Davies doesn't matter as much as you think

[Viking]

This shows exactly what I was say:

http://statsheet.com/mcb/players/com...brandon-davies

The difference between these players is about 2-3 points. Otherwise, they are almost identical in terms of basic stats

[Viking]

See the player impact comparison between Davies and Hartsock. Noah actual has far more impact than Davies, by the numbers.

[Viking]

I do comparative Roland Ratings for my NCAA brackets, so I've already started downloading data for the most likely teams in the tourney.

There's simply no comparison between Noah Hartsock and Brandon Davies as it relates to player impact. See this: http://statsheet.com/mcb/teams/brigham-young (scroll down a bit for the football field chart).

I think Dave Rose is misallocating resources in terms of playing time outside of Emery and Fredette.

See the following RRs (season median through the last reg season SDSU game, to get a fair comparison vis-a-vis Davies):
Fredette: +13
Emery: +13
Hartsock: +12
(Davies: +3, for illustrative purposes only)
Collinsworth: 0
Abuou: -2
Magnusson: -8
Anderson: -9
Rogers: -10
Martineau: -10
Zylstra: -13

Now, Minutes Per Game:
Fredette: 35.3
Emery: 32.1
Hartsock: 29.6
Collinsworth: 24.8
(Davies: 24.9)
Abuou: 20.7
Magnusson: 10.9
Rogers: 10.2
Anderson: 7.4
Zylstra: 5.5
Martineau: 5.5

Conclusions:

The ball did not bounce our way against SDSU but Rose played the right guys:
1. Abuou got 32 minutes, far more than his average and the right decision (despite a somewhat negative RR, his is FAR less negative than other choices).

2. Collinsworth got more minutes, too (30), also the right decision. He should have gotten more, by the numbers. No one was in foul trouble.

3. Hartsock played 34 minutes. He needs to be in the game as much as Emery and Fredette do. His shots just did not fall. Frankly, he lost the game for us when you consider his RR was a -16 (note his RR against NM in our big loss was -18...folks, he is the missing link, not Davies). Hartsock has only had 8 negative RR games this year. Looking at the variance of his RR, he is the second most consistent player on the team. Again, this guy matters more than Davies!

4. Anderson needs more minutes over Rogers. This happened in SDSU.

5. Magnusson ALWAYS should play ahead of Rogers, Anderson and Zylstra. This was a mistake in the SDSU game.

6. Zylstra should carry towels and water, not basketballs.

I believe.

[Jennerstein]

There's simply no comparison between Noah Hartsock and Brandon Davies as it relates to player impact. See this: http://statsheet.com/mcb/teams/brigham-young (scroll down a bit for the football field chart).

I believe.

I agree where Hartsock goes, BYU goes. I watched the UCLA game live, and what lost the game for BYU was Hartsock still being groggy because of his concussion. He was just not himself that game and it clearly impacted the team.

I believe your player statistics were mostly generated when Hartsock was playing at the 4. With Davies out, Hartsock has to now play out of position. That reduces his impact to the team. I really wish we had Davies, but I believe the team can still win a few games in the tourney.

[jay santos]

I do comparative Roland Ratings for my NCAA brackets, so I've already started downloading data for the most likely teams in the tourney.

There's simply no comparison between Noah Hartsock and Brandon Davies as it relates to player impact. See this: http://statsheet.com/mcb/teams/brigham-young (scroll down a bit for the football field chart).

I think Dave Rose is misallocating resources in terms of playing time outside of Emery and Fredette.

See the following RRs (season median through the last reg season SDSU game, to get a fair comparison vis-a-vis Davies):
Fredette: +13
Emery: +13
Hartsock: +12
(Davies: +3, for illustrative purposes only)
Collinsworth: 0
Abuou: -2
Magnusson: -8
Anderson: -9
Rogers: -10
Martineau: -10
Zylstra: -13

Now, Minutes Per Game:
Fredette: 35.3
Emery: 32.1
Hartsock: 29.6
Collinsworth: 24.8
(Davies: 24.9)
Abuou: 20.7
Magnusson: 10.9
Rogers: 10.2
Anderson: 7.4
Zylstra: 5.5
Martineau: 5.5

Conclusions:

The ball did not bounce our way against SDSU but Rose played the right guys:
1. Abuou got 32 minutes, far more than his average and the right decision (despite a somewhat negative RR, his is FAR less negative than other choices).

2. Collinsworth got more minutes, too (30), also the right decision. He should have gotten more, by the numbers. No one was in foul trouble.

3. Hartsock played 34 minutes. He needs to be in the game as much as Emery and Fredette do. His shots just did not fall. Frankly, he lost the game for us when you consider his RR was a -16 (note his RR against NM in our big loss was -18...folks, he is the missing link, not Davies). Hartsock has only had 8 negative RR games this year. Looking at the variance of his RR, he is the second most consistent player on the team. Again, this guy matters more than Davies!

4. Anderson needs more minutes over Rogers. This happened in SDSU.

5. Magnusson ALWAYS should play ahead of Rogers, Anderson and Zylstra. This was a mistake in the SDSU game.

6. Zylstra should carry towels and water, not basketballs.

I believe.

You don't think it's possible that now Hartsock is being guarded by a 5 instead of a 4, it's harder for him to pick up points in the paint. Or that since we have no inside out game, he's not getting as many wide open 3's. For a guy who should understand data and intricacies of correlation, you're taking an extremely simplistic approach.

Yeah, in any given game the team that shoots the best more often than not will win. Does that mean the losing team just needs to practice their shooting? Think about that one.

[Viking]

I agree where Hartsock goes, BYU goes. I watched the UCLA game live, and what lost the game for BYU was Hartsock still being groggy because of his concussion. He was just not himself that game and it clearly impacted the team.

I believe your player statistics were mostly generated when Hartsock was playing at the 4. With Davies out, Hartsock has to now play out of position. That reduces his impact to the team. I really wish we had Davies, but I believe the team can still win a few games in the tourney.

Great point and great question. I looked at the numbers just now since the loss of Davies.

Abuou and Collinsworth have really stepped up. When they are in the game, we are winning.

Here are FG% since the Davies fiasco (season avg in parens)
Fredette: 44.26 (45.6)
Abuou: 45.34 (42.6)
Collinsworth: 54.1 (49.3)
Emery: 38.96 (42.8)
Hartsock: 34.5 (48.9)

So, a guy who scores 10% of our points and can be counted on to score almost 1 out of every 2 times he shoots the ball (including a major 3pt contributor), now scores only a little more than 1 time out of 3. Given he plays >30 mins a game now, that's a SERIOUS problem.

I don't know if it's he's playing out of position or if it's just that he's in a funk, as is Emery. Fredette is consistent.

I vote that these guys are just in a funk.

As I was watching the game yesterday, if I could have Rose's ear, I would have just said: give the ball to Hartsock and Emery and make them shoot threes. Just keep shooting. THat's the only way out of a slump.

Emery and Hartsock are in a funk

[Viking]

You don't think it's possible that now Hartsock is being guarded by a 5 instead of a 4, it's harder for him to pick up points in the paint. Or that since we have no inside out game, he's not getting as many wide open 3's. For a guy who should understand data and intricacies of correlation, you're taking an extremely simplistic approach.

Yeah, in any given game the team that shoots the best more often than not will win. Does that mean the losing team just needs to practice their shooting? Think about that one.

Luckily, Hartsock is a big contributor via 3 point shots, which allow us to hypothesis test the paint vs. outside dynamics.

23% of Hartsock's points come from 3 pointers.

Since Davies went out, Noah has taken 10 three pointers. He took 39 total 3 pointers in all preceding games (29 games before, 5 games since). So since moving outside the paint, he's getting nearly 50% more 3 point looks and has made precisely ZERO of these. No stats to measure the "tightness" of the D on him, but Jimmer is getting doubled much more and I've noticed Noah is getting open looks all the time

He is cold. Nothing more.

I have no idea what your second question is.

[jay santos]

Yeah, in any given game the team that shoots the best more often than not will win. Does that mean the losing team just needs to practice their shooting? Think about that one.

Viking, to further illustrate, imagine me playing one on one with Kobe. Going into the game, we both shoot 50%. In the game, I'll go 0% and Kobe will go 100%. An observer looking at the stats will say Santos just couldn't hit his shots and Kobe got hot. Yet all Kobe's shots were dunks and all my shots were fade away 20 ft shots.

[Viking]

Viking, to further illustrate, imagine me playing one on one with Kobe. Going into the game, we both shoot 50%. In the game, I'll go 0% and Kobe will go 100%. An observer looking at the stats will say Santos just couldn't hit his shots and Kobe got hot. Yet all Kobe's shots were dunks and all my shots were fade away 20 ft shots.

It depends on what your previous shots were like that led to your 50% FG avg vs. what you're getting now. If you were hitting fade away 20 ft shots all the time (note Jimmer in this regard) then you are cold. If you were getting better looks, then you're out of position.

This doesn't explain Hartsock. He has been a critical clutch 3 poiint guy (SDSU game stands out) with plenty of previous observations to conclude that while he's getting more 3 looks, he already had plenty of those with a good shooting % and now he's getting bupkes. He's in a shooting slump.

[Viking]

OK, now that i've pwned Maximus with stats, I actually need to get back to work.

[ERCougar]

You don't think it's possible that now Hartsock is being guarded by a 5 instead of a 4, it's harder for him to pick up points in the paint. Or that since we have no inside out game, he's not getting as many wide open 3's. For a guy who should understand data and intricacies of correlation, you're taking an extremely simplistic approach.

Yeah, in any given game the team that shoots the best more often than not will win. Does that mean the losing team just needs to practice their shooting? Think about that one.

So on the one hand, he can't score inside because he's playing against a 5, yet at the same time he can't hit outside shots because...he's playing against the 5?

He's gone cold. He's missing shots he usually makes. Do you really think his shot selection has been poor?

[jay santos]

So on the one hand, he can't score inside because he's playing against a 5, yet at the same time he can't hit outside shots because...he's playing against the 5?

He's gone cold. He's missing shots he usually makes. Do you really think his shot selection has been poor?

I think a butterfly flutters in Africa and you have have an earthquake in China.

I think it's pretty damn obvious the team you see the last five games is not the same team you saw the previous 15.

I think it's easy to understand that it's the Davies impact. It's harder to define exactly why.

Maybe Noah's working harder on the defensive end. Maybe he's getting banged around harder having to defend, rebound against, and go on offense against the other team's best inside player.

Maybe his outside shots are 15% harder because he's not benefiting from the inside outside game that went through Davies.

Maybe his inside shots are harder because he's the guy posting up not the guy cutting to basket open while Davies is double teamed.

Maybe he's not picking up easy baskets off weak side offensive rebounds when Davies' shot falls off the rim to him.

Maybe KC and Abouo are both on the floor together now and neither demand to be guarded tight on the perimeter, so Hartsock's now being treated as the the 2nd best outside shooter not the 3rd or 4th.

The eyeball test to me says this team looks completely different. And it's not just that we're missing shots we usually make.

[Maximus]

Davies impact can not be seen in pure numbers. However why did you leave out how much we were outscored in the paint yesterday? The pure fact that cant be represented in numbers is that davies was our only low score threat our only post up threat.

[ERCougar]

Davies impact can not be seen in pure numbers. However why did you leave out how much we were outscored in the paint yesterday? The pure fact that cant be represented in numbers is that davies was our only low score threat our only post up threat.

Of course we were outscored in the paint yesterday. We lost our starting center and substituted an outside shooter. No one is arguing that our team won't look different, just that it isn't significantly worse.

[ERCougar]

I think a butterfly flutters in Africa and you have have an earthquake in China.


The eyeball test to me says this team looks completely different. And it's not just that we're missing shots we usually make.

I think you mean hurricane...

I appreciate what youre saying, and you're right-we do look different. But would the results be any different? We should really just throw out the New Mexico game with all of the emotional upheaval of the prior day, although the way they were playing, I think we lose it either way. I'm not sure what you want against Wyoming--I'm happy with a 20+ point win. TCU had a great game against us and was hitting some ridiculous shots. That happens in basketball. Remember, Wyoming played us close too a couple of weeks earlier-with Davies. Then we took it to a good New Mexico team that has had our number--again, not sure how much more you want. We then get beaten by a top 5 team that we've already beaten twice, on the third game in as many days, with an already shallow team. Sure, Davies helps our depth a little, but does he make up 18 points? Depth was never our strength, even with Davies.

So with Davies, we finish up our last five with exactly the same record, but without people talking about how much worse we are without him. The talk about the loss of Davies may ironically be the way the loss of Davies hurts us the most, if we get screwed with a 4 seed instead of a 2 or 3 and have to play a 1 seed in the sweet 16. Hopefully, the committee looks at things more rationally than we all are.