Yesterday I began the Season in Review by assessing our upperclassmen. Today I will follow up with the underclassmen, plus the walk-ons, and give an overview of the season behind us and the season ahead.
Sophomores
Trey Chapman. Trey, like Jordan, had an inconsistent year and I thought he could've been better. His highlight of the season came very early on, with a forced five-second call and a late game-winning three pointer to give us a win over The Citadel in the All-Military Classic semis, 66-65. After that, Trey bounced up and down. He committed 9 of our 36 turnovers at West Virginia, and scored fewer than five points nine times while averaging 21 minutes/game. Nonetheless, he had two memorable games against ETSU, scoring 14 on the road and a season-high 16 at home, eight of those points coming from the free throw line, where he was a 67% shooter. He's very effective when he gets to the line but rarely gets there to begin with. He's never been much of a three-point shooter (28% this year), but we don't need him to be. At 6'7 he will be depended upon for scoring down low next year, so he needs to bulk up a bit. His footwork was also poor, averaging 2.2 turnovers per game, second only to Eleby. I'd like to see him get to the next level, but he has a lot of work to do.
Julian Eleby. Like QJ, Julian was thrust into a new position this year, moving from a two-guard to a PG following Peterson's departure. Notable games including 19 points in the conference-opening win at Samford, 16 against Navy, 25 against Chattanooga, and of course that 43-point majesty against Western Carolina in double-overtime. Eleby is definitely not an 8-15 3PT shooter, so I view that game as more of an aberration than anything. But we know he can shoot, and for much of the year he did. Julian hit 37% of his three-pointers and 78% of his FTs. He ended up averaging 11.1 PPG and led the team with 2.8 APG (excluding QJ). It will be very interesting to see if he manages to maintain his starting spot in the next two years, whether as a natural SG or a PG. I doubt it, given our talented freshman coming in, but he has shown great potential and is worthy of consideration.
Craig Hinton. Craig was probably the most frustrating player this season. With his 6'7 stature and promising athletic ability, it seemed to me like Craig was never in the right mental state and it showed with the turnovers. Despite playing only 13 minutes/game he managed to turn the ball over 28 times, good for over three per 40 minutes. His 23-point performance against Maryland where he went 6 of 6 from three was about his only highlight of the year. Overall he averaged 5 PPG on 35% three-point shooting, but if you take out that Maryland game, those numbers drop to 4.4 and 30%. I'd suggest Craig spend his time in the film room more than anywhere else.
QJ Peterson. Obviously QJ was away from the school for the final twelve games of the season, and in the time that he did play, he averaged 19.6 PPG and 4.9 APG. The scoring totals sound nice but not when you look at the shooting percentages - 34% overall and a horrid 28% from behind the arc, compared to 32% last season. And he needed more than 17 shots per game to do it. It must be noted, however, he was uncomfortable as a point guard and had a mere three weeks at best to learn the system. He desperately wanted to win but towards the end of his time with the team I thought he was detrimental to our play and was not in the right mental state like his sophomore counterpart Hinton. Luckily, QJ will be back next season and hopefully better than ever. The shooting will undoubtedly come back. I'm more worried about how he handles himself on and off the court. Hopefully he matures and will thrive with a natural PG by his side.
Freshman
Fred Iruafemi. Fred did not score much this year but did play in all but two games. Remarkably, his only two double-digit scoring games came against East Tennessee State, where he scored 10 on the road, and 16 at home on 8 of 12 shooting to lead us to a comeback win (I give him all the credit in the world for helping us win that game). There must be something about the Bucs he likes. Alas, those were his highest outputs of the season. Fred scored 7 against Western Carolina and 6 against Johnson Univ., but in no more games had more than five points. He averaged 2.5 RPG and 2.8 PPG on 46% shooting in just about 12 minutes. We'll certainly see more of him in 2017 and 2018 but I doubt he'll get significant playing time next season.
Armani Branch. Unlike Fred, we did not see Armani much at all this year. He scored a season-high 14 points against MACU and 12 (plus 6 boards) against Johnson, certainly nothing to brag about. Those were his only double-digit scoring games. He scored two against UNCG and hit a three against Marist; not much else. Armani played in just 13 Division I games for an average of 3.5 minutes. His three-point shooting was bad, very bad - just 13% - but he only took 23 attempts. And of course shortly following the 29-point home loss to UNCG, Branch was suspended, apparently for the remainder of the season, for undisclosed reasons (though we can always speculate). He should come back next year, but we never know. Armani has a long way to go if he wants to contribute, mentally and physically.
Walk-Ons
Tyrell Mason. Tyrell was on the squad in October, but was taken off the roster before a game was played. From what I've heard the team later asked him to come back due to the dismissal of QJ so they would have enough practice players. He returned before the road Chattanooga game, where he scored his only two points of the year. With a full roster next season, we may have seen the last of Tyrell as a Keydet.
Niles Tate. Niles, a freshman and fan-favorite, scored 2 points against MACU and Furman, with a nice put-back layup in garbage time of a 34-point win in the latter. He played in four games and was a very high-spirited young player. His fellow freshman walk-on Conrad Jenne scored two against MACU as well. Good luck in the future to both of those players.
We struggled this year largely because we couldn't shoot. Why couldn't we shoot? Because we had no facilitator in the offense. 32% three-point shooting isn't going to get it done. If you take that out from our overall 40% mark (last in the SoCon), we shot a shade under 49% on two-point field goals, good for fifth in the league. But compare that to least year, where we shot 52% on two-pointers, second in the Big South behind only Radford. The loss of Covington stung badly, but it was the loss of Jon Elmore that really hurt the most.
Interestingly, Anglade (59.9%) shot the ball slightly better this season than DJ (58.1%) did last season. Their FT shooting certainly distinguished the two, but our problems lied behind the arc. Last year, Glasgow hit 38.7% on threes, which barely cracked the top twenty in the league. Brown was more accurate (38.9%) this year, but he didn't take quite as many. Glasgow was much better at shooting off the dribble, whereas we needed someone to feed Brian on the 3PT line, which we couldn't do as much of. And while Weethee's shooting was better, QJ was much worse, as was Tim Marshall. If we aren't hitting threes, we aren't going to win. It's as simple as that.
Unlike last year, where our six conference losses (tournament included) came by an average of 3.7 points, we did not struggle to win close games this year. Although, this statistic doesn't mean too much, given we lost by 15 points or more six times this season (and that's not including our four guarantee games - WVU, Maryland, Tech, and GWU - three of which qualified). We were also 2-3 in games decided by five points or less. Once the threes didn't fall, we got down early, and we never play well when we get down early.
Looking ahead now. Of our four graduating seniors, only two (Brian and Jarid) had scholarships. Three of our four current commits - Quayson Williams, Austin Vereen, and D'Andre Mahaffey - will have scholarships (Trey Johnson does not). Add in three juniors, four sophomores, and two freshman, and that totals to 12 of our allotted 13 scholarships. This is, of course, assuming that all our current players return (Armani is the only one I have doubts about). So we have one scholarship remaining at a minimum and have still not recruited a big-man, which is concerning. We've proven in the past that we don't have to have a big man to win (see Chavis and Travis for advice on that), but I don't know if we have the shooters or all-around athletes to compete for a top three spot in the SoCon next year.
For the record, Duggar isn't going anywhere. His current contract runs through 2017–18, so he's at VMI until then. I do think he's quite underpaid, which is my only concern going forward. Dave Diles is seemingly not afraid to pull the plug on losing coaches, so I'd like to see at least two winning seasons between now and then.
Next year will be better, but I don't know much better. There's no way our freshman are going to be good enough to lead the team to a top three seed, so we need several players to step up. In particular, QJ, Tim, Phil, and Jordan all need to have better seasons. Our freshman class wasn't very good this year, and what becomes of them is yet to be seen. At least we can put this disastrous season behind us, knowing the future cannot only be better.
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