State of the Program - Football

With the heat of summer bearing down upon us all, I thought I'd toss off a few words concerning the state of the football program under Coach Neuheisel.

First, and most obvious, is the fact that Neu was able to build a very well-respected staff (spearheaded by coordinators Norm Chow and DeWayne Walker) and hold onto basically the entirety of a well-stocked recruiting class built by departing coach Karl Dorrell and assistant coach Walker. This gives the team a sense of positive energy moving into the latter half of the year, and moving towards the season. It remains to be seen if the team will be able to manifest that energy into on-field results, but it would be hard to argue that the program has a greater sense of vitality than it has had in years. That would be due largely to the difference in personality types between Dorrell and Neuheisel, who in many ways reminds me more than not of Pete Carroll. The similarities between the two could be a good thing, or a very bad thing. We'll find out.

Obviously, there has been, as referenced in the post below this, some dissent over what kind of season it would be reasonable to expect. However, one must believe that to demand an enormous improvement in any coach's first season - especially one in which he loses so much talent on both sides of the ball - is rather unfair. When talking about the chance to transform that energy into game results, one must expect the buck to stop right at the foot of the Tennessee Volunteers. Expecting a win is, perhaps, too much at this juncture. However, the team must come out with a sense of visible purpose and desire to attack that has been lacking in previous years. Getting embarrassed on national television in the opening game of the Neuheisel regime - especially in the Rose Bowl - would put a huge screeeeching halt on all the momentum the program has been building over the last half-year or so.

The lull in the sports world that presides over the mid-summer months will cause many fans to salivate wildly in anticipation for the tiniest bits of information regarding the program. But it is important to remember that the big picture must be one that requires taking a step back, in order to view it all. This is not a championship-caliber team. That should not be where the focus lies for the short-term. Instead, be excited for a new era in the UCLA football tradition, and hopefully one that will last long and bear many great successes.

I come not to bury Neuheisel...

Ugh. Not going to even pretend that this huge hiatus was anything but unacceptable. Moving on, hey, new color scheme. We'll try this out for a bit - feels a lot more 'UCLA,' but I'm not totally sure about how that translates to a blog's colors, or ease of readability. My, like... 1 reader out there (you do exist, right?), please let me know if this is manageable, or if I should go back to the old darker blue background.

There's been a lot of talk over the past couple of days regarding reasonable expectations of the upcoming UCLA football season. First, Nestor laid out his belief of what the season would likely be. Sunday Morning QB suggested, in response, that said projection was skewed not with reality, but with previous projections for the season made by the BN team during the reign of favored BN whipping boy Karl Dorrell. I might note that this message was possibly provoked - fairly or not - by a rebuke of his commentary on Rick Neuheisal. Unsurprisingly, Nestor and the gang replied in kind. Kyle from Dawg Sports put in his two cents plus change, and Meneleus of BN's staff gave a point-by-point rebuttal in return. Unsurprisingly, the definitive word comes from nowhere else but Every Day Should Be Saturday, and I believe Orson has found us all some ponies as party favors to boot.

The arguments involving Bruins Nation (on both sides) bother me somewhat - and I might also add that it's not that being in the minority (as BN appears to be) is always proof of being incorrect. Fans of UCLA football have certainly felt, to a degree, that they were placed in a rather unfair position given proximity to USC, the seeming bias of the LA Times, and a national media that has periodically been described as 'east-coast biased.' And to a degree, it is true, I believe. The moniker "Gutty Little Bruins" arose not from a hegemonic program that demolished all in its path, to say the least. But I worry that at times this sentiment engenders a bit of defensiveness that might not be the most healthy in the world.

One of the best parts about being involved in the New Wave of Journalism™ is the interaction between the various constituencies on the web. Whether that be the (sometimes not-so) enlightened back-and-forth of the Dems and Reps, or a discussion between fans of Ohio State and Michigan, it is the possibility for collaboration and immediate feedback that help to differentiate Old Media from Neu Media (see wut I did thar?). The attitude that everybody who speaks ill of UCLA (or positively about Karl Dorrell, up until a few months ago) was somehow targeting the program itself for destruction breeds more insularity. Which is too bad, because as I've said time and again I think that the group over at BN has a lot to offer - it just seems that rare are the cases when anybody outside of the UCLA sphere of influence seems to be positively involved, nowadays.

Web sites like Bruins Nation and SMQ are accurately described at opposite ends of the "most and least partisan college sports weblogs" spectrum (to quote Kyle's lengthy treatise on the matter). That dichotomy offers a divide in terms of the general rhetoric used, as well as the subject matter generally covered by each type of blog. But what is important to remember is - beyond the obvious platitude of "it's only a game" - that intelligent commentary can take all forms, even the sort that we sometimes dislike to see/hear. By allowing oneself to place too much importance on, not the content of a blog, but the blog itself, that message can get muddled. In summation, Orson is right as usual, and Rick Neuheisal is aesthetically pleasing in form to all who may observe his majesty.

As for me? My expectations for the season are both easier and harder. I don't expect anything. Cop-out, I know. But what I desire is simply to see evidence of a change in the structure of the offense (I suspect Norm Chow will have almost as much to do with that as anybody else might), and evidence that the team is willing to get behind their new coach. One of the most glaring problems with the Dorrell era, in my opinion, was the team's general willingness to play to the level of its opponent - this explains the handful of shocking victories, as well as the stunningly bad defeats. I don't even need to see consistency from the Bruins - new offense and lots of departing veterans make that unlikely. I just desire a clear and effective managerial vision that imparts itself on the team in some visible fashion.

Though projecting a surefire win over Southern Cal is a little delusional. Really, guys... Not even a 'toss-up'? :)

An attempted analysis of Norm Chow's philosophy and (partial) playbook

Well, here we are, 3 weeks after my previous post. Sorry for disappearing. Unfortunately, real life intervenes as usual and gives me a nice boot to the forehead. Anyway, I noticed I finally had a few comments from a select group of what I can only assume are the most intelligent, nicest, best-looking web trawlers on the planet. I will try to address some of what you mentioned in the next couple of days, I promise!

Anyway, I would like to note before I begin this post that a lot of my football knowledge has atrophied greatly. I haven't played competitively for a while now (flag football, of course, does not count =P). So please take anything and everything that follows with an enormous grain of salt. Major thanks for this post go out to BHW and USC TFA, as this post would have been impossible without their information (and, TFA, if you want me to take down the stuff I copied from your blog, just let me know... I have replacements of a sort for most of it).

That being said -

Over at BruinsNation, Nestor's post on the LA Times interview of Neuheisal and Chow contains this comment by BHW linking to a speech by Chow, and a sample from his playbook. Nestor mentioned he thought it might be interesting to see an analysis of the materials, and I thought I'd give it a shot. As an aside, I would like to note that, contrary to what I think is being suggested by BHW, this is not the entire Norm Chow offense, only the 5-step drop patterns (and a couple of 7-drops if they're still in use - see below). Hence the 'partial' in the post title. There are different passing sets (the 50s/90s/etc), and obviously there are no running plays listed. Nevertheless, it's a good sampling of what he seems to like to accomplish with his offense, so I thought I'd look through it. But far more instructive, I found, was the link to Chow's presentation on the precepts of his offense (the hosting site, Trojan Football Analysis, is chock-full of great information, including an odd rant that in one paragraph completely justifies my abject hatred of Colin Cowherd - the fact that the site is run by a Trojan shall be ignored due to its value =P). His speech offers a great look into his thought processes, and I'd highly recommend reading the whole thing if you have some time to kill. If not, hopefully this post will help some. To arms!

Summary point number 1, is to understand Chow's "rules" for quarterbacks and offense in general. In his speech, he lists them as such:
1) "[The QB should] Never give a command that will be misunderstood, and always give a command that will be understood."
2) "We want to know what the QB saw on the play and why he made his decision."
3) "The third rule for the QB is that he is never wrong."
4) "Always throw the football to the receiver. Throw the ball straight ahead." [ed - In case this isn't clear, he's talking about mechanics and simplicity together. Get in the right position and throw to the open man. Do your work off the field so that you don't have to think about it ON the field.]
5) "We are going to protect the QB, otherwise nothing works."
6) "We try to make it easy for the QB... He is concerned about throwing the football. He has enough to worry about." [ed - There's a handful of read examples in the full article, if you're curious about some specifics.]
7) "We are going to try to control the football with the forward pass... there are two statistics we believe in. One is the time of possession. We feel we need to win this battle. The other statistic we want to win is the turnover battle... What does this mean in our terms? Check downs!"
8) "The third aspect of the passing game is this: We want to kiss it... Keep It Simple Stupid." [ed - My personal favorite, as always.]

Then he starts getting into the gist of his offensive mechanics. Important concepts will be bolded for your convenience. He mentions his 60 series. The '60' is the protection, the 'ones' digit is the pass patterns. "We may call the play 65 for example. This means the lineman know it is basic 60 cup protection. The 5 is the pass pattern for that play... The mistake that coaches make is to make it too complicated." Paging the WCO to the white courtesy phone... The West Coast Offense, to the white courtesy phone, please... Anyway. See the 'passing zones' image below for the diagram of the '65' play.

He then talks about using 3- and 5-step drops and play-action, as well as establishing the run. Big money graf for me: "Also we need the ability to sprint out at times. [emphasis added] The reason you need the ability to sprint out is this: If you can't handle the defense on the inside you can take the ball outside; if we get beat on the outside, we can step up in the pocket; if they come up the middle then get to the outside." One of the reasons USC was so dangerous with Chow heading their offense was their ability, and willingness, to use the entirety of the field in both protection and release point, and it's clear that has always been a hallmark of his offense, and not just a reaction to having Reggie Bush's speed (is making a 'bought and paid for' joke too easy here?).

To control the blitz and hard edge rush, use screens and traps/counters - use their eagerness to get into the backfield against them. Another money quote: "We don't run the 7 step drop game when we can not protect the passer. We run the football. We throw the ball on timed routes, we throw the screen and draws, and we are going to run some gimmick plays just to slow the game down a bit. This is our game plan every week."

He starts discussing the passing schemes USC's offense designed to attack the zone. He calls it "building triangles."
No word if Tex Winter plans to sue for infringement. Though he doesn't say it explicitly, I'm assuming the idea is that by creating a triangle with your potential receivers, you're likely to find the "hole" in the zone with at least one of them. Additionally, the receivers all move 'obliquely' (that is, both down the field and across the field), stretching the zone to widen the spacing.

One important point to understand: the concept of the "8" passing zones (I was always a little fuzzy on this, as I played DLine, so forgive me if this is confusing and/or incorrect; I think I have it right). You have 3 deep passing zones, strong/middle/weak. Then you have 5 zones underneath (usually the underneath routes extend to about the safety coverage at the snap) - 5 instead of 3 because with the shorter distance, passes must be more precise.
A pass 5 yards forward just outside the hashmarks is far different than a pass 5 yards forward but all the way to the sideline. This is much less true for a 20+ yard bomb. If the defense only rushes 3, run it down their throats. Otherwise, at least one 'passing zone' will be open - find it and you're in business.

From this point he begins breaking down specific plays (I'll get to that in a bit). He talks about 'tagging' routes - that is, take a play and change one specific route for different situations. Say, changing the halfback's route if the linebackers are playing the pass. Or using the tight end to take advantage of a safety in man coverage. This affects blocking schemes - block 'big on big' - so an RB should never take on a DL, and if the smaller players don't blitz (e.g. 4-man rush) release the backs to catch passes. Some tags tell the QB if he needs to use his hot read or not. If the "Sam" tag is used, the 'Sam' linebacker (usually strongside LB) is unblockable. If he blitzes, the QB must take his hot read (generally HB/FB). Tags can also change the order of the QB progression (which receivers should get first look). So the complexity in a Norm Chow offense seems to come from using 'tags' to adapt to the defense, giving Chow the flexibility to play his 'chess game' for which he has become famous.

Lots more very play-specific stuff. Really, do read the full thing if you get a shot - it's fascinating. I mean:

Let me show you what we do against the basic Cover 3 with a basic 4-3 defense. On the first step the QB takes he is reading the MLB. The MLB will give the QB direction. If the MLB goes weakside it means the WLB has taken the flat away. If the MLB has taken the curl route away the read now becomes inside-out to the defenders on that side. We have three underneath receivers and the defense has only two defenders on that side. If the strong safety hangs on the curl and runs to the flat we throw the ball to curl inside. If the SLB takes away the curl by the tight end and the strong side safety takes the curl by the Flanker the QB throws the ball to the flat. If the SLB goes to the middle and the strong safety goes to the flat we throw the curl with the Flanker. You have four defenders underneath in this coverage. We have five receivers underneath. The QB simply has to find the open receiver. We do not run this play against Cover 2 as there are five underneath defenders and two deep in coverage as the match up is less favorable.

That's just a sample of the awesome.

One interesting note buried in the middle of the play-specific info. Chow apparently limits audibles to just a pair of potential plays: "Against man coverage we allow two basic calls. Against Cover 3 it is two basic calls. Against Cover 2 it is two basic calls. The QB knows he has only two basic calls against the defense. If he comes up to the line and sees the defense is in something that will give us a problem with the play called in the huddle, he has two plays he can check to. We do not have a complicated list." If that precept was still around the season after he left 'SC, it puts that Leinart audible against Notre Dame into an interesting new light.

Now, I'd like to cover one of the plays available in the BYU playbook. Specifically, the 62 Crossing Route (noted as 'X Shallow' on the BYU playbook page, but in his speech - more recent - he calls it the Crossing Route; it's Figure 12 there, if you're looking). If you don't know how to read a play diagram: the square with the X through it is the center. The white dot immediately behind him is the QB, and the two dots on either side are the rest of the OL. The WR out wide on the left - on the line of scrimmage - is the split end, or 'X.' The WR out wide on the right, behind the LOS, is the flanker or 'Z.' The dot on the end of the strong side of the LOS (the same side as the flanker) is the tight end, called the 'Y.' The backs are lined up behind the QB.


I'd quickly like to note that in the pages available, you can see a handful of different plays. I think these are versions of 'tags,' though not necessarily the exact same thing (remember, BYU playbook doesn't exactly equal USC playbook). The idea seems to be that each one is the same general play, either with a route change (like a tag), or run out of different offensive sets. So for the 62 Z Shallow (the image in the middle row, on the right), you can see the alignment is the same as the normal play. But the TE and flanker switch responsibilities - the TE runs a post and the flanker runs the mesh across the middle of the field. While the 62 Twins accomplishes the exact same goals as the regular play (TE and split end mesh, flanker runs post into the middle of the field), it is out of a different formation. I hope this clears up these diagrams a bit. Anyway, for the analysis, we'll be looking at the standard play (the big image).

First, let's look at the QB's responsibilities. You can see the 7 next to the line coming from behind the QB - that means a 7-step drop. I doubt that's still the case, though, as Chow seems to have become very critical of 7-step drops. My guess is if this play IS run, it'd be a 5 instead. Anyway, at the end of the drop, the QB must 'peek' at the free safety (safety support on that side). If the safety has come up, the Z receiver will soon be streaking open (or in single-coverage) down the middle of the field. Big gainer. If FS is staying back, forget the Z. Now we enter the 'progressions' - see the "1"s next to the X and Y receivers. Check the mesh in the middle underneath zone. If neither player is open, come down to the backs, which are the "2" options.

Now, how does this work? Well, first, let's examine 2 eventualities: is the defense zone or man? This is a play designed against a man defense. If it's zone, the QB is taught to check down to a back, usually the one on the strong side (as the LB/S are either blitzing, or more likely occupied with the 2 receivers already on this side, the X and Z). "We want to throw the ball three yards and get three more on the run. Now, we have a second and four situation."

If the D is man, obviously you hope the safety has crept forward. Your flanker just may be flying down the middle with three steps on his guy - TD. Possible, but unlikely. So we come to our mesh option. Note: a 'mesh' is not a pick. There's no designed contact. But the proximity of the X and Y receivers should mean that one will come open as the man coverage gets mixed up in the middle. The tight end determines how deep the mesh is (where is the hole between LBs and SS - 4 yards off the LOS? 8? etc), and the split end must cross closely enough to throw off the defense without losing speed. And, again, the two backs are available as extra blockers or release valves, just looking for positive yardage.

The reason this play can be effective is that it is designed to use the offense's built-in advantages over the defense. It uses all 3 levels of the field (deep, intermediate, short), and threatens all 8 zones. The flanker covers the deep middle. The crossing routes threaten the underneath zones in the center of the field, with the potential for a runout into the deep zones on the strong and weak sides. And the backs can both release into the flats and head towards the sidelines. Even if the play is called against the wrong defense (if D is in a zone) there's an easy checkdown.

On the defensive side, it's hard to attack a play like this barring a perfect defensive call. The play is designed to allow the QB to make a decision with the ball as soon as his drop is completed (the FS peek/zone checkdown), or let the play develop (mesh). Now, it IS possible to blow this play up (an overload blitz with WLB/SS comes to mind), but if the exact defense isn't called it comes down to the D outplaying the O. At some point, the players have to play, but a well-designed offense gives them that opportunity - a 'position to succeed' instead of a 'position to fail,' and the like.

I hope this might answer a few questions, and raise a few more (hey, if you're not learning something new, why bother with anything at all?). Again, as I stated at the top, this information may be entirely wrong. But I hope not, and I do hope that it gives some insight as to the philosophies of our new OC, as well as a general look at the inner workings of some of his offense.

Closing quote from Chow: "The point I am trying to make and I want you to remember is that we are in the best profession in the world. We can go to work in shorts and tennis shoes. Don't forget to teach kids technique. Teach kids values and character. If we can do that we will all be successful. I appreciate you listening to my lecture."

Why UCLA is very lucky to have Kevin Love, part 34,785,900

If any of the following numbers confuse you, it means you probably ought to read this. It's my previous post on the subject. Long story short, I’m using a metric devised by Professor David Berri called Win Score to analyze the LA collegiate basketball teams. If you want to check out my previous post, on USC’s basketball team, go here, please. Thank you. The following post will cover “Your… UCLA BRUINS!” –cue Van Halen’s Right Now-. Anyway. Please, again, keep in mind that all conclusions reached are working within the constraints of the metric used, and should not be considered blanket statements in and of themselves. As to such conclusions, given the design of the statistic in question, nothing was particularly unusual.



Again, let’s just check our metric. 40 Win Score equal approximately one team victory. UCLA have accumulated 805.5 total Win Score to date. 40 from 805.5 is about 20.1, and the Bruins have 18 wins at the time. A little high - in other words, the stat suggests UCLA should actually be doing a little bit better than it actually has (umm... that UCLA should be undefeated PLUS .1 of a game, heh). Interesting. Also interesting - if one used Win Score to set a starting line-up, it would go Collison at point, Shipp at 2-guard, Luc at the 3, Mata at the 4, and Love in the middle. O.J. Mayo would not be in the top 6 (well... don't blame me, according to Win Score he wouldn't, heh). My guess is this is because I feel like Win Score rewards rebounds a bit too highly, and the Bruins as a team rebound extremely well, with Kevin Love leading the way. Speaking of Kevin...

Love is UCLA’s best player by a humongous margin. My apologies to all the other Bruin favorites, but it's true. Much like in Ken Pomeroy's Offensive Rating stat, Kevin Love is one of the 5 best players in the country in Win Score. I was able to check this thanks to the excellent work of Erich Doerr, who showed me some of his numbers he has compiled for the season to date. Thanks a bunch, Erich - that was really helpful. Love is 3rd nationally in Win Score, behind Kenny George of UNC-Asheville, and Michael Beasley of K-State. But... Why?

Well, to start, he scores a large number of points without using very many possessions. He shoots a very high percentage on his 2s, but that's not the only thing he does well. He has brought up his numbers, so that he's a solid 3-point shooter. And he gets to the free throw line with regularity, where he knocks down freebies at an excellent rate for a big man. On top of all this scoring efficiency, he’s one of the best rebounders in the Pac-10, and the country to boot. His other numbers are fairly pedestrian, but he is so excellent around the rim – be it with the ball, or going for a board – that his moderate other values are of less importance. He adds so much value in the things he does well, while not being terrible in the negative categories, that his WS/40 is more than double any of his teammates.

Probably the biggest surprises in this group of stats are the high rankings of Mata-Real and The Prince. Zo and Luc (despite his 3-point follies) are high-percentage shooters that rebound the ball extremely well. If it sounds familiar, it should - nearly all high-value players in Win Score do so. (ed note - There's actually a statistical correction by position to account for the fact that big men usually rebound much better, but I forgot to do so with the USC stats, so we'll be moving forward without it at the moment; if I come back to it later and find that it materially changes the analysis I'll make sure to note it then) Because he's a smart, well-coached player who picks his spots to shoot while going after every rebound Mata-Real scores well in this stat. Furthermore, he's actually one of the better shot-blockers in the Pac-10. Let's correct for playing time, as a theoretical exercise. Assume a linear increase to Zo's stats, relative to his minutes played. Now change the number of minutes Mata-Real plays to the number of minutes Kevin Love has played so far. In that case, Zo would average around 2 blocks a game. That’s around the same level as the much more touted shot-blocking of Taj Gibson.

In comparison to Lorenzo's focus on boards and blocks, Luc's high score shows the value of a well-rounded game. He doesn’t necessarily excel at any one aspect, and in fact has regressed statistically each year he's been at UCLA (more on this in a later post). But he still provides plenty of value to the team in nearly every category. His turnovers are a bit high for a 3/4 on a team with plenty of ball-handlers, but that’s about his only real weakness. Much like Lorenzo's offense, Luc plays defense very intelligently - he avoids fouls, grabs a handful of steals and blocks when he can, and protects the defensive glass.

Looking at Collison, his stats are still depressed somewhat by that gimpy knee of his, in my opinion. I feel that, playing with the brace - and probably still slightly injured to boot - affected his shooting, passing, and defense very significantly (this, too, will come up again in the next post). I actually decided to go back and get the updated stats from after the Oregon State game, which is why the Sunday game stats are included for the Bruins, but not for the SC post below. I did so because Collison's huge game had a monster impact on his score - pushing him much higher than he had been previously. The benefits of getting healthy, I suppose. Even with his struggles until recently, he’s been excellent at avoiding turnovers, averaging one about every 18 minutes. That’s quite, quite good. He's distributing the ball efficiently, is UCLA's best player at getting a steal, and almost never fouls. As such, he rates highly in Win Score despite not being a great rebounder - and I believe his score will continue to climb. I expect his level of play going forward to be closer to that of this past weekend, knock on wood.

Let's continue on down the list. We already covered Mbah a Moute. Shipp is actually a pretty poor rebounder for somebody with his size and athleticism – he’s outrebounded by every major rotational player except Collison, once you correct for playing time. And Collison’s been playing with a gimpy knee. And Shipp still just BARELY outrebounds Darren. Yeah, the point is, he’s probably the worst rebounder on the team. This hurts his individual value. I stress 'individual,' because the team as a whole doesn’t suffer. The other Bruins range from very good to best-in-the-country in this category, so Shipp doesn't really need to focus on getting boards. But here, we’re just looking at his individual contribution to the team at the moment, and as such must then accept his rebounding ‘deficiencies’ as the major reason for his fairly low Win Score. Fortunately, he doesn’t turn the ball over much, and he’s UCLA’s most prolific scorer after Love, so he pulls his weight in other disciplines.

Westbrook has had turnover issues at times, and gets surprisingly high number of fouls for a perimeter player. My guess is his athleticism is both a blessing and a curse, because he sometimes still tries to do too much, which drags him down a bit. Speaking of foul problems, Aboya gets KILLED by his fouls. He averages less than 7 minutes per foul. In case you couldn't guess, that is really, really, REALLY bad. Plus, his blocks are much lower than I expected - I think almost every time he gets a "block" he gets called for a foul as well. Keefe is even worse, at 6 minutes per foul. Luc is the only major rotational player even close to that amount, at over 10 minutes per foul - all other Bruins are over 15.

Chase and Nikola haven't had the opportunity to add much given their limited playing time, but hopefully later in the season they'll get the chance to show what they can do. And this table certainly won't help those who have defended Mike Roll in the past - in 93 minutes, he's amassed a Win Score of zero. Yikes. At least it's not negative!

Next time, I say some things that are really controversial while comparing this season's UCLA team to last year's Final Four group.

Why O.J. Mayo is overrated – part 9,745,398,606

If any of the following numbers confuse you, it means you probably ought to read this, my previous post on the subject. Long story short, I’m using a metric devised by Professor David Berri called Win Score to analyze the LA collegiate basketball teams (ed note - I wrote, but did not post, this entry before Erich Doerr guest-posted his analysis of pro draft prospects on Berri's site... including his similar conclusions on Mayo; basically, he confirms what I'm about to say). The following post will cover the USC Trojans – not my preferred team, but the one that spurred this post. The results from plugging the Trojan stats into the Win Score formula weren’t entirely surprising, but they were not exactly what I expected either. I would like to note here that all conclusions that follow are simply within the confines of the metric being used – that is, Win Score. You can take from it what you will, though I think much of it makes sense, to varying degrees.



Just to let you know, WS is the total Win Score added by a player up to that point in the season. I haven’t double-checked this in a while, but I believe that 40 points of Win Score is approximately equal to one ‘win.’ We can check by adding up all of USC’s Win Score to that point (1/24/08) and comparing it to the Trojan win total. USC had totaled 509 WS. 40 out of 509 is 12.725, which is just above their actual win total at that point in time, of 12. Looks like we’re on target so far (oddly-accurate, isn’t it? - it nails UCLA's 06/07 win total to within .02). WS/MIN is the Win Score a player adds per minute played. And WS/40 is that player’s Win Score if he were to play all 40 minutes of a single game – this allows us to compare players who don’t normally play the same amount of minutes, to a reasonable degree. Obviously, sample size does come into play here – I’ve removed USC’s 5 lowest minutes players, as they’re significant outliers (I doubt Marcus Simmons would be getting only 3 minutes per game if he was in fact the 5th-best player on the team as his WS/40 would suggest, for example).

So, what do these numbers mean? First, it appears my initial hunch was correct – I just didn’t realize to what degree. Not only is Mayo not the best player on his team, he barely cracks the starting 5, with a VERY pedestrian 4.568 WS/40! A closer look at his numbers explains the low total – not only is Mayo an inefficient scorer, but that’s about the only thing he’s even remotely competent at doing. He doesn’t rebound very well, and though he’s so/so at acquiring assists, his massive 4 turnovers a game far outweigh whatever benefits his passing might otherwise offer. His defensive stats, too, are sorely lacking. I’m aware there’s more to defense than just stats, but when trying to analyze individual contributions one must stick to what is quantifiable – such are the limitations of the medium, and my apologies. Nevertheless, he’s not great at getting steals, and almost never blocks shots. All in all, O.J. Mayo is an inefficient scorer who has not yet displayed any other quantifiable skills, despite his prodigious hype.

Jefferson and Taj Gibson are USC’s best players by a fairly wide margin, and they’re similar players, in results if not in their play styles. They both can’t shoot 3-pointers, but are accurate on 2-point baskets and get to the free-throw line with regularity. They both rebound the ball very well, have solid hands on defense for steals (though both are turnover-prone), and block quite a few shots. It seems for all Tim Floyd’s 'genius,' he’s struggling to entrust more possessions to his far more efficient players at the expense of his wunderkind. Though I should add, USC’s play over their past few games has featured far more Gibson, Jefferson and Hackett – perhaps it’s little surprise they’re doing better.

Having completed that analysis, I decided I much preferred wasting this sort of time on my Bruins instead of the Trojans. So I thought about what I could glean from this season’s group of Bruin basketball players, which we'll get to in the next post.

A description of Win Score, valuable for future posts

This whole upcoming series of posts all stemmed from the UCLA loss to USC at Pauley last week. After having told nearly everybody I knew that Davon Jefferson was actually a far more valuable player to the Trojans than O.J. Mayo, he went out and dropped 25 on the Bruins, and was pretty clearly the player of the game that night. I felt vindicated in a sense, though obviously extremely hollow inside. But it did get me to thinking – just how much more valuable IS Davon Jefferson than O.J. Mayo?

Which brings me to these posts. Over the next couple of days, I’ll be putting up a few entries in which I analyze the local collegiate basketball teams using some modern-ish statistical analysis. This particular post will cover the concept of ‘Win Score,’ which will be the main analytical tool used. I know, “Warning: Numbers!” and all, but if you want to understand the posts that follow you probably need at least this primer’s worth of info.

To begin with requires a bit of background on David Berri, the economist I referenced briefly in my previous post, who co-authored the book The Wages of Wins. He also writes a stats-oriented blog, The Wages of Wins Journal. Much of his work is based around his formula for ‘Wins Produced,’ a complicated mathematical formula that he describes in The Wages of Wins. Its goal is to quantify player performance, so that all statistics can then be combined into one value that gives an approximate accounting for that player’s worth to his team. Though I have my concerns with applying statistical analysis to a sport like basketball (as opposed to its natural sporting environment of baseball) – and additional worries with Berri’s system in particular – the idea in itself is elegant, and surprisingly accurate. Given a full list of a team’s players, stats, and minutes played, when plugged into his formulas, they generally spit out a ‘team wins/losses’ that is within a very close margin to the actual record. So he’s on the right track, at the very least.

Now, that’s all well and good, but Wins Produced is very complex. To help alleviate that, Berri devised a more simple system, that he called Win Scores. As he describes it, "Win Score is designed to be a simple metric that allows one to see quickly if a player had a good or bad game. And for research where you only wish to compare a player’s current performance to his past performance, Win Score is perfectly suited for such a task." Win Scores are built around similar concepts to the more complex Wins Produced, only the math is far less involved. It's not a perfect substitute for comparing players, but it'll do. The basic gist is that players who contribute in all facets of the game, and do so efficiently (e.g. high field-goal/free-throw percentage, good assist-turnover ratio, rarely foul), are the most valuable. Seems pretty simple, and it makes a fair deal of sense. In effect:

Tenet 1: More things matter than just scoring.
Tenet 2: Anybody can score at least 25 points in a game if he shoots the ball 60 times, but his team isn’t going to do very well.

That’s a bit simple, but it’s the basics. As such, it’s fairly easy to develop statistical models if the right data is available. Fortunately, with the advent of the internet and fantasy sports, statistical data is only a mouse click away. Armed now with the statistics I needed and a simple, fairly handy model, I decided to take a look at just how much Mayo really added to his team, at least by this particular metric’s reckoning, which will be coming tomorrow.

The great, the really great, and the slightly worrisome

I thought I'd chime in with a few observations. Humor me, please.

First, it's great to see Darren Collison getting back to the form we all believed he could, and would, display all season. I was of the opinion that he had never fully healed from his knee injury, and it's only been in the past few games that he's really started to look like the Collison of last season. Much more aggressive in the lane, more willing to push off his knee for those little floaters in the lane, and to elevate on his outside jumpers. Anybody who has played basketball knows how, in truth, shooting form starts not from the arms, but from the legs. Even a tiny tweak can be enough to throw off a player like Darren, whose shooting method is already slightly unorthodox. So major kudos to him for his inspired play this weekend, and I have full confidence that he is beginning to once again trust in his knee. Just a great sign.

Second, Kevin Love. We all knew he was going to be good, but I'm not sure we realized just how good. Depending on your personal view of the importance of possession usage, Kevin Love is either the best, third best, or 19th best offensive player in the country. Slightly confused? I'll try to explain. For those of you not familiar with his work, Ken Pomeroy is THE name in modern (read: moderately sabermetric-style) basketball statistics. In addition to his KenPom.com site, he is one of the head writers for Basketball Prospectus, which is a must-read for unique takes on the game. With regards to his methodology, one stat he uses is ORtg, or 'Offensive Rating,' a stat that addresses the number of points a player produces if he were to use 100 possessions.

Anyway, at KenPom.com, he lists the top players in the country in Offensive Rating - in other words, the best in the country at producing points for their teams. Kevin Love is the #1-ranked offensive player in the country, measuring players who use 24% of their team's offensive possessions and up (in other words, star players). He's a small distance in front of UNC's own Psycho T. The two are a fairly sizable distance in front of every other player on that list. If you'd like to peruse the full list (really quite interesting) you can find it here. The first list on that page is players who use more than 28% of their team's possessions. See Mayo, OJ, who is below the league average efficiency of 101 despite using 30% of his team's offensive opportunities - K-Love is at almost 130. Love, despite his extremely high efficiency, barely misses that 28% 'superstar' watermark, using 27.3%. If he clears the 28% usage mark, he'll be leading that list as well, and by a very significant margin. A team of 5 Kevin Loves would outscore the current top 'superstar'-usage player by over 12 points in an average UCLA game.

--One note: the list linked above was updated last Sunday the 20th, and the new one has not come out as of the writing of this post. I'll update this with the new listings once it does if necessary, but I can't imagine Love's scores doing anything but rising given his dominance this past weekend.

(The formula for this value, ORtg, is quite complex. It's possible to actually derive the full formula for free online with a lot of digging, but since its progenitor, Dean Oliver, released a book on that subject I'll avoid posting it here. Suffice to say that it basically assigns a point value to each assist, 2- or 3-point basket, and offensive rebound, then adjusts it for how many possesions the player uses to get those stats, and multiplies by a hundred... I think. I could be remembering slightly wrong, to be honest. Anyway, if you're really interested, go buy Oliver's Basketball on Paper -- HIGHLY recommended and sadly underrated by the casual basketball saber community. Or get The Wages of Wins -- much more famous book by David Berri. Alternatively, leave me a comment or shoot me a message/email and I'll send you some links - the stuff's actually a really interesting point of discussion if you ask me. Anyway, tangent over, sorry.)

As to the slightly worrisome - UCLA is shooting too many 3s. I know you don't want to hear it, but somebody has to say it. The Bruins are loosing FAR too many outside shots, and they're lucky that the addition of Love means that he's able to go and get plenty of their misses, as one of the best offensive rebounders in the country. UCLA is 2nd to last in 3-point shooting percentage in the Pac-10, only ahead of woeful Oregon State. As a team, the Beavers are shooting under 28% from 3 -- that's like an entire team of Mbah a Moutes launching 18 3s a game (shows how they were hitting rather lucky tonight against UCLA). No offense Luc, but yikes. But, the Bruins are right in the middle of the Pac in 3-point attempts, even throwing them up more often than UofA and UW, teams generally considered much more run-and-gun than the Bruins. And teams that are much more accurate from there than UCLA, as well.

This past game against OSU was a perfect example. The team went 3-15 from the field against the Beavers. And somewhat ironically, the only player who had a good shooting night from outside was Darren at 2-3. I say somewhat ironic, given that he spent much of the evening beating his defender off the dribble and getting to the line (14-14 on free throws is just awesome, btw). The rest of the team was a combined 1-12, despite the fact that the team was 24/39 from the floor on 2-point baskets. The point being, that unless somebody gets hot (see Shipp during the Bay-area road trip), it's generally not worth it for the team to chuck up a bunch of outside shots, given how effective Love, and the team as a whole, can be from inside the arc.

Anyway, time to get ready for "The Standard" next week. Very solid road trip, and here's hoping the Bruins come out fired up to start a new winning streak at Pauley.

Thoughts on the weeks, past and present

So, a major ten days or so for the Bruin athletic programs. While the basketball team allowed an unranked USC Trojan team to come into Pauley and earn the upset, the football team has seen a series of hirings. Let's cover those briefly. I'd like to note, in the next day or two I'm hoping to get up a big analysis of UCLA's major coaching decisions. So.

Football

UCLA's main coaching battery is now complete. New lower-level staffers Reggie Moore (WR), Bob Palcic (OL) and Mike Linn (S&C) will join new Offensive Coordinator Norm Chow and new Head Coach Rick Neuheisal. DeWayne Walker stays on as Defensive Coordinator, along with his assistants Todd Howard (DL) and Chuck Bullough (LB) - the only other coach from the old staff who is still potentially going to be rehired is former WR coach Eric Scott. Scott quickly earned a reputation as being a great recruiter, but troubles with the police during the previous offseason led to past transgressions being brought to light.

Interestingly, the name that caused the biggest shockwaves upon announcement was not that of the new head coach, but that of the new OC, Chow. Chow's hiring (following his serendipitous-for-UCLA firing by the Tennessee Titans) was in many ways a direct shot across the bow of USC's football program. That program - which had done much the same to the Bruins after a fashion with the hiring of ex-Bruin great Ken Norton, Jr. - first reached its current height with Chow masterminding its potent offenses. Perhaps the player who benefited the most from Chow's tutelage was Carson Palmer. A highly-touted recruit who struggled early in his career, Palmer blossomed into the eventual Heisman Trophy winner his senior year (and his 2nd under Chow). Now the Bruins hope a similar, if more speedy, transition follows with Ben Olson under center. The similarities are there - Olson's struggles at UCLA have been well-documented, despite his high recruiting ranking out of high school, and the fact that he possesses all the physical tools of a prototypical NFL QB.

Neuheisal's hiring has come and gone with much less controversy than I initially expected, so I'll let it pass for the most part in this space (though a numerical analysis is forthcoming - this post is more philosophical in nature). "Slick Rick" has, though, managed to hang on to well-regarded DC Walker, as well as the coup of hiring Chow for his OC, so it's very hard to argue that he has not started his tenure in a fascinating, and extremely positive, fashion. Walker, too, has seemingly been returned to the Bruins with a minimum of controversy despite the public nature of his courtship by other institutions, most notably the University of Washington (similarities abound). Palcic, Linn, and Moore are all generally-respected coaches at their positions as far as I can tell, though I don't know much about Linn.

The key over the next couple weeks will, of course, be for this coaching staff to hang on to the highly-ranked recruiting class currently indicating they'll be coming to Westwood next season. Given that UCLA loses a lot of senior talent, they'll need all the help they can get with the brutal upcoming schedule.

Basketball

Much more brief. Loss to USC = bad. Don't do it again, please. A road trip to the Oregon schools is next, beginning with the Ducks on Thursday. After a big win over Stanford at home on the 13th, the Ducks dropped both their games at UW and WSU this past week. Oregon is significantly more difficult to beat at home than on the road - see UCLA's first loss of the season last year, when they fell to the Ducks in a close game at McArthur. If the Bruins manage to handle the Ducks on Thursday, even with the home-loss to USC, they at least maintain a clear separation between themselves and every team in the conference except the Cougars. Oregon State just fired its coach - anything less than a relatively easy victory would be a major red flag.

Yawn, yawn, yawn... uh oh... phew.

Big, big thanks to the folks at Bruins Nation for adding me to their blogroll. Hopefully, I'll be able to add valuable information both here and over there for the forseeable future. Anyway, enough with the ass-kissing, ON TO THE SPORTS!

Washington State visisted Pauley Pavilion today, and as they have for the past few seasons, they managed to make things interesting. Oddly-enough, today's game ties the largest margin of victory for a UCLA/WSU game in Pauley Pavilion since 2003, when the Bruins beat the Cougars 86-71. They would lose at home the following year, but that margin of victory was also 7. In the years since then, WSU has lost to UCLA by 3, 2, and 3 points. The Cougs always find a way to keep it close in the house that John built, and they did so inspectacular fashion today.

For more fun errata, a nearly-identical game was played between the Bruins and Cougars at Pauley two seasons ago. However, Derrick Low was not involved. Exactly 2 years ago today, Josh Akognon (now with Cal State Fullerton) hit six of eight 3 points attempts, scoring all of his 25 points in the second half. For comparison, today Low went 6-9 from deep, with 24 points all in the second half. The Bruins absolutely suffocated WSU in the first half, allowing only 17 points in jumping to a 31-17 lead at the break. In today's game, UCLA had a 13-point lead at the half, allowing only 22 points to the Cougars. With 3:30 left in the 2006 game, UCLA was up 11. But Akognon kept hitting on his 3s, and UCLA escaped with a 2-point win after a missed WSU lay-up at the buzzer. With 1:45 left in today's game, the Bruins were ahead by 15 points. However, Low and his teammates made 7 straight 3-point baskets, coming to within 3. But clutch free throws by Darren Collison and Kevin Love put the game back out of reach, keeping the Bruins atop the Pac-10 for another week.

I was at that game in '06 - that's when Farmar and Mata slammed into each other and Mata fractured his knee. Despite the (rather ridiculous) injury issues, UCLA would go on to play in the National Title game that season, losing to Florida for the first of two consecutive Gator national titles. Hopefully, this year's team can have the same sort of success (though maybe a 'w' on that last game in addition to all the rest, heh).

Brief analyses on THIS year's game:

Kevin Love was simply awesome. Quietly awesome, but awesome. Interestingly enough, it never felt like he was totally taking over the game (see Bryant, Kobe). But almost every time UCLA needed a bucket or a stop, he was banking in a shot or snatching away a potential WSU offensive board. He showed range (two 3-balls), as well as a nifty new turnaround fallaway 12-foot jumper that he hasn't really used to date.

Not in the box-score: how well UCLA prevented WSU from getting second chances. Though the final tally reads UCLA 52 shots, WSU 50, that's generally inaccurate. During the Cougars' last-minute flurry, UCLA was generally shooting foul-shots. The Bruins had about 10 more shot attempts than the Cougs up until those last few minutes. Given how both teams pride themselves on execution, being able to shot the ball an extra 10 times was vital in UCLA's win, especially given how absurdly hot Low and his teammates got at the end of the game.

Westbrook had another great game - 6-9 from the floor, 4 rebounds 4 assists, and absolutely abused Derrick Low multiple times with his crossover. However, he's getting a little careless with the ball. He has 10 turnovers in his last 2 games (5 apiece), after having only 7 turnovers in the previous FIVE games (just 1 for the entire Bay Area sweep). Granted, Wazzou's defense is very good. But UW's isn't all that great, and Stanford isn't exactly a poor defensive team. Russell is producing at an extremely high level, I'm just noting that - after a marked improvement in the TO department - he might be backsliding a tad.

Luc is really an enigma. At times he looks like the best guy on the floor. But when he settles for jumpers, it really throws UCLA's offense off. He was really the only Bruin that didn't shoot the ball very well. He's best at slashing, though WSU's defense really played off him to prevent that. This opened driving lanes for Darren and Russ, granted. And Luc also contributed with a pair of steals, 5 boards, and great defense on Cowgill and Weaver. But if he's shooting lots of jumpers, the offensive flow gets muddled.

Lastly, to give you an idea of how good UCLA's free throw shooting has been of late: UCLA shot 17-21 from the line today... and that made their team free throw percentage since the Texas game go DOWN. Including the UT game, UCLA had been 109-129 (84.5%). Today, they shot 81%. On the season, they're at 74% as a team, fairly good, and trending upwards. It's nice to be able to knock down free throws - even when you're ahead by 15 with a minute and a half left, you never know...