virtual double double against Brown in the first half when they scored 31 pts and played 3 minutes in the second half when they scored 62. He and Antonio together played 26/40 first half minutes and 13/40 second half.
Vs Yale Max was awful but he played well against Harvard and Dartmouth the week before on full strength, albeit limited minutes again.
We have seen very little 2 big lineups and SD subs at the start of every half for Max within about 2 minutes. I am pretty sure SD is trying to get away with playing small as much as he can and that is a definitive coaches decision recently.
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Chip Bayers
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03-04-18 04:53 PM - Post#250808
In response to PennFan10
Per Kenpom, Brown scored 39 of their second half points in the final 10 minutes, after Penn had built the lead to as much as 22 without Max playing much in the half. It was then that Brown started to pick up more full court and force tempo.
They scored 19 of those 39 in the final 2:17 when they were desperately attempting to extend the game.
When you’re protecting a huge lead and the other team is pressing, is going two bigs really the right move? Especially in those last 2:17, when you really can’t trust having Max’s FT form on the floor if you can help it? We did score 52 points of our own in the half after all.
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Charlie Fog
Masters Student
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03-04-18 05:02 PM - Post#250811
In response to Chip Bayers
I trust Stevie D
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10Q
Professor
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Loc: Suburban Philly
Reg: 11-21-04
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03-04-18 05:20 PM - Post#250816
In response to Charlie Fog
Trust the Pennsylvania Process
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Silver Maple
Postdoc
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03-04-18 06:27 PM - Post#250828
In response to Charlie Fog
I trust Stevie D
I'll second that. If there's any coach in the conference who's demonstrated this season that he really knows what he's doing, it's Steve Donahue.
I'm also wondering how those posters who were all in a lather when Steve was hired because he was a 'safe choice,' and didn't have the upside of Andy Toole, are feeling about that decision right now.
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SomeGuy
Professor
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03-04-18 06:47 PM - Post#250829
In response to PennFan10
Another answer could be that just about every opponent plays that way. Yale plays a lot with Yates or Oni at the 4. Harvard plays a lot with towns there.
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Quakers03
Professor
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03-04-18 09:54 PM - Post#250843
In response to Silver Maple
I feel that I was wrong. Just like I was wrong about Doug Pederson. What I've come to realize is while we can criticize game coaching we never really know what goes on behind the scenes. That matters a whole hell of a lot when it comes to coaching. He turned them into a real team, and quickly to boot. The defense they play says everything.
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PennFan10
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Yale 3 03-04-18 11:33 PM - Post#250855
In response to Chip Bayers
Per Kenpom, Brown scored 39 of their second half points in the final 10 minutes, after Penn had built the lead to as much as 22 without Max playing much in the half. It was then that Brown started to pick up more full court and force tempo.
They scored 19 of those 39 in the final 2:17 when they were desperately attempting to extend the game.
When you’re protecting a huge lead and the other team is pressing, is going two bigs really the right move? Especially in those last 2:17, when you really can’t trust having Max’s FT form on the floor if you can help it? We did score 52 points of our own in the half after all.
Not agreeing or disagreeing with your point but if FT shooting is the criteria for playing we need to rent some Yale bench players. I am pretty sure Max's FT's are not the reason he wasn't out there. Sadly, he is the 4th best FT shooter on the team and he is about the same as
AJ at FT's, who was out there.
And the lead was 17 at Half, when Max played a lot. The point is the evidence strongly suggests Donahue has gone away from playing 2 bigs for any significant period of time over the last 6 games. The first 24 games we had 2 bigs out there on average 40-50% of the time. Over the last 6 it's during the start of the game and 2nd half only. I don't know why SD is doing it but the data suggests our defense is not as strong as a result.
Edited by PennFan10 on 03-05-18 12:01 AM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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Chip Bayers
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Yale 3 03-05-18 02:27 AM - Post#250863
In response to Chip Bayers
I’d like to see some actual data backing up the belief that the twin towers lineup has declined over recent games. Correlated with respective foul issues for Rothschild & Brodeur.
Also #s on how dramatic the material effect of said decline has been on the offensive and defensive advanced stats.
Edited by Chip Bayers on 03-05-18 02:28 AM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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Stuart Suss
PhD Student
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03-05-18 02:46 AM - Post#250864
In response to Silver Maple
As one of the posters who criticized Grace Calhoun's "safe choice," I am willing to tip my cap to Steve and his staff for this year's 22-8 regular season record. I do so without regard to the outcome of this weekend's tournament.
I would like to see this year's success on the court reflected in future recruiting results.
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LyleGold
PhD Student
Posts: 1712
Reg: 11-22-04
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03-05-18 06:53 AM - Post#250865
In response to Stuart Suss
Stu,
Nobody can prove or disprove this - it's just an opinion. 22-8 gets an incomplete and will have an unclear recruiting yield. I believe 22-9 and even 23-9 will yield less than 24-8 after next weekend. In other words, winning the ILT will separate us from the other Ivies and potentially land us a recruit or two we might not get otherwise.
Only one team goes to the NCAAs. Earning the watered down Ivy title (shared, no bid yet) that we now have looks very different than participating in March Madness. This year is our best chance to make that happen. Even though we might be a better team next year, it will be much harder to duplicate this year's record and be in the position we're in now.
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10Q
Professor
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03-05-18 07:32 AM - Post#250867
In response to LyleGold
Are you suggesting a tougher schedule next year?
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