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Rebounding was basically even

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BillyC80

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Oct 23, 2006
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We matched Minny with 14 offensive rebounds (the only rebounding stat that really matters, looking at +/-).

Minny had 6 more defensive rebounds but they were credited with 5 rebounds off of our missed free throws and we were only credited with two of theirs.

Also, we missed 3 more shots (35 misses to their 32) so that accounts for more defensive rebounds for them.

If you're gonna point to rebounding as a reason for this (or any) loss, then that could only be true if we were outrebounded on the offensive glass, which we were not.
 
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We started to catch up on the glass toward the end, but it was the first half where they built their lead. They had a +10 rebounding advantage at the half, and we had a +4 in the second half.
 
All true Choppin, except it's a 40 minute game, and in the end it wasn't rebounding that did us in. It was shooting, plain and simple.
 
They got up 9 in the first half, and we played even with them the entire second half, and were a missed open 3 from making it a 2 point game with a minute left. Missed 12 FTs. Sometimes it's as simple as that
 
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Nothing is ever "plain and simple"... there are lots of factors that contribute to a loss (and a win).

We were badly outrebounded in the first half, our interior defense was well below our normal, and we let Minnesota set a faster pace than we were comfortable with... that all led to a 9 point lead, and giving up 43 points.

The second half, we made adjustments. We started rebounding better, our defense improved a bit, and the pace was much more in our comfort zone. We closed the gap to 5 points before it unraveled late.

Other things like second chance points, points in the paint, Minny shooting better than usual at the line, Minny completing a high percentage of shots when they were fouled, etc...

Our shooting for the game (41.7%) vs. our season average (41.4%) was par for the course, and was a touch better vs. our conference average (38.0%).
 
Just looking at OREB tells half the story. Just looking at DREB is half story.

We like to generalize rebounding, but is is 2 different things.

When analyzing Offensive rebounding

Our OREB / (OREB + opponents DREB)

When analyzing Dfefensive rebounding

Our DREB / (DREB + opponents OREB)
 
I thought the biggest difference in the game was loose balls. I've seen every game this season, and usually we are at worst even in loose balls, "hustle plays", but in this game, it seemed like every loose ball went to MInny. I couldn't believe how many offensive rebounds they got off dropped or kicked balls, and how many times we tipped a ball only to have it go right back to them.
 
The game was lost when Rutgers was killed on the boards in the first half...yes rebounding mattered...RU did a better job in the 2nd half which allowed the game to be played even
 
GRIF, when you consider rebounding off of missed free throws it's really 3 different things.

The only importance of a defensive rebound is that it prevents the opposition from getting an offensive rebound.

The only reason Minny got 6 more defensive rebounds is because we missed more shots, including 5 reboundable misses from the foul line to their 2, and our 35 missed shots from the field versus their 32.
 
BillyC80 said:
We matched Minny with 14 offensive rebounds (the only rebounding stat that really matters, looking at +/-).

Minny had 6 more defensive rebounds but they were credited with 5 rebounds off of our missed free throws and we were only credited with two of theirs.

Also, we missed 3 more shots (35 misses to their 32) so that accounts for more defensive rebounds for them.

If you're gonna point to rebounding as a reason for this (or any) loss, then that could only be true if we were outrebounded on the offensive glass, which we were not.
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This is the 1st game I will say that they were out hustled. They got beat at their own game stIill played well enough to put themselves in a position to win. Great stuff but the Achilles that brings any sense of positivity going on is their foul shooting it is beyond atrocious. There is not 1 single instance where you can say someone is going to knock down 1st on a one & one or both shots on shooting foul. You 100% expect it's more likey to see an ugly brick than a swish
 
greenknight said:
This is the 1st game I will say that they were out hustled. They got beat at their own game stIill played well enough to put themselves in a position to win. Great stuff but the Achilles that brings any sense of positivity going on is their foul shooting it is beyond atrocious. There is not 1 single instance where you can say someone is going to knock down 1st on a one & one or both shots on shooting foul. You 100% expect it's more likey to see an ugly brick than a swish
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That counteracts all the positive things your not used to seeing
 
Bac, you always say that basketball is a game of runs and that a whole game is 40 minutes. Their lead on the offensive boards in the first half was negated by our lead on the offensive glass in the second half.

It was our shooting, from the field and from the line, over the course of the full 40 minutes, that ultimately sealed our fate.
 
BillyC80 said:
Bac, you always say that basketball is a game of runs and that a whole game is 40 minutes. Their lead on the offensive boards in the first half was negated by our lead on the offensive glass in the second half.
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Except they converted their offensive boards to points at a higher rate than we did... which usually is a stat that goes the other way for us. Again, one of a lot of factors.
 
If they convert more second-chance opportunities, isn't that better shooting? Both teams had the same number of offensive rebounds.
 
Cranford, it did seem like they got more of the 50/50 loose balls than we got, but then again, both teams had 14 offensive rebounds and both took exactly 60 shots.
 
BillyC80 said:
If they convert more second-chance opportunities, isn't that better shooting? Both teams had the same number of offensive rebounds.
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Given that we shot about what we usually do (a little better, actually, compared to conference play), it's more on our interior defense than our offense. We gave up 43 points in the first half - that's only happened one other time this season, in our completely flat performance against Iowa.
 
Better team beat us..many factors but game was lost in first half...rutgers not good enough to overcome 12 point defecits
 
BillyC80 said:
We matched Minny with 14 offensive rebounds (the only rebounding stat that really matters, looking at +/-).

Minny had 6 more defensive rebounds but they were credited with 5 rebounds off of our missed free throws and we were only credited with two of theirs.

Also, we missed 3 more shots (35 misses to their 32) so that accounts for more defensive rebounds for them.

If you're gonna point to rebounding as a reason for this (or any) loss, then that could only be true if we were outrebounded on the offensive glass, which we were not.
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Billy, I am with Choppin on this one. The plus 10 by Minnesota, combined with the number of loose balls and second and third attempts they got in the first half is what led to their 9 point lead. Although we caught up on the offensive glass , it was not as simple as things being even. They would not have had their lead for the half or most of the game if we do not get out hustled combined with the ball bouncing back to them a number of times. Yeah foul shooting as usual killed us, but our last 3minutes and our lack of execution is why we didn't win that game.
 
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BillyC80 said:
We matched Minny with 14 offensive rebounds (the only rebounding stat that really matters, looking at +/-).

Minny had 6 more defensive rebounds but they were credited with 5 rebounds off of our missed free throws and we were only credited with two of theirs.

Also, we missed 3 more shots (35 misses to their 32) so that accounts for more defensive rebounds for them.

If you're gonna point to rebounding as a reason for this (or any) loss, then that could only be true if we were outrebounded on the offensive glass, which we were not.
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The difference is that Minnesota scored more than Rutgers after offensive rebounds.
 
Seems like everyone agrees that shooting was the difference. All the ancillary stats (offensive rebounds, hustling after loose balls, steals and turnovers, etc.) only matter to the extent that they lead to more shots taken. Well guess what -- all that ancillary stuff evened out in this game, because both teams took exactly the same number of shots.

Both teams took 60 shots from the field and RU took 7 more shots from the foul line, yet Minny made 3 more shots from the floor and 3 more shots from the charity stripe. There's your ballgame.
 
I disagree FIG. When one of their guys took a rushed 3pointer at the shot-clock buzzer and nailed it, and then another of their guys took a 30-ft 3pointer and nailed it, was that bad defense?

When Minny made 13 of 15 free throws, was that poor defense?

When Nigel missed a wide-open 3 with a minute left (he was 0-3 from the arc), that would have brought us to within 2 pts, was that plenty good enough offensively?
 
BillyC80 said:
Seems like everyone agrees that shooting was the difference. All the ancillary stats (offensive rebounds, hustling after loose balls, steals and turnovers, etc.) only matter to the extent that they lead to more shots taken. Well guess what -- all that ancillary stuff evened out in this game, because both teams took exactly the same number of shots.

Both teams took 60 shots from the field and RU took 7 more shots from the foul line, yet Minny made 3 more shots from the floor and 3 more shots from the charity stripe. There's your ballgame.
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We don't shoot well... so you could essentially blame every loss on shooting. In fact, every team could blame every loss on shooting. Breaking down what went right/wrong in a game, though, and what can legitimately be improved week-to-week, isn't that simplistic.

They shot better than we did... but in this particular game, that's more on our defensive performance than our offensive performance.

Our Conference FG% Def is .430, while Minnesota's FG% is .420... yet they shot .467. We allowed the sixth highest FG% of the season (behind @MSU, Iowa, Hartford, @Miami, and @Indiana)... the third worst among home games. And Minnesota is 11th in the conference in FG%.

Meanwhile, our Conference FG% is .380, while Minnesota's FG% Def is .421... and we shot .417... which is better than our average, and just about at what Minnesota usually allows.

To blame our shooting for the loss means you somehow expected us to match them shot for shot for a .467 average... but we haven't shot that well from the field all year in conference play, so that doesn't seem realistic. Might as well say "if we'd only gone 7-14 from the arc" or "if we'd only shot 90%+ from the line". It's expecting a rabbit from a hat.
 
agree.....why are people surprised the team does not shoot well...we know it is a bad shooting team. RU actually shot relatively well for them. I do not think shooting was the biggest issue yesterday. It was defensively in the first half not able to keep up with Minny and getting killed on the boards.
 
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Not at all. 16-24 from the line and 5-14 from the arc is not too much to hope for in any given game, even for this team. And that would have been enough to win.
 
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not with this team, we have seen enough evidence....its not a complete team, if they are making shots, then they are not doing something else. I think some are putting expectations on this team that they are not capable of. Every school in the league has more talent. Pike is getting basically all he can out of this team
 
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Never said I expected them to win. The premise of my OP was that we rebounded evenly with them, and in the end our shooting was responsible for our loss.

Yes, we normally don't shoot well. Obviously to beat a better team we need to have a better shooting game than normal. In this case, just 67% from the line and 35% from the arc would have been enough.
 
BillyC80 said:
Never said I expected them to win. The premise of my OP was that we rebounded evenly with them, and in the end our shooting was responsible for our loss.

Yes, we normally don't shoot well. Obviously to beat a better team we need to have a better shooting game than normal. In this case, just 67% from the line and 35% from the arc would have been enough.
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"Just"

Also, your logic is flawed. We can also win games against better teams with our normal shooting if we have plus defense.

Winning means scoring more than the other team. It's a combination of both putting points on the board *and* keeping the other team from putting points on the board. In our case, it also means limiting possessions. We didn't do as good a job as we normally do on those letter two elements.
 
Against a better team we had 14 offensive rebounds, 7 steals, 4 blocked shots and only 9 turnovers. I'd say that's a plus performance in non-shooting areas. So my logic for this game is fine. Shooting only marginally well from the line and the arc would have been enough to win, this game.
 
BillyC80 said:
Against a better team we had 14 offensive rebounds, 7 steals, 4 blocked shots and only 9 turnovers. I'd say that's a plus performance in non-shooting areas. So my logic for this game is fine. Shooting only marginally well from the line and the arc would have been enough to win, this game.
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6th worst defensive showing this season in FG% allowed; 3rd worst at home. Third most FGs allowed all season. Second most points given up in a first half all season (out of 26 games); 6th most in any half all season (out of 52 halves). We allowed Minnesota to rebound 44% of their missed shots (2nd most all season, most in conference play). Not sure what about that feels like a plus performance on the defensive side of the ball.
 
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despite our shooting our offense outperformed our D.

When looking at our 15 real games (SHU and Miami included) it was our 3rd most efficient offensive game. It was our 4th worst defensive game.

Our O would have been good enough to win @SHU, PSU, @Iowa, NEB, WISC.

The irony is our O would have been good enough to beat PSU at home, but not @PSU.:.
 
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Our defense and rebounding were good enough to win. Our poor shooting from the arc (21%) and FT line (45%) is the reason we lost.

Btw, regarding where this game ranks on the list of "worsts," this was the 3rd worst foul-shooting performance in B1G play, 4th worst 3pt shooting in B1G games, and the 2nd worst combination of the two, in B1G play.
 
The average B1G has 67.6 possessions and 1.039 points per possession = 70.2364 points

This game had 65 possessions and we gave up 72 points. This was 1.1077 points per possession. This team is not good enough offensively to win with that score.

Our top 5 offensive efforts in our 15 real games....

#1 PSU 70/66 1.06
#2 NEB 65/66 .98
#3 MIN 63/65 .97
#4 @OSU 64/68 .94
#5 @MSU 65/72 .90

The bottom line is for us to win we have to, bare minimum, give up less that a point per possession. This team can't lose on the defensive glass.
 
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BillyC80 said:
Our defense and rebounding were good enough to win. Our poor shooting from the arc (21%) and FT line (45%) is the reason we lost.

Btw, regarding where this game ranks on the list of "worsts," this was the 3rd worst foul-shooting performance in B1G play, 4th worst 3pt shooting in B1G games, and the 2nd worst combination of the two, in B1G play.
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While at the same time, it was also our best 2P% in conference play, 2nd highest number of 2P baskets made and 2nd highest number of overall FG made in conference play overall. If you apply our conference averages to our shot attempts, we'd have come out with 62 points instead of the 63 we got.

Had we shot our conference average 3P% and FT% along with our improved 2P%, we'd have had just one more three and two more FTs... for 5 more total points in a 9 point loss. So, you'd expect us to not only shoot above our average from inside the arc... but also above our average beyond the arc and from the FT line.

I get that you wish that the offense were better - we all do. I'd love to have a Douby, or Coleman... or someone who could be consistently relied upon for hitting open shots. We just don't have that.

We need to win by shortening the game, limiting the number of shots our opponents take and keeping their FG% down when they take them. That allows our limited offense to keep the game in reach. If we aren't doing that, we aren't going to win a shoot out.

For comparison, the three other times we've allowed more than 24 made baskets in conference play, we've lost by more points. The offense managed to keep it closer than past games where we've allowed so many baskets.
33 @MSU - lost by 28
30 Iowa - lost by 20
29 @Indiana - lost by 19
28 Minnesota - lost by 9
 
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