Cool lineup tracking data

Basketball Insider Board
#1

I was reading some NBA Draft stuff on The Ringer (Bill Simmons’ website) the other day and there was a reference to the site HoopLens.com in one of the articles.

Looked it up and it’s pretty cool. Has sortable lineup data for every college team. You can pick and choose your search criteria, whether it be best offensive 3-man grouping, best overall 5-man lineup, worst defensive lineup, best rebounding group and so on. It allows you to filter out the smaller sample size lineups and you can select individual games or groups of games.

I got pretty pumped and went ahead and subscribed. Working on about 6 different stories right now and will incorporate this into a lot of them, but have just been messing around on it the last day or so. Came across some interesting stuff.

First, the base lines. The median NCAA points per 100 possessions last year was 103.9. Arkansas was 110.9 on offense, 103.5 on defense.

You figure Anton, Jaylen and Daryl will play together a bunch next year. Last season, they weren’t a great grouping on offense, averaging 97.7 per 100. Defensively, they were a little better than the team average at 101.

The best lineup on the team, by far, was Anton, Daryl, Manny, Dustin and Moses at 151 per 100 (!) on offense and 60 on defense. They didn’t play together a ton, but were super effective. Barford, Hannahs, Macon, Dustin, Moses were 115.7 on offense and 77.9 on defense. Anton, Dusty, Manny, Dustin and Moses were 114.9 on offense and also 77.9 on defense.

The worst lineup was Anton, Dusty, Daryl, Dustin and Moses at 91.3 on offense and 106.3 on defense. You’d think that would have been a good offensive grouping. Anton, Dusty, Daryl, Arlando and Trey were 94 on offense and 105.5 on defense. Jaylen, Anton, Daryl, Dustin and Moses were 92.2 on offense and 101.5 on defense. So the common denominator in the 3 worst lineups was Anton and Daryl being on the court together, but they were also both in the best lineup. Ha.

When you whittle it down to 3-man groupings, CJ was part of 4 of the best 5 based on points per possession differential. Obviously most of that came during the nonconference schedule against weaker opponents when he was part of that bench group that was just obliterating teams.

CJ, Jaylen, Arlando — 131.3 O, 80 D
CJ, Trey, Arlando — 124.1 O, 74.4 D
CJ, Anton, Trey — 109.6 O, 73.7 D
Anton, Manny, Dustin — 122 O, 86.3 D
CJ, Anton, Arlando — 116.9 O, 82.7 D

Trey was in each of the 5 best 3-man offensive groupings.

Wanted to see which big played best next to Moses…

Dustin — 112.6 O, 95.3 D (+17.3 net rating) … 35.2 ORB%, 67.1 DRB%
Trey — 127.8 O, 110.8 D (+17 net rating) … 38.7 ORB%, 62.6 DRB%
Manny (w/Moses as only big) — 114.1 O, 118 D (-3.9 net rating) … 26 ORB%, 67.1 DRB%
Adrio — 99.5 O, 108.4 D (-8.9 net rating) … 26.8 ORB%, 62.4 DRB%
Arlando — 101.4 O, 119.5 D (-18.1 net rating) … 33.1 ORB%, 64.2 DRB%

According to this, the net rating on the team was Dustin followed by Trey and Dusty.

Some interesting stuff. If anyone has any specific lineup requests for me to look up, let me know. I’m kind of enamored with this right now.

#2

Can you make it so it’s just showing stats from the conference games? That would give you the best indication on lineups and individual players.

#3

Once conference play began (so including OSU and the SEC and NCAA Tournaments), Arkansas averaged 108.9 points per 100 and gave up 107.5.

When Anton, Jaylen and Daryl played together, the offensive rating dipped to 99.6 but the defensive rating was 99.3.

They only had 5 lineups that were played for a decent amount of time and were net positives…

1 — Jaylen, Daryl, Dusty, Dustin, Moses … 123.8 ORtg, 82.9 DRtg — +40.9 net (this group probably didn’t play together as much as it should’ve, was the starting lineup for the first 4 games of the year and then never again)

2 — Jaylen, Dusty, Daryl, Manny, Moses … 146.9 ORtg, 108.5 DRtg — +38.4 net (the small-ball group that was pretty successful during SEC play. I wrote during the year that it might be a good idea to use this more. Looking at these numbers, the defense wasn’t good, but they were scoring at a crazy pace)

3 — Jaylen, Dusty, Anton, Dustin, Moses … 134.3 ORtg, 102.9 DRtg — +31.4 net

4 — Jaylen, Daryl, Manny, Trey, Moses … 132 ORtg, 102 DRtg — +30 net

5 — Jaylen, Dusty, Manny, Dustin, Moses … 105.7 ORtg, 105.6 DRtg — +0.1 net (this was the starting lineup for the last 10 games and by far the most used of these 5 as a result)

Worst 3 lineups…

1 — Anton, Dusty, Daryl, Dustin, Moses … 90.7 ORtg, 114 DRtg — -23.3 net

2 — Jaylen, Daryl, Manny, Dustin, Moses … 100 ORtg, 110.4 DRtg — -10.4 net

3 — Anton, Dusty, Daryl, Arlando, Trey … 93.1 ORtg, 103.2 DRtg — -10.1 net

Best 3-man combinations…

1 — Jaylen, Dustin, Trey … 121.6 ORtg, 89.3 DRtg — +32.3 net

2 — Manny, Dustin, Trey … 113.4 ORtg, 86.6 DRtg — +26.8 net

3 — Dusty, Dustin, Trey … 116.2 ORtg, 89.9 DRtg — +26.2 net

I’ve kind of been a fan of the idea of starting Dustin and Gafford and having Trey come off the bench to help the 2nd unit’s offense, but the above is interesting.

Worst 3-man combinations…

1 — Dusty, Arlando, Moses — 82.4 ORtg, 128.6 DRtg — -46.2 net
2 — Manny, Arlando, Moses — 89.3 ORtg, 127 DRtg — -37.7 net
3 — Dusty, Daryl, Adrio — 114.3 ORtg, 148.3 DRtg — -34 net

#4

That’s really interesting and it brings up some ideas for next years lineups.

I have been thinking for a while that our best starting group would probably be Jaylen, Daryl, Hall, DT and Gafford. But when you look at the numbers it seems that putting CJ with the starting group instead of Hall would be the best option. Having CJ and Daryl would space the floor better which would make the offense theoretically better. That would end up helping on the defensive end because it would mean less transition O for the opponent and allow us to press.

I like having Trey come off the bench because his passing ability should help the bench guys score easier in the half court. Plus I think he will work better with a small lineup(Adrio at the 4) because of that.

One of the hardest things to figure out is who will get the most minutes between Bailey and Cook. Both are liabilities on the glass because of their lack of size. I like Adrio more because he will bring more of a big play ability and I think that can have a big impact on the outcome of several games.

#5

Yeah, I really like the idea of CJ providing spacing for Jaylen and Daryl.

It’ll be interesting to see if the staff plays Hall alongside 2 “bigs” or as a 4. I’m pretty convinced at this point he will wind up a wing (much more than Bailey), just don’t know how they’ll use him in year one.

I’ve been a big proponent of bringing Trey off the bench, but that DT-Trey data is at least interesting. Obviously you can play them together even if they don’t start, but starting them together essentially guarantees they play at least a quarter of the game together.

I think if Adrio progresses like they hope he will, he may cut into Arlando’s minutes. His ceiling is higher, like you reference with the big-play ability. Adrio playing alongside Hall and either Gafford/Trey would be an interesting look. Would need some offense in the backcourt, but could be a really versatile defensive lineup.

#6