The Bruce Pearl era to date: a geek’s look at the offense

There are obvious, easy to find metrics that say we’re getting better as a program under Bruce Pearl. Wins, for example, have increased from 22 to 24 to 31 in three years– and those are up from 14 in year 1 BB (Before Bruce).

But, as I am wont to do, I would like to take a look at a bunch of isolated statistics about all three of Bruce Pearl’s teams to see if there is a discernible pattern of direction in particular parts of BruceBall’s game. Let’s start on the offensive side of the ball.

Bruce’s run-and-gun and, barring that, Flex offense

In overall efficiency, Tennessee has ranked 8th, 14th, and 19th in 2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively. The 2006 team featured two experienced post players in Andre Patterson and Major Wingate, floor leader Dane Bradshaw, and of course outstanding senior PG C.J. Watson. To me, that experience and leadership is what put that team over the hump offensively, and explains why it has been the most efficient of the three. In 2007 we had to break in a lot of new players, making the small offensive dropoff pretty impressive. What we got in 2007 that we didn’t in 2008 was good PG play down the stretch from Ramar Smith and consistent play from Chris Lofton. Chris’s early and late shooting slumps were a big factor in our inefficiency, and along with PG play pretty much explain why the offense dropped off a notch. This is despite the addition of Tyler Smith and his ability to finish in the lane– without him the offense would have stagnated far worse than it did.

Now some of the details . . .

Shooting: In 2008, Tennessee finished 67th in eFG%. This is not that good, and was the clear weak point in an otherwise efficient offense. It was an improvement over last year though (81st), and possibly reflected some more consistency in JaJuan Smith and the addition of another efficient scorer in Tyler Smith. The more experienced 2006 team shot quite well, finishing 25th in eFG%.

The notion that Tennessee wins games by bombing threes was much more true in 2006 than it has been the last two years; in addition to ranking highly in eFG%, the Vols finished 19th in the nation in three-point shooting at 38.8%. Lofton and Watson each shot above 42%, while JaJuan Smith and Jordan Howell shot 38% and 40%, respectively. These four shot about 90% of the Vols’ threes, so it was a pretty efficient team from the perimeter. In 2007 and 2008, perimeter shooting became much less reliable, with the Vols finishing 100th and 141st, respectively, in three-point percentage. Unfortunately for Tennessee it took just as many threes as before, taking 41% of their shots in 2007 and 39% of their shots in 2008 from beyond the arc. This is the single biggest reason that the Vols became less efficient offensively.

Free throws: Free throw shooting has not been a strength for Tennessee since Bruce has been here, but we did far better in 2006 (139th) than in the two years since (282nd and 279th in 2007 and 2008, respectively). The biggest difference? C.J. Watson. Watson was an 88% shooter at the stripe, and got there 50% more than any other player on the team. Between Watson and Lofton the Vols had two strong shooters that they could give the ball to in the end-game and could count on them to make the clutch shots. For the next two seasons, the free throw line became the place where points go to die, with just two shooters above 70% in 2007 and just three in 2008. Perhaps the most damaging were Wayne Chism ands Ramar Smith, who were both pretty likely to get to the line but could not hit more than 66% in either season.

The stripe was also not the source of many points because we failed to get there enough to make it a weapon. The Vols have been below average (216th, 182nd, 183rd) in free throw rate all three years of Pearl’s tenure, largely because the team lacked the ability to get into the paint and draw contact, instead shooting a lot of jumpers (which was fine in 2006 but more of a problem in 2007 and 2008 with the FG% decline). Next year’s Vols figure to shoot a lot more FTs, since the team loses three perimeter shooters and gains some players with a real presence around the rim. If the Vols hit a higher percentage once there, the FT line could finally become a weapon.

Offensive rebounding: Fortunately for Tennessee, dramatic improvements on the offensive glass offset the subpar shooting and kept the Vol offense from sliding into mediocrity. On the offensive end, this is where the Vols showed the most improvement over the last two years, ranking 51st nationally after being average in 2007 (136th) and awful in 2006 (232nd). The Vols lost a solid offensive glass man in Andre Patterson, but replaced him with Wayne Chism and Duke Crews, both pretty good on that end, and then added transfers Tyler Smith and J.P. Prince in 2008, both very good offensive rebounders for their position. Brian Williams also contributed mightily to the cause despite not playing huge minutes. Second chances were the name of the game in several Vol victories this year and reflect a major turnaround in this statistical category.

Turnovers: Tennessee, despite a chaotic and frenzied appearance at times, has been very good at taking care of the ball under Bruce Pearl. Turnovers create extra possessions for the opponent, and Pearl has encouraged his teams to play fast but to value the ball. The team can sometimes be reckless with shot selection, but has typically not been so reckless as to not get off a shot at all. And let’s be honest– a bad shot beats a turnover every day of the week, as it still has some chance of going in, and then some chance of being rebounded after that. 5 bad shots beats 3 turnovers most of the time.

In 2008 Tennessee finished 26th in the nation in turnovers given up. Before turnovers became problematic in late February and throughout March, Tennessee was in the top 10 for most of the season. This was still an improvement from the 2007 Vols, who finished a respectable but not world-beating 53rd in TO rate. In 2006, the veteran-laden and Watson-led Vols finished 15th, a definite strong point all season.

The late season struggles in 2008 were troublesome, but at this point I have decided that mental fatigue played as big a role as anything else. Losing Lofton and JaJuan Smith, both in the top 400 in the nation in TO rate, won’t help the Vols in this area next year.

Blocked shots: This has been a weakness for the Vols for three straight years. Tennessee has seen a lot of its shots returned to sender, and not just by good shotblocking teams. The Vols have seen a lot of shots rejected by teams that weren’t even very good at it overall. In 2006-2008, the Vols finished 278nd, 308th, and 291st nationally in avoiding blocked shots.

This may seem to contradict a prior post in which I detailed how the Vols did just fine against dynamic shotblockers . . . but we’re really talking about two different things. In that post I detailed how the Vols have overcome great shotblockers to win some games, and that these shotblockers bother everybody because they are on great teams. Tennessee’s problem is that it allows lesser players, lesser athletes, and lesser teams to block shots– to the point where we are ranked among the low majors in this category. The dynamic shotblocker has been just another player for the Vols to worry about, but every opponent has been a threat to block a Vol shot now and again.

Assists: Last but not least we come to passing. Passing is, of course, crucial to success in the college game, and the Vols improved substantially in this area in 2008. After finishing 110th and 154th in 2006 and 2007, Tennessee wrapped up 2008 ranked 56th nationally in assist rate. Tyler Smith and Ramar Smith both ranked in the top 350 in assist rate. Ramar improved slightly over the prior year and Tyler almost replaced what the Vols lost when Dane Bradshaw graduated. But the interesting thing is that the team’s other players all just seemed to become better passers between 2007 and 2008. In 2007, only Bradshaw (27.4%), Ramar Smith (20.3%), Jordan Howell (12.9%) and Chris Lofton (12.5%) had assist rates above 10%. In 2008, the Vols had 8 players above 10%, and 5 of these players will return next year, building a solid foundation for another good passing team.

All in all, the Vols have been solid offensively and except for shooting (which is admittedly a big exception), they have improved quite a bit on that end of the floor– despite inconsistent play at point. With a possible improvement in shot selection upon the graduation of two gunners in JaJuan and Chris, maybe we will see some improvement in that regard as well. One thing is for sure– the Vols are no longer as one-dimensional as they were in 2006, despite the media and opposing fans’ rants to the contrary. The three ball was a big weapon but was just one piece of the puzzle in 2008, and figures to be of even less value in 2009.