I think of it as a pure style stat, though itâs a little more strongly associated with adjusted offensive efficiency than other style stats. Last yearâs chart of assist rate with adjusted offensive efficiency:
Illinois was the standard barrier for âassists donât matterâ with their Booty Ball approach. This year itâs Houston with the good offense, less assists approach.
For us, though, I think itâs been roughly correlated with fewer of our shots coming from creators and more coming from the flow of the offense 
It may be a stat where it doesnât really matter where you rank, except that you donât want to be on either extreme, because that probably points to a team inability (either youâre incapable of getting assisted buckets or unassisted). Itâs like breaking all the passing records because you have no run game.
Last six games, weâve averaged 72.8 points, with assists on 68.9% of our baskets. Previous six we averaged 60.8 ppg, with assists on 70.0% of our buckets.
Weâre 66.4% on the season
National title team was 55%. 2014 team was 57%. 2016 was also 57%.
We were basically in the mid-50s through 2021 (Hauser Murphy year). Then went up to 60s the first Gardner Franklin year, and have been high ever since. We were still in the mid 50s even the post natty year when our offense was bad. Maybe bc our offense was just Kihei keeping it on high ball screens? Or Mamadi doing whatever he was doing
Player retention. Coaches trusting guys being assertive - old model was 2 years in the system got you that trust (with the exception of PGs).
imo this is the biggest factor in our offense becoming not fun to watch. Sides slander be damned.
Most of the shitty offense for the past few seasons was triangle and continuity ball screen and 5-out and 4-out/one-in â not sides or blocker/mover.
Youâre saying the answer has been right here with us all along?
Not a whole lot of 6â9â baseball players around.
I want TJ power mojo nowhere near the baseball team.
I like Randy, but itâs a damn shame what he did to that bird.
One of the more amazing coincidences ever. That bird just exploded when the near hundred mile an hour fastball hit it.
Yeah, for me, thatâs right up there with that doorbell cam that caught the sound of a meteor hitting the ground in the homeownerâs front yard (apparently happened over a year ago but was only recently deemed as legit by scientists.) I mean, yeah, what are the chances. Amazing!
There was another player (Dave Winfield maybe?) that did something similar throwing the ball in from the outfield in Toronto I believe.
There were actually people that wanted him charged with cruelty to animals.
Not to get too far off topic, but if youâre a Rush or Randy Johnson fan and youâve never seen his retirement gift from the diamondbacks and how that came to be, itâs a pretty cool story.
Something I was thinking about re: Elijah Saunders and coming back from injury.
Under CTB, we didnât often do a good job of mixing and matching offensive systems to our offensive personnel. For example, if we were in our Inside Triangle phase, we were going to be running Inside Triangle most of the game (maybe a little Flow baked in) no matter who was on the floor.
Itâs why Shedrick initially sat that season because he wasnât a good fit in the offense. But Gardner also wasnât a good fit in the offense and they kept trying to jam him in there.
Better, we could have run Gardner and Shedrick together and played Sides when they were in and Dunn and BVP together and played Inside Triangle when they played. Platoon the frontcourt and play the offense theyâre good at rather than keep some of your talent off the floor because they werenât great fits for what you wanted to be doing.
Similarly, Saunders really isnât a great fit for the PF in Sides. Heâs not the rim running threat, isnât as impactful with his screening (heâs fine), and really wants to be playing outside of the arc more often - but weâve been pretty successful running Sides recently with the three other bigs.
We could pair him with Cofie (ideally) and run the new offense and more Flow sets when heâs playing PF which would be good way to give defenses a different look throughout the game and would play to their strengths. Then go right back to Sides when we get two bigs back in.
I have a feeling weâre just going to see us try to fit him into Sides as long as thatâs the offense du jour, though. I think itâll be an interesting thing to assess re: Sanchez as heâs noted that Elijah has to work his way back and other players are playing well. How adaptable is he (Sanchez) at finding different ways he can work Saunders in, who is still one of our better players but doesnât have a great home at the moment. Will Elijahâs minutes just dip dramatically? Will he jam him into Sides and how will that play out with more reps (maybe it will end up working)? Or will we switch up what we do more often throughout a game to mix and match players? Will he finally play him at the SF more?
To me, this will be a good lens through which to evaluate CRSâs creativity and problem solving (it has been all year, really, but thereâs evident tension now between whatâs been working in the short term and needing to find a schematic fit for one of our better players).
Seemed like, in the GT game, we ran a lot of blocker/mover with him in, but I noticed quite a bit of 4-out/1-in motion, too.
To be honest, they should be watching some of the Mich State tape from 2014, and, as a wrinkle, use him in the Payne role. Pretty sure that was mostly horns MSU was running at the time.
(Without trying to kick a hornetâs nest), I wonder if some of that inflexibility goes back to the reported lack of practice time devoted to offense. There just wasnât the time to be running different Oâs for different personnel sets.
I think Saunders wouldâve helped during the tech game with his physical presence. But solid points!
