Mens Basketball: A Look Back ...and then Ahead

This was a painful season for everyone, Buzz, players, and fans alike. The OOC schedule had some high moments but it also had some painfully low moments. Tech managed to come through that stretch in about the same place as we have the last few years. 8-5 record, with three of the five losses by less than one basket. The two losses by more than that turned out to be the only two ranked teams on our OOC in #11 Northern Iowa and #18 WVU, who finished their seasons 30-3 and 22-9. No real shame in losing those two games with the inexperienced make up of our roster. Nothing to crow about but nothing really to hang our heads about either except for maybe the loss to Appalachian State. Even the Radford loss comes to a team that ultimately finished with 21 wins on the season so you cant get too upset about that loss.

Then came the conference slate and boy did it ever bear down on this team. You would think after our last three seasons as fans, we would have been prepared for it, but with Buzz at the helm I think it gave us just that little ray of sunshine to expect better.

Unfortunately, what became the norm was playing a team even until the last few minutes and then letting the game slip away. We did unfortunately again have our share of blowouts though. We managed to lose nine conference games by more than 10 points. Its also tough to say that this teams best games were losses as well, but that unfortunately is true. Their games against Duke and UVA the first time were probably the best that this team played all season, only to watch the games get away at the end. 2-16, with their wins coming against two teams with losing conference records doesn't bode well for our performance this season.

We can point at a multitude of reasons, height, experience, fatigue all have come off our fingers in recent months and all contributed to our results. The most painful ones for me were those that it appeared that these young men had finally turned a corner, get out to a lead and end up losing by one or two possessions at the end. We lacked a consistent killer instinct across this squad.

Lets take a look at how a few of our players did individually. Some of the advanced statistics show some surprising information about who did the most for Tech as an individual. Some of these results are significantly below normal based on our limited wins.

We will start with the Mad Bomber, Adam Smith, who seemed like he could score from anywhere outside the arc for much of the season. Surprisingly, he has the highest Win Share per 40 minutes on the roster at .083. The average across the NCAA for win share is about .1, so it shows that with our few number of wins, our entire roster is below the NCAA average for win share per 40. It also says that as questionable as Smith sometimes was on defense, he made up for that on the opposite end of the court to lead this team in winning games. To give you an idea of where Smith was defensively, his defensive rating indicates he would give up 120.8 points per 100 possessions. This was second worst on the team, only surpassed by Will Johnston's 120.9 per 100 possessions. Smith finished the season shooting 41% from outside the arc, which is phenomenal considering how difficult it seemed to be to get him open even the inch or two that he needed. His offensive rating shows us that he would score 113.9 points per 100 possessions, which is very solid. The scary part of that is that he has the second best "difference" between his Defensive and Offensive Ratings. His difference is a -6.9, which is a significant indicator in what type of season we had.

Lets move on to the slow and steady Christian Beyer. As untalented as he was, he was arguably our best player on the floor. He was the only player on the roster with a positive difference between his Offensive and Defensive rating by scoring 116.8 points per 100 possessions, while only giving up 112.7, to give him a 4.1 differential. This is the sad indicator that Christian probably should have seen a lot more time on the court but came down to Buzz having to make the decision to prioritize the development of his young talent rather than stick a mediocre talent on the floor for longer periods of time. Beyer had an equal .83 win share per 40 minutes to Smith, and these two were far and away higher than the rest of the squad here, with the next win share coming in at .032.

Now I want to focus on the other two "big men" in Henry and Pierce. Both have dreadful offensive ratings, and were likely closer than many of us would have expected considering how often we cited Henry for his offensive woes. Henry has an 86.4 points scored per 100 possessions compared to Pierce, who managed 90 points per 100 possessions. The difference here is that Henry has a team best defensive rating at 107.8 points given up per 100 possessions while Pierce gave up 117.3 points per 100 possessions. Almost 10 more points given up by Pierce is painful to deal with and the fact that as big men, you are expected to be closer to a 1 to 1 ratio of ratings, it shows how poor we were inside. Only Beyer in the positive and Smith at the -6.9 were within -17.8 points in regards their Offensive and Defensive Ratings.

The other painful statistic, as was noted by many, was the fouls, where Pierce averaged 2.7 fouls per 13.8 mpg. He averaged essentially a foul for every eight possessions on the court. That's essentially fouling out at the 2/3rd mark per game since Tech averaged 65.9 possessions per game this season. Henry was getting 1.7 fouls per 10.3 mpg, or about one foul per ten possessions. Are there plenty of reasons or ways to try to justify these? Sure, regardless though it's a glaring statistic.

To give you an idea of the other end of the spectrum, especially inside, Duke's Jahlil Okafor this season had a 118.9 Offensive Rating and a 101.2 Defensive Rating, so he scored 18.7 more points than he gave up per 100 possessions essentially. Are these stats the end all be all of proficiency? No, but they are fairly accurate and give you a decent idea of how poorly we played on the defensive side of the ball. Of Dukes nine players that played consistently, their worst Defensive Rating was Grayson Allen at 109.5, but his offensive rating was a 132.1, so still over a 20 point positive rating difference. The worst difference on their roster was a 6.5, which is better than our best by Christian Beyer. I know that Duke is an extreme example but it shows you what we need to strive for to be competitive with the best in the conference.

As we close out our look back, lets spend a few moments evaluating all the guards not named Smith. Hudson was the biggest liability of the group in terms of turnovers, giving the ball away 6.8 times per 100 possessions, as a group, the average was over 4 per 100 possessions, saying that as a team, we gave away over 20 possessions per 100. 1/5th of the time we had the ball, we gave it back to the other team. That's a really painful number. Wilson, Hill and Smith were the monster minute eaters, playing almost 1000 minutes each this season. Hill and Muller both finish the season shooting less than 40% from the field, somewhat effected by their tendency to shoot from outside but still not acceptable for guards in the ACC in my opinion. Last but not least, we shot a dreadful 64% from the free throw line as a team this season, good for 330th in the Nation out of around 346. There are 22 categories of data in the site I am using and offensively we finished 12th or worse in the conference in 16 of those 22. Defensively, we finished 12th or lower in 13 out of 22 categories. Not all that surprising but still another little kick in the gut at the end of the day.

Looking Forward
Plenty of speculation about who is going where and who is leaving first. I will start with what I see our starting lineup being next season at least to begin with.

I would expect to see the lineup to start looking similar to this:

1 – Seth Allen
2 – Adam Smith
3 – Zach Leday
4 – Kerry Blackshear
5 –Satchel Pierce

The second lineup I envison for this squad is:

1 – Justin Robinson
2 – Ahmed Hill
3 – Justin Bibbs
4 – Shane Henry
5 – Kerry Blackshear

You could essentially fill the 1 position with one of 4 players, considering the possibility of Allen, Robinson, Hudson and Wilson. Of this group, I believe Wilson is the most likely to leave in the off season.

At the two, you have the group of Hill, Clarke, Smith, and possibly Bibbs.

At the three, I think the rotation will consist of Leday, Bibbs, and Muller. Muller I think is the most likely to leave the team as his playing time is coming close to an end barring injuries.

The four and five will likely feature a rotation of Pierce, Henry, Blackshear and Leday. I do not foresee any of these transferring or not showing up. If one of the guards transfers out, than I believe Buzz will find a way to close on Levi Cook and he could instantly have an impact on the lineup, really solidifying Leday and Bibbs alternating the three spot because Henry and Blackshear could alternate the four and Pierce and Cook would be at the five. No more height discrepancy across the board.

I believe Wilson is the most expendable with his position at the one mainly due to the versatility that Muller showed Buzz defensively towards the end of the conference slate. I also think Muller is the most likely to leave because he will have better options whereever he might find.

Edit for Clarity:
Lineups above are who I would expect to see as a Buzz starting lineup. As for minute played per game:

Allen - 24-28
Smith - 24-28
Bibbs - 20-25
Hill - 20-25
Pierce 16-20

Hudson 16-20
Blackshear 10-15
Robinson 8-12
Clarke - 10-15
Leday 10-15
Henry 10-15

The rest of the minutes
Muller
Wilson
Cook

These minutes will likely be effected by size/speed of opponent, style of play, foul troubles, and who is or isnt in Buzz Beehouse for not putting in work.