Tried to pull up some stats to look and see what they might say about where we are and why are struggling somewhat (at least vs. expectations and vs. good teams). I did this aware of the old adage that stats can be made to say just about anything you want and any observations should thus be taken with a grain of salt. In this case though, I found nothing particularly surprising (or that hasn't been debated and or fretter over extensively on here). If there is one thing that surprised me it how good we are at what we are good at and how bad we are at what we are bad at. I'll share some observations, but note again, I found the whole thing not very illuminating (in other words, its all the same stuff I thought just watching us!)
1. Our offense is really good. I mean really good. Better than I expected good. 18 th in the country in offensive efficiency, 9th in adjusted FG%, 48th from 3 (even after last game), and an awesome 8th from 2 pt range. We are Top 40 at not turning it over, 30th at assists per FG, a really good 24th at avoiding getting our shots blocked and are even a very respectable 143rd at measuring our ability to get to the line (a vast improvement from last year at 276). These are all really good and most of these numbers have a high correlation to winning (especially effective FG %, turnover rate, and getting to the line). Numbers like these should really carry you a long way. The drags are exactly where I expected and all you would have expected. We give away the improved numbers of getting to the line more by simply not making them when we get there where we are an abysmal 304th in FT %. This is just dumfounding to me given our other shooting numbers (and considering its not like DT and TD get to the line a ton and others don't). The other number that kills us from being better on offense is our offensive rebounding % (surprise, surprise) where we are 305th. This is a rate stat, so our absolute number of offensive rebounds is gonna be very low because we don't miss as many shots as just about anyone else, thus creating fewer offensive rebounding opportunities and what opportunities there are we aren't very good at getting. As I really thought about this, I actually felt a little less horrible about our rebounding since I theorized (rationalized?) that our putrid offensive rebounding actually doesn't hurt as much since we shoot so well and there are fewer times that even comes into play!
2. Our defense, not so good and most notable a stunning drop off over last year. Defensive efficiency at 250th (down from 46th); Effective FG% 272nd (down from 59th); turnovers generated 149th (down from 54th) and 3 pt FG % a dismal 316th - - more on this later). A lot of speculation about ANO impact on some of these numbers and one number we really see that directly in is blocks down to 293rd (but only from 206th). Certainly this has some impact on other numbers, but hard to say its a huge impact (we didn't block a ton of shots last year and we certainly still don't) although ANO did TRY to block a lot of shots that he didn't block (but did end up out of position to play D or rebound) . One thing that really jumped out is some stats on point distribution. Despite our awful 3 pt. FG % defense, teams are only scoring 27% of their points against us from 3 which is only 252nd (higher is better in this case) and, because we do a good job of not fouling, teams only score 17% of their points VS. us from the FT line (297th). Amazingly, teams score 56% of their points against us from 2 point land and that is the 35th highest %. This I had not realized and our 2 pt. FG % def. isn't good but its no where near as bad as the points scored number would indicate. My take on these numbers is that there is a book on us now and that book is to take it to the basket and teams have been doing it with impunity. Couple that with going and getting rebounds and that explains why we give up so much from 2. Again, though, I think this is something I thought even before I poured over these numbers. One last number I found a little illuminating is that the average length of a possession for teams against us is down almost 2 seconds from last year. Another indication that teams have figured out how to attack us??
3. Rebounding not as bad as I thought and better than last year for sure! Our offensive rebounding we discussed above at 305th is awful still, but up from 342nd last year and when it comes to giving the other team offensive rebounds we are are 173rd which is dead in the middle of all D1 schools and well up from last years 280th. As I said, I am little less on rebounding as a cause than I might have been before this exercise.
4. Some random numbers: Bench minutes, we are 319th in the country (umm . . no surprise to most but to a few doubters, there is a hard number for ya'), avg. experience though we are 53rd (shouldn't we be getting better at most things?)
All in all, as I said, not a ton here that most might not have suspected anyway. The take aways for me are that rebounding, while not a strength is actually improved and maybe not as responsible as I thought; offense good (which we knew), maybe even better than we thought; the staggering fall on defense appears to really be the culprit more so than anything else and its a complete fail - - we are not defending the 2 or the 3 well at all. To me this goes to a Mooney weakness (also discussed here ad nauseum) which is he doesn't make adjustments really well. Teams adjusted to our defense and our defense needs to make some adjustments of our own (maybe try a different one?).
1. Our offense is really good. I mean really good. Better than I expected good. 18 th in the country in offensive efficiency, 9th in adjusted FG%, 48th from 3 (even after last game), and an awesome 8th from 2 pt range. We are Top 40 at not turning it over, 30th at assists per FG, a really good 24th at avoiding getting our shots blocked and are even a very respectable 143rd at measuring our ability to get to the line (a vast improvement from last year at 276). These are all really good and most of these numbers have a high correlation to winning (especially effective FG %, turnover rate, and getting to the line). Numbers like these should really carry you a long way. The drags are exactly where I expected and all you would have expected. We give away the improved numbers of getting to the line more by simply not making them when we get there where we are an abysmal 304th in FT %. This is just dumfounding to me given our other shooting numbers (and considering its not like DT and TD get to the line a ton and others don't). The other number that kills us from being better on offense is our offensive rebounding % (surprise, surprise) where we are 305th. This is a rate stat, so our absolute number of offensive rebounds is gonna be very low because we don't miss as many shots as just about anyone else, thus creating fewer offensive rebounding opportunities and what opportunities there are we aren't very good at getting. As I really thought about this, I actually felt a little less horrible about our rebounding since I theorized (rationalized?) that our putrid offensive rebounding actually doesn't hurt as much since we shoot so well and there are fewer times that even comes into play!
2. Our defense, not so good and most notable a stunning drop off over last year. Defensive efficiency at 250th (down from 46th); Effective FG% 272nd (down from 59th); turnovers generated 149th (down from 54th) and 3 pt FG % a dismal 316th - - more on this later). A lot of speculation about ANO impact on some of these numbers and one number we really see that directly in is blocks down to 293rd (but only from 206th). Certainly this has some impact on other numbers, but hard to say its a huge impact (we didn't block a ton of shots last year and we certainly still don't) although ANO did TRY to block a lot of shots that he didn't block (but did end up out of position to play D or rebound) . One thing that really jumped out is some stats on point distribution. Despite our awful 3 pt. FG % defense, teams are only scoring 27% of their points against us from 3 which is only 252nd (higher is better in this case) and, because we do a good job of not fouling, teams only score 17% of their points VS. us from the FT line (297th). Amazingly, teams score 56% of their points against us from 2 point land and that is the 35th highest %. This I had not realized and our 2 pt. FG % def. isn't good but its no where near as bad as the points scored number would indicate. My take on these numbers is that there is a book on us now and that book is to take it to the basket and teams have been doing it with impunity. Couple that with going and getting rebounds and that explains why we give up so much from 2. Again, though, I think this is something I thought even before I poured over these numbers. One last number I found a little illuminating is that the average length of a possession for teams against us is down almost 2 seconds from last year. Another indication that teams have figured out how to attack us??
3. Rebounding not as bad as I thought and better than last year for sure! Our offensive rebounding we discussed above at 305th is awful still, but up from 342nd last year and when it comes to giving the other team offensive rebounds we are are 173rd which is dead in the middle of all D1 schools and well up from last years 280th. As I said, I am little less on rebounding as a cause than I might have been before this exercise.
4. Some random numbers: Bench minutes, we are 319th in the country (umm . . no surprise to most but to a few doubters, there is a hard number for ya'), avg. experience though we are 53rd (shouldn't we be getting better at most things?)
All in all, as I said, not a ton here that most might not have suspected anyway. The take aways for me are that rebounding, while not a strength is actually improved and maybe not as responsible as I thought; offense good (which we knew), maybe even better than we thought; the staggering fall on defense appears to really be the culprit more so than anything else and its a complete fail - - we are not defending the 2 or the 3 well at all. To me this goes to a Mooney weakness (also discussed here ad nauseum) which is he doesn't make adjustments really well. Teams adjusted to our defense and our defense needs to make some adjustments of our own (maybe try a different one?).
