For me, its one thing to get frustrated and complain about Bruce, the offense, Kam, or whatever culprit I want to pick as the problem for this year's team and the disappointment (okay, mainly 1 game) of not quite living up to this year's preseason hype. Its quite another to actually dive in and try to see what the actual problem is, so that's what I decided to do. For comparison's sake, it made the most sense to compare K-State with K-State, and specifically K-State of the last 2 years with this core 4. The previous two teams were decent offensive teams, rated #42 and #78 respectively in efficiency, while this year's team sits at #181.
The biggest change for the negative is in shooting, eFG% is down, 2PT% is down, 3PT% is down, and FT% is down.
The current efficiency is 0.978 ppp. If 2PT% is somewhere close to the last 2 seasons (52%) instead of the current 49.7%, we score 1.8 more points per game and the efficiency jumps to 1.004. When isolating 3s, if we just make 1/3 of our 3s this year, we score 1.1 more PPG and efficiency jumps to .995. When isolating FTs, if we just shoot a more respectable 70% (just over the NCAA average), we score 1.3 more PPG and efficiency jumps to 0.996. If we combine all 3, we score 4.2 more points per game and efficiency is at 1.039.
That said, our TO% is also a bit worse than last year and while I can't calculate what the results would be quite as cleanly as with FG or FT makes, I'm sure the number would be similar to 3s or FTs. Plus our OR% is quite a bit better as well.
So when we look at shooting, what specifically is going wrong? My findings would point to a few things.
1) We aren't finishing nearly as well around the rim. Our number of shots at the rim are slightly up this year (35.1% of attempts compared to 33.6%), our percentage of makes on those shots are way down, making 62.2% this year compared to 67% last year. That has had a large impact on our 2PT percentage and I pointed out the impact above. So then you look at the main culprits and its a big drop from a couple guys. First, X made 65.9% of his shots at the rims last year, this year he's only making 53.6%. That's a drop of over 12% so far. Carti made 60.8% at the rim last year and is at 52.2% this year, for a drop of 8.6%. Finally Mak is at 69% this year after 73.5% last year, for a drop of 4.5%. Barry, Kam, and Dean are all shooting very similar to last year and taking more shots at the rim. McGuirl and Levi are both +10% at the rim compared to last season.
2) My favorite shot in basketball, the 2 point jumper. Fortunately, the effect here is less than I anticipated. We are shooting slightly more (31.3% of FGAs compared to 29.6% last year) and making slightly fewer (35.3% made this year compared to 37.9% last year). Carti is 13% worse this year, Kam is 10% worse, and Barry/Dean are both about 5% worse this year. X, Mak, and Levi have actually improved while McGuirl is exactly the same. Granted, my feeling is that the rate of attempts for 2 point jumpers should be 25% or less, but like I said the impact here isn't as bad as I anticipated overall.
3) 3 point shooting. The good thing is that 3PTAs are down by over 3%, while the percentage of makes is down just under 3%. Kam and X are shooting better, everyone else is worse. The problem is X is shooting 11% fewer compared to last year and Kam is shooting 3.6% fewer. Both should probably shoot more 3s if anything. Again, the major culprit here might be Carti; he's shooting 6% more 3s as far as attempts go and his percentage of makes is down 10%. Barry is shooting 4% worse, but shooting less. Finally, Mike is shooting 10% worse but taking 5% more shots from 3.
So to me its pretty simple.
Finish better at the rim.
Take fewer 2 point jumpers and more 3s for most of the guys.
Cut down the TOs.
There is no reason this team can't bring the efficiency near the 1.06 percent or so we saw in Big 12 play last year. Its just a matter of a few corrections and getting simple things fixed.
