1 Ohio St. vs 1 Florida
Florida was in the national title game last year. Ohio St. has the most exciting freshman center in the last decade. This is goliath vs goliath, one heavyweight champ against another.
After Florida won easily in December, the rematch factor is at play here and I would expect Ohio St. to have more energy early. But, as Florida showed against UCLA, that doesn't necessarily mean a lot in the Final Four. And while there is no question Ohio St. has been playing better lately, winning 22 in a row, I still don't see how the team is fundamentally different from the way they played in December. The splits aren't noticeably different from the beginning and end of the season for Ohio St., and I cannot really identify what will lead to a different outcome in this game.
Will Oden finally have a break-out game where he doesn't have foul trouble and dominates? Win or lose, Monday is his last opportunity to make his mark on the college game.
The truth is, after two disappointing semifinals, I'm just hoping that the national championship game lives up to its billing. I don't have much to say statistically, since we know both these teams very well, but after the way Georgetown lost, I find myself going back to the turnover factor.
Both Florida and Ohio St. have dominant defenses despite not forcing turnovers. Stealing Pomeroy's defensive factors:
Florida - Rank
eFG Def - 17th
Turnover% - 276th
OffRebAllowed - 8th
FTA/FGA - 13th
Ohio St.
eFG Def - 40th
Turnover% - 214th
OffRebAllowed - 69th
FTA/FGA - 2nd
Ohio St. ranks 276th in turnovers forced, while Florida ranks 214th in turnovers forced. In fact, only Corey Brewer and Mike Conley are particularly adept at getting steals. (Noah receives honorable mention.) Instead, both teams rely on fundamentally sound defense.
But someone will turn the ball over on Monday, and with both teams so effecient offensively, it could be the difference in the game.
Georgetown and Turnovers
Saturday, Georgetown turned it over on 24.1% of their possessions which is a key reason the team lost. I was actually quite surprised by this development because Ohio St. does not force a lot of turnovers. (See above.)
This was even more surprising given the improvements Georgetown had made as the season progressed. For the first 16 games of the season, Georgetown turned it over on 24.3% of its possessions. But in the second half of the season, when the team won 19 of 20 games, Georgetown only turned it over on 19.9% of possessions. Furthermore, in the last seven games (starting with the Big East tournament), Georgetown only turned the ball over on 16.8% of its possessions. By turning it over 24.1% of the time against Ohio St., Georgetown ended up looking a lot more like the team that struggled early in the year.
Naismith Smiled, but not at the Women's tournament
I really wanted to get excited about the women's Final Four, but LSU scored 35 points and the UNC vs Tennessee game started with both teams combining to shoot 3 of 29 from the floor, just over 10%. Uggh. The offenses were so inept in part because the women's game has become much more physical, a point Naismith himself would have abhored.
I've run into Naismith's grandson a couple of times in recent years at NCAA events. He's the one trying to sell the original set of rules for a million dollars, and he likes to set up free displays as a "service" at NCAA tournament sites. I question his grandson's motives, but he does make a good point. Naismith never intended basketball to be a physical game. He intended the game as an excercise and he appreciated passing and shooting much more than a center using his size to back down a player in the lane.
So maybe, even though I did not appreciate the Oden vs Hibbert matchup on Saturday, maybe James Naismith himself was smiling as both big men sat on the bench with foul trouble.
And despite all the criticism's I have for the NBA, the rules changes in recent years have made the NBA more like the game Naismith envisioned. By making hand-checks and other defensive moves illegal, the NBA has allowed great shooters and passers to take over the game. The fact that the Suns and the Mavericks are now the best teams in the NBA instead of the Spurs and the Pistons, says a lot about how the game has changed. As sad as I will be when the NCAA season ends, at least there was a taste of good NBA basketball with the Suns vs Mavericks Sunday.
So should I convert over to NBA blogging for the next three months? Not a chance. When a league has 10 teams purposfully tanking games over the next month to get a better chance at Oden or Durant, it will never hold my interest. Instead, I'll be rooting for the Ivan Harris's of the world, the type of players who go all out in the Final Four, not for future NBA glory, but for a love of the game.
Monday, April 2, 2007
Sunday, April 1, 2007
A Few More Thoughts
I had my Ohio St. vs Georgetown recap up shortly after the game, and some of the national columnists had already posted columns as well. Andy Katz echoes my sentiment that Mike Conley carried his team here. And Greg Doyel agrees that the game was disappointing. Click here for Doyel's column. Doyel won't name the officials, but I will. They were Ted Valentine, Dick Cartmell, and Mike Kitts.
And you can't see it, but my local NBC affiliate had quotes from almost every Georgetown player claiming that they lost because of turnovers. So, with all my early sentiments covered, here are a few more.
-Despite the fact that the game was clearly disappointing from a college basketball fan perspective, you have to be thrilled if you are an Ohio St. fan. Even with Ron Lewis shooting 1-8 from the field and Oden playing 3 minutes in the first half, Ohio St. was in control from start to finish. Great teams can win with different personnel and different styles of play, and Ohio St. is becoming a great team.
-Thad Matta had an obvious, but rarely mentioned comment after the game. The fact that Oden missed the start of the season due to injury may have given the team more confidence playing without him.
UCLA vs Florida Thoughts
Florida finally started taking (and making) some two point shots. But in a statistical oddity, 22 of Florida's 45 shots were three pointers, which means almost 1/2 their shots were threes. And Florida lead for most of the game! Florida normally takes threes about 1/3 of the time and UCLA opponents take threes about 1/4 of the time, so this was quite a statistical abberation.
It sort of suggests that Ben Howland departed from normal strategy and packed it in the post in an effort to not see a repeat of the 2006 final. Sadly for the Bruins, a different strategy resulted in the same outcome.
Sunday at the Final Four
When your team wins (as Ohio St. and Florida did), there is no better feeling than to enjoy the Sunday between games. From the moment you open up the local paper and find 8 stories on your team in the special Final Four section, to the final newcast of the day, it is all gravy. One of the silliest, but most fun things about recent Final Fours is that they put a full-size bracket up on one of the buildings in town. If you go tommorrow morning, you can even see them put up stickers for Florida and Ohio St. advancing to the next round.
And you can't see it, but my local NBC affiliate had quotes from almost every Georgetown player claiming that they lost because of turnovers. So, with all my early sentiments covered, here are a few more.
-Despite the fact that the game was clearly disappointing from a college basketball fan perspective, you have to be thrilled if you are an Ohio St. fan. Even with Ron Lewis shooting 1-8 from the field and Oden playing 3 minutes in the first half, Ohio St. was in control from start to finish. Great teams can win with different personnel and different styles of play, and Ohio St. is becoming a great team.
-Thad Matta had an obvious, but rarely mentioned comment after the game. The fact that Oden missed the start of the season due to injury may have given the team more confidence playing without him.
UCLA vs Florida Thoughts
Florida finally started taking (and making) some two point shots. But in a statistical oddity, 22 of Florida's 45 shots were three pointers, which means almost 1/2 their shots were threes. And Florida lead for most of the game! Florida normally takes threes about 1/3 of the time and UCLA opponents take threes about 1/4 of the time, so this was quite a statistical abberation.
It sort of suggests that Ben Howland departed from normal strategy and packed it in the post in an effort to not see a repeat of the 2006 final. Sadly for the Bruins, a different strategy resulted in the same outcome.
Sunday at the Final Four
When your team wins (as Ohio St. and Florida did), there is no better feeling than to enjoy the Sunday between games. From the moment you open up the local paper and find 8 stories on your team in the special Final Four section, to the final newcast of the day, it is all gravy. One of the silliest, but most fun things about recent Final Fours is that they put a full-size bracket up on one of the buildings in town. If you go tommorrow morning, you can even see them put up stickers for Florida and Ohio St. advancing to the next round.
Instant Analysis
Georgetown vs Ohio St.
With 6 minutes left in the game, Oden missed a dunk but drew a foul on Green. That image probably appropriately summarized a game that was entertaining, but clearly did not live up to the hype it received. Both Oden and Hibbert had big runs while the other was out of the game, but as is the norm in college basketball, both stars had serious foul trouble. And neither player was the difference in the game.
Instead, as if there was any question who was the MVP of Ohio St., it was answered in the first half when Mike Conley Jr. scored 11 points for his team. At one time, Conley was considered a throw-in scholarship. Sure he was a good player in high school, but most people just assumed Matta gave Conley a scholarship in order to convince Oden to attend Ohio St. As has been true all season long, it turned out that the most important player on Ohio St.’s team was wearing number 1.
One of the keys to the game was whether or not Georgetown would turn it over, and turn it over they did. Ohio St. scored 20 points off those turnovers. A few of those points came from the free throw line, but Ohio St. also had a few fastbreak points on missed shots. Overall, I’m going to say that Ohio St. had approximately 10 made baskets in transition. Excluding those baskets, Ohio St. was 15-47 from the floor. Now that’s not a fair statistic, because Ohio St. is always going to get some fastbreak baskets, but it shows two things. First, if Georgetown had been able to force Ohio St. into the half-court, it could have been a completely different game.
Second, it shows that Ohio St. showed tremendous patience. Ohio St. shot only 14 threes. Even if we say that they attempted a three on 14 of 47 half-court shots instead of 14 of 57 total shots, that is still less than one quarter of their shots. This is significantly below their season average. I remember only one possession where I thought Ohio St. took a bad three.
Georgetown on the other hand did have some uncharacteristically impatient threes. Patrick Ewing had one, but I was more disappointed with Jesse Sapp. Sapp can hit a three pointer, but at 28.2% on the year, Georgetown did not want Sapp to attempt 7 three pointers. Sapp usually excels at driving to the basket, but Billy Packer credited Jamar Butler with tremendous defense in shutting down Sapp’s drives. I felt like Sapp got impatient because he was not involved in the offense, and you have to give Butler credit for shutting down what Sapp does best. (Freshman DaJuan Summers also had one of his worst shooting nights of the year, but his shots were all normal shots within the flow of the offense.)
Georgetown settled for these threes partly because of the deficit on the scoreboard, but mostly because of Ohio St.’s interior defense. This was despite a suprisingly poor defensive performance by Oden. When Hibbert was in the game, he spun around Oden, and when Hibbert was out, Oden did not step out to stop the Georgetown guards from cutting to the basket. Instead, I was impressed with Othello Hunter who blocked at least one dunk and altered another shot in the first half. Georgetown normally gets a lot of dunks and lay-ups, but Ohio St. really seemed to fluster them in the first half in large part because of Hunter.
Defense was clearly the key to the game. Although most experts predicted Ohio St. would use a zone defense at times, I was surprised because Georgetown has shredded the zone in the second half of the season. True, the zone defense does cut down backdoor cuts, but a good defensive team like Ohio St. can stop the backdoor play with fundamentally sound man-to-man defense. Because Georgetown has such good jump shooters from both 2 and 3 point range, I thought Ohio St. would not want to risk watching Jeff Green go off from 10 feet as he has done on many occasions. (I even wonder if Ohio St. mixed in some 2-1-2 instead of 2-3 because Green is so good at settling in the middle of the 2-3).
It turned out that Jeff Green was 4/5 from the floor. And Jonathon Wallace 7/12 hit a number of open shots against the zone as well. But, the Ohio St. players had active hands in the zone and forced a number of turnovers and in the end those turnovers were the difference in the game.
UCLA vs Florida
What was UCLA’s unique strategy for the game? How about playing tremendous defense from the opening minute. The first Florida basket from the field did not come until over 7 minutes into the game.
More importantly 8 minutes into the game, Florida had not attempted a two point shot. I decided not to do a statistical breakdown of the game, but I did mention a Pomeroy stat that also got some play in Sports Illustrated. UCLA opponents attempt fewer threes than almost any team in the nation. And yet here was Florida hoisting up a three on every shot.
But despite throwing every ounce of defensive energy at the Gators in the opening minutes, UCLA was not able to score on the offensive end and only built a 6-2 lead. By the time Florida went on a run, it wasn’t pretty. UCLA which had denied those threes all year could not stop the threes in transition, and suddenly Florida was up by double digits.
As I make this post, the game is getting away from the Bruins.
With 6 minutes left in the game, Oden missed a dunk but drew a foul on Green. That image probably appropriately summarized a game that was entertaining, but clearly did not live up to the hype it received. Both Oden and Hibbert had big runs while the other was out of the game, but as is the norm in college basketball, both stars had serious foul trouble. And neither player was the difference in the game.
Instead, as if there was any question who was the MVP of Ohio St., it was answered in the first half when Mike Conley Jr. scored 11 points for his team. At one time, Conley was considered a throw-in scholarship. Sure he was a good player in high school, but most people just assumed Matta gave Conley a scholarship in order to convince Oden to attend Ohio St. As has been true all season long, it turned out that the most important player on Ohio St.’s team was wearing number 1.
One of the keys to the game was whether or not Georgetown would turn it over, and turn it over they did. Ohio St. scored 20 points off those turnovers. A few of those points came from the free throw line, but Ohio St. also had a few fastbreak points on missed shots. Overall, I’m going to say that Ohio St. had approximately 10 made baskets in transition. Excluding those baskets, Ohio St. was 15-47 from the floor. Now that’s not a fair statistic, because Ohio St. is always going to get some fastbreak baskets, but it shows two things. First, if Georgetown had been able to force Ohio St. into the half-court, it could have been a completely different game.
Second, it shows that Ohio St. showed tremendous patience. Ohio St. shot only 14 threes. Even if we say that they attempted a three on 14 of 47 half-court shots instead of 14 of 57 total shots, that is still less than one quarter of their shots. This is significantly below their season average. I remember only one possession where I thought Ohio St. took a bad three.
Georgetown on the other hand did have some uncharacteristically impatient threes. Patrick Ewing had one, but I was more disappointed with Jesse Sapp. Sapp can hit a three pointer, but at 28.2% on the year, Georgetown did not want Sapp to attempt 7 three pointers. Sapp usually excels at driving to the basket, but Billy Packer credited Jamar Butler with tremendous defense in shutting down Sapp’s drives. I felt like Sapp got impatient because he was not involved in the offense, and you have to give Butler credit for shutting down what Sapp does best. (Freshman DaJuan Summers also had one of his worst shooting nights of the year, but his shots were all normal shots within the flow of the offense.)
Georgetown settled for these threes partly because of the deficit on the scoreboard, but mostly because of Ohio St.’s interior defense. This was despite a suprisingly poor defensive performance by Oden. When Hibbert was in the game, he spun around Oden, and when Hibbert was out, Oden did not step out to stop the Georgetown guards from cutting to the basket. Instead, I was impressed with Othello Hunter who blocked at least one dunk and altered another shot in the first half. Georgetown normally gets a lot of dunks and lay-ups, but Ohio St. really seemed to fluster them in the first half in large part because of Hunter.
Defense was clearly the key to the game. Although most experts predicted Ohio St. would use a zone defense at times, I was surprised because Georgetown has shredded the zone in the second half of the season. True, the zone defense does cut down backdoor cuts, but a good defensive team like Ohio St. can stop the backdoor play with fundamentally sound man-to-man defense. Because Georgetown has such good jump shooters from both 2 and 3 point range, I thought Ohio St. would not want to risk watching Jeff Green go off from 10 feet as he has done on many occasions. (I even wonder if Ohio St. mixed in some 2-1-2 instead of 2-3 because Green is so good at settling in the middle of the 2-3).
It turned out that Jeff Green was 4/5 from the floor. And Jonathon Wallace 7/12 hit a number of open shots against the zone as well. But, the Ohio St. players had active hands in the zone and forced a number of turnovers and in the end those turnovers were the difference in the game.
UCLA vs Florida
What was UCLA’s unique strategy for the game? How about playing tremendous defense from the opening minute. The first Florida basket from the field did not come until over 7 minutes into the game.
More importantly 8 minutes into the game, Florida had not attempted a two point shot. I decided not to do a statistical breakdown of the game, but I did mention a Pomeroy stat that also got some play in Sports Illustrated. UCLA opponents attempt fewer threes than almost any team in the nation. And yet here was Florida hoisting up a three on every shot.
But despite throwing every ounce of defensive energy at the Gators in the opening minutes, UCLA was not able to score on the offensive end and only built a 6-2 lead. By the time Florida went on a run, it wasn’t pretty. UCLA which had denied those threes all year could not stop the threes in transition, and suddenly Florida was up by double digits.
As I make this post, the game is getting away from the Bruins.
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