MUScoop

LSU's highly recruited 3 bigs offer threat with no Otule Monday - MU tunes up well with 93-72 win

Written by: noreply@blogger.com (bamamarquettefan1)

Of all the great news during Saturday's win, the most important stat was MU allowing Northern Colorado, and above average team on the offensive glass, to rebound only 22% of their missed shots in the 93-72 win that made MU 10-0 for the first time since Dwyane Wade's first year.

LSU's trio of highly recruited big men are playing together for the first year (1 freshman, 2 transfers), and have started to dominate the offensive glass in winning their last four games including trips to Rutgers and future Big East member Houston.

Thankfully Jamil Wilson and Juan Anderson were back from injury today to tune up for tough match-ups underneath Monday, but even though MU fans had the welcome sight of Chris Otule off of crutches, his absence Monday poses a big threat to MU staying undefeated.

MU is giving up about 3 inches per match-up underneath against players that were as highly recruited as MUs players as recruits based on the Rivals ratings.  The table below goes through each team's talest four players, and which team has the edge on each matchup based on who was a bigger recruit (Rivals Stars and then Position Rank if they were rated).

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EdgeJerLSU tallest 4FtInYrRivalsMU tallest 4FtInYrRivals[/tr]

LSU	2	Johnny O'Bryant	6	9	Fr	4* 4th	Jamail Jones	6	6	So	4* 10th
MU	5	Malcolm White	6	9	Sr	4* 24th	Jamil Wilson	6	7	So	4* 18th
Even	41	Justin Hamilton	6	11	Jr	3*	Jae Crowder	6	6	Sr	3*
Even	13	Eddie Ludwig	6	9	Jr	3*	Davante Gardner	6	8	So	3*

O'Bryant ranking as the 4th best at his position makes him the highest touted big man on the court Monday, as he ranked slightly higher than even Jamail Jones (10th best).

Jamil Wilson was slightly more highly regarded than fellow trasfer Malcolm White, but they were virtually even (18th best vs. 24th best out of high school)
Justin Hamilton also transferred (from Iowa State) and Eddie Ludwig were virtually equal;y regarded as Jae Crowder and and Davante Gardner.

So from the pure standpoint of how highly regarded they were as recruits, LSU and Marquette are virtually even among the four bigs, but MU averages giving up three inches per position underneath with Otule out.

While certainly none of the LSU bigs have matched the production of Crowder, White and Hamilton have been among the top offensive rebounders in the country both at their previous colleges (Mississippi and Iowa State respectively).  O'Bryant is already the third best offensive rebounder in an improved SEC (grabs 15.5% of all LSU misses).  You can see how Otule will be missed if MU's 4 "bigs" don't step out and do a great job of boxing out.

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EdgeJerLSU other 6FtInYrRivalsMU other 6FtInYrRivals[/tr]

MU	10	Andre Stringer	5	9	So	3* 27th	Vander Blue	6	4	So	5* 7th
MU	22	Ralston Turner	6	6	So	3* 28th	Junior Cadougan	6	1	Jr	4* 13th
MU	24	Storm Warren	6	7	Sr	3* 33rd	Juan Anderson	6	6	Fr	4* 19th
Even	14	Jalen Courtney	6	8	So	3*	Darius Johnson-Odom	6	2	Sr	3*
Even	32	John Isaac	6	4	Fr	3*	Todd Mayo	6	3	Fr	3*
Even	1	Anthony Hickey	5	10	Fr	3*	Derrick Wilson	6	0	Fr	3*

If MU isn't blow out underneath, then they do have a clear advantage at the other positions.

Vander Blue, Junior Cadougan and Juan Anderson were all more highly recruited than any of LSUs swing men or guards.

While Darius Johnson-Odom, Todd Mayo and Derrick Wilson were not more highly recruited than their LSU counterparts, they have proven to be better than many more highly rated players.  DJO was picked as one of the top 10 players in the country so far this year in an SI article, and when he had to sit out today for a team rules violation, Mayo continued his incredible play this year by scoring 22 points to give MU a win virtually identical to what was predicted on www.kenpom.com assuming DJO was playing.

So MU needs to control the pace with superior talent at the guard and swing positions, but everyone will have to help box out to pervent LSU from getting on a roll and dominating inside much as Stanford did with current LSU coach Trent Johnson was coaching them.

http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2011/12/lsus-highly-recruited-3-bigs-offer.html

You know what they say--you can go over fundamentals and in-game situations at practice until you're blue in the face, but ultimately players' rankings as recruits win games...or something like that.

I think the quote you are looking for was Al McGuire's statement about taking the better athletes over the better game plan any day, because the better athletes would win out.  Of course, Al won a national title and a ton of other games without drawing up any plays, because he put the better players on the court.

You said last week that you would be shocked if Otule played again this year, and my point in this post is we don't want to be shocked by LSU having three guys with a lot of potential (as shown by their rankings and their sometimes overpowering offensive rebounding) getting on a roll because Otule is not back yet. 

However, the good news is overall LSU doesn't have better players than Marquette, but what they do have (as indicated by how highly regarded their players were as recruits and how well they have played) is a ton of talent on the front line which we don't want to let get going.  We have far superior guards and swing men (as the rankings and stats indicate), and we need them to dominate.  If they don't, we need to be aware there is a lot of talent among the 4 tallest players on the court -all in LSU jerseys - and if we let their big men get going and the crowd getting into it then this will turn into a dangerous game pretty quickly.

Quote from: CrackedSidewalksSays on December 17, 2011, 06:30:04 PM

everyone will have to help box out to pervent LSU from getting on a roll and dominating inside much as Stanford did with current LSU coach Trent Johnson was coaching them.

I completely agree that defensive rebounds will be a huge issue the rest of the year (not surprising).  The team will have to be extremely disciplined and aggressive on that front.

I think the current coach's head would explode before he let post players catch as many passes deep in the post without pressure on the passer and with defenders playing dead in the post as MU allowed in that Stanford game.

Sounds like LSU and Vandy will definitely test the Otule loss.  Glad they will.  To me it looks like MU is just beginning to get an education in how physical play will get this year.  If guys like Wilson, Crowder, Blue, Jones and Anderson are tough enough to board on defense MU  has a huge edge transitioning and with quickness on offense and with pre-rebounding defense.  When they're focused, I think MU's rotations in their man defense have been pretty great.  It seems so far that they either have to improve the defensive rebounding aspect, or continue to overcome it.

Quote from: bamamarquettefan on December 18, 2011, 12:29:02 AM
I think the quote you are looking for was Al McGuire's statement about taking the better athletes over the better game plan any day, because the better athletes would win out.  Of course, Al won a national title and a ton of other games without drawing up any plays, because he put the better players on the court.

You said last week that you would be shocked if Otule played again this year, and my point in this post is we don't want to be shocked by LSU having three guys with a lot of potential (as shown by their rankings and their sometimes overpowering offensive rebounding) getting on a roll because Otule is not back yet. 

However, the good news is overall LSU doesn't have better players than Marquette, but what they do have (as indicated by how highly regarded their players were as recruits and how well they have played) is a ton of talent on the front line which we don't want to let get going.  We have far superior guards and swing men (as the rankings and stats indicate), and we need them to dominate.  If they don't, we need to be aware there is a lot of talent among the 4 tallest players on the court -all in LSU jerseys - and if we let their big men get going and the crowd getting into it then this will turn into a dangerous game pretty quickly.

My response was more sarcastic in nature, but I understand your point. I just can't put a lot of stock in the numbers of stars next to a players name coming out of high school when analyzing a collegiate match-up. I'm sure LSU's bigs were rated highly coming out of high school, but what are their numbers thus far in college? Not great from what I see. And were not so small that average bigs are going to have huge games against us. I'm fairly confident Anderson, Wilson, and Gardner can hold their own against these guys. I'd be surprised if we didn't win by at least 10. Let's keep in mind that the Tigers lost to South Alabama and Coastal Carolina. I just don't think we need to hype this game up. LSU is very average and we're very good regardless of a few arguably unfavorable match-ups.

Just gotta do what we always do and get them in foul trouble quickly

As of last week, LSU's leading scorer, Andre Stringer, is expected to miss this game. He's missed their last two. It takes away a major scoring threat, but likely makes this an even longer team to contend with. Most of his minutes have been going to Eddie Ludwig and Jalen Courtney. Suffice to say, it's a bit different preparing for a 5'9" guy or a 6'8" and 6'9" tandem.

Quote from: windyplayer on December 18, 2011, 01:22:55 AM
My response was more sarcastic in nature, but I understand your point. I just can't put a lot of stock in the numbers of stars next to a players name coming out of high school when analyzing a collegiate match-up. I'm sure LSU's bigs were rated highly coming out of high school, but what are their numbers thus far in college?

And I understand your point, and know most people don't spend/waste as much time as I do analyzing careers.  The reason i do keep track of the high school stars is that they do tend to show you breakout potential.  So if you just looked at what Vander Blue did last year from the outside, you wouldn't know why he was even starting at the start of this year.  But when you track typical progression, 5 stars normally explode their sophomore year, 4 stars their junior year etc.   And the two transfers have put up excellent offensive rebounding numbers at their previous stops before getting a red shirt year last year - and their freshman has already been a dominant offensive rebounder.  My point is just they have great POTENTIAL on the offensive boards, which is our one vulnerability.  We are 9 points better according to Pomeroy, but with a potential tough match-up - though thanks to brewcity for pointing out their potential injury.

It is amazing how great our defense is at everything except rebounding.  In studying defenses last year I realized that almost all the great defenses are great at one or two of the four factors and use them to overcome the others.

However, this year two teams in the country - Wisconsin and Marquette - are excellent (in the top 30 in the country) at 3 of the four factors on defense:

Marquette 4 factors on defense:
Effective field goal percentage allowed 43% (40.2% on two-pointers and 32.2% on treys)
Turnovers forced 25.5% of trips down the court
Free Throws Allowed 27.1% of shots (vs. field goals)

The only weakness:
Opponent's offensive rebound percentage 33.8% - 213rd best in country

Wisconsin's only weakness is forcing turnovers, and they are actually top 20 in the other three factors.