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JoJo Out, Road Wins Keep Coming, & a Big 12 Championship in Year 1
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Welcome to Episode 20 of the No Conference for Old Men Podcast.
The Cougars are now 27-3, 14-3 in the Big 12, guaranteed at least a co-Championship in the Big 12, & still #1 in the Nation 1st week into March!!! All this was achieved after overcoming the devastating season-ending loss of JoJo Tugler. We begin this episode with a summary of the OU & UCF wins, spend some time discussing the impact of Tugler's loss to our post-season outlook, and then wrap-up by previewing the upcoming KU season finale.
- No Conference for Old Men is available for free via Spotify / Apple Podcast / SoundCloud & the GoCoogs.com website; we're also available via the Republic of Football Podcast feed from the folks at Dave Campbell's Texas Football as their only basketball-centric offering
- Intro / Exit music: Ground Zero provided by FreeBeats.io
- Please follow us on https://gocoogs.com/old-men/
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Transcript
Introduction and Houston Cougars Overview
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome, folks, to the 20th episode of No Conference for Old Men, podcast where three old guys are talking Houston Cougars basketball with a bit of Big 12 added in as well, and proud members of the Goku's.com network, the undisputed number one Houston Cougars content provider.
Recent Wins and Big 12 Championship Prospects
00:00:22
Speaker
March is upon us and our Houston Cougars are now 27-3, 14-3 in the Big 12 and are guaranteed of at least sharing the Big 12 Conference Championship after being OU and UCF on the road this week. OU was an abnormal win for us where we won via offense, overcoming a season ending injury to
00:00:43
Speaker
Jojo Tuggler to take another rare road win at OU on a last-second jumper, then to follow up with another gutsy win at UCF 67-59 on the road again to ensure at least a tie for the Big 12 title was the cherry on top.
Hosts Introduction and New Podcast Format
00:00:59
Speaker
So lots to talk about.
00:01:01
Speaker
And today, all three of us are back again with Tom Lydiak, former coach, Bill Walker, former player, and myself, Steve Chang, analytics guy for this episode. We're going to change out the format a bit this week since we're recording this immediately after the UCF game. So we'll summarize Houston's two games this past week with maybe just some initial thoughts on the UCF game.
Game Analysis: OU Victory
00:01:21
Speaker
Skip the updates on the other Big 12 games we highlighted last week and focus on a discussion around Jojo Tugler's foot injury and how that impacts our KU game to end the season, the Big 12 tourney and most importantly our chances at another Final Four run in the postseason. Okay, so let's get into it guys an offensively methodically efficient win over OU.
00:01:44
Speaker
where we slowly built up a nice lead in the first three core tiles of the game and then survived a massive comeback attempt by OU in winning on a last second shot by, who else? Jamal Shep. In recapping the Cougars road win over OU, Tom, why don't you kick us off with your coach's thoughts on our 87-85 win on the road to sweep both teams leaving for the SEC.
Player Injuries and Impact on Performance
00:02:10
Speaker
First off, Bill, I'm gonna try to leave some meat on the bone for you to comment after I go through my notes. Guys, if you told me before the game, we'd give up 85 points. I would have probably told you we will lose by 15 or 20 points. You know, there's been so much national, local attention that's been given to our offense and the scoring droughts, you know, et cetera, et cetera. The many, you know, probably would never have dreamed we would win in a shootout. It was kind of a,
00:02:39
Speaker
Very uncharacteristic U of H victory. We gave up 45 in the first half, 40 in the second half, and got out rebounded. It just appeared that stops were few and far between, but we won the Malcolm X way by any means necessary. Key component to our defense and our bench depth took a blow when it was announced before the game that Jojo would be shell for a while. We now know it's for the season. Piled that on top of the injury, east of Terrance and Ramon, our bench is now razor thin.
00:03:09
Speaker
And that's not all the injuries. Juwan's been playing all year with a bum knee and then to add insult to injury does something to his right hand that I think required seven stitches. They were saying between his index finger and thumb, but you know, he's Juwan's a warrior, kept playing, actually scored, I think a basket or two. Then we had Jamal start limping and essentially for a while was playing on one leg and we still won the
Houston's Defensive Challenges
00:03:34
Speaker
game. Yeah, incredible.
00:03:36
Speaker
Yeah, but probably not in typical Houston Cougar fashion. Normally we win by the hearing to the Holy Trinity of basketball, which is a defense rebound, taking care of the ball. And I was talking to a buddy just to put this in perspective, who's an ISU fan. You know, and I tried to explain to him what her situation is. So I had to, you know, take ISU as an example. I told him, think about this scenario. Think about losing your top three bench players.
00:04:05
Speaker
And you know, an ISU's case could be Hassan Ward, Curtis Jones, and Demarian Watson. And then have Lipsey play with a limp and your top inside player, either Rob Jones or Trey King play with one hand. And now you know what the Houston Cougars are going through, but we, you know, the train keeps rolling. We somehow found a way to win. I know later on, we're going to talk about JoJo, you know, we can't afford to lose another player tonight. We saw JVA.
00:04:34
Speaker
turn his ankle and, you know, you had to hold your breath for, for a while for that. But, you know, we just can't afford to lose another player. Otherwise, who knows? You might see Ryan Elvin in there and he might have to play and that make old Coog on, on the Goku's website, get his dream of Kelvin playing zone. Even though we saw a little bit of zone tonight, that was interesting. We had one big, I think, uh, I think it was Joanne. Yeah. And then I think we had,
00:05:00
Speaker
Jamal what is the 6-1 6-2, you know, we had we had my lake out there who's like 6-1 6-2 and I think then we had LJ and we had I Can't remember the other one. Oh, it was a manual. So yeah Did play zone a couple of a couple of possessions But this whole injury thing makes me wonder what our practices are like now.
Key Player Contributions
00:05:21
Speaker
Yeah
00:05:22
Speaker
You know, in order to play tough and fiscal games, you have to have those type of practices. So that might explain some of the slippage we've witnessed these last couple of games, regard to how many offensive rebounds we've given up and also rebounding in general.
00:05:35
Speaker
We've had a couple of halves lately, whereby we've given up 40 points plus, but having said all that, still found a way to win. Got contributions from everybody, whether it was said, giving us good minutes, the first half, you know, league scoring 10 points. And then we can't forget about that electrifying block. He had crucial moment of the game. Yeah. I thought that was just an unbelievable. Yeah. He, he got up in the air so quick. Yeah.
00:06:03
Speaker
He got that block before the ball hit the backboard and that was just a huge, huge block. Damian Dunn hit a couple of threes. While I'm on the subject of Damian, I think he needs, you know, to simplify his game. I think it needs to be a one-trick pony. By that, I mean, in coaching vernacular, it'd be like a one-read player. You just get the ball and you catch the shoot. And if it's not there, you know, you move the ball. It's just simplifying his role. I think we saw that tonight. I think one time he tried to back his man down, end up shooting like a
00:06:32
Speaker
10 foot fade away. I think if Damien does that, we won't have to worry about coach Sampson getting arrested for indecent exposure. When Kelvin went apoplectic, almost took his shirt off on the sideline. When Damien passed up an open three, and I don't know what he did, but he, he ended up getting called for a travel. And then later on the press conference Kelvin said something about Damien would pump fake a molecule in the Oklahoma game.
00:07:02
Speaker
4 hurt his hands. Juan was virtually unstoppable in the low post, even scored a basket in the second half playing with the one hand. I'm not sure you guys might correct me if he had one bucket or two. We got contributions from Emmanuel. It seems like his forte is knocking down threes from the hinterlands with the shot clock running down. He also had a key baseline jumper at a key point in the game. LJ starting to heat up.
00:07:28
Speaker
had a great score in second half tonight, but we got key contributions from him with this 23 points. And then how do you not talk about Jamal? Even though his shoot wasn't there.
00:07:39
Speaker
made the clutch shot at the end. Probably the only player not to have a huge impact was JVA, and that's because he was limited to 12 minutes due to foul trouble. The fourth foul, I thought, was a little bit sketchy, but the fifth foul was not very smart. Yep. Oklahoma guy had the rebound, and he just went in there and just packed the guy. But big win for the Cougs. They're all big.
00:08:08
Speaker
It puts us in a position to win the conference
Preview of Kansas Game
00:08:10
Speaker
outright if we beat Kansas on Saturday. Exactly. How about you, Bill, from a player's perspective? Okay. Well, before I get into OU, I just want to go back to our last podcast and I just want to stress how thankful I am and we are for
00:08:29
Speaker
You have HSAD Chris Pezman coming on. Absolutely. I send the podcast personally out to about 50 people once we get it each week. And unanimously, people were praising, you know, how forthright Chris was, how
00:08:50
Speaker
much he had to say and it was just a great interview and Chris I know that listening to the podcast is a highlight of your week so I know you'll be listening and I just want you to know that we are extremely grateful for you taking the time to do that because it made a hell of a difference to us and everyone that I've talked to especially the three of us could not have enjoyed it more. Yeah I mean
00:09:17
Speaker
Just to let folks know and to let Chris know, it's going to be by far our most listened episode to date. No surprise. Yeah. You guys kind of were a little surprised with me when I said that I thought we'd only beat OU by five when we previewed this last week. Yeah.
00:09:38
Speaker
So I did think this would be a close game, but I said it's because Big 12 Road games are just tough. Tonight was tough, just the way it is. However, I think I may have predicted 72-67. I did not expect 172 points. I did not expect us to shoot as well as we did. I did not expect OU to
00:10:03
Speaker
light it up from the field. Yeah, it was unexpected. Obviously, the downer heading into this game was the announcement that Tuggler had been lost for the season. And Steve, I've been told that you were on the message boards, almost feigning suicide. And I want to make sure that you're OK. And it is a tough loss. It's especially a tough loss for our depth.
00:10:32
Speaker
The game was a tight game. I'm sure it involved rotation adjustments and so forth. And hey, we came away with the victory and that's, you know, that's the key. You know, still got our five starters. Wilson's been playing really well. Dunn hit some shots in the game and even said, grabbed a couple of nice boards early on and, and the bottom line.
00:10:58
Speaker
No matter how tough the Tuggler loss may seem, we've still got the best Tam player in the conference. And there's no doubt in my mind, as long as we have shed, we're going to be okay. The fact is.
00:11:12
Speaker
We were and not entirely surprisingly out rebounded, but we only committed five turnovers for the entire game. Like I said, we shot the ball extremely well and everyone minus Francis who he's got to be on the floor going forward. He showed that tonight.
00:11:33
Speaker
It hurt us against OU. He's got to be on the floor. The fouls obviously kept him out of the OU game. You know, I think the focus playing against a smaller team should have been on Roberts. And in 31 minutes, he shot 10 of 12, scored 20 with five boards. He had a
00:11:53
Speaker
great game even with the hand.
NCAA Tournament Prospects
00:11:57
Speaker
Cryer's just been coming on as the seasons progressed. He's hitting shots when we need him to.
00:12:04
Speaker
He had 23, he was five of nine from behind the arc. Wilson hit every one of his shots, grabbed five boards. And quite honestly, I almost think that the way that Wilson's played and the way that Francis has played into the big 12 schedule,
00:12:25
Speaker
is, while not as disappointing as Tuggler, I think it's just as big a story that those two have stepped up and been so valuable to the rotation with JoJo
00:12:39
Speaker
going down, it's obviously going to put some pressure on everyone else to step up and play better. I mean, Sharpe in 27 minutes shot well. Shad was again, Shad 14 points, four boards, six assists. ESPN and others still have us as the favorite to win the entire thing, to win the NCAA's and what it's all said and done. And that's because we have the most valuable player, probably,
00:13:07
Speaker
in the country, the most important player, the most important teammate. And Calvin's going to make whatever rotation adjustments he needs to make game plan alterations. And I think we'll be OK.
Analysis of UCF Game
00:13:21
Speaker
And Oklahoma, despite the negatives, was a really good win.
00:13:27
Speaker
Yeah, I completely agree. Starters remain the same. And that's one thing I need to keep reminding myself. Even with all the injuries, our starters are all still healthy at this point. So thanks for that. Relatively. Yeah, everything's relative. At least they're not out for the season like three of our key bench players.
00:13:47
Speaker
If you break the game into quartiles like Ken Palm does, you slowly built up a nice lead through the first three quartiles of the game, where our Cougars led 48, 45 at the half, and then 72, 58 at the 10-minute mark in the second half. The D was non-existent, as you both mentioned, the entire game, and basically was an offensive showcase for both teams the entire time. As stated earlier, Juwan Roberts was the star of the game for UH. You hit, highlighted the 20 points, five rebounds, two assists.
00:14:17
Speaker
And it was quite honestly mostly achieved in the first half before he got that severe cut on his right hand. He still gamed it through the second half, but clearly he truly was playing on one hand, even with rebounds. Stellar performance by Roberts, who was a player box score plus minus plus 15.3 for the game, according to Bart Torvik. But to win on the road,
00:14:40
Speaker
Everyone had to contribute in a big way with all eight remaining players on the roster playing 10 or more minutes Including said just crazy crier and sharp both contributed greatly on offense with 23 and 18 points apiece but Malik Wilson as you guys had highlighted was Ashley the stat sheet stuffer with 10 points for
00:15:03
Speaker
four, four from two point range, two of two from the free throw line, five rebounds and that one key block towards the end of the game and was a player boss score plus minus plus 18. Boy, I mean, I couldn't have been more wrong about his development. He has just come around late in the season. Now for the OU game from an advanced analytics perspective, it was not our typical game.
00:15:30
Speaker
on offense, we played undoubtedly our most efficient game where we're peaking at the right time on this side of the ball as of late with great scoring games, not only in this game, but versus UT Baylor, OU. Our effective field goal percentage was off the charts in this game at 65% versus our norm at just under 50%.
00:15:54
Speaker
We continue to protect the ball exceptionally well with turnover percentage at a low 7.8%, which even bettered our number six standard for the year at 13.4. But we did offensive rebound way below standard at 27.3%. But again, we made every shot, so there weren't that many offensive rebounds to be had.
00:16:16
Speaker
On D, we basically need to throw this game out the window. Of course, that was the case for both teams. And everyone, I mean, OU shot at a 63.6% effective field goal percentage for the game. That's 20 points above our normal defensive standard. So it was just crazy. And they were scorching with 48% from 3.
00:16:38
Speaker
And we only blocked 13.3% of their two point shots and a lot of that had to do with Francis' foul trouble and not having him inside.
00:16:47
Speaker
It was our ugliest game by far on D this season, but OU was just hitting everything in sight. So as we're recording this immediately after the UCF game and haven't had a chance to collect our thoughts too much, and there's no analytics or advanced analytics data that's been published at this point, why don't we give our quick initial thoughts on the 67-59 win over UCF? Bill, why don't you start things off on this one? What were your thoughts on the game?
00:17:14
Speaker
I kind of did this by halves. I took some notes at halftime and then I took some notes right at the end of the game. UCF led the game 31, 28 at half. They shot, and they're a mediocre shooting team. They shot 50% from the field and from the arc. I think it was only two of four, but nevertheless, they shot 50% in the first half. So they played above.
00:17:41
Speaker
what they typically show offensively. It was just a little unusual as we shot 35% from the field, 15% from three in the first half. So it was just a miserable offensive half for us.
00:17:56
Speaker
Cryer did not have a good first half. Sharp was mediocre. Shed, the three of them combined were three of 20. And I wrote that there's no way that continues in the second half. We committed six first half turnovers, which is a few too many for us.
00:18:16
Speaker
done, I will say he missed all four of his shots, but I was okay with that. I want him to keep shooting, and I want him to shoot confidently. I think if he elevates his confidence level, I think that's only going to help us. And I think that the more that he shoots and
00:18:35
Speaker
The better he feels about it, the more it's going to help us. Bottom line in the first half, I thought they completely outplayed us and we were only down three points and I wrote down, we'll be just fine. Second half, obviously, Cryer stepped up big time on the offensive end and
00:18:53
Speaker
even though shed for the game didn't didn't have a real good shooting game especially at the free throw line shed did score 16 and had eight assists no one else on the team had more than one i believe and he found crier
00:19:10
Speaker
Cryer is the hot shooter, should look for him. He found him often and he found him in spots where he was going to be comfortable getting his shot off. Francis absolutely showed why. He's got to be on the floor. Health-wise, fouls.
00:19:27
Speaker
He's got to be on the floor. He absolutely inspired the run and the comeback of the second half and it was just outstanding. 10 points, eight boards, two blocks. Roberts played with one hand and was six of eight from the field. He had 12 and seven.
00:19:46
Speaker
We turned them over 18 times in the end to our 10 and that's kind of what's expected. One of you guys mentioned in a text during the game and I'm not a huge fan of this, although having been slow and unathletic when I played, I loved playing zone because I didn't have to work hard defensively.
00:20:08
Speaker
And I didn't have to have a quicker, more athletic person, which was almost always the case, guarding me man to man. But I'm not a huge fan of going to zone. I can partially understand why we did it because Francis was out and all we had was Juwan in the game. And it's a really small lineup. The problem is we've been getting out rebounded lately. Tonight was close.
00:20:37
Speaker
a lot of that due to the fact that we had more offensive rebounds than defensive rebounds, which I've never seen. At one point, we had 11 more. In the end, I think it was a one rebound difference, but it's so much more difficult to rebound when you're playing zone because you don't have a man that you're guarding that you're right there with. You're guarding whoever's in your area and
00:21:00
Speaker
it becomes a lot more difficult to defensive rebound when you're playing zone. And so I'm hoping we don't have to play that a whole lot more, but it was interesting to see us do it briefly.
00:21:13
Speaker
He had the issues in the game sharp offensively. He just was not good tonight. He did play his usual physical tough defense, which was great. And we just didn't make any free throws. Otherwise, I think we win this game definitely by double digits. And that was a tough physical game. And sometimes there are some lapses in concentration. And it led to missed free throws. But in the end,
00:21:43
Speaker
We were the better team. We, we came out on top and, uh, now all I've got to do is take care of business against Kansas and it's onto the number one seed in Kansas city. Nice. How about you Tom? What were your coach's perspective on the game? I thought this game was, uh, more of a quintessential Houston Cougar basketball win, you know, 67 59 kind of a tale of two halves again.
00:22:08
Speaker
first half wasn't the greatest you know we still scored if my math is correct 39 points in the second half you guys mentioned you know Francis after he sprained his ankle coming on strong there and that one dunk he had off I think it was a cry or miss was pretty incredible he actually was on the right side of the lane and the shot went up and he just sprinted past this man into the middle of the lane to be in the area to dunk that so typical
00:22:37
Speaker
Houston Cougar basketball, you know, we made stops when we needed to. We have guys that just seem to hit big shots when we need them. You know, Emmanuel didn't have the greatest offensive game, but he did hit a big three in the game. It was kind of a momentum turning three. He did fall down. He did fall down a lot on offense tonight. I thought when he drove
00:23:00
Speaker
I was watching an old clip from Barry Henson back in the day and he calls that snipers, like somebody just shot him down, you know, and make a long story short, just wasn't Emmanuel's greatest moment as far as offense goes.
Team Resilience Amidst Injuries
00:23:14
Speaker
But when you look at the three-headed monster in shed, Cryer and Sharp, it always seems that one of those three has it going offensively and that's able to
00:23:23
Speaker
get us to score enough points and get a win. I think coach Sampson mentioned a couple of weeks ago, one of these days, all three of them, all three of them were going to be on their game, you know, offensively. But yeah, any road game, street fight, rock fight, you know, Iowa state played them just a couple of days ago and it was the same thing. It was tooth and nail coming down the end. I think Iowa state ended up with an eight point win.
00:23:49
Speaker
60-52, I believe. You know, they're down. Iowa State right now is down at home to BYU by 11. Nice. You know, some people might poo-poo this win over UCF, but, you know, also Kansas lost here. And I believe they had Kevin McCullough in that game. I don't think he was into that game. Texas Tech lost there as well. Yeah. When you're Houston, we're taking everybody's best shot. They're throwing haymakers and
00:24:17
Speaker
We're still standing when the veil rings, and we got that knockout punch at the end. Fantastic. The starters were made the same, and this was really the game that our D came back to standard, especially after that OU game that was an anomaly.
00:24:33
Speaker
As you guys both mentioned, Cryer was the star ending with 25 points, 5 of 11 from 3. Roberts was a huge factor in the first half and really our only consistent offense ending with 12 points, 7 rebounds, 3 steals, 1 block for the game.
00:24:48
Speaker
But Francis was the key during our instrumental run in the third quartile of the game, where we finally took the lead. He came through with 10 points, eight rebounds, one steal, two blocks. Just a phenomenal turnaround game after the last one at OU. And another physical gutsy win for us on the road over UCF.
00:25:11
Speaker
Forget about the advanced analytics from Ken Palm for this game. They're not published yet. But on offense, we played to standard. Our effective field goal percentage was right at standard at 50% for the game. We protected the ball really well with turnover percentage at 16.5%. And finally, offensive rebounded great. I mean, we offensive rebounded at a 51.2%, well above our 37.6% norm.
00:25:37
Speaker
But on D for us, it was all about defending the three and forcing turnovers. We limited UCF to 30% from three and forced them to turnovers on 31% of their positions. Crazy.
00:25:51
Speaker
Anyway, so another important road win for our Cougars to grind through UCF and survive and become big 12 champs in year one. Pretty unbelievable. And for today, let's skip the summaries of the other big 12 games, especially with just one game left on the schedule. And let's talk about this latest foot injury to Jojo Tuggler and what each of us thinks this means as we head into the final KU game, the big 12 tourney, and most importantly,
00:26:20
Speaker
the NCAA tourney. Tom, do you want to go first? Yeah, I mentioned this earlier with the injury to Ramone with the entry to Terrence and now with Jojo, that's essentially three guys that play the four and the five. You know, so, you know, there's no mystery why we've had some subpar rebounding games, but I wonder, I'm not at basketball practice, but I wonder,
00:26:47
Speaker
With all the injuries we've had, if coach Sampson has had to go to practices, you know, where usually you put the bubble on there and we're rebounding and killing each other practice. And, you know, that's where we get that toughness from. But this time of the year, we can't afford a guy to get a broken nose with an accidental elbow and a rebounding drill or whatever. So, you know, it makes me wonder.
00:27:12
Speaker
If Coach Sampson's maybe had to scale back to physicality of practices and when that happens, you have slippage in what you're doing. You're hoping for the best and you're hoping that your senior leadership carries through. You probably can't do it with a young team because you just get annihilated, but we do have a lot of veterans on the team and it makes me wonder if this is a manifestation of how you construct your practices.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah, good question. I'm curious as well. How about you, Bill? What are your thoughts?
00:27:47
Speaker
it obviously adversely affects us, that Tuggler's out for a myriad of reasons. One, he's as athletic and all over the place as Francis has been. I mean, Tuggler's our most athletic big guy. He's got the seven, six, seven, seven reach. He blocks shots. He's disruptive on the defensive end.
00:28:14
Speaker
gets a lot of offensive rebounds. Not the ones where he's just going up and snaring the ball, but a lot of the tip backs come from him with those long arms and obviously he's going to be missed.
00:28:28
Speaker
I'm not entirely on board with the seasons over, the sky is falling, we're dead. I have so much more faith in Calvin and how he's going to make the proper adjustments and have us
00:28:45
Speaker
playing the way we need to play. I will say this, Javier needs to be on the floor, so it does put a bit of a premium on our big guys not getting into foul trouble. I think that helps us immensely and that can cause some problems when we're only playing one and
00:29:07
Speaker
I'm confident that Juwan is experienced enough that he'll do what he needs to do to stay on the floor. You know, Javier being a little younger and certainly being extremely aggressive and as well as he's played the Oklahoma game, it can't happen when we get into the NCAA's.
00:29:32
Speaker
I still think that will be the favorite to win the tournament. You know, if we don't win the big 12 tournament, quite honestly, I almost couldn't care less. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of the
00:29:48
Speaker
Message boards and everything else, you know will tend to overreact and that seems to be kind of par for the course But look if we're and Steve, I know you agree with this if we're rested and and we're in good shape going into the NCAA's I Yes, absolutely Tuggler is a big benefit, but I think with the five starters with Roberts with Francis
00:30:18
Speaker
on the floor, criers shooting the ball at kind of his peak right now, and then we've got shed. I like our five against anyone else's five and and Malik who's who's clearly entrenched himself
00:30:35
Speaker
into the rotation. Absolutely. You know, it's going to be those six. And, you know, I'd love again to see Dunn shoot well and get more minutes and play confidently. I just think everything with him is playing confidently at the offensive end. But I still think we can win it all with even without Tuggler.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think I'm there now. As you guys know, I talk. There's my favorite player on this team, and I've been fascinated by his growth throughout the season until his season ending injury occurred. As I did post on the message board on Goku's dot com, I was devastated after we heard about the injury ahead of the OU game.
00:31:18
Speaker
to a point where I actually just could not even enjoy the game and was in a bit of a fog for two days until Monday. I could rationalize it when Arsenal went down, terrible for both Arsenal and the team, but we had depth on the wings and it gave Walker a chance to get back
00:31:36
Speaker
into the rotation. Then Walker went down, too. But at that point, JoJo was really starting to come around and was likely to be getting more minutes moving forward anyway. But now, with Tuggler also lost for the season, it's a tough ask for a deep NCAA run, to be honest. And I had really struggled, quite honestly, trying to find a reasonable path forward to make a Final Four run.
00:32:02
Speaker
I mean, Jojo was averaging 16 minutes, 3.8 points, 4.1 rebounds, one steal, one block, and was a player box score plus minus plus 4.6. And that's for the entire season, including the early season when he didn't play as much.
00:32:19
Speaker
But it doesn't tell the whole story as he was trending up and the stats don't reflect the number of deflections, altered shots, tip outs for offensive rebounds he made while in the game. Now, there was a stat that was published last week and it was an NCAA.
00:32:34
Speaker
Stat, where Tuggler is the seventh ranked defensive player in the country, one spot above Donovan Clingan, according to the NCAA Bayesian performance rating. And you know who else is on that top list? Shed is number one, Francis is number two. That's why we're the best defensive team in the country. But you're talking about eliminating the seventh ranked defensive player in the country.
00:33:01
Speaker
Plus, look, we have two kids that have played with any size in Roberts and Francis. And foul trouble will be magnified in our ability to play the kind of D we're used to. And we saw that in OU. And when you start looking at being second in the nation in block shots, heavily impacted there as well. I believe said, we'll have to play 10 minutes a game like he did versus OU. I don't know how many minutes he played today. But he was in there in the first half as well. And he's going to have to spell the guys, at least, for a little bit.
00:33:29
Speaker
He did great in the OU game with two rebounds, one block, and was actually a player box score of plus minus plus 5.3. So he handled himself extremely well. And if we can get that consistently, I'll take it.
00:33:43
Speaker
each and every day. I had a chance to think about it more over the weekend. I'm reminded, as I mentioned earlier, that we can never count out our coaching staff, especially with Coach Sampson at the helm. Even when you look more closely at the past five games, and let's base it on data, we talked about it earlier. UT, ISU, Baylor, Cincy, OU, that was our toughest stretch of the season. We all agreed.
00:34:07
Speaker
But you know what the stats show? We actually upped our offensive game during those five games beyond the rest of the season. Our adjusted offensive efficiency for those five games was a staggering 130.6, where for the season we're ranked 14th in the country and our numbers are at 121.2.
00:34:29
Speaker
The number that we had in the last five games would put us number one in the country, even above Alabama's obscene 127.5 offensive efficiency. Even if you take the anomaly OU game out of the equation where we basically had an efficiency on the offensive side of 150, we'd still be at 125.3. And that would rate us at number five in the country offensively.
00:34:56
Speaker
Now on D, we have dropped off to 94 defensive efficiency, adjusted defensive efficiency, including the OU game. But that would still put us at number eight in the country on defense.
00:35:10
Speaker
We will suffer with tug-of-rout, but I have confidence in our coaching staff to be able to piece together a winning strategy to keep our D where it needs to be. For our postseason chances, I'm out of my depression. And depending on the draw, I think we can match up well in advance. One draw that I actually saw had us paired up with Marquette as the number two in our region and Illinois as a number four, which I would take in a second right now.
Preview and Analysis of KU Game
00:35:37
Speaker
For the Big 12 attorney, I think I'm like you, Bill. I don't even care. I just want us to get out without any additional injuries. Hate to say this, but I wouldn't mind if we actually lost in the semis and got the kids some time to rest and recover. I believe we've wrapped up a number one seed at this point.
00:35:57
Speaker
I do, too. Yeah. So let's see. Fingers crossed. Now let's get to the game preview for the upcoming UHKU matchup to end the regular season. This is the one that everyone, fans, players, coaches, I'm sure, have had circled on the calendar since the beginning of the season, thinking was that this would be to determine the conference championship. Of course, that's not the case anymore. And we're guaranteed of at least a share of it.
00:36:24
Speaker
Bill, what do you think of our game coming up with KU to end the season? I've got some things jotted down, but I may have to reword this if BYU hangs on and beats Iowa State, because I was not expecting that to happen tonight. And I was expecting the Seoul Conference championship to come down to us beating Kansas on Saturday. Hey, Bill.
00:36:51
Speaker
I just want to remind you that I predicted a BYU upset at ISU in last week's episode. Well, good. I'll congratulate you for that while you're buying me dinner. That's OK. I'll be happy to pay for dinner if they can pull off the upset. I'll be happy to eat it.
00:37:12
Speaker
Kansas, they're 10 and seven right now, they're tied with tech. And I'd written down that the game was going to mean more for us than for KU. KU is either going to end up the four or the five seed. And there is some incentive to winning against us because if you're the four, you get an additional buy.
00:37:35
Speaker
They're going to end up playing tech than I'm sure they'd like to have the rest going into it. So they do have their motivation. But of course we're playing for the so big 12 title and.
00:37:52
Speaker
if Iowa State does lose to BYU tonight, and I hope to God they do, then obviously our incentive is not nearly what it would be because we'll have the number one seed and the conference championship clinched. We've covered KU pretty much ad nauseam. Tom, you're the
00:38:15
Speaker
the weekly KU previewer. So there's really no need to rehash the players and any statistics, anything like that.
00:38:26
Speaker
You know, without toggler, obviously the depth becomes an issue on the front line and Kansas will no doubt. And if you paid attention to tonight, if you paid attention to Oklahoma, they tried to go inside. They especially tried to go inside tonight. UCF's two top scorers or they're starting guards and they were going inside as much as they possibly could. And obviously to take advantage of
00:38:56
Speaker
the lack of depth we have on the front line. So, you know, Kansas is going to do exactly the same thing. They're going to get the ball inside to Dickinson and Adams, maybe McCullough as well. And Furphy can occasionally go inside, although he plays primarily from the perimeter.
00:39:16
Speaker
My guess is that every three they shoot is gonna result from kick out from their posts because they're gonna run everything through the post against us. Against better shooting teams, I'm not as big a fan of us doubling as much as we do, especially the post. But Dickinson can also do a lot offensively. He's not like several other big guys we play that get the ball and looked at.
00:39:46
Speaker
Kick it immediately using off obviously an offensive threat so you know what when we do double him the rotations need to be quick they need to be sharp and we need to
00:39:59
Speaker
get to their shooters and get a hand in their face. They're not going to shoot like they did at Fogg Allen. That's just not going to happen. I've said it over and over and over that the Fertitta Center is the best home court advantage. And I still believe that. And I do not think under any circumstances they shoot anywhere close to what they did the first time. Yeah, I agree.
00:40:24
Speaker
you know, offensively, prior, he had a great second half against Kansas, although they were up quite a bit when it was occurring. But if he can continue to shoot the way he's been shooting, be aggressive, make his shots, I think he can take advantage of Kansas. I think that Roberts
00:40:44
Speaker
It doesn't matter who's guarding him, whether it's Adams or Dickinson. I think Roberts could score inside and play well. And I think if we stay out of foul trouble, I think we're in good shape. We are going to create turnovers against them.
00:41:01
Speaker
And offensively, if we're aggressive, Sharp, Wilson, and Dunn. If Dunn plays confidently, I think we'll be in good shape. Leading up to this, I said that we'd win this game by 20. There's a lot going on, especially if we've already clinched the title. And I was saying this prior to the Tuggler injury.
00:41:26
Speaker
the fact that we'd have more depth on the front line. I still say we win this game 79, 69, 10 point win. Yeah, that's that's what the metrics suggest as well. How about you, Tom? What do you think? From a coaching perspective, I'm interested to see if we do anything different. Garden Dickinson, if we just go one on one and without having Jojo, that's probably going to change some things up too, but
00:41:55
Speaker
That's the big thing I'm looking for is. Do we tweak anything that we did different or we just try to do the same thing and just do it a lot better than we did the first time. If you recall, that's the game where I think JVA went down early in the game, but you know what? It was early in the game, but we were already, you could already just tell that the die had been cast just the way cancer was playing and the way we were playing. But with JVA back this time, you'll definitely be a different game, I believe.
00:42:24
Speaker
If you look at advanced analytics, we're still number one. KU is 17th, so this is a heavyweight matchup. We've actually risen on the offensive side. We're 14th in adjusted offensive efficiency, and KU's done the same on the defensive side. They're 10th now in the country. On the flip side, we've maintained being number one in adjusted defensive efficiency all season long. KU is a very advanced 39th in adjusted offensive efficiency.
00:42:52
Speaker
You know, KUs, they're gonna be one of the better shooting teams we'd have played this season. 34th in effective field goal percentage. They can turn it over a little bit. To your point, Tom, it will be interesting to see how we adjust from game one on D. That's really key. How they were posting up high to make it difficult for us to recover, to cover their three-point shooters. I'm really curious to see what Coach Sampson has in store.
00:43:18
Speaker
there for us. On the flip side, KUSD has been surprisingly great this year, especially for KU, where they've improved a 10th, as I had mentioned, you look at the stats, they do everything good. But really, the best areas that they zero in on are around defending the two point shot where they're 27th in Ken Palm and defensive rebounding. But you know, they don't force a lot of turnovers, they don't block a lot of shots.
00:43:45
Speaker
Keys for us are going to be getting open looks from three and adjusting our D to cover off KU's effective passing game from the high post. Based on metrics, it's a 10 point win for the Cougs at home based on Ken Palm. I'm thinking it's going to be a bit closer, especially since we've got things wrapped up and hopefully Iowa State falls today and we're still adjusting to playing without Tuggler.
00:44:10
Speaker
So I'm projecting maybe a five point win, 73-68. So fingers crossed, I'll be there at the game, looking forward to it.
00:44:19
Speaker
So that's it for this episode 20 of the No Conference for Old Men podcast. Hope you all enjoyed it. And again, would really appreciate it if folks would follow, subscribe, or collect our podcast, depending on your podcast platform of choice. We are also available via the Republic of Football podcast feed from the folks at Dave Campbell's Texas Football as the only basketball-centric podcast in their feed.
00:44:41
Speaker
or at Goku's dot com in their website for those that prefer to digest the content that way. We appreciate the continued support from all. Also, please give us a follow on our Twitter account. No conference for old men. Thank you all again for listening. And please be on the lookout to download and listen to the episode as it drops next week. Take care, everyone.