#Hey10 Notes and Numbers for conference play’s first weekend

I don’t know if I’ll always be able to write these, but with our newborn Baby Buckets I find myself up at odd hours, looking through box scores, kenpom, etc. I figured I’d turn these notes into something half-readable and post them as a little viewing guide. I’m writing this on my phone using the WordPress app, so if these aren’t readable that’s why.

This opening weekend is really interesting to me because A) three of these matchups should tell us a lot more about the A10 hierarchy (Davidson @ Duquesne, Richmond @ Rhody, and can Mason finally keep one competitive against a top-75 team) and B) I feel like I only have a good read on two of the games. Let’s start with those first.

Dayton @ St Joe’s

• Dayton’s only real weakness is rebounding. Teams that won or kept it close, and their defensive rebounding rating: Colorado 13th, Saint Mary’s 22nd, Kansas 24th, Indiana State 86th

• Teams Dayton beat by 25+, and that victim’s kenpom defensive rebounding rating:

1. Charleston Southern, 345

2. Nebraska-Omaha, 196

3. Virginia Tech, 66

4. Houston Baptist, 338

5. Drake, 80

6. Grambling State, 285

7. La Salle, 225

• St. Joe’s defensive rebounding rate: 223rd

• You can’t keep Dayton close if you can’t rebound. Even if you can rebound you might still get smoked. St Joe’s also ranks 277 in opponent EFG, and Dayton is 1st in the country. No reason to think this is within 20 points. I keep trying to think of reasons St Joe’s keeps this close and coming up empty. Even a disinterested Dayton team wins by 15+.

UMass @ SLU

• SLU is a crappy shooting team and the way you beat them is with interior defense. UMass doesn’t have any. Some numbers on UMass opponents:

1. Take over 51% of their shots at the rim (2nd most in the NCAA)

2. Allow opponents to shoot almost 60% at the rim (middling but really bad for allowing such a high percentage of looks from there).

• Freshman Tre Mitchell, on the road, will have his hands full with Hasahn French.

• Jordan Goodwin and SLU’s team rebounding also important here. UMass 316th in the country in allowing offensive rebounds, SLU 21st in offensive rebounding. Sirens are sounding.

• We haven’t seen Dibaji Walker for UMass yet – he just became eligible and figures to play a lot, so he’s a wildcard.

• TJ Weeks still out – missing a 48.5% shooter really cramps the “surround Tre Mitchell with shooters” scheme UMass was building in the noncon

• Things that could go wrong for SLU:

1. Perimeter defense hasn’t been great and UMass can throw flames. Carl Pierre is 17-33 from 3 in the three games since TJ Weeks went down.

2. Tre Mitchell can also step out – I’d wager McCall tries him out on the perimeter to see if he can pull Hasahn French out of the paint. Ford will have to adjust.

3. UMass’s smaller lineup might cause matchup problems with back-to-basket big Jimmy Bell Jr. playing alongside French in the SLU frontcourt, but this feels like a Terrance Hargrove game anyway. He’s a talented freshman who gets buckets, but was slow to adapt to Ford’s defensive scheme. This should be a good opportunity for him to get lots of run against UMass’s porous defense.

Onto the ones that seem fairly obvious but I’m much less confident about:

St Bonaventure @ GW

• SB only lost to Buffalo because Osun fouled out in 17 minutes of action

• GW 3rd in the country in opponent 3p attempts – but that’s misleading because only 9 schools give up more looks at the rim

• Bonaventure offensive numbers at the rim aren’t very good this year, but I’ll bet that’s misleading due to Osun’s absence

• Amir Harris’ eligibility for GW is big – got 26 and 29 minutes in his only two games, and filled up the box score in both.

• Bonaventure has been wildly hot and cold, even with Osun in the lineup. Had trouble on the road against a bad MTSU team last game. On the other hand, GW hasn’t even kept it close against top-125 ish teams home or road this year.

• GW takes a ton of threes – over 43% of shots – and is a below average shooting team (32.6% overall). They’ll have trouble getting inside against Osun and will hoist a ton of 3s. Bonnies aren’t particularly good at defending the perimeter. Feels like a high variance game with GW playing at home.

• Bonnies defensive rating in games where Osun gets more than 25+ minutes:

1. Mercer – 0.82

2. San Diego – 0.95

3. Hofstra – 0.68

4. MTSU – 0.98

• Bonnies defensive rating all other games:

1. Ohio – 1.05

2. Vermont – 0.88

3. Siena – 1.11

4. Rutgers – 1.16

5. Canisius – 0.95

6. FAU – 0.93

7. Niagara – 1.03

8. Buffalo – 1.06

• I think I like Bonnies to win comfortably but not super confident. Amir Harris is the wildcard and GW can keep this close. This is an inconsistent but good Bonnies team on the road against a lesser opponent – could definitely turn into a stinker where both teams have trouble generating offense.

VCU @ Mason

• Mason has a couple issues that feel like they were exposed in the TCU thrashing:

1. Dominated in the paint by a much bigger team

2. Lack of creativity when ballscreen motion offense broke down

• I’m not as concerned about the 3p% (TCU shot 14-24) since they were due for regression. Mason defends the perimeter pretty well. Still allowing only 29% on the season

• Concerns for Mason:

1. Turnovers – not a bad turnover team but will have trouble with VCU’s pressure. IN PARTICULAR the two true bigs (Calixte and Oduro) have 25% and 18% TO rates, respectively. If Mason can’t feed the post without turning it over it’s gonna be a long night.

1. Ballscreen offense – good looks are sparse against teams that defend ballscreens well. VCU fits into this category.

2. Paint presence – AJ Wilson will block a few shots, but he’ll also draw MSS a lot, and MSS will get buckets

3. VCU gets Corey Douglas back. They have the option of going really big and punishing Mason in the paint with him and MSS together.

4. Crappy 3pt shooting – Mason only has two games over 35% from distance this season. That’s unpossible.

5. Bones Hyland is 8/11 from 3 in his last two games and Mason under Paulsen has been oddly susceptible to bench dudes coming in and torching them.

• Concerns for VCU:

1. Offense still hasn’t clicked. Marcus Evans has career low ORating and they’re under 49% from 2 on the season (209th on Kenpom). They shoot well from 3 but generally not so well that you’re comfortable with them relying on it.

2. Mason packs the paint but still manages to run teams off the perimeter pretty well. That’s a formula that has slowed down VCU this year.

3. Only 3rd true road game. Struggled with Charleston before pulling it out late, never got close to Wichita.

4. Justin Kier should be full strength. Mason played most of the early season without him. He upgrades Mason on both sides of the ball.

• Kenpom has it VCU by 5 and that feels right. VCU is vulnerable, but a little too much has to go right for a limited Mason team.

La Salle @ Fordham

• Whatever. Not going to spend much time here. La Salle is decent and Fordham is stinky.

• Fordham will mix defensive looks and can play a lot of zone if the situation calls for it.

• VCU played reserves for the last ten minutes of the conference opener and helped Fordham make the score look respectable. Fordham outscored them 13-7 during that time. Should have lost by 35.

• La Salle got mutilated by Dayton, but don’t judge them too harshly. That’s happened to a lot of teams. La Salle is comfortably better than Fordham, but they rely on shooting a ton of 3s and Fordham defends the perimeter pretty well. Fordham also forces a lot of turnovers, and that will be a factor against a loose handling La Salle team. Kenpom has this as a one point game but I like La Salle a little more than that.

These last two are coin flips

Richmond @ Rhody

• Strength against strength! 42nd offense vs 77th defense (kenpom)

• Richmond’s concern is they are small and do not rebound well at all. Rhody isn’t a great defensive rebounding team, but Richmond totally punts offensive rebound opportunities (301st in the NCAA – it’s a scheme thing, Mooney has never had a good offensive rebounding team). Rhody is a very good offensive rebounding team (86th) and Richmond is poor at defensive rebounding (241st). Big advantage on the boards for the Rams.

• Richmond is really good at keeping teams out of the paint (only 33% of opponent shots come at the rim) but opponents shoot a hot 62%. They try to force teams to bomb away from 3 (42% of attempts) and defend pretty well. This is the real strength against strength matchup – Rhody gets to the rim at a top-40 rate in the nation and shoots about 58% there. They are not a great 3 point shooting team so they’ll try to work it inside while Richmond will do everything they can to force the ball out of the paint. Home court feels important for Rhody here since they might need a couple 3s from role players.

• A couple important things to watch:

1. Golden on Langevine inside. Langevine should be able to single cover him, which lets Rhody press a little on the perimeter. Richmond shoots a ton from 3 (40.7% of attempts) and hits at a 38% clip. Rhody defends the 3pt line decently, but if they have to borrow help to cover Golden inside it could get ugly.

2. Rhody’s defense is good overall but they tend to look undisciplined in some of their losses. Richmond has great floor spacing and will try to backdoor cut them to death.

3. Gilyard on Fatts – this won’t tell you too much about scheme, it’s just going to be lots of fun. They both finally get to pick on someone their own size.

4. Jermaine Harris might start losing minutes to recently eligible transfer Antwan Walker. Harris hasn’t been great this year, and Rhody could use an upgrade at that spot if they want to throw some gas on the fire.

• Last thought: one of the most bizarre storylines of the season that’s not being discussed is Jeff Dowtin’s regression. He’s markedly lower in eFG%, O Rating, rebounding, assist rate, and steal rate vs last year. His shooting percentages have dropped all over the floor. I’ve been looking at URI as the presumptive favorite for the 3rd seed all season, but they won’t get there unless Dowtin figures it out. He’ll draw the much smaller Jacob Gilyard or Blake Francis most of the game, so if there’s ever a time for a get-right game this is it.

Davidson @ Duquesne

• This will be a 3point shooting contest. Both teams shoot 3s at top-60 rates (Dukes 42.9%, Davidson 45.7%) but Davidson hits at a much higher clip (36.3% vs 31%). Viewing tip: there’s always a shooter in the corner.

• Duquesne has the 33rd best 3p% allowed in the NCAA (28.9%). That’s probably due for some regression and Davidson’s outrageously good shooting can make that happen.

• This is a tough eval because Kenpom LOVES Davidson in ways that I do not. It wouldn’t surprise me to see them pull this out, because the middle of the A10 looks like a seven-car pileup right now, but they are limited athletically. Good test for us to see where this Davidson team really is in the A10 hierarchy. Duquesne is the kind of team that can exploit Davidson’s athleticism issues. Michael Hughes inside against Luka Brajkovic is a tremendous mismatch in the Dukes’ favor.

• Grady and JAG have both been good, not great, so it’s critical for them to have some supporting cast members step up. HyungJun Lee for Davidson is seeing a big uptick in minutes and points recently. He’s emerging as a nice complementary player to Grady and JAG and is 12-23 from 3 in his last five.

• Luka Brajkovic’s numbers are startlingly similar to his freshman year. He’s almost the exact same player. If you were high on Davidson in the offseason you were hoping for a little leap from him but it hasn’t really happened yet.

• Streak-shooter Tavian Dunn-Martin went nuts on Saint Louis Thursday (21 points, 5-10 from 3). I don’t think this Davidson team will let him do that.

• The more I look at this game the more I think Davidson’s going to have one of those shooting nights that makes it tough for Duquesne to hang around. Davidson walls off the paint really well and wants to turn the game into a longball contest. Duquesne’s style plays right into this.