Post Game: Syracuse

The I Bleed Blue and White Blog took a stab at "stream of consciousness" postings about the game Saturday. The thoughts are spontaneious and interesting. Worth a read if you get over there. And Let's Go Nova provides a short recap with player evaluations and grades (one A, one B+, a B, two B-'s, two C's, one D and a D-...it was a double digit road win fella! I'm relieved I didn't have you in college...). The breakdown on the boxscore:

Opponent	Syracuse
	1st	2nd	Total
Pace	38.4	39.2	77.6
	Offense				Defense
	1st	2nd	Total		1st	2nd	Total
Rating	77.5	126.6	102.5		91.8	91.8	91.8
eFG%	35.5	59.3	46.6		44.6	40.6	42.5
TO%	25.8	22.3	24.1		21.0	28.0	24.6
OR%	34.8	42.9	38.6		26.3	42.9	35.0
FTA/FGA	38.7	103.7	69.0		53.6	34.4	43.3
FTM/FGA	25.8	70.4	46.6		35.7	31.3	33.3
ARate	77.8	50.0	60.9		33.3	50.0	41.7
Blk%	19.4	11.1	15.5		7.1	6.3	6.7
Stl%	10.3	2.5	6.3		13.1	22.9	18.1

The Wildcats went into the locker room down by 5 at the half. The offensive/defensive eFG%'s tell the story. 91.8 is not bad as a defensive eFG%, the caveat however is that your team has to do better on the offensive side. And the 'Cats, at 77.8 on offense, were not doing better. The irony is that the 'Cuse did not do better (or worse) in the second half. But the 'Cats did. Another half time adjustment is only part of the story however. Presses can help to bump the Stl% from 13.1 to 22.9, and a few adjustments to offensive sets can juice the eFG% from 77.5 to 126.6 (actually that is a huge bump...), but can a halftime adjustment account for a FTA/FGA bump of 38.7 to 103.7. Villanova shot 27 FGAs and took 28 FTAs. This game was well beyond the standard deviation for fouls on a road game. Before this game Villanova averaged about 23.5 FTAs witha standard deviation of about 7.5. This game had Villanova on the line for 40 FTAs.

Odds & Ends...
1. Scottie Reynolds scored 25 in this game to go with 21 points on Wednesday against DePaul. Scottie took Big East Player of the Week honors. Good job Scottie. Over the last three games Scottie is averaging 26 points per game.
2. Dante Cunningham scored his fourth double-double this season.
3. Antonio Pena 's playing time has jumped from 11.8 minutes per game in the OOC to 21.8 in Villanova's 5 Big East games. His scoring average has jumped too. He scored 5.3 points per game in the 11 OOC games. His average has jumped to 11.2 points per game so far.
4. The staff has used a rotation of 9 or 10 players for all of the Big East games so far. Between 7 and 9 players draw double digit time on the court.
5. At (depending on how you do the calculation...) 77-78 possessions, this was the highest pace Villanova has played since the 80 possession Temple game.