Sunday, February 28, 2010

Good Wins, Bad Losses

The current motto of Hoya Prospectus is "thinking rationally about Georgetown Hoyas basketball so you don't have to."  What we set out to do here is discuss basketball in an objective and statistically defensible manner.

So when I saw the shrill reaction to yesterday's loss, I got to wondering about where the loss ranked for Georgetown and within the Big East generally.

There are two ways to think about the results of basketball games:  wins and losses, and the final score.  Stat-heads tend to use the latter - probably to a fault - since it has proven the best means of predicting future results.  But at the end of the day, wins and losses are what get you paid.


Let's take a crack at each.


Margin of Victory

If you're just wondering where a Georgetown game ranks in terms of the difference between final score and expected final score, you can always find that here at the Performance Charts page (link).  The math behind the performance charts (original discussion here and here) is not perfect, since it applies teams' current stats from KenPom.com retroactively, but I think it does a good job providing context to a game.

I'll reproduce the Georgetown's current overall performance chart below (note that I also break out offensive and defensive performance on that page):


By this metric, yesterday's loss was Georgetown's worse of the year.

As of this morning, if Georgetown and Notre Dame played again at the Verizon Center, we'd expect Georgetown to win by 7 points; instead they lost by 14.  Of course, our system is blind to certain vagaries, such as Austin Freeman trying to play with a viral infection or Notre Dame enjoying some new-found ability without their purported leader (more on that in my next post).

Yesterday's game noses out the South Florida loss as the worst performance of the year by the Hoyas.

This got me to wondering how this game fits into the Big East picture as a whole.  Was this the worst performance by a Big East team all year?  In conference?

Here are the worst perfomances for Big East teams so far this year, using today's stats.  Note that I'm being more tempo-free rigorous by sorting by efficiency difference [actual eff. margin - expected eff. margin] rather than scoring difference [actual score - expected score].  Also, I'm using efficiency as points per 100 possessions to avoid those pesky decimals.

Team           Opponent         Site    Result  Score   Poss.  Eff. Diff
Louisville     Charlotte        Home       L    87  65   67      -50
Georgetown     Notre Dame       Home       L    78  64   58      -37
Louisville     Western Carolina Home       L    91  83   83      -36
Pittsburgh     Indiana          Neutral    L    74  64   74      -34
South Florida  St. John's       Home       L    74  58   59      -32
Louisville     St. John's       Away       L    74  55   64      -32
Connecticut    Cincinnati       Home       L    60  48   63      -30
Notre Dame     Loyola Marymount Home       L    87  85   71      -29
Georgetown     South Florida    Home       L    72  64   65      -29
DePaul         Mississippi St.  Neutral    L    76  45   68      -28
St. John's     Providence       Home       L    74  59   73      -28
Pittsburgh     Notre Dame       Away       L    68  53   51      -28
Notre Dame     Idaho St.        Home       W    80  70   65      -28
Syracuse       Pittsburgh       Home       L    82  72   75      -28

I've arbitrarily picked the 14 worst games in order to make the point that a team can win a game but still play terribly doing so, if they're playing a massively inferior opponent.

A few other thoughts:
  • This is a glass half-empty, glass half-full sort of analysis.  You can also say that Notre Dame's win over Georgetown was the Irish's best performance of the year.
  • Four teams show up with multiple slots on the list (Louisville, Georgetown, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame).  Both of Louisville's and Notre Dame's games and one of Pitt's games were in the early going.  Both of the Hoyas' bad performances were in February.
  • Generally, it's harder to have a bad performance on the road, since teams are expected to play worse on the road. Louisville and Pitt are the exceptions to the rule here.
  • Speaking of the Cardinals, one game is unlike any other on that list.  Hopefully, that 22-point blowout at home has some extenuating circumstances that I'm not privy to.
  • It's hard to believe that losing by 10 points to Pitt would be considered a terrible performance, but that should provide some context as to just how well Syracuse is playing this year.

Allow me to produce a second list, looking only at conference games:
Team           Opponent         Site    Result  Score   Poss.  Eff. Diff
Georgetown     Notre Dame       Home       L    78  64   58      -37
South Florida  St. John's       Home       L    74  58   59      -32
Louisville     St. John's       Away       L    74  55   64      -32
Connecticut    Cincinnati       Home       L    60  48   63      -30
Georgetown     South Florida    Home       L    72  64   65      -29
St. John's     Providence       Home       L    74  59   73      -28
Pittsburgh     Notre Dame       Away       L    68  53   51      -28
Syracuse       Pittsburgh       Home       L    82  72   75      -28
Providence     Louisville       Home       L    92  70   71      -27
Syracuse       Louisville       Home       L    66  60   58      -26
Providence     Marquette        Away       L    93  63   67      -26
Seton Hall     Pittsburgh       Away       L    83  58   66      -25
Villanova      Connecticut      Home       L    84  75   70      -23
Connecticut    Providence       Away       L    81  66   78      -23
Rutgers        West Virginia    Away       L    86  52   64      -22

Georgetown's loss yesterday was the worst performance in conference so far this season, by a substantial margin.  Interestingly, the loss at Rutgers doesn't look as bad now as it did then (it's way down the list here:  -19 eff. difference), as the Scarlet Knights are 5-3 in their last 8 conference games.

Syracuse has lost only two games all year, and they both rank as some of the lousiest performances of the year in the Big East. Translation: a team will have to play brilliantly to beat them.

There are some schizophrenic teams in the league:
  • Providence has two Top-14 performances (at St. John's and vs. UConn) and two of the Bottom-10 (vs. Louisville and at Marquette).
  • St. John's, Pitt and Louisville have two great games and one terrible one on the list; UConn has one great performance and two terrible ones.

Wins and Losses

I suspect that my reader is blinking his eyes a bit by now, wondering why I'm so obsessed with scoring margins when the bragging rights and suffering are determined only by whether the Hoyas can win the game.

So how do we rank wins and losses?  Well, I can calculate the win probabilities (as seen on KenPom's scouting report pages) for each game played, and look for the biggest outright upsets, here as losses when expected to win.  I'm limiting this to just conference games:
Losing Team    Opponent         Site    Score      Odds
Georgetown     South Florida    Home   72   64      86%
Syracuse       Louisville       Home   66   60      85%
Marquette      DePaul           Road   51   50      85%
Syracuse       Pittsburgh       Home   82   72      83%
Georgetown     Rutgers          Road   71   68      82%
Connecticut    Cincinnati       Home   60   48      78%
Georgetown     Notre Dame       Home   78   64      78%
Villanova      Connecticut      Home   84   75      76%
Notre Dame     St. John's       Home   69   68      76%
West Virginia  Villanova        Home   82   75      72%
Notre Dame     Rutgers          Road   74   73      72%
St. John's     Providence       Home   74   59      70%
Marquette      Pittsburgh       Home   58   51      68%

This should all be straight-forward except the odds column, which is the odds that the losing team would have of winning the game if it were to be replayed today (same venue).  The list is limited to games with the odds greater than 68%, i.e. games where the favorite is more than one standard deviation above even odds.

About half of the games show up on both lists: MU at DePaul is the worst outright loss that didn't make the worst performance list, and South Florida hosting St. John's is the worst performance that didn't make the worst outright loss list (the Bulls would be 64% favorites in that game today).

It should be noted that good teams are far more likely to be here than bad teams - for example, DePaul would only be a favorite to win one game this season (at home against Rutgers [61%], a game they lost).
  • Georgetown once again has the worst loss, now as an outright loss rather than as performance.  The Hoyas are also the only team with three bad outright losses on the list.  This is making me more and more depressed as I write this up.
  • Both of Syracuse's losses were games they should have won easily.
  • The worst road loss so far is Marquette's 1-point loss to DePaul, a game that didn't show up on the performance lists (since Marquette only lost by one point, it wasn't as bad a performance as their home loss to NC State [77-73].
  • Showing up on the "Opponent" column multiple times is a mixed blessing - Rutgers will be a big underdog even in some of their home games, so many of their wins are a big deal, while Pitt would probably prefer to have not been such an underdog at Marquette in the first place.
  • Four of the upsets were 1-possession games:  Marquette/DePaul, Georgetown/Rutgers, Notre Dame/St. John's and Notre Dame/Rutgers. It's tempting to invert the results of each of those games, making Marquette 10-5, Georgetown 10-6 and Notre Dame 10-6 heading into Sunday's games.

So there it is.  Georgetown holds the distinction of having the worst performance and the worst loss in conference play so far this year, and they're not even the same game.

      Saturday, February 27, 2010

      Recap: Notre Dame 78, Georgetown 64

      Alan Greene is pinch-recapping for Brian today.

      Apparently, Austin Freeman was sick. The rest of the Hoyas played like they had the flu as well. I can only hope to find out that they did.

      In a game where Notre Dame got a good 80% of the loose "50-50" balls, the Hoyas' lack of focus on defense once again allowed a less talented Big East squad to upset them.

      It's worth noting that of Georgetown's three bad conference losses, in all three the defense gave up a defensive efficiency of over 110. Today, the Hoyas put forth of the their worst defensive performances in years.

      Notre Dame is a good offensive team. But they were also missing their best offensive weapon and only interior threat in Luke Harangody. A brief four minute segment in the second half highlighted by a five possession streak of three forced turnovers and two missed, contested shots highlighted what the Hoyas should have been able to do on defense for most of the game instead of four minutes.

      How did they give up 1.4 points per possession? Mostly by giving up open shots. Yes, the Irish are good shooters, but they aren't a team used to getting seven dunks and twelve mostly easy layups. Georgetown often loses the battle in certain elements of the game: getting good shots is almost never one of them.

      The blame can be laid at both the coaching staff and the players. The Hoyas' switching, constantly helping defense is not a great style to play against a team with few individual stars that passes and shoots well. In other games where this has been the case, the Hoyas have adjusted by helping less. Today, that didn't seem to happen.

      What's worse, I'm not sure it would have worked. Notre Dame guards often got into the lane on drives that were not particularly quick. Rotations were incredibly slow and at times lackadaisical.

      Adding to that, the Hoyas gave Notre Dame an huge amount of extra shots. At the end of the game, Notre Dame had a 50% off. rebounding pct., but it was 63% in the first half and many of the Hoyas' def. rebounds came later in the game.

      The offense doesn't get completely off the hook. It wasn't nearly as big a problem as the D, especially without a healthy Freeman. But while a 112 efficiency sounds good, the Hoyas could have done better against a poor Irish defense.

      The most disappointing part of all this is that while one or two disappointing games are bound to happen over the course of a season, even to the best of teams, as a fan, you'd like the team to take those loses and use them as reasons to focus and improve. The Hoyas have now lost three of their last four "easier" Big East games.

      How bad must Providence feel?

      Let's run the numbers:

      TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE 
      .            Home                            Visitor   
      .            Georgetown                      Notre Dame         
      .            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
      Pace            24        33        57 
      Effic.        110.8     112.8     111.9       127.2     143.3     136.3   
      
      eFG%           69.4      53.7      60.0        51.8      83.3      65.3  
      TO%            24.6      18.3      21.0        20.5      21.3      21.0  
      OR%            12.5      41.2      32.0        62.5      25.0      50.0  
      FTA/FGA        11.1      44.4      31.1        14.3      66.7      36.7  
      
      Assist Rate    90.0      46.2      65.2        53.8      60.0      57.1  
      Block Rate     21.4       0.0      11.1        20.0      29.4      25.9  
      Steal Rate     20.5       6.1      12.2        24.6      12.2      17.5   
      
      2FG%           50.0      58.8      55.6        71.4      76.9      74.1  
      3FG%           62.5      30.0      44.4        21.4      62.5      36.4  
      FT%           100.0      66.7      71.4        50.0      85.7      77.8


      What to point out individually?

      With Austin Freeman out, those shots had to go somewhere. Hollis Thompson looked comfortable and I wish he'd be as easy taking a shot all the time. His defense is still that of a freshman, but it was nice to see him feel he had a green light and just play.

      With Harangody out, Greg Monroe should have taken more shots. He didn't, and it left Chris Wright to step in. This is really never good for the Hoyas -- when Wright is feeling it, he should shoot as much as possible. When when we need someone to be force fed, it shouldn't be the 6' point guard who's streaky from three. Chris is best in transition -- which is impossible to do when you don't defend or rebound. There's a huge gap in usage between Austin and Hollis, and Monroe needed to take those shots and possessions, and he didn't.

      Julian Vaughn almost looks like he had a good game until you realize he had two rebounds in 23 minutes and "played interior defense."

      Jerelle Benimon and Freeman played 38 invisible minutes combined. Jerelle's an unheralded frosh and Freeman, again, was sick, so it's tough to criticize, but that's a started who gave nothing (and not much on D, either).

      Jason Clark made some shots and actually rebounded, so kudos.

      Vee Sanford had his usual few minutes and a steal while Henry Sims had an awful turnover but also one of the team's few def. rebounds in a not so bad defensive set of sequences when in. Frankly, in a game like this, I'd have been intrigued to go to a "D" lineup that included both Sims and Sanford.

      INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS
      
      Georgetown            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
      Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
      Thompson, Hollis       36   22.8  121.1    9.9      35   122.1    8.6      +0.7  
      Wright, Chris          55   26.2   90.1   13.0      57   135.1   15.4      -4.5  
      Monroe, Greg           51   24.1  113.1   13.9      49   118.3   11.6      +0.8  
      Clark, Jason           47   13.7  142.5    9.2      48   132.4   12.7      -1.4  
      Vaughn, Julian         26   26.4  123.0    8.5      28   154.2    8.6      -1.2  
      Sanford, Vee           10    8.3  200.0    1.7      11    91.7    2.0      +0.3  
      Freeman, Austin        34    9.3  110.5    3.5      31   140.8    8.7      -3.1  
      Benimon, Jerrelle      17    5.9    0.0    0.0      21   169.7    7.1      -4.4  
      Sims, Henry             4   25.0    0.0    0.0       5    49.1    0.5      -0.5  
      TOTALS                 56         109.9   59.6      57   132.0   75.3     -14.1  
      
      Notre Dame            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
      Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
      NASH, Tyrone           52   14.9  129.6   10.0      49   117.1   11.5      -0.2  
      JACKSON, Tory          57   15.9  105.1    9.5      56   101.5   11.4      -0.8  
      ABROMAITIS, Tim        53   26.7  137.4   19.5      51   114.1   11.6      +5.6  
      HANSBROUGH, Ben        56   23.1  159.9   20.7      55   114.2   12.6      +7.0  
      SCOTT, Carleton        53   19.3  143.4   14.6      49   105.6   10.3      +4.1  
      PEOPLES, Jonathan       5    0.0    -      0.0       6   104.4    1.3      -1.3  
      COOLEY, Jack            9    8.5  200.0    1.5      14   107.0    3.0      -0.4  
      TOTALS                 57         138.2   75.9      56   110.1   61.6     +15.0



      HD BOX SCORE
      Notre Dame vs Georgetown
      02/27/10 12:00 at Verizon Center
      Final score: Notre Dame 78, Georgetown 64
      
      Notre Dame              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
      NASH, Tyrone           33:25  +19   8/72  2- 3  0- 0  4- 5  3/42  3/23  0/49  2/52  1/23  2/20  4/20   2
      JACKSON, Tory          40:00  +14   9/78  2- 3  1- 4  2- 4  7/49  3/25  5/56  2/57  0/27  0/24  1/25   1
      ABROMAITIS, Tim        36:12  +13  19/72  6-10  1- 9  4- 4 19/45  3/18  1/51  1/53  2/26  3/23  1/24   2
      HANSBROUGH, Ben        38:59  +15  21/76  4- 5  3- 5  4- 5 10/46  4/20  1/55  3/56  1/27  1/22  2/25   3
      SCOTT, Carleton        35:22  +15  17/72  4- 4  3- 4  0- 0  8/45  3/18  2/49  3/53  3/25  4/23  5/23   2
      PEOPLES, Jonathan      04:49  + 0   0/ 8  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 7  0/ 4  1/ 6  0/ 5  0/ 1  0/ 3  0/ 1   0
      COOLEY, Jack           11:13  - 6   4/12  2- 2  0- 0  0- 0  2/11  0/ 4  0/14  0/ 9  0/ 6  0/ 5  3/ 7   3
      TOTALS                 40:00       78    20-27  8-22 14-18    49 16/28 10/56 12/57  7/27 12/24 17/25  13
      .                                        0.741 0.364 0.778       0.571 0.179 0.211 0.259 0.500 0.680    
      
      Georgetown              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
      Thompson, Hollis       26:10  - 8  12/38  3- 3  2- 4  0- 1  7/27  3/10  2/35  2/36  0/13  0/15  0/16   2
      Wright, Chris          38:50  -17  10/61  2- 8  2- 4  0- 1 12/43  6/18  1/57  3/55  0/27  1/24  0/24   3
      Monroe, Greg           35:03  - 7  15/56  4- 7  0- 0  7- 8  7/41  2/16  1/49  4/51  0/20  0/24  4/17   4
      Clark, Jason           33:03  -11  12/58  0- 0  4- 7  0- 0  7/39  2/17  2/48  1/47  0/23  2/21  3/16   3
      Vaughn, Julian         23:11  -10   8/31  4- 6  0- 0  0- 0  6/23  2/ 8  0/28  1/26  1/12  2/12  0/13   0
      Sanford, Vee           03:36  - 1   2/10  0- 0  0- 0  2- 2  0/ 9  0/ 3  1/11  0/10  0/ 4  0/ 6  1/ 4   0
      Freeman, Austin        22:31  - 1   5/42  2- 3  0- 2  1- 2  5/28  0/11  0/31  0/34  1/18  0/17  0/15   2
      Benimon, Jerrelle      14:32  -15   0/21  0- 0  0- 1  0- 0  1/12  0/ 8  0/21  0/17  1/16  0/ 4  1/10   0
      Sims, Henry            03:04  + 0   0/ 3  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 3  0/ 1  0/ 5  1/ 4  0/ 2  0/ 2  1/ 5   0
      TOTALS                 40:00       64    15-27  8-18 10-14    45 15/23  7/57 12/56  3/27  8/25 12/24  14
      .                                        0.556 0.444 0.714       0.652 0.123 0.214 0.111 0.320 0.500    
      
      Efficiency: Notre Dame 1.368, Georgetown 1.143
      eFG%: Notre Dame 0.653, Georgetown 0.600
      Substitutions: Notre Dame 16, Georgetown 35
      
      2-pt Shot Selection:
      Dunks: Notre Dame 7-7, Georgetown 1-1
      Layups/Tips: Notre Dame 8-12, Georgetown 11-19
      Jumpers: Notre Dame 5-8, Georgetown 3-7
      
      Fast break pts (% FG pts): Notre Dame 8 (12.5), Georgetown 2 (3.7)
      Pts (eff.) after steal: Notre Dame 14 (140.0), Georgetown 13 (185.7)
      Seconds per poss: Notre Dame 25.0, Georgetown 17.4





      -------

      Team stats pages will be updated tomorrow; player stats pages will be updated after West Virginia game.

      Tuesday, February 23, 2010

      Recap: Georgetown 70, Louisville 60

      In a 14-possession stretch starting the second half, the Hoyas went on a 24-3 to turn around and then break open a tough road game at Freedom Hall. Austin Freeman put up about the most efficient 29-point effort you'll likely ever see, and Edgar Sosa just didn't get much help out there tonight.

      To be honest, I don't know if I'm as sanguine about this win as most Hoyas fans likely are, as Georgetown can't depend on an unconscious Freeman to show up for every second half (presumably he changes into his superhero outfit in the locker room at halftime).

      Let's run the numbers:

      TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
       
      .            Visitor                         Home      
      .            GEORGETOWN                      LOUISVILLE         
      .            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
      Pace            32        29        62
      
      Effic.         89.9     140.3     113.8       108.5      85.6      97.6  
       
      eFG%           40.7      72.7      55.1        56.0      44.0      50.0  
      TO%            18.6      20.5      19.5        12.4      17.1      14.6  
      OR%            25.0      33.3      27.6        14.3      18.8      16.7  
      FTA/FGA        40.7      40.9      40.8        32.0      20.0      26.0  
       
      Assist Rate    40.0      76.9      60.9        66.7      30.0      50.0  
      Block Rate      0.0       0.0       0.0         5.0       0.0       3.0  
      Steal Rate     12.4       3.4       8.1         9.3       6.8       8.1  
       
      2FG%           40.0      53.8      45.5        53.3      47.1      50.0  
      3FG%           28.6      66.7      50.0        40.0      25.0      33.3  
      FT%            63.6     100.0      80.0        87.5      60.0      76.9

      The big shock tonight was the lack of offensive rebounding for the Cardinals in the game.  Louisville is the 9th best offensive rebounding team in the nation, and had failed to gather at least 30% of their own missed shots only three times all year:  two losses (W. Carolina [28%] and Pitt [28%]) and the 2-OT thriller against Notre Dame [29%].

      Tonight they collected only five of their 30 missed shots, by far their worst outing of the year.  Obviously, Greg Monroe's 13 defensive rebounds had a lot to do with that, but take a look at the box score below:  every single Hoya grabbed at least 1 def. board while in the game.  Nice.

      The first half was a combination of Georgetown missing a few more shots than they normally do, and Louisville avoiding turnovers so that they had a scoring attempt in every possession.  This held for most of the first half:  in the Cardinals first 23 possessions, they had no turnovers and 32 points (1.4 points per possession, for the math-challenged).  Meanwhile, the Hoyas were shooting 3/8 on layups and 4/11 on 2-pt jumpers in the half.  Monroe was dominating those attempts, as he shot only 5/13 from the floor against Samardo Samuels and company.  That was the most attempts in a half for Greg this season (previously his high was 11 against Mt. St. Mary's and UConn, both in the 2nd half).


      In the Vesper half, shots began to drop for the Hoyas while the lid went on the Cardinals' basket (when they managed to get an attempt).  As I noted at the top, Georgetown went on a 24-3 run to open the second half.  While Austin Freeman was bombing it from behind the arc, including a deep three from the left elbow that looked suspiciously like a heat-check, Louisville committed four turnovers in their first 14 possessions, to go along with only 1/5 shooting on layups.

      Suddenly, a 6-point deficit for the Hoyas was a 15-point lead and the rest, as they say, was history.


      INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS
      
      GEORGETOWN            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
      Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
      VAUGHN, Julian         29   17.4  104.9    5.3      30   126.6    7.6      -1.7  
      MONROE, Greg           61   26.7  106.1   17.3      58    81.2    9.4      +6.0  
      WRIGHT, Chris          62   16.5   66.8    6.8      60    95.8   11.5      -3.8  
      FREEMAN, Austin        61   20.1  194.7   23.9      58    98.4   11.4     +12.2  
      CLARK, Jason           55   12.9   57.0    4.0      53   105.7   11.2      -5.3  
      THOMPSON, Hollis       21   22.5  103.4    4.9      21    61.5    2.6      +2.1  
      SANFORD, Vee            6   36.0  122.3    2.6       6    43.7    0.5      +1.9  
      BENIMON, Jerrelle      25    9.4  114.6    2.7      24    68.7    3.3      +0.2  
      TOTALS                 64         112.4   67.6      62    92.8   57.5     +11.1  
      
      LOUISVILLE            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
      Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
      Delk, Reginald         52   15.6  100.3    8.2      54    87.6    9.5      -0.1  
      Jennings, Terrence     21   17.5   91.0    3.3      20   119.0    4.8      -1.2  
      Samuels, Samardo       57   23.4   74.0    9.9      60   104.0   12.5      -3.3  
      Sosa, Edgar            53   40.4  127.5   27.3      54   115.4   12.5      +8.7  
      Smith, Jerry           44   12.0  121.8    6.4      44   126.3   11.1      -2.5  
      Knowles, Preston       20   30.0    0.0    0.0      21    68.3    2.9      -3.5  
      Siva, Peyton            7   14.3    0.0    0.0       9   102.0    1.8      -1.4  
      Buckles, Rakeem        13   12.7  222.6    3.7      13    84.2    2.2      +1.9  
      Kuric, Kyle            10    0.0    -      0.0      10   154.3    3.1      -3.1  
      Swopshire, Jared       33    5.4   88.9    1.6      35    94.5    6.6      -2.6  
      TOTALS                 62          96.9   60.4      64   104.5   66.9      -5.7

      The player of the game, obviously, was Austin Freeman.  Freeman showed his innate ability to find his shooting touch and ride it for all its worth, but not just settling for outside shots in the process.  During the second half, he also made 2/3 2FGs and 5/5 FTs as he continually put pressure on the Cardinal defense.

      Greg Monroe got his, albeit in a less efficient manner than Austin.  Monroe dominated first half possessions (using 35%) while forcing the action inside on 5/13 shooting.  It wasn't clear to me if this was a game strategy to try to get Samuels in foul trouble, but I wondered if the two were having some sort of personal battle within the game - they've known and played against each other since high school.  In the second half, Greg was much more willing to facilitate the offense (2/4 2FGs, 4 A) and play outstanding defense inside.  He also had a ridiculous no-look pass after drawing 3 defenders on a drive (linked at the bottom of the recap).

      Chris Wright had a statistically poor game.  The question to ask is whether the stats are short-changing his effort tonight.  He was tasked with breaking the Louisville press, often by himself, which he did with ease.  He missed all four attempts from the field and committed 4 turnovers in the half-court offense, but also had four assists and made some clutch free throws late in the game.  He also seemed to receive some back-door cut passes late, when he was too deep under the basket to score.  I doubt Chris is overly pleased with his game, but his patience in not forcing the action in the second half should be commended.

      I have a bone to pick with Jason Clark.  With about 90 seconds left in the game and nursing a 7-point lead, the Hoyas easily broke the press and turned down a 2-on-1 opportunity to run offense and burn time.  But with 15 seconds still on the shot clock, Jason decided to launch a deep 3FG that missed and gave the Cardinals a chance to close it to a 4-pt game.  They didn't, and that was the game, but I would like to think Clark will recognize what a bad shot choice that was.  Interestingly, the shot was from about the same spot on the floor that he missed against Syracuse late, a shot that I've argued was a great choice.  It's all about time and situation, as the cliche goes.

      Julian Vaughn had another quiet game, and had some trouble on defense as well.  I'm beginning to think that Vaughn is showing signs of fatigue more than the other starters.  His bobble and soft layup off of the crazy Monroe assist would have been a catch-and-flush earlier this year, I suspect.

      The bench had a tremendous first half, chipping in for 10 points in a variety of ways:  Hollis Thompson hit 2 3FGs, Jerrelle Benimon had a great spin and reverse layup, and Vee Sanford - hopefully playing in front of some family - knocked down a couple of FTs while playing lock-down defense.


      HD BOX SCORE
      
      GEORGETOWN vs LOUISVILLE
      2/23/10 7:02PM at FREEDOM HALL, LOUISVILLE, KY
      Final score: GEORGETOWN 70, LOUISVILLE 60
      
      GEORGETOWN              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
      VAUGHN, Julian         19:25  - 4   5/34  2- 4  0- 0  1- 1  4/22  1/10  0/30  2/29  0/16  1/10  2/ 9   3
      MONROE, Greg           37:24  + 9  16/65  7-17  0- 0  2- 2 17/48  5/15  1/58  2/61  0/31  1/29 13/29   3
      WRIGHT, Chris          38:10  + 9   4/65  0- 2  0- 2  4- 5  4/47  4/21  0/60  4/62  0/31  1/29  1/29   2
      FREEMAN, Austin        37:48  +15  29/70  4- 6  5- 6  6- 6 12/49  4/14  0/58  0/61  0/29  2/29  2/27   0
      CLARK, Jason           34:13  + 9   4/64  0- 0  1- 4  1- 2  4/42  0/21  0/53  3/55  0/28  1/21  1/25   4
      THOMPSON, Hollis       13:22  + 1   6/20  0- 1  2- 4  0- 0  5/16  0/ 6  3/21  0/21  0/12  1/ 9  1/12   3
      SANFORD, Vee           03:43  + 1   2/ 6  0- 1  0- 0  2- 3  1/ 5  0/ 1  1/ 6  0/ 6  0/ 2  1/ 5  1/ 3   0
      BENIMON, Jerrelle      15:55  +10   4/26  2- 2  0- 0  0- 1  2/16  0/ 4  0/24  1/25  0/11  0/13  2/16   2
      TOTALS                 40:00       70    15-33  8-16 16-20    49 14/23  5/62 13/64  0/32  8/29 25/30  17
      .                                        0.455 0.500 0.800       0.609 0.081 0.203 0.000 0.276 0.833    
      
      LOUISVILLE              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
      Delk, Reginald         33:10  - 2  11/53  0- 0  3- 6  2- 2  6/40  0/16  3/54  2/52  0/28  1/22  3/28   2
      Jennings, Terrence     15:08  - 8   4/20  2- 4  0- 0  0- 0  4/20  0/ 6  1/20  0/21  1/13  0/12  2/10   3
      Samuels, Samardo       36:20  - 5  11/58  5-12  0- 0  1- 2 12/45  0/16  0/60  2/57  0/30  1/26  5/28   1
      Sosa, Edgar            33:19  - 2  24/59  6- 9  2- 7  6- 8 16/43  8/14  0/54  1/53  0/26  0/22  2/24   3
      Smith, Jerry           29:06  - 9   6/45  1- 2  1- 3  1- 1  5/38  3/15  0/44  1/44  0/22  0/22  1/18   1
      Knowles, Preston       12:14  - 1   0/15  0- 2  0- 1  0- 0  3/14  0/ 5  0/21  3/20  0/12  0/10  1/12   2
      Siva, Peyton           05:21  - 8   0/ 1  0- 0  0- 1  0- 0  1/ 5  0/ 0  0/ 9  1/ 7  0/ 6  0/ 6  0/ 4   1
      Buckles, Rakeem        08:46  + 6   2/19  1- 2  0- 0  0- 0  2/13  0/ 7  1/13  0/13  0/ 4  2/ 5  2/ 3   3
      Kuric, Kyle            06:50  - 8   0/ 7  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/10  0/ 3  0/10  0/10  0/ 5  0/ 8  0/ 1   0
      Swopshire, Jared       19:46  -13   2/23  1- 1  0- 0  0- 0  1/22  0/ 6  0/35  1/33  0/19  1/17  5/17   1
      TOTALS                 40:00       60    16-32  6-18 10-13    50 11/22  5/64 11/62  1/33  5/30 21/29  17
      .                                        0.500 0.333 0.769       0.500 0.078 0.177 0.030 0.167 0.724    
      
      Efficiency: GEORGETOWN 1.094, LOUISVILLE 0.968
      eFG%: GEORGETOWN 0.551, LOUISVILLE 0.500
      Substitutions: GEORGETOWN 21, LOUISVILLE 30
      
      2-pt Shot Selection:
      Dunks: GEORGETOWN 1-1, LOUISVILLE 2-2
      Layups/Tips: GEORGETOWN 8-14, LOUISVILLE 9-13
      Jumpers: GEORGETOWN 6-18, LOUISVILLE 5-17
      
      Fast break pts (% FG pts): GEORGETOWN 2 (3.7), LOUISVILLE 2 (4.0)
      Pts (eff.) after steal: GEORGETOWN 4 (80.0), LOUISVILLE 9 (180.0)
      Seconds per poss: GEORGETOWN 21.2, LOUISVILLE 16.3





      -------------

      Greg Monroe made a nice pass in the 2nd half tonight.



      Stats pages will be updated tomorrow.

      Thursday, February 18, 2010

      Recap: Syracuse 75, Georgetown 71

      The Hoyas staged a furious comeback attempt late, but fell short to the Syracuse Orange tonight at the Verizon Center.  It's tough losses like this that make it plain how important those bad losses (USF, at Rutgers) become - Georgetown has effectively lost any chance at a top-4 seed in the BET.


      Let's run the numbers:

      TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
       
      .            Home                            Visitor   
      .            Georgetown                      Syracuse         
      .            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
      Pace            36        36        72
       
      Effic.         86.9     110.3      98.8       123.3      85.5     104.3  
       
      eFG%           37.9      45.8      42.3        64.6      40.5      53.3  
      TO%            19.6       8.3      13.9        22.4      27.6      25.0  
      OR%            23.8      40.9      32.6        25.0      20.0      22.2  
      FTA/FGA        34.5      38.9      36.9        58.3      76.2      66.7  
      
      Assist Rate    33.3      43.8      40.0        69.2      42.9      60.0  
      Block Rate     18.8      14.3      16.7        35.3       3.6      15.6  
      Steal Rate      8.4      13.8      11.1         5.6       8.3       7.0  
       
      2FG%           29.4      53.6      44.4        50.0      28.6      40.0  
      3FG%           33.3      12.5      25.0        62.5      42.9      53.3  
      FT%            90.0      50.0      66.7        92.9      87.5      90.0

      It was a tale of two halves, with Syracuse's first half a little better than Georgetown's second half.

      In the Lift-off half, Georgetown struggled to make their 2FG attempts.  The shot selection was good, but the execution was not:  2/10 on layup and tip-ins, 3/7 on 2-pt jumpers.  The poor shooting in the paint can be credited to the aggressive Syracuse frontline which collected 6 blocks in the half (5 by Wes Johnson).  But that came at a cost - by the end of the half, Johnson and R. Jackson had two fouls, and A. Onuaku had three.  Syracuse simply made shots:  5/8 from behind the arc and 13/14 from the FT line.

      The story of the Vesper half was turnovers.  Georgetown managed to take care of the ball while Syracuse did not.  The latter is not surprising - probably the biggest weakness for the Orange this year is their lousy turnover rate [21.9%, 242nd nationally and last in the Big East] - but Syracuse has done a great job forcing turnovers on defense [23.4%, 37th nationally and 3rd in the Big East].  Meanwhile, Georgetown had managed to commit turnovers less than 20% of the time only once in the last six games (against Providence) coming in.  As the Rutgers debacle demonstrated, an offense will start to put up a lot of points when in avoids possessions without a scoring attempt.

      The Hoyas defense was built around limiting Syracuse inside shooting and gathering rebounds.  For the half, Syracuse made only 4/14 2FGs and gathered only 3 offensive rebounds (on 15 available missed shots).

      Unfortunately, the Hoyas couldn't find their shooting touch late in the game, as they made only 3/8 FTs to end the game and watched their best and last chance to take the lead clank off the rim on a wide-open 3FGA by Jason Clark.  More so than the Chris Wright miss against Rutgers, that shot felt like a part of the offensive set and Clark was completely unguarded at the arc.  It actually reminded me of the missed 3FG attempt by D. Owens in the Sweet Sixteen game vs. Florida in 2006.  Under those exact circumstances, I'd want Clark to take that shot every time.


      INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS
      
      Georgetown            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
      Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
      Wright, Chris          66   24.1  109.2   17.4      60    92.1   11.0      +4.5  
      Monroe, Greg           57   30.6   97.1   16.9      46   103.1    9.5      +3.2  
      Freeman, Austin        68   24.3  118.2   19.5      67   112.0   15.0      +2.8  
      Clark, Jason           66   17.9   82.8    9.8      66   110.4   14.6      -4.0  
      Vaughn, Julian         39    7.7    0.0    0.0      43   121.9   10.5      -7.1  
      Thompson, Hollis       19   10.5    0.0    0.0      19   125.0    4.7      -3.6  
      Sanford, Vee            8    0.0    -      0.0      10    65.0    1.3      -1.3  
      Benimon, Jerrelle      30    7.8  115.6    2.7      34    90.7    6.2      -1.4  
      Sims, Henry             7   26.9   93.6    1.8      10    94.5    1.9      -0.1  
      TOTALS                 72          96.0   68.1      71   105.2   74.7      -6.6  
      
      Syracuse              Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
      Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
      JACKSON, Rick          52   25.3   98.2   12.9      52    81.2    8.4      +3.3  
      RAUTINS, Andy          66   25.7  132.9   22.5      64    87.6   11.2      +9.5  
      JOHNSON, Wes           71   20.0  114.8   16.3      71    86.9   12.3      +3.9  
      ONUAKU, Arinze         23   12.1   55.8    1.5      23    66.9    3.1      -0.9  
      TRICHE, Brandon        60   11.5  112.4    7.8      63   103.0   13.0      -2.3  
      JARDINE, Scoop         18   11.1    0.0    0.0      21   111.7    4.7      -3.5  
      JOSEPH, Kris           57   25.1   84.1   12.1      58   116.7   13.5      -3.1  
      RILEY, DaShonte         8    0.0    -      0.0       8   159.4    2.6      -2.6  
      TOTALS                 71         104.0   73.1      72    95.6   68.8      +5.1

      That was an angry Chris Wright we saw out there today, and an aggressive Chris Wright is often a dangerous player. Wright did his best to keep the Hoyas within contact of the Orange in the 1st half, shooting 3/5 2FG and 2/4 3FG along with 2 steals and no turnovers.  He didn't have any assists in the half, but his teammates made only 4 FGs in the half, so he didn't exactly have a lot of opportunities.  Chris struggled a bit with his shooting in the 2nd half [2/6 2FG, 0/2 3FG, 4/5 FT] and managed to get into it a bit with Andy Rautins (double technicals), but his defense never lacked as he made life difficult for Triche and Jardine all game.

      Greg Monroe picked up two quick fouls in the first 3:00 of the 1st half, and was forced to play passively the rest of the half.  He still managed to get 9 points in the half (1/1 2FG, 7/8 FTs) but Syracuse ran wild inside as Greg tried to avoid a third foul.  He also turned the ball over four times.  In the Vesper half, Monroe became more aggressive as the bigs for the Orange had their own foul troubles, shooting 5/8 on 2FGs and playing great defense.  Unfortunately, Greg was 1/6 at the FT line, and that - as much as anything - was a critical failure late in the game.

      Austin Freeman is mired in a shooting slump.  Over the last three games, Freeman has shot 4/16 from behind the arc - coming into this stretch, he was shooting 58% on 3FG in conference, so I'd almost consider this a correction towards reality.  In spite of this, Austin still managed to be the most efficient Hoya today, with three assists, three offensive rebounds, only 1 turnover and one monstrous dunk.  On offense, he's really, really good.

      Jason Clark is also struggling over the past three games, but his problems seem to be as much inside as out:  he's now 7/19 on 2FGs over this stretch, to go along with 2/9 3FGs.  I wonder if Freeman and Clark are starting to tire as the grind of the season is taking its toll.  I hope not.

      Julian Vaughn and Hollis Thompson didn't have good games today.  Vaughn seemed to struggle against the bigger interior players for Syracuse, and Thompson seemed a bit overwhelmed by Wes Johnson's combination of size and strength.

      Henry Sims was the first big off the bench today, getting some burn due to Monroe's foul troubles.  He started well (and scored the bench's only two points) before shooting a rushed airball and following with a cheap foul.  That was the end of Sims' playing time.

      Jerrelle Benimon isn't a favorite here because his passive offensive play and high turnover rate means that he needs to give a supreme defensive effort to be a positive contributor (a la J. Rivers).  Tonight he came about as close to this as I can remember, as his physical defense on Wes Johnson took the star completely out of the game in the 2nd half while not committing any turnovers (although I could have done without that wild spinning drive into the lane).  Unfortunately, Dick Vitale was too busy talking about anything but the game to give him credit.

      "Vee Sanford played 10 defensive possessions with good results. He produced 2 turnovers: he had a steal and he forced the bad pass that Benimon stole."


      HD BOX SCORE
      
      Syracuse vs Georgetown
      02/18/10 7:00 at Verizon Center
      Final score: Syracuse 75, Georgetown 71
      
      Syracuse                Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
      JACKSON, Rick          28:34  +21  12/62  4- 7  0- 0  4- 4  7/33  2/13  0/52  4/52  1/26  2/17  6/32   5
      RAUTINS, Andy          35:39  +14  26/75  1- 2  5- 9  9-11 11/41  3/14  2/64  4/66  1/38  1/23  6/40   4
      JOHNSON, Wes           39:53  + 7  16/75  1- 4  2- 4  8- 8  8/45  3/17  2/71  2/71  5/45  1/27  7/44   4
      ONUAKU, Arinze         13:33  + 6   2/25  1- 3  0- 0  0- 0  3/16  0/ 7  1/23  1/23  0/13  0/ 8  2/15   5
      TRICHE, Brandon        34:28  + 3   8/66  2- 3  1- 1  1- 1  4/38  2/15  0/63  3/60  0/40  0/21  2/38   3
      JARDINE, Scoop         11:04  -12   0/12  0- 1  0- 0  0- 0  1/12  0/ 3  0/21  1/18  0/14  0/11  1/11   2
      JOSEPH, Kris           32:07  - 9  11/57  3-10  0- 1  5- 6 11/35  2/11  0/58  3/57  0/39  1/23  1/34   1
      RILEY, DaShonte        04:42  -10   0/ 3  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 5  0/ 0  0/ 8  0/ 8  0/10  0/ 5  0/ 6   2
      TOTALS                 40:00       75    12-30  8-15 27-30    45 12/20  5/72 18/71  7/45  6/27 29/43  26
      .                                        0.400 0.533 0.900       0.600 0.069 0.254 0.156 0.222 0.674    
      
      Georgetown              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
      Wright, Chris          35:37  + 1  20/66  5-11  2- 6  4- 5 17/58  1/16  5/60  0/66  0/27  2/39  2/24   4
      Monroe, Greg           30:06  + 6  20/54  6- 9  0- 0  8-14  9/48  1/12  0/46  5/57  1/22  2/34  7/19   4
      Freeman, Austin        38:00  + 0  21/68  7-12  2- 8  1- 1 20/61  3/15  0/67  1/68  1/29  3/41  3/26   3
      Clark, Jason           36:41  -12   8/61  1- 4  1- 4  3- 4  8/58  4/20  1/66  4/66  1/28  2/40  2/24   5
      Vaughn, Julian         23:05  -21   0/28  0- 4  0- 0  0- 0  4/34  0/ 9  0/43  0/39  1/18  0/26  1/14   2
      Thompson, Hollis       08:39  - 5   0/17  0- 1  0- 2  0- 0  3/19  0/ 6  0/19  0/19  0/ 6  0/14  0/ 8   1
      Sanford, Vee           05:07  + 3   0/11  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 9  0/ 4  1/10  0/ 8  0/ 3  0/ 5  0/ 3   0
      Benimon, Jerrelle      18:30  + 7   0/40  0- 2  0- 0  0- 0  2/31  1/15  1/34  0/30  1/15  2/18  4/13   2
      Sims, Henry            04:15  + 1   2/10  1- 2  0- 0  0- 0  2/ 7  0/ 3  0/10  0/ 7  0/ 2  0/ 3  1/ 4   1
      TOTALS                 40:00       71    20-45  5-20 16-24    65 10/25  8/71 10/72  5/30 14/43 21/27  22
      .                                        0.444 0.250 0.667       0.400 0.113 0.139 0.167 0.326 0.778    
      
      Efficiency: Syracuse 1.056, Georgetown 0.986
      eFG%: Syracuse 0.533, Georgetown 0.423
      Substitutions: Syracuse 23, Georgetown 47
      
      2-pt Shot Selection:
      Dunks: Syracuse 2-3, Georgetown 2-2
      Layups/Tips: Syracuse 7-12, Georgetown 13-28
      Jumpers: Syracuse 3-15, Georgetown 5-15
      
      Fast break pts (% FG pts): Syracuse 6 (12.5), Georgetown 4 (7.3)
      Pts (eff.) after steal: Syracuse 2 (40.0), Georgetown 11 (137.5)
      Seconds per poss: Syracuse 16.4, Georgetown 17.2



      -------

      Stats pages will be updated tomorrow.

      Chris Wright's Scoring and Georgetown's Win/Loss Record

      As Brian and others have duly noted, it’s impossible at this point to discuss Georgetown basketball without hearing the platitude “as goes Chris Wright, so go the Hoyas.” The talking heads can’t get over the fact that when Chris Wright scores more than 10 points the Hoyas are 16-0 and when he scores less than 10 they are a lackluster 2-6.

      But how much truth is there to this statistic? Is it coincidence? Is it only an easy-to-digest, TV-friendly fallacy? Could it really be that simple?

      Full disclosure: I came into this analysis as a healthy skeptic. I couldn’t possibly believe that the key to Georgetown winning was Chris scoring in double digits. What I looked for, though, was something larger. What does Wright’s scoring mean in terms of the offense as a whole? If he’s not scoring, what is he doing (or not doing) instead?

      I went to the fantastic Individual Win/Loss splits here to find out, and the results were more than a little surprising.

      The most obvious win/loss split:
      • Wright shoots 27/60 (45%) from 3FG in wins
      • Wright shoots 1/23 (4%) from 3FG in losses.
      Ouch. That’s certainly not good, but it can’t be the whole story, can it?

      I started by looking at shooting metrics among the starting five to see if there were any other similar trends (click any figure to enlarge):





      Nothing too shocking or revealing, outside of Chris. But what’s more startling isn’t the shooting percentage; it’s the shot selection. Here’s a graph of 3pt FG attempts as a percentage of total FGs attempted:


      First of all, I had no idea just how much of a sniper Jason Clark has turned into. 60% of all of his shots are 3s. But when you’re making them at 45% clip, go right ahead!

      It also follows that if you’re trying to get back into a game, you’re going to pop a few more from behind the line (see: Austin Freeman and Jason), but look at that 23% jump from Chris. In losses, he's taking more than half of his shots from behind the arc, and we already covered how many of those he’s making.

      To me, this appears to be a fundamental and philosophical change in his game. He’s not just taking a few more 3s to try to shoot the team back into a game, Wright averages 12.9 2FGA / 100 possessions played in wins, but only 7.2 2FGA / 100 possessions in losses. If he’s also less inclined to try to score off of the dribble, it would be expected that he’s not getting into the lane and to the FT line as much either:


      That’s not a precipitous drop, but it’s a drop, especially compared with the posts (well done, Mr. Monroe) and Jason on the wing.

      So if he’s not scoring in the lane and he’s not drilling three-balls, is he deferring to his teammates more?

      WOW.

      He’s passing a lot more - that is a staggering jump. Chris’s overall ARate this year is 22.1 or 363rd best in the country. The 35.6 overall would be good for 23rd(!) overall in D-1.

      The only problem? It’s not helping win ball games.

      At this point, I’m convinced. Chris Wright’s play is critical to the success of the team. However, the low scoring in losses is a symptom, not the problem.

      The problem is that, in games Georgetown has lost, he’s changing his game to be more deferential and it’s impacting the rest of the offense (not just his own), and the offense can’t function properly if Chris isn’t a threat in the lane.

      Zones can spread out on the shooters and teams in man can double Greg more easily. Wright needs to drive and shoot, especially against zones, to pull defenders in and give open looks to Austin and Jason, either as a direct assist or after ball movement. It also frees up Greg from facilitating so much at the high post, keeping him down low for better looks and chances at offensive rebounds (Monroe's OR% is 5 points higher in wins).

      Chris is the team's lead threat in terms of slashing to the hoop. Unlike the “more than 10 point” bromide, his role isn't to be the leading scorer every night, but when he looks to score more off the dribble it opens up other options. It makes him a multidimensional threat. If being more aggressive driving means he scores over 10 a night that's great, but he doesn’t need to carry the load himself.

      It's also interesting because it goes against the early-season conventional wisdom that Chris needed to become a better pass-first PG to lead this team. It actually looks the opposite - when he takes that dimension of his game away it neuters his effectiveness and stagnates the offense.

      So drive, Chris, drive, and as the inimitable Bill Raftery would put it, let’s hope to see a little more lingerie on the deck in the future.

      Sunday, February 14, 2010

      Recap: Rutgers 71, Georgetown 68

      I wish I could say that tonight's result was a great shock, but it actually seemed like an eventuality with an impending showdown with Syracuse looming on the horizon. At the start of the most recent Villanova recap, I asked "Will the real Georgetown basketball team please stand up?"  The answer appears to be in emphatic "NO" and it should be a roller-coaster ride on down the stretch.

      Was this the worst loss of the season for the Hoyas?  Not really, the South Florida game still rates worse.

      Let's run the numbers:

      TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
       
      .            Visitor                         Home      
      .            Georgetown                      Rutgers         
      .            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
      Pace            31        31        62
      
      Effic.        103.6     115.7     109.8       106.8     122.1     114.6  
       
      eFG%           55.6      53.3      54.4        51.6      50.0      50.9  
      TO%            29.1      16.1      22.6        16.2       9.6      12.9  
      OR%            35.7      50.0      43.3        37.5      35.3      36.4  
      FTA/FGA         7.4      26.7      17.5         0.0      61.5      27.6  
       
      Assist Rate    69.2      25.0      44.8        66.7      63.6      65.4  
      Block Rate      4.5      16.7      10.0        15.8      12.0      13.6  
      Steal Rate      6.5       6.4       6.5        16.2       9.6      12.9  
       
      2FG%           47.4      64.0      56.8        54.5      38.9      47.5  
      3FG%           50.0       0.0      30.8        30.0      50.0      38.9  
      FT%           100.0      50.0      60.0         0.0      75.0      75.0

      For whatever reason, the Hoyas couldn't be bothered to play defense today in Piscataway. Rutgers came into the game averaging about 0.95 points per possession in Big East play, but managed to score at a 1.15 pt/poss clip in the game.

      How did they do it?
      1. Cut down on turnovers.  Rutgers averages a 22% turnover rate in conference, but managed to commit only eight in the game.  The 12.9% TO rate for this game was their best performance of the season.
         
      2. Made their 2-pt FGs in the Lift-off half. Rutgers has shot about 47% on 2FGs this year, while Georgetown allows teams to shoot about 45%.  The Scarlet Knights made 8/15 dunk, lay-up and tip-in attempts, but also shot 4/7 on 2-pt jumpers.
         
      3. Made their 3-pt FGs in the Vesper half.  Rutgers is shooting 33% on 3FGs in Big East play, but managed to make 4/8 3FGs in the second half.  Mike Rosario was 0/6 behind the arc in the first half, but a solid 2/4 in the second.
         
      4. Mostly, they just didn't turn the ball over.

      Offensively, the game was about as expected for Georgetown.  First half turnovers and poor inside shooting were offset by hot outside shooting [Hollis Thompson 2/2 3FGs], and when the 3-ball stopped dropping the 2nd half [0/5, but the last was shot under duress], the Hoyas made their 2FGs [16/25 = 15/19 on layups and tip-ins; 1/6 on 2-pt jumpers] and gathered half of their own missed shots.

      An obvious sore spot was the poor FT shooting in the 2nd half:  Chris Wright missed both attempts and Austin Freeman missed the front-end of a 1-and-1.  While this surely hurt, I'd say the inability to make stops on defense was the critical failure in the game.


      INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS
      
      Georgetown            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
      Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
      Vaughn, Julian         41   15.3   74.4    4.7      41   120.8    9.9      -4.1  
      Monroe, Greg           61   30.6  109.5   20.4      60   109.3   13.1      +3.7  
      Wright, Chris          56   21.6   52.0    6.3      56   105.3   11.8      -6.0  
      Freeman, Austin        54   21.8  121.8   14.3      53   111.7   11.8      +1.9  
      Clark, Jason           58   12.6  121.3    8.9      59   108.9   12.9      -1.5  
      Thompson, Hollis       34   12.1  185.8    7.6      32   105.3    6.7      +2.1  
      Sanford, Vee            0     -     -      0.0       1   200.0    0.4      -0.4  
      Benimon, Jerrelle       9   23.0  103.5    2.1      10    39.5    0.8      +1.3  
      Sims, Henry             2    0.0    -      0.0       3   136.7    0.8      -0.8  
      TOTALS                 63         103.3   64.4      63   108.3   68.3      -3.5  
      
      Rutgers               Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
      Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
      MILLER, Dane           60   17.5  135.9   14.2      58   100.3   11.6      +3.2  
      MITCHELL, Jonathan     52   19.2  141.4   14.1      51   103.6   10.6      +3.6  
      NDIAYE, Hamady         49   24.8  111.9   13.6      47    96.4    9.1      +3.2  
      ROSARIO, Mike          58   24.3   70.7    9.9      57   109.3   12.5      -4.0  
      BEATTY, James          46    3.7  216.9    3.7      45   103.0    9.3      -1.8  
      JOHNSON, Austin        23   21.6  125.3    6.2      24   101.2    4.9      +1.3  
      JACKSON, Patrick        3   66.7    0.0    0.0       5   108.9    1.1      -1.6  
      COBURN, Mike           22   15.2  117.1    3.9      24   101.0    4.8      -0.2  
      OKAM, Brian             2   75.0   66.7    1.0       4   102.5    0.8      -0.2  
      TOTALS                 63         110.8   66.7      63   102.5   64.6      +3.6

      The old saw that Georgetown goes as Chris Wright goes is getting tired - I just wish there was a body of evidence to dispute it.  The tally to date:
      Chris Wright scores 10+ points:  Georgetown 16-0
      Chris Wright scores <10 points:  Georgetown 2-6
      There have been games when Chris Wright didn't score, but was still able to help the team (e.g. at Marquette). This was not one of those games.  In spite of playing well on defense [3 steals, 3 def. rebounds], Chris was a severe liability on offense:  by either advanced metric [ORating = 52, Pts. Produced = 6.3] this was his worst offensive game of the year, probably most closely resembling his effort against Old Dominion.  His missed 3FGA with 0:11 left and the Hoyas trailing 66-67 was certainly defensible (he was wide open), but still caused me to yell "Oh no!" as he took the shot - I would have much preferred that he drove the lane to force the defense to react.

      Greg Monroe rates quite well tonight:  he seemed to able to score against defensive stalwart Hamady N'Diaye with relative ease by using his quickness advantage, once again led the team with 6 assists and 8 rebounds [3 OR, 5 DR] and also had four blocks.  His 5 turnovers also led the team, and might hint at something that the stats package doesn't pick up on - 4 of 5 turnovers were by a Rutgers steal, which they converted into 9 points.  To be fair, only 4 of those 9 points were on a fast break (i.e. directly attributable to the steal), but this is something that I should be able to track in the future (i.e. next season).

      Austin Freeman struggled from behind the arc today [1/6 3FG], his worst outside shooting effort since the ODU game.  Otherwise, he was typical Austin Freeman, grinding out points, playing smart offensive and middling defensive basketball.  Rutgers was very smart to give that foul with 0:06 left, as the shot he launched afterward was true.  Unfortunately for Georgetown, he wasn't able to get a good look at the buzzer (but still almost made it).

      Jason Clark played well at both ends, although he was a bit frustrated with the officiating - taking a silly charge late in the game.  His defense in the first half on Mike Rosario was outstanding.

      Julian Vaughn had a quiet and frankly poor game.  He was held to 1 off. rebound for the second straight game, and - to my eye - struggled to recover after hedging out against guards.

      Hollis Thompson had a nice game on the road, and Jerrelle Benimon made a nice 3FG long 2FG when dared by the defense.


      HD BOX SCORE
      
      Georgetown vs Rutgers
      2/14/10 4:00 p.m. at Piscataway, N.J. - The RAC
      Final score: Rutgers 71, Georgetown 68
      
      Georgetown              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
      Vaughn, Julian         24:47  - 4   6/45  3- 4  0- 0  0- 0  4/34  1/15  0/41  4/41  0/24  1/18  2/18   3
      Monroe, Greg           38:35  + 4  19/68  7-13  1- 2  2- 3 15/56  6/21  0/60  5/61  4/38  3/29  5/34   0
      Wright, Chris          36:36  - 5   6/62  2- 6  0- 2  2- 4  8/50  2/24  3/56  2/56  0/34  0/26  3/27   3
      Freeman, Austin        33:37  - 5  17/54  6- 9  1- 6  2- 3 15/47  1/16  0/53  1/54  0/33  2/26  3/29   2
      Clark, Jason           36:58  - 6   8/62  4- 5  0- 1  0- 0  6/51  3/23  0/59  2/58  0/37  2/27  4/31   5
      Thompson, Hollis       20:32  + 5  10/39  2- 5  2- 2  0- 0  7/34  0/13  1/32  0/34  0/21  1/17  0/18   1
      Sanford, Vee           00:06  - 2   0/ 0  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 1  0/ 0  0/ 1  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 0   0
      Benimon, Jerrelle      07:27  + 2   2/10  1- 2  0- 0  0- 0  2/11  0/ 4  0/10  1/ 9  0/ 9  1/ 6  3/10   1
      Sims, Henry            01:22  - 4   0/ 0  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 1  0/ 0  0/ 3  0/ 2  0/ 4  0/ 1  0/ 3   0
      TOTALS                 40:00       68    25-44  4-13  6-10    57 13/29  4/63 15/63  4/40 13/30 21/33  15
      .                                        0.568 0.308 0.600       0.448 0.063 0.238 0.100 0.433 0.636    
      
      Rutgers                 Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
      MILLER, Dane           36:35  + 9  13/70  4- 8  1- 1  2- 4  9/55  4/21  1/58  2/60  2/39  3/31  7/27   2
      MITCHELL, Jonathan     32:24  - 4  24/56  5- 6  4- 6  2- 2 12/47  1/11  2/51  1/52  0/35  1/29  6/22   1
      NDIAYE, Hamady         29:04  + 7  11/55  4- 8  0- 0  3- 3  8/44  0/15  2/47  2/49  4/31  5/27  2/22   3
      ROSARIO, Mike          35:41  + 9  10/68  1- 6  2-10  2- 3 16/54  3/22  0/57  2/58  0/36  0/31  0/24   1
      BEATTY, James          29:09  + 2   2/51  0- 0  0- 1  2- 2  1/42  4/18  2/45  0/46  0/30  0/26  0/19   0
      JOHNSON, Austin        15:32  + 5   6/29  3- 5  0- 0  0- 0  5/24  2/ 9  0/24  0/23  0/18  2/12  1/13   2
      JACKSON, Patrick       03:25  - 6   0/ 1  0- 3  0- 0  0- 0  3/ 3  0/ 0  0/ 5  0/ 3  0/ 5  0/ 3  1/ 3   2
      COBURN, Mike           15:10  - 5   3/23  1- 3  0- 0  1- 2  3/20  3/ 8  1/24  0/22  0/22  0/11  0/17   1
      OKAM, Brian            03:00  - 2   2/ 2  1- 1  0- 0  0- 0  1/ 1  0/ 0  0/ 4  1/ 2  0/ 4  0/ 0  0/ 3   0
      TOTALS                 40:00       71    19-40  7-18 12-16    58 17/26  8/63  8/63  6/44 12/33 17/30  12
      .                                        0.475 0.389 0.750       0.654 0.127 0.127 0.136 0.364 0.567    
      
      Efficiency: Rutgers 1.127, Georgetown 1.079
      eFG%: Rutgers 0.509, Georgetown 0.544
      Substitutions: Rutgers 20, Georgetown 18
      
      2-pt Shot Selection:
      Dunks: Rutgers 1-3, Georgetown 1-1
      Layups/Tips: Rutgers 13-23, Georgetown 22-29
      Jumpers: Rutgers 5-14, Georgetown 2-14
      
      Fast break pts (% FG pts): Rutgers 11 (18.6), Georgetown 4 (6.5)
      Pts (eff.) after steal: Rutgers 15 (187.5), Georgetown 4 (100.0)
      Seconds per poss: Rutgers 18.7, Georgetown 19.3




      ----------


      Stats pages will be updated tomorrow.

      Tuesday, February 9, 2010

      Recap: Georgetown 79, Providence 70

      In spite of a 14 minute stretch in the middle of the game where they were outscored 32-18, the Hoyas were able to pull out a 9-point victory over the Providence Friars at the Dunk tonight.

      Let's run the numbers:

      TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
       
      .            Visitor                         Home      
      .            Georgetown                      Providence College         
      .            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
      Pace            32        38        69
      
      Effic.         97.7     127.8     113.7       104.0      98.5     100.8  
       
      eFG%           48.3      60.7      54.3        43.1      37.5      40.2  
      TO%            22.1      10.6      15.8        18.9      21.3      20.2  
      OR%            35.7      26.7      31.0        50.0      50.0      50.0  
      FTA/FGA         6.7      67.9      36.2        48.3      59.4      54.1  
       
      Assist Rate    69.2      64.7      66.7        45.5      50.0      47.6  
      Block Rate     10.5      13.3      11.8        14.3      11.5      12.8  
      Steal Rate      3.2       8.0       5.8        18.9       2.7      10.1  
       
      2FG%           47.6      65.4      57.4        42.1      40.0      41.2  
      3FG%           33.3       0.0      27.3        30.0      23.5      25.9  
      FT%           100.0      73.7      76.2        57.1      68.4      63.6

      I'm not overly motivated tonight, so just a few bullet-point style thoughts:
      • Georgetown did not do a very good job on the defensive glass tonight.  Aren't you glad I fired up my stats program to tell you that?  Well, it's true.  Fully half of all Friar missed shots ended up right back with them.  This was the worst defensive rebounding effort by the Hoyas this year (previous worse against Duke).  But if you account for the fact that Providence was the 7th best offensive rebounding team in the nation coming into the game . . . this was still the worst defensive rebounding effort of the year.
      • Having said that, this was actually the best defensive performance for the Hoyas since the start of conference play.  Why?  They forced the Friars into a ton of missed shots - missed jump shots actually.  Provy was 7/27 [26%] on 3FG, but also made only 1/13 2-pt jump shots.  That's a combined 8/40 [20%] on all jumpers, and they took a lot of them.  Jump shots made up 40/61 [66%] of their total shot attempts from the field.
      • Meanwhile, the Hoyas recognized the weakness in the Friar defense and began to pound the ball inside:  in the 2nd half, the Hoyas shot 14/18 on dunks, layups and tip-ins while only attempting 10 jump shots [3/8 2FG, 0/2 3FG].  This is the same pattern that they used in their last game against Villanova - taking outside shots in the 1st half, then pounding it inside in the 2nd half. 
      • The four second-half turnovers on 38 possessions was also important to boost offensive efficiency in the 2nd half.


      INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS
      
      Georgetown            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
      Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
      Vaughn, Julian         47   26.8  130.2   16.4      49   105.7   10.4      +4.6  
      Monroe, Greg           57   23.9  128.5   17.5      56    90.1   10.1      +6.3  
      Wright, Chris          65   21.4  133.4   18.6      66    92.4   12.2      +6.0  
      Freeman, Austin        65   16.8  115.0   12.6      64    99.9   12.8      +0.7  
      Clark, Jason           54   17.2   70.9    6.6      55   112.6   12.4      -4.8  
      Thompson, Hollis       36   14.1   81.8    4.2      38    66.5    5.1      -0.1  
      Benimon, Jerrelle       8   15.5   38.5    0.5       9    92.4    1.7      -0.9  
      Sims, Henry             8   12.5    0.0    0.0       8    90.9    1.5      -1.2  
      TOTALS                 68         112.7   76.2      69    95.6   66.0     +11.0  
      
      Providence College    Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
      Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
      BROOKS, Marshon        43   26.4  105.0   11.9      42   121.3   10.2      -0.1  
      PETERSON, Jamine       57   34.8  101.2   20.1      58   129.8   15.1      -0.3  
      DIXON, Bilal           57   18.6  113.6   12.0      58   113.7   13.2      -0.6  
      CURRY, Sharaud         58   18.7   89.8    9.7      55   102.0   11.2      -1.4  
      MCKENZIE, Brian        45    8.3  142.8    5.4      48    99.1    9.5      -1.3  
      MONDY, Duke            20    0.7  233.3    0.3      19   111.4    4.2      -1.9  
      WRIGHT, Kyle            4   43.8  128.6    2.2       3     0.0    0.0      +2.2  
      COUNCIL, Vincent       46   12.8   52.0    3.1      44   120.6   10.6      -5.8  
      PERMENTER, Russ        13   11.1   69.6    1.0      12    83.0    2.0      -0.6  
      HALL, Ray               2   25.0  200.0    1.0       1     0.0    0.0      +1.0  
      TOTALS                 69         101.0   66.8      68   111.8   76.0      -8.3


      Keno Davis employed a very strange defensive strategy against Greg Monroe in the Vesper half tonight.  He had his big defenders sag off Monroe so he couldn't drive or get position in deep, daring him to shoot.  But he didn't.

      Instead, Chris Wright and Julian Vaughn took turns cutting straight for the hoop, while Austin Freeman and either Jason Clark or Hollis Thompson camped outside to keep the defense honest.  And Monroe would hit the cutter with a picture-perfect pass nearly every time, for an easy layup (Wright) or dunk (Vaughn).  Monroe had 9 assists in the 2nd half, while Wright and Vaughn combined for 31 points on 12/15 shooting on 2FGs.  In fact, the Hoyas made 14 FGs while Greg was on the court in the second half, and he assisted 9 of those.  As Len Elmore said while calling the game, giving Monroe such great sight-lines for passing to cutters was suicide.

      Thompson and especially Clark struggled shooting the ball today, although Hollis was able to contribute some solid defense.  Jerrelle Benimon and Henry Sims (!) saw some action in the Lift-off half when Monroe picked up his second foul, and while both proved fine as defensive subs, neither were much help towards the cause on offense.



      HD BOX SCORE
      
      Georgetown vs Providence College
      2/9/10 7:03 p.m. at Providence, R.I. - Dunkin' Donuts Center
      Final score: Georgetown 79, Providence College 70
      
      Georgetown              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
      Vaughn, Julian         28:26  +10  19/63  9-13  0- 0  1- 2 13/37  2/16  1/49  2/47  2/27  1/16  1/33   3
      Monroe, Greg           31:40  +19  12/72  4- 6  0- 0  4- 5  6/47 12/23  0/56  4/57  1/26  1/24  6/37   2
      Wright, Chris          38:53  +12  21/79  6- 8  1- 4  6- 8 12/56  3/23  2/66  2/65  0/33  2/29  2/45   3
      Freeman, Austin        37:01  + 9  17/76  6-10  1- 2  2- 2 12/55  2/22  1/64  1/65  0/32  0/28  2/40   4
      Clark, Jason           30:55  - 2   6/60  1- 5  1- 4  1- 2  9/47  1/19  0/55  1/54  1/30  1/29  4/37   4
      Thompson, Hollis       21:56  + 4   4/34  1- 4  0- 1  2- 2  5/30  0/12  0/38  0/36  0/10  1/18  3/24   4
      Benimon, Jerrelle      06:13  - 5   0/ 4  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 9  0/ 2  0/ 9  1/ 8  0/ 6  1/ 6  0/ 7   2
      Sims, Henry            04:56  - 2   0/ 7  0- 1  0- 0  0- 0  1/ 9  0/ 3  0/ 8  0/ 8  0/ 6  0/ 5  1/ 7   2
      TOTALS                 40:00       79    27-47  3-11 16-21    58 20/30  4/69 11/68  4/34  9/29 22/44  24
      .                                        0.574 0.273 0.762       0.667 0.058 0.162 0.118 0.310 0.500    
      
      Providence College      Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
      BROOKS, Marshon        23:41  + 2  18/53  2- 3  2- 7  8- 8 10/39  0/12  0/42  3/43  0/29  0/26  2/22   5
      PETERSON, Jamine       32:41  -13  23/60  5-12  3- 8  4- 9 20/53  1/11  0/58  3/57  3/40  5/40  2/24   2
      DIXON, Bilal           34:48  - 9   6/57  2- 7  0- 0  2- 4  7/49  3/14  0/58  2/57  2/43  8/38  8/28   4
      CURRY, Sharaud         33:37  + 0  12/60  3- 5  1- 7  3- 4 12/53  1/14  2/55  2/58  0/39  1/40  1/26   2
      MCKENZIE, Brian        28:02  - 6   6/47  1- 1  1- 3  1- 2  4/42  1/12  2/48  1/45  0/31  2/33  4/23   2
      MONDY, Duke            10:51  - 7   0/16  0- 1  0- 0  0- 0  1/19  1/ 6  1/19  0/20  0/11  0/14  0/ 6   2
      WRIGHT, Kyle           02:27  + 5   0/ 5  0- 0  0- 1  0- 0  1/ 2  1/ 1  0/ 3  0/ 4  0/ 2  0/ 1  0/ 3   0
      COUNCIL, Vincent       24:59  -17   3/40  0- 3  0- 1  3- 6  4/35  2/11  1/44  1/46  0/31  0/28  1/16   1
      PERMENTER, Russ        07:32  - 3   0/ 9  0- 1  0- 0  0- 0  1/12  0/ 3  1/12  1/13  1/ 8  2/10  1/ 6   2
      HALL, Ray              01:22  + 3   2/ 3  1- 1  0- 0  0- 0  1/ 1  0/ 0  0/ 1  0/ 2  0/ 1  0/ 0  0/ 1   1
      TOTALS                 40:00       70    14-34  7-27 21-33    61 10/21  7/68 14/69  6/47 22/44 20/29  21
      .                                        0.412 0.259 0.636       0.476 0.103 0.203 0.128 0.500 0.690    
      
      Efficiency: Georgetown 1.162, Providence College 1.014
      eFG%: Georgetown 0.543, Providence College 0.402
      Substitutions: Georgetown 25, Providence College 43
      
      2-pt Shot Selection:
      Dunks: Georgetown 2-2, Providence College 0-0
      Layups/Tips: Georgetown 18-28, Providence College 13-21
      Jumpers: Georgetown 7-17, Providence College 1-13
      
      Fast break pts (% FG pts): Georgetown 10 (15.9), Providence College 2 (4.1)
      Pts (eff.) after steal: Georgetown 7 (175.0), Providence College 7 (100.0)
      Seconds per poss: Georgetown 16.0, Providence College 18.8


       


      -------------

      There's been some chatter about a play in the 2nd half where the Hoyas got their passing on. I've uploaded it here for your viewing pleasure. All five Hoyas touched the ball in rapid succession to set up a layup.




      Stats pages will be updated tomorrow.

      Monday, February 8, 2010

      Home vs. road splits so far

      Georgetown takes on Providence tomorrow in a game that I don't think many Hoya fans are expecting to be a close game.  Right now, Pomeroy shows Georgetown to be only a 6 point favorite on the road (the Hoyas were about a 10 point favorite against South Florida last Wednesday).  A win tomorrow will go a long way towards solidifying Georgetown's top-4 status in the Big East.

      Tangentially, there was an interesting comment that I noticed on HoyaTalk today about Hollis Thompson, that I suspect was tossed out a bit off the cuff (h/t MCIGuy):
      I agree he hasn't exactly arrived. He can shoot. And he is a very good passer, a willing rebounder and a pretty impressive defender. But when he starts driving to the hoop and taking advantage of his speed and athleticism then we can say he has arrived.

      Oh, and playing good on the road for once would be a heck of a start.

      My first thought was, "Where the heck does he get that idea?"  Then I realized that he probably got that idea right here - I do post home/road splits for all players. So I went to take a look:
      H.Thompson - Home / Road Splits
      
      Venue             G    % Min   % Poss   % Shot    ORat    TS%
      Home             13     48.7    12.4     11.9    128.0   1.38       
      Road/Neutral      9     49.7    12.1     12.6     72.0   0.61

      Wow, that's quite a difference in offensive efficiency.

      So now I felt that I had to dig in a bit more in home / road splits for the Hoyas, both as a team and for individual players.  To refine things a bit, I'm going to filter out all games against teams ranked worse than 100 by KenPom.com; this removes seven games from the dataset:  @ Tulane, @ Savannah St., vs. Lafayette, vs. Mt. St. Mary's, vs. American, @ DePaul, vs. Rutgers.

      Here are the team splits:
      .               Georgetown           Opponent
                    Home    Road/N      Home    Road/N
      Record         7-2      3-3
      Pace          69.2     69.1
      
      Eff.         107.2     99.4       98.9     99.9
      Eff. Margin    8.3     -0.5
      
      eFG %         57.0     50.0       47.3     47.8
      TO %          23.0     22.4       19.9     19.6
      OR %          29.4     29.4       35.1     30.7
      FTA/FGA       46.5     40.3       31.8     33.6
      
      2FG %         57.6     47.3       48.3     46.7
      3FG %         37.1     37.5       30.1     33.3
      FT %          71.1     73.4       69.0     75.7

      I've highlighted the important differences between home and road games.  A few of these surprised me.
      • Game pace is essentially the same for the home vs. away games, so a comparison of stats not adjusted for pace would be fine.
      • The substantial difference between home and road games is from the offense (+7.8 Off. Eff.) rather than the defense (-1.0 Def. Eff).
      • The only significant difference in the underlying four factors for offense is shooting accuracy (+7.0 eFG%); TO rate is very similar (and actually better away from Verizon), OR % is exactly the same and the difference in FT rate is probably buoyed a bit by the winning record at home (teams behind tend to foul more).
        • The driver for the difference in shooting is 2FG%, not 3FG% which is what I expected.  Very strange.
      • The only significant difference for the four factors on defense is rebounding - the Hoyas are giving up a few extra chances at home than on the road.  But it looks like the small differences in the other factors effectively cancel this out.  Also, opponents seem to shoot FTs worse at Verizon than on their own courts.


      Next, let's take a look at some player split stats:

      Home games
      
      Player Name         G  % Min % Poss % Shot  ORat  TS%   TO%    2FG    %     3FG    %
      Freeman, Austin     9   92.5  21.9   25.7  117.6  1.39  20.6  47/71 0.662  17/37 0.459
      Wright, Chris       9   89.2  21.8   25.4  116.1  1.20  14.9  43/69 0.623  10/34 0.294
      Monroe, Greg        9   89.2  25.5   24.0  103.5  1.10  19.7  47/87 0.540   2/10 0.200
      Clark, Jason        9   78.9  14.3   16.2  110.0  1.37  25.6  10/17 0.588  19/41 0.463
      Vaughn, Julian      9   62.5  19.8   17.6   99.6  1.11  24.6  28/48 0.583   0/ 2 0.000
      Thompson, Hollis    9   45.8  13.3   11.1  107.2  1.11  23.8   5/12 0.417   4/11 0.364
      Benimon, Jerrelle   8   27.5  11.5    4.8   73.1  1.02  45.8   1/ 4 0.250   0/ 2 0.000
      
      
      Road/neutral games
      
      Player Name         G  % Min % Poss % Shot  ORat  TS%   TO%    2FG    %     3FG    %
      Freeman, Austin     6   85.8  23.3   26.0  117.3  1.30  18.1  19/43 0.442  16/28 0.571
      Wright, Chris       6   85.8  20.6   19.4  100.2  1.06  21.8  18/34 0.529   4/19 0.211
      Monroe, Greg        6   88.3  26.0   26.3   95.8  1.05  18.9  35/70 0.500   1/ 4 0.250
      Clark, Jason        6   90.8  15.5   18.0  106.9  1.13  17.2   8/23 0.348  13/29 0.448
      Vaughn, Julian      6   58.8  20.9   20.9   95.2  1.09  25.6  20/36 0.556   0/ 3 0.000
      Thompson, Hollis    6   51.7  12.4   12.2   59.8  0.53  26.5   3/10 0.300   1/10 0.100
      Benimon, Jerrelle   6   25.0  11.7    8.8   72.8  1.07  41.4   2/ 5 0.400   1/ 2 0.500


      Now there's a lot more numbers here to process, but here are some of the salient points I take away:
      • The drop-off from home to road games is much worse for Thompson than any other Hoya:
      .             Change
      Player         ORat
      Freeman       - 0.3
      Wright        -15.9
      Monroe        - 7.8
      Clark         - 3.1
      Vaughn        - 1.3
      Thompson      -47.4
      Benimon       - 0.3
        Why is he struggling so much more? Well, he just doesn't take a lot of shots compared to his teammates, and he's not had much luck with outside shooting on the road. He also doesn't get the FT line on the road (not shown) [11/14 FT at home, 2/3 FT on the road].  So, while his stats don't look very good, one hot shooting night on the road would help a lot to get him back in line with his teammates.
      • The big drop if 2FG% accuracy from home to road games isn't being driven by the bigs (Monroe/Vaughn) missing their layups.  Instead, it's coming from the guards, especially Freeman and Clark.
      • On the other hand, Clark and especially Freeman don't seem to suffer shooting from deep on the road.  If you haven't realized this yet, Chris Wright is just not a good outside shooter against quality teams.
      • Wright is doing a great job controlling the ball at home; his road turnover rate is actually acceptable for a primary ball-handler.  Jerrelle Benimon turns the ball over a whole bunch.  Henry Sims (not shown) is actually worse.


      Well, that's all for tonight. Let's see if Georgetown's road offense can get a bump playing against Providence, one of the most generous defenses in the conference.

      Saturday, February 6, 2010

      Recap: Georgetown 103, Villanova 90

      Will the real Georgetown basketball team please stand up?

      In a game that Jay Wright and the Villanova Wildcats uglied up as much as possible - in order to get deep into the virtually non-existent Hoyas bench - the good guys prevailed in the end by making enough free throws.

      While the story of the game for most fans will be the lights out shooting by Jason Clark and Austin Freeman in the Lift-Off half [a combined 6/7 3FG], in fact it was the defense forcing 14 turnovers in 38 possessions that was the real difference-maker.  All those turnovers effectively shut down the Big East's best offense for 20 minutes, and allowed Georgetown to build a 19-point lead that they were able to ride to victory.

      Let's run the numbers:

      TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
       
      .            Home                            Visitor   
      .            Georgetown                      Villanova         
      .            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
      Pace            40        45        85
       
      Effic.        123.6     117.7     120.6        76.7     131.0     105.3  
       
      eFG%           70.4      61.9      66.7        48.1      56.0      52.9  
      TO%            24.7      22.2      23.4        39.6       4.4      21.1  
      OR%            25.0      25.0      25.0        30.8      34.8      33.3  
      FTA/FGA        48.1     176.2(!)  104.2        22.2      40.5      33.3  
      
      Assist Rate    86.7      66.7      77.8        33.3      35.0      34.4  
      Block Rate     10.5      22.7      17.1        21.4      20.0      20.7  
      Steal Rate     12.4       0.0       5.9        12.4       8.9      10.5  
       
      2FG%           50.0      66.7      58.6        52.6      59.1      56.1  
      3FG%           61.5      33.3      52.6        25.0      35.0      32.1  
      FT%            92.3      73.0      78.0        83.3      70.6      73.9

      The tempo-free box shows 85 possessions in the game, but it was actually 83. The statistical trick used to estimate pace started to struggle due to the disproportionate number of loose-ball fouls in this game.

      The Hoyas may have put up 103 points against Villanova, but two facts make this number less impressive than it appeared to the partisans at the Verizon Center cheering on those last 3 points.
      As alluded to at the top, the real story was the defense in the 1st half limiting Villanova scoring opportunities.  However, creating turnovers normally has not been JTIII's m.o. for his defenses; rather, his teams try to hold down good shooting opportunites (eFG%).  The Hoyas had steals on only 5 of the Wildcats' 14 turnovers in the half, which is quite a low percentage.  It turns out that Georgetown was able to draw 6 offensive fouls in the half (by my count; can that be right?), which don't show up as steals but still are directly attributable to the defensive effort.  (I should probably add an offensive fouls counter to the stats program, but that will have to wait until the post-season.)

      The Hoyas shot better from outside than inside in the 1st half [7/14 2FG, 8/13 3FG], but they came out with a different strategy in the 2nd half:  get the ball inside.  G'town took only 6 attempts from behind the arc in the Vesper half (making 2), while shooting 6/9 on dunks, layups and tip-ins (and 4/6 on 2-pt jumpers).

      Of course, the real story of the interminable 2nd half was the procession to the layup line as Villanova tried to extend the game while hoisting 20(!) 3FGAs.  To me, the star at the FT line was Greg Monroe, who sank 7/9 in the last six minutes of the game.  Hopefully that performance will help to get Monroe out of his season-long second-half FT-shooting funk.


      INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS
      
      Georgetown            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
      Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
      Wright, Chris          55   13.7  110.1    8.3      53    91.5    9.7      +0.0  
      Monroe, Greg           72   27.1  107.4   20.9      69   104.9   14.5      +3.5  
      Freeman, Austin        82   18.7  140.6   21.6      81   105.7   17.1      +4.9  
      Clark, Jason           72   16.8  107.7   13.0      71   105.3   15.0      -0.8  
      Vaughn, Julian         49   24.8  127.8   15.5      49   107.2   10.5      +3.8  
      Thompson, Hollis       55   22.2  103.4   12.6      54   107.4   11.6      +0.3  
      Sanford, Vee            1    0.0    -      0.0       1   300.0    0.6      -0.6  
      Benimon, Jerrelle      33   10.5  119.0    4.1      31   112.4    7.0      -1.3  
      Sims, Henry             1    0.0    -      0.0       1   300.0    0.6      -0.6  
      TOTALS                 84         116.8   96.1      82   105.5   86.5      +9.4
      
      Villanova             Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
      Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
      PENA, Antonio          24   28.8   99.7    6.9      24   121.9    5.8      -0.2  
      REYNOLDS, Scottie      64   39.5   96.6   24.4      64   119.4   15.3      +1.7  
      FISHER, Corey          63   23.5  145.9   21.6      64   111.3   14.3      +6.2  
      REDDING, Reggie        35    7.2  127.0    3.2      37   120.7    8.9      -2.8  
      STOKES, Corey          44   19.7  104.1    9.0      41   100.3    8.2      +0.6  
      WAYNS, Maalik          35   21.7  107.4    8.2      34   105.4    7.2      +0.6  
      YAROU, Mouphtaou       29    8.7  127.3    3.2      32    95.5    6.1      -1.0  
      CHEEK, Dominic         33   19.7   76.7    5.0      37   118.2    8.7      -3.2  
      SUTTON, Maurice        13    6.2  233.3    1.9      13   159.9    4.2      -0.8  
      KING, Taylor           26   17.4   94.8    4.3      26   133.7    7.0      -2.2  
      ARMWOOD, Isaiah        44    8.5   41.9    1.6      48   125.0   12.0      -6.8  
      TOTALS                 82         106.4   89.2      84   116.3   97.7      -8.4

      Stars of the game were obviously Monroe and Freeman, but my stats program didn't love Jason Clark today.  Why not?  It turns out that all eight of Clark's made FGs today were assisted, which, when combined with his goofy eFG% today [=100%], gives some screwy results in the stats workup.  But it should also be pointed out that Clark had 5 TOs to only 2 assists, which also hurt his net points total.

      I, and probably every other Hoya observer, have made a big deal about the fact that the Hoyas struggle when Chris Wright doesn't score 10 points.  He didn't again today while playing only 27 minutes, but Georgetown still prevailed.  But take a look at his line - the Hoyas were a much better defensive team while he was on the court.  Was that coincidence (he forced only 1 turnover)?  I'm not sure.  I do wonder if his absence lead to some of Clark's turnovers (by forcing Jason to become a primary ball-handler).

      Julian Vaughn and Hollis Thompson were both solid today.  Vaughn's 7/7 FT shooting will get the headlines, but it should be noted that he was the only Hoya to gather an offensive rebound (all others were team rebounds).  And Thompson's five defensive rebounds were second on the team.  Jerrelle Benimon did the dirty work and made enough FTs, but did anyone else notice his behind-the-back dribble to advance the ball in the last few seconds of the game (when Villanova was still fouling down 11 with 5 seconds left)?  Nice.


      HD BOX SCORE
      
      Villanova vs Georgetown
      02/06/10 12:00 at Verizon Center
      Final score: Georgetown 103, Villanova 90
      
      Villanova               Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
      PENA, Antonio          11:28  + 0   7/28  3- 4  0- 0  1- 2  4/17  0/ 9  0/24  2/24  0/ 7  2/ 5  1/ 6   5
      REYNOLDS, Scottie      31:26  - 5  24/72  3- 8  3- 9  9-11 17/50  6/19  1/64  6/64  0/22  0/25  1/18   1
      FISHER, Corey          32:10  -11  24/63  7-10  1- 3  7- 8 13/52  2/15  1/64  1/63  0/25  1/27  2/21   3
      REDDING, Reggie        16:48  -14   2/35  1- 2  0- 0  0- 0  2/23  2/12  1/37  1/35  0/12  0/10  3/11   3
      STOKES, Corey          20:36  + 5  10/50  2- 3  2- 6  0- 0  9/39  0/14  1/41  1/44  0/13  1/21  2/15   4
      WAYNS, Maalik          15:55  + 5   9/45  3- 6  1- 4  0- 0 10/35  0/11  1/34  1/35  0/ 8  1/20  0/11   4
      YAROU, Mouphtaou       15:40  + 6   2/39  1- 2  0- 0  0- 0  2/25  1/12  1/32  0/29  1/13  1/13  2/ 8   4
      CHEEK, Dominic         15:05  -17   6/31  3- 3  0- 2  0- 0  5/27  0/ 8  2/37  2/33  0/14  0/14  1/ 9   2
      SUTTON, Maurice        06:30  -10   0/14  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/14  0/ 5  1/13  0/13  2/ 6  2/ 9  0/ 4   2
      KING, Taylor           13:52  - 4   6/31  0- 1  2- 3  0- 0  4/25  0/ 8  0/26  2/26  1/12  1/14  0/ 9   5
      ARMWOOD, Isaiah        20:30  -20   0/42  0- 2  0- 1  0- 2  3/38  0/15  0/48  0/44  2/13  2/22  3/13   4
      TOTALS                 40:00       90    23-41  9-28 17-23    69 11/32  9/84 16/82  6/29 12/36 18/24  37
      .                                        0.561 0.321 0.739       0.344 0.107 0.195 0.207 0.333 0.750    
      
      Georgetown              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
      Wright, Chris          27:41  +15   7/69  1- 2  1- 4  2- 2  6/36  3/19  1/53  1/55  0/27  0/16  3/17   5
      Monroe, Greg           33:14  + 7  19/83  4- 8  0- 1 11-14  9/42  6/17  1/69  6/72  2/35  0/25  8/31   2
      Freeman, Austin        39:28  +12  25/99  6- 7  2- 5  7-10 12/48  3/19  1/81  1/82  0/41  0/25  1/35   2
      Clark, Jason           34:40  + 9  24/88  2- 4  6- 7  2- 3 11/41  2/15  2/71  5/72  1/35  0/22  3/29   3
      Vaughn, Julian         22:56  +10  13/60  3- 5  0- 0  7- 7  5/29  3/11  0/49  4/49  2/22  3/17  0/17   2
      Thompson, Hollis       26:07  + 9  12/72  1- 2  1- 2  7-10  4/28  3/16  0/54  3/55  0/26  0/14  5/28   4
      Sanford, Vee           00:15  - 1   0/ 2  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 1  0/ 1  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 1   0
      Benimon, Jerrelle      15:24  + 5   3/40  0- 1  0- 0  3- 4  1/16  1/11  0/31  1/33  2/19  0/ 6  1/21   2
      Sims, Henry            00:15  - 1   0/ 2  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 1  0/ 1  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 1   0
      TOTALS                 40:00       103   17-29 10-19 39-50    48 21/27  5/82 21/84  7/41  6/24 24/36  20
      .                                        0.586 0.526 0.780       0.778 0.061 0.250 0.171 0.250 0.667
      
      Efficiency: Georgetown 1.226, Villanova 1.098
      eFG%: Georgetown 0.667, Villanova 0.529
      Substitutions: Georgetown 23, Villanova 82
      
      2-pt Shot Selection:
      Dunks: Georgetown 4-4, Villanova 3-3
      Layups/Tips: Georgetown 9-14, Villanova 13-24
      Jumpers: Georgetown 4-11, Villanova 7-14
      
      Fast break pts (% FG pts): Georgetown 11 (17.2), Villanova 10 (13.7)
      Pts (eff.) after steal: Georgetown 8 (160.0), Villanova 16 (177.8)
      Seconds per poss: Georgetown 15.4, Villanova 13.4



      ---------

      Stats pages will be updated tomorrow.