Santa Clara Men's Basketball - It's a Numbers Game

 

                                                                                                                   

AI - Artificial Intelligence is dominating media headlines as a definitive way to solve massive data intensive problems.  It's use in NCAA Men's Basketball will revolutionize the speed and insight provided to coaches stemming from analytics that capture every detail from every player and every possession.  

It's a numbers game that will become the basis of how "Money Ball" will take over college athletics.  Our new A.D. will have to integrate all the current best practices of traditional college athletics with the rapidly unfolding "money ball" world where the price tag of top talent just got a huge raise. 

Coaches, who for most of their careers, have relied on years of experience and judgement, now have added tools in building competitive rosters, scheduling, game planning, and in-game decisions based on actual situational statistical facts.  They'll need new tools, as the long standing model of recruiting young players and developing them like Jalen Williams has morphed into buy now, win now through the new free agency NCAA transfer portal.  

This is a pivotal year for the Broncos.  The petabytes of NCAA basketball analytics predict success when a team has a roster of returnees and transfers that played more than 60% of the previous season's minutes and teams that execute the "Four Factors" better than their opponents.  SCU's returning roster minutes - 76%.

The four factors in order of importance are: 

Effective FG% Efficiency:  A formula that combines a teams two and three point percentages.   Performance Weight:  40%, SCU 2025 National Rank:  90

Protecting the Ball:  Turnovers.  Performance Weight:  25%, SCU 2024 Rank:  277

Controlling the Boards:  Rebounding.  Performance Weight:  20%, SCU 2024 Rank:  18

Converting at the Line:  Free throw %.  Performance Weight: 15%,  SCU Rank: 215

Here are the projected numbers for the Broncos in 2024-2025.  The predictions are based upon the actual performances of every player on our current roster versus every team on our schedule and using every players total offensive and defensive possessions from last season.  These come from multiple sources.  

Current pre-season NCAA team rank 99.  Expected record 18-12.  WCC Season projection has us tied for 4th with USF.  Projected effective roster talent:  WCC, 7th.  Roster Experience rank:  WCC, 3rd.  Offensive efficiency rank: NCAA  90; WCC, 3rd.  Defensive efficiency rank:  NCAA, 112; WCC, 5th.  NCAA tournament chance:  Seeded 11%; Auto bid 6.4%; Total Odds 6.9%.

On Offense, we have two players ranked in the WCC top 20 - #18 and #20.  Gonzaga has six, USF with five, and St. Mary's five.

On defense, we have one player ranked in the top 10 in the WCC and two others top 20.  Gonzaga, St. Mary's and USF own the other 17 top spots. 

While projections are just data backed assumptions, it's clear we have work to do.  The data doesn't project roster improvement, just the value of the talent and returning roster minutes and experience.  How can our coaches get the maximum development and improvement from our players?  Can we adapt our system of play on offense and defense to unlock the talent that might be unique in this roster?  The top teams, Gonzaga and St. Mary's, are exceptional at creating mis-matches both on offense and defense that propel them to the number # 1 offense and top 20 defense.  

Identifying the improvements needed is easy.  Correcting them is much harder and a big hill to climb for the Broncos.  NCAA tournament level teams in the WCC and on our schedule average rank on offense was 41 and defense 40.  SCU was 107 and 134.  Their turnover rates average 10/game versus SCU at 13.  That amounts to about 100 possessions for the season at an SCU offensive point per possession rate of 109.8 or 110 more points.  I think we all know where we could have used those extra points.

In spite of the hill to climb, we are still in the mix for post season and with some upsets and no losses to 200 plus ranked teams an NCAA.   We're going to need to go full "Podziemski" mode this season - overlooked, underrated and come out of nowhere to impose our will on our opponents.  Post some "numbers" we can all be proud of and prove the prognosticators wrong!