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):
Chris McCullough.. 22NP in 29 minutes season: 92NP in 162 minutes per 40: 22.7
Rakeem Christmas 18NP in 30 minutes season: 78NP in 143 minutes per 40: 21.8
B. J. Johnson……….. 12NP in 31 minutes season: 45NP in 96 minutes per 40: 18.7
Kaleb Joseph……….. 12NP in 37 minutes season: 35NP in 162 minutes per 40: 8.6
Trevor Cooney…… 10NP in 27 minutes season: 46NP in 168 minutes per 40: 11.0
Chinoso Obokoh….. 6NP in 12 minutes season: 8NP in 24 minutes per 40: 13.3
Ron Patterson…….. 2NP in 14 minutes season: 5NP in 54 minutes per 40: 3.7
Michael Gbinije….. 0NP in 20 minutes season: 19NP in 104 minutes per 40: 7.3
DNP-CD- none
INJURED
DaJuan Coleman…. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 0NP in 0minutes per 40: 0.0
Tyler Roberson……. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 26NP in 83 minutes per 40: 12.1
SUSPENDED
None
Comment: I had wondered if Chris McCullough would be an immediate star, as some had projected. Maybe “star” exaggerates it a bit but the word may underestimate his importance to the team. He and Christmas have become its twin pillars. Chris has led the team in NP three games in a row. Rak has led once and BJ Johnson once. Johnson’s big numbers are the residue of his game vs. Kenesaw State when he had 19 points and 8 rebounds. His net point average will remain sky high until he gets more playing time, as he likely will in the next couple of games. But after that he could be the classic reserve with a high average who remains there because he isn’t playing much, (as such he might be up for the Eric Williams award if there was one). Trevor Cooney has had a couple of decent games in a row, despite missing 10 of 14 three-pointers. Keep in mind that when he’s not in there that guy who is always chasing him around is available to defend other players or areas. Observers also saw that he was trying to exert more aggressive leadership on the court. Boeheim, per his press conference, is most disappointed in the play of Michael Gbinje so far. He seems active but not as efficient as he needs to be.
POSSESSION
Before you can score you’ve got to get the rock. Syracuse had 15 offensive and 21 defensive rebounds. They had 9 offensive and 31 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 15 of 46 times, (32.6%). When they missed, they got the ball 9 of 30 times (30.0%). We’ve averaged getting 37.7% of our misses and our opposition has gotten 26.2% of theirs. It was not a big game for offensive rebounding, which is why the second chance points were only 12-6.
Of our 12 turnovers, 7 were their steals and 8 were our own miscues. Of their 19 turnovers, 10 were Syracuse steals and 9 were their fault. We are averaging 12 turnovers, 6 unforced. Our opposition is averaging 18/8.
If you add our 40 rebounds to their 19 turnovers, we had 59 “manufactured possessions”. They had 36 + 12= 48, so we were +11. We haven’t lost that battle this season. For the season we’ve averaged 60 to 46 (+14).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 25 for 40, (.625) inside the arc, 2 for 12, (.167) outside it and 14 for 24 (.583) from the line. They were 3 for 24- the stat of the game- (.125), 7/28 (.250) and 10/19 (.526). For the season we are .507/.234/.637. Our opposition is .406/.277/.600.
We had 42 points in the paint, 21 off turnovers, 12 “second chance” points, 25 fast break points and 8 from the bench. Our opposition had 6 points in the paint, 9 off turnovers, 6 “second chance” points, 7 fast break points and 2 from the bench. For the season we are averaging 35-20 points in the paint, 20-9 off turnovers, 13-8 “second chance” points, 12-7 fast break points and 13-9 from the bench.
We had 70 points, 42 in the paint, 6 from the arc and 14 from the line so we had 14”POP”, (points outside the paint: 70-42-14) and scored 8 points, (14 POP- 6 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 37/6/21/10= 21 POP and 0 points- nothing- in the Twilight Zone. For the year we are averaging 22 POP and 11TZ, our opposition 24/6. The game is so much easier when you don’t have to go to the basket for all your points.
20 of our 27 baskets were assisted (.741) and 7 of their 10 (.700). For the year we are assisting on 61.4% of our baskets to 67.4% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 4 of 5 games. 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. But you can also get a high percentage of assists if you get out and run, which is what we did against Loyola and is something this team will have to do this year to get it’s points.
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 52 FGA - 9 OREBs + 12 TOs + (.475 x 24) = 66.4 possessions. They were 52 -15+ 19+ (.475 x 190) = 65.025 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 66 possessions in which we scored 70 points, (1.061) and 65 possessions in which they scored 37 points, (0.569). We had 131 combined possession in this game. We’ve averaged 136 this year. We averaged 122 last year, so the pace appears to be better than it was last year. We’ll see if that holds up as the season goes along and the opposition gets tougher.
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 18 points and had 2 assists for 20 “hockey points”. He is our O-Dog for this game. Rakeem Christmas has been the O-Dog twice, 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 14-0, 14-16, 22-10, 20-11. The average for the season is: 15-10, 16-12, 17-13, 20-15. We’ve won 15 of 20 quarters. We’ve scored 15 or more in 14 quarters and held the opposition under that 13 times.
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 than those later in the game, (although sometimes we don’t score until later). In this game Kaleb Jospeh sat us down both times, with a dunk at 17:08 of the first half and a jumper at 19:48 of the second half. The first was the longest we’ve waited this season. (If we were Loyola fans, we’d have been standing and clapping for 11 minutes and 30 second in the first half and 7 minutes and 51 seconds in the second half. And that doesn’t include time outs. Would we still have been Loyola fans?) Rakeem Christmas has sat us down 4 times, Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph 3 times.
FOULS
My theory about fouls is that the team that attempts the most two point shots 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 40 two point shots to 24, scored 42 points in the paint to 6 and got fouled 20 times to 15, attempting 24 foul shots to 19. They got to foul line for a team whose whole offense is three pointers but we fouled a couple of times on them. 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. This year we have taken 227 two point shots and scored 186 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 92 times and taken 102 free throws. Our opposition has taken 162 two point shots and scored 100 points in the paint. They’ve been fouled 74 times and taken only 70 free throws. That seems fairly balanced, overall.
“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 idd 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, it was, for the first time, our point guard, Kaleb Joseph with 37 minutes. Chris McCullough and Trevor Cooney have been the “Man” twice each, Kaleb Joseph once. Cooney has played the most minutes (168) for the season. JB likes the fact that the opposition always has to have one guy chasing him the whole game- one guy who can’t help guard anyone else.
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):
Chris McCullough.. 22NP in 29 minutes season: 92NP in 162 minutes per 40: 22.7
Rakeem Christmas 18NP in 30 minutes season: 78NP in 143 minutes per 40: 21.8
B. J. Johnson……….. 12NP in 31 minutes season: 45NP in 96 minutes per 40: 18.7
Kaleb Joseph……….. 12NP in 37 minutes season: 35NP in 162 minutes per 40: 8.6
Trevor Cooney…… 10NP in 27 minutes season: 46NP in 168 minutes per 40: 11.0
Chinoso Obokoh….. 6NP in 12 minutes season: 8NP in 24 minutes per 40: 13.3
Ron Patterson…….. 2NP in 14 minutes season: 5NP in 54 minutes per 40: 3.7
Michael Gbinije….. 0NP in 20 minutes season: 19NP in 104 minutes per 40: 7.3
DNP-CD- none
INJURED
DaJuan Coleman…. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 0NP in 0minutes per 40: 0.0
Tyler Roberson……. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 26NP in 83 minutes per 40: 12.1
SUSPENDED
None
Comment: I had wondered if Chris McCullough would be an immediate star, as some had projected. Maybe “star” exaggerates it a bit but the word may underestimate his importance to the team. He and Christmas have become its twin pillars. Chris has led the team in NP three games in a row. Rak has led once and BJ Johnson once. Johnson’s big numbers are the residue of his game vs. Kenesaw State when he had 19 points and 8 rebounds. His net point average will remain sky high until he gets more playing time, as he likely will in the next couple of games. But after that he could be the classic reserve with a high average who remains there because he isn’t playing much, (as such he might be up for the Eric Williams award if there was one). Trevor Cooney has had a couple of decent games in a row, despite missing 10 of 14 three-pointers. Keep in mind that when he’s not in there that guy who is always chasing him around is available to defend other players or areas. Observers also saw that he was trying to exert more aggressive leadership on the court. Boeheim, per his press conference, is most disappointed in the play of Michael Gbinje so far. He seems active but not as efficient as he needs to be.
POSSESSION
Before you can score you’ve got to get the rock. Syracuse had 15 offensive and 21 defensive rebounds. They had 9 offensive and 31 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 15 of 46 times, (32.6%). When they missed, they got the ball 9 of 30 times (30.0%). We’ve averaged getting 37.7% of our misses and our opposition has gotten 26.2% of theirs. It was not a big game for offensive rebounding, which is why the second chance points were only 12-6.
Of our 12 turnovers, 7 were their steals and 8 were our own miscues. Of their 19 turnovers, 10 were Syracuse steals and 9 were their fault. We are averaging 12 turnovers, 6 unforced. Our opposition is averaging 18/8.
If you add our 40 rebounds to their 19 turnovers, we had 59 “manufactured possessions”. They had 36 + 12= 48, so we were +11. We haven’t lost that battle this season. For the season we’ve averaged 60 to 46 (+14).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 25 for 40, (.625) inside the arc, 2 for 12, (.167) outside it and 14 for 24 (.583) from the line. They were 3 for 24- the stat of the game- (.125), 7/28 (.250) and 10/19 (.526). For the season we are .507/.234/.637. Our opposition is .406/.277/.600.
We had 42 points in the paint, 21 off turnovers, 12 “second chance” points, 25 fast break points and 8 from the bench. Our opposition had 6 points in the paint, 9 off turnovers, 6 “second chance” points, 7 fast break points and 2 from the bench. For the season we are averaging 35-20 points in the paint, 20-9 off turnovers, 13-8 “second chance” points, 12-7 fast break points and 13-9 from the bench.
We had 70 points, 42 in the paint, 6 from the arc and 14 from the line so we had 14”POP”, (points outside the paint: 70-42-14) and scored 8 points, (14 POP- 6 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 37/6/21/10= 21 POP and 0 points- nothing- in the Twilight Zone. For the year we are averaging 22 POP and 11TZ, our opposition 24/6. The game is so much easier when you don’t have to go to the basket for all your points.
20 of our 27 baskets were assisted (.741) and 7 of their 10 (.700). For the year we are assisting on 61.4% of our baskets to 67.4% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 4 of 5 games. 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. But you can also get a high percentage of assists if you get out and run, which is what we did against Loyola and is something this team will have to do this year to get it’s points.
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 52 FGA - 9 OREBs + 12 TOs + (.475 x 24) = 66.4 possessions. They were 52 -15+ 19+ (.475 x 190) = 65.025 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 66 possessions in which we scored 70 points, (1.061) and 65 possessions in which they scored 37 points, (0.569). We had 131 combined possession in this game. We’ve averaged 136 this year. We averaged 122 last year, so the pace appears to be better than it was last year. We’ll see if that holds up as the season goes along and the opposition gets tougher.
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 18 points and had 2 assists for 20 “hockey points”. He is our O-Dog for this game. Rakeem Christmas has been the O-Dog twice, 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 14-0, 14-16, 22-10, 20-11. The average for the season is: 15-10, 16-12, 17-13, 20-15. We’ve won 15 of 20 quarters. We’ve scored 15 or more in 14 quarters and held the opposition under that 13 times.
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 than those later in the game, (although sometimes we don’t score until later). In this game Kaleb Jospeh sat us down both times, with a dunk at 17:08 of the first half and a jumper at 19:48 of the second half. The first was the longest we’ve waited this season. (If we were Loyola fans, we’d have been standing and clapping for 11 minutes and 30 second in the first half and 7 minutes and 51 seconds in the second half. And that doesn’t include time outs. Would we still have been Loyola fans?) Rakeem Christmas has sat us down 4 times, Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph 3 times.
FOULS
My theory about fouls is that the team that attempts the most two point shots 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 40 two point shots to 24, scored 42 points in the paint to 6 and got fouled 20 times to 15, attempting 24 foul shots to 19. They got to foul line for a team whose whole offense is three pointers but we fouled a couple of times on them. 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. This year we have taken 227 two point shots and scored 186 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 92 times and taken 102 free throws. Our opposition has taken 162 two point shots and scored 100 points in the paint. They’ve been fouled 74 times and taken only 70 free throws. That seems fairly balanced, overall.
“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 idd 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, it was, for the first time, our point guard, Kaleb Joseph with 37 minutes. Chris McCullough and Trevor Cooney have been the “Man” twice each, Kaleb Joseph once. Cooney has played the most minutes (168) for the season. JB likes the fact that the opposition always has to have one guy chasing him the whole game- one guy who can’t help guard anyone else.
