[Cracked Sidewalks] Cadougan out performed all other point guards who faced Louisville this week

[CrackedSidewalksSays]

Cadougan out performed all other point guards who faced Louisville this week

Written by: noreply@blogger.com (bamamarquettefan1)

This week one of the top 20 BCS point guards went up against the team that is now the top pressure defense in the country – and a few fans concluded the point guard should no longer be a starting point guard.

The defense in question is Louisville, which even with Peyton Siva playing hurt most of the year boasted the 4th best defense in the country, 2nd best steals percentage of any BCS team, and the No. 2 steal percentage player in Russ Smith.  Until this week Siva’s nagging injuries dropped him from 31st in the country in steals to 118th.  With him clearly back at 100% this week, Louisville simply blitzed all four (excellent) point guards they faced:


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PG vs. LouisvillePtsTripsPer TripAsstTORatio[/tr]

Jordan Theodore	55	69	0.80	2	6	0.33
Junior Cadougan	71	83	0.86	5	8	0.63
Eric Atkins (to 58-37 w/7:30 left)	37	44	0.84	4	3	1.33
Cashmere Wright	44	59	0.75	2	5	0.40

Certainly Juniors 8 turnovers were a terrible performance for him, but that was 8 turnovers in a game in which Marquette had 83 trips down the court, so that’s virtually the same as the 6 turnovers in 69 trips for All-Big East Point Guard Jordan Theodore, and 5 in 59 trips for Cashmere Wright.  Atkins was slightly better for the game as a whole, but that game was virtually over when Atkins went 25 minutes with 0 assists and 3 turnovers during a 22-47 run that in essence ended the game at 60-41.

Of course, the point guards biggest job is to get his team to score on as many trips as possible.  Again, you can see that while Cadougan’s efforts to direct Marquette to 0.86 points per trip is not great, it was better than Louisville’s other three opponents managed this week except for a few meaningless buckets at the end of the game by Notre Dame.

Clearly MU was surprised by the full court pressure from the outset and Junior had four turnovers in the opening minutes, and then was charged with two more in a back-and-forth he started by stealing the ball himself, but beyond that he stayed in the game for 5 assists and 2 turnovers the rest of the way and did get Marquette at least back in the game for a stretch.

So in summary, a very good point guard (Cadougan) was bettered by an even better defense, which in turn did an even better job of shutting down three other very good point guards.

For anyone to charge that this week proves Junior is not an excellent point guard, ignores the fact that of the 74 point guards starting for a BCS team, Junior is in the top 20 in assists to turnover (better than 2-to-1), percent of teammates points set up and overall team offensive efficiency.  

In fact, Pomeroy says that the five players who have been the most similar to Junior Cadougan since 2005 are Josh Wright while leading Syracuse to 24-11 in 2007, Travis Walton while leading Michigan State to 27-9 in 2008, Malik Booth while leading St. John’s to 21-12 in 2010, Biko Paris for Boston College in 2010, and an admittedly less than 100% Peyton Siva himself prior to him taking it to another level this week.

Sometimes you don’t appreciate what you have until he is on another team.  Well, it’s no accident Marquette is 25-7 with Junior at the helm – a guy like him at the point is one of the biggest factors in making a team successful, and remember he is doing it with a freshman backing him up with 8 minutes a game.

http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2012/03/cadougan-out-performed-all-other-point.html

[tower912]

I was contemplating this while watching Louisville last night.   Pitino has all his pieces back and has his press going as good as I can remember seeing it.    MU got caught off-balance because they THOUGHT they were prepared, but in reality this was a different press than they had seen before.    Relentless.   Louisville, if they shoot just a little, is going to be a tough out.   

[bamamarquettefan]

agreed, and I believe the good news for us is that usually when a team gets caught like we did Thursday, there are very few lazy passes the next couple of games.  At some level Junior and the whole team now have in their minds, "when I try a cross court or other lazy pass, the opposing fans cheer while they dunk on me."  Tends to correct.

I can't say the worst scenario for the Big East was the three defectors watching while the coach who has fought the hardest for the Big East this year battled the coach who delivered the best line on why in the world anyone would want to leave after beating Syracuse.

[Warhawk Warrior]

The numbers don't tell the story.  I attended every game at the tourney and Jr simply was not on par with the Cincy and Ville guards, for whatever reason.

[Knight Commission]

In my opinion Siva played well against Marquette in large part because Cadougan played bad on both ends of the court.

[bamamarquettefan]

In my opinion Siva played well against Marquette in large part because Cadougan played bad on both ends of the court.

Here is my problem with that statement - Siva was MVP of the entire tournament.  He dominated every game.  Does that mean that he was only MVP in large part because Atkins, Theodore and Wright  played bad on both ends?

Warhawk Warrior - I do agree we all catch different things in person vs. on TV.  But what I do believe distorts a comparison here is that Lville put a fullcourt press on Marquette to get the ball out of Junior's hands.  i believe it's hard to get a true perspect when comparing a guy who brought the ball up the court 83 times (minus however many times Derrick was in) against full  court pressure vs. 60 times with pressure some of the time.

I do not believe Cadougan is a great player or a great defender, but I do believe he is a great point guard and Lville knew they couldn't let him get the offense humming.  By comparison, I believe Buycks was a great player and great defender, but not a great point guard.  After he tore it up in the NBA summer league he went out and had a game with 23 points and 0 assists running the point.

Junior makes a lot fewer mistakes and does the things you need a point guard to do better than the vast majority of BCS point guards, and while he was certainly a below average point guard against Lville, i would turn around Knight Commissions comment to say that if you play a bad game against a team, and then three other guys play a terrible game against the same opponent, it is probably more about how well the opponent played than how poorly you played.

Thanks all for reading though - good perspectives.  There were just some comments after the game that weren't constructive at all saying things like that Junior could start for anyone but DePaul, and clearly most BCS schools would take him as their point guard today if they could.

[tower912]

In my opinion Siva played well against Marquette in large part because Cadougan played bad on both ends of the court.

In my opinion, Siva had the best week of basketball of his life.    Was unstoppable and tore up the guards from 4 different teams. 

[ErickJD08]

In my opinion, Siva had the best week of basketball of his life.    Was unstoppable and tore up the guards from 4 different teams. 

I think we have to leave it to this. I watched UL on three separate occasions and this is the best I have seen them play. I can see them falling on their faces next week but we have to tip the cap to what they put together the last few days.

[MUMac]

I think we have to leave it to this. I watched UL on three separate occasions and this is the best I have seen them play. I can see them falling on their faces next week but we have to tip the cap to what they put together the last few days.

That's my thought.  They surprised some as well, with the pressure and intensity.  Can they carry it over?  Will others be ready for them?

Oddly, the way MU played and was skewered on this board, but MU gave UL the best game and may have just played them at the wrong time.  MU might just have been the 2nd best team in NY, but the best was best by a large margin and faced them right away. 

[Warhawk Warrior]

While I still believe Junior didn't play well, I do blame Buzz for not switching into a zone to slow Siva's tempo early in the game and protect the big guys against early foul trouble.  Are guys looked like they didn't know what hit them.  They needed a zone to regroup and launch their own offensive.

[MUMac]

While I still believe Junior didn't play well, I do blame Buzz for not switching into a zone to slow Siva's tempo early in the game and protect the big guys against early foul trouble.  Are guys looked like they didn't know what hit them.  They needed a zone to regroup and launch their own offensive.

I don't blame Buzz for not zoning.  They were killing MU on the boards.  A zone would not have helped that in the least.  They are a man to man team.  Some zone, but mainly man.  Stick with what brought ya.