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Rebounding philosophy

P

PorkerPoke

Well-known member
Last night post game Coach Shyatt discussed a big factor in the game was rebounding and the success Fresno had. If you listen to his post game comments he stated rebounding "is where the game is won" around the 3:00 to 3:02 hour mark.

As a Poke fan it is frustrating to see more games than not where the team is playing well enough to have a chance to win only to see opponents get several more chances to score. I looked back at how UW teams have performed under Coach Shyatt and this is what I found the NCAA has for rebounding margin for year, national rank and how that compared in conference play:

2011-12 226 6th
2012-13 315 Last
2013-14 308 Last
2014-15 196 6th
2015-16 328 Last

I guess I have really never understood why there is not more of an emphasis on better rebounding with the style of play Coach Shyatt runs. I understand that when you have a marginal rebounding ability against stronger teams the idea is to prevent the stronger team from running on you. What I don't get is if the idea in basketball is to keep the ball from going into the basket for your opponent, wouldn't keeping the ball away from them as much as possible also be an emphasis?

Hearing Coach Shyatt acknowledge that rebounding is where the game is won, I am curious as to why UW basketball consistently is a very poor performer in MWC and national rankings. Not asking to be a statistical leader in any particular category, but if the coach is saying rebounding is a key factor then why do his teams continue to perform poorly in that category?

To me it is like Joe Glenn having the great defenses with no QB and and bottom ranking offense that cannot score points.

Coach did talk with confidence that things are progressing and he expects there could be a run in the tourney which gives hope. Maybe we grab a few more rebounds along the way.
 
I didn't hear the comments so i'm not totally sure what Shyatt reffered to but here is my take on rebounding.

Certain stats are meaningless without context....take the sack stat in football. A player that played 20 years ago that got much fewer sacks in contests where opposing QB's hardly ever threw the ball could have been a much more dominant pass rusher than a modern defensive player that gets a chance to sack the QB on almost every down. Rebounding numbers are greatly influenced by style of play. Look at SDSU ... lots of size and athleticism...not a great group of shooters and not a fluid offensive team. For them to be successful they must dominate the rebounding stat....they miss a lot so they must get second opportunities. A team like AFA that works really hard to get a high quality look at the basket can win games without dominating the rebounding stat. Wyoming is somewhere in between. We don't have great natural rebounding ability and for the most part we try to get quality shots on our first effort. Where we get into trouble is not in giving up more rebounds than we get but in giving up key rebounds. When Wyo D's up and makes the opponent take a bad shot and we get beat to the rebound in the last 5-8 minutes of the game that is a back breaker. If a guy misses a transition three and the long rebound caroms off for an offensive rebound on us its not great but it's not the same.

It is frustrating to get beat in the rebounding column like we have recently but outside the context of style of play it doesn't tell the whole story....If I could summarize it would be that clutch rebounding is more important than volume rebounding....Remember when, in the MWC championship game, DC jr rose up and pulled down the rebound in a crowd of SDSU players off a missed three late in the game and got fouled?...not many guys (if any) on the current WYO team could have gotten that board and it may have sealed the game for us.
 
A much better rebounding statistic is defensive rebounding percentage, i.e what % of an opponents misses do we rebound. Last years team was an elite rebounding team, ranking 22nd nationally in defensive rebounding percentage, rebounding 75.9% of misses. This tells much more than just simply # of rebounds per game. This years team ranks 209th nationally rebounding only 71% of opponent misses.
 
In terms of offensive rebounding percentage this years team ranks dead last nationally, 351st out of 351.

Last years team wasn't much better, ranking 345th nationally. Clearly the difference this year is our defensive rebounding %.
 
Like said above the better rebounding stat is the rebounding percentage because it takes into context the pace of play and the actual number of rebounds that are available for a team to get.

Coach Shyatt's philosophy is for everyone to get back on defense and not let any team get into transition against us so they do not get any easy baskets. So part of the philosophy with this is he never puts any of our own guys at the free throw line to rebound when we are shooting them. Everyone is back on defense. He also doesn't emphasize offensive rebounds so that is where the big discrepancy comes in. It is because we don't go for offensive rebounds and we do this on purpose as to not let the other team get out into transition or fast breaks on us. So because of that we are dead last in the country in offensive rebounding percentage. #351 out of 351 teams nationally getting 15.5% of offensive rebounds available to us.

As stated above we are ranked #209 nationally in defensive rebounding percentage which is almost middle of the pack in the country. Now after researching this I actually found there are quite a few teams that are NCAA teams, bubble teams or NIT teams that are ranked below Wyoming in this category such as : Iowa, Oklahoma St., Houston, Mississippi, Monmouth, UCLA< Oregon, Duke, Texas, Kansas St, Va Tech, Temple,Oakland, Oregon St, Tennessee, Syracuse, Washington, Marquette , USC and NC St.


Now here is what I found somewhat surprising about this stat: As stated Wyoming ranks #209 in the country here and you would think "well there are probably at least 2 or 3 maybe 4 other teams from the MWC ranked below us since there are 351 teams total in these stats. " To my surprise no one else in the MWC was ranked below us in this stat. We are ranked last in the MWC. So this tells me the MWC is actually a pretty damn good defensive rebounding conference as a whole.

#63 Boise St.
#70 CSU
#81 UNLV
#91 AFA
#96 Fresno St.
#100 SDSU
#109 Utah St.
#158 New Mexico
#166 Nevada
#168 SJSU
#209 Wyoming

So you have 7 teams in the conference ranked in the top 110 out of 351 teams. That's pretty damn good. Every team in the conference is ranked in the top half except for Wyoming. So part of our rebounding stats are because we are in a good defensive rebounding conference when you look at this stat and I think a lot of it is because we are young and have guys that are sticks down low still trying to figure things out.

The biggest issue with the rebounding stat though is the fact we don't offensive rebound at all but I am okay with that as long as they aren't giving up easy buckets but they do need to improve the defensive side of rebounds if they aren't going to go for any offensive rebounds.
 
I should probably edit my post above and say that we could still actually rank higher in defensive rebounding even if the other teams are good because it would depend more on how good our conference is in offensive rebounding but for some reason i was looking as the stats and wasn't thinking clearly lol.

But agree with everyone that if we are not going to rebound the ball on the offensive end we need to concentrate very hard on the defensive rebounds
 
I guess I'll play devil's advocate SeattleCowboy and say that we're not necessarily in a good rebounding conference, and the rankings for other teams are inflated because they play 1-2 games against us where they will come down with nearly 100% of defensive rebounds. It's because of our poor offensive rebounding that the Mountain West ranks as a solid defensive rebounding conference...

...

Just kidding, but it makes a little bit of sense so I guess I'm a little bit serious :lol:
 
cali2wyo said:
I guess I'll play devil's advocate SeattleCowboy and say that we're not necessarily in a good rebounding conference, and the rankings for other teams are inflated because they play 1-2 games against us where they will come down with nearly 100% of defensive rebounds. It's because of our poor offensive rebounding that the Mountain West ranks as a solid defensive rebounding conference...

...

Just kidding, but it makes a little bit of sense so I guess I'm a little bit serious :lol:
Click to expand...

Well you are right about the offensive rebounding part. I wasn't thinking clearly when I first was looking at the stats as I posted above. It would depend more on how the teams do in conference offensive rebounding wise more so than defensive rebounding wise since we are getting our defensive rebounds when they are on the offensive end. That is what I get for just starting to drink my coffee while doing the research and not being fully awake :D
 
Great thread :thumb:
I didn't know those stats that Seattle threw up there but that makes it a little easier to bare how much we get worked on the boards. Still didn't somebody just say they don't understand how every other team we play has a big man that can catch and board? Apparently that is true and it has been that way. Almost every team in the MWC has a big that is built with some skill sometimes 2 or 3.

I hate that we never go for offensive boards, it frustrates the hell out of me but it also has won some games. Is part of our philosophy going into this year along these lines "well we're too skinny to actually get many O boards even if we try so fuck it just get back on D"??? I know we didn't go for much O boards with Nance and DC either but they could get them. As far as D rebounding there's just no way we can secure those boards the same way as last year with our lineups we've been using. Players like Gorski have to nudge up against the real trees shoulder to shoulder a lot of times in the paint. Even cleaned up to the max we're gonna give up O boards to over half the teams in this conference. When it goes bad we get plastered.
 
Cosmic Cowboy said:
Great thread :thumb:
I didn't know those stats that Seattle threw up there but that makes it a little easier to bare how much we get worked on the boards. Still didn't somebody just say they don't understand how every other team we play has a big man that can catch and board? Apparently that is true and it has been that way. Almost every team in the MWC has a big that is built with some skill sometimes 2 or 3.

I hate that we never go for offensive boards, it frustrates the hell out of me but it also has won some games. Is part of our philosophy going into this year along these lines "well we're too skinny to actually get many O boards even if we try so fuck it just get back on D"??? I know we didn't go for much O boards with Nance and DC either but they could get them. As far as D rebounding there's just no way we can secure those boards the same way as last year with our lineups we've been using. Players like Gorski have to nudge up against the real trees shoulder to shoulder a lot of times in the paint. Even cleaned up to the max we're gonna give up O boards to over half the teams in this conference. When it goes bad we get plastered.
Click to expand...

Shyatts philosophy has always been don't try as much for Offensive boards and get back and play defense to not allow easy buckets whether he has legit big man like last year (Nance, Cooke) or this year with younger players. So that hasn't changed.

As far as us getting defensive boards that comes down to one thing really. Fundamentals. The other team can be more athletic than you but if you know how to find your guy and get low and get your butt into him you can box him out and then go get the ball and there is nothing they can do but go over your back and get a foul called on them. Sometimes it is easier said than done but really if they concentrated hard enough on this they can make this 2nd nature that when the ball goes up you look for the guy closest to you to get your butt into and block out and then go get the ball. If everyone on the court finds their guy to box out they will get more rebounds but sometimes you see guys watching the shot go up and then just running straight to the basket or just standing there. Not just on our team but in basketball in general. Teams that can make a point of doing this boxing out before going for the ball are your best rebounding teams.

I decided I better look at the offensive boards in the league since I started looking at the defensive boards earlier and see what it looks like.

So since our defensive rebounding is correlated to when the other team has the ball and their offensive rebounding this is what I found in our league:

National rank in order out of 351 teams :

#52 Fresno St.
#70 SDSU
#76 Nevada
#117 New Mexico
#132 CSU
#133 UNLV
#170 Utah St.
#251 SJSU
#286 Boise St.
#324 AFA
#351 Wyoming.

So last night we played the number 1 offensive rebounding team in the league.

The offensive rebounding in the league top to bottom isn't near as good as the defensive rebounding is but it is decent. There are 7 teams in the top half of the country and 3 teams in the top 100.

In reality though if we are going to go with that philosophy we need to make sure we are getting every defensive rebound possible and not letting the other team get 2nd chance points. I'm sure they work on this in practice quite a bit but we just need our big guys and everyone really to go make sure they get their butt on their guy and then go get the ball. This needs to be a major point on the team that every defensive rebound is ours and no one on the other team is to get it. Otherwise with the way we don't try on the offensive glass we are giving the other team 2nd chance points and we aren't even trying for any.
 
seattlecowboy said:
Shyatts philosophy has always been don't try as much for Offensive boards and get back and play defense to not allow easy buckets whether he has legit big man like last year (Nance, Cooke) or this year with younger players. So that hasn't changed.

As far as us getting defensive boards that comes down to one thing really. Fundamentals. The other team can be more athletic than you but if you know how to find your guy and get low and get your butt into him you can box him out and then go get the ball and there is nothing they can do but go over your back and get a foul called on them. Sometimes it is easier said than done but really if they concentrated hard enough on this they can make this 2nd nature that when the ball goes up you look for the guy closest to you to get your butt into and block out and then go get the ball. If everyone on the court finds their guy to box out they will get more rebounds but sometimes you see guys watching the shot go up and then just running straight to the basket or just standing there. Not just on our team but in basketball in general. Teams that can make a point of doing this boxing out before going for the ball are your best rebounding teams.

I decided I better look at the offensive boards in the league since I started looking at the defensive boards earlier and see what it looks like.

So since our defensive rebounding is correlated to when the other team has the ball and their offensive rebounding this is what I found in our league:

National rank in order out of 351 teams :

#52 Fresno St.
#70 SDSU
#76 Nevada
#117 New Mexico
#132 CSU
#133 UNLV
#170 Utah St.
#251 SJSU
#286 Boise St.
#324 AFA
#351 Wyoming.

So last night we played the number 1 offensive rebounding team in the league.

The offensive rebounding in the league top to bottom isn't near as good as the defensive rebounding is but it is decent. There are 7 teams in the top half of the country and 3 teams in the top 100.

In reality though if we are going to go with that philosophy we need to make sure we are getting every defensive rebound possible and not letting the other team get 2nd chance points. I'm sure they work on this in practice quite a bit but we just need our big guys and everyone really to go make sure they get their butt on their guy and then go get the ball. This needs to be a major point on the team that every defensive rebound is ours and no one on the other team is to get it. Otherwise with the way we don't try on the offensive glass we are giving the other team 2nd chance points and we aren't even trying for any.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the stats! Those top 3 in O board teams are also the 3 teams we've had the most trouble with so far. Coincidence? I think not. I get what your saying about getting a butt down on your man, but that is difficult to do when they are bigger, stronger, and sometimes faster then you as well. Another huge key is not allowing penetration in that philosophy. The minute an athletic guard/swingman breaks us down then we are in trouble. I think that's when the tip drill has been run on us the most and poof just like that they get 3 more boards on the sheet plus a score. Those teams in bold can do both.

I'm just saying our lineups also make it a little more difficult to lock down D boards as well. Naughton and Barnes can help this a little with muscle. Naughton has been struggling lately and JB has always been a step slow with golem hands, I think he's been improving a little bit. We also just don't give them much minutes which lately has been hard to argue for. Biggest issue? The Marshall scholly....if that's a JC big that is more MWC ready then Barnes/Naughton (not even tremendous just as solid as any of these bigs that trounce us on the boards) well we might be playing for a conference championship this year. I hate to say that and rag on the situation but its true. I think the staff has really blown it in that regard.
 
Cosmic Cowboy said:
seattlecowboy said:
Shyatts philosophy has always been don't try as much for Offensive boards and get back and play defense to not allow easy buckets whether he has legit big man like last year (Nance, Cooke) or this year with younger players. So that hasn't changed.

As far as us getting defensive boards that comes down to one thing really. Fundamentals. The other team can be more athletic than you but if you know how to find your guy and get low and get your butt into him you can box him out and then go get the ball and there is nothing they can do but go over your back and get a foul called on them. Sometimes it is easier said than done but really if they concentrated hard enough on this they can make this 2nd nature that when the ball goes up you look for the guy closest to you to get your butt into and block out and then go get the ball. If everyone on the court finds their guy to box out they will get more rebounds but sometimes you see guys watching the shot go up and then just running straight to the basket or just standing there. Not just on our team but in basketball in general. Teams that can make a point of doing this boxing out before going for the ball are your best rebounding teams.

I decided I better look at the offensive boards in the league since I started looking at the defensive boards earlier and see what it looks like.

So since our defensive rebounding is correlated to when the other team has the ball and their offensive rebounding this is what I found in our league:

National rank in order out of 351 teams :

#52 Fresno St.
#70 SDSU
#76 Nevada
#117 New Mexico
#132 CSU
#133 UNLV
#170 Utah St.
#251 SJSU
#286 Boise St.
#324 AFA
#351 Wyoming.

So last night we played the number 1 offensive rebounding team in the league.

The offensive rebounding in the league top to bottom isn't near as good as the defensive rebounding is but it is decent. There are 7 teams in the top half of the country and 3 teams in the top 100.

In reality though if we are going to go with that philosophy we need to make sure we are getting every defensive rebound possible and not letting the other team get 2nd chance points. I'm sure they work on this in practice quite a bit but we just need our big guys and everyone really to go make sure they get their butt on their guy and then go get the ball. This needs to be a major point on the team that every defensive rebound is ours and no one on the other team is to get it. Otherwise with the way we don't try on the offensive glass we are giving the other team 2nd chance points and we aren't even trying for any.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the stats! Those top 3 in O board teams are also the 3 teams we've had the most trouble with so far. Coincidence? I think not. I get what your saying about getting a butt down on your man, but that is difficult to do when they are bigger, stronger, and sometimes faster then you as well. Another huge key is not allowing penetration in that philosophy. The minute an athletic guard/swingman breaks us down then we are in trouble. I think that's when the tip drill has been run on us the most and poof just like that they get 3 more boards on the sheet plus a score. Those teams in bold can do both.

I'm just saying our lineups also make it a little more difficult to lock down D boards as well. Naughton and Barnes can help this a little with muscle. Naughton has been struggling lately and JB has always been a step slow with golem hands, I think he's been improving a little bit. We also just don't give them much minutes which lately has been hard to argue for. Biggest issue? The Marshall scholly....if that's a JC big that is more MWC ready then Barnes/Naughton (not even tremendous just as solid as any of these bigs that trounce us on the boards) well we might be playing for a conference championship this year. I hate to say that and rag on the situation but its true. I think the staff has really blown it in that regard.
Click to expand...
:cry:
 
Last night, Fresno had 12 offensive boards. They shot 42% from the field. That means they probably hit 5 shots out of those 12 boards, and we lost by 11. It doesn't take a genius to make the correlation that a poor job on the defensive rebounding end will lead to a less than optimal outcome. Like some others, I wonder why the other teams in the conference have big men that are at least serviceable, while we seem to struggle recruiting kids like that.
 
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