To get back to the point of Florida not being a good rebounding team (after the Arkansas & Auburn game threads). In the NCAA rankings, Florida (33.8 reb/G) ranks just #256 out of 358 college basketball teams (see the SEC listings below). I had to go all the way back to page 7/9 to see where was Florida's rank. On that page, UF was joined by fellow SEC teams Vanderbilt (#241, 34.1 reb/G) and Georgia (#275, 33.1 reb/G) whom Florida will soon play. The worst rebounding team at #358 was Air Force (26.0 reb/G). Surprisingly on page 9 of the worst rebounding teams were the recent national champion (?2019), Virginia Cavaliers(#335, 31.3 reb/G). Another team that Florida had lost to this season was Oklahoma (#338, 31.2 reb/G). The team that UF defeated in last year's NCAA Tournament was Virginia Tech (#324, 31.8 reb/G). ============================================ Does playing small ball offense contribute to these types of rebounding rankings? Does rebounding rankings largely contribute to the overall win-loss rankings? It seems to be as teams like Kentucky, Arkansas, Auburn, etc. are also high up in the conference standings. However, the exceptions seems to be the case of South Carolina & Miss St being 0.500 teams (MSU, USC: 7-7 in the SEC). Alabama(8-7) & LSU(7-7) are not much better. These two teams rebound well but why are their records not any better. Another case is that Florida is one of the worst rebounding teams in the SEC but why is their record relatively good (UF: 7-8)? Talk about puzzling. 2021-22 SEC Basketball Standings | ESPN ================================================ 2021-22 NCAA Division I College Basketball Team Statistics - ESPN Now the teams that have the more traditional front-court line-ups seem to be the leaders nationally in rebounding rankings as expected. Some of these teams are also one of the #1/2 seeds in the NCAA. 2021-22 NCAA Division I College Basketball Team Statistics - ESPN #1 Arizona (43.1 reb/G) #3 Gonzaga (42.2 reb/G) #6 Kentucky (41.1 reb/G) #9 Auburn (40.6 reb/G) #15 Alabama (40.1 reb/G) #35 Arkansas (38.9 reb/G) #41 South Carolina (38.5 reb/G) #43 Louisiana St (38.4 reb/G) : #103 Oklahoma St (36.7) #103 Tennessee (36.7) #114 Mississippi St (36.5) : #171 Texas A&M (35.4) #184 Ohio St (35.1) #203 California (34.9) #221 Missouri (34.6) #226 Florida St (34.5) #239 Ole Miss (34.3) #241 Vanderbilt (34.1) #256 Florida (33.8) #275 Georgia (33.3)
I know our frontcourt depth was hurt by Jitoboh's injury, but I still would like to see Felder playing some minutes at the "3" and Gatkek, who was giving us some good minutes until recently, playing as Castleton's backup.
Rebounding margin would be a better analysis. For instance, UVa's rebounds per game is lower due in part to their deliberate offense. Fewer shots are taken, so there are fewer rebounding opportunities. Not really the case for UF, but margin would be interesting to see.
Poor shooting teams that can't rebound lose a lot of games.....duh...that is us. We shoot 47% of our shots from beyond the arc, yet we hit only 34%, which is bad. We only score about 31 points per game---yes per game---from within the 3-pt line. Let that sink in. Minus margin in rebounds. 1.0 in Assist to Turnover ratio. 70 pts per game, 15 from FT, leaves 55 pts of which 31 come from inside and 24 (8 made 3's/game). Bottom Line- the numbers say we should NOT attempt so many 3's. But then the opponents know we cant shoot 3's so they collapse in. Solution (imho): go bigger, not smaller.
This makes not playing Felder even a bigger mystery. Felder is averaging 2.5 rbs per game, but he barely played over a 5 game stretch. Take those 5 games away and he's averaging 3 rbs per game. However, Felder is only averaging 12.8 min per game. Without that 5 game stretch his minutes go up to 14.4 min per game. This means that Felder averages a rebound about every 4 minutes he plays. Now Duruji averages 4.2 reb per game but averages 24.9 min per game. This means that he's averaging a rebound every 6 minutes he plays. Fleming also averages 4.2 reb per game averaging 26.5 min per game or a rebound a little over 6 minutes per game. This is pretty good for a guard playing SF, but how about moving him to the 2 and putting Felder at the 3 and Duruji at the 4 or vice versa. Instead White loves his 3 guard line-up. So instead of a much better rebounding line-up, you have minutes going to the following: Appleby averaging a rbd every 13 minutes. Jones averaging a rbd every 10 minutes. McKissic averaging a rbd every 8.5 minutes. Reeves averaging a rbd every 13 minutes. Lane averaging a rbd every 9.5 minutes. Or he can also play Gatkek who's averaging a rebound every 4.6 minutes he plays. I understand that there's more to the game than rebounding, but the guards aren't even that great of scorers and how many times vs Arkansas did they have easy shots over tiny guards as the last line of defense. If your guards can't score that well anyway, why not give a lot more minutes to a line-up that can rebound better when it's been a huge problem all year. It just feels that White is only really comfortable playing a guard heavy lineup and can't adapt to the best line-up for the current players on the team.
expanding on your stats, Castleton and Jitoboh are the top rebounders based on rebounds per minute, but beyond our two tallest guys, Gatchek and Felder are the next best. Here is how I would like to see the front line minutes distributed the rest of the season 5- Castleton (32), Gatchek (8) 4- Duruji (25) Felder (15) 3- Fleming (25) Felder (10) Others (5) I just don't want to see Fleming at the 4, especially with Duruji manning the 5. In fact, I would rather see Gatchek as Castleton's backup.
On Tuesday night we had a lot of our smaller players get hands on the ball and not make the rebound. Over and over again.
During the press conference after the Arkansas game CMW mentioned that one-handed rebounding and failure to secure the ball was a persistent problem that is addressed all of the time. Turnover margin was greatly improved so play can change.
Methinks rebounding stats are like TOP in football, it says something about a particular game but is kind of limited when talking about the quality of the team. Give me a team that wins the turnover battle and shoots at a good rate over one who shoots ineffectively or doesn't create turnovers. Now if the team doesn't win the rebounding, doesn't shoot well, and doesn't create turnovers? It needs to stop scheduling Texas Southern and Old Miss.
