Season review: Lineup stats

Hola amigos,

It's been a while since I've rapped with you all, but things have been pretty hairy here at Chez HP, what with another depressing end of the season for the Hoyas and real life and all.

But, I've dusted off the Cray II in my mom's basement and fired it up for the first time in a couple of months to take a look at last season, because those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

For today's episode, we'll take a look at lineup stats from last season.  I'm going to break the stats out two ways:  for all games played against Top 100 teams, and looking at the last ten games played (all games in Feb and March, as the Hoyas went 4-6).

Here we go:

vs. Top 100 Opponents (min. 15 poss both off and def)

.                                             Offense                 Defense
Lineup                                 # poss  OEff   Time     # poss  DEff   Time
Clark-Freeman-Thompson-Vaughn-Wright    288    126    17.4       277   103    19.5
Clark-Freeman-Lubick-Vaughn-Wright      221    103    17.1       221   103    18.6
Clark-Freeman-Lubick-Sims-Wright         88    101    18.2        90   121    19.3
Clark-Freeman-Sims-Thompson-Wright       88    123    17.0        86   107    17.3
Benimon-Clark-Freeman-Vaughn-Wright      63    114    17.7        64   123    19.7
Clark-Freeman-Lubick-Thompson-Vaughn     57     83    18.9        58   109    20.1
Freeman-Lubick-Thompson-Vaughn-Wright    47    132    18.5        44   100    20.5
Benimon-Clark-Freeman-Sims-Wright        38    111    16.4        42    88    18.3
Freeman-Lubick-Sims-Thompson-Wright      30     83    19.9        34    74    17.6
Clark-Lubick-Thompson-Vaughn-Wright      28    125    17.4        30    80    17.1
Clark-Freeman-Lubick-Starks-Thompson     22    100    16.6        17   100    16.1
Benimon-Clark-Freeman-Sims-Thompson      19    126    22.3        18   117    15.9
Freeman-Lubick-Starks-Thompson-Vaughn    18     61    23.5        16   138    15.7
Clark-Freeman-Lubick-Sims-Starks         16    100    20.4        18    56    22.3
Benimon-Freeman-Sims-Thompson-Wright     18    106    16.6        16    38    18.8
Benimon-Clark-Thompson-Vaughn-Wright     17     71    19.8        17   106    20.6
Freeman-Lubick-Sanford-Sims-Wright       18    100    20.3        16   163    18.1

For the season as a whole, Coach Thompson had two preferred lineups, with his four upperclassmen (Clark, Freeman, Vaughn and Wright) and either Hollis Thompson or Nate Lubick playing the "4".  These represent the main two starting lineups used, where Lubick replaced Thompson as a starter for the second St. John's game forward.

The immediate takeaway from the top two lines is that JT3's move to insert Lubick into a more prominent role by making him a starter didn't work.  I'm unaware of a direct quote as to why Coach Thompson swapped the two midway through conference play, although it was likely to improve a struggling defense.  However, the stats reveal that the team was equally efficient defensively with either player on the floor, but gave up a huge amount on the offensive end without Hollis on the floor.  In fact, effective offensive lineups for the Hoyas last season [120+ OEff] had only one constant:  Hollis Thompson.

More interestingly, of those lineups with at least 20 possessions played on both ends of the court, the two most effective last season had Lubick and Thompson on the court together [Freeman-Lubick-Thompson-Vaughn-Wright: +32 net efficiency; Clark-Lubick-Thompson-Vaughn-Wright: +45].  It's expected that Hollis will move to the "3" spot next season, so this bodes well.  Of course, neither Chris Wright nor Julian Vaughn will be around to help.


A look at the last ten games of the season after the jump

The Back-up Quarterbacks

The argument for the bench players.

Henry Sims versus Julian Vaughn

Copyright AP 2010

Is Henry Sims even the backup quarterback anymore? Yes, Vaughn is averaging more minutes right now, but Henry played more versus Appalachian State, Utah State, Missouri, and NC State. That's four of the last six games, excepting only Temple and Asheville.

Vaughn does do several things better than Henry. He obviously has a better low post game from a footwork and moves standpoint.

He's a superior rebounder right now, which actually shocked me a bit. I'd definitely say he's a better offensive rebounder (even after accounting for all those he gets off his own misses), and defensively, he's held his own as well, upping his game recently.

I think most people would be surprised to know that he also doesn't turn over the ball as much as Henry does on a percentage basis. Neither one is exactly Roy Hibbert there -- they are both a liability. But Julian has been less of one.

Still, Henry's been just as effective offensively. Mostly because he's a superior passer and a better shooter. Julian is shorter and isn't a great jumper, so he gets blocked/misses a lot of close in shots. Henry doesn't have as much a problem with those.

Perhaps the biggest advantage for Henry over Julian offensively has nothing to with Henry or Julian's efficiency, but rather the focus. For some reason, when Julian is on the floor, the ball is fed to him (26% poss, 22% shooting). In fact, when Julian is on the floor, he's the #1 option.

Julian's a good player. But he's often the worst offensive option on the floor. That's not a knock; it's speaking to the abilities of our perimeter players. He shouldn't be using more possessions than everyone else.

Henry, in contrast, isn't taking up possessions nearly as much (16% poss, 14% shooting). Which doesn't make him a better offensively player -- he's likely worse -- but it might makes the team better on offense when he's on the floor, depending on who is out there with him. In fact, one could argue Julian is better suited to play with the bench players as there's a greater need for an offensive player.

Defensively, Julian blocks significantly more shots, but it's my impression that he's not as much of a presence down low. No one publishes stats on altered shots (or really could), but subjectively, our interior defense seems to look worse with him on the floor.

As evidence of this, I give you the lineup work Brian did here.

There have been a ton of lineups, which means small samples abound, but here's some comparable lineups and their D efficiencies:

Lineup                      w Vaughn   w Sims
CW - AF - JC - HT              94         91
CW - AF - JC - JB             111         87
CW - AF - JC - NL              89         75 

Those are the six lineup with 28 defensive possessions played or more. The next highest lineup was only on the floor for 18 possessions, and that seems a little too low to mean anything.

Vaughn comes out as a superior defender in the net points calculation, which isn't surprising. He blocks more shots and that calculation takes overall team D during the player's time on the floor and allocates based on statistics like those.

However, when looking at comparable lineups (above), the lineups with Sims are significantly better. Sometimes, this can be due to easier competition, but Sims' time on the floor has often been in tougher games (NC State, Mizzou, Utah State), really only missing on Temple and ODU (who are stronger defensively). In other words, it doesn't seem all that likely that the differences are competition-driven instead of actually being better defense.

If I had to pick, I'd take Sims defensively.

Overall, I'd really consider swapping Vaughn and Sims in general. I think there's value in giving more time to Vaughn with the backups - Lubick, Starks, etc. -- who are not offensive creators. Vaughn simply fits with them better with his superior low post moves. Most likely, III is going to continue to do what he's been doing -- playing match-ups -- with Sims' minutes moving steadily upward.