Can anyone explain the reasons why one team takes way more shots than the other? I understand the reasons that make sense, i.e. a team who runs FB/FC Press and teams who run uptempo are obviously more apt to take a lot of shots. But, I feel like it will happen to me semi-frequently where a team will run a non FB offense and a normal tempo and still out-shoot the hell out of me. For example, my Mississippi team runs FB/Zone and the team I just played took 22! more shots than me (they ran Flex/FC Press)

Is it all because of the turnover differential? Is there something else I'm missing? Thanks in advance.

what you are talking about is collectively the possession battle, for the most part, and mostly about rebounding and TOs. outside of that, shooting fouls vary game over game and missed shots leading to shooting fouls don't count in that fga total, so that kind of stuff causes some variation, but that is not normally the focus. on the other hand, i look at games as primarily 2 battles - the off vs def fg% differential battle, and the possession battle. the possession battle is a huge part of the picture and a bunch of important stuff goes in there.

turnovers are a main one, but also rebounding - every offensive rebound is another offensive possession. the more fouling a team does, the lower their shot total tends to look, too. there are a couple edge cases that make things a bit tricky to count, but mostly you can follow the box score to identify the cause of the shot deficit in that game - but with large deficits like 22, you must be losing on the big two, rebounds and turnovers.

i want to address your comment on the paces... it sounds like you are suggesting tempo impacts possessions. which is partly true but i want to clarify. on the whole season, of course higher pace teams (uptempo or fb or press or some combination - that sort of thing) are going to take more shots. but in a single game, possessions go back and forth and pace is not a justification for shot differential within a single game. the off and def do factor into turnovers and rebounding, so it is true that press teams are more likely to take more shots than their opponent, but this has nothing to do with pace. so when your fb/zone team got out shot by 22, the reasons are going to relate to rebounding and turnovers mostly, and also foul shots likely, and your higher pace (fastbreak) is not something that really makes this more or less egregious or whatever. its sort of tangentially related. what is directly important is fastbreak gives up more turnovers so likely that is a small contributor (but that would explain 1-2 turnovers a game).

looking at your lagrange game
Hoops Dynasty – College Basketball Sim Games - Game Boxscore - Mississippi College vs. La Grange (whatifsports.com)

offensive rebounds is an 8 differential, 15 vs 7, so that is 8 extra offensive possessions for them. now, they missed a LOT of shots, so you didn't necessarily get beat on rebounding so badly. that isn't necessarily as big a cause for concern as it sounds. the best rebounding evaluation on the game would be to compare % of rebounds, here it is: them 15 off 22 def, you 7 off 32 def, your % of def rebounds 32/(32+15) = 68% which is quality, their % is 22/(22+7) = 76% which is great, so they beat you by 8% this game, which is a fairly significant but not massive advantage. they missed a ton of shots so there were a lot of rebounding opportunities, and that is why they gained 8 possessions there, instead of a more statistically even number like 6 (8% of the total rebounds in that game). still, you barely shoot any 3s, so i suspect you'll regularly see more missed shots from your opponent than you, and therefore, they'll get extra shots. you have to know that those shots aren't actually things you are doing bad, them missing more shots than you isn't a disadvantage even though it skews the numbers. so about 25% of this game's rebounding deficit you can write off, but the other 75% suggests you need to improve your reb, although i'm kinda surprised you got killed so hard with that 2-3 -3 zone and your ratings. i'd look at your % of rebounds vs your opponent in some key games, and use that to drive you understanding of where you stand rebounding quality wise. there's lots of noise in the totals, the % of def reb differential paints a MUCH clearer picture (and of course 1 single game is way too small a sample to draw conclusions).

11 turnovers, thats largely the press. you stood up fatigue wise better so that may be a bit abnormal, too. your bh/pass doesn't look awful, but them pressing and you being fb is a pretty significant natural advantage. still, whether its expected or not, they are a big source of the shot differential this game.

11 TOs + 8 off reb is 19, that is most of the 22 shots. now, both sides took a lot of foul shots, but they fouled 4 more times and you took 2 more foul shots. its hard to convert that to a # of shots offset by that (which aren't a problem - you'd rather take more FTs) - but it should be 3 (22-19), which sounds plausible. you can look in the pbp to sort out the nitty gritty, but 1 and 1s and other things make this impossible to draw conclusions from just off the box score. probably, the opponent only had 19 more 'successful' offensive possessions, if you'll allow me to temporarily define a successful offensive possession as each that results in a shot and/or FT, understanding multiple of these can happen in a row (and do for every offensive rebound). from your end, you really care whether than shot goes in, right - but from a possession battle vs fg% battle, what you really care about is whether a scoring opportunity existed (shot or FT), in the possession battle part. most likely you had 3 more 'successful' possessions result in FTs than them, even though you only had 2 extra FTs (on average you should have had closer to 6 FTs for 3 possessions, so i'd expect you missed more 1 and 1s, or they got fouled on a couple 3s while you didn't, or something like that, to justify why you had fewer FTs than one would expect).

i might not be thinking about this 100% right at the moment, but i think those 3 sources of shot differentials should always explain the total (turnovers, off reb, and fouls)... its just that the foul related weirdness list is long, technicals, fouls that happen when the whole team is already fouled out, that sort of thing. so not always easy to tell where the shots went in terms of those fouls. once you identify your regular sources of deficits in things like reb / tos, if you have them, then you can work on fixing them. sometimes its just a bad game though.

Really appreciate all of this insight gillispie. 22 shot differential seemed like a lot, and seems to happen to me frequently, but once you look at the Off rebounding/turnover battle in the game you pointed out, a large shot differential adds up pretty quickly.

Also free throws need to be taken into account. Basically, every 2 free throws is also a possession that is not a shot. Actually, the number is slightly less than 2 because of 1&1 misses and fouls after the shot {3 the old way}. But when comparing between teams, I assume those cancel each other out (so, the 1 shots from one team and the other do not impact the ratio and basically cancel each other out).

So .. if you shot 20 free throws and the opponent shot 10 free throws .. then you have 10 more free throws shot .. or 10/2 is 5 more processions.

Gil has it in his analysis as well, just thought i would point it out specifically too.

The key is .. every possession ends in something (turnover, free throws, shot, time runs out).

Good comment, Gil.

I have a question for ya. I have found that on some of my teams with good rebounding I have had a substantial advantage over my opponents in total rebounds and yet still am at a small disadvantage with opponents having more offensive rebounds than me.

What would you say about my team building or game planning factors in?

Many of the folks I chat with over sitemail hear me say more than once - always be thinking about possessions. Especially true if you play straight zone. Total possessions in a game are generally close to balanced, so it’s a matter of how they end up, as others have said. If you play straight zone, you are giving away a lot of forced turnovers, so you need to make that up through either extra efficient Opp FG% and rebounding, or with your own offensive efficiency and rebounding, or ideally some combination. Either way, rebounding and efficiency are paramount if you play straight zone, and so is getting your defensive positioning and your groupings right. There is not much margin for error.

Posted by craigaltonw on 2/25/2021 2:04:00 PM (view original):
Good comment, Gil.

I have a question for ya. I have found that on some of my teams with good rebounding I have had a substantial advantage over my opponents in total rebounds and yet still am at a small disadvantage with opponents having more offensive rebounds than me.

What would you say about my team building or game planning factors in?

short version - i would say that the only effective way to evaluate rebounding via results is to look at your margin on % of defensive rebounds, meaning looking at the % of defensive rebounds you and your opponents are getting, and taking the difference - you want to be getting a higher % of your defensive rebounds than they are. if you look at your performance against high end competition, an even score (0% differential) would indicate you are an average high end team, reb wise. on the season though, if you are a good team, you'll probably be looking for 5-10% advantage or so, depending on your schedule difficulty.

total rebounds, offensive rebounds, their impact on shot counts... all of that could be nothing and should basically be ignored. so, you should evaluate rebounding purely by the delta on defensive rebounding %, because any perceived disadvantages (or advantages) in terms of oreb or total reb are only perception, unless they also manifest in terms of your rebounding performance by %.

long version - with explanation of the rationale and also examples of how to calculate / evaluate:

i think a straight forward thought experiment helps clarify if this is confusing (and also helps clarify why this is logically sound) - assume we have 2 balanced teams. let's say they each take 60 shots this game, make 30 and miss 30, so 30 rebounding opportunities on each side. suppose each team got a solid 70% on each side, so both teams have 21 dreb, 9 oreb, 30 total reb.

in this scenario, i think we would all agree - these teams are in perfect balance in terms of rebounding talent. in this case, all of their numbers about rebounding match - same # of def reb, oreb, total reb, and same % of defensive. but those numbers won't always be the same.

suppose now we keep the 2 teams the same in every other way, but now team 1 is better defensively in terms of fg%/3pt% - now suppose team 2 goes from 30 makes and 30 misses, to 20 makes and 40 misses. of those 40 rebounding opportunities, how should those be split, assuming the rebounding balance and performance between the two teams is perfectly even? do we give all the 10 extra boards to one team or the other? i think that would be crazy - i think the only reasonable way would be to follow the same proportions - 7 boards for the defense, 3 for the offense. meanwhile, on the other end of the court, its still 30 opportunities, 21 def, 9 off rebounds.

so now, team 1 is going to be doing a lot better in this game. however, of those 40 rebounding opportunities, they are going to get 70% or 28, while the other team gets 12 offensive boards. so if you compare the boards, you'd see:
team 1, 28 dreb, 9 oreb, 37 reb
team 2, 21 dreb, 12 oreb, 33 reb

in this case, team 1 did better on dreb and total, but team 2 on oreb. who did better? the answer is neither, none of those things matter, and you should never look at any of them (reb, oreb, etc) to see who 'did better' in terms of rebounding. both teams get 70% of def reb and 30% of off reb and are tied in terms of ability (at least based on this 1 performance). the reason team 1 got more dreb and total reb, and team 2 got more oreb, is simply because team 2 missed more shots creating more rebounding opportunities. obviously, team 1 is happy about there being more missed shots. they can't be (or really it would be irrational to be) sad about those 3 extra oreb that team 2 got, because they only reason they got them is they missed so many shots in the first place. similarly, they have no grounds for being proud of their extra dreb or total rebounds.

so, looking at a random team of yours, here's how you look at it:
chapman Hoops Dynasty – College Basketball Sim Games - Team Profile (whatifsports.com)

stats:
reb: 1078, opponent: 1018
oreb: 331, opponent: 355
dreb (calculated, not listed on stats page): 747, opponent 663

your d reb %:
747 / (747 + 355) = 67.8%

their d reb %:
663 / (663 + 331) = 66.7%

delta: +1.1% (advantage to you of 1.1%)

this is a slight rebounding advantage. it looks like you played an ok schedule, but worlds are so empty these days... 22 sos is misleading. if you compare your schedule (actually looking at the schedule tab) to the slate you'd play in a 6 game NT run if you were to win, you are going to face a significantly harder schedule over the course of the NT. therefore, i'd guess in that NT run, you'd be at a moderate reb disadvantage - and almost certainly against the top 10 or so teams, the ones you really want to measure yourself against as soon as you are able to do so (and looking at your teams ratings, that would probably be the expectation, right). i see you are new at this program, but im not really making any point about anything you did - im just giving an example of how you evaluate it - evaluating this team, if they want to make a good NT run, reb is gonna hold them back. my rule of thumb is really good teams playing really good schedules will be looking for mid to high single digit % advantages on the season.

just picking 1 team off your schedule (wouldn't be surprised to see higher % advantages in d3 which is a lot emptier than current d1, or the d2/d3 i grew up in) - texas tyler because its qb4usf so that must be a good team. ok well their reb kinda isnt so hot looking at the ratings, im guessing that is probably holding them back a bunch this season, so not the best example. looks to my eyes they are behind a couple % or so just doing mental napkin math (and not really, i just guessed randomly to be honest), on a 24 sos that looks kinda weak, so safe to say in the deep NT games they'd be in trouble reb wise - the reader is free to confirm the numbers hash out as i suggest if they are interested.

here's a good team they played: cairn. Hoops Dynasty – College Basketball Sim Games - Team Profile (whatifsports.com)

i don't really know d3 ratings but i assume they are a pretty high end reb team, and they are on 2 SOS... although their schedule doesn't truly look that hard. anyway. here's the math for them:
reb: 991, opponent 828
oreb: 317, opponent 272
dreb: 674, opponent 556

cairn def reb% = 674 / (674 + 272) = 71.2%
opp def reb% = 556 / (556 + 317) = 63.7%

cairn def reb % delta = 7.5%, a very respectable figure against a solid schedule (i like to schedule stupidly hard with my good teams, so this is just kinda like a solid difficulty schedule in my view)

Wow! Thanks for all the detail. This might be an obvious question. However, can you explain one more time why the formula is:

DR% = DR/(DR+OR-of-opponents)

Posted by craigaltonw on 2/25/2021 10:59:00 PM (view original):
Wow! Thanks for all the detail. This might be an obvious question. However, can you explain one more time why the formula is:

DR% = DR/(DR+OR-of-opponents)

no problem, glad it was helpful!

the reason that is the formula is because we are trying to measure performance in terms of rebounds out of rebounding opportunities. if there are 20 rebounding opportunities on your defensive end, that isn't inherently a good or bad thing - but if you get 10, that is bad, and 18 is amazing.

for every rebounding opportunity on your end of the court, either you get a defensive board, or the opponent gets an offensive board. so, the total number of rebounding opportunities on the defensive side is (your DR + opp OR). so if you get 20 defensive boards, and they get 8 offensive board, then there were 28 total attempts and you got 20 of them, or 20/28 = 71.4%

Posted by gillispie1 on 2/25/2021 5:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by craigaltonw on 2/25/2021 2:04:00 PM (view original):
Good comment, Gil.

I have a question for ya. I have found that on some of my teams with good rebounding I have had a substantial advantage over my opponents in total rebounds and yet still am at a small disadvantage with opponents having more offensive rebounds than me.

What would you say about my team building or game planning factors in?

short version - i would say that the only effective way to evaluate rebounding via results is to look at your margin on % of defensive rebounds, meaning looking at the % of defensive rebounds you and your opponents are getting, and taking the difference - you want to be getting a higher % of your defensive rebounds than they are. if you look at your performance against high end competition, an even score (0% differential) would indicate you are an average high end team, reb wise. on the season though, if you are a good team, you'll probably be looking for 5-10% advantage or so, depending on your schedule difficulty.

total rebounds, offensive rebounds, their impact on shot counts... all of that could be nothing and should basically be ignored. so, you should evaluate rebounding purely by the delta on defensive rebounding %, because any perceived disadvantages (or advantages) in terms of oreb or total reb are only perception, unless they also manifest in terms of your rebounding performance by %.

long version - with explanation of the rationale and also examples of how to calculate / evaluate:

i think a straight forward thought experiment helps clarify if this is confusing (and also helps clarify why this is logically sound) - assume we have 2 balanced teams. let's say they each take 60 shots this game, make 30 and miss 30, so 30 rebounding opportunities on each side. suppose each team got a solid 70% on each side, so both teams have 21 dreb, 9 oreb, 30 total reb.

in this scenario, i think we would all agree - these teams are in perfect balance in terms of rebounding talent. in this case, all of their numbers about rebounding match - same # of def reb, oreb, total reb, and same % of defensive. but those numbers won't always be the same.

suppose now we keep the 2 teams the same in every other way, but now team 1 is better defensively in terms of fg%/3pt% - now suppose team 2 goes from 30 makes and 30 misses, to 20 makes and 40 misses. of those 40 rebounding opportunities, how should those be split, assuming the rebounding balance and performance between the two teams is perfectly even? do we give all the 10 extra boards to one team or the other? i think that would be crazy - i think the only reasonable way would be to follow the same proportions - 7 boards for the defense, 3 for the offense. meanwhile, on the other end of the court, its still 30 opportunities, 21 def, 9 off rebounds.

so now, team 1 is going to be doing a lot better in this game. however, of those 40 rebounding opportunities, they are going to get 70% or 28, while the other team gets 12 offensive boards. so if you compare the boards, you'd see:
team 1, 28 dreb, 9 oreb, 37 reb
team 2, 21 dreb, 12 oreb, 33 reb

in this case, team 1 did better on dreb and total, but team 2 on oreb. who did better? the answer is neither, none of those things matter, and you should never look at any of them (reb, oreb, etc) to see who 'did better' in terms of rebounding. both teams get 70% of def reb and 30% of off reb and are tied in terms of ability (at least based on this 1 performance). the reason team 1 got more dreb and total reb, and team 2 got more oreb, is simply because team 2 missed more shots creating more rebounding opportunities. obviously, team 1 is happy about there being more missed shots. they can't be (or really it would be irrational to be) sad about those 3 extra oreb that team 2 got, because they only reason they got them is they missed so many shots in the first place. similarly, they have no grounds for being proud of their extra dreb or total rebounds.

so, looking at a random team of yours, here's how you look at it:
chapman Hoops Dynasty – College Basketball Sim Games - Team Profile (whatifsports.com)

stats:
reb: 1078, opponent: 1018
oreb: 331, opponent: 355
dreb (calculated, not listed on stats page): 747, opponent 663

your d reb %:
747 / (747 + 355) = 67.8%

their d reb %:
663 / (663 + 331) = 66.7%

delta: +1.1% (advantage to you of 1.1%)

this is a slight rebounding advantage. it looks like you played an ok schedule, but worlds are so empty these days... 22 sos is misleading. if you compare your schedule (actually looking at the schedule tab) to the slate you'd play in a 6 game NT run if you were to win, you are going to face a significantly harder schedule over the course of the NT. therefore, i'd guess in that NT run, you'd be at a moderate reb disadvantage - and almost certainly against the top 10 or so teams, the ones you really want to measure yourself against as soon as you are able to do so (and looking at your teams ratings, that would probably be the expectation, right). i see you are new at this program, but im not really making any point about anything you did - im just giving an example of how you evaluate it - evaluating this team, if they want to make a good NT run, reb is gonna hold them back. my rule of thumb is really good teams playing really good schedules will be looking for mid to high single digit % advantages on the season.

just picking 1 team off your schedule (wouldn't be surprised to see higher % advantages in d3 which is a lot emptier than current d1, or the d2/d3 i grew up in) - texas tyler because its qb4usf so that must be a good team. ok well their reb kinda isnt so hot looking at the ratings, im guessing that is probably holding them back a bunch this season, so not the best example. looks to my eyes they are behind a couple % or so just doing mental napkin math (and not really, i just guessed randomly to be honest), on a 24 sos that looks kinda weak, so safe to say in the deep NT games they'd be in trouble reb wise - the reader is free to confirm the numbers hash out as i suggest if they are interested.

here's a good team they played: cairn. Hoops Dynasty – College Basketball Sim Games - Team Profile (whatifsports.com)

i don't really know d3 ratings but i assume they are a pretty high end reb team, and they are on 2 SOS... although their schedule doesn't truly look that hard. anyway. here's the math for them:
reb: 991, opponent 828
oreb: 317, opponent 272
dreb: 674, opponent 556

cairn def reb% = 674 / (674 + 272) = 71.2%
opp def reb% = 556 / (556 + 317) = 63.7%

cairn def reb % delta = 7.5%, a very respectable figure against a solid schedule (i like to schedule stupidly hard with my good teams, so this is just kinda like a solid difficulty schedule in my view)

Hey now, this team won a NC 2 weeks later. ;)

To be fair, we did struggle rebounding the ball that season, with a lot of that being based off of starting a freshman big and only having 4 on roster. I think many other attributes that team had overlooked the rebounding deficiency (also having 4 Sr Gs). I tend to give up a little in rebounding though as long as I am able to take advantage in other categories. I am probably in the minority on that and maybe it has hurt me in the past, but I seem to have success with a different type of team.

ha, it was only a knock on the rebounding, not the team! i needed a good reb team for my example :)

i also sacrifice rebounding in the way you describe, if i am playing press - not if its anything else though. i think the rebounding is valuable, but its just hard to make it a priority with how much the press defense is a priority and per scoring.

Posted by gillispie on 4/23/2021 10:58:00 PM (view original):
ha, it was only a knock on the rebounding, not the team! i needed a good reb team for my example :)

i also sacrifice rebounding in the way you describe, if i am playing press - not if its anything else though. i think the rebounding is valuable, but its just hard to make it a priority with how much the press defense is a priority and per scoring.

I know you were and we would have been a terrible example that season. I just wanted to have a little fun with it. Always enjoy reading your write-ups. Gives me either a similar perspective or different ideas to think about.

I agree completely in press and rebounding. You are able to sacrifice (a little) if you find someone that fits the O/D system better. I just wanted to poke a little fun at you, but you were 100% correct. We were out-rebounded in 5/6 games by 6-13 in the postseason.

Posted by shoe3 on 2/25/2021 3:31:00 PM (view original):
Many of the folks I chat with over sitemail hear me say more than once - always be thinking about possessions. Especially true if you play straight zone. Total possessions in a game are generally close to balanced, so it’s a matter of how they end up, as others have said. If you play straight zone, you are giving away a lot of forced turnovers, so you need to make that up through either extra efficient Opp FG% and rebounding, or with your own offensive efficiency and rebounding, or ideally some combination. Either way, rebounding and efficiency are paramount if you play straight zone, and so is getting your defensive positioning and your groupings right. There is not much margin for error.

I'm a zone coach and this is what I try to do. If I have a great defense that's gravy, but I try to focus on having shooting percentages around the highest in my conf, and lowest amount of turnovers in my conf. Nothing gets me more jazzed than high efficiency offense.