So, now to delve a little bit deeper into the Falcon's defensive performance. As I have already noted, for all the talk about being a defensively-oriented program, BG's defense has been pretty average over the Orr years. This year, BG had its best year, finishing third in defensive efficiency in the conference.
The primary driving force in this was that BG was able to play its zone, get turnovers and yet not allow a lot of 3-FG shots, which is how the zone is supposed to be played, and with that they became more efficient. In particular, the perimeter defense seemed much better.
All of these numbers are for MAC games only. When the year started, oh, wayyyy back in August with a little trip to Toronto, the idea was for BG to be able to put the man to man into their repertoire. Every year, Coach Orr talks about it, and yet BG ends up playing zone. This year, he seemed more serious about it, and in fact, BG played a decent amount of zone right up until the conference season started, when they kind of suddenly switched back to zone and went back to exclusive (or nearly exclusive) zones. I didn't really understand it at the time, because we seemed to be as good in man as we were in zone, but it did get results, so no complaints here.
A few notes:
BG limited opponents in getting shooting possessions. BG was 3rd in the MAC in turnover percentage defense and 4th in the MAC in steal%. That's very important, because any shot can go in, but a turnover is forever.
BG did a great job on defending the 3. The Falcons were 5th in FG% allowed and allowed the 4th fewest made 3s. This is a huge improvement from other years, when BG was torched out there.
In fact, the average MAC teams gets 51% of their points from 2-FG, 28% from 3-FG and 20% from FTs. BG allowed only 26% from 3 (3rd in MAC), and 16% from the line (2nd in MAC). These are the building blocks of the efficient defense we had, when put on top of the non-scoring possessions.
By process of elimination, I think you know where I am going. BG did have one weakness, and that was actually on the inside. BG allowed 48.5% on 2-FG, which was 8th in the MAC. Since the mid-range jumper is largely gone, those baskets are largely in the paint, and given BG's poor defense of the boards, on second chance baskets, which I suspect are very high percentage. Part of this could be the space created by defending the perimiter better. BG was last in the MAC in blocked shots%, which also impacts these numbers as much as any other.
A note: I noted earlier that BG has never held the defensive glass effectively during the Orr era, and I heard one of the announcers on the NCAA Tourney say that was a by-product of playing zone, in that you had to go find someone to block out as opposed to playing in your man defense, where you block your guy out. I checked, Syracuse was 11th in the Big East in this stat.
So, it was a very good defensive year that would have been spectacular if it wasn't for the issues defending 2-FG and offensive rebounds. Nonetheless, I think this conclusion is clear. The defense was solid enough for BG to be better than they were. BG was 0-8 (overall) in games where is scored less than .93 points a game, so BG's defense wasn't that good. But, there were four games where BG's offense was below its season average, and the defense bailed them out: (Detroit, Ohio, @Ball State and @FIU.)
Next, the offense.
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