Double DD
03-15-2009, 04:43 AM
I was interested in looking at the trends teams were taking heading into the NCAA tourney. So, I looked at raw unadjusted offensive and defensive efficiency for the teams in contention for top 4 seeds since February 1, not including conference tourney games. Unadjusted meaning that they are not compensating for strength of schedule, obviously giving an advantage to teams like Memphis and Gonzaga. However, since every other team was in a BCS conference, I felt the schedules should be comparable, keeping in mind teams like DePaul and Indiana exist.
Memphis 113.0 82.1 (+31.9)
Gonzaga 116.5 92.7 (+23.8)
Pittsburgh 120.1 101.8 (+18.3)
North Carolina 118.4 103.3 (+15.1)
Michigan State 102.7 88.5 (+14.2)
UCLA 118.6 104.8 (+13.8)
Kansas 106.7 94.3 (+12.4)
Syracuse 110.9 99.7 (+11.2)
villanova 114.3 103.6 (+10.7)
Connecticut 102.8 92.7 (+10.1)
Washington 106.2 96.3 (+9.9)
Louisville 107.4 97.7 (+9.7)
Arizona State 110.5 102.4 (+8.1)
Missouri 105.2 97.3 (+7.9)
Oklahoma 111.9 105.0 (+6.9)
Purdue 101.4 97.4 (+4.0)
Wake Forest 107.5 104.1 (+3.4)
Florida State 100.7 97.8 (+2.9)
Duke 109.3 107.9 (+1.3)
The first number is offensive effieciency and the second is defensive, with teams ranked by differential. As you can see, things don't look rosy. Duke is ranked dead last for differential. This is because they have, by far, the worst defensive efficiency of all the teams while only ranking 10th of the 19 teams in offense.
In looking at a turning point in the schedule, the biggest slide seems to begin at around the Clemson game. And this hasn't been stemmed much by the addition of Elliot Williams into the starting lineup and the associated decrease in time for Smith and Paulus. In looking at the lineups to find a reason, the only thing that jumps out is that at the same time as the defensive breakdown, you see a decrease in PT for Zoubek, with the slack being picked up by Thomas. But this alone just doesn't seem possible to explain how much worse they've gotten.
To put it in perspective, at one point Duke had the best defensive numbers in the country. But since Feb 1, their defensive efficiency, if projected over a full season, would rank 306th in Divison I. The only BCS conference teams with comparably poor defenses would have been Indiana and Oregon, two teams that went a combined 3-33 in their conference play. The team weakened defensively last year as well, but nowhere close to what's happened this season. Unless Z has magical powers, I'm confused as to how there could be this drastic a change. Not exactly what I was hoping to find when I looked up these numbers.
Edit: I hope these numbers work out as I was half alseep when I tabulated them and my post got eaten twice.
Memphis 113.0 82.1 (+31.9)
Gonzaga 116.5 92.7 (+23.8)
Pittsburgh 120.1 101.8 (+18.3)
North Carolina 118.4 103.3 (+15.1)
Michigan State 102.7 88.5 (+14.2)
UCLA 118.6 104.8 (+13.8)
Kansas 106.7 94.3 (+12.4)
Syracuse 110.9 99.7 (+11.2)
villanova 114.3 103.6 (+10.7)
Connecticut 102.8 92.7 (+10.1)
Washington 106.2 96.3 (+9.9)
Louisville 107.4 97.7 (+9.7)
Arizona State 110.5 102.4 (+8.1)
Missouri 105.2 97.3 (+7.9)
Oklahoma 111.9 105.0 (+6.9)
Purdue 101.4 97.4 (+4.0)
Wake Forest 107.5 104.1 (+3.4)
Florida State 100.7 97.8 (+2.9)
Duke 109.3 107.9 (+1.3)
The first number is offensive effieciency and the second is defensive, with teams ranked by differential. As you can see, things don't look rosy. Duke is ranked dead last for differential. This is because they have, by far, the worst defensive efficiency of all the teams while only ranking 10th of the 19 teams in offense.
In looking at a turning point in the schedule, the biggest slide seems to begin at around the Clemson game. And this hasn't been stemmed much by the addition of Elliot Williams into the starting lineup and the associated decrease in time for Smith and Paulus. In looking at the lineups to find a reason, the only thing that jumps out is that at the same time as the defensive breakdown, you see a decrease in PT for Zoubek, with the slack being picked up by Thomas. But this alone just doesn't seem possible to explain how much worse they've gotten.
To put it in perspective, at one point Duke had the best defensive numbers in the country. But since Feb 1, their defensive efficiency, if projected over a full season, would rank 306th in Divison I. The only BCS conference teams with comparably poor defenses would have been Indiana and Oregon, two teams that went a combined 3-33 in their conference play. The team weakened defensively last year as well, but nowhere close to what's happened this season. Unless Z has magical powers, I'm confused as to how there could be this drastic a change. Not exactly what I was hoping to find when I looked up these numbers.
Edit: I hope these numbers work out as I was half alseep when I tabulated them and my post got eaten twice.