State Needs More Consistency On Offense In ACC Play
After Tuesday night’s loss at Virginia, the Wolfpack now stands at 5-3 in ACC play. Some of the players in our 6 man rotation are putting up fairly consistent averages in both the wins and losses while others are not. I would like to make the point that I am not calling out any individual players or saying anything negative about them or placing any blame, I’m just reporting some numbers I found interesting (and offering a few theories as to why that may be).
Leslie and Howell are putting up pretty consistent averages in wins and losses in ACC play and Purvis drops off a little bit, mostly in shooting percentage.
C.J. Leslie
Wins:
15.4 points, 6.2 rebounds, 1.4 assists, .509 FG%, .677 FT%
Losses:
15.3 points, 8.0 rebounds, 0.0 assists, .500 FG%, .609 FT%
Richard Howell
Wins:
12.2 points, 13.4 rebounds, 2.0 assists, .444 FG%, .684 FT%
Losses:
11.0 points, 13.3 rebounds, 3.0 assists, .500 FG%, .750 FT%
Rodney Purvis
Wins:
11.4 points, 2.4 rebounds, 0.8 assists, .500 FG%, .471 3-Pt%, .600 FT%
Losses:
9.0 points, 2.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists, .357 FG%, .333 3-Pt%, .500 FT%
Brown’s numbers have a drop off but only playing 10 minutes in the UVA game after being injured accounts for that, although his shooting percentages dip some in the losses.
Lorenzo Brown
Wins:
14.6 points, 4.8 rebounds, 9.4 assists, .426 FG%, .500 3-Pt%, .786 FT%
Losses:
10.7 points, 5.0 rebounds, 5.0 assists, .387 FG%, .500 3-Pt%, .667 FT%
Unfortunately there are 2 players that have pretty big declines in their numbers from the wins to the losses.
Scott Wood
Wins:
13.8 points, 3.0 rebounds, 1.6 assists, .455 FG%, .500 3-Pt%, .926 FT%
Losses:
8.3 points, 2.7 rebounds, 1.7 assists, .276 FG%, .292 3-Pt%, 1.000 FT%
T.J. Warren
Wins:
12.2 points, 4.0 rebounds, 0.2 assists, .675 FG%, .400 3-Pt%, .625 FT%
Losses:
5.7 points, 3.3 rebounds, 0.0 assists, .308 FG%, .000 3-Pt%, .333 FT%
Why are Wood and Warren not putting up the same numbers in wins and losses? Here’s my take, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Wood and Warren benefit a great deal from the Wolfpack playing uptempo transition offense. Warren has that scorer’s knack for being in the right place at the right time and putting up points without having many plays run for him in the halfcourt set. In some of these slower paced, grind it out games (in 2 of those 3 ACC losses the Wolfpack haven’t broken the 60 point mark) there are less opportunities to be in the right place at the right time for Warren.
Wood has always had difficulties creating his own shot and when State gets out and runs in transition, the defense isn’t set making it a lot easier for Wood to get free for open looks. Again, when the other team slows it down and clamps down on defense, that means less open looks for Wood. Wood’s scoring has also benefited from picking up points at the foul line late in the game in some of our wins.
This State team is scary good when they are out in transition but has struggled when the other team controls the tempo. With Lorenzo Brown hobbled and possibly out of the lineup, Coach Gottfried and the coaching staff are going to have to find ways to get Wood and Warren good looks at the basket. And considering our 3 ACC losses are by a combined 6 points, just getting one additional open shot for Warren and Wood in those one possession games could have us at 8-0 in the conference.
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15 Responses to “State Needs More Consistency On Offense In ACC Play”
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Not surprised at the Freshmen. They’re still maturing physically while grinding through the ACC schedule. And they haven’t been through the wars to have developed the mental and emotional maturity to weather the storms. But am a little surprised that Scott can’t (or won’t) find more ways to score when the offense needs a jolt. That’s called Sr. Leadership.
Either way, they better figure it out as the second half of the ACC schedule is road heavy, including to two pissed off blue teams.
There is no doubt that the offense works better in a transition type game. Ultimately the level of success this year will be determined by how well the team adjust to those grind ‘em out games – certainly in the regular season and also in the NCAA tourney assuming they participate.
Our 3 ACC losses are by a combined 6 points.
I suspect that the small sample size with just 5 losses skews things for these reasons:
1. All the losses are against major conference teams, meaning the averages for wins include all of our games against lesser competition.
2. All of our opponents in the losses are good defensive teams other than Wake.
3. 15% of the minutes we played in our 5 losses were with Lo out due to injury, compared to 0% of the minutes played in our wins.
WV Wolf: Thanks for the correction, for some reason I thought we lost to Wake by 3. Otherwise your points are invalid because as I noted these are stats for only ACC games, Brown’s injury was noted as well.
I got beat up for this last night, but when the ball goes to CJ and he takes a couple seconds to size his man up and then start the CJ dancing he doesn’t consistently dominate his men enough to warrant not looking for guys open on the wings or guys cutting. Having said that, it doesn’t seem like our other guys actually move when this happens. I’m not sure if this is by design or by the “I give up, CJ has the ball again” reason.
He simply isn’t that dominate to warrant shutting the rest of our team out of the offensive equation and maybe I just don’t pay close enough attention but that is what looks like happens to me too many times when he gets the ball.
Yeah, he was getting pushed around and hacked near the basket last night but I saw a lot of guys packed near the rim when he had the ball and I don’t see the ball get kicked out and swung around in these situations very often.
My thoughts exactly Smasher.
Agree Leslie tries to take things into his own hands, and forgets the word ‘TEAM’. And of course we lose.
With 6 players averaging in double figures, it isn’t the Wolfpack’s offense that concerns me nearly as much as their lack of defense.
We didn’t score the last 5 minutes of the UVA game and lost by 3. Defense??
Granted our defense isn’t spectacular but we need to score and I wouldn’t but the blame entirely on Leslie. The TEAM concept seems to shut down late in close games, especially on the road.
The drop off in assists by Brown between wins and losses is the biggest stat drop. His assists depend heavily on the transition game. He doesn’t do as well in half court sets. Same with Wood and Warren, and all 3 of these are related.
Can we have all the rest of our games played in the PNC?
My biggest disappointment so far this year is that, as a senior, Wood just hasn’t seemed to improve over the years: he hasn’t improved his physical strength, as has Howell, or corrected weaknesses in his game, like Calvin (FG%, FT shooting).
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a big fan of Scott, & I believe his two 4-point plays against the blues were big turning points in those wins. But he’s known he has trouble getting open for shots & his ball handling could improve. Think about it: this is the guy who dropped 31 on FSU – as a freshman, ON THE ROAD. I was hoping by now he’d be a reliable assassin.
WVWolf: This is some great analysis as always. Could you add in the TOs to the list?
I think CJ Leslie is taking undue heat during our losses. The kid is bringing it game in and game out, as all the numbers above show. The difference between 1 assist and 0 assists is fairly trivial. Unless his TOs are way up in our games where we lose, those @#()$* about Leslie need to give it a rest.
For all those calling for Warren to start over Wood, they also need to give it a rest. When we’ve lost, they’ve both stunk.
What this shows me is that we need all 6 of our guys playing well to win. If a couple are off, then we’re losing.
Close games are won at the charity stripe not at the end but through the entire game. They aren’t free throws for nothing… We shoot better than 60% from the line in the Wake and Maryland games we would have won them.
That is an interesting analysis. Thanks for preparing.
WV Wolf, sorry I missed that this was only for ACC games. That eliminates my first point above, but IMO does not eliminate the other two.
Yes, you mentioned Brown’s injury, but only in the context of framing Brown’s own numbers… but his presence has a positive effect on the numbers of everyone else, too. IMO the fairest way to make a comparison would be not to use the UVA game at all.