Cal's Offense and KenPom

[The_Answer1313_rivals]

I guess one argument you can make is that does an offense which relies on getting to line often......are they at a disadvantage in the NCAA tournament? Do they call less fouls in the tournament than they do in the regular season?

Since 2014, the SEC has been a league that calls a ton of fouls relative to the other conferences. That obviously plays into the hands of a team that likes to get to the line (ie. UK)

But does that put us at a disadvantage come tournament time?

I don't know.

I mean this was an Auburn team where we put up 1.20 at their place and 1.26 at Rupp. The tournament game..... 0.96

We did shoot 33 free throws in that game @ Auburn.

But really the major difference I see when I look at all three of those games is simply the shooting. We were north of 60% effective FG% in both those games (in 6 games we were over 60%, 2 of them game against Auburn). Last game..........48.3%.

 

[ManitouDan_anon]

Inferior how? And by how much? In UK's NCAA Tournament losses:

• 2010 - KenPom implied 1 point favorite.
  
• 2011 - KenPom implied 2 point favorite.
• 2014 - KenPom implied 1 point favorite.
  
• 2015 - KenPom implied 3.5 point favorite.
• 2016 - KenPom implied 2.5 point favorite.
• 2017 - KenPom implied 0.5 point underdog.
• 2018 - KenPom implied 6.5 point favorite.
• 2019 - KenPom implied 3 point favorite.

That's a lot of toss-up games; there's only one really bad loss in there (K-State). The actual spreads may have varied by a point or two (UK is a public team, injuries and other factors not accounted for in KenPom), but UK has lost a lot of close games where they were slight favorites.

Kenpom not taking injuries into account is pretty inaccurate considering Auburns best player didnt play . So 2 bad losses , 2 years in a row , both where the lack of offense and any tempo what so ever are the sole culprits .. So you can use those stats if you wish , everyone knows there are a growing number of games we lost we should have won .. PS thats 7 out of 8 years where we got knocked out as favorites , I know its a slight favorite , but to me the numbers you shared are shocking . 7 out 8 times we were a favorite and lost , I know its a slight favorite but damn thats eye opening.

 

[katsure]

This is a fair post and I'm not sure why it's so hard for some of our fans to admit.

Some keep building an Okeke-less Auburn team up to be the second coming of the 2018 Villanova Wildcats.

We got beat by a team we should have beaten. It happens. Life goes on.

Agree with this take. Yet, a simple thought that's passively dismissed is it's incredibly hard to beat any team three times in a season. Don't care who's hurt or how average the team. As you say...life goes on

 

[Big_Blue79]

Kenpom not taking injuries into account is pretty inaccurate considering Auburns best player didnt play . So 2 bad losses , 2 years in a row , both where the lack of offense and any tempo what so ever are the sole culprits .. So you can use those stats if you wish , everyone knows there are a growing number of games we lost we should have won .. PS thats 7 out of 8 years where we got knocked out as favorites , I know its a slight favorite , but to me the numbers you shared are shocking . 7 out 8 times we were a favorite and lost , I know its a slight favorite but damn thats eye opening.

No, 7 out of 8 losses we were (mostly very slightly) favored. That doesn't take into account any wins, so just saying "7 out of 8 times we were a favorite and lost" is pretty misleading; for any sample of only losses, it's going to look bad.

And speaking of KenPom not taking injuries into account, UK had some injuries some of those years as well. You have to look at all angles. I'm just disputing the narrative that UK has been some sort of massive favorite and lost; aside from 2018 (and let's face it, that was a pretty crappy UK team), it's not true. UK was slightly favored and lost (and of course won) some close games (which validates the slightly favored point).

 

[The_Answer1313_rivals]

No, 7 out of 8 losses we were (mostly very slightly) favored. That doesn't take into account any wins, so just saying "7 out of 8 times we were a favorite and lost" is pretty misleading; for any sample of only losses, it's going to look bad.

And speaking of KenPom not taking injuries into account, UK had some injuries some of those years as well. You have to look at all angles. I'm just disputing the narrative that UK has been some sort of massive favorite and lost; aside from 2018 (and let's face it, that was a pretty crappy UK team), it's not true. UK was slightly favored and lost (and of course won) some close games (which validates the slightly favored point).

Exactly

 

[UKGrad93]

Here's the # of possessions and UK and opponent points per possesion for 2018-19. Make of it what you will.

Date Opponent Possessions UK PPP Opp PPP
11/6/2018 Duke 81.1 1.02 1.43
11/28/2018 Monmouth 68.9 1.31 .64
11/9/2018 Southern Illinois 67.8 1.05 .87
11/14/2018 North Dakota 70.3 1.35 .82
11/18/2018 Virginia Military 68.6 1.31 1.17
11/21/2018 Winthrop 78.4 1.1 .94
11/23/2018 Tennessee State 71.5 1.07 .86
12/1/2018 UNC-Greensboro 71.4 1.1 .86
12/8/2018 Seton Hall 77.3 1.07 1.09
12/15/2018 Utah 62.7 1.4 .97
12/22/2018 North Carolina 80.5 .97 .88
12/29/2018 Louisville 61.2 1.14 .93
1/5/2019 Alabama 78.1 .97 .99
1/8/2019 Texas A & M 71.9 1.17 1.02
1/12/2019 Vanderbilt 53.7 1.01 .84
1/15/2019 Georgia 65.2 1.06 .75
1/19/2019 Auburn 67.7 1.2 1.17
1/22/2019 Mississippi State 70.5 1.08 .78
1/26/2019 Kansas 68.9 1.04 .93
1/29/2019 Vanderbilt 65.9 1.32 .79
2/2/2019 Florida 61.6 1.03 .85
2/5/2019 South Carolina 66.8 1.11 .7
2/9/2019 Mississippi State 63.1 1.13 1.07
2/12/2019 Louisiana State 64.9 1.09 1.12
2/16/2019 Tennessee 67.7 1.27 1.02
2/19/2019 Missouri 60.5 1.11 .98
2/23/2019 Auburn 62.7 1.26 .83
2/26/2019 Arkansas 63.2 1.09 1.03
3/2/2019 Tennessee 65.8 .79 1.08
3/5/2019 Mississippi 68.5 1.17 1.11
3/9/2019 Florida 61.2 1.09 .94
3/15/2019 Alabama 65.1 1.12 .84
3/16/2019 Tennessee 65 1.21 1.27
3/21/2019 Abilene Christian 63 .61 .2
3/23/2019 Wofford 59.5 1.04 .93
3/29/2019 Houston 58 1.07 1
3/31/2019 Auburn 74 .96 1.04

It's not a great fit, but when you plot the number of possessions over time, we play fewer possessions on average as the season goes. Likewise, our points per possession become less as the season goes.

Opponents points per possession stays somewhat flat over the course of the season.

I would attribute this to:
1. Easier schedule on the front end of the season.
2. Learning to play defense better as the season goes, concentrating more on D, less on O.
3. Cal wanting to grind more as we go.

The Auburn game was close to our average number of possessions if you take into account the overtime.