Iona Gaels:
Rick Pitino’s squad hasn’t played much yet, just 2-1 on the season with decisive wins over Penn and Vermont and a loss to Hofstra.
Top players so far are:
6-9 forward Quinn Slazinski (18pts, 7.5 rebounds, 5/14 from 3; but did not play in their last game vs. Vermont).
6-3 guard Daniss Jenkins (17pts, 5 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 4/10 from 3; former Pacific guard, recall that he was fairly athletic)
6-9, 240lb forward Nelly Junior Joseph (12.7pts, 8rebs, 2.7 blocks)
6-2 pt guard Walter Clayton Jr (10.7pts, 5.3rebs, 4.3 assists, just 3/15 from 3).
Looks like a decent squad. No glaring areas of weakness but nothing stands out as an extraordinary strength either. Something to watch is whether Slazinski plays. Couldn’t find anything on why Slazinski didn’t play in the last game vs. Vermont but in his absence, the Gaels effectively played a 4 guard lineup with no one over 6-4 surrounding their post player. If that occurs again Saturday, could provide a nice advantage for our 4’s (Braun, Tongue, etc.) to be productive in the post and on the boards.
For the Broncos, just hoping the lack luster Menlo game was an outlier and result of a Bahamas hangover. Good to see some 3’s start to fall for Justice, need that to continue. Stewart has struggled of late, need him to figure it out, improve his shot selection and sink open 3’s.
Need the Broncos to get out and run because we’re much better in transition but still need to find a way to be more effective in half court sets So far, the team’s half court offense hasn’t looked great, lot’s of standing around not enough player or ball movement.
I think we miss Marshall on the floor more than has been discussed.
Our half court sets are stagnant. Not a lot of off-ball motion, and we are predictably running high screens – defenses often seem to beat us to the screen spot.
Also, the quality of the screens have been…poor. Lastly, we need to make our point blank shots – too many misses at/near the rim. Let’s finish those shots.
Realizing the data on Iona is limited with only 3 games played, I read some of the gambling commentary to see what they were identifying as early trends. One thing stands out for Iona. They almost never turn the ball over (1st in the nation in Turnover % at 10.9) while forcing lots of turnovers (21.9%). Santa Clara on the other hand turns it over a lot (204th in the nation at 19.9%) and does not create many turnovers (17.5%).
An area where Santa Clara might have an advantage? Pitino has stated he wants this Iona team to play fast/press but acknowledges they have basically zero bench.
no bench? if that’s true, then WE should be the ones doing the pressing. Likely to commit fewer turnovers if we are getting the turnovers in their backcourt and getting “easy” baskets.
Iona will run a few bench guys out there for 10 minutes but have gotten very little production from non-starters (18 total points in 3 games). According to twitter, Slazinski had a high ankle sprain suffered prior to the Vermont game. Don’t know if he plays but that typically takes longer to recover from than a low ankle sprain.
Iona’s sideline bench has so much more energy than our bench and it is annoying. Also, we have let #1 for Iona step into 5 easy 3 pointers. Ridiculous.
Much better stretch. This is a game we should win. If we let Iona beat us shooting midrange jumpers all night then so be it, I just can’t stand the easy 3 pointers. Holt’s best half as a Bronco by far.
The only egregious thing we did the entire first half was let #1 get those easy looks. Other than that, we have protected the ball, rebounded, and shot it well.
Good win Broncos! I think our schedule with several quality opponents so far is helping us. Iona is a very solid team but they don’t have the length to defend at the level of UCF…so we got acclimated nicely and were able to find a way to score 86 pts. Justice is back to his reliable self. Podz was outstanding. Braun was clutch at the foul line. Stewart had only one turnover against Iona’s press. Yes, lots to clean up and we will need to get some depth developed as we play teams that draw more fouls.
The BTB coverage was like a SNL skit: for free throws they moved the camera away from the basket just as the player shot, the scoreboard was never close on anything, and the announcer does not have a big career ahead or behind him… but seeing this game was worth having to reboot my system 6 times to keep the video playing.
Very nice win as Iona was in top 100 in Ken Pom rankings. So far we are 2-2 against teams ahead of us in rankings. I was probably too negative after Menlo game and glad team responded yesterday. Several good tests coming up with Wyoming and Boise leading the way and all the teams we have left in non-league can be tough. League is getting better with Portland giving UNC all they could handle and beating Villanova. Go Broncos!!!
Didn’t watch, had other plans and probably wouldn’t have paid for the streaming anyhow, looked a little sketchy and I’ve been burned in the past paying for services like this that turned out to be very poor quality. Sorry for those who had to endure it.
Looking at stats and play-by-play appears it was a close game that could have gone either way, down a bucket w/ 1:48 to play. Then Podz and Justice close it out with a 14-2 run in that last 1:48 incl 10/10 from the FT line by those two guys while Iona was 0/3 from the FT line incl missing the front end of a 1-and-1 so effectively 0/4. And worth the reminder that Iona was missing one of their top players in Slazinski who’s probably as important to them as Keyshawn is to the Broncos.
Appears we shot it and rebounded well but it’s a little concerning to shoot it that well (52% overall, 50% from 3, 90% from FT line) and yet still be down two points with 1:48 to play. Appears the 20 TO’s were part of the culprit; has been an issue all year that we have to clean up.
Wednesday’s Wyoming game will provide another barometer of where we stand. Currently more or less a toss-up on Torvik. Wyoming is only 3-3 (2-3 vs. DI teams) with no wins of note.