Stats, this year vs last year so far

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ekeg0002

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Like many, I feel like I was totally wrong about Ben Johnson. I'm so impressed with the way he has maximized the strengths and hidden the weaknesses of this team that is short on talent, size and depth, especially for the Big 10. To the extent that you can "see" coaching in stats, I wanted to look at some team stats for 20-21 vs 21-22.

I have both full year 20-21 and first 8 games of 20-21 as a comparison.

FG %: this year 44.8%. LY 39.2%, (LY through 8 games 42.6%)
3 PT FG%: this year 34.9%. LY 28.4%. (LY through 8 games 30.0%)
Total rebounds: this year 33.8. LY 36.8. (LY through 8 games 38.5)
Off rebounds: this year 5.8. LY 11.7. (LY through 8 games 11.1)
Fouls: this year 13.5. LY 18.6. (LY through 8 games 19.0)
Assists: this year 13.0. LY 13.8. (LY through 8 games 16.3)
Assists/FG ratio: this year 49.2%. LY 56.6%. (LY through 8 games 62.2%)
Turnovers: this year 8.9. LY 11.2. (LY through 8 games 11.9)

Our shooting has been significantly better, especially on the 3 point %, which I think has been obvious to any observer. I think we upgraded our shooters, but we also just move the ball better and take better shots in general.

The two I was really interested in were fouls and turnovers. With a very undersized lineup, we are fouling WAY less per game this year. Can you imagine how many guys we'd have foul out with Pitino coaching this lineup? That has clearly been a major emphasis for Ben and I'm shocked how well he's been able to keep these guys out of foul trouble. I hated those Wisconsin teams that just didn't foul, but man, it worked and is great coaching.

Turnovers also down, not as much as I expected, but averaging 9 this year is great. Last two games we had 7 turnovers TOTAL. 3 and 4. Last year the season low was 6.

Those stats really show team discipline, having a plan, and playing smart.

Stats where we are way worse than last year; rebounding obviously. Some of this is intentional, as many have pointed out, especially on the offensive end, since we aren't sending guys to crash the glass and instead focusing on getting back. The rest is just a lack of size. I will be interested to see if Ben changes philosophy once we get more size and depth next year.

Surprisingly, fewer assists than last year both absolute and relative to shots made.

Wish we could see fast break points given up as that is the trade-off between crashing the offensive boards.
What do you guys think?
 


I need to get opponent FG % in here too, will do that later. Not fouling much doesn't mean much if you're giving up easy layups, but doesn't seem like that's the case.
 

We’ll struggle all year with rebounding especially offensive but that is partially impacted by taking better shots and having a better shooting percentage. Just less to rebound but yes a weakness of this team.
 

CentralGopher said:
We’ll struggle all year with rebounding especially offensive but that is partially impacted by taking better shots and having a better shooting percentage. Just less to rebound but yes a weakness of this team.
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Izzo mentioned gopher rebounding in the post game. Pointed out that it may be an intentional strategy to not go after rebounds to aggressively, due to our depth issues. He was talking specifically on the offensive end. I’m not a great basketball mind but he implied teams are more prone to foul when competing for offensive rebounds than when on defense. Contact underneath leads to fouls which we can’t afford.
 


SaintLouisGopher said:
Izzo mentioned gopher rebounding in the post game. Pointed out that it may be an intentional strategy to not go after rebounds to aggressively, due to our depth issues. He was talking specifically on the offensive end. I’m not a great basketball mind but he implied teams are more prone to foul when competing for offensive rebounds than when on defense. Contact underneath leads to fouls which we can’t afford.
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Should change my name to stlouisparrot…should have read the original post much closer. Ha
 

SaintLouisGopher said:
Izzo mentioned gopher rebounding in the post game. Pointed out that it may be an intentional strategy to not go after rebounds to aggressively, due to our depth issues. He was talking specifically on the offensive end. I’m not a great basketball mind but he implied teams are more prone to foul when competing for offensive rebounds than when on defense. Contact underneath leads to fouls which we can’t afford.
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Yeah, de-emphasizing offensive rebounding is one of strategies that most analytical teams (NBA/college) are using.

It's not only about fouls and depth, it's largely about avoiding the bonus. Staying out of the bonus is immensely important in college basketball. A large percentage of bonus free throws are shot by guards (traditionally high percentage shooters). Bonus free throws also automatically mean that your set on defense on the other end.

Essentially, it comes down to this:

Staying out of bonus, getting defense set, conserving energy > chance of getting an offensive rebound
 

ekeg0002 said:
I need to get opponent FG % in here too, will do that later. Not fouling much doesn't mean much if you're giving up easy layups, but doesn't seem like that's the case.
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you're falling down on the job... get on this! just kidding... thanks for pulling in some interesting stats!
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Yeah, de-emphasizing offensive rebounding is one of strategies that most analytical teams (NBA/college) are using.

It's not only about fouls and depth, it's largely about avoiding the bonus. Staying out of the bonus is immensely important in college basketball. A large percentage of bonus free throws are shot by guards (traditionally high percentage shooters). Bonus free throws also automatically mean that your set on defense on the other end.

Essentially, it comes down to this:

Staying out of bonus, getting defense set, conserving energy > chance of getting an offensive rebound
Click to expand...
Interesting. Don't follow the analytics enough to know that was a thing these days. For a team like the Gophers, makes a lot of sense.
 



Love the info, but I hesitate to take too much from the beginning of any season. The Big Ten season just started and our stats will always suffer once the grind truly begins.
 


It's been clear so far that both Ben Johnson and Pitino are okay giving up rebounds to ensure we don't get beat in transition. I'm not sure how I feel about this philosophy quite yet. Our defense has been great, but I wish we could convert points off more offensive rebounds. They were very needed against MSU when our shooting was slow to get going.

From what I see is that we haven't seen our ceiling yet with our shooting. We're still a little out of alignment with our offense leading to challenged shots. (IE. it was clear against MSU we'd have players catching the ball on the perimeter with their backs to the basket and defender and we don't have the speed to make the turn against great defensive players) I think Izzo did enough to disrupt the flow off the ball to get our timing out of wack and it was very effective at shutting us down. Getting more time to gel will do wonders for our ability to shoot and be competitive for sure.
 

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