Best Offense in the Land?

The Gonzaga Bulldogs moved into the top five of both major college basketball polls yesterday. They're fifth in the AP and third in the Coaches. In both polls the Zags received at least one first place vote. While they're not yet being recognized as the top team in the land by enough to earn them the top spot in either poll, they may well be the top team in the land. The top offense in the land anyways.

From the start of the season when the Zags put up 103 points on Southern Utah it was clear that this team was going to be one of the better offensive units in the nation. After that, the Zags would put up triple digits once more, score in the 90s twice, the 80s seven times and less than the 70s only six times. Points per game isn't a very important statistic when it comes to determining quality, but in this era of record low scoring, it's worth noting at the very least.

The Zags' offensive skill was shown not just through their penchant for high scoring output, but also through their ability to put up all those points from pretty much anywhere on the court.

From the time the Zags signed Przemek Karnowski they've been included in the discussion of "which team has the best front court in the nation?" That discussion pretty much evaporated in December when Kelly Olynyk's emergence made it as close as possible to being a fact that the Zags have the best front court. Through their first 14 games, all their games before Jan 1, Karnowski, Olynyk, Dower or Harris led the team in scoring ten times. Overall one those four have led the team in 20 of the 25 contests. Lately however, the Zags have been showing that they can beat teams from outside, too.


Against Loyola Marymount on January 31st the Zags connected on 61.9% of their three point shots, or 13 of 21. In that game they made 18 of their 36 two point attempts. Over the past few games the Zags have been rotating who gets the start and the most minutes on the wing between Mike Hart, Kyle Dranginis and Drew Barham. That spot was thought to be secured by Guy Landry Edi, a bad three point shooter but excellent athletic slasher, at the start of the season. Then it was Mike Hart who took over and looked to have the job. Hart is not a scorer, he's made 14 field goals on 23 attempts. His offensive contributions come in the form of not turning the ball over (an absolutely insane four times in 380 minutes) and grabbing offensive rebounds (third on the team with 41). The rotational philosophy lately has been to stretch defenses as both Dranginis and Barham, but especially Barham, are sharpshooters from deep.

So, they can score inside and out, that's not enough to be the best offensive team in the land. I mean, even BYU can do that with Davies and Haws (they're a pretty good offensive unit too). Plenty of teams have a great scoring big man and guard. It's not just that, though. This Zags team, as you may have already picked up on simply by the number of names I've named so far, can get points not just from anywhere on the court, but anyone on the roster.

So far this year the Zags have been lead in scoring by Gary Bell Jr. (twice), Kyle Dranginis (once) Sam Dower (twice), Przemek Karnowski (three), Kevin Pangos (four) Elias Harris (seven) and Kelly Olynyk (eleven). Those totals don't add up to the number of games played because multiple games had two players tied for the team high in points. That's seven players who have led the team in scoring! This is a very deep and talented team on the offensive end.

Even more telling is that this team has had 11 players score in double figures in a game. Only walk-ons Rem Bakamus and Brian Bhaskar have yet to hit double figures. They play exclusively in garbage time. Bhaskar has been on the roster for such a short time he has only seen the floor once and has yet to get a name on the back of his jersey.

No matter who the opposing team focuses on, or where on the court they try to stop the Zags from scoring, points, a lot of points, will be scored by some Zag(s) from somewhere.

There's more to offense than just scoring however. That's why Mike Hart's been able to get so many starts (on top of his defense but that's a discussion for a different story). Not turning the ball over is important, because obviously if you don't have the ball you can't score. Grabbing missed shots, here's to you Mike Hart, is important because you can't make every shot you take (unless you're Kelly Olynyk playing BYU). Turning possessions into points, whether from the field or the foul line, is maybe the most important (I'm falling in love with floor percentage) thing of all.

That said, here is my attempt to prove my point statistically. Now, I'm no Ken Pomeroy, I've never taken a statistics class in my life. I took the minimum number of math classes required so I could fill my schedule with elective art (note the colors in the spreadsheet) English and history classes.

I took the AP and Coaches Poll's top five (they're the same, just in a different order) and some select teams that have elite offenses, compared them with a number (ten) of offensive statistics, from classic (points per game) to newfangled (eFG%). I chose these stats and excluded others (FT%, assist based stats) somewhat arbitrarily. These ten stats show pretty much the whole spectrum of offensive ability of a team. I didn't want to overwhelm readers with a mountain of statistics on every single aspect of the offensive side of the game. If you want that go to any of the numerous stat sites out there.

I compiled the adjusted offensive efficiency (from the great KenPom.com), points per possession, floor percentage, field goal percentage, two point percentage, three point percentage, effective field goal percentage, offensive rebounding percentage, turnover percentage and points per game for each of the ten teams included. I then took where their stat ranks nationally in that category, averaged each of the teams' ten rankings and came up with the bottom row in the table. The color coding is relative only to the teams involved (Miami isn't the worst offensive team in the nation as all that red may suggest, just the worst of these ten), and it's not a gradient (there are only ten colors used regardless of how far apart the values they're representing are).

Click image for full size view.

So what does this all mean? Creighton can shoot the ball better than anybody. Michigan is the best at keeping ahold of the ball and scoring it in one way or another. Indiana is the most efficient team in the nation AND they score a lot of points. Some teams are the best in the nation at one or more aspects of offense. Some teams are really good at most things but awful at some (Belmont). Some are really good at some things and pretty good at others and just average at some (Saint Mary's). Some teams are really good at only one aspect of offense (Miami). Gonzaga, though, is elite to really good at almost everything. That allows them to rank highest in the average.

Creighton, for example, leads the nation in pretty much all the shooting percentage categories. All those ones add up really slowly, so how are they not ahead of the Zags in the average? Because they're really bad, and not just relative to these teams, at grabbing their missed shots. They are a better shooting team than anybody else, but when they miss they won't get another chance.

Balanced skill outweighs confined supremacy.

To summarize, in one paragraph. Gonzaga has a big, deep, elite front court. Gonzaga has the ability to make a lot of three point shots and make them at a high percentage. Gonzaga has at least seven players capable of leading the team in scoring on any given night. Any player that steps on the floor in a Gonzaga uniform during a competitive game has the ability to put up double figures. Even the ones who prefer to pull down offensive rebounds or dish out assists.  All those factors combine to make a team that has no weakness on the offensive side of the game and is elite in most facets of the offensive side. They may not be the best at anything, but they're close to it at everything. Shut down a player or two, take away an aspect of the game or two, but chances are they'll still outscore you. Gonzaga has the best offense in college basketball.