Posted by bow2dacowz on 4/7/2011 2:02:00 AM (view original):
it wasnt nearly as bad as youd think.  i dont have access to the stats, but i shot a higher % than my opponents for the season.  generally there'd be 20-25 offensive rebounds allowed, but often times youd get several in a row  before a basket was scored, so it's not like i was giving up points for every time there was an offensive rebound allowed. 

i averaged double digit steals and 20+ forced turnovers.  the games where we were slightly better than that we did well...the games where we only forced 15-20 turnovers we typically did not win. 

we were also a very, very young team with 9 new players and brand new offense and defense systems being installed.  i had really only 1 guard with any rebounding because i was really more worried about getting as many decent guards as possible in year 1 so that we could fill in for need in the years to come.  i'm not saying we are gonna go win a NC doing this,, and with only 2 upperclassmen on the roster this probably figures to be another long year...but i think by the time these guys are jr's and srs we could be able to put a scare into just about anyone. 

it's been a fun departure from the norm anyway and definitely a different kind of challenge.  i'm sure i'll keep picking stuff up about it along the way. 

Please come back from time to time to update this bow2dacowz, I find the theory fascinating...

So we've hit the mid point of my 2nd season with Averett so figured I'd come back and fill everyone in on what is going on.

Some relevant info:

*Our team consists of 2 srs, 0 jrs, 6 sophs, and 4 frosh
*Our team skill average is 513
*Core averages of 43 ath, 62 spd, 12 reb, 40 def, 21 lp, 50 per, 52 bh, 47 pass and 74 stam
*thru 1/2 season our avg team growth is 27 per player
*growth by core: ath, spd, reb ,lp, stam +2, def, bh, and pass +3, per +4
*we are shooting .456% from field, .382% from 3, and .723% from line. 
*we are allowing .420% from field, .349% from 3, and .751% from line.
*we are averaging 7.5 offensive rebounds per game and allowing 21.3
*we are averaging 28.0 rebounds and allowing 49.7
*we are averaging 17.2 assists and allowing 12.8
*we are averaging 15.6 turnovers, and forcing 21.8 turnovers
*we are averaging 14.1 steals, and allowing 8.0 steals
*we are averaging 22.2 fouls and 22.6 fouls against
*we are averaging 79.8ppg, and allowing 82.2

the surprising part...
We are 6-7 with an RPI of 90 and a SOS of 42.  Given the youth of our team, this is pretty surprising to me.
We are 1-5 at home, and 5-2 on the road

Now I wanted to look beyond simple shooting statistics at some of the statistics that would have a direct effect on shooting, both for and against...so...

Some more in depth analysis:

WINS(RPI in parenthesis)

@ Wheaton (281) 71-57
Upper Iowa (53) 87-81
@ Brooklyn (126) 97-96
@ Anderson (146) 89-75
@ Methodist (211) 78-66
@ UNC Wesleyan (276) 97-69

Key stats from these wins:

vs Wheaton: 30 rebounds for, 46 against.  19 steals, 31 turnovers forced.  16 turnovers committed
vs Upper Iowa: 29 rebounds for, 53 against.  17 steals, 28 turnovers forced.  13 turnovers committed
vs Brooklyn:  33 rebounds for, 50 against.  16 steals, 20 turnovers forced.  14 turnovers committed
vs. Anderson: 29 rebounds for, 47 against.  18 steals, 21 turnovers forced.  11 turnovers committed
vs. Methodist: 28 rebounds for, 43 against.  14 steals, 25 turnovers forced.  14 turnoers committed
vs. UNC Wesleyan: 37 rebounds for, 43 rebounds against.  21 steals, 31 turnovers forced. 12 turnovers committed

Win averages: 
31 rebounds for (+3 over season average)
47 rebounds against (2.7 below season average)
17.5 steals (3.4 above season average)
26 turnovers forced (4.2 above season average)
13.33 turnovers committed (2.3 below season average)

BAD LOSSES (losses to bad teams, or blowouts vs good teams)

@ UMass Dartmouth (269) 92-88
vs. #11 Hendrix (39) 97-62
vs. #22 Carnegie Mellon (69) 82-67
vs. #6 Rowan (30) 110-78

Key Stats from these losses:

UMass Dartmouth: 28 rebounds for, 49 against.  13 steals, 17 turnovers forced.  8 turnovers committed
Hendrix:  24 rebounds for, 59 against.   7 steals.  17 turnovers forced.  21 turnovers committed
Carnegie Mellon:  22 rebounds for, 54 against.  10 steals, 17 turnovers forced.  12 turnovers committed
Rowan:  29 rebounds for, 68 against.  16 steals, 17 turnovers forced.  26 turnovers committed


Bad Loss Averages:

25.75 rebounds for (2.25 below season average)
57.5 rebounds against (7.5 above season average)
11.5 steals (2.6 below season average)
17 turnovers forced (4.8 below season average)
16.75 turnovers (1.15 above season average)


GOOD LOSSES (Competitive games vs. good teams)

vs. #10 Muhlenburg (10) 83-76
vs #21 Swarthmore (31) 81.76
@ #2 Piedmont (1) 79-71


Key Stats from these games:

Muhlenburg: 24 rebounds for, 45 against.  10 steals, 18 turnovers forced.  23 turnovers committed
Swarthmore: 28 rebounds for, 47 against.  14 steals, 27 turnovers forced. 20 turnovers committed
Piedmont: 23 rebounds for, 42 against.  8 steals, 15 turnovers forced, 13 turnovers committed

Good Loss Averages:

25 rebounds for (3 below season average)
44.67 rebounds against (5.03 below season average)
10.67 steals (3.43 below season average)
20 turnovers forced (1.8 below season average)
18.67 turnovers committed (3.07 above season average)



So what does it all mean?  Well, even though I averaged all the stats I don't think they are completely relevant on their own because the sample sizes are different and the quality of competition represented in each sample is going to be different...so everything is pretty relative and somewhat open to interpretation.

Obviously on the whole I seemed to win the games where we were able to keep the rebounding close ( by our standards) and force a lot of turnovers.  The games that would qualify as bad losses, we got outrebounded horribly and had mixed results as far as turnovers go.

The games that were good losses we were able to do a pretty good job on the boards and still force a decent number of turnovers against such good competition which allowed us to keep the game close.


The bottom line is that with such a young team i'm really kind of shocked that we were able to win 6 games in the first half and that we were able to take 3 pretty good teams right down to the wire. 

This question might have an obvious answer, but did you make any observations or notice anything about the interior defense? Do offensively subpar post players consistently (or more than expected) overperform?

i have honestly paid 0 attention to the post since we can't really match up with post players...so it's not really something that is worth giving much time to.  we play -5 every game and just take our chances.  i try to put my better rebounders in the post...we only have one right now that's over 20 and he's at 44 so he plays almost exclusively inside. 

i'd imagine there are probably some guys that have had better than expected games, but i'm also willing to bet we've been able to disrupt some guys that don't handle the ball very well inside too.

i would suspect that the odds are if sub par players are having big games inside that those are the games we would lose....id say we've really only lost 1 game we should have won...the others have been against better teams that in theory would have a couple decent big men and not necessarily guys that would over perform.

it's really hard to analyze these stats at all because of the varying skill level of our opponents.  for the most part we've beaten the teams that youd expect and lose to the ones you'd expect...keeping a few close and a few not so much.  i'm just surprised we haven't dropped the ball against more of the weak teams and been blown out a few more times by the good teams with how young and to be honest, how under skilled we are.

Hey Bow, I've been watching your team- Muhlenberg is my team.. for comparisons sake, i lost to #1 Piedmont in overtime... i had a +1 reb margin, and TOs were the same.  He shot better.


What i take from your good losses is that rebounding isnt as important as ball control is.  See your game against piedmont.

agreed....i dont think theres any way you could do this without playing press as it's really the only way to mitigate the huge rebounding gaps. 

going forward as our iq's keep getting better....if we can improve our rebounding this thing might really work.  we do lose our one guy with the 40ish rebounding this year....but we've got a few guys that could hit low 20s by next season and maybe close to 30 by the end of next season.  having a few guys in that range will probably be better than just the one guy at 40.

the one thing i've always wondered about...maybe you guys know or have some thoughts....

since rebounding is more matchup based...and i have virtually no rebounding and even my best guy at 40 is going to be substantially behind any big he plays against...am i actually better putting my WORST rebounders in the post and my best rebounders at the 1,2, and 3 and trying to win those rebounding matchups?

something i may toy around with the last handful of games once we fall out of postseason contention...whch i expect we will

I dont think that makes a difference- tracked over the course of 2 season I had 2 good players who's ratings were similiar in the post.  The only slotted at center averaged 1.5 boards more than the guy at PF.  I switched the players to see if made a difference, and it was the same.  The guy at center was still 1.5 boards better.


Likewise I had a great SG last year with 55 rebounding (DI)... he played 1 2 3 and 4 at times for me and got more boards at the 4 than the 1.

interesting...thanks for the thoughts

i'm not gonna break down the stats like for the first half of the season, but shockingly we are going to make the PIT with only 2 upper classmen on the roster.  i waited all season for the collapse to come, and it never did, and i really don't understand why. 

we went 12-1 since i broke down the stats previously with our only loss coming on the road at #53rpi Greensboro who we also beat at home during that stretch.  didn't have many games that were really in doubt either...a couple of 6 pointers and then a 1 pointer that was nearly a big upset (our ONLY good rebounder was at 60% with an injury for that game and we got murdered on the boards worse than usual)

i really don't know what to think going forward...part of me still feels like ths was a huge fluke and we'll come crashing back to earth next season, and part of me has a lot of hope for the fact that if we can keep adding some rebounding that we might be pretty dangerous, especially 2 seasons from now when nearly our entire roster will be composed of upper-classmen

Its the drawn fouls and free throws.

The conf is also pretty weak. OOC results is more indicative of how this team would do. 

yeah, i'm not a moron guys im pretty aware of the level of the conference, but even our OOC results werent bad....and  at that point we had a team full of guys that were freshmen and high school players and we still stuck with some pretty good teams that we had no business sticking with, and other than game #1 we beat all the teams that we should have beat...which doesn't happen with teams that have 10 under classmen with awful IQs

If the team had 2 real C, or maybe even 1, I think you would be going to the NT as opposed to the PIT. 

I know one coach used 12 pf's and c's - with the new recruit generation - I think that might be easier to win with?

I have played and won NT's with 4 g's and 1 big man, and several with 3g's, a sf, and a big man, but I think overall, fewer and fewer of those types of guards are available, again, the game seems to have shifted toward big men being available, with fewer and fewer guards

I read most of the post, to run fcp/fb I would think the 3rd most important attribute would be stamina, generally guards have better stamina than big men, I looked at your team, I would suggest you emphasize that more than you have, it seems you have emphasized it, I would simply suggest get even more of it.

tianyi-that would defeat the purpose of a 5 guard lineup, no? :)


oldresorter-very fair points, but as you noted the change in recruiting paired with trying to find 12 guys in 2 seasons (i inherited a team of 3 srs) made it very difficult to really focus on anything.  i tried to find guys with at the very least some speed potential and ideally some speed and athleticism potential.  the second season i tried to get some guards that could have potential to get to 20+ rebounding by year 2.  it was just a challenge to really try to recruit for specific needs given the volume we needed and the low prestige.

my HOPE is that as we get further into this and hopefully our prestige improves i can start trying to balance the classes a little bit and be able to start recruiting players with more specific skill sets.  we'll see if i am so fortunate or not!