Twenty four oceans
Twenty four skies
Twenty four failures
Twenty four tries
Twenty four finds me
In twenty-fourth place — Switchfoot
Game Twenty-four on this rebuilding season was a slog, a donnybrook, a slugfest. SLU (#253 in KenPom.com during this rebuilding season) got down in the mud pit with Dayton (#37) in a late night tilt at Chaifetz Arena. If you recall last season, the Flyers came into Chaifetz and spoiled the senior night party, sending the tired Billikens to their third straight loss and seemingly ending hopes of the Bills repeating as A-10 champs.
The Bills would rebound with a clutch win at UMass on a clutch drive by Jordair Jett to secure a second straight A-10 title. And those Flyers would soar as well with an improbable, electric run to the Elite Eight.
Last year’s team won with Offense (#38 KenPom in AdjO Efficiency). This year they are woefully undersized due to a pair of early-season suspensions, and horribly thin (#325 in Bench Minutes) but are getting it done with Defense (#23 AdjD Efficiency) and getting to the free throw line (#3 in FTA/FGA).
This was a must-win for the Flyers to keep pace with VCU and Rhode Island at the top of the conference.
Jerry Falwell Scoreboard
Let’s run through a few characteristics of this game:
- Opponent coming off an Elite Eight appearance
- Opponent in contention for an A-10 title
- Opponent headed to the NCAA Tournament
- Late night game on National TV, if you count NBC Sports Network as such
- High leverage through the entire second half
This is the very definition of a Moral Victory. So in SLUs quest for a moral majority this counts in the W column. SLU stands 10-14 overall, 2-9 in the Atlantic 10, and 5-4 in the Jerry Falwell.
Lineups
Starters:
- Marcus Bartley (12 starts this season)
- Davell Roby (22)
- Ash Yacoubou (24)
- Milik Yarbrough (15)
- John Manning (19)
Manning back in the starting lineup after a couple games away recoving from concussion-like symptoms.
Minutes Distribution (non-starters in Bold):
- Yacoubou (34)
- Bartley (29)
- Roby (28)
- Yarbrough (23)
- Austin Gillmann (19)
- Manning (16)
- Mike Crawford (14)
- Tanner Lancona (10)
- Austin McBroom (9)
- Miles Reynolds (8)
- Reggie Agbeko (6)
- Brett Jolly (5)
The Minutes skewed much more heavily toward the Starters than most games this year. Dayton’s resolute insistence on challenging much bigger players — particularly the fearless sophomore Kyle Davis — rendered SLUs huge size advantage mostly useless.
Four Factors
The Billikens did not win any of these categories, but muddied the waters enough to keep three of the Four down to only slight advantage. The big red bar to the right shows very clearly the method Dayton used to win this game: fearless attack from all angles and all players to win the FT rate battle.
This is such a bold and interesting style for a team that is undersized and short-handed as the Flyers are. If the calls tilt the wrong way, particularly on the road, foul trouble can handcuff this team more than most. With just one Senior among their six rotation players — they play about six and a half each game — you can’t call this team Experienced (#221 per KenPom.com). But the quality of their experience and their coaching shows poise beyond the counting numbers of years and minutes.
We at WAB and the 16×18 Society are looking for these qualities in the Billikens.
Leverage
This game again broke the WAB Supercomputer, with High Leverage off the scale (20:15), including almost the entire second half. SLU led the first half, withstood a couple of runs by the Flyers, but water drip-drip-dripped and the better team prevailed in the end.
SLU Player Stats
(Definitions at the bottom of the post)
- Take a look at the top and bottom lines for a moment. By their cavernous differences in AdjGS (Yacoubou 32.3, Bartley minus 26.7) we would call Yacoubou’s a great game and Bartley’s a complete disaster. But look closely: both shot poorly, both had 4 turnovers, both committed 3 fouls. The real difference was Yacoubou had just enough positive contributions to offset those negatives. In a High Leverage game with little margin for error, every little thing counts. So though AdjGS blows positive and negative contributions WAY out of proportion in this case, within the context of this game it seems entirely appropriate and indicative.
- Roby would fit in very well with the Flyers this year. Heck, he could probably play center for them at 6’4″.
- As Yacoubou vs Bartley is informative, we examine Agbeko vs Jolly. We suspect Jim “Safecracker” Crews had the intention of using Brett Jolly as his Flyer anti-aircraft missile off the bench. Jolly instead hacked two quick fouls and committed a turnover. Meanwhile, Agbeko used his minutes wisely and provided a matchup problem. In hindsight, we wonder what extended Agbeko minutes could have yielded.
- Yarbrough again struggled as he regresses to his early season numbers
Summary
If you enjoy high scoring, marksmanship, and getting to bed early, well you really hated this matchup. But if you are interested in how grit, poise, determination, and teamwork can steal a road win, this year’s Dayton Flyers are the team for you. SLU did well to sling mud with them, putting Forty good minutes in the bank for the future.
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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.