What Did Wisconsin Basketball Learn vs. No. 9 Tennessee?

There is a lot to love about what Wisconsin Basketball showed Friday Night vs. Tennessee. There’s also a lot that they need to improve on as well. Most of those aspects are on the defensive end, although some may be questioning whether there’s more needed offensively.

Putting up 70 Points on the #1 Defense in the Country, on a little less than 1 PPP (.978) isn’t anything to scoff at. We really moved away from the motion aspects of our offense, in part if not all was in response to what Tennessee was doing.

Switching 1-5.

When a team can do that it negates all of the off-ball screening action that takes place in Gard’s Offense. The Kicker is if you have the athleticism and size 1-5 you also have NO MISMATCHES. So we went to 1 Pass Post-Touches or worked the ball side to side with no meaningful paint pressure for most of the 2nd Half. Very tough to get a lot of good looks that way.

What was more concerning for me and our ability to be a Championship caliber team was or continued ineptitude defensively! Based on my charting we gave up 1.23 PPP in the 1st Half, on 67.3% eFG% (5/9 from 3P). That put us in an 8-Point hole we could never get out from under in the 2nd Half despite our best efforts! We also allowed them to get to the FT Line early and often, about 14% over their 2022-2024 Average (41% vs. 27%).

Let’s dive deeper into the results to see where and how we diverged from the Prediction Model:

4-Factor Prediction vs. Actuals Analysis:

As you can recall I projected a 6-Point victory vs. Tennessee with almost all of the margin coming from our FT Margin!

As you can see that wasn’t the case on Friday Night! We we’re 8.32 Points WORSE than what the Model predicted.

• NoT eFG% Margin | UW Lost -3.77 Points vs. Expectation
• STOP FACTOR | UW Gained 3.39 Points vs. Expectation
• OPP STOP FACTOR | UW Lost 4.92 Points vs. Expectation
• FT MARGIN | UW Lost 8.32 Points vs. Expectation

Wisconsin Basketball NoT eFG% Margin:

Wisconsin basketball was much worse than expected from inside the arc on Friday. Part of this is due to their amazing performance on Monday vs. Arkansas State. In hindsight, I should have adjusted that prediction much more stringently towards 2022-2023 expectations until proven otherwise!

But from a TOs Perspective, UW outperformed by 5.2% which made up some of the ground ceded by our poor 2P Shooting!

For Tennessee, it was almost the opposite, they were much better than expected from inside the arc. And much worse than expectation from outside the arc! We held them 9% below their 2022-2024 3PAR & 3% below their 3P%! Some good results, but coming into the game that wasn’t an area of concern anyway.

What killed was their 92.9% Shooting (13/14) from inside 5FT! They also shot 70% when you stretch it out to all of their shots from inside the Paint!

Can’t happen. Where I saw most of this was in the P&R Ball Screen work, specifically Knecht and others really taking advantage of our “Drop” Coverage which is a Bo Ryan/Greg Gard Staple. Crowl and Winter but primarily Winter struggled at keeping the Screener in front of him and it led to a ton of lobs and easy buckets at the rim. That’ll need to get fixed real quick or he’ll find his minutes are going to evaporate and Gilmore will be getting a lot more tick in his place. And rightfully so!

Wisconsin Basketball STOP FACTOR & OPP STOP FACTOR:

UW got a big boost in STOP FACTOR, although it wasn’t nearly enough to get the job done. It might be shocking but UW actually had the “Size + Physical” advantage on Friday. Now what I don’t account for in that is length/wingspan (would if I could).

That definitely would have put Tennessee on top. But where UW gained in the DREB% Model was in 2 key areas, first in limiting the amount of 3s Tennessee took. 3s are much harder shots to rebound. 2nd unfortunately is FTAR of Tennessee, FTs given the 4/3 advantage in NCAAM Basketball are much easier rebounding situations.

Tennessee got an even bigger STOP FACTOR bump, in large part due to Wisconsin’s 7.5% underperformance in NoT eFG%! Because we actually were able to snag a lot more OREBs than the model projected!

FT Margin:

• Wisconsin: FTAR = 37.7% | FT % = 61% | 14-23
• Tennessee: FTAR = 41.1% | FT % = 83% | 19-23
• FT Margin = -5

Wisconsin Basketball Player Metrics:

PPS (Points Per Shot):

Detail:

There’s a dichotomy, or shall we say a delicate balance for “Volume Scorers” like AJ Storr.

At what point do the diminishing returns show up? It seemed to come in the 2nd Half vs. Tennessee. This was for both Ark State & Tennessee when you look a the data, it tells a pretty clear story.

In the 2H his 3PA% JUMPS to 42.8% of his Shots, in the 1H it’s been just 15.8% of his Shots. For AJ to be successful, it looks like he has to continue attacking the lane! The “success” wasn’t there Friday with all of his 2s below 1 Point/Shot, but as good a FT shooter as he is. By not attacking he’s missing opportunities there that he can capitalize at a really high rate! Which will help his PPS immensely.

Points-Created/USG%:

Again, Storr was VERY high USG especially in the 1st Half vs. Tennessee. There’s a fine line in terms of how much is too much from a player. Looking at what Klesmit/Hepburn/Crowl/Wahl were able to do from Scoring & Finding guys the ball theoretically should have found their way to them over Storr much more on Friday!

The big question around Storr surrounds this very topic “IS HE JOHNNY DAVIS?”.

What are we looking at here? Well up top we’re looking at the very early season data around Players USG Rates & True Shooting %’s (PPS) Proxy. What I can tell you is that Storr’s USG is going to drop dramatically, it has to. Not only because if this trend continues he’ll be way overused to what’s historically been done by any player. But also if he for some reason continues to be used this much it will be FAR LESS efficient basketball for UW!

So while he’s doing way too much right now, he still has a very high likelihood of being that Johnny Davis-type player for us! He just has to pick his spots better and let the game come to him more, this should help elongate his desire to get paint touches deep into the 2H. Something we lacked vs. Tennessee and something we’ll need all Season Long!

Badgers Ball-Security Factor:

Can’t say I have many complaints here, besides Chucky. The Offense unraveling in the 2H, falls squarely on his shoulders as the PG. It’s not a fair standard but it’s the right one to have. He could and should have done a lot more with the ball in his hands Friday Night. We didn’t see that happen and it’s a big reason why we lost!

Looking forward to a nice bounceback game vs. a Top-68 KenPom Team in Providence (#58). I’ll have a Full Preview out Monday Night or Tuesday!

On Wisconsin!

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