Too much of PSU win being attributed to 3-pt %

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Ogie Ogilthorpe

Ogie Ogilthorpe

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It seems some of our fans, and probably MOST of the PSU fans, think a large reason of why the Gophers won this game is that they went 9-for-9 from the arc. If you really think that, I believe you're making a big mistake.

For starters, PSU made nine 3-pointers also, same as the Gophers, so it's not like the Gophers significantly outscored the Lions from beyond the arc.

Secondly, the Gophers led by 10 at the half and had made 7 of those 3's already. After the half, they made just two (while PSU made MOST of their total), and yet the Gophers more than doubled their lead at one point.

Sure, the Gophers were hot from the arc, and the field in general, but as much or more of this win should be attributed to holding the Lions to 36% shooting while holding Cornley and Pringle to a combined 17 points. Eight blocked shots to none for the Lions certainly helped as well!

In short, this was a game the Gophers dominated, not one where they just got hot from the arc.
 

You're correct in some regards. Yes, PSU also made 9 three pointers, but you have to look at the numbers involved. Basketball is a game of stistical analysis. A team ought never shoot 100% When they do, you chalk it up to a statisctical anomaly and wait for the other show to fall. Figure for example that a team takes 9 three point shots and hits for a normal to decent 30% clip. That means Minnesota probably should have made 3 of those shots. The other 6 equal 18 points scored above what the odds should have been. 18 points in a 20 point win. This game would have been very different when ONLY taking the three point shooting into account.
 

I would also agree that Minnesota was much more dominant in the paint. Regarding basic guard play, I thought PSU was better. See stats between Battle and Nolen. Also, take into account that the numbers went out of PSU's favor. I realize that one cannot disregard solid defense, but if PSU shot their numbers and Minnesota shot their averages...PSU would have won the numbers game by a fair margin. This is why however, you play the games. Minnesota played good solid D and shot the lights out. One cannot in any way discredit Minnesota on an very well played game and win. But basketball is a funny game and IS based on numbers.
 

Remember that shooting percentage is not complete chance. Some teams are better shooting teams, and more importantly, some teams are better defensive teams. Getting open shots, not forcing shots, ect. all have a major impact of shooting percentage and are completely controlled by the team.

Sure, its unlikely we shoot 100% again, but we deserve some credit.
 

Without a doubt, credit is deserved. One must simply tip their cap and realize that Minnesota was going to win this game. Nobody can take it away or say anything to discredit the win. It was a FANTASTIC performance. When a team plays within their system and defies the odds, they did something right! My point is that the game is most likely not a 20 point victory if replayed.
 


Ummm... actually...

Actually, when I read the box score, it looks to me like Gopher guards scored 42 points and PSU guards scored 38; guards from both teams notched 14 assists; Gopher guards amassed 13 rebounds to 10 for PSU guards.

And you're saying "PSU basic guard play was better"?

Now, if you're saying that Battle is a better scorer than Nolen, I don't think you'd find anybody to disagree with you. Of course he is, he's leading the league in scoring and Nolen is about the 4th or 5th scoring option on the Gophers' roster.

I understand your point, sure, hot-shooting played a huge role in the game. But I can't help the fact that PSU didn't play much defense and the Gophers did. Good grief, the Lions took TWELVE more shots than the Gophers, more than doubled the offensive rebounds pulled down by PSU, and lost by 20.

I'm sure the game in State College will be a different story, no doubt. I'm not denying the Gophers shot the ball EXTREMELY well, of course they did. But this game had as much or more to do with the Gophers' defense as with hot shooting.
 

If people want to say that Battle outplayed Nolan I have no problem with that. Stats sometimes are deceiving, they really don't show how the PG (Nolan & Co.) ran the team.
Also, in game planning, I feel it is very important to assume you are going to hold their top scorer to about their point total level but make sure no one else goes off and score something that is totally out of character.
Allowing Cornley and Pringle to go nuts like they have done a few times this year against other teams would have made this a much closer game.
IMHO
 

How many times do you think a team loses when they shoot 9 for 9 from 3?

If they shoot 3 for 9, which is right around the NCAA average, it is right a round a 2 point game. No reason to apologize for it, but it certainly was a huge factor in the win.

I will predict this. If the Gophers are 9 for 9 from 3 on Thursday, they will beat the Badgers.
 

mhenry41h said:
I would also agree that Minnesota was much more dominant in the paint. Regarding basic guard play, I thought PSU was better. See stats between Battle and Nolen. Also, take into account that the numbers went out of PSU's favor. I realize that one cannot disregard solid defense, but if PSU shot their numbers and Minnesota shot their averages...PSU would have won the numbers game by a fair margin. This is why however, you play the games. Minnesota played good solid D and shot the lights out. One cannot in any way discredit Minnesota on an very well played game and win. But basketball is a funny game and IS based on numbers.
Click to expand...

In reality only the "number" that counts is the score at the end of the game. Based on that, the Gophers played better than PSU on Sunday.
 



You're missing the point...

"How many times do you think a team loses when it shoots 9-for-9 from the arc?"

Personally, I would much rather go 14-for-22 from the arc than 9-for-9. Sure, it's a much lower percentage, but it's 15 more points. Does any of this make sense to you?

PSU took 12 more shots than the Gophers. By your reasoning, if the Gophers had taken those 12 additional shots, and missed them all (and all 3-pointers, it would have been a closer game because their percentage from the arc would have been much less, only going 9-for-21 from long range.

Huh?

It's nine 3-pointers, for cripes sake. Now if they would have gone 15-for-15, THEN I would agree that it's a freak of nature and one of the sole reasons they pulled out the lopsided win. It's a neat statistic, going 100% on nine shots, not much more.

As far as Thursday's game, if the Gophers were going to match a stat from the PSU game I would much rather it was the stat of getting 47 points from the bench than knocking down an ultra high percentage of what is a relatively low number of 3-point shots.
 

14-22 is nice, but you aren't getting my point. 9-9 means the offense was running on the highest possible effieciency during those possessions. Its an AMAZING number. And I feel as though people think I am making excuses for PSU losing. I am not. Minnesota played incredibly and I am tipping my cap to them. You must surely understand the magnitude of the flow of a basketball game when a team's offensive efficiency allows them to shoot 9-9 for 100% from 3. Its a dynamic that is nearly impossible to defeat. It was a great game for Minnesota. They were going to win PERIOD. And for the comment regarding the final score being the only stat that matters: I totally agree! Minnesota won plain and simple. And even more impressive was the incredible dynamic with which it was done!!!
 

How many of the threes did we hit with a hand in our face? Maybe only two or three. Most of them were wide open looks that you expect to make. I'll chalk up the shooting to the fact that we moved the ball so well and got good open looks that were shot in rhythm. Why did Penn State shoot a lower percentage on threes? I say it's because on a vast majority of their threes there was a gopher player right in their grill. And as for the offensive rebounds, let's look at it this way:

Penn State missed 38 shots and recorded 14 offensive rebounds, meaning they rebounded 37% of their missed shots.

Minnesota missed 18 shots and recorded 6 offensive rebounds, meaning we rebounded 33% of our missed shots.

So when you really look at the numbers, Penn State wasn't much more efficient in offensive rebounding than Minnesota was, they just had more opportunities to get offensive rebounds.
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
"How many times do you think a team loses when it shoots 9-for-9 from the arc?"

Personally, I would much rather go 14-for-22 from the arc than 9-for-9. Sure, it's a much lower percentage, but it's 15 more points. Does any of this make sense to you?

PSU took 12 more shots than the Gophers. By your reasoning, if the Gophers had taken those 12 additional shots, and missed them all (and all 3-pointers, it would have been a closer game because their percentage from the arc would have been much less, only going 9-for-21 from long range.

Huh?

It's nine 3-pointers, for cripes sake. Now if they would have gone 15-for-15, THEN I would agree that it's a freak of nature and one of the sole reasons they pulled out the lopsided win. It's a neat statistic, going 100% on nine shots, not much more.

As far as Thursday's game, if the Gophers were going to match a stat from the PSU game I would much rather it was the stat of getting 47 points from the bench than knocking down an ultra high percentage of what is a relatively low number of 3-point shots.
Click to expand...

The total number made is not the relevant number. The relevant number is the amount of possessions it takes to make them. It took them NINE possessions to get 27 points. An average, not surprisingly of 3 points per possession. Considering that 1.20 points per possession is very good, averaging 3 points a possession for 9 trips is incredible.

If somebody could post the points per possession for the Gophers yesterday, it would be a staggering number.
 



Right, that's an AVERAGE points per possession. There are games where teams average over and games where they average under. If you put our Iowa game and our Penn State game together, the points per possession would come out around an AVERAGE. We won't shoot 62% every game, but we also won't shoot 33% (and 22% from three) every game like we did in Iowa. If in every game, every team doesn't shoot AVERAGE. Every game is different and every game offers something different depending on a great many factors, but you can't say that if we didn't make all those threes we wouldn't have won by 20. What about offensive rebounds? Substitution patterns? Would we have slowed it up as much as we did at the end? To say a game was won or lost in one category is an over-simplification of a game that is complex and requires many dimensions of the game (not just three point shooting) to by in sync in order for a team to win.
 

Let me know the next time you shoot 9 for 9 or better from 3.

That should be in about 2019.

Nobody is saying the Gophers did not deserve to win the game. All anyone is saying is that shooting 9 for 9 from three is extremely rare and made the margin of victory far greater then it would normally be.

Most teams wouldn't shoot 9 for 9 from three in unguarded shooting drills. Enjoy it for what it is.
 

mhenry41h said:
You're correct in some regards. Yes, PSU also made 9 three pointers, but you have to look at the numbers involved. Basketball is a game of stistical analysis. A team ought never shoot 100% When they do, you chalk it up to a statisctical anomaly and wait for the other show to fall. Figure for example that a team takes 9 three point shots and hits for a normal to decent 30% clip. That means Minnesota probably should have made 3 of those shots. The other 6 equal 18 points scored above what the odds should have been. 18 points in a 20 point win. This game would have been very different when ONLY taking the three point shooting into account.
Click to expand...

How many of those 3 point shots were so open that had someone been covering they would have maybe gone inside and still scored 2 points. Also, the "normal" 3 point clip for the Gophers is about 38%. You can play all the games of if and or buts, but the facts are the facts.
 

With respect to everybody on this thread who knows more about basketball statistics than me (I put that in the range of about 100%), this is kind of a dumb argument. MN shot perfectly from the arc. And, they won the game - try as you might you cannot separate the two, but one does not MEAN the other. Sometimes you shot hot and you win. Sometimes you shoot cold and you win (think Iowa).

What's cool about all those 3s is that Bucky Badger is thinking about them right now. Think Bucky think!
 

GVBadger said:
Let me know the next time you shoot 9 for 9 or better from 3.

That should be in about 2019.

Nobody is saying the Gophers did not deserve to win the game. All anyone is saying is that shooting 9 for 9 from three is extremely rare and made the margin of victory far greater then it would normally be.

Most teams wouldn't shoot 9 for 9 from three in unguarded shooting drills. Enjoy it for what it is.
Click to expand...

Actually, no team has ever shot better than 9 for 9 on three pointers. The NCAA requires 10 shots to qualify for a record. The current record for three point shooting is either 10/11 or 11/12 (they said it on BTN last night but I forgot). Considering if a team had shot 10/10 from three point range it would be the record, we can use logic to determine no team has ever shot better than 9/9 but there is no guarantee that that shooting has not been matched. My guess is that we'll be waiting longer than 2019.

However, outside of the three point shooting, the Gophers shot 15-20 for the second half so it wasn't just 3 point shooting that won the game. It was solid defense that led to transition opportunities and open looks. Shooting percentage is as much a reflection of Penn State's defense--which wasn't overly good--as it is Minnesota's offense & shooters. Another things that is reflected in the shooting percentage is Penn State's problems on offense/Minnesota's D which allowed the transition offense to get open looks.
 

bottom line is that while the Gophers shot great from 3 they completely outplayed PSU in the second half while only taking 2 3's and playing shut down D. PSU actually got hot from 3 in the second half but the leadt still continued to expand. 9-9 shooting is an anomaly but it was a great win because they didn't rely on hot shooting and were disciplined enough to not jack shots up, and they won because of defense and efficiency on offense which led to open shots
 

oleboy41...I think you nailed the "why" in why Minnesota won the game. I wasn't overly panicked about losing at halftime for this reason: 99% of teams that shoot that hot from 3 pt land in a half, they will think go out of their heads and just start launching 3's to let the other team back into the game. Credit Minnesota for there great shot selection in the second half and taking ADVANTAGE of their hot shooting rather than squandering it. This was GREAT coaching and a GREAT win.
 

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