 | |
| Created by my good friend Eliot Zuniga. www.eliotzuniga.webs.com |
Game number II is already here as Nova begins Big 5 play tonight against LaSalle, who played us really tough last year. Like most of you this will be the first time I will get a look at all of our Freshmen. There are a decent amount of question marks about this team. We know a good amount about our top 3 players, but the rest and how they fit in are obviously going to be crucial as the season progresses.
If you haven’t taken a look around at some of the new features of the site check them out. During the season I will update the player & team stats at least once a week, and I will have the game differential charts up shortly after every game. The Quick Hitters section (not sure I like the name, maybe Mid-Range Jumpers?) is a new section where I will add short little opinion rants or interesting stats about our team as the season goes on. The main page will continue with the longer more research oriented content, and as some of my more dedicated readers have suggested, I will put up a glossary of terms soon. For now though check out kenpom.com for all your stat definition questions.
If you missed the first part of the season preview, where I discuss the potential development of our 3 core returning players: Wayns, Cheek, & Yarou, here it is. Also, on the Quick Hitters page I have 5 questions I am hoping to begin to find answers to by watching tonight’s game.
**************
One of the biggest question marks for this upcoming year will be how we handle close games. As a team without any Seniors and a team that will rely on a lot of young players, we are probably going to be a little inconsistent. We have talent, but we have a lot of players playing together for the first time and many will find themselves in unfamiliar roles. In almost any season close games are important. How many times have you seen a team that was young and talented but not quite good enough and seen the stat flashed on the screen that they have lost 7 games by a combined 15 pts? At least 3 times a season. So, how we perform in those games WILL define our season. As usual let’s take a look at last season.
Here is how our win to loss breakdown based on where we stood with 5 minutes remeaining.
Record | Home | Away | |
10+ pts @5 | 14-1 | 11-0 | 3-1 |
0 > 10 pts @5 | 6-3 | 2-0 | 4-3 |
0 > -10 pts @5 | 1-5 | 0-3 | 1-2 |
-10 pts @5 | 0-3 | 0-1 | 0-2 |
So we had only 1 come from behind win in the last 5 minutes, and we gave up 3 games when we were leading by less than 10. On its face this does not seem too bad. However, our point differential in games we were leading by less than 10 was -6, and our point differential in games we were losing by less than 10 was -5. In games when either leading or losing by 10, we were either outscored in the last 5 minutes, or scored equally with our opponent, or outscored our opponent by only 1 pt. (DePaul) in 10 of those 15 games. Wow, we sucked in close games last year, didn’t we?
The picture continues to get a little grimmer when you look at how we preformed in games where we were leading or losing by 5 pts or less.
| |||||||||||||||
I took a look at the play in 10 of those 15 games – 5 wins & 5 losses - where we were either leading or losing by 10, and here is what I found.
These are our offensive numbers by the 4 factors for wins & losses, which is which?
A | B | |
eFG | 50.0% | 61.3% |
OR% | 26.7% | 53.8% |
TO% | 27.2% | 18.9% |
FTA/FGA | 119.05 | 100 |
In both wins & losses we had an eFG% of above 50%, and also FTrate of above 100!!! That’s pretty f*ing good. Oh, did I forget to mention that column A are our wins? Could have been either, right?
And here is our defensive numbers in the 4 factors for wins & losses, which is which?
A | B | |
eFG | 33.9% | 80.0% |
OR% | 31.8% | 35.7% |
TO% | 14.9% | 18.9% |
FTA/FGA | 74.19 | 93.33 |
Wow, do I need to point out which column are our wins and which are our losses?
So for all the talk about the offense and the “burn”, yuck – to be honest it did deserve our disgust - it was really our defense that let us down. Losing Stokes, Fisher & Pena will change and possibly hurt our offense, but all 3 were average to below average defenders who played a lot of minutes in crunch time – I may even be a little nice with calling them average. It is yet to be seen if the new comers are stalwart defenders, but they are long, should be full of enthusiasm and energy, and are most likely looking to please the coach to get extra pt. Close games define any season, and one with as much uncertainty as this season, will mean we will probably be doing a lot of sweating this year.
