SWC75
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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):
Michael Gbinije….. 33NP in 40 minutes season: 296NP in 818 minutes per 40: 14.5
Tyler Roberson……. 20NP in 38 minutes season: 219NP in 606 minutes per 40: 14.5
Trevor Cooney…… 8NP in 40 minutes season: 242NP in 942 minutes per 40: 10.3
Rakeem Christmas 7NP in 38 minutes season: 480NP in 853 minutes per 40: 22.5
Chinoso Obokoh….. -1NP in 2 minutes season: 15NP in 61 minutes per 40: 9.8
Ron Patterson…….. -1NP in 7 minutes season: 24NP in 318 minutes per 40: 3.0
B. J. Johnson……….. -2NP in 6 minutes season: 59NP in 261 minutes per 40: 9.0
Kaleb Joseph……….. -2NP in 29 minutes season: 149NP in 737 minutes per 40: 8.1
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: Michael Gbinje keeps having career games: they are coming to be the norm. His 33NP were a season high for the team. The other 30NP games were all by Rakeem Christmas : vs. 32 Long Beach State and 31 vs. Wake Forest and Holy Cross. Tyler Roberson is starting to make the opposition pay for double-teaming Rakeem. But two members of the “Big Three” had single digit net point games, (Okafor had 23NP to Rak’s 7), and the other four guys all ahd minus statistical contributions.
Rakeem Christmas has led in net points 13 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 13 offensive and 19 defensive rebounds. They had 13 offensive and 29 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 13 of 42 times, (31.0%). When they missed, they got the ball 13 of 32 times (40.6%). BC got one offensive rebound in the second half. We’ve won the rebounding battle by this measure 16 times in 25 games. For the year we’ve averaged getting 34.7% 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 11 second chance points off our 13 offensive rebounds, 0.87 points per rebound. They got 16 for their 13, 1.23. For the year we’ve averaged 1.02 points per offensive rebound: they’ve averaged 0.90. We’ve led in this stat 15 times in 25 games.
Of our 9 turnovers, 5 were their steals and 4 were our own miscues. Of their 15 turnovers, 8 were Syracuse steals and 7 were their fault. We’ve had fewer turnovers in 17 of 25 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. We had single digit turnovers in 5 of our first 6 ACC games and this was the first time since then.
If you add our 32 rebounds to their 15 turnovers, we had 47 “manufactured possessions”. They had 42 + 9 = 52, so we were -5. We have won that battle 17 of 25 times with 1 even. For the season we’ve averaged 52 to 47 (+5).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 21 for 45, (.467) inside the arc, 8 for 22, (.364) outside it and 6 for 13, (.462) from the line. They were 20 for 42 (.476), 7/15 (.467) and 19/22 (.864). We’ve led in two point field goal percentage in 14 of 25 games, and in free throw percentage in 11 games (but only 5 times in the last 18). We’ve led in three point field goals percentage, believe it or not, in 15 games. For the season we are .489/.317/.650. Our opposition is .447/.319/.710.
We had 38 points in the paint, 10 off turnovers, 11 “second chance” points, 18 fast break points and 0 from the bench. Our opposition had 40 points in the paint, 5 off turnovers, 16 “second chance” points, 16 fast break points and 15 from the bench. We also had 37 of Pat’s “first chance points” (Total points minus second chance points, fast break points and made free throws) to 29. We lost this game on the boards.
We’ve led in PIP 16 times with 2 ties, POTO 17 times, FCP 15 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 72 points, 38 in the paint, 24 from the arc and 6 from the line so we had 28 ”POP”, (points outside the paint: 72-38-6) and scored 4 points, (28 POP-24 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 80/40/21/19= 21 POP with 0 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 25 games. For the year we are averaging 24 POP and 9 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. At least 15 of our 28 POP came from Michael Gbinije’s 5 three pointers, (in a row), so winning that stat was more of an individual triumph than a team one.
15 of our 29 baskets were assisted (.517) and also 19 of their 27 (.704). For the year we are assisting on 61.8% of our baskets to 66.3% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 8 of 25 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. We’ve lost this stat 7 times in a row.
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 67 FGA - 13 OREBs + 9 TOs + (.475 x 13) = 69.175 possessions. They were 57 -13+ 15+ (.475 x 22) = 69.45 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 69 possessions in which we scored 72 points, (1.043) and 69 possessions in which they scored 80 points, (1.159). We have, of course, led 16 of 25 games in offensive efficiency since the winning team always leads in that stat. For the year we are averaging 1.029 points per possession to 0.937 for the opposition. We’re used to our problems being on offense but right now our biggest problem is that we aren’t a very defensive team, at least compared to previous SU teams.
We had 138 combined possessions in this game. We’ve averaged 134 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 Michael Gbinije was scored 27 points with 4 assists for 31 “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 9 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 18-16, 21-20, 11-25, 22-19. For the season we have an average of 16-13, 17-14, 16-17, 19-18. We’ve won 59 of 100 quarters with 3 even. We’ve scored 15 or more in 66 quarters and held the opposition under that 48 times. Our quarterly averages didn’t change for the first time this season. We lost the game in the third quarter, which has been our worst.
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. Tyler Roberson ended our opening draught with a lay-up at 17:29 and did the same at 17:33 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 9 times, and Michael Gbinije and Tyler Roberson 7 times, Kaleb Joseph 6 times, (more than you’d think) 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 45 two point shots to 42, scored 38 points in the paint to 40 and got fouled 16 times to 17, (the refs let ‘em play), attempting 13 foul shots to 22. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled was 2.8 for us and 2.5 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled was 2.4 for us to 2.4 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team was 0.8 for us and 1.3 for them. The latter stat was skewed by our intentionally putting them on the line at the end.
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 1.1 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 14 games and a total of 26 players have done so in that span. Trevor Cooney has been the “Man” 16 times, Rakeem Christmas 9 times, Michael Gbinije 8 times, Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph 4 times each and Tyler Roberson once. Cooney still leads the team in minutes played with 942, 89 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):
Michael Gbinije….. 33NP in 40 minutes season: 296NP in 818 minutes per 40: 14.5
Tyler Roberson……. 20NP in 38 minutes season: 219NP in 606 minutes per 40: 14.5
Trevor Cooney…… 8NP in 40 minutes season: 242NP in 942 minutes per 40: 10.3
Rakeem Christmas 7NP in 38 minutes season: 480NP in 853 minutes per 40: 22.5
Chinoso Obokoh….. -1NP in 2 minutes season: 15NP in 61 minutes per 40: 9.8
Ron Patterson…….. -1NP in 7 minutes season: 24NP in 318 minutes per 40: 3.0
B. J. Johnson……….. -2NP in 6 minutes season: 59NP in 261 minutes per 40: 9.0
Kaleb Joseph……….. -2NP in 29 minutes season: 149NP in 737 minutes per 40: 8.1
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: Michael Gbinje keeps having career games: they are coming to be the norm. His 33NP were a season high for the team. The other 30NP games were all by Rakeem Christmas : vs. 32 Long Beach State and 31 vs. Wake Forest and Holy Cross. Tyler Roberson is starting to make the opposition pay for double-teaming Rakeem. But two members of the “Big Three” had single digit net point games, (Okafor had 23NP to Rak’s 7), and the other four guys all ahd minus statistical contributions.
Rakeem Christmas has led in net points 13 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 13 offensive and 19 defensive rebounds. They had 13 offensive and 29 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 13 of 42 times, (31.0%). When they missed, they got the ball 13 of 32 times (40.6%). BC got one offensive rebound in the second half. We’ve won the rebounding battle by this measure 16 times in 25 games. For the year we’ve averaged getting 34.7% 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 11 second chance points off our 13 offensive rebounds, 0.87 points per rebound. They got 16 for their 13, 1.23. For the year we’ve averaged 1.02 points per offensive rebound: they’ve averaged 0.90. We’ve led in this stat 15 times in 25 games.
Of our 9 turnovers, 5 were their steals and 4 were our own miscues. Of their 15 turnovers, 8 were Syracuse steals and 7 were their fault. We’ve had fewer turnovers in 17 of 25 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. We had single digit turnovers in 5 of our first 6 ACC games and this was the first time since then.
If you add our 32 rebounds to their 15 turnovers, we had 47 “manufactured possessions”. They had 42 + 9 = 52, so we were -5. We have won that battle 17 of 25 times with 1 even. For the season we’ve averaged 52 to 47 (+5).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 21 for 45, (.467) inside the arc, 8 for 22, (.364) outside it and 6 for 13, (.462) from the line. They were 20 for 42 (.476), 7/15 (.467) and 19/22 (.864). We’ve led in two point field goal percentage in 14 of 25 games, and in free throw percentage in 11 games (but only 5 times in the last 18). We’ve led in three point field goals percentage, believe it or not, in 15 games. For the season we are .489/.317/.650. Our opposition is .447/.319/.710.
We had 38 points in the paint, 10 off turnovers, 11 “second chance” points, 18 fast break points and 0 from the bench. Our opposition had 40 points in the paint, 5 off turnovers, 16 “second chance” points, 16 fast break points and 15 from the bench. We also had 37 of Pat’s “first chance points” (Total points minus second chance points, fast break points and made free throws) to 29. We lost this game on the boards.
We’ve led in PIP 16 times with 2 ties, POTO 17 times, FCP 15 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 72 points, 38 in the paint, 24 from the arc and 6 from the line so we had 28 ”POP”, (points outside the paint: 72-38-6) and scored 4 points, (28 POP-24 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 80/40/21/19= 21 POP with 0 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 25 games. For the year we are averaging 24 POP and 9 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. At least 15 of our 28 POP came from Michael Gbinije’s 5 three pointers, (in a row), so winning that stat was more of an individual triumph than a team one.
15 of our 29 baskets were assisted (.517) and also 19 of their 27 (.704). For the year we are assisting on 61.8% of our baskets to 66.3% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 8 of 25 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. We’ve lost this stat 7 times in a row.
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 67 FGA - 13 OREBs + 9 TOs + (.475 x 13) = 69.175 possessions. They were 57 -13+ 15+ (.475 x 22) = 69.45 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 69 possessions in which we scored 72 points, (1.043) and 69 possessions in which they scored 80 points, (1.159). We have, of course, led 16 of 25 games in offensive efficiency since the winning team always leads in that stat. For the year we are averaging 1.029 points per possession to 0.937 for the opposition. We’re used to our problems being on offense but right now our biggest problem is that we aren’t a very defensive team, at least compared to previous SU teams.
We had 138 combined possessions in this game. We’ve averaged 134 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 Michael Gbinije was scored 27 points with 4 assists for 31 “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 9 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 18-16, 21-20, 11-25, 22-19. For the season we have an average of 16-13, 17-14, 16-17, 19-18. We’ve won 59 of 100 quarters with 3 even. We’ve scored 15 or more in 66 quarters and held the opposition under that 48 times. Our quarterly averages didn’t change for the first time this season. We lost the game in the third quarter, which has been our worst.
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. Tyler Roberson ended our opening draught with a lay-up at 17:29 and did the same at 17:33 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 9 times, and Michael Gbinije and Tyler Roberson 7 times, Kaleb Joseph 6 times, (more than you’d think) 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 45 two point shots to 42, scored 38 points in the paint to 40 and got fouled 16 times to 17, (the refs let ‘em play), attempting 13 foul shots to 22. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled was 2.8 for us and 2.5 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled was 2.4 for us to 2.4 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team was 0.8 for us and 1.3 for them. The latter stat was skewed by our intentionally putting them on the line at the end.
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 1.1 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 14 games and a total of 26 players have done so in that span. Trevor Cooney has been the “Man” 16 times, Rakeem Christmas 9 times, Michael Gbinije 8 times, Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph 4 times each and Tyler Roberson once. Cooney still leads the team in minutes played with 942, 89 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.