Basketball Season Review

OK, it is time to review the season statistically for the Falcons. All year, I have been following the season looking at tempo-free stats...which means you look at points per possession and not total points.

First, you estimate the number of possessions and then use total points scored to determine points per possession. This becomes the driver of the entire thing.

It also says that you look at basketball based on four factors:

• Effective FG% (where a 3FG worth work 1.5x a regular FG)
• Turnover % (Turnovers/possessions)
• Off Reb % (% of offensive rebounds gathered)
• FT Rate% (Measure of ability to get to line and make free throws on offense, or keep team off the line on defense.)

If you want more on this concept, you can read here. I am a big fan.

Now, let's see what we find. Please note that I am using MAC-Only statistics. It just makes things cleaner, and I believe that this is the relevant comparison. How we compete against the MAC is our real test. First, the real driver....points per possession. Two important things are going on here. First, our scoring improved .05 points per possession, which is about a 5% increase in a conference where scoring was down overall. This is not insignificant and works out to about 3 points per game (we had about 62 possessions per game). More important, however, is the stunning increase in defensive productivity. We went from pretty modest defensive production to very strong defense, a .11 point per possession reduction. And, of course, we went from a team that scored less than it allowed to a team that was in positive territory on points--as you would expect on a team that had a winning record.















Now, let's see if we can see what happened. First, offense.



And the answer is, there isn't much difference, right. We improved our turnovers about 3%, which nets about two additional shooting possessions per game. When we got a shot off, we scored 1.15 points per possession, so two turnovers less is worth a couple of points. Beyond that, offensive rebounding and free throws were pretty consistent from year to year.

So, turnovers help the offense, and the increase was modest overall, but it does sort of feel like there should be another explanation.

Maybe, oddly, the answer is on defense. Let's look.



First, we see a nice decrease in effective field goals and a dramatic improvement in rebounds. Turnovers and free throws were very similar.

And, here is where I think the answer lies. First, it is entirely possible that the improvement in rebounding was behind the reduction in FG%. Offensive rebounds often lead to high percentage second chance shots. So, by clearing the boards effectively, we prevent made shots and scoring.

On top of that, Coach Orr often says that you start your offense on defense. I have no numbers to support it, but it seems very possible to me that we are more effective off stops than we are off made baskets (even though we rarely got a transition basket). With that in mind, I think that defensive rebounding, was the key factor in our team playing better basketball in the MAC this year.

More to come.