WBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[RogK]

I think we were talking about college scores. But, anyway, there have been (and still are) college coaches who "don't want to get into a track meet" with any number of opponents; in many instances, the coach on the other bench is thinking the same thing. As a result, defenses are allowed time to set up before any shot is considered; thusly, shooters are well-guarded and many one-and-done possessions ensue. In this pattern of play, scores in the 40s and 50s can be expected. Fans then have to go home and wash their eyes.

[RogK]

In the aforementioned type of game, naturally there would be a winning team and a losing team. Likewise, if both teams really pushed the ball on offense, one team would win and one would lose.
Most CCIW WBB games feature a fluctuating tempo or pace, with adjustments occuring based on how things are going, including who's in foul trouble. Truly high-scoring games (94-88?) are rare. Fortunately (in my opinion), 50-41 scores are uncommon, too.

[RogK]

Here's a question that could induce some discussion : how many different ways can a possession (on offense) be successful even if 0 points are scored?

[Gregory Sager]

Rog, the mean average of points per team in CCIW play in 2011-12 was 62.1. Let's just say that CCIW scoreboard operators weren't really hard-pressed to keep up last season.

[RogK]

Was that 62.1 for all games or just conference matchups? Would you mind figuring the corresponding average for the CCIW guys' games?

[Gregory Sager]

Was that 62.1 for all games or just conference matchups?

Rog, the mean average of points per team in CCIW play in 2011-12 was 62.1. Let's just say that CCIW scoreboard operators weren't really hard-pressed to keep up last season.

In all games, CCIW teams averaged 64.3 ppg.

Would you mind figuring the corresponding average for the CCIW guys' games?

CCIW men's teams averaged 65.7 ppg in CCIW play and 66.9 ppg overall last season. However, those numbers are deceptive, as they contain an extreme outlier; Millikin, which has lost a CCIW-record 34 straight conference games and has gone 1-24, 0-14 and 1-23, 0-14 over the past two seasons, fielded what is easily the worst men's basketball team I've ever seen in this league in 2011-12. The Big Blue averaged 45.7 ppg in CCIW play and 47.2 ppg overall. If you offset the Millikin outlier by using the median average rather than the mean average, CCIW men's teams averaged 70.7 ppg in CCIW play and 71.6 ppg overall, which are fairly typical numbers for CCIW men's basketball.

[RogK]

The men have the occasional advantage of getting closer to the rim. The slightly smaller ball used by the women should be easier to fit through the rim space. The fact that women players are smaller than the guys are may aid offense (the lane being less crowded).

[Gregory Sager]

The ability of men to get closer to the rim does play into the fact that male players have higher FG percentages on average than their female counterparts, but they also have higher trey-shooting percentages on average as well. The difference in college basketball between men and women in shooting efficiency from behind the arc is roughly 5 percent, a fact which can't be explained by the inherent gender discrepancies of height and vertical leap. Interestingly, free-throw shooting percentages don't show nearly as much difference between men and women.

Women do have the advantage of being able to drive to the basket with more lane space available, as you noted. That should theoretically give them an advantage that aids in their scoring that men don't have. However, women have five fewer seconds on the shot clock with which to break down a defense than men have.

[RogK]

Greg, I'm not sure that I go along with your last sentence, if it means that the longer a possession lasts, the better chance of success for the offense. I think there can be a lapse in concentration by the defense at any point in a possession. The odds of inducing that lapse may go up as the offense passes/dribbles the ball around, but so does the likelihood of committing a turnover.
I don't see that a longer shot clock would favor the offense, at least in women's basketball. I would defer to your judgment in regard to the men's game.
Certainly a very short shot clock (5 or 10 seconds) would favor the defense, but I think 30 seconds is plenty for decent shot opportunities to appear. And the sooner a shot is taken, the lower the chance of committing a turnover. The reward of holding the ball deeper into the shot clock could be a high percentage shot, but on the other hand, that 4th or 7th or 9th pass may be a bad one. And that OK shot that was not taken with 15 or 20 seconds left might end up being better than the one available with 2 seconds left.
A great passing/ballhandling team has less risk of committing a turnover, of course, but they can probably get a good shot any time they want.
Surely, you have to completely agree with all that! Ha ha.

[NCF]

Greg, I'm not sure that I go along with your last sentence, if it means that the longer a possession lasts, the better chance of success for the offense. I think there can be a lapse in concentration by the defense at any point in a possession. The odds of inducing that lapse may go up as the offense passes/dribbles the ball around, but so does the likelihood of committing a turnover.
I don't see that a longer shot clock would favor the offense, at least in women's basketball. I would defer to your judgment in regard to the men's game.
Certainly a very short shot clock (5 or 10 seconds) would favor the defense, but I think 30 seconds is plenty for decent shot opportunities to appear. And the sooner a shot is taken, the lower the chance of committing a turnover. The reward of holding the ball deeper into the shot clock could be a high percentage shot, but on the other hand, that 4th or 7th or 9th pass may be a bad one. And that OK shot that was not taken with 15 or 20 seconds left might end up being better than the one available with 2 seconds left.
A great passing/ballhandling team has less risk of committing a turnover, of course, but they can probably get a good shot any time they want.
Surely, you have to completely agree with all that! Ha ha.

How often does that happen?

[Gregory Sager]

The advantage always lies with the team that has the ball in its hands, Rog. This is borne out statistically; even the most fumble-fingered team will regularly get off at least twice as many shots as it has turnovers, and for a competent team the ratio of shots to turnovers is more like 3:1, or even 4:1 for exceptionally good teams -- and that's not including free throws.

The typical CCIW women's team will attempt about 1500 field goals per season, and make somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 of them, while turning the ball over about 500 times. Roughly one CCIW team per year will record more turnovers than field goals. But even this doesn't point to the defense having the advantage against that opponent, because it doesn't take free throws into consideration.

The longer the defense has to work, the more likely it is to break down. That's why every coach's bete noire is an opponent's offensive rebound, because it re-establishes the opponent's possession and forces your team to play an even longer consecutive stretch of defense.

The longer shot clock definitely favors the offense in the men's game. While turnovers are more common in the women's game, the women's game is also more focused upon strictly utilizing patterned offenses to create open shots rather than relying upon individual abilities to establish scoring opportunities (aka "creating your own shot"), and an offense that is running a set is harder to defend for half a minute than an offense in which a player or players is taking it upon himself to create something out of nothing -- and when you do have that individualistic mindset, the chances for a bad decision increase exponentially as the shot clock winds down, whereas a team running a set play will simply continue to methodically work its way through the shot clock, because its confidence lies in the team's collective ability to score rather than in its individual abilities. One thing you notice if you watch both men's and women's games, as I do, is how dedicated the women are to sticking with the play to the end of the shot clock as compared to the men. My impression has always been that you see more baskets made within the last five seconds of the shot clock in the women's game, in terms of a proportion of the overall number of baskets made, as you do in the men's game.

Exceptions abound, as there are some pretty disciplined CCIW men's teams, and younger or less capable CCIW women's teams will sometimes panic as the shot clock runs down to single digits. But, taken as a whole, this is the general rule.

[RogK]

Greg, it could be that women's teams stick with running a set play even as the shot clock wanes. To me, if often looks like "dang, our play fell apart and there are 4 seconds left; give it to the best scorer quick." That player may have been the intended shooter, but I don't think anyone other than the coaches and players know if it was a designed play to the end or just an effort to salvage the possession.
The ratios of FG attempts to TOs over the course of a season doesn't tell us about how early or late they occurred in any possessions.
Your impression about more late-shot-clock baskets in WBB than in MBB could very well be true and predictable : for example, a shot taken 27 seconds into a possession would be within the last 5 seconds in WBB but not in MBB. The shorter the shot clock, the more likely that shots will be taken late in the possession.
Incidentally, when you call a team "disciplined" you're not equating that to a slow, use-up-the-clock offense are you? Fast-break offenses can be very disciplined.

[Gregory Sager]

Greg, it could be that women's teams stick with running a set play even as the shot clock wanes. To me, if often looks like "dang, our play fell apart and there are 4 seconds left; give it to the best scorer quick." That player may have been the intended shooter, but I don't think anyone other than the coaches and players know if it was a designed play to the end or just an effort to salvage the possession.

Everything's relative. While you do see a lot of what you described in the women's game, you see more of it in the men's game ... except that the thinking involved with men is often not, "Dang, our play fell apart and there are four seconds left; give it to the best scorer quick," but rather, "Dang, do I have to do everything myself? Oh, well, here goes ... eat my dust, dude, I'm taking it to the rack!"

The ratios of FG attempts to TOs over the course of a season doesn't tell us about how early or late they occurred in any possessions.

True, but because there are far many more shots taken than turnovers coughed up in either version of college basketball, it stands to reason that there are more shots taken as the shot clock winds down than there are turnovers made.

Your impression about more late-shot-clock baskets in WBB than in MBB could very well be true and predictable : for example, a shot taken 27 seconds into a possession would be within the last 5 seconds in WBB but not in MBB. The shorter the shot clock, the more likely that shots will be taken late in the possession.
Incidentally, when you call a team "disciplined" you're not equating that to a slow, use-up-the-clock offense are you? Fast-break offenses can be very disciplined.

When I call a team "disciplined" I mean that it is more likely to follow the prescribed play called for it than it is to freelance ... unless the freelancing is what the coach is seeking to establish in the first place. Fast-break offenses are frequently designed to emerge out of pressure defenses, and the discipline therefore starts at the defensive end of the floor.

[RogK]

Since we're on a general basketball theme, I have sometimes thought about how defense in basketball compares to defense in other sports (not golf!). Fullcourt pressure in basketball has similarities to forechecking in hockey and whatever they call it in soccer. It just occurred to me yesterday that they play fullcourt (fullfield) defense in football; football teams play defense at the line of scrimmage, even if it is too far too kick a field goal from.
The decision of where to play defense in basketball depends on the coach's philosophy and maybe the game situation. Some coaches say "why play defense in the backcourt? they can't score from there; guard the basket." Others see fullcourt defense as a possible way to get the ball back via a forced turnover.
Baseball is an oddity among team sports because scoring is done by movement of a player/runner rather than movement of the ball.
Thoughts anyone?
(Here's another dang : dang, I just noticed my ungrammatical linking in reply 3264 of the word ratios with the verb doesn't, a plural/singular violation. I'm lucky not to have been T'd up)

[iwu70]

IWU CCIW Player of the Year, and national Final Four MVP, Olivia Lett, is to play professionally in Spain starting next month.  Congrats to Olivia, fulfilling her dream to be a professional basketball player!  See IWU sports and regular website for details = iwu.edu

Football season about to commence.  Good luck to all the CCIW squads and coaches.  Let's hope it is an exciting and relatively injury free season.  Sure looks to me like another good year, championship season for North Central, with probably WC and IWU nipping at their heals.

IWU70