Tulane Men Not Winning the Rebound Game, Ways to Change That
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The Tulane's men's basketball team is sitting at 12-7 record-wise for the season. In their American Conference games, the Green Wave was able to start the season with three straight victories. Since then, TU has lost three straight, including two-in-a-row in the friendly confines of Fogelman Arena as TU heads into this evening's matchup in Charlotte.
Win or lose, throughout those 19-games, one thing has been consistent for the Wave: a lack of rebounding.
There are 361-teams in NCAA Division 1 men's basketball. As of this writing, Tulane is ranked 346th in offensive rebounding. The Green Wave sits at 304th overall in defensive boards. For the season, Ron Hunter's troops are averaging 31.5-boards per game. That's the bottom of the American Conference barrel. In fact, the 8.3-offensive rebounds per game puts the Wave as one of only two league teams with under double-digit offensive boards per contest.
Rebounding Comes Down to a Couple of Es
As told to us by senior center Percy Daniels earlier this week, better rebounding comes down to a two words that start with of "e."
"Energy and effort, from everybody on the court," Daniels said. "If we want to win..., we've got to get at least ten rebounds from our guards. It's everybody on the court giving their all."
The team's leading rebounder just happens to be junior guard Rowan Brumbaugh, who's averaging just shy of 5-boards a game. Three spots later you'll find another guard, Curtis Williams, Jr who's grabbing just over 4-rebounds a contest. Senior guard Asher Woods is pulling down a tad over 3-boards a game. That's it. No other guard gets near the 1-rebound-a-game mark.
Disclaimer
We do not fancy ourselves as coaches, nor do we pretend to know all there is about college basketball. This is an attempt to research what Daniels was asking for: effort and energy in the rebounding game.
These are a small sampling from the last two games by the Green Wave. These should not be taken as a knock on any of the players individually nor as attempting to offer specific answers to the rebounding problem plaguing Tulane this season.
Looking at Offensive Rebounding
We went back over the last two games for the Green Wave, trying getting screen captures. Here is what we found from the YouTube channel of the American Conference highlights. We have edited them into a short, 15-second YouTube video you can pause to examine more closely.
Most offenses keep at least one player back to prevent any fast break baskets by the opponent. However, it's important to note the positioning of the Green Wave players in these examples, especially the guards.
The Defensive Side of Things for the Wave
How are the Wave doing defensively? As pointed out earlier in this article, Tulane is better on the defensive end, but not by much, still ending up near the bottom of the NCAA statistics. From those same two games, here are some screenshots taken from those same YouTube channel highlights from the American Conference site. Again, we edited four screen captures from those last two losses and spliced them together into a YouTube video you can pause and examine more closely.
Most teams will have more of their team crashing the boards on defense to prevent the second chance shots.
In both small samplings, Tulane seems to be following the general rules we stated in each: keeping at least one player back on the offensive side to prevent fast breaks and crashing a majority of the team on the defensive end. Neither of these answer the request made by Daniels earlier: energy and effort.
Most coaches, including Tulane's Ron Hunter, preach how essential rebounding is. It takes a true desire to "go after the ball" as it is said. Hunter has pointed out that is why you will see him insert forward Josiah Moore into the game: to give the rest of the team someone to emulate. Hunter has compared Moore to a football player in how he approaches the game. You'll see the sophomore guard diving after loose balls, crashing the boards from all angles, and "putting a body" on whoever is around him to prevent a rebound. The same can be said for the aforementioned Brumbaugh. The junior guard finds himself around the backboard regularly, especially on defensive possessions.
What Will Turn Things Around?
Once again, we do not pretend to be coaches. We rely on what coaches have told us over the decades we have been covering games. Those coaches have told us rebounding comes down to position and effort. Size isn't always the determining factor.
This young Tulane team has its rebounding future in its own hands. It will take what their senior center referred to, energy and effort, and the all important positioning. Combine those three, and rebounding becomes a strength for the Green Wave.
Green Wave Tangle with Owls Tonight
Tulane aims to get back into the win column Friday night as it takes on Charlotte in Halton Arena. The Green Wave has not lost four consecutive games since dropping five-straight from November 22 to December 7, 2024.
The game, moved from a Sunday afternoon tip because of the threat of severe winter weather in North Carolina, is set 6:30 p.m. tonight CST on ESPN+. Fans can also listen to the action live on the Tulane Sports Network from Learfield on 106.7 The Ticket.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.