Cuz I’m Eighteen!  And I don’t know what I want. – Alice Cooper

Dayton took a punch from the young Billikens early in the second half and responded with a vengeance to win going away.   Game Eighteen saw the Bills drop back to .500 overall at 9-9.  Dayton improves to 5-0 in the conference, following an improbable run to last year’s Elite Eight with an impressive run to start this year’s campaign.

Jerry Falwell Scoreboard

SLU opened the second half with a pair of three pointers to tie the game 27-27.   It looked for a minute as though the Flyers had let the young Billiken team hang around too long to put them away.  Dayton whipped the Bills 34-18 to win going away.

Some solid moments in the first half, but we can’t call this one a Moral Victory.  So SLU falls to 1-4 in Atlantic 10 play, and down to 2-2 in quest for a Moral Majority.

Lineups

Starters:  Bartley, Yacoubou, Roby, Yarbrough, Manning

Five straight for this starting five.

Minutes Distribution (non-starters in Bold):

1. Yacoubou (33)
2. tie- Yarbrough, Mike Crawford (23)
3. Manning (20)
4. Bartley (19)
5. Roby (18)
6. Reggie Agbeko (13)
7. Miles Reynolds (12)
8. Tanner Lancona (10)
9. Austin McBroom (8)
10. Austin Gillmann (7)
11. tie- Grant Hollander, Stephen Lezear (1)

Four Factors

 

Dayton beat SLU decisively in the Four Factors, reflecting the final score.  SLU made six 3-pointers to Dayton’s four, but the Flyers tilted the abacus their way on everything else.

 

Leverage

Remember those glorious 37 seconds when it looked like we just might make a game of it?   The rest of the game did not feel like that, at least to the KenPom computer.  After coming into the game with such a large disparity in rank (#33 Dayton at home vs #261 SLU), the Billikens were going to have to stay close much deeper into the second half to impress the cyber-skeptics.

SLU Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post)

• The numbers are completely tricked out and junked up.  I would like to apologize to Mathematics, and to Basketball.  Yacoubou showed as the only Billiken who could hold his own against this opponent in this environment.  And he posted a very Ash-like line with big helpings of good (12 pts, 5 reb, 3 Ast) to go with a few spoonfuls of not-so-good (3 turnovers).   With so much negative drag from Reynolds on down, the WAB supercomputer wanted to give Yacoubou an AdjGS of 43 in a game where the Bills totaled only 45.
• Crawford again picked his spots and hunted shots.  Most of his points came in a brief burst, so a large chunk of those 23 minutes were spent taking the Hippocratic Oath of Basketball and simply doing no harm.
• Reggie responded to a PA announcer not calling him “Edge Beck Oh” with one of his stronger performances.  Dayton, having dismissed two bigs from the team earlier in the season, came into the game with a size disadvantage.
• Roby once again is not favored by the AdjGS metric.  He is the defensive leader on a team that does not encourage gambling for steals, so until we can properly measure hurries, close-outs, help, recovery, ball pressure over time he will remain digitally underappreciated.
• Lancona.  Oh, Lancona.  12 minutes and a triple doughnut — 0fer from 2, 0fer from 3, 0fer from the line.

Summary

Dayton is a good team and showed poise in the face of a (very brief) challenge.  This win was good for the league — losses to sub-200 teams serve to stain an NCAA resume — but bad for a SLU team looking for the seasoning a competitive game offers.

—————————————————————————–

AdjGS:  variation on the Game Score metric created by John Hollinger, detailed here.  Hollinger’s original formula is Adjusted to reallocate the points in the game by ratio of the player’s overall impact.  Credit to the team at Rock M Nation for this improvement.

True Shooting %:  Per Basketball Reference, true shooting percentage is a measure of shooting efficiency that takes into account field goals, 3-point field goals, and free throws.

Leverage:  Per Ken Pomeroy, measures how much is at stake on a particular possession.  Leverage is not based on what happened during the possession, but is the range of win probability based on what could have happened.  Learn more here.

DNP-CD:  Did Not Play – Coach’s Decision.  Healthy and otherwise eligible player who did not see any action in the game.

She’s only Seventeeeeeen. – Winger

SLU scored its first win of the A-10, beating Duquesne 78-69 in front of the home crowd at Chaifetz Arena.  Two Ys men led the way as Ash Yacoubou (18 pts, 10 reb) and Malik Yarbrough (11 & 7) carried the load on offense.   Five Billikens scored in double-figures and posted a 59.1% True Shooting percentage.

Jerry Falwell Scoreboard

Actual victories > moral victories.  So Jerry Falwell got the night off.

Lineups

Starters:  Bartley, Yacoubou, Roby, Yarbrough, Manning

That makes three in a row for this group.

Minutes Distribution (non-starters in Bold):

1. Yacoubou (29)
2. Roby (26)
3. Yarbrough (24)
4. Miles Reynolds (18)
5. tie- Bartley, Mike Crawford, Tanner Lancona, Brett Jolly (16)
6. Manning (13)
7. Austin Gillmann (10)
8. tie- Reggie Agbeko, Austin McBroom (8)

Strange to see McBroom in the closer role, brought in to the game late primarily to draw fouls and make free throws to salt away the victory (3-4 FT),

DNP-CD:

• NONE

Four Factors

The Four Factors point toward a Duquesne advantage, albeit a narrow one.  SLUs advantages in three point shooting and foul shooting were enough to offset the Billikens defense fouling proclivities.

Leverage

This game was entertaining and fairly close throughout.  Anything Medium or above counts as quality experience this season.

SLU Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post)

• At times, if you squinted real hard, you could see an offense starting to take shape.  The geometry of Yarbrough down low, Crawford spotting up and hunting perimeter shots, and Yacoubou getting physical everywhere in between, seemed like it could be something
• At times, the defensive triumvirate of Roby hounding (and fouling) outside, Manning patrolling the middle, and Yacoubou clearing the boards looked like a starter kit for a SLU defense

Summary

Quality minutes, signs of offensive life and a win for the home crowd in the last game KenPom projects us to win all season.

—————————————————————————–

AdjGS:  variation on the Game Score metric created by John Hollinger, detailed here.  Hollinger’s original formula is Adjusted to reallocate the points in the game by ratio of the player’s overall impact.  Credit to the team at Rock M Nation for this improvement.

True Shooting %:  Per Basketball Reference, true shooting percentage is a measure of shooting efficiency that takes into account field goals, 3-point field goals, and free throws.

Leverage:  Per Ken Pomeroy, measures how much is at stake on a particular possession.  Leverage is not based on what happened during the possession, but is the range of win probability based on what could have happened.  Learn more here.

DNP-CD:  Did Not Play – Coach’s Decision.  Healthy and otherwise eligible player who did not see any action in the game.

All over St Louis….All the Cats wanna dance with Sweet Little Sixteen. — Chuck Berry

If I may rearrange the lyrics slightly and apply them to Saturday night’s college basketball game, in Davidson NC:  the Cats danced all over Saint Louis U in game number sixteen.

This was a decidedly non-musical shellacking, capping a week-long roadtrip and ending the Billikens’ moral victory streak at two games.

Jerry Falwell Scoreboard

SLU is now 0-3 in the Atlantic 10 by conventional measure.  But in this space, we are keeping track of moral victories, looking for the team to stay competitive enough in at least half the conference game to achieve our version of a Moral Majority.

SLU moves to 2-1 on the Jerry Falwell Moral Majority scoreboard.

A surprisingly good Davidson team — #44 KenPom after being picked to finish last in the A-10 — has ridden a potent offense to quickly make a name for themselves as newcomers to the league.

Lineups

Starters:  Bartley, Yacoubou, Roby, Yarbrough, Manning

Same starting five as the previous outing against George Washington, earlier in the road trip.  Swapping Bartley in and McBroom out was not just a one-game experiment.

Minutes Leaders (non-starters in Bold):

1. Roby (27)
2. Yarbrough (26)
3. Bartley (26)
4. Austin McBroom (21)
5. Tanner Lancona (20)

With the game out of hand early and often, we saw a more balanced distribution of minutes.  That may not have been by design, as Roby finished with his quota of 4 fouls, and Yacoubou and Bartley mercifully fouled out.

DNP-CD:

• NONE

Everyone got a chance to run around on the Wildcat floor and do some stuff.  If we all hold our noses and squint hard enough, that can pass for a positive.

Four Factors

Leverage

The darker the pie, the worse for the program.  Lack of Leverage means lots of garbage time and little upon which to build, at least in the short and medium term.  Longer term, I am sure the coaches will keep this in their pocket for the next time SLU faces Davidson and they will rally around the notion that we owe them one.

SLU Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post)

• Yarbrough again shines as a bright spot with an efficient offensive performance — 18 points on just 11 shots
• Lancona with his first appearance this season up near the top of the charts.  Interesting here to contrast what the WAB supercomputer thought of TanLan’s performace (above) with the less-sanguine view of Brian Hank Haenchen.  Hank’s contention seems to be that Lancona’s numbers are skewed in that they only came in garbage time when the game was out of hand.  The WAB supercomputer — with the immense power of hindsight plus modern chip technology — knows that the entire game was garbage time and boldly rates Lancona’s use of that time more highly.
• Very limited minutes for Manning and I wonder what the story was there, as a five minute stint for a Starter is strange even in this season of spinning dials and carousel combinations.
• Gillmann and Jolly were the main beneficiaries of Manning sitting, logging 18 and 17 minutes respectively.   I again view this as an investment in the future, for the next encounter with Davidson, when hopefully some of the possessions matter.  That could be this year’s A-10 tournament, for all we know now.
• Bartley making 2 of 4 three point attempts goes down as another positive, as the rest of the team was catastrophic from deep.

Summary

Davidson had no trouble handling the young Billiken team just learning the ropes and the rigors of the road.

—————————————————————————–

AdjGS:  variation on the Game Score metric created by John Hollinger, detailed here.  Hollinger’s original formula is Adjusted to reallocate the points in the game by ratio of the player’s overall impact.  Credit to the team at Rock M Nation for this improvement.

True Shooting %:  Per Basketball Reference, true shooting percentage is a measure of shooting efficiency that takes into account field goals, 3-point field goals, and free throws.

Leverage:  Per Ken Pomeroy, measures how much is at stake on a particular possession.  Leverage is not based on what happened during the possession, but is the range of win probability based on what could have happened.  Learn more here.

DNP-CD:  Did Not Play – Coach’s Decision.  Healthy and otherwise eligible player who did not see any action in the game.

When you’re Fifteen and somebody loves you, ya gotta believe them. — Taylor Swift

When Milik Yarbrough played his Fifteenth college game, he went for a career-high 26 points against a big and experienced front line and the Father of Our Country.

George Washington (#37 KenPom.com) was an NCAA Tournament team last year (first round loss to Memphis) and is roughly on track for a return engagement this season, with a signature neutral court win over #19 Wichita St dulling the stain of losing at #110 Penn St.

In this one, it came down to a final GW block of a Mike Crawford three for the Colonials to shake Saint Louis.

Jerry Falwell Scoreboard

SLU is now 2-0, continuing to lead the A-10 conference in Moral Victories.  If the Bills stay Moral for a Majority, I will consider the conference season a rousing success.

Let me take a moment to argue with a straw man who wants to say “moral victories are garbage and breed losing”.   To this straw man, I say: yes, I agree that moral victories are no comparison to beating Kentucky by 25 on their home floor and after hand-shake hugs making out with Ashley Judd.  No question, Straw Man.

But Straw Man, you should consider that the far more probably alternative than Winning Going Away is Getting Completely Demolished.  And I would like you to show me how Getting Completely Demolished on a regular basis has ever led to team-building and a learning environment.   So I am going Moral Majority on you this season.

Lineups

Starters:  Marcus Bartley(!), Yacoubou, Roby, Yarbrough, Manning

Wow!  McBroom out of the starting lineup for the first time all season.  Bartley with just his third start.   In the last post, we wallowed in the sameness of the Starting Five and the shortening of the bench.  The Safecracker is not done twisting and listening.  Not yet.

Minutes Leaders (non-starters in Bold):

1. Yarbrough (38!)
2. Roby (27)
3. Bartley (24)
4. Austin McBroom (23)
5. Mike Crawford (22)

Big minutes for three Freshmen.  I wonder how much The Safecracker is celebrating his freedom from constantly shuttling 12 guys to get their 10 minutes each, as now he has traded his Deep Team Problems for Thin Team Problems.  Yarbrough wore out; Roby fouled out.

DNP-CD:

• Miles Reynolds
• Tanner Lancona

Reynolds sits for the second consecutive game, Lancona for the first.

When Grandy Glaze injured his shoulder in the preseason, his spot in the lineup seemed Lancona’s to lose.  As much as he has lost it going 0-12 from the three point line thus far (KenPom.com does not count games against non-Division I opponents, so for this discussion Tanner’s three-pointer against Rockhurst never happened), Yarbrough has decisively won it.   Lancona shot 36% from distance last season, so we expect progression to the mean over time.

Four Factors

 

GW handed it to SLU pretty handily in three of the Four Factors, but the Billikens shot well enough to overcome almost all of that.  GW will finish near the top of the conference this season, and our Billikens near the bottom, but on this night we went into the Charles E Smith Center and gave the Colonials, their fans, and their refs everything they could handle.

Quick shout out to Charles E Smith.  How much of a boss do you have to be to get a building named after you when the school is named after our greatest general and Founding Father.  If Chuck Smith University played basketball at the Geo Washington Center, would they be able to recruit well?

Leverage

The relatively low Leverage of this game  was mostly a function of its problematic initial state.  The KenPom.com computer gave SLU only a 4.6% of victory at the jump, and did not realize the Bills were even serious until they went up 24-16 twelve minutes into the first half.

Haters of pie charts, do not despair.  These dudes will be giving way to something better as soon as the WAB supercomputer is properly calibrated.

SLU Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post)

• Yarbrough carried the load and ignited the offense against a big and experienced frontline.  Also encouraging: he mostly avoided the penal whistle, only called for two personal fouls on a night where the referees set out to give Rammer a heart attack.  SLU was whistled for 26 fouls to just 14 for GW, but Yarbrough remained on the floor.
• Roby and AdjGS got together in the daytime, took a nice walk around the Lincoln Memorial and sorted out their differences over coffee.  The suddenly hot-shooting Roby’s offense rating (146) outpaced that of even the mighty Yarbrough (126).  Roby being Roby and refs being refs, he still fouled out.  More coffees to come.
• Always good to see Ash’s AdjGS outpace his points (9.9 to 7), as he once again battled on the boards for 6 rebounds
• McBroom tried his hand at Three-Point Specialist and worked that quite well, making 2 of 4
• Other Austin (Gillmann) showed a bit of Rob Loe 2.0 with a three-pointer and four nifty assists
• After a strong first game, then a mostly fallow non-conference, Mike Crawford seems to have stabilized and started to pick up from where he left off last season.  Here’s hoping the effects of his mysterious weight loss are in the rearview.
• Bartley asserted himself reasonably well in the surprise start with a performance Mike Shannon would love.  Deuces were wild for Marcus, as he hit 2 threes, grabbed 2 rebounds, dished 2 assists, and fumbled 2 turnovers.
• Less drag than last game from the Subtractors.  That all three were Bigs speaks to the relative strength of GWs front line, and further underscores the big night Yarbrough had.

Summary

Bills remain undefeated at 2-0 in the Jerry Falwell Conference, whilst falling to 0-2 in the Atlantic 10.  McBroom came off the bench as a designated three-point shooter, and The Ys Men (Yarbrough and Yacoubou) battled long and hard inside.   Late game was problematic for SLU and ultimately the Current Champs yielded to the Possible Future Champs.

—————————————————————————–

AdjGS:  variation on the Game Score metric created by John Hollinger, detailed here.  Hollinger’s original formula is Adjusted to reallocate the points in the game by ratio of the player’s overall impact.  Credit to the team at Rock M Nation for this improvement.

True Shooting %:  Per Basketball Reference, true shooting percentage is a measure of shooting efficiency that takes into account field goals, 3-point field goals, and free throws.

Leverage:  Per Ken Pomeroy, measures how much is at stake on a particular possession.  Leverage is not based on what happened during the possession, but is the range of win probability based on what could have happened.  Learn more here.

DNP-CD:  Did Not Play – Coach’s Decision.  Healthy and otherwise eligible player who did not see any action in the game.

The Billikens opened the Atlantic 10 season with a home loss to Rhode Island 65-53.  The Safecracker shortened his bench and narrowed his vision, at least for a night.

Lineups

Starters:  McBroom, Yacoubou, Roby, Yarbrough, Manning

We may be rocking The MYRYM Five for the rest of the year.  The first two seasons of the Crews Era at SLU have shown that once Coach has a starting five he is comfortable with, he is willing to stick with it.

Minutes Leaders:

1. Yacoubou (35)
2. Yarbrough (30)
3. Manning (30)
4. Roby (29)
5. McBroom (25)

DNP-CD:

• Miles Reynolds
• Brent Jolly

First time this year we have had healthy scratches, and another sign that The Safecracker is growing increasingly weary of twisting and turning and trying every combination possible.  SLU has dropped to #5 in the country in Bench Minutes, and it looks like the plan is to continue that direction.

Crews expects to stay with tightened rotations, but says “I don’t think it’ll be names. Whatever the names are, they may be different.”

— Brian Hank Haenchen (@Brian_Haenchen) January 3, 2015

This is his way of saying Reynolds and Jolly are not necessarily in the doghouse, but the days of 12 guys playing double-digit minutes a piece are probably behind us.  Sigh.

Four Factors

 

The Four Factors make a smashing debut here in WAB, barging through the door like Kool Aid with this message for all the kids: SLU played Rhode Island to a relative draw in several key areas, but critically broke down by turning the ball over WAY too much.  Agbeko (5 Turnover) and Yacoubou (4) in particular had handle trouble.

Leverage

What I want for this team for the A-10 season has nothing to do with wins and losses.   This team could run the table in a down A-10 and still not be invited to the NCAAs.   So instead I want a gauntlet of situations and challenges for this group to face and ultimately overcome.  I call these Meaningful Minutes.  KenPom.com calls it Leverage.

This game featured 77% of Medium-High to High Leverage.  Many opportunities to see what works and what doesn’t work in a context where possessions are important.

SLU Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post)

•  Another big game from Yarbrough, and seemingly the point where the mantle of Primary Scorer was passed from McBroom to Yarbrough.  At minimum the big Freshman joins the diminutive Junior to challenge defenses from different sections on the floor.  The geometry starts to take shape
• Solid effort from Manning, taking to heart my questioning his role as a Rim Protector by chipping in four blocks, including big ones down the stretch as SLU tried to come back.  In your face, WAB master!
• Ash mixed in a few Treats (11 pts, 7 rebounds) with a couple of Tricks (4 turnovers, 3 fouls)
• Quiet game from McBroom, as he faded into the background for this evening.
• Roby and AdjGS continue to do battle, as our man puts in 29 minutes of good hard work only to squeeze out a 0.01 of credit.  You will get your due, Davell.  Keep working, young man.
• Tough game for Agbeko — 5 TOs and 2 Fouls in nine minutes is whatever the opposite of “yeoman-like” work.  Let’s call is Namoey Work and move on.
• The negatives are  too many and troubling, but more disturbing to my eye are the DNP-CDs.  I wonder whether Coach Crews will start going into games knowing who will sit, or if he instead is going to try and read the opponent and set his lineup accordingly, much like a baseball manager has a lineup facing a Right-Handed Pitcher, and a different standard configuration for a Lefty.

Summary

 A loss, some thrills, and a short bench.  High leverage, and a possible passing of the torch.  The A-10 season begins.

—————————————————————————–

AdjGS:  variation on the Game Score metric created by John Hollinger, detailed here.  Hollinger’s original formula is Adjusted to reallocate the points in the game by ratio of the player’s overall impact.  Credit to the team at Rock M Nation for this improvement.

True Shooting %:  Per Basketball Reference, true shooting percentage is a measure of shooting efficiency that takes into account field goals, 3-point field goals, and free throws.

Leverage:  Per Ken Pomeroy, measures how much is at stake on a particular possession.  Leverage is not based on what happened during the possession, but is the range of win probability based on what could have happened.  Learn more here.

DNP-CD:  Did Not Play – Coach’s Decision.  Healthy and otherwise eligible player who did not see any action in the game.

SLU rang out the old with a 70-55 loss to a similarly young (Vandy is the 5th youngest team in the country; SLU is 14th youngest, per KenPom.com) but not-so-similarly offensive skilled Vanderbilt squad (Vandy is #25 in Effective FG%).  The Commodores went on a 15-2 run early in the first half while I circled the concourse for available nachos, and chances for victory sank as rapidly as my bloodstream’s fake cheese levels.

More disheartening than the loss, even more disheartening that the dearth of nachos, was the shortening of the bench.  Once leading the country in Bench Minutes — ahead of even vaunted Kentucky and their Two Platoon — we have now slipped to #3 overall.

School	Bench Minutes	Rank	Experience	Rank
San Jose St	49.1%	1	1.20	309
Southern Utah	47.5%	2	1.13	319
SLU	45.8%	3	0.98	336
Jackson St	44.9%	4	1.48	244
Kentucky	44.9%	5	0.82	345

Lineups

Starters:

• Austin McBroom
• Ash Yacoubou
• Davell Roby
• Milik Yarbrough
• John Manning

Minutes Leaders:

1. Yacoubou (36)
2. McBroom (33)
3. Yarbrough (24)
4. Roby (23)
5. Manning (22)

Yawn.  First time this season the Starters (brought to you as always by Starting is for High School(tm)) were also the Minutes Leaders.  We do not have a window into the mind of Jim Crews, but these numbers tell us that the Safecracker is tired.  Tired of the constant subbing.  Tired of the mismatched puzzle pieces.  Tired of the mistakes that come with learning.

SLU Player Stats

(Definitions at bottom of post)

• McBroom brings Shooting and Stability.  His early threes made it seem for a short while that SLU might hang around long enough to make it interesting.
• Ash brings Toughness.  On a day when the bigs were completely overmatched inside he got on the glass at both ends.  However, on this day that Toughness spilled over into Frustration as Yacoubou got into it with a few of the Vandy players as the game got out of hand.  Perhaps that Frustration contributed to an abysmal day at the foul line (0-5 after coming into the game 71% for the season).
• Yarbrough brings Offense.   He is comfortable with the ball more than he is solid with it, and willing to both face up and post.  Scratching out 13 points against a very large opponent (Vandy is #17 in Effective Height) shows what he can do.  Yarbrough commands a double-team, and surrounding him with Spacing and Shooters is the basis of an effective offense.
• Roby brings Defense.   Active hands, quick feet, and a willingness to stick his nose in it are his defining qualities.   Until we can count numbers like One-Man Traps, Passes Swatted Into Stands, and Balls Bounced Off Opponent Forcing Turnover, the box scores are not going to give Roby his due.
• Manning brings Length and Positioning.  Simply put, of all the bigs he is the one who is most often in the right place at the right time.  It is a stretch to call him a Rim Protector, but the Senior’s weakside help and rotations on defense are generally good.

On the offensive end, Manning had a lot of room to maneuver as Vanderbilt quickly recognized much of the SLU offense was going to run through Yarbrough and swung the attention his way.  But our Pick and Rolls were all Pick and no Roll, Manning is not a great candidate for Pick and Pop, and we are not swinging the ball fast enough to the weakside to exploit the overloads.  All in good time.

Summary

The non-conference season closes — along with 2014 — in a sobering fashion.   The Billikens looked rusty and uncertain where the Commodores looked together and imposing.  The personalities and strongest qualities of the starters seem to be revealed, but what we don’t know about the Bench remains voluminous.  As the conference season begins Saturday vs Rhode Island at Chaifetz, it appears unlikely SLU will be able to take advantage of a relative down year for the Atlantic 10.  My hope for 2015 is Enlightened Experimentation in the spirit of the full court press Coach Crews called for late in Wednesday’s game.  Invest in Education in 2015 and we will watch it pay off in the years to come.