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.. 15NP in 38 minutes season: 47NP in 94 minutes per 40: 20.0
Michael Gbinije….. 10NP in 30 minutes season: 16NP in 53 minutes per 40: 12.1
Kaleb Joseph……….. 8NP in 31 minutes season: 19NP in 88 minutes per 40: 8.6
Rakeem Christmas 3NP in 23 minutes season: 45NP in 80 minutes per 40: 22.5
Tyler Roberson……. 3NP in 23 minutes season: 20NP in 66 minutes per 40: 12.1
Trevor Cooney…… 2NP in 32 minutes season: 26NP in 101 minutes per 40: 10.3
B. J. Johnson……….. 0NP in 13 minutes season: 33NP in 65 minutes per 40: 20.3
Ron Patterson…….. 0NP in 10 minutes season: 4NP in 37 minutes per 40: 4.3
DNP-Coach's Decision
Chinoso Obokoh….. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 2NP in 12 minutes per 40: 6.7
INJURED
DaJuan Coleman…. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 0NP in 0minutes per 40: 0.0
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 it’s twin pillars. BJ 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). Johnson, Christmas and McCullough have all led the team in net points once each.
POSSESSION
Before you can score you’ve got to get the rock. Syracuse had 13 offensive and 25 defensive rebounds. They had 7 offensive and 31 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 13 of 31 times, (29.5%). When they missed, they got the ball 7 of 32 times (21.9%). We’ve averaged getting 40.2% of our misses and our opposition has gotten 21.7% of theirs.
Of our 11 turnovers, 6 were their steals and 5 were our own miscues. Of their 12 turnovers, 9 were Syracuse steals and 3 were their fault. We are averaging 11 turnovers, 6 unforced. Our opposition is averaging 17/8.
If you add our 38 rebounds to their 12 turnovers, we had 50 “manufactured possessions”. They had 38 + 11= 49, so we were +1We haven’t lost that battle this season. For the season we’ve averaged 61 to 43 (+18).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 19 for 47, (.404) inside the arc, 4 for 17, (.235) outside it and 9 for 16 (.563) from the line. They were 18 for 37 (.486), 8/19 (.421) and 13/17 (.765). For the season we are .479/.260/.644. Our opposition is .451/.288/.613.
We had 20 points in the paint, 16 off turnovers, 6 “second chance” points, 12 fast break points and 13 from the bench. Our opposition had 24 points in the paint, 11 off turnovers, 4 “second chance” points, 10 fast break points and 7 from the bench. For the season we are averaging 32-22 points in the paint, 19-7 off turnovers, 15-5 “second chance” points, 10-8 fast break points and 19-12 from the bench.
We had 59 points, 20 in the paint, 12 from the arc and 9 from the line so we had 30”POP”, (points outside the paint: 59-20-9) and scored 18 points, (30 POP- 12 from treys), 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 73/24/24/13= 36 POP and 12 points in the Twilight Zone. For the year we are averaging 26 POP and 13 TZ, our opposition 26/9. The game is so much easier when you don’t have to go to the basket for all your points.
9 of our 23 baskets were assisted (.550) and 22 of their 26 (.846). For the year we are assisting on 55.0% of our baskets to 65.1% for the opposition, who have had more assists or a higher percentage in 1 of 3 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 in this game I do thing the assist percentage reflects how well California was moving the ball and how poorly we were doing it.
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 64 FGA - 13 OREBs + 14 TOs + (.475 x 16) = 72.6 possessions. They were 56 -7+ 12+ (.475 x 17) = 69.075 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 71 possessions in which we scored 59 points, (0.831) and 70 possessions in which they scored 73 points, (1.043). We had 141 combined possession in this game. We’ve averaged 137 this year. We averaged 122 last year.
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 Kaleb Joseph scored 13 points and had 3 assists for 16 “hockey points”. He is our O-Dog for this game. Rakeem Christmas, BJ Johnson and Kaleb Joseph have each been the O-Dog once.
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 20-17, 15-10, 10-11, 20-9. The average for the season is: 15-12, 17-10, 15-15, 23-14. We’ve won 9 of 12 quarters. We’ve scored 15 or more in 8 of 12 quarters and held the opposition under that 8 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 Rakeem Christmas got us started with a dunk at 19:52 of the first half and Christmas opened the second half with a tip-in at 18:54. Rakeem Christmas has sat us three times, Chris McCullough down twice, and Kaleb Joseph once. The longest period we have waited is 17:54 of the second half vs. Hampton.
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 47 two point shots to 37, scored 20 points in the paint to 24 and got fouled 15 times to 15, attempting 16 foul shots to 17. Fairly even, even if we had more two point attempts. 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 142 two point shots and scored 96 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 56 times and taken 59 free throws. Our opposition has taken 104 two point shots and scored 66 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 43 times and taken only 31 free throws. That seems 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, Chris McCullough with 38 minutes. So far Chris McCullough has been the “Man” twice, Trevor Cooney once. But Cooney has played the most minutes on the season with 109.
