The Things that Matter for Good Teams | The Boneyard

The Things that Matter for Good Teams

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DobbsRover2

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There is a thread going on here that has brought out a steady flow of worship of FT% as a critical factor in a team's success. I too love to see UConn players nail their freebies and I smack my forehead silly when a player bounces two charity stripers, but before I give myself too many concussions I try to remember that in the end quantity matters more than quality, and simply winning is most important of all.

If UConn outshoots ND from the line with a nice 78.6% to an ehhh Irish 70.8% while making 6 less FTs and losing 73-72 (1-5-2013), I could care less about that better FT%. And I also know that there are many factors that lead to team success, and I have always had a suspicion that things like shooting baskets effectively and keeping the other team from copying your effectiveness might be more important to top teams like UConn.

Stats and number analyses are often met with some hostility on the BY and can even get you banned, but possibly a few pieces of data about the top teams can find one or two takers during the holiday season. And since I noticed that of the season's stat categories for last year's UConn NC team was 1st or 2nd in nine of them but was 25th in FT%, ranking a little worse only in 3pt FGs per game and steals per game, I wondered what effect FT% had on the fortunes of other top teams.

Briefly, the table at the bottom shows the average ranking of a group of top teams in the 17 stats categories for 2013-14 provided by the NCAA for teams nationwide (excluding won-lost percentage, which is kind of redundant here and doesn't affect any numbers). The top 8 teams chosen for the analysis were the Elite 8, who were all seeded no worse than #4 and who didn't exit early like #1 seeds UTenn and USCar. Neither of the two missing #1 seeds were good FT shooters if anyone is wondering, with the Gamecocks ranked 233rd (real ouch there). The Elite 8 teams were UConn, Notre Dame, Stanford, Maryland, North Carolina, Louisville, Baylor, and Texas A&M.

What the table shows are the stats that the good teams tend to be good at, and also the ones that don't seem to be so critical for success. Stats analysis purists might rightly point out though that one unusual team can skew a stat, and UNC is certainly the bull in the china shop among the eight as it had by far the worst ranking in 7 of the 17 categories, with Texas A&M, at 4, MD at 2 and ND, Stanford, Louisville, and Baylor at 1. UConn had 0. (I was kind of stunned that ND was by far the worst in FG% defense, though they balanced it with the best FG%.) To correct a bit for skew, I also compiled the averages while throwing out the best and worst rankings among the 8 teams, centering on a generally truer average while tossing UNC's terrible #234 ranking in FT% and Texas A&M's no-show performance of #339 in 3pt FGs per game among the 343 teams.

The top seven stat categories by relevance to success with both the full 8 and sliced 6 ranking order of the 17 categories are (not surprisingly) 1. Scoring margin (1/1), 2. FG% (2/3), 3. Assists per game (3/2), 4. Scoring offense (4/4), 5. Rebound margin (5/6), 6. Assist-TO ratio (6/5), 7. FG% defense (7/7). In those categories, teams ranked in the top 40 on both scales. Despite what some think, making good passes and not throwing dumb passes does seem to matter for good teams.

Of middle relevance with teams on average ranking at least in the top 100 for remaining categories were: 8. 3pt FG% defense (8/8), 9. Scoring defense (9/9), 10. Turnovers per game (10/10), 11. 3pt FG% (11/11), 12. Blocks per game (12/12), 13. Turnover margin (13/13). Some might be surprised that scoring defense is only #9, considering how important it is to UConn, but there are many semi-skilled teams high up in those ratings that play a slow-down type of game, and a #51 rating for a fast-paced team like ND is actually pretty good.

Of lesser relevance with categories that feature a 100+ ranking average for the top teams are: 14. Personal fouls (14/14), 15. FT% (15/17), 16. Steals per game (16/16), 17. 3pt FGs per game (17/15). So the least relevant factor for the success of these eight top teams was either 3s per game or FT%. Again, for those of us who love the 3s, the teams that hit a lot from the arc tend to be weaker teams like Sacramento State and Oregon that don't have a big Top 25 presence, and UConn actually was the highest ranked in the category among the Elite 8 teams even though it was the Huskies' next to worst category.

As to FT%, there will of course be BYers who swear it is the Holy Grail of winning no matter what the stats say, just as I secretly believe that deadball rebounds are the key to life. No one wants to see FT misses by their team, but like snowy days in Storrs, they are always going to happen. Throw out the extreme cases high and low for the categories and FT% is at the bottom of the list of important factors for the strong teams here. FT% fans may want to run to the list of top FT shooting teams and try to prove that they have the secret elixir, but last year's list included three non-winning teams in the top 10, including poor 6-25 Valparaiso. It's certainly nice to have it, but working on FG% is far, far, far more important.

And just as I'd rather have a 9-0 record than an 8-5 one no matter what the orange and the blue-and-gold fans say about that, nor will I feel it's a choke if UConn only shoots way back at 72% from the FT line in an NC year like 2009-10, because obviously they did the most important things right.

Stat Category


Average for E8


Category Rank (8)


Average w\o Max-Min


Category Rank (6)

Assists\TO


32.6


6


20.5


5

Assists per game


18.1


3


12.7


2

Blocks per game


73.8


12


65.8


12

FG%


14.6


2


13.3


3

FG% Defense


34.6


7


36.2


7

FT%


119.1


15


115.0


17

Personal fouls


107.2


14


100.5


14

Rebound margin


24.2


5


21.2


6

Scoring defense


51.7


9


48.0


9

Scoring margin


8.5


1


6.7


1

Scoring offense


23.4


4


14.5


4

Steals per game


121.6


16


112.5


16

3pt FG% defense


44.9


8


36.7


8

3pt FG per game


124.8


17


102.7


15

3pt FG%


59.8


11


57.7


11

TO margin


89.5


13


77.7


13

TO per game


57.5


10


50.0


10
 

psconn

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What do you think, Coach Bruno?
 

DobbsRover2

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What do you think, Coach Bruno?
As the coach of a team that was 217th in FT% last year and lives off of good passing, not turning the ball over, good shooting, and making a lot of 3s with good 3pt shooting, he's probably saying, "I've seen this all before and will probably see it again." When you have a team that only makes about 2/3 of its FTs, there are definitely going to be times when you can't buy a FT.

But at least Doug can take great comfort that last year his team shot 80% from the FT line against ND while the Irish only shot 69%. DePaul lost that game by 16 though. But love that FT%, and that's what it's all about.
 

Zorro

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If you were a college basketbqll coach and you had the opportunity to recruit a HS player who could jump like Gabby, drive like Bria, pass like Diana and defend like, say, Ashley Battle, but whose ft percentage was, say, 30, would you try to sign her?
 

pinotbear

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I would just point out that there is being an "average" or "so-so" FT shooting team, and then there's "really, really bad". A few % points difference over the course of a season ought to be inconsequential for a team so proficient in so many other things, but, as last nights' game shows, truly poor FT shooting almost acts like a TO. Foul a team 5 times, get the ball back without any harm done 3 times or better, without much time going off the clock.

On another topic Dobbs alluded to, I'm curious as to what stats and figures analysis can get you banned, short of "figure" analysis. Of course, that's a weighty subject....:rolleyes:
 

DobbsRover2

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If you were a college basketbqll coach and you had the opportunity to recruit a HS player who could jump like Gabby, drive like Bria, pass like Diana and defend like, say, Ashley Battle, but whose ft percentage was, say, 30, would you try to sign her?
The Lakers picked up Wilt many years ago and then Shaq even though they knew that both got fouled a lot and would miss many many FTs.

I would take the player, maybe not have them handling the ball late in the game when you're up by a little, and maybe instead of having her drive into the paint I would try to have her develop some kind of outside shot that doesn't tend to get her fouled a lot. One of the small frustrations for KML's situation is that she is a great FT shooter but because so much of her shooting game is from the arc, she doesn't get many shooting fouls. But when you're hitting bombs at 59%, that's a small quibble.

The number of famed UConn players who were not even close to that "bare minimum 75%" standard is legion, even if none approached that 30% mark you mention, and frankly that doesn't sound like any player I've ever heard of. Kara Wolters shot 58% from the line (and yes her FG% was much better than that), but wouldn't you want her on the team? Old-time great Peggy Walsh shot 53%, but I'd still want her as a beast on the boards. Brittany Hunter was welcomed with her injuries and a 57% FT average. Willnett Crockett was a 58% FT shooter, but there's no forward I would rather have crashing the boards for rebounds in the second half of an NC game. A few of the others who were not particularly adept at the line but whom I would still want on a team for various other talents are Tina Charles, Ashja Jones, Jessica Moore, Jen Rizzotti (68%), Rita Williams, Tamika Williams, Kelly Schumacher, and Meghan Pattyson, all of whom except Rizzotti were under 65%. They can't all be Sue Bird at the line (or at the Buzzer), but I wish they could all be Tina in the middle.
 

DobbsRover2

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I would just point out that there is being an "average" or "so-so" FT shooting team, and then there's "really, really bad". A few % points difference over the course of a season ought to be inconsequential for a team so proficient in so many other things, but, as last nights' game shows, truly poor FT shooting almost acts like a TO. Foul a team 5 times, get the ball back without any harm done 3 times or better, without much time going off the clock.

On another topic Dobbs alluded to, I'm curious as to what stats and figures analysis can get you banned, short of "figure" analysis. Of course, that's a weighty subject....:rolleyes:
Has to with RPI (and the misuse of it), a subject that can get me a little heated. But I've put the three letters on ignore for the future, though others may use them as their favorite numbers.
 

RadyLady

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Has to with RPI (and the misuse of it), a subject that can get me a little heated. But I've put the three letters on ignore for the future, though others may use them as their favorite numbers.
LOL!!!!!!
 
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Free throws definitely matter in tight games. All one has to do is recall teams whose fortunes tumbled to poor free throw shooting in big moments. Off the top of my head: Lousiville/UCLA 1975, Houston/NC State 1973, UConn/Florida 1974, Memphis/Kansas 2008, DukeWomen/Rutgers 2007, North Carolina/Tennessee 2007(regular season).

Free throws might matter less for a very good team like UConn, but they matter for all teams.
 

UcMiami

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I think when looking at stats it is very hard to use 'rank' as a defining issue in a lot of cases - it is cool to be #1, but ... Free throw percentage is a good stat to look at even this early in the year - after less than a third of the season the #110 ranked team in FT% shoots 70%, the #50 ranked shoots 73.6%, the #10 77.4% and the #1 ranked team shoots 82.7%. You have to go to the #283 ranked team to drop to 62.7% which means if the the #1 ranked team and the #283 ranked team played, even should each shoot 20 free throws in the game (an outlier number) the total point difference statistically would be 4. It is much more likely that some other factor in the game would account for a greater point difference including number of free throws taken. And those percentages will tend to become even less divergent over the course of a full year as with only 6-10 games played they are still subject to wild swings especially given the wide divergence in OOC scheduling. The average deviation in % for almost all these teams would cover the differences in their YTD average.

The same is true for other stats like FG % - #164 is shooting 40%, #45 is shooting 45%, #9 is shooting 48% - against Stanford Uconn shot 40% against ND 48%, and of course against Vanderbilt they shot 62% and they are ranked #1 at 52%.

The reality of WCBB statistics is that except for a few outliers at the top and bottom of the D1 pool, the range is pretty homogenous and most teams occupy an area in the middle that has little bearing on the results of any particular game.
 

DobbsRover2

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Free throws definitely matter in tight games. All one has to do is recall teams whose fortunes tumbled to poor free throw shooting in big moments. Off the top of my head: Lousiville/UCLA 1975, Houston/NC State 1973, UConn/Florida 1974, Memphis/Kansas 2008, DukeWomen/Rutgers 2007, North Carolina/Tennessee 2007(regular season).

Free throws might matter less for a very good team like UConn, but they matter for all teams.
Everything matters in tight games, and might I suggest that a well-struck 3 in any of those games or maybe a key rebound might have been even more important. NC games are big pressure-filled games, and last year the Huskies shot 46.7% on FTs and still won because they did a lot of other things right like 54 rebounds and 25 assists to make sure the game wasn't tight. The last time they had a tight NC was in 2010 when they shot an abysmal 40.9% on FTs but still did enough things right (at least in the 2nd half, not the 1st) to win.

When a UConn player steps to the FT line in an NC game with 0.1 seconds on the clock and the Huskies trailing by 1 and she blows 2 FTs, then I will concede that FTs are all supreme. I'm confident that will never happen, and until then I will live in an alternate universe where FG% and defense, rebounds, assists and assists\TO, 3pt FG% defense, and even blocks all mean more than being as good as Valparaiso at the FT line.
 

psconn

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As the coach of a team that was 217th in FT% last year and lives off of good passing, not turning the ball over, good shooting, and making a lot of 3s with good 3pt shooting, he's probably saying, "I've seen this all before and will probably see it again." When you have a team that only makes about 2/3 of its FTs, there are definitely going to be times when you can't buy a FT.

But at least Doug can take great comfort that last year his team shot 80% from the FT line against ND while the Irish only shot 69%. DePaul lost that game by 16 though. But love that FT%, and that's what it's all about.

In all honesty I did not have the time to read your epic post and I was being somewhat playfully flippant BUT....

Here's what he actually said (ESPN quote) "I've been coaching 41 years and this has never happened," DePaul coach Doug Bruno said. "This doesn't happen in sixth and seventh grade. It doesn't happen. It happened. I trust we have the inner strength to turn the page."

I sure the rest of your post was more fact-based. Numbers are really all that matters. :cool:
 
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If you have a tight lead at the end of the game, at some point your opponent will probably transition into quick foul mode, in the hopes of slowly whittling the lead. If they're doing it properly, you won't get the chance to run your normal offense. You'll just need to take the free throws.

The goal, then, is to try to defend your lead. You do this with literal defense (stop them from making their shots), and by making as many of your late game free throws as you can.

But the free throws are the low hanging fruit in that situation. It's easier to make a dead ball free throw, than to try and defend without fouling at the end of a game, when you're tired and potentially in foul trouble.

Sure, you don't NEED to hit the free throws. But if you can't do that, then you are often forced with performing more difficult feats to win the game.

At the end of the day, it's uncommon for free throws to matter, but when they do matter, they really matter. Isn't it nice to put the game away without needing OT or heroic feats of defense? :)
 

BigBird

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Years ago, a girls' high school player on a very good team told me something about the importance of free throws (as she totally destroyed me at a driveway game of horse). She said,"On my team, if you can't hit 75% of your free throws, you don't play." When I dared suggest that such a plan seemed a little harsh, she said, "If you put in the practice, it should be easy...and it is."
 

DobbsRover2

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I think when looking at stats it is very hard to use 'rank' as a defining issue in a lot of cases - it is cool to be #1, but ... Free throw percentage is a good stat to look at even this early in the year - after less than a third of the season the #110 ranked team in FT% shoots 70%, the #50 ranked shoots 73.6%, the #10 77.4% and the #1 ranked team shoots 82.7%. You have to go to the #283 ranked team to drop to 62.7% which means if the the #1 ranked team and the #283 ranked team played, even should each shoot 20 free throws in the game (an outlier number) the total point difference statistically would be 4. It is much more likely that some other factor in the game would account for a greater point difference including number of free throws taken. And those percentages will tend to become even less divergent over the course of a full year as with only 6-10 games played they are still subject to wild swings especially given the wide divergence in OOC scheduling. The average deviation in % for almost all these teams would cover the differences in their YTD average.

The same is true for other stats like FG % - #164 is shooting 40%, #45 is shooting 45%, #9 is shooting 48% - against Stanford Uconn shot 40% against ND 48%, and of course against Vanderbilt they shot 62% and they are ranked #1 at 52%.

The reality of WCBB statistics is that except for a few outliers at the top and bottom of the D1 pool, the range is pretty homogenous and most teams occupy an area in the middle that has little bearing on the results of any particular game.
Definitely true that there is often very little difference between teams in the vast middle section, where the 150th rated team is not much different than even the 170th, but over the entire span of the FT% range of say #25 UConn at 75.0%, and the #100 team at 71.8%, and the #200 team at 68.3%, and the #300 team at 64.3%, the misses add up. With maybe 600 FTAs on average, that would mean that would make 64 more for UConn over the #300 team. Maybe not a giant amount of points, especially when factored on a per-game basis, but still nothing to sneeze at either.

But we should also not be fooled into thinking that small differences in that big middle can't add up on some stats. For FG% the #100 team last year was at 41.8% and the #200 team at 39.7%. That may not seem like much at 2.1%, but that adds up at maybe an average 2000 shots for the season at 42 more made shots which is a minimum of 84 points and more likely around 100 when you attribute some to 3-pters. 100 points is a sizeable difference, even for just a #100 team vs. a #200 team.

But as noted before, volume often matters more than quality. UConn was a better FT shooting team than Baylor at 75% to 73.2%, but the Bears were better FT "making" team by 659 to 486. If basketball was just about making FTs, Baylor would have killed UConn last year, but fortunately there are far more important things to do like making baskets and keeping the other team from making baskets. Only 14.8% of UConn's points came at the line last year, so for 85.2% of the points the Huskies were working elsewhere.
 
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Zorro

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Years ago, a girls' high school player on a very good team told me something about the importance of free throws (as she totally destroyed me at a driveway game of horse). She said,"On my team, if you can't hit 75% of your free throws, you don't play." When I dared suggest that such a plan seemed a little harsh, she said, "If you put in the practice, it should be easy...and it is."

Maybe it was easy for her. It was hard for some other excellent athletes. Wilt C shot 51.1 for reg season and 53.0 in playoffs. Bill Russell shot 56.1 and 62.3 in playoffs. Big Shaq had a career average of 52.7. None of these improved as their careers progressed.
 

DobbsRover2

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Years ago, a girls' high school player on a very good team told me something about the importance of free throws (as she totally destroyed me at a driveway game of horse). She said,"On my team, if you can't hit 75% of your free throws, you don't play." When I dared suggest that such a plan seemed a little harsh, she said, "If you put in the practice, it should be easy...and it is."
Did you ask her if she and her teammates were having a leprechaun chanting "You can't get my luck charms, and 8-5 is better than 9-0" in the background while they were shooting the freebies. If they can hit 80% or so while that's happening, I'm impressed, or they're robots.

And of course they must have been way better than almost any college team last year, as less than 7% even hit that 75% minimum standard for her team. College players just don't put in the practice I guess.
 

DobbsRover2

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Well, that gave me a true WTF moment.
A Where's the Fridge moment? Yep, always get those too when cranking stats, though usually more in late March.
 

cabbie191

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Interesting stuff but like some have pointed out, stats over the long haul are one thing, stats in a short time frame can be of an entirely different magnitude.

In last year's Final Four, the UConn men shot 20 - 23 on their free throws. Their combined margin of victory in the two games was 16. Were the victories totally attributable to their 87% shooting rate? I don't think so.

But I also believe that the consistent accuracy of their FT shooting in the late stages of the game, besides adding points to our side, also must have had at least some demoralizing impact on Florida and Kentucky. And that may have been equally or more important in determining the outcomes.
 

cabbie191

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One last thought - if DePaul had shot just a teensy bit better on their free throws, they would have beaten Notre Dame.
 
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