Logwood’s offense strong since return
Senior’s offensive rating better this month than ever before
The late-season roll UNM Lobo senior forward Sam Logwood has been on since his Feb. 3 return to the lineup continued on Sunday.
And not just against anybody, but against a UNLV team that has arguably the best frontcourt duo in the league, albeit not one known for its offense far more than its sometimes porous interior defense, with 6-foot-7 Shakur Juiston (18 points, 13 rebounds on Sunday) and 7-foot freshman Brandon McCoy (15 points, 8 rebounds).
Logwood posted his first double-double of the season with 17 points and 10 rebounds. But early on, it appeared as though he might be reverting back to some early season bad habits of settling for long jump shots instead of using his strength to attack the rim as a mismatch near the basket against just about any of the big men in the Mountain West Conference.
The 6-8 Logwood, who took two long 2-point jumpers in the first half and banked in a 3-pointer, his first even attempted beyond the arc since Dec. 27, said his doing so wasn’t any regression, but rather a feeling out process.
“I always have to get a feel for it each game, just the way the refs are going to call fouls, the way guys are going to guard me,” Logwood said. “So just kind of feeling it out throughout the game. Then I was seeing they were not really as aggressive at the rim as I thought they’d be, so getting to the rim wasn’t really a problem.”
When he realized the big Runnin’ Rebel post players weren’t going to be able to stop him going toward the basket, he settled in, again, to a pretty efficient offensive rhythm.
And that’s sort of been the norm in the past month.
According to KenPom.com, Logwood’s ORtg (offensive rating, which is essentially a metric showing how many points per 100 possessions a player is responsible for when in the game) has averaged 117 over the past six games since his Feb. 3 return at San Jose State.
Only one of those six games — Feb. 6 vs. Boise State when he had 8 points on 3-of-7 shooting and two assists in 31 minutes played — was his ORtg
below 100 (it was 97 that game). For comparison, his ORtg in the first 15 games he played this season averaged just 95.2 and he was below a 100 rating in eight of those 15 games.
In short, while Lobos coach Paul Weir has raved about Logwood’s defense, saying he has defended as well in the past month than he’s ever seen him do before, the reality is Logwood’s offense has been on another level and now sits at 101.0 for the season, the first in his four college seasons over 100. THAT’S VLAD WITH THE D: While UNM center Vladimir Pinchuk has struggled offensively, and in particular Sunday with a turnover near the basket and a couple missed layups, he’s still doing things that are catching the eye of his coach.
The defense in the 17 minutes played by the 6-10 freshman from Germany on Sunday against UNLV was pretty good.
“That was Vlad’s best defense in awhile,” Weir said. “Unfortunately finishing around the rim — you all look back and go, ‘Geeze, he’s missing this, he’s missing that.’ But defensively, I thought that was the best he’s been. He actually had a presence around the rim.”
POLL POSITION: The only Mountain West team to appear in Monday’s new AP Top 25 poll was Nevada, which checked in at No. 21. The Wolf Pack, which has already secured at least a share of a second-consecutive league title, appeared on 63 of 65 voter ballots, including the high ranking of No. 13 by Scott Mansch of the Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune.
Mansch was also the only AP voter to put a second MWC team on his ballot, voting Boise State at No. 25. GOOD CALL ON THE NONCALL? ESPN Radio in Las Vegas, Nev., on Monday posted on Twitter audio of Rebels’ playby-play announcer Jon Sandler’s call — the twitter post called it an “excellent call” of the final moment’s of Sunday’s UNLV loss. Sandler was very critical of the game officials not calling a foul on the Lobos while Jovan Mooring tried a put back after a rebound as time expired, saying the officials “did not have the guts to make that call.”
When the tweet made its way around the net, former Lobo Roman Martinez posted his take, writing “Great no call. GO LOBOS!”