They talk about efficiency a lot and I think that's going to be an interesting stat to track early in the season. Last season we kind of found a way to moneyball ourselves to success despite our roster limitations.

It was almost brutally simple in its logic:
1) If you can't shoot, you need to get way more shots up than your opponent
2) Any shot, no matter how bad, is better than a turnover*
3) Find every possible way to increase the likelihood that you rebound your misses

Going all-in on this is going to make your stats look absolutely insane, especially someone with the ball-handling volume of Taylor, but it did work.

* - This probably didn't get talked enough about last year, but one of our big problems the year before was turnovers. We were 200th in the country in turnover percentage in 2023, in large part because our guards weren't great ball handlers and we'd dribble into traffic and turn it over. Last year we were 19th in turnover percentage due significantly to our "shoot the first decent look" approach.

Will be interesting if we look like a more conventional team with some of the roster changes.

taylorswift13_ said:

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Mark Sears is overrated

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How so?

Mark Sears is a stud!

MarcAg said:

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Mark Sears is a stud!

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Are you saying that 21.5 ppg on 51/44/86 shooting is good?

I just don't like him

bobinator said:

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They talk about efficiency a lot and I think that's going to be an interesting stat to track early in the season. Last season we kind of found a way to moneyball ourselves to success despite our roster limitations.

It was almost brutally simple in its logic:
1) If you can't shoot, you need to get way more shots up than your opponent
2) Any shot, no matter how bad, is better than a turnover*
3) Find every possible way to increase the likelihood that you rebound your misses

Going all-in on this is going to make your stats look absolutely insane, especially someone with the ball-handling volume of Taylor, but it did work.

* - This probably didn't get talked enough about last year, but one of our big problems the year before was turnovers. We were 200th in the country in turnover percentage in 2023, in large part because our guards weren't great ball handlers and we'd dribble into traffic and turn it over. Last year we were 19th in turnover percentage due significantly to our "shoot the first decent look" approach.

Will be interesting if we look like a more conventional team with some of the roster changes.

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This is kinda an interesting theory but it isn't empirical. We didn't play with a faster tempo. We were like 246th in tempo. The reason we had fewer turnovers is that we did a good job taking care of the ball and the reason we had poor shooting numbers is that we shot the ball poorly - not because we took bad shots quickly by tactical design.

I like wade too but he just shot the ball poorly last season.

I think he is capable of shooting the ball more efficiently this year and hope that he does.

We were 246th in Tempo in large part because of the defense we play. We were middle of the pack in offensive possession length but one of the longest defensively (294th.)

But I also don't think you'd notice this in the season numbers because it's not how you're going to play all the time. You'd only play that way against teams that were average or better defensively. If you're obviously better than the other team then you don't need to do this. You'd really need to do it when you felt like the other teams guards could lock yours down pretty well and cause turnovers on long possessions.

And it's not about taking a ton of faster shots, it's just about taking the first decent look, not waiting for the perfect one. Doesn't mean you're chucking the ball at the rim the moment you cross half court or anything.

But it's also not like a theory I made up, Buzz has talked about it.

bobinator said:

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We were 246th in Tempo in large part because of the defense we play. We were middle of the pack in offensive possession length but one of the longest defensively (294th.)

But I also don't think you'd notice this in the season numbers because it's not how you're going to play all the time. You'd only play that way against teams that were average or better defensively. If you're obviously better than the other team then you don't need to do this. You'd really need to do it when you felt like the other teams guards could lock yours down pretty well and cause turnovers on long possessions.

And it's not about taking a ton of faster shots, it's just about taking the first decent look, not waiting for the perfect one. Doesn't mean you're chucking the ball at the rim the moment you cross half court or anything.

But it's also not like a theory I made up, Buzz has talked about it.

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Don't let perfect become the enemy of good. If the shot is there, take it.

I thought our guards drove a lot to draw fouls and were pretty good at it. It felt like that drove the pace a lot. I know we shot a lot and we missed a lot, but never thought we played slow.

How is "tempo" measured? Points per minute? Or something else? Serious question just not aware of how this stat is tracked.

It's basically just number of possessions per game (or per 40 mins), which itself is a bit complicated to track and there's a couple of different formulas for it.

But crucially in this discussion, offensive rebounds are considered a continuation of the possession, not a new one. So even though we rebounded an incredible 42.3% of own misses last season, meaning that almost half of our possessions continued on past the initial shot attempt, we were still only #183 in average possession length on offense (KenPom's formula). If we were a really slow team on offense and rebounded that many of our own misses, you'd expect our offensive possession length to rank much lower.

As an example, here are the teams behind us in offensive rebounding percentage and their offensive possession length ranks:

#2 - Towson - 357th
#3 - St. Mary's - 359th
#4 - St. John's - 78th
#5 - SMU - 73rd
#6 - South Carolina St. - 220th
#7 - Purdue - 244th
#8 - Florida - 27th
#9 - Western Illinois - 342nd
#10 - High Point - 257th

So most of those do in fact rank very low, including three of the slowest offenses in the country. The ones that were still fast have a few things in common, but I'd say the most important is that they're average-to-good 2pt shooting teams and two of them were very tall. When they get the rebound, they're not trying to kick it back out, they're trying to score it. This is due in large part to just a couple of players. St. John's 6'11 center Joel Soriano averaged 6 offensive boards per game just by himself (incredible when compared to Garcia, who's known for offensive rebounding and had 4.3). Florida had a bit more rebound-by-committee approach because they have three huge guys, 6-11 Alex Condon, 6-10 Tyrese Samuel and the 7-1 Micah Handlogten who had an offensive rebounding percentage even higher than Garcia's.

Compare that with us, we were an absolutely terrible two point shooting team (#311). So we're missing more shots, getting even more offensive rebounds, continuing for even longer possessions, and yet we still hung in the 180's in offensive possession length.

What I'd really be interested in, but someone better than me with data or AI tools will need to do it, is figure out the offensive-rebounding percentages by shooter.

I'm almost certain that, despite it not being effecient in the traditional sense, our best shot last year from an expected points standpoint, at least most of the time, was a Wade Taylor three. Not only did it have a higher chance to go in than almost anyone else on our team, him shooting it put all of our best offensive rebounders in play to rebound it.

Now, where he needs to be better is making sure those guys are down there before he shoots it. He does get a little trigger happy sometimes in transition, and if the offensive rebound odds are much lower then that shot doesn't have the same value.

I think how far we go in March is almost entirely based on Taylor. Sure, he can't do it alone but if he's not playing at a high level I'm afraid this will be another early exit.

That's true, but I also think with this roster makeup that "playing at a high level" doesn't necessarily mean "shooting the ball well" like it did last year.

There were games last year where he was off shooting, so he'd try to settle into a table-setting role and then nobody else could score either so he just ended up firing away anyway. He does have a bit of an alpha mentality that can cut both ways because sometimes he goes into a "well if everyone else is going to miss anyway it might as well be me that's missing" mode.

But I think some of our casual fans are going to be amazed at how good of a passer Wade suddenly looks like if Payne can be post scorer we all hope he is and Manny picks up where he left off. Having someone like that on the floor will make Wade much more dangerous. He'll get to make easier passes, there will be more space for him to dribble the ball into, and as a result he'll get to utilize his most dangerous ability, he'll get fouled more.

He's really only had that for one stretch, that was the back half of the 2023 season when Marble really came on. In conference play in 2023 Taylor had an incredible assist rate of 33.8%, the third highest in the league, and shot 35% from 3. Compared to last year where that conference assist rate was 25% and his 3pt shooting was 32%.

Agreed

One hopes that continuing maturity includes more progress on shooting. Reminds me of another PG is in the building now? I lost track…