Game Thread: Xavier vs. DePaul (12/29/2018)

[whopper]

that is why it is important for Xavier to stay relevant..this is a valuable franchise. After watching St Johns v Seton Hall last night, and Providence v Creighton today, Villanova v Kansas I am aware that it will be a tough year and any win will be by the skin of our teeth. The blown call at the end of the St John game was legendary. You dance with who brung you so lets go X. Expectations are not high but I hope will be exceeded

[Juice]

So DePaul struggles a bit in attracting a crowd. As I was walking to the arena 20 minutes before tipoff I bought the cheapest ticket available on StubHub without really even looking at the location. Here was my view.

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Taxpayers put up 82.5 million dollars for that place...for a private university...unbelievable.

https://www.illinoispolicy.org/taxpa...e-projections/

[Snipe]

he simply wasn't a good shooter as a freshman. He wasn't abysmal but he was moderately poor. But, he spent much of that off-season working on his shot mechanics while he was out with a foot injury. It seems like it took him some time to consistently adopt the new mechanics at the beginning of the sophomore season because he didn't get a lot of off-season reps with it with live ball threes. That seems to account for his horrid shooting in the non-conference slate last year; he frequently seemed to be "in between" old and new mechanics, so unsurprisingly, he missed a lot. By about the middle of last year, things seemed to finally click and he was consistently shooting with the new mechanics. He went on to shoot 39.5% in the conference slate.

Now, I don't think Goodin's "true shooting percentage" is nearly 40% but on good shots, I also don't think it's under 30%. I am pretty confident that we are going to see a shooting percentage in the mid-30s for the conference slate this season.

Shooting 39.5% for the Big East Conference as a Soph was huge. I don't understand why you don't think his (with your quotes) "true shooting percentage" is nearly 40%. Well Big East play is 18 games plus tournament, and 39.5% is 40% when you round it up. Our kids are just that, they are kids. This is his first year as an upper classman, and he has a lot on his plate. He played 40 minutes last game, and we needed every one of them. He has had an injury early on that has affected this teams development in my opinion. He may be our most critical asset as point guard.

Playing a full Big East Schedule and shooting 40% from 3 as a Soph is a big deal. Probably enough to give the coach confidence to tell him to keep shooting. Now I get the point about rhythm threes. We don't get enough rhythm threes because we have been lacking at the whole playing in rhythm thing. But this team has not played that many games together. We have a lot of new pieces and a lot of moving parts. Our defense is suddenly coming together. Our offense will not be far behind. I see our rhythm coming together.

At times I have seen Naji and Q trying to do too much for sure early on in this season. I think that they will learn once they can depend on other players that they don't have to force it and let it come in the flow. Q is shooting 27% right now, and people hate it for sure. He is a much better shooter than that and will prove that as this team develops. I have no problem with Q shooting the ball.

[Snipe]

Defense has certainly improved since the beginning of the season...

November...7 games and averaged 75.3 points allowed per game. (4-3 record)
December...7 games and averaged 64.7 points allowed per game. (5-2 record)

But I think that the competition will be overall better in January, so it’ll be interesting to see if they can continue to improve. I think that they will need to continue to get better in order to keep the average at 65 or lower. I also think that if they can do that they will have a chance to win most games.

I think that our defense against Depaul was very good. This team is getting better.

[Snipe]

Welp. It was a win, but I'm very bothered still by a number of things...directly attributed to coaching. Here's reality. Xavier took 15 3's in the first half. There were only 5, that's FIVE TOTAL post touches. 4 of those post touches led to scoring 9 points. There were ZERO touches in the post after 10:53 of the first half all the way to 18:03 of the second half - Almost THIRTEEN MINUTES of none-when Hankins traveled. This is with DePaul's non-starting center in the game because Xavier's bigs got the starter out quick. How can't the staff see that and adjust?
For the whole game, Xavier took 26 threes. Welage was 5-8. That means that the rest were 5-18- 28%. This while Xavier's bigs can't get a post touch.
WHAT????
Also. when DePaul went zone, there was no Xavier player flashing to the middle to receive a pass and make the defense collapse. That is basic offensive basketball. DePaul was playing a 2-3 that left the foul line open. Where was the flash?
Somebody please question Travis Steele on where the post entry passes are...while substandard 3 point shooters are jacking shots? At least a post touch could lead to a pass back out to a guy to create a better look. The schematics of this and the staff's inability to recognize/emphasize is bothering me......A Helluva LOT!!

Our center position is incredibly efficient. It is an absolute strength. The Xavier Big Man Factory strikes again.

Watching our offense play against DePaul, you would have no idea that Zach Hankins hits nearly 3 out of every 4 attempts at the hoop, or that Tyrique hits 66%. We have under-used assets in play, and it blows my mind. The kids will get that at some point and begin to exploit it, and it will make everything better.

I still want to have a lineup that has both Hankins and Tyrique, but Tyrique likes to make physical contact with the other team so often that we don't yet have the possibility of them playing together. I think Hankins could give us 30 minutes a game and ration his contact. I don't have the same faith that Tyrique could ration his contact. He is a human heat seeking missile at times.

I love our big men. We are going to get better at feeding them. We have to do that to be successful. Our effort so far in doing this is not enough.

[Masterofreality]

Taxpayers put up 82.5 million dollars for that place...for a private university...unbelievable.

https://www.illinoispolicy.org/taxpa...e-projections/

And that’s not counting the land value. The estimated construction cost of $165 million is questionable because there were some accounting tricks used. The parking garage isn’t included, The Land isn’t included and there were overages. I heard DePaul’s actual contribution went over $100 million. Makes the original Cintas at $44 million a bargain. Thank you Top Jimmy & Dr. Bill.

[GoMuskies]

Anybody else who went to the game on Saturday not really know where the arena was beforehand? I'm driving past Comiskey Park and I see on my GPS that I'm only 1.5 miles from the arena. Made me just a touch nervous. There's a neighborhood that's changed in the last 20 years!