We don't match up particularly well against WVU (only a handful of teams do), especially when we aren't making shots and don't have Terrence Shannon. Shannon does a lot for us defensively, on the glass, and offensively (mainly, finishing in transition or getting to the FT line, which we could not do on Saturday). We need him back. Badly. I don't think it's an obvious answer which FR is more important to this team.
On a positive note, we defended WVU very well under the circumstances. I bet Beard would've signed up for giving up only .88 points per possession, which may end up being the best anyone does against WVU at their home court.
The second half was one of the worst offensive halves we've seen under Beard. I think we scored a basket on 6 out of the first 30 2H possessions. Overall, it was the second lowest scoring output in the Beard era (.71 points/poss). The lowest was Duke last year. Unfortunately for us, the next two lowest in the Beard era were road trips to Kansas State (2017 & 2019).
Offensively, I'm no where near ready to push the panic button. We've played the #1, #5, and #21 best defensive teams per kenpom. It's so hard to score in the half-court in the Big 12, and that's where we'll continue to live because our transition offense has been a disaster.
Defensively, in conference-only stats, Tech's allowing the most offensive rebounds and giving up the most free throw attempts per possession. Again, not ready to push the panic button yet because (1) our game plans against Baylor and WVU were to hack their bigs on all paint touches, and (2) no one in the country is going to have an easy time boxing those two teams out.
Kansas State won't (or shouldn't) threaten us on the offensive glass nearly as much. Although I still expect this to be a really tough game with KSU's season, seemingly, on the line after three straight conference losses (and WVU & KU up next).
KSU also has a guy (Xavier Sneed) that should be a good match-up guarding Clarke. I expect this to be a very low scoring game. The total is currently around 125.5, which seems about 5.5 points too high at first glance. I don't really have a good feel re: predicting the outcome of the game but, gun to my head, I'll say Tech wins 59-58.
Shooting Woes:
Per Synergy, on jump shots off the dribble, Tech is 41/149 from the field, which is in the bottom 7% nationally. Not good.
The closer we are to the basket, the worse we shoot (probably because the shots are more contested). On jumpers from less than 17 feet out, we're bottom 13% nationally; from 18 feet to the 3-pt line, we're 42% nationally; and from beyond the 3-pt line, we're top 70th % nationally.
We're still missing uncontested jumpers at really high rate relative to our makes on contested looks.
Defensive Improvement
As mentioned above, we're starting to play some really good half court defense and are in the 88th percentile nationally. Our transition defense has also vastly improved from where it was against Houston Baptist & Iowa. This should keep us in every game except maybe 1 going forward.
Shooting woes aside, Kyler continues to grade out extremely well defensively (top 96% nationally). He's a large part of why we've played such good half-court defense since the Depaul game.
To Kyler's credit, he's having to take the majority of our late-clock shot attempts, when no one is going to score at a particularly high clip. I doubt he needs it, but I'd give Kyler the modified-to-basketball version of the advice my dad used to give me during a hitting slump: just keep jackin' em up and something good might happen.
On a positive note, we defended WVU very well under the circumstances. I bet Beard would've signed up for giving up only .88 points per possession, which may end up being the best anyone does against WVU at their home court.
The second half was one of the worst offensive halves we've seen under Beard. I think we scored a basket on 6 out of the first 30 2H possessions. Overall, it was the second lowest scoring output in the Beard era (.71 points/poss). The lowest was Duke last year. Unfortunately for us, the next two lowest in the Beard era were road trips to Kansas State (2017 & 2019).
Offensively, I'm no where near ready to push the panic button. We've played the #1, #5, and #21 best defensive teams per kenpom. It's so hard to score in the half-court in the Big 12, and that's where we'll continue to live because our transition offense has been a disaster.
Defensively, in conference-only stats, Tech's allowing the most offensive rebounds and giving up the most free throw attempts per possession. Again, not ready to push the panic button yet because (1) our game plans against Baylor and WVU were to hack their bigs on all paint touches, and (2) no one in the country is going to have an easy time boxing those two teams out.
Kansas State won't (or shouldn't) threaten us on the offensive glass nearly as much. Although I still expect this to be a really tough game with KSU's season, seemingly, on the line after three straight conference losses (and WVU & KU up next).
KSU also has a guy (Xavier Sneed) that should be a good match-up guarding Clarke. I expect this to be a very low scoring game. The total is currently around 125.5, which seems about 5.5 points too high at first glance. I don't really have a good feel re: predicting the outcome of the game but, gun to my head, I'll say Tech wins 59-58.
Shooting Woes:
Per Synergy, on jump shots off the dribble, Tech is 41/149 from the field, which is in the bottom 7% nationally. Not good.
The closer we are to the basket, the worse we shoot (probably because the shots are more contested). On jumpers from less than 17 feet out, we're bottom 13% nationally; from 18 feet to the 3-pt line, we're 42% nationally; and from beyond the 3-pt line, we're top 70th % nationally.
We're still missing uncontested jumpers at really high rate relative to our makes on contested looks.
Defensive Improvement
As mentioned above, we're starting to play some really good half court defense and are in the 88th percentile nationally. Our transition defense has also vastly improved from where it was against Houston Baptist & Iowa. This should keep us in every game except maybe 1 going forward.
Shooting woes aside, Kyler continues to grade out extremely well defensively (top 96% nationally). He's a large part of why we've played such good half-court defense since the Depaul game.
To Kyler's credit, he's having to take the majority of our late-clock shot attempts, when no one is going to score at a particularly high clip. I doubt he needs it, but I'd give Kyler the modified-to-basketball version of the advice my dad used to give me during a hitting slump: just keep jackin' em up and something good might happen.
