Guest Contributor Ray Floriani: St. Bonaventure at Fordham

by Ray Floriani
BRONX, NY- St. Bonaventure bounced back from a tough home loss to UMASS on Wednesday, defeating Fordham 69-60 at Rose Hill on Saturday.

Outside Rose Hill Gym
Enough with the snow but at least its photogenic

The pace and efficiency:

		Off.
	Poss.	Eff.
St. Bona	67	103
Fordham	67	90

The Four Factors:

		FTA
	eFG%	FGA	OR%	TO%
St. Bona	46	55	24	12
Fordham	38	7	35	12

Inside Rose Hill Gym

Free Throw Rate.
The Bonnies were 26 of 41 from the line while Fordham was 5 of 9. Rams coach Tom Pecora had nothing but praise for the officials. On the disparity from the stripe he said, "they (Bonaventure) came out aggressive. When you come out like that you put yourself in a position to get calls and get to the line. Give them credit. We came out too passive."

Mark Schmidt of Bonaventure added, "we get to the line a lot in our games. Our philosophy is inside/out. We get the ball inside and as a result get opportunities to go to the free throw line."

Fordham led 17-8 in offensive rebounds. A strong second half showing on the glass was responsible for the edge in the OREB percentage category.

TO rate was a revelation for the Bonnies especially. They had been plagued with turnover problems in recent seasons. On the season both clubs have a 21% TO rate. And in this contest they showed outstanding TO rate numbers.

Forward/Center Andrew Nicholson shows his form

Crucial Four
The first four minutes of both halves are critical to setting a tone. Fordham, down 36-20 at intermission, utilized those opening minutes to their distinct advantage. On Bonaventure's opening possession Andrew Nicholson was fouled in the act of shooting. Nicholson missed both free throws. Fordham scored on their first three possessions of the half. The Bonnies missed shots on the two possessions following Nicholson's misses from the line. Instead of a potential 18 point Bonaventure margin, the Ram deficit was 10 points with about 17 minutes to play in front of an energized home crowd. Fordham closed the four minute stretch with a 9-2 scoring edge in 6 possessions. The efficiencies for that juncture were Fordham 150 and Bonaventure 33. More important, a lead that took the Bonnies about a half to build was virtually sliced in half in the span of just four minutes.

Defending the Three
Taking a cue from David Hess' Project Scoresheet on the Audacity of Hoops site, I decided to chart every field goal attempt from three point range. For uncontested attempts, a notation was made. The results:

1st Half	3 Point Shooting
	Overall	Uncontested
St. Bona	3-4 (75%)	2-2 (100%)
Fordham	3-11 (27%)	0-2 (0%)

2nd Half	3 Point Shooting
	Overall	Uncontested
St. Bona	2-7 (29%)	2-5 (40%)
Fordham	2-11 (18%)	2-6 (33%)

For the game, the numbers were:

Game	3 Point Shooting
	Overall	Uncontested
St. Bona	5-11 (46%)	4-7 (57%)
Fordham	5-22 (23%)	2-8 (25%)

Seven of the 11 three point attempts by the Bonnies were uncontested. That was largely due to the inside game and the attention afforded Nicholson by the Fordham defense. The Rams just did not close out quicker on perimeter shooters. Also, the likes of freshman Matthew Wright (9 points on 3 of 5 beyond the arc) shot some very deep threes.

On the Fordham side, the Bonnies did a good job ensuring the Rams got a minimum of open, uncontested looks. They did get 6 uncontested looks the second half. Chalk that up to a few Fordham attempts in transition and with Chris Gaston more effective in the paint the final twenty minutes, the perimeter opened up a bit.

Numbers
St. Bonaventure is 11-9 (3-4 A-10). The Rams drop to 6-13 (0-7). Andrew Nicholson led all scorers with 25 points. The Bonaventure junior added 11 boards. Brenton Butler paced Fordham with 15 points while Chris Gaston led the Rams with 11 rebounds. Game was a sellout at Rose Hill. Gaston finished with 11 points and was well defended especially the second half. Fordham did own a 30-24 points in the paint edge. That was largely due to the second half and not just on posting up. The Rams were successful those final 20 minutes in hitting the offensive boards and getting dribble penetration. Demetrius Conger, a sophomore forward, finished with 11 points 5 rebounds and made a few big plays to allow the Bonnies to maintain the lead when Fordham made its second half run. Attendance was a sold out 3,200.

Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt meets the media

Guest Contributor: Ray Floriani -- Big East & A-10 Media Days

by Ray Floriani

New York City, NY -On Wednesday of last week the Big East held its media day at Madison Square Garden. The following day the Atlantic Ten hosted their event at the CBS College Sports studios at Chelsea Piers, about fifteen blocks south of MSG.

The dawn of a new season with the Big East media day at MSG

As a rule the media days are an opportunity to touch base with media colleagues and discuss the upcoming campaign with coaches who are in a much more relaxed state of mind, as opposed to handling a second straight loss with a road game looming in mid-January. On the flip side however is the fact that a lot of your quotes are of the generic brand. Such as "we will be ready to play every night...our seniors must step up...nothing is easy in this (fill in league name) conference..."

At both events I tried to get beyond that and discuss coaching concepts, such as preparing to play on the road, pre-season conditioning etc. Also took the opportunity to discuss tempo free statistics and study with Buzz Williams of Marquette and Chris Mack of Xavier.

Williams has been on the job as head coach of Marquette for two seasons. Already his penchant for organization and teaching the game are becoming widespread. We discussed the idea of game pace and the four factors. As he asked me to name and discuss them he wrote down the formulas in a notebook, in incredibly and painstakingly neat penmanship. We discussed turnover rate for awhile. The threshold, according to tempo free is 20%. At or above that figure for possessions ending in turnovers spells a below par offense. "An offense ending one fifth of their possessions throwing the ball away is awful...", Williams added. "At Marquette we pride ourselves on minimizing turnovers." A look at statistics in Big East games the last two years shows Williams is on the money.

	Turnover	Conference
Season	Rate	Rank
2010	14.8	second
2009	15.3	second

The Marquette mentor also said effective field goal percentage is a revealing stat. Simply, you are credited more for hitting a three point field goal attempt than a two point attempt. "Shooting well from three point range was definitely a strength for us last year", Williams admitted. Again, a breakdown of the Marquette field goal shooting for 2010 bears this out.

	Pct.
Two Point Shooting	42.3%
Three Point Shooting	39.3%
effective Field Goal (eFG%)	50.7%

Analytical, organized but not without a sense of humor. One writer asked how practice was going Williams replied, "on Friday I would have bought my team. By Saturday sold them. Monday the market was closed."

Chelsea Piers, site of the A-10 media day,
was in fact a pier along the Hudson

Thursday at the A-10 media day...
...the opportunity to discuss tempo free concepts with Chris Mack was a major objective. Last March at the conference quarterfinals in Atlantic City, we sat behind the Xavier bench as they battled Dayton. Each time out an assistant asked a question of two graduate assistants seated behind us. Turns out they were charting possessions and that information was utilized with the game in progress.

"We are definitely tuned into Kenpom (Ken Pomeroy) with what we do," Mack admitted. "We look and study his possession numbers and ranking on a weekly basis. We are very interested in seeing the numbers our opponents are putting up."

Mack knows the possession based formulas. During the game the staff will record possessions longhand to assure 100%, as opposed to 98% accuracy. "We will use the numbers in time outs," he said. "We definitely use them at the half to point things out and of course post game."

Mack is interested in pace of the game as well as offensive and defensive efficiency. He studies the four factors closely. "We look at our numbers and if we are deficient in an area as rebounding then we will look at the tape to see just why."

Mack also told of an interesting metric he terms a 'kill'. "Stops on the defensive end are very important to us," Mack said. "If we get three consecutive stops that is a kill. If we get seven kills in a game we are almost certain we will win."

The legions of tempo free followers are growing. Significantly, they are now entering college coaching staffs.

St.Bonaventure's Mark Schmidt (l)
and John Giannini of LaSalle (r)
share a lighter moment at the media day luncheon

A Villanova Aside...
...working on an informal survey of toughest places to play on the Big East road, I spoke with Jay Wright and Corey Fisher. Wright felt West Virginia, Syracuse and Pitt were the three toughest, "but for different reasons." Discussing further Wright noted it’s no coincidence all three locales have home teams with talented players. "Ultimately," he said, "players not buildings win games."

Villanova coach Jay Wright meets the media

On hearing the question Fisher smiled answering "Can I say Villanova?" Fisher went on to cast his 'vote' with Syracuse. "The crowd is huge and seems right on you," he said, "plus the arena is configured in a different way."