Texas Southern Game Thread

[drbluejay]

I give my standout player of the game to Trey with Baylor coming in a close 2nd.
I have no problem shooting 40 threes while crushing a team by 32 points if that is what the other team is giving us.
I see no reason to play more than a 8 man rotation until the game is well in hand, so no problem there.
The Jays have the best BIG 3 in the nation and the other 2 aren't bad.
This team is fun to watch and Mac is a great coach.

[YankeesJunkie]

A bit of a strange game and I'm sure it was hard for the team to be motivated. The opponent was overmatched and it kind of felt like Creighton was on cruise control most of the night

Texas Southern came in having played some pretty decent D this year. New Mexico was the only team over 100 in offensive efficiency on Reference, VA was at 100 and AZ State was only 84. We put up 124.2 despite not having a great night (Statbroadcast had us at 1.302 PPP)

Defensively, I thought we didn't completely lock them down (VA held them to 33 pts!), but we held them to 50 but Texas Southern scored at a more efficient rate than in their earlier games. Not shocking as they have some athletes and players, maybe the new guys are figuring out how to play together. Mac didn't seem unhappy with the defensive performance, so I won't gripe too much about that

Overall shooting took a bit of a hit -- "only" 7 players have a .600 TS% and above now, ha! Bello leads at .824 and the rest are between .600 and .700. Kalk is off of last year's pace .677 vs. .725

Baylor .690 (even above what he did in the Summit league his last 2 years)
Alexander .681 (way above his career averages around .568) - assist rate over DOUBLE of last year
Ashworth ,600 below his career average of .612 - didn't have a great shooting night last night, but I liked him finding shots and liked how he was throwing the lobs to Kalk

And for the 4 - Miller at .695 and Traudt at .669. Together they are putting up almost 15 ppg, 7 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.1 turnovers and 2.5 pf's w/ Miller rebounding a bit more and Traudt scoring a bit more on a per minute basis. Worth monitoring as we get into the tougher parts of the schedule, but I'm optimistic with what I see from the 4 spot right now

Very meh game, but the shooting has just been lights out and Trey looks like the Big East Player of the Year while Baylor looks like a Big East all first team player. Miller, Traudt, and Farbello have all be better than expected. The schedule toughens up through the rest of the month and Colorado St may be a tricky match up on Thanksgiving.

[vivid_dude]

Two players on triple double watch.
Bench once again strong.
Game never in doubt. Open on 17-4 run. Have a 20-0 run later. End up winning by 32 and covering the Vegas spread.
Starters shoot 38% from three at historic volume.
Shoot 83% from FT line.
3:1 assist-to-turnover rate.
Held opponent to 30% shooting.

Burn the tape!! Meh!!!

In cream puff games like that, when the outcome is never in doubt and the staff has confidence in how the team is developing, please….Let it Fly!! Injury is really the biggest potential scare. I’d much rather have a program record for three-point attempts against Texas Southern than FT attempts, and all the physicality, risk, etc. that would come with that.

Bring on the Ramblers!

[Outlaw_Wales]

I think it says a lot about how the program has developed that you can watch a game like that where it was never in doubt and they covered a 30 point spread, and still feel kind of disappointed in the overall performance. All the individual stats and metrics ended up pretty good by most measures -- but still felt very "off" to the eye in actually watching.

Make no mistake, Texas Southern is a bad, bad, bad, bad basketball team.

We scored exactly four points through the first four minutes of the game. That's a pretty slow / weak start against a team like Tx. So. The next four minutes we went on a 13-4 run, which is what you'd expect to see much more of.

But the next 12 minutes was 30-23 -- and that's not at all the way you'd expect a top ten team with our offensive power to perform against Tx. So. at home. And then the first 12 minutes of the second half, Tx. So. outscored the Jays by 1. So that's a 24 minute stretch where the Jays were 6 points better than one of the worst teams in the country, at home. Then cue up the 20-0 run, followed by an even final four minutes.

So in total, there were about 8 minutes in that game where Creighton looked like you'd expect to see Creighton look. The other 32, they were barely better than a horrible Tx. So. team. So, yeah, pretty "meh" when you look at the whole picture.

Trey absolutely looks like a serious POY candidate, if not a first team All American right now. Baylor has looked fantastic. Kalkbrenner has looked pretty mid, frankly, on both ends of the court for most of the season outside of a little stretch where he actually looks interested in each game. Ashworth seems to really be struggling to even compete against these buy teams, which is very worrying. Miller and Traudt are playing well at the four, and then Bello and King have been fantastic.

Hard to keep motivation up against a team like this, but play like that at all against pretty much anyone in the Big East and it's going to hurt.

[LJay]

^ This

Signed, Negative Guy

[Bluelulu]

Just the way it should be. None of us will be satisfied until March. It’s a relatively new thing to watch them play a meh game and win by 30+

[JacobPadilla]

I asked Mac about the shot selection and volume of 3-pointers, particularly in the second half. His answer is in here.

https://hurrdatsports.com/college-baske ... -southern/

[JayPharmAlum]

I asked Mac about the shot selection and volume of 3-pointers, particularly in the second half. His answer is in here.

https://hurrdatsports.com/college-baske ... -southern/

It’s early, but I don’t love our over-reliance on the three so far. One thing that I notice missing from last year: once or twice a game, it seemed like R2 would take it hard to the rim for a bucket, sometimes when we really needed one because outside shots weren’t falling. Haven’t seen that yet from Ashworth.

[Outlaw_Wales]

I asked Mac about the shot selection and volume of 3-pointers, particularly in the second half. His answer is in here.

https://hurrdatsports.com/college-baske ... -southern/

It’s early, but I don’t love our over-reliance on the three so far. One thing that I notice missing from last year: once or twice a game, it seemed like R2 would take it hard to the rim for a bucket, sometimes when we really needed one because outside shots weren’t falling. Haven’t seen that yet from Ashworth.

I don't think the Jays are "relying" on the three at all. That's what teams have been giving us so far, so we're taking them. We have about six guys who are capable of shooting the three at over 40%, so if those shots are open it would be crazy to pass them up.

And if you're waiting to see Ashworth take the ball to the rim hard, you're probably going to be waiting a very very very very long time -- that's not his game. At all. Like even a little tiny bit. But what we have seen through the first four games is both Trey and Baylor doing it a whole lot more. Even Bello has done it some more than he did last year. So we aren't lacking that at all, it's just coming from somewhere else. I mean, Trey has four poster dunks in four games, and Baylor's drive and lay up game is substantially stronger than last year.

[Chicagojayfan]

I asked Mac about the shot selection and volume of 3-pointers, particularly in the second half. His answer is in here.

https://hurrdatsports.com/college-baske ... -southern/

It’s early, but I don’t love our over-reliance on the three so far. One thing that I notice missing from last year: once or twice a game, it seemed like R2 would take it hard to the rim for a bucket, sometimes when we really needed one because outside shots weren’t falling. Haven’t seen that yet from Ashworth.

I don't think the Jays are "relying" on the three at all. That's what teams have been giving us so far, so we're taking them. We have about six guys who are capable of shooting the three at over 40%, so if those shots are open it would be crazy to pass them up.

And if you're waiting to see Ashworth take the ball to the rim hard, you're probably going to be waiting a very very very very long time -- that's not his game. At all. Like even a little tiny bit. But what we have seen through the first four games is both Trey and Baylor doing it a whole lot more. Even Bello has done it some more than he did last year. So we aren't lacking that at all, it's just coming from somewhere else. I mean, Trey has four poster dunks in four games, and Baylor's drive and lay up game is substantially stronger than last year.

100% agree. Ashworth does have a very nice pull-up jumper game and he'll get space to hit those with Kalk rolling to the basket and the shooters out on the wing as well, but he won't be driving to the rim a lot. It's definitely been good to see how often Alexander and Baylor have been going to the rim, though, and with the ball in Trey's hands more, we'll have some good sets where we can get to the paint even if the 3's aren't falling

This year will be (as Jacob said) a pick-your-poison year for our opponents on Defense. We won't be turning down 3's if teams give us wide open shots, but I do like seeing us make a concerted effort to go to Kalkbrenner regularly in the paint to keep up the pressure there. If you don't force them to do the double inside, teams will start to cheat to guard our perimeter guys more closely