Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Crewsin’ for a Bruisin’

The biggest upset of last night? Army was beating UConn heading into the final media time out of the first half. The Huskies went on a game-ending run on both sides of halftime, and won an ugly 68-54 decision. UConn has been somewhat sluggish on offense without point-guard Marcus Williams this season.

Opponent    Pts  Tempo    Off. Eff.
Pepperdine   75   72.7      103.1
Arkansas     77   76.4      100.7
Arizona      79   69.5      113.6
Gonzaga      65   62.9      103.4
Army         68   64.5      105.4

(Tempo is calculated game possessions, and offensive efficiency is points per 100 possessions.)

There are going to be a few opportunities to measure just how important certain key players taking extended absences, like Marcus Williams, are to their teams this season. UConn has five more games before Williams comes back. Rudy Gay and Josh Boone are having surprising troubles scoring on their own and the Maui version of Denham Brown didn’t show up against Army. And if you’re Josh Boone and you can’t score at will against an Army starting line-up that runs 6’-11”/6’-4”/6’-2”/6’-0”/5’-11”, I think it’s going to become pretty clear who’s the MVP of this team starting January 3rd when Marcus Williams returns.

Line o’ the Night

                           FG    3pt  FT   Reb
                      Min  M-A   M-A  M-A  O-T  A F  S TO BLK Pts
Justin Gray            37 11-20  2-5 13-13 0-3  2 1  1  3  0   37
Result: Win. Wake Forest 91, Wisconsin 88

Just plug in Harvey Hale at the point and presto! - the Justin Gray problem is solved. Gray thrived in this track meet that had 81 possessions. A great performance especially considering Eric Williams was limited to 23 minutes by foul trouble.