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.

Midseason MVP and Review

It's mid-season, or at least mid-conference season, and so now's as good a time as any to take a look at the year to date.

Especially since it is more fun to do so when we're coming off a beat down of Duke. The casually funny folks at Casual Hoya threw down the gauntlet and so it's high noon for the affections of the Hoya fan base as we tackle the most important questions of this era (this era being this week), blog against blog.

(In other words, they'll have a post on this, too.)

So, without further ado, we'll take the rational look at...


Who is the Hoyas' MVP so far?

I don't really like MVP discussions. Before you even get to the intended discussion, you need to decide what "Most Valuable" means. For some, it is "best player on the best team" or "most fun to watch" or "X-factor" or "veteran who taught his team how to win."

For me, it's either one of two things, depending on the situation: the player who, if you removed them from their team, the team who would suffer the most and lose more games; or, the player who, if you removed them from any (or the average) team, the team who would suffer the most and lose more games.

The game is about winning and losing. So the player that changes that the most is the MVP. In our case, if we looked at the Hoyas, the answer to the first definition is clearly Greg Monroe. It isn't close. If Chris Wright or Austin Freeman were to leave the team, the team would be worse but would slide Hollis right into the three and still have a strong guard rotation.

If Monroe left, Vaughn and his 26 minutes would be the front-court star. Henry Sims and Jerelle Benimon would be getting 50+ combined minutes a game or we'd be playing really small.

Since I'm not in favor of easy answers here, we'll go with the second definition. Ignoring the fact that the Hoyas' bench is weak and especially thin up front, what player contributes most to wins and losses?

With all apologies to Spare Change, there's really only three options. And at first I thought it was just two. But while the offense doesn't seem to collapse when he isn't out there, Austin Freeman is having just too good a season to leave him out of this discussion.

Offensive Stats (Only versus KenPom Top 100 Teams)

Player    Usage  ORating  Shot%  TS%  ARate
Austin     23%     116     26%   66%   17%
Chris      22%     112     24%   60%   26%
Greg       25%     100     25%   53%   17%

There's no doubt that Chris and Greg play a more central role to the offense in terms of ball movement and flow. It's just observational and not particularly quantifiable this year. It's not quantifiable because, from the Washington game through the Rutgers game, Chris Wright had been out of the game for 30 non-garbage time offensive possessions, Austin Freeman 60 and Greg Monroe 12. That's right. 12. Not exactly a stunning sample size.

So we're just going to have to trust our eyes that Greg and Chris are more vital to the team running.

Here's the thing: Austin seems to be the most vital element of the offense running really good.

He's taking more shots than anyone on the floor in our tougher games. And he's our most efficient player. Those offensive numbers are Roy Hibbert as a senior or Jeff Green as a junior-style numbers.

If you haven't watched the team recently, Austin's a guard. And he's posting low-post style efficiency and shooting numbers.

Austin's not thought of as much of a creator -- and he's not Chris in that respect -- but in our tougher games he's assisting on the same percent of teammate's FGs as Greg. For a guy who really hasn't been an assist man for much of his career, that element of his game seems to be blossoming.

Chris also has an impressive resume, with less shooting and more passing than Austin. Add in observational items and the fact that we can't win when he's off (though that's more of an X-factor thing than an MVP) and offensively, he's got to be right there with Austin. Still, a lot of Chris' value comes on the break, and while his speed is a skill, I think some of that benefit should go to the players with the steals (which is often Chris, to be fair).

Numbers-wise, Greg doesn't measure up quite as well offensively. His inability to finish strong down low and his mediocre free throw stroke makes him less efficient than Chris and Austin, both of whom have been great at finishing in the lane, outside the arc and from the line.

That should be mitigated by how the team seems to perform without him in the lineup (not well) and by the fact that opposing coaches definitely seem to game plan for Greg. He's the only player on the team that sees double teams, for example. Still, I'd leave the offensive edge to the guards.

Defensive Stats (or where Greg comes storming back)

Player     DReb%  Stl/Blk%  DRating
Austin      10%     2%/1%     100
Chris        7%     3%/2%      98
Greg        24%     3%/5%      88

The stats are somewhat redundant because Brian's Def. Rating is partially based on the first three stats, but it just demonstrates the split here. I have a certain defensive bias to big men, but when your big is a very strong defensive rebounder, generates more steals than either of your guards and also blocks shots, well, I have to give Monroe the edge.

Chris is a stronger defensive player than Austin, but the gap is really between Greg and the guards.

One last pair of stats:

Conference Play Only

.           Net +/-          Net Points
Player     per 40 min       per 100 poss
Austin        +7                 +7
Chris        +20                 +5 
Greg         +11                 +7

So, umm, do I need to come up with a conclusion here? Really? I don't trust +/-/40 enough to make that a tie-breaker, frankly, and everything else boils down to a really, really lame cop out.

This Big 3 is really a Big 3. There's no clear cut MVP. You could pick any and I'd be okay with it.

So I'm going to have to go all subjective on you. Each has their own "intangible" -- Greg is the player you game plan for and the center of the defense; Austin is the efficient killer who may have saved the season with his incredible second half against Connecticut.

Wright has created our fast break out of nothing; he is a one man press break; and he can most often be seen directing traffic on offense and defense.

He's also my mid-season MVP.

Season Preview: Chris Wright

Chris Wright plays like a traditional point guard. He can penetrate and distribute the ball. Sure, he’s more inclined to shoot than what a pure point guard would be, by some people's definition. But his handle, quickness and passing ability place him as a point.

Chris Wright also plays for a team that previously didn’t need a traditional point guard. Jon Wallace led the team on and off the court for four years, and his game was much more suited to that of a pure long distance shooter. Georgetown won letting other players - actually, the whole team - create.

Has the offense adjusted to Chris Wright’s strengths, or is he being pigeon-holed into Jon Wallace’s role? Is the offense restricting what he can do? Is he restricting what the offense can do?

How can we measure the adaptability of the offense? And whether that role is holding back Wright or vice versa? Several key statistics might give us an indication:

1. How does Wright’s split between 2pt and 3pt attempts differ from Wallace’s? Wallace was a shooter and Wright is a penetrator, so they ideally would have significantly different splits unless the system was forcing one of them to be something they weren’t. This can help us measure the adaptability of the offense.
2. How does that same split compare with other Big East point guards? By focusing on those players who shoot similarly to Wright (strong 2pt, weaker 3pt %), it may become apparent as to whether other systems tailor themselves better than the Hoyas'.
3. How much does Wright control the ball in comparison to Wallace? Again, this should help measure whether the system adapts. By all accounts, Wright should dominate the ball more.
4. How much does Wright control the ball in comparison to other Big East points? Again, this should give a measure of how important the point guard is relative to other offenses in the Big East.
5. How does Wright’s 2pt FG %, attempts, FT Rate and assist rate compare to other points in systems that play in a faster paced?
6. Does Georgetown's offense generate more turnovers? Is that a bad thing for Chris Wright?

1. How does Wright’s split between 2pt and 3pt attempts differ from Wallace’s? Is the offense keeping Wright from driving?

Wright’s best attribute from a statistical standpoint is his ability to hit shots inside the arc. In conference, he hit 54% of his 2-pt FGAs and got to the line consistently. His biggest weakness was three point shooting, as he made just 31% of his attempts.

Wallace is a sharp contrast to that, making 40% of his threes in conference play and 49% of his twos. The latter is not a poor number, but given his number of attempts and his three point accuracy, it should have been his second option.

Over his career, Jon Wallace attempted 55% of his shots (including free throws in the equation – the % of FGs is higher) from three in Big East play. Last year, Chris Wright attempted only 29%. One may argue that that is still too many threes, but clearly the offense is not dictating that Wright take the same shots as the previous point guard. Even Jessie Sapp, a guard with a little more drive than shoot to his game, attempted 47% of his shots from three as a senior.

2. How does that same split compare with other BE points?

Looking across the starting point guards from every Big East team (and a few backups) last season, six players stand out as comparable to Wright in terms of his 2pt and 3pt shooting percentages. They are Edgar Sosa, Kemba Walker, Dominic James, Deonta Vaughn, Anthony Farmer and Eugene Harvey.

Of the seven point guards listed above (here including Wright), three of them have a shot selection problem of sorts: Deonta Vaughn, Edgar Sosa and to a lesser extent Dominic James. Despite not shooting particularly well from deep, Sosa and Vaughn shot around 50% percent of their shots from three and James nearly 40%.

In contrast, Eugene Harvey and Kemba Walker seemed to understand their weakness, shooting around 15% of their shots from three and going to the rack much more often. Anthony Farmer shot just under 20% of his attempts from behind the arc.

Wright falls in the middle with his 29%. You could argue he could shoot from three even less, but Wright did shoot well over 40% as a freshman (albeit in limited time). It simply doesn’t seem as if the system is forcing him to take the wrong kind of shot. If it is, then other systems (Cincy, Louisville and Marquette) seem to have a bigger problem.

3. How much does Wright control the ball in comparison to Wallace?

I came up with a junk stat for this, adding possession usage (which is dominated by shot attempts and turnovers) and assist rate. For example, a player with a 20% possession usage who also assisted on 22% of his teammates' FGs would post a 42 in this stat.

Wallace doesn’t break a 36 in conference play in any year that he played. Wright clocked in at 44 last year. While I did not check every player’s past Big East stats, Wright’s 44 is the highest of the Thompson era for a guard, with only Jessie Sapp’s junior (and best) year more or less matching it.

So, yes, Wright does control the ball more. But not to an overwhelming amount, and Greg Monroe actually led the team last year in this stat.

4. How much does Wright control the ball in comparison to other Big East points?

Using the same method as above, there are five Big East point guards who clearly dominated the ball more than Wright did.

Levance Fields and Johnny Flynn controlled the ball for their teams more than any other players, and for good reason. They were far and away the most dominant PGs in the conference.

Three others were significantly higher than Wright: Deonta Vaughn, Eugene Harvey and A.J. Price. Vaughn was a gunner on a team with no scoring help and Price is a sixth year senior whose talent level is near to Fields. That said, Eugene Harvey is not as talented an offensive player as Wright (in my opinion) yet he played a more central role in Seton Hall’s offense.

After that comes Wright and whole slew of point guards who were similarly involved in their offenses. Bringing up the rear was a motley crew of freshmen (Kemba Walker, Truck Bryant), pseudo-point guards (Wil Walker) and players that just aren’t very good (Malik Boothe, Anthony Farmer).

Wright did not dominate the offense like Fields or Flynn. He was used as much as a typical Big East point guard, and it may be argued that he is more talented than some of them. Then again, if he was underused by the system, so was Sharaud Curry or Corey Fisher or Truck Bryant. None of those guys are in the same offense, so while I wouldn’t rule it out, there’s certainly no specific evidence here supporting the base contention that Georgetown's offense is holding back Wright.

5. How does Wright’s 2pt FG %, attempts, FT Rate and assist rate compare to other points in systems that play in a faster paced?

The four top-paced teams in the Big East last year were Providence, Syracuse, Villanova and Seton Hall. While Flynn is a bit of an outlier, Harvey and Curry were somewhat similar to Wright, and Corey Fisher is not only statistically similar, but he’s also a sophomore McDonald’s All-American-level talent who came into his own last year.

Did getting up and down help these point guards, Fisher included?

Looking at these players, there is a common thread. They tended to outperform Wright at the free throw line – either by shooting accuracy or attempts or both; by garnering a higher assist percentage; and by turning the ball over less. It wasn’t universal, but it was true of three of the four.

I quickly ran correlations between pace and the above stats plus 2 pt FG % and my junk stat for point guard usage. Nothing came back as overly significant (and the sample size certainly was nothing to get excited about), but the two that came back with any useful correlation at all were FT Rate at 0.36 and TO Rate at -0.30. Assist Rate and PG usage came back as noise – at least in this sample, the teams that ran didn’t necessarily have their PGs more involved.

It’s not surprising that FT Rate came back most significantly correlated with pace: there’s a large number of fouls called on fast breaks. I would expect that for a guard, it is much more common to draw a foul on a fast break than on drive against an opponent already established. It seems Wright – who is already fairly adept at drawing fouls in an offense that is not designed to do so – would likely benefit from fast-breaking in that matter.

Of course, he would likely benefit as much from making more of his fouls shots – Fisher’s 76% from the line is the lowest of the foursome, while Wright shot 72% in conference.

6. Does the offense generate more turnovers? Does this mean it is a bad fit for Chris Wright?

It is a central tenet of Mike D’Antoni’s Seven Seconds or Less (SSOL) offense that shooting quicker means fewer turnovers. It makes sense – less ball handling means less time to make mistakes. Of course, it makes even more sense when you have Steve Nash doing the handling for five of those seven seconds.

By the same theory, Georgetown’s offense, which tends to take a bit longer in generating a good shot, should have higher turnovers on average. The offense trades more opportunities for turnovers for higher percentage shots.

The facts seem to support this notion, as the Hoyas’ offense has ranked 247th, 192nd, 213th, 35th, and 203rd in unadjusted turnover %. The 35th was Ashanti Cook and D.J. Owens’ senior year and proves that it is not impossible for the team to function at a high level of ball handling. However, turning the ball over has been a bigger and more consistent fault than everyone’s favorite whipping boy, rebounding.

This should actually mean that Wright is a better fit, based on his ball handling. Wright had a 22% turnover rate in conference play, which is not strong. But that’s still a number that Wallace only beats in his senior year, and not by much. In other words, Wright should help the Hoyas more than he would be hurt. In fact the only way he would be hurt by this is if for some reason his decision-making and handle are better in the open court than half-court.

Going Forward

There’s no doubt the offense has adjusted to some extent for Chris Wright. He’s using possessions and garnering assists at a faster rate than any JTIII-era Hoya guard before him, and he’s played just one and a half seasons.

There’s also no doubt that Wright is getting his opportunities more or less at the same pace as the rest of the league’s point guards. Should he be getting more? He certainly seems to have more natural talent than some of the point guards he is bunched with. On the other hand, the Big East guards who played a more central role in their teams’ offenses were either clearly superior performers or on teams that had less talent and needed their scoring and playmaking more.

The answer seems to be in tweaks rather than wholesale readjustments. DaJuan Summers used 25% of possessions and shots while he was on the floor last year, and posted an Offensive Rating below Wright’s while creating for others less than half as much. In other words, Wright, along with Freeman and Monroe, should be grabbing those shots and possessions. And yes, Wright should probably take it to the hoop a bit more.

But the biggest difference for Wright this year should be in skill development, not a change in role within the system or even a change to the system itself. Simply by improving his stroke from outside and at the line and reducing his turnovers, Wright can realize his potential to become All-Big East.

Recap: Georgetown 76, Florida Int'l 38

Edited: A special thanks to Georgetown's S.I.D. Mex Carey, who came through with a corrected game file today. All numbers are now updated and final for the game. Merry Christmas Mex!

You see, this is what happens when I say something nice about the play-by-play guy (or gal) - there's no p-b-p posted for the 2nd half of tonight's game.

I've e-mailed for help, but probably won't hear back until tomorrow at earliest, so I'll improvise as I go here. Needless to say, all numbers are subject to change if GUHoyas.com corrects their error.

As for the game, Georgetown jumped out to a 23-4 lead with 10:31 left in the 1st half, and the game was effectively over. Much like the Savannah St. game, the second half (and the latter stages of the first) was used more as a scrimmage than a competitive game.

Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE

.            Home                            Visitor
.            GU                              FIU
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            33        27        60

Effic.        130.0     115.6     123.4        48.4      77.1      61.7

eFG%           73.9      36.4      55.6        28.0      47.8      37.5
TO%            24.2      10.5      17.9        33.2      28.0      30.9
OR%            33.3      41.2      37.9        28.6      15.4      23.5
FT Rate        52.2     100.0      75.6        24.0       0.0      12.5

Assist Rate    76.9     100.0      84.2        50.0      66.7      60.0
Block Rate     12.5      10.0      11.5         0.0       0.0       0.0
Steal Rate     24.2      21.0      22.7        18.1       3.5      11.4

2FG%           55.6      20.0      36.8        25.0      50.0      34.6
3FG%           57.1      33.3      46.2        22.2      30.8      27.3
FT%            75.0      77.3      76.5        33.3       -        33.3  

The pace of the 1st half was typical of this year's run-and-gun (kidding) Hoyas, while the 2nd half was played at a pace more familiar to earlier JTIII teams. In fact, the 2nd half was the slowest half so far this season.

On offense in the first half, Georgetown had average rebounding and turnover rates, but showed what happens when this team gets hot from 3FG - A. Freeman made all three of his attempts as he (hopefully) broke out of his season-long shooting slump from deep, and the Hoyas shot 8/14 3FGA total for the half.

Meanwhile, G'town held a team under 20 points in the 1st half for the third time this season, thanks to a ton of forced turnovers (note the high steal rate all game) and poor 2FG shooting by the Panthers - FIU shot 2/13 on 2-pt jumpers in the half.

The second half featured much more time for Georgetown's bench players, and, while the Hoyas were able to extend the lead, the game wasn't quite so lopsided. G'town struggled from in close (2/10 2FGA), but controlled the glass at both ends.

INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS

GU                    Off    Poss           Individ     Def             Individ            
Player                Poss   Used    ORtg   Pts Prod    Poss    DRtg   Pts Allow   Net Pts
Summers, DaJuan        34     7.2   160.8    11.5        31     59.9      3.7       +7.8
Wright, Chris          43    10.3   146.1    15.0        44     71.2      6.3       +8.8
Monroe, Greg           39     9.5   123.6    11.7        38     35.2      2.7       +9.0
Freeman, Austin        32     4.4   217.6     9.6        31     68.4      4.2       +5.3
Wattad, Omar           31     4.2   111.5     4.7        29     56.2      3.3       +1.4
Mescheriakov, Nikita   12     3.8    72.0     2.8        13     55.7      1.4       +1.3
Jansen, Bryon           4     1.0   200.0     2.0         4    112.5      0.9       +1.1
Clark, Jason           28     4.9    92.9     4.6        28     55.9      3.1       +1.4
Sapp, Jessie           31     6.0   103.7     6.2        31     55.0      3.4       +2.8
Vaughn, Julian         23     4.0    30.9     1.2        23     69.2      3.2       -1.9
Sims, Henry            37     5.7    72.1     4.1        37     48.9      3.6       +0.5
TOTALS                 62    61.0   120.4    73.4        61     58.8     35.8      +37.6   


FIU                   Off    Poss           Individ     Def             Individ            
Player                Poss   Used    ORtg   Pts Prod    Poss    DRtg   Pts Allow   Net Pts
Asprilla, Freddy       39    12.1    77.0     9.3        40    138.4     11.1       -1.8
Essola, Cedric         34     4.9    78.6     3.8        35    120.9      8.5       -4.6
Taylor, Nick           58     6.1    36.8     2.2        59    114.9     13.6      -11.3
Bright, Marlon         55    12.7    37.0     4.7        58    107.5     12.5       -7.8
Dominguez, Michael     56    17.6    74.4    13.1        57    112.4     12.8       +0.3
Fuller, Harley         36     4.5    30.3     1.4        36     88.2      6.3       -5.0
Karosas, Jonas         26     2.0     0.0     0.0        24    124.2      6.0       -6.0
Cano, Michael           1     0.0     -       0.0         1    200.0      0.4       -0.4
TOTALS                 61    60.0    57.7    34.6        62    113.2     71.1      -36.5    

The net points stats are being derived from the box score rather than the play-by-play, so they are less certain (or useful) than normal. I won't make too many observations here, since I trust these numbers less - and because it's getting late and I want to get to bed.

J. Sapp wasn't in the starting line-up tonight!! I don't know if we're getting the true story as to why, but JTIII did comment about it after the game:

We put Omar in charge of the second team and everyday, particularly this week, the huge disparity that had been there is getting smaller, which is better. He has managed that team, so it was more about Omar than it was Jessie. Jessie knows what to do more than anybody, he knows what his coach wants more than anyone, so he knows what we want to do.

Looking at the numbers, Sapp played well in his limited time (31 possessions), so he didn't seem to let it affect his game. I'd be shocked if Sapp is not back in the starting lineup against UConn on Monday.

Edited:
Final numbers mean a change for Player of the Game. Our new POTG is . . . Greg Monroe. How did Greg do it? He had a better offensive 2nd half (1/1 2FG, 4/4 FT, 2 OReb) after struggling a bit in the 1st (0/1 3FG, 4/6 FT, 1 OReb, 2 TO), but his defense was ridiculous all game, with 5(!) steals, 1 block and 3 defensive rebounds. So, while he played 38 defensive possessions for the game, he is credited with only 2.7 points allowed, which enabled him to nose out C. Wright (see next).

The Player of the Game had been Chris Wright (sorry Chris!), who was efficient in modestly high usage (% Poss = 24.0, 2/3 2FG, 2/2 3FG, 4/4 FT, 7 A, 1 OR), with only 1 demerit for committing 4 TOs on the night. What I found interesting is that Wright accrued almost all of those stats in the 1st half, and had only 2 FTs and 3 assists (no TOs) in 12 minutes played in the Vesper half, indicating that he chose to let his teammates use up possessions once the game was in hand. I think that speaks very highly of Mr. Wright.

Everyone else had a positive game except J. Vaughn, who was penalized for making only 1/4 FTs. While this may have sparked V. Macklin flashbacks, I doubt his FT shooting will be as serious a problem.

Also, kudos to FIU's M. Dominguez, who managed net positive points despite being on a team that was blown out by 38 points - making 6/14 3FGs will do that.

HD BOX SCORE

FIU vs GU
12/23/08 7:30 at Verizon Center
Final score: GU 76, FIU 38

FIU                     Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
Asprilla, Freddy       26:07  -32   9/26  4- 8  0- 0  1- 4  8/28  1/ 7  0/40  3/39  0/11  2/19  4/16   5
Essola, Cedric         24:24  -29   4/19  2- 5  0- 0  0- 0  5/28  1/ 6  1/35  1/34  0/13  1/21  2/18   4
Taylor, Nick           37:32  -36   2/38  1- 3  0- 4  0- 0  7/46  1/14  2/59  0/58  0/17  0/33  2/27   3
Bright, Marlon         37:01  -38   3/35  1- 7  0- 2  1- 2  9/43  2/13  4/58  5/55  0/18  2/31  3/25   3
Dominguez, Michael     36:28  -29  20/36  1- 1  6-14  0- 0 15/44  0/ 7  0/57  7/56  0/18  1/31  3/28   4
Fuller, Harley         23:04  -12   0/19  0- 1  0- 2  0- 0  3/27  3/ 7  0/36  1/36  0/11  0/21  2/23   2
Karosas, Jonas         14:39  -12   0/17  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/19  0/ 6  0/24  2/26  0/ 6  0/14  1/ 8   2
Cano, Michael          00:45  - 2   0/ 0  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 1  0/ 1  0/ 1  0/ 0  0/ 0   0
TOTALS                 40:00       38     9-25  6-22  2- 6    47  8/15  7/62 19/61  0/19  8/33 18/29  23
.                                        0.360 0.273 0.333       0.533 0.111 0.311 0.000 0.242 0.621    

GU                      Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
Summers, DaJuan        23:44  +22  13/43  3- 3  1- 2  4- 4  5/27  2/ 9  2/31  1/34  0/17  2/16  3/15   2
Wright, Chris          28:05  +38  14/67  2- 3  2- 2  4- 4  5/34  7/14  1/44  4/43  0/20  1/16  1/23   0
Monroe, Greg           24:17  +35  10/57  1- 1  0- 1  8-10  2/30  0/14  5/38  2/39  1/18  3/17  3/20   0
Freeman, Austin        21:48  +21  17/43  1- 3  5- 6  0- 0  9/25  1/ 7  1/31  0/32  0/17  0/14  2/18   1
Wattad, Omar           20:55  +26   4/42  0- 1  1- 5  1- 2  6/25  2/11  0/29  0/31  0/13  0/14  3/16   1
Mescheriakov, Nikita   07:36  + 6   3/14  0- 1  0- 1  3- 4  2/ 7  0/ 2  1/13  0/12  0/ 1  0/ 5  0/ 5   0
Jansen, Bryon          02:12  - 3   2/ 3  0- 0  0- 0  2- 2  0/ 2  0/ 0  0/ 4  0/ 4  0/ 0  0/ 2  1/ 2   1
Clark, Jason           17:55  +11   5/27  0- 2  1- 2  2- 2  4/18  0/ 4  1/28  1/28  0/ 8  1/14  2/16   0
Sapp, Jessie           18:52  +12   4/31  0- 1  1- 5  1- 2  6/22  3/ 6  2/31  1/31  0/13  2/18  1/19   1
Vaughn, Julian         15:43  + 3   1/19  0- 1  0- 0  1- 4  1/15  1/ 4  0/23  1/23  0/ 7  0/12  4/14   3
Sims, Henry            21:05  +16   3/37  0- 3  1- 2  0- 0  5/22  0/ 5  1/37  1/37  2/11  2/19  5/24   1
TOTALS                 40:26       76     7-19 12-26 26-34    45 16/19 14/61 11/62  3/25 11/29 25/33  10
.                                        0.368 0.462 0.765       0.842 0.230 0.175 0.120 0.379 0.758

Efficiency: GU 1.210, FIU 0.623
eFG%: GU 0.556, FIU 0.383
Substitutions: GU 22, FIU 23

2-pt Shot Selection:
Dunks: GU 2-2, FIU 0-0
Layups/Tips: GU 3-8, FIU 6-10
Jumpers: GU 2-9, FIU 3-15

Fast break pts: GU 6 (0.120), FIU 2 (0.056)
Seconds per off. poss: GU 17.7, FIU 21.4

Recap: Georgetown 69, Mount St. Mary's 58

It was a rather desultory effort today, but Chris Wright and . . . er . . . Chris Wright played a strong game in leading the Georgetown Hoyas to a 69-58 victory against local rival (?) Mount. St. Mary's. I didn't get a chance to watch or listen to the game, so this recap is done exclusively from the box score / play-by-play.

Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Home                            Visitor   
.            GU                              Mount St. Mary's 
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            31        32        64

Effic.        104.1     109.8     106.8        75.7     103.7      89.8

eFG%           41.7      47.5      44.0        36.7      48.3      42.5
TO%             9.5      18.3      13.9        18.9      21.4      20.1
OR%            40.9      31.2      36.8        27.3      50.0      37.5
FT Rate        46.7     120.0      76.0        13.3      30.0      21.7

Assist Rate    72.7      25.0      52.6        50.0      61.5      56.5
Block Rate      4.3      10.0       7.0        14.3      16.7      15.2
Steal Rate      9.5      15.3      12.4         3.2      12.2       7.7

2FG%           38.1      41.7      39.4        34.8      50.0      41.9
3FG%           33.3      37.5      35.3        28.6      30.0      29.4
FT%            57.1      70.8      65.8        50.0      55.6      53.8

First, a kudos to whoever entered the play-by-play for today's game - no errors (at least none detected by my compiler), which makes working up the numbers a pleasure.

The tempo-free box make it look like a relatively one-sided 1st half, but it actually was a fairly even game excluding the last 3:30, when, with the scored tied at 24, the Hoyas went on a 9-0 run to pull decisively ahead. The Mountaineers got no closer than 5 points in the 2nd half, but never trailed by more than 13 points.

Georgetown took excellent care of the basketball in the 1st half, with just three turnovers in 31 offensive possessions. However, the Hoyas settled for 2-pt jumpers too often, making only 2/8 (not surprising) out of 30 total FGA in the half.

From the realm of non-shocking developments, Georgetown allowed far too many offensive rebounds in the 2nd half (Mt. St. Mary's was able to gather half of their own misses), which likely was the determining factor in allowing the Mountaineers to hang around. Since Mt. St. Mary's is a pedestrian rebounding team, I think this has officially become one of the Hoyas' Achilles' heels (as noted by Basketball Prospectus).

The 2nd half eventually degenerated into a FT shooting contest (G'town shot more FTs than FGs in the half), but is also notable for the Hoyas shooting 0/2 on dunks (D. Summers and A. Freeman).

INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS

GU                    Off    Poss           Individ     Def             Individ             
Player                Poss   Used    ORtg   Pts Prod    Poss    DRtg   Pts Allow   Net Pts
Summers, DaJuan        56    13.6    90.6    12.3        54    105.1     11.4       +0.9
Wright, Chris          59    16.6   109.1    18.1        57     61.6      7.0      +11.1
Monroe, Greg           39     7.9    95.9     7.6        39     89.0      6.9       +0.7
Freeman, Austin        48     7.3   117.0     8.5        47     97.0      9.1       -0.6
Sapp, Jessie           43     6.9   110.6     7.6        43     82.2      7.1       +0.5
Mescheriakov, Nikita    5     1.0     0.0     0.0         5      0.0      0.0       +0.0
Clark, Jason           23     3.2   137.9     4.4        23     86.7      4.0       +0.5
Vaughn, Julian         21     3.7    93.4     3.4        21     94.3      4.0       -0.5
Sims, Henry             6     0.0     -       0.0         7    200.0      2.8       -2.8
Wattad, Omar           20     1.5   217.3     3.3        19     51.9      2.0       +1.3
TOTALS                 64    61.7   105.9    65.3        63     86.1     54.2      +11.1    

Mount St. Mary's      Off    Poss           Individ     Def             Individ             
Player                Poss   Used    ORtg   Pts Prod    Poss    DRtg   Pts Allow   Net Pts
Cajou, Jean            53     6.8   102.3     7.0        53     96.9     10.3       -3.3
Goode, Jeremy          51    15.8    65.7    10.4        49    105.0     10.3       +0.1
Beidler, Kelly         55    15.7    93.6    14.7        57    101.3     11.5       +3.1
Atupem, Sam            51    13.5    95.8    12.9        51    119.2     12.2       +0.8
Mitchell, Markus       45     4.3   137.2     5.9        45     81.4      7.3       -1.4
Brown, Pierre          12     1.0     0.0     0.0        13     67.4      1.8       -1.8
Atupem, Shawn          26     3.6   118.0     4.3        27     96.8      5.2       -0.9
Holland, Will          11     0.5   200.0     1.0        11    116.0      2.6       -1.6
Trice, Lamar            8     1.7    82.4     1.4        10    122.8      2.5       -1.1
Jackson, Tayvon         3     0.0     -       0.0         4    100.0      0.8       -0.8
TOTALS                 63    62.9    91.4    57.5        64    100.6     64.4       -6.9    

The 11-point margin of victory is also the net points attributed to Chris Wright (player of the game) in the game, so we can statistically say that he truly was the difference today. Mr. Wright was not particularly efficient today, but he did use 28% of the possessions he played in producing his points, while his defense was markedly stronger than his fellow starters.

Summers and Freeman were the next best starters in producing points, although they did it in different manners (missed dunks withstanding). Summers used a large percentage (24%) of available possessions to inefficiently generate offense (2/7 2FGA, 2/5 3FGA, 3/8 FTA (!), 2 TOs), while Freeman shot much better (2/5 2FGA, 1/2 3FGA, 3/4 FTA) but did so by using only 15% of possessions. Both struggled a bit on defense, as well.

G. Monroe and J. Sapp had games similar to Summers and Freeman, respectively, although their defensive effort was stronger.

J. Clark, J. Vaughn and O. Wattad appear to be settling into the 6-8 spots in the rotation, and Clark and Wattad had nice games in limited playing time. I'm penalizing Vaughn for shooting a 3FGA.

HD BOX SCORE

Mount St. Mary's vs GU
12/20/08 1:00 at Verizon Center
Final score: GU 69, Mount St. Mary's 58

Mount St. Mary's        Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
Cajou, Jean            32:56  - 6  10/50  2- 3  2- 7  0- 0 10/49  1/15  1/53  0/53  0/25  0/33  2/28   5
Goode, Jeremy          32:15  - 4   8/52  2- 9  0- 2  4- 7 11/51  4/18  1/49  2/51  0/26  3/34  4/26   0
Beidler, Kelly         34:36  -11  16/52  3- 8  3- 7  1- 2 15/52  3/15  1/57  4/55  0/30  3/34  5/34   4
Atupem, Sam            30:46  -18  12/43  6-12  0- 0  0- 0 12/46  0/11  0/51  4/51  2/25  5/31  3/26   1
Mitchell, Markus       28:39  - 2   5/40  2- 2  0- 0  1- 2  2/44  2/14  2/45  1/45  2/26  4/32  5/31   3
Brown, Pierre          07:13  - 8   0/ 2  0- 1  0- 0  0- 0  1/ 7  0/ 1  0/13  0/12  0/ 6  0/ 7  2/10   1
Atupem, Shawn          17:57  + 0   5/29  2- 5  0- 0  1- 1  5/22  1/ 9  0/27  1/26  1/13  0/13  2/18   5
Holland, Will          08:01  - 1   2/12  1- 1  0- 1  0- 1  2/13  0/ 4  0/11  0/11  0/ 6  0/ 9  1/ 7   1
Trice, Lamar           05:21  - 5   0/ 6  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 4  2/ 3  0/10  1/ 8  0/ 6  0/ 2  0/ 9   2
Jackson, Tayvon        02:16  + 0   0/ 4  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 2  0/ 2  0/ 4  0/ 3  0/ 2  0/ 0  0/ 1   0
TOTALS                 40:00       58    18-41  5-17  7-13    58 13/23  5/64 13/63  5/33 15/38 24/38  22
.                                        0.439 0.294 0.538       0.565 0.078 0.206 0.152 0.395 0.632    

GU                      Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
Summers, DaJuan        34:30  + 4  13/61  2- 7  2- 5  3- 8 12/45  2/13  1/54  2/56  1/37  2/35  2/32   2
Wright, Chris          35:59  +20  19/62  5- 9  1- 2  6- 9 11/46  3/11  4/57  3/59  0/40  3/36  3/38   3
Monroe, Greg           24:24  + 2   8/40  2- 5  0- 0  4- 6  5/30  1/10  1/39  1/39  0/25  1/23  3/22   3
Freeman, Austin        30:01  + 0  10/49  2- 5  1- 2  3- 4  7/40  2/12  0/47  2/48  0/33  1/31  6/31   2
Sapp, Jessie           26:33  + 4   6/41  1- 5  1- 4  1- 2  9/37  0/10  0/43  0/43  0/32  4/31  4/32   2
Mescheriakov, Nikita   03:06  + 6   0/ 6  0- 0  0- 2  0- 0  2/ 3  0/ 1  0/ 5  0/ 5  0/ 2  0/ 2  0/ 3   1
Clark, Jason           15:26  + 6   6/31  1- 1  0- 0  4- 4  1/15  0/ 6  2/23  1/23  0/ 9  0/ 9  1/ 9   1
Vaughn, Julian         13:14  + 6   2/24  0- 1  0- 1  2- 2  2/15  2/ 5  0/21  0/21  2/15  1/12  1/15   0
Sims, Henry            04:11  - 4   0/10  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 5  0/ 3  0/ 7  0/ 6  0/ 3  0/ 2  0/ 0   0
Wattad, Omar           12:36  +11   5/21  0- 0  1- 1  2- 3  1/14  0/ 5  0/19  0/20  0/ 9  1/ 9  3/13   1
TOTALS                 40:00       69    13-33  6-17 25-38    50 10/19  8/63  9/64  3/41 14/38 23/38  15
.                                        0.394 0.353 0.658       0.526 0.127 0.141 0.073 0.368 0.605    

Efficiency: GU 1.078, Mount St. Mary's 0.921
eFG%: GU 0.440, Mount St. Mary's 0.440
Substitutions: GU 21, Mount St. Mary's 36

2-pt Shot Selection:
Dunks: GU 1-3, Mount St. Mary's 2-3
Layups/Tips: GU 9-18, Mount St. Mary's 13-21
Jumpers: GU 3-12, Mount St. Mary's 3-17

Fast break pts: GU 6 (0.136), Mount St. Mary's 10 (0.196)
Seconds per off. poss: GU 19.2, Mount St. Mary's 17.9

Recap: Georgetown 58, Wichita State 50

Happy Thanksgiving.

Hopefully you've recovered from the tryptophan-induced (Hoya-induced?) coma and have now come to find out if there were any bright spots from today's grueling 8 point win over the Shockers.

Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE

.            Home                            Visitor 
.            Georgetown                      Wichita State       
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            31        33        65

Effic.         81.9      96.1      89.2        69.3      84.1      76.9

eFG%           42.5      50.0      46.2        32.3      31.7      32.0
TO%            25.2      27.0      26.1        25.2      21.0      23.1
OR%            20.0      25.0      22.2        34.8      39.1      37.0
FT Rate        65.0      70.0      67.5         9.7      40.0      24.6

Assist Rate    75.0      44.4      58.8        75.0      44.4      58.8
Block Rate     13.6      15.0      14.3         9.1      18.2      13.6
Steal Rate     15.8      12.0      13.8         6.3      15.0      10.8

2FG%           63.6      63.6      63.6        18.2      40.0      28.6
3FG%           11.1      22.2      16.7        44.4      10.0      26.3
FT%            69.2      85.7      77.8        66.7      75.0      73.3

It wasn't an exceptionally slow pace that kept the score so low, it was two offenses that struggled to score points. The last time Georgetown struggled this much offensively in the non-conf. portion of the schedule were the back-to-back losses vs. Oregon and at Duke in the 2006-7 season.

What are the major problems on offense? Turnovers and 3-pt. shooting.

• Turnovers: The main culprits today were C. Wright (5 TOs / 10 possessions used = 50% TO Rate) and J. Clark (4 / 5.9 = 68% TO Rate). D. Summers committed 3 TOs, but did so while using 13.3 possessions, for a pedestrian 23% TO Rate. The fault here is with the young guards.

• 3-pt shooting: Wright (0/4) and A. Freeman (0/3) combined for 7 misses without a make today. In three games against mediocre competition, Georgetown has shot 5/23, 6/21 and now 3/18 on 3FGs. That's a net of 14/62, or 22.6%. These three teams were not especially proficient guarding 3's last season (def 3FG% = 33.9, 33.1, 38.9 respectively for Jacksonville, Drexel and WSU), so there's no evidence that the Hoyas have run up against a series of teams that focus on stopping outside shooting. Outside shooting was critical to last year's team; G'town shot 40.0% on 3FGs in wins, but 27.6% in losses. So long as Summers (2/10 this season) and Freeman (3/11) miss from outside, this team will struggle against anyone willing to play a packed-in zone and dare the Hoyas to beat them from outside.
  

Defensive rebounding continues to be a problem for the Hoyas, although rebounding is clearly the Shocker's great strength - coming into the game, WSU was the best defensive rebounding team in the country (OReb% allowed = 16.5%) and a very good offensive rebounding team (OReb% = 42.5, 25th).

A positive? Georgetown continues to make their opponents miserable on 2pt-shooting. The Hoyas allowed no fast-break baskets today (if my compiler is working correctly).

INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS

Georgetown            Off    Poss           Individ     Def             Individ             
Player                Poss   Used    ORtg   Pts Prod    Poss    DRtg   Pts Allow   Net Pts
Summers, DaJuan        59    13.3    91.9    12.2        60     75.4      9.0       +3.2  
Freeman, Austin        57    13.0   123.8    16.1        59     72.2      8.5       +7.5  
Monroe, Greg           47     7.5   133.2    10.0        48     65.4      6.3       +3.7  
Wright, Chris          56    10.0    62.9     6.3        57     65.4      7.5       -1.2  
Sapp, Jessie           55     8.0   111.5     9.0        57     72.9      8.3       +0.6  
Clark, Jason           17     5.9    29.4     1.7        16     99.5      3.2       -1.5  
Vaughn, Julian         15     3.3    22.5     0.8        15     87.5      2.6       -1.9  
Sims, Henry             4     1.0     0.0     0.0         4     25.4      0.2       -0.2  
Wattad, Omar           10     1.3    44.2     0.6         9    138.3      2.5       -1.9  
TOTALS                 64    63.4    89.4    56.6        65     76.9     48.1       +8.5    

Wichita State         Off    Poss           Individ     Def             Individ             
Player                Poss   Used    ORtg   Pts Prod    Poss    DRtg   Pts Allow   Net Pts
CLEMENTE, Ramon        43     9.6    98.8     9.5        43    107.6      9.3       +0.2  
HAWKINS, A.J           38     5.6    56.1     3.1        38     96.7      7.4       -4.2  
STUTZ, Garrett         32     6.0    33.2     2.0        32     95.7      6.1       -4.1  
HANNAH, Clevin         41     8.0    69.9     5.6        39    100.9      7.9       -2.3  
MURRY, Toure           19     6.1    36.4     2.2        20    122.3      4.9       -2.7  
ELLIS, Aaron           26     4.4   115.3     5.1        25     43.4      2.2       +2.9  
HATCH, Graham          26     3.8    43.3     1.6        24     44.7      2.1       -0.5  
CHAMBERLAIN, Reggie    24     5.8    81.9     4.8        23     54.0      2.5       +2.3  
KYLES, David           38     6.4   145.7     9.3        39     86.1      6.7       +2.6  
DURLEY, J.T            33     8.2    46.4     3.8        33     91.3      6.0       -2.2  
GRISKENAS, Mantas       5     0.0     -       0.0         4    120.0      1.0       -1.0  
TOTALS                 65    63.8    73.6    47.0        64     90.6     56.0       -9.0  

There were only 4 positive contributors today for the Georgetown. G. Monroe was dominant in the 1st half (11 pts. 3 reb., 2 blk., 2 st.) but struggled in the 2nd (0 pts., 1 reb., 1 blk., 0 st.). Conversely, Summers came alive in the 2nd half after little contribution in the 1st (and getting called out by Jay Williams on the half-time show).

The player-of-the-game goes to . . . Austin Freeman. Despite his 0/3 on 3FGs, Freeman made 6/7 2FGs and committed no turnovers.

HD BOX SCORE

Wichita State vs Georgetown
11/27/08 2:25 p.m. at Lake Buena Vista, Fla. -- The Milk House
Final score: Georgetown 58, Wichita State 50

Wichita State           Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
CLEMENTE, Ramon        26:36  -15  10/31  4- 9  0- 0  2- 2  9/40  1/ 7  0/43  1/43  0/14  4/30  6/17   2
HAWKINS, A.J           23:11  -21   2/20  1- 4  0- 0  0- 2  4/37  1/ 6  2/38  2/38  1/11  3/32  2/15   3
STUTZ, Garrett         19:00  -17   2/12  1- 3  0- 0  0- 0  3/29  1/ 4  0/32  3/32  0/13  1/25  2/10   0
HANNAH, Clevin         24:30  -12   6/31  0- 4  1- 5  3- 3  9/38  3/ 9  1/39  2/41  0/13  0/29  2/16   3
MURRY, Toure           12:12  -19   2/ 6  1- 5  0- 3  0- 0  8/18  0/ 2  0/20  0/19  1/ 9  2/15  1/ 6   4
ELLIS, Aaron           16:02  +10   4/27  0- 2  1- 1  1- 2  3/25  0/ 8  2/25  1/26  0/10  3/17  4/12   2
HATCH, Graham          16:34  +14   2/24  1- 3  0- 2  0- 0  5/27  1/ 7  1/24  1/26  0/ 7  0/19  0/15   0
CHAMBERLAIN, Reggie    15:16  + 6   8/19  0- 2  2- 4  2- 2  6/23  0/ 5  1/23  1/24  0/ 9  0/17  1/11   1
KYLES, David           23:04  + 9  11/42  3- 6  1- 1  2- 2  7/33  2/ 9  0/39  2/38  0/13  1/22  1/16   2
DURLEY, J.T            21:09  + 9   3/38  1- 4  0- 3  1- 2  7/32  1/11  0/33  2/33  1/ 9  1/21  2/17   2
GRISKENAS, Mantas      02:26  - 4   0/ 0  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 3  0/ 0  0/ 4  0/ 5  0/ 2  0/ 3  0/ 0   0
TOTALS                 40:00       50    12-42  5-19 11-15    61 10/17  7/64 15/65  3/22 17/46 21/27  19
.                                        0.286 0.263 0.733       0.588 0.109 0.231 0.136 0.370 0.778    

Georgetown              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
Summers, DaJuan        36:37  +11  14/56  3- 6  2- 5  2- 2 11/38  1/12  2/60  3/59  0/36  1/24  2/41   2
Freeman, Austin        35:17  +12  18/54  6- 7  0- 3  6- 9 10/37  0/10  2/59  0/57  0/37  2/25  2/40   0
Monroe, Greg           29:15  +10  11/46  3- 6  0- 0  5- 6  6/30  1/12  2/48  1/47  3/31  0/17  4/31   5
Wright, Chris          34:54  +14   4/54  1- 1  0- 4  2- 2  5/37  5/15  1/57  5/56  1/36  0/24  6/40   1
Sapp, Jessie           34:09  + 7   9/52  1- 1  1- 4  4- 4  5/34  2/15  2/57  2/55  0/34  0/21  4/36   1
Clark, Jason           10:57  - 5   2/10  0- 0  0- 1  2- 2  1/ 9  0/ 1  0/16  4/17  0/14  0/ 9  1/16   3
Vaughn, Julian         10:13  - 5   0/ 8  0- 1  0- 0  0- 2  1/10  1/ 2  0/15  1/15  1/11  1/10  2/12   1
Sims, Henry            02:41  + 0   0/ 2  0- 0  0- 1  0- 0  1/ 2  0/ 0  0/ 4  0/ 4  1/ 5  0/ 2  1/ 5   0
Wattad, Omar           05:57  - 4   0/ 8  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 3  0/ 1  0/ 9  1/10  0/ 6  1/ 3  0/ 9   2
TOTALS                 40:00       58    14-22  3-18 21-27    40 10/17  9/65 17/64  6/42  6/27 29/46  15
.                                        0.636 0.167 0.778       0.588 0.138 0.266 0.143 0.222 0.630    

Efficiency: Georgetown 0.906, Wichita State 0.769
eFG%: Georgetown 0.463, Wichita State 0.320
Substitutions: Georgetown 24, Wichita State 43

2-pt Shot Selection:
Dunks: Georgetown 3-3, Wichita State 0-0
Layups/Tips: Georgetown 10-16, Wichita State 8-26
Jumpers: Georgetown 1-3, Wichita State 4-16

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Tomorrow, Georgetown continues their inexorable march towards a Sunday game against the Maryland Terrapins with a 1pm meeting against the Tennessee Volunteers. A nice resource for all things Vol is the BruceBall Blog. If the game pace gets above 70 possessions, expect a painful afternoon.


I'll try to get this year's team and individual stats pages up and running this weekend, as long as I can find some time.

Individual Offensive & Defensive Ratings - 2007-8 Review

General comment about the edits - I realized soon after originally posting this article that the underlying numbers just didn't look right. Sure enough, I tracked down at least 2 mistakes in my math. I think I've got everything correct now, but I make no warranty. I reserve the right to continue to make mistakes, but I will do my best to avoid them.


Before I get started, I just want to point out that the player +/- stats page has been updated, and now includes all available games for the last 2 seasons.

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In my last few posts, I've be touting my new HD Box Score Maker^TM, which uses game play-by-play data to extract a lot more info than a standard box score yields (all available HD boxes for the last 2 seasons now posted).

In my never-ending quest to keep you, my only reader, ahead of the curve when it comes to basketball knowledge, I thought I'd start a series of posts using the data generated by my HD Box Score Maker^TM to learn a bit more about your Georgetown Hoyas.

To start, I thought I'd try to take on one of the questions that I raised at the end of my intro post to HD box scores:

2. Was J. Rivers really that great of a defender? I'll look at the team's offensive and defensive efficiencies with each player on or off the court, to see if I can learn a bit more about the defensive side of things.

Analogous to fielding defense in baseball, individual defense in basketball is not well-described by traditional basketball statistics. We can talk about team defensive stats (Def. Efficiency, DReb %, Def 2FG%, Def eFG%, Block %, etc.) with some confidence that we are able to describe what is actually taking place on the court, but the difficulty comes in attributing the individual defensive stops, rather than just taking a holistic view.

There are a few ways to tackle this problem:

• Watch each game, and chart each defensive possession for who was responsible for stopping (or allowing) the defense from a score. This has been advocated by Dean Oliver, the father (mid-wife?) of advanced basketball statistics - but, as far as I know, simply isn't available for college basketball games.

• Use the available box score data to estimate the number of stops each player makes, based on some rather large assumptions; one example of this metric is called Defensive Rating (also developed by Dean Oliver). This is similar to his Offensive Rating for individual players, which I, Ken Pomeroy and many others calculate, but uses less certain assumptions. Currently, I'm only aware of Henry Sugar at Cracked Sidewalks reporting Def. Ratings (example linked), although I'm sure there are others. I'll talk more about this stat below.

• Use the available play-by-play data to estimate the importance of each player to total team defense. Your first thought might be that we could use the play-by-play data to determine actual defensive stops by player, but we can't. The play-by-play doesn't tell us who is guarding whom, so we'd be back to the same assumptions that Dean Oliver uses. However, there is a simple analytical tool that we now have available to us: we now know how many points each team scored when any player was on (or off) the court. That is to say, we can calculate a team's offensive and defensive efficiency (points per 100 possessions) as a function of whether any player is on the court, and thereby look at what impact each player has on team offensive or defense.

At this point, I will explain some basic terms as a refresher, and also cover what's new here. All of this is explained in much more detail at the web pages linked to the right under "Tempo-Free Stats 101." Feel free to skip ahead if this is all familiar.

Possession-based (tempo-free) statistics is a concept in basketball going back at least as far as Frank McGuire, and is useful for comparing players and teams who operate at different paces, or speeds of play. A possession ends either by a made basket (including some made FTs), a turnover or a defensive rebound - that's it, that's the list. Offensive rebounds don't create new possessions, only prolong the current one. If you use this definition, two teams will end up with either the same number (± 1) of possessions at the end of any game; since possessions go back-and-forth, it must be so. The equation for estimating total possessions per team per game is floating in various forms around the internet, but I will add to the clutter:

Possessions = FGA + 0.44 * FTA - OReb + TO

Since this formula is only an estimate of the actual number of possessions, I find that it is best to solve for each team, then take the average. Any team's (or player's) stats should be instantly comparable to any other with a per-possession system, since what is expressed is team (or player) efficiency rather than counting stats.

Offensive (and defensive) efficiency is a team statistic expressed in the units of points per 100 possessions (why per 100 possessions? so there aren't so many digits to the right of the decimal). This statistic is rather simple to calculate, once you've worked out how many possessions have been played with the equation above. Ken Pomeroy, one the populists of tempo-free stats, has an additional version of this stat, called adjusted off. (or def.) efficiency. Here, he attempts to weight points per possession based upon quality of opposition.

Offensive rating (as mentioned above) was created by Dean Oliver in an attempt to better rate individual basketball players on offense. The calculation of this stat is not simple - I've had people ask me in the past for the equation, but it's actually a bunch of equations (see this book for details). In simple terms, it is the ratio of points produced (not scored) by any player, divided by possessions used (not played), with both of these terms estimated from normal box score data. It is a tempo-free statistic, since it is expressed in points per (100) possession. Since players should be credited for assists and offensive rebounds as well as actual points scored, this rating is just an estimate of actual player worth, but the underlying assumptions are well thought out (you'll have to trust me, or read the book).

Defensive rating is an attempt to estimate the contribution of each player to the team's defensive efficiency. It is calculated as team defensive efficiency, plus one-fifth of the difference between team defensive efficiency and individual player stops per 100 possessions played. Player individual stops are estimated from the number of blocks, steals and defensive rebounds each player has, plus some team stats. Since it is not a simple ratio, it is more like being graded on a curve, such as that it is limited to the range of 80% - 120% of team defensive efficiency. So, a player who literally refused to play defense (e.g. Donte Greene) could score no worse than 80% of his team's efficiency. I would describe this stat as a very rough estimate of actual defensive worth . . .

. . . which leads me back to the point of this post (there really is a point). Now that I have access to the play-by-play of most G'town games, can I use this to better estimate the defensive contribution of each player, on a possession-basis? If so, we could finally talk about the overall value of a player to his team, rather than just his offensive contribution. The play-by-play shows who was on the court at any point during the game, so we can assign partial credit to each player for how well the team plays at both ends while he's in the game; likewise, we can see if the team plays better or worse when he leaves. This is really just applying the concept of plus-minus and Net/40 (or Roland rate), but rather using possession info to speak in tempo-free terms, rather than per-minute.

To explain explicitly here, I've taken each player, and added up the points that G'town scored and allowed while he was on the court. and how many were scored and allowed when he was off the court. In each case, I also know how many offensive or defensive possessions he participated in, so I can divide each point total by respective possessions (times 100) to find the team's offensive of defensive efficiency while he was on or off the court. Then, I find the difference between on- and off-court efficiency (either off. or def.) and add that to the team's efficiency.

For example, to calculate Jessie Sapp's Net Offensive Efficiency:

Jessie Sapp played 1171 offensive possessions, and the Hoyas scored 1298 points while he was on the court.

[1298 / 1171 x 100 = 110.8 Off. Eff. on-court]

He sat for 561 offensive possessions, and the Hoyas scored 585 points while he sat.

[585 / 561 x 100 = 104.3 Off. Eff. off-court]

So Jessie Sapp's Net Off. Eff. is equal to:

(Off. Eff. on-court - Off. Eff. off-court) + Team Off. Eff. =
(110.8 - 104.3) + 108.7 = +6.5 + 108.7 = 115.2 pts/100 possessions

Before I jump into the defensive analysis, I first want to see if my idea that player-based on-court / off-court net efficiency correlates to individual player rating holds water. To do this, I'll take a look at each player's net offensive efficiency versus individual offensive rating for last season.

One last point before I go on, the individual player ratings here won't match exactly with what either Pomeroy or I post for season totals. Since I don't have play-by-play data for all games, I re-ran the player ratings using box score data only for games that also had p-b-p data [to see which games are missing, go to the player +/- page].

Let's take a look (as always, click any image to enlarge):

This seems to work quite well! Players in the upper right of the graph are the best offensive players by either metric, while players in the lower left are not carrying their weight. The red line is a linear fit to all the data (r = 0.81), excluding Bryon Janson, who just doesn't have enough playing time to generate meaningful stats. The slope of the line is about 0.55, significantly less than 1, which is actually to be expected. The Net Team Efficiency stat doesn't completely isolate a player from his teammates in the way that Off. Rating attempts to do; since there is variability player-to-player, the range of the Net. Team Eff. stat gets compressed - a bad offensive player surrounded by good players will look better than he is.

The strong correlation indicates that the two statistics are highly coupled (co-variant). Individual offensive rating is a fairly well-accepted statistic, and it seems to do a good job of measuring how important a player is to team efficiency. Of course, the converse should also be true - team offensive efficiency as a function of each player on or off the court is a good measure of individual offensive value.

Moreover, and here's where I may be stretching the statistics a bit, the scatter plot can tell us a bit more: if a player is above the line, he makes the team more efficient than expected based upon Off. Rating (i.e. the player is underrated by Oliver/Pomeroy/etc.) while if he is below the line, he is overrated. Keep in mind that there are considerable uncertainties for the data on both axes that are not shown or even calculated, because that would make my life a lot harder. But it looks like Jessie Sapp and Roy Hibbert were underrated offensively last season, while Patrick Ewing Jr. and Vernon Macklin were overrated.


Now, let's now take a look at the defensive side. The math as the same as presented above, just looking at defensive possessions now.

Things here are not so clear-cut as for offense. There is poor correlation between the two data sets (r = 0.11), so I've just thrown a 1:1 line onto the chart. Note that both axes have their scaling reversed (they get smaller as you head away from the origin), since a lower defensive rating or efficiency is better. Again, players in the upper right corner are the best defenders, those in the lower left are the worst.

One thing that I notice immediately is that the scaling for the two statistics is much closer to 1:1 than for offense. We already expect that Net Def. Rating should be compressed since we can't isolate individual players, only their effect on the team while on the court. But here, the Def. Rating stat shows about the same scaling meaning either a) there isn't as large a difference between a good and bad defensive player as there is for an offensive player, or b) the Def. Rating stat isn't able to isolate individual defensive skills.

To take this a bit further, we demonstrated above that the Net. Efficiency methodology for offense seems to work quite well in correlating to a "good" measure of offensive prowess, albeit on a somewhat compressed scale. Since the method is identical for defense and offense, there's no reason to expect Net Efficiency to stop working for defense. Therefore, it could be argued (I just did) that Net. Def. Eff. is a better measure than Def. Rating.

If you've not read Basketball on Paper, you should probably just skip over the next paragraph.

Digression: Before I go on, I should point out that I'm using a slightly modified version of D. Oliver's Defensive Rating calculation. His formula estimates defensive stops in two parts, and the second has a necessary assumption that he, himself, acknowledges to be poor with regards to position-specific uncredited stops. Since centers get a disproportionate number of stops by way of blocks, they tend to be overweighted by his formula (for reasons far too obscure to explain here). I've added a simple weighting factor, based on Steals/(Steals+Blocks) to correct this. For this data set, the effect of this correction ranges from -2.7% for Roy Hibbert to +2.3% for Jonathan Wallace and Chris Wright. (n.b. - The weighting factor is based on Oliver's own data).

Returning to the scatter plot, once again we can find over- and underrated players by using the fitted line.

Now, Tyler Crawford and Chris Wright are the most overrated defenders, while Jonathan Wallace (!), Roy Hibbert and Jessie Sapp are underrated. Of course, that only looks at the comparison between two poorly correlated stats; the real take-home message is that Hibbert, Sapp, DaJuan Summers and Patrick Ewing anchored last year's excellent defense, just as Hibbert, Wallace and Austin Freeman were the most effective on offense.

And to answer the question that started this whole thing - yes, Rivers was a good defender, but not extraordinarily so, and not as important as Hibbert, Ewing or Summers. In fact his stats are not obviously better than either Sapp's or Wallace's(!). I will speculate that Rivers was the best on-ball defender as a guard, but Wallace and Sapp were more sound within the defensive schemes used last year (I just made that up). And I'm not sure why Omar Wattad looks like Gene Smith on this plot, but I'll guess it's just the result of a small sample size (n = 58 def. possessions).


Finally, we can combine the offensive and defensive metrics on a single plot, to get a rank of the overall value of each player. Here, I'm simply taking the average of Off. Rating & Net. Off. Eff. for the y-axis, and the average of Def. Rating & Net. Def. Eff. for the x-axis. Here, I'm hoping that the averages of two measures of the same variable come closer to describing its true character than either measure on its own.

This plot is a bit more complicated, as I'm trying to convey a lot of information.

Again, you'll need to re-jigger yourself to the axes. Offense is on the left-axis, with up equaling better performance; defense is on the bottom axis, but still with reversed scaling, so that right equals better performance. Players in the upper right are most valuable, players in the lower left are least valuable; those closer to the upper left have more value on offense, those down and to the right have more value on defense. This last bit looks to be well correlated with expectation, as the two players best know for offense rather than defense (Wallace & Freeman) show up right about where you'd think.

The size of the names are now scaled by possessions played, so Omar Wattad's newly-discovered value as an all-world defender is now tempered by the fact that he rarely plays. DaJuan Summers somewhat swallows up Patrick Ewing because of this, but I think you can still make them out.

Finally, the series of diagonal lines (isopleths) on the chart mark show contours of total player value (i.e. the difference between off. and defensive worth). For example, Jessie Sapp's off. worth = 108.9 and his def. worth = 89.8, so you'd expect that he'd provide +19.1 (= 108.9 - 89.8) pts./100 poss. to the team. Meanwhile, Austin Freeman's off. worth = 115.4 and his def. worth = 95.8, so you'd expect that he'd provide +19.6 pts./100 poss. That is, Sapp and Freeman were essential equally valuable to last year's team on a per possession basis, although they did it in different ways. Because they are rated at equal value, they both lie on about the same position relative to the diagonal lines.

Moreover, if you had a team of players all equally efficient overall as Sapp and Freeman, you'd expect the overall difference in team Off. Eff. and Def. Eff. to be around +19 pts/100 poss. FWIW, last year, G'town's efficiency difference was +18.8 (raw, not adjusted), good enough for a #2 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Here's a summary table of off., def. and total player worth for all the players:

                      Off.      Def.    Total
Hibbert, Roy          122.3     90.2     32.1
Wallace, Jonathan     118.7     94.0     24.7
Freeman, Austin       115.4     95.8     19.6
Sapp, Jessie          108.9     89.8     19.1
Ewing, Patrick        106.1     90.5     15.6
Summers, DaJuan       105.6     90.6     15.0
Wattad, Omar          103.3     88.3     14.9
Wright, Chris         100.8     93.2      7.6
Crawford, Tyler        95.6     95.4      0.1
Rivers, Jeremiah       90.1     94.4     -4.3
Macklin, Vernon        94.4    100.0     -5.6

We will miss Roy Hibbert. On a team that was ranked 7th by Ken Pomeroy after the NCAA tournament, Mr. Hibbert was the best Hoya player on the court by a large margin.

Next comes the gang of five (+1), who were the other important contributors to the Hoya's success; in very rough order of importance: Wallace, then Freeman and Sapp, then Summers and Ewing. Wattad sneaks in right behind this group, despite his few possessions (who knows, maybe the whole point of this article was to find a new player to champion; after all, the last time went so well).

By my reckoning, the two soon-to-be-transfers were not helping much last season. In the end, Rivers' defense just couldn't make up for his offensive woes, while Macklin struggled at both ends of the court. I never gave much thought to Macklin's defense, but he was easily the worst defender on the team by my numbers. Does that seem right? Tyler Crawford struggled with his outside shooting last year (3-22 3FGs), and wasn't able to make up for it with great defense.

There's one returning player that I haven't mentioned - Chris Wright. He missed the majority of the season with a foot injury, and ended up with a little more than half of Macklin's total time played. After struggling early in the season, he seemed to have a breakthrough in the 2nd half against Derrick Rose and Memphis, only to go down 2 games later. And while he played in 5 post-season games after getting healthy (3 in the BET, 2 in the NCAA), I only have the Pitt game in the BET finals in this analysis, since I don't have p-b-p for the other 4 games. From looking at the box scores, 3 of the 4 games I'm missing (Villanova, UMBC, Davidson) were among his best.

What I'm saying is that I think Wright is being undervalued here, not because there's anything wrong with the analysis, but because his underlying data doesn't do him justice. I hope I'm right.