Mountain West tourney summary: the title game
03.10.12
New Mexico beat San Diego State 68-59 in a 68-possession game Saturday night. I was there. This is what I saw.
Good defense or bad offense?
Before Chase Tapley entered beast mode late in the game, the Lobos were putting up some gaudy defensive stats. The Aztecs weren’t taking many threes and facing the usual New Mexico resistance in the paint. They also committed an abundance of turnovers, finishing with 15. That’s not an absurdly high total for the game, but they all occurred before the 5:39 mark by which point the Aztecs fate was sealed. Eight of these were of the non-steal/unforced variety, which begs the issue as to how much of San Diego State’s struggles were due to the Lobo defense and how much of it was due to the Aztec playing below it’s usual level (which granted, is not what you’d call an elite level.)
Determining the answer to this question is, of course, extremely difficult and why it’s dangerous to read too much into one game. The Aztecs were pretty good at taking care of the ball this season, and New Mexico, despite having an effective defense, wasn’t great at forcing them. It’s fair to say New Mexico played defense well, but some of those turnovers fell into their lap.
Consistency? Consistency!
After the game, Steve Alford specifically lauded his team’s consistency over the course of the season. I figured it was the lack of consistency that kept the Lobos from being ranked by the people that seem to value that kind of thing. However, reality indicates otherwise. In 17 games against conference teams, New Mexico had a scoring margin of +177, suggesting they’d lose three of those games. Instead, they lost four, hardly the hallmark of an inconsistent team.
Looking over New Mexico’s body of work, it’s still hard to imagine why they entered the tourney unranked while UNLV and San Diego State found a home in the polls. Their loss to Santa Clara on Thanksgiving was inexplicable, but using an outcome from November 24 to discredit the Lobos is equally as difficult to understand.
About Chase Tapley
Circling back to the first sentence, Tapley fueled a five-possession stretch with less than three minutes to go where the Aztecs scored 15 points (Chase personally contributed nine of those). If you still doubt why margin of victory is more predictive than close-game performance – this is it. Despite the video-game like outburst, San Diego State only got within seven after this run. Teams less dominant than New Mexico would have been surrendering a lead at that point, and thus seriously jeopardizing their chance to win. The Lobos suffered no such fate.
And kudos are due to Tapley – on a night when the Aztecs’ offensive star Jamaal Franklin was frustrated into a six-turnover performance, Tapley hoisted 39% of his team’s shots while he was in the game and got his 25 points efficiently. That’s something none of his teammates could say.
Mountain West tourney summary: the semifinals
03.09.12
San Diego State 79, Colorado State 68 [63 possessions]
In the first game of the night, the Aztecs and Rams played to a near-draw in the first half with neither team able to stop the other. Both put up PPP numbers north of 1.25. The second half was more of the same for San Diego State. Actually, it was better as the first nine Aztec possessions finished with the following points: 3, 3, 2, 2, 0, 2, 3, 3, 3. While the Ram offense was more than acceptable in this game considering the quality of the opponent. But when your opponent is scoring over 1.5 points per possession two-thirds of the way into the game, your own scoring clearly isn’t the issue.
In other news, the Rams’ newly-minted national OR% leader Pierce Hornung, a role model to short guys everywhere, met his match in the Aztecs’ trio of Tim Shelton, DeShawn Stephens, and Garrett Green. Hornung was limited to four rebounds (two offensive) and didn’t record a steal. The Aztecs backcourt had its way with CSU defensively, and Hornung could do nothing to bail his team out.
New Mexico 72, UNLV 67 [66]
The Rebels scored the first 12 points and were up 17-4 less than four minutes into the game (on an eFG% of 107), but would struggle offensively the rest of the way. The Lobos took their first lead with 1:27 left in the first half. New Mexico head coach Steve Alford is clearly from the school of locking down the paint at the expense of giving up a few three-point attempts. The Rebels would only make 13 of 35 shots (37%) inside the arc, which explains how New Mexico’s defense could come up with a solid performance despite UNLV committing a season-low three turnovers and taking 22 free throw attempts.
It also helped that after making their first three three-point attempts, the Rebels would only make five of their final 24. And after scoring 12 points on its first four possessions, UNLV would close with 55 points on its last 62. If you’re going to score against the Lobos, chances are you’ll have to hit your open looks from long range. San Diego State did this in its previous win over New Mexico (9-of-20, 1.26 PPP) and didn’t in the home loss (3-for-14, 0.99 PPP). Yay for two-game samples.
Mountain West tourney summary: session 2
03.08.12
New Mexico 79, Air Force 64 [64 possessions]
For the third time in three meetings, New Mexico beat Air Force convincingly. The Falcons did actually hold the lead just before that halfway mark of the first half, but the Lobos went on a 22-3 from that point and the game was never seriously in doubt.
What was noteworthy about the first half was the 29 fouls called. Had the game been close down the stretch, we could have entered some unusual territory for total fouls. As it was, the game finished with a mere 50 as Air Force coach Dave Pilipovich was content to let the clock wind down naturally in the closing minutes. The loss drops Air Force to 3-26 all time in conference tournament play, and their three offensive boards allowed them to finish with an OR% of 20.1 on the season, easily the lowest in all the land, an honor they last earned in 2008.
UNLV 56, Wyoming 48 [69]
Wyoming set an MW tournament record for first half futility by scoring but 11 points. And the points were distributed such that no Cowboy tallied more than two. To get to 11, Wyoming made three of its 24 field goal attempts en route to averaging 0.33 points per possession. Mike Moser outscored Wyoming by seven all by his lonesome.
Despite this, there would eventually be some mild intrigue late in the game as UNLV saw a 22-point second half lead get trimmed to seven with six minutes to go. The Cowboys would whiff on three successive possessions to get it closer and would ultimately lose in a defensive bloodbath, a fitting end to the regular season for a Wyoming team that often played outstanding defense (21st nationally), but struggled to convert on the other end (166th). They were something of an anti-Creighton.
In the end, the top four seeds advanced to Friday’s semis, and both the San Diego State/Colorado State and New Mexico/UNLV games are virtual toss-ups.