calumnus said:
SFCityBear said:
HoopDreams said:
at first look, I wasn't impressed with this transfer, but upon a deeper look, he might be a better signing then I thought:
See below highlights entering the recent season.
started a few games as a fresh and soph at Oklahoma. capable of 20 point games. Can hit 8 straight free throws. capable of 10 assists. capable of 9 rebounds. 2 game winner shots. team MVP. preseason all-conference
2020-21 -
- Preseason All-Conference USA
2019-20 -
- Third-Team All-Conference USA.
- Team MVP
- Finished the season 12th in Conference USA in scoring averaging a team-leading 14 points per game.
- Led the team and finished fourth in Conference USA (112 assists) averaging 4.1 assists per game.
- Started 27 games. Finished the season with 22 double-figure scoring games, four 20-point scoring games and 21 games with at least three assists.
- With his 10 assists at WKU (2/22), he became the 26th different player in school history to record 100 assists in a season.
- Scored the game-winning basket on a driving layup in the closing seconds in the road win at WKU (2/22). Also recorded his first career double-double with 13 points and 10 assists.
- Scored a career-high 27 points (8-for-8 from the free throw line) in the win over Valparaiso (12/16).
- Scored 20 points with three assists against UNC Asheville (12/3).
- Tallied his third 20-point scoring game with 20 points (7-for-9 from the free throw line) in the win over Maryland Eastern Shore (12/19).
- Scored 26 points (connected on five three-point field goals) while grabbing seven rebounds in the win over UTSA (2/8).
- Scored 19 points including going 6-for-6 from the free throw line as well as dishing out six assists at Appalachian State (11/21).
- Nearly recorded a double-double with 16 points and nine rebounds to go along with three assists and two steals in the win over Wake Forest (11/17).
- Scored 13 points, grabbed five rebounds and recorded a season-high four steals in the road win at Marshall (1/16).
- Scored 13 points including the game-winning basket with 44 seconds on the clock in the win over Florida Atlantic (1/23).
- Scored a game-high 18 points and grabbed five rebounds on his birthday in the win over North Texas (3/4).
2018-19 -
- Sat out the season due to NCAA transfer rules after transferring from the University of Oklahoma.
- Practiced with the team for the entire season.
At Oklahoma (2016-18):
- Saw action in 59 games with four starts in his two years at Oklahoma.
- Averaged 3.2 points during his Oklahoma career while tallying five double-figure scoring games including scoring a career-high 18 points against Memphis (12/17/16).
- As a freshman, he averaged 4.3 points per game with 43 assists.
- In his final game at Oklahoma, he connected on both of his field goal attempts in 10 minutes of action against Rhode Island in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament.
Thanks for the effort it took to post all this information. It shows some cause for hope. Tsubamoto's advanced statistics portend a less rosy picture. And neither one of these approaches tells us much about a player's defense. Even though with all the rule changes over the years that hamper defenders, defense is still a major part of the game, perhaps less than 50% today, while prior to 1970, it may have been more than 50%. For me, the eyeball test is the best measure, but we don't have that, or at least I don't, only a cherry-picked offensive highlight video, like all highlight videos.
Another factor to consider is level of competition. Can we predict how a transfer will do in the PAC12 based on how strong the competition was at his previous school? Here's a list of some transfers to Cal, and how they performed at Cal. All of them came from mid-major schools:
Dwight Tarwater: Ivy League, was adequate to fill a rotation spot, got some rebounds played some D, made a few threes, but did not add much to the team or make it much better
Grant Mullins: Ivy League, a good all-around player, became a starter, and definitely made the team better.
Kareem South: Southland Conference, decent combo guard, played pretty well pre-conference, but in the PAC12, he was clearly overmatched, had trouble getting good looks, and his productivity waned.
Ryan Betley: Ivy League, good shooter when open, very good rebounder for a guard, but had trouble staying with his man on defense. He shot well pre-conference, but in the PAC12, he hit a brick wall and he lost his stroke. Opponents started playing him tighter, and it bothered him. The injuries to teammates forced Fox to play him more. He got fatigued, and his scoring went way down.
Makale Foreman: Southern Conference, America East Conference, he was sometimes a good shooter, shot some airballs as well. His stroke did not look as good as Betley's. He was hampered by his size, or rather by the size of the guards he faced in the PAC12. He is not a good enough ball handler to run point, to penetrate, or create his own shot, and he is not good enough on defense to warrant a lot of minutes.
Both Betley and Foreman did not shoot well enough to warrant them taking so many shots. They were both recruited to shoot threes, and the team had no one else to do that except Bradley, and Anticevich, and both of them were injured or ill off and on, so it was left to the transfers to pick up the 3-point load.
My impression of our recent transfer recruiting is maybe recruiting mid-major transfers is a road not filled with a lot of promise. It is apparently a real jump from mid-major to PAC12 for most of the ones we have signed.
Shepherd also comes from a mid-major conference, CUSA, where he seems to have played well, with suspect outside shooting, and with two years in the Big 12, where he did nothing remarkable, IMO. I only can wish him well, and I will root for him to be a player who helps the team. If he can play D, run point, penetrate, get some assists and an occasional bucket, and make his free throws, he will be a big help. I don't see him as a two guard.
Good post overall, but a few quibbles. We had a 20 game conference season and Betley shot .274 from 3 in conference. His 113 three point attempts in conference were the most on the team, more than double GA's 55 attempts (shooting .364). There is no way Fox was "forced" to play Betley, give him so many minutes or so many shot attempts. There were other options. It is a 15 man roster. You can run plays to get your better shooters, shots.
Also, again, the advanced stats fully include defense. Tsubamoto cited Box+|- which (simplifying) is the amount the player's team scores relative to the opponent when he is on the floor. It is the combination of offense and defense, and is neutral as to which is stronger or how that gets done. If a player helps his team out score the opponent by being a lock down defender on the opponents best player, that counts as much as scoring. Setting picks for your best player? That counts too if it results in your team scoring points. Being a big guy and clogging up the middle? That can count if it reduces the other teams scoring.
The big issue with Box +|- is covariance. Coaches tend to play certain players together. A statistician would want random lineups (independence) in order to get a good evaluation of the impact of each individual player. For example, If Michael Jordan is your teammate and you play every single minute he is on the floor, and are on the bench whenever he is on the bench, you will have the same Box +|- as Michael Jordan. Your number will have been increased by him and his will be reduced by you. It is only if there is a lot of time he is in the game and you aren't and times you are in the game and he isn't, that the difference will emerge.
The other advanced stats I use add the offensive Win share per 40 minutes played (WS/40) with a defensive WS/40 to equal the total WS/40. The offensive side is more precise because there are more offensive stats. The defensive side includes blocks, steals, defensive rebounds and defensive Box +/- (a measure of how much your presence on the court results in reduced or increased opponent scoring). Again, the defensive side is less precise and less reliable, but it is there as 50% of the player's rating.
This may interest you. Here is our Defensive Box Plus/Minus per 100 possessions this year (excluding those with less than 200 minutes):
1. Brown 2.9
2. Thorpe 2.7
3. Celestine 2.2
4. Thiemann 1.8
5. Anticevich 1.4
6. Kelly 1.3
7. Kuany 1.1
8. Bradley 0.4
9. Betley -0.4
10. Foreman -0.8
11. Hyder -0.9
Ryan Betley. The kid busted his hump for Cal. He played hard, and he played to exhaustion. You sum up his season by writing that he took more threes than any other Cal player and shot only .274 from three in conference, with no reference as to how this happened. You are biased about the player. Nothing wrong with that. We all have our favorites. But leaving out context is leaving out some of the truth about this player.
By the end of the 2020 season, most everyone posting here agreed that Cal had very little three point shooting aside from Bradley and Anticevich. South was leaving. It was a priority for Fox to bring in some three point shooters. He looked for volume three point shooters and he brought in Betley and Foreman to do just that. Both shot accurately enough, nothing great, each averaging about 8-10 attempts/40 minutes, and shooting threes at around .360 in their previous season. Neither one was a penetrator, neither one was defender, or an assist man. Betley turned out to be a pretty good rebounder for a wing. Betley. So it should not be any surprise to you that at Cal, they put up about the same number of three-point attempts. Even though they both did not shoot threes as well as they had at Penn and Stonybrook, Betley shot threes at Cal at.327 and Foreman at .317. Would it surprise you to know that Foreman actually fired up more attempts, 9.3 per 40 minutes to Betley's 8.0, and Bradley's 6.6?
The number of shots a player takes in a game depends largely on how many his coach would like him to take, more or less. Betley and Foreman did exactly what they were recruited by Fox to do, and they did it, helping improve Cal's three point scoring from being ranked #315 in the nation in 2020 to #199 in 2021, a dramatic jump.
Your posting of Betley's .274 average in conference also should come with a story. Here it is:
6 Non-conference games: Betley averaged .469
First 8 PAC12 games: Betley averaged .340
Next 11 PAC12 games: Betley averaged .196
Final 3 PAC12 games (including tournament): Betley averaged .438
This shows that Betley shot great for 9 games, average for 8 games, and poorly for 11 straight games in the middle of the PAC12 schedule. I thought he was in a slump, but I began to feel it was more than that. He has too good a stroke to be down for so many games, and I believe Fox's explanation. Fox has taken the blame for this, saying he should have used Betley more judiciously, rested him more.
The reason I say Fox was forced to use Betley so much is there was not much behind him on the bench. You say there are 15 players on the roster and Fox should have given some of Betley's minutes and shot attempts to others. Who pray tell, would they be?
Kuany shot threes this season at 0.200
Hyder was already playing in place of Foreman, and he shot 10-44 at .227.
Maybe Kelly who has shot threes for his Cal career at .278
Bowser suffered a serious head injury, and missed many games, finally returning to play sparingly, and was 0-5 from three.
Want to try Klonaras? He was 1-3 this season, at .333
How about Alters? 0-2
Or we could try Lars, who has yet to fire up a three point shot.
The obvious answer would have been Celestine, but was he ready to play? He missed 7 games, all early, and in his first few games he played very few minutes. I felt he was not strong enough early on, which would have been a good time to rest Betley. As the season went on, Celestine appeared stronger. He has shot threes well, but not much volume. I like him a lot so far, and perhaps he should have played more. Only Fox and Celestine know if he was ready to play. I suspect that as Celestine progressed to a starting position, Betley was able to get some rest, and the result was Betley had three good games to end the season.
In any case, this roster had little in the way of 3-point shooters on the bench to play in place of Betley. It would have been better to shoot more twos, but we had no one save Bradley and Kelly who could score inside. I agree that some plays could have been run to do that. Kelley needed to see the ball more, and Grant needs to be able to finish inside. It was a roster limited in what it could do.
SFCityBear
