Left Coast Pirates - Mid OOC Report

[LeftCoastPirates]

Here is our latest episode as we check in after the Charleston classic to review how the OOC schedule has started.

• Is Sha being fairly criticized?
• On court adjustments
• Roster construction
• Player evaluations
• Plus much much more.

Hope you enjoy.
https://on.soundcloud.com/MAFfChdkXCw49mPD8

 

[Mbrantfan88]

Charleston was a hard sell. I'm looking forward to Maui next year.

 

[MichiganStoleTitle]

FYI—you can hear radio post-game if you pull up game (on shu website or learfield app) and scroll to end of broadcast. It’s not posted separately but it’s there.

 

[LeftCoastPirates]

FYI—you can hear radio post-game if you pull up game (on shu website or learfield app) and scroll to end of broadcast. It’s not posted separately but it’s there.

Thanks for looking out. Will definitely try to get those sound bites in next time.

 

[cams555]

Unexpected surprise... happy holidays to you both.

I was playfully critical of the last podcast but rust is off, nice work men.

I hate to root against a kid but the worse that Kadary does the more ammo Sha has to keep players around after development.

 

[LBP43]

Charleston was a hard sell. I'm looking forward to Maui next year.

Charleston proved to be great venue and I had more than second thoughts of skipping -- Niko and his Team did a great and Rev. Msgr. Reilly charmingly spent time with so many that attended.

 

[Mbrantfan88]

Charleston proved to be great venue and I had more than second thoughts of skipping -- Niko and his Team did a great and Rev. Msgr. Reilly charmingly spent time with so many that attended.

I should have said, it was a hard sell on the wife. I've travelled to much worse places for the Pirates. One of them was East Rutherford.

 

[radecicco]

Charleston is a great venue. Perfect size gym and great restaurants.

 

[jack 1970]

4-3 start is not the end of the world but is disappointing given the Fordham and Hofstra losses.I think we'd all feel better at 6-1.

I'm most concerned about our offense averaging 58 ppg.We need to get this to 70 ppg to have a post season tournament like season.Unfortunately,I don't see where that additional 12 ppg is going to come from.

 

[HallBall02]

Rollercoaster of love, lol

 

[PROF Ed]

Been on a few Tournament trips. Charleston is one of my favorites. Great town and a great college vibe.

 

[papacheesy2]

Wow guys lol going hard in the drops and flops segment

 

[LeftCoastPirates]

Wow guys lol going hard in the drops and flops segment

lol. Normally I am looking for some color commentator who doesn’t cover our program to make some lazy comment about our program.

But not pronouncing players names correctly is a big pet peeve of mine. Especially from individuals who you would expect to know them at this point.

I mean Mamu wasn’t some rotation player, he was 1st team All-Big East and the face of our team his senior year. It’s unacceptable, if you cover the team, that you can’t say his name correctly after 7+ years.

 

[Mbrantfan88]

lol. Normally I am looking for some color commentator who doesn’t cover our program to make some lazy comment about our program.

But not pronouncing players names correctly is a big pet peeve of mine. Especially from individuals who you would expect to know them at this point.

I mean Mamu wasn’t some rotation player, he was 1st team All-Big East and the face of our team his senior year. It’s unacceptable, if you cover the team, that you can’t say his name correctly after 7+ years.

If the program gave out a sheet with phonetic spellings of the names, at least read it.

 

[TheHall87]

4-3 start is not the end of the world but is disappointing given the Fordham and Hofstra losses.I think we'd all feel better at 6-1.

I'm most concerned about our offense averaging 58 ppg.We need to get this to 70 ppg to have a post season tournament like season.Unfortunately,I don't see where that additional 12 ppg is going to come from.

We can't play at the pace required to score 70 points a game. Yes, our offense needs to (and should) improve but we need to play in the 60s.

 

[Piratz]

Rollercoaster... 🤣🤣 Well played, guys.

Man, I did not expect a trip down Bad Memory Lane with some of those previously bad offensive games.

 

[LeftCoastPirates]

We can't play at the pace required to score 70 points a game. Yes, our offense needs to (and should) improve but we need to play in the 60s.

I would challenge that statement.

During the Charleston MTE we averaged around 60 ppg

I know 10 ppg feels like an extreme jump. But if the players were to better understand their roles offensively and we find a way to get a lot of these inefficient FG attempts back into the hands of Coleman and Jenkins, then you could get closer to 70.

Probably won’t happen consistently. But play at the same tempo with more efficiency, continue to lock down the D, and we could be a difficult team to beat night in and night out.

Not going to promise that it will be easier on the eyes. But they could find a way to keep winning.

 

[TheHall87]

I would challenge that statement.

During the Charleston MTE we averaged around 60 ppg

I know 10 ppg feels like an extreme jump. But if the players were to better understand their roles offensively and we find a way to get a lot of these inefficient FG attempts back into the hands of Coleman and Jenkins, then you could get closer to 70.

Probably won’t happen consistently. But play at the same tempo with more efficiency, continue to lock down the D, and we could be a difficult team to beat night in and night out.

Not going to promise that it will be easier on the eyes. But they could find a way to keep winning.

That's fair but I suspect if the tempo increases, the defensive efficiency decreases. We were able to keep VCU and FAU in check at a slightly faster pace, Vanderbilt not as much.

It's a small sample size to be sure but we averaged 64 PPG in Charleston and allowed nearly 68. Granted we won two of the three.

I do agree we should be looking to run more when the opportunity arises, I just feel we are more dependent than others on forcing a slow tempo.

 

[LeftCoastPirates]

That's fair but I suspect if the tempo increases, the defensive efficiency decreases. We were able to keep VCU and FAU in check at a slightly faster pace, Vanderbilt not as much.

It's a small sample size to be sure but we averaged 64 PPG in Charleston and allowed nearly 68. Granted we won two of the three.

I do agree we should be looking to run more when the opportunity arises, I just feel we are more dependent than others on forcing a slow tempo.

Let me clarify.

I also do not want to increase tempo. Looking for easier offense on the fast break doesn’t have to be an all or nothing proposition.

What I was trying to say without calling out certain players is that some players need to not look for their individual offense unless it’s an uncontested open look.

But here goes. Through 7 games…

Wusu - 37% FG
Yalden - 36% FG
Middleton - 35% FG
Aligbe - 26.5% FG
Dual - 26.7% FG
Okorofor - 25% FG

These players need to be a little more selective in what shots they take. They shouldn’t be hunting their shot at all IMO. Play off of Jenkins and Coleman and hope to get more open looks at the basket.

Toumi (50%; 6-12) and Wusu (42%; 9-21) have been surprisingly effective from 3 point range. Everything else they do has been forced action at the rim. With Dylan barreling down the lane out of control and Toumi unable to hit FTs, asking them to dial back the aggressiveness off the dribble might be wise.

I would like to see Coleman and Jenkins getting 13 FGA per game instead of 9.

Take those 8 shots collectively away from that group above and you may end up with the 10 points we are looking for.

 

[Fishjam]

I would challenge that statement.

During the Charleston MTE we averaged around 60 ppg

I know 10 ppg feels like an extreme jump. But if the players were to better understand their roles offensively and we find a way to get a lot of these inefficient FG attempts back into the hands of Coleman and Jenkins, then you could get closer to 70.

Probably won’t happen consistently. But play at the same tempo with more efficiency, continue to lock down the D, and we could be a difficult team to beat night in and night out.

Not going to promise that it will be easier on the eyes. But they could find a way to keep winning.

I agree that if we just improved our offensive efficiency in several key areas, we could raise our points scored per game without necessarily increasing the pace much.

Our Turnover Rate, our 2-pt FG shooting and our Free Throw shooting are all in the bottom 5% of all Division 1 teams. That leaves a lot of points on the table. If we could improve just to Average in those 3 areas, that would be an extra 13.8 points per game, even at the current pace.

FT% - 60.3% (349th) - D1 average is 70.9% = 2 points
2FG% - 38.5% (358th) - D1 average is 50.9% = 8.8 points
TO% - 22.8% (345th) - D1 average is 18.0% = 3.0 points

Granted this is an overly simplistic way to look at it and doesn't take into account that we are likely over-achieving in 3-pt FG% which is likely to decline. But it does show that playing more efficiently could bring scoring per game up significantly. Are we capable of cleaning it up this year, we'll see.

Edit - Made in error in calculating potential 2FG% improvement. Corrected now.

 

[hallstorm]

Nice perspective on how to approach this season thus far especially in comparison to past coaches early career OOC results.

I think that’s an important point to remember as coaches get a better feel on how to prepare their team. We got so used to Willard in the back half of his time here when he was better vs. his early few years p

And while I know we all think that the OOC schedule is what will determine our post season status, playing worse toward the end of the season (like in the previous coaches’ tenure) isn’t optimal either.

Sha has to figure out how to push the right buttons early on because his teams do seem to get better toward the end of the season.

 

[jack 1970]

We can't play at the pace required to score 70 points a game. Yes, our offense needs to (and should) improve but we need to play in the 60s.

We're not going to win a lot of Big East games scoring in the 60's.

 

[mbraue]

Let me clarify.

I also do not want to increase tempo. Looking for easier offense on the fast break doesn’t have to be an all or nothing proposition.

What I was trying to say without calling out certain players is that some players need to not look for their individual offense unless it’s an uncontested open look.

But here goes. Through 7 games…

Wusu - 37% FG
Yalden - 36% FG
Middleton - 35% FG
Aligbe - 26.5% FG
Dual - 26.7% FG
Okorofor - 25% FG

These players need to be a little more selective in what shots they take. They shouldn’t be hunting their shot at all IMO. Play off of Jenkins and Coleman and hope to get more open looks at the basket.

Toumi (50%; 6-12) and Wusu (42%; 9-21) have been surprisingly effective from 3 point range. Everything else they do has been forced action at the rim. With Dylan barreling down the lane out of control and Toumi unable to hit FTs, asking them to dial back the aggressiveness off the dribble might be wise.

I would like to see Coleman and Jenkins getting 13 FGA per game instead of 9.

Take those 8 shots collectively away from that group above and you may end up with the 10 points we are looking for.

This is Sha urging them to drive the ball. Three starters are shooting the 3 better than 42 percent, and Toumi is shooting at 50 percent.

Toumi needs to hoist it when he is open more often than not. When any of these 4 have a wide open 3, need to take it.

 

[hallgrad80]

Looking at the stats posted in this thread it’s difficult to be optimistic about the rest of the season both in and out of conference games. Wouldn’t it be nice if Sha could bring in a quality mid season PG especially since all transfers are immediately eligible.

 

[lloyde dobler]

We're not going to win a lot of Big East games scoring in the 60's.

How many would they win scoring in the 70s?

It’s looking like it may be that kind of year.

 

[metalpirate07]

Tom, thanks for the shout out to Stream Punk for the press conference videos! That’s exactly why that was one of the areas we wanted to expand coverage because everyone can see the whole context of these conversations and you can see personalities better. It’s content die hard fans want that is not really out there widely as much as you would expect so we want to bring that to more viewers than just the handful of folks in the room at the time who pick the 1 or 2 best quotes. I don’t mean that as throwing shade at other journalists but I believe strongly that there’s more content out there that supplements Jerry Carino and the other folks doing this stuff for way longer than me. I want to remind everyone all these players and coaches are human and our mission at SPE is to show more of that human side to fans.