Basic and Advanced Statistical Game Sheet by Will McKethan

Written by Coach Peterman

I have coached at the NCAA Division 2 (Southwestern Oklahoma State University), NAIA (USAO), and JUCO Levels (Blinn College and Carl Albert State College) as well as high school. I just felt that fellow coaches especially young coaches need to constantly work on their “game”. Just like the basketball players that we coach. We as coaches need to improve ourselves. That is my story and why I do this blog.

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January 20, 2015

Basic and Advanced Statistical Game Sheet by Will McKethan

The excel Basic and Advanced Statistical Game Sheet I have attached is a tool that I, as a numbers guy, could not do without. It was developed by a couple of my coaching friends who are also interested in looking at the game with the help of advanced statistics. Many coaches utilize basic stats, but don’t have the resources or the background knowledge in advanced stats to use them effectively. Hopefully, this Basic and Advanced Statistical Game Sheet will help get all of you without synergy, krossover, etc. an easy way to input and use the extra information you can get from advanced stats.

A key idea I have installed in the mindset of the girls I coach are winning the four factors laid out by Dean Oliver in Basketball on Paper. This book is a must read for a coach who is interested in bringing advanced stats to their team. The book gives you many examples of different statistic formulas and what they meant to teams successes and failures.

The four factors discussed in the book are eFG%, OR%, TO%, and FT/r. Throughout this article, we will define each as well as quickly discuss what it means to your team. The basic goal of each of these factors is to create (and make) more shots than your opponent as you will see. Again, the spreadsheet attached will provide these four factors for you and your opponent as long as you input your basic stats into it.

The first, and most important, of the four factors is eFG%, or effective field goal percentage. This is a new take on the old FG%. The formula for discovering eFG% for your team and individual players takes into account the fact that the three point shot is worth more than the 2 point shot and weighs it accordingly. For example: a player who shoots 4/10 with 1 two point basket and 3 three point baskets for a game would have a 40% FG% while having a 55% eFG%. This stat is the most important of the four factors and correlates the most to winning. So apparently shooting better than the other team, leads to winning… Great advice! But the stat is very useful.

The second of the four factors is OR%, or offensive rebound percentage. Just having a number of offensive rebounds recorded doesn’t always translate to success on the boards. What if you missed a ton of shots? Then you are more likely to have an escalated number of offensive rebounds which if not looked at deeply could lie about the statistical outcome of the game. OR% gives you the percentage of available offensive rebounds that your team acquired. With this stat it doesn’t matter whether you miss 10 shots or 50 shots, you are still going to get an accurate representation of how your squad crashed the offensive boards. Winning this battle leads to more shots which leads to more points which leads to win. Go crash the boards!

The third factor is TO%, or turnover percentage. Similar to OR%, this stat represents consistency no matter what is happening in the game. This stat is taking the number of possessions in the game and dividing those turnovers by it thus eliminating the pace from the stat. A game played at a high pace will obviously have more turnovers than a slow-pace half-court game. If your goal is to have less than 12 turnovers a game, and you play a team who is playing at an extremely high pace then that might be an unrealistic expectation. Having a goal based on TO% will be consistent no matter the style of game.

The fourth and final factor is FT/r, or free throw rate. This stat represents how often you are getting to the free throw line. It takes the total amount of shots and divides that by the total amount of free throws you attempted. This can be a frustrating stat as it does not account for made free throws, but only how often you are getting to the line. It will show you if you are doing a good job working the ball inside and attacking the basket, but not whether or not you are taking advantage of getting to the line.

These four factors (and the spreadsheet attached) give you as a coach another way to see a game. Advanced stats are not a fix all or a solution to every question about a game, but they do help you look deeper into a game or a set of games to see your teams strength and weaknesses regardless of the style of each game. Your schedule is full of opponents who play very different styles, so to have the most accurate information available advanced stats that neutralize the culture of each game is essential to understanding your squad.

Coach Will McKethan is currently the head coach of the Holland High School girls program in Holland, Texas. He is in his first year in this role at Holland after spending last year as an assistant girls’ basketball coach in Slaton, Texas. Coach McKethan graduated from Baylor University in August 2013 where he worked as a manager for two years under Coach Scott Drew and the Baylor men’s program. After doing this for a few years, Coach McKethan started an elite level girls AAU program in Central Texas. For the next three years, he focused his time and efforts on this and built a club basketball program in the area that has sent multiple girls to play at various levels of college basketball.

Statistical Game Sheet