Previewing Savannah State

Scouting Report
Season Stats
Schedule
Roster

This is quite possibly the worst team in Division I-A. In 2005, the Tigers were 0-28. In 2006, they were 1-26. This year? 2-6. Progress!

This is, for certain, the worst offense in I-A:

Savannah State Offense 05-06

Four Factors	Percent	Nat'l Rank
eFG%	41.5	333
Turnover Rate	28.2	334
Off Reb Rate	22.7	329
FTM/FGA	24.8	165

Savannah State Offense 06-07

Four Factors	Percent	Nat'l Rank
eFG%	43.9	283
Turnover Rate	29.5	330
Off Reb Rate	31.7	187
FTM/FGA	26.0	134

My intramural team scored more points per possession.

Starters:

Joseph Flegler (5-9, 165) -- Flegler is the team's point guard and and one of their main scoring options as well. On the plus side: good assist rate, good at stealing the ball, good free throw shooter, decent at getting to the line. On the bad side: like everyone else on the roster, he's turnover prone; he's second on the team in three-point attempts but is only hitting 30.3% of them.

Javon Randolph (5-10, 160) -- Easily the best player on the team (his O Rtg is actually above 90!), he's the leading scorer (17 PPG) and the best shooter (53.3%) among the starters. He's their most prolific and most accurate three-point shooter (21-56, .375), but at his size he is not going to have an easy time getting off shots.

Chris Linton (6-6, 195)

	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	eFG%	%Shots	2FG%	3FG%	TO%
Linton 2006	55.9	75.6	19.0	40.4	16.1	41.7	24.2	31.3
Linton 2007	58.6	66.7	17.3	33.9	17.3	41.0	11.8	32.0

In my freshman year at NC State, I took a really basic math course. The professor liked to call it a math class for "lovers and poets." Which is to say, a math class for liberal arts majors. We were there to fulfill a requirement, pretending to be serious math students, but that wasn't our element--our strengths were elsewhere. Just as we were then, Chris Linton is pretending to be something he's not. I don't know that he's a lover or a poet, but he definitely isn't a basketball player.

Joshua Obiajunwa (6-6, 210) -- An excellent rebounder at both ends of the court. He's exclusively an interior scorer, which makes his 39.1 effective field goal percentage that much more unfortunate.

Lazarius Coleman (6-8, 200) -- Turnover rate: 35.6%. He'll block some shots, but he's only a modest rebounder and not much of a shooter.

Bench:

The main contributors off the bench will be Patrick Hardy (6-3, 185), Bjorn Bohley (6-9, 240), and Alvin Edwards (5-7, 165). What will they contribute? Things. And stuff. Probably some stuff.

Remember back in the day when you'd be in your driveway playing basketball with your friends and your little sibling comes out and asks if he can play, and you sigh heavily, and you're like, "yeah, I guess so," but really you don't want him to because he can't dribble and he's like 4'6" and all he does is get pushed around and when you pass him the ball everyone just sort of pretends to play defense but they aren't really and that kills the seriousness of the game but you gotta throw the kid a bone and let him feel like he's involved so he doesn't start pouting and he inevitably shoots every time he gets the ball, missing badly, or maybe dribbling the ball off his shoe? That's Alvin Edwards. Here are Alvin Edwards' turnover percentages in 2006 and 2007, respectively, despite extremely low usage: 52.6%, 53.0%.

Savannah State Defense 05-06

Four Factors	Percent	Nat'l Rank
eFG%	55.9	330
Turnover Rate	20.8	192
Off Reb Rate	43.7	334
FTA/FGA	50.5	328

Savannah State Defense 06-07

Four Factors	Percent	Nat'l Rank
eFG%	47.8	109
Turnover Rate	26.0	46
Off Reb Rate	36.2	269
FTA/FGA	54.7	324

Savannah State's 2006 defense, seen there on the left, ranked dead last in I-A last season, as the Tigers allowed opponents to score 1.20 points per possession. Teams shot them out of the building, and on the rare occasions when they missed, they grabbed over 40% of the available offensive rebounds.

They've been better in the early stages of 2007 (1.01 PPP allowed), but I imagine it's only a matter of time before the bottom falls out once more.