Looking at the Big East Season, Statistically

[SFHoya99]

I like using statistics to take a look back at what went right or wrong over the course of a season, especially for a team I put so much emotional investment in.

Personal observation is open to so many biases. We remember more recent games better; we tend to remember the hits and forget the misses; we influence data to fit our hypotheses; we tend to overemphasize offense over defense; we stress individual plays we remember but forget things in the first half.

I'm well aware that statistical analysis has huge issues. Namely, that the data gathered is hardly enough information to get to a root cause. It can tell we rebounded poorly; it can't tell why. Furthermore, the limit of the analysis is based on my ability to adjust for every little thing. I did no such thing -- for instance, while I adjusted for pace, I did not adjust for level of competition.

Anyway, the basic results. I'm throwing up four basic statistics for each game: Offensive Efficiency, measured by Points per 100 possessions; Defensive Efficiency, measured by the same; Offensive Rebounding % (avg 35-40%); and Defensive Rebounding % (avg 60-65%).

For each of our games:

Pts per 100 OPts per 100 OReb% DReb%
at Pitt 116.7 112.2 25% 63%
UConn 87.1 99.3 23% 58%
Rutgers 106.5 94.6 52% 69%
At Nova 106.6 104.9 40% 75%
At Cuse 116.7 124.9 46% 53%
UND 100.7 100.3 38% 78%
SJU 118.0 96.0 45% 43%
at BC 80.0 104.2 27% 68%
SHU 102.1 84.3 33% 64%
at RU 112.0 96.7 42% 76%
WVU 109.2 96.8 38% 73%
at UND 106.2 121.2 42% 70%
at SJU 99.6 117.8 26% 52%
Nova 89.7 112.7 27% 60%
at UConn 91.6 116.4 26% 64%
Prov 126.2 129.9 29% 34%

SAVG 104.3 107.0 35% 63%

[SFHoya99]

I know that comes out a mess, so I'll highlight some things I think are interesting:

1) We weren't a great rebounding team, but we were far from awful:

A simple average yields 35% on Offense, 63% on Defense for the year.

2) "The Slide" had some interesting trends:

a) It wasn't really the offense's fault. While 3 of the 5 games had a subpar offensive effort, the UND game was acceptable, and the Providence game was our most efficient offensive performance of the year -- 65 points on about 52 possessions!

b) Turnovers had little to do with the slide.

c) Rebounding was different -- the offensive % was 37% before, 30% after. The defensive % was 65% before, 56% after. In a usual game, that's a substantial amount -- 5 rebounds or so, BUT the Providence game is a bit of an outlier.

d) The only pure common thread is Defense. We didn't keep a single opponent under 112 pts per 100 possessions. We had FIVE of our SIX worst defensive performances down this stretch, and on average were 20% than the rest of the BE sked.

3) Related to the slide, how's about this: we were 1-7 when opponents shot 20+ FTs. We were 7-1 when they shot less than 20 (Prov: 18).

4) Did teams figure out our offense?

Offensive Efficiencies:
UConn - 87 (Home) to 91 (Away)
Rutgers - 107 (H) to 112 (A)
Nova - 107 (A) to 90 (H)
ND - 101 (A) to 106 (H)
SJU - 118 (H) to 100 (A)

Ehh, it hardly looks like it. In defense of the hypotheses, the Slide included 3 of our 5 worst performances offensively.

A more noticeable slide was on the defensive side.

5) What affected our offense and defense most?

Correlations between the Hoyas' offensive efficiency and other stats (adjusted for pace):

FTA: .25
TO: -.35
Oreb: .35

And defense:

FTA: .72
TO: -.03
OReb: .16

I find the defense really interesting. We were very consistent at not forcing TOs, but it was the FTA that moved in line.

[wildhoya]

thanks SFHoya99

your posts require 1633% more time to consume than the average post

[DFW HOYA]

Great analysis on SF's part. Thanks.

[][-][ 0 `/ /-\ 5]

I liked both set of stats. However, stats does not a team make.

[Bahstin]

Putting it in table format:

Opp.	Pts per 100	OPts per 100	OReb%	DReb%
at Pitt	116.7	112.2	25%	63%
UConn	87.1	99.3	23%	58%
Rutgers	106.5	94.6	52%	69%
At Nova	106.6	104.9	40%	75%
At Cuse	116.7	124.9	46%	53%
UND	100.7	100.3	38%	78%
SJU	118.0	96.0	45%	43%
at BC	80.0	104.2	27%	68%
SHU	102.1	84.3	33%	64%
at RU	112.0	96.7	42%	76%
WVU	109.2	96.8	38%	73%
at UND	106.2	121.2	42%	70%
at SJU	99.6	117.8	26%	52%
Nova	89.7	112.7	27%	60%
at UConn	91.6	116.4	26%	64%
Prov	126.2	129.9	29%	34%
SAVG	104.3	107.0	35%	63%

[SFHoya99]

Thanks, Bahstin.

"Final" Ken Pomeroy Rankings for GU:

2004-2005

Georgetown

Pace: 61.9 possessions per game (318 of 330)
Offensive Efficiency: 108.4 points per 100 possessions (57)
Defensive Efficiency: 97.0 points per 100 possessions (98)

Putting that together, against an average D-I team (Richmond is number 165 this year), we'd win 70-63 in a game with 65 possessions each.

[Cambridge]

Can we do a side by side with last year's team? Anybody got those stats? Thanks in advance...

[SFHoya99]

Last year:

Team	Pts per 100	OPts per 100	OReb%	DReb%
Rutgers	94.3	84.4	33%	59%
BC	93.5	108.9	38%	74%
At WVU	77.0	84.2	41%	71%
at UConn	97.8	131.7	33%	47%
SJU	101.3	100.1	35%	56%
at Prov	77.9	102.4	33%	71%
at Mia	115.1	99.1	26%	56%
Nova	94.0	118.6	30%	50%
Miami	111.1	87.7	17%	62%
at VT	90.3	109.0	26%	59%
at SJU	77.9	92.7	39%	58%
Cuse	82.6	99.8	50%	61%
Pitt	91.5	105.4	23%	48%
at SHU	74.3	114.8	23%	77%
at ND	75.7	96.6	29%	89%
VT	88.3	96.9	16%	68%
SAVG	90.2	102.0	31%	63%

[SFHoya99]

Some analysis. Please note I have not adjusted for competition. I have an idea how to do this in a very rough manner, but for now, remember that last year's BE sked was much easier in most of these areas.

Pace

2003-2004: 68.4 possessions per game
2004-2005: 60.4 possessions per game

So your adjustment factor is 1.13. In other words, the average player scoring 10 ppg this year would have scored 11.3 ppg last year, all other things being equal.

The converse number is .88.

Offense

This is where a huge improvement took place, from 90.2 to 104.3 points per 100 possessions. Or at last year's pace, that's almost a 10 point per game improvement!.

The improvement mostly came in shooting %. Our turnovers were actually slightly up in terms of turnovers per possession (22% to 23%). Our offensive reobunding improved 4%, which is about 1 rebound (1.5 in last year's pace).

So the big improvement was in going from 40% to 52% in 2 PT FGs.

Our 3 Pt % was virtually the same (though we took many more), and FTs were fewer and at a lower rate. So it's all 2 PT FG% -- Jeff and Roy and Brandon's improvement, really.

Defense

We went from 102.0 to 107.0 points per 100 possesions. The defense actually got worse -- about 3.5 ppg in last's years terms. So we got about Six points per game better in margin of victory in BE play (using lat year's pace).

Why did we get worse?

Defensive rebounding was identical. Can you believe that Jeff and Roy really didn't improve much upon Courtland and Brandon? Part of this is level of competition, but still, that's surprising.

Opponents shot 3% worse from the field, though better from 3. They shot a similar number FTs (though FTs did not dictate whether we won or lost).

The big difference between this year and last year was that we forced very few turnovers.

Last year, we forced 15.3 TOs per game (adj for this year's pace). This year, we forced 12.2.

That's 3 possessions -- and thus 3 ppg we gave back. There's your difference.

Some of this may be level of competition, and I think some of it is the helter-skelter pace we used last year (note we got little TO/possession benefit from moving away from it though), but most of it is probably losing quickness at almost every starting position.

Courtland > Roy at steals
Brandon > Jeff
DJ > Brandon
Riley > Cook
Cook> Wallace

Ok, that's cheating a bit, but last year we had a long, quick team. To some extent, that isn't true this year.

Other

There have been an average of 62 rebounds up for grabs in BE play this year. We grabbed 98% of them, an improvement of 4%. That's 2.5 rebounds more, which is also about 2.5 points more in margin (and since it was all offensive rebounding, in offense).

Our MOV in 2004-2005 terms increased 5.5 ppg over last year in BE play. The breakdown, roughly:

Shooting	6
Offensive Rebounding	2.5
Lack of Steals	-3

Other weird things about last year:

- Our Offensive Reb % had a negative correlation to offensive efficiency. This is odd.

- Opponents' FTA had very little effect on our D. Unlike this year.

[DanMcQ]

'Money' ?

What, did Spike Lee finally get to you?

[SFHoya99]

DanMcQ said:

'Money' ?

What, did Spike Lee finally get to you?

You're a little slow on moderating today.

Aggypryd got to me. I'll change it back sooner or later.

[DanMcQ]

Money said:

You're a little slow on moderating today.

Aggypryd got to me. I'll change it back sooner or later.

Oddly enough, I have a real job during the day that requires some attention.

[wildhoya]

thanks for comparison.

relieved to hear this money thing is temp.

guys named "money" don't do what u do with these #s.

hoya saxa