Faster Nebrasketball! Steal! Steal!
Previewing Nebraska-Iowa in the Sweet 16.
It’s right there in the name.
Out of curiosity and spurred by the novelty of Nebraska’s role in this NCAA Tournament, I wanted to find out if any of Dean Oliver’s Four Factors—shooting, turnovers, offensive rebounds, free throws—was carrying unusual weight this March. Has this been a rebounding tournament? A defensive tournament?
I wasn’t surprised to find that, nope, it’s still mostly about making baskets and preventing them. In this year’s tournament, effective field goal percentage (shooting) was the most strongly correlated offensive category followed by turnover rate, offensive rebounding percentage and free throw rate. That’s how Oliver weighted the categories in his original theory, too,1 and the same order holds on defense through two rounds of the tournament.
On paper, this is all mostly good news as Nebraska takes on Iowa tonight in Houston in the Sweet 16. But as anyone who watched the first two matchups between these two rivals know, this looks like more of a “throw the records (and stats) out” type of game, particularly given the familiarity in play both ways.
But the numbers are still the best way to have a better understanding of what’s happening while it’s happening. What are good signs? What are bad signs?
Will the brain even be functioning enough to process them in what is likely to be a tense, fierce, tight game that is set to propel this rivalry to another level? Or will it be mostly heart and guts?
We won’t know about the latter until tipoff, but we can at least get our brains ready in advance. It’ll help if things are going well for NU early on. And if they aren’t, well…
