Rebels pull away at crunch time
Defensive rebounding, offensive woes doom the Tigers
In what was another winnable game, an inability to secure rebounds at key points in the game and significant spells without scoring led to the Tigers 72-65 loss to KenPom #114 UNLV at the Jack Jones Classic in Henderson, NV. Pacific drops to 5-7 on the season.
In what was a slower, scrappy affair, Pacific rode an 11-0 run to lead 44-40 early in the second half and things looked encouraging. But some of the same issues that have plagued Pacific late in previous games came to light as the Rebels rallied to lead by 11 late using a 26-11 run over 10 minutes - and appeared to be “running” away with it. The Tigers did have one last run, turning up the full court heat to author a 7-1 stretch to pull to within 4 with just over a minute to play but could get no closer.
The game-determining mid second half run by UNLV was led by 6’6” sixth-year wing Julian Rishwain (Florida transfer, San Francisco prior to that) who nailed three 3’s in the stretch, two off second-chance scramble situations when Pacific could not secure a board. Pacific went small during that time and appeared again to be fatigued late. Combined with an inability to finish (0-7 from the floor; 1-4 from the free throw line in a 4-minute stretch immediately after going up four at 44-40) and another second half swoon was the result.
Coach Dave Smart did attempt to use his bench more - especially early in the game to try to reduce his starter’s minutes: 6’11” Burke Smith played 8 minutes and 6’4” freshman Carter Benton saw his first significant action of the season and was reasonably active, getting the Tigers a fresh clock with a hustle play on the offensive glass. Regardless, starter foul trouble - a normal course of events with this team right now - necessitated that 6’3” Jefferson Koulibaly run the point for longer stretches (he did a solid job) and that 6’4” Petar Krivokapic play 32 minutes (missed his last 8 shots and had zero rebounds).
6’4” Lamar Washington, despite 9 assists, struggled turning it over at key points - at least two live ball turnovers led to easy UNLV runouts (5 turnovers for the game) and ended 0-3 from three.
Defensively, the Tigers changed their post coverage having a second defender available early on the spin over the right shoulder and then bringing the double from the strong side wing - in both instances it hurt Pacific with a pair of wide-open made threes (Rebels knocked down 3 of their first 4 threes). Coach Smart took 6’7” Elias Ralph out early after his first foul - giving Smith some early run and the senior snagged a pair of rebounds. Koulibaly had to sit with two early fouls but did play through them later in the half while running the point with Lamar out. There were many reasons why Pacific should not have been in this game, but the Tigers kept grinding down only 5 at 21-15.
Then 7’0” Jazz Gardner began to influence the game. His steady, growing evolution as an impact post was on display in at least three areas last night: more active around the ball and making himself available offensively (12 points on 6-8 shooting - many off finding open pockets in the paint), more effort running up and down the floor in transition and most importantly meeting his check earlier in the defensive possession and establishing some level of contact further from the rim - Jazz is playing wider and with his legs, pushing defenders out physically and is making excellent progress from game-to-game in this and other areas.
Offensively it was clear the emphasis was on quicker ball movement - less pounding and standing around - which was a key reason why Pacific stayed in the game early. In the end however, going 4-21 from three and giving up offensive rebounds at key points in the game doomed our Tigers.
Depth continues to be an issue however help may be on the way as it was mentioned on the live stream that Pacific has added 6’2” PG Amare Campbell from SoCal Academy who apparently will join the Tigers for the second half of the season as an early enrollee. Campbell has shown he can run the point and get downhill - even with the steady job Koulibaly did running the point last night for a longer than normal stretch, having another ball handler who can eat up minutes could change the dynamic positively.
The Tigers (now #253 KenPom) return home to the Alex G. Spanos Center this coming Wednesday, December 18th to meet Portland State (Big Sky, 5-5, #269 KenPom). The Vikings have defeated San Diego Toreros by 9 and lost to Washington State by 8 among their 10 pre-season games thus far.
The Tigers have had to deal with multiple low-post threat five men over the past three games at least. Clearly, Jazz is making progress at both ends especially growing as a more physical low post defender. Conversely, I cannot recall a single opponent five man in that stretch that participated in multiple (maybe any?) guard-to-5 mid ball screens - at 6'8" and not super strong compared to our alternatives (Jazz, Burke), Ominu is likely not ready to defend bigger, stronger and more experienced low post threats. Nor did he have a favorable matchup offensively in those games - and in those situations there are better alternatives. Hoping that is taken into consideration when the statement that Coach Smart has no confidence in Ominu - my take is he may have more confidence in Ominu is put in situations where he can be effective; for example, teams that run their five man in perimeter ball screen situations and that are maybe smaller and less stronger defenders of comparable size to Solomon. From what I've seen, Ominu is limited in what he can do offensively i.e. dumping the ball down to him in the low post is unlikely to result in an opponent's double team or an easy score. The margin for error on this team is so slim - rest assured Coach has analyzed every possible match-up and potential outcome - when Solomon has a higher probability of success, he will see the floor. Hope that helps.
It's pretty apparent Coach Smart has no confidence in Ominu and little confidence in Keinys. Do you think this is because of practice performance, attitude, grades, or what? With a team that has depth issues and foul trouble, I would think you can at least use this young men, for a few minutes in key situations to rest starters or protect against fouls. But Ominu and Keinys never even took off their warmup sweat shirts last night.