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

I chose to break out the last ten games for several reasons:

• there is a link on the stats pages for the last 10 games, so it's easy to dig into the details if you're inclined
• the Chris Wright injury was the popular story line for the end of the season, but in fact the Hoyas were fading before Chris went down
• the final ten games were a struggle for Julian Vaughn and especially Austin Freeman, and effectively doomed Georgetown to a far greater degree than Chris Wright's absence
• the bench collapsed at the end of the season, with Henry Sims, Jerrelle Benimon and Vee Sanford all unable to provide any help; only Thompson and an improving Markel Starks could be counted upon

Last 10 games (min. 10 poss both off and def)

.                                             Offense                 Defense
Lineup                                 # poss  OEff   Time     # poss  DEff   Time
Clark-Freeman-Lubick-Vaughn-Wright       96    108    18.6        99   106    19.6
Clark-Freeman-Thompson-Vaughn-Wright     57    140    19.0        53   117    17.5
Clark-Freeman-Lubick-Thompson-Vaughn     43     65    19.3        44   107    20.5
Clark-Freeman-Sims-Thompson-Wright       30    127    16.1        30   110    17.7
Freeman-Lubick-Thompson-Vaughn-Wright    23    113    16.7        22   100    19.7
Clark-Freeman-Lubick-Starks-Thompson     22    100    16.6        17   100    16.1
Clark-Freeman-Lubick-Sims-Wright         19    121    23.2        19   153    23.6
Clark-Freeman-Lubick-Sims-Thompson       14    100    24.4        13    85    26.8
Clark-Lubick-Thompson-Vaughn-Wright      11    118    12.2        14    86    17.9
Freeman-Lubick-Starks-Thompson-Vaughn    12     83    23.8        12   150    20.2
Benimon-Freeman-Sims-Starks-Thompson     12     67    15.4        12    75    21.1
Freeman-Lubick-Sims-Thompson-Wright      11     73    21.3        12    67    16.8
Benimon-Clark-Freeman-Starks-Thompson    11    100    13.8        11   109    15.2
Clark-Freeman-Starks-Thompson-Vaughn     10     70    19.4        12    92    11.3

The lineup stats don't look a lot different than for the main table already discussed - playing Thompson instead of Lubick was clearly the better move, although here the Thompson lineup was no great shakes defensively, they simply scored a ton of points.  Unfortunately, that fivesome was on the court only about half as often as the Lubick group.

With Wright out, Coach Thompson tried to play without a point guard [Clark-Freeman-Lubick-Thompson-Vaughn], which was an unmitigated disaster [-42 net efficiency].  I'm not convinced that this was as bad a move at the time as hindsight indicates - that lineup had played together for 17 possessions prior to Chris Wright's injury, and had managed a +6 net efficiency.  But Freeman and Vaughn had run out of gas by the end of the year, and the loss of Chris Wright was simply a blow that couldn't be overcome.