The Falcons take on Wright State Monday night at the Stroh, as we work to get off to a 2-2 start in Horizon League play and get an inside track on a home tournament berth.
Uhhh. Yeah. Well, it is our third straight game against a Horizon team and fourth overall. In this game, it is the Wright State Raiders making their way up from Dayton.
The Raiders were picked to be 7th by College Basketball Prospectus and last in their media poll.
They are off to a pretty decent start at 5-2. To date, the RPI of the teams they have played is #329, which is among the weakest in the country. That would be slightly more comforting if our RPI wasn't 338. I have certainly expressed my concerns about this team, but I don't think we're one of the 10 worst teams in D1.
Wright State has hit the Idaho Daily Double, beating Idaho and Idaho State, along with Eastern Illinois, North Carolina A&T and Morehead State (steady soldier). They beat Morehead by 9 at home. They have lost to CMU (not predicted to be a good MAC team) and Utah.
So, they are winning and they are 5-2. There's nothing in there that tells us for sure that they aren't who they were supposed to be but we'd take their results in a New York minute.
Statistically, what jumps out at you is that this is a very good shooting team. They are 60th in the nation with a 52.2% effective FG%. Their are pretty much in the middle of the country in terms of 3s tried, made and %, which means that they are getting those points on shooting old-style normal FGs, which means they are probably shooting them in the paint.
Also, despite their strong FG shooting, they are only getting about 1 point per possession, which is pretty average. They turn the ball over on 19% of their possessions, which is not very good and they are awful on the offensive boards. They get to the line an average amount but they only shoot about 64% and all that adds up to a team that is shooting well but not getting huge point production.
One other note. There aren't enough o's in slooooooow for their place. Just over 60 possessions a game which I would expect BG to settle into like a weary foot into an evening slipper.
That's important to know because on defense they are in the top 20 in the country allow only 55 points per game. Tempo adjusted, that's .9 points per possession, which is 69th in D1.
Where are they getting those results from? Well, they allow an effective FG% of 47.8 which is just average and not the normal signature of a slow-paced defensive specialty team. They do force turnovers--only 16 per game, but that 26% of the typical possessions. They do a good job protecting their defensive boards and they are very effective in keeping teams off the free throw line, again relative to the possessions.
JT Yoho is scoring 10 points a game for them. He is a sharpshooter though...he's 6'6" and is shooting 69% from the field and 65% from beyond the arc. Those numbers are coming in 24 minutes per game. Their leading scorer is a 6'8" dude named Cole Darling who is scoring 12 ppg and shooting 55%. He battled some injuries earlier this year and missed some games.
One other note....nobody on this team is playing more than 28 minutes, so they are playing a pretty even rotation.
One other other note. There are no seniors on their roster.
Obviously, from a global perspective you'd like to think we could beat this team on our floor. Having said that, they are a defensively oriented team that has been pretty effective, and you have to worry about whether BG is going to be able to generate any offense against them. Certainly, it will take a better effort than we saw Saturday.
Which is the other nice thing. You play a lousy game as BG did Saturday, and you want to come right back and get onto the court. So, I assume we practiced Sunday and then we get a chance to show we're better than that almost right away.
Again, I'm concerned about the team but I do think we are better than we were Saturday and hope we can bring a better effort against a team that really wants to defend you.
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