The Best is Yet to Come for Adika Peter-McNeilly and Manny Diressa
The Rams will take to the floor on Saturday night against Laurier for their season opener without Aaron Best on the roster for the first time since 2011, and the pressure to perform and lead as veterans will be even more heavily focused on Adika Peter-McNeilly and Manny Diressa.
After a 5–2 showing in preseason while trying to work in a new rotation and re-adjust to Coach Rana returning from his sabbatical, the Rams clock in as the 10th best team in the country in the national rankings:
With Carleton looking like the Golden State Warriors of Canadian University basketball and the rest of the OUA as top heavy as ever, Diressa and Peter-McNeilly will need to have 1st Team All U-Sport calibre seasons for the Rams to stay in the National Title discussion this season.
Manny and Deeks will probably soak up the majority of the minutes that Best will be leaving behind, and their ability to not only score, but make plays at both ends and effect the game in multiple ways could pay huge dividends for the Rams.
While both players effective field goal percentage (eFG%) and true shooting percentage (TS%) grade out to around the same as Best’s, the assist-to-turnover ratio and rebounding percentages are slightly tipped in the favour of Diressa and Peter-McNeilly.
Combing through the rest of the traditional stats doesn’t tell the story, but we can gain a bit more insight from looking at former ESPN’er and current Memphis VP of basketball ops, John Hollinger’s game score metric.
Here are Best’s top 2 game score’s from last season:
Feb. 3rd vs. Brock Aaron Best — 19.6 (28 PTS, 11–16 FG, 3–4FT, 8 REB, 0 AST, 0 STL, 2 BLK, 1 PF, 5 TO)
Feb. 5th vs. Laurier: Aaron Best — 27.2 (30 PTS, 11–17 FG, 3–4 FT, 8 REB, 1 AST, 1 STL, 1 BLK, 0 PF, 2 TO)
On the game score scale, a 40 is a fantastic performance and a 10 is replacement level, so Best’s efforts are nothing to scoff at, but take a look at the two best games from Diressa and Deeks:
Jan. 23rd vs. Ottawa: Manny Diressa — 27.2 (29 PTS, 9–16 FG, 7–9 FT, 3 REB, 3 AST, 4 STL, 3PF, 0 TO)
Jan. 30th vs. Nippissing: Manny Diressa — 27.3 (30 PTS, 12–17 FG, 3–3 FT, 5 REB, 3 AST, 1 STL, 2 PF, 1 TO)
Nov 4th vs Toronto: Adika Peter-McNeilly — 23.2 (25 PTS, 8–14 FG, 5–6 FT, 8 REB, 6 AST, 1 PF, 1 TO)
Feb. 17th vs. Guelph: Adika Peter-McNeilly — 33.8 (34 PTS, 12–21 FG, 6–6 FT, 7 REB, 3 AST, 5 STL, 1 BLK, 2 PF, 1 TO)
As you can see, their abilities to limit turnovers and contribute on the defensive end by causing turnovers pushes their value as players to a higher level, and in turn can push the Rams towards a repeat performance as OUA champs this season.
