Recap: Georgetown 74, Cincinnati 47

Apparently, Austin Freeman has already adjusted to his diagnosis of diabetes, as he and the Hoyas enjoyed a tremendous defensive second half on the way to a 27-point win today at the Verizon Center.

I'm not sure what happened in the respective locker rooms at half time, but Cincinnati came out completely flat and the Hoyas were willing to take advantage of that.  For a long stretch of the Vesper half, if Lance Stephenson didn't score the Bearcats didn't:  Georgetown went on a 32-8 run where Born Ready scored all of his team's points.

And with that, the regular season is over.  The Hoyas head off to Madison Square Garden for the Big East tournament (warning: pdf), playing the winner of the DePaul-South Florida first round game at noon on Wednesday.


Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Home                            Visitor   
.            Georgetown                      Cincinnati         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            28        35        63
 
Effic.        102.5     128.5     116.5        91.9      60.0      74.0  
 
eFG%           45.0      58.3      51.7        38.3      44.7      40.8  
TO%            21.2      17.1      18.9        14.1      34.3      25.2  
OR%            50.0      40.0      45.5        35.0      20.0      28.6  
FTA/FGA         6.7      40.0      23.3        16.7      63.2      34.7  

Assist Rate    50.0      56.2      53.6        63.6      62.5      63.2  
Block Rate      0.0      14.3       5.1        15.8      15.8      15.8  
Steal Rate      7.1      14.3      11.0        17.7       5.7      11.0  
 
2FG%           47.4      68.4      57.9        40.0      50.0      43.6  
3FG%           27.3      27.3      27.3        20.0      20.0      20.0  
FT%           100.0      83.3      85.7        60.0      33.3      41.2

The most striking aspect of this game was the rebounding.  Much like the game at Louisville, Georgetown was able to neutralize the glass and take away their opponent's greatest offensive strength.  The Bearcats came into the game as the 25th best offensive rebounding team in the nation (gathering 38% of their own missed shots), and it's really the only aspect of offense in which they excel.

The game started with Cinci gathering 6 offensive rebounds in their first 10 possessions (on 9 missed shots), and I thought it was going to be another game where the Hoyas just got out-toughed inside.  Instead, Greg Monroe and friends were able to control the boards the rest of the way - there were 26 more available misses for Cincinnati in the game, and they only grabbed four of them [4/26 = 15%].  Nice.

The second half was an offensive showcase for Greg Monroe, as he and the Hoyas shot 12/16 on dunks, layups and tip-ins.  Ibrahima Thomas picked up two quick fouls after halftime and had to sit, and the Hoyas recognized and took advantage of that.

INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS

Georgetown            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
Wright, Chris          57   24.0   95.6   13.1      59    70.9    8.4      +4.0  
Monroe, Greg           54   20.3  177.2   19.5      54    67.4    7.3     +12.1  
Freeman, Austin        49   30.7  126.1   19.0      50    60.1    6.0     +11.4  
Clark, Jason           51   22.6  106.0   12.2      53    76.4    8.1      +3.8  
Vaughn, Julian         42   16.5   60.1    4.2      44    72.2    6.3      -1.5  
Thompson, Hollis       33   10.9   92.2    3.3      31    39.2    2.4      +1.4  
Sanford, Vee           16    3.3  208.7    1.1      16    70.0    2.2      -0.2  
Dougherty, Ryan         2    0.0    -      0.0       2    60.0    0.2      -0.2  
Benimon, Jerrelle       8    0.0    -      0.0       9    71.7    1.3      -1.3  
STEPKA, Stephen         1    0.0    -      0.0       1   100.0    0.2      -0.2  
Sims, Henry             7    0.0    -      0.0       6    45.0    0.5      -0.5  
TOTALS                 64         116.1   72.3      65    66.2   43.0     +30.8  

Cincinnati            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
VAUGHN, Deonta         40   14.6   64.2    3.7      38   109.7    8.3      -3.6  
BISHOP, Rashad         54    9.0   77.5    3.8      54   119.1   12.9      -5.6  
THOMAS, Ibrahima       40   25.7   36.1    3.7      36    70.0    5.0      -2.4  
STEPHENSON, Lance      58   33.7  101.4   19.8      56   118.8   13.3      +1.6  
GATES, Yancy           45   21.6   67.6    6.6      46   114.8   10.6      -4.3  
WRIGHT, Cashmere       21   15.3  126.9    4.1      21   140.8    5.9      -1.1  
DAVIS, Larry           21   25.4   50.2    2.7      21   141.2    5.9      -4.1  
WILKS, Darnell          3    0.0    -      0.0       4   128.3    1.0      -1.0  
TOYLOY, Steve          21    7.9   78.8    1.3      22    99.1    4.4      -1.7  
PARKER, Jaquon         22   14.7   14.6    0.5      22    79.6    3.5      -2.6  
TOTALS                 65          72.5   46.2      64   110.7   70.8     -24.5

Greg Monroe had as nice a game as I can remember - by my estimation, likely his best game since the first game against Rutgers.  Efficient shooting [8/11 2FG, 3/4 FT], only 1 turnover and a completely dominant effort on the glass.

Austin Freeman played as if there hadn't been much going on in his life over the past two weeks.  He was a bit more aggressive today than we're used to seeing [31% poss. used] but made his shots at the normal clip while playing his best defensive game in a while (all year?).  A couple of weeks ago, I wondered if anyone realized what an offensive weapon he really is, but I think the past two games show what happens to the Hoyas when he is out or suffering.

Chris Wright facilitated and scored.  He would have had an even better game if a couple of his layup attempts would have gone in.

Jason Clark continues to struggle with his outside shot [now 8/31 in his last 7 games] and turnovers, but contributed in other areas (including the unenviable task of being the primary cover on Stephenson).  His game today showed a nice example of how to fight through a tough shooting game to remain a positive for his team.

Julian Vaughn also had tough time with turnovers.  He's now run off six straight games with a negative net points stat, as I fear the Big East grind has caught up to him.

HD BOX SCORE

Cincinnati vs Georgetown
03/06/10 12:00 at Verizon Center
Final score: Georgetown 74, Cincinnati 47

Cincinnati              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
VAUGHN, Deonta         23:11  -10   2/31  0- 1  0- 2  2- 2  3/27  4/12  0/38  3/40  0/20  0/18  2/19   3
BISHOP, Rashad         31:53  -19   4/41  1- 3  0- 1  2- 4  4/39  1/15  0/54  0/54  1/29  0/27  2/24   1
THOMAS, Ibrahima       24:42  - 4   5/33  2- 5  0- 1  1- 4  6/32  0/12  4/36  3/40  3/23  0/21  4/23   4
STEPHENSON, Lance      35:40  -26  23/41 10-16  1- 1  0- 1 17/43  1/ 5  0/56  5/58  0/33  4/32  3/29   2
GATES, Yancy           27:57  -28   7/30  3- 7  0- 0  1- 2  7/32  0/ 9  1/46  4/45  1/29  3/22  3/25   2
WRIGHT, Cashmere       13:11  -14   4/15  0- 1  1- 2  1- 2  3/16  3/ 5  0/21  1/21  0/14  0/12  0/ 7   3
DAVIS, Larry           15:15  -12   0/16  0- 2  0- 1  0- 0  3/18  3/ 8  0/21  2/21  0/16  2/11  0/15   0
WILKS, Darnell         01:54  - 7   0/ 0  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 2  0/ 0  0/ 4  0/ 3  1/ 2  0/ 2  0/ 1   0
TOYLOY, Steve          12:18  - 7   2/16  1- 2  0- 0  0- 0  2/17  0/ 5  1/22  0/21  0/11  0/15  0/12   0
PARKER, Jaquon         13:59  - 8   0/12  0- 2  0- 2  0- 2  4/19  0/ 5  1/22  0/22  0/13  1/15  2/15   0
TOTALS                 40:00       47    17-39  2-10  7-17    49 12/19  7/64 18/65  6/38 10/35 18/33  15
.                                        0.436 0.200 0.412       0.632 0.109 0.277 0.158 0.286 0.545    

Georgetown              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
Wright, Chris          35:54  +26  16/72  6-11  1- 4  1- 2 15/54  4/21  2/59  2/57  0/38  0/28  1/32   1
Monroe, Greg           34:02  +25  19/66  8-11  0- 1  3- 4 12/53  2/16  0/54  1/54  0/34  5/31 10/30   0
Freeman, Austin        29:44  +24  24/59  4- 8  4- 7  4- 4 15/44  3/14  2/50  2/49  0/30  0/23  2/28   3
Clark, Jason           33:03  +27  11/67  3- 4  1- 6  2- 2 10/50  1/21  1/53  4/51  0/34  4/27  1/30   0
Vaughn, Julian         23:48  +13   2/45  1- 1  0- 1  0- 0  2/34  2/16  0/44  4/42  0/27  2/18  3/23   3
Thompson, Hollis       20:51  +20   2/39  0- 3  0- 2  2- 2  5/34  2/14  2/31  0/33  2/17  1/22  3/16   2
Sanford, Vee           08:50  + 3   0/13  0- 0  0- 1  0- 0  1/12  1/ 6  0/16  0/16  0/ 6  1/ 6  2/ 7   1
Dougherty, Ryan        01:12  - 1   0/ 0  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 1  0/ 0  0/ 2  0/ 2  0/ 1  0/ 1  0/ 1   0
Benimon, Jerrelle      07:40  - 2   0/ 5  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/13  0/ 2  0/ 9  0/ 8  0/ 5  0/11  1/ 4   1
STEPKA, Stephen        00:41  - 1   0/ 0  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 1  0/ 1  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 0   0
Sims, Henry            04:15  + 1   0/ 4  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 5  0/ 2  0/ 6  0/ 7  0/ 3  0/ 3  1/ 4   0
TOTALS                 40:00       74    22-38  6-22 12-14    60 15/28  7/65 14/64  2/39 15/33 25/35  11
.                                        0.579 0.273 0.857       0.536 0.108 0.219 0.051 0.455 0.714    

Efficiency: Georgetown 1.156, Cincinnati 0.723
eFG%: Georgetown 0.517, Cincinnati 0.408
Substitutions: Georgetown 29, Cincinnati 32

2-pt Shot Selection:
Dunks: Georgetown 1-1, Cincinnati 1-1
Layups/Tips: Georgetown 16-26, Cincinnati 11-20
Jumpers: Georgetown 5-11, Cincinnati 5-18

Fast break pts (% FG pts): Georgetown 6 (9.7), Cincinnati 0 (0.0)
Pts (eff.) after steal: Georgetown 8 (114.3), Cincinnati 6 (85.7)
Seconds per poss: Georgetown 20.3, Cincinnati 17.2

Examining the slump -- offense or defense?

One of the first things I do when dissecting why a team is winning or losing is simply to check whether the offense or defense is more to blame. People inherently focus on scoring -- there will be a game where the team loses 97-95 and their fans will scream about a turnover or missed shot, all the while ignoring the sieve that was the defense.

So what about the Hoyas? The team is slumping badly with its most recent loss to a good WVU squad on the road (which, as Brian points out, was mostly caused by offensive turnovers and a distinct lack of defensive turnovers).

One simple way to look at a team is to look at offensive and defensive efficiencies. As of the WVU game, Georgetown has an adjusted offensive efficiency of 114.5, good for 20th in the country.

What does this mean? That Georgetown could be expected to score 114.5 points in 100 possessions against an average D-I team. Georgetown's defensive efficiency is 92.4 (43rd), which means it could expect to give up 92.4 points versus that same average team.

In short, the offense has been better than the defense right now.

But that hasn't always been the case.

I went game by game and took Georgetown's offensive and defensive efficiency in each game, adjusted for home/away games and the opponent's current efficiency for the season, to see how well Georgetown's offense and defense performed over the course of the season.

To put this in the context of a typical Georgetown game, I converted those efficiency numbers into points, based on a 67-possession game.

In short, the numbers below are the number of points per game that Georgetown played above or below an average NCAA in each game. The average NCAA team is someone like Loyola Marymount, Lipscomb or Indiana this year; so being average here is not a good thing, and decidedly worse that being an average team in the Big East.

How is this different than what Brian did here?

Well, Brian was looking at how Georgetown performed relative to its own expectation;. I'm trying to evaluate Georgetown's performance against a standard baseline (i.e. the average NCAA team) to see, overall, how the offense and defense have performed, given the competition.  It's really just an offset between the two analyses.

.                 (Above Avg. Team)  (Below Avg Team)
Games               Points Scored     Points Allowed
First 7 Games             7.8               9.2
Second 7 Games            6.3               8.2
Third 7 Games            12.1               4.8
Fourth 7 Games            8.7               4.2

In the first seven games, the Hoyas had some creampuffs, the Temple offensive debacle and a rather balanced performance versus Butler.

Starting with the Butler game and running through much of the second 7 games (including Washington), the defense carried Georgetown for the most part. In the Old Dominion game, the offense was actually below NCAA-average.

Starting with Seton Hall, the team started to get hot on offense, but also a bit schizophrenic. In four of the seven games in this quartile, the Hoyas posted offenses 18+ points above NCAA Average in a 67-possession game. Yes, NCAA-average isn't very good, but 18 points differential due to the offense in a regular Georgetown game is pretty darn good.

The defense started to decline, though, and in the South Florida game, neither the offense nor defense was any good.

By the last set of games, the offense had come back to earth but the defense hadn't revived.

Looking at the losses:

Game              Offense        Defense
ODU                 -1              5
South Florida       -1             -4
at Rutgers           8             -5
Notre Dame           3            -11

at Marquette         9              7
at Villanova         5             11
at Syracuse          0              7
Syracuse             6              6
West Virginia        6              5

I divided them up into perceived "bad" losses and "acceptable" losses. It's worth noting that versus Marquette and Nova, Georgetown played better than in some of their wins. The Syracuse games were pretty bad; at home the Hoyas played better than versus Temple but that's about it.  Overall, the defense plays as well or better than the offense in losses against marquee opponents.

In the three "bad" in-conference losses, the defense has been more to blame. But aside from the Rutgers game, the offense wasn't exactly pulling its weight, either. Still, 11 points worse than an average D-I (read: Indiana) defense versus Notre Dame? Ughh.  Overall, the defense plays terribly in losses against "easier" opponents.

Here's the whole season, along with the season to date running average after the seventh game -- you can see how the defense has slowly declined:

Game                   Offense  Defense  Total  O Avg  D Avg
Tulane                   12         5      17   
Temple                  - 9        19      10   
Savannah St.              6        10      16   
Lafayette                23         1      24   
Mount St. Mary's         10         6      16   
American                  2        13      16     7.5    8.9 
Butler                    9        11      20     7.8    9.2 
Washington                1        19      20     6.9   10.4 
Old Dominion            - 1         5       4     6.1    9.7 
Harvard                   6         9      15     6.1    9.7 
St. John's                9         3      12     6.3    9.1 
DePaul                   15        10      25     7.0    9.1 
Marquette                 9         7      15     7.2    8.9 
Connecticut               6         6      11     7.1    8.7 
Seton Hall               18         0      18     7.8    8.1 
Villanova                 5        11      17     7.6    8.3 
Pittsburgh               21         5      27     8.4    8.2 
Rutgers                  20         3      23     9.0    7.9 
Syracuse                - 0         7       7     8.5    7.9 
Duke                     22        10      32     9.2    8.0 
South Florida           - 1       - 4     - 4     8.7    7.4 
Villanova                16         7      23     9.1    7.4 
Providence                7        13      20     9.0    7.6 
Rutgers                   8       - 5       3     9.0    7.1 
Syracuse                  6         6      12     8.8    7.0 
Louisville               15        14      29     9.1    7.3 
Notre Dame                3       -11     - 8     8.8    6.6 
West Virginia             6         5      11     8.7    6.6

Notice that the offense got better as the season has progressed before stabilizing in February, while the defense has been steadily trending downward since the Washington game.

Recap: West Virginia 81, Georgetown 68

Turnovers.

Sometimes it's as simple as one statistic.  Tonight it was turnovers.  After 38 possessions had been played - at 16:54 in the 2nd half - the Hoyas had committed 16 turnovers [TO Rate = 42%] to the Mountaineers' two [TO Rate = 5%], and trailed 53-26.


Edited to add:  In reality, it's never that simplistic.  If we look at the efficiencies in non-turnover possessions during that stretch, the Hoyas were in big trouble anyway:

Team     Total  TOs  Non-TO  Pts    Off. Eff.
G'town     38    16    22     26      118
WVU        38     2    36     53      147

The majority of those turnovers weren't off of steals, so the Hoyas were able to set up on defense against West Virginia, and the Hoopies were converting those steals into points at the same efficiency (150) as other non-TO possessions.  Georgetown simply wasn't playing good defense until the game had gotten away from them.

Georgetown realistically had little chance of winning (they were 7-point underdogs before Austin Freeman was announced as unavailable), but the Hoyas were blown off the court early and struggled to make the score look respectable for most of the second half.


Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Visitor                         Home      
.            Georgetown                      West Virginia         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total 
Pace            33        37        71

Effic.         77.7     113.0      96.4       128.6     102.2     114.8  
 
eFG%           55.3      55.0      55.1        60.3      35.2      48.2  
TO%            35.9      21.5      28.4         6.0      18.8      12.8  
OR%            23.1      37.5      31.0        14.3      42.9      31.4  
FTA/FGA        52.6      36.7      42.9        34.5      88.9      60.7  
 
Assist Rate    88.9      60.0      70.8        66.7      77.8      70.8  
Block Rate      0.0      16.7       8.6         0.0       4.8       3.0  
Steal Rate      3.0      10.8       7.1        14.9       2.7       8.5  
 
2FG%           50.0      57.1      54.5        58.8      44.4      51.4  
3FG%           42.9      33.3      37.5        41.7      11.1      28.6  
FT%            50.0      81.8      66.7        80.0      79.2      79.4

Okay, there were a few other problems tonight besides turnovers to talk about. 

West Virginia was able to make their 2-pt shoots in the first half by pounding the ball inside:  8/12 on dunks, layups and tip-ins while only 2/5 on 2-pt jumpers.  Meanwhile, the Hoyas didn't record a blocked shot in the half.

As expected Greg Monroe and Chris Wright tried to be the Hoyas' primary offensive weapons in the Lift-off half, although each struggled.  Wright simply missed his shots, of several varieties: 2 missed layups, 2 missed 2-pt jumpers, and 2 missed 3FGs.  Monroe was pressured into 3 turnovers (Jason Clark had 4 turnovers, including three in the first 7 possessions). Georgetown made only 5/10 FTs in the half, lead by Greg Monroe's 3/6 FT shooting.

The Vesper half started with more of the same, as the Hoyas turned the ball over 4 times in their first 6 possessions (2 by Hollis Thompson, 1 each by Monroe and Clark) as the Mountaineers ran out 10-0 to blow the game open.

What happened after that can be attributed to grit and determination by Georgetown or a simple lack of focus by West Virginia, but Georgetown managed to crawl back into the game.  Over the next 17 possessions, the Hoyas managed a 27-9 run of their own, enabled in no small part by only committing 2 turnovers over that stretch.  Led by Chris Wright's 15 pts, 2 assists, 4 def. rebounds, 1 steal and a block(!), the game suddenly became respectable with about six minutes left in the game.

But that was it.  Bob Huggins changed up the Mountaineer defense to a 1-3-1 to break the game's rhythm and the Hoyas never recovered.

INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS

Georgetown            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
Thompson, Hollis       48   10.7   55.8    2.9      48   130.7   12.5      -6.8  
Vaughn, Julian         29   13.0  124.7    4.7      29   112.6    6.5      -0.7  
Monroe, Greg           67   32.2   99.4   21.4      67   108.8   14.6      +2.4  
Wright, Chris          68   31.5  103.0   22.1      68   107.2   14.6      +3.3  
Clark, Jason           61   17.4   56.2    6.0      56   113.4   12.7      -6.4  
Sanford, Vee           37    6.6  201.6    4.9      37    77.8    5.8      +1.1  
Benimon, Jerrelle      37   13.1  101.1    4.9      38   114.9    8.7      -2.2  
Sims, Henry             8   12.5    0.0    0.0      12    88.3    2.1      -1.5  
TOTALS                 71          94.5   66.9      71   109.2   77.5     -10.6  

West Virginia         Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
EBANKS, Devin          63   21.8  108.9   14.9      62    95.2   11.8      +2.5  
JONES, Kevin           62   17.1  103.5   11.0      59    84.3    9.9      +1.5  
SMITH, Wellington      30   18.8  108.1    6.1      33    82.0    5.4      +1.1  
BUTLER, Da'Sean        61   29.1  119.6   21.2      62    93.5   11.6      +7.1  
BRYANT, Darryl         53   20.1  119.4   12.7      53    77.4    8.2      +4.5  
THOROUGHMAN, Cam       10    0.0    -      0.0      10   120.0    2.4      -2.4  
WEST, Jonnie            0     -     -      0.0       0    95.8    0.0      +0.0  
PAYNE, Cam              1  100.0    0.0    0.0       2   100.0    0.4      -0.7  
MAZZULLA, Joe          17   12.0  105.0    2.1      17   100.0    3.4      -0.6  
JENNINGS, Dan           2   50.0    0.0    0.0       1     0.0    0.0      +0.0  
MITCHELL, Casey        23   13.7  174.2    5.5      20    85.6    3.4      +2.4  
FLOWERS, John          31    8.1  118.5    3.0      36   105.2    7.6      -2.1  
KILICLI, Deniz          2   50.0    0.0    0.0       0    95.8    0.0      -0.5  
TOTALS                 71         110.9   76.6      71    90.4   64.2     +13.5

While Greg Monroe didn't have a great game by his standard, he certainly did his best to pick up the slack with Freeman out for the game.  He was able to maintain a point per possession used clip while chewing up more than 30% of available possessions in the game.  His 5 turnovers were a problem (including one where he just seemed to dribble the ball out of bounds on his own), but I think most fans would be surprised to see that he was a solid positive force tonight.

Chris Wright has a terrible first half.  But, as mentioned above, he was the best player on the court for a long stretch of the second half as he willed his team back in the game. He also produced a point per possession while using more than 30% of them.

When your two stars are using a total using that many possessions right at 100 ORating, you'll need either a great defensive effort or efficient scoring from the rest of the team. The Hoyas got neither.

The two players who struggled greatly in the game were Jason Clark and Hollis Thompson.  Both were trying to fill the void in the offense from Freeman's illness, but neither could step up.  Clark's outside shooting touch disappeared again, after returning briefly for the Notre Dame game.  He seems to lack an alternative offensive skill to his outside shot (i.e. he's becoming one-dimensional), and this coupled with a lot of turnovers was just a forgettable night for Jason.  Thompson simply disappeared out there, using only 11% of available possessions (and three of those were turnovers) while logging the 4th most minutes.

Julian Vaughn did some nice things in limited duty today.  I think his minutes have been reduced lately because of fatigue - he cetainly has been struggling - but tonight would have been a good game for him to stay out there in place of the passive Thompson.

Jerrelle Benimon also logged respectable minutes tonight, except for the turnovers (a recurring theme).

Henry Sims got some run in the first half, and defended well. As for his offense, I don't want to talk about it.

If Vee Sanford is relegated to 1 or 2 minutes a game once Austin Freeman returns, I will be sad.

HD BOX SCORE

Georgetown vs West Virginia
3/1/10 7:00 p.m. at WVU Coliseum, Morgantown, W.Va.
Final score: West Virginia 81, Georgetown 68

Georgetown              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
Thompson, Hollis       27:16  -21   3/43  0- 0  1- 2  0- 0  2/33  1/14  0/48  3/48  0/26  1/22  1/26   5
Vaughn, Julian         17:32  -16   5/21  2- 3  0- 0  1- 2  3/16  1/ 5  1/29  1/29  1/16  1/12  4/15   2
Monroe, Greg           36:47  - 9  22/64  8-14  0- 1  6- 9 15/46  4/15  0/67  5/67  1/32  3/27  6/34   3
Wright, Chris          37:59  - 9  21/67  5-13  2- 5  5- 6 18/48  7/17  1/68  2/68  1/35  0/27  6/34   3
Clark, Jason           32:31  - 8   5/57  1- 1  1- 5  0- 0  6/43  2/18  1/56  6/61  0/26  2/25  0/25   4
Sanford, Vee           21:14  + 8   9/44  1- 1  2- 3  1- 2  4/28  1/12  2/37  0/37  0/18  0/16  3/17   4
Benimon, Jerrelle      20:25  - 6   3/37  1- 1  0- 0  1- 2  1/25  1/12  0/38  2/37  0/18  2/13  2/17   2
Sims, Henry            06:16  - 4   0/ 7  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 6  0/ 3  0/12  1/ 8  0/ 4  0/ 3  0/ 7   2
TOTALS                 40:00       68    18-33  6-16 14-21    49 17/24  5/71 20/71  3/35  9/29 24/35  25
.                                        0.545 0.375 0.667       0.708 0.070 0.282 0.086 0.310 0.686    

West Virginia           Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
EBANKS, Devin          34:22  +12  15/75  3- 9  0- 0  9-12  9/48  2/19  1/62  1/63  0/29  1/29  4/25   3
JONES, Kevin           33:17  +15  14/71  4- 6  1- 3  3- 4  9/49  0/15  2/59  1/62  0/28  2/32  4/25   1
SMITH, Wellington      18:50  + 9   5/39  0- 1  1- 5  2- 2  6/28  2/13  1/33  0/30  1/14  1/16  1/14   5
BUTLER, Da'Sean        33:41  +13  22/71  5- 9  2- 7  6- 7 16/50  6/14  0/62  1/61  0/29  2/32  4/27   2
BRYANT, Darryl         28:15  +18  11/62  2- 4  0- 2  7- 8  6/41  4/16  2/53  2/53  0/27  1/24  1/25   1
THOROUGHMAN, Cam       06:00  - 5   0/ 7  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 7  0/ 2  0/10  0/10  0/ 4  0/ 5  2/ 2   1
WEST, Jonnie           00:13  + 0   0/ 0  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 0   0
PAYNE, Cam             00:46  - 2   0/ 0  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 2  1/ 1  0/ 2  0/ 0  0/ 1   0
MAZZULLA, Joe          12:17  - 1   2/17  1- 2  0- 0  0- 1  2/16  2/ 4  0/17  0/17  0/ 4  0/13  2/ 4   0
JENNINGS, Dan          00:50  + 2   0/ 2  0- 1  0- 0  0- 0  1/ 2  0/ 1  0/ 1  0/ 2  0/ 0  0/ 1  0/ 0   0
MITCHELL, Casey        12:57  +11   8/28  1- 1  2- 4  0- 0  5/15  0/ 4  0/20  1/23  0/ 8  1/ 8  1/ 8   0
FLOWERS, John          17:52  - 7   4/33  2- 2  0- 0  0- 0  2/23  1/ 8  0/36  1/31  0/20  1/14  1/14   4
KILICLI, Deniz         00:40  + 0   0/ 0  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 1  0/ 0  0/ 0  1/ 2  0/ 0  0/ 1  0/ 0   0
TOTALS                 40:00       81    18-35  6-21 27-34    56 17/24  6/71 10/71  1/33 11/35 20/29  17
.                                        0.514 0.286 0.794       0.708 0.085 0.141 0.030 0.314 0.690    

Efficiency: West Virginia 1.141, Georgetown 0.958
eFG%: West Virginia 0.482, Georgetown 0.551
Substitutions: West Virginia 41, Georgetown 42

2-pt Shot Selection:
Dunks: West Virginia 2-2, Georgetown 4-4
Layups/Tips: West Virginia 11-19, Georgetown 9-15
Jumpers: West Virginia 5-14, Georgetown 5-14

Fast break pts (% FG pts): West Virginia 6 (11.1), Georgetown 6 (11.1)
Pts (eff.) after steal: West Virginia 9 (150.0), Georgetown 2 (40.0)
Seconds per poss: West Virginia 17.5, Georgetown 16.1

---------

Stats pages will be updated tomorrow.

Good Wins, Bad Losses

The current motto of Hoya Prospectus is "thinking rationally about Georgetown Hoyas basketball so you don't have to."  What we set out to do here is discuss basketball in an objective and statistically defensible manner.

So when I saw the shrill reaction to yesterday's loss, I got to wondering about where the loss ranked for Georgetown and within the Big East generally.

There are two ways to think about the results of basketball games:  wins and losses, and the final score.  Stat-heads tend to use the latter - probably to a fault - since it has proven the best means of predicting future results.  But at the end of the day, wins and losses are what get you paid.


Let's take a crack at each.


Margin of Victory

If you're just wondering where a Georgetown game ranks in terms of the difference between final score and expected final score, you can always find that here at the Performance Charts page (link).  The math behind the performance charts (original discussion here and here) is not perfect, since it applies teams' current stats from KenPom.com retroactively, but I think it does a good job providing context to a game.

I'll reproduce the Georgetown's current overall performance chart below (note that I also break out offensive and defensive performance on that page):

By this metric, yesterday's loss was Georgetown's worse of the year.

As of this morning, if Georgetown and Notre Dame played again at the Verizon Center, we'd expect Georgetown to win by 7 points; instead they lost by 14.  Of course, our system is blind to certain vagaries, such as Austin Freeman trying to play with a viral infection or Notre Dame enjoying some new-found ability without their purported leader (more on that in my next post).

Yesterday's game noses out the South Florida loss as the worst performance of the year by the Hoyas.

This got me to wondering how this game fits into the Big East picture as a whole.  Was this the worst performance by a Big East team all year?  In conference?

Here are the worst perfomances for Big East teams so far this year, using today's stats.  Note that I'm being more tempo-free rigorous by sorting by efficiency difference [actual eff. margin - expected eff. margin] rather than scoring difference [actual score - expected score].  Also, I'm using efficiency as points per 100 possessions to avoid those pesky decimals.

Team           Opponent         Site    Result  Score   Poss.  Eff. Diff
Louisville     Charlotte        Home       L    87  65   67      -50
Georgetown     Notre Dame       Home       L    78  64   58      -37
Louisville     Western Carolina Home       L    91  83   83      -36
Pittsburgh     Indiana          Neutral    L    74  64   74      -34
South Florida  St. John's       Home       L    74  58   59      -32
Louisville     St. John's       Away       L    74  55   64      -32
Connecticut    Cincinnati       Home       L    60  48   63      -30
Notre Dame     Loyola Marymount Home       L    87  85   71      -29
Georgetown     South Florida    Home       L    72  64   65      -29
DePaul         Mississippi St.  Neutral    L    76  45   68      -28
St. John's     Providence       Home       L    74  59   73      -28
Pittsburgh     Notre Dame       Away       L    68  53   51      -28
Notre Dame     Idaho St.        Home       W    80  70   65      -28
Syracuse       Pittsburgh       Home       L    82  72   75      -28

I've arbitrarily picked the 14 worst games in order to make the point that a team can win a game but still play terribly doing so, if they're playing a massively inferior opponent.

A few other thoughts:

• This is a glass half-empty, glass half-full sort of analysis.  You can also say that Notre Dame's win over Georgetown was the Irish's best performance of the year.

• Four teams show up with multiple slots on the list (Louisville, Georgetown, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame).  Both of Louisville's and Notre Dame's games and one of Pitt's games were in the early going.  Both of the Hoyas' bad performances were in February.

• Generally, it's harder to have a bad performance on the road, since teams are expected to play worse on the road. Louisville and Pitt are the exceptions to the rule here.

• Speaking of the Cardinals, one game is unlike any other on that list.  Hopefully, that 22-point blowout at home has some extenuating circumstances that I'm not privy to.

• It's hard to believe that losing by 10 points to Pitt would be considered a terrible performance, but that should provide some context as to just how well Syracuse is playing this year.

Allow me to produce a second list, looking only at conference games:

Team           Opponent         Site    Result  Score   Poss.  Eff. Diff
Georgetown     Notre Dame       Home       L    78  64   58      -37
South Florida  St. John's       Home       L    74  58   59      -32
Louisville     St. John's       Away       L    74  55   64      -32
Connecticut    Cincinnati       Home       L    60  48   63      -30
Georgetown     South Florida    Home       L    72  64   65      -29
St. John's     Providence       Home       L    74  59   73      -28
Pittsburgh     Notre Dame       Away       L    68  53   51      -28
Syracuse       Pittsburgh       Home       L    82  72   75      -28
Providence     Louisville       Home       L    92  70   71      -27
Syracuse       Louisville       Home       L    66  60   58      -26
Providence     Marquette        Away       L    93  63   67      -26
Seton Hall     Pittsburgh       Away       L    83  58   66      -25
Villanova      Connecticut      Home       L    84  75   70      -23
Connecticut    Providence       Away       L    81  66   78      -23
Rutgers        West Virginia    Away       L    86  52   64      -22

Georgetown's loss yesterday was the worst performance in conference so far this season, by a substantial margin.  Interestingly, the loss at Rutgers doesn't look as bad now as it did then (it's way down the list here:  -19 eff. difference), as the Scarlet Knights are 5-3 in their last 8 conference games.

Syracuse has lost only two games all year, and they both rank as some of the lousiest performances of the year in the Big East. Translation: a team will have to play brilliantly to beat them.

There are some schizophrenic teams in the league:

• Providence has two Top-14 performances (at St. John's and vs. UConn) and two of the Bottom-10 (vs. Louisville and at Marquette).

• St. John's, Pitt and Louisville have two great games and one terrible one on the list; UConn has one great performance and two terrible ones.

Wins and Losses

I suspect that my reader is blinking his eyes a bit by now, wondering why I'm so obsessed with scoring margins when the bragging rights and suffering are determined only by whether the Hoyas can win the game.

So how do we rank wins and losses?  Well, I can calculate the win probabilities (as seen on KenPom's scouting report pages) for each game played, and look for the biggest outright upsets, here as losses when expected to win.  I'm limiting this to just conference games:

Losing Team    Opponent         Site    Score      Odds
Georgetown     South Florida    Home   72   64      86%
Syracuse       Louisville       Home   66   60      85%
Marquette      DePaul           Road   51   50      85%
Syracuse       Pittsburgh       Home   82   72      83%
Georgetown     Rutgers          Road   71   68      82%
Connecticut    Cincinnati       Home   60   48      78%
Georgetown     Notre Dame       Home   78   64      78%
Villanova      Connecticut      Home   84   75      76%
Notre Dame     St. John's       Home   69   68      76%
West Virginia  Villanova        Home   82   75      72%
Notre Dame     Rutgers          Road   74   73      72%
St. John's     Providence       Home   74   59      70%
Marquette      Pittsburgh       Home   58   51      68%

This should all be straight-forward except the odds column, which is the odds that the losing team would have of winning the game if it were to be replayed today (same venue).  The list is limited to games with the odds greater than 68%, i.e. games where the favorite is more than one standard deviation above even odds.

About half of the games show up on both lists: MU at DePaul is the worst outright loss that didn't make the worst performance list, and South Florida hosting St. John's is the worst performance that didn't make the worst outright loss list (the Bulls would be 64% favorites in that game today).

It should be noted that good teams are far more likely to be here than bad teams - for example, DePaul would only be a favorite to win one game this season (at home against Rutgers [61%], a game they lost).

• Georgetown once again has the worst loss, now as an outright loss rather than as performance.  The Hoyas are also the only team with three bad outright losses on the list.  This is making me more and more depressed as I write this up.

• Both of Syracuse's losses were games they should have won easily.

• The worst road loss so far is Marquette's 1-point loss to DePaul, a game that didn't show up on the performance lists (since Marquette only lost by one point, it wasn't as bad a performance as their home loss to NC State [77-73].

• Showing up on the "Opponent" column multiple times is a mixed blessing - Rutgers will be a big underdog even in some of their home games, so many of their wins are a big deal, while Pitt would probably prefer to have not been such an underdog at Marquette in the first place.

• Four of the upsets were 1-possession games:  Marquette/DePaul, Georgetown/Rutgers, Notre Dame/St. John's and Notre Dame/Rutgers. It's tempting to invert the results of each of those games, making Marquette 10-5, Georgetown 10-6 and Notre Dame 10-6 heading into Sunday's games.

So there it is.  Georgetown holds the distinction of having the worst performance and the worst loss in conference play so far this year, and they're not even the same game.

Recap: Notre Dame 78, Georgetown 64

Alan Greene is pinch-recapping for Brian today.

Apparently, Austin Freeman was sick. The rest of the Hoyas played like they had the flu as well. I can only hope to find out that they did.

In a game where Notre Dame got a good 80% of the loose "50-50" balls, the Hoyas' lack of focus on defense once again allowed a less talented Big East squad to upset them.

It's worth noting that of Georgetown's three bad conference losses, in all three the defense gave up a defensive efficiency of over 110. Today, the Hoyas put forth of the their worst defensive performances in years.

Notre Dame is a good offensive team. But they were also missing their best offensive weapon and only interior threat in Luke Harangody. A brief four minute segment in the second half highlighted by a five possession streak of three forced turnovers and two missed, contested shots highlighted what the Hoyas should have been able to do on defense for most of the game instead of four minutes.

How did they give up 1.4 points per possession? Mostly by giving up open shots. Yes, the Irish are good shooters, but they aren't a team used to getting seven dunks and twelve mostly easy layups. Georgetown often loses the battle in certain elements of the game: getting good shots is almost never one of them.

The blame can be laid at both the coaching staff and the players. The Hoyas' switching, constantly helping defense is not a great style to play against a team with few individual stars that passes and shoots well. In other games where this has been the case, the Hoyas have adjusted by helping less. Today, that didn't seem to happen.

What's worse, I'm not sure it would have worked. Notre Dame guards often got into the lane on drives that were not particularly quick. Rotations were incredibly slow and at times lackadaisical.

Adding to that, the Hoyas gave Notre Dame an huge amount of extra shots. At the end of the game, Notre Dame had a 50% off. rebounding pct., but it was 63% in the first half and many of the Hoyas' def. rebounds came later in the game.

The offense doesn't get completely off the hook. It wasn't nearly as big a problem as the D, especially without a healthy Freeman. But while a 112 efficiency sounds good, the Hoyas could have done better against a poor Irish defense.

The most disappointing part of all this is that while one or two disappointing games are bound to happen over the course of a season, even to the best of teams, as a fan, you'd like the team to take those loses and use them as reasons to focus and improve. The Hoyas have now lost three of their last four "easier" Big East games.

How bad must Providence feel?

Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE 
.            Home                            Visitor   
.            Georgetown                      Notre Dame         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            24        33        57 
Effic.        110.8     112.8     111.9       127.2     143.3     136.3   

eFG%           69.4      53.7      60.0        51.8      83.3      65.3  
TO%            24.6      18.3      21.0        20.5      21.3      21.0  
OR%            12.5      41.2      32.0        62.5      25.0      50.0  
FTA/FGA        11.1      44.4      31.1        14.3      66.7      36.7  

Assist Rate    90.0      46.2      65.2        53.8      60.0      57.1  
Block Rate     21.4       0.0      11.1        20.0      29.4      25.9  
Steal Rate     20.5       6.1      12.2        24.6      12.2      17.5   

2FG%           50.0      58.8      55.6        71.4      76.9      74.1  
3FG%           62.5      30.0      44.4        21.4      62.5      36.4  
FT%           100.0      66.7      71.4        50.0      85.7      77.8

What to point out individually?

With Austin Freeman out, those shots had to go somewhere. Hollis Thompson looked comfortable and I wish he'd be as easy taking a shot all the time. His defense is still that of a freshman, but it was nice to see him feel he had a green light and just play.

With Harangody out, Greg Monroe should have taken more shots. He didn't, and it left Chris Wright to step in. This is really never good for the Hoyas -- when Wright is feeling it, he should shoot as much as possible. When when we need someone to be force fed, it shouldn't be the 6' point guard who's streaky from three. Chris is best in transition -- which is impossible to do when you don't defend or rebound. There's a huge gap in usage between Austin and Hollis, and Monroe needed to take those shots and possessions, and he didn't.

Julian Vaughn almost looks like he had a good game until you realize he had two rebounds in 23 minutes and "played interior defense."

Jerelle Benimon and Freeman played 38 invisible minutes combined. Jerelle's an unheralded frosh and Freeman, again, was sick, so it's tough to criticize, but that's a started who gave nothing (and not much on D, either).

Jason Clark made some shots and actually rebounded, so kudos.

Vee Sanford had his usual few minutes and a steal while Henry Sims had an awful turnover but also one of the team's few def. rebounds in a not so bad defensive set of sequences when in. Frankly, in a game like this, I'd have been intrigued to go to a "D" lineup that included both Sims and Sanford.

INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS

Georgetown            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
Thompson, Hollis       36   22.8  121.1    9.9      35   122.1    8.6      +0.7  
Wright, Chris          55   26.2   90.1   13.0      57   135.1   15.4      -4.5  
Monroe, Greg           51   24.1  113.1   13.9      49   118.3   11.6      +0.8  
Clark, Jason           47   13.7  142.5    9.2      48   132.4   12.7      -1.4  
Vaughn, Julian         26   26.4  123.0    8.5      28   154.2    8.6      -1.2  
Sanford, Vee           10    8.3  200.0    1.7      11    91.7    2.0      +0.3  
Freeman, Austin        34    9.3  110.5    3.5      31   140.8    8.7      -3.1  
Benimon, Jerrelle      17    5.9    0.0    0.0      21   169.7    7.1      -4.4  
Sims, Henry             4   25.0    0.0    0.0       5    49.1    0.5      -0.5  
TOTALS                 56         109.9   59.6      57   132.0   75.3     -14.1  

Notre Dame            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
NASH, Tyrone           52   14.9  129.6   10.0      49   117.1   11.5      -0.2  
JACKSON, Tory          57   15.9  105.1    9.5      56   101.5   11.4      -0.8  
ABROMAITIS, Tim        53   26.7  137.4   19.5      51   114.1   11.6      +5.6  
HANSBROUGH, Ben        56   23.1  159.9   20.7      55   114.2   12.6      +7.0  
SCOTT, Carleton        53   19.3  143.4   14.6      49   105.6   10.3      +4.1  
PEOPLES, Jonathan       5    0.0    -      0.0       6   104.4    1.3      -1.3  
COOLEY, Jack            9    8.5  200.0    1.5      14   107.0    3.0      -0.4  
TOTALS                 57         138.2   75.9      56   110.1   61.6     +15.0

HD BOX SCORE
Notre Dame vs Georgetown
02/27/10 12:00 at Verizon Center
Final score: Notre Dame 78, Georgetown 64

Notre Dame              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
NASH, Tyrone           33:25  +19   8/72  2- 3  0- 0  4- 5  3/42  3/23  0/49  2/52  1/23  2/20  4/20   2
JACKSON, Tory          40:00  +14   9/78  2- 3  1- 4  2- 4  7/49  3/25  5/56  2/57  0/27  0/24  1/25   1
ABROMAITIS, Tim        36:12  +13  19/72  6-10  1- 9  4- 4 19/45  3/18  1/51  1/53  2/26  3/23  1/24   2
HANSBROUGH, Ben        38:59  +15  21/76  4- 5  3- 5  4- 5 10/46  4/20  1/55  3/56  1/27  1/22  2/25   3
SCOTT, Carleton        35:22  +15  17/72  4- 4  3- 4  0- 0  8/45  3/18  2/49  3/53  3/25  4/23  5/23   2
PEOPLES, Jonathan      04:49  + 0   0/ 8  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 7  0/ 4  1/ 6  0/ 5  0/ 1  0/ 3  0/ 1   0
COOLEY, Jack           11:13  - 6   4/12  2- 2  0- 0  0- 0  2/11  0/ 4  0/14  0/ 9  0/ 6  0/ 5  3/ 7   3
TOTALS                 40:00       78    20-27  8-22 14-18    49 16/28 10/56 12/57  7/27 12/24 17/25  13
.                                        0.741 0.364 0.778       0.571 0.179 0.211 0.259 0.500 0.680    

Georgetown              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
Thompson, Hollis       26:10  - 8  12/38  3- 3  2- 4  0- 1  7/27  3/10  2/35  2/36  0/13  0/15  0/16   2
Wright, Chris          38:50  -17  10/61  2- 8  2- 4  0- 1 12/43  6/18  1/57  3/55  0/27  1/24  0/24   3
Monroe, Greg           35:03  - 7  15/56  4- 7  0- 0  7- 8  7/41  2/16  1/49  4/51  0/20  0/24  4/17   4
Clark, Jason           33:03  -11  12/58  0- 0  4- 7  0- 0  7/39  2/17  2/48  1/47  0/23  2/21  3/16   3
Vaughn, Julian         23:11  -10   8/31  4- 6  0- 0  0- 0  6/23  2/ 8  0/28  1/26  1/12  2/12  0/13   0
Sanford, Vee           03:36  - 1   2/10  0- 0  0- 0  2- 2  0/ 9  0/ 3  1/11  0/10  0/ 4  0/ 6  1/ 4   0
Freeman, Austin        22:31  - 1   5/42  2- 3  0- 2  1- 2  5/28  0/11  0/31  0/34  1/18  0/17  0/15   2
Benimon, Jerrelle      14:32  -15   0/21  0- 0  0- 1  0- 0  1/12  0/ 8  0/21  0/17  1/16  0/ 4  1/10   0
Sims, Henry            03:04  + 0   0/ 3  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 3  0/ 1  0/ 5  1/ 4  0/ 2  0/ 2  1/ 5   0
TOTALS                 40:00       64    15-27  8-18 10-14    45 15/23  7/57 12/56  3/27  8/25 12/24  14
.                                        0.556 0.444 0.714       0.652 0.123 0.214 0.111 0.320 0.500    

Efficiency: Notre Dame 1.368, Georgetown 1.143
eFG%: Notre Dame 0.653, Georgetown 0.600
Substitutions: Notre Dame 16, Georgetown 35

2-pt Shot Selection:
Dunks: Notre Dame 7-7, Georgetown 1-1
Layups/Tips: Notre Dame 8-12, Georgetown 11-19
Jumpers: Notre Dame 5-8, Georgetown 3-7

Fast break pts (% FG pts): Notre Dame 8 (12.5), Georgetown 2 (3.7)
Pts (eff.) after steal: Notre Dame 14 (140.0), Georgetown 13 (185.7)
Seconds per poss: Notre Dame 25.0, Georgetown 17.4

-------

Team stats pages will be updated tomorrow; player stats pages will be updated after West Virginia game.