MBB @ Eastern Michigan | 1/27/24 3:30pm | ESPN+

[UB Horns Up]

6 hours ago, RapidsFan said:

In case you missed it - former St. Bonaventure captain Dom Welch signed with the Buffalo eXtreme and his first games are this weekend.

They play today in Albany at 5PM and tomorrow in Bennington at 3PM - both games will be streamed live on YouTube.

Thank you I didn’t know that. I was always a fan of the St Bonaventure Bonnies and Cheektowaga own Dom Welch. Buffalo eXtreme an ABA basketball team that plays in West Seneca are owned by former Canisius Golden Griffins star Darren Fenn and coached by former UB Bulls Assistant Coach Rich Jacobs in my opinion. Go eXtreme! Go Bulls! Let’s Go Buffalo 

[UB Horns Up]

6 hours ago, MuchMany said:

Excellent addition to the UB basketball game thread, thank you.

When UB Bulls basketball stops embarrassing this city than we will talk about UB Bulls basketball again that right now is below ABA basketball which is sad. That so many UB alums are in complete denial about George Halcovage and how bad this team really is. They aren’t relevant to even talk about anymore other than firing the clueless head coach really sad in my opinion. UB Horns Up! Go Bulls! Let’s Go Buffalo 

[RapidsFan]

.

Edited February 18 by RapidsFan

[DocCas86]

Per stats (and likely it is obvious to everyone who has watched this team) - the three biggest shortcomings for this team are: offensive turnovers, offensive 3P shooting and opponent (defensive) 2P shooting.  Here are the adjusted result showing UB at median for the MAC in those three categories (along with the impact).

I am not sure how much the team can or will improve in these areas the remainder of the season - but should certainly be focus in practice.  The other focus not reflected above - offensive execution when Chatman is not on the floor.  Yesterday was the second straight game where Chatman sat significant minutes due to foul trouble.  In both cases - a relatively close game became a double digit deficit in short order.

Please note to determine the impact - every game result was adjusted to median as this helps to highlight impact of the result in each game.

[Chet]

19 hours ago, MuchMany said:

Boldin and Sabol are good pieces to build on. Jackson, our lone recruit, looks really good to my eye. We can offer a transfer the Sy role which should be able to land a significant player.

But we just need more better players. It's that simple, we have a poor, poor roster. And our coaches are learning on the job too. Rough combo. 

So if we can bring in better talent, you have faith in this staff to get it done? 

[MuchMany]

17 hours ago, UB Horns Up said:

When UB Bulls basketball stops embarrassing this city than we will talk about UB Bulls basketball again that right now is below ABA basketball which is sad. That so many UB alums are in complete denial about George Halcovage and how bad this team really is. They aren’t relevant to even talk about anymore other than firing the clueless head coach really sad in my opinion. UB Horns Up! Go Bulls! Let’s Go Buffalo 

No, this is a UB basketball forum. Mods should remove posts that don't pertain to that, including re: the semi pro careers of players from rival schools.

[eyjee]

On 1/27/2024 at 11:02 PM, RapidsFan said:

Should be noted that Villanova fans are starting to call for Kyle Neptune's head with a 4-5 conference record (11-9 overall)

 

Can't imagine this is also coming with the discourse that letting GH3 go was a bad move? 😅

[skrabukes]

3 hours ago, eyjee said:

Can't imagine this is also coming with the discourse that letting GH3 go was a bad move? 😅

Maybe he'll pull a Mo and go back there. 

[Blue03]

On 1/28/2024 at 3:41 PM, Chet said:

So if we can bring in better talent, you have faith in this staff to get it done? 

Yeah. Despite them leading our team I never really thought Chatman, Smith, and Adams were that great. Even last year they were never doing much spectacular. So we basically have a team of rookies and a couple iffy returns, hard to build on that in year 1. That’s just me though

[UBinMD]

1 hour ago, Blue03 said:

Yeah. Despite them leading our team I never really thought Chatman, Smith, and Adams were that great. Even last year they were never doing much spectacular. So we basically have a team of rookies and a couple iffy returns, hard to build on that in year 1. That’s just me though

In looking at the current roster, it looks like only Sy Chatman exhausts his eligibly this season. Not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing with Adams and Smith potentially returning along with the rest of our roster (Assume Kanye stays with the team). We would have 3 spots left if nobody defects.

[skrabukes]

4 minutes ago, UBinMD said:

In looking at the current roster, it looks like only Sy Chatman exhausts his eligibly this season. Not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing with Adams and Smith potentially returning along with the rest of our roster (Assume Kanye stays with the team). We would have 3 spots left if nobody defects.

I wouldn't bet on seeing any of them after this season.  It will be interesting moving forward. 

[UBlearns]

1 hour ago, Blue03 said:

Yeah. Despite them leading our team I never really thought Chatman, Smith, and Adams were that great. Even last year they were never doing much spectacular. So we basically have a team of rookies and a couple iffy returns, hard to build on that in year 1. That’s just me though

Chatman didn't play last year - he missed the entire season with a torn ACL.  

Frankly, he could've been the missing piece that the team needed to get over the hump last year.

[UBinMD]

56 minutes ago, UBlearns said:

Chatman didn't play last year - he missed the entire season with a torn ACL.  

Frankly, he could've been the missing piece that the team needed to get over the hump last year.

I have often thought that as well. With Chatman inserted into that lineup, Zid wouldn't have had to play the amount he did. He could have been a spark off the bench instead, which is more his style. Curtis Jones wouldn't have had to play as big a role, which would have benefited him and Adams could have developed more. You just never know, but JW was right in bringing him in. He is a talent.

[DocCas86]

On 1/28/2024 at 3:41 PM, Chet said:

So if we can bring in better talent, you have faith in this staff to get it done? 

Looking at the seasons for the UB transfers from last year:

The only players that would have made a meaningful impact on team this year would have been Jack, Jones and Ceaser.   You can't fault Jack and Jones for leaving as they ended up at much better situation.  Ceaser is putting up good numbers, but the grass isn't much greener at ODU.  I wouldn't be surprised if he transfers again this year.  Poor Blocker chose one of the few teams having more difficulty than UB.

[skrabukes]

24 minutes ago, DocCas86 said:

Looking at the seasons for the UB transfers from last year:

The only players that would have made a meaningful impact on team this year would have been Jack, Jones and Ceaser.   You can't fault Jack and Jones for leaving as they ended up at much better situation.  Ceaser is putting up good numbers, but the grass isn't much greener at ODU.  I wouldn't be surprised if he transfers again this year.  Poor Blocker chose one of the few teams having more difficulty than UB.

Yet somehow that roster was at least .500. Now look at this current group, with the addition of Sy who is the best player of the bunch by far, and sitting on 1 win. 

[MuchMany]

Last year's roster was twice as talented as this year's. Not even close. 

[skrabukes]

29 minutes ago, MuchMany said:

Last year's roster was twice as talented as this year's. Not even close. 

Well, double 1 win, that equals 2. Last years team had more than 2 wins at this point. As bad as everyone made the last regime out to be (and they had their shortcomings), they were miles ahead of this crew. Sadly,  we are saddled with what we've got, and right now that gives us a bottom 5% team in the country for the first time in 25 years. This upcoming schedule doesn't help either, @OH, home vs Kent...ugliness coming.

[DocCas86]

59 minutes ago, MuchMany said:

Last year's roster was twice as talented as this year's. Not even close. 

Meant to quote this as well:   Yet somehow that roster was at least .500. Now look at this current group, with the addition of Sy who is the best player of the bunch by far, and sitting on 1 win. 

I believe this regression is explained with four items.   Most of the regression is on the defensive side.  UB adjusted defense last year was 103.8 (3rd in the MAC) to 114.6 (11th in the MAC).

1. 3P Shooting - last years team shot 32.6% from three compared to this years team 27.0%.  Compound that with the fact that this year's team is relying more on the 3 point shot (44% of the field goal attempts this year are from 3 compared to 35% last year).  Overall this leads to an offensive efficiency that was 7th in MAC last year to 11th in the MAC this year.  Part of the drop in shooting percentage is we lost Jones who made 35.5%, the rest is the regression of Adams who shot 36.7% from 3 last year compared to 22.0% this year.
2. Assists  - The assist rate is down from last year possibly correlated to more difficult shots and lower shooting percentages.
3. Forced Turnovers:  The forced turnover rate is down.  Zid and Armoni combined for 3 steals a game.
4. Poor interior defense - Opponents this year are hitting 2 point shots 56.6% of the time (11th in the MAC) .   This is up from 50.8% (5th in the MAC). 

I admit in hindsight that I overlooked Zid's benefit from defensive standpoint.

Edited January 30 by DocCas86

[trueblue32]

2 hours ago, DocCas86 said:

Looking at the seasons for the UB transfers from last year:

The only players that would have made a meaningful impact on team this year would have been Jack, Jones and Ceaser.

Powell and Hardnett also would have? I feel like people aren't fully grasping how bad this year's team is. Powell was a player everyone complained about last year and he'd be the best guard on this team by a mile and a half. Like many things, college basketball talent is normally distributed. Last year we were somewhere in the middle of the pack where most teams fall and it felt bad. Now we are nearly at the very tail end of the college basketball talent distribution with no sign of water meeting its level analytically, as we are still underperforming projections and still falling.

Per KenPom we are closer to the worst team in the country this year (+15.06 AdjEM) than we are to last year's team (-15.25 AdjEM), a performance that got Whitesell fired and was UB's worst in ~20 years. This team would be a 10.5 or 11 point underdog to last year's team.

Edit:
EvanMiya's BPR is the best all-in-one CBB stat I've found. A BPR of 0.0 is D1 average with a BPRof 1.0 meaning that the player is 1 point per 100 possessions better than an average player. This year's team has 1 player that is considered above D1 average (barely). Shawn Fulcher is rated as the 5th worst player in the country who has played at least 250 possessions. Change is since the preseason.


The transfers' current ratings:
Jones: 4.70 BPR
Hardnett: 1.69 BPR
Jack: 1.46 BPR
Powell: 1.02 BPR
Ceaser: 0.85 BPR
Mading: -1.92 BPR
Blocker: -2.82 BPR

Edited January 30 by trueblue32

[MuchMany]

4 minutes ago, trueblue32 said:

Powell and Hardnett also would have? I feel like people aren't fully grasping how bad this year's team is. Powell was a player everyone complained about last year and he'd be the best guard on this team by a mile and a half. Like everything, college basketball talent is normally distributed. Last year we were somewhere in the middle of the pack where most teams fall and it felt bad. Now we are at the very tail end of the college basketball talent distribution with no sign of water meeting its level analytically, we are still falling.

Per KenPom we are closer to the worst team in the country this year (+15.06 AdjEM) than we are to last year's team (-15.25 AdjEM), a performance that got Whitesell fired and was UB's worst in ~20 years.

Agreed. Zid had a lot of negatives but also a good number of positives that averaged into a below average but decent player. You're right, he'd be the clear best guard on this roster. He was also a junkyard dog and this team could use a half dozen more of those.

It's just disheartening to be wishing on massive improvement just to become a middle of the pack team. I like our lone recruit for next year and we'll see what the portal brings, but it's hard not to feel like the cupboard is bare. We need to figure out NIL sadly.

[DocCas86]

38 minutes ago, trueblue32 said:

Powell and Hardnett also would have? I feel like people aren't fully grasping how bad this year's team is. Powell was a player everyone complained about last year and he'd be the best guard on this team by a mile and a half. Like many things, college basketball talent is normally distributed. Last year we were somewhere in the middle of the pack where most teams fall and it felt bad. Now we are nearly at the very tail end of the college basketball talent distribution with no sign of water meeting its level analytically, as we are still underperforming projections and still falling.

Per KenPom we are closer to the worst team in the country this year (+15.06 AdjEM) than we are to last year's team (-15.25 AdjEM), a performance that got Whitesell fired and was UB's worst in ~20 years. This team would be a 10.5 or 11 point underdog to last year's team.

Edit:
EvanMiya's BPR is the best all-in-one CBB stat I've found. A BPR of 0.0 is D1 average with a BPRof 1.0 meaning that the player is 1 point per 100 possessions better than an average player. This year's team has 1 player that is considered above D1 average (barely). Shawn Fulcher is rated as the 5th worst player in the country who has played at least 250 possessions. Change is since the preseason.


The transfers' current ratings:
Jones: 4.70 BPR
Hardnett: 1.69 BPR
Jack: 1.46 BPR
Powell: 1.02 BPR
Ceaser: 0.85 BPR
Mading: -1.92 BPR
Blocker: -2.82 BPR

Fair points on Hardnett and Powell, they would definitely improve this team.   My apologies if I slighted either of them.  For Powell, I was too focused on 3 PT shooting, one of the current team's biggest weakness and Zid would not help much there. 

[TheCommish]

On 1/28/2024 at 1:35 PM, MuchMany said:

No, this is a UB basketball forum. Mods should remove posts that don't pertain to that, including re: the semi pro careers of players from rival schools.

Agree, says University of Buffalo for Javon McCrea