Ken Pom Issue

[oldnavy]

“The Duke Blue Devils have deservedly earned respect in the first month of the season because they have successfully negotiated a difficult schedule without a loss. What’s more interesting to me is that they have done so while being a particularly poor rebounding team. Heading into the weekend, they rank well outside the top 200 in both offensive (252nd) and defensive (245th) rebounding percentage.”

A couple of things:

First, the "tone" of the comment. "...they have successfully negotiated a difficult schedule without a loss." I am not a big follower of Ken Pom, but the tone of this comment comes off a little negative to me. It almost makes it sound as if Duke has won with smoke and mirrors, rather than very good basketball play. Duke has "successfully negotiated a difficult schedule"? Well yeah, maybe I am picking nits, but come on Duke is playing really good ball, not "negotiating".

Second, "... Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" - Benjamin Disraeli. Just looking at rebounding percentage alone is useless. I am not sure that it means much when combined with other measurements either. First, what does it mean to be outside the top 200? If you are 201st, and the number 1 team is ahead of you by 3% points, does it really matter? Is it "statistically significant" as we ask in the medical literature or could it just be random? This is just one question that pops into my head. Does it take into account the style of play, the quality of the opponents, the tempo of the game, etc...? Duke could be 8-0 by playing teams like UNC-G and lead the nation in Reb %, and every other measurable statistic, would that make them a better team?

The article on the front page also brings up some good points to counter the rather myoptic statement from Ken Pom.
Some stats are telling and others are just white noise, and they all have to be taken for what they are, tools used to measure the magnitude of difference between groups or individuals.

The most important stat in sports is of course the Wins/Loss ratio, We may be a "...particularly poor rebounding team" but we are a darn good "Winning" Team!

I do have a question though, does catching an air ball count as a rebound? In other words, does the ball have to 'bound' off of anything to be considered a rebound? I guess it could be left up to the official scorer, but I could see a situation where a pass for an ally oop, might look like a shot and get picked off by a defender. Is that a rebound or a steal??

[davekay1971]

“The Duke Blue Devils have deservedly earned respect in the first month of the season because they have successfully negotiated a difficult schedule without a loss. What’s more interesting to me is that they have done so while being a particularly poor rebounding team. Heading into the weekend, they rank well outside the top 200 in both offensive (252nd) and defensive (245th) rebounding percentage.”

A couple of things:

First, the "tone" of the comment. "...they have successfully negotiated a difficult schedule without a loss." I am not a big follower of Ken Pom, but the tone of this comment comes off a little negative to me. It almost makes it sound as if Duke has won with smoke and mirrors, rather than very good basketball play. Duke has "successfully negotiated a difficult schedule"? Well yeah, maybe I am picking nits, but come on Duke is playing really good ball, not "negotiating".

Second, "... Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" - Benjamin Disraeli. Just looking at rebounding percentage alone is useless. I am not sure that it means much when combined with other measurements either. First, what does it mean to be outside the top 200? If you are 201st, and the number 1 team is ahead of you by 3% points, does it really matter? Is it "statistically significant" as we ask in the medical literature or could it just be random? This is just one question that pops into my head. Does it take into account the style of play, the quality of the opponents, the tempo of the game, etc...? Duke could be 8-0 by playing teams like UNC-G and lead the nation in Reb %, and every other measurable statistic, would that make them a better team?

The article on the front page also brings up some good points to counter the rather myoptic statement from Ken Pom.
Some stats are telling and others are just white noise, and they all have to be taken for what they are, tools used to measure the magnitude of difference between groups or individuals.

The most important stat in sports is of course the Wins/Loss ratio, We may be a "...particularly poor rebounding team" but we are a darn good "Winning" Team!

I do have a question though, does catching an air ball count as a rebound? In other words, does the ball have to 'bound' off of anything to be considered a rebound? I guess it could be left up to the official scorer, but I could see a situation where a pass for an ally oop, might look like a shot and get picked off by a defender. Is that a rebound or a steal??

While KenPom is an excellent tool and I like the use of tempo-free statistics, there's no question that the strength of opponents significantly skews even those stats. Our offensive and defensive efficiency would rock if we played our best lineup for 8 games against sorry competition, for example.

I think it's a huge stretch to call Duke a particularly poor rebounding team. But everything from stats to the old eyeball test tells you we could get better. Mase is a great rebounder. Kelly is not a great rebounder, particularly for is height. If K is going to spend lots of time in a 3 guard lineup, which is likely, our guards need to make it a point to help Mase out on the boards. Ohio State killed us on the boards in the first half. The team made a point to fight for those rebounds in the second half, and the difference was clear.

[uh_no]

“The Duke Blue Devils have deservedly earned respect in the first month of the season because they have successfully negotiated a difficult schedule without a loss. What’s more interesting to me is that they have done so while being a particularly poor rebounding team. Heading into the weekend, they rank well outside the top 200 in both offensive (252nd) and defensive (245th) rebounding percentage.”

A couple of things:

First, the "tone" of the comment. "...they have successfully negotiated a difficult schedule without a loss." I am not a big follower of Ken Pom, but the tone of this comment comes off a little negative to me. It almost makes it sound as if Duke has won with smoke and mirrors, rather than very good basketball play. Duke has "successfully negotiated a difficult schedule"? Well yeah, maybe I am picking nits, but come on Duke is playing really good ball, not "negotiating".

Second, "... Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics" - Benjamin Disraeli. Just looking at rebounding percentage alone is useless. I am not sure that it means much when combined with other measurements either. First, what does it mean to be outside the top 200? If you are 201st, and the number 1 team is ahead of you by 3% points, does it really matter? Is it "statistically significant" as we ask in the medical literature or could it just be random? This is just one question that pops into my head. Does it take into account the style of play, the quality of the opponents, the tempo of the game, etc...? Duke could be 8-0 by playing teams like UNC-G and lead the nation in Reb %, and every other measurable statistic, would that make them a better team?

The article on the front page also brings up some good points to counter the rather myoptic statement from Ken Pom.
Some stats are telling and others are just white noise, and they all have to be taken for what they are, tools used to measure the magnitude of difference between groups or individuals.

The most important stat in sports is of course the Wins/Loss ratio, We may be a "...particularly poor rebounding team" but we are a darn good "Winning" Team!

I do have a question though, does catching an air ball count as a rebound? In other words, does the ball have to 'bound' off of anything to be considered a rebound? I guess it could be left up to the official scorer, but I could see a situation where a pass for an ally oop, might look like a shot and get picked off by a defender. Is that a rebound or a steal??

I think you're not doing service to Kenpom and what he does. If his opinion is that it is a surprise that duke won with a low rebounding ability, then you can be sure that he has data backing up the assertion that poor rebounding teams don't usually win. He doesn't just pull this stuff out of thin air. He doesn't have a thing against duke, nor is he selling them short. He calls it how the numbers say he should.

[bob blue devil]

I think you're not doing service to Kenpom and what he does. If his opinion is that it is a surprise that duke won with a low rebounding ability, then you can be sure that he has data backing up the assertion that poor rebounding teams don't usually win. He doesn't just pull this stuff out of thin air. He doesn't have a thing against duke, nor is he selling them short. He calls it how the numbers say he should.

agreed. i've always viewed kenpom's commentary as unbiased and fair. interpreting a tone from his comments says more about the reader than it does the author. ken is no fool and you can assume that he's not missing the obvious counterarguments mentioned above - he is not publishing a research paper and thus doesn't need to spell everything out or wait for arbitrary levels of statistical significance. i think the point he's making is quite straightforward - duke has accomplished more than any team in the country, despite having been quite underwhelming in rebounding. glass half full - duke could be even better if they improve off of a low base (theoretically easy), glass half empty - there is a chink in the armor.

remember, in 2010 kenpom's numbers showed us the best team in the country heading into the tourney, largely on the back of zoub's ridiculous offensive rebounding rate. his system was widely ridiculed for suggesting duke was the best in the country - ahead of clearly superior teams like kansas, kentucky, west virginia, and syracuse.

[WakeDevil]

Sportswriters put their ignorance of statistics on display every time they write things such as Team A "outrebounded" Team B 38-36, or words to that effect. A team loses a chance for a rebound when it forces a turnover, so a team could win the rebounding battle at both ends and have fewer rebounds.

There are offensive and defensive rebounds. That's the way to judge teams. Don't add the two.

Basketball Prospectus has a article titled "Rebounding Margin Must Die." It may be behind a paywall, but it explains the subject in greater detail.

[CDu]

While KenPom is an excellent tool and I like the use of tempo-free statistics, there's no question that the strength of opponents significantly skews even those stats. Our offensive and defensive efficiency would rock if we played our best lineup for 8 games against sorry competition, for example.

I think it's a huge stretch to call Duke a particularly poor rebounding team. But everything from stats to the old eyeball test tells you we could get better. Mase is a great rebounder. Kelly is not a great rebounder, particularly for is height. If K is going to spend lots of time in a 3 guard lineup, which is likely, our guards need to make it a point to help Mase out on the boards. Ohio State killed us on the boards in the first half. The team made a point to fight for those rebounds in the second half, and the difference was clear.

Pomeroy takes strength of schedule into account in his estimates of offensive and defensive efficiency. The offensive and defensive efficiency numbers are adjusted for the quality of opponents. So while our raw offensive and defensive efficiency numbers would look better against weaker opponents, or adjusted numbers (which is what Pomeroy uses to rank teams) probably wouldn't.

I agree with uh no in that Pomeroy isn't being unfairly negative about Duke. In fact, I don't think he's being negative about Duke at all. He's merely noting that our rebounding problems are the type of problems that past championship teams haven't had, and speculating that, given history, they will have trouble winning it all if they don't improve on their rebounding.

Remember - just a few weeks ago, Pomeroy was talking about how impressive Duke's weeks had been. We had the 3 most impressive wins (according to Pomeroy) around Thanksgiving, and he kept lauding our performance. So it's not like he's holding some sort of anti-Duke bias. He's merely presenting facts as he sees them.

[Kedsy]

Pomeroy takes strength of schedule into account in his estimates of offensive and defensive efficiency. The offensive and defensive efficiency numbers are adjusted for the quality of opponents. So while our raw offensive and defensive efficiency numbers would look better against weaker opponents, or adjusted numbers (which is what Pomeroy uses to rank teams) probably wouldn't.

While in theory this is completely true, in practice my observation has been that when good teams feast on poor teams their efficiency numbers go up disproportionately. So my guess is our adjusted numbers would look better, just not as much better as the raw numbers.


I agree with uh no in that Pomeroy isn't being unfairly negative about Duke. In fact, I don't think he's being negative about Duke at all. He's merely noting that our rebounding problems are the type of problems that past championship teams haven't had, and speculating that, given history, they will have trouble winning it all if they don't improve on their rebounding.

I agree with this. Pomeroy's numbers are largely based on four factors. If you're really bad at one of the four, that means you have to be really, really good at the other three in order to put up efficiency numbers strong enough to excel in Pomeroy's ratings. And it's probably unusual to be really, really good at three factors on both ends of the floor.


Remember - just a few weeks ago, Pomeroy was talking about how impressive Duke's weeks had been. We had the 3 most impressive wins (according to Pomeroy) around Thanksgiving, and he kept lauding our performance. So it's not like he's holding some sort of anti-Duke bias. He's merely presenting facts as he sees them.

While again, this is largely true, Pomeroy also knows his audience. I have noticed him over the years apologizing when he says good things about Duke. Including in 2010, when my recollection is pre-tournament he said he personally didn't think Duke was the best team despite his ratings. He also apologized a couple weeks ago when Duke dominated his blog entry.

[kaimuki]

If you read Pomeroy's full article http://m.espn.go.com/ncb/story?storyId=8723772, he essentially concludes that while pundits might lament Duke's rebounding woes, they will continue to win if they remain strong in the areas that have them winning now.

[timmy c]

While you might find fault with Ken Pomeroy’s blog posts, it’s hard to find fault with his mathematical analysis.

In February 2010, well before most prognosticators noticed, Kenpom's formula ranked Duke as the number 1 team in the nation, in part, due to its superior improvement in offensive rebounding numbers. Not bad for a statistical nerd! :D

Full disclosure: I like Pomeroy’s stats so much I pay for a subscription!

[Olympic Fan]

In the middle of the Pomeroy article, DBR includes the following factoid:

Here’s a factoid for you to mull over: in the long, glorious history of the ACC, only two players have averaged as much as 19 points and 11 boards, Plumlee’s current averages, for an entire season: Ralph Sampson and Tim Duncan.

That's not quite true. In fact, it's not close to true. Not to dimimish what Mason is accomplishing this season, but 19 points/11 rebounds is not especially rare.

Beyond Sampson and Duncan, it's a combination of stats achieved by (among others) Dick Hemric (twice), Lennie Rosenbluth (twice), Len Chappell (twice), Billy Cunningham (three times) and Tommy Burleson. It's been achieved by ex-Blue Devils Art Heyman (25.2/11.2 in 1962 -- he missed the 11 rebound barrier by one tenth in 63 and two tenths in 61), Mike Lewis (21.7/14.4 in '68) and Randy Denton -- the most underrated player in Duke history -- who did it twice (21.5/12.7 in 1970; 20.4/12.8 in 1971). Mike Gminski missed by a hair in '88 (21.3/10.9).

It's, as DBR says, a "long and glorious history. In the 1950s and 1960s, there were a lot more missed shots -- teams usually played at a blistering pace and were happy to shoot 40 percent. Credit Dean Smith for changing both aspects of the game -- he was the first coach to insist on only high percentage shots and his late game slowdowns spread the disease of slowdown basketball. My point is that with all the missed shots, high rebound totals weren't especially rare -- almost all the game, season and career rebound records date from the early days of the game. In the fist 12 years of the ACC, the league's rebound leader topped 14 rpg 11 times. Since 1974, only one player has even topped 13 rebounds a year (Tim Duncan in 1997)

PS Look at Lennie Chappell's numbers -- 26.6 and 14.0 as a junior in 1960/30.1 and 15.2 as a senior in 1961.

[robed deity]

Are Pomeroy's rebounding percentage numbers adjusted? Or just the overall defensive and offensive efficiency?

[uh_no]

Are Pomeroy's rebounding percentage numbers adjusted? Or just the overall defensive and offensive efficiency?

CDU seems to indicate they're adjusted.

[oldnavy]

agreed. i've always viewed kenpom's commentary as unbiased and fair. interpreting a tone from his comments says more about the reader than it does the author. ken is no fool and you can assume that he's not missing the obvious counterarguments mentioned above - he is not publishing a research paper and thus doesn't need to spell everything out or wait for arbitrary levels of statistical significance. i think the point he's making is quite straightforward - duke has accomplished more than any team in the country, despite having been quite underwhelming in rebounding. glass half full - duke could be even better if they improve off of a low base (theoretically easy), glass half empty - there is a chink in the armor.

remember, in 2010 kenpom's numbers showed us the best team in the country heading into the tourney, largely on the back of zoub's ridiculous offensive rebounding rate. his system was widely ridiculed for suggesting duke was the best in the country - ahead of clearly superior teams like kansas, kentucky, west virginia, and syracuse.

I made a disclaimer about not following Kenpom closely, so perhaps his "tone" is no tone at all. I'm not sure it says anything about me that I see his description of what Duke has done as less than positive. To describe what Duke has accomplished as 'successfully negotiating a difficult schedule' is about as tepid of a discription as you can make. Maybe that is just how he expresses himself and it means nothing at all or it could be as complimentary as he gets.

I have no beef with Kenpom and what he does, my point is that for him to find it 'interesting' that Duke has accomplished what it has while being a ''particularly poor rebounding team, perhaps he is placing more importance on his statistical analysis of rebounding % than he should given the small sample size. You are probably correct in that he is just making the observation based on historical data that poor rebounding teams do not do well in the long run. I am not sure how we could be much better (record wise) right now than we are despite poor rebounding. Yes this is an area in which we can and hopefully will improve on over the year. I am just not so sure that it is that 'interesting' at this point of the season.

As far as 2010 goes. I would argue that Duke was not the "best" team that year (I know blasphemy!). We won the tournament and got the NC which is GREAT, but to say that Kempom was some sort of wizard to predict that would be a stretch. His numbers played out, but how many times over the years, has Kempom's "best" team not won the title? I do not have access to those figures, but maybe someone who subscribes to Kempom's site can comment.

Right now Kenpom has us rated 4th behind Indiana, Florida, and Louisville. I am not sure I am buying that either.

[uh_no]

Right now Kenpom has us rated 4th behind Indiana, Florida, and Louisville. I am not sure I am buying that either.

It's not really subjective....the numbers say what they say, which is that those three teams have been more efficient, relative to the teams they have played then have we.

He doesn't say it's a perfect ranking, and in fact usually points out when he thinks the system is overrating a team.

Either way, he never says it is an absolute ranking of all the teams, or even that he agrees with the rankings it produces. It is what it is, and the ordering that his algorithm puts teams in is not an order of opinion....

that's like looking at a list of all time wins leaders in coaching and saying you disagree with coach K being #1.....it doesn't make sense.

[PumpkinFunk]

I think you're not doing service to Kenpom and what he does. If his opinion is that it is a surprise that duke won with a low rebounding ability, then you can be sure that he has data backing up the assertion that poor rebounding teams don't usually win. He doesn't just pull this stuff out of thin air. He doesn't have a thing against duke, nor is he selling them short. He calls it how the numbers say he should.

He definitely has stats. Offensive rebounding percentage is one of the "four factors" that correlates most with success.

Those of you who think we're a "good" rebounding team or that KenPom's stats are wrong, check out the stats for today's game here (http://www.scacchoops.com/ViewHDGame.asp?hSchedule=14487&bView=7&sInclude=dorebpct)

Once again, we are getting out-rebounded (percentage-wise) and it's having an effect. The fact is, we are winning in spite of our rebounding woes. But we have a lot of things going right to help that, which you can see on Pomeroy's four factors page (http://kenpom.com/stats.php)

[oldnavy]

It's not really subjective....the numbers say what they say, which is that those three teams have been more efficient, relative to the teams they have played then have we.

He doesn't say it's a perfect ranking, and in fact usually points out when he thinks the system is overrating a team.

Either way, he never says it is an absolute ranking of all the teams, or even that he agrees with the rankings it produces. It is what it is, and the ordering that his algorithm puts teams in is not an order of opinion....

that's like looking at a list of all time wins leaders in coaching and saying you disagree with coach K being #1.....it doesn't make sense.

Right, and as I think it through, I believe that I am mistakenly equating his rankings with who he thinks the best teams are. The numbers don't lie, they are what they are - just like you say.

We are not a particularly strong rebounding team. But we are not awful either. That is one of the reasons I would like to see the magnitude of difference between the top team and the lower teams. Is being out of the top 200 as bad as it sounds??

I have to disagree with the Coach K example at the end of your post. Coach K has won more games period. That is really not a statistic, it is an interval data point. Kenpom takes multiple data points and runs them through a program to try and predict the 'strength' of a team.

But, I agree you cannot disagree with the number that Kenpom produces, his number one team is his number one team based on his criteria.

[bedeviled]

His numbers played out, but how many times over the years, has Kempom's "best" team not won the title?

I don't know the results of his highest rated team per year. However, I do make sure to look at his stats when filling out my bracket yearly! My understanding is that his ratings are a Pythagorean expectation using his adjusted offensive and defensive efficiencies. Other factors are incorporated when using that data for prediction. Anyway, I know enough to make sure my bracket ALWAYS includes a Nat. Champ who is in the top 20 in both AdjO AND AdjD...with special emphasis on the offense. Here is that data:


Pomeroy Analysis: Adj Eff Ratings




AdjO
AdjD


2012
Kentucky
#2
#9


2011
UConn
#16
#14


2010
Duke
#1
#4


2009
UNC
#1
#16


2008
Kansas
#2
#1


2007
Florida
#1
#12


2006
Florida
#2
#5


2005
UNC
#1
#5


2004
UConn
#4
#5


2003
Syracuse
#11
#19



As stated upthread about DR%, that's more of a 4-Factors thing. It is an isolated factor which can be meaningless. Of course, if a team is bad in one factor, it must make up for it in other parts of its game. The good news is that it doesn't appear that DR% is necessarily the most important part of defense for the past Champions. Here's the DEFENSIVE 4-Factor data:


4-Factor Analysis: National Ranking of OPPONENT's





eFG%
TO%
ORB%
FTA/FGA


2012
Kentucky
#1
#301
#113
#8



2011
UConn
#13
#314
#236
#10


2010
Duke
#7
#116
#149
#97


2009
UNC
#62
#156
#121
#7


2008
Kansas
#9
#114
#23
#64


2007
Florida
#18
#290
#8
#13


2006
Florida
#16
#92
#126
#42


2005
UNC
#36
#56
#64
#49


2004
UConn
#1
#321
#71
#5


2003
Syracuse
#10
#221
#274
#37


Data Source. (http://www.burntorangenation.com/basketball/2012/11/1/3114342/common-characteristics-of-ncaa-champions-basketball-analytics)

[loran16]

I made a disclaimer about not following Kenpom closely, so perhaps his "tone" is no tone at all. I'm not sure it says anything about me that I see his description of what Duke has done as less than positive. To describe what Duke has accomplished as 'successfully negotiating a difficult schedule' is about as tepid of a discription as you can make. Maybe that is just how he expresses himself and it means nothing at all or it could be as complimentary as he gets.

You are finding something that is not there. He's essentially speaking as a scientist here (In real life he's a meteorologist actually) - there's no need for exaggeration - he simply states what has happened. Which is the truth.




I have no beef with Kenpom and what he does, my point is that for him to find it 'interesting' that Duke has accomplished what it has while being a ''particularly poor rebounding team, perhaps he is placing more importance on his statistical analysis of rebounding % than he should given the small sample size. You are probably correct in that he is just making the observation based on historical data that poor rebounding teams do not do well in the long run. I am not sure how we could be much better (record wise) right now than we are despite poor rebounding. Yes this is an area in which we can and hopefully will improve on over the year. I am just not so sure that it is that 'interesting' at this point of the season.


For the record, he is not saying the bolded portion. Like at all - He's saying in fact that a team with this profile is rare, but they can be successful. Rarity does not mean that they don't do well, just that they're rare.



As far as 2010 goes. I would argue that Duke was not the "best" team that year (I know blasphemy!). We won the tournament and got the NC which is GREAT, but to say that Kempom was some sort of wizard to predict that would be a stretch. His numbers played out, but how many times over the years, has Kempom's "best" team not won the title? I do not have access to those figures, but maybe someone who subscribes to Kempom's site can comment.


No one said he was some sort of wizard and he doesn't profess to claim the ability to predict a winner from his #s - he generally gives the favorite in the NCAA Tournament no more than a 20-25% chance of winning it all, if even that, for obvious reasons. The stats are meant to predict long term results, not individual games - like say fivethirtyeight in electoral politics, he merely predicts likelihoods, not actual results.



Right now Kenpom has us rated 4th behind Indiana, Florida, and Louisville. I am not sure I am buying that either.

I'd buy it. Again, the system doesn't care about wins and losses, just how good you are on offense and defense. So far, it seems to suggest Duke is 4th - spoiler alert, Duke will likely pass Louisville again after today's performance to move back into third. The system can be slightly off because of teams annihilating crappy teams (the Wisconsin effect), but it's completely objective and generally a better sign of how things are going than the predictions of so-called experts.

EDIT:



We are not a particularly strong rebounding team. But we are not awful either. That is one of the reasons I would like to see the magnitude of difference between the top team and the lower teams. Is being out of the top 200 as bad as it sounds??


Yes it's pretty bad - only one team in the top 10 is bad at defensive rebounding like Duke - and that's the odd case of Minnesota, who is #1 at offensive rebounding, but in the 300s in Defensive Rebounding (this makes me think this is a style thing).

[jv001]

Personally I like the eye test more than any poll out there and Duke is passing my eye test with amazing colors. I can't trust any poll out there that does not have Duke ranked either #1 or #2. Not after the tough schedule we have played. We're playing very good defense, we have the inside game, we have the outside game and we have the best coach in basketball. I really like this team. GoDuke!

[pfrduke]

I'd buy it. Again, the system doesn't care about wins and losses, just how good you are on offense and defense. So far, it seems to suggest Duke is 4th - spoiler alert, Duke will likely pass Louisville again after today's performance to move back into third. The system can be slightly off because of teams annihilating crappy teams (the Wisconsin effect), but it's completely objective and generally a better sign of how things are going than the predictions of so-called experts.

One other thing to stress here is that there is a component of pre-season bias that is still built into the ratings. It will be present (in decreasing degree) until sometime in January. I think for Wisconsin, for example, the Badgers' high ranking is a combination of blowout effect and residual pre-season skew.

[loran16]

One other thing to stress here is that there is a component of pre-season bias that is still built into the ratings. It will be present (in decreasing degree) until sometime in January. I think for Wisconsin, for example, the Badgers' high ranking is a combination of blowout effect and residual pre-season skew.

True but iirc what Pomeroy said last season, by December the impact of those rankings is small

[toooskies]

I didn't really read the article as a tear-down of Duke. It more read to me like a description of a statistical weakness. I think there are some factors that may influence why two things can be true, i.e., we're getting out-rebounded and that's still OK:

- We shoot a ton of free throws, and they are hard to rebound offensively.
- We don't foul a lot, so a greater portion of their possessions end in offensive rebounds.
- We force opponents to shoot 2-pointers more than most teams, which are probably easier to offensively rebound than 3s.
- We don't have a player whose primary way of scoring is offensive rebounds/putbacks, like Miles, Lance, or Zoubek.
- Our defense emphasizes contesting shots instead of getting rebounds.
- We're blocking a lot of shots, which tend to get rebounded offensively more often than others. And our shots aren't getting blocked.

In other words, I'd like to see our percentages broken down into free throw rebounds, 2-point rebounds, and 3-point rebounds. As it is, our opponents have a 5% edge in getting an offensive rebound versus us getting an offensive rebound, which isn't a big gap.

Statistically, though, we have a ton in common with the 2004-2006 era teams, particularly 2006. We block more shots than any team since 2005 with Shelden and Shavlik. Our free throw rate differential is highest since 2006. We're assisting on 58% of our shots, whereas no Duke team in the past decade has been over 55% except the 2006 team. And our 2-point shooting percentage is the highest since 2006 as well.

[uh_no]

I didn't really read the article as a tear-down of Duke. It more read to me like a description of a statistical weakness. I think there are some factors that may influence why two things can be true, i.e., we're getting out-rebounded and that's still OK:

- We shoot a ton of free throws, and they are hard to rebound offensively.
- We don't foul a lot, so a greater portion of their possessions end in offensive rebounds.
- We force opponents to shoot 2-pointers more than most teams, which are probably easier to offensively rebound than 3s.
- We don't have a player whose primary way of scoring is offensive rebounds/putbacks, like Miles, Lance, or Zoubek.
- Our defense emphasizes contesting shots instead of getting rebounds.
- We're blocking a lot of shots, which tend to get rebounded offensively more often than others. And our shots aren't getting blocked.

In other words, I'd like to see our percentages broken down into free throw rebounds, 2-point rebounds, and 3-point rebounds. As it is, our opponents have a 5% edge in getting an offensive rebound versus us getting an offensive rebound, which isn't a big gap.

Statistically, though, we have a ton in common with the 2004-2006 era teams, particularly 2006. We block more shots than any team since 2005 with Shelden and Shavlik. Our free throw rate differential is highest since 2006. We're assisting on 58% of our shots, whereas no Duke team in the past decade has been over 55% except the 2006 team. And our 2-point shooting percentage is the highest since 2006 as well.

I think your points are, on the whole, valid. It's important to consider other factors that might make the numbers show us as a worse rebounding team than we actually are. But, after the first half of the OSU game, and several other games this season, I don't think anyone would argue that even on an even playing field, we often get out rebounded.

I think it was the OSU game, at one point the margin was 30-13 (or some such absurd numbers)? now, obviously you can't just accept margin as the be all end all, but in cases when it ends up that out of whack, you know there are some bigger issues at play.

The second half, of course was a different story....so we CAN rebound well, it's just that we don't always do.

[toooskies]

I think your points are, on the whole, valid. It's important to consider other factors that might make the numbers show us as a worse rebounding team than we actually are. But, after the first half of the OSU game, and several other games this season, I don't think anyone would argue that even on an even playing field, we often get out rebounded.

I think it was the OSU game, at one point the margin was 30-13 (or some such absurd numbers)? now, obviously you can't just accept margin as the be all end all, but in cases when it ends up that out of whack, you know there are some bigger issues at play.

The second half, of course was a different story....so we CAN rebound well, it's just that we don't always do.

I'm not at all arguing we're a good rebounding team, like we were last year with Miles, or in 2010 with Z. But we're probably not below average at the skill of rebounding. Our ridiculous strengths in areas which affect the rebounding stat are in effect creating the raw statistical argument. Rebounding as a skill probably isn't an absolute weakness, but it is a relative weakness, as you would expect from a 3-guard lineup.

Also, we'll probably get better if Marshall gets significant minutes when healthy, as he'll almost certainly rely on the offensive rebound for production. Especially if he takes time from Ryan. Although that may not help our overall efficiency.

[oldnavy]

You are finding something that is not there. He's essentially speaking as a scientist here (In real life he's a meteorologist actually) - there's no need for exaggeration - he simply states what has happened. Which is the truth.



For the record, he is not saying the bolded portion. Like at all - He's saying in fact that a team with this profile is rare, but they can be successful. Rarity does not mean that they don't do well, just that they're rare.



No one said he was some sort of wizard and he doesn't profess to claim the ability to predict a winner from his #s - he generally gives the favorite in the NCAA Tournament no more than a 20-25% chance of winning it all, if even that, for obvious reasons. The stats are meant to predict long term results, not individual games - like say fivethirtyeight in electoral politics, he merely predicts likelihoods, not actual results.



I'd buy it. Again, the system doesn't care about wins and losses, just how good you are on offense and defense. So far, it seems to suggest Duke is 4th - spoiler alert, Duke will likely pass Louisville again after today's performance to move back into third. The system can be slightly off because of teams annihilating crappy teams (the Wisconsin effect), but it's completely objective and generally a better sign of how things are going than the predictions of so-called experts.

EDIT:



Yes it's pretty bad - only one team in the top 10 is bad at defensive rebounding like Duke - and that's the odd case of Minnesota, who is #1 at offensive rebounding, but in the 300s in Defensive Rebounding (this makes me think this is a style thing).

Ok, we have been outrebounded by a total of 9 boards over 9 games. We are 9-0 and have played 3 of the top 5 teams in those game. Today, we were outrebounded and defeated a previously undefeated team by 23. Why am I not worrying about the rebounding issue??

[uh_no]

I'm not at all arguing we're a good rebounding team, like we were last year with Miles, or in 2010 with Z. But we're probably not below average at the skill of rebounding. Our ridiculous strengths in areas which affect the rebounding stat are in effect creating the raw statistical argument. Rebounding as a skill probably isn't an absolute weakness, but it is a relative weakness, as you would expect from a 3-guard lineup.

Also, we'll probably get better if Marshall gets significant minutes when healthy, as he'll almost certainly rely on the offensive rebound for production. Especially if he takes time from Ryan. Although that may not help our overall efficiency.

Average with respect to whom? There are 300 some odd teams, if average is as good as the 150th best team, then we're better than average. If you're talking average of, say top 25 teams, then I would argue, and we have in game evidence...4 games worth, that demonstrates that no, we don't necessarily rebound as well as some of the other top 25 teams...so we are probably below that average.

The team indicated before the OSU game that they had been focusing on rebounding better, and that they didn't start doing it until halftime. That indicates to me that they feel they are no as good at rebounding as they could or should be...and we've seen it in streaks, but not consistently.

If kenpom stats indicate its a problem, and the team is considering it an area for improvement, then that's enough for me to conclude it is a weakness.

[cptnflash]

Ok, we have been outrebounded by a total of 9 boards over 9 games. We are 9-0 and have played 3 of the top 5 teams in those game. Today, we were outrebounded and defeated a previously undefeated team by 23. Why am I not worrying about the rebounding issue??

Because you're looking at the wrong rebounding statistic. Rebounding margin (total rebounds minus opponents total rebounds) is a borderline meaningless statistic.

Two things are incontrovertible so far this year:

1) We are a great team.

2) We are a poor rebounding team.

All of these other arguments are subjective at best.

Also, please do not confuse the rebounding capabilities of our 2012 and 2010 teams, because it does a huge disservice to Brian (especially) and Lance. Last year's team was an average defensive rebounding team, and a good offensive rebounding team. The 2010 team was an above average defensive rebounding team, and an elite offensive rebounding team, led by the BEST offensive rebounder in the country, Brian Zoubek.

[Kedsy]

While you might find fault with Ken Pomeroy’s blog posts, it’s hard to find fault with his mathematical analysis.

In February 2010, well before most prognosticators noticed, Kenpom's formula ranked Duke as the number 1 team in the nation, in part, due to its superior improvement in offensive rebounding numbers. Not bad for a statistical nerd! :D

Full disclosure: I like Pomeroy’s stats so much I pay for a subscription!

OK, I like Pomeroy, too, but lest we pat him on the back too hard for his rating of Duke #1 in 2010, I would point out that going into the tournament in 2009, his #1 team by a large margin was Memphis, who got knocked out in the Sweet 16. Going into the tourney in 2011, his top six teams were Ohio State (knocked out in Sweet 16), Duke (Sweet 16), Kansas (Elite 8), Texas (2nd round), Pitt (2nd round), and San Diego State (Sweet 16).


I don't know the results of his highest rated team per year. However, I do make sure to look at his stats when filling out my bracket yearly! My understanding is that his ratings are a Pythagorean expectation using his adjusted offensive and defensive efficiencies. Other factors are incorporated when using that data for prediction. Anyway, I know enough to make sure my bracket ALWAYS includes a Nat. Champ who is in the top 20 in both AdjO AND AdjD...with special emphasis on the offense. Here is that data:


Pomeroy Analysis: Adj Eff Ratings




AdjO
AdjD


2012
Kentucky
#2
#9


2011
UConn
#16
#14


2010
Duke
#1
#4


2009
UNC
#1
#16


2008
Kansas
#2
#1


2007
Florida
#1
#12


2006
Florida
#2
#5


2005
UNC
#1
#5


2004
UConn
#4
#5


2003
Syracuse
#11
#19





Well, except that's not really the data. The data you've posted is after the tournament is over. I only have pre-tournament Pomeroy data for four years, but here it is:



Year Champ AdjO AdjD
---- ----- ---- ----
2012 UK 2 6
2011 UConn 21 31
2010 Duke 1 4
2009 UNC 1 35


So, when we were actually filling out our ballots, only two of the past four champions have met your criteria. Pomeroy's ratings are useful as a tool, but they're not nearly as predictive as many people make them out to be.

[UT Dukie]

A few thoughts: Offensive rebounding is dependent on missed shots. The 2010 team's 2 pt shooting %age (ranked ~200 per Ken Pomeroy) and presumably their overall shooting %age enabled many more rebounds than the 2013 team to date. I haven't seen this noted elsewhere, but I apologize if I had missed it. An analysis of the relationship between 2 pt or overall shooting %age and offensive rebounds is not known to me either with Duke or with other teams. I'm also not sure whether turnovers should be subtracted from possession-based statistics to conduct this or other analyses as some have suggested.

[loran16]

Ok, we have been outrebounded by a total of 9 boards over 9 games. We are 9-0 and have played 3 of the top 5 teams in those game. Today, we were outrebounded and defeated a previously undefeated team by 23. Why am I not worrying about the rebounding issue??

You are using an incorrect statistic here- total rebound differential tells you nothing because teams have different numbers of opportunities for rebounds.

In duke's case , we don't look so bad in rebound margin because duke shoots better than our opponents and this opponents get less chances for rebounds. But in the percentage of defensive and offensive rebound opportunities, duke is getting dominated

[bedeviled]

The data you've posted is after the tournament is over. I only have pre-tournament Pomeroy data for four years...
Ha! Nice, I guess I will owe you some of my prize pool for stopping me from falling for the same line this year! Though, to be fair to Pomeroy, I don't know if he has publicized this misleading trend (though I also haven't seen him correct it despite it being well-known). Sorry to promulgate it -my fault for losing all research wherewithal once the tourney starts. Ugh.

[tallguy]

A few thoughts: Offensive rebounding is dependent on missed shots. The 2010 team's 2 pt shooting %age (ranked ~200 per Ken Pomeroy) and presumably their overall shooting %age enabled many more rebounds than the 2013 team to date. I haven't seen this noted elsewhere, but I apologize if I had missed it. An analysis of the relationship between 2 pt or overall shooting %age and offensive rebounds is not known to me either with Duke or with other teams. I'm also not sure whether turnovers should be subtracted from possession-based statistics to conduct this or other analyses as some have suggested.

As noted in this thread, Kenpom is not talking about rebounding in a total sense, but in a % sense- given the # of chances a team has to grab a rebound, how many did they grab.

Which is why I facepalmed at the note to Kenpom in the summary of the Temple game on the front page...people, if you try to snark at kenpom, at least have a basic understanding of how his stats work.

[oldnavy]

You are using an incorrect statistic here- total rebound differential tells you nothing because teams have different numbers of opportunities for rebounds.

In duke's case , we don't look so bad in rebound margin because duke shoots better than our opponents and this opponents get less chances for rebounds. But in the percentage of defensive and offensive rebound opportunities, duke is getting dominated

My point is that I am not worried about rebounding no matter how you slice and dice the data. My point is that we get exactly one less rebound per game than our opponents get (not exactly getting smoked on the boards) and yet we have won each and every game, the last by 23 points. So do I put a lot of stock in how important rebounding % is? .... no I do not.

And no one has said what the difference between 1st and 200th is by the way. I suspect it is significant, but it may not be. Sure Kempon pointed it out so it must be significant (right?), but I would like to know how much worse are we than the team that is 25th?

Is it possible that rebounding may cost us a game or two this year? You bet! But so will a poor shooting night, or a bad perimeter matchup with a super hot opponent, or Mason reverting back to his poor FT shooting, or just a flat overall performance. There are tons of things to worry about if you choose to.

Can Duke get better at rebounding YES! We can get better in all areas of the game.

Do I hope they get better at rebounding YES! I am confident that the coaching staff will give it the appropriate attention as we move forward.

Am I going to fret over a single rebounding statistic (or two if you count O and D as seperate)? NO!

Kenpom points out Dukes 'problem' and I guess he gets paid to do this. Fine, I just don't see it as that big of a deal for this team at this point in the season. Nine games is a small sample size. I expect we will move more to the center as the year goes on. If not and we remain in the bottom 25th percentile and keep on playing the way we have, then I will be happy, happy, happy! (to quote that great american Phil Robertson).

I will put this 'problem' just below 'minutes played/short bench' and right above 'Duke doesn't develope big men' concerns on my things to worry about list.

I just hope that everyone will sit back and enjoy what this team is doing and has done. We have something special in the making.

[pfrduke]

And no one has said what the difference between 1st and 200th is by the way. I suspect it is significant, but it may not be. Sure Kempon pointed it out so it must be significant (right?), but I would like to know how much worse are we than the team that is 25th?

The best defensive rebounding team in the country right now is San Francisco, which gets a crazy 86.8% of opponents' misses. They are an outlier (nearly 8% better than second place) and that kind of performance is almost certainly going to regress to the mean.

The 25th best defensive rebounding team in the country right now is Washington State, which gets 73.4% of opponents' misses.

Duke presently gets 65% of opponents' misses.

[mike88]

If we want to go deep in the NCAA tournament, I think we will have to improve our rebounding considerably. Teams that advance in the tournament tend to not turn the ball over, so we can't count on just winning the turnover margin to produce victories. If we shoot well (particularly from 3 point range) we may still advance, but I think our chances of getting to the Elite 8 or Final Four will require us to hit the boards more aggressively. Getting MP3 in the lineup should help, both directly and because it will allow Mason to be a little more aggressive and not worry as much about fouling. But I think the main "problem" that I see is we are getting beat on long rebounds and 50/50 balls, and it will probably take better work by the guards (and/or Jefferson when he plays the 3) to pick it up on the defensive boards.

[supbros]

The best defensive rebounding team in the country right now is San Francisco, which gets a crazy 86.8% of opponents' misses. They are an outlier (nearly 8% better than second place) and that kind of performance is almost certainly going to regress to the mean.

The 25th best defensive rebounding team in the country right now is Washington State, which gets 73.4% of opponents' misses.

Duke presently gets 65% of opponents' misses.

Of course that overstates how bad Duke's rebounding has been, since our schedule has been insanely hard and we have faced some great rebounding teams. 65% isn't good, but it really isn't that bad all things considered, not to mention that it could trend up w/ the return of MP3 and Murphy possibly squeezing in some minutes at the 3.

The other thing is that meh rebounding isn't a death knell in the tourney. Here are the D-Reb%'s in conference play for the past 4 champs:

2012: UK 68.4% (in a bad SEC)
2011: UConn 64.4%
2010: Duke 65.3%
2009: UNC 66.6%

Rebounding is a big part of the game and it is maddening to consistently give up 2nd chance opportunities, but the bottom line is that in general it is rare for teams to have very high D-Reb rates against tough competition. Further it clearly isn't necessary to be dominant on the glass in order to succeed in the tourney. It is surely a weak spot for Duke, but we have been dominant offensively and our defense concedes very few quality shots. I'm really not too concerned about our rebounding- worst thing that can be said is that it makes us beatable- but who isn't beatable these days?

[oldnavy]

The best defensive rebounding team in the country right now is San Francisco, which gets a crazy 86.8% of opponents' misses. They are an outlier (nearly 8% better than second place) and that kind of performance is almost certainly going to regress to the mean.

The 25th best defensive rebounding team in the country right now is Washington State, which gets 73.4% of opponents' misses.

Duke presently gets 65% of opponents' misses.

Thanks pfrduke! That difference appears significant as far as the numbers go (-8% points).

We have room to improve and I expect that we will move toward the mean as the year goes on.

[NSDukeFan]

Well, except that's not really the data.

So, when we were actually filling out our ballots, only two of the past four champions have met your criteria. Pomeroy's ratings are useful as a tool, but they're not nearly as predictive as many people make them out to be.

Excellent point about pre- vs. post- tournament numbers as the champion will certainly end up with much better numbers after six wins against good teams. One other reason his methods may not be perfect predicting the champion is that it is a one and done tournament and they still have to play the games, 18-22 year olds against mostly 18-22 year olds and funny things happen in sports.

[uh_no]

Excellent point about pre- vs. post- tournament numbers as the champion will certainly end up with much better numbers after six wins against good teams. One other reason his methods may not be perfect predicting the champion is that it is a one and done tournament and they still have to play the games, 18-22 year olds against mostly 18-22 year olds and funny things happen in sports.

statistics can never predict the outcome of a single event, no matter how hard you try. It can only give you what the distribution of outcomes will be after a large number of trials (law of large numbers)

[Zeb]

While we're talking about Pomeroy, I am shocked that his model does not give Duke the #1 strength of schedule. We've beaten 3 of his top ten and 5 of his top 17, yet his #1 SoS is Mississippi Valley St. From Pomeroy's ratings explanation page comes this:
"The way I compute SOS is to average the opponents offensive and defensive ratings and to apply the pythagorean calculation to them to rank the overall schedules."


The best team Miss Valley St has played in #16 Cincinnati. After that its Ole Miss at 22, Virgina at 37, Northwestern at 82, and LSU at 106. Very surprising that their schedule (and two others) averages out higher than ours.

[ns7]

My point is that I am not worried about rebounding no matter how you slice and dice the data. My point is that we get exactly one less rebound per game than our opponents get (not exactly getting smoked on the boards) and yet we have won each and every game, the last by 23 points. So do I put a lot of stock in how important rebounding % is? .... no I do not.


We get a lot of rebounds now because we shoot well and force our opponents to shoot poorly. Thus we have more opportunities to get defensive rebounds than our opponents do.

What Ken is saying is that we will be fine as long as we continue to shoot well on offense and limit our opponents shooting on defense. He also says that it is rare to find a team with our profile and those team's historical successes are mixed.

Now what happens when we get into a game like 2010 vs. Baylor (36%) or 2006 vs LSU (27%!). In 2010 we were a great rebounding team and used that to overcome a bad shooting night. In 2006 we were an average/poor rebounding team and could not overcome bad shooting.

So would I say we should worry about rebounding? Yes, and almost every team will have a weakness and should continue to look for ways to improve those weaknesses. This team is no different.

[Kedsy]

Now what happens when we get into a game like 2010 vs. Baylor (36%) or 2006 vs LSU (27%!). In 2010 we were a great rebounding team and used that to overcome a bad shooting night. In 2006 we were an average/poor rebounding team and could not overcome bad shooting.

You appear to be talking about offensive rebounding, and while our offensive rebounding isn't very good, most of this thread has been devoted to angst over defensive rebounding.

[Ian]

We can get better at rebounding, but I don't think we can get away from rebounding being a persistent issue for this team this year.

It comes from the fact that we play a 3 guard lineup, plus our 4 is probably a below average rebounder for his position. I do think AJ and AM can help the rebounding situation but they are probably not the players who will be in a game during crucial times.

There are no team without weaknesses, winning comes from letting your strengths compensate for your weaknesses. Let's just hope our defense, our offensive versatility and efficiency can make up for it. One way to do it is to generate more TOs, every turnover is a possession where the other team doesn't get a chance for an offensive rebound.

[ice-9]

KenPom was merely highlighting that defensive rebounding is a relative weakness -- not a death knell.

Where Duke has to improve on is preventing penetration; that's where we're losing out on defensive rebounding battles. When the opposing player gets into the lane and Mason moves over to challenge the shot, the shooter often misses but only for Mason's man to collect the rebound and score the easy bucket. The Duke player who got burned needs to do a better job of switching to Mason's guy and boxing him out when that happens. Or to not let the slasher get by at all.

Kelly also has to do a better job. He should almost always have a height advantage on his man, and there's no reason why he can't be averaging more rebounds.

[sporthenry]

While we're talking about Pomeroy, I am shocked that his model does not give Duke the #1 strength of schedule. We've beaten 3 of his top ten and 5 of his top 17, yet his #1 SoS is Mississippi Valley St. From Pomeroy's ratings explanation page comes this:
"The way I compute SOS is to average the opponents offensive and defensive ratings and to apply the pythagorean calculation to them to rank the overall schedules."


The best team Miss Valley St has played in #16 Cincinnati. After that its Ole Miss at 22, Virgina at 37, Northwestern at 82, and LSU at 106. Very surprising that their schedule (and two others) averages out higher than ours.

Well they only have 5 games so that helps and if you just average those 5, it makes sense to be higher than Duke who has a very top loaded schedule. The games against Delaware and FGCU are worse opponents than any MVSU has and Georgia State (in the 220's) kills Duke. MVSU players a team at 82 and 106 and averages at 90. Duke plays 2 and 220 and averages at 105.

As far as KenPom, I'm sure his stats are like most other stats in that limited data points hurts too much analysis. By seasons end, many of the top teams will have relatively similar SOS's but I would agree that his stats probably don't account for just how bad some of these bad teams are. The difference between 10 and 50 is probably big but the difference between 100 and 200 is probably huge. And until more teams play more opponents, it seems silly to look to much into the stats.

[Ian]

I think using average to calculate the strength of schedule is extremely problematic.

Let's say team A and B played the exact same schedule, and then team A plays an extra game against a weak opponent. In his system team A would have a worse SOS. But common sense tells you that it doesn't matter how weak the opponent in the extra game is, in no way can you say that Team B played a stronger schedule. Every extra game played should add to a a team's SOS, playing a weak team should increase (however minutely) a team's SOS more than not playing a game at all.


SOS should be determined by an 1/(average team's likelihood of going undefeated against said schedule). The lower the likelihood, the harder the SOS. That way, if a team plays an extra game against a weak opponent, that an average team has a 90% of beating, then their SOS will be increased by 10% as a result.

[ns7]

You appear to be talking about offensive rebounding, and while our offensive rebounding isn't very good, most of this thread has been devoted to angst over defensive rebounding.

I suppose, however, my point still applies. Both offensive and defensive rebounding grow in importance in games where teams shoot poorly.

[Greg_Newton]

While in theory this is completely true, in practice my observation has been that when good teams feast on poor teams their efficiency numbers go up disproportionately. So my guess is our adjusted numbers would look better, just not as much better as the raw numbers.

Yeah, it really seems like he should put a cap on victory margin that his model takes into account. Whether or not you build on your 20-point halftime lead versus a directional school with four names shouldn't "prove" more to his model than winning a close game against a top team. Silliness.

[licc85]

I'm not going to pretend like I know how Pomeroy's system works, but I tend to lean towards the Billy Bean/statheads/sabermetrics side of things when it comes to arguments over efficiency and such. After all, cold hard numbers are just about the least biased source of information you can look at. As far as the eye-test goes, after watching all 8 games, (and some of them twice), I think I'd have to agree that our rebounding is somewhat lacking.

I'm okay with not sending guys to crash the boards on offense. This is more of a stylistic thing, and I think Coach K recognizes that we aren't a particularly great rebounding roster, with no Alex Poythress type athletes who can throw down thunderous putback slams with ease, and would rather get back on D than to risk giving opponents a chance for a fast break with superior numbers. However, what we cannot accept is the lack of effort on the defensive boards. We've allowed waaaay too many easy buckets due to not boxing out opponents for defensive boards.

This is to the fact that our most common lineup involves having 3 guards out there with Mason in the middle and Ryan lurking on the wings. It's not that Ryan is a horrible rebounder . . . he's below average for sure, but it's more that he's not a banger, and isn't in the trenches looking to scrap with guys for a chance at the glass. He's a perimeter player, and more often than not, he's trying to draw defenders away from the paint on offense, and doesn't have a chance at the offensive board. That said, he's one of the worst offenders as far not boxing out guys.

Also, having a 3rd guard out there hurts our rebounding at the small forward position. For example, during the UK game, we have Tyler and Rasheed out there checking 6-8 Alex Poythress. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how Poythress dominated the offensive glass.

Our current backup center is 6-7. Enough said.

Lastly, we're missing possibly the 2nd best rebounder on the team in Marshall Plumlee. I think with him as our first big off the bench, our rebounding SHOULD improve. Let's hope this doesn't become an issue later this season. If we experience an extremely cold night of shooting, we are going to need every advantage we can grasp, and shoring up our weakness on the glass will be important to our title hopes this year.

[bob blue devil]

I think using average to calculate the strength of schedule is extremely problematic.

Let's say team A and B played the exact same schedule, and then team A plays an extra game against a weak opponent. In his system team A would have a worse SOS. But common sense tells you that it doesn't matter how weak the opponent in the extra game is, in no way can you say that Team B played a stronger schedule. Every extra game played should add to a a team's SOS, playing a weak team should increase (however minutely) a team's SOS more than not playing a game at all.


SOS should be determined by an 1/(average team's likelihood of going undefeated against said schedule). The lower the likelihood, the harder the SOS. That way, if a team plays an extra game against a weak opponent, that an average team has a 90% of beating, then their SOS will be increased by 10% as a result.

interesting idea, but it is probably also flawed. for example, if you were an average team and played 30 games against the worst team in the ncaa, but played 1 team against a team that was #1 by a country mile and virtually impossible for the average team to beat, then you'd be 30-1 with a fantastic strength of schedule.

[Skitzle]

Looking at the stats from the article on the homepage, its really clear that: No Duke National Champion has ever averaged a negative rebounding margin.

So yea, at this point I would say it could be deemed a fatal flaw.

Is this team a really good one? You bet.
Could rebounding (or lack their of) be a fatal flaw? You bet.

Question to those who have time to do the research. Which National Champ was the last one to average a negative rebounding margin on the season?

-Skitzle

[Skitzle]

2012: UK 68.4% (in a bad SEC)
2011: UConn 64.4%
2010: Duke 65.3%
2009: UNC 66.6%


Great stat and a great comparison!

But the Duke team at least was one of the best at Offensive Rebound % in the country, and not surprisingly:

Offensive Rebounding %
2012 Kentucky: 37% (17th)
2011 Uconn: 37.1 (8th)
2010 Duke: 39.8 (6th)
2009 UNC: 39% (21st)

Duke 2013
28.3% Offensive
65.2% Defensive

For More Comparison (2012-2013) (Yes its early...)
Team - Def - Off
Indiana - 74.7% - 41.7%
Michigan - 78.6% - 34.8%
Syracuse - 73.6% - 40.5%
Lousiville - 75.1% - 41.6%
Florida - 72.0% - 43.9%
Ohio State - 71.7% - 37.6%
Duke (2001) - 64.9% - 36.1%

Duke needs to up the percentage on one (or both) of their rebounding stats.

This is in fatal flaw territory...

[Skitzle]

And More

Total Rebounding Rate (Natl. Champs)
2013 - Duke (Natl. Champs?!!!) - 49%
2012 - Kentucky - 54.8%
2011 - Connecticut - 52.8%
2010 - Duke - 54.2%
2009 - North Carolina - 54.1%
2008 - Kansas - 55.7%
2007 - Florida - 55.9%
2006 - Florida - 52.7%
2005 - North Carolina - 55.1%
2004 - Connecticut - 56.3 % (Duke - 51.6%)
2003 - Syracuse - 53%
2002 - Maryland - 52.7%
2001 - Duke - 50.8%
2000 - Michigan State - 60%
1999 - Connecticut - 55.0%
1998 - Kentucky -56.1%


Zero were out rebounded by their opponents.
The lowest was Duke in 2001 with 50.8%
The second lowest was 2 teams at 52.7%

I'm not saying Duke can't improve, but I am saying that if they don't they will not win the NCAA's. They will have a very good year though.

[COYS]

While again, this is largely true, Pomeroy also knows his audience. I have noticed him over the years apologizing when he says good things about Duke. Including in 2010, when my recollection is pre-tournament he said he personally didn't think Duke was the best team despite his ratings. He also apologized a couple weeks ago when Duke dominated his blog entry.

I don't know, I think he qualifies almost anything good he says about any team, noting frequently how statistics can't tell the whole tail. Before the post where he said he apologized for mentioning Duke so much (which I thought was done more because it was in a post that was supposed to cover the highlights of all of college basketball but focused primarily on Duke because of Duke's high profile games), he had another post that mentioned that he was surprised that people had not started mentioning that Duke is "really, really good." (http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/entry/log5_thanksgiving_tournaments) Plus, even Jumbo, who was bullish on the 2010 team's title chances from the beginning, mentioned that he thought Kansas might actually be the better, more rounded team in 2010, even though he thought Duke was playing the best going into the tourney. By the time the tourney actually came around, Pomeroy unequivocally pegged Duke as the favorite in his blog, regardless of what he had said about them earlier (and while I've "exceeded the page load request" for his blog and therefore can't continue to search for it right now, I remember him saying something similar to what even a lot of us believe now, that Duke may not have been the most talented team in terms of long term talent, but was the best TEAM and was not nearly as far behind UK and Kansas in the talent department as many believed).

Also, Pomeroy took a LOT of heat for marking Duke as the favorites in 2010. He stood by his guns and even had an "I told you so" blog post after the tournament directed at those who sent him hate mail.

He's not a particularly amazing writer, but I think he does a good job sounding balanced and fair. His article on Duke's rebounding issues was more to highlight the fact that this year's Duke team is an anomaly among top teams (including past Duke teams) while simultaneously saying that the lack of defensive rebounding doesn't necessarily mean anything for March success. He also was one of the first to peg Duke as an elite team this year.

I'm not saying you're wrong, Kedsy. It's possible he takes really small jabs to avoid alienating the anti-Duke crowd. But I think that if he is slightly biased against Duke, he's got to be so far down on the list of Duke Haters that he's virtually not worth listing.

[CDu]

Yeah, it really seems like he should put a cap on victory margin that his model takes into account. Whether or not you build on your 20-point halftime lead versus a directional school with four names shouldn't "prove" more to his model than winning a close game against a top team. Silliness.

Well, Pomeroy's metrics don't actually deal with margin of victory. His analysis is purely one of offensive and defensive efficiency (points scored/allowed per 100 possessions). So you'd have to set some sort of cap on efficiency measures (either a low end on defensive efficiency or a high end on offensive efficiency or both).

[sammy3469]

This rebounding discussion is all well and good, but our Points Per Possession (unadjusted for opposition) on both offense and defense are the same as they were (1.16 and .92 respectively) in the last championship season (and are basically the same as KY last season...they were 1.17 and .91). Color me concerned when those rates start to change.

FWIW, this same discussion is going on in NBA circles as it relates to Miami and the Knicks this year, both teams like Duke really only want 3 types of shots, a shot at the rim, a free throw, or a 3 pointer. All 3 teams are pushing this offensive philosophy to its extreme especially on the offensive boards where they basically "give-up" (to varying degrees) to get back on defense.

[CDu]

This rebounding discussion is all well and good, but our Points Per Possession (unadjusted for opposition) on both offense and defense are the same as they were (1.16 and .92 respectively) in the last championship season (and are basically the same as KY last season...they were 1.17 and .91). Color me concerned when those rates start to change.

Yes, and that's what Pomeroy is saying as well.

[supbros]

You simply can't compare Duke's reb rates thus far to other teams thus far because not only have we played a uniquely difficult schedule, but many teams we have faced happen to be uniquely good at O-Rebounding

If it makes y'all feel better our D-Reb%'s will look a bit better after we stomp on Cornell, Santa Clara, Elon, and Davidson. We'll very likely do > 65% in ACC play as well. Remember that we are undefeated against an incredibly tough SOS in spite of this- this is because many of the opponents we have faced (namely everybody in Atlantis) is EXPECTED to provide stiff rebounding tests. Spoiler alert: they gave us issues and we won anyway, because we outmatch them in other areas moreso than they outmatched on us the glass.

[supbros]

This rebounding discussion is all well and good, but our Points Per Possession (unadjusted for opposition) on both offense and defense are the same as they were (1.16 and .92 respectively) in the last championship season (and are basically the same as KY last season...they were 1.17 and .91). Color me concerned when those rates start to change.

FWIW, this same discussion is going on in NBA circles as it relates to Miami and the Knicks this year, both teams like Duke really only want 3 types of shots, a shot at the rim, a free throw, or a 3 pointer. All 3 teams are pushing this offensive philosophy to its extreme especially on the offensive boards where they basically "give-up" (to varying degrees) to get back on defense.

Yup, great post.

People sometimes get too hung up on microanalysis and often miss the bottom line. Not to mention that we have been doing it against a tougher schedule than the ship team, so really we have been slightly more impressive all things considered.

We have proven that we can dominate in spite of rebounding woes. Unless people are concerned that our current levels of offensive production and shot prevention are not sustainable, there's nothing to be worried about.

[COYS]

Well, Pomeroy's metrics don't actually deal with margin of victory. His analysis is purely one of offensive and defensive efficiency (points scored/allowed per 100 possessions). So you'd have to set some sort of cap on efficiency measures (either a low end on defensive efficiency or a high end on offensive efficiency or both).

He has mentioned this as weakness, saying that his model has no way to compensate for how efficiency margins change in blowouts depending on how long both teams leave their starters in. How much better would Duke's efficiency numbers look if the starters had stayed in against Temple for one more minute or come out one minute earlier? The outcome would not have changed, but there could easily be a pretty large swing in efficiency if Temple scores 10 more total points against a second string defense even if those 10 points were only the difference between a 30 point win or a 20 point win. While KenPom's pythag numbers are starting to separate the elite teams from the very good teams, the numbers are still closely clustered. The last 7 points Temple scored against Duke's second string, while having very little effect on the overall numbers, very well could have been the reason our defensive rank actually fell relative to other teams. Similarly, the fact that Duke has played a tough schedule and therefore kept its best players in for larger parts of the game may actually HELP Duke's rankings, especially if Pomeroy's strength of schedule weighting methods aren't perfect.

Overall, though, I bet this weakness becomes less and less significant as the season progresses. The more data points his model gets, the more accurate it will be, especially as the top teams play other top teams more and more times. While isolated head to head results don't move Kenpom's needle that much, once Indiana, Duke, Michigan, Ohio State, Louisville, Florida and other top teams have had a chance to play a significant number of teams in the top 50, those teams that got efficiency bumps in blow-outs will be balanced out if they have lower than expected efficiency margins against teams in the conference schedule. I think this is why he doesn't cap efficiency.

[supbros]

I'm not saying you're wrong, Kedsy. It's possible he takes really small jabs to avoid alienating the anti-Duke crowd. But I think that if he is slightly biased against Duke, he's got to be so far down on the list of Duke Haters that he's virtually not worth listing.

KenPom historically overrates Duke and especially Wisconsin since their home FT rates inflate their margin of victory above their "true" talent level, so I would imagine that any apology has something do to with this.

FWIW I would imagine that Wisky is in particular overrated because they are likely less good at winning close games than Duke is.

[gumbomoop]

FWIW, this same discussion is going on in NBA circles as it relates to Miami and the Knicks this year, both teams like Duke really only want 3 types of shots, a shot at the rim, a free throw, or a 3 pointer. All 3 teams are pushing this offensive philosophy to its extreme especially on the offensive boards where they basically "give-up" (to varying degrees) to get back on defense.

Maybe because I can see that Duke wants a lot of each of these 3 types of shots, it's always a good feeling to see some variety, as when (1) Kelly pump-fakes his man out at the 3-line and then steps or dribbles closer in for that soft jumper, (2) Kelly receives a pass from the wing as he moves to the elbow or FT-line for a soft jumper, (3) Sulaimon or Curry, each with a decent handle, dribbles into the lane for a pull-up jumper, and even when (4) Cook floats a floater in the lane. Admittedly (4) inspires a little less confidence than (1-3), but the variety is good.

[patentgeek]

He has mentioned this as weakness, saying that his model has no way to compensate for how efficiency margins change in blowouts depending on how long both teams leave their starters in. How much better would Duke's efficiency numbers look if the starters had stayed in against Temple for one more minute or come out one minute earlier? The outcome would not have changed, but there could easily be a pretty large swing in efficiency if Temple scores 10 more total points against a second string defense even if those 10 points were only the difference between a 30 point win or a 20 point win. While KenPom's pythag numbers are starting to separate the elite teams from the very good teams, the numbers are still closely clustered. The last 7 points Temple scored against Duke's second string, while having very little effect on the overall numbers, very well could have been the reason our defensive rank actually fell relative to other teams. Similarly, the fact that Duke has played a tough schedule and therefore kept its best players in for larger parts of the game may actually HELP Duke's rankings, especially if Pomeroy's strength of schedule weighting methods aren't perfect.

Overall, though, I bet this weakness becomes less and less significant as the season progresses. The more data points his model gets, the more accurate it will be, especially as the top teams play other top teams more and more times. While isolated head to head results don't move Kenpom's needle that much, once Indiana, Duke, Michigan, Ohio State, Louisville, Florida and other top teams have had a chance to play a significant number of teams in the top 50, those teams that got efficiency bumps in blow-outs will be balanced out if they have lower than expected efficiency margins against teams in the conference schedule. I think this is why he doesn't cap efficiency.

This article, which came out a couple of years ago, offers a potential solution to the "blow-out" problem. I'm not sure whether I agree or disagree with the idea, but it's an interesting thought.

http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1183

[robed deity]

You simply can't compare Duke's reb rates thus far to other teams thus far because not only have we played a uniquely difficult schedule, but many teams we have faced happen to be uniquely good at O-Rebounding

If it makes y'all feel better our D-Reb%'s will look a bit better after we stomp on Cornell, Santa Clara, Elon, and Davidson. We'll very likely do > 65% in ACC play as well. Remember that we are undefeated against an incredibly tough SOS in spite of this- this is because many of the opponents we have faced (namely everybody in Atlantis) is EXPECTED to provide stiff rebounding tests. Spoiler alert: they gave us issues and we won anyway, because we outmatch them in other areas moreso than they outmatched on us the glass.



This is what has me confused. Some have mentioned that the rebounding pctg stats that Pomeroy talks about ARE adjusted for strength of opposition. If that's the case, then in theory, it shows Duke to be a relatively weak rebounding team and winning in spite of it. But if they aren't adjusted, then of course Duke's rebounding numbers will reflect the tougher teams they've faced, and there's not really anything to talk about.

Although, I suppose, like the overall efficiency numbers, playing a weak schedule can inflate the rebounding numbers even if they are adjusted. Then, yes-Duke might get a boost in this upcoming stretch of games.

[supbros]

KenPom adjusts offensive and defensive efficiency (points per 100 possessions) for strength of schedule, but he does not adjust rebound %'s.

[sammy3469]

Yes, and that's what Pomeroy is saying as well.


Yup, great post.

People sometimes get too hung up on microanalysis and often miss the bottom line. Not to mention that we have been doing it against a tougher schedule than the ship team, so really we have been slightly more impressive all things considered.

We have proven that we can dominate in spite of rebounding woes. Unless people are concerned that our current levels of offensive production and shot prevention are not sustainable, there's nothing to be worried about.

That's the thing, at least on the offensive end, they aren't woes, they a result of how you run your offense and defense. Duke, Miami, Knicks, (Dallas in their championship season, the Magic with Howard are two other examples) specifically only send at most one guy to the offensive boards (Melo occasionally boards when he posts up, but for the most part he gets back on D too) and sends all the guys surrounding the 3 point line back on defense so they are set and able to apply defensive pressure in an attempt to get turnovers and stop easy runout layups/3point shots.

From an efficiency perspective this works since you are getting the 3 most efficient shots (at the rim, at line, at the 3 point line) while avoiding less than optimal shots. Of course getting those shots means you first have to either have a PG that get can get to the rim or run pick and roll repeatedly (i.e the spread motion offense) to get the defense out of position (Stan Van Gundy talked about this for awhile Friday on the Dan Lebatard show in reference to the Magic, Knicks, and Heat). Uncoincidentally, Duke runs a bunch of pick and roll to get open threes.

Having said all that, it would be nice if they rebounded a tad better on the defensive end.

[supbros]

Honestly if we gave all of Thornton's minutes to Murphy and let Sheed + Curry share PG duties when Cook is on the bench (as well as work MP3 into the rotation), then we'd get the rebounding boost that we need w/o suffering in other areas.

I don't think Coach K will stop playing TT altogether, but this is really the completely obvious solution here.

[robed deity]

KenPom adjusts offensive and defensive efficiency (points per 100 possessions) for strength of schedule, but he does not adjust rebound %'s.

In that case, Duke's rebounding numbers aren't surprising and I don't know what the big deal is. They've played by far the toughest schedule of any top team, and like you said, have played some good rebounding teams. After the next few games, I bet the percentages will look better.

[COYS]

This article, which came out a couple of years ago, offers a potential solution to the "blow-out" problem. I'm not sure whether I agree or disagree with the idea, but it's an interesting thought.

http://www.basketballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1183

I remember that article. Thanks for posting it. It is really interesting and I think carries some weight. At the very least, it would be cool to see some sort of win probability method alongside the efficiency stats supplied by KenPom.

[Kedsy]

I think using average to calculate the strength of schedule is extremely problematic.

Let's say team A and B played the exact same schedule, and then team A plays an extra game against a weak opponent. In his system team A would have a worse SOS. But common sense tells you that it doesn't matter how weak the opponent in the extra game is, in no way can you say that Team B played a stronger schedule. Every extra game played should add to a a team's SOS, playing a weak team should increase (however minutely) a team's SOS more than not playing a game at all.


SOS should be determined by an 1/(average team's likelihood of going undefeated against said schedule). The lower the likelihood, the harder the SOS. That way, if a team plays an extra game against a weak opponent, that an average team has a 90% of beating, then their SOS will be increased by 10% as a result.

Once again, it depends on the purpose of rating a team's schedule strength. Personally, I think "likelihood of going undefeated against said schedule" is a poor measurement. I also completely disagree with your notion that playing a weak opponent should ever increase your SOS. But that's just my subjective opinion.

In Pomeroy's case, he's using schedule strength to put offensive and defensive efficiencies into context. For that purpose, in your example Team A should have a worse SOS than a team who played the same schedule except didn't get the extra cupcake.


I'm not saying you're wrong, Kedsy. It's possible he takes really small jabs to avoid alienating the anti-Duke crowd. But I think that if he is slightly biased against Duke, he's got to be so far down on the list of Duke Haters that he's virtually not worth listing.

I agree he's not a hater. He just seems to apologize a lot when he says good things about Duke. FWIW, I don't think his statements about Duke's poor rebounding should count as a jab. He's right that we're not that good at rebounding and that we have to continue to be great at the other three factors (at both ends of the floor) to make up for it.

[COYS]

KenPom historically overrates Duke and especially Wisconsin since their home FT rates inflate their margin of victory above their "true" talent level, so I would imagine that any apology has something do to with this.

FWIW I would imagine that Wisky is in particular overrated because they are likely less good at winning close games than Duke is.

Out of curiosity, why do you say this? I remember Kenpom mentioning something about Wisconsin sometimes being overrated just because they seem to have one of the strongest home court advantages in college basketball and their home/away splits are out of whack year after year, but I don't remember him saying anything to this effect about Duke. Last season, Duke, with a relatively weak team by Duke standards, went undefeated on the road in the ACC, including a win over top 6 KenPom team UNC, but played rather poorly at home. This season, Duke's biggest wins have all come away from home, including what amounts to a semi-away win (even though it is not officially recorded that way) in what UK fans refer to as "Catlanta." That was true last season, as well, as Duke's big win over KU came in Maui.

[Kedsy]

Overall, though, I bet this weakness becomes less and less significant as the season progresses. The more data points his model gets, the more accurate it will be, especially as the top teams play other top teams more and more times. While isolated head to head results don't move Kenpom's needle that much, once Indiana, Duke, Michigan, Ohio State, Louisville, Florida and other top teams have had a chance to play a significant number of teams in the top 50, those teams that got efficiency bumps in blow-outs will be balanced out if they have lower than expected efficiency margins against teams in the conference schedule. I think this is why he doesn't cap efficiency.

It has always amazed me how much Pomeroy's ratings can shift during the NCAA tournament, even after team's have played 30+ games. With that in mind, I'm not sure these things do balance out. Teams who feast on cupcakes may in fact have inflated efficiency stats. On the other hand, teams who beat on cupcakes handily but not by as much as they should have will suffer in these stats. It's very complicated, and very difficult to put any kind of objective cap on it and I don't blame Pomeroy for not capping the numbers.

[pfrduke]

It has always amazed me how much Pomeroy's ratings can shift during the NCAA tournament, even after team's have played 30+ games. With that in mind, I'm not sure these things do balance out. Teams who feast on cupcakes may in fact have inflated efficiency stats. On the other hand, teams who beat on cupcakes handily but not by as much as they should have will suffer in these stats. It's very complicated, and very difficult to put any kind of objective cap on it and I don't blame Pomeroy for not capping the numbers.

If I remember correctly, he has a recency effect to his ratings such that more recent games are weighted more heavily than games from earlier in the season. Put another way, if we played Kentucky in the NCAA tournament, that results of that game would have a larger impact on our rating than the results of the Kentucky game from November.

[COYS]

It has always amazed me how much Pomeroy's ratings can shift during the NCAA tournament, even after team's have played 30+ games. With that in mind, I'm not sure these things do balance out. Teams who feast on cupcakes may in fact have inflated efficiency stats. On the other hand, teams who beat on cupcakes handily but not by as much as they should have will suffer in these stats. It's very complicated, and very difficult to put any kind of objective cap on it and I don't blame Pomeroy for not capping the numbers.

I think the biggest issue is that 30+ games really isn't that many, especially given the ridiculously wide disparity in the quality of competition from game to game. If the top 50 college teams all played 35 games against only the top 50, those data points would probably be more meaningful. I'm not subscribing this season, so I can't check, but isn't there a way to only look at the ratings from conference games? I vaguely remember doing this in the past in an attempt account for weak competition for teams that play in a weaker conference. I think I might have done that for Memphis in 2009 when they were KenPom's top rated team but I didn't believe they really had a legitimate shot at the title due to their extremely weak Conference USA schedule. I think I discovered that their conference ratings were higher than their non-conference ratings. I might have done that manually, though, by looking at their "Game Plan" section. For the ACC and other strong conferences, it might be useful to look only at the conference results. There are a few cupcakes even within the conference, but even the bad teams are often pretty familiar with their opponents, which means that beating down on a bad conference foe just might be a bit more impressive since those conference foes probably have really good scouting reports about your team.

Incidentally, was it a year ago that Pomeroy himself was talking about how the best way to guess the final four was actually to look at the preseason polls? Since human voters see the weekly polls as a snapshot of current results, any team that loses, even a team that loses respectably to another good team, is usually penalized immediately even if that one loss will have little bearing on their fate in March. However, human voters seem to make pretty good assessments of the talent level of a team during the preseason. There are exceptions (UNC: 2009-2010 being my favorite, of course, and I'm hoping to add UNC 2012-2013 to that list), but preseason predictions are usually pretty good. Plus Pomeroy doesn't account for injuries, suspensions, or other factors that affect teams throughout the season. I use Pomeroy a lot when filling out my brackets, but I also take a look at preseason projections, as well, to identify the teams that may have lost a few extra tough games here and there but still have the talent to make a run in the tourney. Despite all the advanced analysis available these days, the media consensus is often just as accurate, despite the presence of a large number of know-nothings in the sports media world.

[timmy c]

Honestly if we gave all of Thornton's minutes to Murphy and let Sheed + Curry share PG duties when Cook is on the bench (as well as work MP3 into the rotation), then we'd get the rebounding boost that we need w/o suffering in other areas.

I don't think Coach K will stop playing TT altogether, but this is really the completely obvious solution here.

I strongly disagree.

While Alex might be a better rebounder than Thornton, but he certainly is not the overall defender that Thornton is. Thornton’s defensive steals -- 5.3% -- ranks him 33rd in the nation. Those steals mean the opponent does not even get a chance at a shot, much less a rebound of their miss.

In addition, the focus of this thread – rebounding – is myopic. It misses the larger picture that you don’t win games by out-rebounding the other team – you win by outscoring them.

Look at the Temple game for example.

Temple missed 25 shots in the first half. They managed to get 40% of those misses, 10 offensive rebounds, but only recorded six 2nd chance points. Again – six 2nd chance points! 10 offensive redbounds seems to be allot. But six 2nd chance points means that Temple was not effective at making them count in the most important stat - scoring.

Rebounding is an important skill in basketball. But, if teams allow Duke to an shoot an effective field goal percentage of 63% from the field, like Temple did in the first half, any advantage in rebounds that Alex offers becomes statically insignificant.

[COYS]

I strongly disagree.

While Alex might be a better rebounder than Thornton, but he certainly is not the overall defender that Thornton is. Thornton’s defensive steals -- 5.3% -- ranks him 33rd in the nation. Those steals mean the opponent does not even get a chance at a shot, much less a rebound of their miss.

In addition, the focus of this thread – rebounding – is myopic. It misses the larger picture that you don’t win games by out-rebounding the other team – you win by outscoring them.

Look at the Temple game for example.

Temple missed 25 shots in the first half. They managed to get 40% of those misses, 10 offensive rebounds, but only recorded six 2nd chance points. Again – six 2nd chance points!

Rebounding is an important skill in basketball. But, if teams allow Duke to an shoot an effective field goal percentage of 63% from the field, like Temple did in the first half, any advantage in rebounds that Alex offers becomes statically insignificant.

I'm glad you brought up Tyler's steal percentage. He is, in my opinion, by far the best on our team at knowing where to rotate after the primary defender is beaten and needs help from the secondary defender. He gets a lot of his steals cutting off the passing lanes to otherwise wide-open guys either setting up along the baseline or in the corner. Tyler has really improved in this aspect of the game. Purely from the eye-test, Tyler has also improved his on the ball defensive chops, as well. His steal percentage is much improved from last year. He has also bumped his rebound percentage up to almost 10%. Tyler is a big reason why teams are not scoring on Duke like they were last year, rebounds or no rebounds.

Rebounding is important, but I also agree with your overall assessment. Duke might be uniquely poor among the teams elite teams rated by KenPom in the recent past at rebounding, but so far, we've been exceptional on offense and on the defensive end with regard to eFG%. The staff has clearly put an emphasis on rebounding. If Duke makes marginal improvements on the defensive glass (which I think is entirely doable), and everything else stays the same, we will be an exceptionally difficult team to beat.

[supbros]

Well for starters TT is definitely inferior to Murphy offensively, seeing that he can do nothing other than hit wide open 3's. In terms of defense, TT's done a pretty good job this year but he's not Aaron Craft or anything, and he becomes a liability if used against a team that plays a big 3. Poythress destroyed us because Sheed was overmatched against him on the glass, and whenever TT is in the game it often means that either Seth or Sheed is playing the 3, which isn't really an issue we can work around.

Sure Murphy hasn't looked great defensively to start the season, but as he gets minutes and repetitions he'll likely be fine by tourney time, as is standard for most freshmen. Given that he addresses our greatest concerned defensively (rebounding) and gives us size that will be useful in more tourney matchups than not, I think he can easily match (and possibly exceed) Thornton's overall defensive value by March while blowing away his offensive production.

The thing that we all need to come to grips with is that TT isn't particularly good at basketball. Like he's OK at eating minutes w/o messing up too badly, but his play does not merit a significant role for a legit title contender. Who knows, maybe Murphy will end up sucking too, but at this moment he has considerably more upside than Thornton + fits our needs and I'd like to see what he can do.

[bob blue devil]

Well for starters TT is definitely inferior to Murphy offensively, seeing that he can do nothing other than hit wide open 3's. In terms of defense, TT's done a pretty good job this year but he's not Aaron Craft or anything, and he becomes a liability if used against a team that plays a big 3. Poythress destroyed us because Sheed was overmatched against him on the glass, and whenever TT is in the game it often means that either Seth or Sheed is playing the 3, which isn't really an issue we can work around.

Sure Murphy hasn't looked great defensively to start the season, but as he gets minutes and repetitions he'll likely be fine by tourney time, as is standard for most freshmen. Given that he addresses our greatest concerned defensively (rebounding) and gives us size that will be useful in more tourney matchups than not, I think he can easily match (and possibly exceed) Thornton's overall defensive value by March while blowing away his offensive production.

The thing that we all need to come to grips with is that TT isn't particularly good at basketball. Like he's OK at eating minutes w/o messing up too badly, but his play does not merit a significant role for a legit title contender. Who knows, maybe Murphy will end up sucking too, but at this moment he has considerably more upside than Thornton + fits our needs and I'd like to see what he can do.

yikes! the response to your complete dismissal of TT and all that he brings will be entertaining to read. unless people deem it unworthy of their time, for which i wouldn't blame them. let me begin with a word - intangibles.

[vick]

Incidentally, was it a year ago that Pomeroy himself was talking about how the best way to guess the final four was actually to look at the preseason polls? Since human voters see the weekly polls as a snapshot of current results, any team that loses, even a team that loses respectably to another good team, is usually penalized immediately even if that one loss will have little bearing on their fate in March. However, human voters seem to make pretty good assessments of the talent level of a team during the preseason.

He talked about it with the #1 team a few years ago, I believe this (http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/the_pre-season_ap_poll_is_great) is it. I'm not sure if he's ever discussed it for the Final Four in general, but I think he'd be right there too. A month or two ago I looked at the AP preseason vs. end-of-season (but pre-tournament) poll over the last ten years. I did it more or less manually, but I believe you would have correctly picked 15 of the last 40 Final Four teams by the top 4 in the preseason poll vs. 13 in the end-of-season poll.


School Season Preseason Poll End of Season Poll Tournament Result
Kansas 2002-2003 2 6 2
Marquette 2002-2003 18 9 4
Syracuse 2002-2003 n/a 13 1
Texas 2002-2003 4 5 4
Connecticut 2003-2004 1 7 1
Duke 2003-2004 2 6 4
Georgia Tech 2003-2004 n/a 14 2
Oklahoma State 2003-2004 25 4 4
Illinois 2004-2005 5 1 2
Louisville 2004-2005 14 4 4
Michigan State 2004-2005 13 15 4
UNC 2004-2005 4 2 1
Florida 2005-2006 n/a 11 1
UCLA 2005-2006 19 7 2
Florida 2006-2007 1 3 1
Georgetown 2006-2007 8 8 4
Ohio State 2006-2007 7 1 2
UCLA 2006-2007 6 7 4
Kansas 2007-2008 4 4 1
Memphis 2007-2008 3 2 2
UNC 2007-2008 1 1 4
UCLA 2007-2008 2 3 4
Connecticut 2008-2009 2 5 4
Michigan State 2008-2009 6 8 2
UNC 2008-2009 1 2 1
Villanova 2008-2009 23 11 4
Butler 2009-2010 11 11 2
Duke 2009-2010 9 3 1
Michigan State 2009-2010 2 13 4
West Virginia 2009-2010 8 6 4
Connecticut 2010-2011 n/a 9 1
Kentucky 2010-2011 11 11 4
Kansas 2011-2012 13 6 2
Kentucky 2011-2012 2 1 1
Louisville 2011-2012 9 17 4
Ohio State 2011-2012 3 7 4


(note that teams that weren't in the top-16 in either poll are excluded from my analysis, since what I was doing at the time was looking at general tournament performance, and since the poll doesn't go down to 32, I couldn't use anything outside of the top-16)

There's two things going on here, as I see it. One, the general tendency for pollsters to overweight a few good weeks toward the end of the year. Second, as much as fans hate to admit it, luck matters a lot in a single-elimination tournament, and all you can do is put yourself in a position to win, so predicting accurately is generally difficult-to-impossible. Sometimes the ball just bounces the wrong way.

[CDu]

Sure Murphy hasn't looked great defensively to start the season, but as he gets minutes and repetitions he'll likely be fine by tourney time, as is standard for most freshmen. Given that he addresses our greatest concerned defensively (rebounding) and gives us size that will be useful in more tourney matchups than not, I think he can easily match (and possibly exceed) Thornton's overall defensive value by March while blowing away his offensive production.

That's a big assumption based on very little evidence provided by Murphy. Is it possible? Sure. Should we expect it? I'm not so sure. And we certainly shouldn't say things like "replacing Thornton with Murphy will give us the rebounding boost that we need w/o suffering in other areas" with any sort of certainty.


The thing that we all need to come to grips with is that TT isn't particularly good at basketball.

Actually, he is quite good at basketball. He has his limitations offensively and athletically, but he has terrific court awareness and consistently makes terrific plays defensively. There's a reason Coach K likes having him on the floor, and it's not because he looks good in a uniform.


Who knows, maybe Murphy will end up sucking too, but at this moment he has considerably more upside than Thornton + fits our needs and I'd like to see what he can do.

And here's what it comes down to. You're intrigued by Murphy's potential and want to see what he can do. You're not intrigued by Thornton's potential and thus want him benched. You could probably skip the rest and just say this. I think we both agree that Thornton's ceiling is lower than Murphy's. What you seem to be ignoring is that Thornton's floor is higher than Murphy's, and that Thornton has (to this point) been playing at a higher level than Murphy.

If Murphy starts getting closer to his ceiling in practice, then maybe we'll see him overtake Thornton in the minutes department. But Coach K doesn't believe that playing time increases likelihood of reaching one's ceiling. He believes that playing time is earned through practice. The players that show the most in practice will play. So if Murphy starts playing closer to his ceiling during practice, he'll see his minutes go up. Until then, Coach K is going to go with the lineup that he feels gives us the best chance to win each game. And to this point, that's been a lineup with Thornton (not Murphy) on the floor.

[Duvall]

Well for starters TT is definitely inferior to Murphy offensively, seeing that he can do nothing other than hit wide open 3's. In terms of defense, TT's done a pretty good job this year but he's not Aaron Craft or anything, and he becomes a liability if used against a team that plays a big 3. Poythress destroyed us because Sheed was overmatched against him on the glass, and whenever TT is in the game it often means that either Seth or Sheed is playing the 3, which isn't really an issue we can work around.

"Definitely inferior" is something of a stretch, given that open layups against reserves in garbage time have been an adventure for Murphy thus far, let alone open threes. (I'm focusing on performance by the players on the court, not the hypothetical ones that might exist at some future point.)


Sure Murphy hasn't looked great defensively to start the season, but as he gets minutes and repetitions he'll likely be fine by tourney time, as is standard for most freshmen. Given that he addresses our greatest concerned defensively (rebounding) and gives us size that will be useful in more tourney matchups than not, I think he can easily match (and possibly exceed) Thornton's overall defensive value by March while blowing away his offensive production.

Pretty optimistic, given that Murphy looked like a trainwreck defensively in his short stint early in the second half against Temple. He's just not ready to play defense at this level. When he is, he'll play.

[timmy c]

Well for starters TT is definitely inferior to Murphy offensively, seeing that he can do nothing other than hit wide open 3's. In terms of defense, TT's done a pretty good job this year but he's not Aaron Craft or anything, and he becomes a liability if used against a team that plays a big 3. Poythress destroyed us because Sheed was overmatched against him on the glass, and whenever TT is in the game it often means that either Seth or Sheed is playing the 3, which isn't really an issue we can work around.

Sure Murphy hasn't looked great defensively to start the season, but as he gets minutes and repetitions he'll likely be fine by tourney time, as is standard for most freshmen. Given that he addresses our greatest concerned defensively (rebounding) and gives us size that will be useful in more tourney matchups than not, I think he can easily match (and possibly exceed) Thornton's overall defensive value by March while blowing away his offensive production.

The thing that we all need to come to grips with is that TT isn't particularly good at basketball. Like he's OK at eating minutes w/o messing up too badly, but his play does not merit a significant role for a legit title contender. Who knows, maybe Murphy will end up sucking too, but at this moment he has considerably more upside than Thornton + fits our needs and I'd like to see what he can do.

Kenpom’s offensive rating:
Thornton: 97.6 (jr.) 111.4 (so.) 104.2 (fr.)
Murphy: 87.6 * granted this is small sample size, but clearly inferior (so far) to Thornton’s freshman and sophomore campaign.

[supbros]

You guys are right that I can't state that Murphy will be an upgrade over TT w/ 100% certainty. But I think that TT sets the bar low enough such that in all probability he would at least be a small upgrade as well as a better fit in our rotation. And Murphy cannot surpass TT, then Amile likely can. Amile is probably a better bet than Murphy to be honest, I just like how Murphy keeps our insane floor spacing around Plumlee in tact.

[throatybeard]

that's like looking at a list of all time wins leaders in coaching and saying you disagree with coach K being #1.....it doesn't make sense.

I feel sure that somewhere, some Carolina fan has actually done this.

[supbros]

Kenpom’s offensive rating:
Thornton: 97.6 (jr.) 111.4 (so.) 104.2 (fr.)
Murphy: 87.6 * granted this is small sample size, but clearly inferior (so far) to Thornton’s freshman and sophomore campaign.

Tyler Thornton should have the highest offensive rating on the team given that like the entirety of his shot selection is wide open 3's.

There's very little to be gathered from Murphy's stats thus far. Prior to padding his stats in garbage time vs Delaware, he clearly was a bit nervous in his occasional 2 minute stints where he'd chuck up a brick and blow a rotation and get immediately sent back to the bench.

[timmy c]

Tyler Thornton should have the highest offensive rating on the team given that like the entirety of his shot selection is wide open 3's.

There's very little to be gathered from Murphy's stats thus far. Prior to padding his stats in garbage time vs Delaware, he clearly was a bit nervous in his occasional 2 minute stints where he'd chuck up a brick and blow a rotation and get immediately sent back to the bench.

Ok so I'll play along... You like Alex because he is playing nervous, chucks up bricks and blows rotations, then ends up on the bench?

I think you need to re-read CDu's insightful comment again:




If Murphy starts getting closer to his ceiling in practice, then maybe we'll see him overtake Thornton in the minutes department. But Coach K doesn't believe that playing time increases likelihood of reaching one's ceiling. He believes that playing time is earned through practice. The players that show the most in practice will play. So if Murphy starts playing closer to his ceiling during practice, he'll see his minutes go up. Until then, Coach K is going to go with the lineup that he feels gives us the best chance to win each game. And to this point, that's been a lineup with Thornton (not Murphy) on the floor.

[CDu]

Tyler Thornton should have the highest offensive rating on the team given that like the entirety of his shot selection is wide open 3's.

The same can be said for Murphy...


There's very little to be gathered from Murphy's stats thus far.

You're absolutely correct here. Which is why it is all the more confusing that you've come to the conclusion that he's clearly superior to Thornton offensively.

Note: I completely agree that Murphy has a much higher offensive ceiling than Thornton. However, the stats don't suggest that he's played anywhere near that ceiling.

[supbros]

I like Alex because I think his skill set meshes perfectly w/ what this team needs and based upon his pedigree he is a favorite to be an upgrade over Thornton.

That said, you guys are right that I was underrating Murphy's bust risk. There's a reasonable chance that he is not ready to contribute this season. I don't know why I was so focused on Murphy anyway since Amile has look quite a bit better thus far.

I still do believe best case scenario is that one or both of Amile/Alex cut into TT's minutes and we see some lineups with one of them at the 3 and Sheed running the point.

[Billy Dat]

yikes! the response to your complete dismissal of TT and all that he brings will be entertaining to read. unless people deem it unworthy of their time, for which i wouldn't blame them. let me begin with a word - intangibles.

I agree and add another thought - dirty work. I am reminded of the famous interrogation scene in "A Few Good Men". I see TT as a Colonel Jessup (I don't think he's a murderer, work with me here, people). Tyler comes from a long line of Duke players that other players wanted to punch in the face because they were so deliberately provocative. He consistently bumps people during dead ball situations. I think he averages on bump for every minute of court time. It's fun watching him, if he is within the camera shot, during those times. I thought Aaron Craft was going to lose his mind. You can't call them cheap shots, they are not meant to hurt/injur. They are meant to aggravate and annoy. We want TT on that wall, we need him on that wall, because he'll order the code red. He's one tough mother.

There is no KenPom stat to measure his worth.

[duke09hms]

I agree and add another thought - dirty work. I am reminded of the famous interrogation scene in "A Few Good Men". I see TT as a Colonel Jessup (I don't think he's a murderer, work with me here, people). Tyler comes from a long line of Duke players that other players wanted to punch in the face because they were so deliberately provocative. He consistently bumps people during dead ball situations. I think he averages on bump for every minute of court time. It's fun watching him, if he is within the camera shot, during those times. I thought Aaron Craft was going to lose his mind. You can't call them cheap shots, they are not meant to hurt/injur. They are meant to aggravate and annoy. We want TT on that wall, we need him on that wall, because he'll order the code red. He's one tough mother.

There is no KenPom stat to measure his worth.

Shouldn't his worth be evident in the +/- then? I believe someone kept track of individual +/- per game and through the cumulative season, and I think it turned out that Tyler's +/- contribution was right at the team average. Nothing stood out - the team didn't gain more or less on the opposing team when Tyler was in vs when he wasn't. Hopefully someone can double-check that.

It would be nice to have a SF to plug in there from time to time to lock down an opposing SF that's too big for Rasheed and help with the boards, like if one of Alex or Amile developed over the season to match-up with a Poythress-type player we'll likely encounter somewhere in the tournament.

[supbros]

+/- is ridiculously flukey over small samples and even w/o variance TT's will not be indicative of his "true" worth to the team because his highest minute totals have come against our weakest competition.

[duke09hms]

+/- is ridiculously flukey over small samples and even w/o variance TT's will not be indicative of his "true" worth to the team because his highest minute totals have come against our weakest competition.

I believe +/- was tracked through entire cumulative season last year.

[Billy Dat]

Shouldn't his worth be evident in the +/- then?

I don't think so. My gut on Thornton is that he does the same kind of irritating pestering during practice, which I am guessing amps up the intensity of practice, which the coaches must love. I think the other guys feed on his toughness. I don't think it translates to a measurable stat, which many may say means its an illusion, which is fair. I just don't see any other kid on the team with that kind of make-up. I think plenty of our guys are tough, but they are talented enough to impose their will via effort and skill. Tyler knows he has to get under people's skin to be effective, and I think it helps our overall effort.

[AncientPsychicT]

I like Alex because I think his skill set meshes perfectly w/ what this team needs and based upon his pedigree he is a favorite to be an upgrade over Thornton.

That said, you guys are right that I was underrating Murphy's bust risk. There's a reasonable chance that he is not ready to contribute this season. I don't know why I was so focused on Murphy anyway since Amile has look quite a bit better thus far.

I still do believe best case scenario is that one or both of Amile/Alex cut into TT's minutes and we see some lineups with one of them at the 3 and Sheed running the point.

What's the matter with Quinn's handling of PG duties?

I thought this entire debate focused on who should get Seth's minutes when he needs to rest and possibly one of the Cookie Sulaimonster if and when they get into foul trouble (or play bad D, make bad decisions, etc.).

Amile and Alex (especially Alex) benefit the most from having dynamic, defense-assaulting guards to break down the opposing D and give them a chance to score. Watching Alex, his two most effective (relatively) ways of scoring are open looks from 3 caused by defensive breakdowns and cuts/drives to the hoop through lanes opened up by rotations and breakdowns of the defense. With the Cookie Sulaimonster, we have two talented guards who can either drive to the hoop or make precision passes (or, as is often the case, both) to break down the defense and create scoring opportunities for our outside shooters and Mason. Seth, though he has worked on his drive and can use it to create scoring opportunities for himself, just does not have the PG instinct and vision to consistently and effectively break down the D on his own. Therefore, the most effective time that Murphy - or TT for that matter, who is not much more than a spot-up shooter on O - could see the floor is when he spells Seth in lieu of Tiny Thor. It should come as no surprise that Murph saw his most minutes this season by far in the Delaware game, otherwise known as "That Game When Seth Curry Didn't Play."

Given that ideal situation, I find it unlikely that Murphy sees the court more than a couple of minutes per game until his D improves, simply because TT and Amile are superior on the defensive end.

[uh_no]

I feel sure that somewhere, some Carolina fan has actually done this.

they count the wins that dean had while playing thursday night bingo with the whine and cheese crowd....dean had an advantage, though....he thought "four corners" was a legitimate way to win

[supbros]

I believe +/- was tracked through entire cumulative season last year.

Well that's not hugely surprising then, seeing that TT not playing often meant that Andre Dawkins was playing last year. I am not a TT fan but I'll concede that he was more useful than Dre last year. And while Austin Rivers was better than TT, it wasn't by a crazy huge margin; I think Rivers was pretty seriously overrated and overall did not have a highly positive impact on the team.

[AncientPsychicT]

Whenever someone brings up +/-, I feel obligated to direct them to this (http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/entry/a_treatise_on_plus_minus) page.

[supbros]

What's the matter with Quinn's handling of PG duties?

I thought this entire debate focused on who should get Seth's minutes when he needs to rest and possibly one of the Cookie Sulaimonster if and when they get into foul trouble (or play bad D, make bad decisions, etc.).

Amile and Alex (especially Alex) benefit the most from having dynamic, defense-assaulting guards to break down the opposing D and give them a chance to score. Watching Alex, his two most effective (relatively) ways of scoring are open looks from 3 caused by defensive breakdowns and cuts/drives to the hoop through lanes opened up by rotations and breakdowns of the defense. With the Cookie Sulaimonster, we have two talented guards who can either drive to the hoop or make precision passes (or, as is often the case, both) to break down the defense and create scoring opportunities for our outside shooters and Mason. Seth, though he has worked on his drive and can use it to create scoring opportunities for himself, just does not have the PG instinct and vision to consistently and effectively break down the D on his own. Therefore, the most effective time that Murphy - or TT for that matter, who is not much more than a spot-up shooter on O - could see the floor is when he spells Seth in lieu of Tiny Thor. It should come as no surprise that Murph saw his most minutes this season by far in the Delaware game, otherwise known as "That Game When Seth Curry Didn't Play."

Given that ideal situation, I find it unlikely that Murphy sees the court more than a couple of minutes per game until his D improves, simply because TT and Amile are superior on the defensive end.

Nothing wrong with Quinn, I think he's been great. But he needs some rest from time to time and like you noted in your posted, Sheed has shown that he can likely handle PG duties for the 8 mpg where Quinn is on the bench. I think a backcourt of Sheed/Seth/Amile or (hopefully in due time) Sheed/Seth/Murphy will be > TT/Seth/Sheed.

edit: I'm envisioning a minute distribution along these lines in games that matter:

Quinn 32/Sheed 8
Seth 32/Sheed 8
Sheed 16/Amile 20/Murphy 4
Kelly 32/MP3 8
MP2 33/MP3 7

[David Bunkley]

Well for starters TT is definitely inferior to Murphy offensively, seeing that he can do nothing other than hit wide open 3's. In terms of defense, TT's done a pretty good job this year but he's not Aaron Craft or anything, and he becomes a liability if used against a team that plays a big 3. Poythress destroyed us because Sheed was overmatched against him on the glass, and whenever TT is in the game it often means that either Seth or Sheed is playing the 3, which isn't really an issue we can work around.

Sure Murphy hasn't looked great defensively to start the season, but as he gets minutes and repetitions he'll likely be fine by tourney time, as is standard for most freshmen. Given that he addresses our greatest concerned defensively (rebounding) and gives us size that will be useful in more tourney matchups than not, I think he can easily match (and possibly exceed) Thornton's overall defensive value by March while blowing away his offensive production.

The thing that we all need to come to grips with is that TT isn't particularly good at basketball. Like he's OK at eating minutes w/o messing up too badly, but his play does not merit a significant role for a legit title contender. Who knows, maybe Murphy will end up sucking too, but at this moment he has considerably more upside than Thornton + fits our needs and I'd like to see what he can do.

So you aren't a fan of solid defense, timely big plays, heart, and intensity...good to know.

[rsvman]

I'm not sure there is a way to track Strength of Schedule that isn't circular, at least to some extent. Isn't it all pretty much a house of cards when you get right down to it? Because there's really no objective way to say which team is best. And SOS calculations, of necessity, have to rely (essentially) on the transitive property of basketball, which has been disproved time and time again.

Am I wrong?

[toooskies]

I'm going to let Coach K decide on the rotation; these are just the results. Murphy isn't statistically significant yet.

It has been argued that playing more "cupcakes" will improve our rebounding numbers. In reality, however, both Georgia State and Delaware held us below our average offensive rebounding rate. (VCU held us to the worst at 14.3%, then Georgia State at 20.7%, then a few other games before Delaware's 27.8%.) Notably, however, we went 11-21 from the line against Delaware, and shot more than half our shots from field from 3-point range against Georgia State.

We conversely had our highest defensive rebounding rates against GS and Delaware. Our two lowest defensive rebounding rates were against Minnesota and Ohio State, both of which were held below their season average rates. Although in both cases our absolute numbers of rebounds were even because we held them to lower shooting percentages, they each had higher offensive rebound rates than we did (8% and 12% differentials, respectively). Third on the list is Florida Gulf Coast, who missed only a single free throw the entire game, which diminishes our chances to get "easy" defensive rebounds.

VCU had the highest rebounding differential against us, at 22%; that's both due to a poor offensive rebounding game by us, and the fact that we blocked 8 shots against them, which the offense usually rebounds.

We've beaten the other team in rebounding rate three times: Kentucky, FGCU, and Delaware.

In other words, I'm not sure "cupcakes" is the answer to why we're rebounding at a below average offensive rebounding rate, although our defensive rebounding should improve. I imagine the lack of offensive rebounding is because of our offensive style, as we typically have a single player around the hoop and he's often working for his own shot instead of an offensive rebound. We aren't bad, but we'll typically lose the rate battle with the other team. We should be concerned about missing too many shots, but on the other hand, we might succeed at tournament time by not missing many shots. We're not as vulnerable as the 2006 team, given that we aren't as dependent on a single player playing well.

Not quite as comforting as having the Zoubek security blanket on an off shooting night, but few teams are that lucky!

[Kedsy]

I'm envisioning a minute distribution along these lines in games that matter:

Quinn 32/Sheed 8
Seth 32/Sheed 8
Sheed 16/Amile 20/Murphy 4
Kelly 32/MP3 8
MP2 33/MP3 7

OK, here's where I have to ask you if you think this has any chance of actually happening or if it's just what you want to happen? Because the response should be different depending on your answer to that question. If it's the former, then I feel obligated to point out that there is approximately a zero percent chance of Coach K actually using your envisioned rotation (with Tyler getting zero minutes). If it's the latter, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but obviously Coach K doesn't agree with you, and currently I imagine most of us would be of the mindset of "if it ain't broke..."

Personally, I think trying to have a three man rotation for the two guard spots might be hard to pull off, especially if one of the three plays the majority of his minutes at SF. Why would we do that if we didn't have to? Also, there are a decent number of opponents whose SF won't overwhelm a smaller defender and in those games it probably would make sense to defend with a smaller, quicker lineup, even without attempting to judge the relative merits of Tyler, Amile, and Alex. Finally, the likelihood that Amile and/or Alex would outplay Tyler on the defensive end seems small, and since our offense already ranks as one of the top offenses in the country, it would seem defense would be the priority for our 6th man. I conclude that your envisioned rotation not only won't happen, but also probably isn't the best use of our team's personnel.

[supbros]

tsookies- i agree that rebounding is a weakness for Duke. point was that the raw #'s may overstate exactly how weak we are given SOS, and any direct comparison to past teams that played lighter schedules would be misleading.

kedsy- i agree that TT will end up getting burn for this team one way or another. i'm sure he's a delight to coach and it's likely difficult to not reward him w/ minutes given his effort level + personality. fwiw the 4/3 man rotation is pretty easy. start w/ quinn, sheed, seth. sub amile for seth at 16 min mark, sub seth for sheed at 12 mins, sheed for quinn at 8', and quinn back for amile at 4'.

by the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" logic, we should keep playing hairston as our backup center over marshall since our team has been great and we don't need to upgrade. in reality, i think it's pretty clear that the starting 5 are doing like 98% of the heavy lifting thus far and that there is plenty of room for improvement on the bench.

[flyingdutchdevil]

tsookies- i agree that rebounding is a weakness for Duke. point was that the raw #'s may overstate exactly how weak we are given SOS, and any direct comparison to past teams that played lighter schedules would be misleading.

kedsy- i agree that TT will end up getting burn for this team one way or another. i'm sure he's a delight to coach and it's likely difficult to not reward him w/ minutes given his effort level + personality. fwiw the 4/3 man rotation is pretty easy. start w/ quinn, sheed, seth. sub amile for seth at 16 min mark, sub seth for sheed at 12 mins, sheed for quinn at 8', and quinn back for amile at 4'.

by the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" logic, we should keep playing hairston as our backup center over marshall since our team has been great and we don't need to upgrade. in reality, i think it's pretty clear that the starting 5 are doing like 98% of the heavy lifting thus far and that there is plenty of room for improvement on the bench.

Dana O'Neil wrote a great article about this team so far: http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/8727387/the-duke-blue-devils-winning-great-talent-commitment-roles-college-basketball

The article discusses how TT's primarily role is Seth's back-up. And you know what? He's doing a fine job at it, and I'd be surprised if there is a consensus on DBR that thinks overwise. TT, like nearly everyone in the starting line-up, has completely surpassed expectations. I agree with you that TT doesn't have the potential of either Murph or Jefferson, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't play him. If anything, TT understands his role better than anyone and has embraced it. As a result, he's the first guard off the bench and I assume it will be that way for the remainder of the season. He isn't getting burn - he's the current 6th man.

[CDu]

Nothing wrong with Quinn, I think he's been great. But he needs some rest from time to time and like you noted in your posted, Sheed has shown that he can likely handle PG duties for the 8 mpg where Quinn is on the bench. I think a backcourt of Sheed/Seth/Amile or (hopefully in due time) Sheed/Seth/Murphy will be > TT/Seth/Sheed.

edit: I'm envisioning a minute distribution along these lines in games that matter:

Quinn 32/Sheed 8
Seth 32/Sheed 8
Sheed 16/Amile 20/Murphy 4
Kelly 32/MP3 8
MP2 33/MP3 7

I see little to no chance of this happening, for a couple of reasons:

1. I don't expect to see much of the Plumlees on the floor together. Neither is suited to play away from the basket, and neither is all that comfortable guarding quicker players (which is what we'll see a lot of at the 4 spot). As such, I'd expect the backup PF minutes to remain the domain of Hairston and Jefferson.

2. Coach K is simply not going to eliminate Thornton's minutes just to play a freshman out of position at SF (note: Jefferson is a PF by skillset - only his lack of strength and our veteran frontcourt is keeping him from playing more there). At the bare minimum, I'd envision him getting at least 5-10 mpg (and that's assuming that one of the freshmen really make a jump forward defensively).

Clearly you want no part of Thornton in the rotation, as you have gone from suggesting that Murphy fixes our problems to now suggesting Jefferson get Thornton's minutes. Coach K has believed in Thornton enough to play him for 21 mpg last year and 22 mpg this year. I think it will take quite a step up in performance from either Jefferson or Murphy to change Coach K's mind about the rotation.

[jv001]

I see little to no chance of this happening, for a couple of reasons:

1. I don't expect to see much of the Plumlees on the floor together. Neither is suited to play away from the basket, and neither is all that comfortable guarding quicker players (which is what we'll see a lot of at the 4 spot). As such, I'd expect the backup PF minutes to remain the domain of Hairston and Jefferson.

2. Coach K is simply not going to eliminate Thornton's minutes just to play a freshman out of position at SF (note: Jefferson is a PF by skillset - only his lack of strength and our veteran frontcourt is keeping him from playing more there). At the bare minimum, I'd envision him getting at least 5-10 mpg (and that's assuming that one of the freshmen really make a jump forward defensively).

Clearly you want no part of Thornton in the rotation, as you have gone from suggesting that Murphy fixes our problems to now suggesting Jefferson get Thornton's minutes. Coach K has believed in Thornton enough to play him for 21 mpg last year and 22 mpg this year. I think it will take quite a step up in performance from either Jefferson or Murphy to change Coach K's mind about the rotation.

Tyler is more valuable to this team than stats seem to show. He's improved on defense and get's in the opponents head. On offense teams are no longer going to leave him open and clog the lane to stop Mason. I look for Amile to be a very good basketball player and contribute this year. However the jury is still out on Alex as he's gone down on the depth chart since the first of the year. That tells me he isn't getting it done in practice under Coach Ks watchful eye. Now with Marshall coming back, his minutes may go down even farther. I don't look for a rotation change to be made to help in rebounding, but I think more work on boxing out will be in order. GoDuke!

[supbros]

I'll clarify that I'm happy to see him get regular season minutes, I don't think he's so terrible that he needs to kept away from the floor at all costs and it does seem like he deserves at least some action to reward his general attitude.

I'm just hoping that in the tourney that K cuts down on his minutes some and increases the minutes of Amilex (i.e. whoever is showing more promise among the 2). Probably a more realistic hope is that TT sees like 8 mpg in the tourney and Amilex sees ~ 16-20. I don't hate TT, am merely excited for the possibility that his minutes can be upgraded AND address the rebounding weakness at the same time since the top two candidates to cut into his minutes are 6'8 SFs.

I agree that the Plumlees aren't an optimal 4/5 pairing but I think we can get away w/ playing them both at once for spurts. K played Miles + Mason together a decent amount last year, and if nothing else we should handle business on the boards when we play them both.

[jv001]

I'll clarify that I'm happy to see him get regular season minutes, I don't think he's so terrible that he needs to kept away from the floor at all costs and it does seem like he deserves at least some action to reward his general attitude.

I'm just hoping that in the tourney that K cuts down on his minutes some and increases the minutes of Amilex (i.e. whoever is showing more promise among the 2). Probably a more realistic hope is that TT sees like 8 mpg in the tourney and Amilex sees ~ 16-20. I don't hate TT, am merely excited for the possibility that his minutes can be upgraded AND address the rebounding weakness at the same time since the top two candidates to cut into his minutes are 6'8 SFs.

I agree that the Plumlees aren't an optimal 4/5 pairing but I think we can get away w/ playing them both at once for spurts. K played Miles + Mason together a decent amount last year, and if nothing else we should handle business on the boards when we play them both.

Nothing would make me happier than see Alex and Amile improve enough to get minutes at the SF position. That should help in rebounding, but I don't want to see it happen at the expense of our great chemistry. This team really seems to like each other and minutes don't see to matter. GoDuke!

[loran16]

1. On what distorts the Pomeroy rankings - generally, there is no need for Pomeroy to impose a cutoff of some sorts for blowouts, because they're priced IN to the system. For example, Michigan is playing Binghamton this week - an almost certain blowout. Well Pomeroy expects this! So Pomeroy expects a 37 point victory for Michigan - meaning that a 40 point blowout for UMich won't affect his rankings at all because the system expects such a result in the first place.

The Wisconsin effect is an extreme phenomenon however which can affect things - which is basically caused by the system overrating the really bad teams in the NCAA (This is the same reason that the system overrates 16 seeds in the tourney - at the average 4% win probability a 16 seed or three should've had an upset by now). Thus even a 37 point margin of victory isn't enough to account for how bad some teams are!

I can think of a few relevant reasons for this - the most relevant to Duke is that many teams in blowouts ease up on the throttle (play walkons or rare bench players, etc.) and thus the efficiency rankings overrate the loser (the team that lost by 30 should've lost by 50). Then when you have those few teams who don't ease up for whatever reason (bad sportsmanship, good depth, players just not missing shots, utter opponent ineptitude, etc.) those teams get overrated because they surpass the expected margins of victory.

This situation doesn't occur that often of course - most teams don't get into these Wisconsin situations that often - take for example Florida, who is ahead of us in Pomeroy, who has played only one below average (horrible team) in Alabama State, but has crushed 5 top 100 teams....the Wisconsin effect only really applies if at all to their Alabama State game, so it's not like they're overrated by Pomeroy. And as the season goes on, usually the Wisconsin effect is very very little due to the large sample size of good teams overwhelming the bad ones. Still, right now, Syracuse, Indiana, and Louisville are being overrated because of it because they've played around 3 of these crappy yet overrated teams already - and 3 wins is like 1/3 to 1/2 of their schedule to date.

Which by the way suggests that we should take Florida really seriously - that's a damn good team.

2. Please don't use offensive rating to compare players this early, especially with Alex Murphy. You're breaking the small sample size oath. (http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/entry/the_small_sample_size_oath)

[Dukeface88]

I suspect the "Wisconsin effect" also involves a factor that's unique to Wisconsin - they use a different basketball from everyone else (http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/is-home-court-advantage-really-about-the-ball/). Which means that they probably tend to overperform in the early (mostly home) games, where they're using a ball they're familliar with and the other team is not, and underperform come tourney-time.

[Newton_14]

I'll clarify that I'm happy to see him get regular season minutes, I don't think he's so terrible that he needs to kept away from the floor at all costs and it does seem like he deserves at least some action to reward his general attitude.
.

The fact that you keep saying things of this nature does not make them true. Coach K has never rewarded a player with minutes "to reward his general attitude". K plays Tyler, because Tyler has earned those minutes. He is by a mile the best team defender on the team. Duke defense is 100% about team defense, with 5 guys each responsible for a hell of a lot more than "checking this dude". One on one defense is one tiny, minute aspect of Duke defense. The defensive scheme's of The Master that is K are very complex and no one on this team has mastered it better than Tyler Thornton. Exhibit A: Temple Game. Tyler leaves his man to jump the passing lane to the corner (because he read the play and knew the Temple guy was going to make that pass likely before the Temple guy did), gets the steal, and then immediately flings it (literally) toward the other end for a perfect hit ahead pass to Amile for the easy dunk. One guy on this team makes that play, and his name is Tyler Thornton.

K is well aware of Tyler's limits on offense which is why he plays 22 mpg instead of 32. Still, K knows that on offense, Tyler will manage the ball, limit mistakes, and knock down the open 3 at a decent rate. He's not a play-maker, and he needs work on post entry passes, but he has more than earned his spot in the rotation. He plays because he deserves to play.

I am a huge fan of Amile and Alex. Both have high ceilings, and if they can improve fast enough, their roles can possibly increase some this year. But you can rest assured that the 5 starters plus Tyler will log the majority of the minutes all year barring injury or occasional foul trouble.

[loran16]

I suspect the "Wisconsin effect" also involves a factor that's unique to Wisconsin - they use a different basketball from everyone else (http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/is-home-court-advantage-really-about-the-ball/). Which means that they probably tend to overperform in the early (mostly home) games, where they're using a ball they're familliar with and the other team is not, and underperform come tourney-time.

This is true but the Wisconsin effect is not merely a home court effect so it's probably not related

[ncexnyc]

Somebody pinch me, because I must be dreaming. What's with all this sudden love for Tyler on this board? For the past two years we've had people trying to dismiss this kid by rolling stat after stat out. It must be really killing some of you to have to write something positive about this kid who has earned every minute of his playing time.

Actually I don't believe some of the stuff I'm reading, but I guess when you're trying to shoot down someone else's post you'll grab for any straw you can.

[Kedsy]

On offense teams are no longer going to leave him open and clog the lane to stop Mason.

I wouldn't go that far. Seems to me Mason, Ryan, Quinn, Seth, and Rasheed have been so potent on offense that teams have even more incentive to leave Tyler open. And I haven't noticed teams guarding him particularly closely, either. As much as I like his spunk and all that, Tyler is simply not a very good offensive player. The good news is, our other options are clicking so well, Tyler doesn't need to be a particularly good offensive player. And he is playing defense at a pretty high level right now, which is what's been earning him minutes.


Probably a more realistic hope is that TT sees like 8 mpg in the tourney and Amilex sees ~ 16-20.

I don't think this is particularly realistic at all. Based on the minute pattern so far, other than possibly the first round NCAAT game, I'll be very surprised if Alex and Amile combine for as many as 16 minutes in any tournament game. Although I suppose stranger things have happened, so obviously we'll have to wait and see.

[gep]

My couple of comments...

1. I don't think we'll see Mason/Marshall at the same time. If Marshall is really the better back-to-the-basket center, then Mason/Marshall will play the same position (at different times, of course)... with Mason getting the majority of minutes. With Miles/Mason, when they were both in at the same time, I think I recall that Miles was in the center/middle, with Mason at the outside. I think we've seen thus far this season the Mason has developed into a great center/middle... and probably shouldn't play outside. I'd like to see both at the same time, just from the family aspect. but we know Coach K will not do it for that reason alone. Side note... I watched the Plumlee Bachelor video again... those 2 Plumlee's appear to be just great kids. I just enjoy them, especially Marshall in these videos.

2. Ryan will get the most minutes at PF. Then Josh, Amile, and maybe Alex will get the minutes when Ryan doesn't play.

3. The guard and SF positions... I think all of Quinn, Seth, Rasheed, Tyler, and maybe Alex can handle those positions very well.

So if this works out, I don't think Ryan will need to be in the center/middle again.

So far, except for Marshall, I think this is a very good, deep team. I really hope Marshall can get into game shape soon... I REALLY want to see Marshall in games and succeed. He's such a great guy... at least as far as he comes across in those videos.

[darthur]

I'm not sure there is a way to track Strength of Schedule that isn't circular, at least to some extent. Isn't it all pretty much a house of cards when you get right down to it? Because there's really no objective way to say which team is best. And SOS calculations, of necessity, have to rely (essentially) on the transitive property of basketball, which has been disproved time and time again.

Am I wrong?

The job of kenpom or pollsters or sagarin is to rank teams in a way that best explains past results. Yes, strength of schedule and strength of team are both important and are also correlated with each other, but that doesn't make the task impossible.

RPI's way:

- Start with a simple measure of goodness of team (winning percentage).
- Use this to measure a team's strength of schedule by evaluating opponents according to winning percentage.
- Use this strength of schedule measure to get a refined measure of goodness of team.

Another way, which I think Sagarin does:

- Assume each team has an unknown strength X, and that if teams with strength X and Y play, then the probability that the first team wins is p(X,Y) for some probability model p.
- Mathematically determine the strengths X for which the probability that the exact events we have seen so far are highest.

Neither of these are "houses of cards", and neither is anything less than objective. They are not completely simple, and they are just models with their own strengths and weaknesses, but this is how prediction works in any context.

By the way, someone complained earlier about SOS on kenpom, and perhaps you are responding to that. It's a measure without meaning. Consider the following two schedules:
- Play the top 5 teams, then the bottom 5 teams.
- Play 10 average teams.
If you are going for a good record, and are a top team, you'd rather play the second schedule. But if you are a bottom team, you'd rather play the first schedule. So which schedule is actually harder? There's no single number which can answer that question. I think Kenpom provides *a* number in his rankings, but he doesn't really rely on it in his ratings, so fretting over it is a waste of time. RPI does though, and it's a serious flaw in the system. It's why playing a really bad team is bad for your RPI, no matter how badly you thrash them.

[Jumbo]

Well for starters TT is definitely inferior to Murphy offensively, seeing that he can do nothing other than hit wide open 3's. In terms of defense, TT's done a pretty good job this year but he's not Aaron Craft or anything, and he becomes a liability if used against a team that plays a big 3. Poythress destroyed us because Sheed was overmatched against him on the glass, and whenever TT is in the game it often means that either Seth or Sheed is playing the 3, which isn't really an issue we can work around.

Sure Murphy hasn't looked great defensively to start the season, but as he gets minutes and repetitions he'll likely be fine by tourney time, as is standard for most freshmen. Given that he addresses our greatest concerned defensively (rebounding) and gives us size that will be useful in more tourney matchups than not, I think he can easily match (and possibly exceed) Thornton's overall defensive value by March while blowing away his offensive production.

The thing that we all need to come to grips with is that TT isn't particularly good at basketball. Like he's OK at eating minutes w/o messing up too badly, but his play does not merit a significant role for a legit title contender. Who knows, maybe Murphy will end up sucking too, but at this moment he has considerably more upside than Thornton + fits our needs and I'd like to see what he can do.

This "analysis" is, in a word, asinine.

It's funny -- watching the Temple game live reminded me of just how valuable TT is. Sure, there are all the intangible-type things, that he is the team's best leader, brings the most energy, is constantly talking on and off the court. That's invaluable in the Duke system. But his tangible basketball abilities are key, too. He is the team's best perimeter defender. Period. It's not even that close. He guards the other team's best perimeter player whenever he's in the game and does a great job. He forces turnovers. He beats everyone to loose balls. He moves with and without the ball. And he knocks down open 3's. Let me say that again -- he knocks down open 3's. That is not a skill to be mocked. It's critical, especially the way basketball is played today and given Duke's system. Given all the scoring options on this team, the improved ball movement and the attention the other guys generate, having someone who can spot up on the weak side or in the corner and consistently knock down open triples is essential. And there is no arguing that Tyler has improved his shot dramatically.

The fact that he no longer has to play the point -- and thus his lack of creativity on offense is less of an issue -- has allowed Thornton to play to his strengths. And they have become more and more evident on this team. Would I like to see Murphy play more at some point (or Jefferson be able to contribute at the 3)? Of course! And guess what? So would the coaches! It's not as if they don't realize there are rebounding issues with a smaller lineup or don't want the freshmen to succeed. And given that Murphy was starting during the exhibition season, you really can't argue that he hasn't been given a chance. Clearly there are some issues with his development at the moment. Give the kid time. Better to see him get comfortable in practice than to compound a lack of confidence with mistakes in games.

There are plenty of minutes for Murphy -- and Jefferson and MP3 -- to grab if they play well. But those minutes don't need to come at the expense of Tyler Thornton, who is a big reason why this team is off to such a great start.

[gep]

... Give the kid time. Better to see him get comfortable in practice than to compound a lack of confidence with mistakes in games...

I've seen this sentiment in previous years... and I think it still holds true, especially with Coach K.

Nice to see you back, Jumbo... I hope you continue posting... :cool:

[jv001]

I wouldn't go that far. Seems to me Mason, Ryan, Quinn, Seth, and Rasheed have been so potent on offense that teams have even more incentive to leave Tyler open. And I haven't noticed teams guarding him particularly closely, either. As much as I like his spunk and all that, Tyler is simply not a very good offensive player. The good news is, our other options are clicking so well, Tyler doesn't need to be a particularly good offensive player. And he is playing defense at a pretty high level right now, which is what's been earning him minutes.



I don't think this is particularly realistic at all. Based on the minute pattern so far, other than possibly the first round NCAAT game, I'll be very surprised if Alex and Amile combine for as many as 16 minutes in any tournament game. Although I suppose stranger things have happened, so obviously we'll have to wait and see.

Maybe guarding him closer than last year would have been better stated. However Tyler has made his man pay by making a good number of those 3s. And as far as him not being a very good offensive player, he doesn't have to be the stud offensive player with the guys he has surrounding him. Just make those open 3s and play good defense. And he's been doing that very well. I don't see Coach K taking his minutes away to get Amile and Alex more minutes. Well not in the big games anyway. We may see more of them in the next 3 games. Tyler is an important part of this Duke team. GoDuke!

[sagegrouse]

I'll clarify that I'm happy to see him get regular season minutes, I don't think he's so terrible that he needs to kept away from the floor at all costs and it does seem like he deserves at least some action to reward his general attitude.

I'm just hoping that in the tourney that K cuts down on his minutes some and increases the minutes of Amilex (i.e. whoever is showing more promise among the 2). Probably a more realistic hope is that TT sees like 8 mpg in the tourney and Amilex sees ~ 16-20. I don't hate TT, am merely excited for the possibility that his minutes can be upgraded AND address the rebounding weakness at the same time since the top two candidates to cut into his minutes are 6'8 SFs.

I agree that the Plumlees aren't an optimal 4/5 pairing but I think we can get away w/ playing them both at once for spurts. K played Miles + Mason together a decent amount last year, and if nothing else we should handle business on the boards when we play them both.


Somebody pinch me, because I must be dreaming. What's with all this sudden love for Tyler on this board? For the past two years we've had people trying to dismiss this kid by rolling stat after stat out. It must be really killing some of you to have to write something positive about this kid who has earned every minute of his playing time.

Actually I don't believe some of the stuff I'm reading, but I guess when you're trying to shoot down someone else's post you'll grab for any straw you can.


The fact that you keep saying things of this nature does not make them true. Coach K has never rewarded a player with minutes "to reward his general attitude". K plays Tyler, because Tyler has earned those minutes. He is by a mile the best team defender on the team. Duke defense is 100% about team defense, with 5 guys each responsible for a hell of a lot more than "checking this dude". One on one defense is one tiny, minute aspect of Duke defense. The defensive scheme's of The Master that is K are very complex and no one on this team has mastered it better than Tyler Thornton. Exhibit A: Temple Game. Tyler leaves his man to jump the passing lane to the corner (because he read the play and knew the Temple guy was going to make that pass likely before the Temple guy did), gets the steal, and then immediately flings it (literally) toward the other end for a perfect hit ahead pass to Amile for the easy dunk. One guy on this team makes that play, and his name is Tyler Thornton.

.

Everything about Tiny Thor has probably been said, but not everyone has yet said it. Now it's my turn--

Newton points up Tyler's interception and court-length heave that was botched at the other end with one too many passes. It was "Scheyeresque" in its intelligence and beauty.

Tyler appears to be the most vocal and demonstrative leader on the team. And he's really tough and pugnacious. He's gonna play. That's Coach K from the Chicago playgrounds putting himself in the game. I suppose everyone remembers when Thornton got his first start freshman year? Duke got slaughtered on the road by St. John's. The whole team backed down and folded its tent -- except Tiny Thor. Nine minutes. Five fouls. One fight started. He was in the starting lineup next time out.

His "occasional threes" are often at opportune moments -- "daggers," one might say.

sagegrouse

And, in addition to being Cook's backup at the point, he is the starting shooting guard in practice, where Seth has to sit on the sidelines.

[JasonEvans]

Wow, supbros! I was all ready to join the chorus of posts questioning your dismissing of TT, but then...

JUMBO RETURNED!!!

Folks, the above post (http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?29875-Ken-Pom-Issue&p=610327#post610327)by my large friend is the first Jumbo post to the EK forum since he posted the following tiny note (http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?24258-MBB-Duke-79-UNC-73-Post-Game-Thread&p=473590#post473590) in the February 2011 Duke-UNC victory thread:


Woohoo!!! That's all I have to say! Hope everyone is doing well.

Prior to that, Jumbo had not been seen since the beginning of the 2010-11 season when he wished the new team good luck (http://www.dukebasketballreport.com/forums/showthread.php?22989-Phase-I-2010-11&p=446455#post446455)and bade a tearful farewell to the 2010 championship team, a club that he truly loved to watch play. It was because of that close connection to the 2010 team that he essentially stopped posting around these parts.

And now he has returned to lay some smackdown. It is a glorious day on the DBR!

I don't know when we will see him again. I don't know if the sterling team play of the 2012-13 Devils has inspired him to recall that glorious 2010 team thereby encouraging him to return to the DBR. I do know that I am a happy moderator today to have him back in our midst.

-Jason "quick, someone suggest that the 2012-13 Devils are certainly better than the 2010 team... that would certainly inspire Jumbo to post again!" Evans

[mike88]

I love what Tyler brings to the team in terms of his overall defense, his ability to knock down open 3's and the intangibles of hustle and team play. One area that he still needs to work on, though, is his propensity to foul. One of the cornerstones of our defense is that we don't commit too many fouls and put our opponents on the line (as the free throw is one of the most efficient ways to score). Currently, TT is second-worst on the team in terms of fouling rate (25 in 195 minutes), with Josh being quite a bit worse (21 in 84 minutes). In contrast, Rasheed (who I believe is actually our best perimeter defender) has only committed 18 fouls in 275 minutes. Hopefully, our bench guys can continue to bring energy and pressure but cut down on their fouling as we move into the ACC season.

[English]

Maybe guarding him closer than last year would have been better stated. However Tyler has made his man pay by making a good number of those 3s. And as far as him not being a very good offensive player, he doesn't have to be the stud offensive player with the guys he has surrounding him. Just make those open 3s and play good defense. And he's been doing that very well. I don't see Coach K taking his minutes away to get Amile and Alex more minutes. Well not in the big games anyway. We may see more of them in the next 3 games. Tyler is an important part of this Duke team. GoDuke!

Count me among the camp that is warming to TT quickly this season, now that he has almost no responsibility to run the offense or create. Like Kedsy, I haven't noticed any team paying particular attention to TT on the offensive end, and he's rewarded them with some open 3's. His performance on defense has been great, and from the looks of it, contagious. I think his role on this squad fits his talents--keep the ball out of his hands on offense, with the exception of an isolated open 3pt attempt, and play him in spots where his intensity and pressure off the bench may disrupt the opponent's flow on defense. That said, can someone with more time than I, give an update on his fouls-per-40-minutes count again? I can't tell if Coach K encourages TT to get into the opponent's head/grill at all costs (and he certainly does that), but my eye test tells me he fouls about an incredible rate.

[COYS]

There are plenty of minutes for Murphy -- and Jefferson and MP3 -- to grab if they play well. But those minutes don't need to come at the expense of Tyler Thornton, who is a big reason why this team is off to such a great start.

So happy to see you back, Jumbo!

This hits the nail on the head, I think. Ok, we have some rebounding issues but otherwise are playing very well on both offense and defense. Who loses minutes to make room for Amile or Alex? Seth, a redshirt senior in his fourth year with the program who is undoubtedly one of our most potent offensive players? Quinn, a talented sophomore who has combined his creative abilities on offense with much improved defense and has been the engine that powers our potent attack? Rasheed, a freshman who is playing like a veteran and gives the team a dynamic scoring threat on offense and a versatile defender on defense? Tyler, who, as has been mentioned, is really backing up Seth for the most part, and is playing much improved defense over last year, when he was already very good? Amile and Alex have been pretty good rebounders in limited minutes, but it remains to be seen if they can rebound enough to make up for what Rasheed, Tyler and Seth give us, already.

[CDu]

He is the team's best perimeter defender. Period. It's not even that close. He guards the other team's best perimeter player whenever he's in the game and does a great job.

There are plenty of minutes for Murphy -- and Jefferson and MP3 -- to grab if they play well. But those minutes don't need to come at the expense of Tyler Thornton, who is a big reason why this team is off to such a great start.

First, let me say "welcome back." It has been a while. Good to hear from you again.

Niceties out of the way, I agreed with most everything you said in your post except for the sentences listed above.

I don't know that Thornton is our best perimeter defender. At the very least, it certainly is closer than you're giving credit. He's a fantastic help defender and off-ball defender, but his on-ball skills aren't great. Sulaimon is, in my opinion, the better on-ball defender, and I'd say that is by a substantial margin. Also, Thornton hasn't typically guarded the other team's best perimeter player. That has been more often than not the responsibility of Sulaimon. That said, I'd say Thornton is at least one of the team's two best perimeter defenders (along with Sulaimon), and does often get the other team's best perimeter player (especially when Sulaimon is out).

As for the last paragraph, I don't know that I agree at all. If not Thornton, than who would you see Murphy taking minutes from? A senior Curry? A senior Kelly? A budding star in Sulaimon? Our only true PG in Cook? As useful as Thornton has been, I see him as the most logical choice for pulling minutes (if minutes are to be earned). This is supported by the fact that Thornton plays by far the fewest minutes of those 5 players. Now, it would take a substantial improvement by Murphy to overtake Thornton. But Thornton is the first guy from whom Murphy would presumably take minutes if such an improvement occurred.

Jefferson and Marshall are in an entirely separate conversation. I really don't see too many minutes to be had for Marshall this year. I think he could take all of the backup C minutes and maybe a few minutes from Kelly or Mason. But I just don't see him cutting substantially into either of our senior bigs' minutes. And I don't see us going with a three-big lineup, so Marshall is no threat to the perimeter players' minutes. The same situation applies to Jefferson. I don't see him as a viable wing player, so I don't think he will threaten the perimeter players' minutes, either. And that leaves him with very few options for additional minutes (basically those backup PF minutes currently shared by him and Hairston).

Still, aside from these points, your overarching point still stands. Thornton has, to this point, been much more valuable than Murphy or Jefferson. It would take substantial improvements for those players to push Thornton to the bench. And this team can most certainly win it all with Thornton averaging 20+ mpg.

[Starter]

Has there ever been a more polarizing player that averages under 4 points per game than Tyler Thornton? I think there's been plenty of hyperbole both good and bad about him -- and I'm not trying to gloss over that I spent plenty of time on this board, last year and early this year, lamenting that a more athletic and talented in all aspects Quinn Cook was on the bench while Thornton was starting and playing heavy minutes at point guard. But I'm totally in favor of how Thornton's been utilized recently.

Has Thornton's shot improved to the point that teams feel they can no longer slough off him? Of course not. Take away his first game, when he caught fire and nailed three of six three-pointers against Kenpom's 213th-ranked team, and he's shot 33 percent on threes while connecting on a total of five shots in the other eight games. He's taken two two-point shots all season. Not that I want him to start jacking up shots or anything, but we're not exactly talking about J.J. Redick on offense here.

But watching the Ohio State game, for the first time, I was struck by how perfectly useful he was in his role. (And that's a game when he didn't take a shot and committed four fouls in 17 minutes.) But he was all over the place messing with OSU's flow. I was impressed. I've long thought Thornton is deficient in on-ball defense, and still do, but he does a great job of roaming and creating havoc when given the freedom to do so, and he has a definitive knack for coming up with steals and getting to loose balls. With Cook pushing the tempo and facilitating the offense, other teams playing off Thornton is a relatively moot point. And I think that's the reason you're seeing people's opinions of Thornton changing: He's being used in a role that actually suits him, alongside a legit starting point guard. If Thornton were still starting at point guard and playing heavy minutes, while an above-average point guard with the potential to be elite in Cook played spot minutes and continued to have a short leash, I think I'd be far less able to watch Thornton and appreciate what he brings to the table. I'd also cap this team's ceiling at Sweet 16, if that. But as others have said, Thornton's skills allow him to play a role on a potential champion; they highlight his strengths and minimize his weaknesses. Krzyzewski has always appreciated the finer points of Thornton's game. I'm just glad Cook has earned his trust enough to slot the guards in his rotation where they should be.

[loran16]

Has there ever been a more polarizing player that averages under 4 points per game than Tyler Thornton? I think there's been plenty of hyperbole both good and bad about him -- and I'm not trying to gloss over that I spent plenty of time on this board, last year and early this year, lamenting that a more athletic and talented in all aspects Quinn Cook was on the bench while Thornton was starting and playing heavy minutes at point guard. But I'm totally in favor of how Thornton's been utilized recently.

Has Thornton's shot improved to the point that teams feel they can no longer slough off him? Of course not. Take away his first game, when he caught fire and nailed three of six three-pointers against Kenpom's 213th-ranked team, and he's shot 33 percent on threes while connecting on a total of five shots in the other eight games. He's taken two two-point shots all season. Not that I want him to start jacking up shots or anything, but we're not exactly talking about J.J. Redick on offense here.

But watching the Ohio State game, for the first time, I was struck by how perfectly useful he was in his role. (And that's a game when he didn't take a shot and committed four fouls in 17 minutes.) But he was all over the place messing with OSU's flow. I was impressed. I've long thought Thornton is deficient in on-ball defense, and still do, but he does a great job of roaming and creating havoc when given the freedom to do so, and he has a definitive knack for coming up with steals and getting to loose balls. With Cook pushing the tempo and facilitating the offense, other teams playing off Thornton is a relatively moot point. And I think that's the reason you're seeing people's opinions of Thornton changing: He's being used in a role that actually suits him, alongside a legit starting point guard. If Thornton were still starting at point guard and playing heavy minutes, while an above-average point guard with the potential to be elite in Cook played spot minutes and continued to have a short leash, I think I'd be far less able to watch Thornton and appreciate what he brings to the table. I'd also cap this team's ceiling at Sweet 16, if that. But as others have said, Thornton's skills allow him to play a role on a potential champion; they highlight his strengths and minimize his weaknesses. Krzyzewski has always appreciated the finer points of Thornton's game. I'm just glad Cook has earned his trust enough to slot the guards in his rotation where they should be.

Sean Dockery or David McClure?

[Starter]

Sean Dockery or David McClure?

I'm going to eliminate Dockery, who by the end, was averaging a robust 7 ppg. And I actually think he would have been in double digits had he not injured his wrist, IIRC, in 2005. I was pretty bullish on him that year, he was putting up some fairly decent numbers before that. That was a team that desperately craved a third scoring option, and I thought it might have been him had he stayed healthy.

McClure, maybe. I actually rather liked him, since he played bigger than his size and rarely exited his comfort zone. But I still know some Duke alums who can't stand the mention of him.

[supbros]

The thing is that his value is going to heavily swing as to whether you think his defense is a small positive or an immense one. From what I have seen he has played real solid defense but hasn't really stood out from our other perimeter defenders. I feel like Seth has actually become a real good defender. Even though TT has been more disruptive in generating turnovers, I feel that Seth has excelled at keeping his man in front of him and contesting shots such that I don't think TT has an obvious advantage overall on this end, and Quinn seems to be improving in a hurry as well. Or maybe I'm wrong and Seth and Quinn can only provide 80-90% the defense that TT does, but he still is somewhat redundant in that 1) there aren't any players that Seth/Quinn/Sheed can't handle that we need TT to lock down or 2) our defense entirely loses its identity w/o him on the court putting pressure on the ball.

Of course if you do think he's our best perimeter defender by a huge margin, then he suddenly feels a lot more important.

And for all of the praise we give TT for generating TOV's, he gives a bit of it back by not protecting the ball well. He somehow has the 3rd most turnovers on our team despite playing much fewer mins than the starters, never creating for himself, and only sometimes creating for others. He has the highest TOV% among all ACC players thus far. It's great that he's found his niche on offense as a spot up shooter, but that style of player should hardly ever turn it over. IMO his current rate is likely a bit fluky, but until he cuts down he'll be both low usage and inefficient on offense, and would pretty much need to be the best perimeter defender in the ACC to be a net neutral player (although admittedly net neutral is pretty nice for a bench role player)

Of course we can ship with him playing 20 mpg, he's played 20 mpg thus far and we've won the equivalent of 6 tourney games. Our starting 5 is legitimately great and we really don't need much help at all from the bench to succeed.

[supbros]

I'd also cap this team's ceiling at Sweet 16, if that.

What, are we even watching the same team?

I'd say that we're probably faves to go elite 8 if the starting 5 is healthy and ready to go for the tourney.

I was actually enjoying your post up to this point since it seemed so reasonable and objective, but at this point you just sound like a hater.

edit- oops misread, NVM

[Billy Dat]

What, are we even watching the same team?

I'd say that we're probably faves to go elite 8 if the starting 5 is healthy and ready to go for the tourney.

I was actually enjoying your post up to this point since it seemed so reasonable and objective, but at this point you just sound like a hater.

You gots to READ carefully, bro. Starter's sentence that you took umbrage with was preceded by a big IF

"If Thornton were still starting at point guard and playing heavy minutes, while an above-average point guard with the potential to be elite in Cook played spot minutes and continued to have a short leash...."

[Starter]

The thing is that his value is going to heavily swing as to whether you think his defense is a small positive or an immense one. From what I have seen he has played real solid defense but hasn't really stood out from our other perimeter defenders. I feel like Seth has actually become a real good defender. Even though TT has been more disruptive in generating turnovers, I feel that Seth has excelled at keeping his man in front of him and contesting shots such that I don't think TT has an obvious advantage overall on this end, and Quinn seems to be improving in a hurry as well. Or maybe I'm wrong and Seth and Quinn can only provide 80-90% the defense that TT does, but he still is somewhat redundant in that 1) there aren't any players that Seth/Quinn/Sheed can't handle that we need TT to lock down or 2) our defense entirely loses its identity w/o him on the court putting pressure on the ball.

Of course if you do think he's our best perimeter defender by a huge margin, then he suddenly feels a lot more important.

And for all of the praise we give TT for generating TOV's, he gives a bit of it back by not protecting the ball well. He somehow has the 3rd most turnovers on our team despite playing much fewer mins than the starters, never creating for himself, and only sometimes creating for others. He has the highest TOV% among all ACC players thus far. It's great that he's found his niche on offense as a spot up shooter, but that style of player should hardly ever turn it over. IMO his current rate is likely a bit fluky, but until he cuts down he'll be both low usage and inefficient on offense, and would pretty much need to be the best perimeter defender in the ACC to be a net neutral player (although admittedly net neutral is pretty nice for a bench role player)

Of course we can ship with him playing 20 mpg, he's played 20 mpg thus far and we've won the equivalent of 6 tourney games. Our starting 5 is legitimately great and we really don't need much help at all from the bench to succeed.

I think it's fair to bring up his turnover rate, I didn't even know he had the opportunity to turn it over that frequently relative to the minutes he plays. And personally, if I had to rank our 4 guards in terms of on-ball defense, I'd rank Thornton fourth. (I realize this isn't a popular statement, but it is my opinion.)

But if you're starting three guards, you can't play them all the entire game, especially when the first arguably has a broken leg, the second has had major knee problems in his young career and the third is a freshman. Thornton is the only other guard on the roster. It certainly can't hurt that he brings to the court all sorts of leadership and respect from the team, from all accounts, and a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Personally, I'd love to see Jefferson start to carve out a niche, I like what I've seen so far. I'd especially like to see him take on tough small forwards so we don't have to have Thornton do it. But he and Thornton are otherwise not particularly interchangeable, so there's really not anyone else to play the role Thornton currently plays, and rather well.

[TruBlu]

In the past, I have cringed a little when Thornton was in the game, but I have grown to appreciate him more and more. I am a Cook, Sheed, and Seth fan, and believe that while they have earned their positions, Thornton brings the intangibles as others have stated.

He reminds me of a guy with whom I worked, and occasionally played pick-up hoops. He was short, not overly athletic, and only adequate on offense. But, everyone (including me) hated to see him picked on the opposing team. He earned the nickname "The Pest" for his defensive work . . . constantly in your grill and making you work for anything and everything. This, to me, is what Tyler Thornton contributes. (As with my former co-worker, he is also the guy I would want on my side in a street fight.)

I am glad to have all of these young men on our team, each contributing their own special talents, energy, and personalities to make the team a unit. I will trust the coaching staff to mix the ingredients to obtain the best results. (I hereby reserve my rights to sometimes complain a little.)

[Starter]

You gots to READ carefully, bro. Starter's sentence that you took umbrage with was preceded by a big IF

"If Thornton were still starting at point guard and playing heavy minutes, while an above-average point guard with the potential to be elite in Cook played spot minutes and continued to have a short leash...."

Exactly. I apologize if that wasn't more clear.

[Duvall]

I'm just glad Cook has earned his trust enough to slot the guards in his rotation where they should be.

And I'm glad Mike Krzyzewski's ability to assess basketball talent has finally caught up to yours. It certainly can't be that Cook is healthier, more experienced and just plain playing better this year than last.

[supbros]

I think it's fair to bring up his turnover rate, I didn't even know he had the opportunity to turn it over that frequently relative to the minutes he plays. And personally, if I had to rank our 4 guards in terms of on-ball defense, I'd rank Thornton fourth. (I realize this isn't a popular statement, but it is my opinion.)

But if you're starting three guards, you can't play them all the entire game, especially when the first arguably has a broken leg, the second has had major knee problems in his young career and the third is a freshman. Thornton is the only other guard on the roster. It certainly can't hurt that he brings to the court all sorts of leadership and respect from the team, from all accounts, and a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Personally, I'd love to see Jefferson start to carve out a niche, I like what I've seen so far. I'd especially like to see him take on tough small forwards so we don't have to have Thornton do it. But he and Thornton are otherwise not particularly interchangeable, so there's really not anyone else to play the role Thornton currently plays, and rather well.

We don't need to play 3 guards at once, especially not when we have a perimeter oriented 4 who's weak on the glass. I suppose TT is more useful in matchups against smaller lineups, but in the tourney I feel like we'll likely be seeing more matchups where Amile will be more useful at the 3 than TT will be in a 3 guard lineup.

FWIW I am very much in favor of giving Thornton 30+ mins against weaker matchups if it means that the starting guards stay healthy. I actually like the way he's been used thus far, 30 mpg against cupcakes and 15-20 mpg against real teams.


And I'm glad Mike Krzyzewski's ability to assess basketball talent has finally caught up to yours. It certainly can't be that Cook is healthier, more experienced and just plain playing better this year than last.

I hate comments like this.

Yes Coach K is the best coach of all time, and nobody here could nearly replicate the overall job he does in the position. But it's not like every decision he ever makes is 100% perfect, and I do believe that some people are analytically sound enough to offer reasonable critiques of the mistakes that he makes once in a blue. I think it's pretty reasonable to question his decision to favor TT over Quinn last season.

[Starter]

And I'm glad Mike Krzyzewski's ability to assess basketball talent has finally caught up to yours. It certainly can't be that Cook is healthier, more experienced and just plain playing better this year than last.

Easy, my man. I certainly don't disagree that Cook is healthier and playing better than last season, and I'd hope he didn't get less experienced. That doesn't change that I thought he should have been playing over Thornton last year, who he outproduced in half the minutes. Quinn was healthy and good enough to win consecutive ACC Freshman of the Week Awards at one point, and I only recall sparse occasions he appeared to these eyes to be physically limited. And he still played during those times, he just didn't play that much. Maybe he was limping around in practice, but I can only base it on what I saw, which was a talented player with a short leash for whatever reason. I'd just have liked the chance to see what he could do with more time, that's all. Maybe, like this year, his defensive issues or whatever could have been ironed out.

And listen, touche. Trust, Krzyzewski's 900-odd victories are never far from my mind. Heck, I even wrote this (http://dimemag.com/2011/11/game-of-thrones-coach-k-pads-his-legacy-at-msg/) last year. I've never coached basketball, but I can't imagine I'd be a better coach than he is. This doesn't mean that I can't simply disagree with him once in a while, even from a distance. That's the nature of having independent thought, combined with the fact that we're both human beings. And this might shock you, but I even disagree on occasion with -- get ready -- the President of the United States. (As an example, we disagree every year when he reveals his pick for National Champion.)

[CDu]

We don't need to play 3 guards at once, especially not when we have a perimeter oriented 4 who's weak on the glass. I suppose TT is more useful in matchups against smaller lineups, but in the tourney I feel like we'll likely be seeing more matchups where Amile will be more useful at the 3 than TT will be in a 3 guard lineup.

I think we've done quite well against bigger lineups this year, even with our 3-guard lineup. So I'm not sure I agree with your assertion here. In fact, I'm pretty sure that, as far as the performances of Murphy and Jefferson are concerned, I disagree. Perhaps they change the equation as the season progresses and they (hopefully) get better. But right now, Thornton gives us more than they do - even against bigger teams.


FWIW I am very much in favor of giving Thornton 30+ mins against weaker matchups if it means that the starting guards stay healthy. I actually like the way he's been used thus far, 30 mpg against cupcakes and 15-20 mpg against real teams.

FYI - those 15-20 mpg against real teams would mean we're still playing a 3-guard lineup the majority of the time. Unless you assume we're cutting the minutes of Cook, Curry, or Sulaimon. Because if those guys are getting 30+ mpg each (as I'd hope you would expect against good teams), that's at least 105-110 of the 120 perimeter minutes (assuming the bare minimum of 30 minutes each for the starting guards) accounted for by guards.

[sagegrouse]

We don't need to play 3 guards at once, especially not when we have a perimeter oriented 4 who's weak on the glass. I suppose TT is more useful in matchups against smaller lineups, but in the tourney I feel like we'll likely be seeing more matchups where Amile will be more useful at the 3 than TT will be in a 3 guard lineup.

FWIW I am very much in favor of giving Thornton 30+ mins against weaker matchups if it means that the starting guards stay healthy. I actually like the way he's been used thus far, 30 mpg against cupcakes and 15-20 mpg against real teams.

This has been fans' angst at Duke for a long time: we like height, and we like good shooters. Back in the Bubas era, we loved the "twin towers," when Buckley and Tison were both in the lineup (two FF's isn't bad), but they didn't exactly complement each other. The late Professor, Denny Ferguson, was an underappreciated point guard -- really the only one on the team until Vacendak became prominent -- because he wasn't a scorer. There was a period a year or so earlier when 5-10 Billy Ulrich was starting -- he really did look like an intramural player -- and the groans in my section of the stands were audible. Not a guy for the lay-up line either -- the only guy who couldn't dunk also couldn't reach the net.

Coach K is not totally mesmerized by height: remember, he did put Reggie Love, the keeper of the holy Blackberry, on seven-foot Brendan Heywood during the championship '01 season.

I think something else is at play. I have never seen Coach K so determined as this season -- both on the sidelines and with the media. It is like he internalized his Olympic experiences and his championships and decided that, on a team with three very good seniors, he was determined the team would play outstanding basketball every moment of every game. And, "Alex Murphy and Amile Jefferson, you have a world of talent, but until you show you can play the offense and defense the way it is being coached, you are going to see a lot of really good basketball from the bench."

In other words, let's not prejudge the rotation. I personally think we will see a lot of Alex, Amile, and Josh (and Marshall) before the season is out, but there is a reason that Duke is playing better basketball than anyone else in the country right now. It starts with the coach and ends with the players buying in.

And BTW, as I said in my earlier post, Thornton is gonna get his minutes, and the team will be the better for it.


I hate comments like this.

Yes Coach K is the best coach of all time, and nobody here could nearly replicate the overall job he does in the position. But it's not like every decision he ever makes is 100% perfect, and I do believe that some people are analytically sound enough to offer reasonable critiques of the mistakes that he makes once in a blue. I think it's pretty reasonable to question his decision to favor TT over Quinn last season.

Supbros, the response to your post comes with the territory. If you criticize coaching decisions, you should be prepared for a counterattack.

sagegrouse

[supbros]

I think we've done quite well against bigger lineups this year, even with our 3-guard lineup. So I'm not sure I agree with your assertion here. In fact, I'm pretty sure that, as far as the performances of Murphy and Jefferson are concerned, I disagree. Perhaps they change the equation as the season progresses and they (hopefully) get better. But right now, Thornton gives us more than they do - even against bigger teams.



FYI - those 15-20 mpg against real teams would mean we're still playing a 3-guard lineup the majority of the time. Unless you assume we're cutting the minutes of Cook, Curry, or Sulaimon. Because if those guys are getting 30+ mpg each (as I'd hope you would expect against good teams), that's at least 105-110 of the 120 perimeter minutes (assuming the bare minimum of 30 minutes each for the starting guards) accounted for by guards.

We've performed well against everybody because our starters are amazing and TT does fine in his role. If we try to match up against a backcourt of Paige/Strickland/Bullock vs UNC, for instance, we can absolutely get away with matching up Curry or Sheed vs Bullock. They don't have the ideal length to contest his outside shot, but they'll stay with him and he simply isn't dynamic enough to really take advantage of the height mismatch and score at will. In a situation like this the lack of size is not a death knell, and it is certainly possible that Amile would struggle to chase a shooter around the perimeter even if he has great length to contest.

I suppose "content" would be a better word than "happy." But the more we hash this over, the less our distribution of bench minutes seems to matter. At this point I don't see any need to play our starters > 30 mpg in ACC play, we are so clearly the best team that we'll likely win the conference regular season and lock up a 1 seed without stretching them out. IMO the most important thing is that all 5 starters are healthy for the tourney, and if they play 34-35 mpg each, that only leaves 25-30 bench minutes to go around which puts a low ceiling on possible impacts from shuffling minutes.

[uh_no]

We've performed well against everybody because our starters are amazing and TT does fine in his role. If we try to match up against a backcourt of Paige/Strickland/Bullock vs UNC, for instance, we can absolutely get away with matching up Curry or Sheed vs Bullock. They don't have the ideal length to contest his outside shot, but they'll stay with him and he simply isn't dynamic enough to really take advantage of the height mismatch and score at will. In a situation like this the lack of size is not a death knell, and it is certainly possible that Amile would struggle to chase a shooter around the perimeter even if he has great length to contest.

I suppose "content" would be a better word than "happy." But the more we hash this over, the less our distribution of bench minutes seems to matter. At this point I don't see any need to play our starters > 30 mpg in ACC play, we are so clearly the best team that we'll likely win the conference regular season and lock up a 1 seed without stretching them out. IMO the most important thing is that all 5 starters are healthy for the tourney, and if they play 34-35 mpg each, that only leaves 25-30 bench minutes to go around which puts a low ceiling on possible impacts from shuffling minutes.

careful, the weauxing gods are getting restless...

[JasonEvans]

McClure, maybe. I actually rather liked him, since he played bigger than his size and rarely exited his comfort zone. But I still know some Duke alums who can't stand the mention of him.

So this post caused me to check up on David McClure real quick. He has been playing in Europe for a while. This year, he is with a team in Lithuania (http://www.eurobasket.com/team.asp?Cntry=LTU&Team=1488). He is considered one of their top players even though he averages just 5 ppg.

I can't imagine why Duke alums would not like him. Dude was never enough of an impact player to register on the "grrr, why isn't he better?" scale, I think. He played some solid D and tried to do the little things. Every so often, he would have a stretch of a game where he would grab a couple key rebounds, make a steal or draw a charge, and maybe even hit an important basket and you would go, "McClure is taking over!!" Though those moments tended to fade fairly quickly. But, to me, he never looked so impressive that you would wonder why he wasn't a more significant player -- the way some folks did with Pocius (to name a player who played with McClure) or even Czyz.

-Jason "wow-- this thread has strayed FAR away from Ken Pom" Evans

[timmy c]

I can't imagine why Duke alums would not like him. Dude was never enough of an impact player to register on the "grrr, why isn't he better?" scale, I think. He played some solid D and tried to do the little things. Every so often, he would have a stretch of a game where he would grab a couple key rebounds, make a steal or draw a charge, and maybe even hit an important basket and you would go, "McClure is taking over!!" Though those moments tended to fade fairly quickly. But, to me, he never looked so impressive that you would wonder why he wasn't a more significant player -- the way some folks did with Pocius (to name a player who played with McClure) or even Czyz.

-Jason "wow-- this thread has strayed FAR away from Ken Pom" Evans

Let me try to get us back to KenPom...

MClure’s usage rate / % possessions in 2007, according to KenPom (53.6/13.0%) are very similar to Thornton’s current KenPom numbers (54.2,12.6%). If McClure’s wasn’t worthy of “grrr” moments than, certainly Thornton is not either. :confused::p

[dukeofcalabash]

Thank goodness I've never had the desire or need to read about Ken Pom's issues, whatever they may be. I wish him well and hope he recovers soon!

[uh_no]

So this post caused me to check up on David McClure real quick. He has been playing in Europe for a while. This year, he is with a team in Lithuania (http://www.eurobasket.com/team.asp?Cntry=LTU&Team=1488). He is considered one of their top players even though he averages just 5 ppg.

I can't imagine why Duke alums would not like him. Dude was never enough of an impact player to register on the "grrr, why isn't he better?" scale, I think. He played some solid D and tried to do the little things. Every so often, he would have a stretch of a game where he would grab a couple key rebounds, make a steal or draw a charge, and maybe even hit an important basket and you would go, "McClure is taking over!!" Though those moments tended to fade fairly quickly. But, to me, he never looked so impressive that you would wonder why he wasn't a more significant player -- the way some folks did with Pocius (to name a player who played with McClure) or even Czyz.

-Jason "wow-- this thread has strayed FAR away from Ken Pom" Evans

Like teaming up with the clock operator to beat clemson, perhaps ;)

[CDu]

Let me try to get us back to KenPom...

MClure’s usage rate / % possessions in 2007, according to KenPom (53.6/13.0%) are very similar to Thornton’s current KenPom numbers (54.2,12.6%). If McClure’s wasn’t worthy of “grrr” moments than, certainly Thornton is not either. :confused::p

To be fair, McClure played almost half of his minutes during the worst Duke season since before Battier and Brand arrived (2007). That team was not nearly as good as this team. And there just weren't a ton of great options to play in his place. He played sparingly in 2005 and 2008, and again in 2009 when we were again short-handed up front. At the time, the options were:
1. Play McClure
2. Play Thomas (who was very unreliable in his first three years) more
3. Play Zoubek (who was very unreliable in his first three years) more
4. Go small more

Not saying that the Thornton hate this year is warranted, but at least there's a theoretical point of discussion for his benching (i.e., to get bigger and more athletic).

[Starter]

If I might derail this Tyler Thornton/David McClure thread with some Pomeroy stuff -- and I know I'm a chief offender, by the way -- his individual rankings that Duke's players excel in demonstrate they're doing explicitly what they should be doing to play to their strengths. I can't go into explicit detail due to it being subscription based, but Kelly ranks pretty high in block percentage, a very pleasant surprise for a somewhat below-the-rim player, and he is exceptional in turnover rate. Cook ranks high in assist rate and is up there in percentage of minutes, making me a happy guy. Mason is elite in percentages for defensive rebounding and drawing fouls. Curry, Kelly and Plumlee all rank highly in offensive efficiency. Thornton ranks in the top 35 in steal percentage. You can see why the team has looked so cohesive early on: Everyone is doing something they're supposed to be doing, and some are going a bit above and beyond that.

Some other KenPom tidbits -- of the top 20 teams in terms of Pythagorean strength of schedule, Duke ranks fourth and is one of only three with a winning record. There's no other relatively elite team until Michigan at No. 80, and their schedule pales in comparison to Duke's.

He projects Duke to finish 28-3, with the shakiest odds predictably coming on the road against Miami, NC State and North Carolina. He gives a 4.4 percent chance Duke goes undefeated.

[supbros]

Ryan Kelly's man to man defense has been absolutely stellar this year. I'd go as far as to say he's been our best man to man defender. You could argue that this has something to do w/ a lack of players who posed matchup issues for him, but the good news is that their aren't any Thomas Robinson style bangers on the elite teams that will abuse him down low in the tourney. I don't think Christian Watford or Erik Murphy will give him any troubles that he hasn't seen from his current matchups thus far.

Offensively he is nothing short of an elite weapon. I know he doesn't fit the prototype of elite college weapons, but like Starter says his TOV rate has been microscopically low, while still scoring with good efficiency and slightly above average usage. He's a great shooter and can get his shot off vs anybody, since there really aren't too many 6'10 college players who can defend the perimeter. Also nice that he has good handles to create for himself and help break presses, and he's become a pretty nice passer too. He's inevitably going to get underrated due to his unselfish nature and the talent around him, but he really has become quite the weapon. Not to mention that he's a kickass PF pairing with Mason.

I'd say he's solidly our 2nd best player while also being a microcosm for the team as a whole: awesome at everything but rebounding.

At the team level, scary thing is that individual stats will underrate everybody due to SOS thus far. And Duke has a rep for peaking early but I don't believe that will happen this year- sure Noel/Goodwin/Poythress will progress significantly more than Mason/RK/Seth from November to March, but imo we've only seen the tip of the iceberg with Quinn and Sheed. By the end of the year we have a strong at having the best 5 man unit in the country. It's really quite amazing- everybody can score, everybody can pass, everybody can handle the ball and create for themselves, everybody can defend, and we have perfect spacing with 4 great shooters and one great interior scorer. When was the last time there was such a perfectly synergistic and balanced starting 5?

[ChillinDuke]

If I might derail this Tyler Thornton/David McClure thread with some Pomeroy stuff -- and I know I'm a chief offender, by the way -- his individual rankings that Duke's players excel in demonstrate they're doing explicitly what they should be doing to play to their strengths. I can't go into explicit detail due to it being subscription based, but Kelly ranks pretty high in block percentage, a very pleasant surprise for a somewhat below-the-rim player, and he is exceptional in turnover rate. Cook ranks high in assist rate and is up there in percentage of minutes, making me a happy guy. Mason is elite in percentages for defensive rebounding and drawing fouls. Curry, Kelly and Plumlee all rank highly in offensive efficiency. Thornton ranks in the top 35 in steal percentage. You can see why the team has looked so cohesive early on: Everyone is doing something they're supposed to be doing, and some are going a bit above and beyond that.

Some other KenPom tidbits -- of the top 20 teams in terms of Pythagorean strength of schedule, Duke ranks fourth and is one of only three with a winning record. There's no other relatively elite team until Michigan at No. 80, and their schedule pales in comparison to Duke's.

He projects Duke to finish 28-3, with the shakiest odds predictably coming on the road against Miami, NC State and North Carolina. He gives a 4.4 percent chance Duke goes undefeated.

That's a relatively remarkable statistic. With as many as 30 or so games to go, KenPom estimates nearly 5 times out of 100 Duke would go undefeated.

Wow.

- Chillin

[ArtVandelay]

At this point I don't see any need to play our starters > 30 mpg in ACC play, we are so clearly the best team that we'll likely win the conference regular season and lock up a 1 seed without stretching them out. IMO the most important thing is that all 5 starters are healthy for the tourney, and if they play 34-35 mpg each, that only leaves 25-30 bench minutes to go around which puts a low ceiling on possible impacts from shuffling minutes.

Dude! You take this back right away before I think you're a Carolina fan troll. Don't offend the gods! We are not clearly the best team. I would say we are probably one of the worst teams in the ACC and will be lucky to win 3 games this conference season. In fact, I don't see us making the tournament.

[pfrduke]

That's a relatively remarkable statistic. With as many as 30 or so games to go, KenPom estimates nearly 5 times out of 100 Duke would go undefeated.

Wow.

- Chillin

To be clear, that's just undefeated through the rest of the regular season. ACC and NCAA tournament games are not included in the forecast because the opponents are not known. Still impressive, but a big difference.

[toooskies]

And of course, this is assuming every possession is a randomly distributed occurrence, whereas there is probably some likelihood that added pressure from getting close to being undefeated in the regular season may introduce other factors. Oh, and that in games against UNC, you can throw out the statistical projections.