The Lobos spent the holiday weekend in SoCal, playing in the Wooden Legacy against a tough field. They ended up getting 6th place after going 1-2 with a loss to Virginia Tech, a win against Cal State Northridge, and a loss to Dayton. In some ways, this outcome wasn’t surprising, as they lost to the teams they were expected to lose to and beat the team they were expected to beat, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t disappointing in its own right. But, now that it’s over, there are a few things that we’ve learned about the team from this early part of the season.
Things We Learned
The Defense Is a Work in Progress
In the first two games of the tournament, the Lobos simply couldn’t get a stop. Virginia Tech scored 1.33 points per possession, which is really high, while CSUN scored 1.14 points per possession. That left it up to the offense to make up the difference, which they were able to do against CSUN but not Virginia Tech. A glaring weakness was the three-point defense, as Virginia Tech was able to shoot 45.8% from behind the arc while CSUN was able to shoot 41.2%. It appears at times as though the Lobo defense is willing to give up three-pointers rather than let their opponents get to the rim, which really just isn’t working as a whole right now. A big part of it is that they have been allowing opponents to shoot well from two-point range, which when you add in the high three-point shooting, really doesn’t make for a winning combination.
However, in the third game, against Dayton, the defense ended up having a pretty solid game. They only allowed Dayton to score 0.98 points per possession, which is not stellar, but fine, and Dayton only shot 27.3% from three-point range. If the offense had been as effective as it usually is, the Lobos would have won the game handily. Weirdly enough, Dayton’s defense actually did to the Lobos what the Lobos are trying to do to other teams, as they allowed the Lobos to shoot a high percentage from three-point range, but only allowed the Lobos to shoot 37.1% from two. If the Lobos can do that sort of thing regularly, then their defense should be fine, but it’s a little ways away right now.
Tim Williams Is a Beast
While some players are either still shaking off some rust or are just getting their feet underneath them, Tim has come out firing on all cylinders this year. He’s averaging 20.8 points and 8.0 rebounds per game, which would be a nice little improvement from last year’s great season. To me, one of the best things that he’s shown is an improved ability at the free-throw line. Last year, he shot 67%, which isn’t awful, but it meant that he left quite a few points on the table. This year, however, he’s up to 80%, which makes him all the more dangerous, especially given that he’s getting to the line a lot right now. His defense looks like it has improved as well, which makes him an even more valuable player than before. If he keeps it up, he’ll be a shoo-in for the all-conference first team.
Three-point Shooting is an Issue
Elijah Brown has taken 52% of the Lobos’ three-point attempts. That means that the team’s overall shooting percentage from deep lives and dies with how well he does. Because he’s started out a little cold (26.3%), the team’s three-point shooting percentage (31.5%) has been bad overall as well. I do think that both of those numbers will improve, but I also think that there’s reason to believe that other players need to be taking more threes. First off, the Lobos not named Elijah Brown are shooting a combined 37.1% from deep, which is pretty good! After all, the average team makes 34.5% of their threes. In particular, I think that Jordan Hunter should probably shoot more often, as he’s probably the best three-point shooter getting minutes right now, and Sam Logwood should as well. Sam’s a weird case to me, as he shot threes twice as often last season and made 39.5% of them. It seems weird to me that he’s mostly abandoned that part of his game. The offense is fine right now, but should be a lot better if and when they shoot better from behind the arc.
The Team Might be too Reliant on Free Throws
A big part of why the Lobos have been so good on offense this season comes down to free throws. They’re getting to the line at one of the highest rates in the country and are shooting pretty well from there, which leads to them having a large percentage of their overall points coming from the charity stripe. When it works, it’s great, as they not only do they get a bunch of chances to make free throws, they put the other team in foul trouble. That said, it does worry me a little, as it can be highly dependent of the officiating. We saw that in the Dayton game, as the Lobos only shot 13 free throws in the game, compared to the 29 per game they’re averaging. Unsurprisingly, they saw their offensive efficiency go down. I think any strategy that leaves power in the hands of the officials is going to be highly variable and frustrating, so I’m glad that they are doing so well from the free throw line, but I hope that they can adapt when they’re not getting the calls.
Players of the Game
(For each game, we pick out who we think were the top three Lobos, awarding 3 points to the top performer, 2 to the second, and 1 to the third. We keep track of the points all season and will use them to determine our player of the year)
Virginia Tech (Loss, 92-72)
- Tim Williams (11 points on the season)
- Jordan Hunter (2 points on the season)
- Jalen Harris (3 points on the season)
Cal State Northridge (Win; 105-89)
- Elijah Brown (4 points on the season)
- Tim Williams (13 points on the season)
- Obij Ajet (1 point on the season)
Dayton (Loss, 64-57)
- Tim Williams (16 points on the season)
- Elijah Brown (6 points on the season)
- Damien Jefferson (1 point on the season)
Up Next
It’s the 50th anniversary game for the Pit on Wednesday, with Abilene Christian coming to town for a rematch of the first game ever played in the Pit. It should be a good chance for the Lobos to build back up some confidence after a tough tournament, which should help them in their tough road game this weekend.