By special request: Lineup stats

While it has been very quiet around these parts for the past few months, I was prodded by someone over at Hoyatalk to dust off the old Cray II computer in my mom's basement and run some lineup stats for your beloved Georgetown Hoyas.

Now this is a bit of a tricky task this year, since the loss of Greg Whittington has forced the team to re-make itself on the fly, to surprisingly good results.

So, in light of the new WithOut Whittington era now upon us, I decided to break out the season into two parts, much like OverTheHilltop did over at Casual Hoya. One difference, though: instead of looking at all thirteen games played with Greg, I decided to pare the list down to the nine games either against top-150 competition or where the game remained competitive into the second half.

WithWhit        WoW
Duquesne        St. John's (a)
UCLA            Providence
Indiana         S. Florida
Tennessee       Notre Dame
Texas           Louisville
Towson          Seton Hall
W. Carolina     St. John's (h)
Marquette (a)   Rutgers (a)
Pittsburgh      Marquette (h)
.               Cincinnati

First, let's take a look at lineup minutes by position, using the same rules we've used before - players are sorted by height, shortest to tallest, with weight serving as the tie-breaker (one exception here: even though Whittington is bigger than Porter, I slot Otto in the bigger position between the two). All heights and weights come from the GU website. Not all slots will add up to 40 minutes, both due to rounding and because I don't show any player with less than a minute played at a position.

WithWhit:

1. Starks [31], Smith-Rivera [9]
2. Trawick [19], Whittington [9], Smith-Rivera [9], Domingo [2]
3. Whittington [24], Porter [11], Trawick [4], Domingo [2]
4. Porter [23], Lubick [14], Whittington [3]
5. Hopkins [22], Lubick [14], Ayegba [4]

WoW:

1. Starks [37], Smith-Rivera [3]
2. Smith-Rivera [26], Trawick [13], Caprio [1]
3. Trawick [15], Porter [15], Bowen [9]
4. Porter [19], Lubick [18], Bowen [1], Hopkins [1]
5. Hopkins [20], Lubick [11], Ayegba [9]

In spite of starting as the shooting guard, Greg spent about 2/3 of his time on the court as the small forward - his natural position - and this is where Coach Thompson had to now find players to fill those minutes.

Jabril Trawick has picked up about 10 of those available minutes per game, playing as a slightly undersized "3" in conference play, depending upon match-up. Also, Aaron Bowen has stepped into the lineup for about nine minutes a game (skipping over Stephen Domingo, who struggled in the OOC).

But this also causes a bit of a cascade effect, as DSR is now playing the major role as the shooting guard on the team (with some help from Trawick), meaning that Markel Starks has to play nearly the entirety of every game as the point guard.

Otto Porter is also playing a few more minutes as the small forward (i.e. his position in the starting lineup), but this is really from the effect of playing Moses Ayegba a bit more each game, letting Nate Lubick spend less time as an undersized center.

After the jump, lineup efficiencies.

Lineup stats for all conf. games

I'm still struggling with the change to daylight savings time, so just a quick stats dump before bed.

First, a breakout of minutes played by position.

Here, we follow the same rules as we've used before - players are sorted by height, shortest to tallest, with weight serving as the tie-breaker. All heights and weights come from the GU website. Not all slots will add up to 40 minutes, both due to rounding and because I don't show any player with less than a minute played at a position.

1. Starks [21], Clark [17], Trawick [2]
2. Clark [17], Trawick [9], Whittington [11], Thompson [4]
3. Thompson [25], Whittington [10], Porter [5]
4. Porter [25], Lubick [12], Thompson [3]
5. Sims[29], Lubick [5], Hopkins [5]

I ran through this table ten games ago, and frankly not much has changed. A minute or two here or there, but overall the team we saw mid-way though conference play is the team we have now. Of course, Porter has moved into the starting lineup, but minutes are more or less constant.


Next, line-up efficiencies, now with color highlighting - green for a lineup that is +0.3 pts/poss or better, and red for a lineup that is negative pts/poss.

Here we go:

                                                 Offense                  Defense             Net
Lineup                                    # poss   Eff    Time     # poss   Eff    Time       Eff
Clark-Lubick-Sims-Starks-Thompson           159     89    17.6       167     93    19.6        -5
Clark-Porter-Sims-Starks-Thompson           167    108    17.9       155     86    19.3        22
Clark-Porter-Sims-Thompson-Whittington      143    108    20.6       143     88    20.2        20
Clark-Lubick-Porter-Sims-Thompson            94    105    20.9       100     95    18.6        10
Clark-Porter-Sims-Starks-Whittington         54     98    17.6        54     69    20.5        30
Clark-Porter-Sims-Thompson-Trawick           40     70    19.4        39    100    21.5       -30
Clark-Porter-Sims-Trawick-Whittington        33     97    18.0        37    100    23.4        -3
Clark-Lubick-Porter-Thompson-Whittington     35    100    17.1        32     94    15.4         6
Porter-Sims-Starks-Thompson-Whittington      31    136    21.6        32    103    23.8        32
Clark-Hopkins-Porter-Starks-Thompson         31     94    20.0        27    119    16.1       -25
Clark-Sims-Starks-Thompson-Whittington       29    152    17.7        26    104    18.4        48
Clark-Lubick-Porter-Starks-Thompson          24     79    20.2        23    109    19.8       -30
Clark-Hopkins-Porter-Thompson-Whittington    22    109    21.2        24     75    21.7        34
Clark-Lubick-Porter-Starks-Whittington       22    146    19.9        19    132    20.3        14
Clark-Hopkins-Porter-Trawick-Whittington     19    121    21.7        20     95    17.9        26
Clark-Lubick-Porter-Sims-Trawick             18    150    11.8        18    106    20.9        44
Clark-Lubick-Sims-Thompson-Whittington       19    121    20.3        17     77    16.5        45
Clark-Lubick-Porter-Trawick-Whittington      17    112    20.6        19    116    26.9        -4
Clark-Lubick-Porter-Thompson-Trawick         15    147    16.5        18    106    18.9        41
Porter-Sims-Starks-Trawick-Whittington       13    100    15.5        18     67    22.2        33

I think I'll let the stats speak for themselves here, as I'm not sure I see much of a trend.

Lineup stats through 10 conference games

While trolling the interwebs the past couple of days, I noticed a new (to me) blog for the Connecticut Huskies called UConn by the Numbers (the name blatantly ripped off from the sadly dormant Villanova by the Numbers, but who are we to talk?). The main feature for UCBTN seems to be breaking down the Huskies by lineup, which reminded me that we used to do that around here, before we got fat and lazy.

So . . . here we go. We'll limit the data set to the ten conference games played to date.

First, a breakout of minutes played by position.

Here, we follow the same rules as we've used before - players are sorted by height, shortest to tallest, with weight serving as the tie-breaker. All heights and weights come from the GU website. Not all slots will add up to 40 minutes, both due to rounding and because I don't show any player with less than a minute played at a position.

1. Starks [20], Clark [19], Trawick [1]
2. Clark [15], Trawick [12], Whittington [10], Thompson [3]
3. Thompson [26], Whittington [9], Porter [5]
4. Porter [25], Lubick [13], Thompson [3]
5. Sims[29], Lubick [5], Hopkins [5]

The big caveat here is that Markel Starks was out for 1 1/2 games, first with what looked like a concussion versus Marquette, then with stomach issues versus DePaul.  So his minutes at the point are a bit underestimated, since I'm too lazy to adjust for that - figure he's playing about 23 minutes at the point when healthy.

Shooting guard has become a committee, since Jason Clark is actually playing more time spelling Starks as the primary ball handler.  Coach Thompson can go big by bringing in the solidly-built 6' 5" Jabril Trawick, especially to help out with quick guards, or he can go ridiculously big by bringing in lanky 6' 8" Greg Whittington to help against outside shooters.  The problem is that neither is much of a threat from behind the arc, so spacing on offense can be an issue.  Hollis Thompson also gets a few minutes a game showing the NBA scouts that he can play the "2" spot.

It should be noted here that the formal position by height kind of breaks down here, since Trawick will often bring the ball up when he and Clark are in the game together.

After spending much of last season as an under-sized power forward, Hollis has been able to play his natural college position on the wing this year.  Whittington spends almost as much time at the wing as the shooting guard, and Otto Porter spends about 5 minutes a game there when Coach Thompson brings out the stupid-big lineup.

For those clamoring for Porter to start over Nate Lubick as the power forward, you may not realize that he already plays twice as much as Lubick at that spot.  In a pinch, Hollis slides over to the four when the team goes small.

Finally, Henry Sims has spent the most time of any player in a single role, manning the pivot nearly 30 minutes a game.  It should be a worry that Sims is wearing down in that role - much like Julian Vaughn last season - but I just don't know if Mikael Hopkins is ready to help out, although I suppose the UConn game offers a glimmer of hope.

Lineup efficiencies after the jump

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

Friday thoughts

Not really sure where I'm going with today's post, but just sitting here riffing on some stats.
--------------------------------------------------------------

One of the great conceits of being a sports fan is that we all think we know more than ______, and that if the coaching staff only listened to us, our team would be that much better.  Some of us even start blogs to make sure we can get the word out.

But, after a few years of blogging, it starts to become clear that maybe we don't know as much as we'd like to think.

Here's an example:  I can make a simple model using the four factors to estimate Georgetown's offensive efficiency for each game played so far this year, and from this I can give an estimate of how important each factor is to Georgetown's offense.

Factor      Weight
eFG%         0.64
OReb%        0.18
TO%          0.13
FTM/FGA      0.01
Total        0.96

That's to say, about 64% of the variability game to game in Georgetown's offensive efficiency can be explained by how well they shoot (eFG%). Once we account for that, about 18% of the remaining variability is due to how well they offensive rebound, etc.

I can even make a nifty graph to show how well the model works:

 I can also repeat the exercise for the defense (no nifty graph this time), for a slightly surprising result [this table has been revised]:

Factor      Weight
eFG%         0.36
TO%          0.46
DReb%        0.11
FTA/FGA      0.02
Total        0.95

But here's the thing - what can we do with this information?

I can demonstrate that Georgetown's offense is most dependent upon how well the team shoots from the floor, but I can't tell you how the Hoyas can improve their shooting accuracy from this exercise.

More importantly, just because their defense this year is most dependent upon how well they turn over the opponent doesn't mean the team should be running a full-court press all the time.  The law of unintended consequences reminds us that the result could just as easily wind up that teams would end up shooting more layups (and therefore improve their shooting accuracy) as a result, and Georgetown's defense wouldn't improve at all.

But it sure seems tempting.

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.

Early season lineup fun

Edited to add:  Now updated through App. State (12/12)
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I haven't bothered to update the stats pages yet; rather, I'll wait until after tomorrow's game against Appalachian St.

In the meantime, I've started working up lineup stats for this season.  My main observation is that there are a lot of lineup combinations this season, as the rotation has been consistently 10-deep (and Moses Ayegba is just now eligible).

For now, just a couple of tables for your perusal.


First, a simple breakout of the minutes played by position.

This is the same type of table I generated over the summer for last season. Players are sorted by height, shortest to tallest, with weight serving as the tie-breaker. All heights and weights come from the GU website.

Not all slots will add up to 40 minutes, both due to rounding and because I don't show any player with less than a minute played at a position.

Here we go:

1:  Wright [32], Starks [5], Clark [3]
2:  Clark [27], Sanford [6], Freeman [4], Starks [3]
3:  Freeman [28], Thompson [9], Sanford [2], Bowen [1]
4:  Lubick [14], Benimon [13], Thompson [13]
5:  Vaughn [20], Sims [17], Lubick [2]

Not many surprises here.

The 4-slot is an obvious position of weakness for the Hoyas, and I think this may be the story to follow over the next couple of months.

Hollis Thompson is the nominal starter there but is undersized and spends almost as much time out on the wing when one of the big-three guards rests.

I think the plan is (was?) for Nate Lubick to increasingly occupy that slot, but he's not been able to play well enough to dominate minutes there.  Jerrelle Benimon remains an offensive liability, but he's playing stronger defensively this year to deserve minutes.  Right now, I'd call them interchangeable pieces.

With Ayegba about to arrive on the scene, it will be interesting to see if he is serviceable enough to start stealing minutes.

Another option would be to play Henry Sims and Julian Vaughn at the same time, but Coach Thompson has seemed loath to try this.  By my count, they've never actually been out on the floor at the same time this season.

If you're bored - and if you're reading this, you probably are - take a look at Alan's speculative post on minutes before the season began, compared to what's actually transpired.  Also, you can bet that the rotation will tighten up a bit once conference play starts.

Deep bench, short rotation

JT3 subs in five players - documented! (Joseph Silverman / The Washington Times)

Alan's excellent post about likely minutes for the upcoming season got me thinking about John Thompson III's reputation for playing a short rotation.  I think this rep was developed in his first two seasons, when the cupboard was mostly bare beyond the first 6 or 7 players on the roster.  But now that he's been coaching the Hoyas for six seasons, I wonder if this reputation is myth or reality.

But before I can dig into the question of whether JT3 goes with fewer players than he should, I need to work through some basics and find a reasonable measuring stick.

First, we need to decide what constitutes being part of the rotation for a player, rather than just playing garbage minutes.  Next, we need to have some meaningful comparison of the size of Georgetown's rotation versus what other coaches/teams run.  Finally, we'll need to consider what to do about injured/suspended players and their effect on the rotation.

More after the jump

Go Big or Go Home?

Here I made the case that the Hoyas were a better team last year with a traditional lineup of two guards, a wing and two bigs.

Here Brian highlighted last year's minutes breakdown, at least from a defensive standpoint.

And so there's a logical progression here, now that we likely know the roster for next year. Here's Brian's chart from the above linked post, with:

• Greg Monroe removed
• Julian Vaughn's minutes moved to center and bumping him up tofull-time minutes
  
• Benimon's, Sims', Sanford's and Hollis' temporarily minutes removed, because that's what we're going to focus on

Note that I'm not bumping up Austin's minutes. Yes, they are a little depressed because of missing games due to diabetes. But we don't really know how he's going to be affected this year; a few minutes off his pre-diagnosis average doesn't seem unreasonable.

Here's what you get:

1. Wright [36], Clark [3], TBD [1]
   
2. Clark [30], Freeman [8], TBD [2]
   
3. Freeman [26], TBD [14]
   
4. TBD [40]
   
5. Vaughn [30], TBD [10]
   

Hollis got 12 minutes last year, Benimon 12, and Sanford and Sims 3 each. Instead of inserting them in, though, I'm going to bunch them, along with the freshmen, into somewhat arbitrary groups:

Guards: Sanford and Starks
Wings: Thompson and Benimon
Bigs: Sims, Lubick and Abraham

Let's take an easy early assumption to show why this team is going to play small: the guards will play the remaining minutes at the 1 and 2, the wings at the 3 and 4 (when we go small), and the bigs at the 4 & 5.

That leaves Sanford and Starks playing 3 minutes. This is less than Vee got last year -- and that's not including any time for the highly-touted Starks.

Hollis and Benimon with 14 minutes, around what Hollis and Benimon got by themselves. This seems unreasonable as well.

And it leaves 50 minutes for the bigs. Henry grabbed few minutes last year. So forty plus minutes for the freshmen or an increase in Henry's minutes isn't out of the question, but it does seem unlikely, especially given Moses' reported raw game.

If, instead we try to budget based more realistically on talent and restrict only on completely unreasonable positional assignments (e.g. Vee Sanford at PF), we get something a bit different:

Sanford/Starks: 17 minutes, all that remains at guard and SF.

Thompson/Benimon: 30 minutes, all effective at PF and around what they got together last year.

Bigs: 20 minutes at C and PF.

Leaving it to look something like this:

1. Wright [36], Starks/Sanford [4]
   
2. Clark [27] Starks/Sanford [13]
   
3. Freeman [34], Clark [6]
   
4. Thompson/Benimon [30], Assorted Unproven Bigs [10]
   
5. Vaughn [30], Assorted Unproven Bigs [10]

You could argue about my distribution at the margins. Perhaps Starks and Sanford get 13 minutes or the bigs impress, limiting Benimon's time. It's largely irrelevant to the overall conclusions, which are:

• The Hoyas will play 3 guard between 33-40 minutes of the game this year unless Markel Starks is simply not as ready as expected.
• They'll have a wildly undersized PF for somewhere between half to almost all game, unless the unproven assorted bigs of Lubick, Sims & Ayegba have two breakout players.

Going big worked better for the Hoyas last year, but it was rarely executed. It seems like it is going to be more rare this year.

Minutes Breakouts

There is (was?) a discussion on HoyaTalk about predicted player minutes for the upcoming season.

This - in and of itself - wasn't all that interesting to me, but a comment by a particularly angry fellow over there piqued my interest:

Just to demonstrate how pointless this is - could any one even produce a chart . . . for the actual minutes played this past season?

Perhaps needlessly, I said that it wasn't actually that hard to make a chart of player minutes. The grumpy fellow still babbled on about how it was truly impossible.

I pointed out that you only need to make an arbitrary index of players (for example, simply rank them by height), and you're off. There's no need to get hung up about whether Julian Vaughn was playing center or power forward (as if those positions have meaning in Georgetown's offense), but just call him position "5" if he was the tallest player on the court, or player "4" if he was the second-tallest.

This seemed to sail past our moody friend.

But, in the interest of proving I'm not just all talk, I went ahead and made the table.  

A couple of caveats and the table, after the jump.

Size really does matter

I've always been a fan of size in basketball. It's hard not to be. Taller teams - as long as they don't sacrifice too much skill or quickness - tend to be better defending and rebounding teams. Not to mention that effective low post play is one of the best ways, if not the best way, to score points efficiently.

Of course, the Hoyas' tendency has been to play small.

That's not to say that the Hoyas are small. They aren't. Traditionally, the personnel has always been tall. Even under JTIII, the Hoyas have been tall.

But they've still played small.

For example, the Hoyas were 12th in effective height this year. But they played small far too often. What do I mean by that?

They were "tall" because Monroe was 6'11" and played a lot of minutes, and didn't have a sub-6' guard. But of the roughly 1,300 possessions the Hoyas played that mattered from the Washington game onward, 88% of them were with a lineup "smaller" than the traditional two guards, wing and two bigs.

I took Brian's excellent lineup data for the regular season and designated each lineup by type. I classified Freeman, Wright, Clark and Sanford as guards, Thompson and Benimon as wings, and Vaughn, Sims and Monroe as bigs.

Here's the results in terms of efficiency, by type of lineup:

Lineup Type      WAVG OE       WAVG DE      DIFF

2G 1W 2B           117            93         +23
2G 2W 1B            96           105          -9
3G 0W 2B           113           106          +8
3G 1W 1B           108           100          +8

Lineup Type is designated with the number of positions then the position; in other words, the first line is "2G 1W 2B", which is read as "2 guards, 1 wing, and 2 bigs."  
WAVG OE is the Weight Average Offensive Efficiency;  
WAVG DE is the same for Defensive Efficiency. "Diff" is the difference between the two.

Some thoughts:

• I used weighted averages to avoid having lineups with small sample sizes affecting the numbers. It's necessary given how few lineups the Hoyas run out there for substantial amounts of possessions and also helps negate some of the competitive issues. That said, keep in mind that a lot of Hoyas played a lot of minutes -- that 1B that is so prevalent is predominantly Monroe, for example.
  

• The biggest caveat here is that this does not adjust for quality of player. That's okay, because I'm not trying to prove larger lineups are better in general; I'm just trying to examine if a larger lineup will work for the Hoyas.

• That last point is apparent by seeing the results for the "2G2W1B" lineup and how poorly it performed. I don't think that the awful offense and poor defense were driven by the size of the lineup. This is just a situation where both Jerelle Benimon and Hollis Thompson were out on the floor together. Two freshmen, one a complete offensive liability, is not a great combination for any team. What is bad is that that particular duo played together for 186 possessions, more than the traditional 2G1W2B lineup.

• The three guard lineups played 74% of all possessions.

• The best lineup on both defense and offense was the traditional 2 guard, 1 wing and two bigs lineup. This was the least used lineup type.

• There were only four versions of the traditional and most effective lineup type. Hollis Thompson was the small forward in all of them. The bigs rotated between Vaughn and Monroe and Sims and Monroe. Freeman, Clark and Wright are in three of the four each, but the most common lineups were Monroe-Vaughn-Thompson-Freeman with Wright or Clark at the point.

• All four of those lineups held opponents under 100 efficiency. Three of the four (and both of the most common) were at 110 or above offensive efficiency.

• The three guard lineups were similarly performing, though they went at it different ways. Oddly, the two bigs lineup was better offensively, but weaker defensively. This likely speaks to matchups.

Analysis like this is far from definitive. There are reasons for playing small that would get lost at this level of detail. Certain lineups were less effective overall, but that doesn't necessarily mean the more effective lineups would have been more effective in all situations. Sometimes the most effective lineups or players only are so because they are limited to situations where they will be so effective.

For example, many of the small lineups could have been played against opponents with power forwards that were perhaps too quick for Julian Vaughn. Perhaps if Thompson had gone bigger, the result would not have been better.

That said, the results certainly raise the question, don't they? I think all three guards were better players than Hollis Thompson or Julian Vaughn this year, overall. I'd be willing to bet Thompson agrees. But that doesn't mean that they are necessarily in the best five. Sometimes you just need size. The numbers seem to support that.

Thompson seemingly loves to play a little down, perhaps because he puts such a premium on skill. I don't use the word "small" here because it isn't so much actual size as type of play. He started Brandon Bowman at PF for a year, DaJuan Summers for two, and both of those guys were small forwards at heart (though Brandon took to PF more than Summers did), despite being 6'8". Last year, a PF started, but Vaughn only played about half the minutes, so for the rest of the time, the Hoyas had a SF at PF.

Aside from 05-06 and 06-07 (our most successful tournament runs, by the way), JTIII's Hoyas never really had two "bigs" on the floor at all times.


How much of that is personnel and depth? How much is preference? Next year the Hoyas will likely be again looking at a situation where the guards are further along than the bigs. Will we see a repeat of small lineups? There's an argument to be made for playing real small forwards and real bigs despite the fact that they may not be as good as the guards from whom they'd be taking minutes.

And they would be taking minutes. The four Hoyas I established as guards (Freeman, Wright, Clark and Sanford) took up 2.67 positions worth of time last year. They'll be adding Markel Starks to the mix as well.

Playing a normal lineup all the time means cutting more than most people would want to. Assuming a coach wants Vee and Markel to play some, that means cutting close to 30 minutes out of Freeman, Wright and Clark's PT to get the team to a traditional lineup for all forty minutes.

Anyone want to do that?

Didn't think so. Even the most ardent "Big Lineup" supporter would be looking to play a 3 guard lineup at least 10-15 minutes a game, leaving the team to cut about five minutes from Clark, Freeman and Wright apiece.


Does the added benefit of height and size of outweigh sitting Georgetown's better players? It seems that this year it might have. The traditional lineups simply performed better than the three guard lineups. If everyone returns, why wouldn't that be true next year?

Hollis will likely improve more than the guards will, given that he's in that freshman to sophomore improvement sweet spot. And one of the team's biggest issues with playing two bigs at once this year was the team's lack of effective bigs.

But Sims showed some strides at the end of the year, and both he and Vaughn will have a summer to shore up weaknesses. Throw in Lubick and Abraham and the team seems to be better equipped to play two bigs at once next year than they were in 09-10.


That said, everything changes if Monroe leaves. While the team size advantage could offset the individual effectiveness difference between say, Clark and Hollis or Clark and Vaughn, I don't think that equation works with Clark and a freshman or Sims.

In other words, get used to a smaller lineup. There's going to be substantial three guard lineups next year, no matter what, simply because it seems unlikely any of our big three guards are going to see ten minute drops in PT.


But if Greg stays, there's a strong argument that Coach Thompson should play two guards, a wing, and two bigs as much as possible, even if those aren't necessarily the five best players.

Shot selection and lineup efficiencies - regular season wrap

By now, I'm supposed to have written a very long and well-researched article about the effects of a team losing it's best player (e.g. Harangody at Notre Dame). I haven't yet, due to a hectic schedule. Hopefully over the weekend.

Instead, you'll get a dump article, which is a lot easier for me to crank out. Yes, it's time again for: Georgetown shot selection and lineup efficiencies.

As last time, these stats are for all games from the Washington win forward. This is because of the natural break in the schedule between easy opponents (excluding the Temple game) and better competition. I'm not able to include the Butler game since no play-by-play was available.


First up, shot selection:

Player               Dunks   Layups   2pt J's   3FGA      FTA 
Freeman, Austin      6 /7     70/93    20/63    45/93    61/75
.                             0.753    0.317    0.484    0.813   

Wright, Chris        0 /0     71/115   19/47    23/80    63/86
.                             0.617    0.404    0.287    0.733   

Monroe, Greg         15/15    79/132   24/69    5 /17    93/140
.                             0.598    0.348    0.294    0.664   

Clark, Jason         2 /2     19/38    6 /17    42/99    29/40
.                             0.500    0.353    0.424    0.725   

Vaughn, Julian       21/21    39/64    12/33    0 /4     30/47
.                             0.609    0.364    0.000    0.638   

Thompson, Hollis     1 /1     6 /17    8 /23    12/36    17/25
.                             0.353    0.348    0.333    0.680   

Benimon, Jerrelle    0 /0     4 /11    2 /4     1 /5     13/18
.                             0.364    0.500    0.200    0.722   

Sanford, Vee         0 /0     1 /2     1 /2     2 /7     6 /9
.                             0.500    0.500    0.286    0.667   

Sims, Henry          1 /2     1 /4     1 /4     0 /1     5 /10
.                             0.250    0.250    0.000    0.500

Pithy comments on the starters:

• At this point, the only player with anything resembling a mid-range game is Chris Wright (40% on 2-pt jumpers). Austin Freeman, who most fans cite as the player with the best mid-range shot, actually has the worst shooting percentage of the regulars.

• Wright and Greg Monroe are about equally likely to make a 3FG, but Wright shoots nearly as many as Freeman and Jason Clark. At this point, his game reminds me a lot of senior Dominic James, although Chris is bigger and stronger. He's also got one more summer and season to either improve his shooting mechanics or become more selective.

• Freeman gets it done from behind the arc or driving to the rim. I think people are starting to understand what a devastating offensive force he really is - he's the player I always thought Darrel Owens would become.

• I'll bet Greg Monroe's shooting percentages will go up across the board his junior season. I'd like to be proven correct.

• I often criticize Jason Clark for not driving to the basket more often, but his shooting percentage on layups shows that this isn't necessarily a good option. Perhaps he needs to add some more strength.

• Julian Vaughn, in contrast to Monroe, goes for the dunk when possible. Throw it down, big fella.

Lineup stats (minimum of ten possession played on offense and defense):

.                                                Offense                    Defense
Lineup                                     # Poss  Eff. Secs/poss    # Poss  Eff. Secs/poss
Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Vaughn--Wright        474   114    17.6         474   105    18.0
Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Thompson--Wright      157   108    16.6         141   101    17.8
Benimon--Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Wright       127   108    19.0         118   103    16.6
Benimon--Freeman--Monroe--Thompson--Wright     82    88    17.9          76   108    14.0
Clark--Monroe--Thompson--Vaughn--Wright        72    97    17.7          71    96    21.5
Freeman--Monroe--Thompson--Vaughn--Wright      68   128    18.5          70    96    19.0
Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Thompson--Vaughn       46   111    18.2          41    98    15.0
Benimon--Clark--Monroe--Thompson--Wright       39   123    18.8          36   131    23.6
Benimon--Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Thompson      33    94    18.5          37    95    15.8
Clark--Freeman--Thompson--Vaughn--Wright       31   107    15.4          35    91    17.6
Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Sims--Wright           29   110    20.2          31   123    18.5
Freeman--Monroe--Sims--Thompson--Wright        22   127    17.8          21    86    22.4
Benimon--Clark--Freeman--Vaughn--Wright        21   129    16.5          27   115    20.4
Benimon--Freeman--Thompson--Vaughn--Wright     17    77    17.3          20   100    22.5
Clark--Monroe--Sims--Thompson--Wright          16    69    15.8          15    80    16.1
Benimon--Clark--Freeman--Thompson--Vaughn      15   100    19.1          17    65    18.6
Benimon--Clark--Monroe--Sanford--Wright        14   121    11.1          13    69    18.5
Clark--Monroe--Sanford--Thompson--Wright       13   115    12.0          10   120    16.0
Clark--Freeman--Sims--Vaughn--Wright           10    90    21.8          10    80    12.6

It's important to keep in mind that I'm not accounting for the quality of the opposition in the lineup efficiencies, so those will a small number of possessions can be greatly skewed depending upon who else was on the court.

Below are Alan's comments on the lineups:

• It's not surprising, but the two lineups with more than 60 total possessions (30 each way) that register a negative net efficiency feature two bench players at once (Benimon and Thompson). There's a whole lot of obvious reason for this, but the Hoyas are losing the game when two of their starters are out.

• The "big" lineup -- with 6'8" Hollis Thompson replacing 6'2" Jason Clark, has been our most effective lineup that's played anything close to a significant number of possessions. Thompson seems to like to coach small; perhaps he should press to see some size more often.

• Vaughn's lack of playing time is somewhat of a shame, simply because the team is much better when he's in and playing well. Now it might be simply match-ups or performance, and then his lower minutes might be a good decision. But if it is some other reason, it is disappointing, because the team seems to be substantially better when he's in.

Another shot selection and lineup efficiency update

Georgetown continues its death march this week with consecutive games against top-7 teams - whether by vote, RPI or statistical model.

As was discussed in comments here, the most likely outcome for this stretch was for the Hoyas to go 2-3 in these five games; since Georgetown has already won two of three, I suspect most fans have one of two positions for this week:

1. Georgetown's playing with house money, so even if they don't win either game this week, they're still likely to make some noise come March
2. The Hoyas have to win at least one of these games to prove that they are among the elite teams in the country.

I really didn't expect the Hoyas to be better than a top 20 team this year, but thanks to some obscene outside shooting and a much better job protecting the basketball, they've been a bit of a revelation these last few weeks. I'm still not convinced that the current level of performance is sustainable, but this week should tell us a lot.

As a means of getting ready for this week, here's another update of a couple of the stats I track:  shot selection and lineup efficiencies.

I've changed the range of games I'm posting this time.  I'm now starting with the game vs. Washington, and including all games forward from there.  This is because of the natural break in the schedule between easy opponents (excluding the Temple game) and better competition.  I'm not able to include the Butler game since no play-by-play was available.

This has eliminated all of the cupcakes (unless one considers DePaul and Rutgers to be cupcakes), and led to some significant changes in what these stats are showing.

First up, shot selection:

Player               Dunks   Layups   2pt J's   3FGA      FTA  
Wright, Chris        0 /0     41/65    9 /21    13/35    32/41
                              0.631    0.429    0.371    0.780

Freeman, Austin      4 /5     36/48    7 /29    20/43    32/38
                              0.750    0.241    0.465    0.842

Monroe, Greg         7 /7     32/60    11/35    4 /9     40/64           
                              0.533    0.314    0.444    0.625                 
    
Vaughn, Julian       11/11    23/40    7 /16    0 /3     18/27
                              0.575    0.438    0.000    0.667
    
Clark, Jason         1 /1     6 /15    4 /10    21/48    15/21           
                              0.400    0.400    0.438    0.714                 
    
Thompson, Hollis     0 /0     3 /7     4 /12    2 /12    6 /10            
                              0.429    0.333    0.167    0.600                 
    
Sims, Henry          1 /2     1 /4     0 /1     0 /1     5 /10     
                              0.250    0.000    0.000    0.500                 
    
Benimon, Jerrelle    0 /0     1 /3     1 /1     1 /3     5 /7           
                              0.333    1.000    0.333    0.714    

Sanford, Vee         0 /0     1 /1     0 /1     0 /3     1 /2      
                              1.000    0.000    0.000    0.500

Pithy comments:

• It seems like Chris Wright has one or two driving layups blocked a game, but he still has managed to lead the team in layups made during this stretch (and is second in layup %).  If he can keep his 3FG% above 35% and get his FT % above 80%, I'd say he's playing at about as high a level as I would have hoped for this season.

• Austin Freeman's line surprised me, in that it seems to skewer the great myth that he has one of the best mid-range games in college basketball.  He's shooting only 24% on 2-pt jumpers, and he's taking too many relative to either layups or threes.  He does make about 75% of his layup attempts, which leads the team.  And his outside shooting is excellent.
  

• Greg Monroe is also still struggling to make his 2-pt jumpers, although it's up a tick since the last time we looked.  He's also made 4/9 3FG during this stretch.  Very nice.
  

• Since we've chucked out the start of the season, Julian Vaughn's 1/10 start shooting FTs is gone, and he suddenly looks like a competent shooter across the board.  Well, maybe not from outside - I'd like to think those three shots from 3FG were with the shot clock running down, but I doubt it.

• Although he seemed to go through a bit of a shooting slump in December, Jason Clark has regained his outside stroke.  I'd love to see a higher percentage on layups, but otherwise no complaints.

• Hollis Thompson, on the other hand, finally made a 3FG in the Rutgers game (he was 0/9 during this stretch of games before Rutgers).  He's got such a classic shooting form that I expect every one of his jump shots to drop.
  

Lineup stats (minimum of ten possession played on offense and defense):

.                                                Offense                    Defense
Lineup                                     # Poss  Eff. Secs/poss    # Poss  Eff. Secs/poss
Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Vaughn--Wright       251   119    17.2         249    99    18.9
Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Thompson--Wright      90    96    16.4          86   105    17.4
Freeman--Monroe--Thompson--Vaughn--Wright     45   129    18.4          47    94    18.1
Benimon--Freeman--Monroe--Thompson--Wright    41    98    14.7          39   123    11.6
Benimon--Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Wright       34    79    17.2          32    88    15.0
Clark--Monroe--Thompson--Vaughn--Wright       29   103    18.1          28    68    21.0
Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Sims--Wright          24   125    20.9          26   123    19.3
Freeman--Monroe--Sims--Thompson--Wright       16   156    18.4          14    79    25.6
Clark--Monroe--Sims--Thompson--Wright         16    69    15.8          15    80    16.1
Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Thompson--Vaughn      16    75    18.5          15    67    20.9
Benimon--Clark--Monroe--Thompson--Wright      15   120    16.3          13   123    23.5
Benimon--Clark--Freeman--Thompson--Vaughn     12   125    18.9          13    69    19.8
Benimon--Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Thomspon     12    75    22.2          14    93    17.2

More pithy comments:

• The starting lineup is very good.

• When the Hoyas go small (Thompson in for Vaughn), the team give up a bit of defense and really struggles on offense; when the team goes big (Thompson in for Clark) it kicks some ass.
  

• One of the reasons we clamor for more playing time for Henry Sims around here is that the early season lineup stats showed that his primary lineup (Clark-Freeman-Monroe-Sims-Wright) was about the best the Hoyas could run out.  This isn't the case anymore, as it's been too porous defensively.  However, a lineup of Freeman-Monroe-Sims-Thompson-Wright has the best differential (Off Eff. - Def. Eff.), albeit in only ~15 possessions played.
  

• Bringing in Benimon seems to cause a substantial drag on the offense, at least for the two highest usage lineups.  Defensively, its a mixed bag.

 -------------

That's all I've got.  No predictions for tonight's game against Syracuse, but it's worth noting that the performance stats are showing that the Hoyas are playing better on offense, but worse on defense these days. 

Shot selelction and lineup efficiencies update

Just a quick note this morning to update a couple of stats that I track neurotically:

Shot Selection by Player

Player               Dunks   Layups   2pt J's   3FGA      FTA
Wright, Chris        0 /0     37/56    7 /17    12/32    29/34
                              0.661    0.412    0.375    0.853

Freeman, Austin      3 /4     25/42    10/25    10/31    22/24
                              0.595    0.400    0.323    0.917

Monroe, Greg         4 /5     38/64    10/39    3 /12    31/50
                              0.594    0.256    0.250    0.620

Vaughn, Julian       7 /7     25/40    5 /15    2 /4     10/23
                              0.625    0.333    0.500    0.435

Clark, Jason         5 /5     9 /17    4 /5     20/50    13/17
                              0.529    0.800    0.400    0.765

Thompson, Hollis     0 /0     6 /9     2 /8     6 /14    6 /10
                              0.667    0.250    0.429    0.600

Sims, Henry          3 /3     4 /5     3 /6     0 /2     11/15
                              0.800    0.500    0.000    0.733

Sanford, Vee         0 /0     1 /3     1 /2     1 /5     5 /6
                              0.333    0.500    0.200    0.833

Benimon, Jerrelle    0 /0     2 /3     0 /0     0 /0     0 /0
                              0.667     -        -        -

* Game against Butler missing (no play-by-play available)

Chris Wright is making a nice percentage of shots in all ranges, and has a very good distribution as well - if he could cut his turnover rate down a bit, I'd say he'd be playing as well as one could hope.

Austin Freeman is the best FT shooter on the team, but has only shot 24 so far this year.  I'd love to see him trade a few of those mid-range jumpers for aggressive drives to the hoop.  His outside shot is also down a bit, but if he makes his next 3FG, he'll be back to shooting ~35%.

I've seen quite a few criticisms on HoyaTalk of Greg Monroe's ability to hit his layups, but the stats show he's making a fairly typical amount (Roy Hibbert shot 60% on layups his senior year).  What Monroe is struggling with is 2-pt jumpers, and here the official scorer is correctly noting that quite a few of his "layup" attempts are just a bit too far outside to be considered a layup.  Those are the shots he has trouble with.  I think that this is simply a maturation process - after a few more years of repetition in practice, those shots will drop but they're not very good ones for him to take right now.

Julian Vaughn is now shooting 43% on FTs, and this is big improvement since the last time we looked.  That is, he's made 9/13 FTA since starting 1/10.  He's also leading the team in dunks.  I would criticize his 15 2-pt jumper attempts, but that stop-and-pop off the glass against St. John's was so pretty that I'll let it slide.

Jason Clark is also struggling lately with his outside shot, in a relative sense (6/19 3FGA since last time we checked).  His shot selection is about ideal for his skill set.

Hollis Thompson is settling for far too many 2-pt jumpers.  I wonder if this is a strength-issue, where he isn't confident that he'll get off a shot on a drive.

Henry Sims hasn't shot the ball much - or played as much as I expected.  He looks to have a nice touch at the FT line, so I wonder if he could be a bit more aggressive when he catches the ball.  Of course, that first part is the trick, as his TO rate (38% right now) is killing him.



And here are the lineup efficiencies so far this year.  I'm only posting those lineups that have at least 10 offensive and defensive possessions together. Also note that these aren't adjusted for competition:

.                                                  Offense                     Defense
Lineup                                      # Poss   Eff.  Secs/poss    # Poss   Eff.  Secs/poss
Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Vaughn--Wright        207   103.4    16.6         209    78.5    19.3
Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Thompson--Wright       87    98.9    16.0          83   100.0    16.6
Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Sims--Wright           49   130.6    16.2          48    75.0    18.8
Clark--Monroe--Sims--Thompson--Wright          25    92.0    18.8          24   100.0    15.9
Freeman--Monroe--Sims--Thompson--Wright        20    140     15.2          22    95.5    22.2
Freeman--Monroe--Thompson--Vaughn--Wright      17   117.6    18.3          19    94.7    18.1
Clark--Freeman--Monroe--Thompson--Vaughn       16    75.0    15.6          13    53.8    22.5
Clark--Monroe--Thompson--Vaughn--Wright        14   107.1    18.6          16   118.8    18.4
Benimon--Freeman--Monroe--Thompson--Wright     14   107.1    15.7          14   135.7    11.5
Clark--Freeman--Thompson--Vaughn--Wright       12   158.3    10.0          15    46.7    18.1
Clark--Freeman--Sims--Thompson--Vaughn         12   116.7    15.5          10    80.0    20.2

* Games against Butler and Savannah St. missing (no substitution data or play-by-play available)

The perils of playing a freshman (H. Thompson) are that this tends to lead to worse defense.  And for all the Henry Sims detractors, the primary lineup with him (in for Vaughn) is the best lineup for the Hoyas so far this year.

Again, keep in mind small sample size effects and no correction for competition.  See the original post on lineups for more details.

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

I'm working on a new format for individual net points charts that I posted last year.  Hope to have this year's charts running by the end of the weekend.  I prefer net points to +/- when looking for a single number to describe how a player performed, but admittedly neither really tells you a lot by itself.

Fun with lineups

I'm still playing around with new coding for the HD Box Score generator.  Mostly behind-the-scenes stuff to make it run smoother and hopefully in a bit more automated fashion.

One thing I've just added is a possession tracker that compiles performance by lineup.  This is simply the team's offensive and defensive efficiency when any particular set of 5 players is on the court.

For instance, here are all lineups that had at least 15 offensive and defensive possessions last season, looking at all available games from the conference opener at UConn forward.  The compiler ignores all possessions when the game is statistically over (at nominally 69% [1σ] confidence), to avoid garbage time stats.

.                                                Offensive                    Defensive
Lineup                                    # Poss.  Rating Secs/poss     # Poss.  Rating Secs/poss
Freeman-Monroe-Sapp-Summers-Wright             294     108     18.2          280     104     17.8
Freeman-Mescheriakov-Monroe-Summers-Wright     109     102     19.3          101     107     19.0
Clark-Freeman-Monroe-Summers-Wright             74      99     19.6           76     136     18.7
Clark-Monroe-Sapp-Summers-Wright                42     102     15.8           40      92     17.7
Clark-Mescheriakov-Monroe-Summers-Wright        36     106     18.7           35     100     16.0
Freeman-Sapp-Summers-Vaughn-Wright              31      61     23.5           34     112     17.5
Clark-Freeman-Monroe-Summers-Wattad             30     123     14.5           30     107     20.6
Freeman-Mescheriakov-Monroe-Sapp-Wright         30      97     18.3           32     112     20.4
Clark-Freeman-Monroe-Sims-Wright                29     138     18.7           33      45     19.6
Clark-Freeman-Monroe-Sapp-Summers               25     108     18.5           24     133     16.3
Clark-Freeman-Mescheriakov-Monroe-Wright        24      92     19.2           21     100     19.2
Mescheriakov-Monroe-Sapp-Summers-Wright         20     135     20.2           20      90     17.1
Monroe-Sapp-Summers-Wattad-Wright               19      95     19.4           19      74     16.5
Clark-Freeman-Sapp-Summers-Vaughn               16      75     25.0           16     162     17.9
Freeman-Monroe-Sapp-Sims-Wright                 15     147     18.2           15      73     18.5
Freeman-Monroe-Sims-Summers-Wright              15     127     14.9           15      73     16.3
Clark-Freeman-Summers-Vaughn-Wright             15      53     19.4           18     167     18.7

Right now I'm just tracking offensive and defensive efficiencies and average time of possession.

As you can see, this might not be the most informative exercise for the Hoyas, as Coach Thompson likes to run a short bench, so only three lineups had more than 50 possessions together at either end. 

Looking at those three lineups, when either Mescheriakov or Clark substituted for Jessie Sapp last year, both the offense and defense took a substantial hit.  The defense with Clark, Freeman and Wright at the guards, Monroe at center and Summers at forward was especially generous.


How about this season, albeit against lesser competition (no lineup data for the Savannah St. game)?

.                                                Offensive                    Defensive
Lineup                                     # Poss.  Rating Secs/poss    # Poss.  Rating Secs/poss
Clark-Freeman-Monroe-Vaughn-Wright              82      109    15.1          83       63     19.8
Clark-Freeman-Monroe-Sims-Wright                32      113    15.0          32       72     16.9
Clark-Freeman-Monroe-Thompson-Wright            27      115    18.4          26      112     17.7
Clark-Freeman-Sims-Thompson-Vaughn              12      117    15.5          10       80     20.2
Clark-Monroe-Sims-Thompson-Wright               11      136    25.5          12      108     14.8
Freeman-Monroe-Sims-Thompson-Wright             11      136    14.3          13       92     21.0
Freeman-Monroe-Thompson-Vaughn-Wright           7        86    19.7          7        29     20.0
Clark-Mescheriakov-Monroe-Thompson-Wright       6       133    19.7          4       175     20.2
Freeman-Mescheriakov-Monroe-Thompson-Wright     6       133    15.5          7        71     26.9
Freeman-Sims-Thompson-Vaughn-Wright             6       100    21.8          5       120     13.4
Clark-Freeman-Monroe-Sanford-Thompson           6        50    16.5          6        83     11.8

This year's table now updated through the Mount St. Mary's game.

Note that the top 2 lineups are 3-4 seconds quicker per offensive possession than the top 2 last season.  A faster pace than last year, or just feasting on a steady diet of cupcakes?

Someone prod me in a few weeks and I'll update this year's lineup table.