Providence Game Thread II

[Venturajay]

Another nice win. Kalk continues to dominate and play at another level. This squad will make a deep run in the tourney if Kalk and Ash continue there high level. Role players are fine, they are doing what they need to do, play their roles. Go Jays!!!

[SeattleJay]

Fedor 0-6 but 4 rebounds, a steal and plus 17 in 22 minutes.

I think it helps to have another ball handler in the game on offense and his defense looked decent.

[brianjay1317]

Fedor 0-6 but 4 rebounds, a steal and plus 17 in 22 minutes.

I think it helps to have another ball handler in the game on offense and his defense looked decent.

i don't know why, but it seems like it just takes time for shooters to get comfortable. ashworth struggled to start last year. neal is a different player than when he started. hell, baylor was much better his second year.

just seems like they have so much focus on defense and the system, they don't feel comfortable and confident even shooting.

i am still excited to see what fedor will do, even this year.

[BenningtonBluejay]

Knock on Fedor that I heard coming into the year was he was flat out bad on defense. I think he’s been good on that end of the floor, definitely works hard

[sdebole059]

Not worried about the shooting cause ik role players tend to make more threes at home

[Chicagojayfan]

After Pop got hurt and we had the terrible road game at GT, I don't think anyone would have thought we'd be here in 2nd place in the BE! I was confident we'd get better -- we tend to have horrible road games to DC in general, and no matter what, Mac gets teams to play better as the Conference season goes on, but this teams exceeding even my "glass half full" expectations

Since 12/20 (Post GT) this is the Barttorvik #20 team w/ 41st ranked Offense and 17th ranked Defense, and given we have 5/8 remaining games at home, I'd expect that offense number to look better by the end of the conference season as well.

Winning on the road in the BE is all about playing Defense, minimizing mistakes, and having guys who have been there before who can take the pressure of BE road games. That's really what happened last night:

- Kalk and Ashworth - Teams are forced into some really ugly situations to try to defend the PnR game with those two. Switch and you get an ugly mismatch in the paint w/ Kalk likely scoring. Go under the screen and Ashworth has a great shot at open 3's. Fight through it and Ashworth usually gets free enough to deliver a pass to Kalk who's so effective at getting to the basket, even with teams chipping at him while he's in the air (as Providence did last night). I think a team or two has tried some zone, but we've improved at attacking those over recent years, and other teams have tried to put hard pressure on Ashworth, but he's also improved that aspect of his game as well (not as statistically evident because he's really our only ballhandler right now) -- we do need shooters to keep spacing around Kalk in the paint so teams can't send help too easily, and we did see a bit of that last night when shots weren't falling

- So we didn't get a ton of offense from the rest of the roster, but we were efficient and got results. Providence is a tough home team and we had the 3rd best offensive performance against them this year on their home court, just behind Marquette (who beat them) and Seton Hall (a track meet that Providence won)

- Minimizing mistakes - lowest Turnover % of the year last night, 3rd lowest Offensive rebound % for Providence for their season last night. We don't turn people over, so we can't afford to give away a ton of possessions by turning it over or not blocking out

- Defense - I didn't think we were super sharp last night, but we were very good. 2nd worst conference home game offense by Providence in the season this year, behind only Marquette and right around what St. Johns did to them defensively in Providence.

Big win for confidence -- winning on the road at Providence has been something that has been difficult for our very best team, so this should tell the team where they can be if they stay the course, play D, and keep improving

But, with Marquette, UConn, and St. Johns coming up, it was also a game we needed to keep us in the running for the championship with the road ahead

[wildjays]

Ryan Kalkbrenner and Steven Ashworth carried the Bluejays to victory in the win at Providence.

Matt DeMarinis and Jacob Padilla break things down in the Bluejay Beat Podcast, exclusive to our Patreon subscribers.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/bluejay-b ... =join_link

[drbluejay]

My standout player of the game goes to Kalk followed closely by Ash. The Batman and Robin duo smashed the bad guys.
Standout stat, Fedor 0-6 but +17 in the +/-

[drbluejay]

Knock on Fedor that I heard coming into the year was he was flat out bad on defense. I think he’s been good on that end of the floor, definitely works hard

I agree, his defense has stood out.

[bleedblue]

Fedor 0-6 but 4 rebounds, a steal and plus 17 in 22 minutes.

I think it helps to have another ball handler in the game on offense and his defense looked decent.

i don't know why, but it seems like it just takes time for shooters to get comfortable. ashworth struggled to start last year. neal is a different player than when he started. hell, baylor was much better his second year.

just seems like they have so much focus on defense and the system, they don't feel comfortable and confident even shooting.

i am still excited to see what fedor will do, even this year.

It's a mental thing. He's just not comfortable in the system yet and that affects stuff like his shooting. Same thing happened with Neal and then once he had 15 games under his belt he settled in and his shooting improved. He should benefit by playing more minutes and the last 5 games of the reg season I'd expect him to start to shine.