Possession Analysis

The "System" focuses on five goals- 1) FGA, 2) Threes Att., 3) Offensive Rebound %, 4) Forced Turnovers, and 5) Shot Differential. Another way to analyze basketball with stats is a method that to the best of my knowledge was started by Dean Smith. He chose to analyze his team's offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency by looking at Total Possessions, and figuring what you did on those possessions.



Total Possessions would be FGA + Trips to Foul Line + Turnovers. If one team then has more Total Possessions than their opponents this is going to happen because they get more offensive rebounds to earn "extra possessions" and their opponents don't get as many o-rebounds.

                       Our Possessions     Opp Possessions      Difference
1999 (33-2)           83                             81                       +2
2007 (30-4)           74                             72                       +2
2009 (14-17)         73                             76                       -3
2010 (17-14)         103                          105                      -2
2011 (16-3)           101                          94                        +7

Several things are interesting, this year's team is the most dominant team we have had on the boards as evidenced by a +7 in possessions. I don't think looking at us that one would predict that. Compared to our 1999 team that was uptempo and took second in state, our team this year is having 22% more possessions per game. We are up a huge 38% in possessions this year vs. our last year of traditional basketball. So yes, running the System gives us a chance to play more basketball in 32 minutes.

Turnover Pct. would tell us what percentage of our possessions end in a turnover, so no shot. And Point Per Possession tells us how many points do we score each time we have the ball.

                       Turnover %               Pts/Poss.
1999 (33-2)       16                             .84
2007 (30-4)       16                             .84
2009 (14-18)      29                            .66
2010 (17-14)     21                             .70
2011 (16-3)       18                             .73

Veteran "system" coaches say a real key to being successful in the "system" is that your turnovers should not go up. Because you are shooting quicker, there is less time to turnover the ball. Unfortunately last year our turnovers did go up. This year our percentage is back down close to the level of our successful 1999 and 2007 teams. Our pts/poss are not up to those levels, but the idea is for us to have more possessions.

Defensive effectiveness can be measured by using opponents Turnover Pct. and opponents Pts/Possession.
                    Opp T.O.%       Opp Pts/Poss
1999               30                        .64
2007               28                        .60
2009               21                        .67
2010               29                        .67
2011               32                        .61

So using these statistics, it could be argued our present team is best in forcing turnovers and is one of our best ever in terms of not allowing our opponents to be efficient with their possessions.