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Upon Further Review: Oakland

OK, obviously this is very early in a development stage, but I’d like to get it published for the sake of soliciting comments and suggestions from readers. Of course, the inspiration comes from MGoBlog’s UFR of football games. Down the line (likely in the next edition of UFR, unless people don’t like it enough to justify continuing the feature), I plan to add defensive possessions, and certainly have the “notes” section be a bit more thorough (notice that the later in the game this UFR goes, the more notes there are). To split it up a bit, the next one will be put into groups by personnel (which would be the “drives” in Brian’s football UFRs). This first edition grades only the shots taken by Michigan, which I hope to expand to entire possessions in the future.

The very beginnings of this started with the box score, then I sort of filled in the details watching the game. The “Score” colmun indicates the score of the game prior to the shot in question being taken. Shooter, Assist, and Made should be self-evident. The assister is unofficial (i.e. not from the box score), but taken from watching the game. Range indicates where the shot was taken from. Currently, it’s only divided into 3-pt, mid-range, and lane, but I’m certainly open to tweaking those indications. Quality is the only  entirely subjective measure on my part, and indicates how open the shooter is. “3” is a shot that is wide open, and not contested at all. “0” is a shot that is blocked, and has no chance of going in. “1” is a well-defended shot with a hand in the face, and “2” is in between 1 and 3, predictably.

Score Shooter Assist Quality Range Made?
0-0 Douglass Shepherd 3 3-pt Y
3-2 Douglass Harris 3 3-pt Y
6-4 Douglass Harris 3 3-pt Y
9-7 Merritt Harris 2 3-pt Y
12-10 Sims 2 Lane N
Tries a reverse to avoid the defender.
12-10 Sims Fouled Lane F
Rebound of previous miss
14-10 Douglass 2 3-pt N
14-12 Sims Grady 1 Midrange N
14-15 Grady Douglass 2 3-pt Y
17-15 Sims 0 Lane N
Blocked
17-15 Novak 1 Lane N
17-15 Douglass Lee 3 3-pt N
Pump faked to get his guy to pass him
17-15 Grady 3 3-pt N
Uncovered leading the 3-on-1 fastbreak – not a great decision. Confused and shot from NBA range.
17-15 Novak Harris 2 Midrange Y
From the top corner of the paint, turnaround
19-15 Novak Gibson 2 3-pt N
19-15 Lucas-Perry Gibson 3 3-pt Y
Gibson rebounds Novak’s miss, gets it to LLP.
22-15 Lucas-Perry Gibson 2 3-pt Y
25-15 Gibson Harris 3 Midrange Y
Entry to Harris draws the defense, leavin Gibson wide open
27-15 Harris 1 Midrange N
27-15 Sims 2 Lane Y
Rebounds Manny’s miss.
29-15 Lucas-Perry Merritt 3 3-pt Y
32-18 Sims 3 Midrange Y
Turnaround when his man tried to flop to draw a charge.
34-20 Merritt Harris 2 3-pt Y
Manny’s drive draws the defense
37-22 Douglass 2 3-pt N
Pumps to get his man by him, but waits long enough for the guy to kinda recover
37-22 Lee 0 Lane N
Rebounds Douglass’s miss, but is blocked from behind.
37-26 Lucas-Perry Harris 2 3-pt Y
Manny draws the defense into the paint, LLP’s shot rattles home.
40-28 Lucas-Perry 3 3-pt N
40-30 Grady 2 3-pt N
Kind of a force from NBA range.
40-30 Sims 2 Midrange N
Same possession as previous. Turnaround.
40-30 Sims 3 Lane Y
Dunkage.
42-30 Harris 2 Lane N
Drives and forces a floater in the lane
42-30 Novak 2 Lane N
Misses the putback of Harris’s shot
42-32 Lucas-Perry 3 3-pt N
Off the dribble from a Gibson screen.
42-34 Harris 3 Lane Y
Dunk off a steal on the break.
44-36 Merritt 2 3-pt N
Kinda a chuck
44-36 Shepherd Fouled Lane F
Foul prevented a dunk.
45-36 Sims 2 Midrange Y
Turnaround from just outside the paint.
47-38 Novak Merritt 3 3-pt N
Unguarded in the zone defense off Merritt’s drive.
47-39 Douglass Harris 2 3-pt Y
Harris drive opens the defense, but a defender was closing as he shot.
50-39 Sims 3 Midrange Y
On the 4-on-2 fastbreak, should have probably drawn the defender and dished to Harris, Douglass, or Novak. He needed to force the action.
50-39 Sims Harris 2 Lane Y
Off a botched alley-oop. He pro-hopped to get space and hooked it in.
52-41 Sims Novak 2 Midrange Y
Baseline jumper.
54-42 Harris Fouled Lane F
Forcing the action a bit, is bailed out by the blocking foul.
56-42 Novak Harris 1 Lane Y
Beautiful dish by Harris on the break, but Novak finished with a defender all over him pretty much under the basket
58-45 Lucas-Perry 2 Lane N
Drives and misses a fairly easy floater.
58-45 Novak Lee 1 3-pt N
Off a possession from rebounding Novak’s miss by Gibson. Novak chucks one with two guys in his face.
58-48 Gibson 2 Midrange Y
Not that open, but he nails it.
60-51 Harris 1 3-pt N
Ill-advised shot, he was trying to draw the foul.
60-51 Sims 2 Lane Y
Tips in the alley-oop attempt. Announcers expound upon this happening in retarded fashion.
62-54 Sims 1 Midrange N
Half floater, half jumper, all ugly
62-54 Harris 2 – Fouled Lane Y
Rebounds DeShawn’s miss, and gets the +1
65-57 Harris 3 Midrange N
Almost a 3, it rims out.
65-57 Sims 2 Lane N
Misses the putback of Harris’s miss.
65-59 Gibson Merritt 2 3-pt N
Merritt double-team opens Gibson on the wing.
65-59 Sims Fouled Lane F
Rebound of Gibson’s miss.
67-61 Shepherd 2 3-pt N
Manny’s drive opens up the floor.
67-63 Sims Douglass 3 Midrange Y
Turnaround jumper
69-65 Harris Gibson 3 Lane Y
Backdoor cut. Essentially an uncontested dunk, but he just lays it in.
71-65 Gibson Douglass Fouled Lane F
Hacked on a 3-on-2 breakaway
73-67 Novak Harris 3 3-pt Y
Defenders lose him in the zone. If Gibson screens his man, Zack would be even more open.
76-67 Grady Douglass 2 3-pt Y
Not quite a fast break, but they didn’t set the offense up before Grady hits this one.
79-69 Harris Fouled Midrange F
Shoved early on the drive to the hoop.
81-69 Novak Grady 3 Lane Y
LOL whiteboy alley-oop LOL
83-72 Harris Grady 1 Lane Y
Michigan breaks the press, Manny actually gets whacked on the finish.
85-72 Lucas-Perry Fouled Lane F
Laval is mugged on the way to an uncontested dunk. It’s called an intentional foul.
87-72 Harris Fouled Midrange F
Hand-checked as he’s blowing by his guy.
89-72 Novak 2 3-pt N
Manny draws in the defense, but Novak misses the 3 with a defender closing in.
89-74 Harris Midrange N
Chucks it with the shotclock (intentionally, Tommy Amaker, calm down) running down.

Shot quality shows multiple aspects of a player’s game. First, a guy who shoots a lot of “3” shots either can create his own shot, or only shoots when he is wide open. A guy like Manny, on the other hand, will shoot (and make) a lot of “1”s and “2”s. Players who are shooting “1”s from three-point range are probably making poor decisions, unless the shot clock or other factors are coming into play. Shooting “1”s from the paint is more forgiveable, because there is a much better likelihood of getting fouled. It is also more acceptable to miss “1”s and “2”s. If a guy is missing a ton of “3”s, he’s probably just a bad shooter for that game.If you have any other ways these factors can be interpreted, please leave it in the comments. I’ll be interested to see what you can figure out.

Individual Player Charts:

Stu Douglass
Location 0 1 2 3 F
Lane
Mid-range
3-pt 1/3 3/4

After the hot start, Stu was little-used.

Zach Gibson
Location 0 1 2 3 F
Lane 1
Mid-range 1/1 1/1
3-pt 0/1

Quiet day for Gibson.

Kelvin Grady
Location 0 1 2 3 F
Lane
Mid-range
3-pt 2/3 0/1

All of Grady’s shots were from 3, but he was using his quickness in other ways: he finished with 2 assists (and one more would-be on a missed shot).

Manny Harris
Location 0 1 2 3 F
Lane 1/1 1/2 2/2 2*
Mid-range 0/2 0/1 2
3-pt 0/1

Manny didn’t get going until the second half. The asterisk next to fouls indicates that he made one of the shots on which he was fouled (need to figure out a better notation for that). One of his midrange misses was a chuck on a low shot clock.

CJ Lee
Location 0 1 2 3 F
Lane 1
Mid-range
3-pt

Almost no shots for CJ, and his only attempt was a blocked putback.

Laval Lucas-Perry
Location 0 1 2 3 F
Lane 0/1 1
Mid-range
3-pt 2/2 2/4

LLP showed he can hit open threes, but did next to nothing in the second half. The missed shot from the lane probably should have been made.

David Merritt
Location 0 1 2 3 F
Lane
Mid-range
3-pt 2/3

Called on to shoot very little, but made the most of his opportunities.

Zack Novak
Location 0 1 2 3 F
Lane 1/2 0/1 1/1
Mid-range 1/2
3-pt 0/1 0/2 1/2

Either he or Douglass seems to be hot from outside in each game. This time, it was Douglass’s turn. However, Novak’s numbers show more desire (ability?) to score in ways other than spotting up for 3.

Jevohn Shepherd
Location 0 1 2 3 F
Lane 1
Mid-range
3-pt 0/1

Little playing time from Jevohn after a pretty good game against Eastern. Might he get a little less playing time now that Beilein seems to like a small lineup?

DeShawn Sims
Location 0 1 2 3 F
Lane 1 3/5 1/1 2
Mid-range 0/2 2/3 3/3
3-p-

Good day for DeShawn. He has proven that he can absolutely turn it on when the team needs him.

Obviously this is a very rough draft, and maybe I should have waited until it was a bit more complete to publish, but I’d really like to hear your comments on it to improve it for the future. The next edition of UFR will be a 2.0 with vast improvements, and hopefully it just needs tweaks from there.

Please please please give me your suggestions and concerns with this. Anything is on the table: style, content, aesthetics, and any other feedback you can come up with.

Posted under Analysis, Basketball

10 Comments so far

  1. Roanman says...

    This analysis strikes me as a waste of your time. Simply publishing a good box score, with both offensive and defensive rebounds would be more useful to me, and easier on you. If you have time on your hands for this type of deep analysis, I’d find it more helpful to look at some defensive stats. Or maybe some “hustle stats”

    i was at this game. Your analysis of Gibson having a quiet game is true only if your analysis is limited to the above. He did a nice job moving his body, and the ball. He popped out and brought whichever of Oakland’s big people that were on him, with, and in doing so made some room for Novak. Then he made some nice snappy passes for good three attempts. He also followed hard, rebounded some, and kept some balls alive. A very nice day from where i was sitting.

    Manny “didn’t get it going in the first half” only if you are only looking at scoring. He was dangerous and for the most part made real good decisions the entire half. Lots of his 13 assists came in the first half. For the most part, he took shots he usually hits, no rolls.

    Novak was a beast inside against much taller guys, not a ton of boards, but a hustling pain in the ass, all day.

    Basketball is about much more than shots and points.

    You run an nice site with good content, but you missed it here.

  2. formerlyanonymous says...

    Nice start.

  3. Boht Trophy says...

    I’m not sure how many games you are planning an UFR but I would like to see an accumulation of season stats for each player next to their game stats. I’m sure this takes a long time but gives good insights that a boxscore can’t touch.

  4. Credit says...

    I would agree that this is a nice start. Basketball doesn’t lend itself to the UFR-type analysis as well as football, but you seem to have done an admirable job.
    Perhaps you could add a column to indicate what kind of defensive alignment the opposition is in. I think it would be interesting to note how effective we were against Oakland’s zone, as opposed to a man-to-man defense.

  5. vblue says...

    Nice call, Credit. I originally meant to say that was one of the coming revisions, but forgot to do so (which means I likely would have forgotten to put it in the next UFR as well). Thanks for reminding me.

  6. Steve says...

    I think I could download the game faster than I could read that.

  7. jeff says...

    i like it. three humble suggestions:

    first, break the table up into halves or into some smaller unit. this would be more aesthetically pleasing, i think, and it would allow you space to comment on larger in-game trends (like brian does with his drive summaries).

    second, add a column for how much time is left on the shot-clock. i know this figures into shot-quality already, but it would be interesting to see how patience on offense affects the success of possessions, both for individuals and for the team.

    third, add a summary table for the entire team (that is, at the least add up the total number of 0s, 1s, 2s, 3s) and include the totals from previous games for more yummy comparisons.

  8. Will says...
  9. vblue says...

    Will, check out today’s recruiting update. From all appearances, it’s legit.

  10. formerlyanonymous says...

    @Jeff,

    Part of the problem is shot clock isn’t always available easily. One could theoretically look at when the last shot was made, or when the turnover took place, but then you’d have to do that for almost every shot. This last game was on BTN.com which has no clock or shot clock. That could become quite difficult without doing a ton of extra work.

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