Game pace and efficiency

[STEVEHOLT]

We are 19-0 and on a roll. The team has been money down the stretch of game after game. Of course if we just sing the praises of the team (which they deserve) there would be nothing to discuss.

So im going to ask you guys for a little pot stirring.

Yesterday, we dominated almost the entire first half. at one point were up, i believe, 26 to 8. We had more the tripled the opponents score yet were not even up 20 pts.

I was thinking to myself..."self..we look awesome today...we are hitting our threes, we are getting to the line..we are rebounding the crap out of the ball..we are not turing the ball over...yet somehow we only have 26 points with just a few minutes left in the half!????What is up with that? what if we werent playing so well?"

Then , of course...we started to not play so well..and miami cam roaring back.. fact of the matter is..an 18 point lead in the first half on the road, isnt impossible to overcome.

which leads me to the question..does the pace at which we play...and the pace our opponents seem to want to play vs us..leave us vulnerable to inferior teams who only need a relatively short run of effective play to keep the game close..due to games played with relatively few overall possessions?

 

[OrangeFoo]

In a word, yes. When you have more talent than the other team you typically want to increase the number of possessions to give your talent more opportunities to shine. Up until this year and last to a certain extent SU teams have been known for having a dominant transition game that could turn a 8/10 point game into a 20 point blowout. We have to work so gars for our points now so we are not really able to blow teams out. I would really love to know whether this is on Ennis or JB because we have opportunities to break which we don't take.

I wonder if JB is using years run where our D won games in spite of our O as the new model. 99% of the teams we play aren't good enough to execute against our D consistently so shortening the game does work but look out for teams with equal talent.

 

[mark79]

To an extent our current style trades explosiveness for consistency. While teams of years past were incredibly explosive they also did not have the kind of half court efficiency that this team has. I actually think this style may be better for the tournament. I hope I am right.

 

[scottynguyen]

I'm loving the ride, love this team. But I'd be lying if I said our snail-pace doesn't worry me for the reasons stated above.

 

[RF2044]

To an extent our current style trades explosiveness for consistency. While teams of years past were incredibly explosive they also did not have the kind of half court efficiency that this team has. I actually think this style may be better for the tournament. I hope I am right.

Good post.

 

[007]

To an extent our current style trades explosiveness for consistency. While teams of years past were incredibly explosive they also did not have the kind of half court efficiency that this team has. I actually think this style may be better for the tournament. I hope I am right.

Dead on, IMO. And, I think that Ennis's ability to settle the offense and run effective, efficient half court sets is the key reason for this trend. As good as MCW is as a pro, if he was running the current O I think we would struggle to score in half court sets when the break was not there. Similar to what happened last year.

 

[Shrmdougluvr]

To an extent our current style trades explosiveness for consistency. While teams of years past were incredibly explosive they also did not have the kind of half court efficiency that this team has. I actually think this style may be better for the tournament. I hope I am right.

Is this team more consistent? Someone more statistically oriented then me can probably answer this question. I think offensively, this team pales in comparison to our last two "elite" teams - 2009-10 and 2011-12. I love seeing runs such as the one the team made yesterday early on. That, to me, is where you really get a sense of the team's ceiling. When the 2011-12 team went on that run at NC State (never seen anything like it), you just knew that team had the talent to win it all. It's tough to make those runs without some easy buckets in transition.

I think this also plays into the whole "short bench" discussions. I suppose philosophically, i would much rather discover the team's ceiling (which to me requires playing guys like Robeson and Johnson more) than fret about the team's floor (we all get we arent as good with Gbinije and Robeson out there). Maybe Boeheim, in all his year's of experience, already knows the team's ceiling. I'm not sure where it is. But the lack of transition and slow play doesnt exactly inspire confidence.

i love how this team finishes out games. But candidly, SU's talent level is superior. They should be able to close out lesser foes.

 

[RF2044]

Is this team more consistent? Someone more statistically oriented then me can probably answer this question. I think offensively, this team pales in comparison to our last two "elite" teams - 2009-10 and 2011-12. I love seeing runs such as the one the team made yesterday early on. That, to me, is where you really get a sense of the team's ceiling. When the 2011-12 team went on that run at NC State (never seen anything like it), you just knew that team had the talent to win it all. So

I think this also plays into the whole "short bench" discussions. I suppose philosophically, i would much rather discover the team's ceiling (which to me requires playing guys like Robeson and Johnson more) than fret about the team's floor (we all get we arent as good with Gbinije and Robeson out there). Maybe Boeheim, in all his year's of experience, already knows the team's ceiling. I'm not sure where it is. But the lack of transition and slow play doesnt exactly inspire confidence.

i love how this team finishes out games. But candidly, SU's talent level is superior. They should be able to close out lesser foes.

I'm not sure I agree, and I don't think that the data supports your view. Consider the 2012 comparison. That team had ZERO inside scoring. None. And we weren't really that good of a three point shooting team--we could certainly get streaky hot, but not as good as, say the 2010 team. That 2012 squad more than made up for it by forcing turnovers and getting out in transition. Getting easy scoring opportunities on run outs helped mask the relatively poor half court offense we had that year [as well as offsetting poor team rebounding].

No doubt, the 2012 team was explosive, and could put up a lot of points in a hurry. Not to mention, bury teams that wanted to press and speed the game up.

Last year's team was similar, albeit without quite the same talent level. We were at our best running, but struggled IMMENSELY to run half court sets. Sometimes, our offensive execution last year was painful to watch.

This year's team demonstrates very solid in terms of offensive efficiency, and executes half court offensive sets better than the preceding two teams. I'm not even sure that this can be debated. It isn't about playing slow; its about maximizing what you do--and many of the advanced metrics attest that this team is very solid offensively.

Lastly, I've seen a lot of posts the past few days lamenting that we don't blow teams out. Anyone who has watched JB coached teams over the years know that we tend not to get as many blowouts as other elite teams, primarily because Boeheim looks to shorten games that are close. Makes for some closer outcomes than many [including often myself] would prefer. But 98 out of 100 times it results in a "W," which is all JB cares about. No such thing as style points.


PS--I think that the 2010 team was the "best" offensive squad we've ever had. We had it all--inside scoring, size, depth, multiple outside shooters, etc. That team's Achilles heel was that we turned it over too much. But in terms of offensive execution, 2010 was a thing of beauty.

 

[Jack Hall]

Is this team more consistent? Someone more statistically oriented then me can probably answer this question. I think offensively, this team pales in comparison to our last two "elite" teams - 2009-10 and 2011-12. I love seeing runs such as the one the team made yesterday early on. That, to me, is where you really get a sense of the team's ceiling. When the 2011-12 team went on that run at NC State (never seen anything like it), you just knew that team had the talent to win it all. It's tough to make those runs without some easy buckets in transition.

I think this also plays into the whole "short bench" discussions. I suppose philosophically, i would much rather discover the team's ceiling (which to me requires playing guys like Robeson and Johnson more) than fret about the team's floor (we all get we arent as good with Gbinije and Robeson out there). Maybe Boeheim, in all his year's of experience, already knows the team's ceiling. I'm not sure where it is. But the lack of transition and slow play doesnt exactly inspire confidence.

i love how this team finishes out games. But candidly, SU's talent level is superior. They should be able to close out lesser foes.

i agree on short bench discussion. tough to play at a high pace for 40 mins w a short bench like we have had. JB was quoted in PS as saying the bench has to play better. backing up why he has used a short bench. i actually think JB is fine w a slower paced game given that we have a short bench. and it has worked so far, 19-0

 

[Jack Hall]

i agree on short bench discussion. tough to play at a high pace for 40 mins w a short bench like we have had. JB was quoted in PS as saying the bench has to play better. backing up why he has used a short bench. i actually think JB is fine w a slower paced game given that we have a short bench. and it has worked so far, 19-0

and when you dont play at a fast pace its going to be tougher obviously to land the knock out punch and blow people out

 

[Cuse315Pat]

The only time we take a quick shot in the half court offense is when we get an offensive rebound. Otherwise, we spend 20+ seconds moving the ball every time it seems. Unless Cooney is open for a 3 ofcourse.

 

[Knicks411]

If the season ended today (which I dont believe it does) this would be, by a pretty decent margin, the best offensive efficiency we've had since Ken Pom started tracking it, about 3.5 points per 100 possessions better than 2012.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

If the season ended today (which I dont believe it does) this would be, by a pretty decent margin, the best offensive efficiency we've had since Ken Pom started tracking it, about 3.5 points per 100 possessions better than 2012.

Where is the sweet spot with regards to efficiency relative to pace? You dont win because you were more efficient. You win because you score more points.

I think that is what we need to find out by the end of the regular season . How much efficiency do we sacrifice in pursuit of increased pace / higher point totals?

conversely..

should we slow the pace down even more and try to be that much more efficient?

 

[SUskibum]

To me it all comes down to points per possession and points allowed per possession, along with # of possessions. The goal is to maximize your possession differential and productivity during those possessions. Whatever style/pace for any given team that maximizes the difference in those two numbers is the style/pace that the team should play at.

Anybody have the points per possession numbers for 2010 and 2003? People don't talk about being fantastic that year in offense but I seem to recall being very good in the half court similar to this year. I could be remembering wrong though, happens to me quite a bit.

 

[supp]

We are 19-0 and on a roll. The team has been money down the stretch of game after game. Of course if we just sing the praises of the team (which they deserve) there would be nothing to discuss.

So im going to ask you guys for a little pot stirring.

Yesterday, we dominated almost the entire first half. at one point were up, i believe, 26 to 8. We had more the tripled the opponents score yet were not even up 20 pts.

I was thinking to myself..."self..we look awesome today...we are hitting our threes, we are getting to the line..we are rebounding the crap out of the ball..we are not turing the ball over...yet somehow we only have 26 points with just a few minutes left in the half!????What is up with that? what if we werent playing so well?"

Then , of course...we started to not play so well..and miami cam roaring back.. fact of the matter is..an 18 point lead in the first half on the road, isnt impossible to overcome.

which leads me to the question..does the pace at which we play...and the pace our opponents seem to want to play vs us..leave us vulnerable to inferior teams who only need a relatively short run of effective play to keep the game close..due to games played with relatively few overall possessions?

Not sure offensive efficiency always tells the story. After that torrid start, SU scored a total of 15 points over the next 20 game minutes or so (from about 8:30 in the 1st half to 11:30 in the second half). How efficient is that? This team has a tendency to lose focus, rhythm, mojo...whatever you want to call it...for long stretches at a time. They've bounced back well thus far but it's gotta catch up to them, no? And I'm not sure what you can do about it. At least mistakes are limited. How many times have we had a game with less than 10 TOs this year? We must be nearing double digits. But we just get very few easy points in our games. Everything is earned. In the past, a fast break or two would sometimes help to break a cold streak. Can't really rely on that. We just have to play through it.