By Paul Casey Gotham
Gone to the guards
A quick look at some statistics reveals that a few teams are doing their scoring from the outside – in. The highest scoring big man in the country is Vlad Moldoveanu from American who is averaging 20.8 a game. That ranks 13th in the country. Gary Flowers (So. Miss.) is 13th with 20.6 and Purdue’s JaJuan Johnson is 15th with 20.5.
It will be interesting to see if this trend continues as teams get deeper and deeper into conference play. When March comes, usually the teams that can rebound and score around the basket survive the longest. Unless, of course, you are the 2009-10 Duke team. But then you need three perimeter scorers.
Maybe this year will be different.
Here are the top ten scorers in the nation.
| RK | PLAYER | TEAM | GP | MPG | PTS | ||||||
| 1 | Jimmer Fredette, G | BYU | 20 | 33.9 | 26.7 | ||||||
| 2 | Kemba Walker, G | CONN | 18 | 35.8 | 25.0 | ||||||
| 3 | Charles Jenkins, G | HOF | 20 | 37.8 | 23.7 | ||||||
| 4 | Marshon Brooks, G-F | PROV | 20 | 34.9 | 23.6 | ||||||
| 5 | Xavier Silas, G | NIU | 17 | 32.2 | 23.6 | ||||||
| 6 | Andrew Goudelock, G | CofC | 20 | 34.8 | 23.4 | ||||||
| 7 | Adrian Oliver, G | SJSU | 16 | 33.5 | 23.3 | ||||||
| 8 | Anatoly Bose, G-F | NICH | 16 | 33.5 | 22.5 | ||||||
| 9 | Klay Thompson, G | WSU | 20 | 34.2 | 22.2 | ||||||
| 10 | C.J. McCollum, G | LEH | 20 | 33.2 | 21.7 |
For the complete list, click here.
Like father, like son Part II
Part I of this ran a couple of weeks ago. Click here to go to it. I was surprised by the tepid response to the possibility of a Rochester hoops discussion. 🙂
A few more to add to the list. Ray McCallum Jr. received scholarships from UCLA and Arizona. Instead, McCallum chose Detroit where he is playing for his dad. The younger McCallum has range. Trey Ziegler plays for his dad, Ernie, at Central Michigan. Doug McDermott is lighting it up for his dad and the Creighton Bluejays.
This week’s Game Day Thread
Last week we had a nice crew watching the Temple-Xavier game and adding in-game comments on The Pine. This week we are going for a Saturday brunch with two games: Temple-St. Joe’s 11 a.m. on ESPNU and Xavier-Richmond noon on ESPN2. Join in the analysis.
Friendly fire
When the Xavier Musketeers played at St. Bonaventure last week, the contest brought together a group of coaches who are more than familiar with each other. Bonnies’ coach, Mark Schmidt spent seven years as an assitant under the late Skip Prosser at Xavier. Schmidt was responsible for putting the likes of Brian Grant, David West and James Posey in Xavier uniforms. Musketeers’ current skipper, Chris Mack was XU’s director of basketball operations for the last two years Schmidt spent with the X-Men. XU’s associate coach, Pat Kelsey was a backup point guard from 1995-98 at Xavier. SBU assistant, Jeff Massey played guard at Xavier from 1993-95.
“He’s my best friend in the business,” Mack said of Schmidt. “A guy I really look up to and admire. It’s hard to play against him.”
“If we weren’t in the Atlantic 10, we wouldn’t be playing against each other,” Schmidt added. “We were friends after the game. We’ll be friends after the game.”
Familiarity breeds…
Teams are knee deep into conference play, and that means familiarity. Guys who have seen each other on a regular basis are less likely to be fooled on the court.
How else can one explain that Pittsburgh entered play Monday averaging 80 a game, and Notre Dame boasted 75.5 an outing. The final score between Big East rivals? 56-51.
Some other low-scoring conference games of note:
West Virginia 56 South Florida 46
Texas A&M 64 Kansas State 56
Arizona 65 Washington St. 63
Cincinnati 53 St. John’s 51
Florida 45 Auburn 40
Tennessee 59 Georgia 57
Rebounds & Putbacks
Take a tour of Western New York hoops with Bob DiCesare and Rodney McKissic.
Zach Hayes offers some love for Xavier’s Chris Mack in his Ten Tuesday Scribbles.
Mike DeCourcy offers his preview of the week ahead.
Who are your candidates for coach of the year? SI’s Seth Davis has his top ten.
They said it
Xavier coach, Chris Mack, on St. Bonaventure forward, Andrew Nicholson: “Probably talk to him about entering the draft early.”
Terrence Jones: “My coach isn’t the first coach to cuss. That didn’t even bother me.”
Fairfield Coach Ed Cooley on seeing the new press conference room at Canisius College: “Yeah, I like this room. That’s the first comment I like to tell y’all. Man, that’d look nice in some red with a little stag on it. Much love to your A.D. and administration there. I gotta catch my breath.”
1st Team All-Casey
G Kemba Walker – UConn
G Jimmer Fredette – BYU
SF Kyle Singler – Duke
PF Marcus Morris – Kansas
C Jared Sullinger – Ohio State
2nd Team All Casey
PG Tu Holloway – Xavier
SG Corey Stokes – Villanova
SF Kahwi Leonard – San Diego State
PF Chris Wright – Dayton
C JaJuan Johnson – Purdue
Got any college basketball splinters? Share them here.
Wow – DJ Gay: way to not show up at all last night. 37 minutes and you managed two points, both from the charity stripe. SDSU got Jimmered and got exposed.
BYU went zone late with a one-possession lead and SDSU’s inability to hit from the outside was exposed. Even so, the Aztecs out-rebounded the Cougars, but missed a bunch of chippies. SDSU’s 9-16 from the free throw line tells part of the story. They also missed the front end of the one-and-one on two or three occasions.
Is BYU with “the Jimmer” kinda like Indiana State with Larry Bird back in the day? or are they more like the Hickory Huskers??
And also on Gay – he had four assists and zero turnovers AND a bunch of great passes that didn’t get finished. SDSU ran their stuff. They just didn’t finish last night – other than Kawhi Leonard who is a really good player (22pts./ 15 rebounds last night). BYU played with A LOT of energy. The home crowd did not sit for the second half. It was a great college atmosphere.
SDSU coach Steve Fisher was a darned good high school coach in Chicago’s southwest ‘burbs … I think at Rich East … before starting his gig at Michigan. I think I was a young hoopster in middle school or early HS when he made the jump to the Skunkbears. We were all amazed how the “Fab Five” and the Nat’l chan’ship kinda fell into his lap. Right place, right time. But I hated the Fab Five … yes, they were Skunkbears but I also detested the long, baggie shorts genre they brought in. Well … that certainly shows how Old School I am. 🙂
https://cincinnati.com/blogs/xavier/2011/01/27/looking-ahead-to-richmond/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
So, back to the subject of taking Penn State seriously. Have they earned that right?
From Jan. 8-19, they played four ranked Big Ten opponents and went 2-2 with the two losses being by one and three-point deficits on the road…one of those vs. #1 ranked Ohio St. They received one point in the recent AP voting and are 4-4 in what is no worse than the second-best conference in CBB.
More importantly, though…they have 10 games left…7 vs. ranked opponents. If they can manage to go 3-4 against the ranked teams, and 3-0 vs. the others, and win at least one game in the Big Ten tourney, will an 18-13 record get them in the NCAA tournament.
A lot of “ifs,” I realize, but the Pine has been quiet for the past 24 hours.
CHAS!
You da man! The silence was getting a little deafening.
Nothing wrong with a little “what iffing.”
You make a great case, and Penn State has positioned themselves neatly off the radar and might be able to sneak up on a couple of teams. It is not out of the realm of possibility for them to beat the Badgers tomorrow in Happy Valley. The game at Illinois will be a good gauge. The Illini are overrated. The Nittany Lions can cement that with a win at Assembly Hall.
On a personal note – the Niagara-Canisius game is being televised on ESPNU tonight, 7pm. Dereck “It was a pass, really” Whittenburg is doing the analysis, and as it looks right now, I will be sitting next to the TV guys on press row.
Casey …. YOU DA MAN! All these press credentials … cool. Now, how “big” can you go with those??? Xavier? Syracuse? Knicks? Final Four???
We need to know … cuz we wanna ride into these events on your coattails 😉
https://pickinsplinters.com/2010/11/14/syracuse-runs-past-canisius/
https://www.buffalonews.com/sports/colleges/canisius-college/canisius-mens-basketball/article326741.ece