Statistical Snapshot of the Basketball team: Take 2

Earlier in the year I looked at the basketball team's basic Kenpom stats. My belief was that the team was better than its start and that we would be competitive late in the season. With only a few games left, it is time to ask if BC has improved and if we are better than our record.

In December our offense was 254th. Things have actually gotten worse. Our adjusted offense is now 288th. As we played better teams and better defenses, we had more trouble scoring. Part of this was rebounding and part was BC's inconsistency from 3. Given Donahue's track record for offense and his success with offense last year, I am disappointed that we have not improved offensively. The final three games gives BC a chance to improve the numbers, but not dramatically.

The defense tells a much better story. In December we were ranked 296th in adjusted defense. We are now 198th in adjusted defense. There are multiple factors in the improved defense. We've been better in transition and generated a good amount of turnovers. BC has also helped limit possessions with decent defensive rebounding. The improvement wasn't enough to help us win games, but the improvement should be noted.

Donahue has positioned this season as a learning experience. If you watch him during the games, it is obvious that he is trying to win, but he is also trying to teach these guys how to play together and play his way. These final three games need to be a different type of learning experience. Donahue needs to win two out of three. Not to win over BC fans, but to build confidence in his players as they head into their second season together.

Perspective on the next basketball season

Reggie Jackson's departure has only been official for two days, yet many BC fans have written off next year's basketball season. Once again we are all guilty of forgetting the past. While we will certainly have some rough moments next year, I don't think things will be terrible. I doubt things will ever get as bad as Skinner's second year. Just look at Al's situation and compare it to Donahue's.

Returning talent
1998-99 BC returning players
Kenny Harley
Jonathan Beerbohm
Dwayne Pina
Nicolas Dunn
Julian Bah
Jim Boland

Harley, Beerbohm and Pina were the returning contributors. The rest were guys who never got off the bench and were not factors in Skinner's rebuild.

2011-12 BC returning players
Gabriel Moton
Danny Rubin
[Word is Cahill will be a GA and not a contributing 5th year.]

On paper, Skinner's returnees were deeper and better, but all were single digit scorers with limited skill sets. The upside of Moton and Rubin is that they are both specialists. Neither can carry a team but Rubin will hit open shots and Moton is a good defender.

1998-99 Transfers
Michael Cotton

2011-12 Transfers
Matt Humphrey

This is speculative, but I am leaning towards Humphrey as being the better option here. His stats at Oregon were pedestrian but there has been good word of mouth about him from BC for a while. Cotton had a big impact his first year at BC. His minutes and production went down as a senior and as Bell arrived.

1998-99 Recruits
Willie Deane
Osei Millar
Timos Papadimitriou
Brian Ross
Clinton Sims
Kenny Walls


2011-12 Recruits
Jordan Daniels
Lonnie Jackson
Ryan Anderson
Kyle Caudill
Eddie Odio
Dennis Clifford

This area is not in doubt. Donahue has more size and rated players hitting campus this fall. More importantly the California contingent come having played together on the AAU circuit. They are not in the same class as Duke's incoming recruits, but they are not pushovers.

What it all means
So even if Donahue's situation is better than Skinner's second year, that is not the most optimistic benchmark. The team was 6-21 and only earned three conference wins. Donahue could roll out five kids from the Plex and get six wins. I actually think the style of play and a heavy dose of 3-point attempts will allow BC to play beyond our talent and experience. But at least we know we've comeback from these sort of holes before.

What can the stats tell us about the basketball swoon

From the beginning of this blog I've been a big believer in college hoops stat guy Kenpom. While trying to figure out what is wrong this year, I went to look at his BC profile and compared it to our 2005 profile. I assumed we were better shots in 2005. I was wrong (2005-- Effective FG%: 49.2 [177]; 2010-- Effective FG%: 49.1 [167]). In fact our effective FG% is better now than then.

So what's the reason for the struggles now? I think the biggest factor is that we are not getting to the line as often as 2005 did. Back then we generated 23.6% of our points from foul shooting. Now we only get 18.7%. Why the difference? I don't think we are taking those shots close to the basket that invite physical play and fouls. It is such a waste too since, Sanders and Trapani close to the basket should mean easy points.

Our defense was also better then but there is no smoking gun to the difference. We just did every defensive thing a little better then.

So can we fix it before Duke? Kenpom doesn't think so...he only gives us a 3% chance to beat the Blue Devils.

Replacing rebounders

One of my hypotheses regarding next year's basketball team was that Blair, Oates and Spears were highly replaceable. To reinforce my hunch, I ran some numbers and was surprised by what I had previously overlooked.

Rebounds per minute of the departed
Blair -- 0.21
Spears -- 0.23
Oates -- 0.17

Rebounds per minute of the returning
Raji -- 0.21
Sanders -- 0.17
Trapiani -- 0.20*
Southern -- 0.22
(* Trapiani's numbers from his year with Vermont.)

As you can see, the four players expected to fill many of the departed's minutes rebounded at a rate that was very similar to Spears, Oates and Blair.

What does it mean?
We probably won't be a significantly better rebounding team next year. However, the hope is that the replacements are much better all-around players and make BC more effecient in other areas.

Full Season Prouty Ratings

Since I've just spent the past couple weeks using completely subjective measurements in rating the basketball players, I only thought it was fair to conclude with the objective. Below is the full season Prouty Ratings. (Prouty is an efficiency measurement used by some college hoops stats guys).

Here is the calculation:

Prouty Rating
[ {Points / (Field Goals Attempted * 2 + FTA) } +
{ (Points + Assists * 2 - Turnovers) / Minutes} +
{ (Rebounds + Steals + (Blocks / 2) - Personal Fouls) / Minutes} +
{ (Minutes / (TEAM TOTAL MINUTES / 5) } * Team Winning Pct} ] / 4

As I said when I produced the midseason ratings, this is not perfect. It does attempt to measure a player's contributions by combing offensive stats, possession stats (defense) and productivity. Here's how the BC players performed:

Rice -- 0.579
Raji -- 0.465
Sanders -- 0.450
Spears -- 0.420
Southern -- 0.391
Paris -- 0.360
Oates -- 0.354
Blair -- 0.337
Roche -- 0.333


Some thoughts...
-- The good news: our three most productive players return and two of our least productive are leaving
-- When reviewing the stats for the calculation, I was reminded how sloppy many of our players were. You don't expect inside players to have great assist to turnover ratios but Sanders (.63), Spears (.58), Blair (.43) were too careless.
-- If you take Rice out of the equation the rest of the team shot .626 from the line. Terrible.

Midseason Prouty Ratings

When you drop a few games and have a tough road ahead, everyone has an explanation for why things are going bad and what should be done. I've been attributing the recent struggles to the Freshmen. Upon further review the Freshmen's play doesn't tell the whole story. Take a look at the Prouty Ratings (Prouty is an efficiency measurement used by some college hoops stats guys).

Prouty Rating
[ {Points / (Field Goals Attempted * 2 + FTA) } +
{ (Points + Assists * 2 - Turnovers) / Minutes} +
{ (Rebounds + Steals + (Blocks / 2) - Personal Fouls) / Minutes} +
{ (Minutes / (TEAM TOTAL MINUTES / 5) } * Team Winning Pct} ] / 4

While not perfect, the rating attempts to measure a player's contributions by combing offensive stats, possession stats (defense) and productivity. Here's how the BC players ranked at this point in the season.

Rice 0.486
Sanders 0.416
Raji 0.402
Spears 0.393
Blair 0.339
Roche 0.332
Paris 0.326
Oates 0.315

As you can see, the freshmen are not the problem. Sanders and Raji have been two of our most important players. I think the bigger issue is the front line. All have had their moments, but none of the big men have been consistent enough or productive enough offensively. Our style of play rewards inside players with easy baskets and plenty of rebounds. We're not getting that from Spears, Blair and Oates.

I would like to see some improvement from everyone but I really think the key to the second half comes back to the freshmen. I think we've seen the upside of the front line players. If we want to squeak into the tournament (or worse, avoid a terrible second half), it is going to be on Raji and Sanders to become even better. If they improve their rebounding and are a little more careful with the ball, I think we can weather the storm of the next two weeks and make a late in the final weeks of the season.

Likes and dislikes: Michigan win

This was my first time watching this season's team. I came away pleasantly surprised with the effort.

Likes
-- Rice making tough baskets. He really used the shot clock well and can make the deep three. I think he will be able to carry the team.
-- Raji and Sander's basketball IQ. Some things cannot be taught. I was impressed by these two anticipating things and hustling and cutting. Smart players seem to thrive in Al's system. Maybe these two will be the latest.
-- The defensive rebounding. That is what allowed us to control the game.
-- The defense. We used a lot of 2-3 and it was the best we've looked against a Beilein offense in a while.

Dislikes
-- Shamari in the low post. Spear put up good numbers and rebounded well but is lacking something on offense. His hands are still suspect and he doesn't finish well. Why is he shooting short fades five feet from the basket?
-- Southern's lack of minutes. Our big guys were better but still not great. Why not get Southern some playing time?
-- Oates' D. He did not move or rebound well.

I came away from this game feeling much better about the season. I think we'll surprise a few ACC teams this year.

Replacing offense year to year

Al has a big task ahead. He is replacing Dudley and Marshall and the lesser contributions of Haynes and Williams. While we’ve lost big contributors before, this will be the biggest hole since the team turned the corner in 2001. Just using some raw numbers (points) BC must replace 56% of its total offense. But in Al’s tenure there is no strong correlation between lost production and a change in winning percentage the following year.

Year	Loss of Production From Previous Year	Change in Winning Pct
2002	36%	(.246)
2003	18%	(.012)
2004	43%	.093
2005	16%	.127
2006	18%	(.056)
2007	34%	(.141)

I think Rice can really explode next year. I also think Spears, Blair and Roche can also improve their offense. But I think for us to maintain our relative success, we will need at least one of the freshman to average 15 or so points a game.

Stats and notes

Here are a few things to note going into the Georgetown game:

-- While at BC Skinner is 4-4 against Georgetown
-- Skinner is 1-0 against John Thompson III
-- BC has won 3 of its last 4 against the Hoyas
-- While at BC, Skinner is 1-3 in the Round of 32
-- Skinner has never lost in Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum

Georgetown is a very good team. Just look at their profile from Kenpom. Kenpom's number crunching of Day 1 also confirms what I have been saying: our offense is not a problem. Our defense is.

Hack the Bracket has better news: while great all year, Georgetown's play may have peaked. They are still consistent and dangerous, but they are not playing at the same level they were midseason.

Snubs and success indicators

Mike Tranghese’s snub of the men’s basketball team got BC AD Gene DeFilippo fired up. You can argue the merits of rewarding the trophy on the road, but I really attribute Gene’s outburst to the build up of the last two years. Since the ACC talks began, Trangeshe has taken many jabs at BC and Gene -- while being less critical of Miami, Va. Tech and Syracuse. Gene remained silent until now. Who knows why the remaining Big East teams sit on the sidelines as Tranghese continues to plays petty games with ABC/ESPN, BC and other conferences? The inevitable split of the Football and Basketball schools will be messy under his management.

All the talk over regular season titles and trophies got me thinking: what is a better indicator of NCAA success –- Big East regular season titles or Big East tournament titles? Turns out there is not a strong correlation with either. BE Tourney winners advance further (on average), but the mean for both is the Sweet 16. And the correlation between winning the Big East Regular Season title, Big East Tournement Title and the National Championship is very small (.17).