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):
Rakeem Christmas 29NP in 40 minutes season: 156NP in 244 minutes per 40: 25.6
Michael Gbinije….. 10NP in 37 minutes season: 38NP in 196 minutes per 40: 7.8
Chris McCullough.. 7NP in 40 minutes season: 132NP in 276 minutes per 40: 19.1
B. J. Johnson……… 3NP in 7 minutes season: 56NP in 136 minutes per 40: 16.5
Trevor Cooney…… 3NP in 40 minutes season: 59NP in 274 minutes per 40: 8.6
Kaleb Joseph……….. 1NP in 19 minutes season: 64NP in 256 minutes per 40: 10.0
Ron Patterson…….. -2NP in 17 minutes season: 2NP in 83 minutes per 40: 1.0
DNP-CD- none
Chinoso Obokoh….. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 14NP in 30 minutes per 40: 18.7
Tyler Roberson……. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 28NP in 95 minutes per 40: 11.8
INJURED
DaJuan Coleman…. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 0NP in 0 minutes per 40: 0.0
SUSPENDED
None
Comment: Christmas had a monster game. The problem is, it’s too easy to take a center out of a game if you don’t have to worry about the other guys. I did like the aggressiveness Gbinije showed. McCullough has led us in net points 4 times, Christmas 3 times and Johnson once.
POSSESSION
Before you can score you’ve got to get the rock. Syracuse had 15 offensive and 25 defensive rebounds. They had 12 offensive and 26 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 15 of 41 times, (36.6%). When they missed, they got the ball 12 of 37 times (32.4%). 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 29% of theirs.
Of our 12 turnovers, 7 were their steals and 5 were our own miscues. Of their 10 turnovers, 7 were Syracuse steals and 3 were their fault. We have had fewer turnovers in 5 of 8 games. Last year we had fewer turnovers in 29 of 34 games with 2 even. We are averaging 13 turnovers, 6.5 unforced. Our opposition is averaging 15/6.
If you add our 40 rebounds to their 10 turnovers, we had 50 “manufactured possessions”. They had 38 + 12= 50, so we were even. We lost that battle for the first time this season against Michigan due to the turnovers and have thus won it 6 of 8 times. For the season we’ve averaged 57 to 46.5(+10.5).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 19 for 34, (.559) inside the arc, 3 for 22, (.136) outside it and 10 for 20 (.667) from the line. They were 11 for 37 (.297), 9/16 (.563) and 20/25 (.800).We’ve led in two point field goal percentage in 7 of 8 games and in free throw percentage in 6 of 8 games. We’ve led in three point field goals percentage, believe it or not, in 3 of 8 games, (our opposition isn’t exactly filling it up, either: even Michigan was 33.3% from the arc). For the season we are .533/.208/.658. Our opposition is .329/.318/.656.
We had 32 points in the paint, 8 off turnovers, 13 “second chance” points, only 4 fast break points and 11 from the bench. Our opposition had 12 points in the paint, 9 off turnovers, 8 “second chance” points, 13 fast break points and 11 from the bench. We’ve led in PIP 6 times, POTO 6 times, SCP 5 times, FBP 5 times and BP 5 times, with one tie. For the season we are averaging 35.5-19 PIP, 16-11 POTO, 14-9 SCP, 10-7 FBP and 12.5-11BP.
We had 57 points, 32 in the paint, 9 from the arc and 10 from the line so we had 15”POP”, (points outside the paint: 57-32-10) and scored 6 points, (15 POP- 9 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 the last two games: we led in TZ points the first six games by a combined 64-38 but against Michigan and St. John’s it was 8-14. They had 69/12/27/20= 37 POP and 10 from the Twilight Zone. We’ve only led in POP twice. For the year we are averaging 19 POP and 9 TZ, our opposition 26/6.5. The game is so much easier when you don’t have to go to the basket for all your points.
17 of our 22 baskets were assisted (.773) and 12 of their 20 (.600). For the year we are assisting on 59.8% of our baskets to 68.1% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 6 of 8 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. This game was a little strange in that we had the higher assit ratio but it was the other team making the jump shots. We actually tired more of them than St. John’s but they’ve got to go in for it to be an assist.
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 56 FGA - 15 OREBs + 12 TOs + (.475 x 20) = 62.5 possessions. They were 53 -12+ 10+ (.475 x 25) = 62.875 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 63 possessions in which we scored 57 points, (0.887) and 63 possessions in which they scored 69 points, (1.095). We have, of course, led 5 of 8 games in offensive efficiency since the winning team always leads in that stat. For the year we are averaging 1.015 points per possession to 0.840 for the opposition.
We had 126 combined possessions in this game. We’ve averaged 133.5 this year. We averaged 122 last year, so the pace appears to be better than it was last year. But it’s starting to slip. It was 137.5 the first four games, 129.5 in the last four.
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 had 15 points and 3 assists while Michael Gbinije had 13 points and 5 rebounds, so they both had 18 “hockey” points and are our co-ODOGs. Rakeem Christmas has been the O-Dog 4 times, Michael Gbinije, BJ Johnson, Kaleb Joseph, Chris McCullough and Trevor 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 17-14, 11-18, 19-18, 10-19. I though we were taking over the game when we had a 13-2 run from 12:42-5:34 but they more than matched that by closing it out with a 2-17 run in those last 5:24, (and note that it didn’t take as long). For the season, an average of 14.5-10.5, 17-14, 17-16, 19-15. We’ve won 23 of 30 quarters. We’ve scored 15 or more in 20 quarters and held the opposition under that 18 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 34 two point shots to 37, scored 32 points in the paint to 12 and got fouled 16 times to 18, attempting 20 foul shots to 25. St. John’s got to the line a bit more than we did, perhaps a reflection of how hard we were defending them inside the arc. I’m not it would have helped us to get a few more free throw attempts the way we were shooting. 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 334 two point shots and scored 284 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 141 times and taken 161 free throws. Our opposition has taken 271 two point shots and scored 162 points in the paint. They’ve been fouled 122 times and taken only 128 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, Rakeem Christmas, Trevor Cooney and Chris McCullough all played 40 minutes, (although the box score has Cooney 40- because he was out for less than a minute: it will go into the books as 40). Chris McCullough has been the “Man” 4 times, Trevor Cooney 3 times, Kaleb Joseph twice and Rakeem Christmas once. McCullough is just ahead of Cooney for playing the most minutes on the season 276-274.
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 29NP in 40 minutes season: 156NP in 244 minutes per 40: 25.6
Michael Gbinije….. 10NP in 37 minutes season: 38NP in 196 minutes per 40: 7.8
Chris McCullough.. 7NP in 40 minutes season: 132NP in 276 minutes per 40: 19.1
B. J. Johnson……… 3NP in 7 minutes season: 56NP in 136 minutes per 40: 16.5
Trevor Cooney…… 3NP in 40 minutes season: 59NP in 274 minutes per 40: 8.6
Kaleb Joseph……….. 1NP in 19 minutes season: 64NP in 256 minutes per 40: 10.0
Ron Patterson…….. -2NP in 17 minutes season: 2NP in 83 minutes per 40: 1.0
DNP-CD- none
Chinoso Obokoh….. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 14NP in 30 minutes per 40: 18.7
Tyler Roberson……. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 28NP in 95 minutes per 40: 11.8
INJURED
DaJuan Coleman…. 0NP in 0 minutes season: 0NP in 0 minutes per 40: 0.0
SUSPENDED
None
Comment: Christmas had a monster game. The problem is, it’s too easy to take a center out of a game if you don’t have to worry about the other guys. I did like the aggressiveness Gbinije showed. McCullough has led us in net points 4 times, Christmas 3 times and Johnson once.
POSSESSION
Before you can score you’ve got to get the rock. Syracuse had 15 offensive and 25 defensive rebounds. They had 12 offensive and 26 defensive rebounds. When we missed we got the ball 15 of 41 times, (36.6%). When they missed, they got the ball 12 of 37 times (32.4%). 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 29% of theirs.
Of our 12 turnovers, 7 were their steals and 5 were our own miscues. Of their 10 turnovers, 7 were Syracuse steals and 3 were their fault. We have had fewer turnovers in 5 of 8 games. Last year we had fewer turnovers in 29 of 34 games with 2 even. We are averaging 13 turnovers, 6.5 unforced. Our opposition is averaging 15/6.
If you add our 40 rebounds to their 10 turnovers, we had 50 “manufactured possessions”. They had 38 + 12= 50, so we were even. We lost that battle for the first time this season against Michigan due to the turnovers and have thus won it 6 of 8 times. For the season we’ve averaged 57 to 46.5(+10.5).
SHOOTING
It’s still what the game is all about. It’s what this game was all about, for sure. We were 19 for 34, (.559) inside the arc, 3 for 22, (.136) outside it and 10 for 20 (.667) from the line. They were 11 for 37 (.297), 9/16 (.563) and 20/25 (.800).We’ve led in two point field goal percentage in 7 of 8 games and in free throw percentage in 6 of 8 games. We’ve led in three point field goals percentage, believe it or not, in 3 of 8 games, (our opposition isn’t exactly filling it up, either: even Michigan was 33.3% from the arc). For the season we are .533/.208/.658. Our opposition is .329/.318/.656.
We had 32 points in the paint, 8 off turnovers, 13 “second chance” points, only 4 fast break points and 11 from the bench. Our opposition had 12 points in the paint, 9 off turnovers, 8 “second chance” points, 13 fast break points and 11 from the bench. We’ve led in PIP 6 times, POTO 6 times, SCP 5 times, FBP 5 times and BP 5 times, with one tie. For the season we are averaging 35.5-19 PIP, 16-11 POTO, 14-9 SCP, 10-7 FBP and 12.5-11BP.
We had 57 points, 32 in the paint, 9 from the arc and 10 from the line so we had 15”POP”, (points outside the paint: 57-32-10) and scored 6 points, (15 POP- 9 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 the last two games: we led in TZ points the first six games by a combined 64-38 but against Michigan and St. John’s it was 8-14. They had 69/12/27/20= 37 POP and 10 from the Twilight Zone. We’ve only led in POP twice. For the year we are averaging 19 POP and 9 TZ, our opposition 26/6.5. The game is so much easier when you don’t have to go to the basket for all your points.
17 of our 22 baskets were assisted (.773) and 12 of their 20 (.600). For the year we are assisting on 59.8% of our baskets to 68.1% for the opposition, who have had a higher percentage in 6 of 8 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. This game was a little strange in that we had the higher assit ratio but it was the other team making the jump shots. We actually tired more of them than St. John’s but they’ve got to go in for it to be an assist.
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 56 FGA - 15 OREBs + 12 TOs + (.475 x 20) = 62.5 possessions. They were 53 -12+ 10+ (.475 x 25) = 62.875 possessions. Since possessions shouldn’t be more than one off, I’ll count that as 63 possessions in which we scored 57 points, (0.887) and 63 possessions in which they scored 69 points, (1.095). We have, of course, led 5 of 8 games in offensive efficiency since the winning team always leads in that stat. For the year we are averaging 1.015 points per possession to 0.840 for the opposition.
We had 126 combined possessions in this game. We’ve averaged 133.5 this year. We averaged 122 last year, so the pace appears to be better than it was last year. But it’s starting to slip. It was 137.5 the first four games, 129.5 in the last four.
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 had 15 points and 3 assists while Michael Gbinije had 13 points and 5 rebounds, so they both had 18 “hockey” points and are our co-ODOGs. Rakeem Christmas has been the O-Dog 4 times, Michael Gbinije, BJ Johnson, Kaleb Joseph, Chris McCullough and Trevor 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 17-14, 11-18, 19-18, 10-19. I though we were taking over the game when we had a 13-2 run from 12:42-5:34 but they more than matched that by closing it out with a 2-17 run in those last 5:24, (and note that it didn’t take as long). For the season, an average of 14.5-10.5, 17-14, 17-16, 19-15. We’ve won 23 of 30 quarters. We’ve scored 15 or more in 20 quarters and held the opposition under that 18 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 34 two point shots to 37, scored 32 points in the paint to 12 and got fouled 16 times to 18, attempting 20 foul shots to 25. St. John’s got to the line a bit more than we did, perhaps a reflection of how hard we were defending them inside the arc. I’m not it would have helped us to get a few more free throw attempts the way we were shooting. 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 334 two point shots and scored 284 points in the paint. We’ve been fouled 141 times and taken 161 free throws. Our opposition has taken 271 two point shots and scored 162 points in the paint. They’ve been fouled 122 times and taken only 128 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, Rakeem Christmas, Trevor Cooney and Chris McCullough all played 40 minutes, (although the box score has Cooney 40- because he was out for less than a minute: it will go into the books as 40). Chris McCullough has been the “Man” 4 times, Trevor Cooney 3 times, Kaleb Joseph twice and Rakeem Christmas once. McCullough is just ahead of Cooney for playing the most minutes on the season 276-274.
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