By Ray Floriani
NEW YORK CITY - One of the great benefits of tempo free stats is the degree of measurement. Covering UAB and Boston College in the pre-season NIT consolation it was evident that BC, on it's way to an 83-77 win over UAB, had the stronger second half. But how strong? The 20 minute breakdowns told the story.
| Efficiency | |||
| 1st Half | 2nd half | Game | |
| UAB | 109 | 114 | 112 |
| Boston College | 85 | 154 | 120 |
The first half was a 34 possession game. For the game it was a 69 possession contest.
A major part of BC’s phenomenal second half was the outstanding play of BC guard Tyrese Rice. At the half Rice was 0-2, with zero points and two fouls in seven uneventful minutes. He finished with 24 points. 4 assists on 7 of 9 shooting (5 of 5 from three point land). Put simply, he didn’t miss a field goal attempt the final twenty minutes.
The NBA used a common player efficiency index that adds as positives, field goals, free throws, assists, rebounds, blocks, steals and points, while subtracting turnovers and missed shots. Under that index, Rice had a 1 at the half which divided by his minutes yields a poor, 0.148. For the game however, his final totals were 28, which, when divided by his PT (27 minutes), yields a spectacular 1.037. As Mike Davis, the UAB coach observed, he knew Rice had the ability to go off and that second half he did.
The second game, won by Oklahoma over Purdue 87-82 in OT, illustrated a point. Note the foul disparity -- Oklahoma was 33 of 46 from the line compared to Purdue’s 4 of 5. Now note that the percentage of shots taken beyond the three point arc...
| Team | 3 Pct. |
| Oklahoma | 31% |
| Purdue | 42% |
And a good percentage of Purdue’s two point attempts were jumpers while OU penetrated and went inside. Simply, you want to get to the line get your shot selection closer to the basket.
1 comment:
As Ray points out the Oklahoma - Purdue game was a real contrast in playing styles and coaching strategies. The Boilermakers' coach Matt Painter uses a POT-style offense while the Sooner HC Jeff Capel employs more traditional offensive schemes that try to set up his "Griffin" forwards Taylor (and especially) Blake for close in scoring opportunities. Purdue looks for offense on the perimeter (hence the acronym POT -- perimeter oriented team) as suggested by their 3FGA/2FGA rate (as Ray points out it was about 41% for the game). The effects of this type of ball however are seen in several other stats, as noted by Ray, including the free throw rate (FTA/FGA), offensive rebounding rate and turnovers. Purdue fits almost to a T, not getting to the line (7.2) and offensive rebounding (OR% -- 25.0) are two indicators of the style. Turnovers in perimeter oriented systems tends to be low, since the ball is passed around the arc, looking for an open shooter, opportunities for turnovers tends to be low. Purdue however had a TO% of 23.3, higher than what would be expected, and most likely a key to the game.
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