Article on JT and PPS
 

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/245966/

Things I like from the article.

1. Tavernari acknowledges he needs to improve shot selection. He needs to shoot. And he needs to shoot a lot. But maybe not quite so much. 16 3 point shot attempts in a game is a bit much.

2. Burgess is showing leadership. Burgess is going to have to be the leader of this team as far as locker room stuff. I like Burgess telling JT he needs to tone it down.

Points per shot:

I define points per shot as total points/(total fg attempts + ft attempts*.5)

Last year, BYU was 1.14 PPS. That's great. That's going to win you a lot of games. Our opponents last year against us were 1.03.

This year, BYU is a phenomanal 1.19.

Breakdown:

PLAISTED, Trent.... 1.24
TAVERNARI, Jonathan 1.09
CUMMARD, Lee....... 1.32
BURGESS, Sam....... 1.22
FREDETTE, Jimmer... 1.27
IVANOVIC, Vuk...... 1.25
LOYD, Michael...... 1.15
MURDOCK, Ben....... 1.24
MILES, Chris....... 1.00
COLLINSWORTH, Chris 0.74
MARTINEAU, Nick.... 1.40
ROSE, Archie....... 1.00


JT is close to the bottom of this at 1.09, but that still is a good PPS, and he's the guy taking wild shots, shots at the end of the shot clock, shots opening up the middle, he's the guy making things happen. So I don't mind him slightly below the team average, and I really don't mind him jacking up those kind of shots if he's at 1.09 PPS.

There are about 3-4 shots a game that he probably needs to eliminate. If he does that, his PPS will go up, and he'll still be the free wheeling shooter that we need.

I think JT is a great player for the type of system that Rose wants to run. He is a good player and his shot selection will never be good, but it will improve with time.

As for my team, I would cringe to have a player like JT on the Utes. I don't want that style on my team. I can barely stomach having Johnny Bryant on the team.

Looks like they need to feed Martineau the ball.

Go Darts!

I agree completely with this point - JT does not seem to be the type of player that guys are going to rally around. He's a great player, maybe the best on the team, but I don't see the other guys looking to him for leadership. If anything, I see them getting tired of his shtick.

Tonight should be another good chance to see lots of Collinsworth, Jimmer, and Loyd. I'd also like to see Miles get some good minutes.

It will be interesting to see if Jimmer gets any PT against Mich St.

How nice is it that Mich St is probably thinking to themselves "suck, we have to play BYU in Salt Lake - that's a tough game"

I'm sure that Michigan St respects BYU as an opponent, but they have seen a lot more difficult challenges than BYU thrown their way on a consistent basis.

One thing that I'm really interested in seeing with BYU is how they respond to a very physical and aggressive defensive style like Michigan St. I think UNC is a better team than Michigan St, but Michigan St is a tougher matchup for BYU. UNC is a team that isn't going to punch you in the mouth like Michigan St will.

I'm not really sure of the best way to convince you of this fact, but 1.09 (1.17 according to ESPN) PPS is not good.

I guess the best way would be to point out the fact that it is below average is that he is 9th on his own team in the stat.

Second, I just went through most of the top scorers in the MWC conference - Tavernari is one - and I didn't find anybody who had a PPS as low as Tavernari. I didn't check everybody in the top 20, but I checked 10-15 and I didn't find anybody.

Tavernari is a good shooter, he's rebounding well, some even think he's playing solid defense. This post is not meant to rip Tav, but let's not pretend that 1.09 (1.17) is a good PPS number.

I think our team does better against physical team than they do against speedy teams. Thus, I would rather play Michigan State or UNC than USC or Memphis. I expect we will do very well against Michigan State if we remember what we learned last year about getting into our offense.

A few responses

1. You were calculating PPS total points/total field goals, my calculation is total points/(total field goals + total free throws *.5). That's the difference we had on the 1.09 vs 1.17.

2. As for what is a good PPS:

this year
BYU 1.19
opp 0.91

last year (record 25-9)
BYU 1.14
opp 1.03

two years ago (record 20-9)
BYU 1.1
opp 1.07

Also, inside players have higher PPS as they have higher ratio of FT's to FG's, which boosts the PPS stat.

So, IMHO 1.09 is not GREAT, but it is not bad for a guy that is primarily a perimeter shooter.

3. I would like to see JT improve his shot selection and see that PPS move up. But it's good to know that he has some upside when he and especially the team is doing so good so far. When you dig into his #'s, his 3's are great, the problem is low % on 2's and also not getting to the line enough.

JT only has to eliminate the 3 or 4 ridiculous shots a game and he'll be fine. I still love his gunning ways as he puts tremendous pressure on the defense. He'll throw up 12 points in 2 minutes if you don't guard him. How many teams have a 4 that is a legitimate threat from 23 feet? UNC quit doubling Trent because JT was killing them. Better to give up 2 than 3.

The ability to be so accurate from deep along with the quick release is rare in basketball at any level. I've been fairly critical of him, but I hope he does keep firing away from three point land - he's good at it and BYU needs that threat.