I know. His power rankings in the season always seem to suggest a slightly dour view to Pitt. Maybe there’s bias. Maybe Pitt is a team he simply won’t give as much credit towards until it has a bigger March impact. It’s also possible.
That said, he’s also been there with praise after the Big East Tournament. His pre-pre-power rankings for the upcoming year starts Pitt at #6. I happen to like Winn, since he is one of the few basketball sports writers willing to look deeper at numbers and statistical information.
So, yes, I saw his story talking about potential effects of moving the 3-point line back 1 foot for the upcoming season. In his final section it looked like Pitt got singled out as being at risk.
But the most interesting case study will be at Pittsburgh, which was seventh-worst on that list. Last season, defenses were kept honest by the shooting of junior Sam Young (38.3 percent, 44 threes) and seniors Ronald Ramon (37.2 percent, 67 threes) and Keith Benjamin (37.0 percent, 51 threes). The Panthers’ overall percentage was dragged down by the abysmal aim of point guard Levance Fields (27.7 percent, 28 threes) and Gilbert Brown (24.4 percent, 19 threes) — both of whom will likely be in the starting lineup now that Ramon and Benjamin are gone.
If defenses sag down against Fields’ penetration, and use help to double super-sophomore DeJuan Blair in the post, can Pitt make them pay? The Panthers are finding their way into plenty of preseason top 10s, but they won’t be a contender without being able to pose some semblance of a threat from beyond 20-9.
The point, though, was he was looking at numbers from NCAA Tournament teams. In that final section — those Tourney teams that had the lowest shooting % on 3s — Pitt was not just the only preseason top-10 team for this coming season, but the only consensus pre-season top-25 team. That makes Pitt the team with that question mark. On a national level, who cares if UNLV or Georgia is going to struggle with the transition if it isn’t even a sure thing if they’ll even be in the rankings? I take it as a bit of respect and a note on the expectations that Pitt merited the discussion.
Really, even in if the line wasn’t moving back a foot, it would still be the big question mark on the team going into the season — and a concern for Pitt fans. A literal change of guards. With Ramon and Benjamin gone. Especially Ramon. For all his struggles through injuries last season, Ramon was still the guy expected to take and be consistent on 3s. This is why there is some thought as to Ashton Gibbs coming in right away to help Pitt with that, and why the signing of Jermaine Dixon seems a little curious considering he isn’t exactly a 3-point marksman.
Winn takes Ken Pomeroy’s stuff as gospel. People take this quant. stuff as if it is infallible. Pomeroy’s stats didn’t give Pitt a snowball’s chance in hell to win the Big East tournament and had Georgetown ranked way too high all year. Watching the games is more important than studying statistics. If the numbers match up with what you see, then great. But correlation doesn’t imply causation.
You could tell Pitt was a team that could compete last year if you watched the Louisville game at the Pete. At that point it was clear that the Cardinals were the best team in the league. Pitt played them to a standstill in a game where they were scorching from the perimeter. That game should have given Pitt fans hope for the rest of the year.
Pitt will be more effective next year on the defensive end because of the new line. That should offset any struggles from deep. Pitt’s best teams in this era couldn’t shoot straight. This team will be much better offensively than those teams because of the talent and athleticism. The three pointer isn’t going to determine Pitt’s success.
To make any inferences based on last years stats. is ridiculous. One will need a data set that reflects the line change on all teams. Any conclusions that are made are statistically insignificant until then.
Tempo-free stats are a huge leap in statistical analysis, just as sabremetrics are in baseball. In both cases, of course, they are not the end-all-be-all. They are, a very, very useful tool that shouldn’t be ignored when you don’t like the numbers either.
Let’s be fair, going into the BET, no one was giving Pitt that much of a chance.
You say that to judge on last year’s stats is ridiculous, but prior to that you stated that Fields’ shot was starting to fall before he got injured. I have to disagree.
Fields is something of a streak shooter on 3s. Prior to the Dayton game — an 11 game sample set — Fields was only 13-44 for 29.5%. In the last 3 games he had been 6-10. The two before that, though, was an 0-10 spell. I don’t see a lot of support that his 3-point shot was starting to fall that consistently.
That 11 game set included the first 7 against poor defenses.
The 3-point shot is a huge part of college basketball. More than just mid-majors live and die by it.
We’ve seen Pitt struggle in the past when teams collapse inside, daring the perimeter players to shoot.
It is a legit area of concern for Pitt going into this season. Winn didn’t say Pitt wouldn’t be a good team. What he said was “they won’t be a contender without being able to pose some semblance of a threat from beyond 20-9.”
I take that to mean Final Four contender, since a top-10 preseason would have that as the goal.
Again, if you are looking for the primary weak spot on Pitt based on the players returning, the perimeter shooting would be it.
I am hopeful that the extended 3 will help Pitt. On defense, lower the percentage of made 3s to force teams inside to the teeth of Pitt’s defense.
On offense, spread the floor — to allow drives by Fields, Brown, Young and hopefully Cook. Create more space inside for Biggs, McGhee and Blair. Still, the perimeter shot is needed to keep things spread.
I can’t say I’m terribly optimistic.
I am a true believer in the usefullness of statistics and numbers (I have worked in finance since graduation and have a BS in Economics). However, Mr. Winn is grossly misusing them in his analysis. Furthermore a disciplined and perceptive qualitative analysis will almost always trump a quantitative analysis. The best result will probably be an amalgam of the two.
Back to Pitt, since you would like to analyze last years stats. let’s look a bit deeper. Based on the first chart in Winn’s analysis Pitt would rank 11th on the list of least reliance on three pointers. Last season Pitt relied on the three pointer for approximately 30.4% of their field goal attempts. That is 263rd among division 1 teams (this is courtesy of Mr. Pomeroy). Pitt’s opponents relied on the three pointer for 34.4% of their field goal attempts ranking 174th in the nation. Pitt didn’t shoot the shot at a great clip coming in at 221st in the nation, but their opponents shot it decently well at 34% for 76th in the nation. Pitt can’t really get all that worse from distance, after all there are only 301 teams in d-1, but their opponents can shoot worse. Wouldn’t one think that the line moving back would have more of an impact on Pitt’s opponents than it would on them? That is what the numbers actually suggest.
Additionally, Pitt will have more size on the perimeter which should help contain three point shooters as well. I truly hope that Gilbert Brown and Levance shoot better, but it will not be that hurtful if they don’t. Finally, if Cook returns it should help solve this perceived problem given his outstanding mid-range game and the fact that he was one of our best three point shooters.
His second season, I expect is closer to reality and that was only 35.6%.
The injury this past season is valid, but as I noted, he wasn’t exactly lighting things up before he went down.
I love Fields, but his 3-point shooting has to improve. I am concerned because now he will be the focus of perimeter defenses without Ramon there.
For all of Ramon’s inconsistencies and injury problems of the past season, he was the one defenses really keyed on to prevent taking 3s. Ramon had the reputation and coaches planned to stop him on the perimeter.
Fields needs to shoot the three confidently and I think that he will. If he makes 35% of his shots from distance, then Pitt plays in the final 4.
In 2006-07 he shot 50% or better in a game from outside 11 times. He also shot 17% or worse 12 times. That leaves 14 remaining games somewhere in the middle.
Over the course of the season, if he had been healthy, I believe he would have been at a 33-37% shooting clip. Or about where he was the previous season.
Which seems to be something we can agree upon. The original issue, though, was what the impact of shooting another foot back will have. The actual impact may only be a few % points, but when the team wasn’t shooting 3s that well in the first place it’s an issue.
You rightfully point out that Pitt does not rely on the three. Especially compared to the rest of college basketball. Agreed. Fine. The point Winn made and I agree is that Pitt does need the three to keep teams honest and opposing defenses spread.
Young, Brown and Cook all have a great mid-range game and they should be able to better exploit it next year. The worst thing for Pitt to do would be to jack up threes because a team is playing a packed in zone. You can still get lay-ups, dunks and wide open jumpers on a zone. You just have to move the ball and play smart. Jacking up threes is not the way to go.
Will making more threes help Pitt? Obviously yes, but it isn’t as important as Winn makes it out to be.
Scott McKillop made 1st team All-American on defense (just as he did in almost every other magazine). However they have him listed at 6’2, 280 lbs…
Must be a typo, because I highly doubt he gained 40 lbs in the off season lol.