Bradley Game Thread

[Kel Varnsen]

Honest question .. is there a loose ball collection percentage? or tie up percentage? (probably named something other than that). Those are the 2 things I see him doing more than any other player.

Loose balls on defense would be lumped in with steals, if he did control it. Loose balls on offense may sometimes be rebounds and sometimes may not be counted, and tie ups may not be. But keep in mind that the number of steals and available rebounds are astronomically bigger than the amount of deflections on loose balls (when we have the ball and it is not off a rebound) and tie ups that occur during a game.

[ShockerEngineer]

Honest question .. is there a loose ball collection percentage? or tie up percentage? (probably named something other than that). Those are the 2 things I see him doing more than any other player.

Yep, exactly my point when I brought up intangibles. It's a logical fallacy to claim based on that that he doesn't contribute anything. Like how during the Utah game my dad was frustrated that Frankamp hadn't made a shot yet and I pointed out that at least having him on the floor gives us someone else who's competent handling the ball if nothing else.

But still, props to Kel for attempting to contribute to the discussion without also fueling the circle of name calling. :)

[Cdizzle]

Sometimes extra possessions are created by the team not having a turnover because someone jumped out of bounds and saved it back in. Or by creating a jump ball. Or by busting up 3 guys in the paint so Ron can go grab the ball without impediment.

There is a reason WSU is getting an obscene number more possessions per game than their opponents. It isn't all Evan. It isn't all NOT Evan either.

[1972Shocker]

Listen, Evan is a great kid and representative of the university and basketball program. He is not a great D1 basketball player. And this is a clear misapplication of correlation and causation.

Is anyone really making the argument that Evan is a great D-1 basketball player? I think the question on the table is who on the current WSU roster would be more effective in Evan's place on a consistent basis this year.

Clearly Coach Marshall is motivated to play the players that he believes give his team the best chance to win games. It's okay to disagree with Coach Marshall and maybe he is wrong and some of the posters on this board are better judges of what is best for his team then Coach Marshall is. What I do know is that I am certainly not capable of judging Evan's value better than Coach Marshall can. So I will conclude that Evan is playing because he deserves to be playing and his role is in the best interest of this Shocker team. I think we should just enjoy Evan's uniqueness as a player and for what he is. A scrappy bulldog who probably produces actual value well above his God given talents through sheer effort and determination. That in itself can have great carryover value as an example to the rest of the team and especially the younger players.

I am confident Coach Marshall runs a meritocracy and would have no problem making changes if merited and earned.

[WstateU]

I’ll have to research this thread and others, however I haven’t heard anyone say that Evan Wessel is a great basketball player; he does offer ‘intangibles’ that don’t show up in a box score. As coach Marshall says, "the eye in the sky doesn't lie."



The following must have been written with EW in mind…

“Intangibles are the opposite of physical characteristics: They are the qualities of a player that often go unnoticed by the untrained eye and are relatively difficult to keep track of.
However, basketball intangibles heavily affect the outcome of not just games, but entire seasons. With this being said, intangibles are obviously an important part of a player’s game and without a doubt the most neglected. This is simply because most intangibles are not cool; they often don’t have a column in the box score nor do they have a segment at the end of SportsCenter. But that stuff is for the people who are on the outside looking in. Intangibles are cool to a true hooper. They are cool to that college coach recruiting five different players for one spot on the team.”

https://www.m14hoops.com/basketblog/middle-school/basketball-intangibles-part-one/

[ShockerFever]

khan, you've lost many fights on this board over the years. This is one you're also not gonna win. I'd recommend bowing out gracefully, save some face, and move on to something else.

[proshox]

Fans and coaches can place too much emphasis on getting loose balls since they rarely impact the outcome of the game. On the flip side getting floor burns can provide a proxy for commitment and effort.

I actually think EW's best attributes are more invisible in the stat sheet - I bet he rarely misses the keys reviewed during the scouting reports. That will not show up in stats, but can have a huge impact on our ability to force opposing teams to play a style that benefits the shockers.

[shocka khan]

I do not recall mentioning any of those nor can I find any reference to those when I re-read the post or read your quote of my post. But if you want to get down to winning percentage of game participated in, find a better winning percentage than EW in these five seasons and share with the SN group.

Remember, I did not make a grandiose claim, you did. And it is an invalid correlation to make when you say EW was a cause of our winning percentage. Sort of a superstition, if you will. Perhaps at the end of the season I can buy rabbits feet (one for each player coming back next year) or four-leaf clovers and claim in 4 years that it was the cause of the Shocker's success over that period.

And many of you have said I have some sort of chip on my shoulder regarding him. I don't. He's a great story, but he's a situational player. Against most of the teams we are about to play, the situation might be favorable for him to be out on the court, as he is a fan favorite and I hope he gets lots of minutes.

[Kel Varnsen]

Yep, exactly my point when I brought up intangibles. It's a logical fallacy to claim based on that that he doesn't contribute anything. Like how during the Utah game my dad was frustrated that Frankamp hadn't made a shot yet and I pointed out that at least having him on the floor gives us someone else who's competent handling the ball if nothing else.

But still, props to Kel for attempting to contribute to the discussion without also fueling the circle of name calling. :)

I can name call with the best of them, ya jerk!

There's certainly room for both quantitative and qualitative analysis, but for some of the loose ball arguments to be true, those instances (what? maybe 2-3 times per game?) would have to occur at the same or greater frequency than the possibility of rebounds, steals, etc.

Another example: what if we put Markis McDuffie in for a series of possessions for Evan. If the hustle play that Evan got us rewards us in the form of 1-3 points, great, but what if McDuffie made one or two three pointers that Evan would not have made during that time period (a reasonable assumption given their shooting percentages)?

[Kung Wu]

Khan,
Obviously you are making a herculean effort to supplant another infamous poster on here as the resident ShockerNet J.O.
Although you are to commended for your efforts, the infamous, yet unnamed poster has a long and dubious record for inane and retarded posts.

The unnamed poster is probably flattered by your feeble attempt to supplant him and snare his crown. However, he is the King of dumbass comments and you will never replace him.

You, on the other hand, are only making a complete and utter idiot of yourself with the constant stupid ass posts.

Therefore, put down the crack pipe, stop with the EW bashing and return to your mothers basement to wallow in anonymity.

That is all.

This is total B.S. I am NOT "flattered" and Kahn is welcome to have my crown.

[_kai_]

Take it to PM with the personal insults, guys.

[Cdizzle]

How many screens did McDuffie set? How many times did he get lost on defense?

There is a reason people, including Marshall, keep pointing to Win% when talking about Evan. It's precisely because everyone likes to use numbers to evaluate talent, and there aren't any other good numbers with which to evaluate Evan.

[shocka khan]

khan, you've lost many fights on this board over the years. This is one you're also not gonna win. I'd recommend bowing out gracefully, save some face, and move on to something else.

And I owned you the last time, when you used a rather derogatory remark to describe the learning disabled, so I wouldn't get too fired up about your perceptions of my debating skills.

But more to your point, I believe I need to hold my fire for now, and see whether the statements I have made will be validated or not. If I'm right, I won't back down. I don't think I'll be wrong, but if a miracle occurs and EW starts hitting 40+ percent of his shots and doubles his ppg average, I'll happily apologize to everyone on this board because it will mean we got everything out of our players in the end of season tourneys.

We all like our Shockers, we just don't always agree on who should be where in which situations.

[Cdizzle]

Remember, I did not make a grandiose claim, you did. And it is an invalid correlation to make when you say EW was a cause of our winning percentage. Sort of a superstition, if you will. Perhaps at the end of the season I can buy rabbits feet (one for each player coming back next year) or four-leaf clovers and claim in 4 years that it was the cause of the Shocker's success over that period.

And many of you have said I have some sort of chip on my shoulder regarding him. I don't. He's a great story, but he's a situational player. Against most of the teams we are about to play, the situation might be favorable for him to be out on the court, as he is a fan favorite and I hope he gets lots of minutes.

Did the rabbits foot play 25 minutes per game? Because playing more than 10% of a team's minutes while racking up 90% wins, goes just a little bit beyond correlation.

[ShockerEngineer]

I can name call with the best of them, ya jerk!

There's certainly room for both quantitative and qualitative analysis, but for some of the loose ball arguments to be true, those instances (what? maybe 2-3 times per game?) would have to occur at the same or greater frequency than the possibility of rebounds, steals, etc.

Another example: what if we put Markis McDuffie in for a series of possessions for Evan. If the hustle play that Evan got us rewards us in the form of 1-3 points, great, but what if McDuffie made one or two three pointers that Evan would not have made during that time period (a reasonable assumption given their shooting percentages)?

Yeah, I've thought about attempting to quantify stuff like this in some way, but it's understandably difficult. Right now, for me, it's more of a gut feeling, from having watched nearly every second of Shocker basketball over the past several years, and the perception that whenever there's a 50-50 ball, he seems to come up with it.

In your example, those things could offset, but I'd also think that a coach might see that as a bigger risk, as hustle and defense is more controllable than an off shooting night (I would guess this is HCGM's logic here). Similar to why the OKC Thunder starts Andre Roberson over several other guys who can score way better. Also, you never know, maybe having him out there making those plays helps inspire the other guys? Just spitballing here!