Recap: Florida Gulf Coast 78, Georgetown 68

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Home                            Visitor   
.            GEORGETOWN                      Florida Gulf Coast         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            33        44        77
 
Points          22        46        68          24        54        78   

Effic.         67.4     104.3      88.6        73.6     122.5     101.7  
 
eFG%           35.2      48.6      43.0        34.6      65.2      49.0  
TO%            18.4      18.1      18.2        15.3      18.1      16.9  
OR%            23.8      27.3      25.6        19.0      21.4      20.0  
FTA/FGA        29.6      32.4      31.2        46.2     139.1      89.8  

Assist Rate    44.4      73.3      62.5        62.5      76.9      71.4  
Block Rate     11.1      12.5      11.8        10.5       5.6       8.1  
Steal Rate      6.1       9.1       7.8         6.1       6.8       6.5  
 
2FG%           42.1      50.0      45.9        33.3      56.2      44.1  
3FG%           12.5      31.6      25.9        25.0      57.1      40.0  
FT%            37.5      83.3      65.0        50.0      75.0      68.2

And so ends another season for your Georgetown Hoyas. I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting older or just I've just grown numb to it, but the Hoyas fifth straight loss to a double-digit seed in the NCAA tournament just doesn't shock or distress me like they used to.

Instead, early in the second half when my sons asked that I play with them rather than watch the game, I said "Sure." Because rolling two five-year-olds into a comforter and tickling them until they could wriggle away was a lot more fun.

A few statistical observations from the evening:

• Georgetown's lack of an interior game came home to roost tonight. In spite of shooting a higher percentage on inside shots than the Eagles [GU: 10-15 on dunks, layups and tips, FGCU: 11-22], the Hoyas simply settled for far too many 2-pt jump shots [GU: 7/22, FGCU 4/12]. When a major conference team is unable to punish a mid-major inside, the playing field is leveled.
• While the game was certainly lost in the vespers half, the Hoyas did manage a stellar opening half of defense and had nothing to show for it but a two-point deficit. Georgetown's offense spurted because - you guessed it - too many jump shots. The Hoyas were 9/27 on FGs in the lift-off half: 3/6 on layups/tips; 5/13 on 2FG jumpers, 1/8 on 3FG jumpers.
• To start the game, the Hoyas grabbed 5/12 own available missed shots on their way to an 18-12 lead, even though they could only generate two points on those offensive rebounds. Georgetown didn't get another offensive rebound until 6:32 was left in the game.
• The bottom fell out during that stunning second-half run by FGCU. The Eagles managed to score on nine consecutive possessions in the course of a 21-5 stretch that broke the game wide open. During that run, the Hoyas attempted only one shot in the paint, which resulted in two (made) free throws for Jabril Trawick.
• Hats off to Markel Starks, who led the team in scoring in each half and was the chief architect of the furious comeback attempt in the last three minutes [10 pts, 2 assist, 1 steal in 2:09 of game time] and to Aaron Bowen, who managed a +8 game in 12 minutes played when Coach Thompson finally called for full-court pressure and a frenetic pace.
• And congratulations to the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles for outplaying the Hoyas all night long in their historic upset win.

more stats after the jump

South bracket: log5 prediction

As I did last year and have done in the past, I will be running log5 analysis based on the Pomeroy ratings for at least as long as the Hoyas are in the field.

Ken Pomeroy has run the official log5 odds for the tournament as a whole on his website. Rather than duplicate his what I will try to do here is provide supplementary information.

Log5 in Other Regions

The first question I want to answer is to what extent the Hoyas were unlucky or lucky to be the #2 seed in the South region as opposed to the #2 seed in some other region. To answer that question, I ran the log5 odds for the Hoyas in each region. Here are the results:

Bracket   2nd Round  Sweet 16  Elite 8  Final 4
South       89.6     60.7       20.0     10.2
East        88.9     63.3       44.5     18.4
Midwest     91.3     55.8       31.4     12.0
West        86.0     57.2       35.1     15.5

Based on that analysis, the South region is of only average difficulty when it comes to making it to the Sweet 16, but getting to the Elite 8 is a particularly difficult challenge. The reason is the presence of the Florida Gators, the top team in the Pomeroy ratings thanks to their obliteration of the rest of the SEC and some very strong non-conference performances. Should they manage to get past Florida though, they are a slight favorite to advance. Kansas is the weakest #1 seed by the Pomeroy ratings, #4 seed Michigan rates as a tossup, and the Hoyas would be a 60% or greater favorite against any other team from the top half.

Top 100 Performance: South Region

In last year's log5 post, I wondered whether looking at performance solely against teams in the top 100 of the Pomeroy ratings would produce more accurate predictions. Given no team the Hoyas are likely to meet other than Round of 64 opponent FGCU will be ranked outside the top 100, it seemed like measuring how teams fare against tournament-quality teams would be a better predictor of tournament success. To that end, I calculated how every NCAA tournament team fared against the top 100. Please note these are raw averages, not adjusted for opponent or venue. Here is what the South region log5 looks like based on top 100 performance.

Seed  Team           2nd Round  Sweet 16  Elite 8  Final 4
1     Kansas            98.6      88.4     68.8     36.4
16    Western Kentucky   1.4       0.1      0.0+     0.0+
8     North Carolina    55.2       6.8      2.2      0.3
9     Villanova         44.8       4.6      1.3      0.2

5     VCU               63.1      33.6      9.7      2.8
12    Akron             36.9      15.0      3.1      0.6
4     Michigan          77.6      45.0     14.1      4.3
13    South Dakota St.  22.4       6.5      0.9      0.1

6     UCLA              59.7      10.5      4.5      1.2
11    Minnesota         40.3       5.3      1.8      0.4
3     Florida           91.9      81.0     66.5     44.5
14    Northwestern St.   8.1       3.2      1.0      0.2

7     San Diego St.     62.3      25.2      5.4      1.5
10    Oklahoma          37.7      11.4      1.7      0.3
2     Georgetown        91.1      61.9     18.9      7.2
15    FGCU               8.9       1.6      0.1      0.0+

Note I listed a couple teams in bold in the bracket. The Hoyas were bolded to highlight their odds. The other teams I bolded are the result of one of the problems inherent in the method, namely that not every team in college basketball plays enough top 100 teams to get a good grasp of how good they are. Like Ohio last year, Akron presents a particular challenge. By virtue of a season sweep of the Bobcats, the 79th-ranked team in the Pomeroy ratings, the Zips come out as a well above-average squad in their seven games against top 100 competition. This seems very implausible to me, so I therefore manually adjusted their rating to reflect average performance against the top 100. This still leaves them an above-average 12th seed and better than North Carolina and Villanova, but does not break the system.

The Effect of Greg Whittington (and Pitt)

As devoted Hoya fans, we are aware the Hoyas experienced of Greg Whittington, which resulted in changes in how the team played. Cognizant of that, I broke down the Hoyas' performance in three ways.

Sample      Off Eff.   Def Eff.
All Games     96.8       89.4
Post-Whitt   100.7       87.7
W/o Pitt      98.1       87.2

I used the ratings for all games to produce the above odds. Keep in mind that even the least flattering sample size of all games has the Hoyas as an very good team, coming out 11th in the field. While that would not leave them as a #2 seed, they are comparatively much more deserving than last year's #3 seed. They are the best defensive team in the field and have a profile similar to, but better than, last year's #4 seed Louisville team that made it to the Final 4.

The most natural split would be before and after Whittington's suspension. This is natural for a number of reasons. First, Whittington will not be returning this season. Second, the Hoyas played 11 games against top 100 foes without Whittington, so we do not have a small sample size problem. Third, as Hoya fans, we recognize the current version of the Hoyas is better than the version of the Hoyas we saw in November and December, so we want to think of them at their best.

While I want to adopt this approach, particularly for the third reason, I am not fully comfortable with it for a number of reasons. First, the Hoyas still played those games and 80% of the contributions to those games came from people who will be playing in March. Second, the Hoyas are not the only team whose characteristics have changed over the course of the season. Judging them off post-Whittington ratings reflects a trend-based approach I am otherwise eschewing in my analysis. (If you're curious, Dan Hanner ran those numbers.) Third, they had one particularly anomalous game that is skewing their overall numbers. Half of the effect of removing Whittington comes from removing this one game. Given that I believe college athletics is prone to extreme games resulting from events extrinsic to the on-court (or -field) action, I am in some ways more comfortable with throwing out just one game than I am six.

With that in mind, here's how all three incarnations of the Hoyas fare in the analysis.

Team           2nd Round  Sweet 16  Elite 8  Final 4
All Games         91.1      61.9     18.9      7.2
Post-Whitt        94.9      75.3     31.9     16.5
W/o Pitt          93.8      71.0     27.0     12.7

In doing this analysis, it's worth noting the Hoyas without Whtitington come out as the fourth-best team in the field. That they still only have a 16.5% chance to make the Final 4 is because Florida and Kansas are the two best teams in the field.

The Problems Inherent in the Method

I have already discussed the problem of small sample sizes resulting in teams that appear to be much better than their overall body of work indicates. Akron is perhaps the most extreme example of this, but Memphis is another. The Tigers come out slightly better than the Zips, but they did not fare particularly well in their two games against teams ranked in the top 70. I am not comfortable declaring Josh Pastner's squad to be the 16th-best team in the country.

Since this is the second year I have done this, I can also look at last year's results and see which teams overachieved and underachieved relative to how their performance against top 100 teams would lead you to predict. The big overachievers all came from one of the prototypical power conferences. Some of the teams, like Louisville, did fairly well in conference, while others, including Cincinnati, South Florida, and, yes, NC State, fared poorly. Underachievers came from everywhere, but the biggest cause seemed to be mid-majors with gaudy performances against top 100 but not elite foes. Teams in this category included Wichita State, San Diego State, and St. Mary's.

It is worth noting that on the whole Ken's official log5 projection, based on all games, outperformed my raw, unadjusted top 100 performance last year when it came to predicting how the tournament ensued. If this method does not do better this year, I most likely will not be running it next year.

Top 100 projection: East region

Having gotten my disclaimer out of the way, I wanted to quickly run through projections for the other regions.

Seed  Team           2nd Round  Sweet 16  Elite 8  Final 4
1     Indiana           97.3      69.2     51.5     28.9
16    LIU/James Madison  2.7       0.2      0.0+     0.0+
8     NC State          56.7      18.7     10.7      4.2
9     Temple            43.3      12.0      6.1      2.0

5     UNLV              52.9      28.2      9.1      3.0
12    Cal               47.1      23.9      7.1      2.2
4     Syracuse          84.1      45.0     15.3      5.4
13    Montana           15.9       2.9      0.3      0.0+

6     Butler            53.2      31.1      9.2      3.4
11    Bucknell          46.8      25.9      7.0      2.4
3     Marquette         60.4      28.4      7.5      2.5
14    Davidson          39.6      14.6      2.9      0.7

7     Illinois          40.4       8.5      4.1      1.3
10    Colorado          59.6      16.4      9.4      3.8
2     Miami-FL          93.9      73.9     59.8     40.0
15    Pacific            6.1       1.2      0.3      0.0+

NC State-Temple is one of several intriguing mid-major vs. power conference games. Syracuse, Marquette, and Illinois are all good test cases for whether a stronger adjustment for strength of schedule would help the methodology, as all three performed poorly relative to their seed in strong conferences. Illinois-Colorado is a very interesting matchup in that regard.

Top 100 projection: Midwest region

Moving on to the other half of the bracket, we see the NCAA's top overall seed is a very good team, but perhaps not quite the strongest team in the field.

Seed  Team           2nd Round  Sweet 16  Elite 8  Final 4
1     Louisville        99.0      67.1     42.5     24.5
16    N. Carolina A&T    1.0       0.0+     0.0+     0.0+
8     Colorado St.      55.3      19.4      9.4      4.0
9     Missouri          44.7      13.6      5.9      2.2

5     Oklahoma St.      51.2      19.4      6.4      2.3
12    Oregon            48.8      18.0      5.8      2.0
4     St. Louis         79.3      54.9     28.3     15.2
13    New Mexico St.    20.7       7.7      1.7      0.4

6     Memphis           65.2      36.6     13.6      5.6
11    St. Mary's        34.8      14.5      3.6      1.0
3     Michigan St.      86.7      46.8     16.9      6.7
14    Valparaiso        13.3      2.1      0.2      0.0+

7     Creighton         72.7      28.5     16.8      7.8
10    Cincinnati        27.3       5.8      2.1      0.5
2     Duke              93.9      64.8     46.6     28.0
15    Albany             6.4       0.9      0.1      0.0+

Creighton-Cincinnati is perhaps the most interesting game of the round of 64. In addition to the mid-major vs. power conference battle, it also is a contrast of styles, as the Blue Jays are an outstanding offensive team with a weak defense while the Bearcats have a mediocre offense and a strong defense. I have already noted Memphis; my subjective opinion is that this system overrates their chances of a Sweet 16 trip relative to Michigan State's. Yes, St. Louis does seem to be that good, though the official log5 prediction likes Oklahoma State much more than this does. Duke's projection is based on their performance with Ryan Kelly. With Kelly, they come out as the fifth-best team in the field, narrowly behind the Hoyas. In all games, they are the ninth-best team in the field and have a 16.8% chance to make the Final 4.

Top 100 projection: West region

Seed  Team           2nd Round  Sweet 16  Elite 8  Final 4
1     Gonzaga           99.3      70.7     54.7     39.8
16    Southern           0.7       0.0+     0.0+     0.0+
8     Pitt              54.0      16.6      9.9      5.4
9     Wichita St.       46.0      12.7      7.1      3.6

5     Wisconsin         44.9      23.8      6.6      2.9
12    Ole Miss          55.1      32.0     10.2      5.0
4     Kansas St.        58.6      27.9      7.9      3.5
13    Boise/La Salle    41.4      16.2      3.6      1.3

6     Arizona           63.9      34.7     22.0      9.6
11    Belmont           36.1      14.7      7.3      2.3
3     New Mexico        75.1      42.9     28.1     12.8
14    Harvard           24.9      7.7      3.1      0.7

7     Notre Dame        47.1      20.0      6.5      1.7
10    Iowa St.          52.9      23.8      8.4      2.3
2     Ohio St.          81.4      51.1     23.6      8.9
15    Iona              18.6       5.2      0.9      1.1

I manually adjusted Iona's odds to put them more in line with the other 15 seeds in the field. They played only four games against top 100 competition and went 2-2, beating Denver and Georgia and losing to La Salle and St. Joseph's. Ohio State by this method is by far the weakest #2 seed, coming out just behind Ole Miss, Missouri, and NC State. They still stand a decent chance of getting to the Elite 8, as Arizona and New Mexico are both likely to be overrated by this methodology while the Buckeyes are underrated.

Finally, a gentle reminder: efficiency ratings are not destiny.

Recap: North Carolina State 66, Georgetown 63

Image from here

Last season, we noted in this space that Coach Thompson was in danger of cementing a reputation when his 6th-seeded Hoyas were beat by 11th-seeded Virginia Commonwealth.

Consider the reputation cemented.

For the fourth consecutive tournament appearance, Georgetown was knocked out in the opening weekend by a hot-from-behind-the-arc double-digit seed. Today, the 11th-seeded North Carolina State Wolfpack had the pleasure, 66-63.

The expression that usually brings a pain to the heart of a stathead is "the eye-test." But today, I'd have to say that North Carolina St. passed the eye-test, in that for about 25 minutes of the game the Wolfpack just looked like the better team, and often CJ Leslie looked without peer on the floor.

The story from the pre-game info at Casual Hoya was that Wolfpack fans were concerned about foul difficulty inside, but it turned out to be Georgetown to suffer that fate, as Henry Sims picked his second foul at the 14:20 mark of the first half, with the Hoyas ahead 8-5. Now the narrative late in the game was that NC State was able to pull away from Georgetown once Sims sat, but the reality was that the Hoyas enjoyed a 17-10 run over the next 9+ minutes of game time to extend to a 10-point lead. The game was 20 possessions in, on pace for 53 for the entire game.

What ensued felt like a mugging at half-court, as the Hoyas committed 6 turnover on their next 10 possessions while the Wolfpack ran off seven points in 32 seconds on their way to a 15-2 run to close out the half. The pace of the game had noticeably quickened. The hits kept coming as the Vespers half began, as NC State used a 13-5 run out of the gate to stretch their lead to eleven points.

As we've seen in the past, when the wheels fall off Hollis Thompson is able to remain calm and throw enough good shots at the rim to ring up points. And today that effort slowly dragged Georgetown back into the game, as Hollis scored 15 of his team-leading 23 points after the deficit had ballooned to eleven.

Somehow, near the end of the game, the Hoyas had three attempts to tie or take the lead:

• Down three with 0:40 left, Henry Sims drove right and drew the foul. His shot attempt for the and-one was on-line but short of the rim. I think that was the first (only?) moment in the second half where I thought Georgetown could actually win the game.
• Down two with 0:25 left, the Hoyas tried to find Henry in the left block (I was having serious Cinci in the Big East, 2-OT flashbacks), but instead Otto Porter took and left short a baseline jumper. I'd guess many would have a problem with Otto's shot, preferring to hold for a better look; in his defense, he shot early enough that a miss wouldn't end the game, as we saw.
• With 4.6 seconds left and a Wolfpack free throw missed, suddenly Jason Clark was streaking down the sideline with a chance to tie the game. His attempt was open, but hurried and deep and never had a chance. The final horn sounded.

Looking at the tempo-free box, the Hoyas only struggled in two areas: defensive rebounding and 3FG defense.

The outside shooting is the less serious offense. Although the Hoyas will end the season leading the nation in 3FG% allowed [27.7%],and the Wolfpack are an average 3FG-shooting team [35.8%, 98th nationally], we've learned from Ken Pomeroy that 3FG shooting is a very hard thing to predict in small sample sizes, such as a tournament game.

But the Hoyas also led the Big East conference in defensive rebounding [OR allowed = 31%], a stat that helped drive their defense to the top-ten nationally (per KenPom). The difference in offensive rebounding [41% to 25%, NCSU to GU] today and the resulting difference in second chance points [15-8] proved to be the difference in the game.


And so another season comes to an end, although perhaps not as bitterly as the previous four. With low expectations entering the season, a shot to advance to the Sweet-16 was about the best-case scenario for the Hoyas and their fans. And that's what they got.

We'd be remiss if we didn't acknowledge the seniors on the team:

• Jason Clark, whose spectacular play thrilled Georgetown fans for four seasons and netted him all-Big East honors. But perhaps more importantly, he also earned the Big East's Sportsmanship award. His and his teammates' dignity make rooting for the Hoyas a pleasure, in spite of the inevitable pains.
• Henry Sims, whose emergence early this season as a star, and whose late-season heroics helped bring the Hoyas to the cusp of the Sweet-16
• And while I'm hesitant to include the nominal junior here, Hollis Thompson, who knew how to thrill his audience (at Alabama and vs. Marquette this year). Hollis is allegedly on schedule to graduate a semester early, at the end of this academic year.

Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Home                            Visitor   
.            Georgetown                      North Carolina State         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            31        32        64
 
Points          27        36        63          30        36        66   

Effic.         86.4     111.7      99.2        96.0     111.7     103.9  
 
eFG%           50.0      48.4      49.0        39.7      48.0      43.5  
TO%            32.0       6.2      18.9        16.0      15.5      15.7  
OR%            25.0      25.0      25.0        45.5      35.0      40.5  
FTA/FGA        45.0      25.8      33.3        48.3      68.0      57.4  

Assist Rate    62.5      61.5      61.9        50.0      60.0      55.0  
Block Rate      8.7      12.5      10.3        11.1      11.8      11.5  
Steal Rate      9.6       6.2       7.9         9.6       3.1       6.3  
 
2FG%           44.4      52.9      50.0        30.4      37.5      33.3  
3FG%           36.4      28.6      32.0        50.0      44.4      46.7  
FT%            77.8      75.0      76.5        50.0      70.6      61.3

more stats after the jump

St Louis bracket: log5 prediction after Round of 32

Now that the Hoyas have advanced to the Round of 32, it's time to update the original log5 predictions for the region.

Ken Pomeroy has updated the official log5 odds for the Round of 32 on his website. As I did for my original log5 prediction, I'm going off results against the KenPom Top 100 (not including the Round of 64 results).

Here are the percentage odds for advancing to the next round for each team:

Seed  Team           2nd Rd  Sweet 16  Elite 8  Final 4   Orig
1     North Carolina   100      61.6     50.6     30.8    25.7
16    Lamar/Vermont    out       out      out      out     0.2
8     Creighton        100      38.4     28.5     14.2     8.4
9     Alabama          out       out      out      out     3.0

5     Temple           out       out      out      out     5.6
12    South Florida    100      53.9     11.9      3.3     1.0
4     Michigan         out       out      out      out     5.8
13    Ohio             100      46.1      9.0      2.3     0.6

6     San Diego St.    out       out      out      out     4.6
11    NC State         100      22.6      5.6      1.6     0.8
3     Georgetown       100      77.4     31.4     13.7     7.3
14    Belmont          out       out      out      out     1.6

7     Saint Mary's     out       out      out      out     7.1
10    Purdue           100      25.7     11.4      4.0     1.9
2     Kansas           100      74.3     51.5     30.2    25.3
15    Detroit          out       out      out      out     0.1

Note I've listed a couple teams in bold in the brackets. The Hoyas were bolded to highlight their odds. As I noted in the prior post, Ohio has played few games against the KenPom Top 100 (only seven including the game against Michigan). Because of their small sample size, I'm using a nominal rating more along the lines of what a good #13 seed might have. I've also added team's original odds of reaching the Final Four. Note, however, these aren't the same as the odds listed in prior post. Those were based on a superior (by this methodology) Cal team winning the play-in game; since USF won, I replaced them with Cal in the odds calculator, which improved everybody else's odds.

By virtue of San Diego State's loss, the Hoyas see the biggest rise in the region in their chances of making the Final Four. NC State was in some respects the ACC's UConn or Texas, a squad cursed with potential that often failed to play up to their talent level. Using the full Pomeroy ratings (pre-tourney), the Hoyas are still 72% favorites, but aren't favored by as much as UNC or Kansas. That feels more accurate to me, but we shall see.

Notes: log5 predictions are made using Pomeroy ratings based on games through Sunday, March 11.
No adjustment has been made for any home court advantage - all games are assumed neutral court.

Finally, a gentle reminder: efficiency ratings and the predictions derived therefrom are not destiny.

Recap: Georgetown 74, Belmont 59

Image from here

Woo-hoo! The Hoyas used their secret weapon (the 2-3 zone) to slow down a very scary Belmont offensive attack, while playing one of their strongest offensive games of the season to handle the Bruins, 74-69.

Just a few bullet points for tonight:

•  As noted by Ken Pomeroy, Belmont shooting 10/27 [37%] on 3FG was not a bad result for the Bruins. The team led the Atlantic Sun conference by making 39.5% of their threes, so the Hoyas only nudged them a touch under their league average. Belmont also attempted half of all field goals from behind the arc, a bit higher than the 41% clip that they typically use. But it should be pointed out that the Bruins played very differently in each half:
• 1st: 3/8 2FG, 6/15 3FG, 3/7 FT
• 2nd: 8/19 2FG, 4/12 3FG, 4/4 FT
• In the end, Belmont scored at a clip of 1.00 points per possessions. You can stare at Belmont's offensive stats (i.e. Georgetown's defensive stats) as much as you'd like, but the game played at about the way you'd expect for a great offense [adj. OEff = 116.5] vs. a great defense [adj. DEff = 87.4].
• The difference in the game today was the Hoyas' shooting. Georgetown's eFG = 66.3% was the biggest number put up against Belmont all season, and only two teams had previously made it north of 60% against the Bruins (Memphis and Stetson). 
• Why did the Hoyas shoot so well? They took advantage of their huge size advantage to make nearly all their shots close to the basket: Georgetown shot 20/22 on dunks, layups and tip-ins. For Belmont, once they let the Hoyas get the ball in deep it was an almost automatic two points.
• There were three stars for the Hoyas tonight: Jason Clark, Otto Porter and Henry Sims.
• Jason Clark was the star of the game for the Hoyas because he made shots [6/7 2FG, 3/5 3FG]. I've been loath to point it out, but Jason has been mired in a shooting slump throughout Big East play. Did you know that Nate Lubick [2/7 3FG (29 %)] actually shot better behind the arc than Clark [22/82 3FG (27%)]? So Jason's hot hand to start the game [1st half: 2/3 2FG, 3/4 3FG] was both a relief, and a concern (can he keep it up?). Clark smartly holstered his outside shot - only one attempt - in the second half, instead driving the lane for layups.
• As noted by Jack in comments, Henry used an amazing 43% of possessions while he was on the floor. How? He took shots (12 of GU's 34 field goal attempts while he was in the game), he set up others (5 assists) and he occasionally gave the ball away (3 TOs). Note that most of Henry's work came in the second half, as he had to sit with two fouls after 12 possessions played in the game - I wonder if it was a combination of JT3's strategy and Sims trying to play catch-up.
•  I'm still trying to figure out how Otto Porter was left off the All-Rookie team for the Big East. Otto had 16 pts, 8 reb, 0 turnovers, and you just come to expect it. By my reckoning - the Net Points stats found below the jump - Porter hasn't been less than very good since at Seton Hall.

The Hoyas will move on to play North Carolina State on Sunday at 12:15 pm in the round of 32.


Let's run the numbers:

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Home                            Visitor   
.            Georgetown                      Belmont         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            29        31        59
 
Points          36        38        74          27        32        59   

Effic.        126.3     123.8     124.9        94.7     104.2      99.5  
 
eFG%           61.5      71.7      66.3        52.2      45.2      48.1  
TO%            17.5      22.8      20.2        21.0       9.8      15.2  
OR%            38.5      25.0      33.3        25.0      31.6      28.6  
FTA/FGA        19.2      34.8      26.5        30.4      12.9      20.4  

Assist Rate    28.6      62.5      46.7        77.8      75.0      76.2  
Block Rate     12.5      10.5      11.1         0.0       0.0       0.0  
Steal Rate      7.0       0.0       3.4         3.5       6.5       5.1  
 
2FG%           58.8      75.0      67.6        37.5      42.1      40.7  
3FG%           44.4      33.3      41.7        40.0      33.3      37.0  
FT%            80.0      62.5      69.2        42.9     100.0      63.6

more stats after the jump

St Louis bracket: log5 prediction

As I did for the Big East tournament in 2011, the NCAA tournament in 2010, and various times in the past, I will be running log5 analysis based on the Pomeroy ratings for at least as long as the Hoyas are in the field.

Ken Pomeroy has run the official log5 odds on his website. Rather than duplicate his, I'm trying something a little bit different.

One major problem with the Pomeroy ratings, especially early in the season, is that it includes all games. Some teams, particularly Wisconsin, are quite proficient at grinding inferior teams into the ground and much less so at doing the same against more closely-aligned competition. As a crude fix for that, I am this year instead preparing predictions based on teams' efficiency margins against opponents ranked in the top 100 of the Pomeroy ratings. Is this a perfect fix? No, absolutely not, but it does "fix" Wisconsin and some other teams.

Here are the percentage odds for advancing to the next round for each team:

Seed  Team           2nd Round  Sweet 16  Elite 8  Final 4
1     North Carolina    87.5      57.2     40.6     25.2
16    Lamar/Vermont     12.5       2.7      0.7      0.1
8     Creighton         60.3      26.4     16.0      8.2
9     Alabama           39.7      13.8      7.0      2.9

5     Temple            53.3      30.7     11.9      5.3
12    Cal/South Florida 46.7      25.4      9.1      3.8
4     Michigan          68.5      34.0     12.6      5.4
13    Ohio              31.5       9.9      2.2      0.6

6     San Diego St.     63.7      31.8     11.8      4.6
11    NC State          36.3      11.1      2.9      0.8
3     Georgetown        63.4      40.1     16.7      7.3
14    Belmont           36.6      17.0      5.0      1.6

7     Saint Mary's      62.4      26.0     15.2      7.1
10    Purdue            37.6      11.7      5.4      1.9
2     Kansas            88.6      59.9     42.5     25.3
15    Detroit           11.4       2.5      0.6      0.1

Note I've listed a couple teams in bold in the brackets. The Hoyas were bolded to highlight their odds. I also have not yet re-written my spreadsheet to account for the two play-in games, between Lamar and Vermont in the 16 seed game and Cal and USF in the 12 seed game. For simplicity's sake, I've assumed the superior team (Lamar and Cal, respectively) will win that game. The listed odds thus somewhat overstate the chance the winner of each play-in game continues on and somewhat understate the odds of all teams not involved in a play-in game.

The Problems Inherent in the Method

More importantly, judging teams based on results against only KenPom top-100 teams results in judging off smaller sample sizes. Most of the time this isn't an issue. For instance, Georgetown played 17 games against the KenPom top 100. Even a non-BCS team like Temple played 15 teams. Unfortunately, there are a couple exceptions. In the Hoyas' region, both Belmont and Ohio only played six games against the KenPom top 100. I prepared the above calculation using Belmont's actual results in those six games. The Bobcats, however, presented a trickier challenge.

Ohio played six games against the KenPom top 100: one game against #20 Louisville, one game against #74 Marshall, three games against #79 Akron, and one game against #95 Northern Iowa. They went 4-2, losing by five points at Louisville and losing once against Akron. Because they blew out Northern Illinois and Akron once, their average efficiency in those games was 109.2 on offense and 100.6 on defense. Based on those numbers, they're the third-best team in the region and roughly the eleventh-best in the field. Considering Ohio is the 72nd-ranked team in the overall Pomeroy ratings, I strongly doubt that accurately reflects how good the Bobcats are.

I therefore manually adjusted the Bobcats' ratings to something more along the lines of what I think they deserve based on where teams in their general vicinity in the Pomeroy ratings came out. I fully admit this adjustment is highly subjective and deeply unscientific, but I prefer it to breaking the system. Looking outside the Hoyas' region, Murray State poses the same problem, unless you believe they really are as good as Kentucky.

Thoughts Outside the St. Louis Region

Looking at the bracket as a whole, Kentucky is clearly the best team, though the margin is less overwhelming than it was before they lost the SEC championship game. There's then a second tier of roughly ten teams, including Kansas, Memphis, Michigan State, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio State, Syracuse, and Wichita State. I've listed them in alphabetical order, but by the numbers, Wichita State is at the top of the tier, closer to Kentucky than they are to Kansas at the bottom of that tier. The Hoyas thus appear somewhat fortunate in that they avoided Kentucky and only have two of the second tier teams in their region.

You may have noticed that neither the Hoyas nor any other of the #3 seeds are on that list. All the #1 seeds are included, as are all the #2 seeds save Duke, but this year's #3 seeds are mostly unimpressive. Baylor is the best, Marquette second, and the Hoyas come up just barely ahead of Florida State. Kansas is closer to Kentucky, though, than they are to Baylor, let alone the Hoyas, and thus the St. Louis bracket looks the way it does.

For the curious, the teams with the best chances at coming out of the other regions are Kentucky (39%) followed by Wichita State (20%); toss-up between Syracuse (27.2%) and Ohio State (27.4%); and Missouri (26%) over Michigan State (17.2%) and New Mexico (16.9%).

Notes: log5 predictions are made using Pomeroy ratings based on games through Sunday, March 11.
No adjustment has been made for any home court advantage - all games are assumed neutral court.

Finally, a gentle reminder: efficiency ratings and the predictions derived therefrom are not destiny.

Recap: VCU 74, Georgetown 56

Image from here.

It turns out, Chris Wright wasn't the answer.

The Georgetown Hoyas succumbed to a barrage of open 3FGs by the VCU Rams while failing to do much of anything on the offensive end, losing in a rout, 74-56.

Storyline #1:
The Rams made 11 or their first 19 shots from behind the arc, including 5 of their first 7 to start the Vesper half, in moving out to a 18 point lead with 11:13 left in the game.  Meanwhile, outside of Hollis Thompson [4-6 3FG], the Hoyas managed to shoot 1 for 20 from 3FG for the game (inside of Hollis Thompson, it's too dark to shoot).

Storyline #2:
With less than a minute left in the first half, Georgetown trailed VCU by 6 points when Chris Wright missed the front end of a 1-and-1.  Over the next 21 possessions for each team (14+ minutes of game time), the Rams outscored the Hoyas 33-14 and had built an insurmountable 25 point lead with only 7 minutes left in the game.  Eight of the Hoyas' 21 possessions during that stretch resulted in a turnover.

Storyline #3:
The Hoyas ended the game with only three more field goals made [20] than turnovers committed [17].


But the stat of the night for Hoya fans is likely what time they turned the game off.


At this point, Coach John Thompson III has a public relations problem that he's going to have to deal with:  the reputation of having teams that either implode [2009, 2011] or suffer a bad upset in their final game of the season [2008, 2010].  One of those is a tough label to shake, but the combination can be - dare I say - professionally fatal.  How JT3 deals with tonight's embarrassing effort, and the implications it has for his career, will be interesting to say the least. 

As for the players, it should be noted that the four seniors - Austin Freeman, Chris Wright, Julian Vaughn and Ryan Dougherty - have all been outstanding representatives of the university both as players and as students.  At different times, they all brought excitement and joy to Hoya fans this season (remember Ryan's layup against Appalachian State?).

I do feel sorry for those guys, because the legacy of flaming out by the end of the season is likely the one that most fans will associate with them, rather than any successes that they had.  I'm quite certain that they are at least as upset about the way Georgetown's season (and their careers) ended as any fan.


With the graduation of the three senior starters, the Hoyas will enter next season with few expectations of success.  Hollis Thompson comported himself well tonight and it looks like it will be his team to lead for the next two years


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

TEMPO-FREE BOX SCORE
 
.            Home                            Visitor   
.            Georgetown                      Virginia Commonwealth         
.            1st Half  2nd Half   Total      1st Half  2nd Half   Total
Pace            30        33        62
 
Points          24        32        56          35        39        74   

Effic.         81.2      97.5      89.8       118.4     118.9     118.7  
 
eFG%           38.0      48.1      43.3        52.2      57.1      54.5  
TO%            30.5      24.4      27.3        10.2       9.1       9.6  
OR%            44.4      25.0      35.3        31.2      18.8      25.0  
FTA/FGA        28.0      22.2      25.0        73.9     104.8      88.6  

Assist Rate    77.8      45.5      60.0        66.7      88.9      77.8  
Block Rate      9.1       0.0       5.3        15.4      15.4      15.4  
Steal Rate      6.8       3.0       4.8        10.2      12.2      11.2  
 
2FG%           61.5      53.8      57.7        27.3      37.5      31.6  
3FG%            8.3      28.6      19.2        50.0      46.2      48.0  
FT%            71.4     100.0      84.6        64.7      68.2      66.7

Thinking about NCAA Seeding

The NCAA tournament bracket was announced tonight, and Georgetown received a 6 seed in the Southwest Region, playing the winner of the Southern California v. Virginia Commonwealth play-in game.

While there is always the normal sturm und drang about included and excluded teams after the brackets are announced, I was curious how the actual seeding played out versus Ken Pomeroy's rating system.

Now there's nothing magical about Ken's system (although John Gasaway would have you believe otherwise), but it provides a nice objective metric against which to judge the seeding.  In particular, Ken's system will struggle with teams that were missing an important player for a significant chunk of time, but will have that player back in time for the tournament ("I wonder who he means").

One thing to keep in mind is that this isn't the same sort of analysis as the log5 odds calculations that Tom provides here, and Ken has just posted for the entire NCAA field over at Basketball Prospectus.  Rather, here we're just concerned with how hard each sub-region is, relative to the others.

Here's a breakdown of the Southwest region:

Seed   Team                  Mis-seed
  1    Kansas                    0
 16    Boston U                  0
  9    Illinois                 -4
  8    Nevada Las Vegas         -2
  5    Vanderbilt                3
 12    Richmond                 -1
 13    Morehead St               1
  4    Louisville               -1
  3    Purdue                   -1
 14    St. Peter's               0
 11    Southern California       0
       Virginia Commonwealth     2
  6    Georgetown                2
  7    Texas A&M                 4
 10    Florida St                0
 15    Akron                     0
  2    Notre Dame                1

The first two columns should be self-explanatory; I've color-coded matchups to make the table a bit easier to read, with the play-in game using it's own color.

The third column, labeled "mis-seed" is simply a comparison of the actual seed assigned by the tournament committee with the seed found by ranking the 68 tournament teams via KenPom's ratings.  A positive number means a team is over-seeded (the team received a higher seed from the tournament committee than Ken's system would have assigned) and a negative number is an under-seed.

For example, the 8/9 game in the Southwest pits Illinois and UNLV.  Through Sunday's games, Ken ranks Illinois and UNLV as the 20th and 22nd best teams in the country.  Since every team ahead of them also made the tournament, their expected seeds from KenPom is simple enough to calculate [ = KP rating / 4, rounded up].  So Ken would have given Illinois a 5 seed, and UNLV a 6 seed.  The mis-seed for Illinois is KP seed - NCAA seed [ = 5 - 9], which gives a mis-seed value of -4; UNLV earns a -2 this way [= 6 - 8].

The upshot of all this is that, regardless of who comes out of the 8/9 game, Kansas (assuming the win over BU) will be playing a team that Ken Pomeroy would tell you is at least two seed lines better than a typical 8/9 opponent.

At the other extreme, 10-seed Florida State gets a break in playing 7-seed Texas A&M that Ken would predict is actually the worse team of the pair, by a hair


If you take this further and break the bracket down into upper and lower sub-regions, it is quickly apparent that Kansas was done no favors by the committee, while Notre Dame has a far easier draw.

Here's a summary of the difficulty for each of the 1 and 2 seeds, found by averaging all of the other team's mis-seed values in the upper and lower halves of each region.  I've included each team's own mis-seed stat, as well:

.                           avg. opp.                         avg. opp.
Region       1-seed         mis-seed       2-seed             mis-seed
East         Ohio St. [0]     -1.1         North Carolina [2]   -0.1
Southeast    Pittsburgh [1]   -1.1         Florida [3]           0.4
Southwest    Kansas [0]       -0.6         Notre Dame [1]        0.9
West         Duke [0]          0.6         San Diego St. [0]     0.3

By this metric, the East region is the hardest in the tournament as both OSU and UNC have a sub-region which is under-seeded, although the Buckeyes have a lot more to complain about.  Meanwhile, the West with Duke and San Diego St. is the easiest region, with both teams' opponents over-seeded on average.

Pitt is done no favors in the Southeast, while Florida - who KenPom would have pegged a 5-seed - plays in a slightly soft sub-region.  And Notre Dame's luck continues with the most over-seeded sub-region of all the top seeds.

And finally, for the sake of completeness, here are the mis-seed stats, averaged as a function of seed-line:

Seed    Mis-seed       Seed    Mis-seed
  1       0.3           16       0.0
  2       1.5           15       0.0
  3       0.5           14      -0.3
  4      -1.8           13      -2.0
  5       2.3           12      -2.8
  6       2.0           11      -1.4
  7       1.8           10       0.5
  8       0.5            9       0.3

The stats from this table - if they are representative of most of the NCAA tourneys since the expansion to 64 teams - give a fairly good explanation why those 5/12 upsets are so common:  the 5-seed is the most over-seeded in the bracket, and the 12-seed is the most under-seeded.  Plan accordingly.


After the jump, the rest of the region mis-seed tables.

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

St Louis bracket: log5 prediction

As I did for the Big East tournament and as I did for the NIT last year and the NCAA tourney in 2008, I will be running log5 analysis based on the Pomeroy ratings for at least as long as the Hoyas are in the field.

Here are the percentage odds for advancing to the next round for each team:

Seed  Team           2nd Round  Sweet 16  Elite 8  Final 4
1     Kansas            98.3      83.4     64.1     47.3
16    Lehigh             1.7       0.2      0.01     0.0005
8     UNLV              46.6       7.2      2.7      0.9
9     Northern Iowa     53.4       9.2      3.7      1.2

5     Michigan State    85.8      36.9      9.2       3.7
12    New Mexico St.    14.2       1.8      0.1      0.04
4     Maryland          86.3      57.5     19.8     10.4
13    Houston           13.7       3.7      0.3      0.05

6     Tennessee         52.5      20.0      6.8      2.6
11    San Diego St.     47.5      17.1      5.5      1.2
3     Georgetown        88.5      60.4     30.5     11.4
14    Ohio              11.5       2.5      0.3      0.03

7     Oklahoma St.      40.4      10.6      3.8      0.8
10    Georgia Tech      59.6      20.0      9.0      2.4
2     Ohio State        95.4      68.9     44.0     19.0
15    UCSB               4.6       0.5      0.2      0.009

By the Pomeroy ratings, the Hoyas are the 4th best team in the region at 11th overall, behind 2nd-ranked Kansas, 4th Ohio State, and 10th Maryland, and would likely have to beat two of those three to reach Indianapolis. The upside is they do seem to have lucked out in drawing Tennessee as a #6 seed, for whom the Pomeroy ratings are much lower than the poll voters or RPI. Of course, their mid-season turmoil may be having an effect on KenPom's stats.


Another way of judging how strong a bracket the Hoyas placed them is swapping them with the #3 seed in the other regions. Here's how they would fare by log5 in each region:

#1 Seed        2nd Round  Sweet 16  Elite 8   Final 4
Syracuse          93.2      56.8     27.9      15.3

Kentucky          89.4      56.9     29.8      14.2

Duke              89.0      60.2     37.5      14.2

So, the bump gained by playing Tennessee is smaller than it seems at first, and the downside of the bracket is being in a region with one of the two strongest teams in the field (Kansas/Duke) without the benefit of a particularly weak #2 seed in KenPom-terms like Duke got in swooning Villanova.

The cumulative effect is the Hoyas' chances of making the Final 4 are only 80% of what they'd be in the next strongest region.


I also ran the log5 odds for each of the other Big East teams that made the tourney, sorted by region:

Seed  Team           2nd Round  Sweet 16  Elite 8  Final 4
1     Syracuse          93.8      65.4     47.3     28.2
3     Pitt              88.4      41.0     14.4      5.9

6     Marquette         50.9      33.4     13.1      8.5
2     West Virginia     94.4      57.6     39.9     20.0

9     Louisville        36.4       5.3      2.1      1.1
6     Notre Dame        47.1      17.5      7.6      2.2
2     Villanova         94.6      62.1     32.4     10.5

The odds of #2 seed West Virginia making the Final Four, by getting by teams like New Mexico, Wisconsin and/or Kentucky, are comparable to #2 seed Ohio St.'s chances of making it out of the Midwest.  But Villanova's odds are only about half as likely.  Similarly, Georgetown rates a better chance than fellow #3 seed Pitt, and #6 seed Marquette rates better than #6 seed Notre Dame.

Notes: log5 predictions are made using Pomeroy ratings based on games through Sunday, March 14.
No adjustment has been made for any home court advantage - all games are assumed neutral court.


And a gentle reminder, efficiency ratings and the predictions derived are not destiny.

Analysis: Davidson 74, Georgetown 70

Well, to use the HoyaTalk parlance, Edited. Davidson recovers from an 11-point halftime deficit, and being down 17 early in the second half, to beat the Hoyas, 74-70, and end their season.

Let's run the numbers:

                        Offense                            Defense
        1st Half  2nd Half   Total         1st Half  2nd Half   Total
 Pace      31        32        63

 Eff.    123.7      98.7     110.8           87.9     144.9     117.2

 eFG%     78.6      72.5      75.6           30.0      59.3      43.9
  TO%     26.0      37.0      31.7            9.8       6.2       7.9
  OR%     33.3      27.3      30.4           31.8      38.5      34.3
FTA/FGA    47.6      35.0      41.5           40.0      66.7      52.6
FTM/FGA    23.8      15.0      19.5           30.0      55.6      42.1

Assist Rate  42.9     41.7      42.3           25.0      57.1      45.5
Block Rate   18.8      0.0      10.3            0.0       0.0       0.0
Steal Rate    3.3      3.1       3.2            3.3      16.3       9.5

 2FG%     64.3      77.8      69.6           37.5      76.9      55.2
 3FG%     71.4      45.5      55.6           14.3      28.6      21.4
  FT%     50.0      42.9      47.1           75.0      83.3      80.0

Some relevant numbers highlighted, but no other commentary from me right now. I'll probably do an HD box of this game some time in the next couple days, maybe even broken down by half.
---------
UPDATE (3/23/08, 2000 CT): Just one thing to add for now:

OffEff v.Expected  DefEff  v.Expected
110.8    +4.5       117.2    +20.8

Once again, the offense looks bad, and certainly did some bad things in the second half, but the real problem came on the defensive side of the ball. Davidson hit 10 of 13 on 2's in the second half. Make that 5 or 6, like a Hoya opponent normally hits, and I'm figuring out how I'm going to get all my work done and still go to Detroit.

Analysis: Davidson Preview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

News: Georgetown Beats UMBC, Will Face Davidson Sunday

The Hoyas today advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament, topping UMBC, 66-47. Not a pretty game, but the Hoyas did what they needed to do to win. No full box available yet, but here are some of the key stats:

• Hoyas 64.3% from 2-point range, including 69.2% in the first half.

• UMBC 33.5% from 2-point range.

• Hoyas 42.9% from the charity stripe. Not a great performance.

• Hoyas turned the ball over on 24.8% of possessions. Tough to win if they do that again on Sunday.

• Most shots: Wallace, followed by Hibbert. Efficient players taking the lead offensively! I approve.

• When your blogger takes a half day off work he intends to be home in time for the Hoya game, not work until 6:30. /Whine off.

I'll be back tomorrow (Saturday) with more on what you can expect from the Davidson Wildcats, and hopefully a full box score as well.
-------
UPDATE (3/22/08, 1915 CT): No full box still, so I'll just post what I have.

                Offense     Defense

  Pace           60

  Eff.          109.2       77.8

 eFG%            58.8%      40.0%
  TO%            24.8%      19.9%
  OR%            35.5%      23.7%
FTA/FGA           27.5%      26.0%
FTM/FGA           11.8%      14.0%

Assist Rate       53.8%      50.0%
Block Rate         8.3%       0.0%
Steal Rate         9.9%      19.9%

  2FG%           64.3%      33.3%
  3FG%           34.8%      30.8%
   FT%           42.9%      53.8%

Aside from the points noted above, nothing much to add from the full-game box.

Pomeroy prediction v Davidson: 67-61, 63 possessions, Hoyas with a 75.5% chance of winning.

Analysis: Keys for the Hoyas

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

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

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

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

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

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