Exactly. Any time someone scores directly on Eli, I find myself thinking that the defence was excellent and the guy just made the shot. If he were a few inches taller, then he’d be better able to challenge the shot. That’s his only defensive shortcoming, and I agree that it isn’t at the top of the defensive priority list. How many plays stick in your mind where Eli was actually out of position? The Washington 3 against OSU last year? I can’t think of any others.
1 Like
Not to belabor it, but when the video has an antagonistic character–in keeping with past performance by the poster–possibly legit to point it out.
3 Likes
Truthfully, there’s not a player in any sport who can’t have clips strung together to “show” failure, if that’s what you’re trying to do. I could pretty easily throw together some pick 6s from Tom Brady, some horrible turnovers from MJ or LeBron, some missed short putts or wild drives from Tiger, etc.; would that somehow “prove” that these guys had substantial shortcomings?
1 Like
Oh of course. I think there are different types of “failure” in basketball…
On defense you can get beat, which is a failure technically but is going to happen – literally how the game works. But you can also make a mistake or be out of position, also a failure but something you can control.
On offense, you can miss a shot. By definition a failure, but again it is going to happen. You can also take a bad shot or run the wrong play or force a bad pass or turn it over, etc. Those are controllables and the kind of mistakes that you want to eliminate.
1 Like
I think a lot of the point of the Brooks video isn’t necessarily that he’s playing bad defense, but that his ceiling is limited due to physical limitations even if he makes a lot of the right decisions. So, he’s not going to be an elite on-ball guy, when he might be an elite off-ball defender.
1 Like
Exactly. And I agree 100% that the clips shown by Matt in his tweet are different in that very respect from the ones in Eric’s tweet about Jordan Poole’s defense after the home MSU game in March of '19. Eric’s showed correctable, controllable mistakes. Matt’s “point” I guess is that Eli is too short to play 2 without having some guys beat him even when he’s doing the right thing, which is part of his years-long quest for athleticism and size over guys who he views as fundamentally sound and skilled, but not great run-jump athletes. That’s not getting into his psyche–it’s a position he has often advocated here and elsewhere.
2 Likes
Maybe that’s the point – but is that accurate? I’m not sure that video really proves that point? You could probably put a clip together that shows the opposite pretty easily, right? Just have to load up the Penn State film.
1 Like
Sure I guess, you probably want a combo of film + Synergy numbers to get a sense of that (in this case, Brooks ISO PPP on defense). From what I’ve gathered, Michigan’s synergy numbers in ISO situations are poor, so I’d imagine Brooks are likely as well?
1 Like
Individual Synergy numbers on defense are basically never a good idea IMO. For a couple reasons to start:
- You watch the clips and can easily see how hard it is to log individual defensive possessions.
- Great defense often times results in a shot not being taken so volume (and matchup) is a huge part of the equation that is very difficult to peel apart from the raw number.
A stat like: Oakland allows the lowest rate of ISO possessions and Florida State allows the most is a good use of Synergy defensive stats. That tells us something about what they are doing defensively.
Getting down to the player level results in a lot of sample size issues, etc. For example, there are 9 players in the Big Ten with 10+ ISO possessions logged defensively. That’s basically a nothing sample.
It’s fun to laugh and say Rocket Watts is the worst in that group, but the overall list doesn’t tell us much IMO. The difference is one or two made shots for the most part.
1 Like
An example from another sport on the latter–Kyle Fuller of the Bears hasn’t had a pass breakup in 5 games. A significant reason for this is that no one is throwing his way–the Bears have started a rookie corner opposite Fuller all season, and recently, are starting a back-up rookie corner because the starter got hurt–another .significant reason is that Fuller is very good (a pro bowler in '18 and '19, and the league interceptions co-leader in '18) Thus, if Fuller makes a bad play on a ball thrown in his direction, his efficiency per play would be poor, but that would be an unreasonable way to judge him because it fails to take into account that he’s taking a receiver, often the opponent’s best receiver, out of the game.
I honestly don’t know why it’s any different than discussing whether people like Hummel, Dakich, Couch or any other media person. Who cares if he used to post here. That just means people here have an up close account of his agenda at times.
So I’m gonna go ahead and guess that this is shade at UMHoops?
And then this one is something else.
1 Like
It is something all right. I saw it but didn’t post it because I had already posted one for the day (and now he blocked me). What he means is that they’re finally playing the way he likes I guess
Doesnt make any sense as shade at UMHoops when you compare the film breakdown and analysis of both sites. Mostly cause UMHoops has some whereas Mgoblog pretty much does a lot of that for football, but is largely non-existent when it comes to basketball.
Matt D was consistently negative on Beilein. While he acknowledged Beilein’s ability as a teacher and sometimes his eye for an under-rated recruit, he hated that we were rarely in on top 20 players. Hated! Matt really wanted us to approach recruiting like Calipari even if it included the bad stuff. So not surprising on his take on Howard. For Matt, it’s just a bonus that Juwan is clean.
3 Likes
The MGoBlog message boards are full of people who are such big basketball fans they can’t even spell the player’s names correctly in addition to thinking Hunter is tracking to be a top 5 pick after this year in a 2021 version of the NBA.
3 Likes
I’ve read Matt’s pieces at Mgoblog for a while and heard him on the podcast a handful of times. I get the sense that he might be the kind of guy to wear a velour track suit to AAU tournaments or at least stand next to someone in a velour track suit…
This is not psychoanalysis, just fashion critiques…
9 Likes
I see everyone stopped talking about MattD 
. Seems like this exact same conversation happens once every couple of weeks.
Anyway about Eli… I can see where super high level plays/players would beat him given his size, but I feel like especially in college that’s not a common enough occurrence where it’s a huge problem. I’m sure in the NBA it would be a bigger issue, and some elite guards/wings in college would most likely give him problems, but defenders as good as him aren’t easy to come by and they will help a team win lots of games. Not to mention Eli seems to have gotten somewhat more athletic this year, unless I’m misremembering.
3 Likes
This is really interesting to me, mainly because I think it shows something important about statistically-minded analysis. I think certain people complain about there being too much reliance on number crunching, and I generally think that argument is just kind of annoying. Partly because statistics can tell a lot about teams, but also because it misses the point that people who are good at reading stats actually know the limits of certain metrics and can help contextualize them. (I hope that makes sense.)
3 Likes
I definitely think that’s true and a lot of people who are “against statistics” just don’t have a deep enough understanding of statistics or are presented them in the wrong way.
For example, if you take a report to your boss, you have to be able to put it in a way that a) provides proper context and b) is in a language they understand. This is a big problem in sports analytics where things are often framed in an incredibly simplistic way “THREES ARE GOOD TWOS ARE BAD” and that is presented to someone bluntly… they say “well no, obviously twos are good in x, y, z circumstance”.
The person doing the analysis absolutely understands that but it wasn’t presented with enough nuance which then discredits any of the analyst’s work.
3 Likes