The Downside - Michigan

[SWC75]

- We threw a game away. It’s been a while since we did that. We outshot Michigan from inside and outside the arc and from the line, by the percentages and out-rebounded them 36-31. We should have won the game. But we had 19 turnovers, only 7 of which were steals. We last had that many turnovers in the BET finals against Louisville two years ago when we wilted in front of their press in the second half. Michigan doesn’t press the way Louisville does and most of our turnovers were bad passes or just dribbling the ball off of feet. And we threw away a possible road win over a top 10 teams because of it. What a shame.

- The three most glaring screw-ups: Inbounding with one second left in the first on Michigan’s end, Gbinije throws the ball out of bounds, giving the Wolverines a shot from their own end with that second still left. Then, in the final minute and down only one, we twice fouls an 80% free throw shooter. We are gifted with two misses of the front end of the one and ones and got the rebound each time. The first time McCullough led Joseph too far on what should have been a basic outlet pass. Gbinije was in the way and had to duck and Joseph wasn’t looking back for the ball and it went out of bounds. Then Joseph did get the ball, dribble right into a defender and lost control of it. Ugh, double Ugh and triple Ugh.

- Rakeem Christmas had 11 points at halftime. The John Beilein adjusted his defense and Rak scored 4 second half points and wound up with 6 of those 17 turnovers. He has to learn to pass out of the double-teams. He might just get the ball back with a better chance to score.

- Watch out for foul trouble. Christmas has 3 and had them early. McCullough had 4 and Gbinije had 4. We don’t have replaceable parts for these guys.

- Five guys played between 32-40 minutes. Against quality opposition, this is an iron man team. But how much iron is there?

- One of the iron men was Gbinije, who played 32 minutes while Roberson and Johnson played 15 between them. That’s great if Gbinije is your idea of a forward.

- Our defense looked pretty good at halftime Michigan was 3 for 17 from the arc and that was almost half their shot attempts. They were 8 for 16 in the second half. When we got to the Final Four two years ago, we didn’t it by playing 40 minutes of strong defense, not 20.

- Yes, the team looked better in a lot of areas and almost came up with a big win. The maturation of the team can be seen. But how many pre-conference losses can we afford and not be on the NCAA bubble in March? We’ve got tough games with St. John’s, Louisiana Tech, (29 wins last year and 4 starters back), and a trip to Philly to play Villanova. Can we get by them without another loss. And how many conference losses can we expect? 4? 6? 8? These games matter.

 

[Madbiker]

We outplayed UM in just about every statistical facet of the game and lost because of foolish mostly unforced turnovers. It's hurts to lose a game like that especially with 2 great chances to win in the last 20 seconds. But turnovers are a problem that can be fixed so there's a lot of reason for optimism.

 

[KevMonstah]

My negative ... SU can hang a statline of 50% FG, 37.5% 3PT, 78.6% FT, outrebound the opponent 36-31, outblock them 5-1, roughly equal steals 5-7, 13 assists, ... and still put up only 65 pts. Teams in the past would put up 80, even with the 19 turnovers. Offensively, that's the best they've played all season.

But ...

They've scored roughly the same in all their wins with either slightly better or worse shooting from 2pt or FTs and with fewer turnovers.

I don't think that a team scoring 65 ppg is going to get that far. I'd almost rather see them spend some more time developing the offense than working on their defense.

Kev

 

[tbonezone]

did we ever learn why JB was reportedly red faced screaming at kaleb after what appeared to be a good play and 2 pts ?

just curious.

 

[OttoMets]

did we ever learn why JB was reportedly red faced screaming at kaleb after what appeared to be a good play and 2 pts ?

just curious.

Three points, with the made free throw.

I meant to ask that. It was a good pass.

 

[dyedorange]

My negative ... SU can hang a statline of 50% FG, 37.5% 3PT, 78.6% FT, outrebound the opponent 36-31, outblock them 5-1, roughly equal steals 5-7, 13 assists, ... and still put up only 65 pts. Teams in the past would put up 80, even with the 19 turnovers. Offensively, that's the best they've played all season.

But ...

They've scored roughly the same in all their wins with either slightly better or worse shooting from 2pt or FTs and with fewer turnovers.

I don't think that a team scoring 65 ppg is going to get that far. I'd almost rather see them spend some more time developing the offense than working on their defense.

Kev

It's pretty difficult to put up 80 points when you turn the ball over 19 times. You just start to run out of possessions after a while. I think the only way that works out is if the overall pace of the game is really fast, thereby enabling more possessions (but of course that helps the other team put up points just as well as it does for us). I didn't see the pace of the game or our overall score as problematic last night. We just simply turned the ball over way too many times, and gave them way too many second-chance points. I mean, they took 17 more shots than we did, which is just nuts!

What I take solace in is that we had some semblance of a balanced offense last night, but had an uncharacteristically high turnover rate. The turnovers are something I think we can improve on, so if we can continue to make progress with our scoring balance and 3pt percentages -- but also hold onto the ball more -- I think we'll see that points/game stat tick upwards.

 

[SWC75]

Scores are lower than they used to because of the pace of the game. Here's an update of a post I did last year on that subject:

A poster suggested that I look at the number of possessions per game for past years to see how some of the historical “Net Points” figures I’ve collected over the years for various players could be adjusted for the pace of the games. The SU athletics website has the necessary numbers for that dating back to the 1982-83 season:
http://suathletics.syr.edu/sports/2009/2/3/sidebar_52.aspx?path=mbasket

The necessary ingredients to the formula are field goal and free throw attempts, offensive rebounds, turnovers and games played. Multiply the FTA by .475, add FGA, subtract offensive rebounds and add turnovers. Divide by games played and round to the nearest whole number. That’s the number of possessions a team had per game. Do that for Syracuse and then for the opposition and add the results together. That’s the number of possessions per game that season, which tells you the pace of the game. And here is the resulting number for each season since 1982-83:

1982-83 163
1983-84 154
1984-85 145
1985-86 149
1986-87 145
1987-88 147
1988-89 153
1989-90 145
1990-91 152
1991-92 140
1992-93 150
1993-94 153
1994-95 153
1995-96 144
1996-97 146
1997-98 141
1998-99 142
1999-00 137
2000-01 140
2001-02 142
2002-03 145
2003-04 139
2004-05 135
2005-06 142
2006-07 144
2007-08 146
2008-09 147
2009-10 142
2010-11 133
2011-12 130
2012-13 132

So far in 2013-14 our games have averaged 124 possessions. Before I get into adjusted net points, I have a couple of comments. That first year is interesting and I’ll be expanding on that below. After that the pace seems stable until the mid-90’s, (around 150 possessions). Then it declines somewhat to around 140. The last three years it’s dropped to about 130 and now it’s down to 124. So what does this relate to? It’s interesting that the shot clock, introduced in 1985, and the three point shot, which began a year later, had little effect on the pace of the game. We’ve had three different points guards the last three years but the pace keeps slowing. I think it may have to do with the number of offensive weapons or perhaps the number of quality shooters, which we’ve been a bit thin on the last few years. If you have a limited number of options, you are going to take longer to find a good shot.

That high number of possessions for the first year above, (1982-83), made me wonder what kind of an anomaly that might be. I also wondered what the numbers for the famous 1965-66 team that averaged nearly 100 points a game might be. But I’m lacking the offensive rebound and turnover statistics for those years. But those two missing elements are usually similar in number. The SU website gives me those numbers for two seasons, (prior to 1982-83): 1974-75 and 1975-76. (The 1965-66 link doesn’t work). There is another website that can help here:
http://www.orangehoops.org/Bball.htm

Unfortunately it doesn’t add the team totals and only gives the SU numbers. But I have a calculator and SU’s possessions will be virtually the same as that of the opposition. So using the abbreviated formula of .475 X FTA + FGA divided by games played X 2 teams, I came up with these approximate possessions per game for 1965-66 to 1981-82:

1965-66 186
1966-67 169
1967-68 165
1968-69 164
1969-70 171
1970-71 157
1971-72 168
1972-73 157
1973-74 156
1974-75 157
1975-76 156
1976-77 169
1977-78 166
1978-79 156
1979-80 150
1980-81 134
1981-82 141

I decided to look at how much difference the absence of offensive rebounds and turnovers made. Since the beginning of the 1982-83 season we have played 1071 games, had 14,654 offensive rebounds and 15,433 turnovers. That’s a difference of -779, a bit less than one possession per game. I also looked at the fi=differential for each season. The biggest was in that first year, 1982-83, when we had 298 offensive rebounds and 521 turnovers for a difference of -223 in 31 games, or -7 possessions a game. But that’s one of only 9 seasons, including this partial year in which the difference was more than 2 possessions a game. That suggests that for most of the 1965-66 to 1981-82 seasons listed above the actual number is probably a possession or two less than what I’ve listed. However the teams with the greatest differential, ((1982-83 -7, 1983-84, -5, 1984-85 -41989-90 +4, 1994-95 -3, 1995-96 -3, 2008-09 +3, 2009-10 +3 and 2013-14 +3.5), have tended to be our weakest and strongest rebounding teams. Other than the Louie and Bouie Era, (1976-80), we tended to be short and not very good at rebounding, even when we were good in the 1965-82 area. So the difference in possessions may be a little bit more than 1 or 2 per game.

Nonetheless, the numbers seem to confirm what most people who have observed all these periods remember: that basketball was faster-paced game in the 1960’s and 1970’s than it has been since. Ah, the good old days!

One thing I couldn’t resist, even though I’m dealing with incomplete information: The 1965-66 team, which averaged 99.0 points per game, also averaged 93 possessions a game, per the above. That’s an “efficiency” rating of 1.065. This year’s team has a rating of 1.158. It’s all pace.

UPDATE: We wound up averaging 122 possession a game last year, meaning that the 1965-66 team had half again as man possessions per game as the 2013-14 team did. So far this year we have improved to 135 possessions a game but it will be interesting to see how that holds up as the season progresses and the game-to-game schedule gets tougher.

 

[tbonezone]

put away your pencil .you can throw away all them 60's stats mr. mathematician man . i can tell ya straight that back then the rims were tighter and the dames were looser. man oh man how i miss those stinky hippy chicks and the smell of hai karate.

 

[SWC75]

put away your pencil .you can throw away all them 60's stats mr. mathematician man . i can tell ya straight that back then the rims were tighter and the dames were looser. man oh man how i miss those stinky hippy chicks and the smell of hai karate.

 

[KevMonstah]

Obviously, in playing a zone D, they aren't going to generate enough possessions to get a ton of points against the better teams, unless you play a team that's more than willing to chuck it up. SU hit 70 pts last year four times after Jan 1: @VaTech, Duke, @FSU, and against Western Mich in the NCAAs. As it seems like SU has settled into a "we shoot 43% from the field and average 65 ppg" type of team, that a little extra effort on the offensive side of the ball to get to the 70ppg would make a big difference. SU scored less than 60 pts in about half of their games from Jan 1 to the Dayton loss, and there is no way a team with the talent they had last year should've been that low. Ok, they can't shoot. Great, run some plays to get shots. Run some plays to get some low post scoring. I mean, you watch the Cal game from this year, and Cal looked effortless in setting up their offense at times: dribble up, pass into the lane, kick out for a wide open shot. Easy. Michigan: pass to the wing, dribble drive towards the lane, SU's 2 guards, one wing, and C would collapse, and there were a ton of easy passes for clean shot attempts. It never seems easy for SU on offense.

JB switched to a zone which makes it harder to score, but slows the game down, and puts a premium on offensive execution to capitalize on fewer possessions. I think he's done great on the defensive side, but I don't think the staff has done as good of a job on the offensive side. And somewhere along the line, you do need to outscore the opponent to win.

Kev

 

[SWC75]

Obviously, in playing a zone D, they aren't going to generate enough possessions to get a ton of points against the better teams, unless you play a team that's more than willing to chuck it up. SU hit 70 pts last year four times after Jan 1: @VaTech, Duke, @FSU, and against Western Mich in the NCAAs. As it seems like SU has settled into a "we shoot 43% from the field and average 65 ppg" type of team, that a little extra effort on the offensive side of the ball to get to the 70ppg would make a big difference. SU scored less than 60 pts in about half of their games from Jan 1 to the Dayton loss, and there is no way a team with the talent they had last year should've been that low. Ok, they can't shoot. Great, run some plays to get shots. Run some plays to get some low post scoring. I mean, you watch the Cal game from this year, and Cal looked effortless in setting up their offense at times: dribble up, pass into the lane, kick out for a wide open shot. Easy. Michigan: pass to the wing, dribble drive towards the lane, SU's 2 guards, one wing, and C would collapse, and there were a ton of easy passes for clean shot attempts. It never seems easy for SU on offense.

JB switched to a zone which makes it harder to score, but slows the game down, and puts a premium on offensive execution to capitalize on fewer possessions. I think he's done great on the defensive side, but I don't think the staff has done as good of a job on the offensive side. And somewhere along the line, you do need to outscore the opponent to win.

Kev

I think if you start to win 30 games a year, you must be doing a good job of out-scoring people.

 

[reedny]

Seems to me that the stall-ball we keep seeing from other teams is a factor. Since we became a perennial national basketball power (11 years ago?) and started piling up wins, the stock defense against us has been the 34-chuck offense.

 

[KevMonstah]

They win, but was anyone honestly happy with how they played last year? I'd rather they put up more than 49 pts against a Miami, or 59 against a BC. Do you want a better team to constantly play with fire by playing games in the 50s? JB said it last year, they won all the close games to start with by making plays, then they lost because they didn't. Scoring more to put some distance between themselves and some of the inferior teams, rather than being willing to settle for a 42% shooting night with 59 pts and trusting that they can always make the plays is not a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with beating a team a little more decisively and not having it come down to a single block/steal/shot in the last 10 seconds.

Kev