There is a limited amount of information that can reliably be garnered from the amount of games played at this point in the season, and it’s questionable whether or not that information will be accurate or even pertinent when March rolls around. A lot can change during the course of a college basketball campaign, and both attrition and development will change the composition and performance of virtually every roster during that time. Those disclaimers should serve as context when I tell you that Detroit
Mercy is not a good team and this game will serve only as a counting stat in the Q4 column when resume time rolls around.
Fresh off of a season in which they won just a single non-conference game against D1 competition, UDM lost by 61 to Marquette in their season opener on Friday. They peaked at 1.2% win probability by trailing just 9-8 before surrendering a 10-0 run in just over two minutes of game time. A 36-5 run that straddled the half functionally ended the game, as 36-5 runs tend to do. Pick a stat and it looks bad for them, but maybe the most notable is that they scored in just 6 of their 34 second half possessions. It was a destruction.
Xavier, on the other hand, has been gorging on cupcakes. The Muskies brushed aside Mount St. Mary’s in the opener and then outscored Eastern Michigan 65-35 after the second media timeout of the game to turn a slow start into a comfortable victory. Sterner tests lie ahead, but for the moment, X has been giving it to all takers while barely breaking a sweat.
Team fingerprint
As might be expected of a team that lost by 60, the numbers aren’t pretty for Detroit Mercy. They’re a merely bad offensive rebounding team; the rest of the offensive side of the ledger is absolutely abysmal. They’re in the bottom 10 of D1 in free throw rate, turnover rate, and EFG% as a team. They can’t hit from inside or beyond the arc, and they’re poor from the line. They had almost a quarter of their two-point shots blocked and played at a glacial pace. Just ugly ball.
Defensively, it’s not as bad, but it’s still not good. They managed to keep Marquette off the line, though that appears to be through a lack of meaningful resistance rather than any real defensive nous. They somehow forced just 3 turnovers in a 67 possession game, which is honestly incredible. The rest of the numbers are also bad, but again, it’s a one game sample. I think the biggest takeaway is that Marquette destroyed them and, if Xavier wants to compete near the top of the Big East this year, they need to do the same.
Players
Our famous players grid ™ will return when Joel is able to write more and clears up some of the coding in the grid. I’m an ideas man, I thrive on energy. He makes it work. Any road…
In this era of roster churn Detroit Mercy is unusual in that not a single one of their players has scored a point for a team other than Detroit Mercy. I’ll leave to you to decide what that means about the talent level of this group, but it at least speaks to the level of loyalty Mark Montgomery engenders.
There’s not a lot of data to mine here. This team scored 32 points against Marquette. They forced the three turnovers mentioned above, but none of them came from a steal. Tyler Spratt is currently the leading scorer. He scored eight against Marquette on 3-13 from the floor that he paired with four turnovers. Right behind him is Ayden Carter who was a glittering 3-11 from the floor but marred that performance with six turnovers and no assists. Carter also raked in six rebounds. Expect to see a lot of Xavier Istomin-Monroe, a 7-1 sophomore who played 29 minutes and had a stat line of 2/2/0 to go with his two blocks. Only one foul though, so there’s that.
Lance Stone and London Maiden round out the starting lineup. Stone is listed at 5-8, which means that if he’s anything like most basketball players, he’s actually about 5-6. Last season he was a decent three point shooter but shot a horrific 29.7% inside the arc, probably because he either couldn’t see the rim or needs a big man to boost him. (If you read this, Lance, this is all in fun and I’m aware you would absolutely destroy me one on one despite me being a listed 5-10). London Maiden could be that boost giver. He’s built like a guy who works physical labor, comes home for a good meal, then play wrestles with the kids until he falls asleep on the floor at 930. He was definitely watching that game if you try to change the channel. Maiden was an efficient scorer last season and will get on the offensive glass.
Three Questions
– How does Xavier handle another poor opponent? There was a notable dip in the Musketeers execution and effort to begin last Friday against EMU. They looked like the prototypical team that knows they are going to win a game and just wants to get through it. They can do the same here, but a bit more verve from the off would be a good sign.
– Is there an outside shooter here? Through two games, an admittedly small sample, X is shooting 31.1% behind the arc. Rolyns Aligbe (2-4) is the only player born in the US shooting it with any real success. Filip Borovicanin, Jovan Milicevic, and Gabriel Pozzato are a combined 8-17, the rest of the team excluding Aligbe is 4-25. That’s not good. X doesn’t need everyone to start pouring them in, but when three of the leaders are bigs and the other guy is a career 32% shooter, you might want an actual guard to start making a shot or two.
– Who gets time? The minutes are incredibly even across the top 10 in rotation right now. Borovicanin leads at 24 per game, Pozzato is bringing up the rear at 15. At some point an actual rotation will have to begin to separate. That likely isn’t against a team ranked below 300, but look for little clues.
Three Keys
– Start quickly: Just put this thing to rest early and start to get to the point where X can practice what they need to do. There’s no reason this should be a contest for longer than about ten minutes.
– Teach Mike Nwoko not to foul: It’s vaguely humorous right now to watch a 6-10 wall of muscle swat smaller players all over the place, it won’t be come February and (God willing) late March. The odd thing about Nwoko is that his fouling tendency has gotten worse as he’s developed. As a freshman at Miami (Fl) he played rotation minutes and never had more than three fouls. His rate was 4.2 per 40 minutes. That has slowly climbed to 6.4 so far this season.
– Take care of the ball: Mercy “forced” three turnovers and didn’t have a steal against Marquette. Xavier has, for reasons known mostly to themselves, been really wasterful with the ball so far this season. Now would be a good time to start to tighten it up. Iowa and Texas A&M are coming, and they will absolutely try to force mistakes.
