Fifth year players' baseline games

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.