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Post by luhoopsfan on Dec 10, 2012 9:57:20 GMT -5
The Bucknell game is a great opportunity for an RPI boost. Ken Pomeroy has them rated #41 and their RPI appears to be in the 25-30 range whcih is a huge road win potentially. Going in our favor - Garland's 1st game give Bucknell no way to prepare for him; Bucknell last played on 12/4 so they will have an 11 day layoff and might be a little flat-footed especially against a quick team like us. Items not in our favor - revenge (we blew the doors off these guys last year), they are disciplined and tough and won't roll over. I see our guys pulling out a tough, tough win 78-74
Beyond that, I look at the Iona, Sacred Heart and Siena games. Those 3 should be game we can likely expect to win if the guys play ball the way they are capable of. There's enough down time after Bucknell to let these guys avoid any kind of hangover against Iona and they have to bounce right back against Sacred Heart. Then there is a nice layoff between the Sacred heart game and a road trip to Siena, followed right up by the game at Miami before heading to Charlotte.
It's a little bit of a tough stretch, but there are no classroom issues during this time and hopefully all the time on the road helps these guys bond together.
There's a terrific chance that our guys go 3-1 in the next 4 games which means they are 9-2 beginnign A10 play. There's a better than average chance they win all 4 games and hit the A10 season with only 1 loss.
From there, I'm still not totally sold on Charlotte, they have a really weak schedule and own a nice win over Davidson, but they were so bad last year that I can't look past it. Doc G's teams have been really good on the road in his career and I like the chances of winning that game and then beating Penn on our floor.
we could hit mid-January with a really great record.
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Post by mikesmd77 on Dec 10, 2012 10:34:22 GMT -5
Hey guys, constant lurker, finally going to post a little throughout the year. I feel like we should definitely finish out our OOC strong and if we are going to be considered a contender to win the A10 and finally get back to the tournament, we have to see our team as a least a tossup with a team like Miami, because the A10 champ should be better than a mid level ACC team (Yes, Miami looks pretty good now and have that nice Mich St. win in their pocket, but even still) . Still very excited about our potential, we can do really big things this year.
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Post by ltrain38 on Dec 10, 2012 11:31:55 GMT -5
I do think Bucknell and Miami are games that we need if we're going to make a case for the tournament, since they would be two quality wins that are otherwise hard to come up with on our OOC schedule. But we have size problems against both of these teams. Miami has five guys that are at least 6-10 and I'm worried our bigs might wear out. Muscala for Bucknell is averaging 18 points 11 boards, or something crazy like that. I haven't seen either team play, wondering if any knows what else they have, and whether our guards should be able to make up the difference.
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Post by coqui900 on Dec 10, 2012 11:34:01 GMT -5
We managed to somehow take Muscala out of the game last year. He literally got benched because of how useless he was against whatever scheme we tossed his way. It was G's best coaching job, probably. I don't even remember him touching the ball anywhere close to a place where he could do damage.
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Post by ltrain38 on Dec 10, 2012 12:57:51 GMT -5
Yeah, I remember that he wasn't a factor, but I was only able to listen to that game, so I can't remember exactly what was done. As for Miami, I wonder if just spreading them wide with four guards and making them play small will be enough.
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Post by luhoopsfan on Dec 10, 2012 14:53:21 GMT -5
Our ball pressure ability should force a team like Bucknell to have problems setting up their offense early in the shot clock. We took Muscala out of the game because our perimeter defense kept their guards from getting the ball to him
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Post by goexplorers on Dec 10, 2012 15:51:49 GMT -5
Our ball pressure ability should force a team like Bucknell to have problems setting up their offense early in the shot clock. We took Muscala out of the game because our perimeter defense kept their guards from getting the ball to him That's exactly how Nova played such great D against bigger and better bigs when they ran 4 guards. Pressure the ball so that the guard can't make a good pass, front the big and have weakside help for a lob. I was always amazed how they neutralized guys like Hibbert, Thabeet, and guys like that...ball pressure from the guards is key. |
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Post by jellybean on Dec 10, 2012 16:25:58 GMT -5
Last year Bucknell's PG( Bryson Johnson) did not play due to illness or injury. That was a major break for La Salle. Bisons had a real difficult time handling pressure and their guards couldn't get the ball to Muscala.
Besides being the primary ballhandler, Johnson is really their only 3 pt threat (23-54). The rest of the team is 18-62.
Former La Salle recruiting prospects Cameron Ayers and Dom Hoffman play for Bucknell.
Look for La Salle to exploit Bucknell's weakness defending the three.
For those that say we shouldn't be that worried about Bucknell because they lost at Penn State let me remind everyone that they went into Purdue and beat the Boilermakers. That is not an easy thing to do.
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Post by cpico on Dec 10, 2012 17:19:17 GMT -5
Actually Bryson Johnson did play limited minutes against us last year (18 minutes and no points). Obviously he must not have been full strength.
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Post by luhoopsfan on Dec 10, 2012 18:09:42 GMT -5
Bucknell averages about 5 fewer fouls epr game than their opponent and gets to the line nearly 7 more times per game. As a team they shoot FTs at a 76% clip so they're getting about 5 pts more per game at the line. Muscala leads the way with 23 more attempts at the line than anyone else and makes it 82% of the time. he averages almost 19 PPG, almost 6 of which come from the line so he's scoring 13 PPG from the floor. He is the key. If he's not getting that many touches he's not going to be getting to the line as much and hopefully their offense is out of rhythm. To me, the key will be keeping Muscala out of the offense by full court ball pressure and our guards driving into the lane and trying to draw contact on him for some foul trouble. Hopefully a guy like Garland can get by his defender on the perimeter and get to the line. I expect Wright and Zack to both be in foul trouble all day with Muscala, but as I said, keeping the ball out of his hands or getting him on the bench would be huge. As he goes, that team will go.
Bucknell is allowing teams to shoot about 35% of their FG Attempts from beyond the arc. By contrast about 40% of La Salle's shots have come from beyond the arc this season. Our lowest % in terms of 3PA on the year was game #1 versus UDel at 22%. Other games where we've been below 40% are the Hartford and NorthEastern games (both 36%). Buknell doesn't have game-by-game stats so I can't say what the trend has been there. I would not expect this game to play out (in terms of shot selection) as it did aganst PSU, but maybe more like Nova (40% 3 pt attempts)
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Post by vasalos on Dec 10, 2012 19:42:11 GMT -5
Agreed Bucknell and Miami are big games. Bucknell's wins against George Mason and Purdue make this a solid win if we can get it. It's hard to believe that Bucknell lost to a Tim Frazierless PSU team though.
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rcoz
Utility Bench Player
Posts: 144
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Post by rcoz on Dec 10, 2012 20:01:04 GMT -5
i think iona will be the big game they have those 2 transfers from arizona but bucknell will be a tourney team as will miami so these will be 3 big time games
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Post by bison137 on Dec 11, 2012 13:45:41 GMT -5
Last year Bucknell's PG( Bryson Johnson) did not play due to illness or injury. That was a major break for La Salle. Bisons had a real difficult time handling pressure and their guards couldn't get the ball to Muscala. Besides being the primary ballhandler, Johnson is really their only 3 pt threat (23-54). The rest of the team is 18-62. Former La Salle recruiting prospects Cameron Ayers and Dom Hoffman play for Bucknell. Look for La Salle to exploit Bucknell's weakness defending the three. For those that say we shouldn't be that worried about Bucknell because they lost at Penn State let me remind everyone that they went into Purdue and beat the Boilermakers. That is not an easy thing to do. Hi. A few Bucknell comments: 1. Bryson Johnson has not played PG at all in his four years at Bucknell and rarely handles the ball. He is a 3-point shooting specialist. As someone else pointed out, he did play part of the game last year. 2. At the time of the game last year, Bucknell was using Cam Ayers - who is really a wing - as their PG. That didn't work very well - especially in the LaSalle game, which was clearly Bucknell's worst performance of the year. Immediately after that debacle, Bryson Johnson became the 6th man, Ayers moved into Johnson's spot, and a true PG was inserted into the starting lineup. That helped in terms of offensive flow but left them with one less offensive threat on the floor. 3. This year Johnson has improved his overall game and is starting and playing over 32 mpg - all at the two. Ayers is a still at wing - as he was most of the time after the LaSalle game last year - and BU is alternating several different PG's. 4. Johnson is definitely not the only Bucknell 3-point threat. Cam Ayers last year hit 59-126 (47%)- which was one of the top 3-pt years in Patriot League history and put him high on the national list. He has started slowly this year on threes, but much of that is simply a small sample size - he hasn't forgotten how to shoot them. Other than Ayers and Johnson, you're generally correct. Muscala can hit 40% from beyond the arc, but he rarely shoots from there. 5. I'm not sure I'd quite call Bucknell weak defending the three, but they are definitely mediocre. They almost never switch on defense which leaves them susceptible to off-ball screens and also situations where a man is temporarily beaten and has to get help - which leads to a drive and kick-out for an open three. This year BU is 189th (out of 347) in the nation in terms of its opponents' 3-point pct. Last year they were 177th. 6. Offsetting the above is that Bucknell is 9th in the nation in defending the two, and it is 22nd in the nation in defensive rebounding. Will be interested to see how well they do vs you guys in those categories. |
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Post by La Salle 08 on Dec 11, 2012 17:38:04 GMT -5
Here are our remaining OOC foes with their record and Pomeroy ranking as of 12/11:
Bucknell 8-1 (42)
Iona 3-4 (109)
Sacred Heart 2-6 (240)
Siena 2-9 (265)
Miami 5-1 (49)
UPENN 2-7 (243)
This Bucknell game is so so important, not only for getting a quality road win to boost our RPI but it could also steamroll us to a 9 game winning streak heading to the U.
My preseason hope was for 10-3 ooc record, so if we take care of business against the teams we should that should be our worst case record which is pretty nice. If we beat Bucknell I'm sure I'll get greedy and expect 12-1 haha.
Wright and Zack need to stay out of foul trouble against Muscala. Keep those feet on the floor and don't fall for the pump fakes that lead to easy and-1's.
I can't wait to see Garland in a real game. He was quicker (not more athletic) than Ramon in the open practice and should be able to get to the basket at will against most teams. The way we shoot the ball from outside, if he is able to drive and kick we might have a legit offense (the offense is about 100000x better now than it was 3 years ago but it is still painful to watch sometimes with the lack of off the ball movement).
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