Pull out all the stops. Get him here. #1 priority right now besides Heron who is on board. We need this kid desperately. SMH at this weak ass guard play by Pitt.
Pitt needs Temple Gibbs badly
- Thread starter steel_curtain
- Start date
Gibbs visiting Oklahoma and Notre Dame.
No mention of Pitt getting a visit soon.
Way to go Dixon.
Why even shoot 3 point baskets? Let's just practice having the best assist to turnover ratio. Scoring, who needs that?
No mention of Pitt getting a visit soon.
Way to go Dixon.
Why even shoot 3 point baskets? Let's just practice having the best assist to turnover ratio. Scoring, who needs that?
We scored 47 points in the second half. If you think this teams major problem is scoring, you don't know what you are watching.
Of course, if we had Heron we would've score 97 in the second half.
Of course, if we had Heron we would've score 97 in the second half.
Pitt was 4th in ACC conference games in offensive efficiency, 14th in defense. They are 23rd nationally for the year in offense, 220th in defense.
Unless you are getting Lebron to play for Pitt, scoring isn't going to compensate for a #220 defense.
levance2 posted on 3/12/2015...
Unless you are getting Lebron to play for Pitt, scoring isn't going to compensate for a #220 defense.
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Hold onto that thought! Lebron is busy but his kid is available.
He looks like a tough kid so its worth a try!
Can't get much worse. Can it??? Oh no the NIT or CBI ??? It can can't it!
Go Pitt!
Unless you are getting Lebron to play for Pitt, scoring isn't going to compensate for a #220 defense.
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Hold onto that thought! Lebron is busy but his kid is available.
He looks like a tough kid so its worth a try!
Can't get much worse. Can it??? Oh no the NIT or CBI ??? It can can't it!
Go Pitt!
Based off what?
Pitt ranked 178th in points per game Nationally, 106th in FG% Nationally, 237th in Free Throw Attempts, and a paltry 312th in made 3 point baskets per game.
Pitt's defense sucks, but the offense leaves a lot to be desired.
Remember those teams in the NCAA Tournament that would get red hot from 3 and beat Pitt every year? Yea, I would rather have that type of team and roll the dice, then have the 312th best 3 point shooting team in the country. You can have your weak offense, I want shooters at the guard positions. Maybe N.C. State tearing us up at the guards and watching them drain 3's all over us wasn't enough dose of reality.
Fun with numbers:
This was also Pitt's worst offensive team in the Howland/Dixon era in terms of the often overlooked statistic of, well you know "points per game."
This team has only averaged 67 points per game. Heck, the CBI team averaged 69. We're so used to such bad offense (forgive me, efficiency fans) that when we played a little faster and had good shooting games over that 3 week period in Jan/Feb that it made people believe our offense was actually good. No, its a bad offensive team that had a really good 3 week stretch.
An offense that can't score. A defense that can't stop anyway and we managed to go 18-14 (19-14 if you count the D2 win). Jamie should get some coach of the year votes for that. How we won that many games, I'll never know.
This post was edited on 3/12 2:29 PM by Sean Miller Fan
It is 2015, if you are still evaluating teams based on points scored or allowed per game, then there's nothing I can do to help you.
Pitt was 9th in offensive turnovers and 62nd in offensive rebounds (which isn't even particularly high for Pitt) for the entire season, 2nd and 5th in ACC games.
Translation: Pitt is taking one or more shots in nearly all of their possessions. That's not going to equate to a high FG%, but it leads to points.
So what? They are also playing 5 possessions slower per game than they did in 2009. Why do you think ESPN is whining all the time about tempo?
If that's how you're going to measure it, why don't you post what their defense allowed in those years?
The point is, based on efficiencies, there are only going to be MAYBE three legitimate teams in the NCAAs with a defense worse than #100 (ND, maybe Davidson & BYU), and we're talking about ours being #220. That's ridiculous. There will be plenty of teams with a worse offense than Pitt.
To have a net-zero efficiency margin, we'd have to be scoring as well as ND or Duke this year, with our current defense. To have a margin on par with the top-4 in the ACC, we'd have to be scoring 80+ ppg in only ~63 possessions. You guys seem to have no idea how insane that would be.
I'm not saying the offense isn't a problem, it just isn't THE problem. Defense is about 10x more important to solve for this team.
EDIT: Here's a better comparison. Pitt and UVa have nearly identical conference offensive ratings. The difference between 29-2 Virginia and 19-14 Pitt is that UVa allows 15(!!) fewer points to their opponents, given the same tempo.
This post was edited on 3/12 3:19 PM by levance2
Pitt needs a lot of things badly.
And we had some really good things ( players) and let them go.
So I'm watching the TCU Kansas game and the announcers are singing the praises of Trey Ziegler remember him??
He's playing a good game and the announcers mentioned he's had a great senior year.
Just now Ziegler saved a bad pass and directed it to a teammate for a basket. Announcers - what a good player Ziegler is!
Why do people su-k when they play at Pitt, leave and they're successful!
That might tell you something!
And we had some really good things ( players) and let them go.
So I'm watching the TCU Kansas game and the announcers are singing the praises of Trey Ziegler remember him??
He's playing a good game and the announcers mentioned he's had a great senior year.
Just now Ziegler saved a bad pass and directed it to a teammate for a basket. Announcers - what a good player Ziegler is!
Why do people su-k when they play at Pitt, leave and they're successful!
That might tell you something!
Points per game is useless. Points per possession. Learn it. Love it. The truth shall set you free.
This is a case where you might want to not accept something at face value - he's Wright with a different area code, statisically speaking.
Seriously... He's Cam Wright.IF you think he's succesful this year,
Trey's Numbers 9.8PPG, shooting 47%, 2.1 APG, 1.8TOPG, 4.2 RPG
Cam's numbers 9.2 PPG, shooting 46%, 2.9 APG, 1.6 TOPG, 2.9RPG.
I agree that our defense is the main problem. However, our offense is terrible and in my opinion, the worst I've ever seen in the H-D era. We have no 3 point shooters and no offensive rebounders. How can anybody think our offense is any good?
Because it is.
UL is about to lose their game against UNC scoring 60. Prior to final minute free throws, UNC had 65 now up to 70.
We scored 70 yesterday.
Using your stupid metric..we're the better offensive team than either of those two.
Did you just call "points per game" a metric? What else are metrics, wins and losses? National championships? Super Bowls?
Our offense is Top 50 in points-per-possession.... which is the ultimate metric, because if you win the points-per-possession battle in a game, you cannot mathematically lose the game (since each team has the same amount of possessions every game - give or take 1 possession).
Our defense, however, is bottom 100 in point-per-possession.
Our offense was good enough to finish 5th or 6th in the ACC and safely in the tournament if we had an average defense.
Even with the most efficient offense in the country, Pitt would've struggled to win more than 2 or 3 more games with the defense we had.
Our #1, #2, and #3 problems are all on the defensive end... slow guards that can't stop dribble penetration... lackadaisical forwards who don't box out and rebound.... and a smallish center that can't stop decent opposing post players.
Now I'm really baffled. How would those things not qualify as metrics? They are poor metrics, but metrics nonetheless.
Anyway, to clarify why points per game is so silly and so totally inferior to points per possession, let's look at 3pt shooting for an analogy.
In a particular game,
Team A goes 11-24 on 3pt attempts.
Team B goes 9-10 on 3pt attempts.
Which team shot better on 3 pointers? Obviously Team B, because they made more of their opportunities. Using Points Per Game to evaluate an offense is like saying Team A shot better on 3 pointers because they made more 3s. You are mistakenly not comparing three pointers made to the number of three pointers attempted . You are just looking at the raw total. Just like using raw number of three pointers made without adjusting for three pointers attempted is a terrible way to evaluate three point shooting, using the raw number of points scored without adjusting for the number of possessions used is a terrible way to evaluate an offense.
That's why points per possession is so, so, so much better. And why points per game is so worthless. Is it more clear when we look at it that way? I have tried many ways of explaining this concept over the years. This is a new way I just made up right now. I'd appreciate hearing if it's an understandable way to explain it.
This post was edited on 3/12 6:27 PM by GrowthHormone
Growth your efforts are admirable but at this point people either refuse to accept it or are wired such that they just don't get it.
I get what you're saying. There are more than a few people on the board who are hopeless. But I think SMF is a smart person. I don't know why he is so against points per possession, but I am hopeful that he can be converted.
It's not hard to understand - I don't see how people don't realize that even if Pitt scores more points that gives teams those extra possessions as well. And unless the defensive numbers improve they'll just lose a higher scoring game. But maybe they'll be more entertained with higher ppg who knows.
If he can't play lock down defense, I don't want him. We already have too many guys who can't play defense.
Let me be clear. I'm not denying the importance of the "points per possession" metric. I'm actually a big believer in its importance. Its one of the reasons I like BPI more than RPI as it factors pace in. However, like any stat out there, there are scenarios where the stat isn't telling the whole story. In Pitt's case this year, our offensive efficiency was rated very high and the 3 week stretch where we outscored ND, Syr, and UNC made us look like we had a good offense. So, you combine a season-long good offensive officiency number with 3 entertaining higher-scoring games over good teams and all of a sudden everybody thinks our offense is good. Its not and in this case, the efficiency number isn't telling the whole story.
I'll put it this way, offensively speaking, without looking at stats, which offense would you rather have:
The Pacific loss team: Krauser, Graves, 3 by committee (Benjamin, Kendall, DeGroat), Troutman, and Taft
or
Robinson, Wright, Jeter, Artis, Young
I'm going to guess this year's team had a better offensive efficiency but unless you know nothing about basketball, you would have to agree that the Pacific loss team had a better offense as they have better players at every position and a better bench (Ramon, Sophomore Gray, McCarroll)
So, why is our offensive efficiency so high? We don't turn the ball over which means we don't have any empty 5, 10, or 20 second possessions which end in a turnover. When you turn the ball over, you increase the number of possessions. And not only do we not turn it over, we never commit any charging fouls because nobody drives to the basket, which is like a turnover.
While its fantastic to not turn the ball over and not have any charging fouls, the reason for that is because we don't attack on offense. We pass the ball around the perimeter for 30 seconds and take a mid-range jump-shot that could have been shot off of 3-4 passes. Luckily, we had pretty good mid-range jump shooters but when your entire offense is built around the mid-range jump shot because you cannot aggressively attack the other team with dribble penetration, inside play, or the 3 point shot, your offense well...............sucks. I don't know if there is a stat on this but I would say Pitt probably led the country in mid-range jump shots taken. Taking 17 foot 2 pointers is not good offense. You need layups which come as the result of offensive rebounds and dribble penetration......and 3 point shots. Pitt gets neither of those things.
All I'm saying is you have to be smarter to look deeper than the stat. I do like the offensive efficiency number, even more so than points per game, but I know what I see. Our offense is really bad (but nowhere near about our hopless defense). SMF's eye test says so.......and its no coincidence that this is the lowest scoring team in the H-D era. That's all.
This post was edited on 3/13 7:29 AM by Sean Miller Fan
Well, since you the premise of your argument is a guess, I will let you know that you are wrong, and the rest of your argument is moot.
2005: OEff 113.9 (#12), DEff 96.2 (#58)
2015: OEff 112.9 (#22), DEff 104.8 (#220)
The #22 ranked offense is good enough to make the NCAA tournament, but probably not good enough to go all that far in it. It would rank as the 5th weakest offense under Dixon. The problem is that the defense is far and away the worst ever under Dixon. No team with even the #1 overall offense is going to make the NCAA tournament with a #220 defense.
Crap. I didnt even look it up because I thought that team turned it over too many times to have a better offensive efficiency, but it is what it is. I still stand by my statement that Pitt's 2015 offensive efficiency is inflated due to low turnovers, when more turnovers can in some ways be a good thing as it indicates more of an aggressive offensive approach and baskets coming in different ways other than mid-range jumpers.
SMF's eye test still says this is the worst offensive team in the H-D era.
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