Recap: Syracuse 58, Georgetown 51

Picture from here.

Georgetown lost to the Syracuse Orange today at the Verizon Center, 58-51.

This wasn't a bad loss, in the sense that the Hoyas were playing without their point guard - Chris Wright - and anyone betting with their brains rather than their heart should have jumped at the point Georgetown was giving for the game.  Georgetown fans may not want to hear it, but Syracuse is a good team in spite of their losing 6 times during an 8 game stretch, and losing to them without probably the best-playing Hoya over the past few weeks shouldn't be a shock.

No, the bad loss was last game, when Georgetown hosted the Cincinnati Bearcats as 6-point favorites and instead played easily their worst game of the season.

As for the game itself, the Hoyas ran into the same problem today as in the Cincinnati game, namely poor shooting, as well as an old nemesis, turnovers.  In the Lift-off half today, Georgetown missed a bunch of outside shots [2/12 3FG], and but for the inside work of Henry Sims [3/3 2FG] would have been behind by more than the ten-point difference at the break, 33-23.  The Orange had managed a 9-2 TO margin going into the locker room, and had scored more than a quarter of their points on the fast break.

The Hoyas did dig deep and make a run in the Vesper half, thanks especially to Austin Freeman and Jason Clark, and even after losing a 2-point lead in the middle of the half held the ball down 3 points with 30 seconds to go.  But Kris Joseph blocked a Jason Clark attempt to tie, and the rest was academic.

Scoop Jardine was clearly the best player on the court today, and I'd say that without his outstanding play at both ends, the Hoyas just might have pulled it out.

No time for me to write an expanded recap, hopefully Alan can bail me out.


Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Home                            Visitor   
.            Georgetown                      Syracuse         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            31        29        59
 
Points          23        28        51          33        25        58   

Effic.         74.3      98.1      85.7       106.6      87.6      97.5  
 
eFG%           38.5      47.9      43.0        50.0      40.9      46.3  
TO%            29.1      24.5      26.9         6.5      24.5      15.1  
OR%            33.3      43.8      38.2        25.0      26.7      25.7  
FTA/FGA        15.4      33.3      24.0        12.5      40.9      24.1  

Assist Rate    55.6      55.6      55.6        64.3      37.5      54.5  
Block Rate     10.5      26.7      17.6        28.6       9.1      20.0  
Steal Rate      3.2       7.0       5.0        16.1      14.0      15.1  
 
2FG%           50.0      36.4      44.0        52.6      40.0      47.1  
3FG%           16.7      38.5      28.0        30.8      28.6      30.0  
FT%            75.0      62.5      66.7        25.0      77.8      61.5

Recap: Cincinnati 58, Georgetown 46

Not even Lorry Michel can make it better.  Picture from here.

The Georgetown Hoyas came out tonight and looked like they'd never seen a 2-3 zone defense in their lives.  The result was a sad, sad offensive performance in a humbling 12 point loss to the Cincinnati Bearcats, 58-46.

Georgetown trailed for a significant portion of the Lift-Off half, falling behind as much as 19-8 at the midpoint, but capped an 8 possession 18-5 run with an Austin Freeman tip-in to take a 26-24 lead with 90 seconds left in the half.  Over the next 15 possessions spanning halftime, the Hoyas managed to score only 3 points while allowing 19 to the Bearcats; Cincinnati led 43-29, and the game was effectively over.

The Hoyas came into the game 9-1 in their last 10 games, and walked off the floor with the very real possibility of ending the season on a three game slide.  The last two games for Georgetown are hosting the Syracuse Orange - the quintessential 2-3 defenders - and then out to Cincinnati for a rematch with their masters of tonight.

In addition to losing tonight's game, Georgetown also lost their best player over the past 5 games, Chris Wright, with an apparent left wrist injury.  Wright tried to play after the injury in a combination of grit and foolishness, as it was obvious as soon as he walked back on the court that he couldn't use his left hand at all.  With the matchup against the Orange only 3 1/2 days away, it is unclear if Wright will be able to play on Saturday.

Edited to add:  Tarik El-Bashir reports a broken hand for Wright.  Worst news possible.


Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Home                            Visitor   
.            Georgetown                      Cincinnati         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            28        30        58
 
Points          26        20        46          26        32        58   

Effic.         94.0      67.0      79.5        94.0     107.2     100.2  
 
eFG%           38.0      21.7      30.2        44.8      54.8      49.0  
TO%            21.7      23.4      22.5        28.9      20.1      24.2  
OR%            41.2      28.6      34.2        46.7      28.6      37.9  
FTA/FGA        32.0      52.2      41.7         0.0      61.9      26.0  

Assist Rate    62.5      75.0      66.7        54.5      40.0      47.6  
Block Rate      9.5       6.7       8.3        25.0      15.4      20.0  
Steal Rate     10.8       6.7       8.6        18.1      13.4      15.6  
 
2FG%           41.7      15.4      28.0        33.3      46.7      38.9  
3FG%           23.1      20.0      21.7        50.0      50.0      50.0  
FT%            87.5      83.3      85.0          -       69.2      69.2

Recap: Georgetown 61, USF 55

With Austin Freeman struggling for the third game in a row and for the fourth time in five outings, Chris Wright and the rest of the Georgetown Hoyas did enough to make ensure the victory last night over the South Florida Bulls, 61-55.


Sickness refuses to release its steely grip from the HP crew, so another brief recap is all you'll get.





Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Visitor                         Home      
.            Georgetown                      USF         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            26        26        52

Points          28        33        61          26        29        55   

Effic.        107.1     125.7     116.4        99.4     110.4     105.0  
 
eFG%           60.0      56.5      58.1        31.8      50.0      39.8  
TO%            22.9      15.2      19.1        11.5      19.0      15.3  
OR%            20.0      45.5      33.3        50.0      38.5      45.9  
FTA/FGA        20.0      34.8      27.9        18.2      11.5      15.3  
 
Assist Rate    80.0      58.3      68.2        60.0      53.8      56.5  
Block Rate     12.5      13.0      12.8         7.7       5.9       6.7  
Steal Rate      3.8      11.4       7.6         7.6       3.8       5.7  
 
2FG%           46.2      58.8      53.3        37.5      56.5      46.8  
3FG%           57.1      33.3      46.2        11.1       0.0       8.3  
FT%           100.0      87.5      91.7        83.3     100.0      88.9

The stat that most Hoya fans will probably take away from last night's game is the 17-7 offensive rebounding margin that the Bulls enjoyed.  There are a couple of problems with this stat that have nothing to do with Georgetown's rebounding effort:

• Last night's game is just another data point towards the great "rebounding margin is dead" revolution.  Sure, USF gathered ten more offensive rebounds than the Hoyas, but they also missed a ton more shots.  The Bulls grabbed those 17 off. rebounds on 37 available misses [46%].  It was bad, but the Hoyas have allowed worse this season, at Rutgers.
• The Bulls made their bones on offensive rebounds in the first half, gathering 12 in the Lift-off half.  But they were only able to convert those 12 second chances into 9 points.  The gaudy rebounding stats just weren't a big help to them; their care with the ball [3 TOs on 28 possessions] was the bigger problem for the Hoyas.

Now this isn't to say that the Hoyas defensive rebounding isn't troubling - USF did convert their 5 OREB into 8 points in the second half, which means they earned a point for every off. rebound overall in the game.

Georgetown's defense overall was lousy in the game, and this was a carry-over from the UConn game.  If the defense is indeed reverting to its mid-season form, the Hoyas are in trouble, especially with Freeman looking so hesitant with his vanished outside shooting touch.

The Cincinnati Bearcats arrive at the Verizon Center on Wednesday playing for their NCAA lives, having just pulled off two convincing wins in their last two games.  Without an improved defense and the return of their offensive leader, the Hoyas will have a big test ahead of them.

Recap: UConn 78, Georgetown 70

There are no healthy bodies at HP right now, so you'll have to live with a stats dump for last night's game.

That was Austin Freeman's second poor outing in three games (also at Syracuse).  Georgetown will have a hard time winning these types of games until he's right again.

But in the end, once again it was the poor defense that was the big driver in last night's loss.  Kemba Walker seemed able to drive the lane at will in the second half, and when multiple help defenders did collapse, he was usually able to find Jamal Coombs-McDaniel for an easy shot attempt.


Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Visitor                         Home      
.            Georgetown                      UConn         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            32        33        65

Points          37        33        70          36        42        78   

Effic.        115.5      99.5     107.4       112.4     126.7     119.6  
 
eFG%           52.9      45.2      49.2        56.9      58.3      57.6  
TO%            12.5      12.1      12.3        15.6       6.0      10.7  
OR%            35.3      30.0      32.4        26.7      29.4      28.1  
FTA/FGA         5.9      25.8      15.4        13.8      40.0      27.1  
 
Assist Rate    56.2      41.7      50.0        60.0      47.1      53.1  
Block Rate      5.0       8.0       6.7        21.7       9.5      15.9  
Steal Rate      9.4       0.0       4.6         6.2      12.1       9.2  
 
2FG%           52.2      38.1      45.5        60.0      64.0      62.2  
3FG%           36.4      40.0      38.1        33.3      20.0      28.6  
FT%            50.0      62.5      60.0        75.0      58.3      62.5

INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS

Georgetown            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
Vaughn, Julian         52   22.0   89.4   10.2      51   113.2   11.5      -2.0  
Lubick, Nate           46   12.9  137.3    8.2      46   118.9   10.9      -0.8  
Wright, Chris          59   25.2  103.8   15.5      59   109.5   12.9      +0.8  
Freeman, Austin        57   28.1   77.2   12.4      56   103.3   11.6      -1.7  
Clark, Jason           46   15.4  125.3    8.9      48   113.4   10.9      -0.6  
Thompson, Hollis       40   12.6  150.6    7.6      41   124.9   10.2      -0.7  
Starks, Markel          6    0.0    -      0.0       5   110.0    1.1      -1.1  
Sanford, Vee            1    0.0    -      0.0       3   133.3    0.8      -0.8  
Sims, Henry            13   34.2   48.9    2.2      14   118.9    3.3      -2.1  
Benimon, Jerrelle       5    0.0    -      0.0       7    71.4    1.0      -1.0  
TOTALS                 65         100.0   64.8      66   112.6   74.3      -8.9  

UConn                 Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
SMITH, Roscoe          34    5.0   84.4    1.4      36   113.1    8.1      -3.6  
ORIAKHI, Alex          53   13.1  141.6    9.8      54    99.9   10.8      +1.0  
OKWANDU, Charles        9    5.6  200.0    1.0       8   130.7    2.1      -0.4  
LAMB, Jeremy           50   20.6   63.2    6.5      48   102.0    9.8      -3.6  
WALKER, Kemba          66   39.9  129.8   34.2      65    98.2   12.8     +14.9  
BEVERLY, Donnell       29    6.4   94.5    1.7      28    94.1    5.3      -1.8  
COOMBS-MCDANIEL, J     64   17.6  149.4   16.8      62   100.4   12.4      +5.0  
GIFFEY, Niels           8   12.5    0.0    0.0       8   124.1    2.0      -1.6  
OLANDER, Tyler          9   11.1  200.0    2.0       7   173.0    2.4      -0.1  
NAPIER, Shabazz         8   15.3   45.5    0.6       9    91.8    1.7      -0.8  
TOTALS                 66         119.3   74.1      65   103.6   67.4      +8.5

Introducing a new stats page

I've been both sick and out in the field for the past week, so things have been more quiet than normal around here.  Most stats pages are updated - the rest will have to wait until the weekend.


Meanwhile, I've been sitting on a new stats page that has been gestating for the past couple of weeks - it's certainly not in a finished state (I've only been able to incorporate a couple of suggestions), but I figured I'd just get it out there with minimal explanation, and come back and clean it up when I get the chance.

The new page is currently called "Big East Snapshot" and can be found on the tabs at the top of the page.  It is a re-packaging of Ken Pomeroy's adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency statistics, so if margin-of-victory statistics are not of much interest to you, you should probably stop reading right here.


The purpose of the page is two-fold:

• Give my reader an idea of how well each Big East team has played within conference so far this season, both over the entire conference season and over the last five games (the "snapshot").
• Provide something of a new-and-improved version of the performance charts that I generate for Georgetown after each game, but now for all Big East teams.

This is a follow up on a previous post here, where I criticized John Gasaway for using unadjusted efficiency stats for his Tuesday Truths columns.  It occurred to me that it wouldn't be hard to generate the adjusted stats myself, and from that flowed the conference snapshot.

The idea is simply to correct each game's margin-of-victory statistics for both the quality of the opponent and the game venue. For instance, in Georgetown's last game, the Hoyas beat Marquette 69-60 in a 68 possession game.  This translates into offensive and defensive efficiencies of 102 and 89, respectively, for the Hoyas (or 89 and 102 for Marquette).

But if I account for who the Hoyas were playing and that it was a home game, we get adjusted efficiencies of 111 and 86 for Georgetown and 109 and 90 for Marquette.

That is to say, if Georgetown would have played equally as well, but on a neutral court and against the average Div-I opponent (right now St. Peter's), we'd expect the Hoyas to end with efficiencies of 111 and 86 for the game; if it were a 68-possession game, that'd be a final score of 75-58.  For Marquette, if they played equally as well as last Sunday, they would also beat St. Peter's, but with a final score of 74-61 in a 68-possession game.

The biggest difference between this analysis and the "Performance" stats is that here, I'm now giving equal credit to both teams for each game's result.  For instance, in the shellacking that Seton Hall put on Syracuse, I'm giving equal credit to the Pirates for playing out of their minds and the Orange for mailing in the game.


That's it in a nutshell, and I'm working this through for all games played by all Big East teams. The main caveat here is that Ken also employs a weighting factor for more recent games, which I'm currently not doing.  I think this is a very small effect (well under 1%), so the stats I'll be posting are very close to what Ken would have.

There are also couple of technical reasons why I'm unveiling this page, which you won't likely be much interesting in.  Suffice it to say that the underlying statistics for the new page are generated in a more automated fashion, so it takes only a few keystrokes to update the tables, and a few more to update the charts shown after the tables.



That's about all the time I've got right now, so I'll just go ahead and hit the publish button for now.  I'll try to come back and add another post discussing why I think the new page is kind of interesting.

Recap: Georgetown 69, Marquette 60

Georgetown used a strong defensive second half to pull away from the Golden Eagles of Marquette today at the Verizon Center, 69-60.

Over the past five games, Georgetown has established that their defensive effort will decide the outcome of their games more than anything else.  And in the Lift-off half today, the Hoyas defense was lacking - unable to turn over Marquette and struggling with interior defense.  For the half, the Warriors shot 8/11 on dunks, layups and tip-ins out of 28 total field goal attempts.  That's means about 40% of their shots were from right at the basket (I'll come back to this).

The Gold also grabbed 6 offensive rebounds which were converted into 10 points.  Now to be clear, Marquette wasn't dominating the offensive glass [OReb% = 35%] - it just seemed that way because the Hoyas weren't getting many second chances of their own [3/16 = 19%].

Things changed after halftime:

• Georgetown started turning Marquette over [TO Rate = 24%]
• The Hoyas dominated their defensive glass - the Eagles gathered only 2 offensive boards on 18 available misses.
• Most importantly, Georgetown denied inside shots.  Marquette had only 5 attempts as dunks, layups or tip-ins [shooting 4/5] out of 22 field goal attempts in the second half.  That works out to 23% of all shot attempts from close range.

Now that Marquette was forced to make jump shots, they were in trouble.  Here's the Golden Warriors' jump shooting stats by half:

Half     2FG Js    3FG Js
1st       4/14      1/3
2nd       2/8       1/9
Total     6/22      2/12

Their shooting woes also appeared at the FT line, as the normally adept Golden Eagle Warriors made only 10/17 [59%], thanks mainly to Jae Crowder's 0/4 effort.

Meanwhile, the Hoyas shook off consecutive lousy FT shooting games against Providence and Syracuse [56% and 54%] by making theirs today, including their last eleven attempts.

With today's win, the Hoyas have now won 8 straight Big East games.  Up next is another tough road test, against the UConn Huskies in Hartford.


Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Home                            Visitor   
.            Georgetown                      Marquette         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            30        37        68
 
Points          31        38        69          35        25        60   

Effic.        101.8     102.7     102.2       114.9      67.6      88.9  
 
eFG%           50.0      48.2      49.1        48.2      34.1      42.0  
TO%            16.4      16.2      16.3         9.8      24.3      17.8  
OR%            18.8      17.6      18.2        35.3      11.1      22.9  
FTA/FGA        23.1      42.9      33.3        35.7      77.3      54.0  

Assist Rate    63.6      58.3      60.9        15.4      42.9      25.0  
Block Rate      4.0       7.7       5.3        16.7      20.0      18.5  
Steal Rate      3.3      10.8       7.4         6.6       8.1       7.4  
 
2FG%           58.3      60.0      59.3        48.0      46.2      47.4  
3FG%           28.6      23.1      25.9        33.3      11.1      16.7  
FT%            83.3      91.7      88.9        80.0      58.8      66.7

Recap: Georgetown 64, Syracuse 56

Picture from here.

The Georgetown Hoyas learned a lot about themselves tonight up in the Carrier Dome: if they keep working hard, someday they'll be as good as Seton Hall.

The Hoyas played solid second-half defense and rode the hard work of Julian Vaughn and Hollis Thompson to an eight-point win in Syracuse, 64-56. This was the first win for Coach John Thompson III in Syracuse, and Georgetown's first since 2002.

I'm sick as a dog right now, so you're getting an exceptionally brief recap tonight.  Try the usual suspects (link, link, link, link) for someone who can muster a bit more energy.


Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Visitor                         Home      
.            Georgetown                      Syracuse         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            28        31        59

Points          29        35        64          31        25        56   

Effic.        102.3     114.7     108.8       109.4      81.9      95.2  
 
eFG%           51.9      55.8      53.8        48.1      38.6      43.8  
TO%            21.2      22.9      22.1        21.2      26.2      23.8  
OR%            35.3      57.1      45.2        43.8      26.7      35.5  
FTA/FGA        11.1      38.5      24.5        26.9      50.0      37.5  
 
Assist Rate    81.8      84.6      83.3        63.6      62.5      63.2  
Block Rate      0.0      13.3       6.2        33.3      35.3      34.4  
Steal Rate      7.1       6.6       6.8        10.6      13.1      11.9  
 
2FG%           33.3      58.8      46.9        47.1      46.7      46.9  
3FG%           50.0      33.3      42.9        33.3      14.3      25.0  
FT%            33.3      60.0      53.8        85.7      72.7      77.8  

Sometimes when I watch a game, I need to double check the rankings to make sure that the teams I'm watching are really that good.  That's usually the case when the game is being dominated by the defenses, and that's what happened in the second half tonight, until Georgetown found its groove late against the 2-3 zone by getting the ball to the FT line and looking opposite.

The Orange, meanwhile, suddenly abandoned their best strategy - pounding the ball inside - and started settling for outside shots.  When they finally found Rick Jackson on the left block with two minutes left, and promptly watched Chris Wright smack his shot out of bounds, they had gone from a 4 point lead with 6 minutes to go to trailing by 6.

And with that the game was over.


This was an important win for Georgetown, not just for the usual significance of beating Syracuse, but because the Hoyas did it defensively, by forcing turnovers and getting the Orange to settle for jumpshots.  This is the fourth game in the last five that Georgetown's defensive performance has been a big positive [+5 points (or better) than expected], and may indicate that last Saturday's ugly win over Providence may indeed have been an aberration.

The Hoyas will have another opportunity to make believers out of the skeptics when Marquette and their conference leading offense (yeah, they've got a better offense than Pittsburgh) arrive at the Verizon Center on Sunday.

Tuesday Truthiness

It's normally about this time of year that I make my annual blog post criticizing John Gasaway and his Tuesday Truths column (see here in 2009, and here in 2010).  And thanks to some recent articles posted at VBTN (link) and the HSAC (link), I reckoned it was time I get off my lazy duff and get to it.

But first, some background.

If you don't live in your mother's basement, you may not be aware that there is a very smart gentleman named John Gasaway.  Mr Gasaway himself lives in a basement, but it is the basement of the sports think tank called Basketball Prospectus.  From this secure location, he produces a series of articles called Tuesday Truths, which seek to bring knowledge to the ignorant masses.

To quote extensively from the master:

Over the next eight to nine weeks these 126 teams will play over a thousand possessions each. Half of those possessions will take place at home, and half of them will occur on the road. All of that basketball will be played against opponents that by conference affiliation have been designated as nominal equals in terms of programmatic resources. (Though, granted, a league like the A-10 certainly exhibits some notable diversity in terms of member heft.) And, not least, all of that basketball will take place in increasingly close temporal proximity to the NCAA tournament.

In other words, with all due allowance for injuries and funky scoring distributions, I look at these thousand-odd possessions very closely. And in leagues featuring true round-robin scheduling (Missouri Valley, Mountain West, Pac-10, and WCC, among others), per-possession performance in conference play tells me exactly how surprised I should be in mid-March when the league’s best team in tempo-free terms loses in first round of the NCAA tournament.

This per-possession performance is often termed efficiency difference [Off. PPP - Def. PPP] or net efficiency [Off. Eff. - Def. Eff.], and I'll use the terms interchangeably; the nuance is that eff. difference is just net efficiency divided by 100.  Also, to be clear, per-possession performance is not the same as my own Performance stat, which I continue to champion, albeit alone.


But all is not well between myself and Mr. Gasaway.

Recap: Georgetown 83, Providence 81

AP photo

Georgetown reminded their fans today of that famous proverb, "Live by the three, die by the three," with an apathetic second-half effort at the Verizon Center during an excruciating 2-point win over the Marshon Brookses.

The Hoyas put together 20 minutes of quality basketball in building a 12-point halftime lead, with deadly outside shooting [8/15 3FG] and surprising care with the basketball [3 TO on 33 possessions]. After relaxing in the locker room during intermission, the Hoyas came back out assuming the game was over. They forgot to get the Providence Friars to sign off on the plan.

With their shooting touch from behind the arc betraying them in the second half [0/11 3FG] and their bigs struggling mightily at the FT line [Vaughn & Lubick: 3/11], the Georgetown coaching staff was apparently out of ideas. And the habit of giving great defensive effort only in the first half over the last five games nearly was the team's undoing, as the Friars seemed able to score at will as they reduced a 14-point deficit to only 2 during an eleven possession stretch mid-way through the Vesper half.

What we saw in the second half today was the Hoyas reverting into the team that lost four straight games early in the conference schedule, just in time for their road trip up to the Carrier Dome. Should be fun.


Let's run the numbers:

.            Home                            Visitor   
.            Georgetown                      Providence College         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            33        39        72
 
Points          46        37        83          34        47        81   

Effic.        140.8      94.6     115.9       104.1     120.2     113.1  
 
eFG%           63.6      40.6      52.3        41.9      48.8      45.8  
TO%             9.2      15.3      12.6        12.2       7.7       9.8  
OR%            37.5      44.0      41.5        47.6      34.8      40.9  
FTA/FGA        18.2      65.6      41.5        51.6      25.0      36.6  

Assist Rate    64.7      38.5      53.3        25.0      52.9      41.4  
Block Rate      8.7      11.1      10.0         0.0       4.8       2.6  
Steal Rate      9.2       5.1       7.0         6.1       2.6       4.2  
 
2FG%           50.0      61.9      56.4        43.5      44.4      44.0  
3FG%           53.3       0.0      30.8        25.0      38.5      33.3  
FT%            66.7      52.4      55.6        50.0      80.0      61.5