The Floyd Street Tribune: Surprising similarities and memory lane walks
Inside: El Ellis is putting together the season he needed to. Plus, emptying the notebook on the year after The Year and, of course, the ACC Super League returns!
Thanks so much for sticking with me through a difficult season.
El Ellis’s season
Sometime back in the preseason, before any of us knew Louisville would be this bad, I wrote that El Ellis had to be 2014-15 Terry Rozier Good for the Cards to have a shot at a decent season. What if I told you Ellis is doing exactly that, but all the other “ifs/thens” I threw out in the fall came up (well) short?
Obviously, the huge difference between Ellis and Rozier’s seasons is the context around them. Rozier had three other teammates who made future NBA rosters, and four more who are still playing pro hoops somewhere on the globe. He also had Rick Pitino as his head coach. The 2014-15 Cards were also excellent defensively, ranking fourth in college hoops in efficiency, and they made up for not-great shooting with really good offensive rebounding and low turnover rates.
Remove the teams, however, and just look at this season’s Ellis and that season’s Rozier. The numbers are really similar, which is surprising considering the players the two have/had around them and the differing roles they are/were asked to play. Rozier had the ball in his hands a lot, but he also shared the backcourt with Chris Jones and then Quentin Snider, two point guards. Ellis is the point guard and the shooting guard on this Louisville team, surrounded by wings and bigs.
Here are their numbers on Ken Pomeroy’s analytics site. You’ll notice their usage numbers are very similar, as are their 2- and 3-point shooting percentages and free-throw rates. Fouls drawn per 40 are close. Rozier was a much better rebounder and steals guy and turned the ball over less, while Ellis is a much more active distributor of assists. Overall, though, there’s a lot of commonality.