Today was a pretty good day for the AU Eagles and their fans as we beat Brown in Providence 76-68. It was a complete game all the way around, and there are a lot of positives about the way we played. Certainly some negatives as well, and you'll get to hear all about them as soon as you click "Read More." As always, here's the recap and box score. And away we go!
THE GOOD
Nick Hendra - You know, the coaching staff was telling anybody who would listen that Vlad Moldoveanu was the best player on the team. That may be true, he may be the most talented player on the team, but no one is actually playing better on this team right now than Nick Hendra. It feels like every game is a career one for him lately, and today was no different. A career high 18 points on 6-12 shooting (4-8 from behind the arc) with 6 rebounds, 4 assists, and a steal against only one turnover in 35 minutes of play. Seems like Nick may have gotten a little bee in his bonnet with all the talk (including from this blog) about how Vlad was coming to come in and run the show. Nick can create his own shots, which is a great skill to have when you've got two freshmen running the point, but he can also dish the ball and crash the boards. Awesome game, Nick. Keep it up into league play.
Stephen Lumpkins - Lumpkins picked up his third career double-double and his third double-double of the season today. I know, I know, the recap from Athletics tells you it's only his second of each, but I'm giving credit for the one he picked up in pre-season. 13 points and 11 boards for Lumpkins along with 3 steals (one of which he took coast to coast for a dunk), 3 assists, and a block, all in 31 minutes. The one downside here was that Brown's Peter Sullivan, who I believe was Lumpkins' man for most of the game, also got a double-double this afternoon. Still, if we can consistently get 8 and 8 from Lump, I'll get off his back about how he still has trouble finishing his shots, doesn't draw fouls well, and can't really do much from the free throw line when he does draw fouls.
Simon McCormack - This is borderline because he only went 1-5 from the field and 2-3 from the line to finish with 4 points. But he also grabbed 7 boards, notched 2 assists, and didn't commit a turnover in 26 minutes. It's not flashy from Simon, but he's been giving Jeff Jones solid minutes all season, hustles like mad, doesn't make stupid mistakes, and makes it really hard for JJ to take him out of the starting lineup with his consistent play.
Three-point shooting - Especially in the first half, the three point shooting was crazy. 8-14 BEFORE halftime from long range. Including two from Joe Hill who is now shooting 60% on the year from behind the arc (6-10). We were only 1-3 in the second half, but we had no reason to shoot the deep ball as we had at least a 7 point lead for almost the entire half.
Turnovers - Only 11 in this game. We're taking very good care of the ball now, and some of that errant passing that plagued us early this season has disappeared.
Vlad the Impaler's first half - At halftime, Vlad had 14 points and only 2 fouls (one of which he received with 25 seconds left in the half, which is pretty annoying). I thought he was going to blow up for another DePaul type game. He didn't. More on that in a moment, but the first half was really special. He gave the Eagles a quick burst with two early 3's, and they never looked back from there.
THE BAD
Vlad the Impaler's second half - Vlad finished the game with 15 points (that means he got all of 1 in the second half) with 3 turnovers, 2 assists, and a block. Oh yeah, and he fouled out. That makes it 19 fouls he's committed in 5 games. I said it in the last Good, Bad, and Ugly, and I'll say it again, this trend is not an issue on the refs, it's an issue with Vlad. I don't know if the refs are calling things here that he's not used to in FIBA play or what, but it's getting a little out of hand. He's too valuable to us as a player to be constantly in foul trouble the way he is. Jeff Jones had better have a little sit-down with him and tell him to focus and stop committing these cheap fouls. They've already hurt us in two close games, and I'll bet this blog that they'll hurt us more in the future if it keeps up like this.
Fouls in general - There's no reason for us to put up 24 personal fouls on a team like Brown. They weren't bigger or more athletic than us. There's just no reason for it. The refs may have called a tight game (43 fouls total in the game) but we've got be more disciplined than that against a team we didn't need to be fouling.
Free throws - When I say this team is starting to look like last year's with the free throws, I'm being anything but complimentary. 13-21 (61%) isn't atrocious, I guess, but it certainly isn't anything to write home to Brian Gilmore about either. There's a lot of games where some or all of those 8 points would make all the difference. I know they've got a lot of things to work on in the gym (new sets, ironing out the kinks, etc.) but put some time in from the charity stripe, please?
THE UGLY
If we had given away the game and let Brown come back (which we almost did, they came back to within 3) then there would have been an excoriating rant here. Luckily, we had a gut-check moment and pulled it out. So no specific ugly for today's game. There was a lot of average play though, which is why this entry is kind of short.
I do have a question for the commentariat out there. Maybe this should be a poll of the week, but I'll ask it on a preliminary basis here. What would you all think of doing a weekly power rankings for the players on the team based on overall performance week-to-week? Is that something that would be interesting/entertaining for all of you?
Lastly, I know we've been lax here on the regularly scheduled entries lately (PL Check-In, Speculation Tuesday, etc.) Sorry about that. Now that the holidays are behind us, we should be better about that. Stick with us!
Anyway, congrats to our Eagles today for a very great win. Let's get a winning streak going against Columbia on Monday!
Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!
A few interesting stats after today's game:
ReplyDelete- AU now has more wins on the road (2) than at home (1) on the season. Call it the Vlad factor if you want, but I do think it says something about the lack of support at Bender this year.
- Vlad now has half as many fouls as our worst fouler (Lumpkins - 40) but has only played in a third of the games. The Implaer's averaging 3.8 a game.
- Hill is now averaging 4.5 pts in 6.3 minutes per game. That's some damn good production as far as I'm concerned.
- Hendra is averaging more boards per game than Riley.....
Tom,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great stats! Definitely appreciate the heads up.
Riley's production has been dropping off in all facets of the game. He's getting edged out by Vlad I think.
What is all the negativity about the two freshman point guards. This team should be grateful that they are here. For most of the season the upperclassmen have had trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time. You need to be grateful these kids can play ball. On any other team of experienced and/or talented players their numbers would be impressive.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - I didn't detect any negativity about the point guards in this post at all. If you read the liveblog Bill in fact informed a relative of Blake how we feel. To paraphrase, "that he is doing great work for this team." While we may be somewhat harsh about individual performances, overall the attitude here is certainly that both Danny and Blake are excellent players and we're happy to have them on the team. Best of all, they have three more years to continue to improve, and I know I have said numerous times that in a season or two they are going to be some real forces to be reckoned with on the court.
ReplyDeleteBoth freshmen point guards came in unprepared to play Division I ball. It's that simple. They are lucky that the cupboard was bare, because on other AU teams, going all the way back to 1976 (my first year at AU), they would not get a whiff of being on the court.
ReplyDeleteThat is not to say they don't have potential. Lots of room for improvement.
The Gilmore family is keeping up with AU basketball and hope to get to some of their games this year. We enjoy reading your blog - thank you for writing it!
ReplyDeleteOkay, Anonymous, I'll bite. This is what you considered to be the "negativity" about Blake and Danny "Nick can create his own shots, which is a great skill to have when you've got two freshmen running the point." I don't think there's any way you can say that Blake and Danny now have all of the polish they will have by the end of the year, let alone next or subsequent years. The fact is, pure and simple, they don't create shots for the rest of the team the way they will in the future. Each is averaging about 2 assists per game, which is good, for freshmen, but it's not absolutely great in terms of starting point guards.
ReplyDeleteLike Steve and Josh both said, there's an incredible amount of potential there. The fact that JJ has had enough confidence to have both of them start speaks volumes (even though that is in large part due to the cupboard being bare, like Steve said). As they continue to compete against each other, each will only get better. On a PL scale, it's kind of like the competition that Eric Bledsoe and John Wall would have at UK if Wall wasn't leaving at the end of the year. Still, tons of room for improvement.
Bottom line, they've done well, for freshmen. We need whatever they can give us because we don't have anyone else.
I get that I shouldn't be too critical because they've been thrust into positions that they (arguably) weren't quite ready for. The line I quoted above was supposed to be praise for Hendra, not a slam to Blake and Danny.
Mrs. Gilmore - Thanks for reading! Can't wait to have you at the games. Send our warmest wishes to Brian!
ReplyDeleteI just noticed... Lumpkins came off the bench in this game.
ReplyDeleteJoe,
ReplyDeleteHe did that last game, too. I think soon we'll see Riley coming off the bench the way he's been playing though.
Can someone forecast how the Eagles will do in Patriot play. Army is looking good, but the rest of the conference looks up for grabs.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Liveblog yesterday, very unscientific:
ReplyDeleteHow Many Wins Will AU Get in PL Play?
0-3 - 11%
4-7 - 44%
8-11 - 44%
12-14 - 0%
Maybe Josh will speculate on this topic on Tuesday
They should be better than .500 in conference play. The current record is skewed due to pre-Vlad. But the team needs someone(s) else to step up and put in some points. The current PPG will not take them anywhere and with the lack of offense, they drastically need to cut down on turnovers and increate the free throw percentage. I thought some of the sophmores would step up. Except for Lumpkins that is not the case. JJ needs another NCAA appearance to create a sustainable patriot league powerhouse. Barring that, JJ will have to continue to use his magic year after year, but eventually a coach is as only good as the players and visa versa. As a long time fan who can only get info from the box scores, the Eagles need to cut the turnovers, shoot better from the line, create more inside scoring opportunities for the 3 big guys, and find a 4th player that can put up double digit points. So what happened with the Snodgrass kid, was he an overrated bust?
ReplyDeleteWe don't know what happened with Snodgrass other than that he transferred to North Florida. Apparently he had hurt his ankle and had the flu at some point during the past semester. We thought he had a lot of promise here, but he never got any playing time. It's got to be hard for a player who was a star in HS to go into no playing time, especially when he sees (at the time) three other freshmen getting consistent minutes over him. I don't know if JJ didn't like what he saw in practice or what, but I think it's a shame he transferred. From all reports he was exceptionally talented for the PL level.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Snodgrass situation, here my two cents:
ReplyDeleteLike Bill said, we don't know if it was an issue with Jones not liking what he saw in practice, or if there were greater issues where Josh felt like he needed to be closer to his family in Florida.
Barring those, however, if he is the type of guy who is going to call it quits because his ankle is busted for a few weeks and he doesn't see play, then he's not AU Eagle material. I don't care how talented he is. If he thinks he needs to go elsewhere for his basketball skill to be validated, then I'd rather his ego be there. He's playing in the Patriot League, it's not like he has an NBA resume to worry about. Good riddance.
Again, that is completely barring some greater issue. But that's $.02.