Soft teams with bad coaching..

[forgetful]

57th in overall defense. 28th in eFG% defense.

Soft.

[🏀]

Soft.

Charmin soft.

[Its DJOver]

I don't really get the "we played bad for 38 minutes" narrative. We played bad for 10 minutes against Kansas and the game was essentially over. If we had truly played bad for 38 minutes, it would have been a blow out. We didn't play our best, but we gave Louisville a 5 minute drought in the first half, and even when we weren't scoring a lot, IIRC the deficit was never double digits. We didn't play at our ceiling, but we also didn't play at our floor.

[Daniel]

This is a win we needed but not one we're saving on the DVR. If we play like this all year, it's going to be a long year.

The defensive effort, though still needing improvement in dribble drives, was the best effort under Wojo.   We won the game.   If we play like this all year - an inside-outside game with solid D, it will be a long year meaning we are in the tourney and may win one or two.   Looking forward to that!

[fjm]

57th in overall defense. 28th in eFG% defense.

Thanks!

[brewcity77]

Can someone toss us (me) the Kenton D rankings for us at this point?

(Having played top 50 UL, #2 Kansas and almost top 25 IU) I've got to assume we now have a pretty solid idea for our teams D.

Overall offensive/defensive rankings are essentially useless this early into the season. Here are the four factors for offense and defense:

Off eFG%: 51.3 (158th)
Off TO%: 19.8 (203rd)
Off O Reb%: 29.0 (171st)
Off FTA/FGA: 31.1 (235th)

Def eFG%: 43.4 (28th)
Def TO%: 15.6 (309th)
Def O Reb%: 26.6 (114th)
Def FTA/FGA: 29.7 (94th)

There are no really good direct comparisons, but I figure the best teams to look at are those from upper echelon leagues with somewhat comparable stats. Since eFG% is most important, I tried to peg teams within 25 of our eFG% rating (133-183 on offense).

Offense
Georgetown -- 135/309/90/52 84th Adjusted Offensive Efficiency
Tulane -- 148/207/215/142 136th Adjusted Offensive Efficiency
Texas A&M -- 149/233/30/217 66th Adjusted Offensive Efficiency
Wisconsin -- 171/67/189/198 83rd Adjusted Offensive Efficiency

Based on what we've done so far, I'd guess our offense would be more accurately somewhere in the 80-100 range. Tulane might be the closest comparison, but their opposition was far lower than ours will be. For defense, since our current eFG% is so high, I'm restricting it to teams within 15 of us, so 13-43 in eFG%.

Defense
Missouri -- 16/306/137/102 43rd Adjusted Defensive Efficiency
Texas A&M -- 18/328/109/43 14th Adjusted Defensive Efficiency
Maryland -- 33/296/155/7 67th Adjusted Defensive Efficiency

I think somewhere between TAMU and Missouri are probably the most likely comparisons based on what we've done so far. Somewhere in the 20-40 range. Pretty darn good so far, and definitely better than the offense has been.

Based on last year, the best case comparison is probably a team like K-State, who was 78th in AdjOE and 21st in AdjDE with a total ranking of 43rd. Worst case is probably Providence, who was 100th in AdjOE and 36th in AdjDE with a total ranking of 63rd. FWIW the one team to appear in both comparisons, Texas A&M, was a bit better at 66th AdjOE/14th AdjDE for an overall of 29th.

All that said, it's really hard to gauge the actual meaning of kenpom rankings at this point of the season. The salient numbers are just the four factors until mid-January. They start to become accurate later in December, but it's really mid-January when the current season data is fully realized.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Good stuff brew. Defense has definitely been ahead of the offense so far

[jpvegas]

We had angry fans in 1977 regular season when many thought it was good Al was retiring because Hank was the real coach anyway and Al was getting in the way. Seriously, people thought that.

I second that.  I was in the student union after the Wichita State game and there were a lot of people upset with McGuire, that thought we would be playing a much better brand of basketball under Hank.  Didn't turn out that way.  Was also at the Wichita State game where the fans booed the team in front of the players parents.

[tower912]

So, fans have been fickle for a long time.

[Goose]

Gato
There was not a person with ball knowledge that felt that way in '77. Students or fringe followers may have been in that camp, but no one that knew the hoop is ten feet off the court felt that way.

[Gato78]

Goose: Knowledgable fans were mad at Al for starting Neary and not replacing him with BT for the stretch run. I knew guys on the team who expressed this sentiment. They thought Al had cashed it in and were very down--especially after the Wichita State game.

[Goose]

Gato
Agree to disagree. As for Neary, Al never changed the starting five during the season. We were ranked number one preseason with Neary as a starter.

[79Warrior]

I second that.  I was in the student union after the Wichita State game and there were a lot of people upset with McGuire, that thought we would be playing a much better brand of basketball under Hank.  Didn't turn out that way.  Was also at the Wichita State game where the fans booed the team in front of the players parents.

I was at that game and see it completely differently . The fans were upset Al got tossed and were booing the refs. The police were court side as it was mayhem. Our seats were right behind the basket on the floor by the MU bench and we saw it all unfold. I did not know a single person booing the players.

[warriorchick]

Goose: Knowledgable fans were mad at Al for starting Neary and not replacing him with BT for the stretch run. I knew guys on the team who expressed this sentiment. They thought Al had cashed it in and were very down--especially after the Wichita State game.

Fire Al!!!

[jesmu84]

... Don't beat 2 top 15 teams back to back