He is bringing something to the game at least. I thought he was solid on D for most of the game. Glad to see the decision to not have him be the main cog didn’t cause him to sulk. Great kid.
2 Likes
hoping he can bust out of this slump sooner than later…
I don’t blame Irvin for the role he stepped up and accepted. Walton only recently has come on, Mo and DJ have been inconsistent as has MAAR. Had X been ready or MAAR shown he was capable Beilein may have had other options but Irvin, for better or worse, was the best play. He doesn’t deserve the personal attacks or the views that don’t consider the development of Wagner and Wilson or the transformation of Walton’s game.
Irvin has a lot to process and adjust to right now. Hopefully he breaks it down and just gets his stroke back.
2 Likes
At this point it’s not really about whether Irvin is a good or efficient player, it’s about whether he can play 4 or 5 more good games in the regular season and get hot. His streakiness has been well established at this point.
The one thing to note is that the offense is not running through him at all really the last couple of games. Been all DW pulling the strings.
The final advaned stats from the MSU game are telling. If you calculate +/- per minute, Xavier really stands out. Hopefully that’s a good omen.
Woof… Two stats here that are probably not very useful.
For a single game defensive rating, we are basically just looking at the number of steals and defensive rebounds Wagner had and waiting Michigan’s PPP allowed by his minutes. Doing a lot of math in the middle. It doesn’t really have anything to do with Ward’s efficiency necessarily.
+/- tells us that Michigan made a run when X was on the floor so that’s good, but the sample sizes are so small for plus/minus stats when you are leaving starters in for so many minutes just isn’t that useful of a stat. (Coming from someone who used to try to calculate them).
Here’s the calculation… There’s only so much data in a box score, so it has to be estimated off of minutes played, blocks, steals, rebounds and then the opponent’s team data.
So what are you disagreeing with exactly? The ‘estimate’ portion is just a proportional minutes calculation of the other ‘non-claimed stats’.
I’m not saying that it’s bad that Wagner grabbed 6 defensive boards (a really good # for him) or that he had a couple of steals (a real strength of his), but it’s easier to just talk about those numbers for what they are.
Where can the +/- stat be found?
Irvin’s last 3 games:
3-23 (13%), 8 points, 6 Turnovers
Can it get much worse?
click the link in my post.
I’ll just say my peace here now, he’s just lacking confidence big time in this slump. Plain and simple.
I thought his shot selection today was 100% fine. He took open shots and didn’t force anything. You don’t get out of a shooting slump by a) not shooting and b) limited playing time. Luckily DWalt has been incredible during this stretch.
Instead of wanting him to play less, I think of a positive spin on it, how good can this team be if Irvin is on with Walton? I hope we find out.
Really struggling right now. He is 4-28 in his last seven halves of basketball.
X Simpson had the same amount of rebounds and made FGs today as Zak. He also had 2 assists to Zaks 3. Obviously in much less playing time, 32-12 minutes.
When Zak went out in the second half for a blow, we scored on four straight possessions.
1 Like
We’ve let him keep shooting for 4 straight games. There has to be a point where we just say stop. This is a guy who through nearly 4 years is a 34% three point shooter. His shot looks nothing like it did his freshman year when he was an above average shooter. I just don’t think he’s better than the alternative (Duncan) if he’s not getting to the rim.
Tell him to stop shooting open shots?
If he was trying to force things, I could see it but he hasn’t really done that. He just has to keep shooting when he’s open.
I think he’s just wayyy inside his head right now. In all honesty, it may take a shot or two with the shot clock expiring to get him going.
Were we watching the same game? He had 3 good shots, the 2 open threes and the layup. Other than that he took an insanely forced off balanced three about 2 seconds into the shot clock to kill our momentum, 3 wild mid range jumpers (Not from “his spot” on the elbow) that he completely bricked, and the semi open mid range shot to end the half that barely grazed the rim.
2 Likes
In three years as “the guy” on offense his average offensive rating in Big Ten play is 94.1. This was bad but excused because he was forced to be the leader when it’s clear he wasn’t cut out for it. Now that Walton is playing incredibly there’s no reason for him to be forcing horrible shots.
1 Like
The three was in transition up 13 to put the game away and he was wide open.
Of the mid range jumpers, I do remember his airball in the first half on I believe a stepback dribble. I didn’t recall anything wild or crazy on other jumpers so you may be right, I just don’t remember it.
The semi-open jumper isn’t a bad shot if he’s at least semi-open.
He was fine as “the guy” to end his sohphomore year. He also hit the big shots last year to end the year. He’s struggled badly this year, nobody has denied that.
I agree. I was ok with half of them. He threw up at least 3 to 4 though that were really tough looks. Especially early.
Either way I’ve been saying it for two years, zaks offense is not essential for us to be successful. Imo he’s the 4th or 5th best option. Maybe 6th. I’ve been touting for two years now that less zak is more for this team offensively. Where he is essential is on defense, rebounding, and passing. I’ve been saying for quite sometime if he could embrace his inner garbage man/ utility roll we would be much better for it. 6-8 shots a game is a nice range for him. Wide open threes only, or to the rack.
lol that’s just so wrong, and even if it was true it definitely wouldn’t make it a good shot.
I never said it was a bad shot, just that it was off balanced and only semi-open. Definitely not a good shot.
He was much better than the people around him. Now he’s not. It’s as simple as that.