Scouting the Drake Bulldogs: Five things to watch in NCAA game against Wichita State
By now, Wichita State fans should be well-versed in the Shockers’ storylines headed into their First Four game against the Drake Bulldogs at 5:27 p.m. Thursday at Purdue’s Mackey Arena, broadcast on TBS.
Now it’s time to break down the X’s and O’s matchup from a WSU standpoint.
The biggest challenge for the Shockers will be slowing down Drake’s souped-up offense that averaged 77.4 points with a top-20 efficiency. In short, the Bulldogs get to the rim often and finish at an elite rate, almost never turn the ball over, offensive rebound well and knock in enough three-pointers to keep the defense honest.
Here are five things to watch for in Thursday’s game:
1. Defending Drake’s blur screens
What makes Drake’s offense so dangerous is how it uses a variety of screens to be lethal. The Bulldogs are very skilled at using the traditional pick-and-roll to get 6-foot-10, 275-pound center Darnell Brodie easy looks in the paint.
But more difficult to guard are Drake’s “blur” screens, essentially a fake screen designed to combat defenses, like WSU’s, that switch screens along the perimeter. A blur screen is hard to guard because the offensive player pretends to set a screen, only to slip to the perimeter or to the basket, which forces the defense to either have great communication or great rotation.
“I think the biggest thing for us this game will be communication,” WSU senior point guard Alterique Gilbert said. “They do a lot of blur screens and they set a lot of screens as well. We’re definitely going to have to talk a lot and be vocal and help the helper to get stops.”
Drake has scored 1.29 points per possession when it finds the roll man in a pick-and-roll this season, which ranks in the 96th percentile nationally. Usually that’s finding Brodie on the roll after setting a screen, but Drake has been able to find advantages by using blur screens from junior wings D.J. Wilkins and Garrett Sturtz.
Wilkins, a 41% three-point shooter, is especially dangerous as the blur screener because he slips straight to the three-point line and puts such pressure on the two perimeter defenders to communicate quickly and clearly or risk leaving a dead-eye shooter wide open.
“Guarding their screens takes a lot of communication because it can depend on so much,” WSU’s defensive stopper Dexter Dennis said. “It can depend on if they’re actually setting the screen or if they’re not setting the screen and ghosting it. If you’re guarding the ball, you can’t open up your hips, you have to stay square until you at least get hit with a screen. It’s going to take a lot of communication and a lot of toughness.”
2. What to do about Hemphill?
Drake expects to have its leading scorer back for Thursday’s game, as ShanQuan Hemphill practiced Tuesday and Wednesday for his first full-contact activity since breaking his foot on Feb. 10.
The Bulldogs were 19-1 with Hemphill, a 6-foot-6 wing who averaged 14.1 points and 6.3 rebounds, and 6-3 without him. But Drake coach Darian DeVries told reporters on Wednesday that Hemphill will come off the bench against WSU if he plays and to not expect him to play close to his season average of 27.2 minutes.
“It’s going to be a more minimal role from that regard, in terms of minutes,” DeVries said. “It’ll be different. He’ll come off the bench and then we’ll see. We’ve just got to see how he’s moving, how he feels, in what way we can best utilize him while he’s out there.
“But the rest of it, his instincts will take over. We’ll have to play it timeout to timeout, and just see how things are going for him. But he’s worked really hard to get back to this point. I know he wants to be out there.”
Hemphill isn’t a three-point shooter and relies on his athleticism and size to score near the rim. It will likely be up to Dennis to try to prevent him from doing that against the Shockers.
Drake will already be shorthanded against WSU without its senior point guard Roman Penn (11.2 points, 5.5 assists), who also broke his foot in late February in a season-ending injury.
It’s clear this won’t be the same Drake team that started 18-0, without Penn and a limited Hemphill, but that isn’t affecting the way the Shockers view Drake.
“I see talent on the court and I see guys who know how to hoop and guys who know how to make shots,” WSU’s Tyson Etienne said. “It’s going to be a tough game for sure. It’s going to come down to who wants to win more. That’s what it comes down to in the tournament. When it comes down to crunch time, the X’s and O’s go out the window and it’s about who wants it more.”
3. Keep the Bulldogs from running
Drake is the most lethal transition offense remaining in the tournament. The Bulldogs scored 1.23 points per possession in transition this season, which ranks fourth nationally and the most efficient in the tournament field.
But it’s important to note that Drake was elite in transition because a fully-healthy Hemphill was an absolute monster on fast breaks. The freak athlete made 37 of 50 shots (74%) in transition and scored 4.1 points per game in transition, which ranked in the 96th percentile nationally, before his injury.
Will Hemphill be able to do the things he did above in that video playing in his first game back in more than five weeks from a broken foot? The answer to that question could determine how effective one of Drake’s biggest advantages this season can be against WSU.
Of course, a team doesn’t rack up that many transition points through just one player. Even without Hemphill at full power, Drake has another elite option for its fast breaks to look to.
Wilkins, already a sharpshooter at 41% accuracy from deep, turns into an even bigger flamethrower on fast breaks. While his teammates sprint the floor and flow to the rim to draw the attention of the defense, Wilkins has perfected the art of hanging back and gravitating toward one of the wings to spot up for a kick-back pass. In what has been a truly remarkable display of shooting, Wilkins has made 16 of 23 (69.6%) triples above the break — and 12 of 15 on the wings — in transition this season.
That means WSU will have to be vigilant with its transition defense. Guards can’t be caught watching the ball and letting the 6-2 guard roam free. WSU’s defenders will have to remain attached and not let Wilkins step into a catch-and-shoot three that he has punished so many teams with already this season.
4. Finding an answer for Yesufu
No player on either team had a better close to the season than Drake’s 6-foot sophomore point guard Joseph Yesufu, who was promoted to the starting lineup following Penn’s season-ending injury.
Yesufu averaged 23.1 points on 47.8% shooting, including 47.7% shooting on three-pointers, in his last seven games entering the NCAA Tournament. When Drake spreads the floor for its dribble-drive offense, Yesufu has been a nightmare for defenses to try to contain at the point of attack.
“We’ve got to do a better job of staying square and not letting guys drive and get lay-ups,” WSU coach Isaac Brown said. “After that, we’ve got to do a good job with our principles of being in the gaps, making guys drive to kick and making them have to make two or three passes. We’ve got to do a good job of staying square, guarding without fouling, rebounding and playing with toughness.”
It will be interesting to see who WSU decides to start out on Yesufu, whether that’s a challenge that point guard Alterique Gilbert will need to rise for or if WSU opts to have Tyson Etienne, its offensive star, expend that kind of energy chasing Yesufu all over the floor on the defensive end.
Whoever draws the assignment will have their hands full. Yesufu is ultra quick with a long wingspan, which allows him to create separation near the rim and stretch out to finish over defenders. He’s not the type of guard that WSU fans would remember from the Missouri Valley days, rather Yesufu plays much more like a dynamic guard from the American.
It won’t be a singular effort in slowing Yesufu down. WSU’s help defense will be tasked with being ready to help off certain players (Hemphill, Sturtz) on the perimeter to provide help to prevent Yesufu from barreling his way toward the rim.
“We’re going to have to contain the ball,” Etienne said. “We have to keep our guy in front of us. And then the help side is going to have to be alert. They do a lot of blur screens, so it’s going to be a lot of 1-on-1 defense in this game. Everybody is going to have to move their feet.”
While Yesufu is dangerous when he goes in attack mode toward the basket, he’s also been unconscious from the perimeter during his seven-game hot streak. He’s making 50% (18 of 36) of his above-the-break threes in a healthy mix of catch-and-shoot and off-the-bounce shots. That means WSU won’t be able to play off Yesufu to try to use the extra space to wall off his drives; he’s going to force the Shockers to guard him from 25 feet and in.
5. How to attack on offense
The good news for WSU is that after a season of facing some of the best muck-it-up defenses in the country from the American, Drake’s defense doesn’t appear to be as menacing — at least on paper.
The Bulldogs make their opponents grind for possessions, but they only rate as a slightly above-average defense on analytics. In the Four Factors, Drake is solid in all four categories but does not excel in one. More troubling for Drake is that in its final nine games of the season, its defense has plummeted to allowing 1.12 points per possession.
For a WSU team that has been known to produce easy baskets from its offensive sets in past NCAA Tournament runs, that’s a promising trend.
“You’re up against teams not used to scouting you, so a lot of your plays will work,” Brown said. “You can sometimes steal baskets by getting layups by operating your sets. We’ve got to do a good job of executing in the half-court to be able to get some easy baskets. We’re going to get them in transition and we’re going to get some off offensive rebounds, but we need to execute when we go against a set defense.”
Speaking of transition, Drake’s defense also struggles to defend fast breaks. The Bulldogs ranked in the 27th percentile in college basketball this season and allowed 1.04 points per possession, a good match-up for a WSU team that scores efficiently in transition and averages 12.5 transition points.
Like every game, WSU’s defensive rebounding will be critical. Morris Udeze (6-8, 235) will have his hands full with his counterpart Darnell Brodie (6-10, 275) trying to keep him off the glass, although WSU is expected to have back-up center Isaiah Poor Bear-Chandler (6-9, 250) available for some more size. Hemphill is also a menace on the offensive glass, although Dennis is usually reliable about boxing out. The problem could be Sturtz, a 6-3 guard who has a nose for the ball and goes up against fellow guards who aren’t used to boxing out as much.
Drake is a good offensive rebounding team and will certainly have an edge matched up against WSU’s porous defensive rebounding, but the Shockers shouldn’t feel overmatched. They should shoot for grabbing just as many offensive rebounds at the other end and playing Drake even in the rebounding battle, which would be a net positive for WSU.
“We have to finish possessions,” Etienne said. “Got to rebound. Got to rebound teh basketball. That’s the biggest thing for us. Just rebound the basketball.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2021 at 7:26 AM.
.jpg)