Tulane

[Queens_NYC]

Thursday, December 29th, 2022
9:00 PM
Fifth Third Arena
ESPN2

The Bearcats (8-4, KP #70, NET #111) welcome Tulane (7-4, KP #95, NET #161) to town to kick off UC's final conference slate as a member of the AAC.

The Green Wave are led by 4th-year head coach Ron Hunter and return their 4 top players from the 21/22 squad that finished a program-best 10-8 in the AAC last season.

Among those returnees are 2022 All-AAC 1st team selection 6'0 guard Jalen Cook (20.2 ppg, 5.3 apg), 2022 All-AAC 2nd team selection 6'5 wing Jaylen Forbes (16.8 ppg, 4.6 rpg), and 2022 All-AAC 3rd team selection 6'8 forward Kevin Cross (14.2 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 3.4 apg).

The Green Wave play fast and rank #34 in Adjusted Tempo per KenPom. They do make the Bearcats' rebounding problems look minuscule as their -5.6 rebounding margin is one of the worst in the nation.

Tulane has played one of the weakest schedules in the country up to this point with no Q1 games on the books so far along just just one Q2 game. All of their wins have only counted as Q4 wins (UC is not much better with just one Q3 win themselves).

The Bearcats will eagerly look to avenge last season's 68-60 loss at Fifth Third to the Green Wave on New Year's Day - a game that saw UC go down by as many as 26 points in the first half.

The Bearcats are 4.5-point favorites at home.

[sedziobs]

Tulane is third in the country in taking care of the basketball with only a 13.4 turnover rate. Combined with a top 100 assist rate, they are a good passing team. They are terrible on the offensive glass, coming in at #348 on the year. Tulane has been 300+ in offensive rebounding rate in each of Ron Hunter's four years as coach.

They are shooting 80% from the free throw line, good for 6th in the country, and they get to the line at an above average rate. They also have a lot of shots blocked, making them the only team in the country with a higher blocked shot rate than turnover rate. Limiting fouls will be important, but we can't be afraid to go for the block.

On defense, Tulane is excellent on the interior, with only 30% of shots allowed coming at the rim and under 50% of those are converted. They are top 60 in creating turnovers, but they aren't very good at defending the three point line and not very good on the defensive glass. It all adds up to a middling 121 defensive efficiency ranking on Torvik.

Keys to the game will be defending the rim without fouling, working for open three point looks, and hitting the offensive glass.

[Queens_NYC]

Great halves by MAW, Nolley, and Skillings.

+11 on the boards already.

[sedziobs]

Nolley had one of his hot shooting nights, as he hit 5 of 9 from beyond the arc. The player of the game was MAW, who scored 18 on an incredibly efficient 7 of 8 from the field to go with 6 assists and 1 turnover plus 2 blocks and a steal. Tulane let MAW get to his left hand and he made them pay. All five starters ended with double figure scoring. Lakhin had a double double with 13 and 13. Skillings put up 7 and 6 in just 12 minutes.

We let Tulane get to the free throw line way too much, where they scored 25 points at almost a 90% clip. But they only shot 20% from three and we held them to 50% inside the arc, resulting in under 1 point per possession. 88 points looks good, but holding a good offensive team under 80 in a 79 possession game is also impressive.

As expected Tulane took care of the ball and converted at the stripe. But we were able to score at the rim, shooting 64% inside the arc.

[sirthought]

Other than Davenport not being able to get much to drop and poor shot choices, I was pretty satisfied with how they played. Yeah, they slowed down in the second half and that continued effort needs work. But in the first half they were really passing the ball much more effectively, leading to some good open shots. And the drives were good drives that had a realistic chance of leading to something positive.

Not sure if coaches are changing their focus or the light bulb is finally turning on, but I see some evolution in the approach. They still fell into trips with too much dribbling and not enough quick passing.

Skillings had a couple of plays that seemed really promising.

[waterhead]

Originally Posted by sedziobs

Nolley had one of his hot shooting nights, as he hit 5 of 9 from beyond the arc. The player of the game was MAW, who scored 18 on an incredibly efficient 7 of 8 from the field to go with 6 assists and 1 turnover plus 2 blocks and a steal. Tulane let MAW get to his left hand and he made them pay. All five starters ended with double figure scoring. Lakhin had a double double with 13 and 13. Skillings put up 7 and 6 in just 12 minutes.

We let Tulane get to the free throw line way too much, where they scored 25 points at almost a 90% clip. But they only shot 20% from three and we held them to 50% inside the arc, resulting in under 1 point per possession. 88 points looks good, but holding a good offensive team under 80 in a 79 possession game is also impressive.

As expected Tulane took care of the ball and converted at the stripe. But we were able to score at the rim, shooting 64% inside the arc.

We did let them get to the FT line too much but the refs had a helping hand in that and probably added another 4-6 points or more on poor calls. We also turned them over much more than they are used to. We did get a couple of calls to go our way but I feel like Tulane got 5-6 calls in the other direction.

[sedziobs]

Originally Posted by waterhead

We did let them get to the FT line too much but the refs had a helping hand in that and probably added another 4-6 points or more on poor calls. We also turned them over much more than they are used to. We did get a couple of calls to go our way but I feel like Tulane got 5-6 calls in the other direction.

There were a lot of calls where our hands were straight up and everything was clean up top, but we were hip checking or jumping into them. We had 20 fouls called on us which isn't a ton for a high pace game (they had 23), but most of them were attacking the rim. We did a good job making things difficult for them around the basket, but they were able to get there a lot. In addition to the free throws, Tulane had 26 rim attempts to our 12. The difference is we converted 92% to their 58%.

Tulane's turnover rate was 14.0, just a hair above their season average of 13.5 which is 3rd in the country. Remember this game had 79 possessions, so 11 turnovers isn't a lot.

[waterhead]

Originally Posted by sedziobs

There were a lot of calls where our hands were straight up and everything was clean up top, but we were hip checking or jumping into them. We had 20 fouls called on us which isn't a ton for a high pace game (they had 23), but most of them were attacking the rim. We did a good job making things difficult for them around the basket, but they were able to get there a lot. In addition to the free throws, Tulane had 26 rim attempts to our 12. The difference is we converted 92% to their 58%.

Tulane's turnover rate was 14.0, just a hair above their season average of 13.5 which is 3rd in the country. Remember this game had 79 possessions, so 11 turnovers isn't a lot.

True true

[waterhead]

Originally Posted by sedziobs

There were a lot of calls where our hands were straight up and everything was clean up top, but we were hip checking or jumping into them. We had 20 fouls called on us which isn't a ton for a high pace game (they had 23), but most of them were attacking the rim. We did a good job making things difficult for them around the basket, but they were able to get there a lot. In addition to the free throws, Tulane had 26 rim attempts to our 12. The difference is we converted 92% to their 58%.

Tulane's turnover rate was 14.0, just a hair above their season average of 13.5 which is 3rd in the country. Remember this game had 79 possessions, so 11 turnovers isn't a lot.

One thing about your first point that is getting under my skin. If you are going to challenge a layup then challenge it and make sure they don't make it for an and one. Either go straight up or foul them hard. Nothing in between. No hip checks. No coming down with the arms casually. I realize our bigs don't have a lot of fouls to give so just make them shoot over you if that is the choice. The half measures lead to 2 or 3 points instead of 1 or 2.

[sedziobs]

Originally Posted by waterhead

One thing about your first point that is getting under my skin. If you are going to challenge a layup then challenge it and make sure they don't make it for an and one. Either go straight up or foul them hard. Nothing in between. No hip checks. No coming down with the arms casually. I realize our bigs don't have a lot of fouls to give so just make them shoot over you if that is the choice. The half measures lead to 2 or 3 points instead of 1 or 2.

Completely agree. That was very frustrating to watch over and over.