Stats vs New Hampshire

[Henry Sugar]

And the chart of the day. Todd Mayo's first four games this year vs last year (note: I removed the first ten inactive games from last year because it made the chart better)



Todd has already had two games of 7 net points or higher. Even against scrub teams, that doesn't happen very often; it's probably a top 2.5% type occurrence

[ChicosBailBonds]

Three of the 16 worst performances in efficiency in the Buzz Williams era have happened in 2014. Two of those games were against New Hampshire and Southern.

http://statsheet.com/mcb/games/stats?season1=2008&season2=2013&conf=&team=marquette&stat=efficiency&low=1

[ChicosBailBonds]

Henry, how come StatSheet and your efficiency numbers are different?  Not a ton, but slightly?  Different methodology?

[Henry Sugar]

I do mine on a per-team basis instead of per-game. In other words, I think Statsheet and Pomeroy do everything on 66 possessions instead of 67 vs 65, respectively. Tomato/Tomato.

Good find on the efficiency numbers.

[madtownwarrior]

What's scary is that these woeful offensive struggles have come against New Hampshire and Southern - not Florida, Louisville and Syracuse...

While past MU teams have struggled early in non-conference, this team is really, really, really struggling....

Three of the 16 worst performances in efficiency in the Buzz Williams era have happened in 2014. Two of those games were against New Hampshire and Southern.

http://statsheet.com/mcb/games/stats?season1=2008&season2=2013&conf=&team=marquette&stat=efficiency&low=1

[ChicosBailBonds]

What's scary is that these woeful offensive struggles have come against New Hampshire and Southern - not Florida, Louisville and Syracuse...

While past MU teams have struggled early in non-conference, this team is really, really, really struggling....

Yes, and it shows in that list of games.  Look at those top 20 terrible effiiciency games and almost all of them are against name brand opponents.  Only three games aren't, UWGB, Southern and New Hampshire.  I suppose you could say South Florida, but they have some high major talent.

Need to get this turned....quickly

[Henry Sugar]

While our offense is struggling, I would like to remind everyone of some numbers:

12, 22, 21, 52, 25.

Those are the offensive efficiency rankings for MU the last five years under Buzz. In only one year has Marquette not had a top 25 offense (and the 52 ranking was the year MU had the #9 defense). I'm not terribly concerned about Buzz's ability to figure out the offense.

On the other hand, although the offense is TERRIBLE right now, Marquette also has the #4 defense in the country. In contrast to the offense, Marquette has only had a good defense one year.

The offense will come. Enjoy the defense.

[Dr. Blackheart]

While our offense is struggling, I would like to remind everyone of some numbers:

12, 22, 21, 52, 25.

Those are the offensive efficiency rankings for MU the last five years under Buzz. In only one year has Marquette not had a top 25 offense (and the 52 ranking was the year MU had the #9 defense). I'm not terribly concerned about Buzz's ability to figure out the offense.

On the other hand, although the offense is TERRIBLE right now, Marquette also has the #4 defense in the country. In contrast to the offense, Marquette has only had a good defense one year.

The offense will come. Enjoy the defense.

And Marquette is winning on three of the four factors....where they aren't is the most important, eFg%, exclusively, three point shooting %.  Otherwise, MU is on relative par to past seasons going back to the Final 4 team.  You see it in free throw shooting too.  MU has a case of the Yips.   Link for Pomeroy subscribers.  

http://kenpom.com/history.php?t=Marquette

[Dr. Blackheart]

Yes, and it shows in that list of games.  Look at those top 20 terrible effiiciency games and almost all of them are against name brand opponents.  Only three games aren't, UWGB, Southern and New Hampshire.  I suppose you could say South Florida, but they have some high major talent.

Need to get this turned....quickly

What is also interesting is that Grambling is the third best offensively efficient game under Buzz, 2nd highest scoring game in MU history....with also the highest assist game ever.  And Southern had the most free throws attempted in MU's history.  This team is very bi-modal....making this board bi-polar.

[Nukem2]

What is also interesting is that Grambling is the third best offensively efficient game under Buzz, 2nd highest scoring game in MU history....with also the highest assist game ever.  And Southern had the most free throws attempted in MU's history.  This team is very bi-modal....making this board bi-polar.

Of course, it helped that Grambling played matador defense at best.  MU also gave up 71 points in that game to a team that averaged 49 points last season ( which is hard for a SWAC school to do....).

[Coleman]

Three of the 16 worst performances in efficiency in the Buzz Williams era have happened in 2014. Two of those games were against New Hampshire and Southern.

http://statsheet.com/mcb/games/stats?season1=2008&season2=2013&conf=&team=marquette&stat=efficiency&low=1

This actually made me feel better. We have had some TERRIBLE losses the last 3 years, and we have made the Sweet 16 each time...

[mu03eng]

One of the points we can extract from this, while not conclusively, is that it is much more likely the offensive woes are a result of shots not falling than they are of some catastrophic issue of execution/strategy.  It seems we don't have a good way of determining good shot selection/shot not dropping vs poor shot selection/shot not dropping.  If it is just off shooting, as the stats return to the mean we should have some phenomenal offensive games.

The only thing that tempers this opinion for me is Buzz's sound bites the last week....sounds like a man who thinks there is a fundamental issue somewhere, be it strategy or chemistry or whatever.  We'll see

[Dr. Blackheart]

Of course, it helped that Grambling played matador defense at best.  MU also gave up 71 points in that game to a team that averaged 49 points last season ( which is hard for a SWAC school to do....).

Grambling shot 27.5% from two and 30.0% from three in that game for an offensive rating of 0.88.  I will take that every game, although it was MU's worst defensive game so far.  

GSU scored so much because they were 22-31 on free throws or that defensive efficiency would have been much lower.  Thank you NCAA.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

One of the points we can extract from this, while not conclusively, is that it is much more likely the offensive woes are a result of shots not falling than they are of some catastrophic issue of execution/strategy.  It seems we don't have a good way of determining good shot selection/shot not dropping vs poor shot selection/shot not dropping.  If it is just off shooting, as the stats return to the mean we should have some phenomenal offensive games.

The only thing that tempers this opinion for me is Buzz's sound bites the last week....sounds like a man who thinks there is a fundamental issue somewhere, be it strategy or chemistry or whatever.  We'll see

I think it's a combo of both things. When they are getting good shots, they aren't falling... then the guys become impatient and panicky (you could feel it in the crowd against OSU) and they take bad shots (Todd Mayo). Wash, rinse, repeat for 40 min. Good shot. Miss. Panic. Impatient. Bad Shot. Miss. Good shot. Miss. Panic. Impatient. Bad Shot. Miss.

Buzz doesn't run the swing offense... but there are some basic tenants of how he wants the guys to play. If they don't all do it, it looks pretty bad.

Ironically, Buzz has had more "they look bad" struggles on the defensive end than the offensive end. The style of help defense they play can make them look really bad if 1 player isn't rotating fast enough. It seems like the defense is pretty buttoned up, so they need to get some shots to fall, and figure out how to execute.

[MUDPT]

If you look closer at the Pomeroy stats, MU is turning it over less and has a better free throw rate than last year.  The OReb% is worse, although not very much.  The eFG% is way worse, which I attribute to the fact of the 18.3% 3P%. So basically our offensive woes are directly linked to the fact that no one can make a 3 pointer.  If I have one criticism of Buzz, it's the fact MU doesn't have very many good shooters.  The Lazar team had 5 legit outside threats (Mo, Cubi, Lazar, JFB, DJO) and Fulce might be the 3rd best outside shooter on the team this year.

Dr. B and Henry, if MU's offensive regresses back to the mean (I think it will), what's to say that the defense won't?  Or are defensive metrics more consistent over the course of the year?

[Dr. Blackheart]

Dr. B and Henry, if MU's offensive regresses back to the mean (I think it will), what's to say that the defense won't?  Or are defensive metrics more consistent over the course of the year?

I am going to answer with mostly my opinion and observation as I don't have the time to dive into the data to statistically answer.  However, I did an analysis a couple years back showing how offensive efficiencies improve after finals for teams.  Teams have the break to improve, minutes are settled, freshmen take seats on the bench.

Thus, as you play better teams, your defensive efficiency will also go up as you are playing better teams after break.  More so, you play a lot more road games where opposing teams score more and crowds are hostile. 

However, this season, the BE lost some great teams, including the national champion and another Final 4 team.  In comes new teams where MU plays everyone home and home. So, less teams to study and more familiarity as MU plays everyone twice.  My guess, MU's defense will win a lot of BE games with because of the intensity needed on the road (experience). MU will remain Top 10 all season in a Pomeroy. 

Offensively, honestly, how could they shoot worse?  It can only get better. We forget that MU is playing tougher teams earlier (both tOSU and ASU) than in past seasons (usually the toughest earlier games are in the Thanksgiving tournaments), and Buzz started hoops practice later than most other teams as he chose to do full boot camp.  As the team catches up, things will fall, lineups will be settled.  They really do have a case of the Yips.