Marquette and Priorities - Part Two

This is a Five Part series looking more in-depth at Marquette and the Priorities on the court.

• Part One - What does it take to make the Final Four?
• Part Two - Which of the Four Factors is more important than the other three combined? (spoiler: it's eFG%)
• Part Three - Marquette is not good enough on eFG% to have a top 20 offense/defense
• Part Four - What goes into eFG% for Top 20 teams?
• Part Five - Are Paint Touches the root cause?

In Part One of this series, we presented the idea that a team needs roughly a top 20 offense and a top 20 defense to make the Final Four.*

*Or have some sort of weird super-lucky run

Part Two - Which of the Four Factors is more important than the other three combined? (spoiler: it's eFG%)

Without boring everyone, it's possible to make a simple model that predicts efficiency. Here is the model.

For example, take the factor under question (eFG%) and then multiply by 1.79 for that component's contribution to efficiency. Repeat for the other factors.

Here's how this model tracks for this season. (It actually compares really well for all seasons, but then the chart begins to look like an arrhythmia). Pretty close, right?

Once you adjust for the fact that turnovers are a negative contribution to efficiency, each aspect adds up to the following percentages.

Holy crap

That's right - eFG% is 63% of the total contribution to efficiency. eFG% is more important than all of the other three factors combined. This concept should be in ALL CAPS and bolded and underlined and have approximately 400 exclamation points!!!

This means that it is practically impossible to be a top 20 offensive or defensive team without also being good at eFG%. If you want the other numbers, Turnover Rate is 12%, Offensive Rebounding Percentage is 19%, and Free Throw Rate is 5%. Like those matter anymore.

For example, if a team like St. Johns averages an eFG% of 49% and Marquette allows them to shoot 56% at the Bradley Center, that's not so good.

Summary

eFG% is 63% of the total contribution to efficiency and it's more important than all of the other factors combined.

In Part Three, we will show that Marquette is not good enough consistently on eFG% to have a top 20 offense or defense.