An Encouraging Case Study: ‘19-‘20 St. Bonaventure

[PhillyRU]

I was going through KenPom last night looking for straws to grasp onto, and the KSU game bears some remarkable similarities to the St. Bonaventure loss in 2019.

After some unconvincing performances at home against weak, local competition, Rutgers led 5-0 against the Bonnies before a disastrous first half saw them fall behind 43-24 right before the break. Rutgers cut the lead to four with five minutes remaining in a furious rally but ultimately couldn’t get over the hump.

St. Bonaventure was KenPom 166 entering the game compared to KSUs 178, quite similar when you factor in game location, and went down as a Q3 loss. Rutgers dipped to 79 in KP after starting the year at 64, almost identical to this year’s movement.

From there, Rutgers played elite basketball during its next 14 games, the only dud being a bad road loss at Pitt. You can’t derive anything of real significance from these similarities, but they are kind of remarkable and present a pathway for this season.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Most of us fans get all whiny and bitchy after a loss. I said in a post somewhere to expect the unexpected and that progress is not linear.

However what makes things a little different is that in the 1st 3 games of that year we held our opponent at least points under the amount of possessions.

This year outside of the 1st game our defense has been bad. This game wasn't a one off.....thought we actually played worse the game before.

 

[bac2therac]

Most of us fans get all whiny and bitchy after a loss. I said in a post somewhere to expect the unexpected and that progress is not linear.

However what makes things a little different is that in the 1st 3 games of that year we held our opponent at least points under the amount of possessions.

This year outside of the 1st game our defense has been bad. This game wasn't a one off.....thought we actually played worse the game before.

I think we played worse each game we have played....sure you can throw in the furious comeback I guess but the play was so bad in the first half outscored 40-15 for 15 minutes that I cannot get over that part

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

I think we played worse each game we have played....sure you can throw in the furious comeback I guess but the play was so bad in the first half outscored 40-15 for 15 minutes that I cannot get over that part

net net Ace has not a positive impact so far

 

[Scarlet Shack]

When you watch the defense …watch which players have rhe agility , foot speed , and quickness to get over screens , rotate , and keep man in front …and who doesn’t

Lot of the issues is mental recognition of getting over screens , rotating faster , anticipating when to hedge…mental part of defense

I’m not worried abiht ace , Dylan , and derkack getting those skills as the seaso. Goes on

I’m thinking that it’s gonna take a lot of coaching to get martini , Ogobke and hayes to mentally anticipate be in the right place to compensate for agility and footspeed issue. Best chance hayes gets it the most to compensate

JWill gets it ….

Question is will sommwrville get it …as he has the lateral quickness and agility to be effective

And question is when will acuff get healthy enough to be able to contribute on both endw

Jmike …still has lots of issues pkay on the ball defense inside the three point line …a major concern o me ….

We may need grant to help here sooner than later