Thoughts and Statistical Analysis of Iowa's Early Cupcake Feast

We're now five games into the young season and although we have yet to see the Hawks play a quality opponent, I have some thoughts and some data to show you about this team as we transition out of the Garza era.  So far the news is mostly good.  A key question heading into the season was who would fill Luka Garza’s shoes as the primary scoring option on this team.  Right now, it’s looking like this team will do just fine in the scoring department thanks in large part to Keegan Murray.  I could try to use statistics and words to describe Keegan’s performance in our first five games but I think Prince’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps solo would be more effective.

If Keegan Murray were a guitar solo, he would be that guitar solo.

So this offense is still fire.  In terms of national rankings, Ken Pomeroy has Iowa with the #5 offense and Bart Torvik has the offense at #8.  It’s worth noting that both of these analysts still include pre-season projections in the current rankings (they do that for the first ten games or so).  Ken Pomeroy projected the Iowa offense to be 10th, nationally, while Torvik projected it to be 37th.  What this means is that the offense is outperforming the pre-season projections and those projections are currently hurting the overall ranking.  Iowa has actually been better on offense than that #5 or #8 ranking indicates.

That makes sense because Iowa appears to have a lot of good offensive players on this team.  We all know what Bohannon can do from three-point range and Patrick McCaffery is a handful attacking the rim in transition, as expected.  What has been particularly encouraging is the improvement that we have seen in a number of other players, though.  Kris Murray, though not yet as incandescent as his brother, is also looking like a very solid piece for this team, averaging an extremely efficient 12.8 points (60% on two pointers and 58% from three point range) and 7 boards per game.  Joe Toussaint has cut his turnover rate dramatically from last season (let's pray that holds up against stiffer competition) and is even showing us an outside shot.  Tony Perkins also looks much improved.  Athleticism has never been in question with him but it looks to me like the game is slowing down for him and his confidence is growing.  His performance against North Carolina Central was instrumental in Iowa eventually being able to pull away in that game.  Finally, Payton Sandfort is much better than I was expecting at this stage in his career.  I figured he’d be a good shooter (he is) but he’s clearly got a lot more in the tool box than that.  

Early season +/- Data

If you've been reading my pieces for a while, then you know that I keep track of how the team does whenever each Iowa player is on the floor.  In the following table, I present those statistics:  the points allowed per possession (D PPP) and the points scored per possession (O PPP) when each of Iowa player is on the floor.  I also calculate "D Diff" and "O Diff", which is the amount that Iowa's D PPP or O PPP changes when a particular player is in the game.  A large negative D Diff means that the defensive efficiency improves when the player is in the game while a large positive O Diff means that the offensive efficiency improves when then the player is in the game.  With that explanation out of the way, let's dive into the data from our first five games against cupcake opponents.

The first thing that jumps out is that, as mentioned above, Iowa is absolutely steamrolling the competition thus far (scoring 1.37 points and allowing 0.9 points per possession).  That 0.47 PPP differential works out to roughly a 35-point margin of victory in a 75 possession game.  Even more impressive than that is what the “starting lineup” (consisting of Toussaint, Bohannon, Patrick McCaffery, Keegan Murray and Filip Rebraca) has managed to do:  scoring 1.58 points while allowing a mere 0.79 points per possession.  That would work out to a final score of 119-59 over a 75 possession game.  Yes, it’s against weak competition but that is still pretty impressive.

Another thing that jumps out is the fact that, well, the wheels have been falling off when Ash and Ogundele have been on the floor.  And it’s not just that Iowa doesn't quite manage to maintain the complete domination of the opponents.  Unfortunately not.  Rather, it completely flips and Iowa is the one getting run out of the gym.  For example, when Ogundele is in the game Iowa is allowing 1.38 PPP and only scoring 0.96 PPP.  Over a 75 possession game that would work out to a 104-72 defeat.  I wish I had better news to report on this front but it is frankly very disturbing to see this happening with Ogundele, especially against such weak competition.  We could really use some more bulk around the basket, especially on defense, and this is just not encouraging.

The +/- numbers for Ogundele and Ash were so bad that I became worried that they might be negatively impacting the numbers for other bench players (who are on the floor with them a disproportionate amount of the time).  So I remade the data table using only possessions in which neither Ogundele nor Ash were on the court.  Those statistics are shown below.

For me, the most noteworthy thing about this table is that Iowa allows 0.71 points per possession when Rebraca is in the game and 0.94 points per possession when he is on the bench (when the Ogundele/Ash possessions are included, this difference becomes even more stark).  That is an enormous difference and I can’t help but suspect that it might indicate a lack of defensive effectiveness by Iowa's backup options at center.  It’s surprising to me that Iowa has been allowing an extra 0.08 points per possession when Keegan Murray is on the court.  Some of that is likely a statistical fluke from a small sample but, regardless of sample size, it is almost certainly coming from the possessions where Rebraca is out of the game and Keegan is forced to play center.  Keegan is looking great overall, but center is not his natural position.  Iowa gives up even more points per possession when Mulvey is on the court (D Diff of +0.09), not to mention what happens when Ogundele is in the game.  Of all Iowa's backup center options, Kris Murray has the best defensive +/- numbers so far (with a D Diff of +0.01) but I can’t imagine that Fran thinks he can hold up at center against the likes of Hunter Dickinson, Trevion Williams, Zach Edey and Kofi Cockburn.  Mulvey or Ogundele will need to step up as viable backup options to Rebraca.

Is a change in defensive style underway?

Iowa is currently utilizing a press on 18% of their defensive possessions and are allowing a mere 0.57 points per possession (PPP) when they do so.  In comparison, last season Iowa played four games against weak competition and pressed on 26% of the defensive possessions in those games but allowed 0.79 PPP on those possessions.  In other words, Iowa's press is looking very effective in the early going.  There’s no doubt that this year’s rotation has more quickness and athleticism than Iowa has had in a while and it’s showing up on the defensive end so far, especially when they press.

Iowa is currently forcing turnovers on 22.1% of their opponents’ possessions which is 66th in the country.  Iowa has only had a forced turnover rate above 20% once since Steve Alford left town and that was in 2010-2011, Fran’s first year at Iowa.  That team was actually a respectable 56th, nationally, in adjusted defensive efficiency and that roster has some superficial similarities with this one (namely, a lack of seven-footers in the regular playing rotation).  They achieved that defensive ranking by forcing turnovers (78th nationally) and keeping their opponents off of the free throw line (19th in FTA/FGA).  It is premature to conclude that Iowa has finally recaptured their turnover-causing mojo, given the weak competition they;ve faced; however, this is definitely a statistic to keep an eye on as the season progresses.

One area where the 2010-11 team struggled was in field goal defense, allowing an eFG of 50% (219th nationally).  This was in large part due to their inability to block shots (they blocked just 8% of their opponents’ two point attempts, 223rd nationally).  So far this season, Iowa is blocking 13% of their opponents’ two pointers (53rd nationally) and has an overall defensive eFG of 47.9% (147th nationally).  The Murray twins are accounting for 18 of the Hawkeyes’ 25 blocked shots (Keegan has 14 by himself!). 

If Iowa is going with undersized options at center, then they need extra rim protection and defensive rebounding from both forward spots.  Although the Murray twins are rebounding well and protecting the rim, it is disappointing to note that Pat McCaffery is currently averaging a mere 2.3 rebounds per game and has yet to block a shot in the three games in which he has played.  He was somewhat better last season in both statistical categories and I am hopeful that he can give Iowa about 6 rebounds and 1-2 blocks per game this season.  Supposedly he has had some sort of nagging ankle injury and will hopefully improve defensively as he gets healthier.  It seems like he has the athleticism and length to be impactful in that area.  We just need to see it in games.  In my opinion, Iowa's ability to defend the rim will be the key determinant of this team’s overall success because they look quite strong in every other area.  

More to come after Iowa has played a few more games -- this time against opponents of the non-cupcake variety.