They had good offensive stretches both games. Defense failed them this weekend.
From afar, JJ seems like he’s not playing as energetically or with the swagger. Looks like something is missing from his step.
In his past 5 games, Landon Lewis has been averaging 21 points, just shy of 8 rebounds, and 2 assists. If you sort by Torvik’s PRPG! for that time span, he’s right up there with some of the best guys in the league - Celiscar, Power, Noland, Hicke, etc. If we hadn’t lost our two best shooters to the transfer portal and a (seemingly trauma-related) leave of absence respectively, we might have been more in the mix.
As it stands, this team looks to be the worst of Mike’s tenure. They’ll finish at least one win better than the Bears of 2016, but the metrics aren’t pretty. We have some great defensive players, but they’ve struggled mightily on the offensive end - to your point, Bruno, JJ is averaging about as many assists as points over the last 5. What’s more, we foul like it’s going out of style. Opponent’s have a Free Throw Rate of 46% against us in conference play, which nullifies the good work we’re doing defending the rim and picking up steals. And, with only one player shooting better than 30% from deep on 20 attempts or more in Ivy play, it’s hard to say that we have any shooters on the team.
We’re going to finish behind Dartmouth for the second year in a row. If the internet is to be believed, McLaughlin is set to lose his job at season’s end, meaning Mike will be the longest tenured coach in the league without a tournament appearance or a finish above fourth place. We will graduate our best offensive player and I don’t see his replacement on the roster. I’m bullish on the incoming freshman class, but I don’t think there’s enough talent there to help us leap frog the teams currently ahead of us.
I like Mike. He’s the only coach I’ve known in my time as a fan of Brown basketball. But I can’t help but feel like we may be watching the end of his time on College Hill. He was supposedly a candidate for an assistant role at the University of Florida last year. I wonder if he’ll throw his hat in the ring for any other high major assistant roles this off-season.
Regardless, here’s to hoping that better days are coming.
It’s become a very hard time to build this program with transfer portals and the like. But other ivies have done better than we have. i’ve not analyzed this in any way and don’t really know if this is personnel or game planning or schemes. (in other words if it’s players or coaching or yes). but I bet if you look at roster construction relative to top half ivies, I think the biggest difference you may see is talent spread. we’ve had top individual talents. guys like kino, nana, now landon. before them choh, cambridge for a time. JJ was very highly rated and you can see his talent, and langham does look like he has plus talent. I consider Brown one of the hardest teams to recruit for so when I see some of that I am impressed by our ability to get them.
(I also note the player development piece,
particularly for the bigs. Going all the way back to kuakumensah, you’ve had big men get so much better at brown. cedric, Gainey, Choh, Nana, Landon. brown made each of those guys much better inside players over the course of their time. you see this dynamic less with the guards.)
it’s the next level of player that has always felt like the biggest difference. we’ve had guys become starters that took some time to find on the roster and they seem to be more specialists good at one thing than full fledged starters in this league. we’ve pieced it together with other guys.
I am not sure they’re connected, but one thing you have seen in some big seasons has been the Ivy season decline in star guard performance at the wrong time. i’ll never forget Cambridge’s 2nd ivy season where he went from looking like a POY in the non conference to becoming the least efficient in-league Ivy player in modern history. Anderson had a season like that his junior year. Kino went through that last season in spells. Uchidiuno has had some of that this season. and I think it’s maybe because teams have keyed on them as the biggest threats and we’ve kept them shooting the ball and/or other guys haven’t been able to step in. that’s where depth seems to be an issue.
for the most part Mike has kept this team close to the middle of the pack, usually just below middle. these last two seasons have been close to bottom although it’s the first time in a long while he’s been at the bottom in kenpom (which i’d call more unlucky than anything between losing Brady and AJ in your first season without Kino). but given the more lumpy nature of the talent level, brown’s program is one that seemingly is only going to make it with a puncher’s chance. they almost pulled that off two seasons ago. to your point i’m not seeing that resolve next season.
you may be right that it’s time for a change. but MM
is very well-regarded and has evolved brown into a much more professional program. my sense is that in context of the challenges Brown has, MM has probably outperformed. but at the end of the day, this will be the 8th ivy tournament and we’ve only made it once. and it’s harder to argue with that.
Great summaries, ET and Bruno. Just curious, why do you think Brown is the toughest sell from a recruiting standpoint? I would think Brown could be competitive compared with Dartmouth, Cornell and Columbia, and if it built some consistency, maybe could complete with some of the more established programs on a case by case basis.
I also enjoyed your detailed summary, Bruno. I should add that I’m not calling for Mike’s ouster. I just wonder if he’s taken this program as far as he can, under the current conditions. The ideal situation would be for the AD to provide some more resources - facility renovations, increased recruiting budget, additional admissions support, etc. Given the money that the school has spent on the new indoor turf facility and the improvements in support promised to the new men’s hockey coach, I’m not sure that those funds are forthcoming.
I also agree that Brown is one of the tougher sells on the recruiting circuit. At the higher end of the Ivy recruiting pool, you’re going up against schools with bigger brands, better facilities, and more robust financial aid. It’s great when you win those battles, but when you lose them, you end up leaning on specialists that you have to develop into starters, as Bruno described. For all the success that this staff has had in the front court, they’ve lost some recruiting battles in the backcourt. Before the transfer portal really kicked into gear, Mike made up for some of those talent shortfalls by picking up transfers like Zach Hunsaker and Paxson Wojcik. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been as successful in recent years, something that’s only been compounded by the departures of players like Lesburt and Anya.
Mike also benefitted from a few down years from Harvard and Penn, which opened the door for teams outside of the HYPP monopoly. Penn is already a contender again under McCaffery and Amaker seems to be back in the swing of things after a little lull post-missing out on the Duke job. Given the gap in resources, you have to be creative to be competitive as one of the “smaller” names in the league. Cornell sped up their offense post-Covid pause and Dartmouth did the same last year. Columbia took a swing on a promising young assistant, who I think will have them competing in the near future. Mike is a great developer of talent, but I’m not sure his model is the right one for modern college basketball. I really wish it was. It’s clear that he cares for his players and for this program. Nothing would make me happier than to see him lead the Bears to the promised land. I’m just not sure if you can justify a guy getting 15 years in a job without a tournament appearance, especially as Ivy hoops gets more visibility.