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 player 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 8NP in 39 minutes season: 218NP in 612 minutes per 40: 14.2
Jerami Grant……….. 12NP in 41 minutes season: 319NP in 807 minutes per 40: 15.8
Trevor Cooney…… -1NP in 40 minutes season: 290NP in 837 minutes per 40: 13.9
C. J. Fair………………. 17NP in 45 minutes season: 313NP in 981 minutes per 40: 12.8
Michael Gbinije …. 0NP in 15 minutes season: 94NP in 342 minutes per 40: 11.0
Tyler Ennis………….. 17NP in 36 minutes season: 338NP in 899 minutes per 40: 15.0
Baye Moussa Keita 0NP in 2 minutes season: 80NP in 365 minutes per 40: 8.8
DNP
Tyler Roberson……. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 19NP in 122 minutes per 40: 6.2
Ron Patterson…….. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 12NP in 50 minutes per 40: 9.6
B. J. Johnson……….. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 1NP in 51 minutes per 40: 0.8
INJURED
DaJuan Coleman…. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 61NP in 169 minutes per 40: 14.4
Comment: Statistics don’t “lie” but they can deceive by not telling the whole story. We lost the battle of the boards 37-40 to a bad rebounding team. But ti was worse than that. We were down by 10 on the boards for most of the game. Late in the game we had sequences like this:
MISSED LAYUP by Tyler Ennis 06:45
REBOUND (OFF) by Rakeem Christmas 06:45
MISSED LAYUP by Rakeem Christmas 06:43
REBOUND (OFF) by Jerami Grant 06:43
GOOD! FT SHOT by Jerami Grant 06:36 4 2 - 4 3 V 1 FOUL by Ryan Anderson (P3T9)
MISSED FT SHOT by Jerami Grant
GOOD! FT SHOT by Jerami Grant 03:15 4 7 - 4 8 V 1
MISSED FT SHOT by Jerami Grant 03:15 REBOUND (DEF) by Ryan Anderson
REBOUND (DEF) by Jerami Grant 02:46 MISSED 3 PTR by Lonnie Jackson
MISSED LAYUP by Trevor Cooney 02:28
REBOUND (OFF) by Rakeem Christmas 02:28
02:27 FOUL by Lonnie Jackson (P2T11)
GOOD! FT SHOT by Rakeem Christmas 02:23 4 8 - 4 8 T 3
MISSED FT SHOT by Rakeem Christmas
MISSED JUMPER by C.J. Fair 01:30
REBOUND (OFF) by Rakeem Christmas 01:30
MISSED JUMPER by Tyler Ennis 01:25
REBOUND (OFF) by Tyler Ennis 01:25
01:22 FOUL by Ryan Anderson (P4T13)
MISSED FT SHOT by Tyler Ennis 01:12
REBOUND (OFF) by (DEADBALL) 01:12
GOOD! FT SHOT by Tyler Ennis
We were building up our rebound numbers but not getting very many points out of it. Rakeem Christmas had 8 offensive rebounds but was 1 for 6 from the field. He also got fouled enough to go to the line 10 times. But I don’t remember nay three point plays. He missed more shots than the official four shots. We very rarely seem to score when we are fouled. Our “net point” numbers for this game are a bit inflated by the number of rebounds we got that didn’t lead to points, or as many points as we should have gotten.
Tyler Ennis has led, (or tied for the lead), in net points 11 times. Trevor Cooney and CJ Fair have led 5 times, Rakeem Christmas 4 times, Jerami Grant three times and DaJuan Coleman and now Baye Keita once each.
Possession:
Before you can score you’ve got to get the rock. Syracuse had 17 offensive and 20 defensive rebounds. They had 9 offensive and 31 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 17 of 48 times, (35.4%). When they missed, they got the ball 9 of 29 times (31.0%). We’ve averaged getting 39.3% of our misses and our opposition has gotten 32.3% of theirs. We have won the rebounding battle by this measure 18 times in 26 games. But through the Duke game, we’d gotten 40.7% of our misses and 69.3% of the other team’s misses. In the four games since it’s been 33.9% and 60.9%.
Of our 7 turnovers, 4 were their steals and 3 were our own miscues. Of their 17 turnovers, 7 were Syracuse steals and 10 were their fault. Syracuse has had fewer turnovers in 22 of 26 games, with two even. Overall we are ahead by 128 turnovers on the season, (236-364) and are also ahead in unforced errors, (125-145). We have had single digit turnovers in 11 of 13 ACC games and had only 10 in the other two. That’s very impressive for a team with a young backcourt.
If you add our 37 rebounds to their 17 turnovers, we had 54 “manufactured possessions”. They had 40 + 7 = 47, so we were +7. We’ve won that battle 22 times this season in 26 games, with an average margin of +8.9. We’ve won by double figures 13 times. It’s the main reason we are 25-1. But it didn’t help us here.
Shooting:
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 17 for 50, (.360) inside the arc, 2 for 12, (.167) outside it and 17 for 24 (.708) from the line. They were 10 for 27 (.370), 11/22 (.500) and 9/10 (.900). We stopped them inside but that’s not their game. We couldn’t stop them from outside and they were lights out at the line, including Lonnie Jackson, a 56% free throw shooter who went 4 for 4 at the end of the game. As for SU, you are going to have 2 for 12 games from three point range, (we know because we’d just had one vs. NC State). But going 18 for 50 inside the arc with the talent we have up front is inexcusable.
On the season, Syracuse is shooting .484/.351/.705, the opposition .447/.340/.664. We complain about our free throw shooting but we are now out-shooting the opposition on the year by 41 points. Here are our two point percentages for every year of this decade: 2009-10: .571-.462 (+109), 2010-11: .562-.444 (+118), 2011-12: .519-.425 (+94), 2012-13: .485-.425 (+60). So far this year: .484-.447 = +34. In the last five games we are shooting .397 inside the arc, which is terrible. Prior to that we were .502, much better but still not what we were getting in 2010-12. Ironically our slump is occurring while Rakeem Christmas is playing so much better and Jerami Grant in the starting line-up instead of coming off the bench. You would think that would make us better inside than previously.
We had 59 points, 34 in the paint, 6 from the arc and 17 from the line so we scored 2 points 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 62-18-33-9= 2 points in the Twilight Zone. Overall, we had 8 POP: Points Outside the Paint to 35 for them. There’s your ball game.. So far this year Syracuse is averaging 23 POP, 7 from the TZ, the opposition 26/5.
14 of our 20 baskets were assisted (.700) and 15 of their 21 (.714). For the year we are assisting on 52.3% of our baskets to 64.4% for the opposition, who have had more assists or a higher percentage in 22 of 26 games,25 of which we’ve won. 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 jumps 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 62 FGA - 17 OREBs + 7 TOs + (.475 x 24) = 63.4 possessions. They were 49 -9 + 17 + (.475 x 10) = 61.75 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 63 possessions in which we scored 59 points, (0.937) and 62 possessions in which they scored 62 points, (1.000). For the year we are 1.145 vs. 0.961. I’ve been saying “We’ve been more efficient than our opposition in every game so far, which is also why we are 25-0”. It now occurs to me that you are always going to be more offensively efficient than your opposition if you win because the number of possessions is going to be the same or one off. Unsurprisingly, Boston College was the first team to be more efficient than we were. The real purpose of this stat is to compare team’s performances in different games or on the season. In the last five games we are averaging 1.043 points per possession, compared to 1.167 in the 21 games before that.
We’ve averaged 122 combined possessions per game this year. In this game, there were 125, (in overtime, of course). Like NC State, BC had the reputation of a running team but they did the same thing everybody else did: hold the ball and try to set up the best shot they could get on every possession. As a result the game wasn’t the “run and shoot” fest we were waiting for. It was grinder just like all of our other games, (except Duke).
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: 8-9, 17-8, 14-17, 11-16, OT: 9-12. The average for the season is: 16-14, 19-15, 17-16, 19-15. We’ve won 65 quarters, (and one overtime), lost 32 and tied 7. We’ve scored at least 15 in 70 of 104 quarters and held the opposition under that 56 times.
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 CJ Fair had 20 points and 2 assists for 22 “hockey points”. So far Tyler Ennis has led 11 times and CJ Fair has done it 10 times, Trevor Cooney 5 times, Jerami Grant has done it twice and Rakeem Christmas once, including ties. Love Rak but if he’s your O-Dog, ya got problems.
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 Trevor Cooney sat us down in the second half with a trey 43 seconds in. CJ Fair sat us down in the first half with a lay-up at 5:42, the se3cond lontgest such stretch of the season.. CJ Fair has now sat us down 16 times, Tyler Ennis and Trevor Cooney 9 times, Rakeem Christmas 8 times and DaJuan Coleman 5 times and Jerami Grant 4 times, (remember he didn’t start until Coleman got hurt).
Longest: 8:50, second half vs. Miami. 5:42 first half vs. Boston College. We were 4:51 vs. St. Francis, (second half), 3:12 vs. Villanova (first half), 2:44 vs. Pittsburgh II (second half) 2:37 vs. Notre Dame (first half), 2:29 vs. Eastern Michigan (second half), 2:13 vs. Pittsburgh (first half), 2:05 vs. North Carolina (second half), 1:45 vs. Boston College (first half), 1:38 vs. Pittsburgh (second half), 1:26 vs. Duke (first half), 1:25 vs. Wake Forest, (1st half) and NC State (second Half), 1:21 vs. Duke (second half) 1:18 vs. North Carolina (first half) and Pittsburgh II (first half)and 1:16 vs. Clemson (first half)
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 player 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 8NP in 39 minutes season: 218NP in 612 minutes per 40: 14.2
Jerami Grant……….. 12NP in 41 minutes season: 319NP in 807 minutes per 40: 15.8
Trevor Cooney…… -1NP in 40 minutes season: 290NP in 837 minutes per 40: 13.9
C. J. Fair………………. 17NP in 45 minutes season: 313NP in 981 minutes per 40: 12.8
Michael Gbinije …. 0NP in 15 minutes season: 94NP in 342 minutes per 40: 11.0
Tyler Ennis………….. 17NP in 36 minutes season: 338NP in 899 minutes per 40: 15.0
Baye Moussa Keita 0NP in 2 minutes season: 80NP in 365 minutes per 40: 8.8
DNP
Tyler Roberson……. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 19NP in 122 minutes per 40: 6.2
Ron Patterson…….. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 12NP in 50 minutes per 40: 9.6
B. J. Johnson……….. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 1NP in 51 minutes per 40: 0.8
INJURED
DaJuan Coleman…. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 61NP in 169 minutes per 40: 14.4
Comment: Statistics don’t “lie” but they can deceive by not telling the whole story. We lost the battle of the boards 37-40 to a bad rebounding team. But ti was worse than that. We were down by 10 on the boards for most of the game. Late in the game we had sequences like this:
MISSED LAYUP by Tyler Ennis 06:45
REBOUND (OFF) by Rakeem Christmas 06:45
MISSED LAYUP by Rakeem Christmas 06:43
REBOUND (OFF) by Jerami Grant 06:43
GOOD! FT SHOT by Jerami Grant 06:36 4 2 - 4 3 V 1 FOUL by Ryan Anderson (P3T9)
MISSED FT SHOT by Jerami Grant
GOOD! FT SHOT by Jerami Grant 03:15 4 7 - 4 8 V 1
MISSED FT SHOT by Jerami Grant 03:15 REBOUND (DEF) by Ryan Anderson
REBOUND (DEF) by Jerami Grant 02:46 MISSED 3 PTR by Lonnie Jackson
MISSED LAYUP by Trevor Cooney 02:28
REBOUND (OFF) by Rakeem Christmas 02:28
02:27 FOUL by Lonnie Jackson (P2T11)
GOOD! FT SHOT by Rakeem Christmas 02:23 4 8 - 4 8 T 3
MISSED FT SHOT by Rakeem Christmas
MISSED JUMPER by C.J. Fair 01:30
REBOUND (OFF) by Rakeem Christmas 01:30
MISSED JUMPER by Tyler Ennis 01:25
REBOUND (OFF) by Tyler Ennis 01:25
01:22 FOUL by Ryan Anderson (P4T13)
MISSED FT SHOT by Tyler Ennis 01:12
REBOUND (OFF) by (DEADBALL) 01:12
GOOD! FT SHOT by Tyler Ennis
We were building up our rebound numbers but not getting very many points out of it. Rakeem Christmas had 8 offensive rebounds but was 1 for 6 from the field. He also got fouled enough to go to the line 10 times. But I don’t remember nay three point plays. He missed more shots than the official four shots. We very rarely seem to score when we are fouled. Our “net point” numbers for this game are a bit inflated by the number of rebounds we got that didn’t lead to points, or as many points as we should have gotten.
Tyler Ennis has led, (or tied for the lead), in net points 11 times. Trevor Cooney and CJ Fair have led 5 times, Rakeem Christmas 4 times, Jerami Grant three times and DaJuan Coleman and now Baye Keita once each.
Possession:
Before you can score you’ve got to get the rock. Syracuse had 17 offensive and 20 defensive rebounds. They had 9 offensive and 31 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 17 of 48 times, (35.4%). When they missed, they got the ball 9 of 29 times (31.0%). We’ve averaged getting 39.3% of our misses and our opposition has gotten 32.3% of theirs. We have won the rebounding battle by this measure 18 times in 26 games. But through the Duke game, we’d gotten 40.7% of our misses and 69.3% of the other team’s misses. In the four games since it’s been 33.9% and 60.9%.
Of our 7 turnovers, 4 were their steals and 3 were our own miscues. Of their 17 turnovers, 7 were Syracuse steals and 10 were their fault. Syracuse has had fewer turnovers in 22 of 26 games, with two even. Overall we are ahead by 128 turnovers on the season, (236-364) and are also ahead in unforced errors, (125-145). We have had single digit turnovers in 11 of 13 ACC games and had only 10 in the other two. That’s very impressive for a team with a young backcourt.
If you add our 37 rebounds to their 17 turnovers, we had 54 “manufactured possessions”. They had 40 + 7 = 47, so we were +7. We’ve won that battle 22 times this season in 26 games, with an average margin of +8.9. We’ve won by double figures 13 times. It’s the main reason we are 25-1. But it didn’t help us here.
Shooting:
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 17 for 50, (.360) inside the arc, 2 for 12, (.167) outside it and 17 for 24 (.708) from the line. They were 10 for 27 (.370), 11/22 (.500) and 9/10 (.900). We stopped them inside but that’s not their game. We couldn’t stop them from outside and they were lights out at the line, including Lonnie Jackson, a 56% free throw shooter who went 4 for 4 at the end of the game. As for SU, you are going to have 2 for 12 games from three point range, (we know because we’d just had one vs. NC State). But going 18 for 50 inside the arc with the talent we have up front is inexcusable.
On the season, Syracuse is shooting .484/.351/.705, the opposition .447/.340/.664. We complain about our free throw shooting but we are now out-shooting the opposition on the year by 41 points. Here are our two point percentages for every year of this decade: 2009-10: .571-.462 (+109), 2010-11: .562-.444 (+118), 2011-12: .519-.425 (+94), 2012-13: .485-.425 (+60). So far this year: .484-.447 = +34. In the last five games we are shooting .397 inside the arc, which is terrible. Prior to that we were .502, much better but still not what we were getting in 2010-12. Ironically our slump is occurring while Rakeem Christmas is playing so much better and Jerami Grant in the starting line-up instead of coming off the bench. You would think that would make us better inside than previously.
We had 59 points, 34 in the paint, 6 from the arc and 17 from the line so we scored 2 points 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 62-18-33-9= 2 points in the Twilight Zone. Overall, we had 8 POP: Points Outside the Paint to 35 for them. There’s your ball game.. So far this year Syracuse is averaging 23 POP, 7 from the TZ, the opposition 26/5.
14 of our 20 baskets were assisted (.700) and 15 of their 21 (.714). For the year we are assisting on 52.3% of our baskets to 64.4% for the opposition, who have had more assists or a higher percentage in 22 of 26 games,25 of which we’ve won. 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 jumps 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 62 FGA - 17 OREBs + 7 TOs + (.475 x 24) = 63.4 possessions. They were 49 -9 + 17 + (.475 x 10) = 61.75 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 63 possessions in which we scored 59 points, (0.937) and 62 possessions in which they scored 62 points, (1.000). For the year we are 1.145 vs. 0.961. I’ve been saying “We’ve been more efficient than our opposition in every game so far, which is also why we are 25-0”. It now occurs to me that you are always going to be more offensively efficient than your opposition if you win because the number of possessions is going to be the same or one off. Unsurprisingly, Boston College was the first team to be more efficient than we were. The real purpose of this stat is to compare team’s performances in different games or on the season. In the last five games we are averaging 1.043 points per possession, compared to 1.167 in the 21 games before that.
We’ve averaged 122 combined possessions per game this year. In this game, there were 125, (in overtime, of course). Like NC State, BC had the reputation of a running team but they did the same thing everybody else did: hold the ball and try to set up the best shot they could get on every possession. As a result the game wasn’t the “run and shoot” fest we were waiting for. It was grinder just like all of our other games, (except Duke).
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: 8-9, 17-8, 14-17, 11-16, OT: 9-12. The average for the season is: 16-14, 19-15, 17-16, 19-15. We’ve won 65 quarters, (and one overtime), lost 32 and tied 7. We’ve scored at least 15 in 70 of 104 quarters and held the opposition under that 56 times.
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 CJ Fair had 20 points and 2 assists for 22 “hockey points”. So far Tyler Ennis has led 11 times and CJ Fair has done it 10 times, Trevor Cooney 5 times, Jerami Grant has done it twice and Rakeem Christmas once, including ties. Love Rak but if he’s your O-Dog, ya got problems.
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 Trevor Cooney sat us down in the second half with a trey 43 seconds in. CJ Fair sat us down in the first half with a lay-up at 5:42, the se3cond lontgest such stretch of the season.. CJ Fair has now sat us down 16 times, Tyler Ennis and Trevor Cooney 9 times, Rakeem Christmas 8 times and DaJuan Coleman 5 times and Jerami Grant 4 times, (remember he didn’t start until Coleman got hurt).
Longest: 8:50, second half vs. Miami. 5:42 first half vs. Boston College. We were 4:51 vs. St. Francis, (second half), 3:12 vs. Villanova (first half), 2:44 vs. Pittsburgh II (second half) 2:37 vs. Notre Dame (first half), 2:29 vs. Eastern Michigan (second half), 2:13 vs. Pittsburgh (first half), 2:05 vs. North Carolina (second half), 1:45 vs. Boston College (first half), 1:38 vs. Pittsburgh (second half), 1:26 vs. Duke (first half), 1:25 vs. Wake Forest, (1st half) and NC State (second Half), 1:21 vs. Duke (second half) 1:18 vs. North Carolina (first half) and Pittsburgh II (first half)and 1:16 vs. Clemson (first half)