Harris and Mckie

I think going into the Va. Tech game, they showed a stat that said Harris was 2nd in the ACC in scoring and Mckie was 3rd. Of course I realize it's less meaningful until league play gets going. However, it struck me that we ought to be a decent team with 2 guys like that, provided we can surround them with just competent division 1 talent shouldn't we? Keep in mind I mean decent, not great.

I don't know, which is better: 2 A's + 3 C's, or 5 B's? It does seem like teams with a couple of stars usually do better than completely balanced teams, but I think if the D can lock down either McKie or Harris, we're probably FITA.

I'd take 2 A's + 3 C's in basketball. 11 B's in football.

Not to take away from their play this year, they are both shooting the ball very well. But its partly due to the fact that we dont have as many other options as other teams. You'll see a kid tonight, Stoglin, who is leading the ACC in scoring. But Maryland still stinks. He taking a ton of shots because they havent had any other options with Peshon and the big euro out.

Barnes is still probably the best offensive player in the league no matter what the stats say.

liveanddiedeac said:

I think going into the Va. Tech game, they showed a stat that said Harris was 2nd in the ACC in scoring and Mckie was 3rd. Of course I realize it's less meaningful until league play gets going. However, it struck me that we ought to be a decent team with 2 guys like that, provided we can surround them with just competent division 1 talent shouldn't we? Keep in mind I mean decent, not great.

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A fellow Deac and I had this conversation at the end of the OOC schedule. The agreement we came to is that we know exactly what we're gonna get from Travis and CJ on any given night - 10, 15, or even 20+ points. The games where we have looked best as a team, and consequently have been in games until the end, were the ones where we had a strong 3rd scorer or a 3rd and 4th average numbers scorer. Some nights that has been just Nikita or Tony. Some nights, it has been a combination of those two, plus Carson. Fischer has been in the mix, too. So to answer your question, this is a decent offensive team when Travis, CJ, and a third and/or fourth options appears.

Mike Scott is the best offensive player and all around player in the league. In my opinion it's not even close. They play such a slowed down game though that his stats don't show reveal it. Barnes is averaging 17 ppg in one of the fastest offenses in the country.

CJ & Travis's numbers are bloated this year due to having to carry a team, but next year they have the opportunity to be special, like All-American special.

Wakeforest22890 said:

Mike Scott is the best offensive player and all around player in the league. In my opinion it's not even close. They play such a slowed down game though that his stats don't show reveal it. Barnes is averaging 17 ppg in one of the fastest offenses in the country.

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But also one w/ a ton of other good scoring options.

There are only five men on the court at any given time. Consequently, basketball is a game of stars, and two are better than one. But they have to play like stars night in and night out.

Having said that, the rest of the team must play their roles properly - night in and night out - for the stars to be able to do their work and shine. And that's usually where the problem begins for us. Come on guys, Travis and CJ can help us win but you must play your roles effectively. We don't have the classic inside-outside combination but it will have to do.

I worry that Travis is more or less at his ceiling as a player. He perhaps rightly gets a pass because he's a good kid, good player and extremely hard worker on a terrible team. But he has numerous holes in his game. I think he would really benefit from playing on a more well-balanced team where he's not counted on to carry everyone and create offense.

liveanddiedeac said:

I think going into the Va. Tech game, they showed a stat that said Harris was 2nd in the ACC in scoring and Mckie was 3rd. Of course I realize it's less meaningful until league play gets going. However, it struck me that we ought to be a decent team with 2 guys like that, provided we can surround them with just competent division 1 talent shouldn't we? Keep in mind I mean decent, not great.

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Not in this league, to be in the top half. It takes 4-5 ACC type players and 3 or 4 meaningful subs to have balance and the firepower to compete with the likes of Duke & UNC. FSU has lock down defensive capabilities and makes it tough to score. We need defensive balance also to prevent scoring at the most opportune of times and hellacious rebounding.

I am glad we have the likes of CJ & Travis as I would hate to see where we were without them!

Without these two guys making significant contributions every night, we're in trouble. Though, in order to get more ACC wins, we still need at least one or two other guys among Nikita, Tony, Carson, Chase and Ty to step up and make a significant contribution.

Wakeforest22890 said:

Mike Scott is the best offensive player and all around player in the league. In my opinion it's not even close. They play such a slowed down game though that his stats don't show reveal it. Barnes is averaging 17 ppg in one of the fastest offenses in the country.

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I think you might be right about Scott, he's been terrific so far, the main reason behind Virginia's impressive start. I haven't seen a lot of Virginia so far, though, all I know is that he produces. Barnes has been impressive too, although as you pointed out, they play at a tremendous pace which increases possessions, so inflation occurs. He doesn't play as much as one would think, he's averaging less than 26 minutes a game, which would seem to balance his numbers out somewhat. UNC @ UVA should be a good one.

ETA: Barnes also had one of his worst performance's ever last night (2-12, 6 points)

BobHWS said:

Without these two guys making significant contributions every night, we're in trouble. Though, in order to get more ACC wins, we still need at least one or two other guys among Nikita, Tony, Carson, Chase and Ty to step up and make a significant contribution.

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That's my computer wallpaper, FTW!

UVA is fun to watch. I've seen them play probably more than anyone else in the conference behind the North Carolina schools. Scott is just incredibly efficient and he's solid on the defensive side of the ball. If the POY voting were today I would say he SHOULD win it. Obviously Barnes would win it in actuality, but it is what it is.

UVA will get upset in games for the same reason Wisconsin does: slower tempo = fewer possessions = worse teams can stay closer for longer. They're also not terribly good on offense. The Bennett packline defense is tough to beat though and helps overcome playing more athletic teams IMO.

TheReff said:

Not in this league, to be in the top half. It takes 4-5 ACC type players and 3 or 4 meaningful subs to have balance and the firepower to compete with the likes of Duke & UNC. FSU has lock down defensive capabilities and makes it tough to score. We need defensive balance also to prevent scoring at the most opportune of times and hellacious rebounding.

I am glad we have the likes of CJ & Travis as I would hate to see where we were without them!

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No doubt you're right there, I just mean a decent basketball team, one that finishes maybe between 7th and 9th in the league. I guess what I'm getting at is if (big if) CJ and Travis stay in the top 3 of scoring, you'd hope we'd have at least enough talent around them to finish in the top 10 of the league. I definitely think this team is more than capable of finishing ahead of at least 2 or 3 teams in the league and if we don't, then Bzzz out????

Barnes disappears WAY too much to be a legit POY candidate.

I'm of the opinion that Barnes and Scott are pretty much assuredly the best, and for the most part most efficient, players in the conference. Let's take a look at how they stack up head to head:

It is interesting to note that both players are used roughly the same amount of time when they are on the floor both possession-wise and shots-wise. Scott plays around 75% of UVA's minutes, while Barnes plays around 66% of UNC's minutes. This says two things to me. First, UNC blows more teams out therefore the starters aren't in as much and second I figured that UNC would be deeper than UVA in terms of usage but they really aren't. So talent-wise UNC is superior throughout the roster to UVA (clearly) but they both have 8 players that see more than 30% of the team's minutes.

Most stats are from KenPom or ESPN

Offensive Rating - Scott: 123.8, Barnes: 116.2 (Advantage Scott)
Effective FG% - Scott: 60.6%, Barnes: 58.6 % (Advantage Scott)
Off. Reb % - Scott: 13.8%, Barnes: 7.9% (Advantage Scott)
Def. Reb % - Scott: 25.1%, Barnes: 10.0% (Advantage Scott)
Assist Rate - Scott: 15.8%, Barnes: 7.7% (Advantage Scott)
TO Rate - Scott: 15.1%, Barnes: 13.5% (Advantage Barnes)

Barnes commits slightly fewer fouls while drawing slightly fewer per 40 minutes. This is backed up by the eye test in Scott's more "physical play" over Barnes' more finesse style. So Scott is basically a more polished player, which makes sense since he's a senior and Barnes is only a sophomore. Scott has more opportunities to get rebounds because he's not battling Henson and Zeller for boards. Scott's 25% defensive rebounding percentage is awesome, it means that for every rebound opportunity UVA forces of the opponent when Scott is on the floor, he grabs 1 of every 4 boards.

Stats Per Game:

Barnes - 16.9 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 1.1 apg
Scott - 16.5 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 1.7 apg

So Scott is more efficient, both are really good players and it's a really interesting comparison between the two. When Barnes inevitably wins ACCPOY it will be relatively frustrating because he has the two-fold benefit of more media exposure plus playing in the second fastest tempo in the country (behind only VMI). Virginia on the other hand is the 7th slowest team in the nation.

This was a long post but I just wanted to get all these thoughts down.

WRS said:

I worry that Travis is more or less at his ceiling as a player. He perhaps rightly gets a pass because he's a good kid, good player and extremely hard worker on a terrible team. But he has numerous holes in his game. I think he would really benefit from playing on a more well-balanced team where he's not counted on to carry everyone and create offense.

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Agreed.

You're conflating claims, though.

-To determine best offensive player requires qualitative analysis.
-The most productive is an easily determined quantitative analysis.

I'm not sure there's a single "better" offensive player in the ACC than Harrison Barnes. In the sense that he can score inside and out, he's a knockdown shooter from all over the floor. I don't doubt scouts I've talked to when they've told me that Barnes is going to be an excellent NBA player.

From a quantitative perspective, there are several analyses that we can use. I like to form analysis through a comparing these five, in particular:

1. Top 5 ACC - Points per 40 minutes pace adjusted (>20 minutes per game):
-Stoglin = 27.6
-Scott = 24.8
-Barnes = 24.0
-Harris = 20.8
-Leslie = 20.0

(Next five = McKie, Zeller, Kelly, Henson, and Rivers).

2. Effective Field Goal Percentage [(FG + 0.5 * 3P) / FGA)] (eFG%) (>20 minutes per game)

-MaPlumlee = .62
-Harris = .62
-Scott = .61
-Curry = .58
-Kelly = .58

(Next five = Kadji, Henson, Barnes, Dawkins, and Strickland)

3. True Shooting Percentage [PTS / (2 * (FGA + 0.44 * FTA))] (TS%) (>20 minutes per game)

-Harris = .67
-Scott = .66
-Kelly = .66
-Curry = .63
-Heckman = .60

(Next five = Zeller, Barnes, Kadji, and McKie)

4. Efficiency (EFF) - Privileges post players

-Henson = 21.5
-Scott = 21.0
-Zeller = 18.9
-MaPlumlee = 18.2
-Len = 18.0

(Next five: LoBrown, Rice, Howell, McKie, and Harris)

5. PER - Privileges post players

-Scott = 33.6
-Len = 29.2
-Henson = 28.2
-Zeller = 27.1
-Rice = 26.3

(Next five = Barnes, Kelly, Stoglin, MaPlumlee, and Green)

So, while Stoglin is arguably the most productive, he's hardly the "best" by the numbers. While Barnes is qualitatively "the best," the numbers point towards a guy like Scott (shows up in every category time in top-3) being the "the best."

What's cool is that CJ may be the best perimeter offensive players by the numbers (productivity + efficiency) in the ACC right now... McKie's production holds up well, too.

I always like to compare basic statistical analysis with the eye test when making bold claims like this... The issue with KenPom stats is that nobody actually understands what they're measuring (outside of stats experts and Mr. Pom himself). At least you can explain what you see in this kind of analysis.