A Closer Look At ACC Play
As Part II of today’s essay on ACC stats, I want to do an overview of several team stats from the ACC season. In the first part a ratio was introduced to standardize the frequency by which a few teams get trips to the Free Throw line. If we invert the ratio, we get possessions per free throw attempt. A team that gets to the line frequently will have a low number, while a team that is a stranger to the line will have a high number of possessions per free throw.
| Poss/FTA | |
| Wake Forest | 3.364 |
| Duke | 3.429 |
| VT | 3.533 |
| UNC | 3.592 |
| Miami | 3.633 |
| FSU | 3.736 |
| BC | 3.796 |
| NCSU | 3.827 |
| GT | 4.069 |
| Virginia | 4.341 |
| Clemson | 4.349 |
| Maryland | 4.754 |
Next, let’s look at where teams shot the ball. This chart shows the percentage of shots taken from behind the 3-point arc by each team in the league. A low percentage shows a team that took a larger share inside the arc, while a high percentage indicates a team that relied on the “3” more than the league.
| %From3 | |
| Wake Forest | 21% |
| GT | 26% |
| UNC | 28% |
| Maryland | 28% |
| Virginia | 29% |
| VT | 32% |
| BC | 32% |
| NCSU | 33% |
| FSU | 33% |
| Duke | 35% |
| Clemson | 35% |
| Miami | 36% |
The next stat is the most important stat of all, points per possession. A possession is defined as the period during which a team has control of the ball. Thus, possessions end with either a turnover, a shot attempt, or a 1-and-1 or 2-shot foul situation. The goal, as defined by Dean Smith, is to exceed 0.95 points per possession.
| PTS/POSS | |
| UNC | 0.99 |
| Duke | 0.94 |
| NCSU | 0.93 |
| Clemson | 0.93 |
| Wake Forest | 0.92 |
| BC | 0.91 |
| Miami | 0.89 |
| VT | 0.88 |
| Maryland | 0.86 |
| FSU | 0.85 |
| Virginia | 0.83 |
| GT | 0.82 |
Notice the strong correlation with this list and the final ACC standings. One outlier is N.C. State. The fact that they were the third most efficient offense, but finished 10th in the league. This shows that the Pack’s defense was what set them back. Another outlier is Florida State. They weren’t efficient, but assumingly gained much of their ground with their defense (opposition’s points per possession would reflect this). Also, these stats do include the entire season, so teams that got off to slow starts and finished strong will appear artificially low on this table.
The next stat is percentage loss of ball. Raw turnover stats are misleading because they don’t reflect the speed of the game played. 20 turnovers in a fast-break, up-and-down game is pretty good, while it is high in a slow-down, half-court game. A low percentage loss of ball indicates that a team is turning the ball over infrequently.
| %LOB | |
| UNC | 14.2% |
| Duke | 15.1% |
| Maryland | 15.1% |
| BC | 16.2% |
| Miami | 16.2% |
| Clemson | 16.9% |
| VT | 17.0% |
| Virginia | 17.6% |
| Wake Forest | 17.9% |
| NCSU | 18.5% |
| GT | 19.3% |
| FSU | 19.7% |
As you can see there is much more to basketball than just field goal percentage and turnovers. Standardized, we see that several stats explain much better how a team is really playing.