So last year's Nova team was generally looked at as balanced, with solid stats on both sides of the ball. We were 4th in the country in "adjusted" offensive efficiency at 120, and 13th in "adjusted" defense at 92.8. Looks good right? But if you look at the raw conference #'s, we were still a very impressive 118 in raw offense, and only 98.5 on defense. Both were good for 1st in the conference, but that is really not a good defensive #, especially in our league where there is not a ton of great offense to defend. Looking even DEEPER, we had 5 conference games (not BET) of better than 90 defensive PPP (28% of games) but 9 games of above 100. Of those 9, 4 were above 110 (22% of all BE games). Our biggest red flag was giving up over 31% of possible offensive rebounds. NC State took advantage, grabbing 39% of O-boards.
Looking at this year though, thru 13 conference games we are averaging a raw 92.1 defensive PPP. 6 of our games (46%) have held teams to under 90 PPP, with only 3 above 100, and 1 above 110. We are also only giving up offensive boards at a rate of 25.3%. These are all dramatic improvements over last year.
Our offensive efficiency is obviously significantly lower verses a year ago due to the 3-point shooting, but if defense truly wins championships, we are certainly better set-up this year than we were a year ago. Given who we lost and added, that is an amazing thing to say.
Just more food for thought on a slow Monday.....
Looking at this year though, thru 13 conference games we are averaging a raw 92.1 defensive PPP. 6 of our games (46%) have held teams to under 90 PPP, with only 3 above 100, and 1 above 110. We are also only giving up offensive boards at a rate of 25.3%. These are all dramatic improvements over last year.
Our offensive efficiency is obviously significantly lower verses a year ago due to the 3-point shooting, but if defense truly wins championships, we are certainly better set-up this year than we were a year ago. Given who we lost and added, that is an amazing thing to say.
Just more food for thought on a slow Monday.....
