MBB: Duke 85, Boston College 62 Post Game Thread

[Ultrarunner]

Mods - the other thread went up at the same time. Delete, please?

[Dev11]

There were dunks. Big, fun, pose-inducing dunks.

[Duke3517]

Okafor is so talented it's not even fair. He has NBA Hall of Fame potential!

[Bob Green]

The game was physical and chippie but the big elbow by Clifford was an accident. He didn't know Okafor was behind him as he demonstrably complained to the ref.

[chrishoke]

We set a record for lay ups allowed.

[Dev11]

Mods - the other thread went up at the same time. Delete, please?

Nah, you won. I got rid of the one I started.

[uh_no]

Bit disappointed in the defense...fourth subpar performance in 5 games

[CajunDevil]

Thrilled with this game - defense allowed too many drives early but adjusted nicely. Jan's free throws. Justise's brutal throw downs. Matt Jones' threes. Sheed's play. We are getting better.

[Ultrarunner]

Bit disappointed in the defense...fourth subpar performance in 5 games

I didn't think the defense was that bad for most of the game. The freshmen are hitting a bit of a wall as the other teams catch on to tendencies. The Plumlee, Jefferson, Jones, Sulaimon, and Cook line up was just this side of spectacular. We held them to 40 percent shooting (and 23 percent from 3-point range) which is pretty solid defense. I was more concerned with the number of rebounds they got.

[uh_no]

Thrilled with this game - defense allowed too many drives early but adjusted nicely. Jan's free throws. Justise's brutal throw downs. Matt Jones' threes. Sheed's play. We are getting better.

They played great for a 10 minute stretch in the first half, but then reverted in the second half. Frankly with all the lay ups bc missed it should have been worse.

Anyway we were expected to put up an 89.5 on d and put up a 98.

I'm getting duke heavenly buffalos to close out the night, but will look at the numbers more closely later

[DukeDevil]

I didn't think the defense was that bad for most of the game. The freshmen are hitting a bit of a wall as the other teams catch on to tendencies. The Plumlee, Jefferson, Jones, Sulaimon, and Cook line up was just this side of spectacular. We held them to 40 percent shooting (and 23 percent from 3-point range) which is pretty solid defense. I was more concerned with the number of rebounds they got.

I agree here. While at times the defense lapsed, I think this team tends to let up until they feel the other team get some steam, then lock down. When they lock down (especially the lineup you pointed out above) it was very solid D, so I think they can bring it more often if needed. The thing that concerned me more was the rebounding as you pointed out. Felt that the boxing out was lackadaisical and there were plenty of times I felt we got outfought for a rebound.

All that aside...so many good things to take away from this game, with Jah's free throw shooting being number 1 for me. The bench play was number 2, I know we have a good bench but it's great to 1) see K go deep into the bench and 2) see them respond and play well.

[Saratoga2]

The bench has been questionable for the last few games but this afternoon it was excellent right down the line. I thought the subs actually played better defense than the starters. Marshall, Rasheed and Matt were very good indeed defensively and their offense was also very effective. Rasheed hit threes, took good shots and passed well, with perhaps one or two questionable plays. Matt's shot also looked much better and his defense is really good. Marshall was very active contesting shots and rebounding. Our question marks, including Jah's foul shooting were mostly answered. His form has looked decent all along and today his concentration was there.

Not to diminish the starters who were also very good. Jah is incredible and so is Justise. Quinn got his points, Tyus is good with the ball and Amile looked good.

Great team effort and definite improvement in many areas.

[DukeDevil]

What's the over/under on Jah as ACC POTW/FOTW?

I feel like we almost need a "man of the match other than Jahzilla" category.

[CajunDevil]

Of course - Jah not Jan.

[devildeac]

Couple interesting stats:

1. MP3 had more boards (6) and blocks (4) than points (3).
2. We had 8 guys with 3 or more boards each.

[OldPhiKap]

Nice to see Sheed play well. Really pulling for it to all come together for him, he is an important component of getting it done this year.

[sagegrouse]

A lot to like this afternoon, starting with Mr. Okafor. The next three players to mention are Justise, Matt and Rasheed. The defensive play of Matt and Rasheed was truly encouraging. Matt was even third on the team in minutes played, with 27. Justise is scary good in the open court.

[Native]

Shout-out to Sheed. Brought a ton of energy on the bench, did a great job when he was on Hanlan, and hit a few key threes and made some great passes.

[jwillfan]

Was at the game. At one point I heard a guy behind me refer to Matt Jones as "The Glove" as in "they got The Glove guarding Hanlon again." Loved it! Can it stick?

[uh_no]

They played great for a 10 minute stretch in the first half, but then reverted in the second half. Frankly with all the lay ups bc missed it should have been worse.

Anyway we were expected to put up an 89.5 on d and put up a 98.

I'm getting duke heavenly buffalos to close out the night, but will look at the numbers more closely later

alright...as promised

1) if you live in the durham area and HAVEN'T visited heavenly buffaloes yet, shame on you. Highly recommend a sauch blend of zesty garlic parmesean and burnie zazzoff, with a half order of jerk waffle fries
2) snapped a shot of the old football bowl. dirt....dirt everywhere....the wall is now half the height it was before. track is no more, and finch yeager appears untouched. woner if they have to wait the year out before demoing it
3) we were expected to win the game 82-60 in 67 posessions, for a defensive efficiency of 89.55, which is almost exactly our adjusted defensive efficiency on the year, which makes sense given BC's O is 101.6, or about as average as you can be. We put up a 98.4 defense on the game, which is not particularly good, given we established BC as an average O. A defense that would be expected to surrender a 98.4 to BC would be ranked about 135 in the country....THAT is not good.
I of all people am wary of not making a manute out of a mugsy, which is why i pointed out that 4 of our past 5 games (BC, elon, toledo, wofford) were worse than predicted. On dec 14, the day before elon, we had a defensive efficiency of 90.2....which just goes to show you that over the past 5 games our defense has gone from 90.2 to 89.8...an improvement of .4 PP100

WAIT A SECOND....that doesn't support my thesis!


welp folks, scientific method! why did my eyes say our defense played poorly but kenpom shows us improving?

Two thoughts:
1) the uconn game skewed the number super hard: on dec17 we had a D of 90.3, two days later it was 89.5 CONFIRMED. so in fact our other 4 games DID pull the rankings, mitigating half of our gain from the great effort against uconn.
2) the missed chippies by BC is not really an indication that our defense wasn't as good as the number, but really that BCs offense is really not as bad as the number. I haven't watched their games, but at the rate they missed layups tonight, i can only theorize that they have missed layups in other games....thus artificially supressing their offense in kenpom....now this doesn't change the fact that we underperformed tonight (as kenpom would have reflected the tendency to miss shots in the current numbers), but it DOES change my interpretation of my own eye test.

So here's an interesting view....lets split the game by 10 minute segments and look at the efficiencies:
points pos efficiency
1Q 20 15.8 127
2Q 2 15 13
3Q 21 15.4 136
4Q 19 17.8 106

I'd say that goes
Horrible,
Godly,
Atrocious,
poor

So but for the one half half that we killed them, we were really pretty bad. I'm not trying to proclaim the sky is falling....that happened last year. I'm simply pointing out that the defense wasn't all that good tonight on the whole, and we should strive for more consistency...to not have those long stretches where the opponent can score in bunches.

From my watching, it seemed that the scores largely came to a couple reasons:
1) bad transition defense
2) botched switches

WHile okafor had several gaudy blocks, he also had several plays where the perimeter got beat, and despite him shifting somewhat, the offense still got an easy layup. I'd like to see him challenge those plays more consistently....even if you can't swat it, affect the shot.

The failure to set up defense quickly caused situations which maybe shouldn't have been transition to appear transition...such as several instances after a BC defensive rebound, and they ended up with an open shot because it appeard we still hadn't set our defense yet.

that's all for now.

[jipops]

Was at the game. At one point I heard a guy behind me refer to Matt Jones as "The Glove" as in "they got The Glove guarding Hanlon again." Loved it! Can it stick?

Doubt it, Gary Payton already owns it.

I thought he was great today though. I don't think it's any coincidence that Matt being on the floor so much in the 1st half coincided with BC's long drought.

[uh_no]

Doubt it, Gary Payton already owns it.

I thought he was great today though. I don't think it's any coincidence that Matt being on the floor so much in the 1st half coincided with BC's long drought.

sheed was playing very well on that side of the floor as well...including almost single handedly forcing the one shot clock violation, if i recall.

[slower]

As I (and others) have stated previously, Amile doesn't bring much offensively, as far as creating his own offense. Today we saw Matt and Sheed get more minutes, although I haven't looked at the game totals. But unless/until Amile can consistently hit a shot outside of 2 feet, K might just decide to go smaller for more offense. Don't get me wrong - I love Amile. But there's just too much talent here to have to "work around" his offensive shortcomings.

Also, as one of Grayson's early proponents, I must admit that he's not quite at the level of the others in the 9-man rotation. Maybe it's just a confidence thing.

[Newton_14]

Great game by the boys in blue today. ACC, say hello to the beast Jahlil Okafor, and his buddies. You might find this version of Duke Hoopsters to be a tad bit more difficult to handle than recent years!

On top of Jahlil, I thought the team on whole, played really well today. Quinn did not shoot it well, but outside of that I had no complaints on offense. Strong game by Rasheed, Winslow, Matt Jones, and Tyus ran the team well. Defense was solid, and even stellar in stretches. BC did get a few too many drives to the rim, but Hanlan is just a load. Not many teams going to stop him from getting to the rim. The success BC had there never really hurt us though. Defense tightened a lot in the second half though. BC went a long stretch with no buckets when we pushed the lead into the 20's. And hey, K went 9 deep!! Grayson got time in the first half with the game still in doubt. Hope to see that continue.

Nice way to kick off league play. Much better than the fiasco at Notre Dame last year huh?

We are a very good team that is still improving. Lots of weapons on offense and lots of weapons on defense.

They have a tough stretch coming up. 5 out of 7 conference games on the road. The youngun's are gonna get tested. Anxious to see how they do.

[Ultrarunner]

. . . So but for the one half half that we killed them, we were really pretty bad. I'm not trying to proclaim the sky is falling....that happened last year. I'm simply pointing out that the defense wasn't all that good tonight on the whole, and we should strive for more consistency...to not have those long stretches where the opponent can score in bunches.

From my watching, it seemed that the scores largely came to a couple reasons:
1) bad transition defense
2) botched switches

WHile okafor had several gaudy blocks, he also had several plays where the perimeter got beat, and despite him shifting somewhat, the offense still got an easy layup. I'd like to see him challenge those plays more consistently....even if you can't swat it, affect the shot.

The failure to set up defense quickly caused situations which maybe shouldn't have been transition to appear transition...such as several instances after a BC defensive rebound, and they ended up with an open shot because it appeard we still hadn't set our defense yet.

that's all for now.

Nice job!

A couple of points, mostly that count as agreement. At least a couple of the BC run-outs happened when Sheed, then Cook, had passes intercepted and we ended up with 4-on-1 breaks. There were a couple of others were the freshmen didn't get down the floor as quickly as the should have. Welcome to the ACC - it just gets more fun (and faster) from here.

For all the flack that Marshall gets, he did a get job of disrupting shooters at the rim. He also helped force a t/o at perimeter for the second game in a row. We keep waiting for a Zoubian breakout but I think he's doing a bunch of little things we're going to look back on and go "heeeyyy!" He's not going to be Zoubs II, but I don't think we'll ultimately be displeased.

The veteran squad played some terrific defense. I'm expecting that lesson to be passed to the youngster over the next couple of weeks.

[jv001]

Great way to open ACC play. Just a couple of thoughts before I watch the game again. From the eye test it looked like Quinn really had trouble stopping Hanlan on drives. The defense picked up when Rasheed and Matt came into the game. It was good to see Matt hit his shot, drive the ball and play under control. What an asset he is when he has it all going. Same for Rasheed, when he's hitting on all cylinders, he's great. Now let's beat Wake and State on the road before returning home. GoDuke!

[-bdbd]

Nice job!

A couple of points, mostly that count as agreement. At least a couple of the BC run-outs happened when Sheed, then Cook, had passes intercepted and we ended up with 4-on-1 breaks. There were a couple of others were the freshmen didn't get down the floor as quickly as the should have. Welcome to the ACC - it just gets more fun (and faster) from here.

For all the flack that Marshall gets, he did a get job of disrupting shooters at the rim. He also helped force a t/o at perimeter for the second game in a row. We keep waiting for a Zoubian breakout but I think he's doing a bunch of little things we're going to look back on and go "heeeyyy!" He's not going to be Zoubs II, but I don't think we'll ultimately be displeased.

The veteran squad played some terrific defense. I'm expecting that lesson to be passed to the youngster over the next couple of weeks.

Pretty much in agreement. The D simply is nowhere near what we've been spoiled to expect in the past from Duke. The Freshmen seem much more vulnerable to breakdowns such as lack of hustle getting back on D in transition, or getting caught up in picks, etc. As Ultra pints out, we need to address it soon, b/c Louisville, NC, ND, and UVA won't let us get away with that as much as BC did.

BTW, really agree about MP3 playing heady ball, and doing a lot of the little things. That us good, as he very well be our starting Center next year!

[roywhite]

Boxscore: Duke 85 - Boston College 62 (http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=22724&SPID=1845&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=209833316)

Not sure I agree with the degree of concern some have for Duke's defense. BC shot 40% FG for the game, and only 3-13 from 3-Pt. Yes, Hanlan got to the rim a number of times, but he's a quality player. I thought both Sheed and Matt Jones defended well, and played well overall.

Amile with only 17 minutes -- is K experimenting (and as noted above, Sheed and Matt Jones played well) or are there serious concerns about Amile's lack of shooting range and how other teams are able to slack off him when he gets the ball 15 feet from the basket?

Great to see Jah shoot his free throws so well; he's up to 57.3% after today's game.

[Philadukie]

Boxscore: Duke 85 - Boston College 62 (http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=22724&SPID=1845&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=209833316)

Great to see Jah shoot his free throws so well; he's up to 57.3% after today's game.

If he keeps doing that Kedsy might have to rethink his position that players don't improve their free throw shooting mid season. ;) I seem to recall $20 being on the line with someone? I suspect that's $20 he'll be happy to lose. Look out for Justise too!

[uh_no]

Boxscore: Duke 85 - Boston College 62 (http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=22724&SPID=1845&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=209833316)

Not sure I agree with the degree of concern some have for Duke's defense. BC shot 40% FG for the game, and only 3-13 from 3-Pt. Yes, Hanlan got to the rim a number of times, but he's a quality player. I thought both Sheed and Matt Jones defended well, and played well overall.

Amile with only 17 minutes -- is K experimenting (and as noted above, Sheed and Matt Jones played well) or are there serious concerns about Amile's lack of shooting range and how other teams are able to slack off him when he gets the ball 15 feet from the basket?

Great to see Jah shoot his free throws so well; he's up to 57.3% after today's game.

I'm torn. I showed some split stats.....but the question is, at what point does dividing the game become invalid? If we took a top top defense and did splits, would they look similar? would it be consistent? What does that mean for future success? I don't have the data, and can't answer with any degree of accuracy.

I think claiming the low fg% IS concerning, largely because many of those missed shots were GOOD shots, and better teams will make them. BUT:

I don't think there's anything condemning, as I mentioned, just things that need to be worked on that can transform some of those mini runs that BC had tonight into scoring droughts (e.g. getting set up quickly, better help underneath). We're staring 3 freshmen....they've done a good job coming THIS far. They'll get there. I just hope it doesn't take a devastating loss to be the wakeup call.

[Philadukie]

alright...as promised

1) if you live in the durham area and HAVEN'T visited heavenly buffaloes yet, shame on you. Highly recommend a sauch blend of zesty garlic parmesean and burnie zazzoff, with a half order of jerk waffle fries
2) snapped a shot of the old football bowl. dirt....dirt everywhere....the wall is now half the height it was before. track is no more, and finch yeager appears untouched. woner if they have to wait the year out before demoing it
3) we were expected to win the game 82-60 in 67 posessions, for a defensive efficiency of 89.55, which is almost exactly our adjusted defensive efficiency on the year, which makes sense given BC's O is 101.6, or about as average as you can be. We put up a 98.4 defense on the game, which is not particularly good, given we established BC as an average O. A defense that would be expected to surrender a 98.4 to BC would be ranked about 135 in the country....THAT is not good.
I of all people am wary of not making a manute out of a mugsy, which is why i pointed out that 4 of our past 5 games (BC, elon, toledo, wofford) were worse than predicted. On dec 14, the day before elon, we had a defensive efficiency of 90.2....which just goes to show you that over the past 5 games our defense has gone from 90.2 to 89.8...an improvement of .4 PP100

WAIT A SECOND....that doesn't support my thesis!


welp folks, scientific method! why did my eyes say our defense played poorly but kenpom shows us improving?

Two thoughts:
1) the uconn game skewed the number super hard: on dec17 we had a D of 90.3, two days later it was 89.5 CONFIRMED. so in fact our other 4 games DID pull the rankings, mitigating half of our gain from the great effort against uconn.
2) the missed chippies by BC is not really an indication that our defense wasn't as good as the number, but really that BCs offense is really not as bad as the number. I haven't watched their games, but at the rate they missed layups tonight, i can only theorize that they have missed layups in other games....thus artificially supressing their offense in kenpom....now this doesn't change the fact that we underperformed tonight (as kenpom would have reflected the tendency to miss shots in the current numbers), but it DOES change my interpretation of my own eye test.

So here's an interesting view....lets split the game by 10 minute segments and look at the efficiencies:
points pos efficiency
1Q 20 15.8 127
2Q 2 15 13
3Q 21 15.4 136
4Q 19 17.8 106

I'd say that goes
Horrible,
Godly,
Atrocious,
poor

So but for the one half half that we killed them, we were really pretty bad. I'm not trying to proclaim the sky is falling....that happened last year. I'm simply pointing out that the defense wasn't all that good tonight on the whole, and we should strive for more consistency...to not have those long stretches where the opponent can score in bunches.

From my watching, it seemed that the scores largely came to a couple reasons:
1) bad transition defense
2) botched switches

WHile okafor had several gaudy blocks, he also had several plays where the perimeter got beat, and despite him shifting somewhat, the offense still got an easy layup. I'd like to see him challenge those plays more consistently....even if you can't swat it, affect the shot.

The failure to set up defense quickly caused situations which maybe shouldn't have been transition to appear transition...such as several instances after a BC defensive rebound, and they ended up with an open shot because it appeard we still hadn't set our defense yet.

that's all for now.

Interesting, thanks.

Just five to ten years ago debates and arguments raged on these boards based solely on competing eye tests and the negative or positive dispositions behind them. These days, the data and stats have become so sophisticated, and posters have become so sophisticated in using them, that the old style debates between "two guys at the bar" have become, while not infrequent, at least....quaint?

I no longer post immediate thoughts here until I've had a chance to read other posters' statistical commentary about a game. For instance, today I actually thought we played good D overall, but clearly, for 3/4ths of the game, we didn't really. Fascinating stuff how so often "the eye" can be wrong. To me anyway.

[Acymetric]

Interesting, thanks.

Just five to ten years ago debates and arguments raged on these boards based solely on competing eye tests and the negative or positive dispositions behind them. These days, the data and stats have become so sophisticated, and posters have become so sophisticated in using them, that the old style debates between "two guys at the bar" have become, while not infrequent, at least....quaint?

I no longer post immediate thoughts here until I've had a chance to read other posters' statistical commentary about a game. For instance, today I actually thought we played good D overall, but clearly, for 3/4ths of the game, we didn't really. Fascinating stuff how so often "the eye" can be wrong. To me anyway.

Funny, I was thinking about the same thing earlier today but with a different conclusion. I love KenPom and the advanced stats (I am both a math and sports geek) but I think sometimes people especially on this board get a little too wrapped up in them. The fun in sports is the actual games, not a constant analysis of advanced performance metrics. I dearly miss the more old school bar style eye test conversations, I think they were both more enjoyable and more informative about the sport and the players/teams involved.

[dukelifer]

A lot to like this afternoon, starting with Mr. Okafor. The next three players to mention are Justise, Matt and Rasheed. The defensive play of Matt and Rasheed was truly encouraging. Matt was even third on the team in minutes played, with 27. Justise is scary good in the open court.

Great bench play tonight- with Sheed leading the way. Matt may be getting his confidence back on O. That will be a big help. Okafor showed he can hit throws when he focuses. He has a very good stroke and should be >75%. Hope that continues. Quinn struggled in stretches but worked through it. That is a big improvement. In the past Quinn would hang his head and lose concentration. The D was too porous at times but overall a good effort in the opening ACC game.

[Kedsy]

If he keeps doing that Kedsy might have to rethink his position that players don't improve their free throw shooting mid season. ;) I seem to recall $20 being on the line with someone? I suspect that's $20 he'll be happy to lose. Look out for Justise too!

We changed it to beer, payable at the Final Four. And yes, I'd be happy to lose. Although I'd note that so far, I'm not losing either bet: since the day of the bet, Jahlil is shooting 64.1% (25 for 39, including tonight's spectacular performance; he needs to get over 70% for me to lose the bet), and the Jahlil/Amile/Justise trio is shooting 65.2% (43 for 66; they also need to get over 70% in the aggregate for me to lose the bet).

A few more nights like tonight, though, and I'll start thinking about arrangements for paying up. :D

[tbyers11]

Funny, I was thinking about the same thing earlier today but with a different conclusion. I love KenPom and the advanced stats (I am both a math and sports geek) but I think sometimes people especially on this board get a little too wrapped up in them. The fun in sports is the actual games, not a constant analysis of advanced performance metrics. I dearly miss the more old school bar style eye test conversations, I think they were both more enjoyable and more informative about the sport and the players/teams involved.

I too love Ken Pom, math, and stats. I also lean toward your point of view. The OEs and DEs are great for projecting games, comparing results within a season for a team and between teams. However, when viewed in the lens of a single game discussing whether our defense was good or bad because our 95.7 Deff didn't meet the expected 89.6 against BC seems a bit too nitpicky. One BC 3 pointer rimming out and we meet expectations. A lot of single play randomness can make large differences in these numbers and I think they need to be discussed as a guidepost for single game observations rather than hard and fast milestones.

My overall thoughts on the D this game were that BC really spread us out and tried to break us down of the dribble (mainly via Hanlan). They were fairly successful early in the game. Jah didn't not handle several pick-and-roll situations where the pick was set by his man on Hanlan's man (mostly Quinn) at least 5 feet beyond the 3pt arc. Our help/recovery in these situations was not very good either.

We then made a couple tweaks. K took Amile out, we went small with Sheed and/or Matt in the lineup and (as Gminski mentioned on the telecast) we started going under the screens against Hanlan. Hanlan is a much better driver than 3 point shooter and our help/recovery and overall D pressure picked up when we went on our big run at the end of the first half.

At the start of the second half, the D didn't handle some different high screen action on several occasions but thankfully our offense was just as good as theirs, but then during our run of 3 straight 3 pointers that put the game away, we (or actually MP3) had 3 straight good D possessions with a steal and 2 blocks.

Basically our D was not great overall and bad at times but adjustments were made and the D was great in a couple of spurts: 7 min that gave us separation during the end of the 1st half and the 2 minutes around the 3 point barrage in the second half that effectively iced the game.

As mentioned by others my biggest concern is that our transition D was poor throughout the game (and has been in several games). To me this is an entirely different animal than half-court defense and needs to be improved. We can obviously cut down on live ball TOs that lead to 3-on-1 breaks for the other team. There were too many of these tonight. Particularly in the last 5-6 minutes although our concentration had waned a bit by that point. My biggest issue is giving up transition or secondary transition baskets after missed shot attempts. We need to have players rotate back when the PG drives and we just need to have better hustle in getting our butts back overall. I really want to see how we address this in upcoming games.

My takeaways on the good win.
1) Our offense and Jah (FTs!!) are great.
2) Our half-court D is not great but shows potential for greatness in short periods and needs to focus a bit more consistently. The fact that we have the personnel to have different options is great.
3) Transition D needs to be a big focus.

On to 6 road games in our next 8!

Edit: Agree with uh_no's post that metrics also really help understand nuances and that there is defnitely room for both camps to get along :)

[uh_no]

Funny, I was thinking about the same thing earlier today but with a different conclusion. I love KenPom and the advanced stats (I am both a math and sports geek) but I think sometimes people especially on this board get a little too wrapped up in them. The fun in sports is the actual games, not a constant analysis of advanced performance metrics. I dearly miss the more old school bar style eye test conversations, I think they were both more enjoyable and more informative about the sport and the players/teams involved.

There's room for both.

I think ultimatley there are two purposes for advanced metrics.

1) to counter things humans are TERRIBLE at viewing intuitively....one good example is the length of runs in a string of random data....humans will generally vastly underestimate, say, the number of consecutive heads that might come up in a long string of trials, when viewed against the actual distribution. Another thing might be gravity....when you're young, intuitively, a heavier thing "should" fall faster....but we all learn that's not true. Unfortunately we don't have the ability to "simulate" games like you can with physics experiments, so all we can do is take past results and examine the degree to which they adhere to our intuition....and sometimes we find our intuition correct, and sometimes we find it horribly wrong (kenpom does this sort of thing....probability of fouling when tied, whether to miss a freethrow intentionally in certain circumstances, etc)

2) to understand the things we DO see intuitively....for example i said last year (paraphrased) "i don't think quinn is effective running the offense under pressure"....well how do I evaluate that? we can argue, but it won't be resolved until we come up with a rule for what constitutes a "pressure" situation, followed by a metric for what constitutes success....and it's bound to be "advanced" by any measure. (I mean...maybe you just want to argue....and that's fine...I'm not going to argue....unless you want to :P )

I think you learn lots about the sport in either circumstance, though by using stats you've by a large degree reduced players to numbers....and the "eye-test" counter to that may be that you have two players with different syles of game with similar numbers...and the number guy's response to that is that the stats are incomplete...we need more!

So look there, we had a case where the number guy needed an eye-test guy to point out why the stats didn't make sense, and the eye-test guy needed the number guy to help explain why they were observing what they were.

WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST BE FRIENDS????

[UrinalCake]

Very encouraged by Marshall's play today. It felt like he got more than 11 minutes, and he made solid contributions with few mistakes while he was in. Jahlil seemed a little frustrated late in the first half, BC was doing a decent job of keeping the ball out of his hands, so he started forcing things. Eventually he was given some room to operate and the shots started dropping. I think he hit his first ten free throws, which is awesome.

I was fortunate to get to go to all three games this week, had a blast but I'm looking forward to the students being back in full force. Several times the players tried to urge the crowd on, Coach K did the same, even Crazy Towel guy couldn't get the place to make some noise.

[Skitzle]

I'm with kedsy here after my disappointment in mason plumlees ft% his senior year. Started 70% plus but finished under that mark.

Jah shot 57% for his high school career with his best mark 64% as a junior.

Expecting 70%+ is a stretch. If he ends the season over 60% we should be satisfied.

Source:
http://www.maxpreps.com/athlete/jahlil-okafor/CCJeE_TmEeKZ5AAmVebBJg/gendersport/basketball-stats.htm

[Acymetric]

As pointed out to me by my dad he did seem to have a different form at the line (much more arc on his shots) so there may be something to the possibility that he will continue to be improved going forward. Doubt he will continue his JJ impersonation although that would be a great counter to the "play him as physically as possible" strategy that teams seem to want to employ.

[Furniture]

Great game!! Well done to everybody.
I am really intrigued by the way that K is tweaking the minutes. Who would have thought three games ago that Matt would get more minutes than Justise,Sheed and Amile? Then there is the clear role for Marshall that is emerging with his mintes.
Grayson got some minutes early on. If he had hit his 3's would he have had more? Not sure why I am feeling this but I feel that Quinn will see a small decrease in minutes. Not for any other reason except that all the others deserve minutes too.
The team is evolving....
Cheers.

[Neals384]

K went 9 deep!! Grayson got time in the first half with the game still in doubt. Hope to see that continue.



Grayson has played in the first half 5 of the last 8 games (since Semi announced his transfer).

[Des Esseintes]

Funny, I was thinking about the same thing earlier today but with a different conclusion. I love KenPom and the advanced stats (I am both a math and sports geek) but I think sometimes people especially on this board get a little too wrapped up in them. The fun in sports is the actual games, not a constant analysis of advanced performance metrics. I dearly miss the more old school bar style eye test conversations, I think they were both more enjoyable and more informative about the sport and the players/teams involved.

I don't think I understand. Why would the interest of some posters in advanced metrics mean that other posters couldn't have genuinely informative scouting-based conversations? I've heard this sort of complaint for years, across all sports. Some people that don't like advanced metrics think it is ruining commentary. But again, how can that be? It's as though by merely existing advanced metrics are offensive to fans of traditional stats. I really don't get it.

Nor do I find that there is a falloff here or elsewhere in eye-test scouting. Quite the opposite. The internet is so full these days of game footage breakdowns and insightful commentators who can show exactly what happened on a play. That didn't exist in anything like this quantity five years ago, and I know I have learned a great deal from it. Guys like Nate Duncan and Haralobos Voulgaris have fascinating twitter feeds because they are throwing out serious play-by-play analysis throughout the NBA season. Zach Lowe peppers his articles with video clips demonstrating whatever particular phenomenon he happens to be writing about. This board has terrifically insightful scouts. How is this new world worse? These days, if you want to make a claim, you have to show your work, either with numbers or with precise analysis of game events. Laziness doesn't have nearly as many redoubts as before. I love that rigor and find it the definition of educational. I mean maybe it's not as fun as "martys really sweet to watch and he can fill it up i think marty should play more", but it's still pretty fun.

[DukieInBrasil]

Just wanted to point out that MP3 has scored more points this year (39) than he did all of last year (38), for 79 career points. He passed the 100 career rebounds mark a few games ago, and is now at 115.

What an epic performance from Jahlil. The first half was basically the complete opposite offensively of what we've seen so far: perfect from the line but struggled from the field.

Tyus really struggled (scoring at least), but the team didn't really suffer too much for it. So that partly answers one of the Phase post questions.

Bench play tonight was fantastic, and if they can replicate that level of play on a regular basis this team becomes much harder to beat.

[Neals384]

Not sure why I am feeling this but I feel that Quinn will see a small decrease in minutes. Not for any other reason except that all the others deserve minutes too.


I doubt it. Quinn is averaging 32:39 for the season, but look what happens in the tougher games:

MSU - 35:51
Stanford - 38:37
Wisc - 30:49
UConn - 39:37

As we get more tough games in conference, I think we'll see Quinn's minutes go up, not down.

[uh_no]

I doubt it. Quinn is averaging 32:39 for the season, but look what happens in the tougher games:

MSU - 35:51
Stanford - 38:37
Wisc - 30:49
UConn - 39:37

As we get more tough games in conference, I think we'll see Quinn's minutes go up, not down.

He's only shooting 40% from 3! and a whopping 48% from the floor.

I'll take it.

[Kfanarmy]

I don't think I understand. Why would the interest of some posters in advanced metrics mean that other posters couldn't have genuinely informative scouting-based conversations? I've heard this sort of complaint for years, across all sports. Some people that don't like advanced metrics think it is ruining commentary. But again, how can that be? It's as though by merely existing advanced metrics are offensive to fans of traditional stats. I really don't get it....

Imagine two characters sitting on bar stools in the local taproom chatting about great dunks, how their favorite high energy player simply seems to give the team a boost, how the unheralded big guy in the middle just seems to give the team better D somehow.

Now imagine some guy sitting down between them, rolling out a bunch of spreadsheets that he dreamed up because he thought he could dispute some minutia point one of them made an hour ago...They probably don't 1) enjoy the conversation for too long and 2) don't hang around that bar too often if the same scene repeats itself.

Interjecting stats (which are usually based in some non proveable theory to begin with (like SOS, power rankings, etc) constantly in other people's conversations can be a downer.

The reverse I'm sure is true if two statisticians were sitting begin the conversation.

[Kedsy]

Imagine two characters sitting on bar stools in the local taproom chatting about great dunks, how their favorite high energy player simply seems to give the team a boost, how the unheralded big guy in the middle just seems to give the team better D somehow.

Now imagine some guy sitting down between them, rolling out a bunch of spreadsheets that he dreamed up because he thought he could dispute some minutia point one of them made an hour ago...They probably don't 1) enjoy the conversation for too long and 2) don't hang around that bar too often if the same scene repeats itself.

Now imagine the same thing, but instead of spreadsheet guy, another drunk sits next to them and tells them they're full of crap, that the high energy player has no talent and the unheralded guy not only doesn't make the team D better, he's a complete waste of space.

What happens next? Probably they argue for awhile and, since they're in a bar and might be drunk, they either start shouting at each other, ridiculing each other, or getting into a fistfight.

Is that better than the third guy having some rationale for his arguments?



Interjecting stats (which are usually based in some non proveable theory to begin with (like SOS, power rankings, etc) constantly in other people's conversations can be a downer.

The reverse I'm sure is true if two statisticians were sitting begin the conversation.

I think the bolded part above is why your analogy isn't applicable to this discussion board. People who post here aren't "interjecting stats... in other people's conversations." It's everybody's conversation. That's the point of a discussion board.

[Saratoga2]

Funny, I was thinking about the same thing earlier today but with a different conclusion. I love KenPom and the advanced stats (I am both a math and sports geek) but I think sometimes people especially on this board get a little too wrapped up in them. The fun in sports is the actual games, not a constant analysis of advanced performance metrics. I dearly miss the more old school bar style eye test conversations, I think they were both more enjoyable and more informative about the sport and the players/teams involved.

I always look suspiciously at anyone who claims something they thought up is "Advanced". Maybe their concept is but there is also a probability that the repressentations are regressive or make no improvement in our understanding whatsoever. Personally I think what happens in games has a tremendous number of variables and is difficult to understand numerically. I am a retiree so maybe am not up on my math but I held a technical position heavy in math and my wife was a math professor so we have some grounding. I prefer evaluating play based on years of experience.

[vick]

I always look suspiciously at anyone who claims something they thought up is "Advanced". Maybe their concept is but there is also a probability that the repressentations are regressive or make no improvement in our understanding whatsoever. Personally I think what happens in games has a tremendous number of variables and is difficult to understand numerically. I am a retiree so maybe am not up on my math but I held a technical position heavy in math and my wife was a math professor so we have some grounding. I prefer evaluating play based on years of experience.

I really don't see these things in as much opposition as some people are making it out to be. I'm personally very much on the "stats" end of the spectrum but, man, I can't imagine this board without the observations of so many people here who can see things in a game that I just can't, or the history gurus. Sure, there are some things that you just need stats to demonstrate, but even the most dyed-in-the-wool "advanced stats" guy would have to admit that over the span of a single game or even a few games, there's too much chance involved to rely all that much on stats (to paraphrase Billy Beane, this Kenpom s--- doesn't work in small samples).

[MarkD83]

In general statistical analysis is a trailing indicator of what has happened. During a single game coaches are much better at analyzing leading indicators. For example, the series of plays between Quinn and Rasheed where Quinn assisted Rasheed on a three and then visa versa. I am sure that Coach K saw the energy level that Rasheed was bringing in the game and left him in for the decisive run. If Coach K had instead just relied on Rasheed's past statistics, Rasheed would have been on the bench.

[Kfanarmy]

Now imagine the same thing, but instead of spreadsheet guy, another drunk sits next to them and tells them they're full of crap, that the high energy player has no talent and the unheralded guy not only doesn't make the team D better, he's a complete waste of space.

What happens next? Probably they argue for awhile and, since they're in a bar and might be drunk, they either start shouting at each other, ridiculing each other, or getting into a fistfight.

Is that better than the third guy having some rationale for his arguments?

It may not be better, but the conversation will likely be more entertaining to many. A fight is probably less likely than simply an agreement to disagree. If you see that happening a lot you might want to switch watering holes.




I think the bolded part above is why your analogy isn't applicable to this discussion board. People who post here aren't "interjecting stats... in other people's conversations." It's everybody's conversation. That's the point of a discussion board.

I do think it is a bit like a bar, with many conversations going on as a person mingles; knowing when to interject with technical information is probably an art form in human interaction

[uh_no]

It may not be better, but the conversation will likely be more entertaining to many. A fight is probably less likely than simply an agreement to disagree. If you see that happening a lot you might want to switch watering holes.





I do think it is a bit like a bar, with many conversations going on as a person mingles; knowing when to interject with technical information is probably an art form in human interaction

But you see, we're arguming about HOW to argue on a message board....we're being META on the INTERNET....not sure we're the posterchildren for social interaction :)

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

But you see, we're arguming about HOW to argue on a message board....we're being META on the INTERNET....not sure we're the posterchildren for social interaction :)

The problem I have with this particular watering hole metaphor is that if you are the idjit at the watering hole who believes the best way to make your point is to repeat it more and more loudly, someone in the watering hole is going to probably pop you in the nose eventually.

There's relatively little of that in this particular watering hole. That idjit is allowed to yammer and yammer and yammer, despite not necessarily lending anything to the conversation.

Now, I don't advocate for popping anyone in the nose, but I am forever mystified by the differences between how people act in real life versus how those same people act online. LOTS of people in LOTS of different venues online would act very differently if there were actual consequences for their actions. I don't quite understand why people feel comfortable acting so horribly when behind a keyboard. I swear it's almost some world free of the Fruedian super ego.

Now, back to topic... anyone got the inside scoop on who's most likely this season to challenge Jah on the court and make him work under the basket?

[Bob Green]

The problem I have with this particular watering hole metaphor is that if you are the idjit at the watering hole who believes the best way to make your point is to repeat it more and more loudly, someone in the watering hole is going to probably pop you in the nose eventually.

There's relatively little of that in this particular watering hole. That idjit is allowed to yammer and yammer and yammer, despite not necessarily lending anything to the conversation.



The posting guidelines clearly discuss repetitive rants and civility. The Moderators work hard to keep this neighborhood bar civil. We work equally hard to not take a Fascist approach to our duties. There is a middle ground. Feedback is always welcome!

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

The posting guidelines clearly discuss repetitive rants and civility. The Moderators work hard to keep this neighborhood bar civil. We work equally hard to not take a Fascist approach to our duties. There is a middle ground. Feedback is always welcome!

Oh, I respect very much the job that is done. And it is not as bad here as most places.

I suppose I meant more internet discourse in general.

NOT a shot at the hardworking mods.

[OldPhiKap]

My typical DBR experience:

http://youtu.be/kQFKtI6gn9Y

[AIRFORCEDUKIE]

Now, back to topic... anyone got the inside scoop on who's most likely this season to challenge Jah on the court and make him work under the basket?

I think Harrell from UL should provide a pretty good challenge to Jah, whether he guards him or not. Coming off the help side and playing with intensity should provide a quality challenge for our young big man. Plus Harrell is crazy intense, and I don't know if Jah has faced anyone who can get that kind of intensity going yet this season. I for one am looking forward to it.

Also, the Kid Thomas from Wake should be a good challenge, he did hit 31 last night, and Wake is playing really well.

Of Course I could be completely wrong and Jah won't be challenged legit until we face Kentucky in the tournament :D In fact lets start a thread about Jah vs Kentucky!!!!!

See what I did there?

[jv001]

I think Harrell from UL should provide a pretty good challenge to Jah, whether he guards him or not. Coming off the help side and playing with intensity should provide a quality challenge for our young big man. Plus Harrell is crazy intense, and I don't know if Jah has faced anyone who can get that kind of intensity going yet this season. I for one am looking forward to it.

Also, the Kid Thomas from Wake should be a good challenge, he did hit 31 last night, and Wake is playing really well.

Of Course I could be completely wrong and Jah won't be challenged legit until we face Kentucky in the tournament :D In fact lets start a thread about Jah vs Kentucky!!!!!

See what I did there?

I think Jah could have trouble against uncheater's front line. They can use several big guys to play him physical. Maybe Jah can foul them all out of the game. But as for one player, I agree with you on Harrell from Louisville. It seems his motor never stops running. GoDuke!

[FerryFor50]

I think Jah could have trouble against uncheater's front line. They can use several big guys to play him physical. Maybe Jah can foul them all out of the game. But as for one player, I agree with you on Harrell from Louisville. It seems his motor never stops running. GoDuke!

Meeks will likely be on Jah. Amile will probably get assigned Brice Johnson.

MP3 will get some big minutes against UNC, provided he stays out of foul trouble.

UNC has a lot of length at all positions, which is probably partly why they're 11th in KenPom for defense.

[sagegrouse]

Meeks will likely be on Jah. Amile will probably get assigned Brice Johnson.

MP3 will get some big minutes against UNC, provided he stays out of foul trouble.

UNC has a lot of length at all positions, which is probably partly why they're 11th in KenPom for defense.

Marshall is averaging fewer than one foul per eight minutes of action, or 16 in 131 minutes, so he has not been especially foul-prone this season.

[FerryFor50]

Marshall is averaging fewer than one foul per eight minutes of action, or 16 in 131 minutes, so he has not been especially foul-prone this season.

Yea, I know.

But I worry about what happens when he plays against a physical, big front line.

[jimsumner]

Three statisticians go duck hunting.

The first shoots and misses, 10 feet too high.

The second shoots and misses, 10 feet too low.

The third says, "we got him. Let's go home."

[Henderson]

Three statisticians go duck hunting.

The first shoots and misses, 10 feet too high.

The second shoots and misses, 10 feet too low.

The third says, "we got him. Let's go home."

Irrelevant. What does KenPom say? Let's get a tabulation of how the hunting went in the past 10 years, and only then will we know if there is a dead duck.

[jimsumner]

A man standing with one foot in a bucket of ice, the other in a bucket of fire.

On average, he's comfortable.

[Henderson]

A man standing with one foot in a bucket of ice, the other in a bucket of fire.

On average, he's comfortable.

Old jokes are always the best. Duke95 posted a Jeff Danziger cartoon in the Obsessed...Kentucky thread last week that was pretty funny and made the same point. Check out Danziger's book, The Flaw of Averages, for more on this.

[MChambers]

Three statisticians go duck hunting.

The first shoots and misses, 10 feet too high.

The second shoots and misses, 10 feet too low.

The third says, "we got him. Let's go home."
Just heard this one from my daughter on New Year's Eve, along with some Heisinger jokes, but we're not discussing physics, at least in this thread.

[devildeac]

Just heard this one from my daughter on New Year's Eve, along with some Heisinger jokes, but we're not discussing physics, at least in this thread.



Why not? At least it's relative. ;)

[sagegrouse]

I'm all for stats and spent quite a bit of time working on multivariate analysis techniques back in the day.

Use of metrics is fine on DBR, but it shouldn't stifle conversation or hijack every thread into a blizzard of numbers.

Now, no matter how perfect the estimating technique, the various metrics bring only four variables and a couple of constants to predict the results of a college basketball game: offensive and defensive efficiency times two, plus adjustments for home court. Four variables cannot do an adequate job of describing a basketball game, ex ante or ex post. So, to insist on the substitution of a few numbers for a lot of words and ideas is really foolish.

[Henderson]

Use of metrics is fine on DBR, but it shouldn't stifle conversation or hijack every thread into a blizzard of numbers.


With due rspect to my friend Sage, I don't think it's hijacking or a stifling of conversation. It's valuable input. And I appreciate the input of the dedicated quants on the board (even as I worry about thier social lives). I find it informative.

I just don't find the overemphasis on stats to be useful. Moneyball seems to have spawned something. I dunno. All tools belong in their space in the toolbox. Stats are tools. But if stats were the only tool in the box, we'd all be driving nails with crescent wrenches.

[uh_no]

But if stats were the only tool in the box, we'd all be driving nails with crescent wrenches.

This is the key point. As someone who loves numbers, I appreciate how much intuition plays a role in analysis. After the game, I posted defensive splits for every 10 minute stretch....why did I do that? Certainly not because i do that for every game.....but because I watched the game, and thought "gee, it seems that we're starting our halves weak on defense...I wonder if the data reflects that, and if not, why not"

Without intuition you don't know what data to look at.....I can come up with meaningless advanced metrics all day long....heck when I ran the Krispy Kreme Challenge one year, I posted my result as "dougnut-miles per minute squared"....it's a metric, but it's meaningless. Without the critical, qualitative thinking, you can't even get started with stats.

on the flip side, stats help confirm or refute your intuitions. Sometimes, it's entirely possible to be unable to come up with the correct stats (my example was duke's offense in pressure situations last year) to explain the intuition. And some cases, stats flatly refute your intuitions...and you can either accept the stats or not...that's for you to decide.

You need both to get the most complete picture, and they support each other. If you don't like stats, ignore them. There's no need to be ludditian.

[NSDukeFan]

I'm all for stats and spent quite a bit of time working on multivariate analysis techniques back in the day.

Use of metrics is fine on DBR, but it shouldn't stifle conversation or hijack every thread into a blizzard of numbers.

Now, no matter how perfect the estimating technique, the various metrics bring only four variables and a couple of constants to predict the results of a college basketball game: offensive and defensive efficiency times two, plus adjustments for home court. Four variables cannot do an adequate job of describing a basketball game, ex ante or ex post. So, to insist on the substitution of a few numbers for a lot of words and ideas is really foolish.

1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1

[sagegrouse]

With due rspect to my friend Sage, I don't think it's hijacking or a stifling of conversation. It's valuable input. And I appreciate the input of the dedicated quants on the board (even as I worry about thier social lives). I find it informative.

I just don't find the overemphasis on stats to be useful. Moneyball seems to have spawned something. I dunno. All tools belong in their space in the toolbox. Stats are tools. But if stats were the only tool in the box, we'd all be driving nails with crescent wrenches.

I didn't mean to imply that this Board has a problem with the quants stifling conversation by others but that there is a risk.

[CDu]

With due rspect to my friend Sage, I don't think it's hijacking or a stifling of conversation. It's valuable input. And I appreciate the input of the dedicated quants on the board (even as I worry about thier social lives). I find it informative.

I just don't find the overemphasis on stats to be useful. Moneyball seems to have spawned something. I dunno. All tools belong in their space in the toolbox. Stats are tools. But if stats were the only tool in the box, we'd all be driving nails with crescent wrenches.

Stats should augment and in some cases refine the discussion. There are certainly cases where stats don't tell the whole story. But there are also certainly cases where stats prove valuable in confirming or debunking qualitative statements.

[OldPhiKap]

Stats should augment and in some cases refine the discussion. There are certainly cases where stats don't tell the whole story. But there are also certainly cases where stats prove valuable in confirming or debunking qualitative statements.

This is true about 85% of the time.

[jacone21]

This is true about 85% of the time.

And false the other 35% of the time.

[OldPhiKap]

This is true about 85% of the time.


And false the other 35% of the time.

There are three kinds of people in this world. Those who use math correctly, and those who don't.

[fuse]

There are three kinds of people in this world. Those who use math correctly, and those who don't.

I thought it was 10. Those that understand binary, and those who don't.

[uh_no]

I thought it was 10. Those that understand binary, and those who don't.

Nah, there're 10 kinds of people in the world, those that understand, binary, those who don't, and those who know that (10 base X) = (X base 10) for all X.

[jacone21]

Nah, there're 10 kinds of people in the world, those that understand, binary, those who don't, and those who know that (10 base X) = (X base 10) for all X.

The answer is 42.

[Tappan Zee Devil]

The answer is 42.

But the question is, what's the question?

[OldPhiKap]

But the question is, what's the question?

How many roads must a man walk down?

If not - Don't Panic!