In life I'm an extreme optimist. In my basketball life however, I am the exact opposite. I tend to expect the worst to soften the blow when eventually something bad happens on the court. heck, I've even bet AGAINST the Rams to hedge my bets of sorts on those especially nerve-inducing matchups, giving me a financial payout following a loss or gladly losing $20 to get a nice win (it's been a while since I've done that, FWIW). I also ALWAYS pick against the Rams in my March bracket for pretty much the exact same reason.
I tell you this to basically preface this post with the fact that I'm not just a sunshine and rainbows Ram fan. You probably know that by now, but if you're new here, I needed you to be aware of all that fact before I try and tell you why/how anything good happened last night.
Last night was an absolute defensive disaster. I feared this COULD happen thanks to what I foresaw as an extreme mismatch in the paint -- I love our young bigs, but they are just that: young. They are also lacking girth, something St. Bonaventure's Chad Venning has in spades at a listed 255 lbs (come one Chad, you ain't fooling us with that).
Venning's dominance coupled with essentially four 40%+ three-point shooters surrounding him -- heck of a roster construction by the always savvy, Mark Schmidt -- had the potential for disaster. That potential turned to reality thanks to a special shooting night from the Bonnies.
The Brown and White are now a 37.9% three-point shooting team on the season following last night -- meaning they were worse heading into the matchup. They proceeded to hit 54.5% of their threes against the Rams.
Let's sit on that stat for a second before I get into what was good about last night. Had VCU held Bona to 37.9% from three, that would equal basically eight makes from distance instead of 12 on 22 attempts. What does four fewer threes equal? 12 points. What was last night's final margin of defeat? 11 points. So simply limiting the Bonnies to their season average on VCU's home court would've gotten the Rams a win. Keeping them below that with what despite is still a top-100 three-point defense, would've helped VCU potentially even cover the spread, but a special night of shooting from Schmidt's squad combined with a VCU defensive effort happy to surrender open looks helped hand the Rams their first Atlantic 10-opening loss ever.
That's the bad news.
Here's the silver lining, I suppose: VCU scored 78 points against the Bonnies on 1.13 points per possession. That's one more point than kenpom No.10 Auburn scored against St. Bonaventure with their top-15 offense, matching them on points per possession. That's 18 more points than Florida Atlantic scored versus Bona in their 0.91 points per possession night, the Owls boasting the nation's 14th-ranked offense thanks to most of last year's Final 4 squad returning.
I bring this up to say that heck, even though we lost, it would APPEAR we've gotten one half of the game fairly figured out and that's even with Max Shulga and Joe Bamisile, two of VCU's top scorers, having subpar nights, combining for 12 points on 4-14 shooting and sub-80 offensive ratings (not good).
VCU adjusted points per possession on the season: 1.08 (95th nationally)
VCU raw ppp avg since Bairstow & Bamisile returned: 1.16 (essentially a top-25 caliber ppp)
VCU's points per possession average in their four top-100 games (McNeese, Iowa State, Boise State, Memphis) sat at 1.01, so last night's offensive effort against the Bonnies, even though coupled with an absolutely horrendous defensive performance, is still at least somewhat of a good sign. The key challenges, it would seem, are 1) doing that consistently against good defenses and then maybe more importantly 2) solving the other entire half of the game.
Prior to last night's defensive disaster, the Rams ranked within the top-100 in adjusted defensive efficiency, temporarily giving VCU their first combined top-100 offense and defense for the first time since Will Wade roamed the sidelines of Broad St. Even with last night's showing the Rams still rank top-100 nationally in three-point D, limiting opponents to just 31.3% from beyond the arc. Since the loss however, VCU drops to 110th nationally, giving up an adjusted defensive efficiency of 1.01 points per possession, currently the worst ranking on that side of the ball since Mike Rhoades' introductory season as Head Coach of the Rams back during the 2017-18 season. The Rams finished 156th nationally on D that year at 1.038 ppp, then followed it up the following season by jumping all the way up to seventh nationally.
VCU ALLOWED 3P% AGAINST TOP-100 3P% OFFENSES THIS SEASONS (TEAM'S SEASON AVERAGE)
McNeese State 47.1% (41%)
Samford 30.8% (41.4%)
Radford 22.2% (37%)
Iowa State 15.4% (37.8%)
St. Bonaventure 54.5% (37.9%)
Can Ryan Odom and Co. hack VCU's defensive issues and make the Rams a true A-10 contender thanks to an offense that has looked quite impressive lately? That's clearly a huge key. The narrative coming into this year was the black and gold had landed their first real "offensive mind" at the coaching position in some time and the signs have been quite positive to back that up. Ironically though, it is VCU's ability to show ANY bit of their old identity that may ultimately determine this team's true ceiling.
I tell you this to basically preface this post with the fact that I'm not just a sunshine and rainbows Ram fan. You probably know that by now, but if you're new here, I needed you to be aware of all that fact before I try and tell you why/how anything good happened last night.
Last night was an absolute defensive disaster. I feared this COULD happen thanks to what I foresaw as an extreme mismatch in the paint -- I love our young bigs, but they are just that: young. They are also lacking girth, something St. Bonaventure's Chad Venning has in spades at a listed 255 lbs (come one Chad, you ain't fooling us with that).
Venning's dominance coupled with essentially four 40%+ three-point shooters surrounding him -- heck of a roster construction by the always savvy, Mark Schmidt -- had the potential for disaster. That potential turned to reality thanks to a special shooting night from the Bonnies.
The Brown and White are now a 37.9% three-point shooting team on the season following last night -- meaning they were worse heading into the matchup. They proceeded to hit 54.5% of their threes against the Rams.
Let's sit on that stat for a second before I get into what was good about last night. Had VCU held Bona to 37.9% from three, that would equal basically eight makes from distance instead of 12 on 22 attempts. What does four fewer threes equal? 12 points. What was last night's final margin of defeat? 11 points. So simply limiting the Bonnies to their season average on VCU's home court would've gotten the Rams a win. Keeping them below that with what despite is still a top-100 three-point defense, would've helped VCU potentially even cover the spread, but a special night of shooting from Schmidt's squad combined with a VCU defensive effort happy to surrender open looks helped hand the Rams their first Atlantic 10-opening loss ever.
That's the bad news.
Here's the silver lining, I suppose: VCU scored 78 points against the Bonnies on 1.13 points per possession. That's one more point than kenpom No.10 Auburn scored against St. Bonaventure with their top-15 offense, matching them on points per possession. That's 18 more points than Florida Atlantic scored versus Bona in their 0.91 points per possession night, the Owls boasting the nation's 14th-ranked offense thanks to most of last year's Final 4 squad returning.
I bring this up to say that heck, even though we lost, it would APPEAR we've gotten one half of the game fairly figured out and that's even with Max Shulga and Joe Bamisile, two of VCU's top scorers, having subpar nights, combining for 12 points on 4-14 shooting and sub-80 offensive ratings (not good).
VCU adjusted points per possession on the season: 1.08 (95th nationally)
VCU raw ppp avg since Bairstow & Bamisile returned: 1.16 (essentially a top-25 caliber ppp)
VCU's points per possession average in their four top-100 games (McNeese, Iowa State, Boise State, Memphis) sat at 1.01, so last night's offensive effort against the Bonnies, even though coupled with an absolutely horrendous defensive performance, is still at least somewhat of a good sign. The key challenges, it would seem, are 1) doing that consistently against good defenses and then maybe more importantly 2) solving the other entire half of the game.
Prior to last night's defensive disaster, the Rams ranked within the top-100 in adjusted defensive efficiency, temporarily giving VCU their first combined top-100 offense and defense for the first time since Will Wade roamed the sidelines of Broad St. Even with last night's showing the Rams still rank top-100 nationally in three-point D, limiting opponents to just 31.3% from beyond the arc. Since the loss however, VCU drops to 110th nationally, giving up an adjusted defensive efficiency of 1.01 points per possession, currently the worst ranking on that side of the ball since Mike Rhoades' introductory season as Head Coach of the Rams back during the 2017-18 season. The Rams finished 156th nationally on D that year at 1.038 ppp, then followed it up the following season by jumping all the way up to seventh nationally.
VCU ALLOWED 3P% AGAINST TOP-100 3P% OFFENSES THIS SEASONS (TEAM'S SEASON AVERAGE)
McNeese State 47.1% (41%)
Samford 30.8% (41.4%)
Radford 22.2% (37%)
Iowa State 15.4% (37.8%)
St. Bonaventure 54.5% (37.9%)
Can Ryan Odom and Co. hack VCU's defensive issues and make the Rams a true A-10 contender thanks to an offense that has looked quite impressive lately? That's clearly a huge key. The narrative coming into this year was the black and gold had landed their first real "offensive mind" at the coaching position in some time and the signs have been quite positive to back that up. Ironically though, it is VCU's ability to show ANY bit of their old identity that may ultimately determine this team's true ceiling.
