Project Defensive Score Sheet: Western Michigan
By Tommy D — There is a growing movement among college basketball analysts to try to tackle an issue which has traditionally been very difficult to quantify and synthesize: defense. Much as sabermetrics has influenced the way baseball is analyzed and changed the nature and types of statistics that many baseball observers believe are relevant, so too is the goal here in college basketball. The idea is to use actual data to evaluate defensive performance, rather than relying solely on the eyeball test.
Have defensive statistics been kept for decades? Of course. But the reality is that defense involves much more than an individual player’s steals and blocked shots. How often is a player beaten for a basket? How many shots does he defend well and force a miss? How many turnovers does he force, including taking charges? How many defensive rebounds does he grab? For what is the point of a good defensive play forcing a tough shot if someone on the defensive team doesn’t snare the rebound? What about the overall performance of the team defensively? How much impact does each player have on the team’s defensive performance? Don’t all those questions sound more interesting than simply, “how many steals did he get?”
So the idea is to really assess what is happening on each defensive possession, and to give “credit” and assess “blame” for each play — missed shots, made shots, turnovers forced, missed and made free throws. That takes time to review each game in detail, but the result is a much more complete and much more fulfilling understanding of a player, a team, and a basketball game. All of the data for each player, and for the team, is synthesized into a “Defensive Rating” for each game.
One of the pioneers in the field has been Dean Oliver, who wrote a book called Basketball on Paper, in which he devised a number of formulas that aid in coming up with various measures of defensive efficiency for both teams and individual players. Another has been a gentleman named David Hess, who writes a blog called The Audacity of Hoops: Thoughts on Recalculating an American Game and is a full-time contributor at TeamRankings.com
Others interested in the topic have begun to drill down into this area with emphasis on a particular team. We here thought it was time use these methods to look at the Blue Devils and see what we could learn, especially given the concerns that many Duke fans have expressed about the defense being played by this year’s squad.
So what does this “charting” look like? Check it out. A chart of the first game I analyzed, which was Duke vs. Western Michigan, is below. Then below the chart, I’m going to copy and paste David Hess’s explanation of the abbreviations used in the charting system that is becoming a standard in the field. Then I’ll analyze what the chart is showing. More Duke games to follow.
OK so here’s what a chart looks like:
Duke Can Exploit Height Advantage Against Maryland
By Ray Horn — It can be demoralizing anytime you lose on a buzzer beater, and especially gut wrenching when the loss snaps a 45 game home winning streak. Florida State was able to accomplish just that and have now defeated both North Carolina and Duke. I am not going to lie, for me personally as a fan this loss hurt. I felt like Duke played well enough to win and deserved to win, which wasn’t the case against Ohio State or Temple. Let’s be honest though, the way Florida State is playing right now they are capable of beating anyone in the country. Do I think that Florida State is going to keep this up all season? Probably not. The fact is that a very mature and talented group came to play and won a game that could have went either way. You have to love how hard the team took the loss. Don’t get me wrong any loss is tough, but against Ohio State and Temple they didn’t play like they deserved to win while against Florida State they left everything on the court and had their hearts ripped out. These types of losses stay with you and in my opinion make you stronger and tougher. As far as how guys played, I thought that our top 6 is starting to dial it in. I love the way Austin and Dre have played the last couple of games and I think Seth has played really well too, but is just in a shooting slump. The bigs struggled against Florida State, but have been the most consistent part of the team throughout the season so far. Florida State was a step up in competition I am willing to give them a pass for one game. Now, the team is forced to come into a raucous environment against Maryland on the night they honor Gary Williams.
The Maryland Terrapins come into this matchup with a record of 12-6 and 2-2 inconference play. The Terps received mid season boosts in the return of Pe’Shon Howard from injury and big man Alex Len becoming eligible. The Terps had won 9 of 10 before dropping their last two against Florida State and Temple. They have struggled to find an identity one way or another, but first year head coach Mark Turgeon seems to be leading this team in the right direction. Turgeon has had good success at Wichita State and Texas A&M prior to becoming the Maryland coach and has two impressive recruits for next year already. Maryland’s style of play is to attack you on offense and corral you on defense. They like to push the ball and attack; getting to line and not taking a ton of threes. On defense, Maryland doesn’t put their opponent on the line and erases, or alters, a lot of shots around the basket. By employing a similar defensive approach as Virginia, the Terrapins are able to protect the basket and three point line, while not extending a ton of pressure. The only issue is that teams do tend to have size and strength advantages on them.
Team Scouting Report
PG- #21 Pe’Shon Howard So.- The Terps are running a lot smoother with Howard back on the floor. His presence allows Stoglin to go off the ball and allows for much more ball movement. Howard is a real nice player that shows good leadership qualities along with solid defense. The Oak Hill Academy alumnus isn’t really a scorer, but he does have the ability to drop double figures if he needs to. This will be a Curry vs. Howard matchup and quite frankly one that Curry needs to win to prove that he can handle the point guard position.
SG- #12 Terrell Stoglin So.- Stoglin is the Terps’ best player. The ball is in Stoglin’s hands for most of the game and he takes a lot of shots, almost 16 a game in about 30 minutes. Stoglin will shoot, drive, pull up, you name it he does and has a ton of freedom. This will be Duke’s key matchup and someone they can’t allow to have a huge game. The issue is, who guards him? I think Coach K will use a lot of Tyler Thornton, but in order to have the Curry, Rivers, Dawkins lineup one of them will have to check Stoglin. My guess is Austin Rivers, who has done pretty well guarding the ball and struggled off the ball so far this season.
SF- #14 Sean Mosley Sr.- Mosely is the elder statesman of the team and just a real solid all around player. He isn’t going to wow you with any part of his game, but has been around the block and put up good numbers as a senior. This like the Curry vs. Howard matchup and is one that Andre Dawkins has to win. Dawkins, like Curry, is more talented than his Maryland counterpart and it is time to show that every single game.
PF- #35 James Padgett Jr.- Padgett is an undersized athletic four man who really uses his quickness and leaping ability to make up for his lack of size. Padgett isn’t really the type of player who is going to put it on the floor or shoot a jumper though. Miles Plumlee should be able to handle Padgett, but he has to make sure to keep him off the offensive glass and to not lose him on drive and dishes.
C- #25 Alex Len Fr.- Len is a really talented young big man who has good length but isn’t all that strong. The 7-footer from Ukraine is supremely skilled though and can dribble, shoot and block shots. This is a matchup where Mason Plumlee needs to be physical and use his strength advantage because he won’t have the height or length. Plumlee has been off and on with his physical play and Duke needs Plumlee to be physical night in and night out. Len’s health is an issue as he has a sprained ankle so Mason should be able to exploit this weakness.
Bench
G- #5 Nick Faust Fr.- Faust is super athletic and super skilled, but is having a tough freshmen year. His shooting numbers are dismal, but don’t let that fool you. Faust has a ton of game and is the type of guy that has hurt the Devils this season.
F- #30 Ashton Pankey Fr.- Pankey is a lot like Padgett in that he is an undersized four. He isn’t quite as skilled or the athlete that Padgett is, but they play a very similar style.
G/F- #11 Mychal Parker So.- Parker is an athletic wing that can slash and defend. Parker may have to play some big minutes depending on how Austin Rivers is playing.
C- #10 Berend Weijs Sr.- Weijs is very long but not very strong. Weijs is basically just in there to give Len a break at times and alter some shots around the basket, he will have a limited impact on offense.
Final Thoughts and Prediction
This is the biggest game of the season for Duke so far and I really mean that. Maryland is starting to play well with their full squad healthy and is a viable contender for an NCAA tournament bid. The Comcast Center is one of the most raucous environments in college basketball when Duke comes to town and like I said they are honoring Gary Williams at the game. The main reason this is Duke’s biggest game is that we will see truly what this team is made of, coming off a home loss in a tough environment, against a pretty good team. If the Devils want to win an ACC championship and go deep in March, this is a big test to see whether that will happen or not. I am looking at the five starters and Ryan Kelly to be tough and consistent every single night and be able to beat teams they are more talented than. Duke is going to have to slow Stoglin down and the other key is for Mason Plumlee to win the battle with Alex Len. If Duke accomplishes those two things they should win, if not, then it’s going to come down to the final minutes.
DUKE: 79 MARYLAND: 70
Duke vs. Maryland: By The Numbers
By Chad Lykins — Coming off of their third loss on the season in heartbreaking fashion to the Florida State Seminoles on Saturday, the Duke Blue Devils (16-3 4-1) will travel to College Park, Maryland to visit the Maryland Terrapins (12-6 2-2) on Wednesday night. The Blue Devils will be playing their third game away from Cameron Indoor Stadium as they enter the Comcast Center with a 7-2 record, including two straight ACC road wins (Georgia Tech, Clemson). After dropping to Florida State, the Blue Devils come in ranked #6 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll and #8 in the AP Poll. Wednesday night’s game will be televised live on ESPN with the tipoff set for 9:00 PM ET.
Duke-Maryland Series
• Duke and Maryland have met 171 times heading into Wednesday’s game with the first meeting between the two schools coming in 1926.
• The Blue Devils lead the all-time series 110-61, including a 5-4 mark at the Comcast Center.
• Duke has won three straight and nine of the last 10 games in the series. The Blue Devils topped Maryland three times during the 2011-11 season.
• Mike Krzyzewski is 51-21 at Duke against the Terrapins, including a 31-24 record in College Park, Md.
• The two schools have met 18 times in ACC Tournament play with Duke posting an 11-7 record in those games.
• Six of the last 10 games in the series have been decided by 10 points or less.
• The Blue Devils have won three of the last four games at the Comcast Center. Duke has a +12.7 margin of victory in those three wins. Read more
Duke vs. Florida State: By The Numbers
By Chad Lykins — At #4 in the country and #1 in the ACC, the Duke Blue Devils (16-2 4-0) play host to the Florida State Seminoles (12-6 3-1) Saturday at Cameron Indoor Stadium for a key conference matchup. The Blue Devils come in fresh off a win over the Wake Forest Demon Deacons on Thursday night while Florida State comes in off of a victory over the Maryland Terrapins on Tuesday. The Blue Devils still remain the only unbeaten team in the conference while the Seminoles are one of four teams that currently have one loss. The game will be televised live on ESPN with tip set at 4:05 PM ET.
Duke-Florida State Series
• Duke and Florida State have met 37 times heading into Saturday’s game with the first meeting between the two schools coming on Jan. 3, 1955.
• The Blue Devils lead the all-time series 30-7, including a 17-1 mark at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
• Duke has won five consecutive games and 10 of the last 13 in the series.
Mike Krzyzewski is 28-6 at Duke against the Seminoles, including a 15-1 mark at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Coach K missed both games against Florida State during the 1994-95 season.
• Duke has won 24 of the last 29 games in the series (dating back to Feb. 22, 1995).
11 of the last 16 games in the series have been decided by 10 points or less.
• The Blue Devils have won 64 consecutive home games against unranked opponents, dating back to a 68-67 home loss to Florida State on Feb. 4, 2007. Read more
Can Duke Slow Down The Seminoles?
By Ray Horn — The Florida State Seminoles come to town fresh off a three game conference win streak including a 33 point win over North Carolina. The Seminoles began the season with high expectations but suffered three straight losses coming to the hands of Harvard, UCONN and Michigan State. The Seminoles were having major scoring issues early on, but have righted the ship since then. A lot of credit for the Seminoles offensive revival might have to go to Ian Miller. Miller was academically ineligible for the first half of the season, but since then in seven games Miller is averaging 13 points per game. FloridaStateis a lot like Duke in that they have a ton of different pieces, but not necessarily a ton of complete players. Both Coach K and Leonard Hamilton have had to tinker with lineups, rotations and styles of play. It seems that Florida State may have finally figured out how they want to play. The Seminoles are going with a 9 man rotation with 6 players playing the bulk of the minutes. Over the last three games, Florida State is averaging 79 points per game on 46 percent shooting from the field. The Seminoles are also getting to the line and converting. Florida State is also starting to show dominance on the glass and forcing a lot of turnovers. The only area that the Seminoles are struggling in is they are still turning over the ball at a high rate.
Although they have started to figure out the offensive side of the ball, make no mistake defense is still this team’s calling card. The Seminoles are 4th in the nation in field goal percentage defense and are top 25 nationally in both steals and blocks per game. Florida State plays a very aggressive style of defense really pressuring the ball and challenging each and every shot at the rim. This aggressive style leads to a lot of steals and blocks, but also causes a lot of fouls. Florida State fouls at a fairly high rate. The officials and the overall toughness of Florida State’s opposition play a big role in each and every game. Florida State is starting to ratchet up the offense to meet the defense and over the last three games have looked very impressive.
Team Scouting Report
PG- #3 Luke Loucks Sr.- Loucks is the consummate team player that plays good defense and runs the offense. On the offensive side of the ball Loucks initiates the offense then spots up for open threes which he shoots at a good clip. Loucks isn’t going to be doing a whole lot of penetrating, but will have a big height advantage over Quinn Cook. On the defensive side of the ball Loucks has great size and does a good job pressuring the ball. Cook is going to have to play within himself, not try to do too much and get his teammates involved. Read more
Freshman Orientation: The Maturation of Austin Rivers
Aside from Andre Dawkins and his 7 first half three pointers, Thursday night’s Duke/Wake Forest game could not have been any less eventful. Long story short, Duke ratcheted up the defensive intensity when necessary, and the Blue Devil offense got whatever it wanted whenever it wanted for long stretches of the game. Any chance of a Wake Forest upset was incinerated in the first segment of the 2nd half as Jeff Bzdelik’s Demon Deacons decided to employ an unusual defensive strategy to shut down Duke’s three-point shooting by allowing the Blue Devils to drive to the basket without any resistance. But maybe it wasn’t the game itself that was so boring. Perhaps it was the anticipation of the post-game that made the basketball so cumbersome to watch.
Shortly before tipoff, news started to spread regarding Coach K’s decision to leave Austin Rivers out of the starting lineup against Wake Forest. Based on reports that started to trickle out during the game, the decision was made earlier in the week coming off of an invisible performance against Clemson, and it became clear that Austin Rivers reacts as well to being benched as the torpedo room on the Red October reacts to bullets. “I haven’t slept,” said Rivers is one interview post-game. Other writers used the term “meltdown” to describe Rivers’ response to the news, and Rivers himself said it went as far as having to apologize to his teammates on Wednesday night for his actions. Read more
Coach’s Box With Coach Mattocks — Ballscreen Defense
Defending the High Ballscreen – Coach Ryan Mattocks
This is third installment in “The Coach’s Box” with Coach Ryan Mattocks. You can see the first two here. He has years of basketball coaching and scouting experience and has studied the coaching strategies of numerous coaches on all levels. He is currently looking for coaching opportunities on the college level. Contact him coachmattocks@gmail.com.
Ballscreen defense is a topic familiar to players and coaches at competitive levels everywhere. And it’s also a recurring challenge that has no clear cut solution. How different coaches defend the ballscreen depends on a number of variables: the relative athletic ability of his players on the floor, how quick the opposing teams ballhandler is, how tight that ballhandler’s handle is, the range on the screener’s jumpshot, whether the screener has good hands or not, the shooting ability/range of the ballhandler, how much help can be given off the ball…it goes on and on.
Needless to say, if defending this play was straightforward then John Stockton wouldn’t have dished out almost 16,000 assists in his career. Executed well, the PNR or any of its variations can be frighteningly effective.
For teams who pride themselves on pressuring the basketball and creating offense off their defense, like Duke, the priority when considering how to defend ballscreens is stopping the ball. Communication from the backline on a ballscreen in the middle of the floor (from the bigs) is crucial. The 4 or 5 man (whoever’s guarding the screener) must let the on-ball defender know where the screen’s coming from. In today’s clip, Mason Plumlee’s job is to make sure Q. Cook knows a ballscreen is coming to his right in order for Cook to get over top of it. Mason, I’m assuming, is tasked with corralling the ballhandler (i.e., not letting him turn the corner) and recovering to his man after Cook has regained defensive position in front of Moore.
Let’s look at the initial alignment…
Duke vs. Wake Forest: By The Numbers
By Chad Lykins — The 4th ranked Duke Blue Devils (15-2 3-0) take to the court tonight in Cameron Indoor Stadium to host the Wake Forest Demon Deacons (10-7 1-2). The Blue Devils have gotten off to a solid start to open ACC play as they have notched wins over Georgia Tech, Virginia, and Clemson. They remain the only undefeated team in the ACC. The Demon Deacons lone ACC win was in their conference opener against Virginia Tech. They then dropped their last two games in conference to Maryland and North Carolina State. Tipoff for tonight’s game is set for approximately 7:02 PM ET and will be broadcasted live on ESPN.
Duke-Wake Forest Series
• Thursday’s game marks the 235th meeting between Duke and Wake Forest, tying it as the most-played series in the ACC.
• Duke and Wake Forest met for the first time on March 2, 1906.
• The Blue Devils lead the all-time series 158-77, including a 55-16 mark at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
• Duke has won three straight in the series overall and 12 straight in the series at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
• The Blue Devils’ last 13 wins in the series have been by 10 or more points.
• Mike Krzyzewski is 39-23 at Duke against the Demon Deacons. The Blue Devils are 20-8 under Coach K at home against Wake Forest.
• The Blue Devils have won 23 of the last 28 meetings between the two schools.
• Duke has a +18.0 scoring margin during its current three-game win streak over the Demon Deacons. Read more
Duke-Wake Q&A With Blogger So Dear
Wake Forest is coming into Cameron Indoor tonight to try and pull off the upset against the ACC’s lone undefeated team. In anticipation of this, Martin Rickman at BloggerSoDear.com threw some questions at The Devil Wolf and he promptly answered yesterday. You can read the interview here. In response, I got to ask Martin a few things about the Demon Deacons and he was nice enough to talk about how Wake could pull off the upset, the fan confidence level in Jeff Bzdelik, and a few other things.
1) How do you think this team will respond to the loss to NC State? Is there a leader on the squad that can take charge or is it more of a group effort in that regard?
I really don’t know what to expect from the team or how they will respond. They’ve shown some heart at times – in the road win against Nebraska, closing it out against Yale and High Point, the VT game and the close Maryland loss – but all in all this team doesn’t have a ton of leaders. You can look at C.J. Harris and Travis McKie, I suppose, but they do more by leading by example than being vocal leaders.
There’s no floor general out there to fire the team up and get them going out of a timeout. And that general certainly isn’t Coach Bzdelik either. The guys just look like they’re sleepwalking a lot of the time. They’ll wake up to play some decent basketball, and go back to hiding for much of games. Call it depth problems, call it chemistry issues, call it what you want, but this isn’t a basketball team that loves playing together.
2) While the conference record isn’t where you’d want it to be, a win over a solid Virginia Tech team and playing Maryland to within 6 points are nothing to be ashamed of. Do you think this team is capable of getting multiple wins in the ACC or are they still a year or two away?Capable of getting to two wins in the ACC a year after getting one was essentially record-setting…I’d hope so. BC already has two this year. But will they? Man, I don’t know. You think a team is getting somewhere, winning a home game against the Hokies (who really lost that one for themselves. What a pitiful, embarrassing performance that was against the zone. Greenberg is going to want that one back.), you play with Maryland at Maryland, but come up short. Obviously, I wasn’t thinking we were going to beat State, but I thought they’d stay in it. Read more
Consistency is Crucial as Duke Continues Conference Play
By Ray Horn — Fresh off a 73-66 victory at Clemson, the Duke Blue Devils will try to stay unbeaten in conference play when they take on the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. The Blue Devils got off to a very slow start against Clemson, but were able to weather the storm and get a much needed road win. The Devils were lead by Andre Dawkins in arguably his best all around performance of the season as he notched 24 points. A lot of fans were very pleased with the win, I on the other hand saw more of the same. While I was extremely pleased with Andre Dawkins performance and the teams ability to fight back after a poor start, I didn’t see a big change in the defense. Clemson did shoot under 40 percent from the field, but missed a lot of open shots and were very poor from the free throw line. I think Duke was pretty fortunate that Clemson didn’t shoot the ball very well. 63-50 was the score with about four minutes left to play and it was time for the Devils to finish off the Tigers. Instead, the Tigers got the score down as close as 4 and Duke had to really dig down to pull off the win. Consistent play from all players is crucial and I am excited to see if Andre Dawkins can continuously bring this type of performance. Austin Rivers struggled with only 4 points and in his last 5 games Rivers is averaging less than 9 points per game and is only shooting 34 percent. Rivers also only has 6 assists over his last 5 games to 12 turnovers. Rivers’ struggles could be attributed to teams figuring out his tendencies. He loves to either shoot a deep three or get all the way to the basket, especially using his right hand. It seems that the bigs have been pretty consistent as well as Curry lately, let’s see if Dawkins can keep up his good play and if Rivers can get back to his early season form.
Wake Forest enters the game against the Devils with a record of 10-7 and are 1-2 inconference play. They are continuing to rebuild under second year coach Jeff Bzdelik. The Demon Deacons only have three scholarship upperclassmen on the roster and already have 6 players committed for next season. Wake Forest is a team that doesn’t play at a real fast pace and isn’t overly aggressive on the defensive side either. When playing the Demon Deacons you really need to focus on two guys and if you take care of them you won’t have to worry. CJ Harris and Travis McKie are two legitimate players that can play for anybody, but the Demon Deacons have little on the rest of the roster. Wake Forest’s only bad loss in terms of opponent came to Wofford, but the Demon Deacons were blown out by 36 to NC State and 28 to Arizona State. Last in the ACC looks likely and in my opinion are probably going to be in the cellar of the ACC for awhile. In my opinion, Wake Forest isn’t going to be successful with Jeff Bzdelik as its coach. Bzdelik has been known as a great NBA assistant, but other than two years at Air Force has failed to have much success at all. This is a team that Duke needs to handle.
Scouting Report
PG- #1 Tony Chennault So.- Chennault is a solid point guard, but isn’t anything too special. He is an all around player that doesn’t necessarily possess a single great strength on the court. This a good matchup for Quinn Cook as he tries to take over the point guard duties and lead this team to future success. Read more
