Whacks at the Pinata

Earlier this month, Ken Pomeroy tweeted, "I request to copyright the phrase 'gets more whacks at the pinata' to describe a low FG%/high efficiency offense." Naturally, I decided to take this a step further. This post is a look at the teams that got the most whacks in 2009-2010.

Formula

(Team's OEff)-((100.8/48.8)*(Team's eFG%))

Explanation

The formula is essentially subtracting a team's expected OEfficiency based ONLY on shooting from the team's actual OEfficiency. 100.8 represents the Division One average OEfficiency and 48.8 is the Division One average effective field goal percentage. eFG% is multiplied by the constant to establish the same scale as OEff.

Results

1. Duke (11.2) - The national champs had the most whacks at the pinata (as pointed out by John Gasaway). How could a team with quality long range shooters like Smith, Scheyer, and Singler be on this list? Two point shooting was the achilles heel of the champions. Two pointers combined with Zoubek's offensive rebounding and the big threes ability to take care of the basketball accounted for the Blue Devils number one ranking on this list.


2. West Virginia (10.3) - Kevin Jones and Wellington Smith were efficient shooters for the Mountaineers. The rest of the team, however, did not shoot the ball well. What brought WVU to the Final Four was their ability to go get their misses. 41.8 percent of the missed shots were rebounded by the WVU.


3. Houston (9.9) - Bad shooting? Check. Bad rebounding? Check. Bad foul drawing? Check? Bad offense? Nope! Houston managed to feature the 41st best offense in the nation by doing one thing: taking care of the ball. The Cougars only turned the ball over on a ridiculous 12.4% of possessions. Good for the best TO% in the KenPom (2004-2010) Era.


4. Morgan St. (9.2) - Simply put, Reggie Holmes did the shooting and Kevin Thompson did the rebounding for the Bears. Holmes shot on about 32% of the possessions he was in the game. Thompson was 5th in the nation in offensive rebounding. Holmes took 280 threes (36%) and 304 twos (41%). Clearly, Thompson had plenty of garbage to clean up.


5. Providence (8.7) - Keno Davis' squad put it (i.e. points) on the board with efficiency last year. Unfortunately, the defense was not competent enough to be relevant in the Big East. The key to Providence's offense was offensive rebounding. Jamine Peterson and Bilal Dixon anchored the offensive glass. Ball control was also a strength for the Friars. If Providence had been able to shoot it at a higher percentage, they would have had an exceptional offense. If Providence had been able to get more stops on defense, they would have been an exceptional team.

Best of the Rest: Southern Mississippi, Virginia Tech, South Dakota State, Seton Hall, Charlotte.

Interested in seeing the whole list? Don't hesitate to e-mail us.