The Sweet Spot presents:
Your first instinct might be to consider that the easiest way to win is to be the team that scores the most points. If that was your first thought, then you are definitely on the right track. There are other statistical categories that seem to have an influence on who the victor is. Below are the three other statistical categories your team needs to have in line before they can stand in the winner's circle.
[I recently read Coach Brown's Lipscomb WBB blog post about important
statistical categories to winning. This post inspired me to repost this
and tamper with the information a bit.]
The 3 other keys to winning:
(1) Good Field Goal (FG) Percentage
(2) Your Turnover Ratio
(3) Rebounding
Its important to consider what these three keys really consist of and also how they influence the rest of the game.
1. FIELD GOAL (FG) PERCENTAGE
FG Percentage is an essential part of the number of points you score. It is ideal for teams to take higher percentage shots more frequently in order to increase the likelihood that those shots go in. When those shots go in your team's field goal percentage increases. (pretty simple mathematical reasoning) But lets review that equation quickly:
higher percentage shots+ more frequently= more made baskets= higher field goal percentage
AH HA! We aren't quite at the "AH HA!" moment yet. So we've decided that taking higher percentage shots more often means more made baskets which results in more points and a higher FG percentage. (and a run on sentence). That's great but HOW DO WE INFLUENCE FG % in practice?
Getting your team to shoot higher percentage shots and ultimately a higher field goal percentage starts at practice. To quote Allen Iverson, "we talkin' about practice". Practicing high percentage shots helps your team become accustomed to what they look like. It might not be a bad idea to question your players about their shot selection here and there. Ask if there was a higher percentage shot available at the time and see why they might have missed it. You should also illustrate what low percentage shows look like for your team, so they know what you're really talking about. Practicing shots that come out of your offensive sets/plays will help increase your FG Percentage too.
2. YOUR TURNOVER RATIO
I once had a coach who put the game of basketball very simply. He used to say, "in order to do anything on offense we need to have the ball." Your turnover ratio can make or break your opportunities to score. In order to get your team to understand the value of your possessions you have to emphasize it. Practices and scrimmages should focus on limiting the number of turnovers each team has. Turnovers, like shot selection, can help field goal percentage in the long run. The more opportunities you get to have the ball, the more opportunities you have to score. Its pretty simple.
I also explain turnovers to my Hastings team in terms of what we could have had. So if we have 13 turnovers in a game, once I recover from my conniption we sit down and do the math.
13 turnovers= an opportunity to score at least 26 points
Now of course that is assuming we make every shot we take on those 13 possessions but I'm willing to take that chance. Teams should also know that you have to keep turnovers to a limit each game. The teams that win are the teams that have the ball longer, end of story.
3. REBOUNDING
One of the most essential stats we keep on our bench at Hastings is Rebounds. We tally offensive and defensive rebounds, and set a goal for each game of what we want to reach. Rebounding is a key part to scoring points and limiting them.
There is a belief that trying over and over again eventually and I apply that way of thinking when I consider defensive rebounds. Here's my logic:
continuous offensive rebounds+put back shots= increased chances of a made basket
Check out what I'm saying here. The more opportunities you give teams to score, the more likely they are to score. This is why defensive rebounds are so important. If you think about shots in basketball, more often than not their rebounds fall at least half the distance of where they were shot from. So you figure a 10 foot shot has a rebound that falls around five feet from the basket. Think of what the location of that rebound means for shot selection. So now your opponent has shot a farther shot, they have grabbed their offensive rebound, and are now even closer to the rim than they were originally. Keeping teams off the offensive glass limits those opportunities for higher percentage shots and second chances all together.
Consider what it means for your team too. Defensive rebounds can easily turn into transition baskets if you have a rebounder who peeks at the rim as soon as they grab the ball. A quick outlet can lead to your offense having numbers going the other way.
Offensive rebounds for your team are big too. The likelihood that your shot selection and fg percentage increases off of second shots is pretty high. Offensive rebounds add excitement to the game and even give you the chance to restart your offense. That's a pretty big deal in my eyes.
These three keys seem pretty logical when you add them to the idea of scoring more points than your opponent. I would go as far as to bet that if you looked at other
