Tennessee Numbers Recap

Before digging into the numbers, I want to add some of my own comments and build on the great original recap by Tim. Personally, I'm really not all that surprised by the fact that we lost at Tennessee. We were an underdog going into the matchup and it went kind of as expected. Sure, it was disappointing to lose, but it's not like it was surprising.

One key for me right now is that I've just lowered my expectations. With only four consistent contributors, I have a hard time seeing how this team gets to more than 21 wins and 11-7 in conference. That is not something I would have said in April or even August. However, in a few days, we'll re-run the numbers on season predictions to see what the numbers say in comparison to intuition.

Team Numbers

Offensive efficiency was much worse than normal (110.9 – or 1.11 points per possession), and so was defensive efficiency (93.7 – or 0.94 points per possession). Marquette lost on three of the four factors, but three of those factors were essentially toss-ups. The actual pace of the game was played at 72 possessions, which is much slower than the predicted pace of 83 possessions. In the preview for the game, we called the matchup a 39% chance of Marquette victory.

Unfortunately, Marquette wasn't able to get a significant advantage on turnovers. As for Tennessee "winning the rebounding battle", I just don't see it. OR% was pretty close. Finally, if anyone really is griping about the refs, the FTR was close for both teams, but the difference was the Marquette lack of depth.

This game, more than anything else, hinged on the effective field goal percentage. As highlighted by Tim, Marquette only made ten 2-point field goals. So which players helped the offensive and defensive performance?

Individual Player Information (check here if you want a refresher)

Not that fancy stats are needed to demonstrate this, but Wesley was by far the most productive player on the team. In fact, he was the only net-positive contributor. In addition, Wesley did that while using 29% of all possessions. That is a really high usage, and highlights how well he did. As a reminder, typically players become less efficient with more usage.

Coming in right behind as a little surprise is actually Patrick Hazel, who was better than team average offensively and defensively in limited minutes. After that, everyone else on the team was worse offensively than the team average. However, Lazar, Butler, and Burke at least made positive defensive contributions. In addition, Lazar was the second contributor for Points Produced. Finally, I won't continue with any poor comments about James or McNeal, but I would like to note that McNeal was actually less efficient than James. The key difference was that James was on the floor an extra 12 minutes.

Time to move on. There's a game on Friday!

Chism's career night leads Vols over Marquette

Wayne Chism keyed a decisive Tennessee second half run as Marquette fell short on the road tonight, losing 80-68 in Nashville. With the loss the Golden Eagles fall to 8-2 on the season.

The teams were tied at the break. After exchanging baskets early in the second half, MU went on a 6-0 run to push ahead 48-46 with 10:44 remaining thanks in part to the swarming 1-3-1 defense that worked equally well against Wisconsin earlier this season.

This time the momentum was short-lived.

Following a desperate Tennessee timeout, Dominic James bailed out the Vols when he fouled 6'9" Wayne Chism in three-point territory with just four seconds left on the shot clock. Chism hit a pair of free throws kicking off an 8-0 Volunteer run, pushing the Volunteer lead to 54-48 with nine minutes remaining. Marquette was never able to get closer than two points for the rest of the game.

Lazar Hayward's three-pointer with 2:20 remaining capped another 6-0 MU run which cut the Volunteer lead to 70-68, but Tennessee responded with a Josh Tabb three-pointer to extend the lead to five and the Vols soon salted the game away.

Surprisingly, during the key second half run by Tennessee, Buzz Williams declined to go back to the 1-3-1 zone which worked so well earlier in the game, opening the door for Chism's huge second half. Chism finished with 26 points, 21 in the second half, more than double his season average of 10. Marquette surrendered 48 second half points to the Volunteers.

Marquette wasted a Yeoman's effort by Wesley Matthews who wound up with a career-high 30 points. Matthews was a one-man wrecking crew, scoring 20 of Marquette's 36 second half points.

Jerel McNeal turned in his worst performance of the season finishing with 10 points before fouling out with 5:33 to play. Dominic James finished with 8 points on 3-13 shooting. Lazar Hayward had 14 points.

A few other observations:

• Wesley Matthews not only gets to the line, but actually sinks his free throws (Matthews was 15-18 from the line). The rest of the team combined for a disappointing 9-17 from the charity stripe. Here's the box score.
  
• In today's Journal-Sentinel, coach Williams explained that foul trouble as a major factor in the game. It was, but his decision to put Jerel McNeal back into the lineup late in the first half where he promptly collected his third foul contributed to the problem. McNeal played only 25 minutes before fouling out.
  
• Tennessee connected on 49% of their shots for the game. MU's lack of depth and height is clearly a factor in the team's porous defense so far this season.
• As problematic as the defense appears to be, MU's offense was ineffective last night as the Golden Eagles routinely settled for jumpshots. A startling 52% of Marquette's field goal attempts were three-pointers (25 of the team's 48 attempts). Marquette connected on 32% of those shots (8 for 25), and shot only 38% for the game overall.
• For the game, Marquette made only ten two-point field goal attempts (five in each half).
• Despite McNeal's foul trouble, David Cubillan played just one minute. Considering he blew two defensive assignments, it was one minute too long.

Marquette takes on Tennessee on a "Neutral Court"

Marquette (8-1) faces its most difficult test of the season to date when they square off tonight against the Tennessee Volunteers down in Nashville. The game, televised on ESPN at 8:30pm CT, marks MU's first appearance in the BIG EAST/SEC Invitational.

The 16/19th ranked Volunteers (7-2) return to their home state after an 88-72 trouncing at Temple over the weekend. As usual, Bruce Pearl runs one of the nation's most innovative rotations -- no fewer than 10 Volunteers average at least 10 minutes per outing so far this season, with eight of those players averaging at least six points per game. As Rosiak points out, UT is deeper, taller and more athletic than MU. Once again Lazar Hayward's effectiveness against a wave of athletic forwards will figure heavily in the final outcome.

UT is paced by 6'7" junior forward Tyler Smith at 17 points and six rebounds per game. Starting guard J.P. Prince missed the Temple game with an injured leg, and he is doubtful for tonight's game. If Prince is out, the Volunteers have more than enough depth to compensate, particularly with 6'7" guard Scotty Hopson nailing 50% of his three-pointers.

Meanwhile, Buzz Williams has become increasingly reliant on the Fantastic Four while the thin Marquette bench continues to struggle. Only backup point guard Maurice Acker averages more than four points per game. In a game that promises a brisk pace, perhaps the bench will find a bit of magic on the road tonight.

While depth and athleticism are hallmarks of this UT squad, the team is loose with the basketball and has been an up and down rebounding team at times this year. Here are the Top Five Numbers to know for this game. Numbers for this section come from Pomeroy's Scouting Report and Game Plan, as well as from Rob's own calculations.

39% - That's a model prediction on the chances for a Marquette victory. Hey, it could be a lot worse. Pomeroy only gives us a 15% chance of winning the game. One item of concern is that we are ranked ridiculously low in the Pomeroy Rankings (#67). Some may say that this is attributed to our strength of schedule (poor), so hopefully our team will rise as the season moves along.

Moving on... bringing back the quote from Rosiak's IPFW Blog Recap, there's the following quote from Buzz:

"Tennesee will probably have more than 12," said Williams when asked about the 12 offensive boards. "Probably double it."

15% - If Tennessee gets 24 offensive rebounds (which would be an OR% of about 50%), our chances of winning the game drop to fifteen percent. Marquette needs to hold the Vols to about thirteen offensive rebounds or less (or an OR% about 26%). Bad news... Tennessee is #29 in the country at OR% with an average of 39.5%.

5 - Tennessee's average height ranking. Marquette's average height ranking? 315! However, much of the advantage for TN comes at the PG, SG, and SF positions, where hopefully Marquette's experience (#10) will provide a counterweight against TN (#298). (Hat tip: Pardner).

21 - This is approximately the number of turnovers that Marquette needs to force in order to win. This would mean Tennessee ending up with a TO% of about 25%, or one in every four possessions. Right now, TN is about average (20%) for turnover rate. Can the Marquette defense deliver?

13 - Marquette needs to protect the ball exceedingly well, by getting thirteen turnovers or less. Marquette is a pretty good team at protecting the ball (#56), but this would involve protecting the ball even better than normal.

In summary, we see a fairly close matchup, with Tennessee ending up with advantages on eFG% and OR% and Marquette winning the TO% and FTR battles. The prediction is TN wins with an efficiency of 1.03 points per possession vs Marquette's 0.98. The question is if Marquette can keep Tennessee off the offensive glass and enjoy a significant advantage at turnovers to turn that efficiency around.

Media updates

• Last week Andy Katz filed this in-depth review of Pearl's 09-09 Volunteers
• Chattanooga Times Free-Press previews the game, focusing on MU's backcourt
• Sportsline Preview
• MU game notes
• Rosiak's blog
• Marquette Hoops offers a preview
• Here's the StatSheet preview
  

*joint collaboration between Rob and Tim.

Friday Update - getting ready for IPFW

Hey there... it's been a slow week both here on Cracked Sidewalks and at MUScoop.com. There's just not a lot going on with the long break between the UW@Madison game and the game tomorrow. Hope that the students are doing well with their finals and will be ready to let off a little steam.

Good news, though, because the team kicks off with two games in the next four days. Tomorrow, the team wraps up a three-game homestand with a game against IPFW. Last year, Marquette won 80-56. Here is the official announcement from Marquette, complete with game notes, and two podcasts (Buzz and Burke). Rosiak also chips in with his own blog entry about the game. Check out the link to see what IPFW actually stands for, as well as some info about IPFW.

In Buzz' podcast and the Rosiak blog, Coach Williams mentions that IPFW just won on the road 63-46 at Valpo, which probably sounds impressive to Marquette fans considering how we needed Dominic James to score the last 18 points of the game for us to barely escape on our last trip. However, Valpo just isn't that good (#281 Pomeroy), so I am less impressed. They're playing worse than CMU, UNI, and UWM. It's not as though IPFW is that good either, although they are the best (#217) of all the cupcakes so far. We'll have more on the matchups in our IPFW preview tomorrow.

Rosiak also mentions that if you're hoping Joe Fulce and Chris Otule will be back by the Tennessee game, don't count on it. Buzz doesn't expect either player back until the Presbyterian game (12/28), and even then he expects them to be bad.

Speaking of the Tennessee game, Marquette travels down to the "neutral site of Nashville" next Tuesday as part of the SEC-Big East Invitational. There will be four games as part of this year's event, with two games on Tuesday in Nashville and two games next Thursday in Cincinnati. All games will be on either ESPN or ESPN2. It goes without saying that this is going to be a huge test for Marquette, but I'm sure that the coaching staff won't let the team look past IPFW.

Finally, pay attention to the Season Ticket Holder of the Game for tomorrow's IPFW matchup. Cracked Sidewalks' own Kevin Buckley will be on the court to receive the honor. Congrats, Kevin... I guess buying tickets for your friends/family by the gross added up.