So ... that was an awful outcome, eh?
I have purposely not read any posts or articles on the game, wanting to post my thoughts without being influenced by anyone else's views.
First off, anyone would have to conclude this RU team, as constructed and as performing, is not an NCAA-worthy team. And though it may be possible to become one, I do not think anyone can picture how that will happen. Mathematically, with now 2 bad losses, I would say RU would have to go 13-7 in the Big Ten (presuming a win over Columbia) - though I do not see the path to that at this time.
Second, though I do not usually make a special complaint about refs, I thought the refereeing in this game was simply awful - and really hurt RU. For example, the lack of a shot clock violation call (not the one with 24 seconds left, but the one a few minutes earlier) was atrocious ... and led directly to an uncontested made 3-pointer (the shot clock "box" went red, the shot clock horn went off, but the refs never blew the whistle, RU clearly relaxed for a moment, allowing that 3-pointer. A killer. And in the 2nd half, especially, I felt RU was continually fouled taking inside shots, with many fewer calls than deserved. RU got 14 FT's in the 1st half, went inside, drove inside, as much in the 2nd half, but only got 9 FT's (1st half RU had 21 2-point FGF attempts, plus 14 FT's, in the 2nd half RU took 23 2-point shots with 9 FT).
Next, as to the team's performance ... well ...
Defense (gonna start with the defense):
1) Pikiell clearly had a plan: Prevent 3-point attempts - or at least limit both the 3-point attempts, and limit the shooting percentage of their shots. The plan was evident throughout, with the RU players playing (or trying to) tight, especially at the 3-point line, and often trying to play the passing lanes to reduce the ease of the Princeton players to receive passes in shooting position. And clearly, Pikiell was willing to give up a certain amount of back-cuts and lay-ups to contain the 3-point shits. This worked to some extent. Princeton entered the game with 48% of their shots being 3-pointers, hitting 38.3% of them ... against RU, Princeton's 3-pointers were just 38% of their FG attempts (much lower), and they shot 33% ... so THAT aspect worked.
2) Unfortunately, Princeton MADE 60% of their 2-point shots - almost ALL of them lay-ups, dunks, short post shots ... just terrible for RU. For perspective, though the math is not exact, a team would have to hit 40% of their 3's to give the equivalent of 60% from 2 ... so ... FAIL. If the team was going to allow 60% from 2, they might have well let Princeton shoot more threes, give up fewer back doors, and hope Princeton shot LESS than 40% from 3. I know its not that simple, but it is illustrative, I think. RU was completely unable to provide ANY help defense around the rim. And RU gave up many, many back-door cuts, or even just simple defense to stop dribble penetration. And rarely was able to stop the screen and roll, or screen and back-cut offense of Princeton. Just a total fail. I might add, that Princeton 60% 2-point FG shooting was WITH RU probably having its best blocked shot performance of the season, with 8 blocked shots on the game. Yet few of the blocked shots ended up with RU having possession of the ball, weirdly enough.
3) Rebounding - this might be a separate item, but in this game, the rebounding was intrinsic to the style of defense RU played. Because of the extended defense RU played, the constant inability to defend the screen and back-cuts, and numerous failures to BOX OUT (Hayes, Martini and Acuff, in particular), Princeton's offensive rebounding stats were ridiculous ... and just KILLED RU: 19 offensive rebounds for Princeton on 37 FG misses (I do not think Princeton got 1 offensive rebound on one of their missed FT's) - a ridiculous 51% of their misses they rebounded. Princeton had entered the game only able to rebound 27% of its FG misses ... think about that ... RU allowed Princeton to gather offensive rebounds at TWICE their usual offensive rebounding rate!!! A complete FAIL. Perhaps RU's worst rebounding performance of the season, in a season of often poor rebounding efforts.
Offense:
1) I do plan to subject myself to torture and rewatch the game. In particular I wish to look at RU's missed lay-ups/bunnies, shots at the rim. Without rewatching, I seem to recall at least 10 missed lay-ups or at the rim shots ... maybe more. RU did shoot 52% from 2, but that compared to Princeton's 60% from 2. I'll get to another element of this later in this post. Not all 2-point shots are lay-ups or at the rim, but it felt like RU missed a lot of "bunnies" - which is also what happened versus Kennesaw St., if I recall. Bailey, in particular, missed at least 4-5 lay-ups or in close gimmies.
2) RU's 3-point shooting was ... overall poor, and strangely distributed. Williams, Davis and Martini were a combined 4-7 from 3 (yes, Davis and Williams). Harper and Bailey combined for 2-11 from 3 (2-10 if you don't count Harper's under-duress 3-pointer at the end). Yes, Bailey hit that clutch, and big, 3-pointer with 10 seconds left to give RU the lead. Earlier in the 2nd half he had previously missed 2 prior wide open 3's (look, I know no player can make all their shots, or even all their KEY shots, but its important to hit SOME). Harper forced 2 3's, and missed other open ones also.
3) RU appeared to have a strategy of driving to the basket - and got a lot of opportunities to do so. Derkack and Harper were particularly effective at driving to the rim - and got 14 FT's between them, making 9.. Unfortunately, RU missed a ton of their lay-ups and at the rim shots. I will say, I thought the refs were a major factor - hurting RU - with their inconsistent calls ... I felt RU got fouled a lot more than the refs called, especially in the 2nd half. That is the second thing I would look for in my torture of rewatching the game.
3) Harper was amazing, especially in the 1st half - but Princeton found a way to limit him in the 2nd half ... And I think RU appeared to get decent shots in the 2nd half - see the point right above ... I felt the refs "jobbed" RU, I think. I'd have to say RU got enough good shots in their offense to win ... they just missed too many (and did not get the calls - part of any game, of course).
Coaching:
This deserves a special mention. I usually do like to criticize coaches too much - I am not a coach, and only ever coached 10 and under basketball (completely different), and have no idea what they try to get the team to do, versus what the team actually does. BUT ... in this game I make an exception. I do not criticize the strategy of over-playing the 3 and risking giving up the back-cuts. There is a potentially sound reason for that (not getting beaten by a team hitting a flurry of 3's, by a team capable of doing so). We could criticize the staff for not changing after Princeton got so many lay-ups and dunks, and so many offensive rebounds, from that strategy.
No, I have a specific criticism - and it is very harsh, especially coming from me, an general optimist: Pikiell made an ENORMOUS, HUGE and ultimately FATAL error, that all other problems in this game notwithstanding, almost certainly cost RU the game: He went with Martini WAY too long. I have no problem playing Martini is certain situations, even in this game. But in the last 5-7 minutes of the game, with Williams and Davis unavailable, Pikiell stuck with Martini WAY too long. I was watching with my grown son, and we were simply screaming at the coach to get Martini out ... and this is the THIRD thing I want to rewatch ... It felt like 5 or 6 consecutive possession down the stretch, before Pikiell finally removed Martini, Princeton figured out an enormous advantage: Martini was in there to cover Pierce, so Princeton ran a 2-man screen game with Pierce setting the screen on Lee's defender, and RU SWITCHED every time ... that left Martini 1 on 1 with Lee, an enormous mismatch ... and AT LEAST 5 consecutive times down the court, 5 straight possessions, Princeton ran that same play, with the same result, Lee KILLINBG Martini 1 on 1, getting either a basket or an easy pass EVERY time. After the 1st TWO times, it was extremely obvious what was happening, yet Pikiell left Martini in!!! And this at a time when RU was desperate for stops. I want to rewatch the game to chart that series of plays, and when Pikiell made the necessary replacements ... I know it was WAY too late (and RU still almost won).
I am not going to do a player by player discussion this post mortem, not in detail ... but will make selected comments:
1) Harper, Derkack and Williams played pretty well (yes, it would have been nice if Harper had hit better than 1-5 from 3 - until that last high degree of difficulty 3 that missed). But still, he did mostly well. Williams shot well, had 3 assists and 0 turnovers - oddly, 0 rebounds - but played solid defense also. Derkack was a significant engine for RU, in a very positive way, especially in the 1st half. We was a little wilder in the 2nd half - but probably got fouled at the same rate without getting the calls.
2) Bailey was ... a disappointment ... missed a bunch of easy lay-ins and put backs. Was a force rebounding, hit a huge 3, but missed wide open, important 3's in the 2nd half.
3) Davis - Davis was very good in this game. His defense was very good - and at the end, even with 4 fouls, was spectacular on defense. He hit 2-4 from 3 - corner shots that were wide open. He was blocked at the rim a couple of times - but was probably fouled with no call at least 2 of those times. Davis with his defense, Harper with hisi 1st half and Derkack with his engine almost single-handedly willed RU to a win they would not necessarily deserved.
4) Ogbole was better than Sommerville in this game - active, and generally solid defensively, 3 blocks... Yes, he did not get out on a couple of 3-point tries, at least one of which was made. But he was better than Sommerville, in my opinion. Sommerville did some okay things on offense, but was very poor defensively again.
5) Acuff and Hayes were like matadors on defense, and were unplayable in the 2nd half because of that.
6) Martini deserves special comment/ Yes, he hot 4-4 FT. Yes he finally hit a 3. Otherwise he was simply awful. The decision to give him 20 minutes of playing time, especially the last 5-7 minutes he played in the 2nd half was coaching malpractice. He was simply awful defensively, gave nothing on rebounding (twice he failed to box out on Princeton offensive rebounds), and as RU was coming back, with some momentum, made a terrible turnover. Just really costly playing him. IMO, and I speculated about whether this was the case in a different thread, Martini can now be classified as a HUGE mistake by Pikiell ... it may be time to cut the losses and play Grant instead. And I mean entirely, instead.
So ... I will rewatch the game at some point this week (I have way too much time), with the specific goal of looking at the 3 things I have mentioned: a) RU's missed lay-ups and bunnies, b) The refs and fouls not called on Princeton defending RU at the rim, and c) the last sequences with Martini, and when he was finally substituted for.
I have purposely not read any posts or articles on the game, wanting to post my thoughts without being influenced by anyone else's views.
First off, anyone would have to conclude this RU team, as constructed and as performing, is not an NCAA-worthy team. And though it may be possible to become one, I do not think anyone can picture how that will happen. Mathematically, with now 2 bad losses, I would say RU would have to go 13-7 in the Big Ten (presuming a win over Columbia) - though I do not see the path to that at this time.
Second, though I do not usually make a special complaint about refs, I thought the refereeing in this game was simply awful - and really hurt RU. For example, the lack of a shot clock violation call (not the one with 24 seconds left, but the one a few minutes earlier) was atrocious ... and led directly to an uncontested made 3-pointer (the shot clock "box" went red, the shot clock horn went off, but the refs never blew the whistle, RU clearly relaxed for a moment, allowing that 3-pointer. A killer. And in the 2nd half, especially, I felt RU was continually fouled taking inside shots, with many fewer calls than deserved. RU got 14 FT's in the 1st half, went inside, drove inside, as much in the 2nd half, but only got 9 FT's (1st half RU had 21 2-point FGF attempts, plus 14 FT's, in the 2nd half RU took 23 2-point shots with 9 FT).
Next, as to the team's performance ... well ...
Defense (gonna start with the defense):
1) Pikiell clearly had a plan: Prevent 3-point attempts - or at least limit both the 3-point attempts, and limit the shooting percentage of their shots. The plan was evident throughout, with the RU players playing (or trying to) tight, especially at the 3-point line, and often trying to play the passing lanes to reduce the ease of the Princeton players to receive passes in shooting position. And clearly, Pikiell was willing to give up a certain amount of back-cuts and lay-ups to contain the 3-point shits. This worked to some extent. Princeton entered the game with 48% of their shots being 3-pointers, hitting 38.3% of them ... against RU, Princeton's 3-pointers were just 38% of their FG attempts (much lower), and they shot 33% ... so THAT aspect worked.
2) Unfortunately, Princeton MADE 60% of their 2-point shots - almost ALL of them lay-ups, dunks, short post shots ... just terrible for RU. For perspective, though the math is not exact, a team would have to hit 40% of their 3's to give the equivalent of 60% from 2 ... so ... FAIL. If the team was going to allow 60% from 2, they might have well let Princeton shoot more threes, give up fewer back doors, and hope Princeton shot LESS than 40% from 3. I know its not that simple, but it is illustrative, I think. RU was completely unable to provide ANY help defense around the rim. And RU gave up many, many back-door cuts, or even just simple defense to stop dribble penetration. And rarely was able to stop the screen and roll, or screen and back-cut offense of Princeton. Just a total fail. I might add, that Princeton 60% 2-point FG shooting was WITH RU probably having its best blocked shot performance of the season, with 8 blocked shots on the game. Yet few of the blocked shots ended up with RU having possession of the ball, weirdly enough.
3) Rebounding - this might be a separate item, but in this game, the rebounding was intrinsic to the style of defense RU played. Because of the extended defense RU played, the constant inability to defend the screen and back-cuts, and numerous failures to BOX OUT (Hayes, Martini and Acuff, in particular), Princeton's offensive rebounding stats were ridiculous ... and just KILLED RU: 19 offensive rebounds for Princeton on 37 FG misses (I do not think Princeton got 1 offensive rebound on one of their missed FT's) - a ridiculous 51% of their misses they rebounded. Princeton had entered the game only able to rebound 27% of its FG misses ... think about that ... RU allowed Princeton to gather offensive rebounds at TWICE their usual offensive rebounding rate!!! A complete FAIL. Perhaps RU's worst rebounding performance of the season, in a season of often poor rebounding efforts.
Offense:
1) I do plan to subject myself to torture and rewatch the game. In particular I wish to look at RU's missed lay-ups/bunnies, shots at the rim. Without rewatching, I seem to recall at least 10 missed lay-ups or at the rim shots ... maybe more. RU did shoot 52% from 2, but that compared to Princeton's 60% from 2. I'll get to another element of this later in this post. Not all 2-point shots are lay-ups or at the rim, but it felt like RU missed a lot of "bunnies" - which is also what happened versus Kennesaw St., if I recall. Bailey, in particular, missed at least 4-5 lay-ups or in close gimmies.
2) RU's 3-point shooting was ... overall poor, and strangely distributed. Williams, Davis and Martini were a combined 4-7 from 3 (yes, Davis and Williams). Harper and Bailey combined for 2-11 from 3 (2-10 if you don't count Harper's under-duress 3-pointer at the end). Yes, Bailey hit that clutch, and big, 3-pointer with 10 seconds left to give RU the lead. Earlier in the 2nd half he had previously missed 2 prior wide open 3's (look, I know no player can make all their shots, or even all their KEY shots, but its important to hit SOME). Harper forced 2 3's, and missed other open ones also.
3) RU appeared to have a strategy of driving to the basket - and got a lot of opportunities to do so. Derkack and Harper were particularly effective at driving to the rim - and got 14 FT's between them, making 9.. Unfortunately, RU missed a ton of their lay-ups and at the rim shots. I will say, I thought the refs were a major factor - hurting RU - with their inconsistent calls ... I felt RU got fouled a lot more than the refs called, especially in the 2nd half. That is the second thing I would look for in my torture of rewatching the game.
3) Harper was amazing, especially in the 1st half - but Princeton found a way to limit him in the 2nd half ... And I think RU appeared to get decent shots in the 2nd half - see the point right above ... I felt the refs "jobbed" RU, I think. I'd have to say RU got enough good shots in their offense to win ... they just missed too many (and did not get the calls - part of any game, of course).
Coaching:
This deserves a special mention. I usually do like to criticize coaches too much - I am not a coach, and only ever coached 10 and under basketball (completely different), and have no idea what they try to get the team to do, versus what the team actually does. BUT ... in this game I make an exception. I do not criticize the strategy of over-playing the 3 and risking giving up the back-cuts. There is a potentially sound reason for that (not getting beaten by a team hitting a flurry of 3's, by a team capable of doing so). We could criticize the staff for not changing after Princeton got so many lay-ups and dunks, and so many offensive rebounds, from that strategy.
No, I have a specific criticism - and it is very harsh, especially coming from me, an general optimist: Pikiell made an ENORMOUS, HUGE and ultimately FATAL error, that all other problems in this game notwithstanding, almost certainly cost RU the game: He went with Martini WAY too long. I have no problem playing Martini is certain situations, even in this game. But in the last 5-7 minutes of the game, with Williams and Davis unavailable, Pikiell stuck with Martini WAY too long. I was watching with my grown son, and we were simply screaming at the coach to get Martini out ... and this is the THIRD thing I want to rewatch ... It felt like 5 or 6 consecutive possession down the stretch, before Pikiell finally removed Martini, Princeton figured out an enormous advantage: Martini was in there to cover Pierce, so Princeton ran a 2-man screen game with Pierce setting the screen on Lee's defender, and RU SWITCHED every time ... that left Martini 1 on 1 with Lee, an enormous mismatch ... and AT LEAST 5 consecutive times down the court, 5 straight possessions, Princeton ran that same play, with the same result, Lee KILLINBG Martini 1 on 1, getting either a basket or an easy pass EVERY time. After the 1st TWO times, it was extremely obvious what was happening, yet Pikiell left Martini in!!! And this at a time when RU was desperate for stops. I want to rewatch the game to chart that series of plays, and when Pikiell made the necessary replacements ... I know it was WAY too late (and RU still almost won).
I am not going to do a player by player discussion this post mortem, not in detail ... but will make selected comments:
1) Harper, Derkack and Williams played pretty well (yes, it would have been nice if Harper had hit better than 1-5 from 3 - until that last high degree of difficulty 3 that missed). But still, he did mostly well. Williams shot well, had 3 assists and 0 turnovers - oddly, 0 rebounds - but played solid defense also. Derkack was a significant engine for RU, in a very positive way, especially in the 1st half. We was a little wilder in the 2nd half - but probably got fouled at the same rate without getting the calls.
2) Bailey was ... a disappointment ... missed a bunch of easy lay-ins and put backs. Was a force rebounding, hit a huge 3, but missed wide open, important 3's in the 2nd half.
3) Davis - Davis was very good in this game. His defense was very good - and at the end, even with 4 fouls, was spectacular on defense. He hit 2-4 from 3 - corner shots that were wide open. He was blocked at the rim a couple of times - but was probably fouled with no call at least 2 of those times. Davis with his defense, Harper with hisi 1st half and Derkack with his engine almost single-handedly willed RU to a win they would not necessarily deserved.
4) Ogbole was better than Sommerville in this game - active, and generally solid defensively, 3 blocks... Yes, he did not get out on a couple of 3-point tries, at least one of which was made. But he was better than Sommerville, in my opinion. Sommerville did some okay things on offense, but was very poor defensively again.
5) Acuff and Hayes were like matadors on defense, and were unplayable in the 2nd half because of that.
6) Martini deserves special comment/ Yes, he hot 4-4 FT. Yes he finally hit a 3. Otherwise he was simply awful. The decision to give him 20 minutes of playing time, especially the last 5-7 minutes he played in the 2nd half was coaching malpractice. He was simply awful defensively, gave nothing on rebounding (twice he failed to box out on Princeton offensive rebounds), and as RU was coming back, with some momentum, made a terrible turnover. Just really costly playing him. IMO, and I speculated about whether this was the case in a different thread, Martini can now be classified as a HUGE mistake by Pikiell ... it may be time to cut the losses and play Grant instead. And I mean entirely, instead.
So ... I will rewatch the game at some point this week (I have way too much time), with the specific goal of looking at the 3 things I have mentioned: a) RU's missed lay-ups and bunnies, b) The refs and fouls not called on Princeton defending RU at the rim, and c) the last sequences with Martini, and when he was finally substituted for.
