Some numbers behind UofL's strong start this season
Welcome to another season of indepth Louisville Cardinals coverage here at Hoops Insight! For those who are new readers this season, here are some things to know:
I use play by play data to track data for the Cards, looking at advanced stats for lineups and players. I look at game situation, combinations of players, and opponent quality to find trends. You can read about some of the stats I like to use here
I put together a dashboard view of some of the key stats I like to look at, and usually share the latest games and season-to-date in each article. I'll often cite sections of this in my articles.
Most of my analysis ignores garbage time, which I define as anytime where the margin is 15 points or more with 2 minutes left, 18 points or more with 5 minutes left, or 25 points or more with 10 minutes left. These thresholds are based on analysis by Ken Pomeroy.
I'm on Twitter @hoopsinsights, and am always happy to answer questions from readers.
With that out of the way, let's get to the important stuff. Louisville has gotten off to a very strong start and has generally lived up to the expectations of fans, if not exceeded them. I'll spotlight a few interesting areas, but first, here's a one page stats profile for the Cards so far:
UofL stats profile through Nov 13, 2019
It's very early, and UofL has comfortably controlled almost all of their 3 games so far, but here are a few interesting data points so far:
The starting lineup is dominating: As you can see in Table D of the stats profile, UofL's starting lineup has played the most time of any lineup (56 possessions) and has outscored opponents by +31 points. This group is shooting the lights out, with an effective FG% of 77%. This continues a trend from last season, where UofL's starters during the last 3 months of the season were their most dominant lineup. No lineup is likely to sustain a 77% eFG%, but it's a good sign that UofL's coaching staff identifies combinations who can play well together and prepares them to set the tone early by outscoring opponents.
Darius Perry has stepped up at point guard: I wrote this article during the offseason making the case that Perry had the ability to be a strong PG, and has played very well in limited time when given the PG role. Excluding garbage time, Perry has assisted on over 26% of his teammates' baskets; this is just slightly below the rate posted by Christen Cunningham last season. As Table E in the stats profile highlights, Louisville's scoring margin is substantially better with Perry in the game this season...although the sample is very small, so that doesn't mean a ton. One trend that has carried over is that Perry plays a very different role when another ballhandler is in the game with him. Last season, Perry deferred heavily when playing alongside Cunningham but stepped into the distributor role when Cunningham was on the bench. The same is happening this year when Perry plays with Kimble. Perry assits on 29% of teammate's baskets when playing without Kimble, but only 17% when Kimble is in the game. Unlike last season, when Perry shot much less frequently when playing alongside Cunningham, he is not letting the presence of Kimble impact his aggressiveness, however. That's a positive sign, as the role change is not diminishing Perry's usefulness on offense.
The Cards are shooting the lights out, especially in transition: Table B on the stats profile shows the breakdown of UofL's shots, roughly by time taken to get the shot. UofL is shooting great whether shots are early (1-10 seconds into the clock), late (20+ seconds), or in-between (11-20 seconds). They have an eFG% of 74% on shots in the first 10 seconds of the clock, which roughly equates to transition shots...that's a stunningly high number. This is being driven by outstanding 3 point shooting, as UofL is 11-20 on these opportunities. This 55% shooting from three in transition is probably not sustainable, as UofL is shooting 37% from 3 on non-transition shots and last season their accuracy from 3 was 37% in transition and 33% in non-transition.
I went back and watched UofL's 5 3 point attempts in transition against Indiana State to see if the Cards are getting great shots, or benefiting from good luck. The Cards hit 4 of 5 from three in transition in this game, and it was probably more of a case of good luck than great shots. 2 of the shots were wide open, and UofL went 1-2 with Sutton hitting 1 and Williamson missing 1. Nwora and McMahon went 3-3 on their shots, with a defender pretty close to them each time. These weren't great shots, but both players are good shooters so it's not completely blind luck. What is clear is that UofL is doing a great job of spacing the floor with 4 players around the 3 point line, so that confident shooters have space if they want to fire. None of these shots came with a second defender in a remotely threatening position.
Nwora and McMahon in particular have been very hot from the outside this season. Nwora is 7-12 for 58%, with McMahon 11-18 for 61%. Last season they were at 37% (Nwora) and 35% (McMahon), so some regression is due, but all that's going to do is take UofL's offense from overwhelmingly good to merely outstanding. Given that other early season trends are largely carrying over from last season, UofL fans have every reason to believe that they will be rooting for one of the top teams in the nation this season.
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