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  1. #41
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    Interesting

    Quote Originally Posted by weezie View Post
    Seems to be the flavor of the moment, examining the impact of 3s on the game. ESPN mag did a big spread and all the talking heads regularly expound upon the concept. Defense is also examined and dissected as some kind of 'new' idea whereas Duke completely changed the game when K's reign began.
    Dean Smith has always cited as the basketball coach who relied on statistical data to a far greater degree than any other coach. Coach K has rarely been credited with smart statistical analysis. Instead, people have talked about his leadership, team building, and defense.

    Coach K has done an amazing job of adjusting his teams and strategies. for the rules, whatever rules they are, and . In college basketball, his defenses take away the three point shot more consistently than any other team, I would wager. Offensively, he is certainly willing to allow his players to take three-pointers. Statistically speaking, it makes complete sense to me. I don't know if Coach K does this based on statistical analyses or gut feel, but it works out well.

    Also, in international play, he's done a great job of putting together teams well-suited for international style play and often going against conventional NBA wisdom about how to structure a team.

  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by MChambers View Post
    Dean Smith has always cited as the basketball coach who relied on statistical data to a far greater degree than any other coach. Coach K has rarely been credited with smart statistical analysis. Instead, people have talked about his leadership, team building, and defense.

    Coach K has done an amazing job of adjusting his teams and strategies. for the rules, whatever rules they are, and . In college basketball, his defenses take away the three point shot more consistently than any other team, I would wager. Offensively, he is certainly willing to allow his players to take three-pointers. Statistically speaking, it makes complete sense to me. I don't know if Coach K does this based on statistical analyses or gut feel, but it works out well.

    Also, in international play, he's done a great job of putting together teams well-suited for international style play and often going against conventional NBA wisdom about how to structure a team.
    Well said. I don't know if it's gut feel either -- I've always suspected it's based on statistical analysis. I don't think Shane brought that to Duke. But either way, it's clear to me from his strategies, and from comments he makes, that he approaches the game this way.

  3. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by MChambers View Post
    Dean Smith has always cited as the basketball coach who relied on statistical data to a far greater degree than any other coach. Coach K has rarely been credited with smart statistical analysis. Instead, people have talked about his leadership, team building, and defense.

    Coach K has done an amazing job of adjusting his teams and strategies. for the rules, whatever rules they are, and . In college basketball, his defenses take away the three point shot more consistently than any other team, I would wager. Offensively, he is certainly willing to allow his players to take three-pointers. Statistically speaking, it makes complete sense to me. I don't know if Coach K does this based on statistical analyses or gut feel, but it works out well.

    Also, in international play, he's done a great job of putting together teams well-suited for international style play and often going against conventional NBA wisdom about how to structure a team.
    You are correct about Duke systematically taking away the 3 from their opponents. From KenPom, the numbers below are defensive 3PA% (which is the % of all FGA that are 3pt FGA). The numbers in parentheses are the national ranking. Coach K has definitely pushed opposing teams off the 3-pointer as a strategy.

    Code:
    2012     24.2% (4th)
    2011     24.5% (5th)
    2010     25.4% (11th)
    2009     25.9% (5th)
    2008     25.0% (2nd)
    2007     24.3% (2nd)
    2006     21.3% (1st)
    2005     20.8% (1st)
    2004     25.2% (4th)
    2003     25.0% (6th)
    Coach K on Kyle Singler - "What position does he play? ... He plays winner."

    "Duke is never the underdog" - Quinn Cook

  4. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by SCMatt33 View Post
    The high variance of 3's is a scary proposition come tourney time and the best way for Duke to avoid it would be to draw smaller teams like Mizzou or Marquette in regional games. If Duke ever plays a team like Kentucky of Syracuse, you can bet that close to if not more than half of Duke's shots will come from 3.
    It's not gonna happen, but here's how I'm rooting. Mizzou wins at Lawrence and wins the Big Plains conference tournament while Michigan State stumbles early in the Big Lakes tournament. Mizzou steals the 1-seed in the Midwest, and Michigan State is shipped out west as a 1. Duke gets 2 in the Midwest and I get to see Duke upset Mizzou in a full house of Mizzou fans at the Edward Jones Dome on 25 March.

    Of course, Mizzou would have to stop doing stupid things like losing to K-State at home.

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


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  5. #45
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    Oh my god, it's Moneyball Part Deux... Revenge of the Statisticians!! I love it.

    Speaking of "live by the two die by the two"... last night FSU shot more of their shots from 2pt land than they have averaged this season (76.2% last night vs. 68.8% for the season) but hit them at a rate of just 43.8% last night vs. season average of 50.6%. Eh, so what. We could find all kinds of numbers to support or "disprove" all these theories.

    IMO, we are doing a better and better job of taking good shots. Not always. Still some stinkers. But K is always going to tell his guards to take the open shot. And I for one am glad they do.

    ---

    P.S. It's clear to me from my analysis above that Leonard Hamilton needs to outfit his team's uniforms with some sort of calculator widget or they have no hope of ever winning another game.

  6. #46
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    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  7. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by tbyers11 View Post
    You are correct about Duke systematically taking away the 3 from their opponents. From KenPom, the numbers below are defensive 3PA% (which is the % of all FGA that are 3pt FGA). The numbers in parentheses are the national ranking. Coach K has definitely pushed opposing teams off the 3-pointer as a strategy.

    Code:
    2012     24.2% (4th)
    2011     24.5% (5th)
    2010     25.4% (11th)
    2009     25.9% (5th)
    2008     25.0% (2nd)
    2007     24.3% (2nd)
    2006     21.3% (1st)
    2005     20.8% (1st)
    2004     25.2% (4th)
    2003     25.0% (6th)
    As the numbers show, this has always been a hallmark of our defense. We've also combined it, typically, with low 3pt% defense as well.

    In broad brush terms (and this is sort of an over-generalization, but only sort of), there are three kinds of shots from the field in basketball: 3pt jump shots, 2pt jump shots, and 2pt close shots (i.e., layups, dunks, and tip-ins). By a huge margin, 2pt jump shots are the least productive shots to take - there's obviously some variance among teams and players, but generally speaking there's about a 33-35% conversion rate on those shots (so 0.66 to 0.70 points per shot). Close in shots tend to be the most productive - somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-65% conversion rate (so around 1.20-1.30 points per shot). Threes are usually not too far behind - for Duke, it's usually in the 1.15 points per shot range. One thing that I've found interesting (albeit in a small sample set) is that teams usually shoot better even from a raw percentage point of view on 3pt jumpers than on 2pt jumpers, and that's before adding in the bonus point that comes from making a 3.

    Basically, building an offense around layups and threes, and building a defense around having the other team shoot from inside the arc and outside the paint is a recipe for success.
    Just be you. You is enough. - K, 4/5/10, 0:13.8 to play, 60-59 Duke.

    You're all jealous hypocrites. - Titus on Laettner

    You see those guys? Animals. They're animals. - SIU Coach Chris Lowery, on Duke

  8. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by iragsdale View Post
    In the regular season it may be frustrating to lose a game here or there because of a cold night shooting from three, but in a single tournament it's devastating - one bad night and you're gone... So, I do believe it's possible that a strategy with a higher probability of success but a greater variance could be dangerous in the tournament, as you have a greater chance that an off night happens.
    Interesting thought. My counterpoint would be that your work across the season determines your seed, and that has a big effect on how well you need to perform in the tournament. As a #1 seed you can get through the first weekend without shooting all that well. So you really only need to win four tough games to win a title. In 2010 I would argue that the WVU game was the only one where we shot lights out from three. In the others we shot well but mostly relied on our tough defense.

  9. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jderf View Post
    It took about an hour (I should probably be working or something...), but to aid the discussion, I went ahead and actually calculated the standard deviation for Duke's 3-point shooting from game to game this season. I got .100581, or just about 10%. The numbers are below if anyone wants to double check. I'm going to follow that up soon with the standard deviation for 2-pt shots. I figure that having both will give us a much clearer picture.
    Okay, so I haven't had the time to look at the standard deviation for 2-point field goals yet, but for the moment we can still say some interesting stuff about threes and just worry about the comparison later. Looking at our nice round standard deviation of 10%, we can use it to define hot and cold shooting nights from three. Since our average is right at 40%, let's say we expect any given shooting night to stay within one standard deviation. So, anything between 30% and 50% is going to be what we expect. With those parameters, we've had six games this year when we've gone utterly cold from three (20%, 29%, 27%, 25%, 19%, and 29%). Interestingly, only two of these were losses (OSU and Miami). So we seem to go atrociously cold about once every five games or so. Two out of nine, to be exact. If these numbers hold up, then in a six game series (i.e. the NCAA tournament) we have slightly better than a 20% chance playing all six without going cold at least once. Not very good odds, really, though there is still a lot more to it than that. I've got more thoughts, but not more time, so I guess I'll try to post more later.

  10. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by Jderf View Post
    So, anything between 30% and 50% is going to be what we expect. With those parameters, we've had six games this year when we've gone utterly cold from three (20%, 29%, 27%, 25%, 19%, and 29%). Interestingly, only two of these were losses (OSU and Miami). So we seem to go atrociously cold about once every five games or so. Two out of nine, to be exact.
    You left out our 28% 3-point shooting against NC State. So, really it's once every four games.

  11. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    You left out our 28% 3-point shooting against NC State. So, really it's once every four games.
    Nice catch. And that changes the odds pretty signifcantly, which, if anything, just points out the fact that my sample size is simply way too small here. But if we can't glean any meaningfully precise numbers from my "research," we can still say in a pretty conclusive manner that we cannot reasonably expect to get through the tournament without having at least one cold night from the three-point line. Lesson? We're going to have to be a very diverse team (and I think we can be) if we don't want to get bit by the 3-bug at some point in the NCAAs.

  12. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by tbyers11 View Post
    You are correct about Duke systematically taking away the 3 from their opponents. From KenPom, the numbers below are defensive 3PA% (which is the % of all FGA that are 3pt FGA). The numbers in parentheses are the national ranking. Coach K has definitely pushed opposing teams off the 3-pointer as a strategy.

    Code:
    2012     24.2% (4th)
    2011     24.5% (5th)
    2010     25.4% (11th)
    2009     25.9% (5th)
    2008     25.0% (2nd)
    2007     24.3% (2nd)
    2006     21.3% (1st)
    2005     20.8% (1st)
    2004     25.2% (4th)
    2003     25.0% (6th)
    Interesting that the one year out of these that we ranked outside the top 10 nationally in taking away opponents' threes was a national championship year.

  13. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steven43 View Post
    Interesting that the one year out of these that we ranked outside the top 10 nationally in taking away opponents' threes was a national championship year.
    I wouldn't ascribe too much significance to that. The difference between us and Wisconsin (which finished 10th) was a single 3 point attempt (say, Gordon Hayward's half court heave). Also, our team that year was particularly good at making opponents miss their 3s - just 28.3% shooting allowed (good for 2nd nationally). When you combine percentage with frequency, we were the most (or second most - St. Louis finished 5th in 3fg% and 5th in 3PA%) difficult team to score against from beyond the arc.

    Also, some of the national rank is fluky - in 2009, we allowed a greater percentage of attempts, but nonetheless finished higher (5th, rather than 11th).
    Just be you. You is enough. - K, 4/5/10, 0:13.8 to play, 60-59 Duke.

    You're all jealous hypocrites. - Titus on Laettner

    You see those guys? Animals. They're animals. - SIU Coach Chris Lowery, on Duke

  14. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven43 View Post
    Interesting that the one year out of these that we ranked outside the top 10 nationally in taking away opponents' threes was a national championship year.
    Quote Originally Posted by pfrduke View Post
    I wouldn't ascribe too much significance to that. The difference between us and Wisconsin (which finished 10th) was a single 3 point attempt (say, Gordon Hayward's half court heave). Also, our team that year was particularly good at making opponents miss their 3s - just 28.3% shooting allowed (good for 2nd nationally). When you combine percentage with frequency, we were the most (or second most - St. Louis finished 5th in 3fg% and 5th in 3PA%) difficult team to score against from beyond the arc.
    Yeah, the key to our superb defensive rating in 2010 was the fact that our opponents shot the worst three-point percentage against us in Duke history. In that case, the fact that they tried more three-point attempts than usual turned out to be a really good thing for us.

  15. #55
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    Quote Originally Posted by killerleft View Post
    I think you're trying to prove your point with some highly faulty arithmetic. Don't know how you define "great", but in any world where the big men shoot 70%, the three-point shooter oughta at least be shooting 55%!!
    Ah, so it's OK if you throw out numbers from out of a hat, but not me? Right...

  16. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    This is a faulty argument. Do great inside shooters have games where they shoot 70% from the field? Sure, so what? Last night Andre Dawkins shot 67% from 3 (same as 100% from a 2-point shooter; how often does that happen?). He got fouled twice on three pointers (and he only made 4 of the 6 free throws, which was still 18% of his total points). He has had 9 games this year where he's shot 50% or better from threeland (32% of his games played) -- which of course translates to a 75% or better two-point percentage.

    In contrast, this year Jared Sullinger (generally considered to be the best, or at least one of the best, big men in the country) has shot 70% or better four times this season (15% of his games played; and note that only two of those games were 75% or better). In those four games, 10 of his 83 points came on free throws (12% of his total points). I don't know how many of his points came on rebounds of his own misses, but since he didn't miss so much, probably not so many.
    What is your point? It's like you are talking just to be argumentative. You say it's a faulty argument and then you agree with it? 70% from the field...so what? I think that's the whole point of this discussion. Big guys shoot a higher percentage than 3 point shooters. Conversely, 3 > 2. Have you been following along?

    Sure... Dawkins has had games where he shoots more than 40%. In a very famous basketball game, Christian Laettner shot 100%. You may have heard about this game. I'm not gonna go crazy and use it as an example in this argument!

    Quote Originally Posted by Kedsy View Post
    Which brings up another faulty element of your argument -- while it's true that three point misses go long...
    I never said that. Classic straw man argument.

  17. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by UrinalCake View Post
    In that case, big men have statistical variation in how well they shoot too, just like outside shooters.

    How many times have you seen a big guy "disappear" or "get shut down" for a game? Maybe their percentage is more consistent but their output can vary widely based on the defense and scoring pace for the game.

    The other factor to consider is, how many great big men are there in college basketball? Maybe one per year coming out of high school would qualify as "great," and if he actually lives up to expectations then he'll be gone in a year. Conversely, there are probably 5-10 excellent three point shooters in each class. And Duke gets all of them So if you're going to build your program around a particular style of play, relying on three-point shooters is more "dependable."

    Finally, if you look at past National Championship winners, they all have excellent talent obviously but you can't really make any generalizations as far as them all having a dominant big man, or all having a sharpshooter. I think having solid guard play is probably a safe rule of thumb, but in the end it's overall talent and team play that matter
    Yeah, I agree, everyone has statistical variation. For a season or a career though, big guys have a higher shooting percentage, generally speaking. They shoot their shots closer to the basket. There is always some crazy kid at a DIII school that shoots like 57% for 3 though.

    My opinion is that I don't see quality big guys "disappear" as much as 3-point shooters. A big guy can score 4 points, but still get 10 rebounds and just by being big, can have a presence in the lane, intimidating, altering shots, etc. Most great 3 point shooters don't have other abilities to affect a game. Guys like Redick and Curtis Staples aren't great defensive players, nor do they dish out a lot of assists. My point is that there are things to consider outside of shooting percentages.

    Your idea concerning the dearth of bigs and a 3 point offense being more "reliable" is interesting. I would point out that Coach K likes to build an offense around the personnel he has, albeit that does usually include some awesome 3 point bombers as you mention.

  18. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by gus View Post
    He also had plenty of games where he shot below 50% (even games below 40%). Don't confuse outliers with averages. When discussing what is an effective strategy for maximizing the liklihood of winning, it's the latter that's important.
    This is so condescending.


    Quote Originally Posted by gus View Post
    Now you're making up numbers. Not a good way to support a statistical argument.
    No, I'm approximating. If I said that big guys shoot free throws a million times more often than 3 point shooters that would be making up numbers. Don't confuse your dictionary with your thesaurus.

    Would you really disagree that big guys get fouled 10x more often than 3 point shooters? I thought I was being pretty conservative. I would say for every guy that gets fouled shooting a 3 in a game, you see 10 fouls from someone being hacked in the lane.


    Quote Originally Posted by gus View Post
    This is where you're completely missing the argument. It's already been conceded that 3 point shooting has a higher standard deviation (getting "cold" is an misunderstanding of the probabilistic event that is shooting).
    No sir. People get hot. People get cold. If things were all statistics, there would be no point in tipping the ball up. You could just run some numbers in your calculator while the Crazies cheered.


    Quote Originally Posted by gus View Post
    The use of caps is totally unnecessary, and it doesn't make you correct.
    I thought it was like half unnecessary. I thought it was for sure necessary with the vowels, and then there were some consonants that I was SURE it was necessary.


    Quote Originally Posted by gus View Post
    Ryan Kelly missed a three pointer, and grabbed his own rebound in last minute of the Carolina game. That's not a statistical argument of course, but missed three pointers also lead to offensive rebounds.
    Wait... NOT a statistical argument? You just came down on me in this very post for making a non-statistically sound argument! Isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?!?!


    Quote Originally Posted by gus View Post
    Three point shooters do occasionally get fouled, and usually convert those free throws at a higher rate than inside players. In other words, your statement that "a 3 pt shooters offensive productivity is just based on his shooting %age" is completely false.
    Yeah, that's my point. It's VERY occasional (note that "very" is in all caps, therefor it is correct).

    If it's completely false, please explain why. Seriously. Don't just say it.

  19. #59
    Quote Originally Posted by SCMatt33 View Post
    I totally agree that shooting a high percentage of shots from 3 leaves you more vulnerable to high variance in your offensive output than a team that shoots two's. I disagree with the statement that shooting 33% from 3 is the same as shooting 50% from 2. There are so many other factors that go beyond shooting percentage to change this. While it's true that you'd get an extra rebounding opportunity from 3, it's generally harder to rebound them. You do get some long ones from 3, but you never get the gimme rebound where someone misses a layup and can just put his own shot back. More importantly, you're free throw rate will be much much better shooting twos. It's tough to get fouled shooting 3's, and it's shown in Dukes games. Against a lot of big teams this year, Duke has had trouble drawing fouls during the normal course of play. You have to be aggressive to get a lot of fouls and 3's are as passive a move as there is.

    Someone mentioned that Duke is only 70th in the country in 3PA/FGA, at 37.5% of our shots from 3. That number jumps all the way up to 40.5% if you only look at conference play, which suggests that the season number is artifically low from some easy games in the non-conference. The other thing that I can only talk about from what I've seen and can remember is that Duke's percentage of shots from 3 goes way way up against bigger teams. Duke's big men do a really great job when they have a definite size advantage, but against teams that can match their size, they really struggle and the team rely's on jump shooting much more.

    All of this being said, does Duke really have a choice in the matter? They only have one guy who can consistently get into the lane, and teams can collapse the lane on him more than others, because he won't pass it back out against double and triple coverage as often as others would. Even including Rivers, Duke has small guards so when they do drive into the lane, they often can't get all the way to the rim without getting blocked so they have to pull up and take a lot of low percentage floaters. That was a shot that Nolan really had down, but no one on this team makes it enough to force defenders to respect it compared to a layup. You have some big guys who can score from the block, but their primary move is a passive hook shot. It's much lower percentage than a power move, you won't get fouled as often (which isn't all bad considering their FT%), and it's almost impossible to grab you're own miss with it. Duke's free throw rate is pretty high, but a lot of that has to do with Duke leading by 2-3 possessions at the end of so many games which causes teams to start fouling intentionally before the shot clock is even turned off. This is another stat that is artificially high on the year from easy non-conference games. Duke's full year FT rate is 45.5%, but only 37.9% in conference play.

    For Duke, it's all about matchups. If they draw some teams without 6-10 to 7-0 guys in the middle, they can try and play a more traditional game. If they draw big teams, they will have to shoot 3's. I just don't see Duke beating good teams with size without taking and making a good percentage of 3 pointers.
    Quote Originally Posted by SCMatt33 View Post
    It actually doesn't have much to do with the quality of the non conference schedule, but the size of those teams. Many of those quality mid majors and even some of the high majors (Michigan) don't have much size, and the bigs they do have aren't intimidating defensive presences to keep duke out of the lane. The difference between Duke' s conference and non conference 3PA/FGA is 3.4% (38.0 to 41.4) after the FSU game. I looked at the 7 or so teams from high major conferences who both had at least a shot at he tourney and were at or above Duke's level of taking threes. I found none with a differential between non conference and conference play of more than 1.9%, meaning that Duke's differential is a striking 79% higher than it's closest peer. He big difference between Duke and those teams is that most of them have either little size, little depth or both on the interior. Duke adjusts its style of play big time depending on the size of its opponent. The high variance of 3's is a scary proposition come tourney time and the best way for Duke to avoid it would be to draw smaller teams like Mizzou or Marquette in regional games. If Duke ever plays a team like Kentucky of Syracuse, you can bet that close to if not more than half of Duke's shots will come from 3.
    I agree with SCMatt here. I think there really isn't much of a choice other than to "play the lottery" if/when this Duke squad matches up against some of the bigger/better teams in March.

    I also saw that we traditionally have tried to keep teams 3PA% way down as a defense. This would make sense if/when your Coach believes he has the better squad and wants to take losing via "the lottery" out of the question.

    For this team I think we might have to play "the lottery" on both ends of the floor should we make a deep run.

  20. #60
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    Alright, I figured I'd bring some stats to this thread...

    Anyway, I'm going to look at two things: the standard deviation of 2 and 3 points makes, and the skewedness. Before we can analyze the two data sets separately, we probably want to show that they are independent.

    The R^2 value of the relationship between 3% and 2% is .08....which for all practical purposes, whether we're shooting well from 3 has no effect on whether we're shooting well from 2.

    We can thus look at the data without worrying on whether a bad/good 3 pt shooting night affects our 2 pt shooting...which makes some of the analysis easier.

    The first thing we'll look at is simple made percentage.

    So far on the season we make 39% of threes and 51% of twos. Ignoring fouls and rebounds and the what not, that gives us 1.17 points per three point shot and 1.02 per 2 point shot. Fine.

    Next we'll look at standard deviation from game to game. This will effectively tell us on average how close is any individual game's shooting percentage to the season mean. The naive way to do this would be to take the shooting % of each game and subtract it from the season average. This is silly though, as it would mean a game where we shot 0-1 would have as much weight as a game where we shot 20-30...and that won't really show what we want, which is effectively whats the deviation of our scoring output because of the variance in making that particular shot. THerefore I scaled each game based on the number of three point attempts, so the more we take, the more sway that game has...which makes sense.

    (Sum((num_made-season%*num_att)^2)/num_games)^.5

    Basically we're averaging the squares of the difference between the number of shots we made each game and the number we should have made based on the average.

    This gives us a standard deviation of 1.9 for 3 pointers and 3.3 for two pointers, which works out to 5.8 and 6.6 ppg respectively. This means that if we take the number of points we SHOULD have scored in a game on 3 or 2 point shots based on our season average and the number of shots we took from each range, in 68% of those games, we will be within 5.8 points from 3 pointers and 6.6 points on two pointers. So this says that there is actually MORE variance in our two point shooting than three point shooting....WAIT WHAT????

    Yes, we are more consistent game to game shooting from 2 than we are from 3....who saw THAT one coming...not me!

    Okay, there's one more thing I want to look at before I am done spewing my statistical babble: skew. Skew is basically which direction the graph has a tail on. Check the wiki page on it. Basically if our shooting percentage is skew left, it means that we are more likely to have an exceptionally bad shooting night than an exceptionally good one. I used a similar equation to the one for standard devation above:

    Sum((num_made-season%*num_att)^3)/std_dev^3

    We find that our skew for 3s is -9.7 while for 2s it's 5.9. But what does this mean? It means that most games are good shooting nights, but a good shooting night is not hugely better than average, but there are bad shooting nights, and these nights are really bad.(look at the chart on the wiki page for a more intuitive picture of what this is). For 2 point shooting the opposite is true. We don't have many truly horrid 2 point shooting nights, but we can have some really really good ones.

    What does that say to me? yes there is a bit of a lottery factor from three point shooting. But its not because there is a higher variance in our three point shooting game to game, Its just that when we are going to have a shooting night that is outside a standard deviation or so, its much more likely to be a bad shooting night than a good one (from 3 pt). (and that last line isn't techincal...just intuitive) Does this mean we should change our strategy? that's for the rest of you to debate...since there are so many factors that come into play....these stats don't tell you how you should structure your team or game plan. THey simply show a few things about the results when taking 3 and 2 point shots.

    For those that are interested, if we remove the cupcakes (presbyterian, davidson, colorado state, uncg, wmu, and penn) the numbers are as follows:

    2pt 3pt
    %: 49 37
    std: 5.9 5.8 ppg
    skw: 7.2 -5.8

    So interestingly, these are the teams that we'd be likely to see starting in the second round, and we see that the standard deviations in ppg are a lot closer than they were over the full season (mostly due to not being able to score two pointers so easily...but the three point number is about the same), The skew also paints the same picture as it did before. THe magnitude is less, but this is due to the lessened overall average, and still paints a similar picture as the anaylsis before.

    One season sample size is small, but you really can't compare these numbers across seasons or teams anyway, since as people have mentioned, it's highly dependent on the quality of the shooters and the shot opportunities. If i have time, i'll try to get numbers from some past teams
    1200. DDMF.

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