2020-21 Lineups

[RUChoppin]

Okay, so @Scarlet Blind showed me where lineups are stored on the sk.com site, and I was able to pull data for all of our major conference games this year but five (@OSU, @MSU, @PSU, @Iowa, and @Nebraska.... all losses, all on the road, which definitely puts an asterisk on all of this)... leaving 18 games total.

The sk.com box scores show how many minutes each lineup was on the floor, and then gives info for each lineup on score, rebounds, steals, assists, and turnovers. Thought it'd be interesting to play around with that data, and here are some of the things that I found.

First off, Pike threw out a TON of different lineups throughout the year, but 41.2% of the time it was one of these four:
1. Baker/Young/Mulcahy/Harper/Johnson (16.4%)
2. Baker/Young/Mathis/Harper/Johnson (11.2%)
3. Baker/Mulcahy/McConnell/Harper/Johnson (7.7%)
4. Baker/Young/McConnell/Harper/Johnson (5.9%)

Down the stretch, though, he tightened up a bit - over the last 6 games in the data set, 49.2% of the minutes were from these three lineups
1. Baker/Young/Mulcahy/Harper/Johnson (31.0%)
2. Baker/Young/McConnell/Harper/Johnson (12.7%)
3. Baker/Young/Mulcahy/Harper/Omoruyi (5.5%)



Of the 12 lineup variations (of 83 total) that saw at least 15 minutes of time together:

Lineup that scored the most points per minute: Baker/Young/Mathis/Mulcahy/Johnson (1.97 ppm)
Lineup that scored the least points per minute: Young/Mathis/Mulcahy/McConnell/Johnson (0.92 ppm)

Lineup that allowed the fewest points per minute: Baker/Young/McConnell/Harper/Omoruyi (1.13 ppm)
Lineup that allowed the most points per minute: Baker/Young/Mathis/Mulcahy/Johnson (2.20 ppm)

Lineup that had the best delta (points scored - points allowed per minute): Baker/Mulcahy/McConnell/Harper/Johnson (1.76 scored / 1.20 allowed)
Lineup that had the worst delta: Young/Mathis/Mulcahy/McConnell/Johnson (0.92 scored / 1.85 allowed)



One thing the lineups allow us to see is what our +/- was while different players were on/off the floor. In lineups that included/excluded the following players across those 18 games, here were our points scored/min and points allowed/min.

Johnson: 1.80 pts scored, 1.63 pts allowed (0.17 delta)... and while off the floor 1.59 scored, 1.71 allowed (-0.12)
McConnell: 1.57 pts scored, 1.42 pts allowed (0.15 delta)... and while off the floor 1.83 scored, 1.82 allowed (0.01)
Mulcahy: 1.74 pts scored, 1.61 pts allowed (0.13 delta).... and while off the floor 1.69 scored, 1.76 allowed (-0.07)
Baker: 1.77 pts scored, 1.69 pts allowed (0.08 delta)... and while off the floor 1.56 scored, 1.56 allowed (0.01)
Young: 1.77 pts scored, 1.71 pts allowed (0.06 delta)... and while off the floor 1.56 scored, 1.46 allowed (0.10)
Harper: 1.77 pts scored, 1.71 pts allowed (0.06 delta)... and while off the floor 1.59 scored, 1.51 allowed (0.08)
Omoruyi: 1.55 pts scored, 1.48 pts allowed (0.06 delta)... and while off the floor 1.79 scored, 1.72 allowed (0.07)
Mathis: 1.69 pts scored, 1.79 pts allowed (-0.10 delta)... and while off the floor 1.75 scored, 1.55 allowed (0.20)

Couple of interesting bits in there...
- We scored the most with Johnson on the floor
- We allowed the fewest points with McConnell on the floor
- The biggest dropoff from on the floor to off was Johnson
- We allowed the most points with Mathis on the floor

Edit: Had a value for Pts Allowed/Min for Mulcahy wrong.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

I will be in the minority for sure, but I predict CM has the most potential for major jump development on the roster. Defense first players (especially good FT shooters) often improve on offense as they build confidence. He’s a kid who was forced into a back up PG role on a bad team his first year, played hurt his second season and climbed back mid-season from injury / surgery this year.

 

[Duff366]

Thanks for doing this, interesting stuff.

 

[RUChoppin]

I will be in the minority for sure, but I predict CM has the most potential for major jump development on the roster. Defense first players (especially good FT shooters) often improve on offense as they build confidence. He’s a kid who was forced into a back up PG role on a bad team his first year, played hurt his second season and climbed back mid-season from injury / surgery this year.

One challenge is he's just not a great 3P shooter. He's got a great midrange game, and I love him taking shots 5-20 feet from the rim - but I always wince when he lines up for a three. There's a reason he's open - because other teams have read the scouting report. At this point he's 44/155 (.284) on his career (.357 before the line was moved back, and .242 since) - and I don't suddenly see him becoming a reliable deep threat.

He excels more on the defensive end - steals (had even more than Young per 40 min), deflections, rebounds (more rb/40 than any non-center), hustle, scrappy play, etc. He generally protects the ball well, too, with almost as good an ast/tov ratio as Baker (and just ahead of Mulcahy). I just think he needs to work the midrange game more than he does to start generating more points.

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

Wow. Thanks for doing this. Kind of confirms my thoughts

 

[Greene Rice FIG]

I believe looking at numbers plus my eyeballs our defensive rebound problem (Harper not a 4 blah blah blah) gets solved when Caleb is on the floor over Paul.

a high percentage of games he has a high motor getting deflections and diving on balls and getting rebounds. He needs to tighten up his offensive game!

I see him as a 15-25 MPG glue guy. So important. Won’t always play at crunch time, but same games he will.

 

[PSAL_Hoops]

One challenge is he's just not a great 3P shooter. He's got a great midrange game, and I love him taking shots 5-20 feet from the rim - but I always wince when he lines up for a three. There's a reason he's open - because other teams have read the scouting report. At this point he's 44/155 (.284) on his career (.357 before the line was moved back, and .242 since) - and I don't suddenly see him becoming a reliable deep threat.

He excels more on the defensive end - steals (had even more than Young per 40 min), deflections, rebounds (more rb/40 than any non-center), hustle, scrappy play, etc. He generally protects the ball well, too, with almost as good an ast/tov ratio as Baker (and just ahead of Mulcahy). I just think he needs to work the midrange game more than he does to start generating more points.

This is all correct. I know he’s a very different type of player, but for some reason I often thing of Jevon Carter’s development as an offensive player in parallel to CM’s potential progression. Different position I know - also an elite defender vs. a very good defender - I get this. But also another really good FT shooter who struggled from distance and shooting the ball in general in his first few years who turned it around as an upper class player.

 

[MadRU]

With Young probably gone Caleb is our best perimeter defender

 

[RUChoppin]

I believe looking at numbers plus my eyeballs our defensive rebound problem (Harper not a 4 blah blah blah) gets solved when Caleb is on the floor over Paul.

a high percentage of games he has a high motor getting deflections and diving on balls and getting rebounds. He needs to tighten up his offensive game!

I see him as a 15-25 MPG glue guy. So important. Won’t always play at crunch time, but same games he will.

Definitely some truth to that:
Lineups with Harper but without McConnell: 32.7 rebs/40 min
Lineups with Harper/McConnell on the floor together: 38.6 rbs/40 min

And more specifically:
Baker/Young/Mulcahy/Harper/Johnson: (119.23 total minutes) 33.9 reb/40 min (1.95 scored/min, 1.63 pts allowed/min, 1.44 ast/tov)
Baker/Young/McConnell/Harper/Johnson (42.24 total minutes): 46.7 reb/40 min (1.67 scored/min, 1.67 pts allowed/min, 1.20 ast/tov)

 

[RUChoppin]

With Young probably gone Caleb is our best perimeter defender

His specialty is more defending the 2/3 though, whereas Young's specialty was more defending the 1. Which is good, imo, because most of the top scorers in the B1G are wings rather than PGs. If he could somehow manage to put on another 10 pounds of muscle, that'd be huge (though it'd be really hard given his frame and existing conditioning) - 195 is a bit slight to defend in the post.

 

[MadRU]

His specialty is more defending the 2/3 though, whereas Young's specialty was more defending the 1. Which is good, imo, because most of the top scorers in the B1G are wings rather than PGs. If he could somehow manage to put on another 10 pounds of muscle, that'd be huge (though it'd be really hard given his frame and existing conditioning) - 195 is a bit slight to defend in the post.

Agree totally. Caleb especially needs more weight/strength in his base.

 

[RUJMM78]

The analysis was interesting but it doesn't address the fundamental issue namely the lack of team scoring.Mixing and matching lineups is needed to give players rest and to limit player fouls.Mathis and McConnell have shown some spurts of scoring but there has been no consistency.Hopefully,with the addition of some new players and improvement with the freshmen the lack of scoring problem will be improved upon.

 

[ABRU00]

This was good analysis but the problem is interpreting data that excludes almost 25% of the Big Ten games played that happen to all be losses. It doesn't give you a complete picture.

 

[RUChoppin]

This was good analysis but the problem is interpreting data that excludes 25% of the Big Ten games played that happen to all be losses. It doesn't give you a complete picture.

Agree, and it's frustrating that data isn't available.... they're also all road games, so it makes doing any sort of "home vs. road" comparison impossible. I'm wondering if not all home arenas track/share that information the same way, and Rutgers just wasn't able to get it for those away games.

 

[Gudenham]

Where did you find this data? Fascinating stuff.

 

[rubaseball78]

Okay, so @Scarlet Blind showed me where lineups are stored on the sk.com site, and I was able to pull data for all of our major conference games this year but five (@OSU, @MSU, @PSU, @Iowa, and @Nebraska)... leaving 18 games total.

The sk.com box scores show how many minutes each lineup was on the floor, and then gives info for each lineup on score, rebounds, steals, assists, and turnovers. Thought it'd be interesting to play around with that data, and here are some of the things that I found.

First off, Pike threw out a TON of different lineups throughout the year, but 41.2% of the time it was one of these four:
1. Baker/Young/Mulcahy/Harper/Johnson (16.4%)
2. Baker/Young/Mathis/Harper/Johnson (11.2%)
3. Baker/Mulcahy/McConnell/Harper/Johnson (7.7%)
4. Baker/Young/McConnell/Harper/Johnson (5.9%)

Down the stretch, though, he tightened up a bit - over the last 6 games in the data set, 49.2% of the minutes were from these three lineups
1. Baker/Young/Mulcahy/Harper/Johnson (31.0%)
2. Baker/Young/McConnell/Harper/Johnson (12.7%)
3. Baker/Young/Mulcahy/Harper/Omoruyi (5.5%)



Of the 12 lineup variations (of 83 total) that saw at least 15 minutes of time together:

Lineup that scored the most points per minute: Baker/Young/Mathis/Mulcahy/Johnson (1.97 ppm)
Lineup that scored the least points per minute: Young/Mathis/Mulcahy/McConnell/Johnson (0.92 ppm)

Lineup that allowed the fewest points per minute: Baker/Young/McConnell/Harper/Omoruyi (1.13 ppm)
Lineup that allowed the most points per minute: Baker/Young/Mathis/Mulcahy/Johnson (2.20 ppm)

Lineup that had the best delta (points scored - points allowed per minute): Baker/Mulcahy/McConnell/Harper/Johnson (1.76 scored / 1.20 allowed)
Lineup that had the worst delta: Young/Mathis/Mulcahy/McConnell/Johnson (0.92 scored / 1.85 allowed)



One thing the lineups allow us to see is what our +/- was while different players were on/off the floor. In lineups that included/excluded the following players across those 18 games, here were our points scored/min and points allowed/min.

Johnson: 1.80 pts scored, 1.63 pts allowed (0.17 delta)... and while off the floor 1.59 scored, 1.71 allowed (-0.12)
McConnell: 1.57 pts scored, 1.42 pts allowed (0.15 delta)... and while off the floor 1.83 scored, 1.82 allowed (0.01)
Mulcahy: 1.74 pts scored, 1.71 pts allowed (0.13 delta).... and while off the floor 1.69 scored, 1.76 allowed (-0.07)
Baker: 1.77 pts scored, 1.69 pts allowed (0.08 delta)... and while off the floor 1.56 scored, 1.56 allowed (0.01)
Young: 1.77 pts scored, 1.71 pts allowed (0.06 delta)... and while off the floor 1.56 scored, 1.46 allowed (0.10)
Harper: 1.77 pts scored, 1.71 pts allowed (0.06 delta)... and while off the floor 1.59 scored, 1.51 allowed (0.08)
Omoruyi: 1.55 pts scored, 1.48 pts allowed (0.06 delta)... and while off the floor 1.79 scored, 1.72 allowed (0.07)
Mathis: 1.69 pts scored, 1.79 pts allowed (-0.10 delta)... and while off the floor 1.75 scored, 1.55 allowed (0.20)

Couple of interesting bits in there...
- We scored the most with Johnson on the floor
- We allowed the fewest points with McConnell on the floor
- The biggest dropoff from on the floor to off was Johnson
- We allowed the most points with Mathis on the floor

Interesting stats. I could probably spend hours with this trying to understand what it means.

FYI - Your delta on Mulcahy on the floor is not correct, either one of the numbers is wrong or the substraction is incorrect.

 

[MadRU]

But one thing that really can skew the numbers is who is on the court for the other team also. Are you going against the starters? Some subs? All subs? Etc.

I’ll stick with my eyes.

 

[RUChoppin]

Interesting stats. I could probably spend hours with this trying to understand what it means.

FYI - Your delta on Mulcahy on the floor is not correct, either one of the numbers is wrong or the substraction is incorrect.

Thanks - was a typo. Fixed it above.

 

[RUChoppin]

But one thing that really can skew the numbers is who is on the court for the other team also. Are you going against the starters? Some subs? All subs? Etc.

I’ll stick with my eyes.

Agree - this is only a partial picture, and can't capture things like matchups, players dealing with injury, adjusting play due to foul trouble, etc.

 

[RUChoppin]

Where did you find this data? Fascinating stuff.

@Scarlet Blind directed me to it. If you go to scarletknights.com, then click into the 2020-21 Schedule, you can click on the Recap for a game, then into the Box Score from the Recap screen... it's got a huge amount of information, but unfortunately is all in PDF. Had to copy/paste out and do some text-to-columns manipulation to get the data into a tabular form I could do anything with.

For most games, the PDF is 21-23 pages and includes lineup breakdowns (even going so far as which minutes during a game that certain lineups were on the floor, which I didn't pull in). For the 5 away games mentioned in the first post, the PDF was only 14 pages and didn't include the lineup info.

 

[RUChoppin]

Couple of other lineup superlatives for lineups that saw at least 15 minutes together:

Most rebounds per minute: Baker/Young/McConnell/Harper/Johnson (1.16)
Least rebounds per minute: Young/Mathis/Mulcahy/McConnell/Johnson (0.58)

Most steals per minute: Baker/Mulcahy/McConnell/Harper/Omoruyi (0.26).... though this is 0.25 if you swap out Omoruyi for Johnson, too
Least steals per minute: Baker/Young/Mathis/Harper/Omoruyi (0.06)

Most assists per minute: Baker/Mulcahy/McConnell/Harper/Omoruyi (0.45)
Least assists per minute: Young/Mathis/Mulcahy/McConnell/Johnson (0.23)

Most turnovers per minute: Young/Mathis/Mulcahy/McConnell/Johnson (0.52)
Least turnovers per minute: Baker/Mulcahy/McConnell/Harper/Omoruyi (0.13)

Best Assist/Turnover: Baker/Mulcahy/McConnell/Harper/Omoruyi (3.50)
Worst Assist/Turnover: Young/Mathis/Mulcahy/McConnell/Johnson (0.44)

From that..... the lineup of Young/Mulcahy/Mathis/McConnell/Johnson seemed to be rough sledding (Baker and Harper both on the bench). Fewest rebounds/assists and most turnovers... while also having the fewest points scored/min (0.92/min) and 4th most points allowed (1.85/min). Not surprising that it only happened in 6 games, and in just one of the games in the data set after 2/21.... (for 4:45 vs. Clemson.... when it was a bit better than earlier in the season.... we were outscored 7-9, but had 5 rbs, 1 stl, 2 ast, and 1 tov)

 

[rubaseball78]

No surprise group with most turnovers included both young and Mathis.

 

[JerseyShoreKnight]

His specialty is more defending the 2/3 though, whereas Young's specialty was more defending the 1. Which is good, imo, because most of the top scorers in the B1G are wings rather than PGs. If he could somehow manage to put on another 10 pounds of muscle, that'd be huge (though it'd be really hard given his frame and existing conditioning) - 195 is a bit slight to defend in the post.

He defended Carr very well, especially at the end, of the first game against Minnesota. Shut him down for the last 4 minutes. He can defend the 1 if needed.

 

[JerseyShoreKnight]

I’m getting the sense that I was correct in saying that we were better off with Young coming off the bench. Looks like McConnell being on the floor in his place led to more positive results.

 

[RUChoppin]

I’m getting the sense that I was correct in saying that we were better off with Young coming off the bench. Looks like McConnell being on the floor in his place led to more positive results.

Except points... while we allowed fewer points with him on the floor in the games in the data set, we also scored a lot less. He needs to do a better job getting to that 5-15 foot range and putting up jumpers, or better yet driving to the basket to get to the line since he's our best FT shooter.

 

[higgins3]

A healthier RHJ with 15-20 pounds lost is a 2-3 win difference by itself next year.