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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 1216252, member: 289"] 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: [url]http://suathletics.syr.edu/sports/2009/2/3/sidebar_52.aspx?path=mbasket[/url] 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: [url]http://www.orangehoops.org/Bball.htm[/url] 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. [/QUOTE]

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