Other Team Mid-Range and Crazy Shots | The Boneyard

Other Team Mid-Range and Crazy Shots

gwhuskyfan

gwhuskyfan

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Am I the only one who feels like teams hit shots they never hit when they play us? Found this tweet really interesting. Marquette hit more mid-range shots last night than they had hit in the last 12 games COMBINED! Even when we win feel like teams hit crazy shots (Georgetown game especially). First couple games teams hit crazy shots against us, it's bad luck - but now, I'm not sure how to explain for it.

 
Last night felt like a little bit of luck and a little bit of just a good scout by Shaka. That’s the thing we’ve seen over and over since BE play started - these are some very good, smart coaches that will work really hard to find what works against UConn and try to exploit it.

Which makes it even more surprising that McDermott decided to not double Sanogo all game.
 
jibsey said:
Why? If someone was in their face? Look at the tape, many of those were open shots. Our defense was not good.
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I'll use another word.. It's hard to "overcome" that
 
I don't know how else to say it other than the obvious - Hurley is a great recruiter, developer of talent and team, program builder.

And if his team can outtalent the other team into submission, or if the other team is itself sort of a mess, its a lock - we win the games we are expected to win.

But if its even odds talent wise, and if the other team is tough and disciplined... Hurley's game coaching/management kinda falls apart, and because of that his team falls apart. Its a specific lack of confidence in the moment, in situational awareness. You can see it in some of the panicked and rushed shots. They just aren't built to grind teams out with elite and confidence execution in pressure games/situations. It is what it is. It can improve over time, but not sure how much.

I think this is why we see the team really control games and win the games it "should" if it has an overmatch. They know how to bludgeon and how to crush a team with runs - its really the trademark of this team. But if it becomes an attritional and tactical game focused on exploiting mismatches and making quick adjustments, we are in real trouble. Look at any Villanova game from 2018-2021, xavier/pc/marquette. If we don't knock them out, they grind us until we crack.

Another piece for this years team in particular is expectations - when they started 13-0 and were annointed the king of the Big East, it put a target on their back, and every team will go that much harder, grind a little bit more, dive on the floor to save that possession they wouldn't against like, DePaul. Its new level of intensity that previously we've only seen in NCAA Tourney Games, Villanova games, etc. Games we have really sucked in.
 
.-.
jibsey said:
Why? If someone was in their face? Look at the tape, many of those were open shots. Our defense was not good.
Expand ...

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You can’t just ignore the blocks and then claim bad defense. Our guys had 11 blocks last night. That’s phenomenal defense. Add those blocks to the 24 of 32 and suddenly it’s 24 of 43. That is not bad defense vs 2 point shots, many of which were layups.

What I found more problematic was the number of layups that our guys missed, which led to fast breaks and easy scores at the other end.
 
I’ve played a lot of poker in my life time, (literally hundreds of thousands of hands during the online poker boom) and done a lot of reading and research on probabilities and game theory in games that have some amount of combination of skill and luck/randomness dictating outcomes.

Clearly, the balance between skill and luck skews much more towards skill in basketball vs poker, but the luck/randomness factor cannot be overlooked.

You can play near perfectly (via odds/stats/game theory) in poker, and still lose money (“run bad”) for an insane amount of hands. There were datasets were top players ran below expected win rate and lost money for months & months (100s of thousands of hands).

I guess my point is, it does seem like a lot of crazy things out of our control are going against us during these road losses.

However, we are not playing up to our optimal potential, which means we can’t absorb these bad probability fluctuations and escape out with a “close call” good road win.

Lots of solutions being offered up here on the yard, including some fairly big overhauls of our team. I’m not sure that is needed. Just need to shoot a little bit better and clean up our perimeter defense as step #1.
 
bmayuc said:
I don't know how else to say it other than the obvious - Hurley is a great recruiter, developer of talent and team, program builder.

And if his team can outtalent the other team into submission, or if the other team is itself sort of a mess, its a lock - we win the games we are expected to win.

But if its even odds talent wise, and if the other team is tough and disciplined... Hurley's game coaching/management kinda falls apart, and because of that his team falls apart. Its a specific lack of confidence in the moment, in situational awareness. You can see it in some of the panicked and rushed shots. They just aren't built to grind teams out with elite and confidence execution in pressure games/situations. It is what it is. It can improve over time, but not sure how much.

I think this is why we see the team really control games and win the games it "should" if it has an overmatch. They know how to bludgeon and how to crush a team with runs - its really the trademark of this team. But if it becomes an attritional and tactical game focused on exploiting mismatches and making quick adjustments, we are in real trouble. Look at any Villanova game from 2018-2021, xavier/pc/marquette. If we don't knock them out, they grind us until we crack.

Another piece for this years team in particular is expectations - when they started 13-0 and were annointed the king of the Big East, it put a target on their back, and every team will go that much harder, grind a little bit more, dive on the floor to save that possession they wouldn't against like, DePaul. Its new level of intensity that previously we've only seen in NCAA Tourney Games, Villanova games, etc. Games we have really sucked in.
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Plus no go-to guy for basket when you need one.
 
One thing that stood out for me, is the number of shots Marquette took that utilized the backboard. Very smart, not used much today- can't think of any other team that banks shots off the backboard so much. Shaka must be teaching this.
 
jibsey said:
Why? If someone was in their face? Look at the tape, many of those were open shots. Our defense was not good.
Expand ...
Look at the 2nd tweet in the series.


Yes, they made more shots than expected considering the defense and location and player averages. We played the best defense against them of anyone all season.
 
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gwhuskyfan said:
Am I the only one who feels like teams hit shots they never hit when they play us? Found this tweet really interesting. Marquette hit more mid-range shots last night than they had hit in the last 12 games COMBINED! Even when we win feel like teams hit crazy shots (Georgetown game especially). First couple games teams hit crazy shots against us, it's bad luck - but now, I'm not sure how to explain for it.

Expand ...


Marquette is taking what we give them. So many teams just defend the perimeter and the basket now. The middle is WIDE OPEN. Those shots are undefended a lot of times. I think many offenses and defenses in college and the pros reflect a misunderstanding of statistics, and conditional probability in particular. The goal of an offense should be to take the shot that has the highest expected point value. Too many coaches (and many of the stats "experts" on this board) think that means contested 3's.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Marquette is taking what we give them. So many teams just defend the perimeter and the basket now. The middle is WIDE OPEN. Those shots are undefended a lot of times. I think many offenses and defenses in college and the pros reflect a misunderstanding of statistics, and conditional probability in particular. The goal of an offense should be to take the shot that has the highest expected point value. Too many coaches (and many of the stats "experts" on this board) think that means contested 3's.
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They had the lowest expected point value of their season last night against us.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Marquette is taking what we give them. So many teams just defend the perimeter and the basket now. The middle is WIDE OPEN. Those shots are undefended a lot of times. I think many offenses and defenses in college and the pros reflect a misunderstanding of statistics, and conditional probability in particular. The goal of an offense should be to take the shot that has the highest expected point value. Too many coaches (and many of the stats "experts" on this board) think that means contested 3's.
Expand ...

I know its a fun game to play the contrarian, but those shots are undefended because the "stats nerds" have determined via reasonable analyses that these are the lowest EV shots for teams to take.

I highly doubt many coaches would say that "we want to shoot contested 3's" is their gameplan. They WILL say that they want to run offensive sets that result in the highest +EV looks for their players. This means quality open 3s and layups. Whether the players execute that plan in-game is a whole different situation.
 
.-.
Jay-Bone said:
We are 4 out, 1 in. 0 in the middle. Its by design.
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Right.

Hurley's strategy, and the numbers bear this out, is to defend the 3 at all costs. UConn is one of the better teams in the country at defending the 3.

When you go all out on doing that, there has to be a gap, and for UConn it's the 8'-15' shots. It's by design. The anomaly is teams making those shots against UConn at such a high rate. Marquette had 4 or 5 fadeaway jump shots in the paint by guards and wings. They also used the glass effectively. @Waquoit should appreciate that.
 
Chin Diesel said:
Right.

Hurley's strategy, and the numbers bear this out, is to defend the 3 at all costs. UConn is one of the better teams in the country at defending the 3.

When you go all out on doing that, there has to be a gap, and for UConn it's the 8'-15' shots. It's by design. The anomaly is teams making those shots against UConn at such a high rate. Marquette had 4 or 5 fadeaway jump shots in the paint by guards and wings. They also used the glass effectively. @Waquoit should appreciate that.
Expand ...
I don’t know if it was luck or skill (I haven’t seen a lot of Marquette this year), but they used the glass SO well. Really great work by them to get the angles and make those shots. Felt like every shot they took was going to bank in
 
Billy Jack said:
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You can’t just ignore the blocks and then claim bad defense. Our guys had 11 blocks last night. That’s phenomenal defense. Add those blocks to the 24 of 32 and suddenly it’s 24 of 43. That is not bad defense vs 2 point shots, many of which were layups.

What I found more problematic was the number of layups that our guys missed, which led to fast breaks and easy scores at the other end.
Expand ...
Missing layups has been a decade long issue for some reason sans 2014 which still saw a lot of jump shooters
 
REB1094 said:
I don’t know if it was luck or skill (I haven’t seen a lot of Marquette this year), but they used the glass SO well. Really great work by them to get the angles and make those shots. Felt like every shot they took was going to bank in
Expand ...
Both.
 
Chin Diesel said:
Right.

Hurley's strategy, and the numbers bear this out, is to defend the 3 at all costs. UConn is one of the better teams in the country at defending the 3.

When you go all out on doing that, there has to be a gap, and for UConn it's the 8'-15' shots. It's by design. The anomaly is teams making those shots against UConn at such a high rate. Marquette had 4 or 5 fadeaway jump shots in the paint by guards and wings. They also used the glass effectively. @Waquoit should appreciate that.
Expand ...
But they’re making them “at such a high rate” only if you ignore the blocks. Our guys had 11 blocks last night. That’s a lot of blocks. Really a lot. We have been stopping .
 
.-.
BigTenFan said:
Credit to Xxxxxx Xxxxxx and his staff for making key adjustments at the half
Expand ...

This comment gets posted to these threads much more often that I wish they were posted.
 
JustbrewitMan said:
I know its a fun game to play the contrarian, but those shots are undefended because the "stats nerds" have determined via reasonable analyses that these are the lowest EV shots for teams to take.

I highly doubt many coaches would say that "we want to shoot contested 3's" is their gameplan. They WILL say that they want to run offensive sets that result in the highest +EV looks for their players. This means quality open 3s and layups. Whether the players execute that plan in-game is a whole different situation.
Expand ...

Oh, so just take more wide open 3's? Why didn't I think of that? How about uncontested layups and dunks? Since we are talking about magical thinking, why not just play with 10 people on our side and 1 player on theirs?

By this logic, what is the point of playing defense? All the matters is where the shot is taken from, right? You trying to shoot a 3 over Clingan is a higher percentage shot than Steph Curry wide open from 15 feet? Got it.
 
I imagine that I am not the only one who believes that our losses to date this season haven't been purely due to luck.

There are things that the advanced metrics that so many are falling in love with these days happen to miss, starting with the reality that we lost last night due to play on both ends in the part of the court (mid-range two point shots) that allegedly is the worst place to pay attention to if you want to win.

One major point on the missed open three point shots that we've missed at a far higher rate in our losses than the statistics would expect: if a player has been harrassed by the defense consistently, if he has had far fewer shot attempts than normal, if he has been taking shots at a more stressful situation than he had when his percentages were more to the "norm", there is a strong likelyhood that even if he is open for the stray attempt, he may rush the shot, he may be off on his mechanics, his rhythm or even his confidence. The defense that we faced in our losses (also in some brief stretches in a couple of wins) have made it more difficult for us to score than what we saw when we were steamrolling pretty solid teams earlier in the season.

I see the biggest concern being our guards don't respond well to being pressured early in the possession.
 
auror said:
Ah yes, Synergy. A company of rando stats nerds with no track record. No wait, they're used by literally every single coaching staff and NBA team in the country.
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I find these "contested shot" analyses always seem to find every 2 pointer contested but a strikingly large percentage of 3 pointers to be open, even though most defenses do not defend the mid-range at all anymore. Hmmm. But you are right, they don't have an agenda.
 
Umami Zen said:
Someone posted that they hit 24 of 32 two point shots last night (after any that weren't blocked).. Hard to defend against that..
Expand ...
Perhaps getting on your man and defending would be effective defense
 
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