There is really only one main takeaway from Saturday's game in terms of team advanced stats. Let me reiterate how the Four Factors work (in case they've slipped your mind). Dean Oliver decided that it would be best to distill any game into 4 measures of a team's production: Shooting, Rebounding, Free Throws and Turnovers. They carry importance in that order and are measured in a tempo-free way in the following graph I show all of you after each UNC game:
OPP NAME ORTG perEFG perORB FTR TORATE 1 FloridaState Total 1.22 0.55 0.58 0.27 0.22 2 FloridaState oppTotals 1.14 0.59 0.21 0.34 0.16
Now, to be honest I'm not great at spotting overall trends, but I've got to assume that two things went into that advantage, game planning and a renewed effort on the boards and I can only hope this trend continues. This iteration of North Carolina basketball doesn't have a formidable big man to create a rebounding edge, but does maintain a size advantage at positions 1-4 and should be able to rebound well. This is potentially vital going forward, as offensive rebound is one of the more simple remedies for poor shooting. Shooting will always win games, but if a team is regularly able to corral its own misses it has something of a security blanket against bad shooting nights.
On to the individual offensive performances. Inconsistency continues to be the only rule here, as each player continues to find new directions on my game graph. Hairston ventures out to territory unseen since McNeese State, while McAdoo and Bullock took fewer shots and saw their efficiency improve. Brice Johnson had an uncharacteristically poor game, though two of his turnovers were on entry passes "over the top" of a defender that was fronting him in the post. That hasn't been a common avenue for delivering the basketball to him, hopefully he can improve his pass catching from that angle. Paige had a high usage game, but wasn't impressive and Dexter returned back from purgatory with a lackluster game. Desmond Hubert continues to improve, putting the ball in the basket when asked on one end while playing successful defense on the other.
With so many ho-hum performances, how did the Heels nab victory from the jaws of defeat? The answer, in a few words, is Jackson Simmons. He's missing on the graph above, because he wrecks the curve. Below is the same graph with his inclusion, Simmons used 1 possession and scored 8 points. He took and made 3 shots and 2 free throws with 1 turnover and 4 offensive rebounds. While on the floor he rebounded 33% of UNC's missed shots. I'm not sure if his role will continue to be this large, but he certainly has played like the Brice Johnson-Joel James combo many have been yearning for. His offensive production was both timely and significant, while he was always in the right place on defense and seldom got beat for points. Florida State doesn't boast the most menacing front court in the league, but they're not small by any means.
One last note, in Tallahassee last year the Seminoles took 27 three-point field goals and made 12, Saturday they took 22 and made only one fewer, 11. I'm not directly comparing the production, but given that the 'Noles were nearly as hot as the team that knocked off last year's #3 squad the fact that this year's Tar Heels were able to come away with a win is indicative of the moxie I hope these Heels continue to show. If they do we'll be in for a fun ACC season.
POSS ORTG USG perFTM perFGM perFGM.3 perORB perDRB perTS FTR perEFG ARATE TORATE Bullock 7 1.71 0.13 NaN 0.45 0.33 0.18 0.12 0.55 0.00 0.55 0.16 0.14 McAdoo 13 1.08 0.24 0.57 0.45 NaN 0.10 0.21 0.50 0.64 0.45 0.08 0.15 Hubert 2 2.00 0.11 NaN 1.00 NaN 0.00 0.12 1.00 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.00 Strickland 5 0.80 0.13 0.67 0.33 0.00 0.00 0.17 0.46 1.00 0.33 0.11 0.20 Paige 15 0.53 0.34 1.00 0.22 0.50 0.00 0.15 0.40 0.22 0.33 0.20 0.33 James 1 0.00 0.16 NaN 0.00 NaN 0.00 0.33 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Hairston 15 1.53 0.34 0.50 0.64 0.44 0.04 0.15 0.77 0.14 0.79 0.05 0.07 Johnson 7 0.57 0.40 NaN 0.40 NaN 0.00 0.12 0.40 0.00 0.40 0.00 0.29 McDonald NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Tokoto 0 NaN 0.00 NaN 0.00 NaN 0.14 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.34 NaN Davis NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Simmons 1 8.00 0.04 1.00 1.00 NaN 0.33 0.00 1.03 0.67 1.00 0.09 1.00 Total 63 1.22 1.00 0.69 0.48 0.40 0.58 0.79 0.57 0.27 0.55 0.55 0.22 oppTotals 63 1.14 1.00 0.76 0.48 0.50 0.21 0.39 0.63 0.34 0.59 0.71 0.16
As promised, a few thoughts on the Tar Heel's performances to open the ACC season. My general feeling is that UNC has played two games well and one game poorly and unfortunately for them if you rearrange the performances in most other ways they'd be 2-1. That said, though the overall performances haven't been great (and certainly not at the team's ceiling) the players appear to be buying in more than they were earlier in the year. I can't quantify effort with any one stat, but I'm prepared to provide rebounding as a proxy. Below I've plotted UNC's rebounding performance against all of their KenPom top-100 opponents. As you can see, earlier in the year the Heels were getting out-rebounded by most of their top-flight competition. In recent games those numbers have improved. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come, as a rebounding edge would certainly improve the defense and make the offense more robust.
$`Season Totals`
NAME POSS ORTG USG perFTM perFGM perFGM.3 perORB perDRB perTS FTR perEFG ARATE TORATE
1 Bullock 148 1.36 0.19 0.86 0.48 0.47 0.08 0.13 0.63 0.14 0.61 0.15 0.13
2 McAdoo 242 0.95 0.28 0.62 0.46 NaN 0.09 0.18 0.49 0.40 0.46 0.06 0.19
3 Hubert 21 1.10 0.06 0.23 0.56 NaN 0.07 0.10 0.48 0.72 0.56 0.01 0.48
4 Strickland 144 0.90 0.18 0.60 0.45 0.21 0.02 0.07 0.51 0.44 0.47 0.20 0.15
5 Paige 160 0.68 0.22 0.80 0.34 0.32 0.01 0.08 0.44 0.13 0.42 0.21 0.25
6 James 40 1.12 0.11 0.56 0.50 NaN 0.10 0.18 0.52 0.44 0.50 0.03 0.38
7 Hairston 161 1.15 0.29 0.81 0.40 0.34 0.09 0.13 0.55 0.29 0.50 0.10 0.11
8 Johnson 103 1.28 0.26 0.46 0.62 NaN 0.09 0.23 0.61 0.13 0.62 0.04 0.14
9 McDonald 111 1.06 0.24 0.69 0.40 0.43 0.05 0.07 0.54 0.16 0.52 0.11 0.12
10 Tokoto 53 1.15 0.17 0.36 0.52 0.14 0.11 0.14 0.51 0.44 0.53 0.11 0.23
11 Davis 6 1.33 0.05 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.00 0.03 1.39 1.00 1.50 0.42 0.50
12 Simmons 9 2.89 0.07 1.00 0.56 NaN 0.19 0.16 0.63 0.33 0.56 0.07 0.22
13 Total 1184 1.08 1.00 0.64 0.45 0.37 0.39 0.68 0.53 0.27 0.51 0.60 0.19
14 oppTotal 1184 0.94 1.00 0.66 0.40 0.36 0.30 0.62 0.49 0.28 0.46 0.52 0.21
*An aside here, for those of you interested Dean Smith's book "Multiple Offense and Defense" explains his game charting methods. He would have counted these rebounds as extra possessions which they essentially are, but it throws off a lot of tempo-free stat counting if you do the accounting that way.
No comments:
Post a Comment