3 Point Defense

[aceboon]

I'm surprised at how many posts I've read since the Xavier game that made it seem like Xavier was throwing up prayers and got lucky, the 3 pt defense with guys going under screens, miscommunicating on switches, or just being late to contest after the switch was not good for the most part. some of the shots were tough but by that point guys were already in a rhythm so it shouldn't be a surprise that they were able to hit contested shots once their confidence was up.

 

[Kenny11]

it will get better. Some of it is simply because we won back to back championships and the opponents are super motivated and focused

 

[HooperScooper]

Also, thanks for looking up and confirming that we still are allowing one of the lower #'s of attempts per game this year.

It bodes well because our perimeter D is getting visually much better. Players are stepping up and the coaches are implementing some adjustments with rotations and strategy.

The other thing we really need to recognize is that most of the KenPom Top 80 teams that we have played (4/7) are currently in the Top 30 for 3pt shooting %.

They are just more skilled and more likely to "go off" on any given night than a poor-shooting 3pt team. Check this out for rankings for 3pt shooting and actual %:

Memphis - 3rd (42%)
Dayton - 71st (37%)
Colorado - 28th (39%)
Baylor - 45th (38%)
Gonzaga - 117th (35%)
Texas - 6th (41%)
Xavier - 8th (41%)

Check out the non-luck adjusted metrics for us in Dec vs. KP Top 100 teams:. Note the 3pt% and overall above-average performance in nearly all important stats:
View attachment 105589

Now check out the luck-adjusted stats:
View attachment 105590




I think we need to just relax a little.

Someone needs to translate what I'm looking at. My ADHD kicks in after 5 seconds and I have no idea how to interpret this. Can someone give us a short explanation on what this means? TIA.

 

[HooperScooper]

it will get better. Some of it is simply because we won back to back championships and the opponents are super motivated and focused

I don't buy that explanation. So teams that are extra motivated shoot a better percentage from 3? I can buy that teams maybe play harder and focus more on defense or rebound with more abandon. But I don't think it causes teams to shoot a better percentage from three.

 

[Stinger92860]

We are currently at #349 at 39%. The Zags are #2.
I’m trying to figure out if this is a deficiency on individual coverage or are we pulling guys in on help defense inside to leave shooters open and get rebounds in a Hurley planned defense scheme. It seems like it’s more than just teams got hot and shot the lights out. Every game.

Data, like ball, don’t lie.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

Someone needs to translate what I'm looking at. My ADHD kicks in after 5 seconds and I have no idea how to interpret this. Can someone give us a short explanation on what this means? TIA.

OK I'll put the luck-adjusted pic in here to make it easier to run through...

For the table:

• The "Baseline offense" is our offense's performance, "baseline defense" is our D's performance
• Net Rtg: Margin between Adjusted offense & defense efficiencies (the Adj P/100). This is measured in points per 100 possessions. NetRtg is what KenPom uses for him main team rankings. The higher the offense, the better. The lower the defense, the better. In the tables, the darker the green color, the higher ranked, the darker the red/pink, the worse. P/100 is raw calculation, Adj P/100 does an adjustment for the team's strength of opposition
• eFG%: effective FG%, adjusts for fact that 3pt shots are 1.5x more than 2pt shots
• TO%: turnovers
• OR%: % of offensive rebounds the team got or gave up
• FTR: FT rate for us and opposing team
• A%: percent of scores with assists
• 3PR/2PRmid/2PR rim: breaks down the type of shots taken and given up
• 3P%:/2p% mid/2p% rim: Our shooting % and the opposing team's shooting % in those zones
• Poss: total # of possessions the data is based on
• SoS: strength of the schedule the possessions came from

The shot char should be fairly self-explanatory just breaks down the shooting data into sections of the court

If you go to Hoop Explorer, you can hover over all the data points and pop-up information comes up. You can also do filters for specific lineups, effects of player(s) being on/off the court, etc. It's pretty fun.
UConn Hoop Explorer Stats

Hope this helps!

 

[HooperScooper]

OK I'll put the luck-adjusted pic in here to make it easier to run through...

For the table:

• The "Baseline offense" is our offense's performance, "baseline defense" is our D's performance
• Net Rtg: Margin between Adjusted offense & defense efficiencies (the Adj P/100). This is measured in points per 100 possessions. NetRtg is what KenPom uses for him main team rankings. The higher the offense, the better. The lower the defense, the better. In the tables, the darker the green color, the higher ranked, the darker the red/pink, the worse. P/100 is raw calculation, Adj P/100 does an adjustment for the team's strength of opposition
• eFG%: effective FG%, adjusts for fact that 3pt shots are 1.5x more than 2pt shots
• TO%: turnovers
• OR%: % of offensive rebounds the team got or gave up
• FTR: FT rate for us and opposing team
• A%: percent of scores with assists
• 3PR/2PRmid/2PR rim: breaks down the type of shots taken and given up
• 3P%:/2p% mid/2p% rim: Our shooting % and the opposing team's shooting % in those zones
• Poss: total # of possessions the data is based on
• SoS: strength of the schedule the possessions came from

The shot char should be fairly self-explanatory just breaks down the shooting data into sections of the court

View attachment 105597

If you go to Hoop Explorer, you can hover over all the data points and pop-up information comes up. You can also do filters for specific lineups, effects of player(s) being on/off the court, etc. It's pretty fun.
UConn Hoop Explorer Stats

Hope this helps!

Thanks. Appreciate it.

No wonder why Hurley needs Luke Murray.

 

[uh-no]

Last year teams took 18.7 threes a game against us on 31.2%
In 2023, 16.7 a game on 29.7%
This season, 17.4 a game on 39.2%

So it seems like we're letting teams shoot around the same amount of threes, but almost 10% higher which is wild!

In Maui our defense was terrible. The most basic plays collapsed our defense and our rotations were really bad, which led to wide open threes all game

Against Xavier, they made some tough shots. We probably could have made an adjustment to not let X keep taking them, but if you give Xavier the same exact shots at Cintas then I bet they shoot closer to 8-24 instead of 13-24

Buy games: 20-80 (25%)
Baylor: 6-17 (35.3%)
Texas: 8-17 (47.1%)
Gonzaga: 6-16 (37.5%)

I think it's a combination of smaller guards (harder to contest), still not perfect defensive rotations (improving), and going under off-ball screens which gives guys more room when they catch it

this is the right analysis. we are #23 in the country in 3PA/FGA...which is the biggest indicator of how "open" we are leaving people. This indicates either

1) we are doing generally a good job on 3 point defense, and teams are making difficult shots
2) our defense is either solid on a play, or really bad on a play leaving guys wayyy wide open, or not open at all.

I think it was a lot of the latter earlier in the season, where we were losing shooters WAY too often, but it's definitely trended toward the former lately.

 

[ToolzieFan]

This article is a few years old, but it shows the opponents’ three-point shooting percentage varies wildly over the course of a season. The most important skill, as others here have noted, is preventing three-point attempts, which we do.

https://kenpom.com/blog/3point-defense-should-not-be-defined-by-opponents-3p/

 

[Pmac923]

Let’s just keep scoring more points than the other team. That formula normally works.

 

[uh-no]

This article is a few years old, but it shows the opponents’ three-point shooting percentage varies wildly over the course of a season. The most important skill, as others here have noted, is preventing three-point attempts, which we do.
View attachment 105639

https://kenpom.com/blog/3point-defense-should-not-be-defined-by-opponents-3p/

thanks for digging that up. We've done much better on that since maui....it was the inordinately good shooting that got us with Xavier (and the women with USC last night ugh), and the year long problem of putting Butler on the line. The offense also was pretty clunky vs bulter (someone noted the shot distribution was not what we would want to get were it humming).

It's a long season. Bear was sick....some time off and some more games to work on the kinks.