How Arkansas stacks up against the opponents of our opponents

[niels_boar]

I looked at every game that each of our opponents has played and ran the numbers.  I then looked at how their game with Arkansas stacked up relative to their other games in terms of their offensive and defensive points per possession.  The rankings are listed below with #1 meaning that their best offensive or defensive performance came against Arkansas.  Hence, the larger the number means the better we performed relative to their other opponents.


Team      Offense (our defense)
Samford     11 of 11
Bucknell     10 of 11
Fresno       10 of 12
OU             9 of 9
UNC           9 of 11
UConn       9 of 10
Houston     1 of 11
CSU           9 of 11
Minny       10 of 12
Troy          11 of 11

Other than the Houston outlier, our defense has consistently been one of the stingiest that each opponent has encountered.


Team      Defense (our offense)
Samford    8 of 11
Bucknell    11 of 11
Fresno      12 of 12
OU           7 of 9
UNC         4 of 11
UConn      10 of 10
Houston   5 of 11
CSU         11 of 11
Minny      12 of 12
Troy         9 of 12

The offense in the wins has been top notch and was subpar in both losses.  We had some of the same problems on O in both losses like poor ball movement and the ball sticking above the arc.  The staff apparently got the team's attention and course corrected.  Three of our four highest assist rates have occurred since the Houston game. Our lowest assist rates were against Houston and UNC.  In fact, the ball handling has been off the charts since Houston with plenty of assists and scarce TOs.  We have risen to sixth in the nation in least TOs per possession, and the teams above us are all plodders.  We push the pace while valuing the ball, which is an underappreciated strength of CMA teams.

[BossHog12]

Awesome stuff, really starting to see positive trends in the areas of the game that may make this team elite. Sharing the ball and handling it with care at such a high rate is what allows us to go for 90 and shoot 55%+ from the floor night in and night out.

On top of that our defense should give most any team fits on a nightly basis with our energy and length. Keep taking care of the things you can control like we have been, this team is a threat in any matchup.

[Razorod]

Niels, you always provide awesome stats/numbers. Keep them coming!

[Hogs49ers]

Team      Offense (our defense)
Samford     11 of 11
Bucknell     10 of 11
Fresno       10 of 12
OU             9 of 9
UNC           9 of 11
UConn       9 of 10
Houston     1 of 11
CSU           9 of 11
Minny       10 of 12
Troy          11 of 11

Good stuff!  I posted some similar stats after the first 6 games when people started a thread about how our press rarely works and how many wide open shots and easy lay ups we give in our defensive style....LMAO...  What is even more impressive about those above defensive stats is that I would imagine that most of those teams are getting more offensive possessions against our fast pace and we are still holding them to less points than 90% teams they play while getting more shots up!

I also started a thread talking about how the Houston loss was an anomaly, so thanks for adding these stats as it this makes it even more clear!

[niels_boar]

Good stuff!  I posted some similar stats after the first 6 games when people started a thread about how our press rarely works and how many wide open shots and easy lay ups we give in our defensive style....LMAO...  What is even more impressive about those above defensive stats is that I would imagine that most of those teams are getting more offensive possessions against our fast pace and we are still holding them to less points than 90% teams they play while getting more shots up!

I also started a thread talking about how the Houston loss was an anomaly, so thanks for adding these stats as it this makes it even more clear!

The rankings are based on points per possession for each game to normalize the offense/defense for the number of possessions.  As CNR used to point out, playing keep away is not necessarily playing good defense.

[Hogs49ers]

The rankings are based on points per possession for each game to normalize the offense/defense for the number of possessions.  As CNR used to point out, playing keep away is not necessarily playing good defense.

Thanks for letting me know, that makes the most sense.  Still very impressive and proof that we are playing great defense in our own style regardless of seeing teams put up big points against us.

[Biggus Piggus]

Houston game still puzzles me.

[riccoar]

Call me crazy, but our rebounding has to improve for league play.  ORU kid had 16 rebounds against us.

[pigture perfect]

Great stats Neils. Gives us good insight to where we are right now.

[010HogFan]

Call me crazy, but our rebounding has to improve for league play.  ORU kid had 16 rebounds against us.

Sometimes when you're big you're just good at that sort of thing, and that was a big kid. I wish we had him.

[Exit Pursued by a Boar]

The Houston game was also our only true road game.  I want to see them play well against a good team at their place before I completely buy in.

EFBAB

[FineAsSwine]

Sometimes when you're big you're just good at that sort of thing, and that was a big kid. I wish we had him.

We're going to see a lot of good bigs in the SEC like Tyler Davis and Robert Williams at A&M for example.

[311Hog]

The Houston game was also our only true road game.  I want to see them play well against a good team at their place before I completely buy in.

EFBAB

i have bought in, but yeah the one true road game is pretty bad performance.  Honestly the 2nd season starts when we get back from Christmas break it will be interesting to see how the team improves.

[niels_boar]

Call me crazy, but our rebounding has to improve for league play.  ORU kid had 16 rebounds against us.

It was our worst defensive rebounding game of the season. We went with full pressure and forced 26 TOs, also a season high.  It's probably not a coincidence that those categories went in opposite extreme directions.  We also lost some defensive energy in the second half with the game long decided, much to the displeasure of CMA.  CMA seems to tweak the emphasis on D to the opponent.  We tend to rebound better against the teams that frighten us on the boards like Minnesota.

Overall Arkansas has actually been one of the better defensive rebounding teams in the SEC this season.  Only USC and UGA have rebounded a notch better than we have, but we have played a much tougher schedule than either, especially with regards to the offense of our opponents.

We're the worst offensive rebounding team in the SEC, mainly by design.  CMA has always emphasized transition defense over crashing the boards.  However, I get the impression that we may get putbacks at a higher rate than the rebounding percentages would predict, though I don't have any numbers to confirm.  Bailey and Gafford know what to do with the ball when they get an Oreb.  Furthermore, when you combine offensive rebounding and TO differentials to get extra scoring chances, we are #26 in the nation in that category, which implies that we aren't giving up too much on the boards in order to get those TOs, as has been the case in some seasons.

[311Hog]

we also seem to shoot a real high % thus not as many O rebound opportunities.  It was so funny last night i do not know how many times but several Gafford just got the ball and went straight up for a standing dunk the kid is amazingly gifted.

[niels_boar]

we also seem to shoot a real high % thus not as many O rebound opportunities.  It was so funny last night i do not know how many times but several Gafford just got the ball and went straight up for a standing dunk the kid is amazingly gifted.

We do shoot high percentages - 55% on deuces and 41% on treys.  However, we still rebound the lowest percentage of our misses in the SEC.  It's just not an emphasis.  Bailey and Gafford are good individual offensive rebounders.  We're #1 in the SEC (#16 nationally) in overall offensive efficiency according to Pomeroy, which takes into account the quality of defenses played.