Just Call Us Syracuse Lite

I haven't seen much reaction in the Michigan blogosphere to last night's game, but Big Ten Wonk came through with a little discussion:

Last night Dion Harris launched three after errant three with the aggrieved adolescent repetition of someone trying to prove he's not a 32 percent shooter outside the arc, year-to-date stats be damned. Well, he's right: he's better than 32 percent. But even when he's on his game he's not deadly enough to be given 14 attempted threes in a 72-possession game.

Still, Harris at least went down with guns blazing, as it were. Where is Lester Abram?

NC State's decision to go to the zone was an easy one; we did it to save our personnel, and we also did it because Michigan's weakness is outside shooting. Harris and his teammates got a fair number of clean looks, but as has been the case all season (they're shooting 28.5% from three), they couldn't hit them.

I have been checking the Pack's scouting report after every game to see how we're shaping up differently this season. For instance, note the Pack's 3FGA/FGA ratio--213 teams are taking a higher proportion of three-pointers!

State's adjusted offensive and defensive efficiencies aren't too impressive at this point. The offense is scoring about 10 pts/100 poss fewer this year than last year, while the defense has stayed roughly the same. One thing to keep an eye on is efficiency margin (just the difference between OFF EFF and DEF EFF). I tend to think of a margin of +20 as the cutoff separating NCAA-worthy and NCAA-unworthy teams; we're sitting at about +9 right now. I find efficiency margin useful as a quick overall assessment of a team's quality.

You won't find the individual numbers available in the scouting report just yet, so I went ahead and compiled them...

Player	%Min	O Rtg	%Poss	%Shots	eFG%	OR%	DR%	TO%	PPWS
Gavin Grant	90	96.7	29.6	27.7	49.3	4.2	11.8	23.9	1.07
Brandon Costner	83.5	106.5	24.5	22.4	56.5	8.2	20.7	18.4	1.13
Ben McCauley	80.5	126.8	20.3	21.5	62.0	7.8	11.1	12.4	1.25
Engin Atsur	74	137.5	18.2	20.1	74.4	1.7	12.8	15.0	1.47
Courtney Fells	76	115.9	15.4	18.7	51.2	2.5	11.0	7.4	1.07
Dennis Horner	39	110.1	16.0	11.5	61.5	11.2	15.8	23.2	1.26
Bryan Nieman	53	96.8	10.7	10.4	46.9	2.4	8.4	20.4	0.95

Get well soon, Engin.