Summer Travel: High Majors Pt 2
Texas Tech: Bahamas. Result: 1-2: Everyone’s new favorite program and coach (mine included) actually dropped two games on their summer trip. My guess is Chris Beard will have them right on track and the additional two months post-trip will be pivotal for the turnover this roster has endured. The core of the national title game team are gone (Culver, Mooney, Owens, Francis, Odiase). Only a trio of rotational pieces in Davide Moretti, Kyler Edwards and Deshawn Corprew return. Virginia Tech transfer Chris Clarke figures to stabilize the front-court as well. If there is a glaring weakness for this Red Raider it’s the ability to shoot from distance which Beard admitted as such, “I think we are a work in progress, but I like our depth. I think that is going to be a strength. Our athleticism and length will help us be a strong defensive team again, but we'll need to work on our shooting.” The Red Raiders shot 16-69 (23%). As good as Beard figures to make this roster at every other area, if they can’t shoot straight - there’s only so far this group can go. There was one strong positive to take from the trip on the offensive end in freshman Jahmius Ramsey. Ramsey was a Top 50 national recruit from the well regarded Duncanville HS program. In the 2nd game of the trip, Ramsey went off for 44 points.
Minnesota: Italy. Result: 3-0: The Golden Gophers will have to reshape their offense this coming year. With the departing Jordan Murphy, the Gophers’ 2018 offense resulted in post-ups on 11.3% of possessions (47th nationally). Murphy’s presence also resulted in the Gophers being a great team at offensive rebounding (82nd) and getting to the foul line (15th). The reshuffling of the offense will put a reliance on more skill, “We weren’t a big shooting team last year, but I think you’re going to see more of that this year,” Pitino said. “Maybe more so like a Purdue or a Michigan, the way they would shoot the ball, I hope at least. It’s going to be totally different, but they’re very capable of scoring. We’re going to have hopefully, at times, four guys if not five who can stretch the defense on the court, and I think that will be fun to coach. It’s going to take some time to evolve, but I think we’re going to have some good offensive talent.” For a team that shied away from the 3pt line in 2019 (343rd in percentage of attempts being 3PT’ers), the Gophers got shots up in Italy. They went 11-27, 13-38 and 10-36 over their three games. A player in line to help on the perimeter and add needed offensive ability is freshman Tre Williams. Williams had 22 and 19 point outings on the trip and Pitino has had this to say about him, “A lot of people were like, ‘Who’s that?’ Is that a reach?'” Pitino said. “‘But he played some national tournaments and he shot up from maybe a two-star kid to a four-star kid. He’s every bit that good.” Minnesota’s most competitive game an 84-79 win displayed what’s likely to be who they lean on come the regular season and the lineup was as followed: Pitt-transfer Marcus Carr, Gabe Kalscheur, Payton Willis, Drexel-transfer Alihan Demir and Daniel Oturu. The bench featured veteran Michael Hurt and freshman Williams, Isaiah Ihnen and Sam Freeman. Eric Curry still is fighting back from injury and was a DNP on the trip. Few teams will be making a stylistic switch as much as Pitino and his team will this year. Smaller and for his sake, hopefully more skilled.
Xavier: Spain. Result: 3-0: Two things I worry about this year with Xavier (which I’m less high on than others). Can they make shots? And are they willing to up the pace? If you can’t make shots, you don’t want to play to the pace that Xavier did last season, and especially not when you have athletic players who can run. Xavier fared well in transition last year ranking in the 66th percentile in efficiency via Synergy. Problem is, they played to the 302nd slowest pace nationally and 9th out of 10 teams in the Big East in conference play. Where that makes things difficult is when you only make 33.1% of your threes and turn the ball over nearly 20% of the time (19.5%, 247th nationally). To offset those deficiencies and willingness to play in the half court, last years team demanded strong offensive rebounding and stout defense, the latter of which did not come until it was too late last season. Early returns on the shooting over three games: 27-83 from 3 (32.5%). Not great, but a small sample, so it’s not so worrisome. However, Travis Steele’s comment that they needed to ‘slow down’ on offense could be. Quentin Goodin, Paul Scruggs and Naji Marshall need to run. Xavier also does have two promising young guards in Dahmir Bishop and KyKyk Tandy. Tandy was 6-14 from 3 over the course of the trip and Xavier will take any additional outside shooting they can get.
Washington: Italy. Result: 4-0: It appears the #18 ranked defense is ready to go, however it might come with a twist. After playing zone in 92+% of possessions in his first two years at the helm, Mike Hopkins actually has his eyes set on playing some man to man. He commented, "We continued to use our man defense at some points in the game(s) to get more experience with it and we are getting more comfortable with it.” With the athleticism that this Huskies team has up and down the roster, it only makes sense to at least give it a test run. The Huskies allowed point totals of 35, 46, 59 and 39 on their trip (no box scores available). No doubt, zone is what he knows best and did so to strong results last year but the Huskies should be looking to be more disruptive and play at a quicker pace. If there is one certainty on this roster - it’s Isaiah Stewart. The 5* freshman compiled these numbers in four games: 16/7, 24/16, 25/9, 13/12. He has cut the baby fat and few players nationally will play with his motor. Fellow 5* freshman who does not have a motor that runs the same in Jaden McDaniels, did not make the trip. However, a pleasant surprise in the freshman class appeared in Marcus Tsohonis during their four games. Tsohonis netted 37 points over the course of the trip and offers help in a back-court that will need it until Quade Green becomes 2nd semester eligible. In the small sample size I saw it appears that if Hopkins does play man-to-man, it might be in a switching scheme:
West Virginia: Spain. Result: 3-0: Bob Huggins likes his team. And unlike last year’s group, he believes they can make shots. After game one,"We can make shots," coach Bob Huggins said. "We have some shot makers who can score the ball.” After game two, “I thought we played really hard," coach Bob Huggins said. "We've got a bunch of guys who can make shots.” And after the trip concluded, “We've got a lot of guys that can make shots," Huggins noted. How true this is remains to be seen as WVU only shot 27-80 from 3 (33.7%) over the trip. Better than last year’s 31.6% mark but still not very good. Perhaps his perception is distorted from how bad his group was last season. It also does not appear that Huggins is ready to go back to ‘press Virginia’ either as he commented that they still are in need of simply stopping the ball and getting back to basics in man-to-man defense. West Virginia went from pressing 35.7% of the time in 2018 to just 18.4% in 2019. Largely a reflection of personnel turnover and it’s again a group in the guard position that isn’t quite equipped to model things after Jevon Carter. Jordan McCabe, Chaser Harlar and Emmitt Matthews were the starting perimeter in Spain and do not quite offer the athleticism and defensive ability to play that style. Time will tell on how well WVU can actually shoot it, but Huggins needs to be correct in his assertion that they can. Missing from the trip was star recruit Oscar Tshiebwe, a physical man-child, who will likely be paired with Derrick Culver often up front. One player that can help in the back-court and add a jolt of athleticism is freshman Miles McBride. McBride totaled 31 points, 10 assists and 10 steals over the trip. Huggins had this to say about the freshman, "He's physical enough to guard somebody bigger than him, but he can also guard people smaller than him, I thought he had a great trip." McBride can be seen here in #4:
Miami (FL): Italy. Result: 3-0: Depth bit Miami last season and a glimpse of welcome additions in the back-court highlighted the Canes trip to Italy. Oklahoma transfer, Kam McGusty hit double figures in every game while freshman wings Isaiah Wong (42 points over three games) and Harlond Beverely (someone I’m high on) also contributed. Where Miami will need someone to step up is in the front-court. Cincinnati transfer would be a huge help this year but has to sit a year. That leaves the Canes with Rodney Miller and Deng Gak to man the center position. Gak is coming off injury and didn’t participate while Miller continues to make incremental progress with his body and game (Coach L did note Miller is down to 250 from 280). With Chris Lykes and DJ Vasiljevic returning in the back-court to go with Wong and McGustry, it’s likely the Canes will feature small lineups most of the upcoming year. The Canes were out-rebounded severely last season registering at 248th on the offensive boards and 246th defensively. To go with that, they allowed 51.7% on 2PT attempts (250th). And this was with a decent 5 man in Ebuka Izundu. They will desperately need Florida transfer Keith Stone (did not participate) to be a reliable big to go with needed improvement out of Miller or Gak.