Flipping the Switch

[talesofagarlicandonionlover]

If the season ended today, Villanova would likely get a 2 seed in the bracket, according to Joe Lunardi.  Villanova is also currently ranked in the top 10 by basically every single ranking out there (AP – 6^th, USA Today Coaches – 6^th, RPI – 5^th, ESPN Power Rankings – 6^th, Kenpom – 6^th, ESPN’s BPI – 5^th, Sagarin – 2^nd, and TeamRankings – 4^th).  There are currently only 6 teams who are in the top 10 for all of these rankings, and if you believe in the wisdom of crowd’s theory, these teams should represent the consensus Final Four picks at the moment.  In alphabetical order: Arizona, Duke, Florida, Kansas, Syracuse, and Villanova.  Other teams coming close are Wichita St. – 6/8, Michigan St. – 5/8, Creighton & Iowa – 3/8.

So, you don’t go from an unranked team picked to finish fourth in the New Big East to a 2-seed without substantial improvements and contributions from everyone on the team.  Already this year, I have covered the individual contributions of almost everyone except for Ochefu and Bell.  So it’s about time.

After a pretty dismal start to the season, Ochefu has been on fire since the start of conference play and overall compared to last season.  Go ahead, pick a category.  Shooting? Improved – 61.8% up from 45.9%.  Rebounding? You betcha.  Without Yarou around to take away rebounds, Ochefu is grabbing 21.1% of the available defensive rebounds up from 15.6% a year ago.  Blocks, you ask.  Absolutely.  Ochefu is blocking 8.6% of opponents’ 2-point field goals up from 4.7% in 2013.  And if you have been watching games recently, you have probably noticed that Ochefu’s assist numbers are also pretty damn good for a big man.  He is assisting on 12.9% of his teammates baskets while he is on the floor compared to 7.4% last season, a rate that would place him as the best passing big man of the Jay Wright era.

Finally, those early season foul troubles also seem to be going by the wayside.  In the out of conference slate of games Ochefu was fouling 7.2 times per 40 minutes, but in New Big East games that number is down substantially to only 4.9 times per 40 minutes.  As a result he has seen his minutes increase from 18.5 min/game to 23.3 min/game.

However, turnover issues continue to haunt Ochefu.  His turnover percentage has increased from last season and his 28.1% of possessions used ending with a turnover are a team worst.  While they are not completely out of control, it is something to watch.  But make no mistake, Ochefu has improved across the board and has been a big part of our success this season.

But how about James Bell, huh?  Bell is having a hell of a season.  Jay constantly praises his effort, leadership, and affectionately calls him “our rock.”  Defensively he has not only been tasked with playing multiple positions and guarding bigger guys when we play small – meaning when JVP plays center and Ochefu is on the bench – but he has entered what I call the Dante Cunningham club.  Players who block more than 2% of opponents’ 2-point field goals, and who create steals on over 2.5% of opponents’ possessions.  As one might guess, Dante is a 3 time member of the club (2006-2008), and the only other players to join him in the last 12 seasons are Ochefu (last year) and Dwayne Anderson (2008 & 2009).  Bell, if he continues at his current pace, will become the 4^th member of this club by season’s end, as he currently has a 2.5 stl% and blk%.

And while the comparison to Dante may seem a little odd considering position and skill set, there is another reason it is apt.  Dante for his first three seasons was little more than the 3^rd option.  But as a Senior, Dante’s role increased substantially. He took 27% of the team’s shots while he was on the floor up from 17.7% as a Junior, the largest increase from a Junior to Senior season in the Jay Wright era.  Second on that list of greatest increases is none other than James Bell.  Who took 19.7% of the team’s shots last season, but who is now taking 28.8% of the teams shots while on the floor this year, the most on the team.

Bell has taken on this increased role while getting even more efficient, as his 2-point shooting and 3-point shooting are better than last year and his turnovers are way down.  Incredible.  But let’s try and put his efficiency as well as everyone else’s from this year in better context.

I really like this graphic from Regressing, a Deadspin side blog that is quickly becoming one of my favorite sites, so I decided to put together a couple of scatter plots of my own.  In this first chart you will find all Villanova individual player seasons from 2003 through the 2014 season to date.  The y-axis represents a player’s offensive rating, a single number that encapsulates how many points per 100 possessions a player accounts for.  On the x-axis is the % of possessions used, which illustrates how involved and critical a player is to a team’s offense.  This chart will show us who contributes the most offensively, in all ways, with those players who do the most for the team.

So out of 110 individual player seasons since 2003, Villanova has had only four players with an offensive rating greater than 120 points per 100 possessions - Sheridan, Mr. Hart, Ennis and Stokes.  Two of those guys are obviously on the team this year.  Not too shabby, but in all of those seasons the four players had usage rates less than 20%.  So while they were extremely efficient, their workload was that of a role player.  So what we want to look at are those players with high efficiency (offensive rating) and high usage (% possessions used).  That would be those seasons inside the red box in the upper right quadrant of the chart.  The following scatter plot is just that, only those seasons where a player had an offensive rating greater than 100 while also using more than 20% of the team’s possessions.

And there you have it.  These are the best offensive seasons in the Jay Wright era.  These are the guys (34 of them) who had a very large role offensively but who were also efficient.  Because of the trade-off between efficiency and usage – being that as usage increases efficiency decreases – it’s hard to point out which season is the absolute best by these measures.  Let’s just say that we are witnessing three of the top 20 individual seasons of the last 12 years.

Taking this another step further, because I really like these scatter plots and decided to do another one, let’s take a look at just the best shooting seasons in the last 12 years.  So instead of offensive rating on the y-axis, the next chart has eFG% - which is a weighted shooting percentage that accounts for 3-pointers being worth more than 2.  On the x-axis we have our % possessions used number again.

Once again you see that we have had only four players who have had an eFG% of over 60%, and once again two of those players are on the team this year.  So based on this chart and the first one, we see that any way you slice it Mr. Hart is having a really, really good season.  Ochefu, as mentioned earlier, is also having a great season, but did anyone expect Fraser to be that high up?  It makes sense on one hand because big guys who only shoot around the basket generally make shots at a higher percentage, but on the other hand Fraser was so often on the bench and never seemed to reach his potential that it’s hard to believe he was actually that good.  However, just like the last series of charts we really should be looking at those players who shoot well AND play the biggest roles in the offense.  So inside the little red square we go once again to look at those players who had an eFG% > 50% and those who also used more than 20% of the teams possessions.

Hello Bell, JVP, and Hilliard.  So there you have it.  We are witnessing an insane offensive team with several guys putting up some of the best numbers in recent Villanova history.  I think it is safe to say that Bell, Ochefu, and the rest of the team have flipped the switch from last year to this year, and are far past due for praise as great offensive players.

Chin Up

[csnphilly,com]

/slow clap, slow clap, slow clap.  That’s all one can really do or say about Creighton’s insane performance Monday night.  And this past week Creighton has rightfully received a great deal of attention and speculation about how far McDermott and company can go in the tournament.  It is never fun to get drummed like that, especially on your home floor, but it still is only one game. 

Let’s also not forget some of the facts.  Creighton lost to Providence the Saturday before in a classic trap game, thus giving them even more incentive to bring the noise.  They were also picked in many circles to win the New Big East in the pre-season, and they happen to have the front runner for player of the year = they are a very good team.  But here is the kicker for me: since 2003 there have only been five teams ranked in the top 10 in both 3FG% and % of shot attempts from 3 – Samford, Air Force, Eastern Kentucky, Denver and Creighton.  I don’t think you need me to tell you that Creighton also happens to be light years better than any of them.

So yeah, the game and loss hurts, but there is every reason to believe that this team can bounce back.  This team is built on toughness, and I believe this Saturday we will come to play.  For me the key is all about defensive pressure.  I wrote before about the aggressive 1-2-2 trap that Villanova has used a lot this year.  While there are many positives of using the trap, one critical one is the ability for the trap to create turnovers.

For the season, Villanova has caused teams to turn it over on 21.1% of their possessions, good for 45^th in the country.  However, in the last three games our opponents TO’s are way down.  In fact, the last three games are also the three worst games we have had all season in terms of creating turnovers (11.4% - St. John’s; 12.7% - DePaul; 12.1% - Creighton).  Better teams obviously take care of the ball better, so it is entirely normal for our TO% to go down during conference play.  Additionally, it isn’t that unusual for any team to experience a couple of games where certain numbers aren’t in line with their season averages.  The point is that I don't think there is some underlying issue at play.  Fatigue is about the only thing I can think of, and while that may be the case, it is also something that rest and time off can fix.

So let's be clear.  Our next two games – Saturday @Marquette and Monday @Georgetown – are important games.  Everyone will be curious to see how we bounce back from a game like the one we had against Creighton, but it’s only one game and I believe that Jay and the whole team are eager to prove that we will not be pushed around like that again.

Sweating Some Small Stuff

[Villanova]

Everyone has favorite quotes that they like to pretend they live by.  Maybe some people actually do, who knows.  In any event, one of my go to stock movie quotes that I use in these situations is from the movie Ghost dog: The Way of the Samurai.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s got Forrest Whitaker as a modern day samurai living in New York City.  It’s awesome.  Anyways, Ghost dog, aka Forrest Whitaker, reads this maxim at one point: “Matters of great concern should be treated lightly.  Matters of small concern should be treated seriously.”

And that’s what Part II of the mid-season review is all about, a couple of small things.  In Part I, I covered the big ticket items: overall offense, defense, and my MVP so far.  Now it’s time to take a look at some of the little things that will make all the difference in the end.

Arcidiacono is starting to figure it out.  At the beginning of the season, I talked about how I felt Arcidiacono would become the secondary ball handler at some point during the season.  I didn’t realize that Hilliard would be the guy usurping him, but them are the breaks.  The first slew of games were tough sledding for him though, which is understandable.  It was probably the first time in his life that he played any basketball game where he didn’t have the ball in his hands every single possession.

His biggest problem has always been forcing 3’s off the dribble.  Unless your name is Steph Curry, this isn’t a sound strategy by any means.  Almost all players shoot better when they are stationary with their feet set, or they are coming off of screens and moving into their shot to take it in rhythm. 

Over at VUHoops, Jordan Sperber did an excellent post about Villanova’s 3 point shooting.  In it he noted that Arcidiacono had attempted 26 of his 62 attempts from 3 off of the dribble, yikes.   While I haven’t tracked Arcidiacono’s 3 point attempts since that post, I did go back and look at how many of the 3’s he has made since were assisted on.  It’s not perfect, but looking at how many 3’s are assisted works as a pretty good proxy for catch and shoot 3’s.  So small sample size aside, over the four New Big East games thus far, Arcidiacono made 9 of his 17 attempts –good for 52.9% shooting  – and 8 of those have been of the assisted variety – 88%.

So yeah, it’s only a handful of games, but Arcidiacono looks a little more comfortable in his role.  Depending on your expectations heading into the year, Arcidiacono has had somewhat of a down year.  It’s true Arcidiacono is shooting less this year, but even with his sub-par 3 point% he has a better eFG% from last year, due to the fact that he is shooting 61.5% from 2 this year.  Last year he shot 38% from 2.  That is real improvement, and if his 3-point shooting improves then his narrative should change.

You know what else is a small thing that is really important for a basketball team?  It’s the bench.  And Mother of God, has our bench been awesome so far.  The question I want to ask though is if this bench is the best one we have ever had?

There are two ways to classify a ‘bench.’  One is to simply pick the 5 guys who have the most starts at their position and then classify everyone else as the bench.  The second is to assume that the 5 guys with the most minutes are the starters, and thus the other guys make up the bench.  I am going to cheat and use the minutes or second definition of a ‘bench’ for all of the prior Villanova teams, and use the first definition for this year’s team.  Why?  A) because I can, as this is my blog & b) until recently Hart would have been classified as a bench player, but he now has played more minutes than Ochefu.  That’s why.  So for 2014 our bench for this exercise consists of: Hart, Jenkins, Ennis and Chennault.

Let’s just get this out of the way.  Yes, our bench this year is the best bench Jay has ever had, and let me count the reasons.

Every single player has an offensive rating over 100, never happened before.  Two players, Hart and Ennis, are shooting over 40% from 3, never happened before. Two players, Chennault and Ennis, are dishing assists on over 20% of their teammates’ baskets while they are on the floor, never happened before.  Three bench guys, Hart, Ennis and Jenkins, have TO%’s less the 15, never happened before.

About the only thing our bench is lacking is rebounding, but outside of that, this bench has been flat out great because each guy has and knows his role.  Chennault is the assist man posting an ARate of 26.6.  He now either knows he can’t shoot or is tired of Jay/JVP/Arcidiacono/Bell yelling at him every time he does take a shot, because he has taken only 8.4% of the team’s shots while he is on the floor and he has taken exactly 0 3’s.  I think he gets the picture of what his role is, and while he has some turnover issues he has done a very nice job.

Jenkins has received the fewest minutes so far, and while his shooting numbers are starting to dip he provides size and toughness with the occasional 3 sprinkled in for good measure.  His minutes will probably wane as the competition improves but every now and then he may get extended minutes, and that doesn’t really bother me. 

Ennis has been nothing but solid.  He is assisting on 23.8% of his teammates baskets while on the floor while having a TO% of 11%, which is damn good clean efficient basketball.  But he is a little bit of a chucker and has semi-frequent lapses defensively.  However, he provides some much needed 3 point snipping and is shooting 41% so far this season.

And last but not least, there is Mr. Hart.  Mr. Hart is shooting 68.8% from 2 and 43.9% from 3, both are team best marks.  He also has the best FTrate on the team – Ftrate measures how frequently you draw fouls = FTA/FGA and anything over 50 is pretty good – with a 70.8 rate, while also posting a team best TO% of 8.4.  Basically, the guy is an efficiency monster, and I don’t even really know how to describe how crazy those numbers I just threw out there are.  He is athletic, smart, and doesn’t force things, and even if the rest of our bench was garbage, his play alone would put us near the Villanova ‘benches’ of the past.

Halfway Home

[Bleacher Report]

This Saturday against St. John’s marks the halfway point in Villanova’s season.  Pretty hard to believe if you ask me, but after playing 15 games we have a fairly good grasp on this particular Villanova team.  And man, are there a lot of interesting numbers out there. So without further ado let me present Part I of this mini halftime series by taking a look at our overall offense and defense.

Let’s start with probably the biggest surprise so far this season: our continued excellence on defense.  There are many different components to a successful defense, but at its core there a couple of overarching principles and theories of a great defense:

• Forcing opponents to shoot poorly, is the factor that correlates the most with winning
• A defense has a much greater ability to influence how opponents shoot from 2 as opposed to the 3 point line. 
•  Height is king, and translates to generally holding opposing teams to shoot poorly from 2.

Therefore, in the simplest terms possible, arguably the most important statistic for a defense is how well they defend shots from 2.  Last season, our defense carried us and ranked 23^rd in the country in defensive efficiency.  The biggest reason for our success was, you guessed it, we forced teams to shoot poorly from 2 to the tune of a measly 42.5%, good for 16^th in the country.

But the biggest difference between this year’s team and last year’s is height at the two front-court positions.  Last season we always had at least one guy 6’10 or taller on the floor at all times, and we often had two of the three – Yarou, Ochefu, or Sutton – playing together at the same time.

This is all a long winded way of saying that despite having less height than we had last year, we are even better at defensive efficiency and even better at defending the 2 point shot.  So how is this possible?  First, we still have Ochefu, who might suck on offense, but none the less is an outstanding defender standing at 6’11.  But, what we lack in size in the front-court we make up for with length at the other positions and great defensive pressure.

This year we have run the 1-2-2 press more than anytime over the last 3 seasons.  As a result we have forced teams to cough up the rock on 22.8% of their possessions good for the 17^th best mark in country, and the best Villanova rate since the 2008 season.  The thing I like most about the 1-2-2 press though is its overall aggressiveness.  It forces us defensively to move, get our hands up and in passing lanes, and overall unleashes a certain sense of urgency that makes our defense have swagger and toughness. 

This is why I believe we also have been awesome at defending 2 point shots, holding opponents to a shooting percentage of 41.5% good for 11^th in the country.  If our opponent beats the press and gets into its half-court offense, the shot clock has ticked down already, our defensive pressure is high and ready for anything, and the offense is already flustered and way more likely to take a bad shot.  It also doesn’t hurt that that our two most frequently used lineups have 4 players 6’5 or taller.  So while we don’t have the size at the two front-court positions as we did last year, we make up for it by having height and length at all of the positions and an aggressive approach to defense that ramps up our intensity and forces opponents to take hurried shots.

While the defense has stayed the same and even improved, our offense has taken a gigantic leap forward.  Last year the offense was often stagnant, and our most notable skill was drawing fouls, as we led the entire country in FTrate (FGA/FTA a measure of how frequently a team draws fouls).  This year, we are an efficiency machine.  What I mean by this is that we only take the best kinds of shots, those at the rim and 3’s, while avoiding the worst shot in all of basketball: 2 point jump shots.

Last season 29.3% of all of our shots on offense were classified as 2 point jumpers, while this year only 17.6% of our shots come from the same range.  That, friends, is a drastic change and it is the 11^th best rate in the country.  Part of why that is happening is simply because Yarou isn’t around anymore, as last season he took 20% of the shots while he was on the floor and 55.3% of his shots were 2 point jumpers, the highest on the team.  The result of this change in shot location is that as a team we are shooting 55.9% from 2 this season which is the 9^th best rate in the freaking country.

No one illustrates this change on our team better than Mr. Hilliard, who at the halfway mark of the season is the team MVP in my eyes.  Last year, 22.4% of Hilliard’s shots were 2 point jumpers.  This year that number is down to just 7.4%.  That is staggering, and as a result of his new shot selection Hilliard has shot 58.2% from 2 this season, 11% better than last year.

But that isn’t the only thing nor is it the most important change for Hilliard this year.  No, the biggest improvement in his game has come through the distribution of the basketball.  Last season, Hilliard’s role was not to create but just to score.  He assisted on only 13.4% of his teammate’s baskets, low for a ball-handler and it was only the 4^th best on the team.  This year Hilliard is assisting on over 21.9% of his teammates baskets which is a higher mark than Arcidiacono, and indicates that he is the primary creator when the two are on the floor.

The bottom line is that while JVP continues to score and be JVP, and Bell has become much more aggressive finding his shot, the real key has been Hilliard’s ability to assume his new role as creator while also improving his shooting and scoring numbers.  He has been flat out awesome, and so far there is little reason to believe that he isn’t up to the challenge as the season progresses.