JDP
Masters Student
Posts: 577
Reg: 11-23-04
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12-26-23 10:34 PM - Post#360910
Some thoughts as the 6-5 Penn Women finish up their out of conference schedule and head into the Ivy portion of their schedule.
NCAA Net Ranking: 205 – 6th in Ivies
Her Hoops Stats ranking: 176 – 4th in Ivies
Highest ranked win: 253 NET / 196 HHS Siena
Lowest ranked loss: 125 NET /108 HHS San Diego State
I am optimistic the team will make Ivy Madness, and I do not believe that is just red and blue colored glasses. There is a lot of good individual talent on the team, and I believe we will see the team game improve over the remainder of the season.
Upside Cases: Become WNIT eligible (150-175 NET), make Ivy Madness, catch lightening in a bottle in March.
Current Her Hoops Projected Finish – slightly ahead, but effectively tied for 4th with Brown … Brown currently holds the NET Tiebreaker
Downside Case: Finish 6th
Penn’s postseason aspirations are dependent on if during the Ivy season the Quakers can consistently play relatively clean ball and improve their team defense and perimeter shooting percentage.
When one looks at the likely Ivy outcomes, Brown is likely the competition for fourth. It’s very close in expectation, but the Quakers have a slight edge as historically the second game of a back-to-back of a Ps home weekend favors the P more than a Friday road game away favors the opponent.
2 February Brown at Penn – 2nd game of a back-to-back
17 February Penn at Brown – 1st game of a back-to-back
With a split – the NET Tiebreaker is likely in play and Brown (156) has a good starting advantage over Penn (205):
Individually players have been impressive. Senior Jordan Obi has been a solid all-ivy returner. Junior Stina Almqvist may be the most improved sophomore to junior in the county. Junior Lizzy Groetsch has displayed great defensive energy. Freshman point guard Mataya Gayle can score in bunches and with fellow freshman guards Ese Ogbevire and Abby Sharpe the trio forms a nice group guards learning the college game. Some stats:
• Penn is the only Ivy with three 15+ ppg scorers:
• Sr. Jordan Obi (15.1 ppg (180 / 3002) – 7.4 rpg (167/3002) – 1.5 bpg (80/3002))
• Jr. Stina Almqvist (15.9 ppg (141) – FT Made 4.4 pg (50) – PER 22.6 (447))
• F. Mataya Gayle (15.4 ppg (159) – 6.1 FG pg (108) – 1.9 spg (40))
• Only Abby Hsu joins Jordan & Stina as 15 ppg / 6 rpg or better per game.
• The Rookie of the year competition will likely come down to Gayle (Penn), Skyler Belker (Princeton). Rachel Kaus (Cornell) and Nina Minicozzi (Dartmouth)
Other areas of team strength:
• Free Throw %: 74.5% - 78/360
• 2-Point %: 48.1% - 89/360
• Blocks per game: 4.4 - 55/360
• Fouls per game: 16 - 112/360
As a team, they are fun to watch, they play at a high tempo pace relative to prior teams, but they are still learning to play as a team and not to make the typical unforced errors young teams make – some from playing too fast, some from not playing as intentional as the game requires. At this point every dimension can be improved – the larger areas of improvement:
Offense:
• Penn’s 3-Point % is 25.9%, 306/360
• Penn is being blocked 3.6 times per game, 245/360
• Penn is not making it to the line – 149 Free Throws, 246/360
Defense:
• Penn is giving up 69.8 point per game, 258/360 – historically the best Penn team allows low to mid 50s ppp – allowing Penn to win nearly 100% of the time when they scored 60+.
• Penn is allowing 15.9 assists per game, 313/360 – which lead to opponents having a 1.01 A/T ratio which places Penn at 293/360
These on-court results, however, should not be surprising, given how inexperienced the Quaker were. After Floor Toonders became injured, only Jordan Obi had over 600 career game minutes. The rest of the team is seeing its first meaningful extended college on court minutes.
As any young team, they are not ready to beat teams loaded with experienced 5th & 6th year graduate students, which is a lot of what Post Covid / Portal out of conference play has become – at an extreme, San Diego State started four transfer grad students, one who was a Notre Dame freshman when Penn played there in November 2018, and the first person off the bench was a grad student from Michigan – why would you not go to grad school in SD? This will make the Columbia and Princeton games a challenge, as both schools have 5th year players that took gap years.
What also makes the out of conference schedule difficult for a young team – and for fans to evaluate - is how these game experiences translate to Ivy play. During the OCC there is no time to rest, reflect, teach, practice, learn and develop. Penn played a game every 2.4 days in the three weeks leading into finals. There has been a lot of time to reflect post exams. And after this weekend, Penn plays 14 Ivy games over 70 days. A lot of time for rest between games, coaching and developing specific in game strategies.
The hope as a Quaker fan, is that with 6-4 Toonder’s return the scoring defense will improve and with more team and individual development and a better understanding of each teammates individual styles and the nuances of the college game, the unforced errors will decrease.
When the Quakers played well as a team, as in the second half of Villanova, they look like they can hold their own with Top 75 teams, when they have 15+ TO in a game, their youth, and 205 NET shows. I expect the team will be much better in March than December – the main question is how fast the maturity occurs and how many steps forward the team takes.
Should be a fun season for Penn and the rest of the Ivies.
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CM
Masters Student
Posts: 423
Reg: 10-11-18
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Re: WBB coning back from exams
12-27-23 07:51 AM - Post#360911
In response to JDP
Great round up of the season thus far. For me, areas of concern are that this team has yet to beat another team with a winning record.
That the front court appears to be incredibly thin and we saw last year what happens when Toonders and Obi pay 38+ minutes/game - they're toast by the end of the season.
Gayle appears on track to be a very solid PG for Penn but her shooting splits are inefficient and considering she has a very green light that can be a concern.
Almqvist has been a huge offensive contributor but I believe a lot of that is due to her coming out of nowhere (not getting scouted by opponents). By now every Ivy coach knows what she is and how to take her away (left dribble into the lane, spin back over right schoulder for sweeping half hook) and I wouldn't be surprised to see her scoring dip considerably.
Luckily for Penn, their first back to back is against Yale (who is somehow terrible this year after returning its entire team). But next two are against Brown and Harvard which would seem like winnable games, but Penn's reliance on its starters always make beating teams on the second night dicey (see last year's loss to Brown).
I'm guessing a 7-7 final Ivy tally for Quakers this year.
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JDP
Masters Student
Posts: 577
Reg: 11-23-04
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WBB coning back from exams
12-27-23 03:36 PM - Post#360914
In response to CM
Thank you CM
Her Hoops Stats would have both Brown & Penn 6-8 or 7-7 – not beating CHP and beating CDY, with one potential upset. I see the range for Brown & Penn as 10-4 to 6-8/5-9.
The prep time between games is what makes the Ivy season so much different than out of conference – to the point where out of conference play can suggest some relative tiering, but within 50-75 NET rankings, not sure the quant models hold up as well in Ivy conference play.
There are 82 Ivy players averaging 5+ minutes per game. I would expect each coach spent the exam break developing a nice dossier on every Ivy player: their strengths and weaknesses on offense and defensive. Come 6 January each coach will have a week to prepare, and every player should expect their primary move to be well defended and to be blocked with a higher percentage that in November.
Like you, I expect every coach to know Stina’s primary move (the one you described). Against the better Ivy defenders, she will have to evolve her second and third options to keep the defender slightly off balance and allow her primary move to remain effective. Stina does have a nice three ball, one she does not show all that often, and theoretically adding a perimeter game to her inside game would make her drives more effective – moving a defender off the block and opening up space down low.
No idea if what I just wrote at all makes sense. But here is where the coaching is paramount – guiding effective player development to complement what new plays / schemes enhances all five players on the court. Now that most Penn rotational players are approaching 200 minutes of college experience and many have over 400 career minutes (once around the block), they should be ready for the next level of complexity on both sides of the ball – and there is the time to practice and refine the schemes.
Mataya’s primary shot, a mid-range jumper coming off a quick stop and pop will continue to be hard to defend with a single defender. But to become a more effective point guard, she will need to improve her efficiency. Her starting point is very high: there are 18 freshman guards shooting above 50% from 2 and scoring 10 point per game over at least 9 games – nearly all at Power 5 schools. Mataya is 17th by PER (15.3, 53%, 15.4 ppg) and Skye Belker at Princeton is 16th (16.6, 52%, 10.1 ppg). Where I would expect both to improve, and what the Rookie of the Year may come down to, how much better do both improve their 25% three-point percentage – the top 10 are all 36% or better - and their PER.
I am less concerned this season with time allocations. Nine players are playing 10+ minutes per game and the style has been more of a four-guard set (I am considering 6-1 Stina at the 4 as a guard). I think there will be enough opportunity to spell each player 5 minutes per game. And unlike the grind of Nov/Dec – fatigue should only come into play in the three back to backs – two are at home. Even the fourth two game weekend, the Monday Cornell game is at home after a day off after the Saturday game at Dartmouth. Not like in the 12 week back to back era
But now is the time for Stina, Mataya, and every Ivy player to become a different and more effective conference player than they were out of conference. The grind of the Ivy season is less and does not run into end of semester projects and finals – who across the league is living in the gym before Spring semester classes begin?
Edited by JDP on 12-27-23 03:58 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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