Point Blank – February 16
What a “Bettor Better Know” – As the weekend connects to Monday night…
Once again the focus is The Weekend that Was across the NCAA hardwoods, but this time with a more immediate view – there are key issues surrounding teams involved on the Monday board, so let’s get to work…?
Item: Those West Virginia presses, the second time around (this just isn’t Huggy Bear's playbook yet)
Bob Huggins has not been much of a pressing coach in the past, but he has been as good as anyone at getting his players to play physical man-to-man defense in the half-court. So with a bevy of athletes in the rotation this season he added some new chapters to his playbook, and began defending the entire floor. It has brought both good and bad so far, but the bad is trending, and it is for a particular reason. The problem is that the Mountaineers just do not bring much finesse in those presses in the first major tour for both the coaches and players, and as opponents get their second opportunity against them, it is making a major difference.
WVU has faced five Big 12 teams twice so far – TCU, Texas Tech, Iowa State, Oklahoma and Kansas State. The comparisons are most meaningful -
1st Meeting 2nd meeting
SU 4-1 3-2
SU Margin +47 -14
ATS 4-1 1-4
Net ATS +31.5 -38.5
In the midst of the recent cycle of second-looks was also an ugly 87-69 loss at home to Baylor a little over a week ago, a game in which the Mountaineers fell 23.5 points below the market expectations. And when the Baylor blowout is added there is a major emerging pattern – as February rolls around, teams are learning to take the ball right to the basket against these presses. By being so aggressive in trapping in the back-court, they are leaving themselves out-numbered when the opposition throws the ball over the top. In falling to the spread by 57 points across four February games, the WVU opponents have shot an alarming 57.3 percent.
It should also be noted that the “bull-in-a-China-shop” defense was able to be effective early because of the Big 12 scheduling draw – half of their first eight league games were the home-and-away affairs vs. TCU and Texas Tech. But even with those four games included there is one telltale stat that is absolutely horrific – the WVU defense is fouling at a rate of one for every 91.7 seconds of court time. That is not possession time for the opposition, but rather all time, since the former statistics are still not kept in a way that can be fully trusted yet. Through 11 Big 12 games, opponents have attempted 356 free throws. For the full season they are #343 in the nation in fouls per game, out of 351. But below them are a lot of bad teams that foul late in games because they are trailing – the Mountaineers are the only team in the bottom 20 of that category that have a winning record.
This bears watching the rest of the way, though it does make tonight’s battle with Kansas a conundrum. The Jayhawks certainly have the capacity to attack the press and take the ball to the basket, but with only one day of practice to prepare, plus having to travel, will they truly be ready for it? A prime opportunity to “Watch and Learn”, even if it does not present a “Watch and Win” opportunity.
Item: Yes, Justin Anderson really is that good…
Like Kansas, Virginia is another very good team that has only a day to prepare for a Monday game, with the Cavaliers hosting Pittsburgh. But for Tony Bennett it is not really about making adjustments – without Justin Anderson, there is only so much that he can do. And this bears a second review, after the topic was introduced here before Virginia played at N. C. State last Wednesday.
The post-Anderson cycle actually began in the second half at home vs. Louisville, when the Cavaliers were out-scored 34-28. In the first full game without him they were locked into a fierce battle at State, escaping 51-47 after trailing with 10:00 to play. On Saturday it was a 61-60 gut-out vs. Wake Forest, a game that Virginia trailed by seven at halftime, and had to withstand the Demon Deacons having the ball on the final possession. Since halftime vs. Louisville, they have been out-scored by a point over 100 floor minutes.
As noted last week, the markets were prone to under-rating Anderson’s impact, because his numbers do not necessarily jump out in any category. Much of that can be attributed to the pace that the Cavaliers play. But when you look deeper, you see that Anderson does something right in almost every aspect of the game. And that is why what transpired vs. Wake Forest really matters.
The Deacons are nothing special, and +18 was readily available on game-day. Yet there was not a basketball fluke to be found in the score being so close – they had the same number of rebounds, posted more assists, and got to the line for eight more FT attempts until a forced end-game foul cut that margin by two. Had this been the only game you had seen all season, you would have through you were watching two even teams - perhaps Wake actually being better, because the game was in Charlottesville. And that becomes an issue with the Virginia power ratings. This is a good team without Anderson, but not a great one, with the chemistry having been disrupted because there is no one to replace him.
Outside of Anderson’s 46-95, the Cavaliers are only shooting 31.7 percent from three-point range, and that includes him being on the floor to draw defensive attention for most of that – in the two games without him it has been 4-23. With Anderson it was 300 assists vs. 188 turnovers; without him it has been 19 vs. 21. Properly adjusting the Virginia power rating for the cycle ahead is not an easy task, and a rather startling Saturday result from their Monday opponent adds even more challenge…
Item: Pitt had 30 assists in 57 FG attempts vs. North Carolina…
You might have taken a quick glance at that headline and not thought twice, since there are many games in which the assist count is over half of the made shots. But go back through that again – those were not the made shots, those were the attempts. That is historically rare (I honestly can not recall ever coming across such a game before), and because of that begs some focus. Just how do we balance that one out on the Good Offense/Bad Defense scale?
Pittsburgh shot 61.3 percent in jumping out 48-34 at halftime. That was the best anyone had shot in a half against North Carolina this season. I was willing to lay the Tar Heels -5.5 for the second 20 minutes, an effective +8.5 for the game, which was a full 12 points off of the closing line. Usually when programs at that level are playing, a +12 at the half vs. the closer is a good value when it is the favorite that is losing. But instead of the Panthers slowing down, they made their first seven shots of the second half, and finished at 69.2 over those 20 minutes, and 64.9 for the game.
From watching the game, and reading the reactions from Roy Williams and some Carolina players afterwards, it really did come across as good offense first. Pittsburgh’s ball movement was impeccable. Cameron Wright had 10 assists, doubling his previous season high of five. James Robinson had eight, his #3 game of the season. Chris Jones had a season high of six, and Jamel Artis matched his season high with five. How often do we come across a February conference game in which three players from the same team match of exceed their high assist count? It led to six Panthers scoring in double figures, and they only had five turnovers.
This ball movement is becoming something to focus on, with the Pittsburgh count now at 205 assists vs. 103 turnovers through 12 ACC games. That is a superb ratio against that level of competition, and that passing game finally wore down the North Carolina defense, much as they had done in their recent ACC home wins over Notre Dame (76 points, 24 assists, nine turnovers) and Syracuse (83 points, 22 assists, 10 turnovers). So now more for the eye test tonight, as that offense takes to the road to face of the best defenses in the nation (even without Anderson, Virginia is close to elite status on that end). And there is also a rather ominous and glaring issue that has to be bothering Jamie Dixon, even in the afterglow of Saturday’s big win – his own defense allowed 25 assists while forcing only four turnovers, the worst ratio of his tenure with the program. Over the past five games that defense is allowing 50.6 percent shooting, and that includes 40 minutes vs. Bryant University (12-13 this season), a game the Panthers were somehow trailing with 2:25 remaining.
Item: A sinking (Seton Hall) Pirate ship?
Seton Hall provides yet an opportunity for the Eye Test at Villanova tonight, and it may not be pretty – because the Wildcats bring a revenge motive after falling in O.T. at the Prudential center in Newark earlier, a glass jaw could get exposed. The Pirates may end up appearing to be like one of those blurry lines as you read down the chart in an optometrist’s office. But that just may be where they are right now anyway. Yet because the Pirates played close to the +9 betting line in losing 69-62 at Providence on Saturday, getting credit for an ATS success, some might opt to believe that a tumultuous week was being handled relatively OK. That may not be the case. The most telling statistic in that defeat may be the fact that they had 19 turnovers vs. only eight assists, a usual sign of a team that is not playing well together. And the deeper truth is that they are not.
For weeks there have been rumors about the veterans on the team not blending well with a promising freshmen class (at least in terms of talent), and some of that came to a head last Wednesday, when sophomore Jaren Sina left the program. Sina had started the first 23 games, before bring reduced to a reserve roll at home vs. Georgetown on Tuesday, and it was that decision by Kevin Willard that proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
How did the team respond to Sina being replaced by freshman Isaiah Whitehead? It was 8-0 Georgetown before the first Pirate point (Whitehead turned the ball over on each of the first two team possessions), and it ran out to 22-4 at 13:39, before Willard called his second time-out of the game. Afterwards, Willard did not allow reporters to talk to his players, and the next day Sina departed. His closing statement - “I tried my best. I think I was a good teammate. I’ve always been positive. I’ve always worked hard. I always gave it 100 percent. It’s not a good situation for me right now. At the end of the day, I think it’s best for me and my family.”
Whitehead, who is now healthy again after missing nine games, now becomes a target of attention. While there is no denying his talent, over the past four games he has shot 13-47, while turning the ball over 18 times, and as a starter in the last two it has been 9-26, with 12 turnovers. There was a notable altercation between Whitehead and veteran floor leader Sterling Gibbs vs. Georgetown, and a prime reason why Willard closed the locker room after that game may have been to keep the media from asking about that incident. It all bears close scrutiny as you prepare tonight’s handicap – this is one underdog that may not have the will to fight back if they get hit with a heavy early punch.
But now the flip side (sorry, but more questions than answers for tonight’s board heading in). Two weeks ago the headline topic for this column was “Villanova looks like a February Big East play-on” and the Wildcats have responded with a 4-0 SU and ATS run since then. That might bring the appearance of a hot team with a revenge motive, which is something that tends to generate a lot of tickets at most Sports Books. But one of the problems with revenge is that it can be mission accomplished for the Coach and Team long before your investment purposes are served.
The early trading is showing a -16, and Jay Wright has been around long enough to know that while there will be some satisfaction from getting that measure of revenge, winning by more than the spread does not fit into any long-term plans for a team that has April aspirations. Take a look at how he has emptied his bench with big leads in home conference games (note when the names of Henry Low, Kevin Rafferty and Patrick Farrell all appear), and you can see how he might relish the chance to give his key cogs a few minutes off, something he could easily do while still a basket or two beneath tonight’s spread. If you must make the Villanova revenge a part of your portfolio, reduce it a bit, and consider the First Half, if you can find a -9.