Florida basketball had a practice open to the media this past week, as well as an opportunity to open up coach Todd Golden to questioning. One particular answer was noticeably interesting, after Golden was asked about what statistical improvements need to be made on defense in order to make a jump. Here is what he had to say:
“Yeah, I think the main things, you know, that we’re going to be thinking about a lot is, like, kind of like a big-picture wise, two-point field-goal percentage, like, we’ve got to be a better rim protecting team. Part of that is protecting the rim better, but also making sure that they don’t get as many rim shots, so that’s one area that we really need to get better at. I think our ball-screen defense needs to be a lot better. And then lastly, we got to be better at defending without fouling. I think those three areas, if we can make, like, a marked improvement in those, like, we’ll do what we need to do. We guarded the three pretty well last year, our transition defense is pretty good, but I think those other three areas will really determine how big of a jump we really do make.”
If someone is going to ask an analytic question and Golden gives an analytical answer, we are more than happy here at Gator Country to break it down further and show some more numbers behind the situation. In the next week, we’re going to break down a different part of this quote, and see what the Gators can do in order to improve their defense from one that finished 94th in KenPom’s adjusted defensive metric a year ago.
The first part to break down–rim protection.
Golden has always been a defense-first coach, and while his schemes have changed slightly, he’s largely someone who likes to play conservative schemes such as playing “drop” pick and roll coverage and staying below the level of the ball as one pass away help defenders. Taking away three-point shots is a huge aspect of these defense, but the tradeoff of taking away these higher value shots is that there is going to be a lot of action going towards the rim. Therefore–you need a high level of rim protection, and Florida didn’t have that last year. This meant the Gators giving up a lot of points at the rim, and ranking 136th in the country in two-point percentage defense.
Perhaps the biggest frustration regarding Florida’s lack of rim protection is the fact that they tried to play two traditional bigs at all times. Playing two bigs at all times might theoretically sound like a way to have better rim protection, but that isn’t always the case.
Throughout this article we are going to look at two different statistics to help evaluate rim protection–block rate (the percentage of two-point shots a player blocks while on the floor), and field goal percentage allowed at the rim when defended by a player.
A lot of coaches, such as Florida’s, love block percentage–but personally I think it paints a very, very narrow picture of what it means to protect the rim. Percentage allowed at the rim gives a much more real world picture of what impact a player has regarding opponents finishing at the rim, and credits players for making great defensive plays at the rim that force misses even if they don’t end in a blocked shot.
For example–Micah Handlogten. When Florida landed Handlogten, they praised the fact that he was 27th in the country in block percentage while at Marshall, suggesting he’d be an elite rim protector at Florida. However, when you look at the percentage allowed at the rim, opponents were scoring 52% when contested by Handlogten–putting him in just the 40th percentile nationally. Fast forward to his time at Florida, and he struggled greatly protecting the rim as his block percentage cratered from 8.7% to 4.3%, and his percentage allowed at the rim was 61%–putting him in just the 13th percentile nationally.
This is where a deep knowledge of analytics is important, as one number can tell one part of the story–but it can be a tiny part. A look at a more all encompassing number would have pointed out that Handlogten wasn’t a good rim protector at Marshall and therefore should struggle at Florida–and that’s exactly what happened.
Let’s take a look at some other Gators. Tyrese Samuel was actually a solid rim protector with teams shooting just 46% at the rim against him (59th percentile nationally) which was predictable because the year prior at Seton Hall he allowed 47%–yet another example of how using the right statistics can lead to predictable outcomes.
Who was Florida’s best rim protector? Freshman Alex Condon. Condon allowed just 37% at the rim putting him in the 88th percentile nationally, and while block percentage can be shaky as previously mentioned–it’s worth noting he also did lead the Gators in block percentage. If you’re looking for reasons to be encouraged about Florida’s improving rim protection, it could start with the fact their best rim protector is going to play a lot more minutes this season, while two players who weren’t as good won’t be.
Now, let’s look at the incoming players. Sam Alexis allowed 52% at the rim at Chattanooga which isn’t particularly encouraging. It’s a number that’s just below average, and considering he’s making a jump in leagues you probably can’t expect him to make a huge jump. It’s possible the numbers will improve since he’s going from playing a lot of center at Chattanooga to probably playing power forward at Florida, but it’s something to monitor.
Finally, the big name–Rueben Chinyelu. Florida put a lot of eggs in the basket of Chinyelu being an elite defender, and just like with Micah Handlogten Florida’s staff used block percentage as a reason why Chinyelu should be an elite rim protector at Florida. While Chinyelu didn’t qualify because he didn’t play enough minutes, if he did–his 9.6% block percentage would have been 22nd in the country. However, as we know–block percentage can be a flaky stat, so let’s look at what he was allowing at the rim percentage wise.
47%, putting him in the 59th percentile nationally.
Many of the buckets allowed were due to Chinyelu being a bit slow to respond and a bit sluggish laterally, not allowing him to be in a position where he could use his extreme length to contest a shot. With another year of experience under his belt he will hopefully improve in this area.
So, is block percentage propping up his rim protection skills just like it did for Handlogten? We will have to see. From a statistical standpoint, the Gators didn’t get all that much better as a rim protection team and they’ll have to hope for some development in that area, or perhaps for Condon to end up playing more minutes at the “5” where his rim protection ability can be leveraged further.
Just as important to Florida’s rim protection will be not allowing the same amount of drives. Florida’s big men might not have been the most equipped to protect the rim at a high level and it was only spotlighted further by the fact Florida gave up so many straight line drives due to poor perimeter defense. One of the worst offenders of this was Walter Clayton, as players who beat him off the dribble went on to shoot 61% at the rim. Is some of that the lack of rim protection? Perhaps–but a lot of these plays were situations where he got beat so cleanly that there was no real opportunity for the help side to save the day. Florida’s addition of Alijah Martin as well as freshman Isaiah Brown should help greatly when it comes to limiting these straight line drives, and that would be the first line of defense in terms of improving Florida’s defense at the rim.