As evidenced in the scatter plot, UNC finds itself, once again, with a team that (as a whole) executes well on offense, but is woefully inadequate on defense. In fact, since the advent of the 3-point line in 1987, UNC has only had 4 teams that were worse on defense. One of those four is the 2002 team, while the other three are from the last 5 seasons: 2018, 2020, and 2022. Last season's team has the controversial reputation of a terrible defensive team that turned it around in February. Is this team poised for a turn around?
If we look at last year's team in its first 22 games and compare it to this year's team, we insert trend lines and compare the two:
Note: UNC's historical average is 0.844 points per possession allowed
This graph shows us that the current team started out better defensively than last year's team, but unlike last year's team, it is allowing more and more points per possession as the season wears on. At least the 2022 team was trending in the right direction at this point.
UNC Defense (2023) | UNC Offense (2023) |
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If we compare this team's points per possession on offense and defense to the previous 27 seasons, we get a better understanding not only of where this team stands, but also of how likely they are to improve in these areas. A Normal Distribution is much like a spring; there is a pull toward the historical average that gets stronger the further one gets from that average. Too, the room for improvement narrows considerably as one advances beyond the average, much like a multi-lane highway merging down to one lane.
As we can see from these two curves, this year's team is above average on offense and well below average on defense. We can improve our shot selection, our accuracy, and our passing, but the likelihood of getting considerably more efficient on offense is not high. Conversely, there is much room for improvement on defense, and the team shouldn't encounter as much resistance to getting better than it faces with getting better on offense.
The theme of February needs to be defense.
