STARKVILLE — Before Ben Howland even starts watching film of his next opponent, he’s given an analytical cheat sheet.
This compilation of numbers gives the fifth-year Mississippi State men’s basketball coach an early idea of the opposing team’s style of play, tendencies, and statistics in comparison to the rest of the Southeastern Conference, his own team and others around the nation.
More often than not, the numbers reaffirm what Howland is about to see with his own eyes from the game tape.
For context, Howland is 62 years old with nearly four decades of coaching experience. He’s quickly approaching 500 career victories. And yet, he continues to embrace new-age analytics, not shun them.
Entering Saturday’s matchup with Vanderbilt, the Bulldogs sit at 14-8 overall and 5-4 in SEC play, with their NCAA tournament destiny entirely in their hands. If there’s any stat, number, or efficiency rating that can better help prepare his team to win a game and get that much closer to a second straight NCAA tournament berth, Howland wants to know about it.
“Analytics has been a big part of sports for a long time, and I think it keeps getting more in depth in terms of all the different things you can measure,” Howland said.
MSU’s analytical tools
John Janovsky has known the current Bulldogs coach since 2000, when he served as a manager for the Pittsburgh basketball team under Howland.
Now, he’s the only basketball staff member in the SEC that holds the job title of Director of Scouting and Analytics. Janovsky is tasked with providing Howland his “analytic cheat sheet,” breaking down film and using the team’s analytical resources to its advantage, among other duties.
The two tools primarily used by Mississippi State are Synergy Sports Technology and KenPom.com. Synergy creates web-based, on-demand, video-supported basketball analytics, while KenPom.com is essentially a statistical efficiency breakdown of all 353 men’s Division I basketball teams.
Both Synergy and KenPom have their advantages.
If he’s using Synergy, senior point guard Tyson Carter can watch every single 3-pointer he’s taken this season back to back to back.
“He can see what a good or a bad shot is, or if he’s in a little bit of a slump see where he was off balance,” Janovsky told The Dispatch. “It’s a good tool to have so they can see their shots without having to watch empty possessions.”
A resource like Synergy can be like a shiny new toy for true freshman guard Iverson Molinar, who never was provided any analytical support at Veritas Prep in Calabasas, California.
“It was pretty different. In high school; we never used to do any of that,” Molinar said. “Now, we have to know all the players’ tendencies … It really helped me because everyone has a different style. Being able to watch film and understand how they play really helps us when the game comes.”
With KenPom statistics, if an upcoming opponent ranks in the top 50 nationally in a certain category, that number goes to the forefront of the scouting report. For example, at the time of each team’s respective matchup with the Bulldogs, Alabama was fourth in pace of play, while Arkansas ranked sixth in turnovers forced.
“It’s interesting to see where a team is scoring their points and where those points come from,” Janovsky said. “Then, when you watch film, you’ll see for yourself that Alabama shoots very quick into the shot clock, and we can tell the guys ‘You only have to play defense for X amount of time, but transition defense is huge.’ That game planning can change game by game.”
Some honest self-evaluation
Before a practice earlier this year, Howland gathered the team and played a bit of good cop/bad cop with the team’s KenPom numbers.
He lauded the team’s offensive rebound percentage, which sits at second nationally — the Bulldogs are nearly grabbing 40 percent of their missed shots on the offensive end. Then he expressed his disappointment that exceptional rebounding percentage hadn’t extended to the defensive end, as the Bulldogs rank 215th nationally in that department despite being the seventh-tallest team in America.
“He’ll attribute it to an effort thing with his players,” Janovsky said. “It’s a nice coaching tool there.”
Howland knows his team’s identity better than anyone. In his squad’s first two SEC contests against Auburn and Alabama, MSU attempted 68 and 69 shots, respectively, not even cracking 40 percent from the field in a pair of double-digit losses.
“That’s not who we are,” Howland said following the defeats.
When they’re at their best, the Bulldogs will put up somewhere between 50 to 57 shots a night, capitalizing on a half-court offense with efficient shot selection. Considering MSU ranks 297th overall in adjusted tempo, this offensive style won’t place in any beauty contests. But the Bulldogs are 14th nationally in offensive efficiency, so something’s going right.
En route to earning wins over Georgia, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and Tennessee, MSU never attempted more than 57 shots during that stretch and shot a combined 59 percent in second halves of those contests.
In terms of shot selection itself, Janovsky says the team prioritizes 3-pointers, restricted-area layups and forcing its way to the free throw line. MSU converts 34 percent of its long-range shots, which only ranks 135th nationally, but Janovsky said considering how many offensive rebounds the team collects, those 3-point misfires can often turn into second-chance points.
Conversely, on defense the Bulldogs are hoping to force contested two-point shots, limit an opponent’s 3-pointers and play without fouling.
“It sounds simple, but those are the things you want to do,” Janovsky said.
Despite the previously stated preferred shots, players still have the freedom to take mid-range looks. But recklessness isn’t rewarded. When the MSU coaches break down film from the previous night, each shot isn’t graded on some analytical model. It’s a little simpler than that.
“Coach will definitely tell you if you’re taking a bad shot,” Janovsky said with a laugh.
Finding player tendencies and taking them away
In preparation for games, Howland’s assistants are required to watch MSU’s next opponent’s previous six contests. The Bulldogs coach then expects a detailed report on each individual player.
How many times did their point guard turn right? How many times did their shooting guard turn left? Does their small forward prefer to catch and shoot, or does he put it up after the bounce? On and on it goes.
After hours of film study, the tendencies are discovered, then simplified and delivered to the players.
“You’re trying to give them every edge you can,” Howland said. “But you want to present it to them in a very concise way. As the season gets going, you get better and better about retaining knowledge and using it to your advantage.”
In MSU’s five-game SEC win streak, finding out opponent tendencies played a critical role in earning each victory.
In a Jan. 18 meeting with Georgia, MSU asked redshirt freshman D.J. Stewart to guard Anthony Edwards — the potential No. 1 overall pick in June’s NBA draft. When Stewart was handed the scout on Edwards in the days before MSU walloped Georgia 91-59, film study showed Edwards preferred to drive left.
“Studying his go-to moves, I wanted to shade him toward the left so he’d go right,” Stewart said, adding the game plan was to force the freshman phenom to settle for contested jump shots.
It worked. Edwards was 6 of 15 from the floor and 1 of 8 beyond the arc. Georgia coach Tom Crean even noticed the 6-foot-5 guard was off that night.
“When Anthony starts to settle, he’s average,” Crean said after the loss. “He’s a tremendous talent, but they did what everybody else does: They got a guy in front of him.”
Against Arkansas, the Bulldogs staff harped that guard Isaiah Joe attempted an average of 11 3-pointers per game and sat at second in the country in 3-pointers made. MSU rotated perimeter help to limit Joe to 1 of 8 from beyond the arc in a 77-70 win on Jan. 22.
“I think this team really locks in when we’re preparing for opponents,” Carter said. “We lock into the scouting report, and we go out there and execute it.”
Now sitting at the halfway mark of SEC play, the Bulldogs are going to continue crunching the numbers they feel will help vault them near the top of the league standings.
“It’s kind of the way basketball is going,” Janovsky said. “Coach Howland is involved in every game preparation, so the analytics side is to give him an early picture before he watches film on what the other team does in terms of their style of play.”
Hodge is the former sports editor for The Dispatch.
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