SWC75
Bored Historian
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I’ll continue doing a statistical analysis of games this year with some of the off-beat numbers I like to look at. I’ll post them after each game, probably the next day.
The first thing I’ll look at is “NET POINTS”. The idea is that each statistic in the box score is arguably worth a point, (that is, somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5 points). A point is a point. Teams score an average of a point per possession so anything that gets you possession is a point. A missed shot will more often than not wind up in the possession of the other team. Most baskets are for two points so if the passer who set up the shot is given half credit, that’s worth a point. One half of the blocked shots will likely have gone in and they are almost always two pointers, so that’s a point. If you add up the “positives”, (points, + rebounds + assists + steals + blocks) and subtract the “negatives”, (missed field goals, missed free throws, turnovers and fouls), you have a number that summarizes a player’s statistical contributions to a game. Then, by averaging the net points per 40 minutes of play, you factor out differences in playing time and have a look at the player’s rate of production. Both are important. The game is won based on what you actually did, not the rate at which you did it. But the rate is a better measure of the skills you can bring to the game.
Of course, there are things players do both on and off the court that contribute to victory. Leadership, hard work, keeping the team loose, scrambling for loose balls, (that could be a statistic: when neither team is in control of the ball, who winds up with it?), sneaker-sneaker defense, keeping the ball moving on offense, etc. etc. My experience is that with rare exceptions, the players who are the most statistically productive are the ones who grade highest in the things not measured by statistics, as well.
Here are the NET POINTS of our scholarship player in the most recent game and their averages per 40 minutes of play for the season, (exhibitions games not included):
Rakeem Christmas 33NP in 35 minutes season: 513NP in 888 minutes per 40: 23.1
Michael Gbinije….. 23NP in 40 minutes season: 319NP in 858 minutes per 40: 14.9
Tyler Roberson……. 15NP in 37 minutes season: 234NP in 643 minutes per 40: 14.6
Ron Patterson…….. 4NP in 12 minutes season: 28NP in 330 minutes per 40: 3.4
Kaleb Joseph……….. 2NP in 28 minutes season: 151NP in 765 minutes per 40: 7.9
Trevor Cooney…… 2NP in 40 minutes season: 244NP in 982 minutes per 40: 9.9
Chinoso Obokoh….. -1NP in 5 minutes season: 14NP in 66 minutes per 40: 8.5
B. J. Johnson……….. -1NP in 3 minutes season: 58NP in 264 minutes per 40: 8.8
DNP-CD- none
INJURED
DaJuan Coleman…. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 0NP in 0 minutes per 40: 0.0
Chris McCullough.. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 171NP in 450 minutes per 40: 15.2
SUSPENDED
None
Comment: Rakeem Christmas came back like gang-busters from the poor game against Duke to have his best statistical game ever, making 20 of 23 shots from the field and the line. His 33 net points match Michael Gbinije’s season high from the previous game. Silent G had another great game including perhaps the best block I’ve ever seen. He’s playing with a astronomical degree of confidence. Tyler Roberson had another good game. If only he could make that jump shot. That’s the new “Big Three”. Trevor Cooney will have to play is way back into it. Then if Kaleb Jospeh realizes he doesn’t have a three point shot, we’ll have a pretty strong line-up.
Rakeem Christmas has led in net points 14 times, Mike Gbinije 5 times, Chris McCullough 4 times, Tyler Roberson 3 times, Trevor Cooney and BJ Johnson once.
POSSESSION
Before you can score you’ve got to get the rock. Syracuse had 5 offensive and 26 defensive rebounds. They had 9 offensive and 23 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 5 of 28 times, (17.9%). When they missed, they got the ball 9 of 35 times (25.7%). Only 14 of 63 rebounds were rebounded by the offensive team. We’ve won the rebounding battle by this measure 16 times in 25 games. For the year we’ve averaged getting 34.2% of our misses and our opposition has gotten 30.8% of theirs.
Effective offensive rebounding: Neither team did much offensive rebounding or did much with the ball once they got it. We got 5 second chance points off our 5 offensive rebounds, 1.00 points per rebound. They got 8 for their 9, 0.89. For the year we’ve averaged 1.02 points per offensive rebound: they’ve averaged 0.90. We’ve led in this stat 16 times in 26 games.
Of our 7 turnovers, 2 were their steals and 5 were our own miscues. Of their 10 turnovers, 6 were Syracuse steals and 4 were their fault. We’ve had fewer turnovers in 18 of 26 games with 2 even and fewer unforced turnovers in 12 games with 6 even. Last year we had fewer turnovers in 29 of 34 games with 2 even. We are averaging 12 turnovers, 6 unforced. Our opposition is averaging 15/6.
If you add our 31 rebounds to their 10 turnovers, we had 41 “manufactured possessions”. They had 32 + 7 = 39, so we were -2. We have won that battle 18 of 26 times with 1 even. For the season we’ve averaged 51 to 47 (+4).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 18 for 29, (.621) inside the arc, 4 for 18, (.222) outside it and 21 for 27, (.778) from the line. They were 17 for 34 (.500), 6/20 (.300) and 7/14 (.500). We’ve led in two point field goal percentage in 15 of 26 games, and in free throw percentage in 12 games (but only 6 times in the last 19). We’ve led in three point field goals percentage, believe it or not, in 15 games. For the season we are .493/.313/.656. Our opposition is .448/.310/.703. .621 is a tremendous inside the arc percentage and it overcame our poor outside shooting. To dominate inside like that against Louisville.
We had 32 points in the paint, 6 off turnovers, 5 “second chance” points, 4 fast break points and 0 from the bench. Our opposition had 28 points in the paint, 6 off turnovers, 8 “second chance” points, 7 fast break points and 6 from the bench. We also had 39 of Pat’s “first chance points” (Total points minus second chance points, fast break points and made free throws) to 37. We lost this game on the boards.
We’ve led in PIP 17 times with 2 ties, POTO 17 times with 1 tie, FCP 16 times with a tie, SCP 14 times, FBP 14 times with 4 ties and BP 9 times, with 2 ties. For the season we are averaging 33-24 PIP, 16-11 POTO, 34-31 FCP, 12-11 SCP, 9-7 FBP and 9-15 BP.
We had 69 points, 32 in the paint, 12 from the arc and 21 from the line so we had 14 ”POP”, (points outside the paint: 69-32-21) and scored 2 points, (14 POP-12 from the arc), from what I’ll call the “Twilight Zone”: that area between the paint and the arc that is the land of the pull-up jump shot, a lost art but a great weapon. They had 59/28/18/7= 24 POP with 6 from the Twilight Zone. We’ve only led in POP 11 times but we’ve led in TZ points 14 times with 1 tie in 26 games. For the year we are averaging 23.5 POP and 8 TZ, our opposition 27/7. The game is so much easier when you don’t have to go to the basket for all your points. We didn’t win this game with jump shots.
16 of our 22 baskets were assisted (.727) and also 15 of their 23 (.652). For the year we are assisting on 62.2% of our baskets to 66.3% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 9 of 26 games, with one tie. Assists tend to come more often from jump shots than lay-ups or dunks so the more assists you get, the more you are settling for jump shots to try to win the game which is often a bad strategy.
You compute “Offensive Efficiency” by taking field goal attempts – offensive rebounds + turnovers plus 47.5% of free throws attempted and dividing that into the number of points. We were 47 FGA - 5 OREBs + 7 TOs + (.475 x 27) = 61.83 possessions. They were 54 -9+ 10+ (.475 x 14) = 61.65 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 62 possessions in which we scored 69 points, (1.113 points per possession) and 62 possessions in which they scored 59 points, (0.952). We have, of course, led 17 of 26 games in offensive efficiency since the winning team always leads in that stat. For the year we are averaging 1.032 points per possession to 0.938 for the opposition.
We had 124 combined possessions in this game. We’ve averaged 133 possessions this year. We averaged 122 last year, so the pace appears to be better than it was last season.
Hubert Davis once told us to “Get an offensive dude”. I decided to name an “Offensive Dude Of the Game, or an O-Dog, and use the hockey concept of points + assists. In this game Rakeem Christmas scored 29 points with 1 assist for 30 “hockey” points and thus was our ODOG- for the fourth straight game. He’s really developing into a star quality player and is making the defense pay for the extra attention on Rakeem. Rakeem Christmas has been the O-Dog 10 times, Michael Gbinije 8 times, Trevor Cooney 6 times, BJ Johnson, Kaleb Joseph and Chris McCullough once each.
Every other level of basketball plays quarters. To check the consistency of our performance, I look at what the score was at the 10 minute mark of each half to see what the quarterly scores would be. At a minimum, I think we want to score at least 15 points in each quarter and try to hold the opposition to less than that. The quarterly breakdown for this game 20-21, 8-11, 16-15, 25-12. For the season we have an average of 16-13, 17-14, 16-17, 19-18. We’ve won 61 of 104 quarters with 3 even. We’ve scored 15 or more in 69 quarters and held the opposition under that 50 times. This was a rare game that we won in the 4th quarter. Looking at the quarterly breaks, the second Virginia Tech game was the only other one where we needed our fourth quarter edge to win the game.
I also like to keep track who sits us down in each half. Besides being fun it gives an indication of who Coach B likes to design plays for since opening possessions are more likely to be scripted. Trevor Cooney opened with a trey at 19:28 and Tyler Roberson did the same at 19:00 of the second half. The longest we’d had to wait this year (5:02) was the first half against Miami. The average time we’ve had to wait is 1 minute 27 seconds. Rakeem Christmas has sat us down 14 times, Trevor Cooney 10 times, and Michael Gbinije 7 times, Kaleb Joseph 6 times, (more than you’d think), Tyler Roberson 6 times, and Chris McCullough 5 times.
Another fun fact is the “Taco Bell MVP”: the guy who gets us to 75 points so people can free, (or is it discounted?) tacos at Taco Bell. No Tacos in this one, Trevor needed to hit one of those threes he kept clanging. Michael Gbinije and Rakeem Christmas have twice got us Tacos, Trevor Cooney, BJ Johnson and Ron Patterson have done it each once. (I wonder how many point we have to score to get real meat in the tacos?) The longest we’ve had to wait after getting close to 75 points is 3:31.
FOULS
My theory about fouls is that the team that attempts the most two point shots and scores the most in the paint will tend to get fouled the most. If the numbers are as predicted or close, there’s nothing to be read into them but if there’s a big disparity, it makes you wonder about how the game was called.
In this game, we attempted 29 two point shots to 34, scored 32 points in the paint to 28 and got fouled 21 times to 12, (the refs let ‘em play), attempting 27 foul shots to 14. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled was 1.4 for us and 2.8 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled was 1.5 for us to 2.3 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team was 1.3 for us and 1.2 for them. The latter stat was skewed by their intentionally putting us the line at the end. But there's still quite a differense.
Last year we attempted 1368 two point shots to 993 for the opposition and scored 1028 PIP to 753. We committed 546 fouls to 598 and went to the line 720 to 607 times, suggesting that there should be a relationship between two points attempts and points in the point and how many fouls are called on the other team and how many times you got to the line. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled was 2.3 for us and 1.8 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled was 1.7 for us to 1.4 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team was 1.2 for us and 1.1 for them.
This year we have taken 1040 two point shots and scored 814 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 445 times and taken 510 free throws. Our opposition has taken 870 two point shots and scored 616 points in the paint. They’ve been fouled 384 times and taken only 428 free throws. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled has been 2.3 for us and 2.3 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled has been 1.8 for us to 1.6 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team has been 1.2 for us and 1.1 for them. So the officiating overall has been pretty even-handed.
“MY MAN”
A reporter once asked Casey Stengel how come he won so many games with the Yankees. He said “Because I never play a game without “my man”. The reporter wondered who his man was. Casey suggested “You could look it up.” The reporter did look it up and found that Yogi Berra had played in every game that season at some positon: catcher, left field, pinch-hitting, something. He was the player Stengel had the highest regard for and the most trust in, so he didn’t want to do without him.
Who is Jim Boeheim’s “man” this season? The only way to tell is to see who plays the most minutes each game. In this game Michael Gbinije and Trevor Cooney played all 40 minutes. We’ve had at least one player play the full game in each of the last 15 games and a total of 28 players have done so in that span. Trevor Cooney has been the “Man” 17 times, Rakeem Christmas and Michael Gbinije 9 times, Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph 4 times each and Tyler Roberson once. Cooney still leads the team in minutes played with 902, 87 more than any other player. Encouragingly, the guy in second place is Rakeem Christmas, who earlier had a problem staying in games because of excessive fouling.
The first thing I’ll look at is “NET POINTS”. The idea is that each statistic in the box score is arguably worth a point, (that is, somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5 points). A point is a point. Teams score an average of a point per possession so anything that gets you possession is a point. A missed shot will more often than not wind up in the possession of the other team. Most baskets are for two points so if the passer who set up the shot is given half credit, that’s worth a point. One half of the blocked shots will likely have gone in and they are almost always two pointers, so that’s a point. If you add up the “positives”, (points, + rebounds + assists + steals + blocks) and subtract the “negatives”, (missed field goals, missed free throws, turnovers and fouls), you have a number that summarizes a player’s statistical contributions to a game. Then, by averaging the net points per 40 minutes of play, you factor out differences in playing time and have a look at the player’s rate of production. Both are important. The game is won based on what you actually did, not the rate at which you did it. But the rate is a better measure of the skills you can bring to the game.
Of course, there are things players do both on and off the court that contribute to victory. Leadership, hard work, keeping the team loose, scrambling for loose balls, (that could be a statistic: when neither team is in control of the ball, who winds up with it?), sneaker-sneaker defense, keeping the ball moving on offense, etc. etc. My experience is that with rare exceptions, the players who are the most statistically productive are the ones who grade highest in the things not measured by statistics, as well.
Here are the NET POINTS of our scholarship player in the most recent game and their averages per 40 minutes of play for the season, (exhibitions games not included):
Rakeem Christmas 33NP in 35 minutes season: 513NP in 888 minutes per 40: 23.1
Michael Gbinije….. 23NP in 40 minutes season: 319NP in 858 minutes per 40: 14.9
Tyler Roberson……. 15NP in 37 minutes season: 234NP in 643 minutes per 40: 14.6
Ron Patterson…….. 4NP in 12 minutes season: 28NP in 330 minutes per 40: 3.4
Kaleb Joseph……….. 2NP in 28 minutes season: 151NP in 765 minutes per 40: 7.9
Trevor Cooney…… 2NP in 40 minutes season: 244NP in 982 minutes per 40: 9.9
Chinoso Obokoh….. -1NP in 5 minutes season: 14NP in 66 minutes per 40: 8.5
B. J. Johnson……….. -1NP in 3 minutes season: 58NP in 264 minutes per 40: 8.8
DNP-CD- none
INJURED
DaJuan Coleman…. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 0NP in 0 minutes per 40: 0.0
Chris McCullough.. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 171NP in 450 minutes per 40: 15.2
SUSPENDED
None
Comment: Rakeem Christmas came back like gang-busters from the poor game against Duke to have his best statistical game ever, making 20 of 23 shots from the field and the line. His 33 net points match Michael Gbinije’s season high from the previous game. Silent G had another great game including perhaps the best block I’ve ever seen. He’s playing with a astronomical degree of confidence. Tyler Roberson had another good game. If only he could make that jump shot. That’s the new “Big Three”. Trevor Cooney will have to play is way back into it. Then if Kaleb Jospeh realizes he doesn’t have a three point shot, we’ll have a pretty strong line-up.
Rakeem Christmas has led in net points 14 times, Mike Gbinije 5 times, Chris McCullough 4 times, Tyler Roberson 3 times, Trevor Cooney and BJ Johnson once.
POSSESSION
Before you can score you’ve got to get the rock. Syracuse had 5 offensive and 26 defensive rebounds. They had 9 offensive and 23 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 5 of 28 times, (17.9%). When they missed, they got the ball 9 of 35 times (25.7%). Only 14 of 63 rebounds were rebounded by the offensive team. We’ve won the rebounding battle by this measure 16 times in 25 games. For the year we’ve averaged getting 34.2% of our misses and our opposition has gotten 30.8% of theirs.
Effective offensive rebounding: Neither team did much offensive rebounding or did much with the ball once they got it. We got 5 second chance points off our 5 offensive rebounds, 1.00 points per rebound. They got 8 for their 9, 0.89. For the year we’ve averaged 1.02 points per offensive rebound: they’ve averaged 0.90. We’ve led in this stat 16 times in 26 games.
Of our 7 turnovers, 2 were their steals and 5 were our own miscues. Of their 10 turnovers, 6 were Syracuse steals and 4 were their fault. We’ve had fewer turnovers in 18 of 26 games with 2 even and fewer unforced turnovers in 12 games with 6 even. Last year we had fewer turnovers in 29 of 34 games with 2 even. We are averaging 12 turnovers, 6 unforced. Our opposition is averaging 15/6.
If you add our 31 rebounds to their 10 turnovers, we had 41 “manufactured possessions”. They had 32 + 7 = 39, so we were -2. We have won that battle 18 of 26 times with 1 even. For the season we’ve averaged 51 to 47 (+4).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 18 for 29, (.621) inside the arc, 4 for 18, (.222) outside it and 21 for 27, (.778) from the line. They were 17 for 34 (.500), 6/20 (.300) and 7/14 (.500). We’ve led in two point field goal percentage in 15 of 26 games, and in free throw percentage in 12 games (but only 6 times in the last 19). We’ve led in three point field goals percentage, believe it or not, in 15 games. For the season we are .493/.313/.656. Our opposition is .448/.310/.703. .621 is a tremendous inside the arc percentage and it overcame our poor outside shooting. To dominate inside like that against Louisville.
We had 32 points in the paint, 6 off turnovers, 5 “second chance” points, 4 fast break points and 0 from the bench. Our opposition had 28 points in the paint, 6 off turnovers, 8 “second chance” points, 7 fast break points and 6 from the bench. We also had 39 of Pat’s “first chance points” (Total points minus second chance points, fast break points and made free throws) to 37. We lost this game on the boards.
We’ve led in PIP 17 times with 2 ties, POTO 17 times with 1 tie, FCP 16 times with a tie, SCP 14 times, FBP 14 times with 4 ties and BP 9 times, with 2 ties. For the season we are averaging 33-24 PIP, 16-11 POTO, 34-31 FCP, 12-11 SCP, 9-7 FBP and 9-15 BP.
We had 69 points, 32 in the paint, 12 from the arc and 21 from the line so we had 14 ”POP”, (points outside the paint: 69-32-21) and scored 2 points, (14 POP-12 from the arc), from what I’ll call the “Twilight Zone”: that area between the paint and the arc that is the land of the pull-up jump shot, a lost art but a great weapon. They had 59/28/18/7= 24 POP with 6 from the Twilight Zone. We’ve only led in POP 11 times but we’ve led in TZ points 14 times with 1 tie in 26 games. For the year we are averaging 23.5 POP and 8 TZ, our opposition 27/7. The game is so much easier when you don’t have to go to the basket for all your points. We didn’t win this game with jump shots.
16 of our 22 baskets were assisted (.727) and also 15 of their 23 (.652). For the year we are assisting on 62.2% of our baskets to 66.3% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 9 of 26 games, with one tie. Assists tend to come more often from jump shots than lay-ups or dunks so the more assists you get, the more you are settling for jump shots to try to win the game which is often a bad strategy.
You compute “Offensive Efficiency” by taking field goal attempts – offensive rebounds + turnovers plus 47.5% of free throws attempted and dividing that into the number of points. We were 47 FGA - 5 OREBs + 7 TOs + (.475 x 27) = 61.83 possessions. They were 54 -9+ 10+ (.475 x 14) = 61.65 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 62 possessions in which we scored 69 points, (1.113 points per possession) and 62 possessions in which they scored 59 points, (0.952). We have, of course, led 17 of 26 games in offensive efficiency since the winning team always leads in that stat. For the year we are averaging 1.032 points per possession to 0.938 for the opposition.
We had 124 combined possessions in this game. We’ve averaged 133 possessions this year. We averaged 122 last year, so the pace appears to be better than it was last season.
Hubert Davis once told us to “Get an offensive dude”. I decided to name an “Offensive Dude Of the Game, or an O-Dog, and use the hockey concept of points + assists. In this game Rakeem Christmas scored 29 points with 1 assist for 30 “hockey” points and thus was our ODOG- for the fourth straight game. He’s really developing into a star quality player and is making the defense pay for the extra attention on Rakeem. Rakeem Christmas has been the O-Dog 10 times, Michael Gbinije 8 times, Trevor Cooney 6 times, BJ Johnson, Kaleb Joseph and Chris McCullough once each.
Every other level of basketball plays quarters. To check the consistency of our performance, I look at what the score was at the 10 minute mark of each half to see what the quarterly scores would be. At a minimum, I think we want to score at least 15 points in each quarter and try to hold the opposition to less than that. The quarterly breakdown for this game 20-21, 8-11, 16-15, 25-12. For the season we have an average of 16-13, 17-14, 16-17, 19-18. We’ve won 61 of 104 quarters with 3 even. We’ve scored 15 or more in 69 quarters and held the opposition under that 50 times. This was a rare game that we won in the 4th quarter. Looking at the quarterly breaks, the second Virginia Tech game was the only other one where we needed our fourth quarter edge to win the game.
I also like to keep track who sits us down in each half. Besides being fun it gives an indication of who Coach B likes to design plays for since opening possessions are more likely to be scripted. Trevor Cooney opened with a trey at 19:28 and Tyler Roberson did the same at 19:00 of the second half. The longest we’d had to wait this year (5:02) was the first half against Miami. The average time we’ve had to wait is 1 minute 27 seconds. Rakeem Christmas has sat us down 14 times, Trevor Cooney 10 times, and Michael Gbinije 7 times, Kaleb Joseph 6 times, (more than you’d think), Tyler Roberson 6 times, and Chris McCullough 5 times.
Another fun fact is the “Taco Bell MVP”: the guy who gets us to 75 points so people can free, (or is it discounted?) tacos at Taco Bell. No Tacos in this one, Trevor needed to hit one of those threes he kept clanging. Michael Gbinije and Rakeem Christmas have twice got us Tacos, Trevor Cooney, BJ Johnson and Ron Patterson have done it each once. (I wonder how many point we have to score to get real meat in the tacos?) The longest we’ve had to wait after getting close to 75 points is 3:31.
FOULS
My theory about fouls is that the team that attempts the most two point shots and scores the most in the paint will tend to get fouled the most. If the numbers are as predicted or close, there’s nothing to be read into them but if there’s a big disparity, it makes you wonder about how the game was called.
In this game, we attempted 29 two point shots to 34, scored 32 points in the paint to 28 and got fouled 21 times to 12, (the refs let ‘em play), attempting 27 foul shots to 14. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled was 1.4 for us and 2.8 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled was 1.5 for us to 2.3 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team was 1.3 for us and 1.2 for them. The latter stat was skewed by their intentionally putting us the line at the end. But there's still quite a differense.
Last year we attempted 1368 two point shots to 993 for the opposition and scored 1028 PIP to 753. We committed 546 fouls to 598 and went to the line 720 to 607 times, suggesting that there should be a relationship between two points attempts and points in the point and how many fouls are called on the other team and how many times you got to the line. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled was 2.3 for us and 1.8 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled was 1.7 for us to 1.4 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team was 1.2 for us and 1.1 for them.
This year we have taken 1040 two point shots and scored 814 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 445 times and taken 510 free throws. Our opposition has taken 870 two point shots and scored 616 points in the paint. They’ve been fouled 384 times and taken only 428 free throws. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled has been 2.3 for us and 2.3 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled has been 1.8 for us to 1.6 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team has been 1.2 for us and 1.1 for them. So the officiating overall has been pretty even-handed.
“MY MAN”
A reporter once asked Casey Stengel how come he won so many games with the Yankees. He said “Because I never play a game without “my man”. The reporter wondered who his man was. Casey suggested “You could look it up.” The reporter did look it up and found that Yogi Berra had played in every game that season at some positon: catcher, left field, pinch-hitting, something. He was the player Stengel had the highest regard for and the most trust in, so he didn’t want to do without him.
Who is Jim Boeheim’s “man” this season? The only way to tell is to see who plays the most minutes each game. In this game Michael Gbinije and Trevor Cooney played all 40 minutes. We’ve had at least one player play the full game in each of the last 15 games and a total of 28 players have done so in that span. Trevor Cooney has been the “Man” 17 times, Rakeem Christmas and Michael Gbinije 9 times, Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph 4 times each and Tyler Roberson once. Cooney still leads the team in minutes played with 902, 87 more than any other player. Encouragingly, the guy in second place is Rakeem Christmas, who earlier had a problem staying in games because of excessive fouling.
