ACE: Need your help - suggestions for basketball UFR

Man, that's going to be tough. Good Luck!

Since blocks would show up in the stats.

For shots - knowing the type of defense (zone, man)

Title - Full Court Press

AABGWOCAR= Actual Analysis of a Basketball Game Without Crying About the Refs; Pronounced aab-gwoh-car.

A Maizin' Compilation

Call it The ACE (Assessing Culpability & Execution)

i think your first category - shot selection is most important.  as a companion to shot selection, you should see what alternatives there were (i.e. the movement of the rest of the players, other players open for better shots, passing lanes, shot clock considerations, etc.)

good luck, this is a tough undertaking.

Ace, sorry this is off the topic. DO YOU HAVE A FACEBOOK? or atleast a picture somewhere.

"Basketball UFR" actually is a perfect name.  Brian has said that UFR is the calling card of the blog, the central, main thing that it does around which most of the football analysis revolves.  Therefore I think this is a thing where you should stick to the brand. 

/marketing 101'd

I think with turnovers, you should look for the actual culprit instead of who the turnover is assigned to.  For example, if Trey Burke throws a beautiful pass at Jordan Morgan in position for an easy bucket, but Morgan's not paying attention and it sails out of bounds, Burke will get the turnover but really it's Morgan's fault.  Same if, say, a screener sets a poor screen and the dribbler goes where the defense isn't supposed to be, but gets stripped because a defender got around the bad screen.  Turnover culpability could be a thing.

An off-ball chart would be huge.  I mean, theoretically that's 80% or more of a player's time spent on the court.  If a guy is a lazy screener, or great at defensive positioning when his man doesn't have the ball, that's important to know.

I would love to see a metric that gave us a player's true +/- impact.  I think basketball +/- is a lousy stat that needs work, but it would take UFR-level drilldown to make it happen.  A point scored is a point scored, IME, but a metric that gave a player's defensive value - points added for a block, points taken away for a crappy defensive play, that kind of thing - that would be a great thing.

Examining free throws made and missed as a quotient of a player's contribution seems like it would be useful. Driving to the lane and getting fouled is great, but if you can't make a free throw, it's tantamount to a turnover. And this team is obviously going to have trouble making free throws.

Also, it would be good to account for "hustle plays" like diving for loose balls, tipping out rebounds, taking charges, and general harassment, especially on the defensive end. Someone needs to keep track of all the charges Novak takes.

I feel like the most useful thing you can work on is devising a concise and vivid way to account for individual defensive contribution beyond blocks and steals. I know Stu is our best defender, in part because he's tasked with defending the opposing team's best player every night, but I don't really know why he's so good, what makes him good. If you can somehow put numbers on that, I would really appreciate it.

Ideas for UFR Titles:

Basketball 20/20 (as in "hindsight is ____")

Notes From The Block

The Intangibles Inquiry

The Back Screen

The Backdoor Cut

The Posterization of Zack Novak

Distributing the Rock

Sounds like a great idea!  Smotrycz would've gotten a minus one billion last night.

I don't know if we (meaning you) have any contacts on the staff that could share how they grade out games.

The thing that I like about the football UFR is that I feel our coaches could be using the same material. Or end up with similar results.

What about "A Beilein to the Truth" - you know, as it would presumably take one directly to what transpired during the game.  Like a beeline.  It's a pun.  Not sure if there are issues with using a coach's name or not.  Plus its easily abbreviated as BTTT.

If you can decipher my rambling:

Passes that lead to assists (aka hockey assists).
Assign bad pass turnovers to the player who threw the sloppy pass, not the fingertips of the intended recipient.
Pick/roll defense.  Did players switch when they were supposed to?  Did somebody not fight through the screen?  Was the pick not called out?
Grade a player negatively for giving up and-1s when a harder foul would have been necessary.
If a player is double teamed does he look for the open man or does he force a play?
Keep an eye out for guys cheating in the passing lanes and getting burned.
Credit charges!  Also, if you could, point out any unnecessary flops that compromised the defense.
Failure to box out leading to missed rebounds and/or cheap offensive putbacks.  Conversely, successful boxouts that paved the way for somebody to snatch up an easy rebound or drew an over the back would be nice.

I'll think of more.

Is there anyway you could just calculate each player's player efficiency rating (PER) as John Hollinger does for the NBA.  I believe these rankings could give a great estimation to quantify a player's worth each game and also look a how that number changes over the course of a season.  I believe that this could save a lot of time as I am sure all of the data can just be plugged into some Excel spreadsheet after each game to generate the PER value.

This would be incredible if you could pull that off, and IME would allow MGoBlog to overtake UMHoops for best comprehensive Michigan basketball coverage. If you only did it for one game a week come Big Ten season, that might be a more reasonable approach than attempting every single game (IME that would require having a 2nd person do all of one side of the ball).

Rate shot quality, along with docking points if there was a better shot or passthe player could have taken or made. Consider the player taking the shot; an extreme case is if a poor 3-point shooter is the one taking the shot, and using poor form to do so. Consider also the circumstances, like dealing with fast-break opportunities vs half-court sets.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with for the Maui Invitational, and how it could evolve over time.

I think it'll be important to track shots created.  For example, give Trey Burke a point for a well-executed drive and kick that results in an open jump shot, even if that shot isn't made.  Likewise, account for open shots that players create for themselves (e.g. Tim Hardaway creating an open step-back jumper for himself) vs. shots that fall into players' laps (from something like the above-mentioned drive and kick).

It seems like we are going to play a lot of different guys this year and that Beilein is still experimenting with putting guys together in different combinations and putting guys like Novak at different positions.  I think some sort of detailed +/- analysis by lineup grouping might be interesting, especially with this team.  Do we defend better or accomplish more on the glass if we go big?  Do we score more if we go small and does that make up for any losses defensively?  Does it help to have Burke and Stu on the floor at the same time to give us more ball handlers?

Might be neat and might contain some of the other stuff you would have focused on and allow you to save a little time (seriously, this sounds like it could ruin a person's life if you did it in too much detail).

On defense, I think it would be good to keep track of shots altered.  You could tally especially effective close-outs on the perimeter, as well as interior shots that are missed out of intimidation (this will probably be more relevant next year; looking at you, Mitch McGary).

For the record, I think a basketball UFR is a terrific tremendous idea.

is understating the undertaking here. While there are theoretically "plays" and Coach B obviously has a scheme, a lot of basketball is instant on court decision making and isn't amenable to a UFR-type analysis.

This sounds like it may be more of a sabremetrics or stats-that-really-matter type approach, which will be awesome in its own right. Outside the Box, perhaps?

Kidding. . . but I'm a bit of a basketball nerd and first you'd have to think of all the thing you want to quantify. I'll just throw somethings out there on offense and defense.

Offense:

Shot making. Probably difficulty of shot and how appropriate the shot was. two different metrics. sometimes because of the shot clock or situaion a difficult shot is needed although usually it's not called for. Shot creation might also be a third metric here to see which players are able to iso their defender.

Moving without the ball. Setting picks, and getting open (whether or not they get you the ball) would be easily quantifiable

Creation. A great pass that leads to a bucket should count the same as one that leads to a missed bunny or a foul shots. A bad pass, or missed open player could potentially count against the passer.

Hustle/Derp metric. Here we have level of offensive rebounding, saving or diving for a ball, and offensive fouls or turnovers. Turnovers could also go under Creation.

Defense:

Rebounding: Who contributed to the rebound whether it was boxing out or out jumping someone.

Shot making of oppent: Who's responsible for high quality shots or someone breaking down the defense?

Assist defense. Who's responsible for easy shots that were created by the other team or potential assits that were defended?

Pick n Roll defense: The hardest play to defend so maybe it needs its own metric.

Fouls: There are good fouls and bad fouls and bad calls either way. A metric can be created to quantify this.

Overall an offensive rating and a defensive rating can be calculated for each player and if you want to parse out hustle/rebounding then you would have potentially a third rating.

I think if you do it, the obvious thing is to chart each possession the way Brian charts plays. But one major change would be that I think you'd have to list offensive and defensive possessions consecutively. The flow of the game is such that doing an offense UFR and a defense UFR would be confusing. I'd suggest highlighting Michigan possessions in blue (a la current UFR), and opponent possessions in whatever their main color is.

That should be the title. Just sayin.

A good pass that leads to free throws and a pass that leads to a pass for an assist, IE a skip pass.  Another thing that might be hard to track but helps you win games is getting a 50-50 ball.

Make it an MgoBlog institution.

But I like a few ideas from above:

Hockey Assist

Altered Shots

Good/Bad Fouls

Adjusted Shooting Percentage ideas (Quanitfying shot selection. Do all the end-of-shotclock-desperation-throws need to count in shooting percentage? Same idea that Denard's End of half hail-mary is an INT... but not an important "miss".)

My advice.

I'm a former basketball player, so I know more about schematics here than I do about football. I'm not sure what the end result of what you want to do is here. The numbers that traditionally tell you who is being effective (points, rebounds, assists, steals, charges, FT %) are pretty straightforward.

Further, unless you specifically know the play calls, how are you going to judge who is doing what correctly? On defense, if you aren't sitting in the pre-game planning session and don't know how, for example, Beilein plans to defend Sullinger (perhaps switching possession to possession), how can you judge it beyond the cosmetic and the known (FG %, blocks, etc.)

I'm just not sure you want to go down the road of deeming who is playing well and who is not based upon what you think you're seeing, as opposed to what the coaches and players actually know they're to be doing. Despite what it might look like, basketball is an exceedingly complex game of technique and precision.