Fifth year players' baseline games

Fifth year players' baseline games
by Kayo (2022-11-25 19:46:27)

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Managing quality is all about variance. A production system that is under control varies randomly, and the variance must stay within the control limits. In the Six Sigma world, the variance cannot fall outside of the control limits more than an average of 3.4 times per one million opportunities.

Six Sigma is more than many companies can handle when they start into a quality initiative. They must start with measuring variance, understanding the root causes behind it, and systematically addressing their greatest outlier observations. Eliminate a situation that creates a bad observation and the variance shrinks while the mean moves in a good direction.

I have a great example of the simpler model that I use in class, a comparison of Matt Farrell's and Bonzie Colson's game by game scoring when they were seniors up until Bonzie got hurt.

At the time, Colson averaged 17.8 points per game while Farrell averaged 17.6. From a scoring standpoint, they were the same guy, weren't they? No. Not even close. Not when plotted on a run control chart.

Farrell was all over the place from one game to the next. He would go off for 35 points and follow it up with 5 points while shooting 2-15 from the field. When he had a great game, the Irish won; and when he had a poor game, the Irish lost.

Colson would go off, too. He would have his 24 or 25 point games, but he virtually never scored fewer than 14 or 15 points. His baseline game was very good.

This year's fifth year guys are like Farrell. Any of them can go off for a big scoring game with a great shooting percentage, but clunker games are not unusual enough to know what their game-in game-out production will be. Those clunker games usually mean losses.

The one exception is Ryan, not because he doesn't have poor shooting and scoring games but because he is a good defender. His baseline game is excellent defense on the opponent's best player and 7 or 8 points. The others are fairly worthless when their offense is off because they don't defend well.

Fifth year players should have solid baselines. ND's don't.

Ryan’s scoring was much better

At the end of last season and in the tournament specifically. Letting him
off the hook for 8 points average because he plays decent defense is selling
him short. He needs to be better like the rest of them.

My point is that he contributes even when he isn't scoring

I can't say that about the others.

That was Excellent *

Id be curious as to your answer to these questions:

Do you see a way that by March we can become a team that could be a realistic threat to make the Sweet 16?

If yes what would the minutes played per game breakdown be for that version of our team?

Sure this team could make the round of 16

When everyone is hitting shots, the Irish are pretty good despite their defensive limitations. All it takes is two of those games in a row. That's going to happen several times this season.

The minutes should look like last season's. Six guys averaged between 27.6 and 33.6 minutes with Wertz adding another 18.8. I'd like to see the seventh guy with more minutes than Wertz had last season especially if it's Lubin because they will need him on the boards. He had 13 in 24 minutes vs. Bonaventure.

I don't know if Campbell will be able to find a lesser rotation spot. I'd love to see it even if only for 6 or 7 minutes. The Irish could have used him today, but he wasn't in uniform.

I hope so though I fear that unlike last year our defensive

limitations will prove to be an insurmountable flaw in too many games. I’d expect improvement with the addition of Hammond and the development of the freshman but tonight a poor shooting night meant we couldn’t compete with a mediocre team on a neutral court. That doesn’t give us margin for error against good teams even when we’re hitting shots.

This was a 100-125 ranked team based on RPI and KenPom

Not a terrible team but not one I would describe as mediocre either.

Winning tonight would have given this team some better margin against the next part of the schedule. Now, ND really needs to win at the very least against all the teams that are currently in the 100-150 range (Georgia, Florida State, Jacksonville) and must win against Boston University. I suppose 1 loss to the 100-150 range might not be a killer, but...

I think it's going to be a frustrating season. I just don't see our problem guarding fast guards or agile forwards improving enough from here on out to make a difference.

If our expectation is to be one of the 40 or so teams to get

an at large birth then to me a neutral court opponent in the 100-125 range would rank as mediocre. Our non conference resume needs to be more than avoiding bad losses.

Mediocre - semi-competitive - doesn't really matter

The main point is that we can weather this loss with the upcoming schedule. However, I haven't seen anything from this team to think we can actually make it through the next 9 games with some good wins and avoiding bad losses.

Hopefully Brey figures out how to pull a rabbit out of a hat again.