Other Team Mid-Range and Crazy Shots

[Yawin4Heisman]

Great post by the OP and I was thinking in game it was pretty brutal some of the shots that were falling for them… the analytics back it up… when factoring in the blocked shots it’s really hard to say “well just play better defense” but of course that’s par for the course here (also blindly assumes other team‘s D’d up more than we did to stop Marquette’s mid-range game which I’m going to go out on limb and say probably isn’t the case given almost no defense prioritizes defending that shot anymore) … a lot of people on this board cannot fathom that luck might ever be part of the equation (it’s always just an “excuse”)… it might blow some people’s minds but it’s possible to:

a) have a terrible string of luck (opposing teams scoring lots of points on low eFG% shots for example);
b) have a stretch where the refs are objectively hurting you and;
c) be playing your worst stretch of basketball of the season all at the same time

These aren‘t mutually exclusive events like some people seem hellbent on suggesting…

For the Marquette game specifically regarding those 3 things:
a) First, see OP’s post which is honestly pretty brutal, they also shot 15% above their season average from the FT line, including a 40.5% FT shooter going 5/5 from the FT line (that has a 1% probability of happening) including 4/4 in like the final minute (Shaka for some reason had the guy on the floor still which I remember thinking at the time was dumb so Hurley basically had us unintentionally intentionally foul him which I thought was smart but he makes all 4 of those FTs so Shaka is a genius and Hurley still sucks, right?)… I know, I know, Dan Hurley needs to scheme a better free throw defense…
b) thought the refs were good for most of the game yesterday, however, the Jackson block, Karaban block and 3 point flop(?) on Marquette in the second half of the second half all seemed like non-fouls to me… that’s 7 FT’s (and combine with the bad luck of them shooting 15% above season average from FT line - by the way every team in our last 5 games has shot above their season average from the line and on a ton of FT shots - the combo of a lot of FT’s, many of which came off questionable calls, coupled with shooting well above season averages, has equaled a lot of points folks)
c) The way Sanogo, Hawkins and all of the other guards played in this one has been well chronicled already - the turnovers, the inability to create / score and defend up to the level we’ve seen before was just not good

Individual CBB games are a small sample size - luck can matter… and sometimes a lot given what a small sample size it is… no need to ever be a complete hardo and completely discount it at all times - you could easily make a case for why we should have beaten Marquette and lost to Creighton based on some of the above… things aren’t as bad as they seem but aren’t as good as we thought when we were 14-0 and looked unbeatable…

 

[nelsonmuntz]

The above is sadly true. But as for analytics i have found them to be helpful in framing uconn games after the fact. I’m guilty of mentally praising one big play from a player or mentally disowning a player for a bad play that I lose sight of anything else they do without it being colored by that one thing. Last night I thought newton and Hawkins were playing well until I saw some metrics. We are emotional fans and sometimes that ain’t good

I am a huge fan of analytics. I think it is also fair to question the data when the data doesn't make sense. Finding a dataset that claims that every 2 pointer is contested but some huge percentage of 3 pointers are open shots challenges credulity, and is likely a bad dataset.

 

[jibsey]

St. John’s is going to be going hard into the paint for layups because they’ll see it as a weakness based on recent games, all of their guards who are not great shooters do that, so Hurley get on it.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I don't think I said anything exactly like that in this thread, but this is what I'll say. We have a bunch of PnR coverages and defensive schemes, but the overarching philosophy and uniting thread is to prevent open 3's. So we will often overplay the 3-point line, close out hard, go over screens, etc. Offenses will take what seems available, which is often a contested midrange jumper or floater. Which is better than "we're literally standing on top of you to block your 3 point attempt" or "let's try a layup from our 6'2" point guard against a 7'2" with a 7'5" wingspan guy with a 16% block rate".

In general, offenses are drilled pretty strongly not to shoot a 3 with a guy draped all over them, especially early in the shot clock. So offenses will run their actions to attempt to gain an advantage heading towards the rim (most often through PnR). Their 2 best options are get to the rim with penetration or pass or kick out to open 3 once defense collapses to help. But we don't really collapse (although we do shade a bit towards the roll-man). And then they get to the rim and realize Clingan (or Sanogo) is there and our PnR defense has slowed the attack enough (through hedge or drop contain) so that our on ball defender has made up the ground and erased the advantage. So now we've checkmated the offense into taking the shots we want, which is contested midrange jumpers/floaters or heavily contested shots at the rim. So as you say, we end up defending a lot of mid-range shots. In fact I have the numbers, we force the 17th most 2-point jumpers of any team in the country, roughly 1/3 of shots. The best shooters in the entire world (talking Kevin Durant, Chris Paul) make 45-52% of contested 2s. Our opponents overall are shooting 36% on those midrange 2s. I haven't charted what Xavier did on actual contested vs. uncontested shots, but they shot 75% on non-blocked 2s yesterday.

Of course, offenses are always trying to break that checkmate and get high quality shots like dunks and layups if available. Marquette did that too often in the 2nd half to go along with shooting well on their contested midrange 2s when they couldn't. They're a top 5 offense in the country for a reason.

The other option for offenses against us is just go straight 1v1 ISO, without playing the "try to gain an advantage" cat and mouse game. Which at the college level usually isn't a great option, because you're not really going 1v1 usually. Smaller arc compared to NBA and no defensive 3 seconds means help is closer. However, Providence and Xavier were able to win 1v1s enough (often by drawing fouls thanks to our over-aggressiveness and Karaban not quite being stout enough as a freshman), that it worked out.

We ourselves take hardly any midrange jumpers on offense, because Sanogo is our guy to take advantage of 1v1s and he's extremely effective at it. We do our best to spread the court so that teams can't help on him. Thus the 4-out and Karaban's importance. We also have Hawkins off screens for quick release 3s. And Clingan on the roll also... He generates an advantage just by his size, mobility, and hands. These 3 are why we can have an elite offense without an elite on ball PG generating advantages. That and we're lethal in transition with our shooters flaring out to the wings. Defenses don't have a lot of good options for defending us, so they've resorted to allowing high value shots (wide open 3s) to our worst shooters and hoping the variance swings their way. A few teams with the requisite personnel (OMax Prosper for Marquette, Devin Carter of Providence, Colby Jones of Xavier) have been able to take away Hawkins, which reduces our options by 1, and allows them to focus more on clogging the paint with everyone else.

Other teams scheme defense differently. No middle and pack line Ds try to take away the paint and rim totally and are content to offer contested and somewhat open 3s instead. So our tradeoff is allowing a few more contested shots at the rim, but less open 3s. A few years ago, using mostly the same scheme, our defense was a lot worse, because we allowed too many attempts at the rim vs. midrange and didn't contest them well enough.

I don't disagree with most of this, but this is not what I was debating in the first page of this thread. I was disagreeing with the assessment that Marquette's shots were low expected PPP vs. a generic 3 pointer. Every team smothers the three point line. Hurley is so afraid of 3 pointers that he is risking blowing a once in a lifetime combination of talent because he refuses to play Clingan and Sanogo on the court at once. The incremental 3 point attempt is likely to be heavily contested and a VERY LOW expected PPP shot. Like .6 or so low. We don't need more shots like that.

I have not found a stats dataset that looks at the world this way, but I believe that wide open inside-out kickouts for catch-and-shoot with the 3 point shooter facing the basket are at least 10 points higher in terms of accuracy than a lot of the other contested chuck-and-duck 3 attempts that pass for college offense today. And I think those Catch-and-Shoot, face the basket 3's are a hugely disproportionate share of made 3's relative to total 3's made. I bet the shooting percentage on the good 3's is closer to 50% for good 3 point shooters, and the percentage on the bad 3's is probably around 20%. Pullup 3's after 3 or more dribbles running towards the basket are a lot like turnovers they are such low percentage shots.

When I say I want more 2 attempts, I want to pull the defense into the paint to defend size and make it more likely that we will have more catch-and-shoot while facing the basket 3 attempts. UConn does not need more 3 attempts. It needs more good 3 attempts.

I wouldn't think this position was so controversial, but I want to get more high percentage 2's and more high percentage 3's. Most current analytics will tell you to do the opposite. It wants fewer 2's, and treats all 3's as identical. The data just isn't there yet to support, or disprove, my position.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

St. John’s is going to be going hard into the paint for layups because they’ll see it as a weakness based on recent games, all of their guards who are not great shooters do that, so Hurley get on it.

St. Johns could hold a clinic in 1 on 3 kamikaze drives into the paint. UConn has to be patient on defense, and let St. Johns blow itself up.

 

[Chin Diesel]

This trend continued today.

PInzon with multiple shots in the lane from 10'-12'.

Soriano with a jump hook just inside the FT line and a face up 15'.

SJU had all sorts of mid-range shots go in today.

 

[gtcam]

They said in pregame that Shaka has guys working on shooting off the glass in practice. They then proceeded to eat us up with effortless “difficult” shots off the glass.

Coaches coach pretenders don't, they just talk

Jibsey on Thursday: St. John’s is going to be going hard into the paint for layups because they’ll see it as a weakness based on recent games, all of their guards who are not great shooters do that, so Hurley get on it.
What happened? Dan Hurley had the D looking for 3 pt shots - UNREAL

 

[gsmooth]

St. Johns could hold a clinic in 1 on 3 kamikaze drives into the paint. UConn has to be patient on defense, and let St. Johns blow itself up.

And that is exactly what UConn did not do today. Instead they were constantly giving up dribble penetration because they were defending St. John’s players 25 ft from the basket being up in their jerseys. St. John’s is not a good outside shooting team!