Doing a bit more game planning than normal since I'm in the NT.  Tonight I get the challenge of stopping Stephen Gonzalas, the newly minted D3 player of the year.

He's a fantastic small forward.  He's extremely well rounded and you don't see players that good at D3 all that often.  And he's a good scorer.  But honestly, I'm not 100% sure that I would call him great.  For D3, he's got a very good ath/spd combo of 72/61.  He's got a very good low post rating of 74.  The perimeter is ok at 49 and so is the ball handling at 50.  I'm not sure that equates to an excellent scorer.  Good?  You bet.  But excellent?  I'm not sure I'd expect that.  A lot of what makes him a fantastic player as a SF shouldn't have much to do with him being a scoring machine

As it is, he's one of the more dominant scorers I've seen in HD.  28.6 points in 23.6 minutes a game.  He takes about a shot a minute and hits 53% of them.  He also makes it to the free throw line 10 times a game.

Now some of this is probably attributable to the fact that his team conference with a handful of Sim AI teams that are weak.  But what I can't figure is that given the opportunity to go up against excellent defenders, he still puts up amazing numbers.  I don't get it.

Here's a quick run down of the SF's who were assigned to stop him that I would say are good enough that they should be able to neutralize him somewhat.  From what I see, they didn't.  I realize that the starter isn't going to guard him all the time but given that he only plays 23.6 minutes, I think it's fair to take a look even if it needs to be taken with a bit of salt.  (And yes, these numbers are end of season and don't reflect exactly what they were at the time of the game.)

Lebanon Valley: Carl Smith, (66 ATH, 73 SPD, 70 DEF) -- 25 MIN, 8-17 FG, 1-2 FG3, 6-6 FT, 23 PTS
Marietta: James Moss, (60 ATH, 71 SPD, 52 DEF) -- 27 MIN, 10-21 FG, 0-1 FG3, 9-12 FT, 29 PTS
Macalester 1: Charles Malcom (66 ATH, 55 SPD, 50 DEF) -- 26 MIN, 8-14 FG, 0-0 FG3 5-7 FT, 21 PTS
Gustavus Adolphus 1: Richard Silva (67 ATH, 51 SPD, 63 DEF) -- 17 MIN, 7-11 FG, 0-1 FG3, 4-4 FT, 18 PTS
St. Olaf 1: Paul Shipman (65 ATH, 70 SPD, 63 DEF) -- 17 MIN, 5-9 FG, 1-2 FG3, 4-5 FT, 15 PTS
Augsburg 1: Matthew Davis (61 ATH, 50 SPD, 73 DEF) -- 17 MIN, 11-20 FG, 1-4 FG3, 6-8 FT, 29 PTS
Gustavus Adolphus 2: Richard Silva (67 ATH, 51 SPD, 63 DEF) -- 16 MIN, 7-15 FG, 1-2 FG3, 2-3 FT, 17 PTS
Augsburg 2: Matthew Davis (61 ATH, 50 SPD, 73 DEF) -- 28 MIN, 7-13 FG, 0-1 FG3, 5-6 FT, 19 PTS
Augsburg 3: Matthew Davis (61 ATH, 50 SPD, 73 DEF) -- 28 MIN, 13-20 FG, 1-2 FG3, 13-15 FT, 40 PTS
Gustavus Adolphus 3: Richard Silva (67 ATH, 51 SPD, 63 DEF) -- 24 MIN, 11-23 FG, 0-0 FG3, 13-15 FT, 35 PTS
Nebraska Wesleyan: Michael Campo (65 ATH, 64 SPD, 63 DEF) -- 29 MIN, 10-20 FG, 0-0 FG3, 13-14 FT, 33 PTS
Becker: Jerry Lopresti: (72 ATH, 59 SPD, 81 DEF) -- 27 MIN, 12-28 FG, 0-2 FG3, 9-13 FT, 33 PTS
Castleton St.: Jeffrey Goins (62 ATH, 52 SPD, 71 DEF) -- 26 MIN, 12-23 FG, 1-4 FG3, 10-11 FT, 35 PTS


So admittedly this is just a 13 game sample size.  But here are the averages.  In 23.6 minutes against starting SF's that average 64.6 ATH, 57.5 SPD, and 66 DEF, Gonzales will score 26.7 points shooting 52% from the field (9.3 of 18), 54% from twos (8.8 of 16.4), and 29% from threes (.5 of 1.6) while getting to the free throw line 9.2 times (averaging 7.6 makes).


I don't get it.  Those numbers against the elite defenders are essentially the same as what he does against the Sim AI and lesser teams.  The only real difference is that he goes to the free throw line about 1.5 times less a game but he's still getting there a ton.  Maybe there are problems with the sample size (there are!) and the defender doesn't matchup against Gonzales all the time, but shouldn't there be some impact in these games???

Gonzales played two games against John Martindale from Concordia, Moorhead who has the IQ of a true freshman, an athleticism rating of 6 and a defensive rating of 5.  He pretty much put up identical numbers in those two games as he did against the elite.

99% sure I'm doing something wrong in coming to my conclusions like I am in most forum posts I make, so I'm posting here so you guys can tell me what I'm doing wrong.

By the way, the only appropriate response for this thread is:

tl;dr

But any feedback that is provided would be appreciated.

my only conclusion is that you have way too much time on your hands :D

Posted by bow2dacowz on 9/26/2011 6:24:00 PM (view original):
my only conclusion is that you have way too much time on your hands :D

True.

Started out with a "let's click on some box scores and see how teams shut him down so I can copy" and then when I found out he was essentially never shut down I decided to click through and spend a few minutes looking at things with a tiny bit more detail.

Of course, I didn't mention this in the thread but the player was recruited and is coached by Rails.  If I'm going to have a shot at beating him, I need to spend this much time gameplanning ....

maybe the best approach is one that is often used by teams facing guys that are virtually unstoppable....let that guy do his thing and focus on shutting down the support players around him

How many of those SFs you mentioned were playing zone?  That could certainly throw a wrench in things, since the SF is virtually always defended by the 3-man portion of the zone, so the guys you threw out there are roughly 1/3 of the defense (although I have found that SF on SF matchups get a little extra weight, so maybe closer to 1/2 of the defense).  More importantly, who else on that team is a scorer?  Are there elite outside shooters causing + defenses which are allowing him a lot of space inside?  That could be important as well.

A little troubling on the surface. To be fair, 5 of those guys did hold him under 50% from the field...though not by much.

Most of those guys I would call elite D3 defenders. That said I would expect an elite m2m defender to have more success than any single defender in a zone or press, which see 1 v.1 matchups less often by nature so you would have to look at the other defenders on the floor as well. Did you note what defenses were being played by those guys? We also don't know the defensive settings the opposing coaches were using....anybody playing ++ defenses probably left themselves vulnerable to his inside scoring.

Two other factors come to mind 1)Does he have an elite PG distributing the rock?  Teammates with high passing can set up some easy baskets for him. 2)He is a pretty good rebounder for a D3 SF and is probably getting a few high % putbacks per game.

edit: conference mate dahs beat me to the punch on a few of my points!

If this was a big man with 72/61 ath/spd and 74 lp, would anyone be surprised that he's shooting 53% from the field?

And the team is running fb/press, generating 24+ to/game. With him grabbing 2 offensive reb a game and probably getting 4-5 easy buckets off of fast break, his fg% really isn't something unexpected. 

My only explanation is that Rails is Rails.

Posted by cornfused on 9/26/2011 8:45:00 PM (view original):
My only explanation is that Rails is Rails.

Agreed.

Follow-up: Gonzalas was contained (5-11 shooting, 20 pts (8-10 FT) in 15 min of play thanks to four fouls) but kujay lost 81-91.  The main cause was that another Carleton player, SG Michael Kramer, shot 8-15, 5-11 from 3.

Always double-team and force the ball out of his hands.
Gameplan around the rest of the team and let him do his thing. 

I normally choose one of these 2 options (choice based on variables, my defense, his support players, etc.)

I'm gonna say the ATH/SP combo to go with the LP is getting him inside to score and when he gets fouled and doesn't, he has an A Free Throw rating and he's making 8.6 of 10.2 shots at the Free Throw line. It's the "ATH/SP/LP combo" along with the FT numbers that are compounding upon itself. It's not going up sequentially (ie by 2 or 3) it's compounding and going up by a "power of" 3 or 4. To give you the example, in Star Trek warp speed works this way. Warp 2 isn't twice as fast as warp 1, it's 2 x 2 or 4 times faster, warp 3 is 3 x 3 x 3 or 27 times faster. OK, I'll stop rambling, but I think you get the idea.

Contained is one way to put it although really it was the fouls more than anything that did it.  He still was getting way more than a point a minute and shooting once a minute.

I'm not going to fully deconstruct the opponents but to answer a couple of points addressed above.

-- narcotico: Actually, I'd say that for a coach of Rails quality, PG play might be the biggest weakness on the team.  The starter has good, not great, ATH/SPD (44/65) and BH/PAS that I'd say is more average than good (55/63).  And that 63 passing rating is the best on the team.  Rails has built an absolute monster of ATH/SPD/DEF/REB but the other categories aren't all that special.

-- tianyi: Yes, I'd expect a player with ratings this good to be shooting 53%.  But I wouldn't necessarily expect a 90/90/90 player to be shooting 53% when he is taking a shot a minute.  It is the distribution that has me perplexed.  He's a fine scorer and a terrific small forward but I don't see how it is possible he's getting a quality look every minute

-- narcotico/tianyi: He's averaging 1.5 offensive boards a game.  Does that help with tip ins?  Sure.  But even if you concede two tip ins a game which doesn't mathematically equate, he would still be getting 25 additional points in 24 minutes.

-- courtmagic: I mostly agree although as noted I have a problem with the frequency he shoots.  But in the original post, most of those defenders I listed have ratings that matched and it didn't do a bit of good.  Heck, in my game in scored 20 points in 15 minutes and that's with having a starter with 84 ATH, 93 DEF and my backup having 84 ATH, 94 DEF.  Those guys weren't nearly good enough to stop him or prevent him from going to the line.