"Coaching" vs. "Talent"

[RChildress107]

There's been a lot of handwringing about Danny Manning's coaching ability after the last three games. This strikes me as an overreaction to a small sample size, but the ensuing discussion raised some interesting questions about how much should be read into a coaches ability to "get the most" out of a team's talent level.

I've had some time on my hands (spring break) so I went through each of the last 11 seasons and calculated each teams overall talent level. I gave each player a talent score (recruiting ranking in stars + .3 for each year of experience).

Codi, for example, was a 4 star recruit and has 2 years of experience so he has a talent rating of 4.6.

I then took the weighted average for each team based on minutes played. Here are the results of the past 11 years along with wins, SRS (basketball-reference's simple rating system), and kenpom ranking.

UPDATED

2017-2018: Talent: 3.7; Wins: 9; SRS: 8.54; KP: 88
2016-2017: Talent: 3.41; Wins: 19; SRS: 14.19; KP: 36
2015-2016: Talent: 3.36; Wins: 11; SRS: 5.53; KP: 118
2014-2015: Talent: 3.16; Wins: 13; SRS: 5.19; KP: 120

2013-2014: Talent: 3.69; Wins: 17; SRS: 5.49; KP: 117
2012-2013: Talent: 3.59; Wins: 13; SRS: 3.41; KP: 137
2011-2012: Talent: 3.76; Wins: 13; SRS: -.75; KP: 211
2010-2011: Talent: 3.76; Wins: 8; SRS: -4.43; KP: 259

2009-2010: Talent: 4.17; Wins: 20; SRS: 11.45; KP: 58
2008-2009: Talent: 4.15; Wins: 24; SRS: 15.63; KP: 24
2007-2008: Talent: 3.73; Wins: 17; SRS: 9.29; KP: 73

2006-2007: Talent: 3.51; Wins: 15; SRS: 6.08; KP: 102
2005-2006: Talent: 3.96; Wins: 17; SRS: 8.16; KP: 80
2004-2005: Talent: 4.45; Wins: 27; SRS: 20.24; KP: 8

 

[RChildress107]

Couple of Takeaways:

1. This is the least talented team we've had in a long time (probably since at least the Staak era)

2. Excluding the past 4 years, Manning's performance this year seems to be about in line with our previous two coaches based on talent level. I doubt that the relationship between Talent score and wins (or SRS or Kenpom) is linear, but given the drop off in talent between this team and the next closest (06-07: 3.51) team, 13 wins and a 118 kenpom seems about right.

 

[RChildress107]

For a non-Wake comparison I also looked at Tony Bennett's first two years at UVA

UVA 2009-2010: Talent: 3.54; Wins: 15; SRS: 8.80; Kenpom: 80
UVA 2010-2011: Talent: 3.44; Wins: 16; SRS: 6.01; Kenpom: 99

 

[TheIshThatSaved WakeForest]

Without comparing stats to talent, it was also interesting to see where all the new coaches this season ended up in KP. All pretty similar. Hard to win in a major conference with bad talent.

 

[Rafi]

Interesting. Thanks for putting that together. How did you calculate star ratings? Did you just use one recruiting site? What star rating did you assign to an unrated recruit like Dinos Mitoglou?

 

[RChildress107]

For all years after 2008 or 2009 I used verbal commits which does a composite of Scout, Rivals, and ESPN.

Any unrated recruit I assigned 2 stars (unless I could find a recruiting site that ranked them otherwise)

Prior to 2008 (whenever verbal commits cuts off), I used a combo of yahoo, 247, and rsci (if ranked) to come up with my best guess. I tried to be conservative on both ends.

 

[scooter84]

There is definitely a limit to how much coaching can do with bad talent. Signing talent and potential talent is 70% of the battle, developing the potential talent into real talent and developing the talent into better talent is 15% of the battle, coaching during the game is the other 15%. Clearly just picking numbers out of the air, but I think it is something like this...

 

[bym051d]

I gave each player a talent score (recruiting ranking in stars + .3 for each year of experience).

Codi, for example, was a 4 star recruit and has 2 years of experience so he has a talent rating of 4.6.

So Daniel Green is the highest ranked player, ever?

 

[RChildress107]

There is definitely a limit to how much coaching can do with bad talent. Signing talent and potential talent is 70% of the battle, developing the potential talent into real talent and developing the talent into better talent is 15% of the battle, coaching during the game is the other 15%. Clearly just picking numbers out of the air, but I think it is something like this...

This sounds about right. I'd give player development a slightly higher percentage though.

Bennett's team this year has a talent score of 4.05 (less than either of Dino's two tourney teams) but is 28-2.

That's partly in-game coaching (or in Bennett's case: system implementation), but it's also partly player scouting and development (i.e. that 4.05 number is low because Bennett spotted 3* who were really 4* or developed 3* at a faster rate than most coaches).

 

[RChildress107]

So Daniel Green is the highest ranked player, ever?

Haha, to be honest I counted him as a walk-on after his freshman season (1.5 * rating, 0 years experience)

I guess the highest would be a 5* post-grad transfer

 

[DCDeac]

Bennett also fills roles exceptionally well and does a great job of identifying players that fit his style.

Pretty much the opposite of that last 7 years of Wake basketball.

 

[FckVwls]

I think most people would conclude that this year went about average/as expected given our player mix. Finished close to as projected by the humans in the ACC polls. Preseason 104 Kenpom (which weights a ton of factors and does pretty well) and finished around there.

I think we'll find out a lot more next year. Assuming CM/DT/Crab/Mitch/Dinos all come back with the 3 freshmen I think KP 60-70ish is reasonable expectation?

 

[wfu22fan]

As down as a lot of people ( me included ) are on DT recently , he might be a beast at power forward playing alongside Moore , with Collins and Dinos mixing in the front court .

 

[tbird]

I think most people would conclude that this year went about average/as expected given our player mix. Finished close to as projected by the humans in the ACC polls. Preseason 104 Kenpom (which weights a ton of factors and does pretty well) and finished around there.

I think we'll find out a lot more next year. Assuming CM/DT/Crab/Mitch/Dinos all come back with the 3 freshmen I think KP 60-70ish is reasonable expectation?

Pretty much agree...

 

[dubs21]

As down as a lot of people ( me included ) are on DT recently , he might be a beast at power forward playing alongside Moore , with Collins and Dinos mixing in the front court .

Seems like the consensus is that Collins will likely play way more that Moore next year.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

I thought this was going to be a poll. I was going to vote talent.

 

[birdman]

Simple linear regression shows that ~58% of the variation in wins each season is explained by the talent score alone.

I am procrastinating on reading a student's dissertation for their defense tomorrow and so I made a figure. We could consider a point above the regression line to be exceeding expectations and a point below be under-performing and then split it up by coach. Yellow dots are [name redacted] years, orange are Gaudio, blue are Prosser and the lone red dot is Manning. For what it's worth, looks like, from a simple regression perspective, Manning out performed expectations given the talent available on his team. ([name redacted] of course under-performed 3 out of 4 years.) This analysis requires that you believe the talent scores and that being above or below the line is not just a function of random variation or error in the talent score.

Edit...Damn it I didn't label the Axes!

 

[Ball State Deac]

As down as a lot of people ( me included ) are on DT recently , he might be a beast at power forward playing alongside Moore , with Collins and Dinos mixing in the front court .

Hopefully there will be sufficient spacing for them all to play down low .

 

[Wrangor]

Bennett also fills roles exceptionally well and does a great job of identifying players that fit his style.

Pretty much the opposite of that last 7 years of Wake basketball.

I think Manning has made a good start on this end as well. He identified our need for shooters upon his hire, and brought in our 4 best shooters (Wilbekin, Hudson, Dinos, Leonard). Our next need is post presence, and we signed two very good post prospects in Collins and Moore. Also were able to land a complete guard in Crawford, which we desperately need. Can't wait to see what is in store for 2016.

 

[RChildress107]

Simple linear regression shows that ~58% of the variation in wins each season is explained by the talent score alone.

I am procrastinating on reading a student's dissertation for their defense tomorrow and so I made a figure. We could consider a point above the regression line to be exceeding expectations and a point below be under-performing and then split it up by coach. Yellow dots are [name redacted] years, orange are Gaudio, blue are Prosser and the lone red dot is Manning. For what it's worth, looks like, from a simple regression perspective, Manning out performed expectations given the talent available on his team. ([name redacted] of course under-performed 3 out of 4 years.) This analysis requires that you believe the talent scores and that being above or below the line is not just a function of random variation or error in the talent score.

Edit...Damn it I didn't label the Axes!

If I have time later this week (I probably will) I was going to run a similar regression for all ACC teams over the last 3-4 years. That would increase the sample size and give us something to compare Manning to that isn't heavily influenced by the REDACTED years.