My Argument that we are blaming bad shooting way more than we should (long)

I am going to make a case that we are overstating the shooting woes. Now having said that I AM NOT making a case that the shooting woes are not a problem or that the shooting woes do not have an impact. The argument I am making is that there are several key facets of the game that all have to work in concert and when one is not working you still have levers to pull in other areas. That is what makes great teams and great coaches. An example would be the way we ramped up attacking the basket when our 3 point shots were not falling. As a result our FG% was actually quite improved since we ended up shooting 19-29 (66% from 2 point range. So let me see if I can make a case that while shooting is always important it is not the big boogie man that should take all the blame.

1. Defense: A case can be made that theoretically offense is generally less consistent by nature than defense. In other words, sometimes shots don't fall but you can usually control the intensity and effectiveness of your defense more. Now the goal of the opponent is to run offenses that confuse your defense or capitalize on weaknesses in your defense. Thus a game plan. At the highest level, defense can be looked at in terms of points per possession. The average NCAA game has 73 possessions per game and teams score on average 1 point per possession. So generally speaking the goal on defense is to hold the opponent below 1 point per possession. We allowed Texas Tech to score 1.2 points per possession. No matter how you slice it that is bad. So just on this very broad categorical look I am going to propose that if there is a single biggest boogie man in KU's loss to Texas Tech it was defense. KU scored 1.03 points per possession which with an average defensive performance should be enough ot keep it close or win. Allowing 1.2 points per possessions not going to win many games.

2. So what are the details of defense? A full explanation would result in a continued regression to more and more detail if you are a coach Self but for our purposes we will break defense down statistically into 3 broad categories which relate back to the possession analysis. Each possession ends with one of two things happening (with several rare exceptions), you either shoot the ball or you turn the ball over. Shooting the ball has a number of possibilities including shooting a 2 point shot, a 3 point shot or FT's and also the possibility of making or missing. So, this set of possibilities leads to several categorical goals for a defense. a) how effectively you get TO's, b) how effectively you lower your opponent’s shooting effectiveness and c) now many 2nd chances you allow (i.e. offensive rebounds). Each of these can be further broken down and I'll give you a for instance. Holding a team to a low shooting percentage is not just good on the ball defense it is also a game plan to force them into poorer quality shots. So when we scout a team and we know they like to drive right we pack the lane every time the opponent in question gets in position where he can drive right. This is an example of forming a game plan to take away their strengths or preferred tendencies. Of course, on the ball defense is important. Switching and screening is important. But for this argument we are sticking with the three broad categories of reducing shooting effectiveness, forcing TO's and not allowing them to extend possessions.

3. Offense: for the sake of ease, think of offense as the inverse of defense. Therefore, offense has the same three broad categories. Maximize shooting effectiveness, minimize turnovers, and extend possessions or second chances (i.e. get offensive rebounds).

4. Shooting Effectiveness: Just by way of info there are a number of different shooting options. I will look at three broad categories. 3 pointer, longer range 2 pointers and at the rim. The game has gravitated to more and more 3 pointers and at the rim. Why? If you can shoot three pointers at 40% that is 1.2 points per possession. That is good. One additional consideration is the incidence of “and 1” with 3 point shots is very low (around 1% or less). The 2nd primary shooting option is at the rim which could be a drive or entry pass to the low post. The goal is to shoot above 60%. Shooting 60% at the rim would result in a points per possession of 1.2. But it is actually better than that because the incidence rate of “and 1” at the rim is usually north of 15% and often much higher. So shooting at the rim at a 60% shooting percentage would result in something north of 1.3 points per possession. So you can see why driving or passing to the low post is Self’s favorite option. When done well and consistently it is your most effective weapon. Unfortunately it is usually a bit easier to defend. Mid range 2 pointers are becoming more and more rare since they usually go in at something around 50% with a lower incidence of “and 1” so the points per possession for mid-range 2 pointers is barely over 1. So most of the plays KU (and other teams) run is a combination of screens and passes to open up entry passes or driving lanes but leaves one or two shooters open for kick back passes. And when you have shooters like we do you usually give green light for any open three when a defense lapses.

5. FT’s: Finally where does FT shooting fit in? Well if you shoot 70% on average from the FT line, that results in a points per possession of about 1.4 every time you get fouled and go to the line. The missing of front-end of 1 and 1 is offset by the occasional offensive rebound. So clearly, a team that gets to the line a lot (and shoots 70% or better) is going to be more effective offensively. So in order of preference an offensive game plan would want 1) aggressive driving or entry pass or lob at the rim which would result in a high percentage shot or FT’s, 2) open 3 pointers 3) mid-range 2 pointers.

6. Texas Tech executed this game plan very well. They shot very poorly from 3 point range but focused on driving to the basket and ended up getting fouled a lot and that is always the No.1 offensive option. In my opinion, KU’s biggest boogie man against Texas Tech was not our poor 3 point shooting but our poor defense on their driving.

7. Now let me talk about offensive rebounding. Remember, it is one of the three main components of both offense (extend possessions by getting them) and defense (do not allow opponent to extend possession by getting them). An offensive rebound can be looked at in several ways. One statistical way of looking at an offensive rebound is that it takes a way a missed shot. A missed shot is the same as a turnover. A missed shot ends a possession without a score. An offensive rebound extends the possession and negates a missed shot. So say a team shoots 20 for 50 but gets 15 offensive rebounds. That is effectively shooting 20 for 35. No one would be happy shooting 20 for 50 because that is 40%. But if you look at the effective possession conversion rate of 20 for 35, then it is a much nicer story. Against Texas Tech we shot 25 for 55 or 45.5% which is not terrible but not particularly great either. Texas Tech shot 29-67 or 43.3% which was worse. So if you look at shooting alone, KU’s did better. But when you look at possession conversion rate (wipe out missed shots with each offensive rebound) Texas Tech was 29 for 49 (59.2%) and Kansas was 25 for 47 (53.2%).

8. There is a formula that determines what the contribution to the points scored and points allowed are for shooting%, offensive rebounds and TO’s. When it comes to shooting percentage alone, KU outscored Texas Tech. We had a scoring differential of a little over 8 points on offensive rebounds and a little over 4 points on turnovers. So blaming shooting is like blaming your co-worker for not catching and fixing your mistakes. Sure, had we shot lights out we might have made up enough points to win. But that would not erase the fact that we had a 13 point negative differential on turnovers and offensive rebounding. And remember, Texas Tech’s offensive rebounding is a Kansas defensive issue. So if I am Coach Self, the only issue I would address on the shooting is with the coaching staff and not the players. The shooting issue is just a coaches decision to shift the game plan to drive more and pass to the low post rather than settling for threes and we did that reasonably effectively. The real issue at Texas Tech was we did not do things that quite frankly, we could and should have done. We did not block out and in many cases we did not even move our feet under the basket on rebounding. We allowed them to drive the right lane time after time. Heck, they were doing it with so much regularity in the last 12 minutes it would probably have been worth just posting a man to take a charge even if that left someone open on the perimeter just to take that weapon away. If I were a betting man, I would bet coach Self is focusing on defense both in how to stop the drive and how to protect against them rebounding offensive rebounds way more than he is focusing on polishing our offensive sets to get more effective shots.

very well stated corpus. and from coach’s comments am very sure thats been his focus with the team since the tech game. i wld only add that i think at least a portion of our “softness” is not attitudinal but is related to 1) who theses players have been their entire playing careers ( our two best players, graham and vick, have always been finesse players and svi is a three point shooting specialist), and; 2) its harder to win hustle plays, take charges, get rebounds, keep men on front of you, etc when youre playing 39 mins a game. no excuse just real. as posted earlier i am now very much in the mode of letting coach rebuild this team in january with hopefully the three new pieces and then ready to watch them peak in feb and then further in march. few coaches wld be able to accomplish a mid season retooling but am confidant self can. perhaps not well enough to win number 14 but possibly well enough to surprise some folks in march ( and april!). i can visualize our great shooters getting lots of open looks with two more credible inside options keeping the defenses honest.

I would not say that the issue has been our shooting. The issue has been that if we do not shoot great we have lost. We are a very good shooting team. When we do not shoot amazing we have lost most of the time because of our other weaknesses.