Everyone says ritually that “Chris Beard’s doing a heck of a job,” and that he’s in line, should he wish, for a gig with any of the bluest of the blue-chips when those opportunities avail themselves. Everyone’s exactly right, just not necessarily, in 2021, for the reasons everyone’s saying.
A traditional video search of half-court sets for the heck of a job that Beard’s doing, for example, will by itself prove insufficient. This particular Texas Tech team can’t throw the ball in the ocean from a rowboat and in fact can be found down in the 200s nationally for effective field goal percentage.
Likewise, the vaunted no-middle defense in Lubbock has this season become the no-misses D. The Big 12’s shooting 41 percent from beyond the arc against these guys. Yes, that’s mostly outside of the Red Raiders’ control, and, no, that level of accuracy’s not likely to continue. It’s just tough to name streets after a defense that’s clocking in right at its league’s average in conference play while down the road in Waco another D entirely is, when it gets to play, appointment viewing for the hoops gods.
No, what Beard’s done — in addition to the small matter of leading a traditionally forlorn basketball program to the 45th minute of a national title game — is that he has shown, as of this season, the ability address a team weakness and turn it into a strength virtually overnight. That’s relatively rare within a profession that instead exhibits a tendency to double down on how things have always been done before by Coach X and his mentors.
Coach Beard has cut down dramatically on turnovers, as all coaches seek to do, while also recalibrating his team’s definition of normalcy when it comes to securing second chances. The result is an offense that attempts more shots than almost any other major-conference team. This ability along with regular trips to the line is, so far, saving Texas Tech’s skin on offense in 2021.
Shot volume index (SVI)
Conference games only, through Feb. 15: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC
TO% OR% SVI 1. Iowa 13.3 31.3 101.9 2. Villanova 13.8 29.6 100.5 3. Minnesota 14.6 29.2 99.4 4. Texas Tech 15.3 30.5 99.2
The Red Raiders rank No. 3 for offense in Big 12 play despite not shooting as accurately as any of the league’s other six at-large-track programs. It’s been a dramatic turnaround in Lubbock, where last year at a similar stage in the season the team looked like this in the standings.
TO% OR% SVI 68. Iowa State 20.9 28.2 91.6 69. Texas Tech 20.4 26.8 91.6 70. Georgia Tech 22.4 31.5 91.3 71. Kansas State 20.9 26.9 91.0 72. Texas 20.7 25.9 90.8 73. Washington 22.5 28.4 89.8 74. TCU 23.5 30.4 89.5 75. Stanford 20.8 22.1 89.0
Well done, Raiders, you are members of a distinguished group in 2021. The current top four teams for shot volume all share more or less the same profile in this one respect. Iowa, Villanova, Minnesota, and Texas Tech are all combining outstanding performance on turnovers with normal to good but by no means great offensive rebounding. That, it would appear, is the sweet spot.
Who knew the 2019 national championship game would so conveniently package two contrasting parables of shot volume. Virginia that season was a virtual clone of what Texas Tech was fated to become in 2021.
2019 TO% OR% SVI Virginia 15.4 30.2 98.9
Times have changed in Charlottesville.
2021 TO% OR% SVI Virginia 15.6 18.6 93.2
This transformation was particularly striking purely in a visual (not dispositive) sense in the Cavaliers’ loss at Florida State. Often there was no Hoo even visible on the screen by the time a UVA miss had come off the rim. To be sure, that’s the way the sport is trending, the NBA’s already there, spacing has consequences, and offensive rebounds really are dying. All well and good.
When you kill offensive rebounds at a significantly faster rate than your opponents, however, there will still be a price to be paid even in a 5-out world. The question is merely comparative (how many attempts a team’s recording relative to its opponents) and not at all normative (how many offensive rebounds a team “should” get or what one’s philosophy on offense “should” be).
In 2019, Virginia had the best offense in the ACC, one that scored 1.16 points per possession in conference play. This season that honor falls to Florida State, which, coincidentally, is also recording 1.16 points per trip. In order to score that many points at its current shot volume and free throw rate, UVA would have to record an effective field goal percentage of 60. This was the level of accuracy posted by Villanova in Big East play in 2018.
Here’s how every major-conference team rates out for shot volume, complete with pithy group labels at plus and minus one standard deviation:
Shot volume index (SVI)
Conference games only, through Feb. 15: ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC
Gluttonous TO% OR% SVI 1. Iowa 13.3 31.3 101.9 2. Villanova 13.8 29.6 100.5 3. Minnesota 14.6 29.2 99.4 4. Texas Tech 15.3 30.5 99.2 5. Arizona 17.0 33.7 98.7 6. Penn State 16.9 32.9 98.4 7. West Virginia 17.6 34.5 98.3 8. Louisville 17.3 32.8 97.9 9. Oklahoma 15.0 26.8 97.8 10. Rutgers 15.5 28.0 97.8 11. LSU 16.5 30.4 97.7 12. Pitt 17.1 31.6 97.6 Normal TO% OR% SVI 13. Colorado 16.1 28.7 97.4 14. Oregon 16.3 29.1 97.4 15. UConn 18.3 33.7 97.1 16. Duke 18.1 33.1 97.1 17. North Carolina 20.0 38.2 97.1 18. Ohio State 16.1 28.0 97.1 19. UCLA 17.1 30.6 97.1 20. USC 19.0 35.3 97.0 21. Syracuse 16.2 27.5 96.7 22. Baylor 19.5 35.5 96.5 23. Illinois 17.7 31.1 96.5 24. Kansas 18.5 32.0 96.1 25. St. John's 16.6 27.0 96.0 26. Arkansas 17.7 29.5 95.9 27. Florida 19.0 32.7 95.9 28. Wisconsin 14.7 22.2 95.9 29. Purdue 18.7 31.8 95.8 30. South Carolina 20.1 35.4 95.8 31. Oregon State 17.4 28.3 95.7 32. Texas 18.6 31.2 95.6 33. Xavier 16.9 26.9 95.6 34. Florida State 19.7 33.8 95.5 35. Indiana 16.4 25.3 95.5 36. Creighton 16.8 25.7 95.2 37. Providence 18.3 29.4 95.2 38. Virginia Tech 16.6 25.1 95.1 39. Kentucky 19.5 31.8 94.9 40. Arizona State 15.6 21.9 94.8 41. Michigan 18.5 28.8 94.7 (average) 42. Butler 17.4 25.4 94.4 43. Michigan State 18.7 28.8 94.4 44. Tennessee 18.2 27.5 94.4 45. Seton Hall 18.6 28.2 94.3 46. Alabama 19.6 30.3 94.1 47. Ole Miss 20.8 33.1 93.9 48. Notre Dame 14.7 17.6 93.7 49. Virginia 15.6 18.6 93.2 50. DePaul 21.2 32.1 93.0 51. Georgetown 21.5 32.8 92.9 52. Auburn 21.7 32.9 92.8 53. Boston College 18.5 24.8 92.8 54. NC State 21.0 30.8 92.7 55. Vanderbilt 20.0 28.3 92.7 56. Washington 18.6 24.8 92.7 57. Miami 18.6 24.5 92.6 58. Clemson 19.3 26.0 92.5 59. Marquette 20.5 28.8 92.3 60. Utah 19.2 25.3 92.3 61. Maryland 16.5 18.5 92.2 62. Oklahoma State 21.2 30.3 92.2 63. Georgia 22.5 33.5 92.1 Starving TO% OR% SVI 64. Georgia Tech 16.3 17.3 91.8 65. Missouri 20.2 26.8 91.8 66. Northwestern 16.6 17.9 91.8 67. TCU 21.8 30.4 91.5 68. Cal 19.5 23.9 91.3 69. Wake Forest 20.7 27.0 91.3 70. Mississippi State 22.8 32.0 91.1 71. Nebraska 19.5 23.0 90.9 72. Washington State 22.2 30.0 90.9 73. Stanford 20.6 25.1 90.6 74. Texas A&M 23.3 30.5 89.8 75. Kansas State 22.9 28.0 89.2 76. Iowa State 20.7 20.9 88.6 AVG 18.4 28.6 94.7
Let’s revisit this stuff in the past tense during Champ Week and see where we landed. See you then.
John Gasaway 