Monday, November 16, 2015

Delly Treys Start at .500

After a poor showing in the playoffs last winter, halting a promising season, the Delly Treys had a new name and new look coming into the 2015-2016 season.

Unfortunately having a full year off caused a lot of rust to build, and the team showed just that on both offense and defense in game one, but bounced back on both sides of the ball (slightly) in a game two victory.

Taking a look at the first game of the season against Banana's in Pajama's, the 31% shooting performance, coupled with a defense that allowed 12 three-pointers in the first half, led to a 44-61 drubbing that was hard to walk away from; especially with the promise the new roster had.

Brent Hunter, who had played with the team off and on for the past few seasons, is now going to be a mainstay in the rotation. He is going to be looked upon as not only another scorer, but someone who can stretch out the 2-3 zone up top, as well as adding length underneath. His first game of the season did not show an even average performance from the youngest Hunter brother as he only scored six points on three of ten shooting from the floor (five rebounds).

Hunter was not the only one to struggle in the first contest. The team overall took 19 three-point attempts, connecting on only 3 of them (16%) and only Kevin Morgan (18 points, 5 rebounds) seemed to have any kind of standard offense output (7 of 12 from the floor, 2 of 3 at the line).

The defense, as mentioned earlier, although held Banana's to just one three-pointer in the second half, could only muster 21 points in a comeback attempt, leading to the 17 point defeat back in early November.

The story, at least on the defensive side of the ball, was quite different from game one to game two. The Treys allowed only two three-pointers total in the game against aptly-named Brick City, and, even more impressive, only allowed four points total in the first half. Though a poor shooting team will allow the Treys to maintain their 2-3 zone throughout a full contest, the team overall had a better step on that end creating turnovers and only allowing Brick City one attempt per possession for most of the night.

The offensive part of things also improved, albeit slightly. The team still shot a poor percentage from the floor, only hitting on 21% of their three-point attempts (4/19) and just 34% overall (22/64), but the story was on the glass. The Delly Treys swallowed up Brick City on both ends, compiling 50 rebounds, which is nearly 16 over the organizations average of 34.5 per game. The mass attack on the boards, Matt Eberwein and Brent Hunter (10) and Andy Kempf (12), resulted in three players with over 10 rebounds and also multiple put back opportunities. Brent Hunter totaled 17 shots from two point range for the game, but most of those were within five feet and from multiple put back attempts. The close range shot attempts also showed a bit in the teams overall two-point field goal percentage (41%), although not much better than the 38% from game one, any positive sign of the offense turning around the team will most definitely take.

The Delly Treys next game has not been scheduled as of this writing.