A little here; a little there

[Norm Peterson]

2 hours ago, basketballjones said:

I honestly think that's underselling the ceiling of this team. We return quite a bit. I don't think the B1G will be as good (am I wrong there?). And our additions are pretty unbelievable for NU standards. Our subtractions might even be more of a benefit? 

 

This is kind of why I was asking about weaknesses of this team over in the expectations thread.

 

We lose our best overall rebounder (Banton) and our best per-minute offensive rebounder (Yvan). So, rebounding is probably a concern. The bigs we have don't seem to have Blaise Keita's toolkit and aren't likely to force double-teams when we get the ball into the post. And that's OK, but it means we better be pretty amazing at a couple of other spots.

 

Bryce could be pretty amazing. We sure hope he is. I think our overall shooting is going to be lights out compared to last year. That'll help.

 

I think this team will be a lot better than last year, but I just don't have a good sense of by how much.

[aphilso1]

Rebounding does seem like the area that we're most likely to take a step backwards.  In a perimeter-oriented offense, you get a lot of long rebounds.  That benefits teams that have size at the guard positions and Banton and Teddy certainly capitalized.  Banton was also an exceptional defensive rebounder for his position.  Also, while I like Lat and think he's poised to take a step forward offensively, he's not a great rebounder relative to his position.  Your starting PF is often your team's best rebounder, and he is below average at boxing out and average-ish at snagging 50/50 boards.  DW, even undersized a bit, can fight for position inside and neutralize the other team's big...but somebody has to actually bring the rebound down.  

 

I have a weird feeling that Trey will be one of our top 2 statistical rebounders.  Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

[HuskerFever]

1 hour ago, aphilso1 said:

Rebounding does seem like the area that we're most likely to take a step backwards.

 

You're right... we're going to start making more baskets, which leads to fewer rebound opportunities 

[Norm Peterson]

54 minutes ago, aphilso1 said:

Rebounding does seem like the area that we're most likely to take a step backwards.  In a perimeter-oriented offense, you get a lot of long rebounds.  That benefits teams that have size at the guard positions and Banton and Teddy certainly capitalized.  Banton was also an exceptional defensive rebounder for his position.  Also, while I like Lat and think he's poised to take a step forward offensively, he's not a great rebounder relative to his position.  Your starting PF is often your team's best rebounder, and he is below average at boxing out and average-ish at snagging 50/50 boards.  DW, even undersized a bit, can fight for position inside and neutralize the other team's big...but somebody has to actually bring the rebound down.  

 

I have a weird feeling that Trey will be one of our top 2 statistical rebounders.  Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

 

That's interesting about Lat. One of his key attributes as a juco recruit was his rebounding. Yeah, sure, some other guy on his team might be out there scoring more points, but Lat goes and gets the rebounds. That was the book on him, at least, and I would have expected more from him last year in the rebounding dept, and maybe we'll see it this year.

 

I don't know what the exact breakdown will be for Lat this year, but last year, exactly 2/3 of his shot attempts came from beyond the arc. His 138 3-pt attempts were most on the team. I think the number of attempts goes down a bit while his efficiency should go up. I'm counting on other guys becoming the 1st, 2nd and 3rd options from beyond the arc. That will allow Lat to take better shots at more opportune times. I also think he's working on adding some versatility to his offensive game and we could see more shots at the rim this coming season than we did a year ago.

 

I think Alonzo Verge is going to be a LOT better at stressing defenses with dribble drives than ANYONE we had a year ago. And that will mean someone standing on the low blocks is going to be the beneficiary of some easy dunks from dump downs when Verge gets past his initial defender. That guy could be Lat. But I think Lat will also work at trying to opportunistically drive to the rim when opposing defenses are vulnerable. And that will happen when they're spending a lot of effort chasing our shooters off the 3-point line. Lat's pretty quick for a 6-9 guy and I've seen a number of clips of him this summer driving to the basket and scoring. He actually has a deft touch around the rim. That could be a little bit of a hidden weapon.

 

My guess is we'll see Lat jump up into double-figure scoring (he was relatively close to that a year ago.) He'll be joined by Trey, Alonzo and Bryce. That's my guess, anyway.

 

We have a luxury of having more guys on this roster who should be threats to score than we have had in a long, long time. So I think there are probably a couple of other guys who have the potential to be in the conversation of leading scorers. But based on what we've heard and seen, you'd have to think the smart money is on Verge, the McGowens, and Lat.

[aphilso1]

43 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

 

That's interesting about Lat. One of his key attributes as a juco recruit was his rebounding. Yeah, sure, some other guy on his team might be out there scoring more points, but Lat goes and gets the rebounds. That was the book on him, at least, and I would have expected more from him last year in the rebounding dept, and maybe we'll see it this year.

 

 

Huh.  I don't recall that being the scouting report on Lat coming out of JUCO, but I also didn't follow his recruitment all that closely. 

 

I just looked up our rebounding stats from last year to see if by chance my impressions were wrong.  If anything, I think these numbers validate my subjective impressions.

 

Total rebounds per game:

1 Banton 5.9

2 Walker 4.8

3 Teddy 4.7

4 Lat 4.5

5 Trey 3.9

 

Surprisingly, Trey is our third-leading returning rebounder.  So perhaps my prediction that he will be in the top 2 isn't as 'hot' of a take as I thought it was.

 

Defensive rebounds per game:

1 Banton 4.9

2 Lat 3.7

3 Teddy 3.5

4 Trey 3.4

5 Walker 3.3

 

Banton was indeed an exceptional defensive rebounder for a guard at 4.9 defensive boards per game.  There was a logjam for second place, with Lat, Teddy, Trey, and DW all snagging pretty similar numbers despite being asked to play very different roles. DW was stuck playing fisticuffs in the paint with B1G centers that had a 4" advantage on him; many nights his job was just to box out a big ugly, and by and large he did that well.  But that's where you need your power forward to step up and snag those boards, and Lat only hit the glass as effectively as guys much smaller than him like Teddy and Trey.  I find that problematic.  And that's probably where my impression of Lat being a net negative rebounder comes from.

 

Offensive rebounds per game

1 Yvan 1.8

2 Walker 1.4

3 Teddy 1.2

4 Banton 1.0

5 Lat 0.8

(Trey was 8th at 0.5)

 

First, let's just recognize how adept Yvan was at positioning himself for second chance opportunities.  1.8 ORPG in limited minutes is pretty darn good.  Teddy and Dalano both averaging a full offensive board per game from the guard positions is also really solid.  But now those three guys are gone.  Where do the offensive rebounds come from this year?  My guess is that this is where Trey makes a big leap forward.  He's got the junkyard dog mentality needed to come down with those 50/50 balls.  And now that the two bigger guards are gone, I think Trey will have more of a greenlight to go for offensive rebounds rather than being the safety net that has to get back on D.

Edited August 13, 2021 by aphilso1

[Norm Peterson]

13 minutes ago, aphilso1 said:

Huh.  I don't recall that being the scouting report on Lat coming out of JUCO, but I also didn't follow his recruitment all that closely. 

 

2020 PF Juco Lat Mayen - Signed - Page 3 - Husker Hoops Recruiting - Husker Hoops Central

 

From @TheKamdyMan: "His juco does a lot of giving guys minutes spread out.  He has started 14 of 16 games and leads the team in minutes per game at 20.6.  He is 6th in points at 9.6, 1st in rebounds 7.9, and getting 3 ast per game.  He shares a lot of minutes with his 4 star teammate Marial Mading who plays a very similar position."

[Crush78]

29 minutes ago, aphilso1 said:

DW was stuck playing fisticuffs in the paint with B1G centers that had a 4" advantage on him; many nights his job was just to box out a big ugly, and by and large he did that well.  

Lat also had this role a lot in the 1st half if the season playing a decent amount at the 5 during Walker's suspension, I wonder what his rebound rates look like for his minutes at the 4.

[Norm Peterson]

Guys who I think *could* be >40% from three:

 

Lat Mayen

Bryce McGowens

Keisei Tominaga

CJ Wilcher

 

Guys who I think *should* be >35% from three:

 

Trevor Lakes

Lat Mayen

Bryce McGowens

Trey McGowens

Keisei Tominaga

Kobe Webster

CJ Wilcher

 

Other guys who I think *could* be >35% from three:

 

Wilhelm Breidenbach

Keon Edwards

Alonzo Verge

The only guy I haven't mentioned besides the bigs is Quaran McPherson and that's because I just have no idea what he brings to the table. He could be the best player on the roster for all I know. I just don't know enough about him. But this list is, I think, realistic. And it kind of puts it in visual terms why I think this team could jump a bit in the league standings in 3-point accuracy: Seven guys on the team who legitimately could be expected to shoot 35% or better from beyond the arc.