The Blade on Falcon Football Assistants

So cobbling together twitter feeds and local news reports, The Blade has ascertained that Dino Babers will bring 7 assistants from EIU and the university has apparently announced the Nick Monroe and Larry McDaniel will be staying.  

If this pans out, I think this post I did in December turned out pretty accurate.

Coaches do this different ways.  Coach Clawson took his higher level guys to Wake but then filled in with some new guys.  Babers has brought nearly his entire staff with him to BG.  There's no right way or wrong way...there are ways that work and ways that don't.  Coach Babers needs the staff he feels comfortable with because he's ultimately accountable for the wins and losses that result.  Obviously, this group was successful at EIU and I look forward to seeing them go to work at the Doyt!

Offensive Woes....

Not to put too fine a point on it...or to beat a dead horse, but here are the rankings for the BG offense so far in D1....all of these are ranked out of 351 total teams.

Points per possession:  335
Free Throw %:  333
3FG%:  345
% of total points from 3FG: 350
Turnover %: 312
FG%:  218

Translation.  BG turns the ball over more than 89% of the teams in D1.  When they do get a shot, they are lousy at making 3s.  Which means that in order to score, you would need to be super efficient on the rest of your shots...which BG is not, based on overall FG%.  The news is this: In overall efficiency, that nets out to the #335 offense in the nation.

EMU Packs Paint, Beats BG

This is who I feared we were.

The EMU Eagles had a foolproof game plan for beating BG.  Put five guys in the paint and dare the BG shooters to let fly.

It worked.  BG shot 31% for all shots and 19% from 3FG...and turned the ball over on 23% of its offensive possessions and then shot 57% from the FT line.  That's ugly.  It equals out to 51 points and .74 points per possession.  That is the second worst for the season (St. Louis), but here is the key thing...BG has been under .78 points per possession in each of the last 3 games.

It is ugly and you aren't going to play good enough defense to overcome that.  The best defensive team in the country allows .81 per game.  In fact, that's exactly what BG held EMU to, but it wasn't enough to win.

In fact, EMU shot 35% and 14%, only marginally better than BG.  The difference was that they tried 9 fewer 3FGs, had 4 fewer turnovers and made 70% of their free throws for a +5 at the line.

NCAA Basketball Stats

Only Richaun Holmes shot the ball well.  He had 17 points on 5 of 10 shooting to go with 7 rebounds.  He did struggle at the line (57%), but he was really our only effective offensive player.

BG's guards were 7 of 28.  Jehvon Clarke was 4 of 18 on his own with 5 turnovers.  He was 2-9 from 3.  On top of that, Spencer Parker was 3 of 9 and Cam Black was 1 of 5.  JD Tisdale took only 1 FG attempt and had 4 fouls and 3 turnovers in 18 minutes.

The problem is that the shooting woes for the guards is nothing new.  When BG was getting results, it was from Black and Parker getting to the basket.  Teams seem to be taking that away, and it has exposed us on the offensive end.

That's a 3-game losing streak, with 2 of them coming at home.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but in the next 7 days BG will play NIU and CMU at the Stroh...this is the soft part of the schedule.  If this doesn't get figured out quickly, there's going to be a huge hole.

The good news (or the promising news) is that BG is playing very good defense.  Leading the MAC in defensive efficiency, in fact.  So, the offense doesn't have to get very much better to help.  The worrisome thing is that teams have to have seen this and it will be copied.  In conference play, the grind is the grind.  No one has time to do anything but win the next game, and until BG beats this strategy, I think you will see it continue.

BG Verbal Jared Coker De-Commits, will go to Richmond

Jared Coker, a BG OL commit from Virginia has decided to play at the University of Richmond, according to the Washington Post.

The story says that he re-opened his recruiting when Coach Clawson left for Wake Forest and decided he like the program at Richmond.

Best of luck, Jared.

Falcon Football Verbal...Javonte Bagley

BG has picked up another WR commit, and has often been the case, they have dipped into Florida for the player.  His name is Javonte Bagley, who is from Vero Beach.  According to their local paper, Javonte visited BG right before the MAC Championship game, so this is a relationship that started under Coach Clawson and was closed under Coach Babers.

He's tall---6'3" and 180--and a very productive with 30 catches for 449 yards (15.0 yards per catch) and six touchdowns in 11 games.  He was ranked the #6 recruit in the area by the local chain of newspapers.  According to the newspaper, he had been talking to Kentucky, USF and Wake Forest (?).

He's the 2nd WR in the class, the previous one committed yesterday.

Signing day is less than a month away.

Welcome to the Falcons, Javonte.

EMU Preview

The MAC season begins with the EMU Eagles.  EMU has been down pretty far in the MAC, but Rob Murphy has done a nice job rebuilding the program there and the Eagles have gotten progressively better.  They are 8-5 so far this year and 5-5 in D1 play.   (No excuse for a MAC team playing 3 non d1 games.)

They have played a brutal schedule. Their losses are to Kentucky, UMass, Purdue, Duke and Syracuse. They have nice wins over Cleveland State and Green Bay, both in Ypsi.  They have one road win, which was @Oakland.

There have been some changes.  Prior to this year. the Murphy teams have played at an incredibly slow pace and with an very active 2-3 zone.  Last year, they played at 61 possessions a game and the BG game had 60.  This year, EMU is playing at 68 possessions a game, which is a typical MAC pace.

The difference is that they are playing much better offense than they did in the past.  As you can see below, they are scoring 1.04 points per possession, which is slightly below D1 median and .11 more than they had last year.  As you can see, they are playing slightly less effective defense than BG, but stronger offense...both numbers should be adjusted in our minds to account for the quality of their schedule, good and bad.

As you can see below, EMU's EFG% is 49%, which is slightly below the D1 median.  Their turnovers are above average, too, as are the offensive rebounds.  They do a good job of getting to the line however (2nd in the MAC in FTs attempted), and their scoring would be above average if they were better FT shooters (65%).

You can see where BG's defensive averages are on the same measures.  The things to watch for are whether EMU's shooting% is artificially low due to playing Kentucky, whether BG can force EMU into more turnovers than they are used to and whether BG can do as well keeping EMU off the line as well as they have other teams.

Flipping things around, EMU is used to holding teams to a low shooting %, a trademark of the Murphy regime.  This stat is what I believe makes this a difficult matchup for the Falcons.  BG has played very poor offense over the last two games.  If BG is continues to shoot poorly and turn the ball over--both of which the Eagles are good at encouraging--they have almost no chance at winning the game.

There are chances for offensive rebounds against EMU and they do give up a lot of FTs...but BG would have to be better than normal on the boards and better at converting FTs than they have been to take advantage.  Add in that EMU plays a zone--something BG has struggled with due to limited outside threats--and you see that we had better get the December Falcons and not the New Year Falcons or it could be a long day.

They are being led by one of the MAC's top newcomers--if not THE top newcomer--Karrington Webb.  He's a 6'7" F who was JUCO All-American last year.  He's scoring 14 points a game on 47% shooting.  He's an outside threat, too, shooting 34% from 3 and leading EMU in attempts and leads the team with 5.9 rebounds.  He's a good player and will provide a nice test for Parker and Holmes on the inside.

Their next scorer is 6'3" Ray Lee.  Lee broke his foot early into his FR year and now he's got a medical redshirt to redo his FR year.  He's shooting 45% and 44% from 3FG.

Glenn Bryant is still around, still 6'8".  He's scoring 10.4 PPG on 61% shooting with 5 rebounds and 2 blocks per game.

The point is run by Mike Talley, the Duquesne transfer, who has 3.9 assists over 1.7 turnovers.  Finally, they feature 7-footer DaShonte Riley who grans 5.8 rebounds per game and 3 blocks per game.

Much like BG's last two opponents, they run a deep rotation.  They have 10 players getting at least 10 minutes and no player plays more than 30 minutes.

BG has generally played well at home...though they have now lost twice at the Stroh this year.  EMU is a very solid team that has gotten progressively better and taken more than a little step this year.  BG starts the MAC season with 3 home games, and not winning at least 2 of them will put the team in a hole from the opening bell.  For any hope of having a passable season, this game is relatively important.

Falcon Football Alumni Update

A couple of news updates from Falcon football alumni...

First, Kamar Jorden, an All-MAC WR for BG, continues to work to get his shot in the NFL.  He's been playing in the Arena League and a little bit in the CFL. He was in the Minnesota camp last year and the Vikings have signed him to  a reserve/future free agent contract, whatever that is.

The second is the continued success of Chris Jones who will be playing in a playoff game for the Pats this weekend.  In this Boston Herald story, he is named as the top rookie on the Patriots team.  Here is what the writer says...

Jones, claimed off waivers by the Pats, has been a force at times. His six sacks also leads all rookies. He was called for the first 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for pushing a teammate into an opponent’s formation against the Jets, which led to the Pats losing that game in overtime. He handled that situation incredibly well which also earned him points along the way.

Loving the success Chris is having, both because he is a true Falcon who played his heart out for us even in bad times, and because while he might not have the measurables but he is a football player who, despite being cut twice this year, "has been a force at times."