University of Kentucky Basketball Program – Where it was and where it is headed
Introduction:
In my opinion, to be successful in Basketball or for that matter in any sport, you have to win most of the games you play on a consistent basis. At UK this is what is expected by tradition, by fans and by national media. There is only one way to do this, and that is to score more points than all the opponents you play year after year. To give your self a chance to outscore your opponents on a consistent basis, you must win by a large margin on average. To make a point statistically, if your average scoring margin is between -4 points and +4 points for lets say 28 games in a season your record is 95% likely to be 14-14. Case in point is Rick Pitino’s first UK team had a scoring margin of 1.3 and that team had a 14-14 record. If your scoring margin is between -20 and -15 your record is 95% likely to be 4-24. Conversely if your scoring margin is between +15 and +20 your is 95% likely to be 24-4. Case in point is Rick Pitino’s 1996 team which averaged 22.1 scoring margin and that team’s record was 34-2. If a program like UK does not produce winning % of 85 or higher year after year that is, it does not produce 24-4 or better record at least the trend should show that the program is heading in that direction.
I am sure any one who knows basic numbers will agree to this. Now the question is how can this be done? Well, I can assure you that being excellent at one facet of the game will not produce the results. That is either defense or offense. Paul Westhead’s Loyola Marymont teams were the highest scoring teams in the country by emphasizing on offence scoring as many points as they can but the program was not successful in producing any championship teams. You can’t be excellent at rebounding and blocked shots alone or steals and turnovers alone and expect to win on consistent basis. To produce a large scoring margin you must do all things very well, so on a given day a team better than yours in rebounding and blocked shots doesn’t beat you because you got them beat on every other aspect of the game. As a result on that day you win, perhaps by not a big margin nevertheless you win. Again you don’t have to lead the nation in any of these categories but you are so good at everything you do that only a handful of other teams in the country (perhaps 3 to 5) are capable of beating you. Rick Pitino at UK knew this and he was a master at developing a system, an environment, the staff, the statewide fan base, the players and the publicity to achieve this. I will call it the program. Pitino’s program put fear in opponents. Most teams were scared to play the UK Basketball team because they knew that if UK brings their “A” game for 40 minutes they were going to be destroyed, obliterated and humiliated by 20+ points. He made that point very clear in his first year and that is, to win against UK you better run, rebound, play defense, steal, block, make shots or else. He made that point to all UK opponents, even if his first team couldn’t do all those things very well because of probation, having only eight scholarship players and having no high school All Americans. They took pride in playing for the University of Kentucky. That is why even with 14-14 record five of their jerseys hang from the Rupp Arena rafters.
So how does a team outscore an opponent on consistent basis by a large margin? Not just by leading the country in one statistical category like points scored per game or least points allowed per game. The key is the average difference in scoring categories between you and the opponents. You can make 5 more field goals than the opponents but if they made 6 more free throws and 5 more three pointers than you, they win most of the games. If you consistently aggregately make more 2 point FGs, 3 Point FGs and FTs than your opponents by a large margin you are going to win almost all the time. If your opponents make more free throws than you but your margin of FGs is so significantly higher than your opponents you will still win most of the games. Pitino’s UK teams averaged 4 more made three pointers, 1.6 more made two pointers and made 1.2 less free throws per game. That is 14 point differential on average for all the games under Pitino. You say this is not impressive and is hardly a model high scoring margin. This is where the Trends come in. Trends are important for evaluating a program to see where we were at the start and which direction it is headed. More on this later. Look at the chart below and observe the RP & TS averages and then look at the trend for RP from his 1st year to last year and the same thing for TS.
Pitino Era vs. Tubby Era:
Winning %:
|
UK vs. Opponents |
Avg RP |
Avg TS |
RP 1st Yr |
RP last Yr |
TS 1st Yr |
TS last Yr |
|
3 Pt Fg Made Difference |
4.0 |
-0.2 |
4.2 |
2.5 |
-0.8 |
1.1 |
|
2 Pt Fg Made Difference |
1.6 |
4.5 |
-4.0 |
7.1 |
7.7 |
1.1 |
|
FT Made Difference |
-1.2 |
1.4 |
-3.2 |
-1.3 |
0.1 |
-0.6 |
|
Scoring Margin |
13.9 |
9.9 |
1.3 |
20.3 |
13.1 |
4.7 |
|
Record (Winning %) |
81.4 |
77.2 |
50.0 |
87.5 |
89.7 |
62.9 |
Tubby’s supporters argue that his winning % (77.2%) is one of the best in the nation. They are right. However, observe the trend. Tubby took a Pitino 35-5 national finalist team with 4 NBA draftees (don’t forget Michael Bradley who left the next year), a full roster and 20.3 point per game average winning margin and produced a 35-4 National Champion in his first year. However the average winning Margin of his first team was only 13.1. The seeds were sewn. His style of play very often caused UK teams to fall behind in the first 10 minutes until Pitino trained mentality of his players (remember Padgett, Mills, Sheppard, Edwards, Mohammed etc?) made threes and clutch plays to save him time after time. Well that average winning margin in 2005/2006 season was 4.7 points per game that resulted in 62.9% of games won. This is the direction we are going in now. All that work by Pitino is now wasted. Pitino won only 81.4 % of his games at UK but he inherited a 13-19 team with no All Americans, 8 scholarship players and a two year probation. He took that team from first year scoring margin of 1.3 and 50% winning record and steadily improved to 20.3 points per game scoring margin, 87.5 winning % and a repeat National Championship contender.\
Look at the up trend in Green and higher average levels (yellow Line) for Pitino vs. Red Down trend and lower average (Yellow Line) for Tubby. Tubby did perform well 2002 thru 2005 with great passers like Hayes, Azabuke, Daniels and Fitch.
Please note that in all the following charts the Green Arrow means improving trend, Red arrow means worsening trend and the yellow lines represents the average not including the first year. I chose to discard this because both coaches had players that they did not recruit. I want to compare what kind of job is done with the players of your choice.
Scoring Margin:
As I mentioned earlier, Scoring Margin is the name of the game. The wider the margin on average the more games you are going to win.
Look at the trends and averages during Pitino and Tubby eras. Any questions?
Look at the bottom chart for avg. FG made margin.
Pitino took FG made margin per game from 0 to 9.6 and Tubby took it from 6.9 to 2.1. Majority of difference is in the 3 point FG made margin per game, as you can see in the next chart.
Although Pitino’s trend is down, primarily because other coaches started to shoot more threes and Pitino didn’t have to totally depend on it since he had the athletes to fast break and dunk in his later years. However on average his teams still made 4+ threes per game than the opponents vs. Tubby shows no difference (-.2) on average even if his trend is slightly up. This gives Pitino an average of 12 more points per game than Tubby’s teams. Keep in mind Pitino’s teams went from -4.0 two pt FG margin to 7.1 in his era where as Tubby’s teams went from 7.1 two point FG margin to 1.1. So Tubby’s average looks better but the trends tell a totally different story.
I will not present the Free Throw Margin per game chart since there is really not that much difference in the two eras. Tubby averages about 2.5 more free throw margin than Pitino. The trend is Pitino’s went from -3.2 to -1.4 and Tubby’s went from .1 to -.6 FT made margin per game.
In summary Pitino teams significantly improved in 2 point FG margins to offset the slight decline in 3 point FG margin (Net 17.1 points per game improvement) vs. Tubby’s teams declined (Net by -12.3 points per game) due to significant decline in 2 point FG margin and only a slight improvement in 3 point FG Margin. Including the effect of FT margin Pitino improved by 19 points per game and Tubby declined by -8.4 Points per game.
How it happened:
In order to have a chance to win most of the games you must have a very high scoring margin. As we saw the scoring margin is the name of the game. To achieve very high scoring margin the net aggregate of 3 point FG, two point FG and FT made margin per game must be very high. To achieve this you must do much better on average in almost all other categories of the game than the opponent on a consistent basis. That is your team’s margin over opponents on average must be higher in Rebounds, Steals, Blocked shots, Turnovers, Assists, Deflections (Don’t have any data), Fouls (not much of a factor, Pitino averaged approximately 1 foul per game more and the trend is about 1 Foul per game improvement for both) etc. These are what generate more possessions and opportunities to score more. So let us look at these statistics.
Rebounding Margin:
Although Tubby’s teams averaged higher rebounding margin per game than Pitino’s the trend tells a different story. Pitino improved this margin from -7.7 to +5.5 and Tubby’s era saw it decline from 8.2 to 2.9. Folks we are getting worse in rebounding which translates to possessions and scoring margin.
Blocked Shots Margin:
Same story here. I won’t verbalize the numbers. Pitino’s no name high school big men were developed to play defense (Dent, Mohammed, Maglore, Pope, McCarty, etc) Tubby’s All Americans (Stone, Parker, Morris) and no names (Alleyne, Woo.and the rest.) are all no names when it comes to post defense.
Turnover Margin:
Remember, Negative Turnover Margin is good. This is UK’s TOs per game less Opponents TOs per Game. I can’t explain why Pitino’s first four years the TO margin went down and then the next four years it went significantly up. Again, the story is the same. Pitino teams almost every year had better than -4.5 TO margin except one year. Tubby teams almost every year averaged between+1 and -2 except one year (Rondo….in ’04-’05 season). Pitino’s last team generated over 8 more possessions. Tubby’s first team generated less than 2 more TOs per game. Tubby’s defense is better? Not according to TOs and Blocked Shots Margins.
Steals Margin:
This partly reflects the Turnover margin. Almost identical conclusions can be made from this chart. Who are these people that say Tubby’s defense is better. The only reason they say is because Tubby’s opponents don’t score as many points as Pitino’s (65.3 vs. 73.2). How false is that? The winning margin is what counts. Tubby teams averaged +1 steals margin where as Pitino teams averaged almost +3.5 steals margin. The trend for Pitino is improving Steals margin. Tubby’s trend is arguably down or at best level.
Possessions Margin:
All defensive statistics translate to possessions. If you dominate in defensive categories you get more possessions and more opportunities to score than your opponents. If your system, players and coaches do what they are supposed to do you will increase your scoring margin. Pitino’s program created all these in UK’s favor and steadily improved over the years. His Full Court Press Run and Gun style produced more possessions and more opportunities for lay-ups, dunks and open jump shots that his players were not afraid to take. He recruited some great athletes and turned the average players in to great shooters, even the big men. Top high school players saw this on TV and wanted to come to UK. Tubby Ball is slow, deliberate, boring. His great high school players struggle to live up to expectations due to this style. No wonder now the top high school players do not want to come to UK. This style of play is also evident in Assists margin. In run & gun style of play you have more assists than in deliberate set up the half court offense style.
Assists Margin:
Look at the trends and difference in Average Assists Margin per game for Pitino era and Tubby era.
Recruiting, Quality of Players and Player Development:
After first two years of probation and establishing his system and style of play Pitino began to get the top high school players in the country year after (Rhodes, Mercer, Walker, Delk – all first team all Americans) and groomed them to be the “Go TO Guys”. He signed middle of the pack high school all Americans (Pricket, Sheppard, McCarty, Bradley, Anderson etc.) and turned them in to great support players. He signed unknown high school players (Dent, Mohammed, Maglore, Ford, Padgett, Pope etc.) and turned them in to great role players. He took walk-ons (Epps, Mills,,) and developed them in to excellent contributors. Eleven of Pitino recruits were drafted in NBA, Nine of them played for a very significant number of years. Four of his other players not drafted played less than a year in NBA. In his eight seasons only four of Pitino recruits left the program (not including early entry to NBA).
After his first year Tubby also signed quite a few top high school players (Prince, Bogans, Stone, Parker, Carruth, Morris, Rondo, Crawford) but you know what has happened to them except Prince and Bogans (each took all 4 years to develop in to NBA players). His middle of the pack high school players (Hawkins, Fitch, Azabuke, Hayes, Bradley) did perform well. Almost all his other recruits have struggled to compete. In the last three recruiting seasons UK has not signed any significant great high school players, obviously due to his style of play. This is very disturbing news for a program like UK Basketball where UK is expected to dominate most of the time. Without great players you can’t have a great program. Most of the top 50 players in the country had committed early. None of them have signed with UK. Tubby has only three players drafted in NBA. Four of his other players not drafted played less than a year in NBA. In his nine complete seasons thirteen of Tubby’s players left the program (not including early entry to NBA and two others left and came back).
This tells you that more players are unhappy with Tubby Ball.
Playing Style, Coaching, Crowd Enthusiasm and Opponents:
I won’t repeat myself on playing style. I have already mentioned the differences before. Tubby can not coach offense. His system won’t allow or the players some how can not Run and Gun. He can’t coach defense any better than many other coaches either, otherwise his teams would have better defensive category margins to dominate. We are not talking about just being better than the opponents. At UK we are talking about being significantly better than the opponents. This is expected to generate larger scoring margins and as a result better winning percentage as in UK tradition. This is why opponents are not scared of UK any more. They know they have a much better chance to win against Tubby’s teams because UK is not going to blow you out. Tubby has a tendency to save the timeouts. How many times you have seen UK fall behind by 10 points or more or lose a 10+ point lead in a few minutes and Tubby just sits there and watches until it is too late. He will not take a timeout. Pitino would first stop the bleeding before it is too late and take a time out. Tubby saves his for last second shot at the end of first half that usually ends up in rushed and missed shot at the buzzer any way. I have seen quite a few games where he saved time outs till the end of the game when it was too late where UK would be about 10 points behind with a minute to go.
Tubby’s players do not show pride in wearing a UK uniform. No matter what you say about Jokim Noah of Florida, I like the way he took pride in being a Gator last year when he showed his Gator Chop and the front of his jersey showing “Florida”. When was the last time you saw that from a Tubby player? You probably won’t see that.
Tubby Ball has quieted the Rupp. There is hardly any crowd involvement because UK is often behind or in a dog fight against mediocre teams at home and that boring deliberate half court play sucks. How often do you see a fast break and dunk in Tubby Ball? Hoe often do you see UK having difficult time penetrating thru the opposing defenses? How often do you see the opponents penetrate thru UK defense? How often did you hear Pitino say to keep the game in 70’s for UK to have chance at winning? Pitino teams had a killer instinct. If UK is ahead, they are trying to kill the opponent. Tubby’s teams rarely get a big lead. When they do often they lose it. No timely time outs are taken to change the momentum. Pitino teams had the crowd going from start to finish even if they were losing (occasionally). How many fast breaks and dunks do you remember seeing in Pitino Ball? If you want to see a like team of UK’s 1996 team see UNC this year. Any arguments?
Tubby’s players are afraid to make a mistake because they know he will jerk them out if they did. As a result they play tentative and confused. Pitino players were encouraged to take risks and encouraged to take an open three point shot. As a result they played aggressively and confidently even when they were behind. Tubby’s substitutions are random. There is no consistency in positions either. Pitino players knew there roles. Even if you were a top high school all American you perfectly happy to come in as a sub but you knew what position you were supposed to play and what you were supposed to do.
National Perception:
UK’s national perception now a days is that UK is just an average team and not what it used to be, a power house, dominant, always among nation’s elite. Now it is UNC, Duke, Kansas etc. and many other schools that were not even in a mix (Ohio State, UConn, Texas, Florida etc.). UK has a hard time being ranked now a day. By the way, UK is on track to lose 10+ games two years in a row and for the fifth time in last eight years. At this rate UNC will surely pass UK very soon as the winningest program in the Nation.
Ranking:
As seen in the chart above (Blue Line) Pitino teams were ranked in top 5 in the nation 56.3% of the times after the 1st year and the trend went from 0% to 78% with 2 years at 100%. Tubby’s teams were ranked in top 5 in the nation 14.6% of the times after the first year and the trend is rather flat at best with 4 years at 0%. Looking at the Cyan lines which is the % of times teams were not ranked in top 25 Pitino teams averaged 2.4% vs. Tubby teams 16.7%. The trends are self explanatory.
If you want to look at top 10 and top 25 rankings, here are the numbers.
Pitino Teams top 10 ranking % of weeks 82.5% vs. Tubby Teams 52.7%. Same trends.
Pitino Teams top 25 ranking % of weeks 97.6% vs. Tubby Teams 71.5%. Same trends.
UK is no longer the envy of the Basketball programs in the nation. Once proud, consistently highly rated and fun to watch program is now an average program at best the last two years and in the foreseeable future.
Season and Tournament Championships:
In all fairness to Tubby his SEC season performance is comparable to Pitino’s. Pitino teams finished the SEC season ranked 1st twice, 2nd 5 times and 4th his first year (1st two out of last three years). Tubby’s teams finished the SEC season 1st five times, 2nd twice, 3rd once and 6th last year. However it is ironic that Pitino had a higher SEC winning % even counting his 1st year than Tubby’s with counting his 1st year (79.2% vs. 77.1%) and not counting the 1st year Pitino SEC winning is 82.6 % vs. Tubby’s 75.8%. Weaker competition during Tubby era, may be?
The story is quite different when you look at the SEC tournament results. Pitino teams were not qualified to participate in his first two years but his teams won the tournament 5 of the 6 the rest of the way and only lost once in a final that 6th time. Tubby’s teams won the tournament only 5 out of the nine times, lost in the first game twice and lost in the final game the other two times.
In the NCAA tournament again Pitino teams were not qualified his first two years and did not participate. In his last 6 years 3 of teams made it to the final four, winning one championship, losing in semifinal and losing in finals (to AZ, if only he had played Derek Anderson he would have won that game) with 81.5% Winning % . In Tubby’s nine full seasons his teams won 73.3% of NCAA games (66.7% not counting the first year), his first team with Pitino players won the championship, three 2nd round losses, two 3rd round losses and three 4th round losses i.e. No other final fours. This is hardly UK basketball. Pitino made only one big mistake. He left UK. He would have built a dynasty
You don’t need charts to see these trends and averages.
Final Comments:
’06 – ’07 season does not look to be any better. In fact, looking at the team and the given style & coaching it is going to get worse in ’07 – ’08.
Any arguments against facts?
|
Tubby must go. We need a coach who plays the style that has potential to produce larger scoring margins and he must be able to recruit (with the style and the UK name and tradition it should be easier than any other place). Welcome Billy Donovan, may be John Calipari, or better yet Pitino reinvited? |