AggieNattie said:

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The Collective said:

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I expect the offense will look 100% different at Maryland, and people are going to ***** about it here an unhealthy # of times.

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Yep. And I honestly wouldn't blame them. It would be par for the course to see a Buzz team become good at shooting and offense all of a sudden.

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I'll believe it when I see it. Honest question - did his teams look noticeably different when he moved from Marquette to Va Tech? Or from Va Tech to A&M? I don't really remember anything other than he raised the bar at a football school and thinking he would do the same here.

Yes. He's played a few different ways. Especially defensively.

JJxvi said:

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The first two are dumb questions where there is no difference except one persons personal preference.

The third has an obvious objectively correct answer and Buzz gave it.

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I don't believe the question is either objective or that he gave the correct answer even if it was. But let's assume for a second that it was: what is the relationship between the two? Why can't you have better free throw shooting and fewer turnovers?

We shot a total of 847 free throws last year and made 69.2% of them for a total of 17.2 made per game. Had we shot 100%, we'd have had 7.68 additional points PER GAME. (Let's just say 7). That would have equaled 4 additional regular season wins (including one against Bama), and the SEC game against t.u. That likely solidifies us as a 3 seed and more than likely gets us to the 2 line. Final Four? Probably not but who knows. Obviously, this is a static comparison, but so would be the turnover margin analysis.

Now, we turned the ball over 12.2 times per game, which means we, in theory, lost 12 possessions and gave them 12 possessions. However, the turnover may have come during one of our front court possessions (ball out of bounds, other violation after initial shot, etc.) and they could have done the same. So to come up with a game point difference, we have to extrapolate. I'll let others do the calcs but does it beat 7 points per game? Maybe, not all turnovers are fast break with guaranteed points. Like I said, the 12.1 includes a charge, it includes a bad pass in the front court, etc. A better stat to look at is steals per game and us and our opponents both had around 7.6 per game. Let's say 5 of those ended up with them shooting and they made 3 (more layups/dunks), that's still only 6 ppg. Steals wouldn't result in very many 3 point attempts, at least not the way I'm looking at it here.

Keep in mind that if we were to reach a point where we'd shoot 80+% in free throws, teams likely wouldn't foul us as much. How that would affect the game results is a big unknown.

Eliminating 12 turnovers is going to equal something close to, and more likely more than,12 points vs your 7 extra made free throws. Any possession without a turnover ends in a shot (where you apply our effective field goal percentage, plus our offensive rebound percentage etc) or a foul. Both of those outcomes are probably at least 1 point per possession outcomes.

If you never turn it over then all 12 possessions per game are ending in shot attempts which even with our absolutely terrible shooting is easily more than 8 points per game. And that's not even accounting for the potential rebounds on the misses.

I dont get your response though, you think when asked "would you rather have" he should say "i would try a little of both!"

I'll also do your math calcs for you.

Our offensive efficiency according to Torvik was 116 points per 100 possessions and thats with 18 turnovers in those possessions. That implies that our offensive rating with zero turnovers would have been 141 points per 100 possessions (116 points in 82 possessions). So no turnovers would have gained us 25 points per 100 possessions.

Our free throws rate was 41 per 100 possessions. We made 28 of those, so choosing 100% free throws gains you 13 points per 100 possessions (plus a couple back ends of 1 and 1s, so maybe 15ish)

The decision is not close, and would not be for any team . It is so obvious it wasnt really necessary to do the math if you have any understanding of the underlying analytics in the sport. If any coach answered differently than Buzz it would be a big red flag for me.

bobinator said:

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If you never turn it over then all 12 possessions per game are ending in shot attempts which even with our absolutely terrible shooting is easily more than 8 points per game. And that's not even accounting for the potential rebounds on the misses.

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That and the opponent isn't playing with "gas" - points off turnovers. It's a no brainer that No TO's > No Missed FT's

bingram1230 said:

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I don't disagree with those answers or what he had done here, but that doesn't mean you can completely neglect offense. It was so awful sometimes watching us play on that end of the floor. Same way you can't neglect defense either

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Dude is an offensive tard. Period.

His biggest problem IMO, he is inability to recruit the required level of players to truly, truly compete consistently with the best of the best. Those top 100 players want to play offense. That is why Bucky is already ahead of Buzz with just 2 players on the team. I mean that seriously too.

At the end of the day, we won one less game than we should have won. I was at the national championship game, and our players just weren't good enough for that level. Buzz did a good job with the roster he had.

Went and looked at Buzz overall record. Im surprised that he has only ever once finished First in conference and 2 times he finished second.

I don't think his emphasis of and love for defense is misplaced- it was the hallmark of the awesome Spurs dynasty in the NBA.

But when you don't have the offensive firepower to go with it (whether by coaching or talent), it loses much of its lustre.

Divining Rod said:

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I don't think his emphasis of and love for defense is misplaced- it was the hallmark of the awesome Spurs dynasty in the NBA.

But when you don't have the offensive firepower to go with it (whether by coaching or talent), it loses much of its lustre.

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He's gone let's focus on Bucky and our path forward.

Divining Rod said:

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I don't think his emphasis of and love for defense is misplaced- it was the hallmark of the awesome Spurs dynasty in the NBA.

But when you don't have the offensive firepower to go with it (whether by coaching or talent), it loses much of its lustre.

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That period of play and foundational concept is gone with all the rules changes in college and pro.

If you can't score, you can't win. NBA or NCAA.

jeremy said:

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He's an analytics guy. He just reads the analytics and comes to a different conclusion than most of us do.


Also, we always talk about how good our defense was under him. Giving up 90 to Michigan is unacceptable. I say giving up 75 to Michigan is unacceptable. We're we that good on defense when it counted? Nah.

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Agree. Against the tough competition he could not execute his own philosophy

94chem said:

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At the end of the day, we won one less game than we should have won. I was at the national championship game, and our players just weren't good enough for that level. Buzz did a good job with the roster he had.

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And that was his fault. He didn't chase the NIL buck and/or deploy them enough last off-season. Last year was our chance to really leave a mark. Instead he stuck with guys that shouldn't be playing- rather than cleaning them out and getting the pieces needed to possibly win a championship.