The Program With the exception of the Offensive Defensive Efficiency NCAA Season Pace Rank Rank Rank Wins Losses Win% 2006–07 season—the Efficiency Efficiency Margin Tournament year of hustling hard 1996-97 68.5 201 102.0 119 95.9 76 6.1 9 9 .500* None 1997-98 68.8 215 106.7 49 93.1 26 13.6 13 3 .813 Sweet 16 on defense and then 1998-99 64.4 303 111.3 7 92.4 41 18.9 15 1 .938** Final Four setting picks for Drew 1999-00 66.1 286 112.1 3 89.2 11 22.9 13 3 .813* Champions Neitzel for 30 seconds 2000-01 67.1 262 115.3 4 92.1 15 23.2 13 3 .813* Final Four on offense—Michigan 2001-02 64.8 303 107.0 61 98.4 117 8.6 10 6 .625 1st Round 2002-03 65.2 292 103.7 119 93.9 24 9.8 10 6 .625 Elite Eight State’s pace figure has 2003-04 65.4 274 109.0 31 103.3 246 5.7 12 4 .750 1st Round ranged between 64 2004-05 68.3 160 114.9 10 95.7 58 19.2 13 3 .813 Final Four and 69 possessions per 2005-06 65.6 228 109.4 33 101.3 192 8.1 8 8 .500 1st Round game. Despite Tom 2006-07 60.9 321 105.6 101 92.8 20 12.8 8 8 .500 2nd Round 2007-08 64.3 274 110.3 31 96.9 68 13.4 12 6 .667 Sweet 16 Izzo’s fondness for 2008-09 66.6 161 107.8 57 95.3 51 12.5 15 3 .833** Runner Up transition baskets, that 2009-10 66.1 237 108.7 50 96.5 67 12.2 14 4 .778* Final Four range is firmly within Median Rank 268 41 55 the lower half of the Top-50 Rankings 0 9 6 *Big Ten co-champions **Outright Big Ten champions national spectrum. Source: StatSheet.com, KenPom.com (For reference, the to the 1996–97 season, so we’re only missing data from Izzo’s number of teams playfirst team as head coach (which was merely .500, both overall ing Division I basketball grew from 306 to 347 over this time and in conference play). period.) That’s partly a function of MSU playing roughly half of its games in the glacially paced Big Ten, but it also reflects Tom Tell Your Statistics to Pace Izzo’s insistence that his players work for a quality look at the Themselves basket in the half-court offense, forgoing questionable shooting Table 1 provides national rankings for MSU’s high-level opportunities along the way, and the difficulty opposing offenses tempo-free indicators, as well as information on conference and NCAA Tournament success over the last 14 seasons. “Pace” represents the number of possessions the team averaged per 40 minutes of basketball played in each season. This figure is the starting point for tempo-free analysis, which is based on the fairly straightforward premise that the number of points a team scores in a game can be just as much a function of how many opportunities it has to score as it is a function of the team’s innate offensive proficiency. As an example MSU fans can relate to well, scoring 65 points against a Bo Ryan-coached Wisconsin team can be a bigger offensive accomplishment than getting 80 points against an opponent that plays an up-tempo style. (The Badgers are committed to keeping the number of possessions in a game below 60, while patiently working the shot clock on The improved offensive efficiency of the 2007–08 Spartans, led by Drew Neitzel, paid off in a Sweet 16 run. every possession.) Table 1: Pace, Efficiency, and Results
114 | Spartan Tip-Off 2010–2011
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