There really isn't much to say about this one other than I thought the better team won. ECU was pretty fortunate to keep it within ten points as it felt a lot more ugly than that. Memphis completely highlighted ECU's lack of a secondary ball handler and a backup point guard with their press in steamrolling the freshman. LaCount and Sunderland played 4 minutes and had 4 turnovers in a brutal stretch that changed the momentum of the game IMO. This is a game ECU could have used a transfer PG because even Small with his 9 turnovers needed to take a backseat yesterday if there was another viable option to help him advance the ball.
I really don't understand the use of Sunderland this season. The guy starts the first game but had played 23 minutes all season coming into that game. How do you start the first game of the season as the 13th man on the roster in minutes? He had appeared in 5 total games of the 16 coming into this one, the last of which was December 11th. To throw that guy in the game at a pivotal time for meaningful minutes vs a team like that in front of 11+k fans he was set up for failure. It was only 2 minutes but a costly 2 minutes.
Small
Small has turned back into a pumpkin, and the Cinderalla start seems to be over now. I think we have to start to question if this was just a hot shooting start vs some bad competition, fueled by some unsustainable shooting. He was making really difficult shots early in the season that he now isn't. Off the dribble, guarded, long two's etc. These are the kind of shots you shouldn't shoot well on.
His PER has now dropped to 18.5 and his true shooting .552%. These are both still solid but far more pedestrian than the kind of efficiency he was putting up earlier in the season. Unfortunately, the schedule doesn't really get easier and I think we have seen the regression to the mean and may continue to see more as the schedule doesn't let up. He's still playing better than I expected overall to start the season, but 18 PER .555 true shooting type of season would be a more normal progression. Keep in mind 15.0 is the adjusted average of college basketball.
Johnson & Ausar
Where Small has started to disappoint, Johnson has continued to perform at a high level and become the clear-cut best player on the team IMO. I read where the staff was challenging Asuar to rebound better this week, but some of the reasons his rebounds aren't impressive is that Johnson has been such a beast on the boards. Asuar is competing with him as well for the same rebounds. I believe they are too caught up on rebounding as the team is still 61st in rebound rate out of 363 teams.
I guess this is an area they can challenge players like Asuar and Diboundje but it's already the single biggest strength of the team thanks to Johnson and even Debaut to a degree. Walker has been a strong rebounder as well. It's easy to see why Asuar hasn't been rebounding at a high rate when he's on the court with Johnson and Walker a lot and Felton and Small's numbers are solid for guards as well.
Conclusion
This loss was to be expected. I have a feeling a lot more are coming if Small can't regain some form. It will be interesting to see what player we get from here on out and where he ends up. I don't really have a clue at this point. He's had a really confusing career to try to nail down what he is. Is he the 4.4 PER guy from last year or the guy that played like a top 50 player for the first 12 games or the season? The answer is probably somewhere in the middle of that, but currently, he's looking like last year's version the last 5 games just with more playing time. There comes a point where he can't keep shooting the volume he is like he is. He's not even been to the line a single time in the last 2 games. He's 2nd in the league still in FT attempts but he's starting to settle for a lot of jumpers. Getting to the line a lot and making them had been one of the biggest drivers of his efficiency.
Small the last 5 games
FG; 15-65 (23%)
3's: 7-32 (21%)
FT: 12-18 (66%)
17 Turnovers (3.4 a game)
I think he should have the greenlight a few more games but at some point, he can't shoot like this and still be allowed to get up 12+ shots every game. Those will need to be dispersed elsewhere if they don't start going in more often. I'd feel much better if there was some injury explanation for this shooting of late.
