Mid-course Men's Basketball Review: Nothing Much Has Changed

When last season ended, I think there was a high level of optimism as BG entered into a new season.  There was the new arena, and with only one player graduating, it looked like the Falcons would benefit from every player gaining a year of experience and be in a position, finally, to play with the top teams in the conference.

We were surprised to be picked last in the East.

And, I think overall, we are disappointed with what we have seen so far.  As I look at it, despite returning players and another year, our team is very, very similar to the team we had last year and may not even be any better.

Currently, BG is 8th in the MAC in RPI.  You can like or dislike RPI, but even under the most charitable rankings, we would be 6th behind OU, Kent, Akron, Buffalo, and WMU.  We have a very nice win over Temple (RPI 22) which shows the upside of what we can do, but our home wins over Austin Peay and Detroit were both over teams who are struggling.  The Valpo loss certainly looms as a missed opportunity as does the UTSA loss.

The Falcons are 6-7 and 5-7 in non-conference wins.

On offense, BG just seems to spend too much time off track.  There are times it looks good, but in general, the team has trouble scoring consistently.  Here is the issue.  BG is the #2 team in the country in percentage of points scored on 2-point Field goals.  Yes, BG's field goal percentage (45%) is 4th in the MAC, as it should be with all those 2-FGs--or should it even be higher?

At the same time, BG is last in free throw rate and in 3-point shooting.  Even worse, BG is 9th in turnover percentage.

Here's the problem.  Teams with some firepower might be able to get away with giving the ball up on 20% of its possessions, but a grinding offensive team focusing on 2s and only doing OK at that can't get away with it.  We can't do enough on the remaining possessions to get points.

I went back and looked at last year.  Now, comparing this year so far to last year at the end of the season, I was shocked at how similar things were.

• Last year, BG was #2 in 2-FG scoring percentage.
• Our FG% was slightly lower at 43%
• Points per possession is almost precisely the same.
• Turnover % is almost precisely the same.
• We were last in free throw rate last year, too and in 3s made.

What about defense, which is supposed to be our identity.  Here, BG has been just average this year, despite broadening the repertoire to include man defense.  BG is allowing .98 points per possession, which is 7th--last year was .99 and 8th.  The issue here is that BG continues to give up a lot of 3s, yielding an effective field goal% of 49.9, 11th in the MAC.  BG is also last in free throw rate.

On the plus side, BG does a good job keeping opponents off the offensive boards and leads the MAC with 23% turnovers on defensive possessions.  Those factors all mix out and yield an average MAC defense and mirror very closely last year's final numbers.

I don't like to spotlight individual players very much, so I will just note this. Scoring wise, only Jordan Crawford and Torian Oglesby have been significantly better than last year.   When I look down our roster, I really only see four guys make a consistent contribution.

So, there is indeed good reason to fear that this team isn't much better than last year's team.  Perhaps the conference season will alter that.  We can certainly hope for it.  Our most recent games have been on the road, and maybe that skews perceptions.

But at this point, I would say that BG has not shown anything to suggest it can get into the conference's top 4 and snag one of those byes and if fans were hoping to see a much better team, they have not yet.

I know the team is working very hard, and sometimes progress is not evident but just around the corner, and that's what we'll hope for.