Opening Comments: UW lost to Notre Dame 58 – 51 in a game of runs. ND got the last one that counted. It would have been a fine end to a glorious weekend, but no such luck.
Summarizing the game in a few words: ND had 21 extra free throw attempts that they parlayed into 16 extra points from the line to overcome miserable shooting from the floor from both teams.
Pace: The game featured 56 possessions. As regular readers know, I do not consider pace to have good or bad qualities, but must be understood to put the rest of the analysis in perspective.
Efficiency: Was it an offensive or defensive problem? Both, but mostly defense. ND scored 1.04 PPP while UW scored .94. UW historically holds opponents closer to .90 PPP and scores 1.15 PPP or so. We shall see what happens this year. UW can wins most games giving up 1.04 PPP. We will not win very many scoring .94 PPP.
Shooting: Neither team shot well from the floor, but ND cleaned up at the line.
eFG%: Neither team shot well. UW outshot ND from the floor 41% to 40%. Both are poor numbers.
3 pt shooting: ND hit 29% of their threes and UW 30%. While neither is a good number, 30% is better than I expected. UW launched far more threes – 23 to 14. With those 9 extra shots, UW made 3 extra deep balls to gain 9 points from the arc.
2pt shooting: Both teams had identical, and miserable, 2 point stats. Each team was 13 of 34 for 38%. Ugh.
1pt shooting: Free throws are the story of the game. ND was a robust 20 of 25, 80% while UW was a perfect, but puny, 4-4. ND got 21 extra attempts and scored 16 extra points. At least one of their misses ended in an offensive rebound and a put back.
This shows why it is so important to get to the line. 25 FTA is estimated at 12 possessions (less the offensive rebound, which I will ignore for now). Those twelve possessions netted 20 points, or 1.67 PPP. Meanwhile, UW used 9 possessions to launch threes and score 9 points doing so.
ND had nine possessions that ended in turnovers, which, obviously, got them 0 PPP. When they hoisted threes, they scored 12 on 14 shot attempts (some had offensive rebounds), and scored 26 on 34 two point attempts (again, less some offensive rebounds).
Bottom line, your PPP go up when you shoot free throws.
Rebounding: ND had a good day on the offensive glass and successfully protected their defensive glass.
UW Defensive end: When ND shot, they got 13 of their 35 misses, or 37%. That is way more than UW’s pace last year of 26%, one of the best in the nation.
UW Offensive End: When UW shot, and missed (which was a regular occurrence), UW got 6 of 36 misses or but 17%. Before this game, our low water mark was 31% against Manhattan. The year is still young. We shall see where we end up on the offensive boards, but we can say this game was a setback.
Scoring distribution:
Here is where the scoring came from:
Locations UW ND
Arc 41% 21%
Mid Range 24% 10%
Paint 27% 34%
Line 8% 34%
Turnovers: The one place where UW shined was turnovers. ND had 9, or 16% TO rate. That is good, better than the 21% national average.
UW bettered that with only 4 turnovers for 7% rate. That gave UW an extra 5 productive possessions. The paper reported that ND scored 3 points off turnovers and UW gathered 15.
Opportunity Index: UW lost the opportunity index for the first time this year with a minus 2. ND had plus 7 offensive rebounds and UW plus five turnovers.
ND took their extra offensive rebounds and scored 14 second chance points while UW had plus 12 in points off turnovers. So, ND took their two extra opportunities and scored two extra points.
Fouls: UW fouled 22 times to ND’s 8. Those 14 extra fouls lead to 16 points, which was the difference in the game.
Playing time: Bo went 7 deep with Jarmusz getting 21 and Evans 16 off the bench. Bruesewitz played only 16 minutes as a starter after getting 4 fouls. Wilson had 9 minutes. Berggren got 6. Leuer and Taylor had 38 minutes each.
Notable Performances: Leuer scored 19 on 16 FGA’s, added 5 boards, and had two turnovers.
Taylor scored 14 but needed 19 shots to get there. He had only one turnover and four rebounds.
Keaton got 9 on 7 shots with 4 rebounds and no turnovers. Keaton, long will the tales of your exploits be told around the campfires of my people.
Taylor and Gasser fouled out. Bruesewitz had four fouls.
ND had four players score between 10 and 12 points. No one shot particularly well from the floor, but they all shot well at the line and cleaned up the boards successfully.
Grading Shetown’s Predictions
1. Badgers establish a strong post game with more than 30 points in the paint. The Badgers ruin the Irish's sparkling interior defensive stats. Miss. UW had but 14 points in the paint.
2. The Badgers knock down less than 3 threes. Come on reverse psychology. Miss, they got 7 but needed 23 tries to get there. You wanted to miss, right?
3. Badgers grab more than 36% of the rebounding opportunities on the offensive end. Let it ride against a great rebounding team. Miss. UW stunk up the place with 17%. Ugh.
4. The Badgers hold Abromaitis to less than 12 points. We’re got the defenders at the 3 spot to slow this guy. Hit. He had 10 and needed 11 shots and 4 FTA’s to get there. He did add 9 boards. But, Bruesewitz and Jarmusz did a good job on him.
Badgers eat their Lucky Charms, downing ND 74-68 in 66 possessions. Miss. 58-51 in 56 possessions.
Closing Thoughts: It will be interesting to see how good of a team ND turns out to be. Perhaps losing Harangody was addition by subtraction? They seem to play a completely different type of ball than in the past. They did not play much defense last year, if my memory serves me right. They seemed to beat UW at our own game – deliberate offense, defense, and free throws.
While disappointing, it is still early. If UW takes care of NC State Wednesday, all will be fine again.
Bo has the piece-parts available to him to make the adjustments and corrections needed, I would think. Come Big Ten time, we should be ready to go. It will take awhile before we get ranked, but that’s okay if we are ranked come March.
No comments:
Post a Comment