(03-30-2015 12:19 PM)robertfoshizzle Wrote:  You can try to convince yourself that it doesn't matter, but it does. Maybe if we held opponents to 45 ppg, scoring 62 would be acceptable. But until that happens, we have to find a way to at least get to 70.

Go ahead and name the last team that won a national championship scoring less than 70 ppg. I don't know how long ago it was, but I can tell you I just went through every champion going back to Kentucky in 1998 and not a single one averaged less than 72. In fact, the vast majority of them were near 80 and several were close to 90.

We will never win a championship or even sniff one averaging 60-65 ppg. Great teams bury lesser teams. This season we were too often unable to do that. I do expect more scoring this year and I am very optimistic about our program's future. Just don't act like points per game don't matter.

Simply put, all of that is correlation without causation.

Let's try it this way:
1) UC is not yet close to being a national championship contending team.
2) One of the factors to getting there is that UC needs to improve on offense.
3) Simply judging UC's offense by PPG is essentially pointless.
4) In order to properly evaluate the improvement (or lack there) of UC's offense, one should use offensive efficiency and pace stats to compare it to the best teams in the country.

That UC has trouble putting the ball in the basket is not a secret. It appears UC is bringing in more offensively talented players than in the recent past. Hopefully that will translate into a better, more efficient offense.

(03-30-2015 12:05 PM)cpawfan Wrote:  

(03-29-2015 09:03 PM)cpawfan Wrote:  Let's agree that offensive efficiency and not PPG is the important metric.

(03-30-2015 10:55 AM)Topkat Wrote:  

(03-30-2015 10:30 AM)richardk Wrote:  

(03-30-2015 10:20 AM)nachoman91 Wrote:  UC Coaching Staff: You won't ever win a championship averaging 60 points a game. When you're a low scoring team you keep the opposing teams in the game. I'm not expecting 80 points per game but you've got to speed up the game, get some easy baskets off fast breaks and steals, and increase the number of possessions. The old adage that "offense wins games, defense wins championships" is simply not true in college basketball. You've got to be good at both. I can show you a mountain of data that proves this.

Actually you don't even need a "mountain of data" - just take a look at the "offense" stats/data of UK, Wiskey, and the Blue Devils - (and considering the scare they threw into the overall #1 seed, you could add ND to the mix) - they can all score the basketball.

Agree. I have harped on this through the years.

Of the games we scored under 60 points this year:

Losses... Ole Miss, Nebraska, VCU, UConn, Memphis, ECU, Temple, Tulane, X, UConn, UK

Wins... St Francis, Eastern Ill, N Carolina Central, SMU, UCF, Tulsa

Please stop focusing on Points per Game

We will disagree here. All efficiency numbers do is normalise for comparison between teams adjusting for the pace of the game.

My argument is, no matter what pace you play, if you are better defensively than your opponent, you become exponentially better the larger the sample size (possessions). You introduce more volatility with smaller sample size.

It seems obvious to me, the slowing of the pace is to hide the other half of the efficiency number (offense). The lower the sample size, the more deviation (randomness) is possible from the norm.

I know we don't get the recruits of the Final Four teams, but if Gonzaga, Butler, X, Wichita and others make more consistent runs in the tourney than we do.... well.

All I would like to see is more focus on the offense. The reason I think the offense receives less focus is coach comments after games we lose when we score in the 50's. The comments are usually about going back and improving the defense.

That's my story, and I'm sticking with it. I definitely would like to hear other comments.

By the way, last years Bearcats were pretty good (SK, Rubles, Jackson). I think they had an abysmal record when they scored under 50 in a game. I'll look it up, I could be mistaken.

(03-30-2015 12:48 PM)cpawfan Wrote:  

(03-30-2015 12:19 PM)robertfoshizzle Wrote:  You can try to convince yourself that it doesn't matter, but it does. Maybe if we held opponents to 45 ppg, scoring 62 would be acceptable. But until that happens, we have to find a way to at least get to 70.

Go ahead and name the last team that won a national championship scoring less than 70 ppg. I don't know how long ago it was, but I can tell you I just went through every champion going back to Kentucky in 1998 and not a single one averaged less than 72. In fact, the vast majority of them were near 80 and several were close to 90.

We will never win a championship or even sniff one averaging 60-65 ppg. Great teams bury lesser teams. This season we were too often unable to do that. I do expect more scoring this year and I am very optimistic about our program's future. Just don't act like points per game don't matter.

Simply put, all of that is correlation without causation.

Let's try it this way:
1) UC is not yet close to being a national championship contending team. True, but it should be the goal.
2) One of the factors to getting there is that UC needs to improve on offense. True.
3) Simply judging UC's offense by PPG is essentially pointless. Agree that it's not the only thing that matters, but it is one of several statistics that should be evaluated.
4) In order to properly evaluate the improvement (or lack there) of UC's offense, one should use offensive efficiency and pace stats to compare it to the best teams in the country. Agree that it should be used, but still argue that points per game also matters unless you figure out a way to hold your opponents to 45 ppg. Our slow pace of pay and inability to make shots is the reason why East Carolina and Tulane were able to hang around and pull off an upset.


That UC has trouble putting the ball in the basket is not a secret. It appears UC is bringing in more offensively talented players than in the recent past. Hopefully that will translate into a better, more efficient offense.

I like that we shot .446 from the field this year. That is solid, and is a testament to having 3 bigs who can score easy buckets. Next season, I would like to see us maintain or improve on that while playing at a faster pace. I would also like to see our FT% rise from .670 to 70% and our 3% from .329 to 35%. We should be able to break into the top 50 in offensive efficiency and I would like to see us average at least 70 PPG.

With the talent we return, all of these things should be realistic: 70 PPG, top 50 in efficiency, 70% from the line, 35% from 3, 45% from the field. If we don't hit close to those numbers, I will be extremely disappointed.

(03-30-2015 12:49 PM)Topkat Wrote:  We will disagree here. All efficiency numbers do is normalise for comparison between teams adjusting for the pace of the game.

My argument is, no matter what pace you play, if you are better defensively than your opponent, you become exponentially better the larger the sample size (possessions). You introduce more volatility with smaller sample size.

It seems obvious to me, the slowing of the pace is to hide the other half of the efficiency number (offense). The lower the sample size, the more deviation (randomness) is possible from the norm.

I know we don't get the recruits of the Final Four teams, but if Gonzaga, Butler, X, Wichita and others make more consistent runs in the tourney than we do.... well.

All I would like to see is more focus on the offense. The reason I think the offense receives less focus is coach comments after games we lose when we score in the 50's. The comments are usually about going back and improving the defense.

That's my story, and I'm sticking with it. I definitely would like to hear other comments.

By the way, last years Bearcats were pretty good (SK, Rubles, Jackson). I think they had an abysmal record when they scored under 50 in a game. I'll look it up, I could be mistaken.

Not all defensive possessions are equal because of the physical effort it takes to play good defense the way UC plays defense under Cronin. At a certain point, things become sloppy and allow the opponent to score at a higher rate.

Again, there is no argument from me that UC must become a better offensive team.

Our scoring margin this season was a paltry +6.3. That's why we lost games we shouldn't have. We have to play at a faster pace in order to avoid those types of losses and go from good to great. We shoot too late in the shot clock and don't get enough shots in transition. That should be the focus this offseason. Hopefully the days of "we scored 55 points but the problem today was our defense" are over.

I am afraid if they change the shot clock to 30 seconds, we may never get the ball inside the arc before lofting a desperation three.

I cringe to think of a Cronin offense with a 24 second shot clock.

That said, it must be left over from the Huggins days, but nothing pleases me more than tough hard nosed defense.

Criminy folks...LOL

note to self: Dont ever bring up ppg vs offensive efficiency again....

(03-30-2015 01:06 PM)robertfoshizzle Wrote:  Our scoring margin this season was a paltry +6.3. That's why we lost games we shouldn't have. We have to play at a faster pace in order to avoid those types of losses and go from good to great. We shoot too late in the shot clock and don't get enough shots in transition. That should be the focus this offseason. Hopefully the days of "we scored 55 points but the problem today was our defense" are over.

I completely agree with your assessment. I would like to see more pressing on defense and I would like to see better spacing and passing on offense. One of the reasons that Michigan St. and Louisville have so much success is that they can win in many different ways. They can outscore you or win those grind it out type of games. Virginia and Georgetown go out early because they have trouble scoring. Iowa St. and Villanova went out early because they lived and died with the 3 and were not good at defense. To advance in the NCAA Tournament you need good offense and defense.

(03-30-2015 01:06 PM)robertfoshizzle Wrote:  Our scoring margin this season was a paltry +6.3. That's why we lost games we shouldn't have. We have to play at a faster pace in order to avoid those types of losses and go from good to great. We shoot too late in the shot clock and don't get enough shots in transition. That should be the focus this offseason. Hopefully the days of "we scored 55 points but the problem today was our defense" are over.

Does anyone truly believe that any of this year's Elite 8 teams would score 13 points in an entire half?; on their own floor?; against Tulane (Sagarin #212)? I don't care how good your defense is, that is just too painful to watch - he has got to find people who can score consistently, or he leaves us open to exactly what happened in that game.

(03-30-2015 12:26 PM)jarr Wrote:  A good offense is actually a great defense. It forces the other team to have to get in their half court offense and work hard for basket. On the contrary, a good defense can be a great offensive weapon, but for some Cronin has never focused on getting easy transition baskets.

Moreover just pushing the ball up court, that can lead to transition buckets.