Scenario Two: Bring On the Pain

Scenario one showed exactly why this shorthanded DU team can win, scenario two is the opposite.

The truly scary scenario for the Dragons is if Damion Lee has a repeat of last year.  No, not the injury, but rather the way he played when healthy.  He was bad.  Not like "talented player having an off night" bad.  He was BAD.  While his defensive deficiencies have been noted extensively, here are his offensive numbers for those four and a half games:

PPG            13
FG%           37%
3Pt FG%     27%
Off Reb/G   0.0
APG            2.2
TO/Game    1.4

Kenpom O Rating: 102.2  (The team rating was 103.8, good for 186th in the country, a team rating out to 102.2 would have been the 212th ranked offense in the country per Pomeroy).

You know what they call someone who can't shoot, rebound or play defense?  A starter at UNCW.

Damion Lee is, without question, the most talented player on this team.  If he puts a season up like he started to last year, the Dragons will have to rely on the frontcourt for scoring.  That means relying on a player who only scored 5.4ppg and was often in foul trouble a year ago in Rodney Williams, or a player who they have already said they don't think of as a scorer in Mohamed Bah.

The Dragons are OK though because they play defense well enough that they can always turn a game into a rock fight, right?  No says  Coach Flint, who just told the Philadelphia Daily News that "The last few years we haven't defended anybody", and he's right, after being in the top 100 in defensive efficiency (Pomeroy) for 7 years running, the Dragons have been on the outside looking in the last 2 seasons.

Go and ask a 7 year old youth basketball player what happens when his team can't shoot or play defense.  Then realize that even Bru's biggest supporters don't pretend that he is a brilliant on court tactician.  Think the 2007-2008 team that went 12-20 (5-13) without Frank Elegar or a Scott Rodgers led defense.  What outcome do you see for this years team?

Well, don't think about that quite yet.  Even in a bad five game stretch, and with a poor season, Tavon Allen and Damion Lee shot 37% and 40% respectively.  The 07-08 guards?  As a group they shot 35% from the field (led, I said led, by Rob Hampton's 41%).  So when you're drawing up worst case scenario's realize that the 07-08 team went 5-13 in a much better CAA while being an all time poor shooting team.  The Dragons are in a different era of talent now, and even on a worst case basis, this team will be better than that team was.  On top of that, we will talk about the defense on the next post, but it's not as bad as it looks.

The floor for this team is not as low as many think it is.