Butler Stats, Records, Roster and more

[GA reddiehog]

Don't worry about past records or how the teams match up, MA will find a way to lose this game if his stubborn ways continue.  I can't believe you people are talking about sweet 16 and round of 8 when they will not get by the first game.  Macon has been in a funk for a few games now, his return is the Hogs only chance.  I don't see the staff turning him around.

[Qadi999]

This is about MA style of basketball and the player's ability to make shots. MA plays the odds, shoot the ball 100+ times and hope that 40% of them go in. The only problem with this is the basket Gods are fickle and shooting and making a basket is never a certainty.  If the hogs are making their shots they can beat almost anyone they play, but too often this is not the case outside of Bud Walton. If the hogs do win 1 or 2 games they won't get much further cause their ability to make shots never last past 2 games on the road.

[NinoHogUNIA]

No. They aren't.

Their own fans said they struggle with athletic teams and against teams with a decent big. 

The guards are good but they are small.  We have to stop the combo forward.

[hawgdavis]

Thanks for this , where do you find the time though?

[WoodyHog]

I'm a big fan of Georgetown, so I have watched a lot of BE play this year. Generally, the teams are more skilled but less athletic than SEC teams. I think that is what you see borne out in the worse defensive numbers. There are no Gaffords in the BE.  If we really focus on our D and rebounding, I like our chances. This Butler team is not as good as the Seton Hall team we played last year.

[WorfHog]

Boring! Anyone in need of some sleep aids watch this. They turn the ball over a lot and take a lot of threes, but don't hit many.

[niels_boar]

 
Arkansas in red in the SEC out of 14 teams:

Offense

points per possession - 3rd (1.12)  2nd (1.11)
2FG% -   4th (54%) 6th (50%)
pos per 2FG - 1st (3.4)  3rd (3.46)
3FG% - 6th (36%)   1st (39%)
pos per 3FG - 4th (8.4)  8th (9.6)
EFG% - 4th  (54%)  2nd (53%)
ORB% -  8th (20%)  9th (25%)
FT% -  2nd (79%) 13th (67%)
pos per FTA - 7th (4.3)  6th (3.11)  lots more FTs in the SEC
pos per TO - 2nd (7.1) 5th(6.30)


Defense

points per possession - 6th (1.08)  13th (1.11)
2FG% -   3rd (51%) 6th (48%)
pos per 2FG - 3rd (3.80)  1st (4.3)
3FG% - 7th (37%)  12th (37%)
pos per 3FG - 4th (9.2)  14th (7.7)
EFG% - 7th  (53%)      11th (51%)
DRB% -  3rd (78%)      14th (70%)
pos per FTA - 9th (3.3)  14th (2.77)
pos per TO - 3rd (5.7)   8th (5.80)
pos per block - 7th (28)  8th (16.5)

The caveats are that big differences in the conferences may mean that the raw numbers don't have a one-to-one correspondence.  Also, it's quite clear that Arkansas was playing better defense down the stretch than the season numbers.  The models typically use season numbers, which won't capture that. 

[niels_boar]

Thanks for this , where do you find the time though?

I have a program that can crawl the web to get the raw numbers for all of college basketball, process them into a desired form, and spit out a csv file that I can use for learning algorithms.

[niels_boar]

I'm a big fan of Georgetown, so I have watched a lot of BE play this year. Generally, the teams are more skilled but less athletic than SEC teams. I think that is what you see borne out in the worse defensive numbers. There are no Gaffords in the BE.  If we really focus on our D and rebounding, I like our chances. This Butler team is not as good as the Seton Hall team we played last year.

Interesting.  Thanks.

[Dr. Starcs]

I have a program that can crawl the web to get the raw numbers for all of college basketball, process them into a desired form, and spit out a csv file that I can use for learning algorithms.

Thanks. +1

Looks like they are a great ft shooting team. Hopefully, we will be too.

[The Hogfather]

Their own fans said they struggle with athletic teams and against teams with a decent big. 

The guards are good but they are small.  We have to stop the combo forward.

I think we whip Purdue's arse if we get by Butler (which I think we will). 

[The Hogfather]

Their guards are pretty good, but its the Forward Martin that you have to watch out for. Saw them play Villanova twice and that guy was filling it up from nba range. We can't let him go off on us.

Hall needs to get a lot of PT.  Love his physical play, length, and dogged attitude against Martin.  I think Hall can shut him down.

[HogBreath]

Butler due to lose.  Hogs way past due for a Sw16 or E8.  I'm not going get into these nerd arguments about probabilities.  I like my more superstitious methods.

Exactly right.  Spot on.  Right on.

[BannerMountainMan]

CMA is 6-2 in 1st round games, and yes that's the Coach that's actually coaching and not some number of different coaches y'all put out

[popcornhog]

Nothing, and they don't match up well with us.

The reason no one will answer is it doesn't fit in with most of these people's doom and gloom outlook. They (most not all on here ) try to find evey reason and way we can lose to who ever fill in the blank opponent is and don't go any further to get all the facts. So the info you provided is irrelevant in their minds because we can't compete with the great and Powerful Butler.

Huh? I don't think everyone wants to find a way to say we'll lose.

Most of us are NOT doom and gloomers.

[systemroot]

Even if the Hogs get past Butler, the chances of us beating Purdue is highly unlikely. Purdue will eat us alive with their perimeter game.

[threeNout]

Records


Notable Results


Record breakdown with scores

Our body of work is fairly similar. A few good wins and a few blowouts. Butler's win vs. Villanova stands out, but that was back in December. Villanova beat them by 19 2 days ago and by 11 in February.

Roster and Player Stats


From his stats and watching some game film today, Kelan Martin is the real deal - size, rebounding, quickness, handles, shooting, and FT%. He'll get his. Their roster looks small-ish, especially on the perimeter aside from Martin. Not sure if that translates to quickness. Hopefully Gafford can control the paint.

Team Stats
Blue stats benefit us, red stats benefit Butler. I realize now that could be confusing given the team colors, but I was going for red = bad.

Offense


Pace is pretty close. They're a decent offensive team, but we're better, especially given our elite 3P%. They take good care of the ball which might neutralize our pressure defense unless they have little to no experience against similar defensive styles. They're a much better FT shooting team but rank near the bottom of the nation in FTAs.

Defense


Neither team is a defensive juggernaut, but the edge goes to Butler. However, their 3PT defense ranks near the bottom of the nation which bodes well for us. The block numbers reinforce my hope that we can control the paint and Barford/Macon can drive effectively.

Rebounding


No clear rebounding advantage here which is good.

Analysis
Stats never tell the whole story, but my first impression is this is a good matchup for us. When Barford, Macon, and Gafford can get shots off in the paint, it's usually a good night for us. Butler shouldn't limit us on the perimeter. Players like Martin can take over games, so our defense will need to be on its best behavior.

So they got 2 Seniors who get meaningful playing time versus 5 Seniors for us. I think I like that stat best of all.

Great job Breems  +1

[BannerMountainMan]

Even if the Hogs get past Butler, the chances of us beating Purdue is highly unlikely. Purdue will eat us alive with their perimeter game.

like UNC did

[RazorWest]

I am not talking about probabilities. I am talking about the idea of diminishing returns.

To quote an amazing movie " you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means"

[bvillepig]

Freakin hilarious.

LOL  I guess I better re phrase
How many quality players do they play off the bench ?

[hview]

I hope the HOGS aren't thinking about Purdue, Butler is going to be a tough out. 

[niels_boar]

The matchup models not surprisingly look like a tossup.  The result certainly looks to be within the noise of x-factor having a career game or star A having a clunker of a game.  For a more wonky explanation keep reading.

When I run the matchup models on how Arkansas has fared against its opponents, it spits out a win against a team with Butler's profile.  However, the opposite is true when I run the same procedure for Butler against its schedule and run the prediction on Arkansas.  Butler wins.   In other words, both teams have fared well against teams that look like the other.  Both margins are within the standard error.  The Arkansas model is statistically significant with a fairly high correlation between predicted margin and actual margin on the season, whereas I have been unable to find a Butler model that would be considered statistically significant.  So, there's that.

The Arkansas models generally underestimate Arkansas down the stretch. The Butler models overestimate Butler down the stretch, which would jibe with Arkansas surging and Butler sputtering into the NCAAT, but we know that can be meaningless in one off.

In case you were wondering whether my models are a load of crap (I was), on night one of the NCAAs they were in the ballpark.  In the UCLA-Bonnie game it basically spit out the Vegas line, UCLA by a trey.  St. Bonaventure won by 7, but it was a tie game with one minute left.  So, closely matched as predicted but gave the edge to the wrong team.  In the other game I had Radford by 7.  They won by 10.

BTW the models predicted that we should beat UF and that UT was a horrible matchup for us, though I believe factors that were not taken into account by the model heavily influenced both those results.  Vegas oddsmaker spreads have a standard error of about 10 points for college basketball relative to the actual results.  I have a feeling that random, unpredictable elements in the game won't allow results that are significantly better on average.