As Frustrating As Offense Was Last Year, Defense Is The Same This Year
- Thread starter samuirocks
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have you seen the field goal percentage of our opponents? It puts too much pressure on our offense.
I could go on about offense and defense of last year vs this year. But personally I just believe, regardless, that this year's team is better than last year's. Making it the best team NU has ever had.
Cats held Minny to 104.5 Offensive Efficiency that game, that was their 3rd best defensive B1G performance in '24 (out of 11). However in '23, that would be the 12th best B1G performance (out of 20). Will the 'Cats perform better defensively in the remaining 9 games to make this 12th out of 20 again? Probably not likely as factors include: team lacks a point of attack stopper like Audige, and Beran/Barnhizer at the 4 grabbed a higher DReb% than Barnhizer/Martinelli in '24, Nicholson's higher foul rates in '24 is keeping him off the floor and limiting his rim-protection out there.
On the upside, the 'Cats did have the toughest SOS in the first 10 games - so perhaps there's some relief there. However, gotta factor in the grind of a long season as well, as I don't expect Mullins or Clayton to break into the rotation at this point unless it's bad news.
On the upside, the 'Cats did have the toughest SOS in the first 10 games - so perhaps there's some relief there. However, gotta factor in the grind of a long season as well, as I don't expect Mullins or Clayton to break into the rotation at this point unless it's bad news.
You raise valid points. You made me go look at Torvik's website.
Not sure if you are using Adjusted Efficiency or Efficiency. (You want to use Adjusted).
Anyhow, using Adjusted Efficiency, Torvik has the Minnesota loss as our 4th best defensive effort and our worst offensive effort (of the 11 Big Ten games we've played)
But I looked at 2023 as well. What comes screaming off the page is that NU's defense was "more efficient" immediately upon Roper's injury. Martinelli went from not playing to "learning on the job" and in those 10 minutes or so per game we played better defense. Without Roper, Collins only had 3 guards. (Barnhizer is a small forward) We had to play bigger, so we did. Success followed. You might say Roper's injury was the key to our season.
With Roper... starting on Jan 1, defensive efficiency 102, 86, 97, 113, 105, 105
Roper injured 90, 101, 106
Roper back for 1 game 106
Post Roper 87, 91, 83, 87, 91, 83, 87, 79, 90, 120, 95, 77.
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barttorvik.com
This team desperately needs more from MN, Preston, and Hunger. Matt can’t play close to 30 mins and have 4 pts, 3 rebs, and 5 fouls.
You raise valid points. You made me go look at Torvik's website.
Not sure if you are using Adjusted Efficiency or Efficiency. (You want to use Adjusted).
Anyhow, using Adjusted Efficiency, Torvik has the Minnesota loss as our 4th best defensive effort and our worst offensive effort (of the 11 Big Ten games we've played)
But I looked at 2023 as well. What comes screaming off the page is that NU's defense was "more efficient" immediately upon Roper's injury. Martinelli went from not playing to "learning on the job" and in those 10 minutes or so per game we played better defense. Without Roper, Collins only had 3 guards. (Barnhizer is a small forward) We had to play bigger, so we did. Success followed. You might say Roper's injury was the key to our season.
With Roper... starting on Jan 1, defensive efficiency 102, 86, 97, 113, 105, 105
Roper injured 90, 101, 106
Roper back for 1 game 106
Post Roper 87, 91, 83, 87, 91, 83, 87, 79, 90, 120, 95, 77.
T-Page for Northwestern - Customizable College Basketball Tempo Free Stats - T-Rank
T-Rank College Basketball Ratings and Rankings. And fun.barttorvik.com
Good point on the Adjusted Efficiency - my eyes went right to the defensive efficiency performance in the right hand column and my eyes just skipped the more obvious left hand ones. If I did this right:
Adj Off (B1G Rank), Adj Def (B1G Rank) through 11 games in 2024: 123.8 (2nd), 103.5 (10th), Overall, roughly +20.3
Adj Off (B1G Rank), Adj Def (B1G Rank) through 20 games in 2023: 112.4 (9th), 95.4 (6th), Overall, roughly +17
Yes, our defense is lagging this year; what might be the commensurate adjustment to Roper's absence in '23 for this year's squad? In terms of "play bigger" - does that mean try lineups featuring Barnhizer at the 3 and Martinelli at the 4?
I see the same numbers you posted. The funny thing is that our Adjusted Offensive Efficiency has been much better vs the Big Ten than it was in the non-conference - for both of the last 2 years.
I only have two ideas for "something different" and both involve playing bigger when needed.
Looking at Preston specifically. When he plays with Martinelli at the 4 we have outscored our opponents 201-181.
The bulk of that success comes with Barnhizer as "small forward." When those 3 have played together, we're up 138-122. Thats pretty good for a backup center.
However, If Preston is out there with the 4 starters, we've been whipped 132-109.
My belief is that we are simply too small with that lineup.
With Nicholson there's more room to play smaller because he is very big. The starters have won their minutes 411-362, despite the beating they took at Minnesota, playing 10 minutes without subbing.
Hunger has also had success with the 4 starters. 144-116. I think that is mainly because the offense scores at a high rate because Hunger can score too.
The other idea, of course, is to try Preston with Hunger in the frontcourt. Until we see it, we don't know what that produces. But Preston is much better with Martinelli and Hunger's skillset is more of a 4-5 so it probably wouldn't hurt to try going even bigger. Better rebounding, thats for sure. Maybe have Preston set screens so Hunger can post up and score against overmatched defenders. If it doesn't work, stop doing it. When it works, I mean if it works, you've got another viable approach to getting quality minutes out of your roster.
I think the numbers are a bit skewed by who we have played so far. The two Illinois games and the two Purdue games showed poor defensive efficiency. The other 7 games would be more inline with last years performance. I don’t doubt that last year was a better defense but I don’t think the discrepancy is as large as the numbers currently show. I also believe the team will need to emphasize defense for the rest of the conference games. That way an off shooting night can still become a victory.
I have a crude measurement of looking at how O/D compare against the strength of schedule, which shows that on offense we score 0.08 more points/possession than would be expected based on the defense of our opponents, which puts us 3rd behind Purdue and Illinois, and just ahead of Wisconsin. On defense, opponents score 0.04 more points/possession than would be expected based on their offense, which puts us at 10th in the conference, just ahead of Iowa and PSU, as well as significantly ahead of OSU and Michigan.
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