STATISTICS: In Support of Inconsistent Lineups

[EmersonUte]

Guys, I’m bored today so I ran some very simple (and probably not statistically valid) stats to check on the inconsistent lineups question below.
Here’s what I did:

I took the top 11 players in minutes played from Utah and TDS for comparison.
I created an average and standard deviation of minutes played for each of the players.
I only did this in conference games for each team (11) because I assume non-conference has more variability in opponent quality as well as the timing in the season. In other words, lineup tinkering should be done in pre-season.

Here’s what I found:
1. Standard deviation of minutes played by our top 11 players is 6.59. In other words the average player may play 6.59 minutes more or less than their average on a given game.
2. Our player with the lowest standard deviation of minutes played is – – -drumroll please – – – Hunter Erickson. He’s firmly entrenched as 6th man, and only deviates by 3.29 minutes per game. Kinda ridiculous that our 6th best player is the only one being played predictably.
3. Even our top player, Gabe Madsen – who averages 28.82 minutes per game – has a standard deviation of 5.95 minutes. He may play 34.77 minutes or 22.87 minutes with similar expectations. That’s, in my mind, a pretty wide swing for your top player.

Now compared to TDS:
1. Std deviation of top 11 players minutes play is only 3.96. Lineups much more predictable. Utah has approx 65% more variability.
2. Player with lowest standard deviation played is their 11th man (because he basically gets less than a minute per game. But close 2nd is Egor Demin who averages 27.91 minutes per game with standard deviation of 1.70. Basically, he knows he’s getting 26 to 30 minutes every night. Also, he’s arguably their player that most impacts winning.
3. BYU really only goes 9 deep, and their 9 that play have much more consistent standard deviation. The biggest variability in their top 9 is Mawot Mag who played sparingly early but has come on late. Even Keba Keita with his foul trouble has a lower standard deviation (2.83) than ANY Utah players. That’s just wild.

Long way of saying the sniff test posted below is correct. Our lineups are all over the place. Its either because we suck or because our coaches suck. Ha ha, or both. You need 30 data points for true statistical significance and we only have 11 – but I think its still telling a story.

[Rick]

To be fair to Coach Smith I think the biggest problem related to this is talent level. The U simply doesn’t have one player who could be considered an NBA-level player in a few years. We may have a few European-level. We also don’t have a dog – a player who just gets after it 100% of the time. So what do you do as a coach? Smith is choosing to look for who might fit the bill on a given night.

I sound like I’m defending him. I do believe he should have settled on a rotation by now – 7-8 guys. Part of Smith’s problem is playing someone a minute or two and then determining they don’t have it. That happens to Madsen, Dawes, Miro and Mike quite a bit. At least, it seems to.

By the way, to the talent level, I do think Dawes and Ausar may become high-level players. I thought Miro might fit that bill. While I agree that other guards have played better than him, I think he should get consistent minutes. Smith tends to bury him within a minute or two if he doesn’t show anything or makes a mistake.

[EmersonUte]

you could be right. lower talent level makes it harder to settle in.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Rick and Emerson I also think a consistent point guard playing big minutes would create more stability and define roles better. Seems like Smith’s rotations are based on who won’t turn the ball over and that varies depending on how good the other teams defense.

[Rick]

What are you talking about? Smith had Brandon Carlson for the first 3 years here and did nothing. Brandon plays for the OKC Thunder. Smith’s biggest issue as I see it is he has had horrible guards his entire time here. Davon was probably the best but he left us after playing half a season and even he had some serious flaws.

The college is, was, and always has been a guard’s game. Just look at Utah. Majerus’s best teams had Andre at the point. Larry’s best teams had Delon at the point. Pimm’s best teams had Jeff Jonas and on it goes. We have not had a significantly talented player at point guard at Utah since Delon Wright.

Smith is a horrendous recruiter. NO ONE can even contest that. You would think NIL could solve that but at Utah it has made it ever worse for some reason. The only answer is to move on whenever it is financially feasible to do so. The sooner the better for me.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Sorry I was responding to the inconsistent lineups. Guards have always been crucial (especially point guard) to success in college. Not having a point guard is contributing to the inconsistent lineups. Hard to believe Smith hasn’t had a true point guard in 4 years.

[Minnesota Ute]

That is no excuse. If you don’t have the talent, then you take your 5-6 most productive guys and they all get the majority of the minutes and you take your next 2-3 most productive and use then as needed. The problem with using talent as an excuse for the merry go round is that your 5-6 best players need as many minutes at live game speed to develop as much as possible. He is stunting the growth of guys like Keanu by not getting them the reps. If you don’t have the talent, you are gonna lose anyway, so at least be as competitive as possible and develop the guys you hope to hold onto for next year. Unfortunately I’ll be shocked if Keanu doesn’t leave.

[NashvilleUteFan]

Wow, very good analysis. Thanks for taking the time to put this together, I was hoping someone would!

[Yergensen]

Good stuff. What is Dawes’ deviation.

My assumption is despite being our most productive player, he has the most whiplash of any Utah player, 20 minutes one night, 2 the next.

[EmersonUte]

Player – Average Mins – Std Deviation
G. Madsen – 28.82 – 5.95
Wahlin – 24.55 – 6.92
Lovering – 22.91 – 5.86
Mike S – 22.64 – 7.78
Ausar – 20.36 – 8.29
Hunter Erickson – 20.27 – 3.29
Dawes – 17.27 – 7.82
Little – 15.36 – 8.56
M. Madsen – 10.45 – 7.02
Keller – 10.45 – 4.61
Lohner – 8.82 – 6.42

[Ute Dub]

I don’t think Dawes would get off the bench for a Majerus team. Too many times not boxing out.

[Minnesota Ute]

Oh Please, dude is a rebounding machine.

[Holladay Ute]

It’s not surprising and I think that’s b/c of what we have on the roster: too many decent or good players but no great players. And it doesn’t feel like anybody on the roster has really separated themselves from the pack to clearly claim the consistent lions share of the minutes. On a given night, Ausar has a great game and then he follows it up w/ a dud. It feels like that’s been the case for a number of players (Mike, Lovering, etc.). Dawes and Mason Madsen feel like they’ve been more consistent, but even they have had too many games where they just didn’t impact the game at all. Gabe has obviously been super streaky (and has basically been in a slump ever since conference play…hopefully the Colorado game broke the slump). I think this is just a function of the roster construction. I’m assuming the coaching staff hoped that by now we would have the cream rise to the top. Hasn’t really happened in a consistent way.

[GameForAnyFuss]

This is probably more of a function of having a whole bunch of stiffs on the team as anything else. There’s not a single guy on the team whose play screams “I have to be out there if we’re going to be successful.” That means every minute is up for grabs for any player.

This, of course, goes back to our dismal recruiting. And that, of course, goes back to having a below-average coach, below-average NIL, below-average fan support, and below-average administrative support.

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