19.35% to be accurate of the season is in the books. The stats are still a bit noisy on the shooting especially, but they are becoming more real at least for the high usage high minutes guys. Half of the 6 games were vs decent to solid competition. It's probably as good a sample as we can get a week before December. Small is still probably shooting an unsustainable number for a guard, but perhaps high 50's or .600% TS wouldn't be that crazy now. The way he's getting to the line even on nights the 3-pointer isn't going down can still keep him efficient. Having a 5 out offense on shooting is giving him quality space. As long as the shooting is threatening he should continue to have driving lanes to work.
National Ranks: Small
15th in PRPG
49th in PER (but that includes non D1's)
30th in NBA Eff (minus non D1's)
*If you are also wondering how a 4.5 PER, .387 TS%, massive negative rating player that wasn't even in the rotation on a #183 NET team last year OOC. How that player can be a 15th to 49th ranked player by the numbers this far into a season, less than a year later. Me too. I think Schwartz is too modest with his deferment to Dooley in the last interview and the apparent magic sauce he sprinkled on him. For sure Small put in the work but things this staff is doing are working better clearly. I'll point that out for him. You don't have this kind of leap alone. I wish I knew exactly how rare this kind of jump actually was. It's obviously very rare and nearly unprecedented. I still expect a slump and some regression in there but even then the jump he has made is one of the greatest I've seen ever barring some equally unprecedented collapse. I don't expect that now.
Team National Ranks (non D1's excluded)
50th in Offensive Eff
147th in Defensive Eff
I do believe there are 4 guys that have earned the right to play a lot. Small, Johnson, Diboundge for sure. Felton is inconsistent shooting but he's contributing in other ways to add value even if he's not that efficient scoring. The nights his shooting shows up it's a great combination.
Beyond that the rotation gets a bit murkier. I thought LaCount in the top 5 before this week. I believe he still is but Walker has closed the gap on the strength of a couple of strong games. For the bigs Pinedo has been much better than Ausar or Debaut when he's had a chance. He probably needs more chances over them until he proves he isn't solid. By the numbers that's the top 7. Kasanganay and Tabbs would probably be 8 and 9. Ausar or Debaut at 10 or 11.
You and I both thought that it would be a good idea for Small to transfer out. But we were wrong. He is playing 10x better than I ever thought he could. It is amazing. My second favorite player is really Quinton because I thought he was a wild card, but he is really under control out there and is very fundamentally sound on both ends. Bayela has been a big disappointment but after a year layoff maybe I hoped for too much. The best thing about Quinton is he wont transfer out most likely because he would have to sit out a year I believe. I will raise my win prediction to 13 from 11 now. I cant believe the offense honestly, it gets great spacing and they make really smart cuts and share the ball well. Many times they run the offense and I have seen felton break off a cut and bounce out for the top of the key 3. He is still an enigma to me. He definitely has improved and he hustles his butt off, I like him and he does the little things. I hope his jumper continues to improve.
ReplyDeleteI was wrong. I did think Small needed to go, but I would have been fine with keeping him as a deep bench lottery guy since he was still young had they signed some proven transfers first. When I got vocal about it was when they had already gotten commits from Sunderland and other freshman and were closing in on LaCount. Two unheralded freshman and Small at PG looked like a disaster in the super senior era. I thought they needed to make room for a proven transfer there.
ReplyDeleteSmall never shot like this even in high school. He was a low volume low 33% 3pt guy in 2 different HS situations. He wasn't even a good FT shooter in 3 years under 70%. He played as a role player on a top team in Arizona but only even averaged 16ppg vs Indiana HS before that. He's never put up numbers like this. That adds to why this jump is so rare and why I also thought the ceiling was low after last year.
I think Schwartz is getting the most out of the talent he has, but if Small wasn't having an unprecedented leap like this, or turns back into what he was, this team has little hope I'm afraid. This is a lesson though of exactly why a teams should always be going for it, especially with the portal. You never know when a player is going to blow up or coming in way better than expected. Add a couple more proven transfers in the obvious dead roster spots like Debaut that should have been moved on from, or a couple less freshman and who knows what this team could have been if Small keeps this up.
Right now the team is projected 14-17, but the schedule is so bad that equals a #203 NET. That's even with a player having a top 50 season in all the metrics currently.