Author Archives: Adrian

I’ve been charting every Carolina defensive possession since the 2004-05 season. This concept, aided by Luke Winn’s terrific Sports Illustrated piece, is finally getting some national attention. It’s a great way to measure individual defensive contributions and to see who’s making consistently timely and effective help-side rotations (the backbone of Roy Williams’s- and virtually any– defensive system). Click on the Winn link to read a little more about the charting process. (And here’s a piece by David Hess with even more on defensive charting.)

Some definitions:

FG-FGA: the made field goals and field goal attempts that a player is responsible for (both as a primary and help defender)– same for 3Pt-A and FT-FTA
Pts All.: the number of opponents’ points that a defender is responsible for allowing
TOF: forced turnovers (including offensive fouls drawn (OFD))
Defl.: deflections
DR (ORA): defensive rebounds and offensive rebounds allowed
Denies: when a player can deny an opponent or force an offensive reset by making a strong individual defensive play (of the type that doesn’t force a turnover or missed shot– i.e., wouldn’t otherwise show up in the defensive box score)

Boston College Shooting by Level of Contestedness:

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Note: all numbers in this piece do not include the Boston College game– only the Heels’ 15 non-conference contests.

With the non-conference slate now in the rear-view mirror (OK, OK, enough with the Pearl Jam references already) and ACC season nearly upon us, let’s take a few minutes to analyze how Carolina’s returning players have evolved as scorers.

Harrison Barnes

The numbers is the above table are pulled from Ken Pomeroy’s terrific site (well worth the $20 annual subscription). For those unfamiliar with the metrics that he employs, here’s a primer. As one might expect, Barnes’s offensive efficiency (representing by his ORating) has dramatically improved so far as a sophomore. While on the floor, he’s using nearly an identical percentage of the team’s possessions/shots as last season– he’s just doing so in a more efficient manner. One reason is the spike in FTRate. Barnes is now earning 38 trips to the stripe for every 100 field goals he attempts– up significantly from last year’s 25. To examine some other reasons for Barnes’s improved scoring efficiency, let’s take a look at some charting data that I collected. %FGA can be interpreted as the percentage of a player’s total field goal attempts that fall within a given category of shot (e.g., 29.0% of Barnes’s attempts this season have been close shots). FG% is just a standard shooting percentage.

It’s no surprise that Barnes’s rate of 3-point attempts has dropped dramatically as a sophomore (from 39.2% of all attempts as a FR to 20.5% this year). So where are those extra attempts being taken? Continue reading →

With the non-conference portion of the schedule behind us, it seems like an appropriate time for a cumulative +/- report (sorry for my gross negligence in keeping up with the game-by-game reports on here).

Let’s start with an individual player breakdown:

As a reminder:

Off Eff: the points scored per 100 possessions with a given player on the court
Def Eff: the points allowed per 100 possessions with a given player on the court
Net Eff: Off Eff – Def Eff
Off OnC/OffC: offensive on-court/off-court rating– how many points better (+) or worse (-) per 100 possessions the team is offensively with a given player on the court (as compared to the minutes with him on the bench)
Def OnC/OffC: defensive on-court/off-court rating– how many points better (+) or worse (-) per 100 possessions the team is defensively with a given player on the court
Net OnC/OffC: net on-court/off-court rating– Off OnC/OffC + Def OnC/OffC

So, from an on-court/off-court perspective, Marshall has been UNC’s most valuable (read: irreplaceable) offensive player, Henson its most valuable defensive player, and Zeller its most valuable overall player (followed by Henson and Marshall). Barnes and Bullock round out the top 5 for net on-court/off-court. With Strickland on the floor, UNC has been slightly better on the defensive end, but much worse offensively. With Hairston on the court, the Heels have been much better on the offensive end, but significantly poorer while defending. Say what you will about +/- (I’ll say it: it’s noisy as hell), but, to me, that looks like a pretty accurate reflection of reality after 15 games.

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