WVU's Ridiculously Good Defense
Per kenpom, WVU's allowed the lowest eFG% in college hoops, including the second lowest % from behind the three-point line. While some hoops scholars think that 3-point shooting defense is mostly random & luck, I think the effect of WVU's bruising playing style wears down the legs of smaller guards, causing them to shoot below their usual average.
WVU's opponents have made a huge effort to try and score in transition (WVU has faced the 52nd most transition possessions in the country), despite the fact that WVU is allowing the second fewest points per transition possession in the country.
Why are teams pounding there heads into the brick wall that is WVU's transition D? Probably because the alternative of trying to score in the half-court against all of those rim protectors is even more difficult of a prospect.
Tech's Offensive Gameplan
I don't anticipate Tech will mirror the above strategy (forcing the issue in transition). While we'll certainly be opportunistic in transition, I bet we try to force WVU's bigs to guard our small-ball lineups for extended periods in the half-court.
Outside of K-State shooting out of their minds, no one's really found much success against WVU's defense (in their other two losses on the road, WVU held KU & St. Johns to well below their season average in terms of points per possession).
The only possible weakness might be defending the pick-and-roll. So I expect Tech to go with heavy doses of ball screens with Kyler/Morro/Clarke/Ramsey as the initiator, especially if one is being guarded by Jordan McCabe or Chase Harler.
This game could turn on our ability to place Culver or Tshiebwe in early foul trouble, even if a game plan of challenging these two at the rim isn't the most efficient way to run offense from a points per possession standpoint.
WVU's Post-Ups
No surprise, here. But only 3 P5 teams in the country create more shots out of post-ups than WVU. While WVU hasn't been particularly efficient from an eFG% standpoint out of post-ups, they're drawing more shooting fouls in this spot than all other P5 teams besides Duke & Creighton.
I liked Tech's game plan from a few weeks ago to defend Culver & Tshiebwe, who only scored 16 points on 24 possessions (11 shot attempts, 8 shooting fouls, and 5 turnovers). That game plan was centered around denying post entries altogether and then fouling the hell out of them when unsuccessful.
I also expect us to utilize that token full-court pressure look to eat away the shot clock and lessen the likelihood of a post up from occurring.
WVU's Putback Opportunities
Similar to their high volume of post-ups, only one other P5 team is generating more put-backs from offensive rebounds than WVU.
I went back and looked at some of WVU's offensive rebounds against Tech from the first game. Here's how they broke down:
Examples of Impossible Box Outs
Below are two examples of how our defensive scheme occasionally creates positional advantages for offensive rebounders. Keep in mind it's very likely that we defended both of these actions exactly the way we intended to, by forcing the driver middle or by switching every screen.
Here, Kyler forced Maxey to drive baseline, likely as intended.
However, after some less-than-ideal rotations, Ramsey found himself completely sealed by the other big.
This left Clarke as the only person to challenge Maxey's shot at the rim. Clarke does his job and forces a miss but Clarke's aggressive contest left Richards unimpeded for an easy put back.
This sequence shows McCullar and Morro switching a perimeter ball screen. As you can see, if the ball handler can simply get to the basket and put the ball on the rim, Morro has, by my estimations, about a .067% chance of grabbing this rebound over Tshiebwe. And Holyfield (under the basket) can't help because it's taking everything he has to keep Culver off the glass.
Prediction:
Do I think WVU is a bad match-up for Tech? yes.
Am I so mentally weak that I'll end up betting WVU like I did UK to hedge my emotions? yes.
Do I think Tech being favored by 2.5 points means it's more likely than not that Tech wins? Absolutely, I trust the line.
Thus, I'll attempt a martingale strategy and bet on Tech with 2x the amount of RRS e-cred that I lost on Saturday after picking Tech to cover against Kentucky.
Gimme Tech 63-60.
Per kenpom, WVU's allowed the lowest eFG% in college hoops, including the second lowest % from behind the three-point line. While some hoops scholars think that 3-point shooting defense is mostly random & luck, I think the effect of WVU's bruising playing style wears down the legs of smaller guards, causing them to shoot below their usual average.
WVU's opponents have made a huge effort to try and score in transition (WVU has faced the 52nd most transition possessions in the country), despite the fact that WVU is allowing the second fewest points per transition possession in the country.
Why are teams pounding there heads into the brick wall that is WVU's transition D? Probably because the alternative of trying to score in the half-court against all of those rim protectors is even more difficult of a prospect.
Tech's Offensive Gameplan
I don't anticipate Tech will mirror the above strategy (forcing the issue in transition). While we'll certainly be opportunistic in transition, I bet we try to force WVU's bigs to guard our small-ball lineups for extended periods in the half-court.
Outside of K-State shooting out of their minds, no one's really found much success against WVU's defense (in their other two losses on the road, WVU held KU & St. Johns to well below their season average in terms of points per possession).
The only possible weakness might be defending the pick-and-roll. So I expect Tech to go with heavy doses of ball screens with Kyler/Morro/Clarke/Ramsey as the initiator, especially if one is being guarded by Jordan McCabe or Chase Harler.
This game could turn on our ability to place Culver or Tshiebwe in early foul trouble, even if a game plan of challenging these two at the rim isn't the most efficient way to run offense from a points per possession standpoint.
WVU's Post-Ups
No surprise, here. But only 3 P5 teams in the country create more shots out of post-ups than WVU. While WVU hasn't been particularly efficient from an eFG% standpoint out of post-ups, they're drawing more shooting fouls in this spot than all other P5 teams besides Duke & Creighton.
I liked Tech's game plan from a few weeks ago to defend Culver & Tshiebwe, who only scored 16 points on 24 possessions (11 shot attempts, 8 shooting fouls, and 5 turnovers). That game plan was centered around denying post entries altogether and then fouling the hell out of them when unsuccessful.
I also expect us to utilize that token full-court pressure look to eat away the shot clock and lessen the likelihood of a post up from occurring.
WVU's Putback Opportunities
Similar to their high volume of post-ups, only one other P5 team is generating more put-backs from offensive rebounds than WVU.
I went back and looked at some of WVU's offensive rebounds against Tech from the first game. Here's how they broke down:
- 2 were air balls & essentially lucky breaks for WVU
- 1 was Ramsey watching the ball and losing his man & 1 was Kyler thinking about helping on to a driver and losing sight of his man, although it was much less egregious than Ramsey's instance.
- 1 was the result of Clarke fronting the post. There's some give and take here. If you're selling out to stop the post entry by fronting the big (which we absolutely should do), the guy fronting the post is going to be at a positional disadvantage on any shot attempt from the perimeter. I don't think we really have an answer to giving up this kind of offensive rebound.
- 1 occurred while McCullar was fighting his ass off to grab the rebound over 3 WVU guys. IMO, Mac was fouled. We can live this one.
- 1 occurred after an open-floor turnover by Holyfield, which lead to a transition lay-up attempt before our defense/box-out scheme was able to get set up.
- 1 occurred after a pick-and-roll forced us to switch Morro onto Tshiebwe (see images below). The driver out of the pick-and-roll attempted a contested shot at the rim, but there was essentially nothing Morro could do to box out Tshiebwe on his roll to the basket. Unfortunately, I think we're living with this one, given our scheme of switching every ball screen.
- 1 occurred after Clarke played great on-ball defense on a drive to the rim. However, due to the nature of our constant rotations on defense, Clarke was driven all the way under the basket before switching on to Culver. The driver then brought the ball back out, reversed it for a shot, and Clarke was trapped way too far under the basket to have a chance at grabbing the rebound.
- 1 was arguably an over the back by Tshiebwe over Kyler. However, we allowed a very easy post entry to Culver (guarded by Clarke). This resulted in Benson leaving his man to help contest Culver's shot, which allowed the man Benson was guarding to tip the ball towards Tshiebwe.
- 6 of WVU's offensive rebounds were, arguably, not preventable. Because they were either the product of our defensive scheme, luck, or a loose ball foul drawn by McCullar.
- 3 were easily preventable, if Ramsey/Kyler were more locked in or if Holyfield didn't force a pass that lead to fast break.
- 1 was arguably preventable if we don't allow such an easy early post entry.
Examples of Impossible Box Outs
Below are two examples of how our defensive scheme occasionally creates positional advantages for offensive rebounders. Keep in mind it's very likely that we defended both of these actions exactly the way we intended to, by forcing the driver middle or by switching every screen.
Here, Kyler forced Maxey to drive baseline, likely as intended.
However, after some less-than-ideal rotations, Ramsey found himself completely sealed by the other big.
This left Clarke as the only person to challenge Maxey's shot at the rim. Clarke does his job and forces a miss but Clarke's aggressive contest left Richards unimpeded for an easy put back.
This sequence shows McCullar and Morro switching a perimeter ball screen. As you can see, if the ball handler can simply get to the basket and put the ball on the rim, Morro has, by my estimations, about a .067% chance of grabbing this rebound over Tshiebwe. And Holyfield (under the basket) can't help because it's taking everything he has to keep Culver off the glass.
Prediction:
Do I think WVU is a bad match-up for Tech? yes.
Am I so mentally weak that I'll end up betting WVU like I did UK to hedge my emotions? yes.
Do I think Tech being favored by 2.5 points means it's more likely than not that Tech wins? Absolutely, I trust the line.
Thus, I'll attempt a martingale strategy and bet on Tech with 2x the amount of RRS e-cred that I lost on Saturday after picking Tech to cover against Kentucky.
Gimme Tech 63-60.
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