By popular request... Tempo-free defensive stats by half
As promised yesterday, I've taken a crack at estimating 1st half and 2nd half tempo-adjusted defensive efficiency for the Pack by game, and for the season as a whole. Note that I don't have possessions broken down by half (I assumed the pace was constant over the course of the game), so if the number of possessions was dramatically different from one half to the next, the below numbers will be off. (Halves at or below 0.8 are green, at or above 1.2 are red)
Opponent | 1st half | 2nd half | |
Clemson | 0.74 | 1.21 | |
FSU | 1.05 | 1.29 | |
Ga Tech | 1.03 | 0.94 | |
Duke | 0.72 | 1.68 | |
BC | 1.31 | 1.16 | |
Miami | 0.80 | 1.44 | |
unc-ch | 1.20 | 1.40 | |
VT | 0.82 | 0.96 | |
Wake | 0.92 | 1.14 | |
Ga Tech | 0.88 | 0.85 | |
unc-ch | 1.13 | 1.45 | |
UVa | 0.88 | 1.16 | |
Wake | 1.22 | 1.19 | |
UMd | 1.07 | 1.16 | |
BC | 1.14 | 1.17 | |
Miami | 0.68 | 1.64 | |
Overall | 0.97 | 1.23 |
Particularly shocking are the Dook fiasco and the season-ending Miami debacle, a 1.64 points-per-possession raping that triggered this whole line of thinking and analysis... "Could they REALLY have been as shitty as I just imagined?". The numbers back up the fact that, yes, they were. And they were on a very regular basis, as highlighted by the red second-half pointsplosions that happened about half the time we took the court.
The thing is - it's not as if the team is INCAPABLE of playing good defense, as the first-half numbers show. They either were out of shape, stopped caring, or were too mentally fragile to handle the pressure when the game was on the line. This really seems fixable. If only we had someone who knew how to fix it.
Side note...
Quick quiz: How many times this season did the Pack force 20 or more turnovers in a game?
Answer: One... and they failed to force even ten in a game over the last four.
Fix it, Sid. Or hire someone who can.