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Wake/UVA

Duke and UNC have both lost a higher percentage of close games than WFU over the past 18 years. Learning how to win close games is the most overrated concept in sports. K wins 84% of all his games because 90 percent of his wins aren't close. No program wins more than 60% of its close games over time. We have actually outperformed in close games given our overall record. Better players leads to more big wins. The last play of any game is just one play. Winning that play more than 60% of the time is not sustainable. Coach Manning's quotes suggest he understands this. As fans, we obsess way too much on final plays.
 
1985 DEAC said:
Duke and UNC have both lost a higher percentage of close games than WFU over the past 18 years. Learning how to win close games is the most overrated concept in sports. K wins 84% of all his games because 90 percent of his wins aren't close. No program wins more than 60% of its close games over time. We have actually outperformed in close games given our overall record. Better players leads to more big wins. The last play of any game is just one play. Winning that play more than 60% of the time is not sustainable. Coach Manning's quotes suggest he understands this. As fans, we obsess way too much on final plays.
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I understand what you're trying to do here, but Wake has had five different head coaches in 18 years and Carolina has had three.

Nothing about this analysis actually makes sense, relative to what you're trying to explain.
 
Strickland33 said:
I understand what you're trying to do here, but Wake has had five different head coaches in 18 years and Carolina has had three.

Nothing about this analysis actually makes sense, relative to what you're trying to explain.
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What? You are making my point. We have only won 55% of our games over the past 18 years despite winning more than our fair share of close games...a higher percentage than the HOF coaches. Why? Because they don't rely on winning more of the close games. They have great players and win by big margins. Is it that unclear? What does having 5 different coaches have to do with my point?
 
1985 DEAC said:
What? You are making my point. We have only won 55% of our games over the past 18 years despite winning more than our fair share of close games...a higher percentage than the HOF coaches. Why? Because they don't rely on winning more of the close games. They have great players and win by big margins. Is it that unclear? What does having 5 different coaches have to do with my point?
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I'm assuming that you're using this analysis to support the following claim that you made on the other thread:

The LOWF myth that we can't win close games without Chill and Timmy is just that...a myth. As fans, we are so invested in it that we suffer the close losses more than we celebrate the close wins.
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The higher percentage doesn't really matter at all as far as I can tell. You're talking about 60.3% for Wake vs. 60% for Duke and 58% for UNC. Over that time UNC played 130 close games, Duke played 115, and we played 126. Given that nine different head coaches have produced those numbers with a lot of different configurations of players and talent, I'm not sure what the raw percentages/records actually do for you.

Each coach and lineup will probably "know how to win" differently, so aggregating results in games decided by 5 points or less and pointing to the fact that we win more games than Duke and UNC just doesn't really prove anything. Losing close games still sucks.

For this analysis to really mean anything, IMO, you would have to figure out what proportion of these games occur against meaningful competition; do we close out games that matter? Do we do this at a higher rate than UNC or Duke?

My hypothesis would be that Duke and Carolina have lesser winning percentages because they're in more close games against better competition. That, to me, is more impressive than winning more close games against lower ranked competition, as has been the case for the redacted and Manning-eras (I am not going to go back and figure out how Dino, Skip, and GDO fared).

Likewise and as others have pointed out, why do you artificially cap a close game at 5 points? There are plenty of close games played by all three teams that exceed that number.

All of this being said, knowing how to win is one of the stupider concepts that has emerged since I started posting on here. It's an intangible that a team has when it's winning and doesn't have when it's losing. Great.

We have choked a lot this year and we have choked a lot in high profile games in the past. Any Wake fan has experienced their share of heartbreaking close games (choke jobs or otherwise) at this point that more or less define our fandom in revenue sports. Whether we have won 76 games by five points or less doesn't make the close losses (including games like Duke and LVille that were decided by > 5 points) any less heartbreaking
 
Strickland33 said:
I'm assuming that you're using this analysis to support the following claim that you made on the other thread:



The higher percentage doesn't really matter at all as far as I can tell. You're talking about 60.3% for Wake vs. 60% for Duke and 58% for UNC. Over that time UNC played 130 close games, Duke played 115, and we played 126. Given that nine different head coaches have produced those numbers with a lot of different configurations of players and talent, I'm not sure what the raw percentages/records actually do for you.

Each coach and lineup will probably "know how to win" differently, so aggregating results in games decided by 5 points or less and pointing to the fact that we win more games than Duke and UNC just doesn't really prove anything. Losing close games still sucks.

For this analysis to really mean anything, IMO, you would have to figure out what proportion of these games occur against meaningful competition; do we close out games that matter? Do we do this at a higher rate than UNC or Duke?

My hypothesis would be that Duke and Carolina have lesser winning percentages because they're in more close games against better competition. That, to me, is more impressive than winning more close games against lower ranked competition, as has been the case for the redacted and Manning-eras (I am not going to go back and figure out how Dino, Skip, and GDO fared).

Likewise and as others have pointed out, why do you artificially cap a close game at 5 points? There are plenty of close games played by all three teams that exceed that number.

All of this being said, knowing how to win is one of the stupider concepts that has emerged since I started posting on here. It's an intangible that a team has when it's winning and doesn't have when it's losing. Great.

We have choked a lot this year and we have choked a lot in high profile games in the past. Any Wake fan has experienced their share of heartbreaking close games (choke jobs or otherwise) at this point that more or less define our fandom in revenue sports. Whether we have won 76 games by five points or less doesn't make the close losses (including games like Duke and LVille that were decided by > 5 points) any less heartbreaking
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I understand what you are saying and I am not trying to claim that WFU is better at winning close games than the big boys. What I am trying to point out is winners like K win big for 90% of his wins. And he knows that he will win no more than 50-60% of the games that go right down to the wire. No program will. I never said the close losses aren't heartbreaking. I'm saying that we don't choke any more often than the norm. And thinking that last possession strategies is the key to sustained greatness is nothing but fool's gold.
 
dude...what are you talking about.

his very simple point is that winning or losing close games is mostly just luck.
 
1985 DEAC said:
Thank you.
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Strick,
Duke was 37-2 in 1999. Great team, correct? Their record in down to the wire games? 1 win 2 losses. They were a great team. Their record in last possession games has nothing to do with their greatness.
 
The entire close game thing is all relative and provides incomplete data. If UNC and dook win 80% of their games by more than 5 and their close games are against the other big programs what does that prove?

I'd rather win 25 games by 10 or more and have a 40% close game record with 5 close games to by 28-3.

As far as I know, our goal is not to be in close games but to win with a comfortable margin.

Unfortunately the last 4 years have gotten us to the point where we are happy that we didn't lose by double digits.
 
IAppreciateIt said:
dude...what are you talking about.

his very simple point is that winning or losing close games is mostly just luck.
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I understand his point. I don't agree with his point for the reasons I stated above. What I do agree with, however, is that, while drawing up a last possession is something that some coaches are good at and others are not, execution is mostly dumb luck.

Coaching, talent level, and the level of competition absolutely factors into that equation IMO. I'll bet that over the past 18 years UNC and Duke have competed in, won more games, and have a higher winning % in close games against top-50 competition. Pick your ranking system. And that's probably not just dumb luck. Otherwise, why even bother?
 
Strickland33 said:
I understand his point. I don't agree with his point for the reasons I stated above. What I do agree with, however, is that, while drawing up a last possession is something that some coaches are good at and others are not, execution is mostly dumb luck.

Coaching, talent level, and the level of competition absolutely factors into that equation IMO. I'll bet that over the past 18 years UNC and Duke have competed in, won more games, and have a higher winning % in close games against top-50 competition. Pick your ranking system. And that's probably not just dumb luck. Otherwise, why even bother?
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Dude, please stop. Most of these 115-125 games are against conference opponents. The level of competition might improve their results by a percentage point or two on the margin. Very few of the games noted are NCAA tournament games. Winning last minute games is mostly good fortune. And it has nothing to do with building a great program. K has said as much.
 
There is no such thing as "luck" in sports. Ugh.

You are good enough to win or you aren't. The shot was good enough to go in or it wasn't. There is no luck.
 
deacvision7 said:
There is no such thing as "luck" in sports. Ugh.

You are good enough to win or you aren't. The shot was good enough to go in or it wasn't. There is no luck.
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Call it whatever the fuck you want. Nobody makes 100% of their shots. So if you get 1 shot to win, sometimes it goes in, sometimes it doesn't.

If you want to differentiate luck from random chance, ok. But it's not like every play on a court is purely the result of skill.
 
DeaconSig said:
Call it whatever the fuck you want. Nobody makes 100% of their shots. So if you get 1 shot to win, sometimes it goes in, sometimes it doesn't.

If you want to differentiate luck from random chance, ok. But it's not like every play on a court is purely the result of skill.
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Actually, it is.

An egregious call that goes against you is "unlucky", but that is just unskillful by the referee.


Name one time where a shot was made that wasn't the result of skill. Go.
 
deacvision7 said:
There is no such thing as "luck" in sports. Ugh.

You are good enough to win or you aren't. The shot was good enough to go in or it wasn't. There is no luck.
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Please share with us why HOF coaches win 75% plus of their games but only 50-60% of their close games. Why? Because close games can go either way, regardless of how great of a coach you are. Lines like "you are good enough to win" are such bluster. Shouldn't K be "good enough" to win more than 60% of his close games if he is the best?
 
The CP3s sophomore year Taron Downey missed FT to win at FSU after hitting 3 and CP3 missed critical FTs at GTech where we also lost in OT.

Duncan's Senior year the flaws in the team started at home against Duke when they fouled Duncan every time down the floor and they hit a 3 going the other way.

I think we often overlook many of the past close losses....
 
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