Howland vs. The Saturday Slump
by LVBruin on Jan 22, 2010 12:52 PM PST
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PrintBumped. GO BRUINS. -N
After perhaps our best overall performance of the season, I'm sure that many members of the Bruins Nation are fearing the typical Saturday letdown. For me, it was the first thing that came to mind after the energy of the final moments died down (no, I didn't put much thought into the court storming, I can't blame the kids as I did it myself once*). So, when one poster asked for our Thursday vs. Saturday win/loss stats under CBH, I decided to look into it myself. As usual, I went overboard in Excel and broke it down further. Here are some of my findings:
| Day | Record | Win % |
| Monday | 4 – 1 | 80.00% |
| Tuesday | 14 – 2 | 87.50% |
| Wednesday | 11 – 4 | 73.33% |
| Thursday | 54 – 13 | 80.59% |
| Friday | 10 – 3 | 81.48% |
| Saturday | 53 – 33 | 61.62% |
| Sunday | 14 – 8 | 63.63% |
Every day should be Tuesday?More numbers after the jump.
Granted, there are sample size issues here but if you throw out a loss from this squad earlier in the season we are 14 and 1 on Tuesdays with our only loss being to Michigan St. in Michigan. Of course, the more important stat here is 33, CBHs number of losses on Saturdays. That's twenty more losses than he's had on Thursdays in one fewer game:
| Days of Prep | Record | Win% |
| 0 | 10 – 2 | 83.33% |
| 1 | 37 – 22 | 62.71% |
| 2 | 17 – 11 | 60.71% |
| 3 | 24 – 7 | 77.41% |
| 4 | 44 – 10 | 81.48% |
| 5 | 9 – 1 | 90.00% |
| 6 | 12 – 8 | 60.00% |
| 7 | 1 – 1 | 50.00% |
| 8 | 0 – 0 | NA |
| 9 | 0 – 1 | 0.00% |
| opening game | 6 – 1 | 85.71% |
| less than 4 | 88 – 42 | 67.69% |
| 4 or more | 72 – 22 | 76.59% |
Let's petition the NCAA for a six month season. These numbers are a little tougher to decipher as our zero-days prep record is bolstered by some impressive pre-season and Pac 10 tourney runs while our six-days prep numbers are hampered by stiff competition (final four losses, Kansas this year and as much as it pains me to say it, tough rivalry games). The question then seems to be, why has CBH fared well on little to no prep against OOC opponants and generally struggled on little prep against Pac 10 squads? To illustrate my point:
| Days of Prep | OOC Record | Pac10 Record |
| 0 | 6 – 1 | 4 – 1 |
| 1 | 12 – 3 | 25 – 19 |
| totals | 18 – 4 | 29 – 20 |
Those OOC numbers are even more impressive when you consider the opponants (wins against Kentucky, Georgia Tech, Michigan St., Southern Illinois, Temple, Alabama, Memphis, Kansas, Western Illinois, Texas A&M and Xavier, losses to Butler, $C, Florida and Villanova). Given his credentials on short notice against OOC opponants, do you think CBH might just be too predictable year-to-year? Is Howland like a pitcher that has been figured out by the batters in his division but still causes trouble in interleague play (okay, I'll admit I haven't cared about baseball since I was 12 and don't even know if this is a plausible scenario but it sounded like a good analogy)?
Alright, my girlfriend is asking what I'm stil doing on the computer. Anyone else with any thoughts as to the meaning of these numbers?
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.
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Forgot about my asterisk
Long story short, I rushed the court at least once (when we beat Duke) and possibly twice (when we clinched the Pac 10 against Oregon) my freshman year (96-97). Looking back on it from the perspective of a more seasoned and knowledgeable Bruin fan, both were poor decisions but hey, isn’t that what your late teens and early twenties are all about : )
A guess
Based on no research, I would think the Tuesday numbers might be so high since matchups more or less made for TV are often on the weekend, and we know about conference games. Tuesdays I’d think would be more often December games against teams that we expect to/should beat.
Interesting analysis!
Very interesting analysis indeed
Thanks for looking this up LV, confirming what many of us were already thinking. I wonder if our teams are often just too spent by the weekend that they don’t have much left in their tanks.
We've seen conditioning
to be a problem late in many games; ML is a prime example, but many others are huffing and puffing more than opponents by the last 4-5 minutes of a game.
I haven’t played organized sports for a few decades. I’d be interested to hear those of you who play basketball or a similar constantly-in-motion sport weigh in on how worn out you are after a second game in three days. I think Nestor’s on to something here.
Style of play comes into the equation
when you’re talking about players getting worn out during games. In my experience, there’s nothing more tiring in basketball than properly executed defensive slides. So a team that plays an aggressive man, as is a trademark of CBH, might be more likely to tire than a team playing a zone.
Playing time?
What about a short bench? MM and BL have seen very little time in Pac10 play. CBH leans very heavily on his veterans especially during big/league games.
Tuesday wins chronologically
Western Illinois, Long Beach State, New Mexico State, Albany, Kentucky, Long Beach State, Cal State Fullerton, Sam Houston State, Cal State San Bernadino, Michigan State, Western Illinois, Wyoming, New Mexico State, Colorado State
So kind of a mixed bag. All were before Dec 22, but some were solid pre-season tourney wins.
Better on OOC
The fact that it is an OOC game against a school that you rarely play, the enthusiasm and intensity go way up. Strictly a mental thing. IMHO
Also
Another thing to keep in mind is that the longer our prep period, the more rested our players are….while the opposing team may have had a more recent game.
UCLA '08
One simple explanation
Before a weekday game, there is much more time for preparation and coaching.
Before saturday, there’s almost no time.
Because we had superior talent in only one season (08), I think this is simply a matter of having a greater coaching edge on weekdays (with time to prepare). I don’t think it’s a judgment on Howland’s style as much as his success when he has the chance to really prepare, rather than just a Friday walkthrough.
As for the question of fatigue, it’s true that great man defense is tiring, but I don’t think we’ve lost many games by being gassed in the last 8 minutes when it should really show. Also — it’s not as tiring as playing a full-court press, like some teams (Mizz, Louisville) do all game.
In regard to longer prep = advantage Howland
I was hoping that my findings would coroborate this theory and to a degree, they do. However, the fact that Howland has done very well on short notice against OOC opponants while struggling with the quick turnaround games in league play is, I believe, a noteworthy topic of discussion.
Too many mitigating factors
Our OOC opponents are on average far less talented than conference opponents. Most of them are scrubs. In the tourney, on the first weekend, they have usually been much lower seeds. We haven’t played more than one superior-talented OOC during the regular season until this year (going back at least to 2006, and then we played only two, Memphis and WVU).
I bet if you combed through each of those games you would find little disparity in our performances against higher-level teams.
Note on my original post
The short prep period OOC schedule has been pretty daunting: Kentucky, Georgia Tech, Michigan St., Southern Illinois, Temple, Alabama, Memphis, Kansas, Western Illinois, Texas A&M, Xavier, Butler, Florida, Villanova
I’m not saying that on the whole they are better than the Pac 10 but they are at least comparable.
would be great to see comparison data
LVBruin, do you think your girlfirend would let you do the same analysis for Krezchefski (I know I brutally mispelled that), Williams and Self?
I am only kidding, I wouldn’t think you’d do all that and what you did just for Howland is great work…thanks. But it would interesting to see if other top coaches have similar numbers re the Saturday issue and the OOC issue.
by RealisticBruinFan on Jan 22, 2010 1:53 PM PST reply actions
You could even add TV coverage into the equation
They always schedule those big time ABC and CBS telecasts for Saturday during the day. Maybe our players get stage fright…
by inhowlandwetrust on Jan 22, 2010 2:00 PM PST reply actions
That's exactly what I was going to suggest
I have this sense (both in basketball and football) that we tend to lose when we have national (non-cable) coverage. I have never seen it quantified before, however.
Games the networks
choose for weekend ‘marquee’ broadcasts are also usually matchups of two highly-rated and/or traditionally power teams, not often a good team against a crappy one. It’s not an excuse to lose TV games, but one factor in the mix.
by KSBruin on Jan 22, 2010 6:43 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
I think there is a reasonable explanation for the success on 0/1 days rest OOC, but not in conference.
While I haven’t looked at the schedules myself, I would guess that the difference isn’t so much due to the Pac-10 figuring Howland out as the pure and simple quality of each team.
While Howland’s been here, we can probably say we’ve had 1-2 bad teams, 1-2 reasonable ones and 3 good ones (depending on how you classify each season). In the worse seasons, we’ve probably played far fewer games on short rest OOC – losing early (or not playing) in preseason tourneys and not making the NCAAs – while we still had to play a full schedule of Pac-10 games. Those teams would have less impact on our short rest OOC schedule.
Meanwhile, the good teams (the Final Four years) played more games on short rest OOC. Obviously they did well in the NCAA tournament on short rest, and also played well in preseason tourneys. While they also did well inside the conference, their share of the short rest games is much smaller in that category, as our good and bad teams all played a similar number of games on short rest in conference play.
In short, the Pac-10 short rest record gives equal weighting to all our teams, while the OOC short rest record counts our good teams more.
Looking at the schedules,
Howland’s three Final Four teams went 34-6 on short rest. That’s 19-5 in the Pac-10, and 15-1 OOC.
Howland’s other four teams (including this partial year) have gone 12-18 on short rest. That’s 10-15 in the Pac-10, and 2-3 OOC.
(I’m not entirely sure how I counted one less OOC game on short rest than LVBruin, but I don’t want to go back and check.)
Howland’s good teams account for less than half of the short rest games played in the Pac-10 (24 of 49 games), and about two thirds of the wins (19 of 29). Those three teams had a .792 winning percentage on short rest in the Pac-10, while the others had a .400 winning percentage. Howland’s bad teams have been far worse on short rest, and weigh down our record in those games.
Meanwhile, the Final Four teams played over three quarters (16 of 21) of our OOC games on short rest, and account for 88% of the OOC wins on short rest (15 of 17). They had a .938 winning percentage (15-1) in those games while the worse teams again went just .400. However, the OOC record on short rest is much better because most of the games were played by the better teams, who inflate the record.
Year by year on short rest (Final Four teams bolded):
03-04: 3-5 overall, (3-5 Pac-10)
04-05: 3-4 (3-4)
05-06: 12-4 (6-3)
06-07: 9-2 (4-2)
07-08: 13-0 (9-0)
08-09: 6-6 (4-5)
09-10: 0-3 (0-1)
TV and the inverse
Maybe it is not why we lose on Saturdays but why we win on Thursdays.
TV wants the better games so we play better teams on Saturdays??? I dont know but I would suspect that the team with the highest preseason record of the PAC10 pair is set to play UCLA (in the Howland era the higher of the Socal pair) on the Saturday. So that means the WEAKER pair is Thursday.
But it is just a guess…
by Bruin Dad and Grad on Jan 22, 2010 5:47 PM PST reply actions
Yes
I strongly believe this is what it is. As the schools usually travel in pairs (UCLA +USC), and UCLA is the better watched basketball school, I think the better games/tougher matchups are scheduled for Saturdays. The weaker matchups are scheduled for Thursdays.
I’ve noticed this trend for the last few years. We’ll usually play the Az State on Thursdays and the Arizona on Saturdays, or OSU on Thurs and UO on Sat.
I think it is both
CBH is a good defensive schemer. It helps to have time to set up those adjustments.
However, you are right. TV wants the better games on the weekend but don’t forget it does not always work out that way. For example, this year AZ (the other PAC 10 perennial power house) was Saturday on TV, but they are not as good this year as ASU. Same for Cal and Stanford. Yet we won the Thursday games against the “better team” and lost the Saturday game.
Pac 10 games alternate road/home
If we play Cal on Thursday at home, we play them on Saturday on the road.
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