VCU Basketball: Experience, defense and Marcus Evans key for 2019-20
VCU Basketball will marked by experience and defense next season. With Marcus Evans leading the way, the team should be in for an exciting season.
Last season ended without a tournament victory for VCU Basketball, but there’s plenty of reason to expect that to change this upcoming season. The 8-seed Rams fell in the 1st round to UCF by the score of 73-58, but their leading scorer in Marcus Evans was hobbled with a knee injury (1-7 from field, 6 points in 26 minutes).
(Credit to KenPom, sports-reference and Barttorvik for statistics)
Experience
In what will be his third season at the helm, head coach Mike Rhoades will have a ton of experience to work with. The Rams are returning 86.0% of returning possession minutes per Barttorvik (22nd nationally), and are one of two Barttorvik preseason top 15 teams with a percentage >=80% (Maryland theother).
The team returns 8/9 of its top scorers from last season, including five seniors that each played at least 10 minutes per game (three played >=25 minutes).
Defensive Profile
VCU finished last season 42nd in KenPom, with the team’s strength definitely being on the defensive side of the ball (7th defense, 177th offense). After forcing turnovers at only the 214th highest rate in 2017-18, Rhoades got his team back to the “Shaka Smart” level last season, taking the ball at the 8th best rate in the nation.
VCU’s 3-point defense was also impressive last season, as the Rams allowed 3-point attempts at the 19th lowest rate in the nation and had the 2nd best defensive 3-point percentage. The success defending the 3-point line didn’t compromise defense inside the arc, as VCU also posted the 9th best 2-point percentage defense.
It’s also worth noting that VCU made teams work really hard to get shots up last season. Opposing offenses played at the 342nd slowest pace in the country when facing the Rams (among 353 teams).
Offensive Profile
The team’s offensive struggles last season can be attributed to two primary factors: turnovers and poor 3-point shooting.
The offense was 277th in limiting turnovers last season, coughing it up on 20.0% of possessions. Perhaps the experienced roster will have some natural improvement in this regard. The transfer of Sean Mobley (19.9 mpg last season) could actually help a bit as well, as he had one of the higher turnover rates on the team at 23.2%.
VCU attempted a lot of threes last season, but the problem is they didn’t make too many of them. Rams shooters attempted the long ball at the 104th highest rate in the nation (41.2% of attempts) but only made 30.5% of them (332nd in country).
The below chart reflect VCU’s top five 3-point shooters last season in terms of volume. All are returning, and it’s possible some of these players improved their shots in the offseason. If not, however, the coaching staff needs to ensure the right people are attempting a high volume of threes. If a player is not shooting at least 32-33% midway through next season, they should probably be steered away from the long ball.
It’s also worth noting that Rhoades’ offenses have kept the pace pretty high, posting the 40th and 36th fastest offensive tempos the last two seasons (per KenPom).
Marcus Evans
As mentioned earlier, Evans was the leading scorer on last year’s team at 13.6 points per game, and his injury may have played a significant role in the team’s tourney loss.
The 6-2 guard played two seasons at Rice before transferring to VCU and sitting out the 2017-18 season. Coming off of a strong junior year, the 23-year-old Chesapeake, Virginia native will look to make the most of his senior campaign.
Evans did a little bit of everything last season, from scoring to distributing to forcing turnovers. He stood out in terms of his ability to get to the line and generate steals, ranking 49th in drawn fouls per 40 minutes and 20th in steal percentage.
His combination of production was quite unique. From 2009-10 to 2018-19, only 5 players met each of the following statistical criteria in a single season (per sports-reference).
- Steal Percentage >= 4.3%
- Assist Percentage >= 25.7%
- Free Throw Attempts Per Game >= 5.2
- Free Throw Percentage >= 77.3%
Evans became one of the “fab five” with his performance last season, joining Texas-San Antonio’s Devin Gibson (2010-11), Georgia Tech’s Iman Shumpert (2010-11), Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart (2012-13) and Penn State’s Tim Frazier (2012-13).
Overall, VCU has some areas of improvement, but there’s a lot of reason for optimism heading into the 2019-20 season. If the Rams can rely on their experience, maintain their defensive edge and hit a few more shots, a tournament victory would be a very reasonable expectation for VCU fans.