Stats and Game Prep

"How can I use stats to help with game prep?" That was the question I asked myself last year. I knew I wanted to contribute some more into our game prep and I thought going deeper into advanced stats would do that. But as I said in my previous post, I needed to be sure the information could be shared and presented in a meaningful way.

After some thought, I came up with the idea of my Pre-Game Stats Report. I put all this information together for every game. As mentioned, I gathered this information from a variety of places. Just Play, CBBAnaltyics.com, HerHoopStats.com and Synergy. I would put all the information together, study it to see what (if anything) stood out, and then give to the staff. Not everything I look at from the above resources is put into the packet. Sometimes, and often, I will spend hours on these sites looking at the data to learn about our opponent and our team. A lot of the data doesn't end up in the packet. I had to teach myself to focus the information so the overall concept was consistent game to game. Certain stats that stood out would change game to game.

At the beginning of the season there wasn't a ton of data yet. Some of the Reports were small and short but as the season goes on, more data meant more information and better information. Here is a link to view a couple of the Pre-Game Reports & other projects I did:

I will be focusing on our Pre-Game Stats Report vs South Florida. This is our 2nd time playing them and when playing a team that was ranked in the top 25 for most of the season, they are going to have several stats that stick out. I'm not going to go over every page but will highlight some of my favorite pages.

To start off, here is page 2:

The chart at the top is pulled from Just Play and gives me the opponents stats and rank in the country for those stats and what they hold their opponents too. I am able to select which stats I want and take off the stats I don't. These are South Florida's stats and ranks through the games they had played; from left to right is South Florida's Overall stats, what they hold Opponents to, South Florida's last 5 games, their Opponent's last five games. I will look through these numbers to see if anything stands out. Then I will type in my own notes at the bottom (all the bullet points). A few things stuck out:

1. Their Offensive Rebounding - 41.3% and 19.4 2nd Chance Points.

   1. 71.6 Points Per Game

2. Offensive Efficiency (OFF EFF) at 105.1 (29th) and Pace at 67.3 (307th)

3. 70.3% AST% (6th)

With just those stats, I know have a better idea of South Florida. They get 27% of their points just from offensive rebounding (which I took as a key because if we took that away, they average 52.2 Points Per Game - we averaged around 67 Per Game at that time - we could win with everything else staying the same). Without looking at their shooting numbers I know they are taking and making high value shots because their OFF EFF is very good, their pace might be a bit slow but again since their OFF EFF is good they are taking advantage of every possession, and their AST% is one of the highest in the Country - therefore they are a great ball sharing team and every pass could very easily turn into a basket. (We were able to hold them to 8 Offensive Rebounds and only 5 2nd Chance Points.)

Obviously there is more but those were key things to me. After typing in those numbers, I'll put some notes from our 1st game. I get this data from my own Excel spreadsheets, the box score, and HD Intelligence's HD Box Score. This is used as a reminder about some of the things we did well or didn't do well.

Page 3 is a few tables of stats and the top players in those stats.

Page 4:

Next I will look at their shot chart. I like to get an idea of where teams take most of their shots and how well they shoot from those areas. Instead of putting the shooting percentage on the chart, I tried using Points Per Shot. I wanted to show how much value teams were getting from each location. For instance, if you take a look at the wings, you can see that South Florida is decently better from the Left Wing than the Right Wing.

The "% of Points" is pulled from HerHoopStats.com. This is pretty straight forward; it gives us an idea of where their points are coming from. "Shots" is where I put a few notes that stick out. "How they score", I get all this data from Synergy. This gives a baseline of how they actually score and how efficient they might be and how often they take those type of shots.

A few things that stuck out to me:

1. South Florida finished in Transition 22.5% of the time. To have almost 1 in every 4 possessions end in Transition, can paint a small picture of a team.

2. They make higher value shots from the Left Side of the court (a higher Point Per Shot)

3. 68% of all shots are from 3 or at the rim

4. #4 in the Country in scoring with less than 4 seconds on the shot clock

   1. While I don't have a great answer in how to prep for this exactly, I told my coaches that this team will run some sort of action for the duration of the shot clock to get a good shot (again, hence their low pace and high OFF EFF) - we have to be ready to guard for 30 seconds on every possession. The film also supports this idea.

Page 5

This is their shots in Transition. This is a quick look at if they are trying to get to the rim and how often, as well as, how they shoot from 3 in Transition. I pull this from Synergy's Basketball Application.

Not a ton to take away besides having a visual that shows the coaches they want to take 3s or get to the rim in Transition. I think that is very quick statement about what our Defensive Transition needs to be for this game (this already falls in line with our regular defensive transition principles - only adding emphasis).

Page 6

While doing research, I tried to find a shot chart that could help tell a story. For this Report it was South Florida's Assists - which we already know they get assists on just over 70% of their makes. I think you can see they get a ton of Assists from 3 and at the rim. As well, noting that 107/114 made 3s are assisted helps tell you that we might need to change up our close-outs or how we contest shots this game or there might be something we work on to scheme for this game.

In other Reports I might find our opponent's shots for each quarter (if they shoot better or worse as the game went on). Sometimes it might how well the shoot in the shot clock. I'll look at the 30-20, 20-10, 10-0 segments.

Page 7 is South Florida's shot chart against us from the 1st game. Used this just as a reminder.

Page 8:

This is now South Florida's Opponents chart. It is the same information but now it shows how they defend and what they give up. I use this to try and see if there might a be location that they aren't great guarding. It doesn't tell the whole story but gives a good baseline of where we might be able to attack (not saying we should). South Florida was one of the better defensive teams this past season and their numbers showed that too.

What stood out to me on this shot chart:

1. The 1.0 Points Per Shot from the Left Wing - maybe we can utilize a play or an opening from a post to take advantage of this location.

2. Allowing 41% in the 3rd Quarter - for how good this team is on defense, we have to come out with energy and be ready in the 3rd. This is when they seem to have a small let-up that we need to take advantage of.

Page 9 is South Florida's Opponents Transition shots. Gives us an idea of where we might be able get shots in Transition. We use this chart with the information from Synergy to see how often they give up shots in Transition. South Florida had a low percentage of opponent possessions ending in Transition - this meant (on paper) they were good at getting back on defense.

Page 10 is our shots against South Florida from the 1st game

Page 11 & 12

These pages allow us to take a deep stats look at each player. We can look at their game splits, chart to see how consistent they are in a few stats, lineups they are in, and two pie charts to get an idea of their shot distribution and Assist/Un-Assist made shots. Then we are able to pull each players shot chart to see how they score from where. Again, I am using Points Per Shot here to see how much value each player is getting from their shot selection. After that I will add in notes of stats that stand out. I will take a look at HerHoopStats.com, Synergy, and Just Play to see where they rank in the country and in our conference. I do my best to highlight their strengths.

For this player:

1. 81% of all her shots were from 3 or at the rim - I think that paints a really good picture of where she is going to try and get shots from

2. Low number of Un-Assisted made shots - this could mean a variety of things about how she has made her shots: maybe she is not trying to take you 1-on-1, maybe she is scoring by coming off screens, etc. Also take a look at Assisted/Un-Assisted on 2s and 3s - does that change your opinion of how she is scoring?

3. Top 4% in the Country in scoring with less 4 seconds on the shot clock - ties into a note I made earlier about the team and this might be one of their best players in clutch situations - have to be ready to guard her for the ENTIRE possession.

Page 13-30 are more Player Reports fo each player. Again, I will add notes to each player.

Page 31 is their most used lineups. I'll print the top 10 with a variety of stats to paint a picture of those lineups and I'll print what the opponents did against those lineups.

Page 32

This is an Assist Chart that I pull from CBBAnalytics.com. This gives an idea of who is giving assists and who is getting assists. I really like this visual. It is a fun graphic and gives good information.

For South Florida, this graph makes it very clear they have a main ball distributor we have to be ready for.

Page 33

This is a lineup chart that I also pull from CBBAnalytics.com. This gives a good idea of rotation for each team. How long do the starters play, who is finishing games, when do we see significant minutes from the bench? Again, a visual i really like that gives a little more information into the team.

And thats the packet. It has a good amount of information. Sometimes it felt overwhelming but, as I said earlier, I tried to keep it consistent game to game to help make it easier to read. There are a lot of ways to interrupt the data game to game. I do all this to help the coaching staff game plan. I believe it helped during the course of the season and is something I plan to to continue to do next year, while also trying to find something new to add.

Over the course of the season, I will also put together a packet or two on our team with similar information. Consider it a Self Scout. This helps evaluate us and how we progress through the season.

I'll touch on my Post-Game Stats Report and how we can evaluate ourselves in future posts. Thanks for reading!