Scrapping The Princeton Offense

[AE 87]

Fwiw, I now suspect the Ball State game resulted from being the first game in the new O primarily.

I think the logic of Princeton this year was that we missed in recruiting and believed its elements were teachable/coachable. Hence, CJP talked about 40% 3pt shooting because of the new machine.

 

[Peacone36]

I didn’t read this entire thread, but to answer the OP (@ESPNjacket), I apologize if it’s redundant, but, it’s comfort, correct? The first season was a kick *** love fest in which we overachieved. The center initiated the offense and no other team in the league did that. The problem is/was, Ben Lammers was a hell of a passer and mid range threat and now we are pounding Banks’ square peg into that round hole instead of creating an offense to our strengths. We don’t do it much any more, but we tried it for too long. We still also run Moses on the perimeter way too much. Pastner has a philosophy, he just can’t recruit the personnel to this school. He just doesn’t have those versatile wing/forwards he had at Memphis. He’s outside his comfort zone

 

[iceeater1969]

This is one of the best threads I have ever seen on gtswarm. It has so much information w each post which are presented w/o snark or hyperbole.

Until end of jan 20, I had only followed gt by watching games. Thank to each and all of you for educating me on the history.

My one observation / question is what taller player do we have that can shoot 3. At end of games the short guards are covered like a blanket

 

[slugboy]

This is one of the best threads I have ever seen on gtswarm. It has so much information w each post which are presented w/o snark or hyperbole.

Until end of jan 20, I had only followed gt by watching games. Thank to each and all of you for educating me on the history.

My one observation / question is what taller player do we have that can shoot 3. At end of games the short guards are covered like a blanket

Before I take the bait and answer the question—and I’m totally taking the bait—Trae Young isn’t tall, and people still worry about him at the end of games and taking a 3. It’s not hard to think of plenty of shorter players in the NBA and NCAA who are fearsome second half players.

Here’s our roster sorted by height.

Player               # Class Pos Height Weight         Hometown         High School       RSCI Top 100                  Summary
Bubba Parham        11    JR   G   5-10    160    Snellville GA                  Brookwood High School  5.5 Pts 2.6 Reb 1.8 Ast
Malachi Rice        55    JR   G    6-0    186  Indianapolis IN      Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School  0.0 Pts 0.0 Reb 0.0 Ast
Jose Alvarado       10    JR   G    6-0    179      Brooklyn NY   Christ The King Regional High School 13.7 Pts 3.3 Reb 4.3 Ast
Coleman Boyd        13    FR   G    6-1    173        Smyrna GA           Mt. Bethel Christian Academy  1.3 Pts 0.5 Reb 0.8 Ast
Niko Broadway       34    FR   G    6-3    195       Atlanta GA                          St. Pius X HS  0.7 Pts 1.3 Reb 0.3 Ast
Shembari Phillips    2    SR   G    6-4    210       Atlanta GA                             Wheeler HS  1.5 Pts 0.5 Reb 0.8 Ast
Shaheed Medlock     45    SR   G    6-5    196      Waycross GA                Ware County High School  0.0 Pts 0.0 Reb 0.0 Ast
Asanti Price        23    FR   G    6-5    177      Columbia SC                         W.J. Keenan HS  2.7 Pts 2.0 Reb 0.7 Ast
Michael Devoe        0    SO   G    6-5    193       Orlando FL   Montverde Academy          49 (2018) 16.1 Pts 3.8 Reb 3.4 Ast
Jehloni James       24    FR   F    6-6    180    Sugar Hill GA                              Lanier HS  2.0 Pts 0.0 Reb 0.0 Ast
Khalid Moore        12    SO   F    6-7    203     Briarwood NY                   Archbishop Molloy HS  3.3 Pts 2.4 Reb 1.2 Ast
Jordan Usher         4    JR   G    6-7    225        Canton GA                   Sequoyah High School  8.3 Pts 4.1 Reb 2.2 Ast
Kristian Sjolund    35    SO   F    6-8    213 Kongsberg Norway                                             Obra D. Tompkins HS
David Didenko       14    SO   F    6-9    232    Boca Raton FL                        Boca Raton (FL)  0.5 Pts 1.0 Reb 0.0 Ast
Moses Wright         5    JR   F    6-9    230       Raleigh NC                      Enloe High School 13.7 Pts 7.3 Reb 0.9 Ast
Evan Cole            3    JR   F   6-10    226       Cumming GA              South Forsyth High School  4.5 Pts 3.6 Reb 0.3 Ast
James Banks III      1    SR   F   6-10    250       Decatur GA                        La Lumiere (IN)  9.8 Pts 7.2 Reb 1.0 Ast

Provided by CBB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 2/23/2020.

For giggles, I’ll say anyone 6’5” and above is tall enough for “tall guy” three point purposes. That gives you Price, Devoe, Khalid Moore, Sjolund (redshirted this season), Wright, Cole, Banks, and a couple of players who aren’t really seeing much playing time right now.

Here’s a table, sorted by 3 pt%:

Rk              Player  G GS  MP   FG  FGA   FG%   2P  2PA   2P%  3P  3PA  3P%  FT FTA  FT%   PF  PTS
1        Michael Devoe 24 24 843  6.4 13.5  .470  4.2  8.4  .503 2.1  5.1 .417 3.5 4.7 .747  2.8 18.4
2        Jose Alvarado 20 20 668  5.6 12.8  .435  3.5  6.6  .532 2.0  6.2 .330 3.2 4.0 .806  3.3 16.4
3         Bubba Parham 27  6 736  2.8  7.6  .364  1.4  3.3  .433 1.4  4.3 .313 1.1 1.4 .840  4.2  8.0
4         Khalid Moore 25 12 458  2.4  7.2  .329  1.7  5.0  .351 0.6  2.2 .280 1.8 3.8 .488  3.6  7.2
5         Coleman Boyd  4  0   8 10.0 25.0  .400  5.0  5.0 1.000 5.0 20.0 .250 0.0      0.0  5.0 25.0
6         Moses Wright 27 27 826  7.6 13.8  .551  7.3 12.4  .584 0.3  1.4 .250 2.3 4.0 .585  4.2 17.9
7    Shembari Phillips 13  0  71  3.4 13.5  .250  1.1  4.5  .250 2.3  9.0 .250 1.7 3.4 .500  1.7 10.7
8            Evan Cole 23  2 292  5.8 12.2  .472  5.2  9.7  .535 0.5  2.5 .222 2.2 4.4 .500  4.5 14.2
9         Jordan Usher 19 19 505  4.6 11.2  .408  4.0  8.4  .481 0.6  2.9 .194 2.8 3.6 .778  4.1 12.5
10       David Didenko  6  0  25  1.6 12.8  .125  0.0  1.6  .000 1.6 11.2 .143 0.0      0.0  0.0  4.8
11        Asanti Price 15  0 218  2.9  9.9  .296  2.2  4.2  .522 0.7  5.7 .129 0.7 1.7 .444  1.7  7.3
12     James Banks III 27 25 791  4.9  9.3  .530  4.9  9.2  .533 0.0  0.1 .000 3.5 5.6 .631  5.0 13.4
13       Jehloni James  1  0   1 40.0 40.0 1.000 40.0 40.0 1.000 0.0       0.0 0.0      0.0  0.0 80.0
14       Niko Broadway  3  0   4 10.0 30.0  .333 10.0 30.0  .333 0.0       0.0 0.0      0.0 20.0 20.0
15     Shaheed Medlock  3  0   3  0.0        0.0  0.0        0.0 0.0       0.0 0.0      0.0 26.7  0.0
16        Malachi Rice  1  0   1  0.0        0.0  0.0        0.0 0.0       0.0 0.0      0.0  0.0  0.0

Provided by CBB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 2/23/2020.

For people 6’5” and above shooting better than 25% from 3, you have
1. Michael Devoe (42%)
2. Khalid Moore (28%)
3. Moses Wright (25%)

Devoe and Alvarado are the most realistic outside shooting threats on the team, with Parham just slightly behind. Devoe is the one with height.

If I were a coach, I wouldn’t scheme towards Wright and Moore taking a lot of 3 point shots with < 30% average. Even Alvarado and Parham’s 3 pt % is too low for my liking, if I’m counting on 3 pointers as an offensive threat.

If you look at the scoring, the 2-point game is where we get most of our production.

I also sorted our conference stats by win shares. Since it’s conference play, it’s after dropping the Princeton offense (or should be?). Banks shows up as one of our key players—one problem is that he’s been fouling out or at least in foul trouble lately:

Rk              Player  G GS  MP   PER  TS% eFG%  3PAr  FTr PProd  ORB%  DRB% TRB% AST% STL% BLK% TOV%  USG%  OWS DWS  WS WS/40
1        Jose Alvarado 15 15 532  19.9 .582 .546  .483 .328   233   1.6  10.3  6.1 27.1  3.2  0.2 17.6  23.0  1.3 0.5 1.8  .138
2      James Banks III 16 16 490  19.1 .584 .565  .000 .417   160  11.2  16.0 13.7  6.4  1.4  6.7 13.8  16.3  1.0 0.6 1.6  .133
3        Michael Devoe 14 14 492  15.9 .597 .556  .424 .368   196   1.5   9.7  5.8 22.0  1.8  0.0 21.7  22.0  0.9 0.3 1.2  .098
4         Moses Wright 16 16 512  17.5 .545 .540  .086 .310   209   8.0  18.4 13.5  6.5  1.5  4.1 18.0  25.6  0.5 0.6 1.1  .086
5         Bubba Parham 16  1 419   6.4 .475 .432  .658 .233    85   1.8   9.8  6.0 13.8  1.6  0.0 21.3  12.3  0.1 0.3 0.4  .040
6            Evan Cole 13  0 153  14.5 .484 .479  .170 .532    57  13.0  17.8 15.5  5.2  1.1  2.1 14.5  22.5  0.1 0.1 0.3  .075
7         Jordan Usher 14 14 381   8.9 .473 .430  .260 .320   112   2.6  14.6  8.9 15.1  1.4  0.8 21.2  19.2  0.0 0.3 0.3  .035
8         Khalid Moore 14  4 154   8.6 .433 .367  .200 .567    38   4.8   6.6  5.8 12.3  3.0  1.4 17.4  15.0  0.0 0.1 0.2  .049
9        David Didenko  2  0   4                        8.2     0   0.0  56.9 29.7  0.0  0.0       0.0   0.0  0.0 0.0 0.0  .085
10   Shembari Phillips  4  0  19  13.0 .432 .500  .833 .333     6   0.0   6.0  3.1 19.6  3.0  5.5 12.6  20.9  0.0 0.0 0.0  .043
11        Asanti Price  7  0  67   2.5 .470 .467  .600 .133    14   1.9   8.5  5.3  8.1  0.0  0.0 27.3  16.4 -0.1 0.0 0.0 -.029
12       Niko Broadway  1  0   1 -18.3 .000 .000  .000 .000     1 100.0   0.0 59.4  0.0  0.0  0.0  0.0  50.0  0.0 0.0 0.0 -.297
13        Coleman Boyd  1  0   1 -48.6 .000 .000 1.000 .000     0   0.0 100.0 59.4  0.0  0.0  0.0  0.0  50.0  0.0 0.0 0.0 -.479

Provided by CBB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 2/23/2020.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Silk3]

Our 2nd best 3pt shooter is 33% lmao

Thats terrible

 

[ESPNjacket]

Our 2nd best 3pt shooter is 33% lmao

Thats terrible

Devoe shoots the most 3s and is shooting 41.7%. He is in the top 100 of the country.

 

[Silk3]

Devoe shoots the most 3s and is shooting 41.7%. He is in the top 100 of the country.

Ya im not talking about Devoe though. You need more than 1 person shooting an average 3 pt %. 33% is like Josh Smith level.

 

[augustabuzz]

Our 2nd best 3pt shooter is 33% lmao

Thats terrible

That's equal to 50% from 2.

 

[YlJacket]

DeVoe shoots an ungodly percentage from the field. As a guard he is 4th in shooting percentage in the league at 47% behind 3 bigs (including Moses).

The issue for us is we are last in the ACC in 3 point shots made per game. While he shoots a high percentage, DeVoe is 15th in the ACC in 3 point shots made per game.

As an aside we have the number 2 and number 4 players in terms of FG % but can't score consistently as we lead the ACC in TOs - by 1.5 per game. Don't have Ken Pom but I expect it is even worse when you look at an effective TO rate.

 

[lv20gt]

We're are 6th in the ACC in 3point% in conference play as a team. We do take the fewest 3s per game by a good amount though.

But it kind of makes sense. Our 4, Moses, is little threat from the 3 but he also doesn't need to be to score. He consistently gives us +13 without that threat. Meanwhile Jose shoots well enough to keep teams honest and has been great penetrating for us this year. Devoe is a great shooter, but he is also very capable of driving. Most of our offense is predicated around getting the ball inside and we do a pretty good job of it when not turning the ball over. When it comes to 3 point shooting our main problem is Bubba isn't shooting as well or as often as we (I?) expected or that we need. If he were shooting about 7% better and getting 1-1.5 more 3 pt attempts per game we'd be in a really good place, probably in the conversation for second hardest offense to defend in the ACC behind Duke. Hell if we cut our TOs from 15.5 to 12.5 per game we'd probably be in that spot.

We improved by 10 ppg on offense this year in conference play and IMO a big part of that is we are way more consistent on that end, partially due to a lack of reliance on the 3.

 

[tsrich]

DeVoe shoots an ungodly percentage from the field. As a guard he is 4th in shooting percentage in the league at 47% behind 3 bigs (including Moses).

The issue for us is we are last in the ACC in 3 point shots made per game. While he shoots a high percentage, DeVoe is 15th in the ACC in 3 point shots made per game.

As an aside we have the number 2 and number 4 players in terms of FG % but can't score consistently as we lead the ACC in TOs - by 1.5 per game. Don't have Ken Pom but I expect it is even worse when you look at an effective TO rate.

We are seldom able to create open shots for Devoe or Alvarado., for a multitude of reasons

 

[slugboy]

By my eye test, people aren’t scared of us taking a lot of threes or defending that. I don’t think of us as a three point threat, and offhand I don’t think of us as one of the conferences’ outside shooting teams, but it’s not hard to look at the stats.

I also saw a post putting us at #6 in 3 pt %, but that’s not what I saw looking up the stats. (ETA: it was 3 pt % in *conference play*, and I don’t have that stat handy)

Before looking at the 3 pt stats, I’ll look overall:

                    Over Over Over Over Conf Conf Home Home Away  Away  Rati  Rati  Rati
Rk           School    G    W    L   W%    W    L    W    L    W     L  ORtg  DRtg  NRtg
1              Duke   27   23    4 .852   13    3   13    2    7     2 111.8  90.1 +21.7
2        Louisville   28   23    5 .821   14    3   16    1    6     3 110.8  93.8 +17.0
3     Florida State   27   23    4 .852   13    3   14    0    6     4 107.3  93.3 +14.0
4        Notre Dame   27   17   10 .630    8    8   14    3    3     6 107.6  99.1  +8.6
5          Virginia   26   19    7 .731   11    5   12    3    5     4  94.3  86.1  +8.2
6          NC State   27   17   10 .630    8    8   12    4    5     5 105.0  97.5  +7.5
7          Syracuse   27   15   12 .556    8    8   11    6    4     4 107.5 101.3  +6.2
8     Virginia Tech   27   15   12 .556    6   10   11    5    3     5 103.3  97.7  +5.6
9           Clemson   26   14   12 .538    8    8   10    5    3     6  99.6  94.4  +5.3
10     Georgia Tech   27   13   14 .481    7    9    7    6    5     7  96.3  94.6  +1.7
11             Pitt   28   15   13 .536    6   11   11    6    2     7  99.7  97.9  +1.7
12              UNC   27   10   17 .370    3   13    5    8    2     8  98.6 100.2  -1.6
13      Wake Forest   26   11   15 .423    4   12    7    5    1     9 100.4 102.0  -1.6
14       Miami (FL)   27   14   13 .519    6   11    8    4    4     7 102.7 105.5  -2.8
15   Boston College   28   13   15 .464    7   10    8    8    4     7  92.9 100.1  -7.1

Provided by CBB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 2/24/2020.

Overall, in net rating (points for vs against), we’re tied with Pitt for 10th/11th. On defensive rating, we’re 10th, and on offense we’re 13th. A few years ago, we weren’t scoring, but we played tough defense. We’re scoring a little more, but our defense isn’t as tough as it used to be.

For 3pt goals scored, we’re at the very bottom:

                     Over  Per  Per  Per Per  Per  Per  Per  Per  Per  Per   Per  Adva Adva Adva
Rk           School    W%   FG  FGA  FG%  3P  3PA  3P% eFG%  TOV   PF  PTS   PTS   SRS  SOS Pace
1     Virginia Tech  .556 25.3 59.6 .425 9.8 27.6 .354 .507  9.7 14.8 70.6  66.8  8.74 4.92 66.5
2        Notre Dame  .630 26.8 62.8 .426 9.9 28.4 .347 .505  9.7 12.4 75.0  69.1 11.19 5.22 69.1
3          Syracuse  .556 25.1 57.8 .435 8.4 24.8 .337 .507 11.6 16.6 74.0  69.7 11.67 7.41 68.5
4              Pitt  .536 22.9 56.3 .406 5.3 18.0 .292 .453 11.8 15.1 65.5  64.4  7.72 6.58 65.4
5          NC State  .630 27.4 61.4 .446 7.1 21.9 .324 .504 11.9 18.0 74.3  69.0 11.82 6.53 70.4
6        Miami (FL)  .519 26.3 59.9 .438 7.0 21.5 .327 .497 12.0 14.4 73.1  75.1  6.38 8.38 69.6
7        Louisville  .821 26.4 57.9 .457 8.4 21.9 .383 .529 12.1 17.0 75.3  63.7 18.58 7.01 67.3
8          Virginia  .731 21.0 50.8 .414 5.8 19.2 .304 .472 12.3 13.5 57.7  52.7 11.50 6.50 60.3
9           Clemson  .538 23.9 55.3 .432 8.5 25.9 .328 .508 12.5 15.3 67.1  63.5 11.05 7.51 66.4
10              UNC  .370 25.8 62.4 .413 5.3 18.3 .291 .456 13.3 16.7 70.6  71.7  8.51 9.62 70.3
11             Duke  .852 30.2 63.2 .477 7.1 20.0 .355 .534 13.3 17.5 82.6  66.6 23.77 7.73 73.2
12   Boston College  .464 23.4 57.5 .406 6.7 22.2 .301 .464 13.4 15.8 64.8  69.8  2.10 7.06 69.4
13    Florida State  .852 27.1 59.6 .456 7.7 21.3 .361 .520 13.5 17.4 75.3  65.4 16.97 7.16 69.5
14      Wake Forest  .423 23.9 56.5 .423 6.4 19.1 .337 .480 14.4 19.3 71.5  72.7  6.45 7.56 70.6
15     Georgia Tech  .481 25.4 56.1 .453 5.1 16.9 .304 .499 15.9 19.3 68.8  67.6  9.53 9.34 70.8

Provided by CBB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 2/24/2020.

In 3pt%, we’re down towards the bottom of the conference at #12

                    Over  Over  Per  Per  Per Per  Per  Per  Per  Per  Per  Per  Per  Per  Per Per Per  Per  Per  Per   Per  Adva Adva Adva
Rk           School    G    W%   FG  FGA  FG%  3P  3PA  3P% eFG%   FT  FTA  FT%  ORB  TRB  AST STL BLK  TOV   PF  PTS   PTS   SRS  SOS Pace
1        Louisville   28  .821 26.4 57.9 .457 8.4 21.9 .383 .529 14.0 19.2 .729 11.1 39.2 14.3 5.2 2.8 12.1 17.0 75.3  63.7 18.58 7.01 67.3
2     Florida State   27  .852 27.1 59.6 .456 7.7 21.3 .361 .520 13.3 17.5 .759 11.4 35.2 13.5 9.0 5.6 13.5 17.4 75.3  65.4 16.97 7.16 69.5
3              Duke   27  .852 30.2 63.2 .477 7.1 20.0 .355 .534 15.1 21.7 .695 12.8 40.3 15.8 8.5 6.0 13.3 17.5 82.6  66.6 23.77 7.73 73.2
4     Virginia Tech   27  .556 25.3 59.6 .425 9.8 27.6 .354 .507 10.2 14.4 .709  8.0 35.0 15.0 5.9 3.0  9.7 14.8 70.6  66.8  8.74 4.92 66.5
5        Notre Dame   27  .630 26.8 62.8 .426 9.9 28.4 .347 .505 11.6 15.8 .735 10.3 37.8 16.9 5.6 4.0  9.7 12.4 75.0  69.1 11.19 5.22 69.1
6          Syracuse   27  .556 25.1 57.8 .435 8.4 24.8 .337 .507 15.3 20.6 .743 10.2 35.5 14.2 7.3 4.4 11.6 16.6 74.0  69.7 11.67 7.41 68.5
7       Wake Forest   26  .423 23.9 56.5 .423 6.4 19.1 .337 .480 17.3 23.3 .744 10.3 38.0 12.2 4.9 2.9 14.4 19.3 71.5  72.7  6.45 7.56 70.6
8           Clemson   26  .538 23.9 55.3 .432 8.5 25.9 .328 .508 10.8 15.9 .679  8.0 34.2 13.3 6.7 2.5 12.5 15.3 67.1  63.5 11.05 7.51 66.4
9        Miami (FL)   27  .519 26.3 59.9 .438 7.0 21.5 .327 .497 13.5 17.9 .757  9.1 34.4 10.2 5.7 3.7 12.0 14.4 73.1  75.1  6.38 8.38 69.6
10         NC State   27  .630 27.4 61.4 .446 7.1 21.9 .324 .504 12.4 17.6 .707 10.6 36.3 13.0 7.4 4.5 11.9 18.0 74.3  69.0 11.82 6.53 70.4
11         Virginia   26  .731 21.0 50.8 .414 5.8 19.2 .304 .472  9.8 13.7 .711  8.3 34.2 11.6 5.4 4.7 12.3 13.5 57.7  52.7 11.50 6.50 60.3
12     Georgia Tech   27  .481 25.4 56.1 .453 5.1 16.9 .304 .499 12.8 19.2 .667  9.5 35.6 13.7 6.8 4.6 15.9 19.3 68.8  67.6  9.53 9.34 70.8
13   Boston College   28  .464 23.4 57.5 .406 6.7 22.2 .301 .464 11.4 17.2 .664  9.4 32.7 12.4 8.1 2.6 13.4 15.8 64.8  69.8  2.10 7.06 69.4
14             Pitt   28  .536 22.9 56.3 .406 5.3 18.0 .292 .453 14.5 20.1 .718 11.9 34.4 12.7 7.7 3.5 11.8 15.1 65.5  64.4  7.72 6.58 65.4
15              UNC   27  .370 25.8 62.4 .413 5.3 18.3 .291 .456 13.6 20.6 .663 13.9 42.6 14.4 5.9 3.7 13.3 16.7 70.6  71.7  8.51 9.62 70.3

Provided by CBB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 2/24/2020.

In points scored, we’re #11. In opponent points scored, we’re in the middle at #8.

After Syracuse, there was complaining about the refs. We’re in the bottom third in free throw percentage but we’re in the middle for points and attempts—we’re getting calls, but we’re not sinking free throws.

Long story short: the eyeball test and the stats line up and say we’re not a three point team. It’s not just that we don’t shoot a lot of them; it’s also that we don’t hit at the same rate our opponents do.

(So, yeah, we’re a drive to the basket and score two kind of team. We’re also losing because we’re not scoring enough )


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[lv20gt]

I also saw a post putting us at #6 in 3 pt %, but that’s not what I saw looking up the stats. (ETA: it was 3 pt % in *conference play*, and I don’t have that stat handy)

link

I don't think it changes your characterization of what type of team though.

IMO the main difference to me this year on offense, at least by feel, is that it seems like we go inside because we feel like we have an advantage with our guards driving or Moses doing his thing, where in years past it felt like we went inside because we had no choice. Obviously we still need to keep improving and one of the two biggest ways is to add more of an outside threat