Importance of Balance

Happy Saturday to you, Followers.  Hope you’re gearing up for a nice weekend.

As for me, with the wind blowing near 50mph in my area, I found myself hunkering down this morning to do something that I NEVER do for this blog:

RESEARCH.

So, if you want to check out my journey into the empirical frontier, then read on.

Followers, in yesterday’s thread, we had a pretty nice little discussion about the importance of defense for this group.

Well, today, I thought I’d delve a little bit into some offensive numbers.

Mind you, because we tend to have limited traffic on Saturdays, I’m gonna save the hard data/table I put together for a re-print on Wednesday.  However, in preparation for today’s “season on the brink” game against ASU, I thought I’d pass along the key findings.

But, before I do, its probably a good idea to let you all know what I was looking at (and for)….

Much has been made here and elsewhere about the importance of both Klay and Casto’s offensive production for our team’s success.  Well today, I thought it might be good to check out the importance of offensive production from other areas on the floor. 

Specifically, I was interested in seeing how production from the 3 and 4 spot may help predict our win and loss record in conference play.

So, here is what I did:

1) I added up the points scored from both Capers and Aden in each conference game as the measure of production from the 3 spot.

2) I added up the points scored from Motum, Abe, and Simon in each conference game as the measure of production from the 4 spot.

Here are the findings:

• When we get 10 points or more combined from both the 3 and the 4 spot, our conference record is 5-1.
• When our production from the 4 spot is 10 points or more, our conference record is 5-4.
• When our production from the 3 spot is 10 points or more, our conference record is 7-3.

(now lets get to the “low” production numbers).

• When we get less than 10 points from both the 3 and the 4 spot, our conference record is 0-1.
• When our production from the 4 spot is less than 10 points, our conference record is 2-3.
• When our production from the 3 spot is lesss than 10 points, our conference record is 0-4.

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What this should tell us then, is that the combined offensive production from Capers and Aden is really important to our chances of winning.   And, as importantly, when Capers and Aden do not produce–as we saw on Thursday against Arizona–we do not win.  At least not to this point.

The final takeaway, for now, is what happens when we have really good balance–meaning that we get at least 10 points combined from both the 3 and the 4 spot.  In those instances, we sport a very nice 7-3 record in conference.

So, as we watch the games down the stretch, it might be informative to watch the numbers from those five players.

And toward that end, instead of berating guys like Aden and Lodwick when they have off nights, it may be important to recognize that, without their production, we just don’t win very often.  And as me old Uncle told during my own playing days, “Son, you gotta shoot if you want to score.”

Now, lets go beat ASU and keep hope alive in the process.