So, now that I have spent most of the season railing against Keiton Page and Ray Penn sharing the court, and advocating for more of the athleticism that Markel Brown and Jean-Paul Olukemi bring to the 2 and 3 with either Page OR Penn at the point, the numbers decide to prove me completely wrong for the last two games. Especially in the Alabama game where Page and Penn were members of the 5 most productive lineups, and the Olukemi/Brown combo produced a Plus/Minus of -4... and the trend continued into the Stanford game. Here is the chart of the 2-man units I have been tracking (the combo of bigs, the 5'9 Militia and Olukemi/Brown).
| Alabama | Stanford | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2-man unit | +/- | minutes | +/- | minutes |
| Moses, Pilgrim | 0 | 15:18 | 7 | 09:19 |
| Moses, Williams | -1 | 11:15 | 17 | 17:18 |
| Williams, Pilgrim | 3 | 09:55 | 0 | 00:00 |
| Page, Penn | 13 | 29:43 | 15 | 29:10 |
| Olukemi, Brown | -4 | 11:01 | -8 | 04:49 |
The bigs all fared about the same in the Bama game, then the Pilgrim injury threw it all for a loop versus the Cardinal. But the last 2 rows of that chart are more interesting -- relatively speaking, I mean not as interesting as holding serve with Nataliya Shatkovskaya (double-entendre alert!)... and yes, I do plan on making one Shatkovskaya reference per post this week. So, for those that are terrible at addition, over the last two games, Page and Penn register a +28 in just under 59 minutes played. That is outstanding! While the "more athletic" duo of Olukemi and Brown come in at -12 in about 15 minutes of action.
However, I do want to apply a twist to this. I propose that a big reason why Olukemi and Brown can't be more productive are because of the short-commings of the 5'9 Militia. Because neither Page or Penn can completely handle the PG position by themselves, when only one of them are out there the ball distribution is just awful, and therefor Olukemi and Brown can't play their true game. The best evidence of this was all the times in the Bama game that Olukemi was on the baseline, behind the defense, ready to accept a pass and finish at the rim, and wasn't seen by the guards. There were a few times he was flat out jumping up and down waving his arms around and still wasn't seen.
Anyway, enough of these theories and tennis porn references... click the Jump for the Plus/Minus stats of the 5-man lineups for the last two games.
| OSU vs Alabama |
+/- | minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Franklin, Moses, Olukemi, Penn, Page | 7 | 01:50 |
| Pilgrim, Moses, Olukemi, Page, Penn | 4 | 06:08 |
| D Williams, Moses, Sidorakis, Penn, Page | 2 | 00:44 |
| Pilgrim, D Williams, Sidorakis, Page, Penn | 2 | 00:27 |
| Franklin, Moses, Brown, Penn, Page | 2 | 00:02 |
| Pilgrim, D Williams, Olukemi, Brown, Penn | 1 | 02:10 |
| Penn, Moses, Olukemi, Brown, Page | 1 | 00:44 |
| Pilgrim, Moses, Sidorakis, Penn, Page | 0 | 07:29 |
| Pilgrim, D Williams, Olukemi, Page, Penn | 0 | 06:05 |
| D Williams, Moses, Page, Olukemi, Penn | 0 | 03:59 |
| D Williams, Moses, Brown, Page, Olukemi | 0 | 03:26 |
| D Williams, Pilgrim, Brown, Olukemi, Page | 0 | 01:13 |
| D Williams, Moses, Olukemi, Brown, Penn | -1 | 02:26 |
| Pilgrim, Moses, Brown, Penn, Page | -1 | 01:21 |
| JS, D Williams, Brown, Olukemi, Penn | -2 | 00:42 |
| Moses, D Williams, Brown, Page, Penn | -2 | 00:40 |
| Moses, Olukemi, Sidorakis, Penn, Page | -2 | 00:14 |
| Pilgrim, Moses, Olukemi, Brown, Penn | -3 | 00:20 |
| OSU vs Stanford | +/- | minutes |
|---|---|---|
| D Williams, Moses, Sidorakis, Penn, Page | 9 | 07:42 |
| Pilgrim, Moses, Brown, Penn, Page | 7 | 03:39 |
| D Williams, Moses, Sidorakis, Olukemi, Page | 6 | 03:13 |
| D Williams, Moses, Olukemi, Sidorakis, Penn | 3 | 01:50 |
| Moses, Olukemi, Sidorakis, Penn, Page | 3 | 00:59 |
| D Williams, Moses, Page, Olukemi, Penn | 2 | 05:02 |
| Pilgrim, Moses, Sidorakis, Penn, Page | 2 | 04:59 |
| D Williams, Moses, Brown, Page, Olukemi | 1 | 00:42 |
| Franklin, Moses, Brown, Penn, Page | -1 | 01:45 |
| Penn, Moses, Brown, Page, Olukemi | -2 | 01:34 |
| D Williams, Franklin, Sidorakis, Page, Penn | -3 | 02:39 |
| Franklin, Moses, Olukemi, Penn, Page | -3 | 02:11 |
| Pilgrim, Moses, Olukemi, Brown, Page | -3 | 00:41 |
| Franklin, Moses, Brown, Page, Dowell | -5 | 01:46 |
| JS, D Williams, Olukemi, Brown, Page | -5 | 01:18 |