Sorry if this has already been covered, but which team was our best rebounding team? In my memory, the 98-99 team was because of Elton. Numerically, last year's team had a +190 margin, but what were some other good rebounding teams?
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Sorry if this has already been covered, but which team was our best rebounding team? In my memory, the 98-99 team was because of Elton. Numerically, last year's team had a +190 margin, but what were some other good rebounding teams?
Bubas' teams used to beat people to death on the glass. All of his team's had big edges on the boards. Biggest differentials?
1962 +10.9
1963 +11.3
1966-+12.7
1967 +9.5
How are you defining best rebounding team? Rebound differential is very iffy as a statistic because it is heavily influenced by FG% differential. If you miss more shots, there are more rebounds to be grabbed.
In the last 20 years or so, our best rebounding teams were 99, and 07, but rebounding is not a single entity - you need to break it down to offensive or defensive rebounding (they are quite different). The 98-99 team rebounded 44.4% of possible offensive rebounds - an astounding number, larger than even Michigan State's lauded 99-00 championship team (42.1%). This was largely the effort of Elton Brand (who grabbed 13.3% himself), Battier (11.2%), Burgess (9.8%), and Maggette (8.8%). Oddly, that team was not an especially dominant defensive rebounding team, only grabbing 63% of possible defensive boards.
The 07 team was not as good rebounding offensively, grabbing only 35% of available offensive boards, but was the best defensive rebounding team in at least the last 20 years, grabbing over 67% of possible defensive boards (3rd best in ACC last year behind Georgia Tech and UNC) led by Josh McRoberts (18.7%), David McClure (17.7%), DeMarcus Nelson (14.3%), and Gerald Henderson (11.6%). Zoubek did his part, rebounding 19.4% of boards available to him in limited time.
The worst rebounding team using this same system? The 32-4 05-06 Devils, who rebounded less than 30% of possible offensive boards, and grabbed less than 60% of possible defensive boards. And won 32 games.
When you outrebound your opponents 49.6 to 36.9 over the course of the season, I don't think you need to spend a lot of time parsing subtle nuances. That's a great rebounding team.
Sometimes it's just not that complicated.
I've gotten so used to thinking of Duke as a team that routinely gets outrebounded (and used to rationalizing it as due to the aggressive perimeter defense) that I almost can't wrap my mind around a Duke team that actually rebounds well. I guess last year's board stats are pretty good, but because I think of the team as somewhat disappoining, it's hard to take that as a positive.
In isolation, just those two numbers can't tell the whole story. For example, if Duke was a substantially better shooting team than its opponents that year, or if it turned the ball over more often that its opponents, there might be a lot more opportunities for Duke to get rebounds than their opponents. Rebounding opportunities are rarely equal - last year, for example, there were almost 100 more opportunities for Duke to get defensive rebounds than offensive rebounds.Quote:
Originally Posted by jimsumner
Is a 12.7 rebound gap in raw numbers indicative of a good rebounding team? Probably yes. Does it tell us just how good that team is at controlling the glass? No.
The 1966 Duke team missed 1049 field goals.
Their opponents missed 1135 field goals.
That's a difference of 86 field goals in 30 games, an average of just under 3 per game. Duke outrebounded opponents by almost 13 per game.
That is a dominating rebounding team.
K's best teams in terms of rebounding margin over opponents were his 98-99 team and his 85-86 team, in that order. Both those teams made it to the title game. Next would be last year's team which disappointed most fans.Quote:
Originally Posted by YmoBeThere
Our three title teams were very average rebounding teams for the K era.
90-91 +1.9
91-92 +2.6
00-01 +1.0
Duke teams in the K era have only been outrebounded as a team 5 times -- his first two teams, 95-96, 96-97 and 05-06.
Not disagreeing with you on the ultimate conclusion. Just pointing out that the raw number +12.7 doesn't tell the full story. With the extra info you provided, it gives a more complete picture of how good the '66 team was at controlling the glass. And it certainly looks like a dominating rebounding team.Quote:
Originally Posted by jimsumner
The 96 team was actually a pretty good offensive rebounding team, but pretty bad defensively.Quote:
Originally Posted by texasdevil06
Most of K's teams have been pretty solid offensive rebounding teams (including our 3 title teams who grabbed 38.4%, 40.8%, and 37.8% of ORBs respectively), and pretty lackluster defensive rebounding teams (all around 62-63%). I think this is more an issue of style. It's not always necessary to send as many guys as possible to the defensive glass.
edit: Interestingly, "rebounding margin" is one of the reasons ESPN considered the 2001 Duke team the 7th best team of the last decade, in spite of the fact that 01 Duke had the best offense of any champion and was among the better teams defensively. And having the largest scoring margin/efficiency margin of any champion of the last decade (2nd highest overall - to 99 Duke).