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Username Post: St. Peter's and Wisconsin        (Topic#14041)
mountainred 
Masters Student
Posts: 510

Age: 57
Loc: Charleston, WV
Reg: 04-11-10
11-18-12 11:08 PM - Post#135358    

Not the results I was hoping for in this two game stretch. A four point loss to the Peacocks (KenPom 211) was disappointing; that is a game Cornell should win if they want to contend in this league. Yvon Raymond and Blaise Ffrench torched Cornell for a combined 36 points (on 17 for 24 shooting and 7 assists).

The Wisky loss was just ugly in every sense and the only reason it was only a 33 point loss is that the teams basically stopped scoring at the 5 minute mark. As verbose as I can be, there is nothing else to say.

The rest of this road trip could be telling. ASU is a winnable game; Cornell is a 3 point underdog on KenPom as of now (though that will undoubtedly go up after Ken factors in today's game). Then two post-thanksgiving games with Presby (KP 302) and either Longwood (345) or Florida A&M 336). Anything less than a split could be disastrous.

A couple of interesting player usage notes. Gray is disappearing -- 18 minutes against St. Petes and 7 against Wisconsin. It's deserved. Peck also played less than 20 minutes in each of the last two games. When you look back at 2010-11, he had about 7 dominant games, 9 awful ones*, and 10 mediocre games. So far on the season, Errick has played one very strong game, where he fouled out, and three poor ones. I think Coach C is getting very frustrated.

* In fairness, a lot of the awful ones were at the start of the season, but his best games were in the middle of the season. He did not close well.



Edited by mountainred on 11-18-12 11:13 PM. Reason for edit: No reason given.

 
mrjames 
Professor
Posts: 6062

Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
Re: St. Peter's and Wisconsin
11-19-12 08:55 AM - Post#135379    
    In response to mountainred

They're just playing too fast. Defensively, they're trying to harass and trap, which leads to turnovers, but also leads to very easy buckets when they get beat. Offensively, they're not trying to break a defense down over the course of the shot clock to find a good look - they're just trying to take the ball to the hole or shoot it as quickly as possible.

I've never seen an offense with fewer weapons play so quickly.

These are decently easy fixes that would maximize what you can get out of the talent that Cornell has. What the Big Red really needs that it doesn't appear to have is a bunch of 3 point bombers. That was what made last year's team dangerous at times. They had this ability to drop three threes in a row and completely change the complexion of a game. Not the case anymore, and that's really hurt them thus far.

 
mountainred 
Masters Student
Posts: 510

Age: 57
Loc: Charleston, WV
Reg: 04-11-10
Re: St. Peter's and Wisconsin
11-25-12 08:19 PM - Post#135872    
    In response to mrjames

I know you've been critical of Cornell's pace of play for some time and I certainly understand the point -- if you are playing at a net negative efficiency per possession, you should want to minimize possessions based on the math. What I'm not convinced is that this Cornell team is better suited to play more slowly.

I agree Cornell hoists way too many early shot clock threes and tends to turn the ball over too much. The other side is that this is a terrible half court team in execution. Sure, I'd like for this team to be more effective at working for a good shot, but after two plus seasons I doubt that is happening with this staff. If you want to lay that at the feet of the coaching staff, it's fair. But having watched this team, I would much rather see them get high percentage looks in transition, which I think has a reasonable chance of occurring this year. I understand your criticism and it may prove to be the undoing of Courtney, but I feel I have to root for what is more likely to happen this season.

Furthermore, there is some evidence they are right. Cornell's record last year when they got the game to 70 possessions was 5-3 (not counting the D3 game) while their record at 65 possessions or fewer was 0-7. Cornell was 2-0 at 80+ possessions, including the year's best win against Lehigh. In 2011, they were 3-2 at 70+ possessions (losses at SH and Syr.) and 5-5 at 65 or fewer. Maybe that is statistical noise, but it seems to be enough games to be worthy of consideration.

This season, I know IvyBBall cited the 62 possession blowout of Presby as evidence that Cornell should play slower. Maybe he's right, but I think it equally likely that Cornell looked against the Blue Hose because they are truly awful. Cornell's only other game played below 70 possessions was the loss to a very ordinary St. Peters team.

 
mrjames 
Professor
Posts: 6062

Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
Re: St. Peter's and Wisconsin
11-25-12 09:58 PM - Post#135873    
    In response to mountainred

Just so I'm not pulling a Kaiser Sose here, I am Ivybball and Ivybball is me.

My argument about the pace and offensive efficiency is about those two factors only - not any benefits or costs of playing faster to the team's defensive efficiency.

Last year, as Cornell increased the pace, it saw its offensive efficiency decline (though not quite statistically significantly). This year, the relationship has been negative again, but this time, even in the limited sample, it has been statistically significant.

What has changed is that last year, the Big Red did see a huge decline in defensive efficiency (in the good way - lower defensive ratings being better) as the pace ramped up, so all the wins you saw with the higher pace came as a function of a defense that was better suited for an uptempo game. This year, there has been no relationship between pace and defensive rating thus far, so that's why the negative relationship between pace and offensive rating has shown through.

It's been seven games, so who knows what will happen. But, just intuitively, if you don't have a ton of offensive weapons, you'd want to take advantage of running a defense around to find the best look, rather than relying on a bunch of uber-talented scorers to break down the defense immediately.

That being said, if the defense plays a ton better at the faster pace (like it did last year), then maybe it's worth it to put up with a less efficient offense. Hard to say yet, but it should become clearer with time.

 
mountainred 
Masters Student
Posts: 510

Age: 57
Loc: Charleston, WV
Reg: 04-11-10
11-25-12 11:39 PM - Post#135876    
    In response to mrjames

Thanks for the response. I probably thought Ivybball was Ivybballfan. I did mix concepts (offensive efficiency and overall success). Thank you for the clarification and sorry about that.

Right before I signed on to check your response, I think I found the KenPom feature that shows the correlation between pace and efficiency. As I read it, there was a +11 correlation between pace and offense and a -62 correlation between pace and defense. Doesn't that mean Cornell improved on both sides of the game the faster the pace, though the offensive improvement was not statistically significant? If I'm reading that wrong, please let me know.

The evidence so far this year does support your position, but after only seven games can be easily swayed by an outlier. And the Presby game was certainly an extreme data point, if not an outlier. 142 offensive efficiency? The 2010 team pulled that off twice and they were a little better team offensively. The Red's second best offensive game was Longwood (109.7 OE on 77 possessions). I'm not sure what either number says other than Cornell can't score except against lousy teams. Which is what I worry is the case.

At the end of the season, I bet the numbers look about the same as last year. This team will struggle to score no matter the pace, but will be better defensively when they push the tempo. That said and regardless of the numbers, this team is going to run because that is what Coach Courtney wants to do.



 
mrjames 
Professor
Posts: 6062

Loc: Montclair, NJ
Reg: 11-21-04
11-26-12 08:56 AM - Post#135878    
    In response to mountainred

One thing to keep in mind about the Pomeroy numbers under GamePlan is that those Offensive and Defensive Ratings are unadjusted, so his correlations to pace are unadjusted. The way you read it is absolutely correct, it's just that the individual ORATs and DRATs need to be adjusted for opponent strength.

If the defensive numbers fall more in line with last year, then I think the pace won't matter as much (worse offense will be cancelled out by better defense) or might even become a benefit. It's something I'll have to monitor as we get more and more games to analyze. Thus far, though, faster paces have hurt Cornell. That could just be luck.

 
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