This isn’t meant to be an insult or critique… as quite honestly, I wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of what I perceived analytically driven basketball coaching to be. But… has anyone seen evidence of Golden being the analytics coach he was reputed to be? I haven’t… and I’m mostly fine with it.
I am not sure what a analytics coach even means. Can someone explain. Is it playing the odds? I really have no idea
Well, he analyzed the fact that the Gators sucked at rebounding before he arrived. This year, that analytic is improved.
Th biggest place it shows up is in shot selection, it’s either layups or threes. Those two have the highest returns. He also came interesting how important offensive rebounding was analytically and basically turned us into a monster in it in two years. But we haven’t seen the analytics driven fouls to this point.
Tempo might be an analytic CTG is intent upon, as the Gators are one of the fastest shooting teams in the country. I'd also like to know what prompted our guards to throw the long ball down low on the break because that was obviously on the agenda for this game. Perhaps there was a transition defense analytic involved.
Very true… though layups/3s is the foundation of many modern offenses, and not the deep analytics I expected. Anyway - this question popped into my mind during a few situational possessions tonite. It also struck me when we fed Samuel the ball on a critical possession and he was predictably fouled. The play was exactly opposite of analytics scenarios in which a team may opt to foul a poor free throw shooter, as we saw in the infamous play with Osifo
We also don’t know how much analytics are driving rotations and playing time. Even recruiting as I alluded to above, my guess is probably that those would be where it shows up most. as far as the Samuel possession, no one was shooting FTs well, he was as good a choice as any. But the larger issue was that the entire offense tonight was predicated around dumping the ball inside. Changing the offense at that point might have been the bigger sin than playing the analytics game. Jmo.
The biggest thing I've seen is Golden identifying elements that opponents do well and getting the team to concentrate on combating it. He seems to have specific numerical goals for each game which I haven't heard of before.
agree. Though I’m not meaning to imply it as a “sin”. I generally like going inside late in a game, and putting that pressure on a defense. But I am sometimes struck by our situational approach.. what I expect versus what we do. The late game two-for-one scenario was another example in which we did opposite of what I’d have figured analytics might’ve dictated. I remember first thinking, “hmmmm”.. prior to last season when TG talked about wanting Colin to take a few threes each game. That plan wasn’t really supported by any analytics.
Kugel, Clayton, Richard and Pullin should be driving almost every possession. And hit FTs! They are all fast. There's usually a big man to dump it to or to rebound.
100% agree with this spot on observation. Missing 50% of your free throws is like missing extra points in a football game. They can cost you wins.
Golden is a smart guy and his approach to analytics is nuanced. I had watched this video of him talking about his approach when he was first announced as the new coach: Some of his main points: He likes to apply analytics in various aspects of the program, including practice, game planning, shooting, recruiting, and scheduling. So what we get to see during game time is a very small aspect of his approach. He also likes to use analytics as a teaching tool with players. Fouling strategy and two foul participation: Golden likes to maximize minutes with your best players and dislikes automatically benching players with two fouls in the first half. Shot selection: He does not automatically view three-points as good and all mid-range shots as bad. Context, player, and shot quality all matter. He dislikes guarded step-back three pointers. He likes uncontested mid-range jumpers taken in rhythm. He relies on Dean Oliver’s four factors: effective field goal percentage, turnover rate, offensive rebounding percentage, and free throw rate. He must be pretty happy so far this year with the offensive rebounding percentage and the free throw rate, but miserable about eFG% and the turnover rate.
Good stuff. The free throw percentage, I THINK, will go up a little as Clayton gets closer to his form and Condo and Haugh get more comfortable at the line. The turnover rate is not unusual for early in a season and should go down. A lot of our turnovers are of the careless variety rather than the great defense variety. Shot selection is dependent upon the situation and the shooter. I'll always want a decent shooter to take an open midrange shot.
