The man is a shot-volume superhero…and, in a very different way, so too is Markelle Fultz. (dailytarheel.com)
If you’ve wondered how North Carolina can shoot a hair worse than the league average in ACC play yet still lead the conference in offense, the answer is shot volume.
Thanks in part to the Tar Heels’ accuracy-agnostic exertions, sheer volume has actually outperformed effective field goal percentage in predicting an ACC team’s scoring in conference play thus far. (Which, for the record, is highly weird and unusual and purely a function of eFG correlating in an aberrantly poor manner in this single instance. The weird state of affairs will correct toward normalcy, this being a sport where putting the ball in the basket tends to translate very well into scoring. Still, this volume stuff does beat the predictive pants off of plain old turnover and offensive rebound rates alone.)
Here are your shot volume leaders, stragglers, and mean-huggers in major-conference play, with handy categorical labels at one standard deviation on either side of the average. Teams that appear at or near the bottom have offenses that are more susceptible to being hurt by an off shooting night. Conversely if you’re near the top of the list and your offense is bad anyway, you may be looking at issues of misplaced two-point-jumper devotion, the wrong guy taking your shots, etc.
Conference games only
Through January 25
SVI
Voracious
1. North Carolina 102.5
2. Washington 101.6
3. Wisconsin 101.3
4. Louisville 100.7
5. Kentucky 100.1
6. West Virginia 100.1
Normal
7. Oregon 99.6
8. Northwestern 99.4
9. Arizona 99.3
10. Butler 99.3
11. Nebraska 99.3
12. Tennessee 99.0
13. Cal 98.8
14. Kansas 98.4
15. Arkansas 98.4
16. Utah 98.0
17. USC 97.9
18. Syracuse 97.8
19. Florida State 97.6
20. Iowa State 97.6
21. Arizona State 97.6
22. Florida 97.2
23. Illinois 97.1
24. Colorado 97.1
25. Michigan 97.1
26. Marquette 97.0
27. Auburn 97.0
28. Xavier 96.9
29. Indiana 96.8
30. Wake Forest 96.8
31. Notre Dame 96.7
32. UCLA 96.6
33. South Carolina 96.5
34. Duke 96.1
35. Clemson 96.1
36. Ohio State 96.0
37. LSU 96.0 Average, congrats
38. Oklahoma State 95.6
39. Alabama 95.6
40. Iowa 95.6
41. Minnesota 95.5
42. Villanova 95.4
43. Texas Tech 95.2
44. Pitt 95.0
45. Creighton 95.0
46. Virginia 94.9
47. Miami 94.8
48. Baylor 94.7
49. Stanford 94.7
50. Seton Hall 94.6
51. Vanderbilt 94.5
52. Rutgers 94.4
53. Kansas State 94.3
54. Missouri 94.3
55. TCU 94.2
56. Georgia Tech 94.0
57. Purdue 93.9
58. Virginia Tech 93.8
59. DePaul 93.8
60. Georgetown 93.8
61. NC State 93.5
62. Mississippi State 93.5
63. Oklahoma 93.5
64. Maryland 93.4
65. St. John's 93.4
Starving
66. Penn State 93.0
67. Washington State 92.7
68. Georgia 92.7
69. Providence 92.3
70. Michigan State 91.7
71. Boston College 90.9
72. Texas A&M 90.5
73. Oregon State 90.4
74. Ole Miss 89.9
75. Texas 89.2
Let stylistic pluralism reign. Shot volume can be the product of beastly offensive rebounding, but it doesn’t have to be. Take a closer look at Nos. 1 and 2….
Turnover and offensive rebound percentages
Conference games only
TO% OR% SVI
1. North Carolina 17.8 43.9 102.5
2. Washington 14.2 32.6 101.6
Not every team is going to be able to be historically great on the offensive glass, but the Washington Model is eminently doable. Take fanatically good care of the ball, and get something around 31 or 32 percent of your misses. (See also Notre Dame last year.) You’ll be amazed at how good your offense can be as long as you’re not actually, you know, Washington in 2017. Speaking of which….
Markelle Fultz is doing amazing and largely unseen things. If his teammates could make shots and secure an occasional defensive rebound, Fultz’s amazingness would actually pay dividends in the here and now. When he gets to the next level and he’s playing with guys who can put the ball in the basket, I suspect something rather seismic could take place. Markelle, if you need an agent, I’m available.
More shots can cure what ails salty Tom Izzo. Michigan State plays better than average defense and has connected on 52 percent of its twos and 39 percent of its threes in Big Ten play. All the pieces are in place for another nationwide eruption of “He did it again!” Izzo euphoria if the Spartans would only hang on to the ball and add four or five percentage points to their offensive rebound rate.
John Gasaway 