Colorado State-Pueblo Quick Stats

Just wanted to throw out some quick and dirty stats from the Colorado State-Pueblo game. It's obviously from an exhibition game, but I wanted to see if there was something interesting that popped up in comparison to the 2008 Pomeroy Scouting Report.

Team Stats

• Although the game was sloppy, Offensive Efficiency (120.8) and Defensive Efficiency (92.3) were consistent with last year.
• Marquette launched 26 threes. They averaged just shy of 20 threes per game last season. MU only shot 26 or more 3FGA three times (UWM 26 ; SHU 28 ; Stanford 30). Is this a trend or a single game aberration?
• The game was played at a quicker pace (about 78 possessions). Marquette only played one game last year at a pace of 78 possessions (UWM), and averaged 68 possessions / game. Buzz said he wanted to lengthen the game. Another trend?
• Last year, Marquette was #9 in the country at 3-point FG%. Opponents averaged 30.4%, but CS-Pueblo shot 41%. It's probably not worth noting, except to highlight how good our perimeter D was last year. However, based on the new three-point line, I plan on paying attention.
  
• I didn't see anything especially noteworthy in the Four Factors. Despite being a little loose on Defensive eFG%, Marquette won easily. MU crushed on Offensive Rebounding percentage and Free Throw Rate. I did find it interesting that MU only forced a turnover rate of 20.2% (which is average), despite forcing a TO% of 23.4% last year.

Individual Stats

• Net positive points contributors were Lazar (8.1 net points), Jerel (5.7 net points), Wesley (3.7 net points), Jimmy Butler (3.6 net points), and Patrick Hazel (1.6 net points). These players had an overall positive contribution to the margin of victory.
  
• Net negative points contributors were Burke (-0.2), Otule (-0.3), Dominic (-0.7), and Acker (-1.7).
• Jerel used 26% of all possessions (last year he averaged 20%), and only had an Offensive Rating of 100.1. That usage is too high for an offensive rating worse than the team average.
  

In summary, I found it interesting how many threes Marquette took and how fast the tempo was for the game. I'm interested in seeing the impact of the new three point line, and how Marquette's Four Factors change from last year with the new coaching staff.

Finally, I plan on keeping track of McNeal's usage this year. He's always had a fairly high usage (~20%), even when his offensive rating was horrible (87.5 as a freshman). What was unique last year was that he increased his usage to about 25% while simultaneously improving his offensive rating. That doesn't usually happen, so I plan on tracking to see what happens this year with both his usage and his offensive rating.