defensive decline

[moqui]

John Gasaway at Basketball Prospectus keeps track of & occasionally updates team numbers for offensive & defensive efficiency in conference only games (the most valuable subset, IMO, because the quality level of the opponents is high and consistent).

After 4 games, SU was tied for the second most efficient offense in the Big East at 1.09 ppp and had the 2nd best defense at 0.88 ppp

Dirty played in 3 of those first 4 games and has been out ever since. The conventional wisdom is that the Orange offense has struggled in his absence. However, after 7 games, the offense is still at 1.09 ppp, 2nd best in the conference. But the defense has slipped to 0.97 ppp, just barely better than the conference average and only 6th best in the conference.

I am sure there are other factors involved in this decline, but for 2 years I have maintained that Dirty was the best defensive forward on the squad, and this is evidence that we miss him more on that end than on the offensive side.

 

[ORRange]

I think James is a very good defender also, but this sample size is just too small to draw any conclusions like this. It's not like we've played enough teams in the league to justify much of anything. There are teams that slow the pace of a game verse teams that run alot. We haven't played enough of the teams yet to draw any solid conclusions regarding whether our defense is better with or without James. But I know that there isn't a forward to give Jerami a blow if he needs it but there was when James was playing. Jerami can't rest as much as James could. Tired legs effect defense.

 

[ROCorange]

Correct me if I'm worng, but those stats don't seem to account for differences in the quality of opponents, in which case you aren't really comparing apples to apples...First 4 games against Rutgers, USF, Prov and a Villanova team that hadn't yet hit its stride. Next 3 against Lville, Cincy and a much improved Nova. Seems to me like it had more to do with their improved offense than our declining defense.

 

[moqui]

Correct me if I'm worng, but those stats don't seem to account for differences in the quality of opponents, in which case you aren't really comparing apples to apples...First 4 games against Rutgers, USF, Prov and a Villanova team that hadn't yet hit its stride. Next 3 against Lville, Cincy and a much improved Nova. Seems to me like it had more to do with their improved offense than our declining defense.

that is certainly one of the other factors I alluded to . . . but it would be a much stronger point if our own offensive efficiency had declined, given that the latter teams are much better defensively than the first group were. I'm willing to admit that the first set could be an artifact of the USF game, you can get a bigger picture view by looking at the total season data. SU was #1 or #2 in defensive efficiency all year, but has declined steadily since James went out and is now at #9. It may just be coincidental, but Luke Winn did an analysis last year that showed James was the best defensive forward on a per possession basis, and it would be surprising if the team had kept up the same pace without him.

 

[Knicks411]

We've gotten killed on the glass since James went down; only kept Lville below 40% offensive rebounding%