[Cracked Sidewalks] Unstoppable MU offense vs. Mississippi’s immovable defense Sunday at 7:30 p.m.?

[CrackedSidewalksSays]

Unstoppable MU offense vs. Mississippi’s immovable defense Sunday at 7:30 p.m.?

Written by: noreply@blogger.com (bamamarquettefan1)

In my preseason picks I had MU cruising on offense to an easy 3-0 start, before a combination of being in the Virgin Islands and facing their first tough defense from Drake or Mississippi dropped them to 3-1.  Obviously tomorrow I will be hoping I was wrong in the preseason.

Vander Blue’s explosion Friday night to hit his first 9 shots, including two treys, en route to a 95-73 win caps an incredible opening three games during which MU scored an average of 17 points per game MORE than predicted for an average 95-60 win on 76 trips per game down the court:


table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;} .tableizer-table td {padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc;}
.tableizer-table th {background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold;}


1st 3 gamesMUOpponentsTrips[/tr]

Predicted	78	60	67
Actual	95	60	76

However, heading into Sunday’s clash, Mississippi’s defense has also been even better than expected, with the top shot-blocking duo in the country leading by far the best defense MU will have faced:


table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;} .tableizer-table td {padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc;}
.tableizer-table th {background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold;}


Defense FacedRank[/tr]

Mount St. Mary’s	223rd
Norfolk State	246th
Winthrop	133rd
Mississippi (Sunday)	27th

MUs 99-point performance against Norfolk State did look even more impressive when Norfolk State shut out Drexel for more than six minutes Friday night en route to a huge upset that pits them against TCU in the other semifinal that will determine MUs opponent Monday night at 7:30 CST, should the Warriors win Sunday night.

But when you match up MU’s incredible offensive punch against Mississippi’s defense, you see this will be a real test position-by-position.


table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;} .tableizer-table td {padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc;}
.tableizer-table th {background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold;}


PositionMU offenseMississippi Defense[/tr]

PG	MU leads nation in assists behind Junior’s 20; D. Wilson’s 1 turnover in 48 minutes	NINE! Steals Friday between Nelson (6) and Aniefiok (3)
SG	DJO 20 ppg, 4 apg; Mayo 23 pts in last 33 minutes on 5 of 8 treys	Ex-MU recruit Nick Williams their one guard with size (6-4, 225) to rebound without fouling
SF	Vander 17 of 25 shooting (68%) but may need J. Jones & Anderson height vs. Miss	6-7 Holloway averaged 7.4 rebounds as soph before sitting out last year
PF	Crowder leads in rebounds (22), steals (8) & 2nd in scoring; J. Wilson may be key	At 6-9, Henry a matchup problem and one of top shot-blockers and rebounders (14 Reb. Friday)
C	Otule 9 ppg, 5 rpg; Gardner 8 of 10 from floor	Cox may start, but 6-8 Buckner 2nd best shot blocker in country behind James of Flo St.

Is MU so confident and on a roll that they can overcome Mississippi’s defense to set up a Monday night championship game against upset winners Norfolk State or TCU, or will Mississippi be able to frustrate MU and grind out the win?
Among players returning to a major conference, the following are the top shot-blockers based on the percentage of opponents’ two-points shots they block:


table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;} .tableizer-table td {padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc;}
.tableizer-table th {background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold;}


RnkPlayerTeamHt%Blks[/tr]

1	Bernard James	Florida St.	6-f-10	13.46
2	Reginald Buckner	Mississippi	6-f-8	13.07
3	Ty Walker	Wake Forest	7-f-0	12.71
4	John Henson	North Carolina	6-f-10	11.56
5	Festus Ezeli	Vanderbilt	6-f-11	10.59
6	Daniel Miller	Georgia Tech	6-f-11	9.78
7	Terrence Jennings	Louisville	6-f-9	9
8	Chris Otule	Marquette	6-f-11	8.87
9	Ralph Sampson	Minnesota	6-f-11	8.57
10	JaMychal Green	Alabama	6-f-8	8.24

http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2011/11/unstoppable-mu-offense-vs-mississippis.html

[downtown85]

Mississippi's defense is 27th according to Kenpom but MU's is 30th, which ain't too shabby.  It will be interesting to see how the Miss defense does against a transition oriented team, especially given their offense's propensity for turnovers.  Defensive rebounding will be important for MU and keeping Miss off the offensive boards.  If we do that and create a bunch of turnovers, we should do well. 

[tower912]

How are the defenses of the teams we have played when they weren't playing us?   This early in the year, won't that one offensive explosion skew their statistics?    What are their points per possession stats?    What are ours?     Looking at their size, it looks to me that our biggest defensive challenge is going to be the defensive boards.

[brewcity77]

Mississippi held both Louisiana-Monroe and Grambling below 40 points. Bear in mind that this is the #312 and #345 offenses in the nation according to kenpom.com. It's pretty much the equivalent of beating your four-year-old sister in one-on-one. I'm not saying Ole Miss isn't a decent team, they are, but based on kenpom's adjusted ratings, we're just 3 spots behind them in defense, while they are 123 spots behind us in offense.

We're favored with good reason. Anything can happen, but this is a match-up we should win, at least if we are legitimately as good as we'd like to think.

[bamamarquettefan]

On tower's question, the defensive ratings this early are based on how good the defenses were last year and how much of that defense came back - then it starts getting adjusted every game for opponents offenses (again Martel based how how good their offense was last year and what they had coming back). Without getting in the weeds, I believe they are a very good measurement, but definitely not as accurate as they will be 10 games in. But they ARE adjusted for opponents, so miss defense has been impressive, but so has mu's defense and our offense has been top 10.

I view this game like flo state 2 years ago.  If we make it a transition game, it could be like the first 25 minutes that we won my 17 points, but I they protect the ball and force a half court game, we could become very frustrated by their shotblockin after our pain touches, like when csi won the last 15 minutes by 18 points.

Let's no ignore the other 3 point guards in the game besides junior.  Mississippi got 9 steals from the point guard position Friday, which is scary when you add it to their tough front line play, and having a physical guard like nick Williams, former 6a player of the year over his teammate Demarcus cousins here in bama before hebcollowed cream to Indiana, then transferred to miss.

I believe this coil Neva great test for Derrick Wilson when he comes orchid bench. A freshman with 1 turnover in 48 minutes is Greg, and you can just see his running back mentality out there in protecting the ball.  If he can protect the ball against a much higher level of pressure in the rebels - I mean bears - ball hawks, then webmight have a much better backup for junio than we thought.

So go warriors beat bears! Or for the politically correct, go golden eagles beat bears. To think what the mascot duel would have been 40 years ago. 

[ATL MU Warrior]

On tower's question, the defensive ratings this early are based on how good the defenses were last year and how much of that defense came back - then it starts getting adjusted every game for opponents offenses (again Martel based how how good their offense was last year and what they had coming back). Without getting in the weeds, I believe they are a very good measurement, but definitely not as accurate as they will be 10 games in. But they ARE adjusted for opponents, so miss defense has been impressive, but so has mu's defense and our offense has been top 10.

I view this game like flo state 2 years ago.  If we make it a transition game, it could be like the first 25 minutes that we won my 17 points, but I they protect the ball and force a half court game, we could become very frustrated by their shotblockin after our pain touches, like when csi won the last 15 minutes by 18 points.

Let's no ignore the other 3 point guards in the game besides junior.  Mississippi got 9 steals from the point guard position Friday, which is scary when you add it to their tough front line play, and having a physical guard like nick Williams, former 6a player of the year over his teammate Demarcus cousins here in bama before hebcollowed cream to Indiana, then transferred to miss.

I believe this coil Neva great test for Derrick Wilson when he comes orchid bench. A freshman with 1 turnover in 48 minutes is Greg, and you can just see his running back mentality out there in protecting the ball.  If he can protect the ball against a much higher level of pressure in the rebels - I mean bears - ball hawks, then webmight have a much better backup for junio than we thought.

So go warriors beat bears! Or for the politically correct, go golden eagles beat bears. To think what the mascot duel would have been 40 years ago. 

Hittin the booze tonight bama? 

[avid1010]

out of all those stats the one that probably means the most to me is MU -6.5 for the average line right now...

[77ncaachamps]

Getting their bigs in FT is going to be key.

I expect lots of contact and drives. Davante's pretty footwork and second chance putbacks are going to be somethings to watch for.

[avid1010]

Getting their bigs in FT is going to be key.

I expect lots of contact and drives. Davante's pretty footwork and second chance putbacks are going to be somethings to watch for.

Hope you're right...I thought DG looked awful in the last game.

[bamamarquettefan]

Hittin the booze tonight bama? 

Lol - a very logical conclusion, But I'm actually transitioning from blackberry key board to iPhone screen with auto correct, and didn't realize how many of my words it was "correcting" to form incoherent sentences.  Hopefully, above is my most incoherent post ever, but no alcohol involved!