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#1
November: 46-38, +5.20
November Leans: 39-38
December: 65-70, -9.45
December Leans: 67-79
January: 52-39, +15.80
January Leans: 40-37
February: 55-41, +51.10
February Leans: 52-45
A few weeks ago while listening to a Depaul radio broadcast prior to the Louisville game, I was able to catch a quote from Coach Oliver Purnell with his feelings not only on that game, but the season as a whole. He was quick to the point – Louisville was a big game, always is at home, and he was excited to take the court with what would be a home game, but a crowd dominated by Louisville faithful who packed over 50+ busses to make the trip. He was excited, and wanted that game rather badly. He ultimately failed in OT. Since that contest, they’ve gone on the road and had a home game against two teams that mirror their style of play in just about every aspect of the game (speed, pressure, guard play), and they’ve failed in those two games against the bottom feeders in the conference. They just lost to Providence; that was the first Big East road victory for Providence in 775 days. Prior to that, they failed to cover a small line at St. John’s, a game that if St. John’s would have put on the press, the margin would have been even wider than the 7 points. It’s been a rough week for Depaul, not only did they lose the game they wanted, they’ve failed against some bottom competition in the exact style they want to play. Back to the Purnell quotes in that pregame. As he talked about the season, he went on and on about being young, and getting better, and switching lineups and trying to find the right lineup, and yadda yadda yadda. But what he ended with caused me to dig deeper. And I quote: “Until next year, we are going to struggle immensely against teams that have size. We can’t run our sets for Melvin, we’re forced to push in transition more, and quite frankly, we don’t want to settle for long jump shots, but we almost have to do so. We have a few games coming up that are winnable, before we end a few against some taller teams, so we’ll see what happens.” End quote. What he said seemed to make sense. This is a Depaul team that lacks consistent scoring, and relies heavily on Melvin putting the ball in the bucket. So, I went to the stats to try and find a reason why. First, Depaul doesn’t get to the foul line. They’re the fourth worst in the country, the only teams that frequent the line less are Seattle, Longwood, and Troy. They give up an insane amount of offensive rebounds, they allow teams to shoot an insane amount of three’s out of their zone, and they can’t defend inside the arc as they are the worst BCS school in the country at defending two-pointers. Coincidentally, West Virginia is the only other team in the Big East that allows opponents to shoot above 50% in regards to two-pointers, and I will expand on that in a bit. Back to the quote and back to the digging, here are the top half teams in the Big East in terms of size:
Syracuse
Uconn
Depaul
Georgetown
South Florida
Villanova
Seton Hall
West Virginia
Here are the margins of defeat against these opponents: 8, 21, 26, 16, 16, 21.
Pretty mind-boggling. Even worse, the only team they’ve played with size in this current 8 game losing streak was at Uconn. They’re playing the competition they want (teams with no size), and they’re still not getting the job done. Taking a closer look, the only game margin that came outside of today’s listed line of +13 was the 8 point loss at home against Georgetown. I’m OK with that. Georgetown was sort of without Markel Starks, a pivotal part of their ball-handling in a game that featured a full court press by Depaul and 18 Georgetown turnovers with the absence of Starks (and also a whopping five possession that Georgetown failed to get the ball across halfcourt that led to a Depaul 10-0 run). Now, lets take a look at what Depaul has done against the bottom half teams in the Big East in terms of size:
Loss by 17
Loss by 8
Loss by 2
Loss by 8
Loss by 7
Loss by 6
Loss by 13
Loss by 8
Win by 3
Win by 5
Only one of those games fell outside the listed line of +13 for today’s game. Maybe Purnell really does make sense at times. They do struggle with size and the numbers prove it. One last thing about the stats before I get into the actual game itself, is rebounding. I’m not a big fan of rebounding stats, but it’s almost impossible for me to ignore here. Here’s the rebounding advantages for the top half teams with size in the Big East against Depaul this year (team, rebounding margin):
Syracuse +5
Uconn +25
Georgetown +25
USF +14
Villanova +18
Seton Hall +2
The real stat that matters in terms to rebounding margin in my opinion is the offensive glass. West Virginia currently ranks 8th in the country in crashing the glass. When you get those extra opportunities to score, you have extra opportunities to cover the line. In regards to the game itself, I think it’s pretty clear that Depaul is at a big disadvantage in regards to the match-up. They won’t be able to utilize Melvin on the inside, and he’ll be forced to go to the outside for his scoring along with the rest of the team. Simply put, with Depaul’s inability to get to the foul line, they’re one of the easiest teams in the country to defend, and I’ll take my chances going against it. I doubt Depaul would look past this one, and into immediate revenge from a 20+ point home loss to Seton Hall, but it’s possible...
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