Coaching Strategies

In February I looked at Bucknell's extremely conservative style of play in detail. One of the interesting ideas I took away from the post was Bucknell's contradicting strategies. On offense, they value possessions by taking care of the basketball. On defense, they allow their opponent to freely take care of the basketball by not going for steals. Here is what I wrote back in February:

"If you don't like watching teams turn the ball over, Bucknell games are the ones for you. If you think about this strategy a little deeper, it's a very odd concept. On offense, Paulsen stresses not turning the ball over and not crashing the glass (presumably to focus on getting back on defense). On defense, Paulsen forces his opponents to use the same exact strategy he uses! If Paulsen believes taking care of the ball and getting back on defense is the best way to play basketball, why does he enable his opponent to do exactly that? The answer here is probably that he believes that Bucknell can play Bucknell basketball better than their opponents play Bucknell basketball. Confusing, I know."

There's no one absolutely correct way to coach a basketball team. There's a trade-off involved in every four factor. For example, you can increase your shooting percentage by being more patient and passing up looks to get a better shot. However, this would in turn increase your turnover percentage. The Dave Paulsens and Bo Ryans of the world choose to make their opponent play their brand of basketball. In this post, I tried to quantify the top 10 most "consistent" coaches in the country and the top 10 most "contradicting" coaches in the country (i.e. - Paulsen).

First, I looked at teams in the top 100 in both offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency in the 2013 season. I didn't want talent to be a major factor and the coaches of bad teams aren't a good fit for this analysis. With 61 eligible coaches remaining, I simply subtracted each four factor defensive ranking with the corresponding four factor offensive ranking. By adding together the absolute values of these four differences, I developed a very basic metric to measure coaching consistency. If my explanation is confusing now, the charts below should clear things up visually.

In 2013, Bill Self had the most consistent strategy and Bo Ryan had the most contradicting. It should be noted Bucknell did not qualify, because their offense was not in the top 100.  The tables help visualize the concept. Take a look at Kansas' coloring on offense and defense in the four columns. KU's offensive and defensive ranks are essentially the same. Now look at Wisconsin. Where there is green there is red and where there is red there is green. The list of most consistent coaches is loaded with coaching stars: Bill Self, Tom Izzo, Tom Crean, Mark Few, Brad Stevens, etc. However, it's by no means a bad thing to be on the right. John Beilein nearly won the national championship with a contradicting strategy (first in the country at not fouling, 329th in drawing fouls!) and Bo Ryan has had amazing success with his style of play. If anything, this shows how many different ways there are to win at the college level.

Final Four Values

The running narrative for the NCAA this season has been all about the parity at the top. Yet here we are in mid March and despite "the field being wide open", everyone is taking Louisville. Now I'm not saying this is a bad idea. Louisville may end up cutting down the nets in Atlanta. However, by picking Louisville you are forcing yourself to have a "near" perfect bracket in order to win your pool. In a standard scoring system, you generally have to get the national champion right to win it all (with an example of an exception being if Butler had won). If you are one of the few people in your pool to take a unique team to win it all, you don't have to be all that great with your earlier picks. With Louisville, however, you're going to have to somehow pick up points on other people with Louisville.

On ESPN, you can currently look at the percentage of people in the country taking any team to reach any round. I thought it would be interesting to compare the average person's picks to Ken Pomeroy's log 5 projections. This will help determining the "value" of final four picks. If a team's value is especially high, it might be worth it to take the gamble in order to attempt to position yourself better among other Louisville brackets. Obviously the log 5 projections aren't perfect. Thus, I decided to include the Vegas odds that each team reaches the final four in the table too. The Vegas odds weren't actually used in finding value teams, but they can either reinforce (or not) the log 5 rankings.

The DIFF column on the right is simply (log 5 final four%) - (ESPN final four%). The thing that jumps out is the "Florida Effect". Not only does Florida shatter the top spot for best value, but they also turn Georgetown and Kansas into bad values. There's a whole bunch of uncertainty surrounding the Gators, but if you trust log 5 (and Vegas) they are nearly a must in your bracket. Miami and Ohio State are the other two that stand out. The conference tournaments have a ridiculous amount of pull on ESPN brackets, or so it seems. Ohio State, Miami, Kansas, and Louisville are all in the top five most picked final four teams (with Indiana) and are coming off conference tournament championships. Syracuse has struggled, but they seem like a much better alternative to Indiana in the East than Miami. Finally, if you decide to go with Pitt in your final four, log 5 says you have an 11.7% chance of taking a commanding lead in your pool.

Ben McLemore's Aggression

It's not often that an NCAA wing player projected to go number one in the NBA Draft by some is perceived to be lacking a killer instinct closing out games. However, the narrative behind the play of Ben McLemore has been just that. The redshirt freshman is having an outstanding season by any measure, with shootings splits of 43/55/88. To put that into perspective, Kevin Durant (albeit at a much higher usage) was 40/51/82 at Texas. Still, in Kansas' 68-67 double overtime win against Oklahoma State, McLemore took just one shot in the two overtimes combined (an air ball three).

I decided to look further into McLemore's scoring. To do this, I looked at the 12 single digit games the Jayhawks have played in this season (essentially excluding blowouts). I then divided each of these 12 games into eight parts. I looked at McLemore's shooting from the 20 minute mark to the 15 minute mark of the first half, from the 15 minute mark to the 10 minute mark, and so on. My goal here was NOT to measure McLemore's "clutchness", as that would be impossible to do from a 12 game sample size. However, I wanted to see McLemore's assertiveness depending on time remaining in KU's close games this season. The results are as follows:

The table above shows McLemore's shot attempts and points scored during each portion of the game. The graph shows shot attempts in a way that is hopefully easier to visualize. I should note that the data is only from McLemore's play in regulation, so the three overtime periods KU has played in this season are omitted.

Key Takeaways

McLemore doesn't get to the foul line in the first half. This was the first thing that popped out at me. McLemore took just eight free throws combined in the first half of the 12 games. Even crazier, he took ZERO free throws in the first 10 minutes of these games.

McLemore has been most aggressive at the end of games. It appears that the overtimes against Oklahoma State were the exception and not the rule. McLemore has done the most scoring in the final 10 minutes of the game. The last five minutes of the game could be inflated by intentional fouls, but the 10-5 minute category shows that McLemore's both extremely aggressive and extremely efficient closing out games.

McLemore can shoot the basketball. Putting everything else aside, just look at the freshman's shooting efficiency. Regardless of whether or not McLemore lacks a closer mentality, his shooting numbers look straight out of a video game.

Kansas's Shot Selection

TCU stunned the college basketball world by knocking off Kansas yesterday 62-55. Obviously, a whole lot has to go wrong for an upset of this degree to happen. Three point shooting is generally a huge factor in upsets, but not the only factor. However, I went back and looked at Kansas's three point attempts from the game. I decided to exclude threes taken in the last two minutes of the game. Those were, for the most part, necessary because of the nature of being down late in a game. Instead, I looked at KU's shot attempts when twos were equally viable options.

Kansas managed to make just one of their 13 threes in the previously stated situation. I charted the degree of difficulty of all 13 of these threes. This is obviously very subjective, but I accounted for degree of contest, shot distance, pass location, and what the shooter did to create the shot. I think this is more valuable than simply recording "contested" or "open". Of the 13 threes, I classified nine as "good shots", two as "mediocre shots", and two as "bad shots". Obviously, Kansas suffered from some bad luck when shooting the three ball against TCU.

The most telling aspect of the Jayhawk's three point attempts was remaining time in shot clock. Of the 13 threes, only one was taken with under 20 seconds left in the shot clock (and that one was 19 seconds). Kansas was taking good shots, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be more patient and utilize the full shot clock to find an even better shot. Of course, you do run the risk of turning the ball over by passing on good shots for the prospect of a better shot. Still, the average time left on the shot clock for KU threes was 24 seconds.

The image below shows all 13 three point attempts, the remaining time on the shot clock (bottom left corner), and how the shot was created:

A Video Charter’s Guide To The Final Four | Stat Geek Idol

The following is the third (Final Four) post I wrote for TeamRankings' Stat Geek Idol. For more information on the competition click here.

Last week, I attempted to quantify Wisconsin’s Swing Offense through the use of video charting. With the Final Four, I set out on a similar goal for Louisville, Ohio State, Kentucky, and Kansas.

To analyze each offense I watched each offensive possession from the Elite Eight of the Final Four teams in slow motion and charted categories such as: number of passes, shot location, defender proximity, number of dribbles the shooter takes, time of possession, number of players crashing the boards, and more. When it was all said and done, I was about 3% closer to becoming a video charting expert.

Big 12: 2010-11 Preview

A team to review from last year...
Texas

The Longhorns began the season 17-0 and national championship contenders. The second half of the season was a huge disappointment. Rick Barnes' squad stumbled to a 7-10 record. However, the bad record can be largely attributed to the strength of the Big 12. Of the 10 losses, seven were to teams who finished in the KenPom top 20. The tempo free gods judged the Longhorns favorably when it was all said and done. They finished with the 25th ranked offense and defense. Texas was a very solid team, but just not the top five team that was perceived early in the season.


A flaw to consider
Missouri's defensive rebounding

Mizzou had a top 15 defense last season despite not being able to end possessions. Opponents grabbed offensive rebounds on 37.7% of shots. Graduate Keith Ramsey was on of the better players on the boards for the Tigers. Of course, Missouri's identity is to get up and force turnovers. However, they can make their life a lot easier by ending possessions that don't end in turnovers at a higher rate.


A team that will get more attention than their body of work merits...
Kansas

Kansas is going to get tons of attention pretty much regardless of the particular year. Kansas will be Big 12 contenders yet again this season. However, so will non-traditional college basketball powers like Kansas St., Baylor, and Missouri. Despite losing Collins, Aldrich, and Henry, the Jayhawks have been given the best odds of the Big 12 teams to win a national championship. Kansas could very likely live up to these expectations, but is just one of several teams in the Big 12 contending for a league title. (Note: Josh Selby update)


A team that will get less attention than their body of work merits...
Colorado

Last season, Colorado was great on offense and terrible on defense. The Buffaloes shot the ball extremely well, but so did their opponents. This season, almost all the team is back. Colorado should remain above average offensively in the Big 12. If the defense can improve, Colorado will be knocking on the door of the NCAA Tournament. Whether or not that "if" becomes a reality is something to watch closely.


PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Jacob Pullen, Kansas State

No surprise here: Jacob Pullen is good. The departure of Denis Clemente should only increase Pullen's importance to K State. Pullen does most things right. He shoots it well from three, gets to the line (and makes free throws), and has a good assist to turnover ratio. Pullen's efficiency did come a little out of nowhere from 2008-9 to 2009-10. Assuming he maintains last year's numbers, Pullen will be the man once again in Manhattan.

Best of the Rest:

1) LaceDarius Dunn, Baylor
2) Marcus Morris, Kansas
3) Alec Burks, Colorado
4) Corey Higgins, Colorado
5) John Roberson, Texas Tech
6) Laurence Bowers, Missouri


BREAKOUT PLAYER: David Loubeau, Texas A&M

The Big 12 is full of potential breakout candidates. Loubeau is one of the best out of all of them. The 6'9" rising junior showed how effective he could be last season for A&M. Loubeau got decent minutes, but will surely see an increase this season. Additionally, Loubeau will be called on to take a bigger role in the offense with Donald Sloan and Bryan Davis gone.

Best of the Rest:

1) Jordan Hamilton, Texas
2) Michael Dixon and Marcus Denmon, Missouri
3) Matt Pilgrim, Oklahoma State
4) David Tairu, Texas Tech
5) Christian Standhardinger, Nebraska
6) Markieff Morris, Kansas