Btw... pre shot clock, pre 3 point line, UC won back to back titles averaging 75 an 72 ppg. The 3 years prior (with Oscar) they average 85-87 ppg and didn't. Oops! There goes your theory. Like they say, there's lies, damn lies, and statistics.

That 1957 UNC title team that beat KU 54-53 in 3 OTs? They beat a KU team with wilt chamberlain. The only player ever to score 100 pts in a game. By himself!! What matters is who shows up on any particular day

(12-31-2016 12:04 PM)BJUnklFkr Wrote:  Next were the missed layups. Yes, Temple contested (and fouled) on some, but there were a lot of clean ones that were outright clanked.

Came into the Temple game shooting 58% on 2-pt shots, which was 14th best in the country. Then preceded to shoot 14-40 and look awful offensively just like nearly every conference road game in recent memory. I really hope this was just a bad game, because this team can be good offensively.

It's like we get to conference play and all the talk is about grinding out every game and winning when you miss shots. I have much higher expectations for this team than just finding ways to grind out wins in this conference.

(12-31-2016 10:53 AM)UCGrad1992 Wrote:  Mark, FWIW If I'm reading the current kenpom rankings correctly, UC is ranked 21st overall but 56th in adjusted offensive efficiency. However, the Cats rank 5th in adjusted defensive efficiency. You are more familiar with this stuff than most but it appears that UC's dee is helping to balance out their overall ranking and if they can improve a bit more on their offensive efficiency side, they can really round out to a much more balanced team that could make a deeper run come March. Again, it is less about tempo and more about what you do in the time that you have on both ends of the floor.

They were 35 in adjusted offense 2 games ago. They dropped some in the Marshall game, which probably surprises some people but that game was played at a faster pace than normal and Marshall is a really bad defensive team. They dropped a lot against Temple because Temple is a pretty middle of the road defense and that was a poor offensive game. Last year they were decent in the non-conference and fell apart of offense on the road in conference. They have to play better on the road on offense to reach their potential.

To me there are a couple of keys going forward... They have to find a way to get Washington to give them good minutes. His offensive skills can make UC so much more effective but he's been really struggling of late. Troy needs to make a higher percentage of his shots, I think he's been solid in all other aspects but they need him to shoot 35% from outside. They need Cumberland to consistently give them good minutes off the bench. He's got really good offensive skill and can be a spark when others are struggling or sitting. Lastly, Mick needs to give lineups a chance to get in rhythm and not have too many offensive liabilities on the floor at 1 time.

Even where they are now this would be Mick's best offensive team (barely over the sweet 16 team), but that sweet 16 team got better the second half of the year and was probably playing more like a top 30 offense by that time. UC needs to be a top 30 type offense to give themselves the best possible chance at a run. They've been that at times this year, but struggled on the road. That's the next big step that can take them from solid team that needs some breaks to make a run, to a team that can legitimately make a run.

(12-31-2016 12:54 PM)Bearcat04 Wrote:  

(12-31-2016 12:04 PM)BJUnklFkr Wrote:  Next were the missed layups. Yes, Temple contested (and fouled) on some, but there were a lot of clean ones that were outright clanked.

Came into the Temple game shooting 58% on 2-pt shots, which was 14th best in the country. Then preceded to shoot 14-40 and look awful offensively just like nearly every conference road game in recent memory. I really hope this was just a bad game, because this team can be good offensively.

It's like we get to conference play and all the talk is about grinding out every game and winning when you miss shots. I have much higher expectations for this team than just finding ways to grind out wins in this conference.

This is a good point. They need to get better on the road, particularly in conference. They seem to miss more makable shots in these games too.

(12-31-2016 10:10 AM)bearcatmark Wrote:  

(12-31-2016 01:03 AM)ucbrownsfan Wrote:  Virginia also finished 22nd in Kenpom Adjusted Offense in 2015
8th in Adjusted offense in 2016
They are currently 9th in adjusted offense

These numbers are far more correlated to tournament success than points per game.
maybe
The best way to make a deep run in the tournament is to be good at both defense and offense.
Of course
Tempo is irrelevant. Points per game is a flawed measure.
Please show me any study that says this, I'd love to see the raw data, as I won't believe this with out significant proof, it's contrary to basic probability
If your point is UC needs to be better on offense, absolutely. To me if they aren't a top 30 adjusted offense their chances of a deep run fall a ton
Agree completely which is why Kevin Johnson starting on this team = no more than 1 tourney win, bad offensive guard play almost always fails in the NCAA's.
, but Virginia is not a good comparison just because they play slow.
I didn't compare them across the board, I compared them, because they will both underperform their actual talent in a tournament format because they do play slow.

Plenty of teams that score a ton of points don't do **** because either they actually aren't that good at offense (and scoring is all attempt driven) or their defense sucks.


But do they score points against good teams.

The last team I can think of that won a national championship by slowing the game down was Villanova in 85. The next closest may have been UConn under Ollie, but they were just an odd team, a lot of teams tried to slow them down, then in the finals I think they tried to frustrate UK by slowing them down. But Villanova is really the only team I can think of that finished in the bottom half of the NCAA's in PPG and still won a title.

And that is where Virginia and UC have been a like the last few years... bottom half of the NCAAs in PPG.

That UConn team was 247 in adjusted Tempo and didn't exactly set the world on fire scoring the basketball.

I'll have to dig deeper on the studies on this, I've read them before and they are out there but it takes some scouring. For now just compare the top ten teams in points per game last year with the top ten teams in adjusted offensive efficiency. Which teams do you think had more success?

PPG
1. Oakland
2. Marshall
3. Nebraska Omaha
4. Washington
5. BYU
6. Citadel
7. North Florida
8. UNC
9. Wisc Green Bay
10. Indiana

Adj Off
1. UNC
2. Michigan State
3. Villanova
4. Duke
5. Kentucky
6. Indiana
7. Iowa State
8. Virginia
9. Notre Dame
10. Kansas

BearcatMark, you may not understand regression/correlation.

If something is linear and predictive then the top 10 will show to be the best and show a high correlation. Something can be completely predictive and dependent and not be linear and will therefore show a lower correlation and the top 10 won't really be reflective. y = abs value of x is a typical example of complete dependency and a 0 correlation. So it would make sense for offensive eff to be linear, but I'd expect pace of play and tempo in a game to look more like a bond yield curve - where after a certain point benefits flatten or even worsen, or if you have an engineering background more like a stress / strain curve.

So I believe tempo can be too high as well, I think Marshall plays too fast. The goal is to play at the highest pace you can, where you can still execute at your near highest offensive and defensive potential. Our final 4 team played at a great pace. My argument is not that the highest tempo teams win, it is simply poor tempo teams don't win championships. Less possessions mean each mistake by either team is magnified at a higher cost. I always pick against low scoring teams in the NCAA and it very rarely comes back to bite me. I also like picking teams that have a strong schedule.

My thought is if you finish in the bottom half of Div 1 in Off Eff, Def Eff, or tempo you won't be a good team. And tempo will show itself more in NCAA tourney format where a team must win 6 in a row to be champs.

Last Year's final 4 had:
Villanova (267 in adjusted tempo)
UNC (94 in adjusted tempo)
Kansas (146 in adjusted Tempo)
Notre Dame (328 in adjusted Tempo)

Notre Dame was the biggest surprise and a team that played at a slower pace. Villanova was a below average team in terms of tempo. UNC played in the top third of tempo teams, Kansas was close to top 3rd. That's a nice microcosm. None of those teams made it because they played fast or slow, they played because they executed at whatever tempo they played.

2015 Final Four had
Duke (112 in adjusted Tempo)
Wisconsin (347 in adjusted Tempo...one of the slowest teams in the country, historically great on offense though)
Michigan State (268 in adjusted tempo)
Kentucky (271 in adjusted tempo)

Duke was the only decently paced team in that final four. MSU and UK were moderately slow paced teams, Wisconsin was an incredibly slow paced team. These are just quick examples, because they illustrate everything I've read on pace being pretty irrelevant to success. Efficiency is where to look.

(12-31-2016 02:42 PM)bearcatmark Wrote:  

(12-31-2016 10:53 AM)UCGrad1992 Wrote:  Mark, FWIW If I'm reading the current kenpom rankings correctly, UC is ranked 21st overall but 56th in adjusted offensive efficiency. However, the Cats rank 5th in adjusted defensive efficiency. You are more familiar with this stuff than most but it appears that UC's dee is helping to balance out their overall ranking and if they can improve a bit more on their offensive efficiency side, they can really round out to a much more balanced team that could make a deeper run come March. Again, it is less about tempo and more about what you do in the time that you have on both ends of the floor.

They were 35 in adjusted offense 2 games ago. They dropped some in the Marshall game, which probably surprises some people but that game was played at a faster pace than normal and Marshall is a really bad defensive team. They dropped a lot against Temple because Temple is a pretty middle of the road defense and that was a poor offensive game. Last year they were decent in the non-conference and fell apart of offense on the road in conference. They have to play better on the road on offense to reach their potential.

To me there are a couple of keys going forward... They have to find a way to get Washington to give them good minutes. His offensive skills can make UC so much more effective but he's been really struggling of late. Troy needs to make a higher percentage of his shots, I think he's been solid in all other aspects but they need him to shoot 35% from outside. They need Cumberland to consistently give them good minutes off the bench. He's got really good offensive skill and can be a spark when others are struggling or sitting. Lastly, Mick needs to give lineups a chance to get in rhythm and not have too many offensive liabilities on the floor at 1 time.

Even where they are now this would be Mick's best offensive team (barely over the sweet 16 team), but that sweet 16 team got better the second half of the year and was probably playing more like a top 30 offense by that time. UC needs to be a top 30 type offense to give themselves the best possible chance at a run. They've been that at times this year, but struggled on the road. That's the next big step that can take them from solid team that needs some breaks to make a run, to a team that can legitimately make a run.

Good analysis Mark.

(12-31-2016 03:05 PM)bearcatmark Wrote:  2015 Final Four had
Duke (112 in adjusted Tempo)
Wisconsin (347 in adjusted Tempo...one of the slowest teams in the country, historically great on offense though)
Michigan State (268 in adjusted tempo)
Kentucky (271 in adjusted tempo)

Duke was the only decently paced team in that final four. MSU and UK were moderately slow paced teams, Wisconsin was an incredibly slow paced team. These are just quick examples, because they illustrate everything I've read on pace being pretty irrelevant to success. Efficiency is where to look.

I would have to see how they adjust tempo, if they had wisconsin as 347th in 2015.
They were 53rd in PPG. To me this looks more like a problem with kenpoms models of tempo and adjusted tempo. Adjusting tempo also doesn't really make sense, as a team that normally wants to play fast.... may very well want to slow it down against a team like Duke or Kentucky.
Wisconsin 53rd in PPG, 101 ORB
Duke 6th in PPG, 20th ORB
Kentucky 31st in PPG, 12th ORB
MSU 71st in PPG, 29th ORB

From the glossary I disagree with his tempo measurement; it basically says you play slower if you get offensive rebounds or get to the foul line often. According to his methods the team that shoots after 20 seconds, gets an offensive rebound and shoots again after 20 seconds, is slower than the team that has a shot clock violation. I understand what he's trying to do, I just think that it fails to accomplish anything. In college basketball an offensive rebound is a new possession, you get a fresh shot clock, it should be counted as such in the stats. It's ridiculous for pace of play to take out offensive rebounds, IMO. So yes according to his methods, pace of play would be a little noise, as its not really measured.