I am no basketball genius, but I love to look at numbers and seek trends. And I see some things in how we have played our games.
We are ten games into an eighteen-game conference season, sitting at 6 wins and four losses. To get a sense of the game flow, I broke our games into five-minute segments, so that over ten games there are eighty segments of five minutes of game time. We have outscored our opponent in 41 of those segments, been outscored in 33 of them, and scored the same in the remaining 6 segments. The Bears have scored 10 points or more in 32 segments, while allowing 10 points or more in 23 segments.
But the real story appears to be in the flow of the game. In five games, the Bears led after 5 minutes and overall have scored 82 points in the first 5 minutes of games while allowing 79. Close but a slight advantage.
The second five minute segment has been our worst this season in conference play. Only against UCF did we outscore our opponent in the second 5-minute segment (9 to 7); in eight other games were were outscored by our opponent during that segment and it usually put us in a bad way, game-wise. We have been outscored by 21 points in that segment.
The Bears generally did well in the third and fourth segments, the last parts of the first half. In minutes 11-15 of the first half we have outscored our opponent by 10 points, and in the last 5 minutes of the first half we have outscored our opponents by 22 points.
In the first 5 minutes of the second half, we have slumped just a bit, being outscored by 6 points over ten games, but we have closed well in the last three five-minute segments, outscoring our opponents by 5, 13 and 6 respectively. The reason that we have not made better use of this opportunity lies in the fact that we close well when we are behind but let leads slip when we are ahead. This is why 8 or our 10 games were decided by a single possession, win or lose.
To win more of the games ahead, we need to both start strong, then pretend at the end we are behind so we also finish strong.
And we really need to avoid overtime.
We are ten games into an eighteen-game conference season, sitting at 6 wins and four losses. To get a sense of the game flow, I broke our games into five-minute segments, so that over ten games there are eighty segments of five minutes of game time. We have outscored our opponent in 41 of those segments, been outscored in 33 of them, and scored the same in the remaining 6 segments. The Bears have scored 10 points or more in 32 segments, while allowing 10 points or more in 23 segments.
But the real story appears to be in the flow of the game. In five games, the Bears led after 5 minutes and overall have scored 82 points in the first 5 minutes of games while allowing 79. Close but a slight advantage.
The second five minute segment has been our worst this season in conference play. Only against UCF did we outscore our opponent in the second 5-minute segment (9 to 7); in eight other games were were outscored by our opponent during that segment and it usually put us in a bad way, game-wise. We have been outscored by 21 points in that segment.
The Bears generally did well in the third and fourth segments, the last parts of the first half. In minutes 11-15 of the first half we have outscored our opponent by 10 points, and in the last 5 minutes of the first half we have outscored our opponents by 22 points.
In the first 5 minutes of the second half, we have slumped just a bit, being outscored by 6 points over ten games, but we have closed well in the last three five-minute segments, outscoring our opponents by 5, 13 and 6 respectively. The reason that we have not made better use of this opportunity lies in the fact that we close well when we are behind but let leads slip when we are ahead. This is why 8 or our 10 games were decided by a single possession, win or lose.
To win more of the games ahead, we need to both start strong, then pretend at the end we are behind so we also finish strong.
And we really need to avoid overtime.
