Baker Men’s Basketball got their season started on Thursday, October 30 in a home game against Friends University. In this overview, we’re going to look at every aspect of Baker’s opening 107-68 loss to Friends, and see what’s in store for the rest of the Wildcat’s season.
Scoring: Baker lost their top 10 players from last year’s Round of 16 run, meaning Head Coach, Sean Dooley, had to test his team’s depth to find scoring. With Baker’s starters combining for 8 points, Dooley looked to the bench to find the team’s other 60. The bulk of the points came from Shane Threadgill, a true freshman from Idabel, Oklahoma, who put together a 24 point performance. Threadgill shot 50% from Field Goal (8-16) and 3-Point (5-10), earning him 23 minutes on the court, which is more than 4 of the 5 starters. Overall, Baker shot a strong 41.3% from the field but a subpar 26.7% from 3-Point.
Outlook: With everyone on the team getting minutes in the opener, top scorers emerged. It’s safe to predict Dooley will make shifts to the starting lineup, although the depth the Wildcats displayed, spreads responsibility and promises consistent scoring, all key aspects of a team prepared for postseason play.
Offense: After taking a look at Baker’s scoring, let’s take a look at how they got there. As previously stated, the Wildcats shot 41.3% from the field and 26.7% from 3. While the team scored a respectable 68 points, there are few standout stats that can help to explain the visually stunted offense. The Wildcats only carded 9 assists after 40 minutes of play. This can explain the lower 3-Point percentage, as a lack of sharing the ball around the perimeter, lends itself to contested and forced 3’s. This amount of solo, or iso, play led to a strong 54.5% shooting performance from inside the arc, but showed a lack of consistency between possessions. Only catching 9 offensive rebounds meant the Wildcats typically ran one-and-done possessions, which simply means fewer opportunities to score. The Wildcats also turned the ball over 24 times compared to Friends 15. This led to Friends scoring 29 points off turnovers which made a comeback difficult.
Outlook: Baker ran at an estimated pace of 82.04, quite fast compared to the typical pace of 70-72. This metric measures how many possessions a team gets during a game. If offensive rebounds trend upwards and turnovers trend downwards, we can see a Baker offense that operates much more consistently. With such a small sample size of 1 game, we shouldn’t pay much attention to the number, but know that the Wildcats like to play fast. This can move slower opponents out of their comfort zone and allow Baker to control the game, given Baker can play efficient offense.
Defense: This section should be prefaced by stating that Friends shot 48.7% from the field and 45.9% from 3. This level of shooting is hard to defend no matter who you are, but there are trends that let Friends have more open shots. First of all, the Baker defense loved double teaming the ball handler off of ball screens and dribble hand offs. This was the driving factor in Friends 15 turnovers. Overwhelming their ball handlers led to steals and passes that soared over players heads. This helped Baker limit scoring runs from Friends but their shooting percentage proved insurmountable. The downside to this defensive strategy is that open shots become inevitable when two defenders are covering one player. Friends fired off 7 more 3s than Baker, simply because they had open looks. Friends’ Cahlese Lee took advantage and laced 7 threes of his own. Double teams also make it harder to match back up. If Friends was able to get a shot off while Baker was double teaming, they could crash the paint unaccounted for. Friends tallied 30 offensive rebounds during the contest.
Outlook: We got to see a Baker defense that played with a lot of aggression and firepower. They were able to force 15 turnovers and had 6 blocks. The Achilles heel became the open looks Friends was able to get, and their ability to share the ball when Baker couldn’t get reorganized. This reloaded Wildcat team has a high ceiling once the wrinkles are ironed out, especially on defense. Friends 107 points should be an outlier at the end of the season, and I wouldn’t make any conclusions about Baker’s defense until we see more opponents.
Conclusion: The score tells a different story than the stats do. Baker was able to score a respectable 68 points despite shooting the 3 at a low percentage. Two more 3’s per half, and we’d have 80 points, a number that could beat a lot of teams. The depth of this team is going to be very helpful as the season goes on as well. If Baker can get 10 scorers on the floor again, opponents will have a hard time keeping up. As for the defense, look past the score. The Wildcats were actively going after the ball and kept up energy even when the deficit proved to be too much. Overall, for a practically new team altogether, Baker showed they could have a high ceiling once the early season tension starts to wear off. Baker is back on campus on Monday November 3, at 7:30 in the Collins Center, before going on a 3-game road trip.
