I know it’s cold comfort to him and to all NU fans as the losses pile up, but how cool is it that Martinelli is the nation’s scoring leader? That’s at least something to root for this year.
Martinelli leads the country in scoring
- Thread starter SmellyCat
- Start date
Actually not sure this is something we should root for. Need other players to step up especially early in the game so that Nick isn’t dragging *** in the last 5 minutes.
Yeah, Cade Tyson at #2 underscores that. There ARE some good teams and tournament teams on this list, but not at the top of it
Absolutely. When Nick was routinely in the high teens and occasionally cracking 20 last year, that was cool. But now he is consistently in the mid-20s and occasionally cracking 30. That is a sign that he is too much of the offense. I don't really want him to stop now, though. As the losses are starting to pile up and this season is getting away from us, Nick's scoring run is becoming the one fun thing to watch.
What a self-defeating post.
If you’re not the lead dog then the view never changes.
Carry this team to victories on your big broad back, Marty!!
Back to trolling Jeff? I had hopes you had turned the corner.Shake them haters off, Marty! We need every point you can get.
How the hell is this trolling?
The better Marty plays : the more likely the Cats win. This is not a deep team.
And here I thought you were one of our more sports-logic astute fans.
Do you think Lakers fans are cheering for Luka Doncic to score less?
Or that OKC fans don’t want SGA to lead the NBA in scoring, or for Wemby to lead it in blocks & rebounds?
Okay… and I’m a huge fan as well. The more he scores, the better our chances of winning. Who else on this roster do you trust?
To score? Page if he can stay out of foul trouble. To be an impact level big ten player? No one.
Because he’s on a terrible team. I believe most voters don’t think that you can be one of the five best players in the league and be on a team that is (currently) last in conference.
On top of that, I’m not sure he’s even deserving. There’s more to basketball than just scoring. His defense is awful. He’s not a particularly good passer or rebounder. Kenpom and other advanced analytics sites don’t rank him as a top 5 in conference player either, FWIW.
I know he’s our guy but if we remove our bias, I don’t think he’s getting totally screwed if he doesn’t make first team again
Saw this today, was surprised to see Nick not on here unless I missed him. Doesn’t bode well for his chances at all conference and all American teams
Martinelli was like a point forward out there last night. Had several key assists, driving and dishing to Kropp. The guy has become a great all around player and a real team leader to a bunch of upperclassmen.
There's a purple N buried in the middle of that group in the bottom left, so I assume that's Nick. Nick probably doesn't grade out well here because he takes a ton of shots to get his 24 a night.
Not really. His shooting percentage is 55%. If everyone was shooting 55%, we'd be talking first round bye or better.
I’m guessing the offensive efficiency calcs go deeper than just shooting percentage. On the season his assists are very low, so I’m guessing the points he produces (his scoring + scoring generated for teammates) on a per-possession basis must not grade out as exceptionally high.
No knock on him. He’s a great scorer. The advanced stats just don’t love him. I don’t know how much voters look at that stuff, but I would guess they’re probably more just looking at the front-of-box-score stats like ppg, rebounds, etc. more so maybe he still gets some awards at end of year
That's not Nick. Click on his site, Nick is at 5.31 in the offensive metric but 0.31 in the defensive metric. It looks like the charted players cut off at like .5 or .75 DBPR, so Nick falls below that. He's be squarely in the low end of the "offensive aces" grouping, which is about what we'd expect.
The player you referenced is actually Page, who this metric thinks is a pretty good defender, weirdly. I wouldn't be surprised if this stuff is heavily weighted by nonconfernece, I have no idea if it adjusts for quality of competition.
Also worth mentioning this is a pure efficiency stat and Martinelli is a very high usage guy so there is always going to be further analysis required there.
Still, when it comes to first team all confernece type honors and the like, a losing team is always going to hurt hard. If we can go on a mini run here and get to like 7-13 or something that might help a lot, but if we're like 4-16 it's kinda tough. Martinelli cares about the individual honors far less than we do, he cares about wins and his future pro stock, neither of which are impacted by the first team honor.
Ah gotcha. That makes sense. I was thinking, he’s gotta be somewhere on the “top 10th percentile” of offensive players so it’s good to hear he is
The stats we’re discussing in this thread rate him as very slightly above average defensively, which I think is fair.
Average defender. Not a plus. Not a minus. He’s drastically improved that area from when he first stepped on the court as a freshman. You can dig up my posts highlighting his defensive liability then. It’s a night and day difference.
Maybe I’m just biased by watching Illinois pick on him. Felt like they kept running picks to get him switched on to the ball handler every time and he was getting cooked. Probably just outsized impact on my opinion.
I mean, mathematically, use a scale of 1-5 for offense and defense. He's a 5 offensively. He's a 2 defensively? That makes him a 3.5. That's a very good player. And again, he's a 5 on offense when the other team is throwing all they have at him. That should give him an extra point.
I don't know if he's a 5 on offense. His ability to create on the dribble is limited. Although I know he has a crazy 3 point shooting percentage, I wouldn't exactly consider him a great distance shooter. He just gets some wide open looks to take a set shot because defenses are clogging the paint against us. He isn't curling off screens and knocking down threes. He isn't particularly athletic in that he isn't driving and dunking in traffic. I also don't know if he's a great passer. He's gotten better as a passer this year, but the ball does still get stuck in his hands sometimes. So, I'd put him at a 3, except.....
He gets a bonus point, because he does **** in the lane with the flips and the hooks and the floaters that defy explanation.
I may be a tough grader, though.
He’s the leading scorer in the nation and you don’t know if he is a 5 on offense?
To be fair, his passing and point creation outside of his own scoring is statistically not great. I think I saw he’s about 5th in conference in “points responsible for” which considering the points you score as well as the shots you create for others. So he’s not first in that stat but he’s still in the top 2% of all players in the conference. So I’d say that’s a 5 out of 5 on offense.
I think your assessment is on. I think he's an example of someone who is an extremely effective college player but, for the reasons you said, may not have a game that translates well to the NBA - on whose scale he isn't a 5.
If Martinelli isn’t a five on offense, I don’t know who is. He’s arguably the best scorer in college basketball right now. He’s scoring at an extremely efficient clip while being the only player opponents truly have to game plan for. These aren’t just wide open looks. He works for his shots, and the ball doesn’t stick in his hands. He’s also creating his open looks with very well timed cuts and runs.
His three point shot has a quick, clean trigger this year and it’s smooth. He’s a good shooter, full stop. He may not be an elite NBA level athlete, but he has elite touch, solid footwork, and excellent balance. The passing can improve, but he’s by no means a bad passer. He also doesn’t get many chances to showcase it given how much NU needs him to score to function offensively.
He creates off the bounce just fine. You don’t need flashy handle to do that. You need to get to your spots, and he’s very, very good at getting to his spots and creating space with his body. He’s a 5 out of 5 offensively.
Well.... before this debate rages on any further, Gato will have to define his 5 point scale better. I am probably looking at it more as translatable basketball skills. I totally agree, that if you are measuring pure outcome, than he is outstanding. But in terms of raw, translatable talent, I wouldn't call him perfect. It's all opinion anyway. He's a joy to watch right now.
He may look like the 45 year old guy at the Y, who's always getting the ball down low, bumping and pumping, and then SCORING, but that's what he does. He scores. 13 of 19 tonite with four 3s in seven tries. He doesn't have the outside stroke from distance that Chris Mullins did, but they look very comparable to me the way they both score(d) in the mid-range. . . funking looking floaters, flips, sometimes just crazy looking shots that consistently go in. The PSU guy I walked with after the game couldn't believe that he had 34. He just does it, night in and night out. A guy who was going to Elon until their coach left for Duke. One of the greatest low level recruits in B1G history.