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):
Chris McCullough.. 17NP in 39 minutes season: 125NP in 236 minutes per 40: 21.2
Rakeem Christmas 14NP in 34 minutes season: 127NP in 204 minutes per 40: 24.9
Michael Gbinije….. 11NP in 32 minutes season: 28NP in 159 minutes per 40: 7.0
Trevor Cooney…… 9NP in 35 minutes season: 56NP in 234 minutes per 40: 9.6
Kaleb Joseph……….. 9NP in 40 minutes season: 63NP in 237 minutes per 40: 10.6
Tyler Roberson……. 3NP in 12 minutes season: 28NP in 95 minutes per 40: 11.8
B. J. Johnson……….. -1NP in 3 minutes season: 53NP in 129 minutes per 40: 16.4
Ron Patterson…….. -1NP in 5 minutes season: 4NP in 66 minutes per 40: 2.4
DNP-CD- none
Chinoso Obokoh….. 0NP in 0minutes season: 14NP in 30 minutes per 40: 18.7
INJURED
DaJuan Coleman…. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 0NP in 0 minutes per 40: 0.0
SUSPENDED
None
Comment: Christmas, McCuillough continued to be productive against the #17 team in the rankings in their place, so that’s a good sign. Trevor Cooney finally found the range and Michael Gbinije showed some aggressiveness, even if there were some mistakes mixed in with the good plays. He’s still got to glue himself together to be the “Glue Guy”. Joseph played like a freshman point guard- one not named Tyler Ennis. We win this one with Tyler. McCullough has led us in net points 4 times, Christmas twice and Johnson once.
POSSESSION
Before you can score you’ve got to get the rock. Syracuse had 10 offensive and 26 defensive rebounds. They had 17 offensive and 14 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 10 of 24 times, (41.7%). When they missed, they got the ball 17 of 43 times (39.5%). We’ve won the rebounding battle in every game by this measure in every game except Iowa. We’ve averaged getting 39% of our misses and our opposition has gotten 28% of theirs.
Of our 19 turnovers, 7 were their steals and 12 were our own miscues. Of their 7 turnovers, 5 were Syracuse steals and 2 were their fault. We have had fewer turnovers in 5 of 7 games. Last year we had fewer turnovers in 29 of 34 games with 2 even. We are averaging 13 turnovers, 7 unforced. Our opposition is averaging 16/7.
If you add our 36 rebounds to their 7 turnovers, we had 43 “manufactured possessions”. They had 31 + 19= 50, so we were -7. We lost that battle for the first time this season against Michigan due to the turnovers. For the season we’ve averaged 58 to 46 (+12).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 18 for 31, (.581) inside the arc, 6 for 17, (.353) outside it and 11 for 14 (.786) from the line. They were 14 for 32 (.438), 11/33 (.333) and 7/12 (.583).We’ve led in two point field goal percentage and free throw percentage in 6 of 7 games. We’ve led in three point field goals percentage, believe it or not, in three games, (our opposition isn’t exactly filling it up, either: even Michigan was 33.3% from the arc). For the season we are .530/.222/.681. Our opposition is .392/.291/.621.
We had 34 points in the paint, 7 off turnovers, 13 “second chance” points, only 2 fast break points and 15 from the bench. Our opposition had 24 points in the paint, 20 off turnovers, 17 “second chance” points, 4 fast break points and 23 from the bench. We’ve led in PIP 5 times, POTO 6 times, SCP 4 times, FBP 4 times and BP 4 times. For the season we are averaging 36-20 PIP, 18-11 POTO, 14-9 SCP, 11-6 FBP and 13-11BP.
We had 65 points, 34 in the paint, 18 from the arc and 11 from the line so we had 20”POP”, (points outside the paint: 65-34-11) and scored 2 points, (20 POP- 18 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 – one we’ve been using more this year than last but not in this game. I guess if you’re hitting threes, you don’t enter the Twilight Zone. They had 68/24/33/7= 37 POP and 4 from the Twilight Zone. We’ve only led in POP twice but we’ve led in Twlight Zone points in 6 games. For the year we are averaging 20 POP and 9 TZ, our opposition 25/6. The game is so much easier when you don’t have to go to the basket for all your points.
13 of our 24 baskets were assisted (.542) and 19 of their 25 (.760). For the year we are assisting on 57.7% of our baskets to 68.1% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 6 of 7 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.
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 48 FGA - 10 OREBs + 19 TOs + (.475 x 14) = 63.65 possessions. They were 65 -17+ 7+ (.475 x 12) = 60.7 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 63 possessions in which we scored 65 points, (1.032) and 62 possessions in which they scored 68 points, (1.097). We have, of course, led 5 of 7 games in offensive efficiency since the winning team always leads in that stat. For the year we are averaging 1.030 points per possession to 0.806 for the opposition.
We had 125 combined possessions in this game. We’ve averaged 135 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 Trevor Cooney scored 16 points and had 2 assists for 18 “hockey points”. He, (finally!) is our O-Dog for this game. Maybe he’ll have a season that is the opposite of last- a lousy start and he can’t miss at the end. That would be nice. Rakeem Christmas has been the O-Dog three times, BJ Johnson, Kaleb Joseph, Chris McCullough and Cooney 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 12-11, 19-18, 14-20, 20-19. For the season, we’ve averaged 14-10, 18-12, 16-15, 20-15. We’ve won 21 of 28 quarters. We’ve scored 15 or more in 18 quarters and held the opposition under that 17 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 Joseph opened the first half with a trey at 19:09 and Trevor Cooney did the same in the second half at 17:31. The average time we’ve had to wait is 1 minute 29 seconds. The longest we’ve waited this season is 2 minutes and 52 seconds in the first half vs. Loyola, (of course they would have waited for 11:30 in that game). Rakeem Christmas has sat us down 6 times, Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph 3 times and Trevor Cooney once. It’s nice to open a half with a three and we did it twice.
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 31 two point shots to 32, scored 34 points in the paint to 24 and got fouled 14 times to 15, attempting 14 foul shots to 11. That’s not way off. 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 300 two point shots and scored 262 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 125 times and taken 141 free throws. Our opposition has taken 234 two point shots and scored 150 points in the paint. They’ve been fouled 104 times and taken only 103 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 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, Kaleb Joseph played all 40minutes. Chris McCullough has been the “Man” three times, and Trevor Cooney Kaleb Joseph twice each. Joseph has now passed Cooney has played the most minutes (237) for the season. It’s not unusual for the point guard, even a freshman point guard, to be the “Man”.
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.. 17NP in 39 minutes season: 125NP in 236 minutes per 40: 21.2
Rakeem Christmas 14NP in 34 minutes season: 127NP in 204 minutes per 40: 24.9
Michael Gbinije….. 11NP in 32 minutes season: 28NP in 159 minutes per 40: 7.0
Trevor Cooney…… 9NP in 35 minutes season: 56NP in 234 minutes per 40: 9.6
Kaleb Joseph……….. 9NP in 40 minutes season: 63NP in 237 minutes per 40: 10.6
Tyler Roberson……. 3NP in 12 minutes season: 28NP in 95 minutes per 40: 11.8
B. J. Johnson……….. -1NP in 3 minutes season: 53NP in 129 minutes per 40: 16.4
Ron Patterson…….. -1NP in 5 minutes season: 4NP in 66 minutes per 40: 2.4
DNP-CD- none
Chinoso Obokoh….. 0NP in 0minutes season: 14NP in 30 minutes per 40: 18.7
INJURED
DaJuan Coleman…. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 0NP in 0 minutes per 40: 0.0
SUSPENDED
None
Comment: Christmas, McCuillough continued to be productive against the #17 team in the rankings in their place, so that’s a good sign. Trevor Cooney finally found the range and Michael Gbinije showed some aggressiveness, even if there were some mistakes mixed in with the good plays. He’s still got to glue himself together to be the “Glue Guy”. Joseph played like a freshman point guard- one not named Tyler Ennis. We win this one with Tyler. McCullough has led us in net points 4 times, Christmas twice and Johnson once.
POSSESSION
Before you can score you’ve got to get the rock. Syracuse had 10 offensive and 26 defensive rebounds. They had 17 offensive and 14 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 10 of 24 times, (41.7%). When they missed, they got the ball 17 of 43 times (39.5%). We’ve won the rebounding battle in every game by this measure in every game except Iowa. We’ve averaged getting 39% of our misses and our opposition has gotten 28% of theirs.
Of our 19 turnovers, 7 were their steals and 12 were our own miscues. Of their 7 turnovers, 5 were Syracuse steals and 2 were their fault. We have had fewer turnovers in 5 of 7 games. Last year we had fewer turnovers in 29 of 34 games with 2 even. We are averaging 13 turnovers, 7 unforced. Our opposition is averaging 16/7.
If you add our 36 rebounds to their 7 turnovers, we had 43 “manufactured possessions”. They had 31 + 19= 50, so we were -7. We lost that battle for the first time this season against Michigan due to the turnovers. For the season we’ve averaged 58 to 46 (+12).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 18 for 31, (.581) inside the arc, 6 for 17, (.353) outside it and 11 for 14 (.786) from the line. They were 14 for 32 (.438), 11/33 (.333) and 7/12 (.583).We’ve led in two point field goal percentage and free throw percentage in 6 of 7 games. We’ve led in three point field goals percentage, believe it or not, in three games, (our opposition isn’t exactly filling it up, either: even Michigan was 33.3% from the arc). For the season we are .530/.222/.681. Our opposition is .392/.291/.621.
We had 34 points in the paint, 7 off turnovers, 13 “second chance” points, only 2 fast break points and 15 from the bench. Our opposition had 24 points in the paint, 20 off turnovers, 17 “second chance” points, 4 fast break points and 23 from the bench. We’ve led in PIP 5 times, POTO 6 times, SCP 4 times, FBP 4 times and BP 4 times. For the season we are averaging 36-20 PIP, 18-11 POTO, 14-9 SCP, 11-6 FBP and 13-11BP.
We had 65 points, 34 in the paint, 18 from the arc and 11 from the line so we had 20”POP”, (points outside the paint: 65-34-11) and scored 2 points, (20 POP- 18 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 – one we’ve been using more this year than last but not in this game. I guess if you’re hitting threes, you don’t enter the Twilight Zone. They had 68/24/33/7= 37 POP and 4 from the Twilight Zone. We’ve only led in POP twice but we’ve led in Twlight Zone points in 6 games. For the year we are averaging 20 POP and 9 TZ, our opposition 25/6. The game is so much easier when you don’t have to go to the basket for all your points.
13 of our 24 baskets were assisted (.542) and 19 of their 25 (.760). For the year we are assisting on 57.7% of our baskets to 68.1% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 6 of 7 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.
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 48 FGA - 10 OREBs + 19 TOs + (.475 x 14) = 63.65 possessions. They were 65 -17+ 7+ (.475 x 12) = 60.7 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 63 possessions in which we scored 65 points, (1.032) and 62 possessions in which they scored 68 points, (1.097). We have, of course, led 5 of 7 games in offensive efficiency since the winning team always leads in that stat. For the year we are averaging 1.030 points per possession to 0.806 for the opposition.
We had 125 combined possessions in this game. We’ve averaged 135 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 Trevor Cooney scored 16 points and had 2 assists for 18 “hockey points”. He, (finally!) is our O-Dog for this game. Maybe he’ll have a season that is the opposite of last- a lousy start and he can’t miss at the end. That would be nice. Rakeem Christmas has been the O-Dog three times, BJ Johnson, Kaleb Joseph, Chris McCullough and Cooney 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 12-11, 19-18, 14-20, 20-19. For the season, we’ve averaged 14-10, 18-12, 16-15, 20-15. We’ve won 21 of 28 quarters. We’ve scored 15 or more in 18 quarters and held the opposition under that 17 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 Joseph opened the first half with a trey at 19:09 and Trevor Cooney did the same in the second half at 17:31. The average time we’ve had to wait is 1 minute 29 seconds. The longest we’ve waited this season is 2 minutes and 52 seconds in the first half vs. Loyola, (of course they would have waited for 11:30 in that game). Rakeem Christmas has sat us down 6 times, Chris McCullough and Kaleb Joseph 3 times and Trevor Cooney once. It’s nice to open a half with a three and we did it twice.
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 31 two point shots to 32, scored 34 points in the paint to 24 and got fouled 14 times to 15, attempting 14 foul shots to 11. That’s not way off. 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 300 two point shots and scored 262 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 125 times and taken 141 free throws. Our opposition has taken 234 two point shots and scored 150 points in the paint. They’ve been fouled 104 times and taken only 103 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 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, Kaleb Joseph played all 40minutes. Chris McCullough has been the “Man” three times, and Trevor Cooney Kaleb Joseph twice each. Joseph has now passed Cooney has played the most minutes (237) for the season. It’s not unusual for the point guard, even a freshman point guard, to be the “Man”.
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