March Madness thread

[JWoolsey]

It's been a really fun tournament for me. There's a few things that really stand out for me from a metrics point of view. 3 point attempts (more important than % but that's key ass well), points, and assists. From what I've noticed  and had a theory on for quite a while is that turn overs are highly overrated. You obviously want to minimalism them as much as possible but scoring off assists is much more important than worrying about your TO's. 

I've talked a lot of smack about Tony Bennett but he sticks to his philosophy and has made a few adjustments. They had that scare in the first round again, should have lost to purdue, and are facing an Auburn squad that lost its most important player from a PER stand point. 

I've also talked a lot of smack about Izzo but from a metric POV he's made the adjustments that I think needed to be made.

Bruce Pearl is a sleazy guy but his system is absolutely perfect from a balanced stand point. 50/50 split from 3's and 2's with a 153 tempo meaning they are equipped to play slow or fast. 

Chris Beard is a hell of a coach and he'll have his pick of top jobs. I heard he's a pretty eccentric guy and UCLA wouldn't be a good fit for him so we'll see. 

 

Texas Tech: 216th in 3PA (36%). 86th rank in AST, 224th in TO's. 158th in  scoring at 73.

MSU: 78th in 3PA. (38%). 1st in AST, 314th in TO's. 49th in scoring at 78.

Auburn: 2nd in 3PA (38%). 16th in AST, 275th in TO's. 28th in scoring at 80.

UVA: 136th in 3PA (39%). 50th in AST, 6th in TO's. 212th in scoring at 71.

 

If you go back and look over the past 3 seasons Tom and Tony have made offensive adjustments and it's paying (from this season compared to the previous 3, not a slow adjustment). 

All 4 teams have scoring guards as their top scorer that launch loads of 3's. Personally, I think MSU are favorites here but we'll find out. If its a TT / UVA final then I'll have a lot of crow to eat and that's fine with me. It opens up a lot of doors long term from an analytics POV. 

Something else that I love to look at. PPA on 2's / 3's.

TT: 1.06 / 1.10. 

MSU: 1.09 / 1.14.

Auburn: 1.04 / 1.14.

UVA: 1.05 / 1.18.

MSU has a much more ideal balance and they shoot enough 3's to make that 1.14 work out in their favor. UVA has the squad to hit timely 3's to make up for that lower balance though. Not a fan of that big of a discrepancy for UVA but Tony has adjusted his offense enough for me to respect what he's doing on that end. Don't know enough about TT but with that balance and his defense there's no surprise they're here. 

[FKIM01]

48 minutes ago, JWoolsey said:

It's been a really fun tournament for me. There's a few things that really stand out for me from a metrics point of view. 3 point attempts (more important than % but that's key ass well), points, and assists. From what I've noticed  and had a theory on for quite a while is that turn overs are highly overrated. You obviously want to minimalism them as much as possible but scoring off assists is much more important than worrying about your TO's. 

I've talked a lot of smack about Tony Bennett but he sticks to his philosophy and has made a few adjustments. They had that scare in the first round again, should have lost to purdue, and are facing an Auburn squad that lost its most important player from a PER stand point. 

I've also talked a lot of smack about Izzo but from a metric POV he's made the adjustments that I think needed to be made.

Bruce Pearl is a sleazy guy but his system is absolutely perfect from a balanced stand point. 50/50 split from 3's and 2's with a 153 tempo meaning they are equipped to play slow or fast. 

Chris Beard is a hell of a coach and he'll have his pick of top jobs. I heard he's a pretty eccentric guy and UCLA wouldn't be a good fit for him so we'll see. 

 

Texas Tech: 216th in 3PA (36%). 86th rank in AST, 224th in TO's. 158th in  scoring at 73.

MSU: 78th in 3PA. (38%). 1st in AST, 314th in TO's. 49th in scoring at 78.

Auburn: 2nd in 3PA (38%). 16th in AST, 275th in TO's. 28th in scoring at 80.

UVA: 136th in 3PA (39%). 50th in AST, 6th in TO's. 212th in scoring at 71.

 

If you go back and look over the past 3 seasons Tom and Tony have made offensive adjustments and it's paying (from this season compared to the previous 3, not a slow adjustment). 

All 4 teams have scoring guards as their top scorer that launch loads of 3's. Personally, I think MSU are favorites here but we'll find out. If its a TT / UVA final then I'll have a lot of crow to eat and that's fine with me. It opens up a lot of doors long term from an analytics POV. 

Something else that I love to look at. PPA on 2's / 3's.

TT: 1.06 / 1.10. 

MSU: 1.09 / 1.14.

Auburn: 1.04 / 1.14.

UVA: 1.05 / 1.18.

MSU has a much more ideal balance and they shoot enough 3's to make that 1.14 work out in their favor. UVA has the squad to hit timely 3's to make up for that lower balance though. Not a fan of that big of a discrepancy for UVA but Tony has adjusted his offense enough for me to respect what he's doing on that end. Don't know enough about TT but with that balance and his defense there's no surprise they're here. 

You sure you want to do the med school thing?  The A's may have an opening for you.

[JWoolsey]

3 minutes ago, FKIM01 said:

You sure you want to do the med school thing?  The A's may have an opening for you.

I've thought about building a resume and throwing it out there. There's a lot of teams and you never know if one might take a shot  .Every staff needs an analytics specialist on their roster as well. Unfortunately, I can't do the things that I'd like to do without knowing the coach in and out. There's a lot of value in my background but you can't help to implement those changes without knowing where the coach's head is at. 

I'm just fooling around with this stuff without knowing the things that he's trying to exploit. I think we have a general idea of what he's trying to do but I don't know the deeper details. There's logic and reason as to why every coach does what he's doing and without knowing that fully then I couldn't really say for sure that he's wrong or that I'm right like I've done on here. That's where the good stuff is at and where the fun begins with the analytics. I don't miss the grind of poker but I miss the heated debates on theory / application. I suppose that's what I've been looking for on here but it's much more difficult to do in text.

Joking about the resume thing of course but I'd be good at it. I'm a super competitive dude but I'm trying to get away from that on here. I've put the effort into my ideologies / philosophy / opinions and I think they should be heard but they're not facts.

A TT / UVA final opens up a lot of doors to how I'll see things moving forward. Adjusting / Re-Evaluating is all part of the game and I've got no problem doing that. I really, really, don't want to entertain the notion that a slow tempo, defensive oriented, grind out two's offense, low 3's system works in tournaments but if Bennett wins one here then I have no choice to accept what he's down and clap my hands. It's a shame that Purdue lost, the Auburn kid got hurt, and that Wofford legend went 0 for 3 pointers or I'd really get to talking

I got into soccer in my early 20's and love it partially because it awards long term success and isn't based on a tournament (for the league obviously). From that POV Tony Bennet is 2nd in the world for me based on what he's done vs the competition and with the 'lack' of talent so he honestly deserves it I just detest the style. The irony of all of this is that I used to be a really passionate baseball fan so that's where my little obsession with exploiting analytics came from. I hated soccer and loved baseball and now I love soccer and hate baseball. 

 

[JWoolsey]

@FKIM01

You'll be happy to hear that I've done a total 180 on Archie. If I'm taking myself out of the equation I think he's exactly what the program needs right now. He'll get that defense cooking and his offense is good enough to win ball games so we'll in that 21-25 wins range with serious regularity in no time at all. His whole system tries to eliminate volatility and it does it really well so that's why I think we'll be consistently good like everyone expects us to be. I think once that's established then he will be able to open up more kind of like Tony has done this season (120 more 3's this season which is a big tweak for him).

 

[rico]

5 hours ago, JWoolsey said:

It's been a really fun tournament for me. There's a few things that really stand out for me from a metrics point of view. 3 point attempts (more important than % but that's key ass well), points, and assists. From what I've noticed  and had a theory on for quite a while is that turn overs are highly overrated. You obviously want to minimalism them as much as possible but scoring off assists is much more important than worrying about your TO's. 

I've talked a lot of smack about Tony Bennett but he sticks to his philosophy and has made a few adjustments. They had that scare in the first round again, should have lost to purdue, and are facing an Auburn squad that lost its most important player from a PER stand point. 

I've also talked a lot of smack about Izzo but from a metric POV he's made the adjustments that I think needed to be made.

Bruce Pearl is a sleazy guy but his system is absolutely perfect from a balanced stand point. 50/50 split from 3's and 2's with a 153 tempo meaning they are equipped to play slow or fast. 

Chris Beard is a hell of a coach and he'll have his pick of top jobs. I heard he's a pretty eccentric guy and UCLA wouldn't be a good fit for him so we'll see. 

 

Texas Tech: 216th in 3PA (36%). 86th rank in AST, 224th in TO's. 158th in  scoring at 73.

MSU: 78th in 3PA. (38%). 1st in AST, 314th in TO's. 49th in scoring at 78.

Auburn: 2nd in 3PA (38%). 16th in AST, 275th in TO's. 28th in scoring at 80.

UVA: 136th in 3PA (39%). 50th in AST, 6th in TO's. 212th in scoring at 71.

 

If you go back and look over the past 3 seasons Tom and Tony have made offensive adjustments and it's paying (from this season compared to the previous 3, not a slow adjustment). 

All 4 teams have scoring guards as their top scorer that launch loads of 3's. Personally, I think MSU are favorites here but we'll find out. If its a TT / UVA final then I'll have a lot of crow to eat and that's fine with me. It opens up a lot of doors long term from an analytics POV. 

Something else that I love to look at. PPA on 2's / 3's.

TT: 1.06 / 1.10. 

MSU: 1.09 / 1.14.

Auburn: 1.04 / 1.14.

UVA: 1.05 / 1.18.

MSU has a much more ideal balance and they shoot enough 3's to make that 1.14 work out in their favor. UVA has the squad to hit timely 3's to make up for that lower balance though. Not a fan of that big of a discrepancy for UVA but Tony has adjusted his offense enough for me to respect what he's doing on that end. Don't know enough about TT but with that balance and his defense there's no surprise they're here. 

Did Scott get this memo?

[JWoolsey]

29 minutes ago, rico said:

Did Scott get this memo?

😂

I did it for myself. Little primer before the final four. See who's working with what and what's working for the unexpected teams like auburn/TT. Stuff to keep track of mentally for the next season. Take it or leave it, it's up to whoever is reading it. 

[JWoolsey]

On 4/2/2019 at 1:36 AM, JWoolsey said:

It's been a really fun tournament for me. There's a few things that really stand out for me from a metrics point of view. 3 point attempts (more important than % but that's key ass well), points, and assists. From what I've noticed  and had a theory on for quite a while is that turn overs are highly overrated. You obviously want to minimalism them as much as possible but scoring off assists is much more important than worrying about your TO's. 

I've talked a lot of smack about Tony Bennett but he sticks to his philosophy and has made a few adjustments. They had that scare in the first round again, should have lost to purdue, and are facing an Auburn squad that lost its most important player from a PER stand point. 

I've also talked a lot of smack about Izzo but from a metric POV he's made the adjustments that I think needed to be made.

Bruce Pearl is a sleazy guy but his system is absolutely perfect from a balanced stand point. 50/50 split from 3's and 2's with a 153 tempo meaning they are equipped to play slow or fast. 

Chris Beard is a hell of a coach and he'll have his pick of top jobs. I heard he's a pretty eccentric guy and UCLA wouldn't be a good fit for him so we'll see. 

 

Texas Tech: 216th in 3PA (36%). 86th rank in AST, 224th in TO's. 158th in  scoring at 73.

MSU: 78th in 3PA. (38%). 1st in AST, 314th in TO's. 49th in scoring at 78.

Auburn: 2nd in 3PA (38%). 16th in AST, 275th in TO's. 28th in scoring at 80.

UVA: 136th in 3PA (39%). 50th in AST, 6th in TO's. 212th in scoring at 71.

 

If you go back and look over the past 3 seasons Tom and Tony have made offensive adjustments and it's paying (from this season compared to the previous 3, not a slow adjustment). 

All 4 teams have scoring guards as their top scorer that launch loads of 3's. Personally, I think MSU are favorites here but we'll find out. If its a TT / UVA final then I'll have a lot of crow to eat and that's fine with me. It opens up a lot of doors long term from an analytics POV. 

Something else that I love to look at. PPA on 2's / 3's.

TT: 1.06 / 1.10. 

MSU: 1.09 / 1.14.

Auburn: 1.04 / 1.14.

UVA: 1.05 / 1.18.

MSU has a much more ideal balance and they shoot enough 3's to make that 1.14 work out in their favor. UVA has the squad to hit timely 3's to make up for that lower balance though. Not a fan of that big of a discrepancy for UVA but Tony has adjusted his offense enough for me to respect what he's doing on that end. Don't know enough about TT but with that balance and his defense there's no surprise they're here. 

@FKIM01

I can't believe I haven't looked at this before but I just looked over the analytics from our 2002 run. So obviously I've been going through this **** for a long time now. I played AAU ball, love the game, and obviously watch quite a bit of basketball so I'm not entirely living in spread sheets and databases. I've got a few keys that I've point out that are really crucial to making deep runs. Launch more three's than most. You HAVE to assist the ball well nationally. If you turn the ball over that's not a problem if you assist it very well and can score the ball.

 

That 2002 team was incredible analytically and checked off almost everything that I think you need to have to maximize your chances.

We were 49th in the nation in 3 point attempts and 4th in percentage. We were 22nd in assists and 273rd in turnovers. We were 180th in scoring  though and our balance between 2's and 3's wasn't close enough.  2 point attempts 0.97 (absolutely awful) points per shot. 1.23!!!!!! on 3's. 1331 two point attempts and only 659 3 point attempts. I think if had that closer to 1120 and 800 we would have raised our scoring and could have won the entire thing. Time, and time again I point this out and it rang true again. 

 

Check out the firepower we had from 3's.

Jeffries 38%

Coverdale 37%

Odle 44%

Fire 47%

Hornsby 45%

Moye 40%

Those percentages needed to be lower because of increased shots. It would have significantly raised our scoring.

 

What I hate about Archie's system is the amount of 2 point attempts our guards take. Al 46%, Rob 39%, Devonte 39%, Damezi 38%. So ideally you're scoring about 1.08 on two point attempts and 1.13 on 3's. It needs to be a really close balance. When those two are close it means you're eliminating variance and obviously being consistent. Those guys took 362 attempts from two and only 349 3's. When they shoot it somewhere around 39% from both two and three then that's just absolutely terrible strategy and flat out neglect and refusal to see what's actually going on in the game to me. I'm not being extreme either. Archie's teams have never assisted the ball well. Taking all those low quality shots and avoiding the more valuable ones compounds your problems. It's terrible mathematically from a points per shot perspective which lowers your assist rates and ultimately your total points.

I know exactly what his logic behind how they got there too and it's just very very poor I believe. He doesn't want to turn the ball over, he wants to 'get good looks', and he wants to get to the line. Bigs aren't goons anymore. They are athletic, tall, and know how to defend the attack with verticality. I'm sorry but our guards aren't getting to the line enough to make this strategy valuable and shooting FT's around 71% there isn't great either. I don't think Archie will ever look for shooting at the four and five and if that's the case then the PG needs to be lights out and we need some help from deep from our 3 position. Gonzaga shot over 60% from two....look what happened to them.

We're trying to play like a Kentucky team here and if you aren't going to shoot it then you need to have elite athletes. Kentucky is always great on defense, attacks the basket, doesn't shoot it well or often, and plays with a moderate tempo VERY much like we do. You can't mimic that strategy and expect that to works without elite length, talent, and athleticism. 

It's not going to cut it with a PG that can't shoot the ball well (67% from the line and 31% from 3 is very worrying to me). He doesn't turn the ball over....I think I've made many, many, unbiased samples showing why that is overrated. Archie isn't going to ever launch a ton of 3's or recruit stretch 5's or even 4's who shoot it so where is it going to come from? 

 

I'm not screaming Archie out or am I giving up on him but that's just seriously worrying stuff from a basketball strategy perspective, from the eye test, and it's undeniable mathematically. If he's going to play this way then I think he absolutely needs to find some shooting at the 3 position. Needs to have a scoring guard (really, really should be the PG) that can shoot over 37% from three and average 12 or more. If that PG can get you close to 20 then absolutely this system could work. Needs to drastically lower the bad two point shots (or find a way to approach 50% there .... which is probably not going to happen). He needs to either drastically slower the tempo down like UVA who is dead last in the nation or raise it to a much faster pace of play. I think slower suits his style more but playing faster would help. What we're doing now is trying to be pretty good at everything and what we've seen is that we can basically hang around with anyone and also get beaten by anyone. 

He's solid as an all around coach. The ideology behind how he has us playing and what he's trying to do is a solid. It has a sort of purity behind it and it's not bad from a strategic point of view but it's just old fashioned and bordering naive to me. If he doesn't adapt at all I think we'll be threatening 20-24 wins with regularity but I think with some very, very easily adaptable adjustments we could be so much better. It's undeniable that what he's doing isn't good enough. He's too competitive and smart to think that the results from the last two seasons have nothing to do with him. He'll make some adjustments for sure and I'm not giving up on him but there's some seriously flawed issues for me that I think I've done a fair job explaining from a basketball point of view here as well which should make @IU Scott happy.

 

I'm absolutely open to changing or adjusting my view points so if anyone wants to take a shot at pointing out flawed views or views that you think I'm not considering then I'd love to hear them. 

 

 

 

[FKIM01]

I'm exhausted just reading that.

[JWoolsey]

Just now, FKIM01 said:

I'm exhausted just reading that.

😂😂

 

I need to see another year anyway. I could be insane. That's a legit possibility I'm afraid lol. 

What's that quote about if you're not a student of history you're doomed to repeat it? 

I'm really stoked for next season and to see what he can do. 

[Reacher]

You bring up a lot of good points. At this stage, it's hard to tell how much is due to the players (lack of elite shooters) and how much Archie. I agree, next year should tell a lot. The year after even more as he gets more of his players in the system. 

[JWoolsey]

1 minute ago, Reacher said:

You bring up a lot of good points. At this stage, it's hard to tell how much is due to the players (lack of elite shooters) and how much Archie. I agree, next year should tell a lot. The year after even more as he gets more of his players in the system. 

It doesn't always come off well on my posts but I'm honestly just looking at history and I'm well aware that I'm the one doing the critiquing from behind a computer. There's infinite variations of how to play and there's always going to be a more optimal approach. I'm just looking at the past and my gut and having fun with it. The real fun and challenge to all this stuff would be to understand what the coach is truly trying to do and figure out ways to counteract the things that I think are purely optimal and come up with something even more optimal. Being a step ahead of the current top 'trend' (exploiting the current standards of play) will always be what wins championships and what moves the game along.

 

UVA might very well do it this season!

[Madison22]

31 minutes ago, JWoolsey said:

"(Archie) is too competitive and smart to think that the results from the last two seasons have nothing to do with him."

I HOPE this is true, but I have doubts.  Not so much against Archie, but as it relates to human nature. 

There are too many examples otherwise in coaching, business, and life.  When someone gets a big job and bigger paycheck, suddenly they take credit for what goes well, and blame others (or circumstances) for what doesn't.  There's little self-reflection as to how they contributed to (or even caused) the failures. 

I believe a long thread could be made about this as it applies to Crean.  Smart guy.  Top basketball mind.  A super long list of weaknesses, which I doubt he's aware of even today.

I hope Archie is different. 

As an aside, I'm not sure all readers know you can quote and reply to individual lines in a post, as I did here, instead of repeating an entire very very long post.  Just highlight the sentence, and a "quote selection" box pops up.  Very handy.

Maybe the team just needs more cowbell.   🎶🎶🎶

[dgambill]

I will say this....tournament is one and done. You have a bad night or your opponent goes off it’s over. Best team rarely wins it all. With the take over of the 3 pt shot teams can pull big upsets and games can be won/lost there. You need to have the threat....balanced at least in being able to score from 3. Upper class man guards (Purdue, Virginia, MSU not UK) I usually look for to make runs in the tournament. Matchups are key...sometimes a team is just a bad matchup or can take advantage. I also am a big proponent of how a team is playing coming into the tournament...say last 10 games. They don’t have to win them all but say go on a run...win their conference tournament or have a really good showing...Auburn, Oregon, Texas Tech, Michigan St. If you watched Duke finish the year you knew they weren’t clicking, Villanova and BIg East struggling, Tennessee wasn’t the same at the end of the year etc. anyways winning a NCAA championship is super tough...a lot has to fall right...but you can’t win if you aren’t in...we really need to get back into the game!

[Madison22]

35 minutes ago, dgambill said:

If you watched Duke finish the year you knew they weren’t clicking

I was surprised that Duke finished # 330 out of 351 teams in 3-point shooting percentage (30.7%).  They had talent, but this caught up with them.

The top 50 teams were all above 37%.

IU finished #317, but it wasn't our only problem.  😕

 

[Muckraker]

2 hours ago, FKIM01 said:

I'm exhausted just reading that.

My thumb is exhausted from scrolling past that! 

[dgambill]

56 minutes ago, Madison22 said:

I was surprised that Duke finished # 330 out of 351 teams in 3-point shooting percentage (30.7%).  They had talent, but this caught up with them.

The top 50 teams were all above 37%.

IU finished #317, but it wasn't our only problem.  😕

 

3pt shooting was an issue for them...but Reddish wasn’t playing well...Barrett wasn’t efficient in his scoring...Zion got hurt and they honestly developed some bad habits with him out..also Bolden got hurt and he wasn’t the same. Anyways...I very much doubt we see a team win the championship without being in the top 50 in 3pt shooting unless they are overpowering inside and have an elite pg to break down the defense. Good observations...you wouldn’t think a team that good would shoot so poorly.

[JWoolsey]

2 hours ago, dgambill said:

I will say this....tournament is one and done. You have a bad night or your opponent goes off it’s over. Best team rarely wins it all. With the take over of the 3 pt shot teams can pull big upsets and games can be won/lost there. You need to have the threat....balanced at least in being able to score from 3. Upper class man guards (Purdue, Virginia, MSU not UK) I usually look for to make runs in the tournament. Matchups are key...sometimes a team is just a bad matchup or can take advantage. I also am a big proponent of how a team is playing coming into the tournament...say last 10 games. They don’t have to win them all but say go on a run...win their conference tournament or have a really good showing...Auburn, Oregon, Texas Tech, Michigan St. If you watched Duke finish the year you knew they weren’t clicking, Villanova and BIg East struggling, Tennessee wasn’t the same at the end of the year etc. anyways winning a NCAA championship is super tough...a lot has to fall right...but you can’t win if you aren’t in...we really need to get back into the game!

There's some very good points in there. I also look for the runs that teams make coming into the tournament. That's why I really like MSU to win this final four. Something else I really look forward to is margin of victory in the tournament itself / late in conf tournies. If a team is winning a sweet 16 game by 20 points...that says a lot. Look at how our Zeller / Dipo team, the opposite. They got upset in the tournament and then had to grind out the win vs Temple and obviously lost to Syracuse. 

 

I somewhat disagree with the best team rarely wins it all. I'll always take the blue bloods late. It's kind of why the Big Ten has lost something like 10 straight finals and have a team basically in the final four every season. 

[Steubenhoosier]

On 4/2/2019 at 2:36 AM, JWoolsey said:

It's been a really fun tournament for me. There's a few things that really stand out for me from a metrics point of view. 3 point attempts (more important than % but that's key ass well), points, and assists. From what I've noticed  and had a theory on for quite a while is that turn overs are highly overrated. You obviously want to minimalism them as much as possible but scoring off assists is much more important than worrying about your TO's. 

I've talked a lot of smack about Tony Bennett but he sticks to his philosophy and has made a few adjustments. They had that scare in the first round again, should have lost to purdue, and are facing an Auburn squad that lost its most important player from a PER stand point. 

I've also talked a lot of smack about Izzo but from a metric POV he's made the adjustments that I think needed to be made.

Bruce Pearl is a sleazy guy but his system is absolutely perfect from a balanced stand point. 50/50 split from 3's and 2's with a 153 tempo meaning they are equipped to play slow or fast. 

Chris Beard is a hell of a coach and he'll have his pick of top jobs. I heard he's a pretty eccentric guy and UCLA wouldn't be a good fit for him so we'll see. 

 

Texas Tech: 216th in 3PA (36%). 86th rank in AST, 224th in TO's. 158th in  scoring at 73.

MSU: 78th in 3PA. (38%). 1st in AST, 314th in TO's. 49th in scoring at 78.

Auburn: 2nd in 3PA (38%). 16th in AST, 275th in TO's. 28th in scoring at 80.

UVA: 136th in 3PA (39%). 50th in AST, 6th in TO's. 212th in scoring at 71.

 

If you go back and look over the past 3 seasons Tom and Tony have made offensive adjustments and it's paying (from this season compared to the previous 3, not a slow adjustment). 

All 4 teams have scoring guards as their top scorer that launch loads of 3's. Personally, I think MSU are favorites here but we'll find out. If its a TT / UVA final then I'll have a lot of crow to eat and that's fine with me. It opens up a lot of doors long term from an analytics POV. 

Something else that I love to look at. PPA on 2's / 3's.

TT: 1.06 / 1.10. 

MSU: 1.09 / 1.14.

Auburn: 1.04 / 1.14.

UVA: 1.05 / 1.18.

MSU has a much more ideal balance and they shoot enough 3's to make that 1.14 work out in their favor. UVA has the squad to hit timely 3's to make up for that lower balance though. Not a fan of that big of a discrepancy for UVA but Tony has adjusted his offense enough for me to respect what he's doing on that end. Don't know enough about TT but with that balance and his defense there's no surprise they're here. 

Interesting, and thorough stuff.

The one area I disagree with you on is your stance that turnovers don't matter much. Other than Virginia, these teams turn the ball over quite a bit. The reason they don't affect these teams as drastically is that they all play strong enough defense that they can overcome turning the ball over. Your analysis really only concentrates on offense. I am certain if you did an analysis on the teams defensive capabilities, it would show that they excel on that end of the court. My point being, turnovers do matter substantially, especially if a team does not play lock down defense. Just go back to some of Crean's teams for proof. 

[JWoolsey]

16 minutes ago, Steubenhoosier said:

Interesting, and thorough stuff.

The one area I disagree with you on is your stance that turnovers don't matter much. Other than Virginia, these teams turn the ball over quite a bit. The reason they don't affect these teams as drastically is that they all play strong enough defense that they can overcome turning the ball over. Your analysis really only concentrates on offense. I am certain if you did an analysis on the teams defensive capabilities, it would show that they excel on that end of the court. My point being, turnovers do matter substantially, especially if a team does not play lock down defense. Just go back to some of Crean's teams for proof. 

Good post. Really appreciate it by the way. I'm always looking for new wrinkles and errors so it's something that I'll have to look deeper into. Just to clarify again and so we're on the same page...the entire point is to figure out what teams are doing that wins titles and makes FF runs. The teams that do this are almost always in the top 30 defensively.

You're right that I have neglected the defense but not completely. You'd be hard pressed to find a team that wins it all without at least a top 20 defense according to basic Ken Pom defensive rankings. So yes, that end is definitely important. Part of the reason that I neglect it is because...let me use an example...a team with say a 4th rated offense and a 20th defense has consistently proven to make deeper runs than the 20th offense and 4th defense. My thinking has been that the teams that make these deep runs will just inherently be very good defensive teams to begin with so the edge of being ranked 1st or 2nd compared to 9th or 13th isn't all too significant. The last 4 winners defensive ranks...11th, 11th, 5th, 11th, and 10th.

You're absolutely right about the necessity of playing good D and we do have a coach that can get us into that top 20 category. I'll be waiting to see what UVA and TT does but MSU is right in that national title sweet spot according to history with everything you need to pull this one off.

I'll put some effort into the defensive end whenever I get some free time but I think I'll need advanced analytics behind paywalls and not just generic stats to isolate anything specific unfortunately 😞

 

 

 

 

[Drroogh]

Awesome Anthem! Let's play ball!!

[Steubenhoosier]

Go Wahoos!

[Drroogh]

Dang, listening to the sizes of the players being introduced, I'm thinking these are NOT teams that IU would have match up problems with???

[Drroogh]

2 minutes ago, Steubenhoosier said:

Go Wahoos!

Sorry, My boss is an Auburn grad so going with them. Besides I despise the ACC LOVE!

[rd726]

Raftery again 🤢🤮. Also something about camera/video quality. Might just be my old eyes....plus I’m sick so....😄

[Steubenhoosier]

2 minutes ago, Drroogh said:

Sorry, My boss is an Auburn grad so going with them. Besides I despise the ACC LOVE!

Understand, but this is not Duke or UNC. After the abuse Bennett took last year I would like to see them win