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.

2009-10 Season Post-Mortem: The Basics

For the third straight year, the ending sucked.

I'm not sure this really means anything; last year the definition of "ending" was a lot longer than this year or 2007-08, where the "ending" was pretty much 2-3 games.

It's a good thing for me that I'm not a fan of defining success by the results of a single-elimination tournament. It's fun for excitement, but it isn't a good method of evaluation, whether it be the highs of a BE tournament Georgetown could/should have won or the lows of getting blown out by the Hoyas' poor play and the hot shooting of Ohio.

Like last year, this will likely be a meandering series of posts hitting some of the key spots of the year. I'll start at the top and see where it leads me...

Final* Kenpom Stats

Overall Rank:  13th

Adj. Offensive Efficiency Rank:   9th
Adj. Defensive Efficiency Rank:  47th

*There's a few games to play, so these may change slightly but not materially


How good were the Hoyas this year?

Most of the data says somewhere between the 12th-20th best team in the country.

After a year in which the team didn't make the tournament, Pomeroy puts Georgetown at 13th, the NCAA Selection Committee in the 9-12 range, Sagarin at 18th, RPI rank is 12th and the polls would likely have the Hoyas in the 15-20 range.

I don't think there's a particularly strong argument that focuses on body of work that puts the Hoyas outside the Top 25.

Are people unhappy with this? I'm definitely unhappy about the way the season ended, but this is a consistently Top 20 program at this point.

Season      Pomeroy     Sagarin     AP     RPI    NCAA seed
2003-04       110         113        -     133        -
                        ----Thompson hired----
2004-05        42          54        -      70       NIT 
2005-06        14          10       23      36        7
2006-07         5           6        8       9        2
2007-08         7          10        8       8        2
2008-09        27          45        -      57       NIT
2009-10        13          18       14      12        3

Based on body of work, who can complain about this?

I bring this up only because it sets the tone for this post-mortem. It was a frustrating season because of the inconsistency, and because of the perceived brilliance of many of our players.

But it wasn't a bad season.


Offense and Defense

My big pet peeve, as I'm sure our regular reader knows, is the attribution of wins and losses to only one side of the ball. The offense tends to get credit or blame, regardless of the actual reality of the game.

So, just to set the record straight for the season: the offense got very, very good by the end of the season, and the defense fell apart, relatively.

I've posted this before, but early in the season, the big wins were defensive-driven: Temple, Butler, Washington, UConn. The loss to Old Dominion was mostly the fault of a sub-par offense.

But that shifted as the year went on, and after the Connecticut game, the worst Offensive Efficiency the Hoyas had in a win was a 112 (South Florida and Providence) while all of Georgetown's big wins were driven by offense: 120 at Pitt; 121 vs. Duke; 120 vs. Villanova; 114 at Louisville; 123 versus Cuse; 126 versus Marquette.

The losses were not as sparkling, but the team still posted good offensive efforts at Rutgers, vs. Notre Dame, versus WVU in the BE title game and versus Ohio in the NCAA.

This team was simply a better offensive team. Post-Connecticut, the team didn't win any grind-it-out games. It could play good defense for part of a game, but there's no win in the second half of the season won on the defensive side of the ball.

As the off-season progresses, I'm going to dive into the offense, the defense and individual players.

Recap: Ohio U. 97, Georgetown 83

Looks like my weekend just opened up.

As I wrote this morning, turnovers are a harbinger of doom for the Hoyas in the post-season. You know what an even better indicator that you're just not going to win the game?  A sieve-like defense.

To me, the game most similar to tonight was the 14-point loss at home against Notre Dame:

• virtually no defense, especially in dealing with multiple ball-screens
• a second-half attempt to climb back that is easily answered by the opponent
• Austin Freeman not looking himself

Credit, of course, should be extended to the Ohio U. players for likely their biggest win in a generation.

The Bobcats were incredibly efficient while careful with the ball in the first half to maximize possessions, and moved from hot shooting to scorching in the second half to ride out the win.  When a team shoots 59% on jumpers [= 22/37; 9/14 2FG, 13/23 3FG], you're gonna lose the game.


Dan Hanner sent along this recap, which he couldn't bring to publish himself.

On Bill Simmons' levels of losing scale Georgetown's loss to Ohio might qualify as a Level 5.

It wasn't a big game. It wasn't a colossal choke-job. But somehow, this one hurt a little bit more than the rare loss to Rutgers.

Part of the hurt was the end-of-season feeling you always get. It was the sudden realization that your last memory of Greg Monroe might be him with his head on his arms in disgust at his 3rd offensive foul and 7th turnover.

Part of the hurt was the flashback to the Davidson game and the realization that Armon Basset was playing like Stephen Curry.

Part of the hurt was the way the game was called. I almost never question the referees, but my thought early in the game was how often Ohio kept pushing Hoya players while setting screens. But the refs never called it until Greg Monroe did it on the other end in the second half. Puzzling. Then there was the replay of one of the Ohio players with a hidden tug on the jersey that wasn't called. Georgetown lost this game because of the pathetic defensive effort, not because of the calls, but it felt worse because it seemed like Ohio was shoving the Hoyas around with no consequences.

But the real hurt was simpler. This game hurt because I started to believe again. After the late-season roller coaster, I was just happy when Georgetown beat Cincinnati and South Florida. At that point, I could have accepted a first round exit. But then Georgetown beat Syracuse. Then they crushed a tired Marquette team. Then they played a deeper West Virginia team tough despite playing their fourth game in four nights in the Big East title game.

I knew the team was inconsistent. I knew they could lose to Tennessee or San Diego St. But I thought they had grown enough that they wouldn't lose to Ohio University. I was wrong. Georgetown played like they had never seen a ball-screen before. Georgetown continued to play terrible zone defense until late in the second half despite the fact that Ohio was shooting lights out. And just like that, the season is over.

For the last time this season, let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Home                            Visitor   
.            Georgetown                      Ohio Bobcats         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            33        39        73
 
Effic.        107.5     120.6     114.1       143.3     125.8     133.4  
 
eFG%           51.7      62.5      57.4        64.7      78.6      70.0  
TO%            20.9      28.2      24.7        11.9      20.5      16.5  
OR%            38.9      50.0      43.8        43.8      11.1      32.0  
FTA/FGA        31.0      31.2      31.1        17.6      95.2      47.3  

Assist Rate    38.5      50.0      45.2        38.9      57.1      46.9  
Block Rate      5.6      28.6      15.6         5.9       9.1       7.7  
Steal Rate      6.0       7.7       6.9         6.0      10.3       8.2  
 
2FG%           52.9      63.6      59.0        55.6      64.3      59.4  
3FG%           33.3      40.0      36.4        50.0      71.4      56.5  
FT%            66.7      70.0      68.4        66.7      80.0      76.9

The offense was fine tonight.  It would have been nice to see some better production in the first half, but an OEff of 108 against any tournament team is respectable for a half, and the Hoyas were able to bump that up a notch in the second half, despite a high turnover rate in the Vesper half.  In fact, given the venue and the competition, scoring 1.14 points per possession was almost exactly what we'd predict.

The problem tonight was simply the defense.  Given both teams bodies of work this year, we expect that Ohio would average just a hair under a point per possession in a typical game against Georgetown at a neutral site.  Tonight was certainly not typical.

What went wrong?  Just about everything in the first half.

• The Bobcats were making shots inside and out - well, mostly out.  Georgetown allowed Ohio to shoot 5/11 on dunks, tips and layups in the half, giving up lower percentage outside shots to easy inside ones.  Unfortunately, the Bobcats made 5/7 2FG jumpers and 8/16 3FGs (they'd shoot even better from outside in the Vesper half).
• The Hoyas couldn't force turnovers in the half, as Ohio had a scoring attempt on 29 of 33 possessions, and accrued 48 points in those 29 possessions [1.66 pts. per scoring poss.]
• On those rare instances when the Bobcats did miss a shot, they were able to grab a substantial number of their own misses:  Ohio got 7 of 16 own misses in the half, and converted those rebounds into 16 points.  This by a team that is currently ranked 221st in off. rebounding.

For reasons only the Georgetown coaches and players may know, the Hoyas simply couldn't be bothered to give defensive effort tonight until the hole they dug was far too deep to climb out.


The stellar shooting by Ohio from 3FG was a big driver in the blowout, but actually is nothing new for them.  The Bobcats have had several games this year with similar shooting: 8/17 vs. Akron to win the MAC, 10/22 at Kent St., 14/32 against W. Michigan, 11/22 against Buffalo.  But those aren't Big East caliber teams (well, maybe Kent. St.).

In the end, it looks like the Hoyas left everything on the floor of MSG last Saturday night, because tonight was, by my measure, their worst lost of the season.

And so it goes.

INDIVIDUAL NET POINTS STATS

Georgetown            Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
VAUGHN, Julian         18   16.7   66.7    2.0      18   103.8    3.7      -1.4  
MONROE, Greg           69   28.7  119.2   23.6      68   127.9   17.4      +2.3  
WRIGHT, Chris          73   27.4  118.2   23.7      72   137.4   19.8      +0.0  
FREEMAN, Austin        61   20.7   64.7    8.2      58   128.0   14.8      -7.3  
CLARK, Jason           71    9.3  124.3    8.2      69   122.0   16.8      -4.3  
THOMPSON, Hollis       39   12.5  213.1   10.4      37   144.5   10.7      +1.5  
SANFORD, Vee            9   27.8   40.0    1.0      10   131.2    2.6      -2.0  
BENIMON, Jerrelle      25   15.7  100.6    4.0      28   142.5    8.0      -2.8  
TOTALS                 73         110.4   81.0      72   130.4   93.9     -13.6  

Ohio Bobcats          Off     %           Pts      Def           Pts   
Player                Poss  Poss  O.Rtg   Prod     Poss  D.Rtg  Allow    Net Pts
WASHINGTON, De         69   22.3  116.1   17.9      68   107.2   14.6      +2.3  
Freeman, Tommy         49    7.5  125.4    4.6      47   112.1   10.5      -2.7  
van Kempen, Kenneth    53   13.2  105.3    7.3      53   100.4   10.6      -1.5  
Bassett, Armon         72   30.2  133.0   28.9      73   112.5   16.4      +8.4  
Cooper, D.J            68   23.3  168.6   26.7      68   100.8   13.7     +11.9  
Baltic, Ivo             5    0.0    -      0.0       5   122.4    1.2      -1.2  
Adedipe, Adetunji       0     -     -      0.0       1   200.0    0.4      -0.4  
Keely, Reggie          17   12.7  200.0    4.3      19   109.8    4.2      +1.0  
Sayles, Asown          27   13.6   91.2    3.4      31   108.2    6.7      -2.0  
TOTALS                 72         134.0   93.1      73   107.4   78.4     +17.1

I'm not going to spend too much time pointing fingers about the defense, as the Net Points table does a good job all by itself.  Julian Vaughn was the only Hoya credited with even average defense played, but his offensive struggles meant that he couldn't stay on the floor once Georgetown fell well behind.

That Greg Monroe could post a 120 ORating on 29% possessions used while committing 7 turnovers is testament to the fact that he really had no one who could stop him, other than himself.

Jason Clark was unable or unwilling to play a bigger role in the offense despite an efficient game.

I'm starting to think that the diabetes is playing a bigger role for Austin Freeman than he or the team is letting on - Freeman was uncharacteristically quiet throughout the Big East tournament until the end of the West Virginia game, where he was able to deliver an impressive offensive burst for the last 12 minutes of that game.  Otherwise, he had been willing to defer throughout the BET while struggling to hit outside shots, and tonight when the team desperately needed his heroics, he just didn't have anything to give.

The bench, mostly Hollis Thompson, were able to give some offensive help while some of the starters scuffled, but they just couldn't guard a chair out there tonight.

Finally, lost in this debacle is the great play by Chris Wright over the past few weeks.  I said at the start of the season that his improved play would be critical to any post-season success for the Hoyas.  He pushed Georgetown to the Big East championship game, but didn't get much help tonight to win the opening NCAA tourney game.

HD BOX SCORE

Ohio Bobcats vs Georgetown
3/18/10 7:25pm at Providence, R.I. - Dunkin' Donuts Center
Final score: Ohio Bobcats 97, Georgetown 83

Ohio Bobcats            Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
WASHINGTON, De         37:37  +14  12/93  4- 9  0- 0  4- 8  9/53  2/26  1/68  2/69  0/35  5/26  5/30   2
Freeman, Tommy         27:16  + 7  11/62  1- 1  3- 4  0- 0  5/35  0/18  0/47  1/49  0/25  0/14  3/24   5
van Kempen, Kenneth    27:49  + 9   9/67  4- 5  0- 0  1- 2  5/35  2/17  2/53  2/53  1/27  0/16  2/23   4
Bassett, Armon         40:00  +14  32/97  4- 7  5-10  9-10 17/55  3/23  0/73  4/72  0/39  0/26  3/34   0
Cooper, D.J            37:13  +15  23/92  3- 4  5- 8  2- 2 12/51  8/22  3/68  3/68  0/34  2/24  1/27   3
Baltic, Ivo            03:20  + 1   0/ 7  0- 1  0- 0  0- 0  1/ 6  0/ 3  0/ 5  0/ 5  0/ 5  0/ 3  0/ 7   0
Adedipe, Adetunji      00:15  - 2   0/ 0  0- 0  0- 0  0- 0  0/ 0  0/ 0  0/ 1  0/ 0  0/ 3  0/ 0  0/ 3   0
Keely, Reggie          10:59  + 6   6/27  3- 4  0- 0  0- 0  4/16  0/ 7  0/19  0/17  1/ 8  0/ 7  1/ 5   3
Sayles, Asown          15:31  + 6   4/40  0- 1  0- 1  4- 4  2/24  0/12  0/31  0/27  1/19  0/14  2/17   1
TOTALS                 40:00       97    19-32 13-23 20-26    55 15/32  6/73 13/72  3/39  8/25 18/32  18
.                                        0.594 0.565 0.769       0.469 0.082 0.181 0.077 0.320 0.562    

Georgetown              Min   +/-   Pts  2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A  FGA    A    Stl    TO   Blk    OR    DR   PF
VAUGHN, Julian         10:12  - 9   2/11  1- 1  0- 1  0- 0  2/10  0/ 3  0/18  1/18  0/10  0/ 6  2/ 7   2
MONROE, Greg           37:23  -12  19/80  7-11  0- 0  5- 7 11/57  6/23  1/68  7/69  2/30  6/31  7/24   5
WRIGHT, Chris          40:00  -14  28/83  6- 9  3- 9  7-10 18/61  3/22  0/72  4/73  0/32  0/34  1/26   0
FREEMAN, Austin        31:52  - 5   9/68  3- 7  1- 4  0- 0 11/50  2/21  0/58  3/61  0/23  0/28  2/19   2
CLARK, Jason           38:30  -11   7/81  2- 3  1- 3  0- 0  6/60  3/27  3/69  2/71  0/31  2/34  4/26   4
THOMPSON, Hollis       21:04  + 3  16/57  3- 3  3- 5  1- 1  8/37  0/15  0/37  0/39  2/16  1/19  0/14   5
SANFORD, Vee           04:37  - 7   0/ 6  0- 2  0- 0  0- 0  2/ 8  0/ 2  0/10  1/ 9  0/ 5  2/ 6  0/ 4   1
BENIMON, Jerrelle      16:22  -15   2/29  1- 3  0- 0  0- 1  3/22  0/11  1/28  1/25  1/13  3/12  1/10   2
TOTALS                 40:00       83    23-39  8-22 13-19    61 14/31  5/72 19/73  5/32 14/32 17/25  21
.                                        0.590 0.364 0.684       0.452 0.069 0.260 0.156 0.438 0.680

Efficiency: Ohio Bobcats 1.347, Georgetown 1.137
eFG%: Ohio Bobcats 0.700, Georgetown 0.574
Substitutions: Ohio Bobcats 16, Georgetown 32

2-pt Shot Selection:
Dunks: Ohio Bobcats 2-3, Georgetown 2-2
Layups/Tips: Ohio Bobcats 8-15, Georgetown 17-28
Jumpers: Ohio Bobcats 9-14, Georgetown 4-9

Fast break pts (% FG pts): Ohio Bobcats 4 (5.2), Georgetown 8 (11.4)
Pts (eff.) after steal: Ohio Bobcats 6 (100.0), Georgetown 6 (120.0)
Seconds per poss: Ohio Bobcats 18.4, Georgetown 14.4

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

All stats pages will be updated by the end of the weekend.

Turnovers, and their importance

Georgetown went into this year's Big East tournament as the 8th seed and an enigma, and came up one possession short of winning the whole thing.

There's one very good reason that the Hoyas played so well last week - they stopped committing turnovers. While Georgetown has averaged turning the ball over about 21% of the time, they only gave it up 15% of the time in the BET.

Here's the game log from the tournament:

.                             TO Rate
Opponent           Result    Game  Opp Avg
South Florida        W       16.2    18.1
Syracuse             W       17.6    22.7
Marquette            W       14.1    22.2
West Virginia        L       11.3    19.8

The first two columns should be self-explanatory; the third column is G'town's TO rate in the game, the final column is their opponent's average TO rate forced on the season.

Not only did the Hoyas reduce their turnovers by ~30% during the BET, they gave up the ball progressively less, relative to the competition, in each game.



The correlation between TO rate and post-season success is nothing new. Let's take a look at the past three post-seasons (2009 never happened, got it?).

2006 Post-Season
(season avg = 18.8)

.                             TO Rate
Opponent           Result   Game   Opp Avg
Notre Dame           W      14.2    15.5
Marquette            W      14.2    20.1
Syracuse             L      29.1    22.1
Northern Iowa        W      17.0    19.0
Ohio St.             W      13.4    20.2
Florida              L      21.4    22.4

The 2005-6 team was JTIII's first true success story at Georgetown, beating two very good Big East opponents before the debacle against the Orange in the BET. Since Notre Dame never forces many turnovers, the first game was not a surprise, but the Hoyas held onto the ball against Marquette and won, and were a turnover disaster against Syracuse and lost.

The results were similar in the NCAA's: faced with a purported superior foe (tOSU), Georgetown simply refused to waste possessions and this led to the upset.  In the next round, Georgetown gave the ball up more than 20% of the time and lost.

2007 Post-Season
(season avg = 22.0)

.                             TO Rate
Opponent           Result   Game   Opp Avg
Villanova            W      15.2    23.1
Notre Dame           W      15.7    20.9
Pittsburgh           W      15.9    18.5
Belmont              W      19.4    19.4
Boston College       W      18.2    18.1
Vanderbilt           W      19.5    21.8
North Carolina       W      13.4    21.4
Ohio St.             L      24.0    20.2

The story is even simpler in 2007 - during the run to the Big East title, the Hoyas never gave up turnovers even 16% of the time after averaging 22% throughout the year.  And in the NCAA, facing a superior opponent in North Carolina, Georgetown managed one of their lowest turnover rates all season to pull the convincing upset.  But the party came to an end with a sloppy performance in the re-match against the Buckeyes.

2008 Post-Season
(season avg = 21.2)

.                             TO Rate
Opponent           Result   Game   Opp Avg
Villanova            W      23.9    23.4
West Virginia        W      17.5    22.6
Pittsburgh           L      20.1    20.5
MD Baltimore Count   W      25.1    19.0
Davidson             L      32.3    24.0

In 2008, the Hoyas just didn't have the magic touch. They overcame a generous game against Nova by shooting out of their minds from behind the arc [17/28 3FG], and overcame a sloppy game against UMBC by out-athleting them. Otherwise, turnovers meant losses.


Is this year's BET a harbinger of an NCAA tourney run?  The Hoyas certainly showed that they are capable of hanging on to the ball for a multiple game stretch, but looking at 2006 and 2007, it only takes one careless game to end the season.

So, if there's nary a mention of turnovers is the game, things are looking up.  But if you hear Bill Raftery dwell on the high number of turnovers Georgetown is committing, be nervous, very nervous.



Bonus summary table!!

.                          Post
Year    Result    Season  Season   Net   Opp Avg
2006     4-2       18.8    18.2   -0.6    19.9
2007     7-1       22.0    17.7   -4.3    20.4
2008     4-2       21.2    23.8    2.6    21.9
2010     3-1       20.9    14.8   -6.1    20.7