So far this season, William & Mary men’s basketball has two Division I wins. That’s two more than the team had at this point last year.
It’s clear we’re seeing an improved Tribe squad in 2022-23. The bar wasn’t hard to clear – by most metrics, W&M was a bottom-25 team in the nation (out of 358). But the question now is, by how much have they improved?
It’s fair to say at this point Coach Dane Fischer and co. hit in the transfer portal this offseason. Grad guard Anders Nelson has injected needed life into W&M’s half-court offense with his unselfish play and ball movement, while fellow grad guard Chris Mullins has brought wing defense and veteran leadership this team has lacked. It’s clear why the coaching staff was excited for junior Noah Collier and sophomore Matteus Case, as both possess high-level athleticism for this level. And meanwhile, all sophomore forward Gabe Dorsey has done is shoot three-pointers better than just about everyone in the country.
They’ve joined players like junior Ben Wight and freshman Jack Karasinski that have contributed offensively. All in all, the offensive improvement has been palpable, even while blending together players that haven’t played together nearly at all before this year.
The Tribe finished last year 352nd in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency, an unacceptable result in Williamsburg. This season, they’ve risen to 246th, and I expect that to continue to elevate.
That’s not to say the W&M offense is without fault – I’ll argue they don’t get enough good looks from behind the arc, they still have issues finishing at the rim, and they often go through long stretches where they just look out of sync and unable to make anything happen. But the Tribe has the pieces to be a decent CAA offensive team.
Holding the Tribe back is its defense. Currently, KenPom has them ranked 329th in adjusted defensive efficiency in the NCAA. That’s almost 60 spots lower than last season’s squad. And it’s easy to see the deficiencies.
To some extent the defense is also suffering from unfamiliarity – we’ve seen too many instances of miscommunication on rotations, or wide open shots because of uncertainty from defenders. Those are fixable. But the biggest issue in a half-court setting, which may not be easily papered over, is W&M’s post defense.
Much was made this offseason about Wight gaining weight and attempting to become more of a force in the post, especially defensively. I’m never going to criticize his motor or effort, which has always been one of the reasons he’s an all-CAA level player. But he currently doesn’t have the ability to lock down in the post one-on-one, and he’s not athletic enough to be a legitimate rim-protector. Unfortunately, Collier isn’t big enough to be a good post defender either.
Against teams like Pittsburgh and NC State this season, where the opponents had a distinct size advantage in the post, the Tribe has been faced with a dilemma – allow one-on-one post-ups, or use guards to disrupt the post player, whether you’re just digging down at the player or running true double teams from the weak side.
W&M’s choice most of the time against those teams was to use guards to dig or double the post. Pittsburgh and NC State – the Wolfpack especially – were able to take advantage of the resulting 4-on-3 situation and find open threes for good shooters.
You’re likely not going to find many teams in the CAA that have that combination of size in the post and knockdown shooters around it like we’ve seen from the ACC opponents W&M has faced. And against teams that don’t quite have the dominance in the post or propensity to shoot the three, like Army or Radford, the Tribe has put together some good defensive performances. But it’s concerning that this is such an issue in a league with some high-quality big men (Towson’s Charles Thompson and Drexel’s Amari Williams come to mind).
Although I doubt they’d do this due to Fischer’s loyalty to man-to-man, I wonder if mixing a little zone into the defensive strategy could help. I’d also be interested to see what a little more pressure would look like, especially when Collier is running at the 5. The Tribe has a chance to rise above a very poor bottom half of the CAA into the middle tier, and it would be a shame if their defense held them back.