Gophers 2013-14 Recap Part II: Offensive eFG%

Gophers 2013-14 Recap Part II: Offensive eFG%

There are thousands of angles to consider when talking about the topic of Minnesota’s eFG%. Today we’ll share a select few.

Often you’ll hear people, including traditional media, talk about a player’s field goal percentage when describing their game. “Player X shoots 44% from the field – that’s pretty good for a guard,” they might say.

The problem with such statements is that there’s not enough information provided to make such a claim. When evaluating how well a player or team shoots the ball, we must give (among other data) effective field goal percentage proper attention.

When looking at a team’s eFG%, the first things to understand are the basics – and the basics do not include overall FG%. The components of eFG% are: 2FG%, 3FG% and 3FG/FGA. In other words: At what rate does a team convert 2-point and 3-point attempts, respectively, and what is the mix of shot attempts between 2-point and 3-point attempts?

3FGA/FGA
An important difference to understand when comparing the last two seasons is that 3-point shot became a bigger weapon in Richard Pitino’s first year as head coach. Of all Gopher field goal attempts, 37.7% were from deep compared to just 29.7% in 2012-13.

Last August we wrote that “the Gophers will attempt 3-point field goals more often during 2013-14 than in any season over the past decade,” and added that, “an assumption of a 3FGA/FGA percentage in the upper 30’s or even into the 40’s does not look unreasonable.” (August 5, 2013)

In nonconference play the Gophers were sitting near 40%. However, as we wrote in March, the Gophers scaled back their outside attack in Big Ten play

The following chart illustrates Minnesota’s 3FGA/FGA percentage over the past five seasons.

During the Big Ten regular season, Minnesota was in the middle of pack with a 34.5% 3FGA/FGA. The wide range within the conference went from Northwestern at 27.2% up to Wisconsin at 41.0%.

Minnesota was a bit unique for a team in the top 20% (of all D-I schools) of 3FGA/FGA teams in that they played a point guard who doesn’t shoot many 3-pointers. Dre Mathieu made nearly half of his 45 attempts (don’t expect that in 2014-15), but fewer than 14% of his shots were from behind the arc in 2013-14.

So who was launching from deep for the Gophers? The list of players and their respective 3FGA/FGA percentage below includes all players with at least 20 3FGA last season:

Only Dre Hollins, King and Mathieu return in 2014-15. We’ll share more on what you might expect this coming season as it grows nearer, but today we’ll limit commentary to the last year’s performance for the three returners.

Dre Hollins – In our 2013-14 preview, we warned that duplication of his 3FG shooting accuracy would be difficult. You can go back to our article two years ago regarding Dre’s high 3FG% as a sophomore and reasons why you might not want to trust it as an strong indicator of future performance.

The struggle to duplicate proved true, but it wasn’t even close. His 34.9% was down considerably from 41.8% as a sophomore. We believe his injuries did impact his 2FG% significantly, but once he returned from a badly sprained ankle and through the Big Ten tournament, Dre’s 3FG% was a strong 42.4% (25/59). He doesn’t need to be at 40%+ as a senior, but 37%+ could help a lot.

Joey King – We thought his 34.7% as a freshman at Drake was lower than he’s capable of and he was able to bring the figure up to 36.6% with Minnesota. Last year solidified what a lot of people already believed – King can be a nice weapon as a trailing 3-point shooter and a guy who can knock it down when set up nicely.

A fellow Gopher received credit for an assist on every 3-pointer King made in 2013-14. (As a comparison, Dre Hollins was assisted on 73.1% of his 3FGM and Dre Mathieu was at 45.5%.) Per review of play-by-play data and with the assistance of hoop-math.com we see that King shot 45.0% 3FG in transition (defined as within the first 10 seconds of the shot clock), but only 33.3% in the non-transition offense. Indeed, when pushing the ball up the court an eye should be kept out for a loosely guarded Joey King on the perimeter.

Dre Mathieu – Dre made 22 of 45 from deep in his first year at the U and you can’t take that away from him. Nonetheless, his low 3FGA/FGA ratio is about right for him and a similar conversion rate on his attempts should not be expected in 2014-15.

Overall eFG% – components, trends, etc.

The chart above illustrates that 2013-14 wasn’t an odd year with regard to eFG%, 2FG% or 3FG% despite the higher 3FGA/FGA. For the third year in a row the program’s effective 3FG% was a bit better than their 2FG%.

2009-10 was a special year. Blake Hoffarber shot 46.7% in 182 attempts; Lawrence Westbrook knocked down 41.1% of his 129 attempts; and Devoe Joseph was just behind Westbrook with 38.8% of his 129. Lesser factors (due to 3FGA’s being low) that shot well included Paul Carter (13/32 for 40.6%) and, yes, Al Nolen (11/28 for 39.3%).

Interested parties who have comments, suggestions or questions should feel free to email us at [email protected]. Thanks for reading.