Seton Hall: 11-8
Kenpom Rating: 55
Non-Con Strength of Schedule: 5th
Best wins:
88-66 v #61 St. John’s
Four Pirates w/ 14+ points, led by Dawes’ 22 points on 5-10 from 3
45-43 at #14 Rutgers
Held Rutgers to 34.6 2p%, 29.4 3p% and 19 turnovers
Worst loss:
55-60 hosting #163 Siena
Seton Hall was 1-9 from 3
Winners of three straight: Butler, Georgetown, DePaul, four of their last five after losing six of their last eight.
OFFENSE: 114th in efficiency
14th in FTA/FGA (42.0%)
78th in offensive rebounding rate (32.3%)
120th in offensive tempo (17 seconds/possession)
147th in A/FGM (52.1%)
185th in 2p% (49.8%)
269th in 3p% (31.8%)
274th in 3PA/FGA (34.3%)
302nd in turnover ratio (20.9%!!)
DEFENSE: 17th in efficiency
9th in 3p% (28.0%)
56th in block % (11.8%)
58th in steal % (11.2%)
86th in 2p% (47.1%)
133rd in 3PA/FGA (36.4%)
192nd in FTA/FGA (31.3%)
232nd in defensive rebounding rate (29.9%)
283rd in A/FGM (55.6%)
Other fun facts:
22nd in D1 experience (2.92 years average)
41st in D1 bench minutes (37.5%)
25 bench points per game leads Big East
Seton Hall is 11-1 when they keep their opponent under 70 points, 0-7 when they don’t.
Further reading: My season preview of Seton Hall written in late June.
What’s interesting about these metrics is that Seton Hall’s offense looks pretty similar to Kevin Willard’s last few teams in South Orange: play physically, attack the rim and sometimes, the best offense comes off an offensive rebound.
An extra wrinkle to how the offense looks now with Holloway: they give up a ton of turnovers. In fact, seven of Seton Hall’s rotation players have A/TO ratios less than 1.0, which does not include Kadary Richmond who gives up a team high 2.3 turnovers/game. Considering that UConn is 59th in the nation at defensive turnover rate, the Huskies are primed to take advantage of transition offense opportunities and finish with its first game leading the turnover ratio since the Creigton game.
No surprise that a Shaheen Holloway coached team is defensively elite. Not only does Holloway focus on D, but he now has even better athletes and length than what he rostered at Saint Peter’s (Seton Hall is the 54th tallest team in the nation and most of Seton Hall’s rotations feature four 6’6+ defenders.)
Rotation splits via KenPom.com
One thing that should bring UConn fan’s solace: UConn has bigger and/or better defensive guards to match up with Richmond after he dumped 27 points last season (I was in the building, to my demise) bullying defenders in the low post.
One surprising aspect of Holloway’s rotations from looking above: it’s almost like he runs separate offensive and defensive rotations. The starting lineup of Richmond/Dawes/Odukale/Ndefo/Samuel is clearly their best defensive lineup, but then it seems like whenever Jackson (one of their worst defenders, he reminds me a bit of a bigger Tyler Polley) is playing the 5, Ndefo is also out and Harris usually subs in, which gives Seton Hall a better shooting team, but a much less effective defensive group.
What does this mean? To put it simply: when Samuel/Ndefo are both on the bench and Jackson is in, take advantage and FEED THE POST.
If you haven’t watched Ndefo play yet, you can’t help but be reminded of Isaiah Whaley: an elite energy defensive firecracker glue guy of a power forward. Ndefo isn’t a very good offensive player, but watching the Seton Hall @ DePaul game, most of his offense was on post-up attacks and he’s got some creativity down low.
For Uconn, I’m curious if Hurley would try a Calcaterra/Hawkins/Jackson/Karaban/Sanogo starting lineup.
Why?
Even though Seton Hall has incredible metrics defending the perimeter, UConn should not be comfortable centering their offensive attack around Sanogo or Clingan, especially with Samuel and Ndefo’s ability to swarm opponents near the basket. Seton Hall is elite at preventing free throw attempts, so Newton’s offensive strength would be neutralized.
Calcaterra is a better shooter and has a turnover rate 6% lower than Newton’s, so he’d likely be a safer, more controlled stretch-the-floor option. On D, he matches up well with Dawes, an elite shooter, but easy to track since he does almost all of his work on the perimeter. That leaves Jackson to focus on Richmond, Sanogo on Samuel, Karaban on Ndefo, and Hawkins on Odukale.
Honestly, if there were a game to give Newton minimal minutes, especially after his performance at St. John’s, Seton Hall makes the most sense especially since UConn follows up this game with a much less defensively stout Butler to help get him back on track.
KenPom’s prediction: UConn wins 69-65.
No comments:
Post a Comment