Thursday, February 10, 2011

Iowa Box Score Observations

Opening Comments: UW won a nail-biting 62-59 overtime game at Carver-Hawkeye arena. Whew! On to OSU Saturday for a big match up.

The box score can be found here.

Summarizing the game in a few words: Defenses dominated on both sides, but UW hit 7 more threes, Iowa 8 more twos, but the extra point one gets making a three was the difference. UW outrebounded Iowa on both ends of the floor and had two fewer turnovers.

Pace: The game had 64 possessions, including the 5 minute over time. I calculated the possessions like this:

Period Possessions

First Half: 29

Second Half: 29

OT: 6

Efficiency: Was it offense or defense? This game was the “seek the mean” game to counter the MSU game. Against MSU, everything went in. Here, no so much. We won with defense.

UW scored at .97 PPP and allowed Iowa .92 PPP. We had been scoring at 1.19 PPP and allowing 1.02 PPP in conference. So, this game was a defensive struggle – or perhaps both offenses struggled would say it better.

Here is the efficiency by period:

UW Iowa

First half .62 .79

Second Half 1.21 1.03

OT 1.50 1.00

Game .97 .92

Shooting: UW made 24 shots from the floor and Iowa made 25. But, for UW, 8 were from deep and Iowa only made one from deep. Those extra 7 points offset the one extra made basket and two extra free throws.

eFG%: Iowa hit at 43%, while UW came in at 41%. That was our second worst brickfest of the year (back in November we hit 40.5% against Manhattan). Iowa’s 43% was close to our opponent’s average of 45%, and the 17th best out of 23 games played.

3 pt shooting: UW hit a miserable 8 of 29 for 28%. Ugh. But, that was better than Iowa’s 1 of 7 for 14%. UW outscored Iowa by 21 outside the arc. That was critical.

2pt shooting: Inside, Iowa was 24 of 53 for 45%. UW made 16 of 39 for 41%. Iowa outscored UW by 10, 32 to 22 in the paint. That was almost fatal. Iowa regained 16 points inside meaning they were a net minus five from the floor.

1pt shooting: Each team missed on FTA and Iowa and two extra chances. Iowa was 8-9 for 89% while UW was 6-7 for 86%. Iowa got two points back at the line, but not enough to overcome the 5 they were down from the field

The “We Make More Free Throws Than Our Opponents Attempt” Scoreboard

UW Makes: 300 Opponent Attempts: 356 Difference: -56

BTW, UW has attempted 362 free throws and our opponents 356. About even. But, UW has made 300 and our opponents 264.

The Trevor Mbakwe Challenge:

If you are not a loyal reader, we have been tracking who misses more free throws, Trevor Mbakwe or UW’s team. It is a horse race.

UW missed one against Iowa and Trevor did not play. But, both teams now have played 23 games. So, here are the results:

Team Makes. Att Misses

UW: 300 362 62

Trevor: 84 144 60

Diff: 216 218 -2

Another way of looking at this: If Trevor goes on a hot streak and hits 216 of his next 218, he can tie UW.

Floor Location:

This shows how a team’s points are distributed by location on the floor. Let me know if you find this useful – I might drop this feature.

Location UW Opp

Arc 39% 5%

Mid Range 16% 27%

Paint 35% 54%

FT Line 10% 14%

Iowa got 54% of their points in the paint. This Basabe is developing into a nice player. He is going to be a load to deal with for the next 3+ years.

Rebounding: UW did well rebounding this game, on both ends. In the end, Iowa scored 8 second chance points and UW 7.

UW Defensive end: When Iowa shot, there were 36 rebounding opportunities and Iowa got 10, or 28%. That is about on par for a UW conference opponent and better for UW than the national average of 33%.

UW Offensive End: UW grabbed 16 misses. The bad news is we missed a lot. There were 45 rebounding opportunities and UW got 36%.

Turnovers: Iowa had 10 turnovers for 16%. That is doing well protecting the ball. UW did even better puking up only 8 (Leuer had 4 again). UW scored 10 off turnovers to Iowa’s 4.

Opportunity Index: UW ended up with 8 more extra chances. UW had +6 offensive rebounds and +2 on turnovers. UW scored +6 on turnovers and gave one back on second chance points.

Fouls: Neither team fouled much. UW had 11 and Iowa 10. Iowa got to the line more (9 to 7 attempts) and made more (8 to 6).

Playing time: Bo tightened his bench. He only played 8 players, and 6 got double figure minutes. The starters played at least 34 each (Leuer, Taylor and Nankivil all had 42 to 44 minutes) and Evans got 11. Bruesewitz got 9 and Valentyn a surprising 5 crunch time minutes.

Iowa played 8 as well, but all 8 got double digit minutes

Notable Performances: Leuer, my favorite player, had a 19-15 dub-dub. But, he needed 20 FGA and two free throw attempts to get there. He also had 4 turnovers. Ugh. But, such is the life of a high usage player. Jon got 4 offensive rebounds, which acts to negate the four turnovers to some degree. Jon, I salute you!

Taylor, Mrs. Turomon’s favorite player, got 16 on 18 FGA’s and 3 FTA’s. He was awarded 8 assists and had two turnovers.

Keaton hit double figures as well, but needed 13 shots to get there. He was an uncharacteristic 2-8 from deep. This was a blatant attempt to exorcise missed shots before the OSU game on Saturday. Good strategy.

Jarmusz had another efficient game. He scored 8 on 6 shots. He grabbed four offensive rebounds, was credited with an assist, and two steals. He hit an important overtime three that may well have saved the game. From a PPP perspective, he scored 8 on 3 possessions – very efficient. Tim, long will the tales of your exploits be told around the campfires of my people.

Valentyn was 1-1 from the floor, hitting his most important 3 late in the second half. My people will be talking about that for years when we light up a fire. Bo must have had a sense that this was your time to shine.

Gasser got 7 boards, 3 offensive.

For Iowa, Basabe had a 13-11 dub-dub. He needed 11 shots to get there. He also was tagged with two TO’s. Cartwright (I remember, Ben, Adam, Hoss and Little Joe, but not Bryce) left the Ponderosa long enough to knock down 14 on 5-15 shooting.

Grading Shetown’s Predictions

1. Wisconsin turns the ball over less than 11% of the time. Yes, this is their average, but Iowa forces 22% on average. Miss. UW turned it over 13%.

2. Wisconsin grabs more than 38% of the rebounding opportunities on offense. Iowa has a tiny, tiny frontcourt and I think Bo let's Keaton, Jon, Mike, Jared, and Josh try to take advantage. Miss, but close. UW had a good 36%.

3. The Badgers score more than 25 points in the paint. Again... small frontcourt, Jon, Keaton, Jared, etc. Miss. UW got 22.

My Prediction: The Badgers win convincingly, 71-55 in 58 possessions. Sort of. 62-59 in 64, with OT.

Closing Thoughts: Iowa seems like they are pointed in the right direction. Fran McCaffery has a team playing well that I did not think could compete before the season started. I guess it should come as no surprise, but the B1G has good coaches. It seems like Bo is going to have to find another gear to keep winning at his amazing pace going forward.

Here is a small lessen on tempo free stats. There was a single possession in the first half that went like this:

17:25 MISSED 3 PTR by Jarmusz, Tim

17:25 REBOUND (OFF) by Leuer, Jon

17:20 MISSED 3 PTR by Gasser, Josh

17:20 REBOUND (OFF) by Nankivil, Keaton

17:16 MISSED JUMPER by Nankivil, Keaton

17:16 REBOUND (OFF) by Taylor, Jordan

17:12 MISSED LAYUP by Taylor, Jordan

17:12 REBOUND (OFF) by Leuer, Jon

17:09 MISSED TIP-IN by Leuer, Jon

17:09 REBOUND (OFF) by Leuer, Jon

17:06 TURNOVR by Leuer, Jon

On this possession, we had 5 missed shots, 5 offensive rebounds and one turnover. The net result was a turnover. If Leuer would have come down the floor and dribbled it off his foot out of bounds, it would have had the same effect. So, when you look at shooting percentage and missed shots, you need to subtract off offensive rebounds. A O-reb is an anti missed shot.

In this game, we shot a miserable 24 of 68 from the field for 35%. But, we got 16 offensive rebounds. That has the effect of negating 16 attempts and brings the shooting down to 24 of 52 – not good, but not so bad. I wish the box score would mention if offensive rebounds came after three point shots, two point shots, or free throws. That would really help the analysis.

UW is going to have to rest up for Saturday. OSU had no mid week game and UW had a road game, in overtime, and a short bench.

UW has that elusive second road win. That is huge. Considering we have a reasonable (50-50?) chance of losing a home game to OSU, we need to bank a few road wins. This game shows how hard road wins are in the B1G, regardless of the opponent.

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