Wyoming's basketball team by advanced stats

[wyoav211933]

Some of this won't surprise people, some of this won't. None of this is necessarily meant to demean any of our current players because we really do need them all, but maybe this might give us some perspective of how we evaluate a few of them.

The obvious-
Larry Nance is far and away our best player. He has the best defensive rating on our team (points allowed per 100 possesions) and it's honestly by a pretty large margin. He's in our top 3 on offensive rating too, but actually leads the team in offensive win shares, defensive win shares, win shares/40 min and PER (the last 3 of which nobody else on the team even comes close).

The surprising-
Derek Cooke is actually pretty darn important to our team too. In fact, you could make a pretty convincing argument with advanced stats that he is the 2nd or 3rd best player and more important than Nathan Sobey and Josh Adams. He is actually 3rd on the team in total win shares, a stat that actually should be lower for a guy that plays reduced minutes compared to the rest of the team. He is behind only Nance and Grabau, and when you consider win shares/40 min, he is actually second behind only Nance. Even though he's not what we'd consider a big scorer, what he does on offense contributes 120 points/100 possessions, which is actually 2nd on the team and ahead of even Nance.

What could make some people mad-
Josh Adams is a bit overrated. His true shooting percentage is pretty poor compared to the team, he has the lowest offensive rating of any regular not named Sobey, and his win shares/40 is damning, trailing guys like granberry and washington. This is unfortunate since he has close to the highest usage rate on the team.

Edit: The stat is win shares/40 minutes, not win shares/40 games. I believe I corrected it in all instances.

More to come if I have time.

 

[stymeman]

agreed Larry is/our (the) man!!! I've loved what DC has added the last few games, I was worried about him getting so down, but he's like an added weapon that many teams can't prepare for. I'd love for Washington to add something but i think he's truly in a lack of playing time funk, he's young and will adapt. Sobey being a Senior needs to start stepping it up and score the ball more, he's not afraid to go to the hole!!!! Josh is Josh, and I think even he surprises himself at times. I do like him tho. Granberry and Hankerson really need to step it up even more and add more points, overall all it's all about coaching and Larry has us right where we need to be....I like our chances to make noise in the MWC tourney this year

 

[Wyo2dal]

None of this surprises me at all, I picked Cooke as the most improved player this year over last and I stick with it. I think he knows and he accepts his role which is the MOST IMPORTANT part of a team sport.

He gets his points from layups and dunks, The bad part is he is easy to read. He sets a pick and rolls to the basket. He needs to mix it up a little bit but I think he will gain more confidence and start to mix it up at some point. Did you use a site to pull the details or just do some number crunching?

 

[wyoav211933]

None of this surprises me at all, I picked Cooke as the most improved player this year over last and I stick with it. I think he knows and he accepts his role which is the MOST IMPORTANT part of a team sport.

He gets his points from layups and dunks, The bad part is he is easy to read. He sets a pick and rolls to the basket. He needs to mix it up a little bit but I think he will gain more confidence and start to mix it up at some point. Did you use a site to pull the details or just do some number crunching?

No number crunching for me, it's just stats from http://www.sports-prospectus.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. I'm thinking of maybe looking into some of the older guys like 86-88 teams and the 00-02 teams and seeing if today's guys have some of the same stuff (I'm thinking probably not, but I have an open mind). The only problems are I don't know how much data they'll have in the 80s, and it would take a fair amount of time to put all that data in one spot, and it would be a very very nerdy use of it too.

 

[wyoav211933]

Well, the Nance injury really throws a curve into our season. While the advanced stats showed that he was clearly our leader in a few areas, there are some areas where I feel we might be ok. While he was a pretty efficient offensive player, he was by no means our most efficient. Those titles actually belong to Grabau, and Cooke. Granberry and Washington were actually kind of close too. Neither of these guys had particularly high usage rates, so there's no guarantee that would continue to be efficient if we rely on them more, but those would be the guys that the numbers suggest turning too. Of course there's Adams and Sobey too, but they'd have to play to a level we haven't seen the rest of this season if they are to actually be the answer.

Despite him being far and away better than anyone else in Defensive win shares and Defensive Rating, I'm thinking it only looks that way because of rebounding. Truth is nobody on the team looks awful defensively from advanced stats, and the team is more well rounded in that regard, but the rebounding on the team does look pretty bleak. Bad enough that we may end missing Nance more on that end of the floor than on O if somebody doesn't step it up. Cooke shines out among the rest of the team in Total rebounding rate and defensive rating, Bentz looks like he might be ok from solely a rebounding perspective, but name that kinda peaks my interest is Tyser. He's played so few minutes that his numbers are going to be exaggerated, but looks like the kid can rebound and play D. If things get bad enough he may be worth a try. But as long as we can get someone who can rebound, I still think we'll be ok.

We aren't as good of a team without him, but still a more improved team than last year.

 

[stymeman]

yeah a bit scary to talk about players yesterday then get hit hard with devastating news, just goes to show ya any given moment, anything can happen, but damn it