I bite my tongue and dry my tears
You know the day is done, but not the years
Twenty Six lives,
Will flowers ever grow here? — Saints of Valory

In Game Twenty-six the reeling and road-weary Billikens (#251 KenPom.com) visited #26 VCU.  The first game between these two was a Friday-night thriller worthy of Prime Time and National Television, won by the Rams on a furious drive by likely A-10 Player of the Year Traveon Graham.

Graham sat out the last 16 minutes of this edition as VCU cruised to the 74-54 win, keeping pace with Dayton, Rhody and UMass at the top of the conference.

Jerry Falwell Scoreboard

SLU went down early 10-2, then 27-17 and did not put up much of a fight.  SLU falls to 10-16 overall, 2-11 in the Atlantic 10 conference, and 5-6 in the Jerry Falwell.   The breaks are now officially beating the boys on our quest for a moral majority this season.

Lineups

Starters:

• Miles Reynolds (1st start this season)
• Davell Roby (24)
• Ash Yacoubou (25)
• Milik Yarbrough (17)
• John Manning (21)

Miles Reynolds gets his first start at VCU and Jim Crews completes the task of getting every SLU player at least one start.

— stu durando (@studurando) February 18, 2015

Well done, Safecracker.  Reynolds has shown an incredible ability to get to the foul line, and this strength bears exploring against an over-aggressive Havoc defense. Minutes Distribution (non-starters in Bold):

1. Roby (27)
2. Yarbrough (24)
3. Yacoubou (21)
4. Marcus Bartley (21)
5. Mike Crawford (21)
6. Austin Gillmann (19)
7. Reynolds (17)
8. Austin McBroom (12)
9. Reggie Agbeko (12)
10. Tanner Lancona (11)
11. Brett Jolly (8)
12. Manning (7)

Reynolds started, but Bartley got more minutes.  Manning started, did not get in foul trouble, but hardly played.  Twelve guys got to play and see Havoc in its home environs.

Four Factors

The Four Factors were indicative of the margin and lack of drama in this game.   VCUs margin in any of the Four may have tilted a tight game in their favor, but a clear and clean sweep left no doubt.

Leverage

No leverage to be found.  This game was a long-shot before the opening tip, and never heated up.  The featured image at the top of this post really tells you all you need to know.  In it you see a fully developed and highly skilled Man (Traveon Graham) virtually licking his chops against an unsure, untested and lightly mustachioed Boy (Miles Reynolds) experiencing Havoc for the first time.

SLU Player Stats

(Definitions at the bottom of the post)

• Yarbrough broke out of a mini-slump with a solid game, shooting over 50% from the field, pulling down five boards and limiting turnovers and fouls
• And despite earlier comments, Reynolds did a solid job running the point, including his usual outsized effort of getting to the line (6 free throw attempts in 17 mins)
• Bartley’s three-point percentage continues to rise.  After a perfect 3-3 against VCU he is now up to 42.9% on the year, second only to McBroom (45.9%).
• Crawford did more Stability Team work, dishing and fouling with only a few shots
• TANNER LANCONA, FROM THREE…….YES!!!!!!

This has been a horrific shooting year for the Sophomore.  Last season in limited minutes, Lancona shot a respectable 5-14 (35.7%) from three.  That season was on par with Billikens of the recent past such as:

• Tommie Liddell – 2008 – 34.9%
• Tommie Liddell – 2009 – 35.4%
• Mike McCall Jr – 2012 – 34.8%
• Rob Loe – 2012 – 35.1%
• Austin McBroom – 2014 – 35.2%

This year he is 2-24, which comes to 8.3%.  I could not find a similar season-long single-digit percentage slump, save Miles Reynolds 1-15 (6.7%).  Lancona looks like he could bang the boards, he showed last year he could hit some open 3s, but this season has just been a Sophomore Slump.  The geometry of the SLU offense does not work when the 4 man is neither stretching the defense nor pulling down rebounds.

Summary

The Billikens concluded their Farewell Tour, saying goodbye to their back-to-back Atlantic 10 titles and passing the torch along to a new champion.  They did the league a favor by not pinning any bad losses on the top contenders, doing their part to keep five teams NCAA hopes alive — VCU, Dayton, Rhode Island, Davidson and UMass.  It will be an exciting finish….for them.  For us it is a learning experience and just the start of a journey.

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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.

FTRate:  Per Ken Pomeroy, free throw rate is calculated by 100*FTA/FGA. This measures a player’s ability to get the line relative to how often he attempts to score.

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