a tale of two seasons

[OttoinGrotto]

But we won't know the tendencies of our ACC opponents by the same token.

They should be more worried about us than we are of them.

 

[AZOrange]

I think to a certain extent he is right; there aren't a lot of teams that have the magical ability to win lots of close games. (Actually, I know this is true in pro sports for sure; I haven't seen as much research on college sports, to be fair).

luck/fortune/magic are all pretty much the same thing to me. they dont exist at any level (or in this realm at all). there is a reason we won all those close games.

 

[AZOrange]

They should be more worried about us than we are of them.

It takes JB and staff about 24 hours to properly scout a team and know their tendencies...

 

[Knicks411]

luck/fortune/magic are all pretty much the same thing to me. they dont exist at any level (or in this realm at all). there is a reason we won all those close games.

It's harder to measure in college sports because the teams turn over so quickly, but in pro sports, it's rare that teams are consistently good in close games. Usually tends to regress back to 500 or so. Though I could see in college sports, since the kids aren't as seasoned athletes, that more players could be prone to "choking", for lack of a better term.

 

[longtimefan]

It would be interesting to see how those numbers would look for past SU teams. Intuitively, you would expect to see declines as you reach the tougher part of the schedule, but were the declines in those metrics as steep in past seasons? Also, how do the numbers for other top tier teams change as they start to play better competition?

The great majority of teams go out with a whimper, because of the single elimination tournaments everyone plays at the end of the season. Check records for the last 3 weeks of their seasons posted by Marquette, NDame, GTown among many others.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Any team that goes 34-3 and makes a living squeaking out wins in the last 2 months of the season needs a little luck. Keep telling yourself otherwise. Turning Stone would love your business.

When it happens that consistently, it's not luck. Go look at our record in games decided by less than 5 points last year. Then go look at that record over the last 10 years, and the last 20 years. Boeheim is grossly underrated as a bench coach. We do way better than .500 in close games historically.

 

[IthacaMatt]

but half court offense wasnt our downfall in the tournament. we lost to ohio state cuz we got killed on the boards (thanx fab melo), and the refs took us out of our game. we shot better from the field and from 3 than ohio st. our offense wasnt great in that game, but certainly not the reason we lost. although that stretch late in the 1st half where we took 4 or 5 straight contested jumpers still annoys the hell outta me.

Actually, despite getting killed on the boards and getting killed by the refs, we still could have won that game. Four turnovers in the last 6 possessions cost us the game. Probably our worst performance down the stretch all season, in terms of late game execution.

 

[moqui]

It would be interesting to see how those numbers would look for past SU teams. Intuitively, you would expect to see declines as you reach the tougher part of the schedule, but were the declines in those metrics as steep in past seasons? Also, how do the numbers for other top tier teams change as they start to play better competition?

here is what the split looks like for the 2010 team.

The immediate problem that comes to bear is how do you split the seasons? This year, it was obvious that the offense slowed down from Notre Dame on, so there was an easy split to make. It wasn't so clear in 2010. I chose to do the same First 20 games/Rest of the Season split, but that might not be a fair comparison. Maybe it should come half way through the BE schedule, or 1/3 of the way through; I don't know, and there won't be a strong theoretical reason for choosing a split, it will just be arbitrary.

But putting all that aside, the decline we saw in offensive production in 2010 was about 9% . . .the decline this year was 16%. The 2010 team was not as dependent on points of turnovers to begin with and on top of that suffered a smaller decline. It's too small a sample to draw any conclusions, but it supports my own bias that a low post scoring presence is essential . . . which, by the way, is why I prefer DC2 to NN and won't be bothered at all if the latter chooses another school.

 

[br801]

here is what the split looks like for the 2010 team.

The immediate problem that comes to bear is how do you split the seasons? This year, it was obvious that the offense slowed down from Notre Dame on, so there was an easy split to make. It wasn't so clear in 2010. I chose to do the same First 20 games/Rest of the Season split, but that might not be a fair comparison. Maybe it should come half way through the BE schedule, or 1/3 of the way through; I don't know, and there won't be a strong theoretical reason for choosing a split, it will just be arbitrary.

But putting all that aside, the decline we saw in offensive production in 2010 was about 9% . . .the decline this year was 16%. The 2010 team was not as dependent on points of turnovers to begin with and on top of that suffered a smaller decline. It's too small a sample to draw any conclusions, but it supports my own bias that a low post scoring presence is essential . . . which, by the way, is why I prefer DC2 to NN and won't be bothered at all if the latter chooses another school.

Thanks, moqui. That's interesting stuff and reinforces your original point about this year's team having an uncanny ability to win tight games.

I also agree with your last point on Coleman/Noel issue and the potential implications on next year's offense. Personally, I'm hoping Noel chooses another school. I could see Coleman, Noel and Christmas all potentially being unhappy with their minutes if they're all here next season. To me, one season of Noel isn't worth the trouble because I don't see him as having an Anthony Davis-like impact defensively or a Carmelo Anthony-like impact offensively. I'll gladly roll the dice with a front court of Coleman, Christmas, Keita, Southerland and Fair.