3's

[Waz]

For as bad as our 3 pt defense seems to be, .311 is really pretty good. Unfortunately Rice cranks them in at .38 while defending them at 29%. Not a good sign especially when playing on their floor. We give up 22 3's per game and they give up 16, so we need a great effort to stay close enough to pull it out at the end. If both teams shoot and make at their average, we are down 10 just on 3's.

It will be interesting to look at the post game.

[Hoop Fan]

31% sounds ok, but I think its deceiving. 31% from outside the arc is equivalent production to shooting 46.5% from inside (31 made 3s on 100 possessions is 93 points, divided by two is 46.5). If you let a team convert at 47% over the course of a game, you're going to lose alot of games. Now, exacerbate that by giving up alot of attempts from 3 because we give teams alot of wide open looks that are too good to pass up. I think our 3 point defense is a problem, and gets particularly exploited against quality teams. If you throw out the %s shot by Navy, Pan Am and maybe San Jose, I bet the % shot by teams with more talent is scary.

[Hoop Fan]

by the way, if Rice shoots 38% from the arc, that is equivalent production to shooting 57% from 2s. Ouch, we better guard the perimeter. A soft trapping zone could get us killed.

[Waz]

I looked at San Diego, Navy, and Pan American. Pull those 3 and we are at 32%. San Jose was 36%+. I agree with your offensive efficiency theory, but in our case we are giving up 51% on 2's.

[StangEsq]

Originally posted by Hoop Fan:
31% sounds ok, but I think its deceiving. 31% from outside the arc is equivalent production to shooting 46.5% from inside (31 made 3s on 100 possessions is 93 points, divided by two is 46.5). If you let a team convert at 47% over the course of a game, you're going to lose alot of games. Now, exacerbate that by giving up alot of attempts from 3 because we give teams alot of wide open looks that are too good to pass up. I think our 3 point defense is a problem, and gets particularly exploited against quality teams. If you throw out the %s shot by Navy, Pan Am and maybe San Jose, I bet the % shot by teams with more talent is scary.

Another advantage of the three is that for outside shooting teams, the offense has a better chance of getting the rebound because the ball caroms farther off the rim/glass than on shorter attempts...

[OldPony]

This is an interesting discussion. Wouldn't points per game allowed on 3 point shots be more meaningful if we are trying to find out if our 3 point defense is good, bad or indifferent? Maybe one of you stats guys knows if that stat is kept anywhere and, if so, post how we rank. I have a feeling that we rank about where we do in most things (about average) and where we do in talent (again- about average).

[Waz]

I couldn't find the stat that you are looking for, but the fact that we give up 22 3's per game is pretty high and is not a good indicator. Thats 20 points out of the gate. I did find these little tidbits though. We rank in the bottom half and lower in the WAC in almost all of the NCAA stats that I could find, with the exception of steals, #1.

National Rating followed by WAC rating
Scoring O #250/9, Scoring D #127/8, Scoring Margin #205/10, FG% O #192/7, FG% D #173/10, 3pt FG% #149/7 (average OP), FT #149/7, Reb Margin #227/9, Assists #230/7, Blocks #197/6, Steals #84/1, TO's #192/9. Stats pretty well sum it up don't they? Don't rebound well, turn it over a lot, don't shoot well, don't score well and don't find open men or play very good D. Now if you want to find a silver lining, our national stats are somewhat better than our comparison vs the league. Another interesting stat, for what it is worth, we are #11 nationally in fewest fouls per game #2 in WAC.

[PlanoStang]

I &^%$ (*#$@ &^%* ()*&^ HATED statistics. I took it at the senior level, but it had a graduate level course number.

Especially at the ATHLETIC human level, they don't mean much during a particular game. Maybe in industry where humans are doing repetitive things 1000s of times a day, can you measure stats THIS close.

I guess thats why they play the games.

<small>[ 01-19-2004, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: PlanoStang ]</small>

[OldPony]

If you give all stats equal value, our average rank in the WAC is 6.5. I would guess we are 4th or 5th in talent but that small difference could be caused by difference in schedule strength because I think we have played some pretty good teams. I think this goes to bear out that Dement gets about what he is supposed to out of the talent he has. That doesn't make him a bad coach nor a great coach.
OP ventured the opinion re football a few months ago that if we bunched our schollies we could have pretty good teams every 4-5 years depending on redshirts. Basketball may be the same only use starting experience instead of bunching schollies. Next year will be an "old" team by SMU standards and I think we'll dance. If we don't with 3 seniors who have started 3 years and a junior who has started for 2, we probably can't get to the dance under our current athletic set up. I had hopes for this year but things don't look very good right now. The main thing that is different from my hopes is that Isham has disappeared from the offense worse that I thought possible. Everyone else is playing well enough for us to win if Isham was scoring 12-15 per game which I thought he would do.

[Waz]

No argument from me on the suspect nature of statistics to predict human performance, but, don't forget that there are a number of fellows, based out of Vegas, that are doing quite well for themselves using statistics to do just that.

[Waz]

OP, I think you need some fresh batteries in that calculator. I find our rank to be 7.5 on the 12 categories that I found, so if you now want to look at us having the 4th or 5th best talent....

[OldPony]

OP needs remedial math. I think these stats will come out to about where we finish though when all is finished. It will be interesting to see at the end of the year. I'm wish I could figure out what happened to the I-Man. His lack of production is killing us and I thought he would be one of the top players this year.