triplec2195 wrote:
I certainly felt that Delaware was the odds on favorite to win the CAA this year because it looked like they were returning all their starters but now we certainly have to be major included in this discussion. Losing Mutts is a huge loss for Delaware and like you said Evan he played well against us. Delaware also lost Colin Goss who averaged over 6 points a game and 4.5 boards. He also had some good games against us. We are losing 35+ points a game which is similar to what we lost the year before when JWF and Taylor graduated but this just begins to tell the story of losing Eli and Desure with all their experience and Buie's leadership. However if Elmo/Burgess are solid at the point and we find a kid(s) who can score and we certainly have a lot to chose from we will be coming in with another strong and competitive team.
Thanks for this info. Evan!!
Goss averaged 7.7 points and 6.2 rebounds in 11 games before Dylan Painter was eligible, and 5.3 points and 3.5 rebounds in 22 games while Painter was eligible. Painter is now their only returning player who averaged at least 4 rebounds. Nate Darling averaged 3.9 and is their second leading returning rebounder. They only had seven players average at least 10 minutes per team game, which is how I define a starter or important bench player. Painter shot much better than Mutts, and Painter had a slightly more rebounds and blocks per minute, but Mutts was much better at assists and steals. Mutts had 1.39 times as many assists per minute as Painter with a much better assist/turnover ratio, and Mutts had 4.67 times as many steals per minute. Even among forwards who rarely get steals, Painter had 4 steals, which was an extremely low 1 per 110.5 minutes. Kante had 1 steal per 52.8 minutes, which is over twice as many steals per minute as Painter. Schutte had 1 steal per exactly 43 minutes. In 2018-2019, Taylor had 1 steal per 49.1 minutes, and Dwyer had 1 steal per exactly 57.25 minutes. Among other CAA players who rarely or never shot threes, minutes per steal were 46.5 for JMU's Dwight Wilson, 53.7 for Drexel's James Butler, 38.6 for UNCW's Marten Linssen, and 20.4 for Charleston's Osinachi Smart. I'm making a big deal out of something that isn't important, but it's hard to have only 1 steal per 110.5 minutes. I looked for one of our players who had a worse steal rate than that. In 2007-2008, Arminas Urbutis had 2 steals in 250 minutes, which is 1 per 125, but he didn't meet my standard of 10 minutes per team game. Our only player in the CAA to play at least 10 minutes per team game with over 100 minutes per steal was Wendell Gibson, who had 2 in 452 minutes, which is 1 per 226, in our first season in the CAA in 2001-2002.