Amazing M basketball stat
The assist:turnover ratio today was 24:5. Almost five to one! The big question is when, if ever, a Michigan basketball team has pulled that off before. Incredibly, this was done with walk-ons logging major minutes at the guard positions due to foul trouble (a situation which may not repeat itself due to Laval Lucas-Perry becoming eligible from here on out).
December 14th, 2008 at 9:41 AM ^
That makes it way more fun to watch. I know I read this earlier, but it really was hard to watch the Amaker teams, they had talent but would turn the ball over 20+ times against any quality opponent. That turnover ratio is what allows a team to be out rebounded by 10+ and still win. Turnovers and offensive rebounds go hand in hand. Get an offensive rebound technicaly is the same as if the other team got the rebound went down the court and turned it over to your team. The idea is really number of shots you can get in a game. If you don't turn the ball over but a handful of times a game, you negate the idea of needing offensive rebounds for extra shots. Of course this idea centers around shooting a decent percentage (like in the mid 40's) so if you break the game down it comes down to shot attempts and free throw attempts. Obviously the flaw in this argument is a team that catches fire, or a team that has an extremely cold shooting night. But again really fun to watch, I am actually glad I got season tickets this year. GO BLUE!!!
December 14th, 2008 at 12:37 PM ^
The only quibble I would have with this reasoning is that a larger percentage of offensive rebounds are around the basket than turnovers, likely leading more directly to points. So, there must be some statnik out there who can tell us the average number of points per turnover (I'm guessing about .8 or so) versus the number of points per offensive rebound (I'm guessing more like 1.2).
That would make ORs and TOs not a one-for-one tradeoff. If my numbers are right (and I have no reason to believe that they are, except in the basic idea that ORs > TOs in terms of leading to points), then you would need a number of turnovers that is 50% greater than the ORs you give up, ceteris paribus, in order to break even on points.
In the game last night, EMU had 17 turnovers and 14 ORs, which is only 21% greater. So we lost that battle, but won many others (overall shooting %, 3pt shooting % (!), etc.)