For the first time in a number of years the Gators find themselves with a number of quality options in the frontcourt. Tyrese Samuel came in as a proven Big East veteran, known as someone who could compete physically inside while having some ball handling chops on the perimeter. Micah Handlogten was a 7’1” rebounding machine. Alex Condon was someone who could both mix it up in the paint and sprint in transition, while Thomas Haugh had shooting ability and athleticism. All four players have proven the ability to contribute and Florida is now in the situation where they’ve got to find out how much to play each of these guys and which combinations will bring the best results.
Right now Tyrese Samuel appears to be locked in as the leader of the frontcourt despite two tough games to start the SEC season. Thomas Haugh also appears to have his role somewhat locked in as the fourth big–though that has still meant 14 important minutes off the bench. The biggest competition has been between Handlogten and Condon, with Handlogten starting the season as the undisputed starter. Condon has been rapidly clawing away more minutes, and he has spent more time closing games in the last few weeks than Handlogten.
Has Florida found the right rotation for these four frontcourt pieces? To find out how each combination of players has played together and what groupings are the best, an excellent way to begin is with lineup data. The best way of evaluating a lineup is to use “net rating,” so let’s quickly go over what that is.
Before we get net rating, we want offensive rating and defensive rating.
Offensive rating is points per possession pro-rated to 100 possessions. By using points per possession we take tempo out of the equation for a purer number, and by pro-rating it to 100 possessions we account for the different number of minutes different lineups have been on the floor.
So, if a lineup played 50 possessions and scored 50 points they’d have 1.00 points per possession, and a 100 offensive rating.
Defensive rating is the same equation, just for defense. Then, net rating is simply offensive rating minus defensive rating. For obvious reasons, being in the positive is good and being in the negative is bad.
To make the data a little bit more focused, we’re also going to look only at Florida’s games against high-major opponents. We want to find data that’s going to inform what could happen in SEC games, and including data when Florida was blowing out buy games isn’t really going to help us. Now, let’s get into it.
Here are Florida’s frontcourt tandems and how they have ranked in offensive rating, defensive rating, and net rating against high-major competition.
Tyrese Samuel
Micah Handlogten
Offensive Rating: 105
Defensive Rating: 110
Net Rating: -5
Tyrese Samuel
Alex Condon
Offensive Rating: 107
Defensive Rating: 118
Net Rating: -11
Tyrese Samuel
Thomas Haugh
Offensive Rating: 116
Defensive Rating: 113
Net Rating: +3
Micah Handlogten
Alex Condon
Offensive Rating: 149
Defensive Rating: 99
Net Rating: +50
Micah Handlogten
Thomas Haugh
Offensive Rating: 143
Defensive Rating: 125
Net Rating: +18
Thomas Haugh
Alex Condon
Offensive Rating: 102
Defensive Rating: 120
Net Rating: -18
As you can see–there are some pretty fascinating numbers here.
Tyrese Samuel has been Florida’s highest-minute player, and considering Florida hasn’t been so good in a lot of these high-major games you can understand how he’d have a lot of negatives in terms of lineup data. However, when you see that other frontcourt combinations have actually had good numbers in these games–you start to wonder if Florida should actually look at changing up their frontcourt rotation.
Micah Handlogten and Tyrese Samuel have been starting the first and second halves for the Gators and that hasn’t actually netted particularly positive results with a -5 net rating. The Gators have particularly struggled offensively with these two and when you take a deeper look at the shot profile you see the Gators shooting only 48% at the rim and 23% from three with this lineup. Considering Handlogten hasn’t been a great finisher at the rim and neither of these frontcourt pieces bring shooting, perhaps it makes sense why these numbers would present themselves. It’s also interesting that Thomas Haugh and Tyrese Samuel have been a better combination particularly offensively since Haugh brings a shooting threat. With Haugh on the court it appears the floor is much better spaced as the Gators are shooting 61% at the rim with this group, suggesting a lot less help defense at the rim.
Alex Condon has been providing great minutes recently but the overall numbers with Samuel haven’t been good. Condon and Samuel have the same issues as Handlogten and Samuel with the Gators shooting 51% at the rim (a better number–but still below the national average) and 24% from three.
It’s also hard not to notice that a lot of Tyrese Samuel lineups don’t look great, and a lot of the non-Samuel lineups are doing well. When you look at Samuel’s individual numbers the Gators have a -3 net rating with him on the floor and a +8 net rating with him on the bench–and you never want to see that kind of negative differential for a key player.
Handlogten and Condon have actually destroyed teams on the glass grabbing an outrageous 59% of Florida’s missed shots on offence, making them arguably the best offensive rebounding lineup in the country. That rebounding is a huge reason why they’ve been able to put up points and it might not be completely sustainable, but to this point they have been tremendous together.
With Handlogten and Haugh, once again we see a floor that’s much better spaced and something that makes Florida’s offense look much better. The Gators are shooting 50% from three and 62% at the rim with this lineup which suggests that better-spaced floor.
Looking at all this data there are a number of takeaways you could have. For starters–it looks like Thomas Haugh might be in a position to earn more minutes, at least it looks like it on the offensive end. The young Haugh is struggling on defense and with Florida’s defense struggling on the whole they might be looking for more defensive options–but it’s worth noting how much better the offenses have looked with him on the floor.
It also appears like the Gators should consider a few less Tyrese Samuel minutes as a lot of his lineups are struggling right now. Of course, the obvious lineup that you can look at as one that should play less is the Samuel-Handlogten frontcourt. It’s not that these players are horrible together by any means, but we can look at this data and see that there are other lineups performing better and possibly the Gators could look at starting a different group.
Also, considering that we can see that Condon and Haugh have had success playing with Samuel and Handlogten, perhaps it’s time to stop playing the two freshmen together. Both have had excellent moments when playing with Handlogten and Samuel, but the minutes the young guys play together continue to go poorly–particularly on the defensive end.
Florida takes on Arkansas on January 13th, and now that you know this data–look to see how the different frontcourt rotations do and how the different pieces play off each other. It could be time for the Gators to make some lineup changes at those positions.