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GT B'ball - Unlucky or Underachieving?

by ee8384 on Jan 1, 2011 2:49 PM EST

Was taking a look at Ken Pomeroy's terrific basketball rating page (www.kenpom.com) to see where the Yellow Jackets stand (currently 83rd) and noted that Tech ranks 298/345 in the "Luck" category. This rang a bell for me, as I recalled seeing the Jackets' Luck rating also near the bottom in previous years. So I went back and checked where Tech ended up in the Luck factor since 2002-3 season. Here's the data, with overall rating in parentheses.

2002-3: 314/324 (46th overall)

2003-4: 146/326 (7)

2004-5: 256/330 (19)

2005-6: 320/334 (96)

2006-7: 306/336 (17)

2007-8: 327/341 (49)

2008-9: 340/344 (93)

2009-10: 264/347 (27)

2010-11: 298/345 (83)

The Luck factor is described in more detail in Ken's Help section, but essentially attempts to quantify whether a team is winning games it should win based on its typical offense/defense points distribution. More math behind the factor can be found here: http://www.rawbw.com/~deano/articles/BellCurve.html.

The Luck factor ranges from negative to positive so if, on average, you are winning the number of games expected your Luck factor would be zero and you would place in the middle of the number of teams in Div 1A. In the Final Four year Tech's Luck factor was +0.001 and it ranked 146th. Duke's Luck factor last year was +0.003 and it ranked 124th, so you don't have to be overachieving to go deep in the tourney, just taking care of business.

It's striking that other than the 2003-4 season Tech is consistently in the bottom echelon by this measure. As the Bell Curve site explains, a negative Luck rating can come from losing close games - not being able to finish, missing a last second shot or having an opponent hit a game-winner.

Hewitt apologists may say, "Paul's right. We are snakebit. We just can't catch a break and get those shots to fall when we need them." Hewitt detractors may say, "See, Hewitt can't coach a team to finish off games. Poor inbounding, lack of timeouts, etc. at the end of games keep us from winning games we should be expected to win."

So what say you - Is Tech under CPH unlucky or underachieving?

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Both

but good teams, well coached teams make their own breaks.

This team has been better in two areas Tech fans have been frustrated with in Turnovers and FT shooting, but the offensive shooting and defense has not been as good either.

If Hewitt would recruit more shooters and less athletes I think the team would be better. Last really good shooters were Marvin Lewis and BJ Elder.

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by accsecblog on Jan 1, 2011 7:07 PM EST reply actions

Only Tech could have a player who is currently ranked second all time for nba career 3p% not remembered as a really good shooter

by GTwill on Jan 2, 2011 3:54 PM EST up reply actions

He didn't say GT never had really good shooters

He said the last really good shooters we had were Lewis and Elder. While that in itself isn’t entirely accurate (omg how do you forget Morrow?!?!), Price hasn’t played a lick of basketball in almost a decade, much less play for GT recently.

I’d say Tech under PH have been both, but mainly underachieving. There has been way too much wasted potential and talent go through the AMC to lay it all on luck alone. Not one truly talented player has improved under Hewitt. Hewitt is Gailey in that regard, just wish he could have a winning record like Gailey.

"You could spend the next fifteen seconds of your life watching a man and a tiger scream together, or you could be an idiot."
Fact.

by Jesse28 on Jan 6, 2011 2:01 PM EST up reply actions