The Four Factors

There are four statistical categories proven to impact the outcome of games. They are, in order of importance, the following: Effective field goal percentage, turnover rate, offensive rebounding rate, and free throw rate. If you win only EFG, you've got a decent chance to win any game. The same is true if you win two of the other four. If you win three of these areas, you're going to win most of your games, and if you win all four there's no way for you to lose.

I have been thinking about our play at Utah and Rocky Mountain the past week. While I don't have any hard data in regards to how we performed in these areas, I think I can still give a pretty accurate assessment of how we did.

Our four best performances over the summer were our two games against Rowland Hall, our game against Melbourne, and our win over Hunter. In our first matchup against RHSM and in the Hunter game, we won all four areas, hands down, and our margin of victory in total was about 50 points. In our second game against RHSM, I would guess we only won EFG, which means we only won the game because we out-shot them. Coach Chamness said multiple times during the game, "This isn't a basketball game - it's a shooting contest - and we just happen to be winning." He was right. We won despite turning it over more, rebounding worse, and not getting to the line. Conversely, EFG was the only area we lost against Melbourne, which I think highlights how important it is we perform well in the other three areas each night out, because it shows we can hang in the game against high-level competition and still have a chance to win (final score: 33-31). Conversely, we had to shoot it lights-out in order to beat a 2A team that beat us in the other three areas, and that's not something we can bank on every night, especially in region play when the opposition has us scouted out.

Here's a few thoughts on what we need to do come the regular season to win each of the four factors:

1. Effective field goal percentage: EFG puts more weight on three pointers because they are worth more points per shot. So, if we make 4/10 from three and the opposition makes 5/10 from two, we'd have a higher EFG because we got more points from our 10 shots. This is good for us because we have to be a high-volume three point team.

So there's two ways to look improve our EFG - we either shoot it better than the other guys, or we defend well enough to make them shoot it worse than us. The latter is the approach we need to take, because defense is something we can control. We've had stretches where we've defended well, but for us to do what I think we can do, defense has to become our identity and calling card. As I have said, our five best defenders will start game one at Providence Hall.

We can increase our own EFG through a couple of things. First is shot selection. As I have said, the criteria for a good shot is it's in your range, you have time and space, you're on balance, and a teammate doesn't have a better shot (of course, this criteria doesn't account for time and score, another factor to consider). I think we took a lot of shots that didn't meet this criteria, and so our EFG suffered in two ways: we shot it worse than we probably should because shots that don't meet that criteria don't go in, and the other team gets easy shots because misses lead to transition hoops or at least a defense that's back on its heels.

We need to get easier shots. I want us to focus on getting two kinds of shots more often - two-footed power layups off the pass-and-cut in Open and the upscreen in Swing, and inside out threes (off penetration or post catches and kick outs). The only non-inside-out threes we will shoot moving forward are those in transition and those on out of bounds plays. If you shoot a non-inside-out three, you're going to come out. There's a substantial difference in percentage between inside-out threes and those that you catch and turn to shoot. We need to shoot threes with our feet set like we get in our shooting drills and from the shooting machine.

2. Turnover rate: This is the number of turnovers you create or commit in a given number of possessions. If we turn it over 10 times in 50 possessions our turnover rate would be 20%. But if we force our opposition to turn it over 12 times in 50 possessions, we'd obviously win this category. To win this area, we can either up the pressure, gamble, get stretched out defensively, and try to create more turnovers, or we can take better care of the ball. I think you know which approach we're going to take. When we guard from 25 feet and in, we're really good. When we get over extended, we give up easy shots. So, we need to handle it better, and we're going to focus on these two things to do it: throw shorter two-handed passes off two-footed jump stops. One-handed passes and passes thrown in the air lead to turnovers, as do long passes. Focus on short passes (forcing your teammates to come to the slots) with two hands off two feet. Practice this in all the pickup games you play in.

3. Offensive rebound rate: This is the percentage of our misses that we rebound. So, if we shoot 25/50 from the floor and have 5 offensive rebounds, we'd have an ORR of 20% because we rebounded 20% of our misses. This is not an area we can win through our own offensive rebounding - we have to limit the other team's offensive rebounding. For one thing, we're going to continue to emphasize getting back on defense over offensive rebounding and gambling for back court turnovers because this helps us win EFG, the most important area to win. For another, our lack of size does not lend itself to offensive rebounding. However, we're good on D and through drills like Blue-Gold Rebounding, we should become a great defensive rebounding team. Offensive rebounding is often about size and athleticism; defensive rebounding is about toughness, technique, and position. We be that every possession, regardless of who's on the floor.

4. Free throw rate: This is the percentage of possessions you get to the line, regardless of whether you scored on that possession or not. Studies show it doesn't matter so much whether or not you make the free throw but just that you are getting to the line. I think that is because this is an indicator, first of all, of how well you defend in position and how well you help defensively, and second of all, how aggressive you are on offense in terms of going to the rim and running on the break. We fouled way too much on D this summer, primarily when we gambled, got out of position, and were lazy with our help - helping with hands and slaps instead of chest, hips, and shoulders like we need to. And though we need to shoot a lot of threes, we also need to get the rim plays Open and Swing are designed to get, primarily back cuts, in order to get plays going to the basket. This will increase our FTR, and allow us to press in an organized way that should up our opposition's turnover rate without putting us in a scramble defensively.

Lastly, this applies to all our teams on every level. I want everyone to think about how this applies to you as a player and us as a team, and what you can do to help us in at least one of these areas. You need to create a google account, sign in to leave a comment, and write a short reflection as a comment on the blog and sign it with your first name. I want this done by July 15.

Those of you who can't post your reply on the blog for some reason can email me your response at jeffreymarshallbaird@gmail.com.