The Change

The Change

In 2016, College Basketball changed dramatically, and that change impacted significantly the quality of play on the court and the ability for gamblers to predict that activity.  

5 Seconds.   

The move of the shot clock from 35 to 30 seconds is significant.   And gamblers often talk about March Madness trends from earlier this decade without understanding that much of that is invalid data, due to 5 seconds.  

The shot clock drives a concept called Average Possession Length.  APL drives number of possessions/game.  One of the best ways to understand and predict future results of points scored by each team is to predict possession counts and then apply possession based stats against those predicted possessions in any given game.   

Ken Pom has great data here I'll use to show the impacts of 5 seconds.  

If we focus on the Tempo (Possessions/Game Total) you can see it increased.  And although 4 possessions/game seems small, that could be a 12 point swing.   

Looking more broader, here are the changes from the 2 years 2014-2015 compared to the 2 years from 2016-2017: 

Tempo Increased 5.9% (Possessions/Game)

Shooting Improved 1.8% on 2PT, 1.5% on 3PT and 0.9% on FT which is counter intuitive that less time would make for better shots so lets accept that shooting is simply improving as a skill.   Also note, teams are taking more 3's by 7%.

Officials are calling less fouls, FTRate is down 7.2%   And teams are more and more NOT trying to steal the ball (down 6%) or block the ball (down 4.7%).  The current trend is to play between man and basket and let them shoot hoping for a Non-Steal TO (up 1.6%). 

So why? 

Well lets start with the Fouls, Steals and Blocks and lets say they correlate.  The more you try to steal and block, the more you risk a foul.   With less steals and blocks either players are not as good or coaches see the Risk/Reward differently in the "longer games" if you measure length of games by possessions.   A 5th foul at the same time in 2017 compared to 2015 means a star player misses more possessions. 

But maybe it is... 

Teams are shooting more 3's so less chances for blocks.  Teams are running their offensive quicker so less chances for steals.   So maybe this change is all about the shot clock change.  5 seconds.   

So if you followed along... if shooting improved rebounding is less important, steals and blocks are less important -- it really says that the new version of this old game is about scoring and shooting.   Start there when you handicap. 

And stop talking about trends prior to 2016; it was a different game.  Same 3 seed.  Same Butler BUT the game is played differently.  

The only thing that is the same, Vegas Books.  Still using better data that we have access to.   Still have the best and brightest.   

TJH