Virginia Tech ranked No. 74 out of 75 major-conference teams for shot volume, and the Hokies’ offense was above-average anyway. What is this voodoo that you do, Buzz Williams?
Basketball’s a contest to see who can put the ball in the basket the most times, and for whatever reason fans, media, and, especially, coaches (at least when they speak for public consumption) have always chosen to focus on whether a particular attempt is a make or a miss. We go into exceptional and occasionally tedious detail on the importance of creating one’s own shot, the finer points of pick-and-roll kabuki (particularly on D), proper defensive stance and hand position and such.
All of which is self-evidently important, but all of which also assumes implicitly that the number of times you get to attempt a shot is more or less constant across teams and games. That assumption doesn’t hold up.
In addition to in-play success or failure, the volume of plays is the other 50 percent of the matter that’s getting perhaps five or 10 percent of the words and attention. To redress this imbalance, I’ve been using a shot volume index this season to try to measure which teams generate the most shots. I’ve listed the final results on that metric for 75 major-conference teams below.
North Carolina again leads the way, and I dare say what you see is what you get with the Tar Heels. When you watch a UNC game, you’re probably thinking “Gee, they’re good at offensive rebounding, and that must really help their offense.” True enough. I would only add that the Heels’ very good turnover rate super-charges said offensive rebounding. Baylor, to draw a counter-example, is also outstanding at crashing the offensive glass, but the Bears don’t give themselves nearly as many chances to do so.
One instance where our eyes might be leading us slightly astray is UCLA. When a team shoots historically well, that’s what we’ll be struck by, forcefully, in real time. We can’t help it. That’s fine, but we should also know that the Bruins improved significantly in the back half of the Pac-12 season both in terms of taking care of the ball and as far as offensive rebounding. Steve Alford’s team is now both accurate and high-volume. That’s a really, really exclusive club for offense, one that has Wisconsin in 2015 and not too many teams past or present as members.
Now the truth in advertising. Shot volume is not the end all and be all, and most particularly the existence of Northwestern and Virginia Tech in the same season did the SVI’s credibility no favors.
The Wildcats were shot-volume heroes, but their offense produced points at a level that was slightly below the league average in Big Ten play. Tying with Nebraska for the title of “worst non-Rutgers shooting from the field in B1G play” had a lot to do with that.
Meanwhile the Hokies were drop-dead awful at generating shots, but, particularly late in the season, Buzz Williams’ guys just could not miss. Basically, the ground rules for watching Virginia Tech are fairly straightforward. It really, really matters whether the first shot goes in (and it very often has of late against opponents not named Florida State), because better than four times out of five there will be no second shot.
Here are the final results, with pithy category titles at plus and minus one standard deviation:
Shot volume index (SVI)
Major-conference games only
Gluttonous TO% OR% SVI 1. North Carolina 16.1 42.1 103.8 2. Louisville 16.2 35.0 100.3 3. Florida State 15.7 32.9 99.9 4. Arizona 15.9 33.2 99.8 5. UCLA 14.6 29.9 99.8 6. Wisconsin 16.3 33.4 99.4 7. Arkansas 15.5 30.1 98.8 8. Butler 15.2 29.3 98.8 9. Northwestern 15.1 28.9 98.7 10. Wake Forest 15.5 29.9 98.7 11. Oregon 15.4 29.5 98.6 12. Kentucky 16.3 31.4 98.5 Normal TO% OR% SVI 13. Minnesota 15.7 29.3 98.2 14. Colorado 17.6 33.5 97.9 15. Tennessee 16.3 30.2 97.9 16. Clemson 15.9 28.9 97.8 17. West Virginia 18.7 36.2 97.8 18. Notre Dame 14.5 25.3 97.7 19. Duke 17.1 31.6 97.6 20. Xavier 18.9 35.7 97.4 21. Arizona State 13.7 22.4 97.2 22. Kansas 18.7 34.9 97.2 23. Michigan 14.5 24.1 97.1 24. Washington 18.4 33.7 97.1 25. Auburn 17.6 31.6 97.0 26. Florida 17.2 30.3 96.9 27. Oklahoma State 19.1 35.1 96.9 28. USC 17.0 29.9 96.9 29. Nebraska 18.8 34.1 96.8 30. Virginia 16.0 26.8 96.7 31. California 19.0 34.1 96.5 32. South Carolina 18.6 33.0 96.5 33. Syracuse 17.4 29.9 96.5 34. Illinois 16.8 28.3 96.4 35. Iowa State 14.5 22.7 96.4 36. Iowa 18.7 32.8 96.3 37. Rutgers 19.9 35.7 96.2 38. Seton Hall 19.7 35.3 96.2 39. Baylor 22.3 42.2 96.1 40. Texas Tech 17.2 28.4 96.0 41. Villanova 18.0 30.3 96.0 42. Maryland 18.1 30.4 95.9 43. Utah 17.7 29.1 95.8 (average, huzzah) 44. Marquette 17.7 28.0 95.3 45. Miami 19.1 31.7 95.3 46. Missouri 17.5 27.7 95.3 47. Stanford 18.2 29.0 95.1 48. Ohio State 18.5 29.4 95.0 49. Oklahoma 19.4 31.6 94.9 50. Pitt 18.4 29.0 94.9 51. Purdue 18.0 28.1 94.9 52. Alabama 21.1 35.3 94.6 53. St. John's 17.0 24.9 94.6 54. LSU 19.1 29.9 94.5 55. Penn State 17.7 26.0 94.3 56. Providence 18.1 26.8 94.2 57. Ole Miss 19.6 30.3 94.1 58. NC State 19.3 29.6 94.1 59. Georgia 18.6 27.4 93.9 60. Vanderbilt 17.5 22.9 93.1 61. Indiana 21.3 34.2 93.8 62. TCU 20.5 31.9 93.8 63. Kansas State 19.4 28.7 93.6 64. Creighton 17.4 23.0 93.3 Starving TO% OR% SVI 65. Texas A&M 22.7 35.9 92.9 66. Georgetown 20.2 27.5 92.1 67. DePaul 20.0 26.6 92.0 68. Georgia Tech 19.3 24.6 91.9 69. Michigan State 20.5 27.5 91.8 70. Texas 20.7 27.8 91.7 71. Mississippi State 20.6 27.4 91.6 72. Boston College 19.2 23.4 91.4 73. Washington State 17.8 20.0 91.4 74. Virginia Tech 18.0 19.9 91.2 75. Oregon State 21.9 26.6 89.8
John Gasaway 