I did not see or hear a second of the Saint Louis game because I was covering the Saints--49ers game for AP, but Saint Louis hitting a preposterous 17 3-point shots in 28 attempts seemed familiar. I checked the box score from a home game against St. John's in Mike Dunleavy's first year, and sure enough, St. John's hit 16 of 25 treys that day. That was the best outside shooting I've ever seen, and Tulane lost 95-75.
Saint Louis won 86-62, setting a school record for 3s. I don't know if the looks were wide open, but I do know Ron Hunter's matchup zone is vulnerable to teams that connect on a high percentage on long-range 3s from well behind the line. HIs defense encourages opponents to take those shots because they tend to be low percentage. Going back as far as 2001-02, the last year those records are easy to access, none of his teams had ever given up 17 3s in a game. The most was 16 by Ball State in 2001-02, so it looks like we can label this performance an anomaly.
Alcorn State will be another easy victory next Monday--Tulane's fourth opponent that has yet to win a D1 game, while two others have won just one--so we won't get a true gauge on Tulane's quality level until the Washington D.C. tournament opener against Akron on Dec. 20. Win that, and Tulane almost certainly would play currently unbeaten Liberty the following day. Lose, and Tulane almost certainly would play Towson, which is 4-5 v., D1 competition and lost to Florida by only 6 points.
Tulane has four legitimate scorers in Teshaun Hightower, K.J. Lawson, Christion Thompson and Jordan Walker, although Walker's outside shooting has tailed off dramatically since his unexpected hot start. It has a 3-point marksman in Nic Thomas who is working his way into a comfort zone after a preseason hand injury. It has two freshmen contributors in Nobal Days, who plays hard, and R.J. McGee, who has talent.
Days, by the way, is averaging 21.5 minutes, putting him on pace to play the fifth-most minutes of any Hunter freshman since 1997-98 (he began coaching in 1994-95, and IUPUI does not have minutes stats for 95-96 and 96-97). The freshmen who played more minutes than Days were D'Marcus Simonds (16-17), who went to become Sun Belt Player of the Year as a junior, RJ Hunter (2012-13), Ron Hunter's son and a two-time Sun Belt Player of the Year before playing for the Boston Celtics), Alex Young (08-09), a three-time All-Summit League performer who is still playing professionally overseas, and George Hill (04-05), who is in his 12th year in the NBA. That's heady company.
Saint Louis won 86-62, setting a school record for 3s. I don't know if the looks were wide open, but I do know Ron Hunter's matchup zone is vulnerable to teams that connect on a high percentage on long-range 3s from well behind the line. HIs defense encourages opponents to take those shots because they tend to be low percentage. Going back as far as 2001-02, the last year those records are easy to access, none of his teams had ever given up 17 3s in a game. The most was 16 by Ball State in 2001-02, so it looks like we can label this performance an anomaly.
Alcorn State will be another easy victory next Monday--Tulane's fourth opponent that has yet to win a D1 game, while two others have won just one--so we won't get a true gauge on Tulane's quality level until the Washington D.C. tournament opener against Akron on Dec. 20. Win that, and Tulane almost certainly would play currently unbeaten Liberty the following day. Lose, and Tulane almost certainly would play Towson, which is 4-5 v., D1 competition and lost to Florida by only 6 points.
Tulane has four legitimate scorers in Teshaun Hightower, K.J. Lawson, Christion Thompson and Jordan Walker, although Walker's outside shooting has tailed off dramatically since his unexpected hot start. It has a 3-point marksman in Nic Thomas who is working his way into a comfort zone after a preseason hand injury. It has two freshmen contributors in Nobal Days, who plays hard, and R.J. McGee, who has talent.
Days, by the way, is averaging 21.5 minutes, putting him on pace to play the fifth-most minutes of any Hunter freshman since 1997-98 (he began coaching in 1994-95, and IUPUI does not have minutes stats for 95-96 and 96-97). The freshmen who played more minutes than Days were D'Marcus Simonds (16-17), who went to become Sun Belt Player of the Year as a junior, RJ Hunter (2012-13), Ron Hunter's son and a two-time Sun Belt Player of the Year before playing for the Boston Celtics), Alex Young (08-09), a three-time All-Summit League performer who is still playing professionally overseas, and George Hill (04-05), who is in his 12th year in the NBA. That's heady company.