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

Year (Class)	%Min.	ORating	%Poss.	%Shots	eFG%	TS%	FTRate	OR%	DR%	St%	Bl%
2011 (FR)	73.2	105.8	25.0	29.3	49.0	52.2	24.9	7.2	12.8	1.4	1.4
2012 (SO)	65.0	114.2	26.0	29.2	53.7	57.1	38.1	7.9	9.7	2.0	1.4

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.

How Barnes Scores: A Comparison between 2011 and 2012
	2011		2012
Type of Shot	%FGA	FG%	%FGA	FG%
Close (lay-ups/dunks)	24.3	62.8	29.0	76.4
5-10 feet	10.5	34.6	15.3	37.9
10-20 feet	26.0	38.0	35.3	31.3
3-pointers	39.2	34.4	20.5	48.7
Dunks	4.2	90.5	10.5	100.0
Lay-ups	20.1	57.0	18.4	62.9
Close: off-dribble	8.9	56.8	12.6	75.0
Floaters	9.7	37.5	9.5	44.4
Mid-range: off-dribble	17.1	37.6	28.4	29.6
Mid-range: catch-and-shoot	2.4	58.3	3.7	42.9
Turnaround jumpers	4.4	31.8	7.4	21.4
2nd-chance/putbacks	9.5	57.4	7.9	53.3
Weak hand	3.4	70.6	2.6	60.0
“And 1s”	4.0	75.0*	6.3	66.7*
* This represents the percentage of (old-fashioned) 3-point plays converted.

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 →

Thing former athletes get over the mistakes they make on a big stage? Ask Dan Dakich.

In 1984, Dakich threw up in his hotel room when Bobby Knight told him he’d be guarding Michael Jordan in the Sweet 16. But he did a great job, and Indiana knocked off the defending national champions. As he says in the clip above, though, he hurt his team with a costly turnover two nights later in a 2-point elite 8 loss against Virginia.

I have a piece going up about the game later on Grantland, but I thought this was a rare and fascinating insight into the athlete’s mind. All those years later, it still stings. You can hear it in the details- “On my dad’s birthday.”

And it should come to no surprise that while Dakich still thinks about the worst game of his life, Jordan still thinks about Dakich’s best. The great and mediocre alike never forget.

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:

Player	Min	Pts-Pts All (Net)	Off Eff	Def Eff	Net Eff	Off OnC/OffC	Def OnC/OffC	Net OnC/OffC
Zeller	385.6	854-605 (+249)	120.6	86.4	+34.2	+9.5	+6.9	+16.4
Henson	410.5	896-657 (+239)	117.7	86.0	+31.7	+2.3	+9.3	+11.6
Marshall	452.0	1001-747 (+254)	119.9	89.9	+30.0	+11.0	-3.2	+7.8
Barnes	392.9	868-647 (+221)	117.4	87.7	+29.7	+1.1	+3.8	+4.9
Bullock	274.0	626-464 (+162)	119.6	89.1	+30.5	+4.8	-0.1	+4.7
TEAM	600.0	1321-1003 (+318)	117.0	89.0	+28.0	*	*	*
Hairston	194.0	444-344 (+100)	122.3	94.9	+27.4	+7.8	-8.7	-0.9
McAdoo	213.9	474-366 (+108)	117.3	90.4	+26.9	+0.5	-2.1	-1.6
Strickland	380.1	793-616 (+177)	113.5	88.3	+25.2	-9.4	+2.0	-7.4
Watts	90.4	207-166 (+41)	115.6	96.8	+18.8	-1.6	-9.2	-10.8

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.

Continue reading →

(First – Grantland piece up today about Virginia basketball. Are they the new Third Team in the ACC?)

I don’t know about you dudes and dudettes, but I’m finding it harder and harder to take pleasure in late December/early January basketball as I get older. Which is totally selfish and unfair, because the college basketball season is at least 75 percent awesome, as the following mathematical ‘chart’ illustrates:

25% – November, early December – Awesome, and Fun

25% – Mid-December to early January – Horrible

25% – Conference play – Awesome, and Tense

25% – Postseason play – Beyond Awesome, and Terrifying

And this little rough patch is more like 10% than 25%, so I shouldn’t moan. But I can’t help but envy the Big Ten, which has had awesome conference games for a week now. Meanwhile, Duke’s playing Greensboro, and Penn, and Western Michigan, and Temple, and every game is like a week apart. UNC is on a similar path. I know that’ll change when Cuse and Pitt come aboard, but I can’t wait. Sorry, but it’s too much to ask of entitled fans. We deserve more.

But tonight, it ends. This is the last game against a crap opponent where we’ll have to watch Miles Plumlee and Tyler Thornton get praised to high heavens by an announcer who is seemingly unaware that they’re both about to become irrelevant. Because after this…

ACC!

Here’s the schedule for the weekend.

Saturday:

No. 3 Duke at Georgia Tech
Boston College at No. 4 UNC (NEVER FORGET LAST YEAR!)
Miami at No. 4 Virginia (Weirdly, I’m pretty psyched about this game.)
Virginia Tech at Wake Forest (snooze.)
Florida State at Clemson (also a very intriguing game.)

Sunday:

Maryland at N.C. State (again, weirdly excited to see what happens here.)

It’s all gravy from here. This is the best, best, best time of year. And I know I can make it there. I spent most of my childhood suffering through church, so there’s no reason I can’t spend one night suffering through Temple.

While both Duke and UNC fans may think of themselves as “the Chosen People,” traditionally, that designation has been granted to the Jewish people. With a few notable exceptions, these people have not been well represented in professional or collegiate sports, leaving adolescent young Jews without many athletic role models. This time of year can be especially lonely for those of us who won’t be spending the next two weeks wearing snowflake sweaters, hugging family members by the fireplace and bravely defending the war against Christmas. But don’t fear, sports fans. Did you know that there are a select few sons of David who played at Duke and UNC? (Probably, right?) Just as Adam Sandler offered his list of famous Jews to brighten the spirits of lonely twelve-year-olds, I present my list here for your Hanukkah enjoyment: One Tobacco Road Jew for every candle of the menorah!

Jon Scheyer – G – Duke
Jon Scheyer is perhaps the most obvious candidate for the list, as his basketball and Jewish credentials are impressive and somewhat intertwined. In High School, he led an all Jewish starting five to a state championship, earning him his first induction into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. He earned his second induction after leading Duke to a National Championship in 2010. Today, he plays in Israel for Maccabi Tel Aviv, where his Judaism conveniently saves him from counting against the team’s cap on foreign players.

The great Bethlehem Shoals once asked what it would mean for a player to play Jewish (the way that, say, Rudy Fernandez or Jose Calderon play Spanish), and struggled to find a good example in the NBA. I posit that Scheyer’s steady scoring (2,077 career points, good for tenth all-time at Duke), his spastic facial expressions and his, um, carefulness, with handling the ball (~3 A/TO in 2010) make him the best example I can think of.

For what it’s worth, I once saw Scheyer come half an hour late to Yom Kippur services, only to leave like five minutes later, so take from that what you will.

Continue reading →