hoyarooter
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 10,197
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Post by hoyarooter on Jan 24, 2012 13:58:34 GMT -5
Why do we seem to play better on the road in conference games than at home? This year our home games have presented two deplorable offensive performances, a game where we couldn't hold on to the ball and threw away what should have been a win, and a game where we played poorly for about 28 minutes and great for about 12 minutes. I don't think we've played a really strong half in any of these games, much less a full strong 40 minutes.
On the road we have a blowout win, a comfortable win (albeit with too many turnovers, but without our starting point guard), probably our best performance of the season, and a loss in a game with poor matchups that we really didn't figure to win anyway.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? I'd sure like to see us start playing better at home.
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HoNYaSaxa
Silver Hoya (over 500 posts)
Posts: 562
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Post by HoNYaSaxa on Jan 24, 2012 14:09:17 GMT -5
If we beat Syracuse and Marquette and run the table at MSG and in the tournament, all away from home, I think I'd be okay with it...
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alleninxis
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 2,216
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Post by alleninxis on Jan 24, 2012 14:12:00 GMT -5
I've ran the numbers before, and with the Jason/Henry/Greg class we have the lowest differential of home/away conference winning % (actually tied with Syracuse)
The SR class at home in BE games: 18-13
Away: 15-16
conversely in that time period, the greatest H/A differential in the league is Notre Dame (no surprise)
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Post by nychoya96 on Jan 24, 2012 15:13:24 GMT -5
My guess: without disparaging our building and certainly not our fans, our greatest advantage at home is simply that we are not on the road. It's an empty (ish) and character-less building that has to be one the least intimidating road games in the Big East. Most teams play better at home, so maybe the reason that we play better on the road is that we HAVE to raise our game in order to keep up.
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Post by HoyaSinceBirth on Jan 24, 2012 15:40:08 GMT -5
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SFHoya99
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 17,736
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jan 24, 2012 16:15:55 GMT -5
My guess: without disparaging our building and certainly not our fans, our greatest advantage at home is simply that we are not on the road. It's an empty (ish) and character-less building that has to be one the least intimidating road games in the Big East. Most teams play better at home, so maybe the reason that we play better on the road is that we HAVE to raise our game in order to keep up. In terms of this season, I'd go with small sample size. There's no way that the main driver of team performance is home/away. It's just not. So the most likely explanation here is that the team happened to be home when playing poorly and were playing better away, etc. That said, I don't doubt that we have one of the lowest home court advantages/away court disadvantages out there. Is it because our home court isn't as intimidating? Some part, sure. But there have been studies pointing to non-crowd reasons for difficulty on the road -- which could be travel, time zones, unfamiliar sleeping arrangements, depth perception, etc. Maybe our team is better at coping with those. Maybe our team -- which people lament is not overly emotion driven -- is better at dealing with tough opposing crowds as so it's not so much that our home court advantage sucks but that opposing home court advantages don't bother us? Our team is generally pretty unflappable, so it wouldn't shock me. I'd guess it's a combination and somewhat representative of the truth. |
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NCHoya
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 2,924
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Post by NCHoya on Jan 24, 2012 19:13:39 GMT -5
Agree with SF's last point. Our team follows its coaches lead as far as personality. III rarely loses his cool and is consistent in his approach and behaviors. We see the same thing with the team. They do not rise or fall very much within a game.
They always play hard but not with outward emotion. It makes sense then that at home the Hoyas do not feed off of the emotion of the building like some other teams and they do not buckle under the pressure when on the road either. The Verizon center is not great in terms of atmposphere but it can be great and at key points in the game can be useful for our defense.
An even more interesting case study would be Cincinnati which clearly plays better on the road and has an "us against the world mentality".
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