The biggest reason for optimism Saturday night comes from this stat: on a night when Dane Watts and P'Allen Stinnett, the Jays' two most reliable scorers, attempted just 10 shots, the team scored 86 points. Those two combined for just 13 points. Further, Chad Millard, who has at times been able to score in bunches, spent the night hooked up to an IV in the locker room with the flu.
So how did the Jays score 86 points with that being the case? Cavel Witter and Booker Woodfox, their two JuCo transfers, combined for 41 points on 11-14 shooting. Woodfox, in particular, shot lights out. Both of them had one amazing stat apiece. Ready for it?
Woodfox shot 6-7 from behind the arc. Witter shot 11-13 from the line.
If you think those stats are unrelated, you weren't watching close enough. Woodfox was absolutely on fire from outside, and as the game went on, Indiana State had to devote defensive resources to stopping him from catching the ball. When they did that, Witter used dribble penetration to get into the paint and draw fouls. And when he got to the line, he made the free throws. It had to be a frustrating one-two punch for Kevin McKenna and the Sycamores to deal with.
Especially if you figure that if you can slow down Stinnett and Watts, and make someone else beat you, you'll take that. Like the Jays have done so many times this year, someone else picked up the slack.
This is something they haven't had in recent years -- last year in particular. If you had a night where Nate Funk and Anthony Tolliver weren't hitting shots, where were the points coming from? From time to time, Nick Porter was the guy, but if not him, who? Manny Gakou? Nope. Pierce Hibma? Only if the game was in Des Moines. You get the point. As good as those big three guys were, and they were very good, there wasn't much behind them.
In seventeen games this year, the following players have led the team in scoring at least one game:
P'Allen Stinnett
Dane Watts
Cavel Witter
Kenny Lawson
Booker Woodfox
Nick Bahe
That's six players that have, at least once, led the team in scoring. That's good stuff.
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But points scored is a pretty shallow way to look at how good a player is, or how good a team is. Its the stat the casual fan notices most, because its the easiest thing to pinpoint and the thing most people come to see. And when you look beyond the points scored, you find some pretty remarkable things, both good and bad.
Kenny Lawson had a monster game. I mentioned this to a friend of mine after the game, and he naively said, "He had only 8 points, come on!" Au contraire, my friend. 8 points, 8 boards AND 5 blocks. And countless other shots that were altered or not taken because of his presence. This kid is just a freshman, and he's already capable of completely ruining the other team's inside game. When he becomes more consistent and able to do these things every night...well, that will be pretty cool.
Casey Harriman came to Creighton with the reputation of a sharp-shooter who could drain threes from anywhere on the court. And while he certainly has shown flashes of being able to do just that, its the other things he does that are so impressive. He's a big guy, particularly for a freshman, and he seems to relish banging inside for tough rebounds. Rebounding is not all about height, its about proper positioning and desire to get the ball. It makes me happy to think about a day, a couple of years from now, when Kenny Lawson and Kenton Walker dominate the paint, and Harriman gets the boards they don't get. These three guys are all freshman.
Harriman also has taken 11 charges. ELEVEN! That's a Ryan Sears type number, right there. Except he's a power forward, and you're not used to seeing power forwards lead the team in charges taken. Many times its the smaller players who, unable to contest a shot against a bigger player, get in position and draw the charge. Harriman could contest the shot, but he chooses to take the charge instead. Good stuff.
Now, sometimes stats highlight bad things, too. Cavel Witter had 20 points highlighted by those 11 free throws that I mentioned earlier. A lot of people will only look at that number and think he had a great game. Well, he also had 3 turnovers, and that's an unacceptable number for your point guard. Plain and simple, your point guard can't turn the ball over. So many people gripe about Josh Dotzler, about how he doesn't score, how he won't take open shots, how he hurts the team because defenses don't respect his shot. Watch him play defense, watch him get his hands into passing lanes, watch him knock the ball out of his man's hands. Watch how he usually gets the ball into the right spots. Watch how he almost never turns it over.
Witter, in his brief CU career, has shown one dimension so far, and that's of a shoot-first point guard. There's a lot of value to that, don't get me wrong, especially as a change-up to Dotzler's pass-first style. I love his slash-and-drive style, as a matter of fact. But his constant dribbling into double-teams in the paint has got to stop. Its madness and its driving me batty. There was one play in particular last night where he came down court on a fast break, and he had P'Allen open on the right wing and another player semi-open on the left. With a good pass, P'Allen would have had another earth-shattering dunk. Instead Witter took the ball to the rack and turned it over.
He's a JuCo transfer and just a sophomore, so I have to believe he'll learn from these things and become more than just a scorer, and grow into a point guard that values the ball and finds open teammates more consistently. In the meantime, he's an outstanding change-up to Dotzler's more conservative style.
POLYFRO HEEE-HAW PLAYER OF THE GAME: I love watching big guys dominate the paint. So while Booker Woodfox deserves the award based on scoring proficiency and his 6-7 shooting from behind the arc, I've got to go with Kenny Lawson tonight. 8 points, 8 boards and 5 blocks. Countless other contested, altered or surrendered shots. You might disagree with me, but hey, its my award and I can give it to whoever I want!
You bet.
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