Back to Post
| Username | Post: This Crazy Schedule | |
|---|---|---|
|
palestra38 Professor Posts 32900 |
11-22-21 01:25 PM - Post#329540
So now, I think it is very clear that this is the toughest Penn schedule of all time. Up to the start of Ivy play--here are the games an Pomeroys: Fla St-27 GMU- 138 Bucknell- 298 Lafayette- 315 Utah St--65 Davidson--83 Towson--215 Arkansas-23 Villanova--8 Temple--128 St. Joe's-239 LaSalle--217 James Madison--173 (and 4-0) If anything, these numbers are understated, because the Big 5 opponents other than Nova are coming off down years and probably all are mid 100s. And only 3 home games in the bunch, one being Nova. But never do I remember a schedule this crazily top heavy with 5 top 100 teams and other than the 2 Patriot League games, all are major programs. If we are anywhere near .500 when we play Brown, it will be an outstanding result. |
|
|
10Q Professor Posts 23536 |
11-22-21 01:31 PM - Post#329541
What about Old Dominion? |
|
|
palestra38 Professor Posts 32900 |
11-22-21 01:35 PM - Post#329543
185--missed it |
|
|
penn nation Professor Posts 21302 |
11-22-21 01:43 PM - Post#329547
SD had made some sort of comment that the Quakers would end up with one of the toughest OOC schedules in the country by the team league play began. |
|
|
penn nation Professor Posts 21302 |
11-22-21 01:49 PM - Post#329551
Torvik has Penn's strength of non-conference schedule as 64 (of teams already played), but it's 32 if you look at the entire schedule. |
|
|
SteveChop PhD Student Posts 1156 |
11-22-21 03:25 PM - Post#329558
And Howard? |
|
|
penn nation Professor Posts 21302 |
11-22-21 03:25 PM - Post#329559
No longer a poster. Oh. |
|
|
palestra38 Professor Posts 32900 |
11-22-21 03:55 PM - Post#329561
He should be, given how much Kinder and Gentler we are these days. Steve--I was listing the games until we open our Ivy season. But yes, Howard is a lower rated team. |
|
|
13otto Masters Student Posts 779 
|
01-07-22 10:13 PM - Post#332634
Looks like the Tom Izzo theory of playing a tough non-conference schedule is paying off at the start of Ivy play….
|
|
|
LyleGold PhD Student Posts 1712 |
01-07-22 10:19 PM - Post#332637
Yup, just commented on that on the other thread. I support our coach fully. Let’s let this season play out before discussing his situation. He’ll be back next year anyhow, so what’s the point? |
|
|
andybech Freshman Posts 83 |
01-08-22 02:00 PM - Post#332694
Helps that our first 4 Ivy games are the 4 worst teams at home. We really need to be 4-0 in this stretch but probably won't know how good the team is until the Princeton game. |
|
|
palestra38 Professor Posts 32900 |
01-08-22 03:39 PM - Post#332711
Brown is not among the four worst |
|
|
SomeGuy Professor Posts 6415 |
01-08-22 04:09 PM - Post#332719
Brown has the second highest rating in kenpom, behind Princeton. They are all the way up to 153. That’s 40 something places ahead of Harvard. |
|
|
PennFan10 Postdoc Posts 3590 |
01-08-22 04:41 PM - Post#332724
The best win so far is Brown @Harvard. Holding serve at home in league play is a given if you want to be in the ILT. Contending for the ILT requires being able to win on the road. Beating Brown doesn't give me more hope, it just gave me less anxiety. |
|
|
SomeGuy Professor Posts 6415 |
01-08-22 04:49 PM - Post#332730
I don’t disagree with that. However, I think the league is tight enough that there will probably be more home losses than usual for the top teams. I suspect everyone will lose at least one home game in conference this year. Though I guess home teams are 4 of 5 so far, so who knows. |
|
|
andybech Freshman Posts 83 |
01-08-22 05:03 PM - Post#332731
Preseason Brown was voted 5th and the schedule has been so crazy it is hard to know if they are better than that. I would take most of the ratings with a grain of salt as COVID has shuffled lots of rosters. Penn is not that good. Still see them as a 4/5 team that can't really defend. Getting in the Ivies may help them because they can play more zone and they do have some size in their guards that can cause mismatches. This is definitely a schedule where going only 3-1 in the first 4 games would put Penn on a precarious path towards making the top 4. Brown may be a little better and some other teams a bit worse, but it is not as if much has changed dramatically. |
|
|
SomeGuy Professor Posts 6415 |
01-08-22 05:26 PM - Post#332733
We played quite a bit of zone out of conference, and have played none in the first two conference games. My expectation is that we are more or less done with zone, and I frankly would be shocked if we did it for more than just a very occasional change of pace. Zone doesn’t really solve our defensive weaknesses — I think it actually further exposes them. As for how things have changed, we’ll see. Princeton, Harvard, and Yale have played nowhere close to past versions thus far (and neither has Penn). For Harvard, Yale, and Penn, this is the lowest rated squad in some time. Yes, they have to be beaten on the court for Brown to pass one of them, and it may not happen. But it is much, much closer than it has been in a long time. |
|
|
PennFan10 Postdoc Posts 3590 |
01-08-22 05:36 PM - Post#332736
Penn is not that good. Still see them as a 4/5 team that can't really defend. Getting in the Ivies may help them because they can play more zone and they do have some size in their guards that can cause mismatches. Penn is not a zone team. They won't play much, if any during league play. Funny about the defensive perception because here is SD's quotes from last nights game: “I think it’s prepared us for this, and what you saw over the last couple games is we really guard,” Donahue said. “We have experience now for what we’ve been through to really compete on the defensive end, and every night, I think we have enough to score based on who’s playing well." “I felt comfortable tonight going to 10 guys, and I think you’ll see that going forward.” Steve clearly thinks this is a strong defensive team. We did hold Brown to a lower point total than Harvard or UNC did. And Cornell had their second worst output of the season against us. The Quakers have played winning defense in their first 2 IL contests after looking porous at best through a tough non Con schedule. Let's see if that holds |
|
|
SomeGuy Professor Posts 6415 |
01-08-22 05:47 PM - Post#332738
I didn’t read much into the Brown game, because Brown isn’t a particularly strong offensive team. But Cornell is better. So that is a good indicator of something meaningful. Some of it is playing better as a team — we are having fewer instances of confusion where a switch leaves us scrambling. But some of it could be the presence of Smith for 35 minutes a night. And some of it is Mosh. For the last couple of games, he’s suddenly been doing a decent AJ impression on defense, in addition to all he’s been doing on the offensive end. Hope it continues. |
|
|
AsiaSunset Postdoc Posts 4366 |
01-08-22 06:02 PM - Post#332741
Penn is not that good. Still see them as a 4/5 team that can't really defend. Getting in the Ivies may help them because they can play more zone and they do have some size in their guards that can cause mismatches. Penn is not a zone team. They won't play much, if any during league play. Funny about the defensive perception because here is SD's quotes from last nights game: “I think it’s prepared us for this, and what you saw over the last couple games is we really guard,” Donahue said. “We have experience now for what we’ve been through to really compete on the defensive end, and every night, I think we have enough to score based on who’s playing well." “I felt comfortable tonight going to 10 guys, and I think you’ll see that going forward.” Steve clearly thinks this is a strong defensive team. We did hold Brown to a lower point total than Harvard or UNC did. And Cornell had their second worst output of the season against us. The Quakers have played winning defense in their first 2 IL contests after looking porous at best through a tough non Con schedule. Let's see if that holds Don’t know if it’s a strong defensive team but they are hustling and grinding. I agree holding Cornell to under 70 was a good effort. Beating Columbia tonight and starting 3-0 is not insignificant after what they struggled through earlier. |
|
|
Chip Bayers Professor Posts 7001 
|
01-08-22 06:59 PM - Post#332744
It’s a terrible defensive team by the KenPom #s—bottom third in the country in nearly every category—but these last two were the best points-per-possession efforts on D since the Bucknell & Lafayette games. |
|
|
Mike Porter Postdoc Posts 3619 
|
01-09-22 12:14 AM - Post#332905
The Cornell win was positive, but the Columbia loss completely invalidates it. The bottom line is that unfortunately it doesn't matter how tough our schedule was really. This is a 215ish KP team for better or worse. Even with a larger spread against Cornell than expected (which ballooned at the end), that only got us to 200. Then "regression to the mean" said "hold my beer" tonight and we got blasted back to 220. I mean, good teams just don't lose to the worst team in the league at home. We lost to 347 Columbia... at home. The 330ish offense scored 73 points against us. The results are in, our defense is terrible and if Coach Donahue really thinks we are good defensively, then well, I don't really know what to say about that. Sadly, you could see this letdown loss coming from a mile away. I surely hoped we would win, but in the back of my mind I had a bad feeling this is what we'd see. I wanted to hope that the 2-0 start meant something more, but this tells me it doesn't. We could certainly have a shot at making the tournament in the 6-8 to 8-6 record range, but at some point if the best you can do is be in the race for 4th, it gets tiring. Really hope I'm wrong and expect a wild league season, so you never know, but neither the numbers nor the eye test tell me this is anything more than that. |
|
|
SomeGuy Professor Posts 6415 |
01-09-22 12:40 AM - Post#332909
On the wild season — 6-8 won’t cut it this year. Frankly, 7-7 probably won’t either. We’ve got to get to 8. Good news is we’re alone in second place. But we’ve got a long way to go. |
|
|
Streamers Professor Posts 8331 
|
01-09-22 10:12 AM - Post#332923
Last night realized all my worst fears about the game and this team. Give the Lions some credit, they gave it away to PU and they came in as a 15 point dog determined to atone for that. I knew they would cover that because they are a terrible matchup for Penn with their frontline size and skills. We said before the game that our guards would need to shoot well from 3 and post up their guards to win the day. Didn’t happen. Dingle couldn’t get it going. Giving up second chances was also predictable, but this was ridiculous. Despite all that, don’t blame the defense. That (and all those missed 1-1’s) gave them many chances in the last 3 minutes and could not buy a hoop aside from the prayer from Martz. Truth is, they likely beat Columbia 80% of the time at home, but their weaknesses were clearly on display last night and this game likely puts their ceiling at 7-7. Maybe that slides them in with a tie breaker. |
|
|
andybech Freshman Posts 83 |
01-09-22 11:09 AM - Post#332926
I think Penn tries hard on defense, they are just not that good at it other than Monroe. Even someone like Mosh who is decent for his size is just overmatched against various bigs. I can see how SD likes this bunch. They have been through a lot. They try hard. They are just undermanned inside and don't have a real point guard and can't stop good athletic players. I think they need to inject a little John Cheney in their DNA to succeed. The 1-3-1 they went into yesterday was fairly effective. They do have a bunch of rangy guards in the 6-4 to 6-6 range that can cause issues with others. But then they also need to stop making bad passes and turnovers. I think I would rather see them take a long 3 than trying some of their inside passes which often don't work. They really need to figure out how to get better 3s. Charles seems so one dimensional out there but he could be a weapon and a lineup that has multiple shooters out there (Dingle, Martz, Charles, Slachert) should really be better at creating open 3s. |
|
|
Penn7277 PhD Student Posts 1365 |
01-09-22 11:24 AM - Post#332927
Oddly, Penn seemed to do better yesterday and much of Friday with Dingle out. It seemed that, especially yesterday, he was forcing the issue too much. |
|
|
Streamers Professor Posts 8331
|
01-09-22 11:27 AM - Post#332929
When Dingle hits those 'forced' shots, he's a star, otherwise, he's a liability. it's not complicated. |
|
|
SomeGuy Professor Posts 6415 |
01-09-22 11:31 AM - Post#332930
Agreed that we lost this one primarily on offense. |
|
|
penn nation Professor Posts 21302 |
01-09-22 11:35 AM - Post#332932
Agreed that we lost this one primarily on offense. Well, if you ignore all of the offensive rebounds we gave up, which is not easy to do. |
|
|
SomeGuy Professor Posts 6415 |
01-09-22 11:45 AM - Post#332935
Yes, oddly we won the 18 minutes of the game last night where Dingle was on the bench. And for the weekend we were out scored while he was in. Just a bad shooting night against Columbia, in a game that matchup-wise was the one where we really needed him to be a difference maker on offense. |
|
|
penn nation Professor Posts 21302 |
01-09-22 11:58 AM - Post#332938
Yes, oddly we won the 18 minutes of the game last night where Dingle was on the bench. And for the weekend we were out scored while he was in. Just a bad shooting night against Columbia, in a game that matchup-wise was the one where we really needed him to be a difference maker on offense. No-one could seem to get to the rim last night with any regularity, not even Dingle. And no-one except for Charles had any noticeable measure of success from distance. Oh, and no-one really got to the line last night (combination of first point and the fact that the refs simply were not calling much...at least when Penn was on offense). That's a pretty fatal combo on offense. |
|
|
SomeGuy Professor Posts 6415 |
01-09-22 12:50 PM - Post#332942
That said, if you simply take out Dingle, we shot 48% from the field and 35% from 3 — a combo that usually means a win, and would have in this case. So while it may have seemed like we weren’t getting shots, we generally were getting shots we were making at a reasonable rate outside of Dingle. |
|
|
Streamers Professor Posts 8331
|
01-09-22 02:06 PM - Post#332957
Agreed that we lost this one primarily on offense. Well, if you ignore all of the offensive rebounds we gave up, which is not easy to do. The latter was predictable, the former was not. |
|
|
SomeGuy Professor Posts 6415 |
01-09-22 04:09 PM - Post#332974
On the other hand, Princeton figured it out. Their frontline isn’t any bigger than our front line, and they played 4 guards for significant stretches of the game. So they played with Columbia having a massive size advantage at the 4 at times. Yet Princeton won on the boards because their guards rebound so well. But agreed that this was a game that you would think we win while allowing some o boards. It may not be a coincidence that Columbia is the only team in the league that plays two more traditional bigs, and is ranked 345 in the country. It’s a mismatch that usually doesn’t play to their advantage. But last night it certainly did. |
|
|
Mike Porter Postdoc Posts 3619
|
01-10-22 04:07 PM - Post#333027
On the wild season — 6-8 won’t cut it this year. Frankly, 7-7 probably won’t either. We’ve got to get to 8. Good news is we’re alone in second place. But we’ve got a long way to go. Fair points for sure. It will definitely be a wild ride that is clear, so I guess we'll see how it plays out and I hope we can make the tournament. Certainly feels like a year that any team could beat any team on a given night, so will be interesting to see how records shape up. Hell, at this point, I just hope we have a full season. |
|
|
Penndemonium PhD Student Posts 1903 |
01-10-22 05:36 PM - Post#333045
The original thread was about the crazy schedule. In addition to the crazy preseason schedule, the Ivy schedule will be tough too. Our team has high enough variance that I don't expect them to sweep many weekends, even against the bottom half teams. The results will hinge on a few plays in a few key games, rather than relying on the law of averages. |
|
|
SomeGuy Professor Posts 6415 |
01-10-22 07:04 PM - Post#333049
And it could be fair to revisit the schedule after Saturday’s result. Query whether a team that hadn’t gotten beaten up so much OOC pulls out that game against a weaker team. That said, we held up fine in crunch time against a much better and more athletic Cornell team the night before. But it might be that the constant pounding of the Ivy back to back just means you don’t have the legs for it the second night. I thought Mosh, Smith and Slajchert all didn’t finish shots late where you kind of wondered if guys were tired. |
|
|
Quake Show Junior Posts 218 |
01-10-22 08:05 PM - Post#333054
In line with your prediction on the manner in which we make (or don't make) the ILT, someone on Twitter remarked that the Ivy is one of the more fun conferences to watch. That was in response to Princeton pulling out a two-win weekend leading for only 12 minutes out of a total of 80 minutes played. Clearly, this isn't a conference right now whose teams we can expect to be consistent. Some may call that fun to watch, but for me personally it's excruciating. |
|
|
 |
|
| Copyright © 2004-2012 Basketball U. Terms of Use for our Site and Privacy Policy are applicable to you. All rights reserved. Basketball U. and its subsidiaries are not affiliated in any way with any NCAA athletic conference or member institution. |
|