We'd have a clever title if this were a regular feature, which it's not

I have always been impressed by Casual Hoya's "Sleeping With the Enemy" title for their rival blogger chats before games, even if I can't shake Chris Berman's terrible nickname for Eric Bienemy when I hear it (yes, all Bermanisms are terrible).  I'm not going to try to match it. 

So no witty title for our exchange of questions with Rumble in the Garden and definitely not as witty as questions as you'll likely find over at Casual (since I believe they are exchanging with Rumble as well).  That said, we have different questions, and if it is one thing that internet has proven, it's that sports fans will read anything about their favorite team, no matter the author or quality.  (To that point, Rumble will post my answers to their questions sometime soon).

So without further ado, here's the answers Pico Dulce of Rumble sent over to our astute questions:

HP:  How happy are you that Nuri Lindsey is gone? (Editor's Note:  I don't have much use for high usage, poor shooting ballhogs.)

RitG:  Nurideen Lindsey's departure is bittersweet. On one hand, St. John's is a team with seven scholarship players, most of whom struggle to get their shot. And they aren't as impressive at drawing fouls, which is a major component of what St. John's was doing well early on. With his on-court production added to the knee-jerk fan (and opponent fan) reaction whenever a player of note transfers - "what's goin' on over there?!" - it's not the most positive news.

On the other hand, Nuri's offense often had a go-for-self quality. The offense was a Nuri fast break, and then either a turnover or being backed out into an indecisive possession with Nuri clapping his hands for the ball on the perimeter, where he never hit a shot. (That's not hyperbole.) For the health of the team, for the young players' development, and for the general sense of cohesiveness, Nuri's departure ends up being a slight plus.

But an eight-man roster would have been awesome. 

HP:  It's been a long since a SJU team could shoot well from the perimeter. This team doesn't look like the one that breaks the streak (though I'm sure someone will shoot 60% on Sunday) -- can the Johnnies be a real contender if they can't exploit the 3 ball?

RitG:  In a year or two, yes. What you'll likely see is a team that has some okay shooters and one designated bomber from outside. And it'll be a team that chooses to score in transition or by driving the ball instead of waiting for perimeter jump shots. The three is nice. But drawing a foul and making a two-point shot is pretty damaging to the other team.

This year? No.The team's inability to make twos (including the easy ones) and score through traffic will hurt their win/ loss total. 

HP:  This year feels like a rebuilding year for SJU. Will the players stick around long enough for it to take? Is there another strong class coming in to bolster the strong (but weakened) class that is playing now?

RitG:  You've got that right. It's a complete rebuild. Only two players were around last year - one was a walk-on who has played in one game this season named Jamal White. Malik Stith, the other player, averaged 8.5 minutes per game in conference play in 2011, logged 4 DNPs, and is a low-impact, low-usage player who now averages 13.6 minutes in conference play, despite there being only 6 other options. 

So yes, it's a rebuilding year. 

The current class of players seem like they're in it for the long haul. One is a junior college transfer, so he won't be around much longer. The others are likely 3-4 year players, though Moe Harkless has pro potential/ pro interest. Generally, having 4 top-100 players is enough to compete with most of the league.

The 2012 recruiting class has blown away like powdery snow. So no, there is no class waiting in the wings; but the Red Storm are recruiting (and re-recruiting) the players who had decommitted in the wake of Steve Lavin's absence. The Johnnies stand a good chance with most of the players besides Norvel Pelle, one of the players deemed ineligible in the fall. 

HP:  I haven't seen SJU since Lindsey left. Compare Moe Harkless and D'Angelo Harrison to similar players for me. Are either of them NBA players at some point?

RitG:  Harkless is a fairly unique player. A comparison should be to the line of long U Conn small forwards - Rudy Gay, Stanley Robinson - with length and skills, but he's not there yet in terms of completing the shots he can get off. He's skinny, long, can run, blocks shots but shows the ability to get some good shots from all over the court. I think he gets to the NBA, but he has to nail more jumpers, especially with a hand in his face in the mid-range.

D`Angelo Harrison is also hard to pin down, but I'd invoke Ben Hansbrough and Dominique Jones in comparison - high usage guards who can also pass, play tough, draw charges. I don't know that he's an NBA player - he's not a point guard but is heady. He may be a better shooter next year, but at 6'2/6'3, that's not something the NBA falls in love with except in spectacular cases. I think he'll be one of those four year players that opponents just HATE, and announcers keep telling you should get a look from the NBA. He's not as unathletic as Ashton Gibbs, though.

HP:  Does Lavin recruit entirely on how cool a kid's name sounds? C'mon, you can admit it.  (Editor's Note:  Seriously, look at their roster.  Just awesome.)

RitG:  Yes. I'm hoping for a baller named Du'Swain at some point. There's actually a Raekwon out there, class of 2013 or 2014 I believe. 

HP:  How do you feel about the general long term state of the program? Given the relative upheaval in the Big East, it would be extremely advantageous for a non-football school to be very good in basketball if and when this thing falls apart. What are the chances SJU is ready for that?

RitG:  I think the future is bright. 

The Big East's future is tenuous, for sure, but the program has a real leader, an urbane fellow who wins games and plays a fun style, a guy who is great at communicating with kids and bringing in recruits. Is St. John's ready for the breakup of the league? I don't think any program is. It's impossible to predict what that would look like, where the money flows come from, and what investments programs would make in their hoops.

Five questions with Rumble in the Garden

Pico Dulce over at Rumble in the Garden contacted us to get our answers to five of his questions.  We agreed to do it, so long as he answered five of our own.

The only problem is that we never get to ask questions, so I kinda panicked when it came time to think of what to ask.  There is definitely some overlap here with the always-excellent CasualHoya interrogation, but Pico was very patient, and sent along his responses.


What is the expectation level for the team now, and how does it compare to the start of the season?

I don't know what the true expectation level for the team was early in the season; some people thought that Lavin had a magic wand and the team would be in the top of the Big East.  By "people" I mean Pitino and some insane portion of the Big East coaches who obviously value their specialized skills and seniority more than talent level.

Personally, the team is very much on the track I thought they would be - a bubble team.  (Didn't think they'd lose to Fordham and Bonaventure, though.) I thought they would score a little better, but still, not bad.

Other than two nice games at West Virginia and versus the Hoyas, the Johnnies are struggling to score in conference play [0.98 ppp].  Why?

They can't shoot.

The team has one, maybe two reliable outside shooters, but they don't look to get them shots, preferring to score in the post.  The team's wasn't bad there in the early going, but they're easy to figure out. And not only easy; they're small in the post as well. Justin Brownlee is a very good undersized power forward with touch, but he isn't always able to get good position, since everyone knows where he's going (and his shot can be blocked). Justin Burrell's touch is inconsistent; despite 4 years of basketball, he profiles as a raw rebounder with athleticism. And the other bigs are extremely bad at converting down low.

Coupled with a pair of point guards who are non-scorers and a wing in DJ Kennedy who has struggled to get his shot going... I'm impressed they've scored this well. The team's offensive strength all year has been in not turning the ball over. In the halfcourt, they're as mediocre as they were last year.

By my count, Coach Lavin had started 10 different players this year.  What's up with that?

Really? Huh!

Well, Lavin has wanted to rewards players who do well in practice - so Dele Coker and Sean Evans have gotten some starts even if mostly ceremonial, Stith has gotten a start to see what he can do, Polee and Horne sometimes switch places based on matchups... but 10!?

Speaking of Lavin, now that you've had about 2/3 of a season with him, how has the reality of Steve Lavin as head coach compared to your expectations?

I expected the on-court result - maybe slightly better, but this makes sense.

His recruiting, though, has far exceeded expectations in the first year. I honestly thought he'd struggle to fill out the roster for next year. his ability to schmooze the press is great, and the media coverage has been solid for the program - almost too much! 

There has only been one article that was a little negative - George Dohrmann's from a few weeks ago (rebuttal here); other than that, the media's been tossing roses and hosannas his way.

With a big wave of recruits coming in and a raft of players graduating, are you expecting a step backward or forward next year?  Is the fan base more focused on the seniors coming together for a run in the post-season, or already working out next season's starting line-up?

A step sideways. Maybe slightly backward, when I think logically on it.

After each loss, the fans think about next year, and after each win, they look at this year's team.  A lot of folks just want the stink of the previous 2 regimes wiped away, but me, I like watching these guys.  So do many other fans. 

Next year's team will be all freshmen with one sophomore and one junior who might not play much.  That's a recipe for a lot of mistakes - or to look as loosey-goosey as Memphis. But there is talent coming in - one player mentioned as a possible second round pick if he skips out and goes to the NBA draft from junior college, a top-30 recruit (or two, depending on your source), a lot of height... it could be a good team next year!  But again: all freshmen, and none of them are a lottery pick, top-5 recruit type.

2009-10 Season starts today!

And just like that, another Georgetown basketball season is upon us. The Hoyas are down in New Orleans to take on the Tulane Green Wave (Waves?) tonight.

We don't have much in the way of a game preview, and since we won't be able to watch the game probably won't have much of a recap other than a stats dump.

Speaking of dumps, here's a blogosphere link dump for your pre-game hype:

• The always austere HoyaSaxa pre-game report
• HoyaHoops Friday the 13th review
• CasualHoya's pre-game interview with a Tulane blogger (this was actually both an entertaining read and enlightening - a dangerous precedent for these guys)
• The Hoya Paranoia provides their own links survey

We'll continue the interminable season preview with a look at rebounding and Julian Vaughn later today. At this rate, we should be finished previewing the season some time in December.

Seton Hall Preview

In the spirit of the somewhat ridiculous number of explanations and excuses for the rather sulfuric-smelling egg that the Hoyas laid versus a very good West Virginia team on Thursday, I'd like to take personal responsibility for the Hoyas' loss.

I did not post a preview. Obviously, the Hoyas were so distraught at the lack of attention that they felt no will to compete. I'm late today, but I won't let them down.

The Pirates:

.                    Offense         Defense

Adj. Efficiency     108.6 (66)      102.2 (201)
eFG%                 48.6 (180)      48.9 (170)
Turnover %           17.5 (19)       20.8 (174)
Off Rebound %        33.6 (162)      37.7 (308)
FT Rate              35.4 (187)      47.1 (325)

My prediction: our offensive "transformation" is going to look pretty good. In our last two games, we've faced the 5th and 3rd ranked defenses in college basketball, so it isn't exactly a shock that the offense didn't look spectacular.

Seton Hall's defense isn't special. They have little height. They don't rebound well. They foul. They don't turn the ball over. They don't force a lot of bad shots.

If the game gets close, one key will be the Hoyas making any kind of effort on the offensive boards. In some games, the Hoyas have managed to offset their own poor defensive rebounding with some good offensive rebounding (the UConn game comes to mind). In others, like WVU, they almost give up on grabbing those extra possessions and that cripples the offense. Seton Hall provides opponents with a great chance for offensive rebounds. The Hoyas need to take it.

When the Hall does play good defense, it is because they force turnovers. They haven't been nearly as good as WVU or Duke at that this year, but the Hoyas are vulnerable. The Hoyas have been sloppy with the ball recently, and no one should be looking forward to a Jason Clark - Paul Gause matchup.

Offensively, the Hall isn't a good three point shooting team, but they are streaky, especially Jeremy Hazell, who is taking over 30% of the shots while he is on the floor. That's a level of usage similar to Luke Harangody, except Hazell is only as efficient once every few games. He's an extremely streaky shooter, and if he is hot, the Hoyas' suddenly awful perimeter defense could be a huge issue.

Like any small team, the thing the Hall tends to do well when they win is offensive rebound. It's not a shock at this point to see the Hoyas outrebounded by a smaller team. The Hall isn't Duke -- small but immensely talented -- or WVU -- small but talented and strong. But if the Hoyas play lethargic, they will get many more shots than the Hoyas.

The Hoyas have lost four of six, but to very good teams. The Hall has lost eight of nine and the first two of those were to IUPUI and James Madison (in their defense, the next six were in the Big East). The Hoyas are projected to win 86% of the time by Pomeroy.

That's not crazy. West Virginia and Duke neutralized the Hoyas by going small and challenging the Hoyas to take them down low -- and Greg Monroe and the Hoyas couldn't make them pay for going small either in the low post or by crashing the offensive boards. And by playing a smaller man on Monroe, they took away his quickness advantage versus bigs. Against better teams, the Hoyas need to learn to punish teams that go small.

But Seton Hall doesn't look like a team who can take advantage of that. They could go small and play someone like Stix Mitchell on him. But I don't think they are athletic enough, and as a result the Hoyas wll likely be able to score down low and offensive rebound.

Defensively, if the Hoyas can rotate properly if they help on defense and put up any fight on the boards, they should be able to control a Seton Hall team that gets almost nothing down low.

There is a blueprint for an upset. If the Hall shoots well, rebounds, and pesters the Hoyas into another turnover filled game, they can get their first Big East win.

That said, this game is very much what Thompson always says: it's about the Hoyas. If they rebound, protect the ball and put forth the effort on defense, this should be around a ten point win on the road.

Duke Preview

So, what do the Blue Devils look like this year?

As usual, here are the current four factors for Duke:

.                    Offense         Defense

Adj. Efficiency     115.7 (18)       81.5 (2)

eFG%                 52.4 (61)       43.0 (16)

Turnover %           20.0 (127)      24.3 (29)

Off Rebound %        41.2 (12)       30.5 (81)

FT Rate              45.6 (21)       29.5 (49)

Duke is Pomeroy's #1 ranked team, and the only predicted loss on Georgetown's remaining schedule.

So, it's not going to be easy. And especially not at Cameron and likely playing a bit of five on eight.

More importantly, this isn't the Duke team from 2006, despite what most Hoya fans seem to think. Duke will likely play almost exclusively man to man, as they did in 2006, but this team is much quicker and much more athletic than that team.

That Duke team featured mediocre defenders at the point guard, two guard and power forward, as well as a center who was considered strong down low but had no ability to defend on the perimeter.

That Duke team was a good defensive team in 2005-2006 because Duke always plays quality team defense and exerts consistent effort. But they had an overall weakness in team quickness that certain teams could exploit.

This Duke team is quicker. Nolan Smith has taken the reigns from Greg Paulus. Gerald Henderson is extremely athletic and Kyle Singler is going to be much more prepared to cover another combo forward than Josh McRoberts.


However, the Hoyas still have strong advantages against Duke.

The matchup of Greg Monroe versus Brian Zoubek is a particularly bad matchup for the Blue Devils. Because of this, expect Lance Thomas and possibly even Kyle Singler to play most of the center minutes.

The upside of this is Duke is likely going to play smaller than they usually do. Which is going to be helpful because Zoubek is the strongest per possession rebounder on a strong rebounding Duke team.

The downside is that even without Zoubek on the floor, Duke is an extremely strong rebounding team across the floor. Singler and Henderson use their athletic gifts to offset their slender builds and rebound very well for wings. Unlike Syracuse, Duke's guards will also get after rebounds, and the result is a team that rebounds at a level closer to Pitt than to Syracuse.

To pile on, Duke also forces turnovers and draws fouls.

And they haven't lost at home to a non-conference foe this millennium, I don't think. (I know that's a junk stat. But it is an impressive one.)

But enough doom and gloom. The keys to the game, which I suspect are getting rather repetitive:

1. Rebound. Duke is much more a rebounding team than they are a three point shooting team. In fact, on the season, they don't shoot a much different percentage than the Hoyas. Scheyer is dangerous, and Henderson has been good in limited shots, but rebounding a bigger strength for the Blue Devils than shooting.
2. Active cutting on offense. Like in 2006, use the Blue Devils' aggressiveness against them. Sitting back on our heels and passing around the perimeter will lead to those lazy turnovers we love to commit. Passing forward and driving forward will create opportunities.

Like every individual game, this will likely come down to who makes shots. But while our offensive gameplan to beat this Duke is similar to 2006 despite their quickness improvements, our defensive gameplan has to acknowledge their ability this year to get on the boards.

Syracuse Preview

Here are the current four factors for the Orange:

.                    Offense         Defense
Adj. Efficiency     111.7 (32)       91.7 (44)
eFG%                 56.3 (8)        43.5 (25)
Turnover %           21.1 (190)      18.0 (308)
Off Rebound %        35.2 (104)      33.7 (186)
FT Rate              30.5 (40)       22.0 (5)

One number is immediately shocking: a team with Arinze Onuaku, Rick Jackson and Paul Harris being mediocre at rebounding? How is that possible?

Well, it isn't the fault of those guys:

Player               O Reb%          D Reb%
Onuaku               12.3%           17.3%
Jackson              14.7%           20.8%
Harris               10.4%           19.1%
Ongenaet             12.1%           20.2%

However, a funny thing is happening with the guards. Neither Rautins, Flynn nor Devendorf grabs more than 1.5% of offensive rebounding opportunities. This number is so low that this almost has to be a conscious decision by Boeheim to get his guards back on defense.

It will interesting to see if our guards can take advantage of this to grab a few extra defensive rebounds, especially since fast break points may be hard to come by.

The Hoyas also have another bit of hope on the defensive boards. The Hoyas have defensive rebounded at a 66% and a 68% rate the last two games. If this is a trend, they may be able to hold down a Syracuse team that could very well go Pitt on them and grab 60% of the possible offensive rebounds.

Syracuse also presents a difficult matchup for the Hoyas because of their strength and the fact that they play zone defense all but exclusively. The former has manifested itself not only in the aforementioned rebounding issues, but also in bumping cutters and disrupting our offense.

And zone -- the Hoyas have consistently played better against man to man than zone since John Thompson has been here.

Zones do have inherent weaknesses. For one, it's easy to shoot over them. Unfortunately for the Hoyas, they are only shooting 33% from three. That's not going to beat Syracuse if the team tries to go over the zone.

Zones also weaken defensive rebounding. Georgetown, unfortunately, only grabs an average amount of offensive rebounds at best.

The last way to beat a zone is the same way you can beat any help defense, and that is with great interior passing. Just like a quarterback picks apart a zone defense in football, players are open in a zone, often close to the hoop. It's just getting the ball there that is the issue.

And here's where improvement in the Providence game comes into play. Led by Greg Monroe's eight assists on 23 made baskets while he was on the floor, Georgetown assisted on 69% of made baskets against mostly zone defense.

That kind of play will be absolutely necessary against Syracuse. The Hoyas cannot rely on shooting over the zone, and they certainly can't rely on second chances, so they are going to have to pick apart the zone's rotations.

Ken Pomeroy is predicting an eleven point victory for the Hoyas and an 85% chance of winning the game, but I find that suspect. The matchups are not strong for the Hoyas -- zone defense and rebounding in particular.

So I dove into Syracuse's previous games, expecting them to be underrated by Pomeroy's model. They only have one loss, in a complete letdown game to Cleveland State, and I expected their worst games to be against weaker opponents. A team that doesn't come to play against weaker opponents but turns it on against better ones will be underrated by most statistical systems.

For Syracuse, though, it really isn't true. They are actually one of the most consistent teams in college basketball, according to Pomeroy, and they have plenty of blowouts versus lesser teams and close calls against good but inferior teams. In other words, they are no different than any other team in that respect.

Still, the Orange will come to play. When was the last time they collapsed against the Hoyas?

Keys to the game:

• Rebound. Syracuse is mediocre overall, but it's still a huge issue.


• Get the ball to Monroe. He tore apart Providence's zone. Let's see what he can do against Syracuse.


• Contain Johnny Flynn. Flynn wreaks havoc in the lane, draws defenders and fouls. He's simply their best player. But he, like the rest of the Orange, are turnover prone, so there is an opportunity there as well.
  

Providence Preview

How have the Friars looked so far this season?

Here are the current four factors for the Friars:

.                    Offense         Defense
Adj. Efficiency     105.7 (86)       95.9 (88)
eFG%                 51.2 (96)       47.8 (130)
Turnover %           19.3 (88)       22.0 (122)
Off Rebound %        38.5 (39)       34.2 (195)
FT Rate              24.9 (161)      28.9 (49)

Providence has been a balanced team in almost every sense of the word. They have been mediocre, to begin with, ranking 83rd overall in Pomeroy. They are in the 80s in both offensive and defensive efficiency. Their shooting and turnover stats are more or less in that vein as well.

So why should the Hoyas be wary?

Rebounding. With Geoff McDermott (Sr.), Jonathan Kale (Sr.) and Randall Hanke (Sr.) seeing significant time, the Friars are strong offensive rebounders. They have no one in DeJuan Blair's class, of course, but together that big man rotation will generally have two players on the floor grabbing 20%-24% of offensive rebounding chances combined. When you consider that Monroe and Summers combine for about the percentage of defensive rebounds, you can see this being an issue.

Providence's defensive strengths are in not fouling and defending the three. There's certainly a scenario there where the fouls aren't being called inside so the Hoyas fall back on taking threes. This is not a good scenario.

Overall, though, the Hoyas are simply the better team and are at home. If they do not collapse on the boards, they should take this one.

Pitt / Notre Dame Preview

The Hoyas are one game into an absolutely murderous run of seven games (West Virginia's strong start has elevated them), and the Hoyas are already ahead of expectations thanks to an emphatic win at Connecticut.

Of course, the reward for the Hoyas is to get an incredibly physical Pitt team at home and then face a Notre Dame team that has won their last seven thousand games in South Bend.

Here are the current four factors for Pitt:

.                    Offense         Defense
Adj. Efficiency     117.9 (12)       84.9 (13)
eFG%                 52.2 (71)       42.3 (16)
Turnover %           17.7 (25)       21.4 (154)
Off Rebound %        42.4 (8)        29.9 (66)
FT Rate              22.4 (231)      24.6 (15)

Pitt is a very good team, ranked fifth by Pomeroy. They are a much more balanced team than UConn or Notre Dame, both of whom match high octane, if not diversified, offenses with pedestrian (or worse) defenses. Pitt defends and scores.

The number that explodes off that page, of course, is the 42.4% offensive rebounding percentage, ranking eighth in the country. Pitt has been a much better offensive rebounding team than Connecticut or Memphis, which spells trouble for the Hoyas.

The amazing thing is that it is pretty much all DeJuan Blair. Tyrell Biggs is pretty good, and Sam Young isn't bad at all on the offensive boards, but Blair is grabbing a freakish 25% of all of Pitt's misses. That's amazing.

Logically, that should make Pitt's huge advantage here easier to offset -- one would think you could focus on boxing out Blair, but no one has really done that yet. Blair is strong and bulky, freakishly quick for his size and boasts a wingspan over seven feet. He has a nose for the ball as well and just seems to always bounce his body into the right spot.

In the Connecticut game, the Hoyas managed to offset Connecticut's offensive rebounding with some fairly strong offensive rebounding of their own. Pitt isn't invulnerable on their own defensive glass, so the Hoyas will have to put in the effort on their own offensive glass like they did versus Connecticut to hope to keep the rebounding margin under ten.

Pitt neither commits nor forces turnovers. Given the results of the Connecticut game, I expect a positive turnover advantage for the Hoyas. However, Blair and Young are better with the ball than Thabeet and Adrien, so the advantage may not be as pronounced.

Other than rebounding, fouls on offense and defense are the other key for the Hoyas. Pitt doesn't draw very many fouls, which seems a tad odd for a team with a strong offensive rebounder and a couple of strong scorers in Fields and Young. But while none of them are poor at drawing fouls, none of them are particularly strong. Monroe will have to watch himself around Blair, but this won't be the most difficult assignment in terms of avoiding foul trouble.

On the other end, the Hoyas offense has been so devastating because they are attacking the rim and getting to the line. Pitt is ranked 15th in terms of not fouling people, but are significantly more foul prone than Connecticut. The Hoyas didn't draw many fouls in the first half against the Huskies, but kept attacking and eventually wore them down. Wright, Mornoe and Summers will likely all have a significant quickness advantage versus their defenders, which should help generate trips to the line.

The keys to the game:

• Keep Blair off the boards as much as possible. I don't really care how -- whether by getting him in foul trouble or double teaming him on the box out -- but it needs to be done.

• Attack the hoop. It is imperative that the Hoyas remain the aggressors. Pitt's physicality could intimidate the Hoyas more than Thabeet's shotblocking, and if the Hoyas aren't driving and attacking, the offense is not nearly as impressive. Factor in that Jamie Dixon will actually switch to zone, and it would not be a shock to see the team slip into a three-point dependent offense.

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

Luckily, we have Pitt at home. Notre Dame isn't nearly as good, but it is a road game.

Here are the current four factors for Notre Dame:

.                    Offense         Defense
Adj. Efficiency     121.9 (3)        98.1 (135)
eFG%                 53.9 (34)       46.2 (85)
Turnover %           13.2 (2)        17.5 (315)
Off Rebound %        36.4 (77)       29.2 (52)
FT Rate              19.1 (302)      18.7 (1)

Notre Dame has a great interior scorer in Luke Harangody, hits their threes and doesn't turn the ball over at all. The result is a very good offensive team that isn't nearly as dependent on three point shooting as people think (3PA/FGA of 34.4%).

The offense does have a few weaknesses, however. Harangody has been bothered by taller players in the past, though he exploded in his last games last year versus Thabeet. It's worth noting that Harangody struggled offensively versus a great shotblocking team in Ohio State, but it is hard to tell if his 10-25 shooting was due to Dallas Lauderdale and BJ Mullens or simply the fact that he was coming back from injury. However, he was impressive versus Texas and respectable versus UNC before getting hurt.

The Hoyas have been spoiled because Hibbert was an awful matchup for Harangody. Harangody simply wasn't quick enough to exploit Hibbert away from the hoop and Roy was otherwise too tall and too strong for Luke. Monroe has proven to be a capable low post defender, but he's neither as tall nor as strong as Roy.

The less obvious weakness for Notre Dame is that despite not turning the ball over much, their point guard is actually decidedly mediocre at that skill. Tory Jackson turns the ball over an average of three times per game, and while that may not seem like a lot, he'll be facing a team that is getting very good at forcing turnovers.

Notre Dame's big weakness, of course, if on defense. They simply aren't very good at it. They are decent at defensive rebounding and they don't foul much, but they don't force turnovers and they give up lots of easy shots. In fact, while not fouling is usually a good thing, in Notre Dame's case it signals the fact that they simply aren't contesting shots much.

However, the Hoyas can't assume a cakewalk on the offensive end. For one, the Hoyas will likely see a zone. Also, Notre Dame hasn't been impressive on defense, but it also hasn't had too many absymal defensive days, and one of those was against UNC.

Keys to the game:

• Rebound. Notre Dame isn't a great rebounding team. But until the Hoyas prove that this isn't an issue against even mediocre rebounding teams, it's going to be a key to the game.

• Get out on three point shooters. For the past few years, Georgetown has been very good at preventing threes from going in, pressuring shooters on the perimeter. This year has been no exception so far. Notre Dame is a great three-point shooting team that has shooters that don't need to be open. The fewer missed rotations and open looks the Hoyas allow, the better the chances of winning. The Hoyas help on penetration, but this may be one of the games where the Hoyas should consider not doing that.

Connecticut Preview

Here are the current four factors for Connecticut:

.                    Offense         Defense
Adj. Efficiency      120.5 (6)       87.4 (28)

eFG%                 54.9 (29)       43.8 (33)
Turnover %           17.4 (18)       18.3 (297)
Off Rebound %        38.3 (41)       27.9 (24)
FT Rate              39.3 (5)        18.3 (1)

Looking at the numbers for Connecticut, four thoughts immediately come to mind, some encouraging and some not so encouraging:

• Connecticut, like last year, isn't nearly as good a defensive team as they should be.

• Connecticut is probably the best offensive rebounding team we've faced so far this year.

• Unlike against Memphis, Georgetown's newfound ability to get fouled is not matched against a weakness in an opponent's defense.

• For the first time this year, the Hoyas will face a team that draws fouls.

It's somewhat surprising that UConn isn't a dominant defensive team when you look at personnel. They have 7'3" shotblocker Hasheem Thabeet, a good cast of rebounders and plenty of athleticism. But like last year, they just aren't a great defensive team. I certainly don't watch a lot Huskies games, but it could be as simple as the players not committing to defense as well as offense.

One consistent aspect of their weak defense is that the Huskies don't force turnovers. They didn't last year with similar personnel, and they don't this year. That's probably a coaching choice due to having Thabeet in the middle.

The Huskies also don't defend against the three well. That was true last year as well. However, this year, their shot-blocking is down and opponents are making many more twos than last year, even with Thabeet in the middle. Some of that may change if Calhoun goes more to a standard lineup with Stanley Robinson back -- the three guard lineup with Price, Dyson and Walker may have been hurting that.

That's the good news. The Hoyas should be able to protect the ball and should be able to get some good shots -- especially from outside.

Now for the rest of the news.

It may be a bit of the weak competition playing havoc with the numbers, but Hasheem Thabeet has turned into a rebounding machine. Both on offense and defense, where he's nearly twice as productive as he was last year. Pair him with Adrien, a strong if somewhat overrated rebounder and a very strong rebounding group of guards, and the Huskies are going to get a ton of second chance points. And keep the Hoyas from getting very many at all. I don't think there's much chance of winning the rebounding battle, but the Hoyas must minimize the damage.

Against Memphis, the Hoyas were able to offset this rebounding disadvantage by getting to the line. That's not likely to happen against Connecticut. For one, the game is on the road. More importantly, Connecticut doesn't foul much at all. Even in the Gonzaga game, the Zags had a fairly low FT Rate (in the 30s, much like Wisconsin did against UConn). They just happened to hit Thabeet with a number of those fouls. Can the Hoyas go after Thabeet? Sure. But systematically getting to the line isn't likely to happen.

On the flip side, Connecticut draws as many fouls as the Hoyas do. Like the Huskies, Georgetown does not foul very much. Both teams are coming into the game drawing a lot of fouls but not committing them. It's hard to tell which way each matchup will break, though Connecticut has the advantage of being at home.

Who would foul trouble hurt more? Both teams are actually very thin at center, neither having a real backup, though Connecticut has more bodies, period. Connecticut's extra depth -- Gavin Edwards/Stanley Robinson have proved more than Sims and Vaughn, and Austrie gives them an edge over Wattad -- makes the foul situation an advantage for them if the game is called tight.

But at the end of the day, Monroe and Thabeet are both at risk and key to each team. And who has the edge there? The junior at home or the freshman in his first road game?

At the end of the day, the formula for a win at Connecticut seems somewhat of a longshot. But here it is:

• Minimize the rebounding damage.
• Go at Thabeet early to try to draw some fouls
• Hope the Hoyas are making their threes

I realize that's not exactly a strong plan. Thompson will undoubtedly come up with something better. But the reality is, the Hoyas need to execute extraordinarily well in the halfcourt -- on offense and defense -- to win. And even if they do that, they are likely to need a strong shooting day. The formula that worked against Memphis won't work against UConn on the road.

Memphis Preview

Georgetown gets its second ranked opponent this Saturday and its last chance to really impress before the Big East season starts, massive blowouts of overmatched opponents notwithstanding.

Given how incredibly difficult the six game run of at UConn, Pitt, at Notre Dame, Providence, Syracuse and at Duke will be, a home game versus Memphis gives the Hoyas a chance to go into those games with some breathing room. I'm not sure that having one quality win before that run will actually help the team, but it will keep the fanbase from getting too neurotic.

If nothing else, the Memphis opportunity stands out because of how isolated it is. We have five days between Savannah State and the Memphis game, and it's been two weeks since Maryland. It'll be another two weeks before the Connecticut game.

So the staff has had a little bit of time to prepare. And the only thing to look ahead to are Christmas presents.

Let's break it down, NFL-style:


When the Hoyas have the ball

The Hoyas' offense is, as usual, driven by taking great shots, which is constituted of many open threes, some looks down low and plenty of cuts to the basket. Unlike prior years, however, the Hoyas have added to their arsenal more of a driving game in the halfcourt and a fullcourt fast break offense.

The offense's weaknesses have been turning the ball over and an inability to generate second chance scores, but when the Hoyas have lost, it has almost always been because of a poor shooting day in addition to those issues. In other words, the defense that can beat us is a defense that keeps up with us, contests our shots, rebounds well and forces turnovers.

But if we're shooting well, or the opponent plays man, well, it's extremely rare that our offense doesn't completely blow our opponent away.

The good news is that Memphis is going to play a decent amount of man. The bad news is that they are physically talented enough to do so.

Memphis has a strong defense (ranked 24th) that does a good job across the board. They don't allow high shooting percentages on twos or threes, they block shots and they force turnovers via steals. They defensive rebound well.

The one thing they do have a tendency to do is foul. In fact, in their loss to Xavier (which wasn't a bad defensive game), Memphis let Xavier shoot .7 FTs for each FGA. Some of that was likely end of game positioning, but Memphis also struggled to keep Seton Hall off the line. Even Chattanooga and Marist went to the line a decent amount for cupcakes.

The Hoyas need to stay aggressive and get to the line. That's Memphis' weakness on D. And they have to watch the turnovers, because only Xavier has managed to control Memphis' pressure.


When the Tigers have the ball

Memphis is a good, but not great, offensive team. They are still athletic and quick. Shawn Taggart has done a decent job of impersonating Joey Dorsey, which a few less muscles and a few more skills.

But so far this season, they haven't been able to hit the outside shot. They are shooting under 30% for the year from three. Then again, they have players like Antonio Anderson and Doneal Mack who should be better shooters, so like the Hoyas' low percentage, that may be something of a mirage.

They also struggle to hit their free throws, even with several of last year's culprits leaving the team.

The good news is that, as a team, they don't do anything particularly well, offensively. They are decent offensive rebounding team, but not a great one. Because of the Hoyas' weakness, rebounding will of course be something to watch. But Memphis isn't anywhere near as good as they were least year, or Tennessee is, or Cincinnati, or Pitt, or you know, half the Big East.

Dozier and Taggart don't draw a lot of fouls for big men, but keeping Monroe in the game is obviously a concern. Again, it's more of a concern for what Georgetown doesn't do well rather than what Memphis does particularly well, but it is still a concern.

The Tigers beat us last year by being able to break down our defenders one on one at will. They either got good shots at the rim or got fouled or missed and had a player clean up the board. Offensively, they took us out of our game in the second half just enough to allow their offense to pull away.

This Memphis team simply isn't the same team. There's no Chris Douglas-Roberts or Derrick Rose to penetrate and dish. There's no Joey Dorsey to grab the miss. Sure, they have good replacements in Tyreke Evans and Shawn Taggart, but Evans can't replace Rose, let alone Rose and CDR. And Taggart played with Dorsey last year, so even if he performs at that level, who replaces Taggart?


In short, the Hoyas should be favored here. Calipari likely won't be dumb enough to play man to man all game, so I suspect that the Hoyas' performance to date is overrating them for this game. Still, the Hoyas are at home; they are playing well; and this Memphis team simply isn't as good or as talented as last year's version.


Memphis Tigers Basketball Blog (Blogspot)

Another stats gimmick, and J'ville preview

Excuse this interruption of SFHoya99's season preview, but I thought I'd chime back in to introduce another stats feature that I've been working on behind the scenes.

If you're looking for the Jacksonville preview, you'll need to scroll down quite a bit.

My regular reader may have noticed by now that I've been loathe to assign credit or blame on specific players during a single game, but rather tend to present team stats. I do this in part because I think that it is difficult to evaluate individual play (especially defense) with a simple basketball box score.

There are tools available to glean some additional information when you look at a single game, notably the individual net score box that Dean Oliver describes in Basketball on Paper. Henry Sugar over at Cracked Sidewalks is a particular proponent of this, and has been providing Marquette fans with his version (which he calls "Individual Player Ratings") for most of last season. Here's an example from last year's game between MU and Villanova (hope he doesn't mind me linking):


Note that I've previously discussed this game when I introduced my version of the HD Box Score.

I won't explain Mr. Sugar's work here, but I will point to an excellent post he wrote last season covering the basics of each stat column listed. The bottom line for most fans is in columns 5 and 7 - points produced and net points added. This gives us an idea, based on tempo-free stats, of just how many points each player contributed towards the game result (in this case, a 10 point win for Marquette).

There are some limitations to this work.

Without going into too much detail here, I can assure you that the defensive rating assigned to each player for this game is just loosely tied to reality. Defensive stats are not available for most basketball games (NBA too) at the detail-level needed, so it is somewhere between difficult and impossible to assign blame for each player's defensive effort.

But more generally, the calculations used for the stats in the table above are underpinned by a large number of estimates, which should improve as we aggregate data over the course of a season, but which can be quite a bit off during an individual game. Here are just some examples of missing information needed to make the calculations for the stats above:

1. How many possessions did a player have on offense? Defense?
2. How many offensive/defensive possessions ended in a score?
   
3. What percentage of field goals made by a player were off of an assist?
4. How often are a player's missed shots rebounded by a teammate?
5. How well did the team rebound while the player was on the court?
   
6. How often did a player end a possession by making at least 1 free throw?
7. How often does a player give a foul, and the opponent miss at least 1 free throw (e.g. Hack-a-Shaq)?

None of these questions - and others I haven't posed - can be answered by looking at the game box score. So the only recourse is to make estimates, based on a series of formulas introduced by Dean Oliver (and presumably used by Henry Sugar).

However, all of the questions asked above can be answered by parsing the available play-by-play from the game. And that is what I propose to do.

A few points to consider:

• While I can improve the accuracy of the final stats by replacing estimates with actual tallies of various components of the calculations, I'm not modifying the philosphy (or math) of the final stats. That is, if you don't think individual player Offensive Rating is a good measure of how a player contributes on offense, there is little here to convince you otherwise. Of course, if your main quibble is with D. Oliver's many underlying estimates, keep reading.

• As I've said before, the drawback of using play-by-play data is that there are inevitably errors in the transcript, which can lead to uncertainty in assigning credit or blame. However, I am not convinced that these same errors aren't also in the official box score, but are just hidden from view. Just for Georgetown, I know of at least one instance where Ken Pomeroy found an error in the play-by-play that propagated to the box score.

• I am not exploiting the play-by-play fully yet, because if takes a lot of work. I've written over 5000 lines of code so far (yes, that was a brag) and my wife keeps mentioning how much time I spend working on the program, and something about a divorce (at least I think that's what she said, I wasn't really paying attention). For instance, I could record the shooting percentage of each player making an assisted basket, but I don't yet. I could distinguish between assisted dunks, layups and jumpers, but I don't yet.

A bigger point, and it goes back to an early post, is that I don't really believe in D. Oliver's defensive stats, and frankly I don't think he does either. They are merely an estimate, using an exceeding limited toolbox. Here's what I wrote there to briefly explain his Defensive Rating stat:

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 . . .

Later in that same post, I discussed an alternative method, which was simply to use available plus/minus stats to calculate the team's defensive efficiency while the player was on the court, and use that (less the team's defensive efficiency while the player was off the court) to rate that player's defensive ability.

The drawback to this method, pointed out on this thread on Hoyatalk, is that it the quality of one's teammates can have a big effect.

So here, I'm proposing a new method: I am using Dean Oliver's basic statistics for player offensive and defensive rating, but the data I am feeding into the underlying equations are only those generated by his team while the player was on the court. This should especially help with defensive stats, in that the base team defensive efficiency used is now the def. efficiency while the player was on the court (i.e. the player receives no credit or penalty for great or lousy defense played by his teammates while he sat on the bench). The remainder of Dean Oliver's def. rating calc. (stops, stop %, scoring poss., etc.) is used as originally described. Additionally, as stated earlier I am removing as many of the estimates used by Oliver as I can, when I have time. The seven listed above are all incorporated, along with a few others (e.g. is a blocked shot recovered by the shooter's team?). I'll try to write up a FAQ covering all of the gory details at some point this season - likely when my wife is out of town.

As a test case, I've run the Marq/Nova game mentioned at the top of this post. Here's what I get:

INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS

Marquette             Off    Poss           Individ     Def             Individ                             
Player                Poss   Used    ORtg   Pts Prod    Poss    DRtg   Pts Allow   Net Pts
HAYWARD, Lazar         59    12.5   111.2    13.9        59    100.9     11.9       +2.0                  
BARRO, Ousmane         51     3.5   149.3     5.2        51     95.4      9.7       -4.6                  
JAMES, Dominic         69    18.0   140.5    25.3        70     97.3     13.6      +11.7                  
MCNEAL, Jerel          66    18.6    79.0    14.7        67     96.4     12.9       +1.8                 
MATTHEWS, Wesley       42    11.7    92.8    10.8        42     86.0      7.2       +3.6                    
ACKER, Maurice         23     4.7   181.0     8.4        23     81.8      3.8       +4.7                  
FITZGERALD, Dan        16     0.3   280.0     0.9        17    104.5      3.6       -2.7                   
CUBILLAN, David        31     3.1    74.8     2.3        32    134.1      8.6       -6.3                   
BURKE, Dwight           6     0.0     -       0.0         7     62.9      0.9       -0.9             
MBAKWE, Trevor         12     2.0   100.0     2.0        12    124.4      3.0       -1.0                  
TOTALS                 75    74.3   112.4    83.5        76     98.7     74.6       +8.9          

Villanova             Off    Poss           Individ     Def             Individ                         
Player                Poss   Used    ORtg   Pts Prod    Poss    DRtg   Pts Allow   Net Pts
Pena, Antonio          62    12.9    75.6     9.8        60    123.0     14.8       -5.0                 
Cunningham, Dante      61    12.0    93.3    11.2        62    112.0     13.9       -2.7                     
Reynolds, Scottie      60    16.1    85.4    13.7        57    123.9     14.1       -0.4                     
Fisher, Corey          62    17.4    76.4    13.3        59    112.0     13.2       +0.1                 
Anderson, Dwayne       54     6.6   154.1    10.1        53    125.3     13.3       -3.1                    
Redding, Reggie        25     2.0   223.2     4.4        28     80.9      4.5       -0.1                   
Clark, Shane            8     0.8   333.3     2.5         9     70.2      1.3       +1.2                
Stokes, Corey          48     7.6   121.7     9.3        47    106.7     10.0       -0.7                 
TOTALS                 76    75.3    98.7    74.3        75    113.3     85.1      -10.8                    

The actual score of the game was MU 85, VU 75.

Several of the columns here are the same as Henry Sugar's above, but there are a few new ones as well. Briefly

• Off/Def Poss - the number of offensive or defensive possessions that a player was on the court; I think this is more useful than minutes played.

• Poss Used - the number of offensive possessions used by a player (partial credit due to assists and offensive rebounds).

• Off. Rating - the number of individual points produced, divided by the number of offensive possessions used, multiplied by 100. This is an estimate of the number of points a player would produce (not simply score) in 100 possessions.

• Points Produced - similar to possessions used, it is an estimate of the team points scored that can be credited to an individual player; again, partial credit due to assists and offensive rebounds.

• Def. Rating - An estimate of the number of points a player would allow in 100 possessions. See the discussion above the table for the details.

• Points Allowed - The actual number of points allowed by the player - again an estimate.

• Net Points - The difference between points produced and points allowed.

I've also included a totals line for all stats, so you can actually check my work.

The total Off Poss & Def Poss are the actual number of possessions in the game.

The total number of possessions used by each team agree very well with the reality - for my data parser, total possessions used are typically within 5% of actual possessions played, but this game worked exceptionally well.

Total points produced for each team are also very close to actual points scored. These should be with 10%, and often with 5%.

The summed points produced divided by total possessions used gives an estimate of team off. efficiency. This is the value listed as the total of ORtg. The estimated team offensive efficiencies (112.4 & 98.7) agree extremely well with actual off. efficiencies for each team (113.3 & 98.7).

At least for this game, it appears that my method is giving a quite satisfactory measure of what happened on offense. It won't always be so accurate, but this is why I want to give these totals - it will allow my reader to decide for himself (do any women read this blog?) how well the stats analysis is working.

Defensive stats are more tightly coupled to team, rather than individual, data so the totals here aren't quite so useful. The DRtg totals are simply team defensive efficiencies, calculated as team points allowed divided by defensive possessions.

Here, the summed individual points allowed for each team agree within 1 point of the actual score, another excellent result - I find typically they will agree within 5 points.

Finally, the net points totals give two estimates of the margin of victory (or loss). The average of the two [(8.9 + 10.7)/2] = 9.9 is almost exactly the true margin. It usually doesn't work quite this well!

I think this method compares favorably to the "classic" method proposed by Dean Oliver. I will keep working at it to remove additional estimated values and fix any bugs (e.g. I wasn't counting missed dunks until last week), but I think the basic framework is now in place. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Edited to add: A year later, and I did incorporate some feedback into net points. See here for the gory details.

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Jacksonville

Finally tonight, I thought I'd take a look at last year's game vs. Jacksonville, which the Hoyas won 87-55. That link will take you to my post-game post from last season, which includes the tempo-free and HD box scores (both will be part of each post-game analysis this season, when available). Here, I'll post the net points stats from last year's game - I've bolded and italicized any player who should play tomorrow.

INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS
 
Georgetown            Off    Poss           Individ     Def             Individ                        
Player                Poss   Used    ORtg   Pts Prod    Poss    DRtg   Pts Allow   Net Pts
Wallace, Jonathan      26     9.3    71.7     6.6        25     91.3      4.6       +2.1                         
Summers, DaJuan        39     8.8   125.0    11.0        36    101.8      7.3       +3.7                           
Sapp, Jessie           36     9.2    61.8     5.7        35     75.0      5.2       +0.4                    
Ewing, Patrick         26     2.0   101.6     2.0        26     55.5      2.9       -0.9                      
Hibbert, Roy           24     8.7   115.6    10.0        24     84.4      4.1       +6.0                    
Macklin, Vernon        46     4.4   143.3     6.4        45     97.8      8.8       -2.4                       
Wright, Chris          40    10.0   137.2    13.7        40     74.5      6.0       +7.7                     
Rivers, Jeremiah       28     4.7   152.7     7.1        28     83.6      4.7       +2.4                        
Jansen, Bryon           4     0.0     -       0.0         4     80.0      0.6       -0.6                     
Freeman, Austin        42     4.3   255.1    10.8        43     76.6      6.6       +4.3                       
Crawford, Tyler        29     4.5   123.0     5.5        29     95.5      5.5       +0.0                       
Wattad, Omar           10     2.1   129.3     2.7        10     90.9      1.8       +0.9                    
TOTALS                 70    67.9   120.3    81.6        69     79.7     58.1      +23.5                 

Jacksonville          Off    Poss           Individ     Def             Individ                          
Player                Poss   Used    ORtg   Pts Prod    Poss    DRtg   Pts Allow   Net Pts
SMITH, Ben             54    16.8    64.3    10.8        55    115.1     12.7       -1.9                      
HARDY, Ayron           34     5.4    73.4     4.0        37    125.0      9.3       -5.3                    
MCMILLAN, Andre        37     5.6   143.8     8.0        37    119.7      8.9       -0.8                       
COLBERT, Lehmon        40     9.0    87.8     7.9        40    105.8      8.5       -0.6                           
ALLEN, Marcus          30     3.8    95.6     3.6        30    126.3      7.6       -4.0                         
COHN, Travis           16     3.4    62.0     2.1        16    135.0      4.3       -2.2                        
GILBERT, Brian         30     3.1    97.2     3.0        30    143.6      8.6       -5.6                          
KOHIHEIM, Paul         26     3.8    20.9     0.8        25    120.5      6.0       -5.2                      
BROOKS, Aric           19     5.9    80.9     4.8        19    116.6      4.4       +0.4                        
LUKASIAK, Szymon       33     5.0    79.1     3.9        35    138.1      9.7       -5.7                            
JEFFERSON, Evan        26     5.1    59.6     3.1        26    139.5      7.3       -4.2                       
TOTALS                 69    66.9    77.8    52.0        70    124.3     86.9      -34.9              

DaJuan Summers had a great offensive game, but a lousy defensive game against the Dolphins, while Jessie Sapp was just the reverse (bad O, great D). Austin Freeman was his typical efficient self on offense but didn't use up a lot of possessions (~10%), while Chris Wright was player of the game on both ends of the court. Even Omar Wattad did his thing on the offensive end (1-1 2FG, 1-2 3FG).

I won't go into the Jacksonville players (you can see how they played last year).

The Dolphins lost to Florida State on Saturday, 59-57. J'ville was trailing 57-40 with 3:30 left and proceeded to go on a 15-1 run to bring the score to 58-55 with :20 left in the game, thanks in part to 2-8 FT shooting by FSU.

Analysis: Davidson Preview

Check out the middle column. One of those things is not like the other:

Opponent   Off   v.Exp   Def   v.Exp
UNC        88.3  -12.6   93.5  +18.8
Duke       99.2   +1.1  107.4   +0.0
Charlotte  99.3  -10.5  102.9   -8.9
UCLA       99.1   +6.5  118.0   -9.2
NC State   96.1  -13.9   97.5   +0.0
Gonzaga   118.7  +16.3  114.3   -6.5

The above is the list of the top 100 (ok, NC State is #102) teams the Davidson Wildcats have played this year. They've notably outperformed their expected offensive performance in one of those games. They've won one of those games. Somehow, those happen to be the same game. They've notably outperformed their unexpected defensive performance in only one of those games, which happened to be UNC's first game of the year and Davidson's second--pardon me if I discount it.

Now that we've seen a little about what they do against better teams, let's check out their overall profile. They're a good but not elite team at both the offensive and defensive ends of the court. The keys to their offensive performance are:
--Good shooting. They shoot a lot of 3-pointers and shoot them well for a team that shoots them often. They're also even better, comparatively, on 2's.
--They don't turn the ball over. Yes, that's a familiar story, since that was UMBC's best attribute as well. Yes, those same Retrievers who turned the ball over 50% more against the Hoyas than they did regularly, and more than they had in any game they played in calendar year 2007.
--The Wildcats also don't get their shots blocked. I suspect that's a function of taking outside shots. Also, probably part of playing in a lousy conference (see above list of decent teams played).
--Except for Boris Meno (who really shouldn't ever shoot a 3), everybody they play is at least an average offensive player.

A couple more interesting features:
--They don't get fouled. Like, at all. Curry is a big reason behind this. Especially for a big shooter, he doesn't take many free throws.
--Their usage pattern is weird. Richards and Curry each play on average over 32 minutes a game. Sander, Gosselin, Meno, and Lovedale play a little over half the game on average. To complete the rotation, Archmabult, Rossiter, and Barr play 12-15 minutes a game. This changed a little on Friday against the Zags. Gosselin and Lovedale played more, Barr and Meno played less. This will probably vary a little on matchups, but it's something to watch for.

On the defensive side:
--Their opponents miss foul shots. Maybe they foul big guys. Maybe they're lucky. Maybe it's a function of playing bad opponents. Who knows-as far as I know, this is one of the more unexplained areas of figuring out tempo-free stats.
--They force a lot of turnovers. That's not surprising from a guard-oriented team, but they're only a little above-average w/r/t steals. Somebody who's watched them more than I have can probably say something sensible about this and why this is. Having a fairly high % of opponent TOs is something that's been fairly constant between games vs. good and non-good opponents, too, so it's not just a function of beating up weaker teams.
--They're surprisingly good on the defensive glass, to the tune of 23rd in the country in terms of preventing offensive rebounding. This was the key to their second half success against Gonzaga. The Zags hauled in 57% on the offensive end in the first half, and 19% in the second half, and efficiency fell accordingly, from 130.8 to 99.5. They're only average on the offensive glass, though, and were very average both halves against Gonzaga.
--There's no particular area defensively where they're very below average. They send opponents to the line a little more than average, but that's really it.
--Opponents tend to be perimeter-oriented. Not so much so as the Hoyas normally are, but a bit compared to the average. I don't have time to run the full opponent numbers, so it could just be who they've played (I don't believe that stat is opponent-adjusted) or that whole "playing bad teams" thing rearing its head again, but it's out there. I suspect this maybe a defensive strategy-Gonzaga isn't a three-point heavy team, but took half their shots in the first round from outside the arc. I don't think it's as important as the rebounding figures noted above, but part of the Zags' dropoff was going from 8-15 on 3's to 4-12 in the vesper half.

Keys to the game?
--[Insert normal verbiage about rebounding. If rebounding is vaguely normal/equal, fine.]
--[Insert normal verbiage about outside shooting. If Hoyas shoot really low and/or Wildcats shoot really well, not fine.]
--[Insert normal verbiage about good players taking good shots, and preventing good looks by other team.]
--[Insert verbiage about Stephen Curry.] The Hoyas can win limiting him to 15, and can win "limiting" him to 40. People who can speak more knowledgeably than I about basketball can answer which of these alternatives is better, and the coaching staff (who definitely fall into such category) will have to make the determination, to the best of their and the team's ability.

The Hoyas are a better team than Davidson. But, Davidson isn't UMBC, and the Hoyas aren't so superior they'd almost have to try to lose the game. The Hoyas are good enough that if they play a good game Davidson will have to be pretty close to perfect to win. Davidson's bad enough that if they stink up the joint the Hoyas will assuredly win. Probably something in between will happen, and the Hoyas will likely win, but it wouldn't be a shock to see Davidson win. KenPom says 67-61; I'll go with 68-63.
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UPDATE (3/24/08 2101 CT): "Use the came" instead of "lose the game"? I swear, I was sober when I did that. Wonderful "disembodied hand" syndrome.

Analysis: Keys for the Hoyas

Check out Georgetown's team stats this year. Compare them to 2007. Note the offensive and defensive ratings. Note how 2007 was a better offense and 2008 was a better defense. Note the key to winning last year was offense. Take a look at those Georgetown team pages again, scrolling down to the individual stats. Note 2007, when every player who played at least 30% of the time had at least an average offensive rating, and the three of the top four by Possessions used were 114.8+. Note this year, when after Hibbert (who's only really efficient instead of awesomely so this year), the two most-used players (Summers and Sapp) are only a little above average offensively. There's a bigger gap in Poss% until the next tier of Wallace, Freeman, and Ewing, who are all good offensive players, but who only shoot on about 18% of possessions-below-average use.

Those are the overall stats, but what's happened recently is probably more important. So, I took the individual splits for the last 5 and last 10 games and averaged them. No, this isn't an ideal statistical method, but it gives us a good snapshot weighted towards recent performance. Let's run some numbers:

Player   %Min  ORtg  %Poss
Summers  75.0   96.2  23.2
Hibbert  68.9  120.1  26.7
Ewing    60.1   99.5  19.7
Wallace  89.7  129.8  17.1
Sapp     64.5  112.3  20.3
Freeman  63.8  111.2  16.9

There's an extra column there, which I'll return to later. Note the recent trends:
--Sapp is shooting less, and shooting better. He's shooting 52.8% on 2's and 46.3% on 3's, up from 47.6% and 40.7%, respectively. Part of this may be hot shooting, but I think part of it is excellent shot selection.
--Ewing is shooting more, and shooting worse. He's 64% for the year inside the arc, and 46% lately. Outside the arc, the same: 22.5% recently, and 29.5% on the year. Any time PE2 shoots from outside, it's a gift to the other team.
--Among the six key players, the key to the Hoyas' offensive performance will be DaJuan Summers. He uses a lot of possessions and doesn't use them very effectively. His FG% has been fine, better than average lately, but an already low 3FG% of 33.7 has been even lower, 30.3%, lately. Plus, he's turned the ball over 26.2% of the time lately, up from 18.8% on the year. Note a reduction in turnovers was one of the keys to the Hoyas' tourney run last year.
--Wallace and Freeman are both playing well offensively, but are participating slightly less than their already below-average %possessions.
--Among the lesser-used players, Macklin and Rivers both have fantastically high (38.6% and 37.5%, respectively) recent turnover rates, and have really bad ORatings because of it. Those either need to stop or they need to sit on the bench if at all possible. Otherwise, you're just giving away possessions, and it's hard to win in the tourney when that happens. Just ask Kent State, which turned the ball over on 43.6% of first half possessions today to fall behind 31-10.

Ok, minutes. Jeff Green last year played 83% of the time, or about 33:20 per game. Who's been getting that time? Ok, Freeman of late has been getting a bit of it, but he's been playing about 25:30 a game. That leaves 8 minutes unaccounted for. Another key difference: Jessie Sapp is playing less, to the tune of about 7 minutes a game. Instead of 8 minutes to make up, that's 15 minutes. And the lion's share of that time, about 10 minutes, has been going to Patrick Ewing, Jr. From a size perspective, that's better than giving the minutes to Freeman. From an offensive efficiency perspective, well, see above.

Summary: to do well in the NCAA tourney, the Hoyas need a high usage player other than Roy Hibbert who does well offensively. Most likely, that's DaJuan Summers. If he plays well, the Hoyas can advance far. If not, then the Hoyas may well not advance to the second weekend.

Analysis: UMBC Preview

A little later than I'd hoped, but it's time for more on what we can expect when the Hoyas meet the Retrievers on Friday (link to KenPom page). Unfortunately, I lack CO's nifty graphing software, so you won't be getting chart like the ones he provided last year for Belmont. I can, however, still run the same numbers.

The Retrievers' best skill is their offense, ranking 9th nationally in raw terms and 60th in adjusted. It hasn't been very consistent, though. The key to winning their conference championship game against Hartford was an outstanding offensive game, OffEff 136 v. ExpOffEff 119.6, +16.4, but two weeks earlier, against that same Hartford team, they'd had a dreadful offensive game, OffEff 86.7, -32.9, based primarily on poor shooting against a very poor defensive team. A look at the Retrievers' Game Plan page shows that UMBC will have WIDELY varying shooting nights. Their overall eFG% is 51.7%, 99th, but look at their last four games:

Hartford    36.4%
Stony Brook 67.0%
Vermont     37.7%
Hartford    67.6%

If you can make anything of those numbers, please let me know, because I sure can't.

The defense has been a little more consistent-at least close to average performance for the past 7 games. That 8th game, though, they yielded 123.7 OffEff to a poor (257th overall) Boston U. team, 22.3 more than expected. The game plan indicates the Terriers shot the ball well, but only marginally better than Hartford did in the America East championship. BU also rebounded well, but not better than Stony Brook the next game or Albany in the AE tourney. BU shot a lot of free throws for a UMBC opponent, but not that much more than Albany the next game or Stony Brook or Vermont in the AE tourney. There's really no reason to expect UMBC won't go out and lay a tremendous egg defensively; they're a poor defensive team that doesn't do very much well except not foul opponents.

The other problem is that UMBC plays in the America East. The America East is, in a word, terrible. The Retrievers' offense is the best unit in the country. The only other unit in the entire conference above average is Vermont's defense, and the Catamounts, at 101.5 v. 101.8 nationally, barely qualify. UMBC hasn't played a team better than 180th nationally since Ohio State back in December. They're the best team in the America East, but that's really being the smallest midget.

Before I dismiss the Retrievers entirely, let's look at how they did against teams that aren't terrible:

Opponent        Off   v.Exp  Def  v.Exp
@ West Virginia  91.0  -7.5 126.3  -3.0
@ Ohio State    124.4 +26.7 137.8 -19.0

The keys to the offensive performance against Ohio State were offensive rebounding and an outstanding job of not turning the ball over (7.5%, 2nd best all year). UMBC pulled in 36.5% of the offensive rebounds, their best performance on missed shots until their two most recent games. Note that game, where UMBC was 3-bombing; they normally take 32.4% of their shots from outside the arc, and 47.3% that game. This doesn't look like a trend, though, as against West Virginia, a more normal 36% of shots were three pointers.

Ok, I'm ready to write this team off. How UMBC wins:
--Retrievers shoot at least as well as Villanova in 1985 championship game
--Hoyas turn the ball over at least 35% of the time
--Roy Hibbert skips game to attend religious services (hey, it is Good Friday)
--Hoyas shoot outside arc like they did @ Pitt this year
If all of those happen, then the Hoyas may be in trouble. Barring all of those unlikely occurrences, though, I don't see any way this is a close game. The KenPom predictor calls for a 75-57 game; doing this preview, I really think that's overestimating the Retrievers' chances.

I'll be back tomorrow with a look at individual Hoyas' recent performance, and what they may tell us about the team's chances for an extended run. In the meantime, I suggest checking this post by SFHoya on the Hoyas' chances (featuring my inaugural HoyaTalk post), and, if you haven't read it yet, Alexander Wolff's wonderful article on JT3 from SI.

Preview: BET Quarterfinals v Villanova

Thanks to our regular host, CO_Hoya, for passing me the reins during his ongoing busy time. I'll be doing what I can to fill his estimable shoes. I promise my average post will be shorter and have fewer typos than the Ohio State preview I did last year.

First, if you haven't yet, check out the log5 predictions for the Big East Tournament, as provided by Ken Pomeroy. We've gotten a little more information since that was written, with the completion of three of the four first-day games as of this writing, but it's still a good guideline. Comparatively, the Big East Tournament is the most wide-open of almost all the tournaments, but the Hoyas still have about even odds to reach the final.

The Hoyas' first opponent on the road to the BET finals comes against Villanova, which topped Syracuse, 82-63 this afternoon to survive and advance. This is, of course, a rematch of the first "Jonathan Wallace Free Throws Save the Hoyas" games, aka "Will These Officials Please Stop Whistling Fouls." For more, check out the tempo-free notes for the 55-53 win.

As to what today's game tells us, there were three keys to Villanova's win: rebounding, three point shooting, and free throws. The biggest was probably rebounding-the Wildcats hauled in 44% of their own misses and pulled in 79% of defensive rebounds. Key #2: neither team shot from inside the arc particularly well, but Nova ended up with a 58% eFG as opposed to Cuse's 48.3% because of what happened behind the arc: 11-21, 52.4%, v. 9-24, 37.5%. Third key: free throws. The Wildcats took 22, 13 more, and hit 17, 11 more. The overrated storyline from the game: 0 turnovers by Scottie Reynolds. He normally giveth, but didn't today; no worries, though, as his teammates more than made up for it: the Wildcats normally turn the ball over 19.9% of the time, and turned the ball over on 24.2% of possessions today.

For more from people who actually watched that game (I forgot to record it), check out CardChronicle's liveblog (link from YABB) or the HoyaTalk thread, and I suspect GreyCat will have something up later from the Nova perspective.

Guest Preview: Rutgers

Nothing like posting a game preview half an hour before tip-off, but here goes anyway. Ray Floriani, NJ native, sent me a preview yesterday, but I'm just getting to it now (sorry Ray!):

Tomorrow Georgetown visits the RAC for an afternoon meeting with a Rutgers team that is struggling and 0-1 in conference play. Coach Fred Hill is unsure of his starters at this point. One thing is certain, minus the services of Corey Chandler, a talented freshman guard, it’s going to be a struggle. A look at the key personnel.

JR Inman 6’9” JR – Didn’t start at USF but logged appreciable minutes. Suited more as a four but will play the five at times. Can put it on the floor and hit the perimeter shot. Struggled a great deal against UNC’s Tyler Hansbrough which doesn’t bode well with 7’2” Roy Hibbert in the paint.

Anthony Farmer 6’1’ JR – Scoring and looking for his shot a little more in Chandler’s absence.

Courtney Nelson 6’1” JR – Getting more time due to Chandler’s injury. Nelson has been an enigma. Ever since his arrival after transferring from Richmond, Nelson has struggled shooting the ball.

Mike Coburn 6’ – Mount Vernon product, getting more action and coming along as the season progresses.

Hamady Ndaye 6’11” SO – The five man. Can block shots but not a great offensive threat. Will have his hands full with Hibbert.

Earl Pettis 6’5” – Hill has been happy with his hustle and energy. If he doesn’t start he’ll see a good amount of minutes.

Jaron Griffin 6’7” – Junior swingman who likes to launch the three. Could have given RU the lead the other night as he shot two T’s (for a USF warmup dunk). Griffin missed both. A premonition of Rutgers’ night.

Byron Joynes 6’9” – The senior center can be effective in spots but not over the long haul. The RU official site notes he leads the team in charges drawn.

Three keys for Georgetown

1. Establish the lead. RAC is tough place to play and the fans will be pumped. Against North Carolina once the lead hit double digits, the crowd was less a factor. Georgetown has to come out with poise, run their sets and take it a possession at a time.

2. Take advantage of Rutgers inside. Ndaye and Joynes won’t go the full 40 and Inman is susceptible to good big men. With Hibbert, the Hoyas can exploit in the middle.

3. Dribble penetration. Rutgers has struggled all season from the perimeter but the guards can get in the lane. Something to be mindful of as the Hoya big men are not as valuable sitting out with foul trouble.

Preview - Memphis Tigers

Borrowing a page from VBTN, I thought I'd put together a preview for Saturday's big game between Georgetown and the Memphis Tigers in the Fedex Forum (12:00 noon EST, TV: ESPN). I have a UNC/Rutgers game report from Ray Floriani way overdue in my inbox, hope to have it posted tomorrow.

While Saturday's game will likely be the highest ranked OOC matchup for the basketball season, the hype outside of Memphis and Washington has been surprisingly subdued, likely due to the timing (a noon game the weekend before Christmas).

Preseason Rumpus

Memphis was the pre-season #3 ranked team by both the coaches and writers, and moved to their current #2 rank the first week of December after UCLA's loss to Texas. In CSTV.com's season preview (Memphis #2), Joel Wesler argues that Memphis has 6 players who could make a legitimate argument for starting at the 1-3 positions (he has Dozier and Dorsey as locks at 4-5). Basketball Prospectus notes that the Tigers returning players used 83.4% minutes on last year's Elite 8 team. John Gasaway focuses on Memphis undeniable strength:

The Tigers are sometimes regarded as an unstoppable team loaded with NBA-level talent, one that can score virtually at will. That characterization isn’t entirely off the mark, yet like Kansas, the real story with this loaded team is its defense. It’s excellent . . .

Memphis simply shuts down the perimeter completely. It defends from the outside in and does so beautifully. The Tigers make you turn the ball over and, on those relatively infrequent possessions when you don’t, they make you miss your shot, whether it’s from outside or in close.

Meet the Tigers

The aforementioned 6-man wrecking crew in the backcourt is lead by deservedly-hyped freshman Derrick Rose (6' 4") and returning junior Chris Douglas-Roberts [d/b/a CDR] (6' 6"), who each use more than 25% of Tiger possessions when on the court - 9th man sophomore Doneal Mack (6' 5") is the only other Memphis player who uses more than 20%. Mack was tabbed pre-season to take up the outside shooting slack left by the Jeremy Hunt (38% on 3FG last year), but CDR and sophomore Willie Kemp (6' 2") are doing the best job currently, both at 45% on 3FG. Nominal point guard Andre Allen (5' 10") and defensive specialist Antonio Anderson (6' 6") round out the back court.

Last year, Memphis had primarily a 2-man front court, with senior Joey Dorsey (6' 9") as the quintessential undersized college center scoring primarily off of offensive rebounds, and junior Robert Dozier (6' 9") as Mr. Versatile. This year, the Tigers have added Iowa State transfer Shawn Taggart (6' 10"), a very selective and efficient shooter and reliable rebounder.


When Memphis has the Ball

To be clear, Memphis is a competent, but not strong, offensive team so far this season (Adj. OEff = 106.8, [91/341]). While at first glance the Tigers' offensive may look "playground," they are actually running a structured system known as AASAA (= "Attack, Attack, Skip, Attack, Attack), as devised by Pepperdine's Vance Walberg and adopted by John Calapari (and renamed the "Dribble Drive Motion" offense). I make no claim to understand the "Princeton Offense on Steroids" scheme, but the basic concept is to have a wing/guard drive the ball towards the basket, and kick to an open 3-pt shooter if the defense collapses or continue to the hoop if possible.

The team is great on 2-pt shooting, thanks in no small part to Joey Dorsey's 21-23 (91%) on 2FGA, but not very good from the outside (33.5% 3FG [217/341]). Since the offense is predicated, in part, on making those outside shots, it is understandable that the offensive efficiency suffers. So far this season, Memphis takes about 40% of all shots from behind the arc.

As for the remaining 3 factors, the Tigers value the ball well (TO% = 20.5% [93/341]) and crash the offensive glass (OR% = 38.0% [51/341]), but are fairly miserable from the FT line (57.6%, 331/341).

I haven't mentioned pace yet. Memphis likes to run up and down the floor, to the tune of 74+ possessions/game [27/341]. While most assume that a track-meet type game would strongly favor the Tigers, this isn't necessarily the case. KenPom finds that their offensive efficiency is only weakly positively correlated with pace so far this season, and their defensive efficiency also correlates positively with pace, and in fact more strongly. That is to say, as game pace increases Memphis is slightly more efficient on offense, but give up efficiency on defense at a greater clip.


When Georgetown has the Ball

An interesting note appeared in a column posted recently on Basketball Prospectus, "no team that got a top three seed in the NCAA Tournament last season had a starter with an offensive rating under 100." After their win as Cincinnati, Memphis starter Antonio Anderson sports a woeful 81.9 ORating.

Why isn't John Calapari worried? Because Antonio Anderson is a primary reason for the stellar Memphis defense so far this season (Adj. DEff = 84.9 [14/341]) and last (86.9 [11/336]). In fact, Memphis is a fine example where the dearth of individual defensive stats can fool stat-heads into devaluing a number of the Tiger players.

For the Tigers, and for most teams, defensive efficiency is strongly tied to their opponents' eFG%, and Memphis does a great job defending both 3FG (31.4% [74/341]) and especially 2FG (41.0% [21/341]). How do they do it? Regarding defending the arc, in addition to being quick, their back court players are exceptionally tall across the board - just take a look at the heights I posted above. And the team is top 10 in blocking opponents 2FGs, up slightly from last year likely to the extra help that Taggart now provides to exceptional duo of Dorsey and Dozier.



Well, that's all for now - it's getting late and I've got to work tomorrow. Hopefully, I got at least one salient point correct, and would love to hear from any savvy Memphis fans on what I got wrong.