SWC75
Bored Historian
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Here's a summary of a call I just made to Bud and the Manchild.
An earlier caller had suggested that the team's problem was that Michael Carter-Williams teammates don't like him and are resentful over his lack of punishment for the Lord and Taylor thing. This is what I call "Binocular Psychology". A guy sitting in the stands thinks he knows what's going on in the minds of the players. But he's probably right. I watched that game and thought to myself, "This is all about Lord and Taylor." Right.
Bud suggested that Jim Boeheim must have gone to bed Saturday night thinking: "Dave Bing and I would have more points that at halftime! What did I just see?" I looked at this page about statistical trends in NCAA basketball:
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketball_RB/Reports/All-time Statistical Trends chart.pdf
In 1966, the average NCAA team scored 77.5 points. Last year it was 68.0, (with 6 three point shots being made per game, so it's really 62 points per game under the 1966 rules). The field goal shooting percentages were 43.6 in both years, (including three pointers). There were 19 fouls called a game per team in 1966, 18 last year. There were 69 field goal attempts per team per game in 1966, 55 last year. It's not about the referees not calling fouls and allowing team to slow games down with their defense. It's about the pace of the game. Too many teams are draining the shot clock and their opponents are allowing them to. SU loves to run but we are too willing to let other teams play 50-50 type games. We need to get more defensively aggressive to increase the game's pace so we can run. We had 4 steals vs. Georgetown and forced an additional 5 turnovers. That's not enough.
In our 8 losses, we have gotten off 44 more shots than the opposition but have taken 57 fewer free throws. The average score has been 59-67. We are averaging 72 points for the season so 67 point should not beat us. We are doing a good job of getting the ball and getting shots off. Despite what it looks like, we aren't getting out-hustled for rebounds or lose balls and we aren't playing bad defense, (the 67 points are somewhat inflated because some of those points were set up by our lousy offense). We haven't been making shots and we haven't been getting to the line as much as the opposition. Some of the latter may be how the game was called, (it certainly was in the Marquette game), but some of it is settling for jumps shots (that we aren't making), too often.
I suggested that the shooting slump was like a baseball slump. You miss some shots, you started hearing about it and thinking about it. You get advise. You change things. The changes don't work. The answer is to go back to doing what you were doing when you were successful and remember how good you were at it. The hits will come and so will the shots.
An earlier caller had suggested that the team's problem was that Michael Carter-Williams teammates don't like him and are resentful over his lack of punishment for the Lord and Taylor thing. This is what I call "Binocular Psychology". A guy sitting in the stands thinks he knows what's going on in the minds of the players. But he's probably right. I watched that game and thought to myself, "This is all about Lord and Taylor." Right.
Bud suggested that Jim Boeheim must have gone to bed Saturday night thinking: "Dave Bing and I would have more points that at halftime! What did I just see?" I looked at this page about statistical trends in NCAA basketball:
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketball_RB/Reports/All-time Statistical Trends chart.pdf
In 1966, the average NCAA team scored 77.5 points. Last year it was 68.0, (with 6 three point shots being made per game, so it's really 62 points per game under the 1966 rules). The field goal shooting percentages were 43.6 in both years, (including three pointers). There were 19 fouls called a game per team in 1966, 18 last year. There were 69 field goal attempts per team per game in 1966, 55 last year. It's not about the referees not calling fouls and allowing team to slow games down with their defense. It's about the pace of the game. Too many teams are draining the shot clock and their opponents are allowing them to. SU loves to run but we are too willing to let other teams play 50-50 type games. We need to get more defensively aggressive to increase the game's pace so we can run. We had 4 steals vs. Georgetown and forced an additional 5 turnovers. That's not enough.
In our 8 losses, we have gotten off 44 more shots than the opposition but have taken 57 fewer free throws. The average score has been 59-67. We are averaging 72 points for the season so 67 point should not beat us. We are doing a good job of getting the ball and getting shots off. Despite what it looks like, we aren't getting out-hustled for rebounds or lose balls and we aren't playing bad defense, (the 67 points are somewhat inflated because some of those points were set up by our lousy offense). We haven't been making shots and we haven't been getting to the line as much as the opposition. Some of the latter may be how the game was called, (it certainly was in the Marquette game), but some of it is settling for jumps shots (that we aren't making), too often.
I suggested that the shooting slump was like a baseball slump. You miss some shots, you started hearing about it and thinking about it. You get advise. You change things. The changes don't work. The answer is to go back to doing what you were doing when you were successful and remember how good you were at it. The hits will come and so will the shots.
