Breaking Down The First Three Games- The O

Lets take a look offensively at Seton Hall through the first 3 games.

When breaking down a season in progress the first thing to look at is the Win-Loss record of your team. Seton Hall’s says 2 wins and 1 loss. That’s the good news. From there it is almost all down hill. If you know college basketball then you know the PG is your team’s engine or most import part. The PG’s most important jobs are to run the offense and make his team better while taking care of the ball. I like to see at least 2 to 1 on the Assist to Turnover Ratio for any guard that plays heavy minutes.

The only player on Seton Hall’s roster after three games who is coming close to this is SG/SF Brian Laing at 1.7 to 1. Then Stan Gaines and John Garcia come in at 1-1. When you look at Seton Hall’s four true guards A/TO Ratio it’s enough to make you sick. So if you are faint of heart please stop reading at this point. Senior PG Donald Copeland is averaging 2 assists and 3.7 turnovers per game giving you a 1-1.8 A/TO. His back up Carl Marshall is giving Seton Hall 1 assist and 2.3 turnovers per. Jumping over to shooting guard Jamar Nutter is averaging 0 assists and 2.5 TO’s per. Paul Gause is slightly better at 0 assists and 1 turnover per game. The team as a whole is averaging 9.1 assists and 17.1 turnovers per game. This just in, Seton Hall will not win many games this year if this continues! If you don’t think pressing teams such as Cincinnati and Rutgers are licking their chops then you need to wake up.

The good news is that Gaines, Copeland, Laing, and Nutter are shooting well from the field. The bad is our big men are shooting blanks at an alarming rate with Kelly Whitney shooting a miserable 31.4% from the field, Marcus Cousin at 27.3%, Billmeier is at 33.3% and John Garcia has not made a basket yet while averaging close to 10 mins a game. The foul shooting has been very good besides Brian Laing’s 57.1% from the stripe. Kelly has really improved coming in at 78.3%. Scoring averages are way below what they need to be. Whitney is the leading scorer at 13.3 PPG followed by Copeland at 11 PPG, Laing at 10 PPG, Nutter at 9.5 PPG, Gaines at 7.3 PPG, and Marshall at 6.3 PPG. To further break this down is pointless. The Pirates need to dramatically improve or come March the only madness the Pirates will be involved with is Spring Break in Daytona.

Shakes’ Take- The numbers speak for themselves. Poor Point Guard play and ball distribution will lead us to the bottom of the Big East and no tournament play followed by lots of finger pointing.