Season Review: Raymar Morgan Edition
Posted by kj on Saturday, April 12th, 2008
After a freshman season in which he quickly emerged as MSU’s second most effective offensive option, Raymar Morgan came into the 2007-08 season with high expectations. This blogger went so far as to predict he’d be a first-team all-Big Ten pick and declare him a candidate for conference player of the year. As it turned out, he was a second-team pick–and I was only willing to award him third-team status.
Let’s take a step back and see what the stats say about his performance this season. I’ve broken out the 2007-08 stats into the same four groups of games I used to look at Walton’s and Lucas’s production (although I’ve changed a few of the categories that are displayed).
Min/G
2PTA/G
2PT%
3PTA/G
3PT%
FTA/G
FT%
PT/G
OREB/G
DREB/G
TO/G
2006-07 Totals
27.5
8.3
49.8
0.6
31.3
4.1
69.0
11.7
1.7
3.5
2.5
2007-08
Nonconf
27.5
9.5
61.0
0.9
33.3
6.5
76.2
17.4
2.7
4.4
2.5
Conf 1-9
30.1
8.8
58.2
1.2
9.1
6.1
58.2
14.1
2.3
4.0
2.7
Conf 10-18
26.0
7.2
63.1
0.8
57.1
2.8
68.0
12.3
1.6
3.4
1.9
Postseason
27.0
7.0
42.9
0.6
33.3
3.2
50.0
8.2
1.6
3.8
2.0
2007-08 Totals
27.7
8.4
58.6
0.9
30.3
5.0
67.2
14.0
2.2
4.0
2.3
If you look at just the changes in the season totals from last year to this one, Morgan’s production looks pretty good:
- 2-point shooting percentages increased by almost 9 percentage points.
- Scoring increased by over 2 points per game.
- Pulled down an extra rebound per game.
- Turnovers held steady.
The problem is that the averages don’t tell the full story. There were two related problems with Morgan’s statistical performance this season. First, his production decreased substantially as the season progressed.
- His average points per game dropped by over 50% from nocnonference play to postseason play. He became much less aggressive, as his FG attempts per game dropped by nearly 3 shots his FT attempts per game were chopped in half.
- His rebounding numbers, particularly on the offensive end, fell substantially as the season progressed.
- He did reduce his turnover numbers over the course of the season, but that was probably a function of his decreased aggressiveness on offense as much as it was better decision making.
Related to this problem, Morgan’s stats were inflated by big performances against weaker opposition, while he tended to struggle against better opponents, particularly away from home.
Morgan scored in double digits in 27 of MSU’s 36 games. Of the 9 exceptions, 8 were road/neutral-site games. And all of them were against conference or NCAA tournament opponents (Ohio State, @Minnesota, @Indiana, @Wisconsin, @Illinois, Ohio State in BTT, Wisconsin in BTT, Pittsburgh, Memphis).
Against weaker opponents, Morgan could use his size and athleticism to create good shots around the basket. Against more athletic opponents, Morgan struggled. His outside shot disappeared in the second half of the season, allowing defenders to sag off him a bit and prevent good scoring chances. This seemed to effect his overall confidence, leading to less aggressive rebounding and undisciplined defense (his average personal fouls per game increased from 2.2 in nonconference play to 3.6 in postseason play).
Michigan State had a record of 19-1 in games in which Morgan scored at least 13 points. In games in which he scored 12 points or fewer, their record was just 8-8. This is, of course, the cheesy kind of stat TV producers can put up on the screen for just about every basketball’s teams leading scorer. Naturally, top scorers score fewer points against better opposition.
But in this case, the results are pretty exaggerated and do reveal that Morgan is a key indicator of Michigan’s State success in any given game. In my game previews, I was almost always tempted to make him the key player of the game because he nearly always represented an offensive match-up advantage against opposing teams. Going into next season, he has to be more consistent against teams where the size/athleticism advantage is smaller and/or the opponent players better help defense. To make that happen, he needs to hit the mid-range jumpshot consistently to force defenders to guard him closely, opening up the ability to drive to the basket. His offensive production needs to become a cause, rather than a symptom, of MSU’s success as a team.
And he needs to keep his head up when the shots aren’t dropping. Morgan has the ability to make major contributions on the boards and on defense. He can’t allow his entire game to be negatively impacted on nights when he’s struggling offensively.
The expectations for Morgan will be even higher going into next season. He’ll be expected to be MSU’s leading scorer and will almost certainly be a preseason all-conference pick. He has the skills to be the best player in the league. If he plays with an attitude to match those skills, it will go along way toward a successful Spartan campaign.
Filed in michigan state basketball
huberton 12 Apr 2008 at 12:55 pm 1Right on. The numbers pretty much tell the story we all suspected.
where do you stand on the debate about whether MSU and Raymar are better off when he plays the 4 rather than the 3?
If he wants to play at the next level, it will clearly be as a 3; In college, however, he probably causes more of a mismatch at the 4 because of his quickness, and his ball handling and decision-making/passing skills are not great — that is the main cause of his turnovers.
How much he improves in the off season, both mentally and skill wise stands be one of the key factors in determining how good the team is next year. Unlike the last two years, however, the team will not need him quite as much, given the number of wing players. I am extremely curious to see how much competition for playing time Raymar gets and how he responds to it.
kjon 12 Apr 2008 at 3:14 pm 2I’d say we’re a little better off when Morgan is playing the 3. At this point, at least, I think he’s better at using his size to beat a smaller player than at using his quickness to beat a bigger player. But he does need to reduce the turnovers he tends to commit when trying to beat perimeter players off the dribble.
If Roe is really 100% for next season, a frontline of Morgan, Roe, and Suton would be pretty tough for most teams to match-up against.
Note: I’m somewhat biased against the smaller lineups at this point since I thought we played too many multiple-point-guard lineups this season. I’d rather see more traditional lineups (Lucas/Allen/Morgan/Roe/Suton) next year.
umhoopson 13 Apr 2008 at 1:45 am 3If you have Roe and Morgan at the 3 and 4 then at least one of them will probably be a mismatch. Too big for the 3 or too fast for the 4. That will be a nasty front court, especially when you add in Suton who did pretty damn well down the stretch while receiving little credit. That’s how this UM fan sees it at least.
DMPon 13 Apr 2008 at 1:41 pm 4kj, you have it right: Morgan is too good to give up when his shots aren’t falling. His fresheman year showed that on pure hustle, his physical gifts allow 10-12 points and 7 rebounds a game.
I think we all have to hold some prediction about next year until anyone sees Roe play. Even if he is 100%, which is doubtful with the timeframe after microfacture surgery (it seems), he won’t have played competitive basketball in many months.
I’d be ok with smaller, 3-guard line-ups if the three guards weren’t all below 6 feet. I think the concept is ok, MSU just had a bad combination for it this year in practice.
spartanproduceron 14 Apr 2008 at 8:27 pm 5while KJ’s logic is sound (over playing Raymar at the 3) I think I prefer him at the 4 for two reasons.
1. less likely to get turnovers (especially in transition, where Raymar likes to catch the ball 20 feet from the rim and tries to score without dribbling)
2. I really liked having AA at the four in ‘05, six-six guy who got matchup advantages.
Of course I realize that one flaw with this is that we probably have more other guys who can play the four, than we do guys who can play the 3. And if Morgan is “good Raymar” then he’d be fine at the 3, but because of his inconsistency, the four might make his shortcoming less obvious (plus he can always rebound and get lots of put backs).
Of course AA was once accused of being mentally not tough, and things worked out pretty well for him . . .
arvidon 14 Apr 2008 at 10:18 pm 6I like Raymar at the three–if he cures the other issues, he’s an unstoppable matchup there and, although it gets overlooked, really defended pretty well at that spot. I think big fours can post him up. Plus, that keeps two other bigs on the floor for rebounding.
Nice thing is–next year at times Raymar and Roe will be somewhat interchangeble and we will have flexibility to go big or small.
Who would ever accuse AA of not being tough?? Find that dude and beat him with a large stick.