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.

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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.

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