UST 1Q Review

Barnstorming the Country

The past month the University of St. Thomas has spread their brand of basketball from coast to coast going 4-5. Loyal ESPN3 viewers were gifted with watching high-scoring entertaining basketball if they could put up with hearing “division 3 to division 1” about 1000 times from the broadcasters. The Drake game yesterday was the final piece to give a good sample size of games for understanding how the rest of the season is going to look, here are my grades for this team so far.

Defense-Grade: C-

I am going to be excluding the Crown college game from my assessment. This St. Thomas team gives up some of the highest points-per-possession in the country. Their best defensive game was against St Francis, where they allowed a still-winless team to score 73. Giving up 81 to Seattle is probably forgivable given that it was on the road and after a grueling Youngstown MTE, but this team really has a hard time defending inside. Every game the other team has a SportsCenter Top Ten alley-oop-slam. Blocks are almost non-existent in this defense. Their offense is likely their best defense in that they can really effectively control the pace of a game with ball movement and long possessions.

Inside Scoring-Grade: B-

This team dunks about as often as a WNBA team, the only player who even has a recorded dunk is the currently injured Parker Bjorklund. The mid-range shooting is effective, and every floater seems automatic. However, this squad has a tendency to have guards stuck down low with nowhere to go. This results in either a bad shot from down low that is blocked or immediately rebounded by the opposition or swinging the ball out with not a lot of time left on the shot clock. This team really does not draw many fouls in the paint, and their O-Rebounding stats rate among the lowest in the country.

Outside Scoring-Grade: A+

Some guy named Steph Curry set the single season 3PM record with 162, which included winning his conference tournament and many games in the Big Dance. Through 8 games that character only had 37 3PM. Riley Miller through 8 games has 42. Even with that, he is not the most efficient offensive player on the squad which goes to Ryan Lindberg who is 24-41 from beyond the arc. Baseball has “WAR”, which is used as a total measure of a player’s impact on the game, CBB has the “PORPAGATU!”. This stat which measures points per game above a replacement player who plays at the same usage rate. In the Summit League, Miller ranks 1, Lindberg is 2, Nelson is 5. They are ranked this high because of these players extraordinary ability to score efficiently from deep.

Ball Security-Grade: B+

This is a top ten team for turnover percentage. I would grade this team’s ball security higher, but their Turnover Percentage is skewed by the fact that they do not really even have the opportunity to turn the ball over in the paint because of their height disparity. It is also skewed by the fact that most of their scoring comes on the perimeter, and teams know better than to jump a perimeter pass because if they fail, it could mean giving the best shooters in the country an open look.

December Slate

12-11 H Montana State

12-14 H Northland

12-20 A Omaha

12-22 A Denver

12-29 H North Central

I think it is well within the realm of possibility that this team can win every remaining game they have in December. Montana State at home is their toughest game. Montana State is another team that scores quite a bit. It is also the first real Division 1 home game, and hopefully Schoenecker is rocking enough to give the squad a home court advantage. The Northland and North Central games are assured wins. Knowing what we know now, a loss to Omaha, even on the road, should be a surprise. Omaha is really bad, but then again I said the same about Chicago State. The Youngstown tournament showed us this team deals with fatigue really well, and should have more than enough in the tank to finish off their western road trip with a win against Denver.

Final 1Q Notes

Hopefully this month we get to see more of the new players appear, and make an impact on this team. A player like Courtney Brown would provide needed height. Bjorklund returning from illness before the Montana State game would be a nice as well, I think Brooks Allen has done a good job with Parker gone.

Best Win-Niagara-Came after a grueling loss vs Youngstown St, provided the momentum to beat SIUE the next day.

Worst Win-St Francis-UST allowed this team to have an OREB% of almost 40% in the game.

Worst Loss-Chicago State-UST WBB took care of their WBB team this past weekend. Chalk that game up to the MBB team needing a a game to shake off the rust.

Best Loss-Drake-UST’s ranking moved up after this loss, it had to be fun to make the Drake faithful break a sweat as the Toms briefly took the lead. A respectable effort versus their toughest opponent that St. Thomas will have this season. (Sorry Jackrabbit Fans).