So now the new "whack a mole" argument is moving off of offense and going to the defense? So you're essentially conceding last years offense wasn't meaningfully better, or really any better, than this years' version?
GAME 15 INDIANA: Hoosier Soup for the Soul
- Thread starter bac2therac
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How many points we score per possession versus how many points they score per possession, that's it. We are not scoring more points per possession, so our offense is not as good. We are not holding other teams to fewer points per possession, so our defense is not as good.
Per game stats that ignore the context of pace (number of possessions) don't tell the whole story.
Hey Hawk - Remember all your posts in the off-season about how much better our offense would be with quicker guards and how Caleb’s poor offense was a liability that held our offense back?
It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it how much of a “boost” Caleb’s 39.5% FG percentage would give to our stats right about now. Outside of Cliff (who only shoots right under the basket), we don’t have a single player whose shooting even close to that on 50+ attempts. This should tell you all you need to know. Actually - scratch that. Hyatt (one of our least efficient players last season is close at 39.2%). But you must see my point here. Caleb would be one of our more efficient scorers on this roster!
It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it how much of a “boost” Caleb’s 39.5% FG percentage would give to our stats right about now. Outside of Cliff (who only shoots right under the basket), we don’t have a single player whose shooting even close to that on 50+ attempts. This should tell you all you need to know. Actually - scratch that. Hyatt (one of our least efficient players last season is close at 39.2%). But you must see my point here. Caleb would be one of our more efficient scorers on this roster!
No - he’s saying you have to look at it by possession otherwise the data is complete garbage.
But it’s more than even just this - as someone else pointed out we’ve played weaker defensive teams so far this year. The comparison your trying to do isn’t even apples to apples.
They don’t tell you much of anything.
Efficiency is literally just points divided by possessions. If you don’t understand that you can score more points and give up more points by making the game faster without actually doing anything better than I don’t know how to help you. That’s not an arcane stat, it’s common sense among anyone who has watched more than one basketball game.
Yep. Don’t forget Caleb and Paul. Who’d have thought we’d miss their efficiency from the field. 39.5% and 41.6% FG percentage would lead all guards by 5%+(except Austin whose only taken 43 shots).
But somehow we’re better on offense this year? lol
Not going to get too sucked in in this argument, but our D was the only thing that kept us in the MSU game. It was actually quite good.
#7 defensively per kenpom. Not sure how much more you can ask for.
Also we're not even scoring more ppg this season for ****'s sake. We scored 68.4 last season (which was #266) and have scored 68.3 this season (which is #314) while playing faster and only being 20% of the way through the Big Ten schedule. This is obviously worse without doing any "esoteric" things like division.
Rutgers is #6 in Defensive Efficiency, out of 360 teams. Is that not “near” elite?
Yea by the same metrics we’ve spent six pages establishing that this is a putrid offensive basketball team, they’re elite defensively
People have been complaining about giving up threes for years when
(1) this is very obviously a strategic tradeoff that is being made knowingly
(2) it keeps working
(3) we're actually doing better this year
Opponent 3PA/FTA ranking
2023-24 #189
23 #335
22 #246
21 #109
20 #296
Kenpom def rank
#7
#6
#53
#16
#6
I don't really think changing that up because we tend to lose when a team shoots 50% from deep against us is a particularily good idea.
(1) this is very obviously a strategic tradeoff that is being made knowingly
(2) it keeps working
(3) we're actually doing better this year
Opponent 3PA/FTA ranking
2023-24 #189
23 #335
22 #246
21 #109
20 #296
Kenpom def rank
#7
#6
#53
#16
#6
I don't really think changing that up because we tend to lose when a team shoots 50% from deep against us is a particularily good idea.
This site has RU at #6. One step closer to elite 😉
NCAA Basketball Stats - NCAA BB Team Defensive Efficiency | TeamRankings.com
NCAA Basketball defensive efficiency, by team.
www.teamrankings.com
Wake, Illinois, Iowa, first half OSU
my eyes do not lie
lets revisit at the end of the season
do you think our D is better than two and three years ago...well the stats say so.
Hmmmm Illinois averages 83. We held them to 76 when they had their best player.
Iowa torches us every year. Well except one.
If first half of OSU was bad, 2nd half was quite good.
Other years our offense was so much better.
There is certainly an argument our D is elite. We certainly shut down SHU and they have not lost since?
Ru Choppin already disproved the PPG being better. It's much worse despite playing a harder schedule last season
"Last year through 15 games: RU 71.9, Opp 54.9
This included Ranked Opponent games vs. #10 Indiana, @ #25 Ohio St, and @ #1 Purdue. We had 5 games at 80+ points.
This year through 15 games: RU 68.3, Opp 63.7
This includes Ranked Opponent games vs. #24 Illinois. We've had 2 games at 80+ points."
Any one with a set of eyes knows we do not have the elite defense with Caleb and our big guards , big forwards and length . Caleb did things that do not show up in the stats. Pike’s defensive game plans for Big 10 teams produced total lockdowns of potent offensive teams. This year’s team has played 1/2 of elite defense against Ohio State. That is it. Nothing close to the numerous games of elite defense over the last 3-4 Pike years.
Considering how poor rebounding is - on ball and help defense have been excellent. I agree with BAC though - it’s pretty hard to call any team whose defensive rebounding is as poor as ours has been until the last few games elite. We’d play a great possession on D and then give them a fresh shot clock over and over. The biggest optimism is the improvement over the past few games in this area. Reason to be cautiously hopeful but we still have a ways to go.
That was our defense most of the last 3-4 years. Houston , Tennessee and Rutgers have been the best the last 3-4 years
I thought MSU game defense was excellent for those who attended live.
SHU defense was excellent.
Some credit is deserved and if you believe in Ken Pom analytics as most hoops fans do….
While true with Caleb, I also think with our offense being so bad this year we might actually have to work more and put more effort on defense.
It is not just having teams throw up bricks taking wide open shots or being blocked at the rim but actually making it difficult to get an open uncontested shot that the other team had to work their ass off to try to get. Guys hanging with guys literally in their jock straps not giving them room to shoot or drive or attempt a good offensive move. That was the best Rutgers defense as good as any team in the country.
Yeah, I deleted that because it was more dismissive of us than I meant it. I don't think the defense is on the level of a Houston or a Tennessee this year but in the Big Ten (very small sample size) we're the #2 defense despite opponents hitting 40% of their threes against us. That might keep up all year but more likely it'll come down, and our defense would look even better if opponents were only hitting 35%.
Cliff is an elite interior defender and changes the game even if his decision-making on when to go for blocks is not always the best. His presence alone has an impact.
Overall I think our defense is very good and we've gotten a bit unlucky. Our offense is very bad and has also probably gotten unlucky.
Illinois scored 1.09 points per possession against us. They scored 1.31 against FAU, 1.15 against Purdue, and 1.07 against Tennessee, who I just named as one of the best defenses in the country. We were uncompetitive in that one but it wasn't because our defense was bad. Illinois is just lethal on offense. I didn't even mention 1.43 against Northwestern (without Shannon).
I was at the Mississippi State game live and our defense was not good but our offense was atrocious. The Big guy dominated Cliff or Wolf ( Bell) , he was their backup or hardly played yesterday because their top center just got back from injury to dominate Tennessee. Their guards penetrated at will and scored like 12-14 each and their forward Marshall who scored 18 , could not be stopped. So no our defense against Mississippi State was not good . We shot lights out (12-24) from 3 against Seton Hall and they missed a lot of open shots. I am aware Kenpom has our defensive efficiency at 12-14 but having watched this team for years , our defense this year is no where near elite.
Now you are trying to define elite. Kinda like pornography , “ You know it when you see it “
Last years out of conference schedule was weaker. We played more trash teams last year. The net difference in 80+ point games between last year and this season is a mirage.
Our defense was quite good against MSU and the only reason it wasn’t a 25 point blow out.
You can’t just brush off defensive efficiency because you don’t like the stat.
We all agree Tennessee and Houston are the top defensive teams. Right?
Tennessee a better offensive team than RU gave up 77 points to Miss State and lost. MSU scored more against Tenn than RU. Fact.
SHU misses shots and it’s not because of RU pressure and D?
Sounds like denial.
We may or may not be as good defensively as we have in years past but I know for damn sure we are damn worst offensively.
Like it or not we are still elite defensively.
How about we are always an elite defensive team?
To add to this, our Adjusted Offensive Efficiency per KenPom:
2022-2023 full year (including all Big Ten games and all games missed by Mag) -- 106.3 -- ranked 151st nationally.
2023-2024 to date -- 101.2 -- ranked 250th nationally, and this only includes four Big Ten games, with 16 more to come, so the stat is actually overloaded with cupcake games.
Good lord, how anyone can say that "our offense this year is better than our offense last year" is beyond comprehension. This is not some arcane stat devised by nerds (well, it probably was devised by nerds, but I digress). It is a basic stat regarding points scored per 100 possessions against an average defense - very similar to points per possession.
We played trash teams last year and this year. The difference is last year we crushed the cupcakes and this year we needed a game winning shot to beat a glorified HS team
The B1G schedule so far was much tougher last season. 3 ranked teams. This year we already got to play no D Iowa
Yeaaa at this point if people don't understand adj efficiency and points per possession it's not really worth having a discussion with them
Our defense is good but its simply not elite
Eye test counts
Have you watched a hame this year and ever said wow we are locked in
Basically 2nd half of ohio state
Shu we played great D but they were atrocious missing shots while we hit an unlikely amount of 3s
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