FanPost

Todd Lickliter reminds us that war is peace, slavery is freedom, and failure is improvement.


Todd Lickliter had this to say in this morning's Gazette: "“Our team is actually in almost every category improved over last year, except for obviously wins and losses.”

Oh really? Is that so?

Could he mean the offense? This year the offense scores .981 points per possession. Good for 213th in the country. Wedged between Columbia and Cal State Fullerton. So last year's offense must've been REALLY bad then? No. A respectable 1.051 points per possession. 108th in the country.

So the defense must be far improved, right Coach? This years defense gives up 1.05 points per possession, good for 246th in the country. Wedged between Northern Arizona and Santa Clara. What about last year's defense? 1.029 points per possession. So last year's defense was really bad - but this years is demonstrably worse.

So, Iowa is improved in almost every category except wins, losses, offense, and defense? So, where exactly are we better, Coach?

“We have more possessions per game, scoring a little bit more, we’re getting it inside a little more, we’re scoring more two-point goals."

Coach Lickliter is right, there are more possessions this year. Last years team averaged 56.7 possessions/game. That's the lowest number in all of college basketball, 344 out of 344. This year's team averages an explosive 63.9 possessions per contest - 317th in the country.

That's great, except that 1) Iowa's playing "faster" as teams have figured out to press and run against the Hawkeyes to speed up the game and force (a lot of) turnovers. 2) The best way for an overmatched team (Iowa) to have a chance is to reduce the sample size of possessions in order to minimize the talent gap. See the first halves against Texas and Purdue, for example. So that "improvement" isn't helping Iowa win games.

It's also true that Iowa is scoring more (raw) points per game. This year they've scored 64.7 ppg vs. last year scoring 63.2 ppg. However, that difference is entirely the product of the aformentioned pace increase, and, in reality, the offense is significantly worse this year.

So, that leaves an increase in 2-pointers. Last year 40.7% of Iowa's points came on 2-pointers. That's 342nd in the country. Only Drake and VMI had lower percentages. This year? 43%. 337th in the country. Yippee! Coach was right! I'm so glad he's citing improvement in a statistic that he so transarently couldn't give two shits about! We ARE improving! Statistics are from Scott Dochterman's article in the Gazette and kenpom.com. Quotes are from Dochterman.


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