I have been looking at our game by game stats for about an hour and trying to figure out if there is anything other than our ability to make shots that is the difference between winning and losing. It's a question because we hear so much about our efficiency ratings, but it's not translating to wins and losses like it should.

My conclusion is that we tend to go as our shooting goes, but it’s not tied to 3PT% as much as many think. We have metrics in terms of shooting percentage, like scoring inside, that if we hit, we are tough to beat. Where we struggle most is the combination of a team with bigs that can score, plus a poor shooting performance being something we can’t overcome. Going up against a guy like PJ Hall playing so well, we either need to shut him down, get him in foul trouble, or just have a hot shooting night to win. In the last game, his minutes were limited due to foul trouble, but he was very effective when he was in the game, and we never got him to pick up that fifth foul.

Some interesting findings…

Shot selection is nearly the same in our wins and our losses:
In Wins, we take 43% 2PT shots and 57% 3PT shots
In Losses, we take 41% 2PT shots and 59% 3PT shots

Average Field Goal Attempts per game are the same (55) in our wins and losses.

Prior to and including the UVA game on 1/12/2022, if we shot less than 50% overall and less than 40% from three, we were 0-7. Following that game, we were 4-3 using the same criteria. Maybe it was due to changes in the playing rotation with Pedulla and Maddox getting more minutes. Whatever the cause of that was, but it was a good that we figured out how to win more games when not shooting well.

The Miami loss was quite the outlier against some of the tendencies below. We shot 50% overall and from 3, but Miami was just better that day, shooting 55% overall and 61% from deep.

Correlation/Causation…

When we shoot less than 30% from three, we were 4-4, so poor outside shooting is not a guaranteed loss. Wins were against NC St, Syracuse, UVA and GT. Losses were against WF, Dayton, Duke and UNC where we were pretty much dominated inside and/or the opponent got to the FT line a bunch. When we shoot over 40% from deep, we are 12-2.

When we shoot 50% or less from 2, we are 5-11. When we shoot over 50% from 2, we are 14-1. No idea if this means that as Keve goes, we go, but that would make sense.

The above seem more pronounced in Conference play:
Our 10 best 3PT shooting games we were 6-4. Our 10 worst we were 5-5.
Our 10 best 2PT shooting games we were 8-2, and in our 10 worst we were 3-7.

Maddox minutes >15, VT is 14-4
Maddox minutes