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Houston Cougars are 6-0! + Feast Week & Big 12/Big East Challenge Games
113 Plays1 year ago
Welcome to Ep 7 of the No Conference for Old Men Podcast! The only all-year round college basketball podcast focused on the Houston Cougars & Big 12 Conference.
It's Feast Week & the Houston Cougars are now 6-0! We start with a detailed analysis of the games at the Charleston Classic, then move on to the Cougar's upcoming games (including our Big 12/Big East Challenge matchup w/ Xavier), & finally we wrap up by highlighting some key Big 12 games to look out for vs the Big East.
- No Conference for Old Men is available for free via Spotify / Apple Podcasts / Pandora.
- Intro/Exit music: Ground Zero provided by FreeBeats.io
- Please follow us on Twitter/X @NoConfForOldMen https://twitter.com/NoConfForOldMen
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
you
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome folks to the seventh episode of no conference for old men, the podcast where a couple and sometimes three old guys are talking Houston Cougars and big 12 college hoops with a bit of national big game coverage
Feast Week & Season Stats
00:00:17
Speaker
as well. We're into feast week, which typically consists of the best set of college basketball games for fans to enjoy prior to conference play beginning. We're also at the point where with six games in it's enough where I will begin to reference the Ken Palm and various other stats strictly from this season in our analysis moving
Co-hosts & Agenda Overview
00:00:35
Speaker
forward.
00:00:35
Speaker
And today, we again have Bill Walker back to co-host with Tom Lydiak and myself, Steve Chang. And like last week, we'll start off with a summary of the Houston Cougars games that were played, move into a preview of their games in the coming couple of weeks, then highlight some key Big 12 games to watch for. With special attention placed on the Big 12 Biggies challenge games, since we feel there is greater importance as it relates to conference strength, come tourney selection time.
Charleston Classic Recap
00:01:02
Speaker
OK, let's get right into it, gentlemen. We're going to recap the three games from the Charleston Classic, which the Cougars did win. First game being with Towson, where we downed the Tigers 65 to 49. Good win, but closer than our previous three games, which I will remind you guys would be the case based on analytics. Now, Tom, what are your coach's thoughts about our win to kick off the tournament?
00:01:26
Speaker
Well first off I had to record the game so by the time I watched it I knew the final score and we exactly didn't finish at the finish line you know going strong kind of petered out there towards the end. I think we had 63 points I think and there was still like 622 left in the game and I knew we only had 65 so I'm thinking geez you know we scored two points but
00:01:49
Speaker
We're doing the same thing we did last year, same defense. There were some rotation snafus here and there, but it looks like as each game that we play and the competition became a little bit better. Some of the new guys are coming in, it's becoming a little more intuitive, but still our defense still has a way to go before we hit the big 12 play. But yeah, overall, it was a good game and then it kind of got
00:02:15
Speaker
the muddy muddy there toward the end after we had the game locked up. Yeah, no, that's great. I completely agree. It definitely feels like and we'll get through all three games where we can talk about the players and the comfort level as they're getting used to playing with each other. But Bill, what do you think about the game?
00:02:33
Speaker
I mean, I thought it was kind of a tale of two halves. The first half, the defense was just extraordinary. Sixteen points, they scored in the first half. I mean, we were so good and on our way, and I guess I'm trying to cover myself because I did say it would be a 30 point win. We were up 20 at half and on our way to a 30 plus point victory. I thought
00:02:56
Speaker
We got out to that lead and the fact that we're on ESPN 2, I think the whistles and I get into arguments with people about this all the time when they complain about the whistles not being in our favor. I thought they were a little bit against us in that game and I can kind of understand that it's on ESPN 2.
00:03:15
Speaker
you
Houston vs. Utah Game Review
00:03:16
Speaker
don't want the casual fan seeing a huge blowout and you know flipping over to the food network to see a competition about who can cook the best platypus using three-month-old onions or something like that and so I could see where they maybe wanted to keep it a little closer than
00:03:35
Speaker
They otherwise might, but the other thing was, and we began to slow down and I agree with Tom, it looked sluggish in the second half, especially offensively. Number one, this was, this was the first road game we played. The other thing is, Tom, you had mentioned something when we spoke offline about hearing Kelvin yelling rebound at the beginning of the game. And you could, you could definitely hear him. He was near him. I could hear two words over and over and over. One was rebound and the other was Damon.
00:04:04
Speaker
Yeah, well, I was about to get to both of those. You know, the second half, I was listening for more of Calvin and didn't hear much. I think, and I should have taken this into account when I made the 30 point prediction, we were playing the very next day against Utah. I think Calvin just took his foot off the accelerator. I think he wasn't, he was okay. We had the game in hand. We were going to win at
00:04:30
Speaker
And that was that, let's not wear ourselves out. Let's keep the energy up for the Utah game, which was the very next day. Quite honestly, I was wondering if maybe one of you two guys had put on a mask and were out there impersonating Don because it just did not look like he showed up. I mean, he was really, and I could include myself in that as well. Yeah. He just looked like he didn't show up. It was kind of surprising, especially since he's one of the veterans out there, but overall it was.
00:05:00
Speaker
You know, it was what it was. We won comfortably. I don't think anybody was worn out. We were ready to go against Utah. And so it was a good win. Yeah, getting back to Damien. Was that the first game he started? He was. I was going to cover that. It was. Yeah, I think it was the first game he started.
00:05:16
Speaker
I think we all mentioned this with, you know, we were texting back and forth. One of you guys mentioned that it's like he left his legs in Houston. I don't know. Maybe he gets motion sickness and he had too much drama, meaning it's just, I don't know, but he did look sluggish. The handles weren't there and yeah.
00:05:33
Speaker
we'll just leave it at that okay i mean from an analyst perspective and and i'll start off by again talking about the starters as we just referenced we had jamal shell lj crier damian dunn starting for the first time joanne roberts and javier francis we continue to see more of the four out one in lineup with terence arseno with the four
00:05:53
Speaker
But the big difference was we started to see Ramon Walker beginning to seed some of his minutes to Arsenal in this game. And as we cover the remaining games, that will become a trend. We started fast on this one and never looked back. As we talked about earlier, up 37-17 at the half. Then Towson settled down and we kind of coasted, quite honestly, in the second half. And as you pointed out, Bill, rightfully so, because this is, what, three games in four days, basically. So you need to save your legs.
00:06:22
Speaker
So it was a comfortable win. LJ Cryer continued to get comfortable with a second game in a row with 18 points three of seven from three. Sharp got off with 14 points three of five from three. While as you guys stated Damien Dunn and also my favorite player Jojo Tuggler struggled in this game.
00:06:42
Speaker
Now from an analytics perspective on offense, our effective field goal percentage was
Free Throw Concerns
00:06:46
Speaker
a tiny bit below standard at 47.4%. We protected the ball overall with turnover percentage at 14.14%. And we didn't offensive rebound all that well at 26.23% versus standard last year. Though we did defensive rebound very well, keeping Towson from getting any offensive rebounds.
00:07:08
Speaker
On defense, we limited Towson to 42.86% field goal percentage right at standard, forced them to 17% turnovers just below our norm of 21.1%, limited three-point percentage shooting to 26.7%, which is right on standard. And then we blocked 7.41% of their two-point shots versus 16.7% forecasted from last year. So we basically played to our norms, given this was a tough opponent playing on a neutral court.
00:07:38
Speaker
So a good win, move on to the next round and the next game at Charleston was versus Utah. And the Cougars grinded through what I'll call a statement winning 76-66 win. Bill, why don't you start off any thoughts on our win against Utah? Yeah, Kelvin had mentioned
00:07:57
Speaker
afterward in his post-game conference analysis that this game was a complete anomaly. It's not something that you tend to prepare for. It's just not something you're going to see. And as I mentioned during when we previewed the game, starting line up of 7-1, 7-feet, 6-7, 6-6, and even 6-4 at the point with two of the first three subs who get decent minutes off the bench, 6-9 and 6-10. I mean, it's a huge team.
00:08:25
Speaker
And you're just not going to run into that.
Defensive Strategies Discussion
00:08:27
Speaker
They kept saying it's the second tallest team in the nation. They never said who the tallest was, but this is a huge team. And what impressed me so much was that our interior D, our offensive rebounding, our rebounding in general, and
00:08:42
Speaker
Just our overall defense was, I thought was absolutely spectacular for the entire 40 minutes. There, there were no let downs and that's and shot well against us in the second half. Towson played okay in the second half and kept things a little tighter. This was just 40 really good minutes. Utah had the one perimeter guy that seven threes and, and he hit, and he was pretty well guarded on some of those. He, he was just on fire and you know, that happens, but.
00:09:11
Speaker
I mean, the defense, I was just overwhelmingly impressed with the defense from start to finish. And this is with some of the guys still not being right in step with what Kelvin wants. And by that I mean, Cryer a little bit, Francis is still not the quickest laterally inside, we've talked about that, Tuggler, Don Wilson.
00:09:36
Speaker
Not quite there, but the rotations were crisp, getting to the ball, pressuring the ball, defensive rebounding, offensive rebounding. I was really, really impressed. I thought this would be a closer game than it turned out to be. And it was a close game until prior hit those shots.
00:09:55
Speaker
to put us back up and then we wanted from there. The elephant in the room, the huge elephant in the room was the absolutely abysmal free throw shooting. And this could have been a better win had we been able to make free throws. And I was at the football game shortly thereafter and everyone at the game was talking like, hey, we just beat Utah by 10. This is a big win. But everyone wanted to talk about the free throw shooting.
00:10:23
Speaker
Yeah, I've talked to a lot of people about that one person, you know, Steve, Rob, he had mentioned that he compared it to biathletes, which I thought was sort of interesting. He said that, you know, we work so hard on D the end in terms of rebounding that over the past several years, both the field goal and the free throw shooting hasn't been
00:10:44
Speaker
great, and that may be the reason. If you're a biathlete, you ski your butt off, you get to where you need to go, you flip off the skis, you pick up the rifle, and you have to shoot accurately. The Olympians do it well, but there are others, even the Olympians, that don't do it as accurately. So there could be some truth to that. I just happen to think that it's a matter primarily of concentration, and you guys can talk about it more.
00:11:09
Speaker
Yeah.
Dayton Championship Game Recap
00:11:24
Speaker
Not being as great a shooting team as maybe some others but but we need to be shooting 70% from the line We can make up for maybe missing other shots Maybe not being a great free-throw shooting team with the offensive rebounding with the defense with the offensive efficiency moving the ball but you know shooting around 50% that's gonna hurt us down the line against the better teams and
00:11:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think we'll get there. I think it's I think some kids are still getting used to the program and the surroundings and certainly folks like done are going to improve. I mean, he's been at roughly 80% for sure. Yeah, I think it was like 82.3 last year at Temple.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, so what do you think, Tom? I think our quickness was the story in this game. So it was sometime in the first half, our quickness and our pressure on defense, you know, their taller team, their slower team. And, you know, I think our quickness, we got some deflections, got some steals. I think that was the key to the game. Bill mentioned criers, two big shots. I can't remember exactly, but it might've been when they went to a 1-3-1.
00:12:26
Speaker
Do you guys recall if it was or I do not. I think it was man. Okay, it was man. Yeah, because I think they went to a 1-3-1 after Cryer hit those shots because they were down. I think they were trying to throw something different at us because they had done that the night before against Wake Forest. Yeah, those two shots by Cryer were huge. Just a great shooter. It's such a quick release. I mean, I want to say this release is even quicker than Sasser's.
00:12:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it was a good win. They came back and Utah tied it up. I think it was sometime in the second half. I can't remember how much time was left.
00:13:04
Speaker
But I think it was on the next couple of possessions where we had the two big threes by LJ. And yeah, it was a good win. Yeah, completely agree. And for the Utah game, I called it a statement game because Utah's size, skill, and the question out there as to whether our smaller team, especially with how we've been playing four out and one in, could defend an offensive rebound against a big rugged and skilled team.
00:13:26
Speaker
Now, if you look at the starters, we kept the same starters, Shed, Cryer, Dunn, Roberts, and Francis. Our rotation, however, tightened up considerably against a tougher opponent in Utah, with Cryer, Shed both playing 33 minutes. Malik Wilson, our primary point guard backup, only played four minutes and was ineffective.
00:13:46
Speaker
As I stated to Bill last episode, I'm not convinced Wilson handles the ball or distributes it well enough to play big minutes against tougher teams. And we saw a coach feeling that same way, at least for the time being. Interestingly enough, even Francis and Tuggler's minutes shrunk to 25 minutes between the two. So we saw a lot of shed crier, Roberts, Arsenal, and either sharp or done in the lineup.
00:14:12
Speaker
Carlson, their seven foot power forward that shoots threes, started hot, but I'm going to give Arsenault credit for containing him after that initial burst. Terrance and Arsenault is not necessarily stuffing the box score at this point, but he's competing and his play is contributing to winning.
00:14:28
Speaker
He took all the backup minutes of the four with Walker not seeing the floor at all this game. As a team we got off to a fast start again for the second game in a row. We were up 39-30 at the half. Then we battled them in the second where a few times I thought we'd pull away until Gabe Madsen just went crazy hitting threes from everywhere on the court.
00:14:48
Speaker
As you dig into the advanced analytics from Ken Palm, offensively, our effective field goal percentage was at standard at 51.61%. We protected the ball extremely well with turnover percentage at 10.23% versus our norm last year at 15.4%. So that was exceptional.
00:15:08
Speaker
We also offensive rebounded slightly below standard at 30.77% versus 37% last year. But again, keep in mind this was a huge team and we out rebounded rebound by one overall. On D, we limited Utah to 45.28% field goal percentage, a little bit above norm, forced them to 21.28% turnovers, which was right on par.
00:15:32
Speaker
and limited their three point percent shooting to 32.3 percent, which was a little bit worse than what we normally do. But again, this is with one player going crazy in the second half. Basically, we were close to our overall norms last year against a tough, highly skilled team that will likely be the biggest one we play this season. So I would say test passed.
00:15:54
Speaker
on whether we're going to be able to play against big teams with our small lineup. In fact, Coach went all in in this game, where our two primary fives hardly played at all. So it was really an impressive display by this young team. And finally, we go to the championship game against Dayton, where of course the Cougars capped off the tournament by winning the championship by 14, 69 to 55 over Dayton. Tom, what are your thoughts on the win to win the actual tournament?
00:16:22
Speaker
I think the Dayton game was our best overall game. You could see things finally clicking on, you could see things clicking on offense and defense, you know, our rotations, the pick and roll defense, the monitoring. It's not all there yet. Today is what, November 22nd, you know, selection Sundays, not till what, like March.
00:16:42
Speaker
12th or something like that. So it's like three months away. So those rotations will get better. The monster defense will get better. They'll be quicker. They'll be more aggressive. We'll get more deflections out of it. The three other guys in the monster, they're going to get to their spots more intuitively. As the season goes on, pick and roll defense, like I said, is going to improve too. But overall, you can see things all coming together. In front of basically, it was a home crowd.
00:17:11
Speaker
There's certain players, uh, shed being in one of them. I just think they just love when, uh, you know, the silence, the crowd, they put it in another gear. Our first couple of games of the season against Monroe and can't remember who else we played Corpus Christi. We didn't need shed. He didn't shoot much. He didn't score much. He didn't need to. There were, you know, he just distributed the ball. There are other guys, but you know what, when the going gets tough.
00:17:35
Speaker
Jamal shed gets going He's at his best when his best is needed and I wouldn't trade him for any other point guard in the country You know, they're talking about the Marquette colic being the best point guard in the country. I wouldn't trade him for Jamal shed Yeah, absolutely not. What do you think bill? Well
00:17:52
Speaker
Tom, thanks. You just stole my, completely stole my thunder. Sorry. And I'll be, and I'll be previewing the Marquette UT game. And yeah, you just, you just, I might as well leave all the words out of my mouth. No, go ahead. Say what you're going to say. Well, number one, the rebounding, especially in the first half was awesome. We had 10 boards in the first 10 offensive rebounds in the first half. I think
00:18:22
Speaker
They might have had one. I'm not sure I could be wrong. It could have been zero, but I think it was 10-1. The offensive rebounding was incredible. We controlled the inside, and that was impressive to see. They've got a power forward on the team whose last name is Elvis, and I thought to myself, well, Elvis is in the building, but if you really are talking about the king,
00:18:45
Speaker
It's absolutely Jamal's shed. He was so good in that game. Cryer was really good as well. And the two of them had huge first halves. And we got up in the second half. And it was a little reminiscent to the Towson game, except that Dayton's got a ton more talent. Yes, a much better player. And we played better. But it was a game where we got up double digits and just didn't let them get back into it. We held on. We won the game.
Coaching Philosophy Insights
00:19:14
Speaker
the offensive rebounding. I was really impressed with that and back to shed.
00:19:20
Speaker
And I had fully intended to compare him to Colic. Yeah, he gets, I was listening, I watched Marquette's last two games against UCLA and then last night against Kansas. And, you know, you got Jay Bilas saying he's the best point guard in the country and, and I'm from Milwaukee. So I'm a little biased toward Marquette and I agree that he's a, he's a player. He's very good. But here's the thing.
00:19:45
Speaker
Everyone, I think when they rate players, it's largely based on their offensive skillset, what they could do offensively. They're just not even remotely in the same class when it comes to defense. Shed is so good defensively. And that absolutely, in my opinion, I think he's the best point guard in the country based on everything that he does. He rebounds. You know, oftentimes he stops the other teams to guard. He's so good overall that to,
00:20:14
Speaker
Continually hear the, and I'm using air quotes when I say it's the experts saying that Kolek is the best point guard in the country. And I've heard this about some of the other point guards. They're just missing the boat because shed is so good on both ends of the court. Yeah, he was credible in this game. I was really impressed.
00:20:33
Speaker
you know we still didn't shoot the ball all that well and and i'll say this about other teams as well as us it's still early and tom you alluded to it earlier it's still early in the season and the shots hopefully will come around yeah i'd like to see because we are such a kind of perimeter oriented team at least our strength and our depth is
00:20:54
Speaker
the back court and the you know maybe the swing man with the three. I'd like to see us hitting a better percentage of the shots especially the open shots and we had a bunch of them in the second half against Dayton and you know like I said hopefully it'll come it's still early in the season they're similar maybe to what's going on with the free throws where they're working so damn hard defensively and they're so good and so effective
00:21:19
Speaker
defensively, maybe it is taking a little bit of a toll on the offense on the shooting. That's about the only the only negative I really saw in that game. Yeah, I hate to break it to you, Bill, but we never shoot well, right? If you go past the last four or five years, it's about where we're at. Now, we've had one good year, which was the elite eight year where we were near elite status. But every other year, we've been like
00:21:45
Speaker
around 100 100 plus and we're right there right now as well so i think you know to your point i think you're spot on in terms of the way we play d it's going to take a toll on your offense regardless i'll put in here uh i think there's some validity to you know our shooting uh you expend a lot of energy on you know physically on defense but you also spend a lot of mental energy on defense exactly
00:22:10
Speaker
Yeah, and every coach has an emphasis. If you go to a practice within the first 30 minutes, you'll know what that coach emphasizes. It might be offense, it might be defense. Coach Sampson has mentioned before that you can't be good at everything. It's like the restaurant that has 75 things on the menu, and there's so many things on the menu that none of them are good as opposed to
00:22:35
Speaker
maybe a restaurant that concentrates on five things in there and they're really, really good. So, you know, Coach Sampson says you got to identify what you want to be good at the beginning of the year.
Upcoming Games Preview
00:22:44
Speaker
And then that's your emphasis. And it's definitely with us is defense. You go back to Kelvin's years at Oklahoma and people jokingly said that he needed to hire an offensive coordinator. So.
00:22:56
Speaker
It goes back to his OU days. Not that we don't do really good stuff on offense. You've got to have an emphasis. I mean, in our culture is you win by defending and you win by rebounding. Yes, you share the ball on offense. You play unselfish.
00:23:11
Speaker
everybody has a role you know you're not gonna have bad shooters taking shots i think it's just the whole emphasis we're replacing that that's why we're the program we are there's nobody else in the country that does what the houston cougars do yet not completely grab no issue with our shooting percentage and yeah would we like to score more efficiently.
00:23:32
Speaker
Sure. But guess what? We offensive rebound like heck to make up for it. And that results in an adjusted offensive efficiency ranking of 10th. We're 10th in the nation offensively. So I'm a buddy in one more time, guys. OK. Our summer workouts, there's three things we work on every single day in the summer. It's transition defense. It's the monster. And it's pick and roll defense. Other programs, they're not working on that. They're working on
00:23:59
Speaker
What we call skill development, you know, with the guards forwards, whatever their, you know, guys work on their post moves. Our guys are expected to do that, do that on their own time. Yeah. You know, when they get into the staff, you know, they're, they're working on those three things. And another thing is when Kelvin recruits big men.
00:24:16
Speaker
First thing he looks at is, can they play pick and roll defense? Not looking at offense. That's all a factor. I mean, the guy has to have a little bit of offensive potential, but they're looking at, does he have a motor? Can he rebound? Does he have the foot speed to play pick and roll defense? Because if he doesn't, he's not a good fit for the program. That's why guys like Zach E.D., Hunter Dickinson, they wouldn't be good fits for our program.
00:24:39
Speaker
because they're not going to be able to come up to the line of scrimmage on a ball screen and move their feet faster than enough to play that pick and roll defense. Yeah, I mean, I'm in complete agreement with you, Tom, in terms of we saved the best for last in the Charleston Classic. And we appear to be getting into an eight-man rotation that coach can really trust. Starters, again, were Jamal Shead, LJ Cryer, Damian Dunn, Joanne Roberts, and Javié Francis. We saw primarily sharp tugler arsenal off the bench.
00:25:09
Speaker
Malik Wilson in this game again only played eight minutes. Ramon Walker only played one minute. This game we saw more of our big lineup with Roberts and Francis playing together more frequently which is great to see. Francis contributing with
00:25:24
Speaker
9 rebounds, 5 offensive, and 1 block. Cryer and Shed as you guys had both mentioned were the Stars controlling the game with 18 points and 16 points apiece. Roberts was money down low going 5 of 6 for 10 points and 8 rebounds.
00:25:39
Speaker
And with Santos and Holmes going off for Dayton, especially in the first half, I know we've been giving Dunn a hard time, but I felt like once we put Dunn on Santos, it made a huge difference on Dee. We controlled the game the whole way, winning each of the first three quartiles of the game until we let the backup clear the bench late in the fourth quartile. Now from an analytics perspective,
00:26:03
Speaker
on offense we didn't shoot great at 49.21 percent effective field goal percentage which was a little bit below our norm but man we protected the ball extremely well with turnover percentage at 12.32 percent which is well below our norm
00:26:20
Speaker
and we offensive rebounded at an exceptional level this game at 44.74% which is crazy. On D we limited Dayton to 44.68% field goal percentage which was right around our norm. Forced them to 19.43 turnover percentage and limited their three point percentage to 22.2% in the end and this is after they had a
00:26:44
Speaker
fast start to begin with, especially with Santos. We blocked 13.79% of their two-point shots. Basically, we played to our standard against our toughest opponent to date and really stifled them, especially on the three-point line. So a great tournament for our Cougars, where we learned a bit more about this year's team. Any last points from the two of you before we head into the upcoming games? Yeah, can I defend myself real quickly? Sure. There's nothing to defend, but yeah, go ahead. Oh, well.
00:27:14
Speaker
Well, maybe focusing on the defense. Nobody's going to argue with that. That's the number one priority. If you're not playing defense, you're not playing for Kelvin. No question about it. And I'll be the first to argue that this year we're as deep on the perimeter as we've ever been.
00:27:32
Speaker
And that's why I'm making the comment about shooting better because we've got more shooters and we've got good shooters. And again, it's early in the season, like I mentioned, so I'm sure it's going to get better. They're going to get more comfortable. Yes, you're absolutely right, Steve. We haven't shot well in the past. And like I said, it could be due to the unbelievable effort, both mentally and physically that we spend on defense, but we've got more shooters than we've ever had. We've got a deep.
00:28:01
Speaker
bench. So, you know, some of these guys are going to come in. They're going to be fresh. They're not going to be playing a ton of minutes and expending a ton of energy. We've got scores. We've got shooters. This team is set up to be a better shooting team than we've been in the past, but we should be a better shooting team than we've been in the past because we do have better shooting.
00:28:23
Speaker
Okay, why don't we get to the upcoming games at this point, and Montana's up first. Since you were starting to talk, why don't you cover it first, and what are your thoughts on Montana?
00:28:34
Speaker
Okay, this is kind of an interesting one. They're in this big sky. They're predicted typically a one-bit conference. They're predicted to come in about fourth place is what I've generally seen, maybe third but about fourth place. They're typically about a 500 team, a little better than 500 and that's including the conference. They've got a good
00:28:55
Speaker
a good coach, Travis DeQuire, three starters back. Their strength is their back court. And this is where it'll get interesting in a second. Their point guard, his name's Brandon Whitney. He does everything well. He's a good player. Again, he's playing at Montana. So, you know, unfortunately, their strength runs right into our strength. And so, you know, no worries. They're against shit. Here's the interesting one. And I love this. Their two guard is their one
00:29:22
Speaker
all-conference player. His name's Anel Moody. He's a 6'3 shooting guard. This is his seventh year in college. He's been at two schools for two years and third for three years. I didn't know that a seven-year player existed. I mean, he's as old as we are. You know, I could be wrong, but I was watching ESPN Classic recently and I saw U of H back in 83 against Memphis State in the tournament and
00:29:51
Speaker
Directly going up and dunking over.
00:29:53
Speaker
Andre Turner from Memphis State, that amazing dunk. I thought I might have seen Moody on the bench just shaking his head because he was playing back then. I mean, this guy, he's married. He has two kids. He is a 40% shooter, which is good. But my main concern is that, you know, being a senior citizen and being around for so long, I'm more con... I'm certainly not concerned with him out playing shed or cryer. I'm more concerned with him.
00:30:22
Speaker
putting them in a time out if they start to do too much to him because he's as old as everyone's fathers. I didn't know that you could still be receiving Social Security and have your NCAA eligibility, but apparently that's the case. They've got one other player, a 6'9",
00:30:40
Speaker
player named Deshaun Thomas. He's led them in scoring in one game with 23. And they've played one decent team so far. They're two and two. They lost at Oregon by 14. Other than that, they lost at home to North Dakota State by nine. They beat Cal Davis by 13. They beat Northwest Indiana, who I think they're applying to become a Division 12 school.
00:31:06
Speaker
And so, you know, they're two and two there. This is not going to be an overly competitive game.
00:31:12
Speaker
You know, Shed and Cry are going to shut down their strength, which is the back court. And our guard's off the bench. I think if we make our free throws, we win by 25. If we don't shoot particularly well at the line, maybe we win by 17, 18. But this not too dissimilar to Stetson, to Towson, to A&M Corpus Christi. Yeah, very similar. It's not going to be a nice kind of relaxing game after the Charleston and heading into the Big 12 Big E challenge. OK.
00:31:42
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you. It's not a great matchup for them. What do you think, Tom? Two reasons to watch the game. One, we're all Houston Cougar fans, you know, Houston Cougar basketball fans. Number two, I want to see Ramon and Lily play. Two reasons to watch the game. You guys mentioned it. They're similar like in Ken Palm, the Towson Stetson. I think he'll be five, 30, 35 point game. Bill mentioned this. They have two wins. One was over Cal Davis and Bill, I think the
00:32:10
Speaker
Their first win was actually against a school called Northwest Indian College, which makes me wonder, is there a Southeast Indian College? I thought there was an A at the end. I thought it was Indiana, but maybe you're right. Maybe I'm losing my vision in my old age. I need to invest in some reading glasses.
00:32:31
Speaker
They're one of those teams that when you go to ESPN and you look at the scores, they don't have their logo on there. Something great. It's something great. So I saw that. Anyway, should be a good game to get big set in there. Uh, like I said, to get Lily in there.
00:32:46
Speaker
And hopefully Ramon, you know, see some early time and even Wilson too, because his minutes weren't you didn't get a whole lot of minutes in the Charleston classic. It also gives shed a chance to rest his legs. You know, we're having about a week between games and it'll give shed a little bit more. And then he can have really, really fresh legs when we play Xavier the following Friday. OK.
00:33:09
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not going to spend too much time on the analytics for this game either. All I'll say is in Ken Palm, we're number two in Montana is 259. And both the offensive and defensive adjust efficiency ratings reflect that on both sides. So it's going to be another 30 point win. But hopefully, as you guys mentioned as well, Wilson and Walker will get more minutes to get better.
00:33:32
Speaker
and hopefully gain the trust of coach so that they can get a few more minutes come the important games in conference. And we'll see. I mean, this should definitely be the game where they're going to get substantial minutes to prove them. Now, next, let's get into our marquee game in these next two weeks versus Xavier. Not the same opponent as originally anticipated, giving free mantelos out for the season, but still number 31 in Ken Palm right now. What's your coach's perspective on the game, Tom? You can kick things off.
00:33:59
Speaker
Sean Miller, excellent coach. We all know him from his days at Arizona. And before that he was at Xavier, you know, this is the second, second time at Xavier, Sean. Yeah. Like I said, Miller really, really good coach, you know, his team. So always play hard, primarily a man to man defensive team.
00:34:16
Speaker
So yeah, I think it's going to be a good matchup. We're playing on the road. It's a true road game. I'm pretty sure it's a sellout. But like I said earlier, we have some guys, we got some dogs that really when we're on the road and they're getting rowdy, we got some guys that just thrive in those type of environments. So I'm looking to see a big game from Robertson, Shed, and Cryer.
00:34:41
Speaker
I think those are the three guys. They'll be key this year. When we have those three on the floor, I feel pretty confident anytime one of those three is not on the floor or sometimes we have two of those three that aren't on the floor, it seems like all of a sudden a lead is cut.
Big 12 vs Big East Challenge
00:34:58
Speaker
So that's my coach's perspective. We're not gonna do anything different in our defensive. We do what we do. I think we come out with a 10, 12, 14 point victory.
00:35:09
Speaker
All right. How about you, Bill? What do you think? Well, you mentioned it, Tom. The first thing I wrote down was that this is the first true road game. So I think with the Charleston tournament, I think we're much better set up for the first road game. But nevertheless, it'll be 100% Xavier fans, and it'll be a building.
00:35:29
Speaker
I was all over us to win this game easily. Xavier's got a lot of new players. Right now they're three and two. It's a little bit misleading though. They beat Robert Morris by 14, big deal. They beat Jacksonville by 23, big deal.
00:35:43
Speaker
They lost at Purdue by 12, which is not a terrible loss at all. They lost to Washington by three, which made me think, OK, this is playing out exactly like I thought it would. Xavier is going to take some time to get better. And they're probably not that good right now. And then they come out and they just crushed St. Mary's by 17, which I was not expecting to see. I mean, that's a shocker. That's a really good win.
00:36:09
Speaker
Maybe Miller's got them playing together a little sooner than anticipated, but that's a really solid win, big win. We've previously mentioned that the three who are supposed to be the three good players for them, they're, they're three best players all coming from.
00:36:25
Speaker
conference USA, North Texas, the 610 player Abu Osmani, the six-foot point guard who everyone likes, Davian McKnight from Western Kentucky, and then Rice's leading scorer from last year, Quincy Oliveri, the 6'2 shooting guard. Again, I think Shed and
00:36:44
Speaker
and Cryer and the rest of our perimeter guys make it really tough for them. In the five games that they've played, Oliveri and McKnight have either led them in scoring or been right up there. They've got another guy who's played very well. He's a 6'6 swing man. His name is Desmond Claude. He was on the bench last year. Their strength was their perimeter, their big guard shooting small forward. And so he didn't get much minutes, but he scored 25 in a game already.
00:37:13
Speaker
Sean Miller had said going into the season that he'd by far make the biggest jump of any of their players. And so far it looks like he's right. So for them, it's going to be six, two shooting guards, six foot point guard, six, six swing man. And, and that plays into our strength again. So I like the matchup. They've got a good team. This is going to be a challenge for us. The free throws could come into play.
00:37:38
Speaker
But I think in the end, I think you're pretty spot on Tom. I have us winning by between eight and. Yeah. From an analytics perspective, as I had mentioned earlier on Houston's number two in Ken Palm, Xavier's 31st Xavier's going to try to speed things up, but we've always been great at controlling pace with coach Samson.
00:37:57
Speaker
On the offensive side, we're 10th in offensive efficiency, where Xavier this year is actually 17th in adjusted defensive efficiency. So they've dramatically improved since year one of Shawn Miller and are starting to take on more of historical identity on that side. On the flip side, we're number two in adjusted defensive efficiency, while Xavier is 61st in adjusted offensive efficiency.
00:38:20
Speaker
Xavier's low-good shooting team at 162 just above our threshold of bad at 175 and they're a bad offensive rebounding team at 278. The only thing they do well is protect the ball with turnover ranking number 28th in the country.
00:38:37
Speaker
Matched up against our number 26th effective field goal percentage D that defends every shot, it will be tough going for Xavier. On the other side of the ball, all of Xavier's D numbers look really, really good this year. They defend every shot and being number eight in effective field goal percentage defense and they're equally adept at both defending the three and the two.
00:38:59
Speaker
Fortunately, they do not defensive rebound very well. So that will play into our strength of offensive rebounding where we're still number 16th in the country this year. This is going to be a tight one. I'm in complete agreement with both of you that it's going to be tight, similar to the Utah game. And I'm anticipating about a 10 point win as well.
00:39:19
Speaker
So now let's get into the Cougars final game we're previewing this week, and that's Rice. They're a cross-down rival, sort of, but not really in hoops. What's your guys' perspective on this? And Bill, why don't you kick it off? Okay, well, Rice, they're currently one in three. Predicted, I've seen them, three different experts predicting the American where Rice is now playing.
00:39:42
Speaker
and predicted them all three 13th out of 14th. This is not a good team. They do have a win against a Houston team to start the year. Their one win, of course, that's against the mighty University of St. Thomas or St. Thomas University.
00:39:58
Speaker
They've lost to Harvard, gave up 89 points. Lost to UT, gave up 80 points. Lost to Indiana State, gave up 103 points. This is not a good defensive team, particularly not a good defensive team, but it's just not a good team.
00:40:14
Speaker
They have actually got a decent coach, Rapa, Scott Rapa in his sixth year, but unless they're competing with schools based on GPAs rather than how many points you could score, they're just not going to do well. I read one of the experts said that Rice is predicted to win the American based on GPA, and they'll probably be on a zero to four scale. Probably you'll like this, Steve, they'll probably be a three and a half point favorite over Memphis.
00:40:43
Speaker
But I think that's Rice's only strength. They're just not going to compete with the of age. Yeah, it'll definitely be tough going for them. What do you think, Tom?
00:40:54
Speaker
Okay. Before I get into rice, which will take, you know, about two seconds, uh, get back to the Xavier game. If you look at the Dayton game, we played that, what was it last Sunday? And then we have Montana on a Friday and then we play Xavier on a Friday. So we're basically going to have two weeks of practice before we play Xavier. So, uh, I don't think our starters are going to log a bunch of minutes against Montana. So we should be rested. Good point.
00:41:19
Speaker
You know, that two weeks of practice, we play some games now. So the coaching staff has stuff on film, uh, that we need to get better at, whether it's, you know, offensively, defensively. I think we're going to see a lot of improvement over the next couple of weeks. Getting a rice. Uh, I got one thing to say about rice. It's, it's not a football game. Exactly. I'm not going to get much into.
00:41:42
Speaker
the analytics on this one either. I mean, we're number two, they're 200 and first at this point, you look at their stats in advanced analytics, and it's read across the board on all major category other than defensive rebounding. So I'm not going to waste time. This is going to be a massacre by 30 plus points.
00:42:00
Speaker
I'm actually just hoping for a 40 point win to punish them after our embarrassing loss of them in football. So anyways, now finally, let's preview a few games of interest across the Big 12 during the next couple of weeks, giving particular attention to the fun Big 12 Big E's challenge.
00:42:17
Speaker
I love these conference versus conference challenges because it truly provides fans with some insight into relative strength across different conferences for not only bragging rights but also for positioning come turny time. So some really important games in my opinion. Which games are you guys paying close attention to? And Tom, why don't you kick things off?
00:42:36
Speaker
Okay. I did my homework. I got them highlighted. U of H Xavier, of course. Yes. All right. But the next two games, Yukon in Kansas, and then the evil empire versus Marquette. They're not really an evil empire because they're not an empire. Texas against Marquette. All right. The evil underachievers. The evil underachievers. Anything specifically you're looking out for in those games?
00:42:59
Speaker
I don't know. Kansas has already played, let's see, Kentucky. They played Tennessee. Where's the Tennessee game? I think it's going on right now or just ended. It's over. It was over about an hour and a half ago. Kansas beat Tennessee. I think it was tied at halftime. But KU had another game. I can't remember who it was. Kentucky.
00:43:22
Speaker
Yeah, Kentucky, so they've already had like three really marley games and now they're gonna go up against Yukon So, you know besides our game with Xavier I'm really looking forward to the the Yukon Kansas game and then number 1b would be the Texas Marquette and Marquette game we're gonna see a
00:43:40
Speaker
Rodney Terry yep in our interim coach last year taking over for Chris Beard We'll see if he can duplicate it, you know under his own watch Yeah, and I always love seeing Chaka smart come back right play his yes and give him a good kick in the rear end right that was good scheduling by The conference that put put those two together. Yeah, how about you bill? Which ones are you looking forward to? well, certainly Marquette, Texas again being from Milwaukee and
00:44:10
Speaker
mentioned earlier that I had fully intended to compare Tyler Kolek with Jamal Shedd. Yeah, I've watched Marquette in their last two games, as I mentioned, UCLA and Kansas really was fascinated watching the game last night. Marquette just
00:44:28
Speaker
dominated Kansas. I think it was as much as I'd love to say that Marquette is phenomenal and they're going to be phenomenal all year. Kansas to me looked really flat. They were out hustled, they were outplayed. Marquette was
00:44:43
Speaker
If not the most, they were right up at the top in terms of offensive efficiency last year. They're really good. They don't turn the ball over. They're a small team, but 89% of their scoring is back from last year. So they've got a good, deep team. On the one hand, they didn't look that good against UCLA, who's not an especially good team the day before, but
00:45:08
Speaker
They took it to Kansas everywhere. They just outplayed them. Kansas is so much bigger than Marquette. Marquette's a small team. Their best big guy got taken in the first round of the NBA draft. They're not a big team. They're a very good team defensive team, but this is a game that Kansas should win eight out of 10 times.
00:45:32
Speaker
They really got run off the floor. Marquette, a balanced scoring team, they play hard. They play really hard. You know, Shaka is an outstanding coach. Someone made a comment to me. He's actually.
00:45:45
Speaker
I've got to give him a lot of credit. He's our company attorney and he said to me at lunch the other day, you know, it looks like Shaka Shaka does really well. And oh, he said that University of Texas is a very good team, but they can't seem to play well or win when shock is on
Podcast Conclusion
00:46:03
Speaker
the floor.
00:46:03
Speaker
So where I might, you know, where I might otherwise say that this is going to be a very close game because UT has got a lot of really, really good players. Several of them went to the NBA camps, the draft camps, ended up coming back, the combine came back to school. I mean, they've got an overwhelming amount of talent. They don't seem to play the best defense from time to time.
00:46:32
Speaker
They can tend to turn the ball over, maybe take some bad shots, but they have got just a lot of talent on that team. I thought that this game was going to go down to the wire, but after learning that UT just can't play well with Shaka on the floor, I'm going to say that Marquette wins this game by maybe six to eight points. Okay. What was the other game that you're watching? Oh, is KU Yukon? Oh, the other game, yeah. The other game for me was KU Yukon.
00:47:02
Speaker
got to think that, as I mentioned early in the season, I think that last night against Marquette was a bit of an aberration. You know, it's early in the season and it's just, you know, Dickinson's been so good. Hunter Dickinson, the 7-1 center has been so good for them so far.
00:47:19
Speaker
the third leading scorer in the country and he started out well against Marquette and then he did nothing the rest of the game. They didn't get him the ball. He didn't seem to be particularly aggressive. I think because they're playing at home it's going to be a good game but I think they beat Connecticut. I watched Connecticut play UT. They scored 30 points in the first 10 minutes at 29 points
00:47:44
Speaker
They were on their way to scoring 700 points. Texas was playing no defense. And to Rodney Terry's credit, he switched to his own and it kind of slowed the game down. And, you know, the final score was 8171. So it wasn't an incredibly high scoring game.
00:48:01
Speaker
based on the way, based on the first 10 minutes, Texas has a lot of good players. I'm sorry. Yukon has a lot of good players, really good players. They brought in some good, bigger guys that they could shoot from the perimeter. They've got good depth. They're smart. They're not a turnover team.
00:48:19
Speaker
But I think at Kansas, I think Kansas plays like Kansas, and I think it's about a four or five point win. Couple of quick notes about Kansas, guys. I know it's early in the season, but this is probably the most vulnerable I've seen in a while. You look at Hunter Dickinson, you know, coming from Michigan. What did Michigan do when Hunter Dickinson played for him? I agree with you. And I make that. How far did Michigan go?
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah, I yeah, I'm not there yet. He's a he's a really tough player. I don't know. He's good. Okay. You also may want to compare Bill Self to uh, yeah to uh, John Howard Howard. Yeah, I would agree. It's like you put it under Dickinson with self. I'm not going to say an ill word unless they okay to shake around and kill another point about Kansas.
00:49:11
Speaker
They got Nick Timberlake from Towson in the portal. He was projected to start. Yeah, it hasn't been good. And they got him for shooting. He barely played the other day. So that could be something going forward.
00:49:25
Speaker
to look at Kansas if teams just start packing it in on Dickinson and there and some other guys, you know, there and some other guys to shoot. Bill Self, another thing, you know, he's coming off heart surgery. We don't know yet what type of effect it's going to have on his coaching, you know, because you got to be real on this. There's been some coaches that have had heart problems and they were never the same coach again.
00:49:47
Speaker
Yeah, you know, Bob Huggins toned it down. He had that Don Haskins at UTEP to, you know, by the time Tim Hardaway played for Don Haskins, he was in his calm period. So we'll see going forward. Yeah, we'll see how it plays out this season, especially as it gets into the meat of the conference play, right?
00:50:04
Speaker
So for me, I think I'm similar to the two of you guys were obviously KU and Yukon's got to be one of the ones that we watch. This is the marquee matchup between the big 12 biggies challenge, though I don't know how it's going to turn out, but it's going to be an interesting
00:50:21
Speaker
matchup. You've got two great bigs with Clingey and Dickinson, and then an interesting point guard matchup with Newton and Harris. From a statistics perspective, both teams are top 20 across the board, right? So it should be a dogfight. We'll be close. I actually think UConn wins, but I'm hoping for a KU win for the Big 12. And then the other team or game that I was going to be following is different than yours. It's the Baylor Seton Hall game.
00:50:48
Speaker
And with Baylor at number 10, currently in Ken Palm, and Seton Hall at number 53. If you look at the statistics across the board, they're actually very, very similar. Both teams are guard or wing focused teams. It'll be interesting to see the Baylor triplets of Ray J. Dennis, Jalen Bridges, and Jacobi Walter versus Alameda Dawes, Kadari Richmond, and Dylan Ade-Wusu. Should be a fun game, similar in strengths and weaknesses, like I mentioned earlier on.
00:51:18
Speaker
However, I think it'll probably be a 10 point win or roughly a 10 point win for Baylor because there's just a little bit better across. So that's it for this episode seven of No Conference for Old Man podcast. And thanks again for Bill Walker joining us to co-host today. Hope you all enjoyed it. And again, would really appreciate it if you follow, subscribe or collect our podcast, depending on your podcast platform of choice.
00:51:41
Speaker
We appreciate all the support and loyalty for those that have been with us from day one keeps us going and continues to reinforce our view that there is an interest out there for the type of deep college hoops and analytics and insights we're trying to provide for Cougar and big 12 fans. Also, please give us a follow on our Twitter account. No conference for old men.
00:52:00
Speaker
Thank you all again for listening. And episode eight should come out same day next week. So please be on the lookout. Listen down though next week and happy Thanksgiving everyone.