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Wake - Richmond Game Thread

RChildress107 said:
As many here have said before if Mckie hadn't had the soul sucked out of him over the past 3+ years he might be playing better.

I really don't understand the Travis bashing. He's been remarkably consistent over his career. He's played a role he was never meant to play and done an admirable job at it. He kept us from being even more abysmal the past two years (we likely don't win more than 10 games either year).

Even this year he hasn't played that bad. He is second on the team in win-shares (just behind CMM).

I guess people that hate on Travis either overestimate his potential (thinking he should be Josh Howard) or think that if only he gave more effort he would turn into a natural leader.

Most people aren't leaders. Most basketball players aren't leaders. That doesn't make them bad people or bad basketball players.

Travis has shown up night in and night out over the worst 3 1/2 year stretch in Wake Basketball history. He goes to class, he stays out of trouble, he loves Wake Forest, and he's a great representative of the University.
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5 shots.
 
You've said that twice now. What does it mean? Do you watch the games? How many open looks has Travis passed up? How often are we running plays in his direction? Are we putting him in the position to score? In my view, we are really only running plays to get Moto and Cav open, while Codi and Devin are given the greenlight to do their thing.

It's oh so easy to blame the players, but think about the division of labor for a minute. Travis's effort has been rightly critiqued in the past, but it hasn't really been a problem this year. We simply haven't included him in the "offense" at all whatsoever, knowing full well his strengths and weaknesses.

I know you are allergic to criticizing the grown men who make the decisions in the Wake AD, but you have to look deeper than five shots to really assess what the problems with Travis McKie have been for the past two years.
 
The biggest problems with Travis is that he doesn't play smart and loses focus at times. That is who he is and is not a good mesh with a [Redacted] team concept. It is what it is.
 
Pretty clear that Travis can't create from the wing. He's an undersized 4 who is very good at getting garbage points. Putting him at the 3 takes him away from the basket where he can't do that as much.
 
forensicdeac said:
The problem is that HE thinks that he is a three.
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You realize that the coach could just play him at the 4 if this was the case, right? Then, you realize that [Redacted] is the coach and it all starts to make sense.
 
Well, I have no defense for Bzz. However, Travis still can't guard the four. He would be a great role player on a team with better pieces. We are not that team and he is not a great fit for what we have currently. He gets by but that is about it. It is not all on him. I just personally feel that he doesn't give his all and that is on him. I hold coworkers accountable in the same way even if they dont like the boss.
 
Strickland33 said:
You've said that twice now. What does it mean? Do you watch the games? How many open looks has Travis passed up? How often are we running plays in his direction? Are we putting him in the position to score? In my view, we are really only running plays to get Moto and Cav open, while Codi and Devin are given the greenlight to do their thing.

It's oh so easy to blame the players, but think about the division of labor for a minute. Travis's effort has been rightly critiqued in the past, but it hasn't really been a problem this year. We simply haven't included him in the "offense" at all whatsoever, knowing full well his strengths and weaknesses.

I know you are allergic to criticizing the grown men who make the decisions in the Wake AD, but you have to look deeper than five shots to really assess what the problems with Travis McKie have been for the past two years.
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His scoring is off by nearly 25% (23%), rebounding down 11%, shots are down 23%.

While his FT % has gone from 75% to 90%, his FT attempts have dropped from 4.5 to 3.3/gm which would add to the thought that he's coasting and not being aggressive on the offensive end.

Moto is taking 5.4 shots per game while playing 15min/gm and Travis is taking 7.8 shots/gm while playing 27.5min/gm.

Of the 10 scholarship players he's 8th in FG% with only Overton and Moto lower than him.

Considering out biggest concern for this season was replacing CJ's production, I can't imagine that the coaching staff would decide the best thing to do was limit Travis. Then again it is Bzz but I would think he was counting on Travis to bring his career numbers as a minimum and hopefully step it up as well.

The only allergy I see here has been Travis' allergy toward making layups this year.
 
Deac83 said:
His scoring is off by nearly 25% (23%), rebounding down 11%, shots are down 23%.

While his FT % has gone from 75% to 90%, his FT attempts have dropped from 4.5 to 3.3/gm which would add to the thought that he's coasting and not being aggressive on the offensive end.

Moto is taking 5.4 shots per game while playing 15min/gm and Travis is taking 7.8 shots/gm while playing 27.5min/gm.

Of the 10 scholarship players he's 8th in FG% with only Overton and Moto lower than him.

Considering out biggest concern for this season was replacing CJ's production, I can't imagine that the coaching staff would decide the best thing to do was limit Travis. Then again it is Bzz but I would think he was counting on Travis to bring his career numbers as a minimum and hopefully step it up as well.

The only allergy I see here has been Travis' allergy toward making layups this year.
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I can't figure out whether you're trolling or just actually this dense.

Travis's overall possessions are down from 18% of Wake's overall possessions to just 12.2% (down from over 20% as a sophomore).

He's taking 5% fewer of our overall field goals and 3% fewer of our perimeter jumpers.

His stats per 40 minutes pace adjusted (which is the only way to analyze production in the way that you're failing to do) are pretty similar as they were to last year, as are his efg% and ts% composites. 0.9 fewer ppg, 0.3 fewer rpg (same numbers as his sophomore year, though), his career average in steals and a career high in blocks.

In fact, the only marked difference in his statistical production is that he is averaging 3.0 assists per 40 minutes pace adjusted against 1.1 turnovers, both career highs.

Basically, if you're going to trash the kid, then do it right. Trashing the kid without even looking into the numbers just sucks.

Furthermore, I think the game tape (not to mention all measures of pace adjusted statistical analysis and efficiency composites) supports my narrative far more than yours.
 
Strickland33 said:
I can't figure out whether you're trolling or just actually this dense.

Travis's overall possessions are down from 18% of Wake's overall possessions to just 12.2% (down from over 20% as a sophomore).

He's taking 5% fewer of our overall field goals and 3% fewer of our perimeter jumpers.

His stats per 40 minutes pace adjusted (which is the only way to analyze production in the way that you're failing to do) are pretty similar as they were to last year, as are his efg% and ts% composites. 0.9 fewer ppg, 0.3 fewer rpg (same numbers as his sophomore year, though), his career average in steals and a career high in blocks.

In fact, the only marked difference in his statistical production is that he is averaging 3.0 assists per 40 minutes pace adjusted against 1.1 turnovers, both career highs.

Basically, if you're going to trash the kid, then do it right. Trashing the kid without even looking into the numbers just sucks.

Furthermore, I think the game tape (not to mention all measures of pace adjusted statistical analysis and efficiency composites) supports my narrative far more than yours.
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Ok you've convinced me. Travis is fine, he's doing everything he can.
 
Travis has seemingly (for better or worse) settled down in a role players mentality. He still has the talent to rebound and do things at a high level, but doesn't, or refuses to, for an entire game. I love stats more than most, but I don't think they tell the story about how good Travis could be for us based on what I have seen this year so far.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
Travis has seemingly (for better or worse) settled down in a role players mentality. He still has the talent to rebound and do things at a high level, but doesn't, or refuses to, for an entire game. I love stats more than most, but I don't think they tell the story about how good Travis could be for us based on what I have seen this year so far.
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Travis is what he is, though. He was last year, too. He's had a solid season, all things considered, one on par with his season last year. The difference is that, quantitatively speaking, he's seeing significantly fewer possessions than in the past, and qualitatively speaking, does not seem to factor into [Redacted]'s gameplan at all (as opposed to Cav and Moto, both of whom have benefitted by being featured more and having shots drawn up for them, and CMM and Devin who are asked to create their own offense).

Travis has as always had a roleplayer's mentality. The difference, IMO, is that we have more shot creators and are featuring him less than we did in the past.

Your caveats aside (and your contention is legit), I still think the Travis bashing is unwarranted and, like dv7 pointed out, all too predictable coming from the usual suspects.
 
Exactly, he is an average role player and everyone is acting like he got such a bad deal by coming to wake for 4 years.
 
Wakegrad said:
Exactly, he is an average role player and everyone is acting like he got such a bad deal by coming to wake for 4 years.
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I do disagree with this. "Average role players" don't average over 13 points and 7 rebounds for three straight years (including 16 and 7 his sophomore year). I understand that we were really bad a couple of those years overall, but those are really solid numbers in the ACC. He is still averaging 11 and 6 this year and people are getting on to him about it.
 
inspectah said:
At this point you can pretty much bank on [Redacted] returning for a fifth year. The cupcake schedule has achieved its purpose. We have reeled off enough wins to support an argument that the team has made significant improvement.

We'll get enough league wins to get at least 16-18 wins overall. It doesn't matter where we finish in the standings or whether we go to the postseason. Wellman will use whatever excitement is generated by the new football hire as cover when he re-ups on Bz.
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There is no 5th year option IMO. We either are going to see an extension or a firing. Lame duck head coaches can't recruit.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
I do disagree with this. "Average role players" don't average over 13 points and 7 rebounds for three straight years (including 16 and 7 his sophomore year). I understand that we were really bad a couple of those years overall, but those are really solid numbers in the ACC. He is still averaging 11 and 6 this year and people are getting on to him about it.
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Bingo. A lot of people look at those stats and think he should be better with better people around him, especially as a senior. That's just natural. He likes being more of a role player and probably would regardless of situation.
 
forensicdeac said:
Well, I have no defense for Bzz. However, Travis still can't guard the four. He would be a great role player on a team with better pieces. We are not that team and he is not a great fit for what we have currently. He gets by but that is about it. It is not all on him. I just personally feel that he doesn't give his all and that is on him. I hold coworkers accountable in the same way even if they dont like the boss.
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This is how I see the situation as well.
 
RChildress107 said:
40-50 is generally where the bubble starts to pop. The bottom 18-20 are generally auto bids from conferences without a team in the top 68. Add in 2-3 surprise auto bids from top conferences and that leaves you with about 45 spots filled at large or by auto bids from top conferences that would otherwise get an at large bid.

The NIT takes 32 teams with auto bids of their own (teams who win their conference regular season but not their tournament) leaving around 20 or so at large bids. That means the cut-off is around 65.

at large bids rarely go strictly by kenpom or RPI so 61 would be squarely on the NIT bubble (with a slight lean towards the right side of it).


Edit: Basically what Redwing and numbers said.
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Sure the NCAA bubbles start to pop in the 40-50s range, but a lot of the conference winners still have fairly good RPIs/KenPom rankings.

Look at the NIT numbers from last year based on KenPom. Only 8/22 had <61, the rest were higher, including 6 teams ranked higher in KenPom than where we are now. We are actually probably in the NIT bubble at 80.

61 is not a bubble NIT team at all. Look at the numbers.

#1 teams in the NIT were Kentucky, Southern Miss, Alabama, and UVa. Their KenPom ranks were 67, 66, 60, and 40.
#2 seeds: Baylor, Tenn, Mass, Maryland at 29, 75, 84, 48.
#3 seeds: Arizona St, Iowa Denver, BYU at 68, 25, 53, 59.
#4 seeds: Providence, FSU, St Joes, Stanford at 70, 121, 80, 44.

All of the automatic qualifiers were 5 seed or lower. These are the remaining at large teams
#5 seed at large teams: Charlotte, St Johns at 128, 107.
#6 seed at large teams: Detroit, Washington, Ohio, Indiana St. 78, 76, 83, 97
 
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I love Travis, but he really isn't contributing like he should, and I do agree with the analysis that the offense isn't focused on him like it has been in the past. Our inside options are Cav and Devin and Andre, and Travis is relegated to something between a 2 and a 3. We just have him hanging around the 3 point line. Even from there, I'd like to see him crash the boards more. He has a gift for offensive rebounding. What he does not have a gift for is dribbling or making wise decisions with a ball on the wing. He is a walking turnover on the wing with lazy passes, lousy dribbling and no ability to drive from the wing without giving the ball away or being an easy mark for a charge. At this point, I see his role diminishing because we are clearly sticking with Devin and Cav as the offense in the paint, and having Travis in the middle with them crowds the lane. His strengths are not as a 3, and the coach isn't letting him be a 4. He's in a no win position from a personal standpoint, and it is kind of a testament to him that he hasn't completely checked out. But I do think his effort is down. We're going to need him, and I hope he picks it up and fights through it. He is a very capable scorer on the interior, and he ought to be given the ball inside more than, say, 0 times/gm like we are doing. It is ridiculous, especially given Devin is struggling a bit. But we still keep pounding it inside to him all game. Travis has proven he can score inside. At least mix it up, according to matchups or whatever. Please coaches. I can't believe this is Travis' choice to just hang around the 3 pt line.
 
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We run an inside out offense, I don't think it's that surprising that we get the ball to Devin a lot. Besides he isn't really struggling too badly, he had 11 and 19 yesterday.
 
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