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):
Rakeem Christmas 21NP in 40 minutes season: 534NP in 928 minutes per 40: 23.0
Tyler Roberson……. 11NP in 31 minutes season: 245NP in 674 minutes per 40: 14.5
Michael Gbinije….. 11NP in 36 minutes season: 330NP in 894 minutes per 40: 14.8
B. J. Johnson……….. 10NP in 19 minutes season: 68NP in 283 minutes per 40: 9.6
Ron Patterson…….. 8NP in 26 minutes season: 36NP in 356 minutes per 40: 4.0
Trevor Cooney…… 3NP in 32 minutes season: 247NP in 1014 minutes per 40: 9.7
Kaleb Joseph……….. -6NP in 16 minutes season: 145NP in 781 minutes per 40: 7.4
DNP-CD
Chinoso Obokoh….. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 14NP in 66 minutes per 40: 8.5
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: BJ Johnson and Ron Patterson got their first bumps in a while. They got a shot at extensive playing time with the injuries to Roberson and Cooney and took advantage of it. They may yet have a future here. Both Cooney and Kaleb Joseph went 0 for 5 and failed to score. But Cooney grabbed 5 rebounds and made 3 steals, despite his back pain. He also had an assists. He also avoided fouling and had only one turnover. Kaleb had three assists and a rebound but also three fouls and two turnovers. That’s the difference been 3 net points and -6.
Rakeem Christmas has led in net points 15 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 15 offensive and 20 defensive rebounds. They had 7 offensive and 22 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 15 of 30 times, (50.0%). When they missed, they got the ball 7 of 27 times (25.9%). We’ve won the rebounding battle by this measure 17 times in 27 games. For the year we’ve averaged getting 34.7% of our misses and our opposition has gotten 30.5% of theirs.
Effective offensive rebounding: We got 8 second chance points off our 15 offensive rebounds, 0.53 points per rebound. They got 8 for their 7 = 1.16. For the year we’ve averaged 1.00 points per offensive rebound: they’ve averaged 0.93. We’ve led in this stat 16 times in 27 games.
To out-rebound Pittsburgh by such a margin- they usually do that to us- was amazing. To lose the game anyway was even more amazing. The problem was we kept rebounding our own misses and then missing again. On our first possession we had two offensive rebounds and three missed shots. On our 6th possession we had three missed shots, three offensive rebounds and a turnover. On our 7th possession we had 5 missed shots, 5 offensive rebounds and a got fouled. Rakeem made 1 of 2 free throws. That’s 8 offensive rebounds that produced a single point.
Of our 10 turnovers, 4 were their steals and 6 were our own miscues. Of their 7 turnovers, 4 were Syracuse steals and 3 were their fault. We’ve had fewer turnovers in 18 of 26 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.
Pitt’s ability to avoid turnovers also cut into the impact of our rebounding margin. If you add our 35 rebounds to their 7 turnovers, we had 42 “manufactured possessions”. They had 22 + 10 = 32, so we were +10. We have won that battle 19 of 26 times with 1 even. For the season we’ve averaged 51 to 46 (+5).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 17 for 37, (.459) inside the arc, 4 for 12, (.333) outside it and 15 for 22, (.682) from the line. They were 20 for 38 (.526), 6/14 (.429) and 7/8 (.875). We’ve led in two point field goal percentage in 15 of 26 games, and in free throw percentage in 12 games (but only 6 times in the last 19). We’ve led in three point field goals percentage, believe it or not, in 15 games. For the season we are .492/.314/.657. Our opposition is .451/.321/.706.
We had 32 points in the paint, 11 off turnovers, 8 “second chance” points, 4 fast break points and 20 from the bench. Our opposition had 26 points in the paint, 8 off turnovers, 8 “second chance” points, 7 fast break points and 19 from the bench. We also had 34 of Pat’s “first chance points” (Total points minus second chance points, fast break points and made free throws) to 43. We lost this game on the boards.
We’ve led in PIP 18 times with 2 ties, POTO 18 times with 1 tie, FCP 16 times with 1 tie, SCP 14 times with 1 tie, FBP 14 times with 4 ties and BP 10 times, with 2 ties. For the season we are averaging 33-25 PIP, 16-11 POTO, 34-32 FCP, 12-10 SCP, 9-7 FBP and 9-15 BP.
We had 61 points, 32 in the paint, 12 from the arc and 15 from the line so we had 14 ”POP”, (points outside the paint: 61-32-15) and scored 2 points, (14 POP-12 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 65/26/18/7= 32 POP with 14 from the Twilight Zone. Pitt won this game from the twilight Zone: 14-2 in a 4 point win. We’ve only led in POP 11 times but we’ve led in TZ points 14 times with 1 tie in 27 games. For the year we are averaging 23 POP and 8 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. We didn’t win this game with jump shots. The last two games we’ve had a total of 28PO and 4TZ compared to our opponents 56/20, a huge difference.
17 of our 21 baskets were assisted (.810) and also 21 of their 26 (.808), very high percentages. There wasn’t a lot of slashing to the basket in this game. For the year we are assisting on 62.8% of our baskets to 66.9% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 16 of 27 games, with 1 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.
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 49 FGA - 15 OREBs + 10 TOs + (.475 x 22) = 54.45 possessions. They were 52 -7+ 7+ (.475 x 8) = 55.8 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 54 possessions in which we scored 61 points, (1.130 points per possession) and 55 possessions in which they scored 65 points, (1.182). We have, of course, led 17 of 27 games in offensive efficiency since the winning team always leads in that stat. For the year we are averaging 1.035 points per possession to 0.946 for the opposition.
There were only 109 combined possessions in this game. We’ve averaged 132 possessions this year. We averaged 122 last year, so the pace appears to be better than it was last season. But not in this game.
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 20 points with 2 assists for 22 “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 11 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 20-21, 8-11, 16-15, 25-12. For the season we have an average of 16-13, 17-14, 16-17, 19-18. We’ve won 62 of 108 quarters with 3 even. We’ve scored 15 or more in 71 quarters and held the opposition under that 50 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. Tyler Roberson opened with a trey at 18:08 and Rakeem Christmas did the same at 18:32 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 28 seconds. Rakeem Christmas has sat us down 15 times, Trevor Cooney 10 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 37 two point shots to 38, scored 32 points in the paint to 26 and got fouled 17 times to 14, (the refs let ‘em play), attempting 22 foul shots to 8. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled was 2.2 for us and 2.7 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled was 1.9 for us to 1.9 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team was 1.3 for us and 0.6 for them. It’s interesting that the team that went to the line 22 times is complaining about the officiating and not the team that went to the line 8 times. But sometimes it’s not about what was called: its about what wasn’t called.
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 1106 two point shots and scored 878 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 483 times and taken 559 free throws. Our opposition has taken 946 two point shots and scored 679 points in the paint. They’ve been fouled 410 times and taken only 450 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 1.9 for us to 1.7 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team has been 1.2 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 Rakeem Christmas played all 40 minutes. We’ve had at least one player play the full game in each of the last 16 games and a total of 29 players have done so in that span. Trevor Cooney has been the “Man” 17 times, Rakeem Christmas 10 times, Michael Gbinije 9 times, Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph 4 times each and Tyler Roberson once. Cooney still leads the team in minutes played with 1014, 86 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):
Rakeem Christmas 21NP in 40 minutes season: 534NP in 928 minutes per 40: 23.0
Tyler Roberson……. 11NP in 31 minutes season: 245NP in 674 minutes per 40: 14.5
Michael Gbinije….. 11NP in 36 minutes season: 330NP in 894 minutes per 40: 14.8
B. J. Johnson……….. 10NP in 19 minutes season: 68NP in 283 minutes per 40: 9.6
Ron Patterson…….. 8NP in 26 minutes season: 36NP in 356 minutes per 40: 4.0
Trevor Cooney…… 3NP in 32 minutes season: 247NP in 1014 minutes per 40: 9.7
Kaleb Joseph……….. -6NP in 16 minutes season: 145NP in 781 minutes per 40: 7.4
DNP-CD
Chinoso Obokoh….. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 14NP in 66 minutes per 40: 8.5
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: BJ Johnson and Ron Patterson got their first bumps in a while. They got a shot at extensive playing time with the injuries to Roberson and Cooney and took advantage of it. They may yet have a future here. Both Cooney and Kaleb Joseph went 0 for 5 and failed to score. But Cooney grabbed 5 rebounds and made 3 steals, despite his back pain. He also had an assists. He also avoided fouling and had only one turnover. Kaleb had three assists and a rebound but also three fouls and two turnovers. That’s the difference been 3 net points and -6.
Rakeem Christmas has led in net points 15 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 15 offensive and 20 defensive rebounds. They had 7 offensive and 22 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 15 of 30 times, (50.0%). When they missed, they got the ball 7 of 27 times (25.9%). We’ve won the rebounding battle by this measure 17 times in 27 games. For the year we’ve averaged getting 34.7% of our misses and our opposition has gotten 30.5% of theirs.
Effective offensive rebounding: We got 8 second chance points off our 15 offensive rebounds, 0.53 points per rebound. They got 8 for their 7 = 1.16. For the year we’ve averaged 1.00 points per offensive rebound: they’ve averaged 0.93. We’ve led in this stat 16 times in 27 games.
To out-rebound Pittsburgh by such a margin- they usually do that to us- was amazing. To lose the game anyway was even more amazing. The problem was we kept rebounding our own misses and then missing again. On our first possession we had two offensive rebounds and three missed shots. On our 6th possession we had three missed shots, three offensive rebounds and a turnover. On our 7th possession we had 5 missed shots, 5 offensive rebounds and a got fouled. Rakeem made 1 of 2 free throws. That’s 8 offensive rebounds that produced a single point.
Of our 10 turnovers, 4 were their steals and 6 were our own miscues. Of their 7 turnovers, 4 were Syracuse steals and 3 were their fault. We’ve had fewer turnovers in 18 of 26 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.
Pitt’s ability to avoid turnovers also cut into the impact of our rebounding margin. If you add our 35 rebounds to their 7 turnovers, we had 42 “manufactured possessions”. They had 22 + 10 = 32, so we were +10. We have won that battle 19 of 26 times with 1 even. For the season we’ve averaged 51 to 46 (+5).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 17 for 37, (.459) inside the arc, 4 for 12, (.333) outside it and 15 for 22, (.682) from the line. They were 20 for 38 (.526), 6/14 (.429) and 7/8 (.875). We’ve led in two point field goal percentage in 15 of 26 games, and in free throw percentage in 12 games (but only 6 times in the last 19). We’ve led in three point field goals percentage, believe it or not, in 15 games. For the season we are .492/.314/.657. Our opposition is .451/.321/.706.
We had 32 points in the paint, 11 off turnovers, 8 “second chance” points, 4 fast break points and 20 from the bench. Our opposition had 26 points in the paint, 8 off turnovers, 8 “second chance” points, 7 fast break points and 19 from the bench. We also had 34 of Pat’s “first chance points” (Total points minus second chance points, fast break points and made free throws) to 43. We lost this game on the boards.
We’ve led in PIP 18 times with 2 ties, POTO 18 times with 1 tie, FCP 16 times with 1 tie, SCP 14 times with 1 tie, FBP 14 times with 4 ties and BP 10 times, with 2 ties. For the season we are averaging 33-25 PIP, 16-11 POTO, 34-32 FCP, 12-10 SCP, 9-7 FBP and 9-15 BP.
We had 61 points, 32 in the paint, 12 from the arc and 15 from the line so we had 14 ”POP”, (points outside the paint: 61-32-15) and scored 2 points, (14 POP-12 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 65/26/18/7= 32 POP with 14 from the Twilight Zone. Pitt won this game from the twilight Zone: 14-2 in a 4 point win. We’ve only led in POP 11 times but we’ve led in TZ points 14 times with 1 tie in 27 games. For the year we are averaging 23 POP and 8 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. We didn’t win this game with jump shots. The last two games we’ve had a total of 28PO and 4TZ compared to our opponents 56/20, a huge difference.
17 of our 21 baskets were assisted (.810) and also 21 of their 26 (.808), very high percentages. There wasn’t a lot of slashing to the basket in this game. For the year we are assisting on 62.8% of our baskets to 66.9% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 16 of 27 games, with 1 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.
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 49 FGA - 15 OREBs + 10 TOs + (.475 x 22) = 54.45 possessions. They were 52 -7+ 7+ (.475 x 8) = 55.8 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 54 possessions in which we scored 61 points, (1.130 points per possession) and 55 possessions in which they scored 65 points, (1.182). We have, of course, led 17 of 27 games in offensive efficiency since the winning team always leads in that stat. For the year we are averaging 1.035 points per possession to 0.946 for the opposition.
There were only 109 combined possessions in this game. We’ve averaged 132 possessions this year. We averaged 122 last year, so the pace appears to be better than it was last season. But not in this game.
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 20 points with 2 assists for 22 “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 11 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 20-21, 8-11, 16-15, 25-12. For the season we have an average of 16-13, 17-14, 16-17, 19-18. We’ve won 62 of 108 quarters with 3 even. We’ve scored 15 or more in 71 quarters and held the opposition under that 50 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. Tyler Roberson opened with a trey at 18:08 and Rakeem Christmas did the same at 18:32 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 28 seconds. Rakeem Christmas has sat us down 15 times, Trevor Cooney 10 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 37 two point shots to 38, scored 32 points in the paint to 26 and got fouled 17 times to 14, (the refs let ‘em play), attempting 22 foul shots to 8. The ratio of two point attempts to times fouled was 2.2 for us and 2.7 for them. The ratio of points in the paint to times fouled was 1.9 for us to 1.9 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team was 1.3 for us and 0.6 for them. It’s interesting that the team that went to the line 22 times is complaining about the officiating and not the team that went to the line 8 times. But sometimes it’s not about what was called: its about what wasn’t called.
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 1106 two point shots and scored 878 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 483 times and taken 559 free throws. Our opposition has taken 946 two point shots and scored 679 points in the paint. They’ve been fouled 410 times and taken only 450 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 1.9 for us to 1.7 for them. The ratio of free throw attempts to fouls called on the other team has been 1.2 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 Rakeem Christmas played all 40 minutes. We’ve had at least one player play the full game in each of the last 16 games and a total of 29 players have done so in that span. Trevor Cooney has been the “Man” 17 times, Rakeem Christmas 10 times, Michael Gbinije 9 times, Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph 4 times each and Tyler Roberson once. Cooney still leads the team in minutes played with 1014, 86 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.
