Coach Devlin addressed this at the season ticket holder reception before the game last Saturday.  The logic is that you are less likely to get an offensive rebound on a missed free throw than you are to be out of position of defense after a three throw is shot (regardless if it is made or missed).  Therefore, according to their analytics, it makes more sense to have your players already be back and be set on defense than to have them try to get an offensive rebound.  

​I'd love to see the numbers of this, but when you think about it, it kinda makes sense.  If you make 75% of your free throws, then you are only going for the offensive rebound 25% of the time.  Lets say you get an offensive rebound on a missed free throw 20% of the time, which may be high.  That means that you are getting an offensive rebound only 5% of the time.  From that, if you shoot 50% from the field, that means for every 2.5% of free throws attempted, you get an extra bucket.  So, you have to ask yourself, would a player be out of position after a free-throw is made or missed that could help lead to a basket on the other end more than 2.5% of the time.  If so, then it actually makes more sense not to try to get an offensive rebound.

​If you notice (and Devlin said this), its also why they don't try to crash the offensive boards.  Normally, just one player tries to rebound and the other comes back on defense.  The logic is you are more likely to give up a basket by being out of position than you are getting an offensive rebound and scoring.    

Yes, a good explanation of their explanation.
However, the eye test can be kind of different. Especially when we miss so many free throws. Last game, at least twice, I believe in the waning minutes, the ball literally caromed right to where our guy would have gotten it.
Also we only pull back to half court or a bit less, at least at times I was watching.
Don't know if it is genius or goofy, but the occasional FT rebound would help us when we have these big swings.
We have all off of a long season to discuss not only this, but why in the world (explained above) we take ill-considered 3s with no one near the boards. Don't know whether FT non lineup and these strategies are goofy or brilliant because we don't see them a lot in our opponents. But JC has to live with these decisions, so wins and losses will be counting at some point.
Most teams with better records than ours seem to do fine with often just one guy back.
How about a compromise? Two guys on the line--and 3 back. Math seems to add up on the numbers.
Probably 3rd and 4th guys on the line are even less likely statistically to get the rebound.
We can bring moderation back. And we might get lucky and grab a rebound.

JF, it's clear that certainly Maceo and Jamison are encouraged to take any open three regardless of whether anyone is in position to grab an offensive rebounder.  In fact, on the occasions when the team goes up tempo, it often involves a teammate finding one of these shooters up court along the sidelines and having him let it fly.  That's because the value in giving a good three point shooter a wide open look far outweighs not having anyone in position for a rebound. 

Taking this one step further, the general philosophy on this team is to not crash the offense boards with Toro being the exception because he is so good at it.  Because such a high percentage of the team's field goal attempts are from outside the arc, the likelihood is that GW's missed shots result in "longer" rebounds than the average team.  This still doesn't result in many offensive rebounds but again, the dual benefit of getting back on defense plus the possibility of ending up with a long rebound outweighs crashing the boards at the risk of picking up rebounding fouls and getting beat back down the court.

I do think that much of this has to do with our personnel.  Relatively speaking, we are a thin team up front.  Plus, several players are needed (in the coaching staff's minds) to play 35+ minutes each game.  So, if you're not going to be a great rebounding team to begin with and you need to watch the fouls and conserve energy, all of this adds up to an approach where offensive rebounding is devalued.

 

Team is shooting .708 from the line, opponents.682. I suspect Anthony Register, the team’s analytics guy, has a breakdown of play that we can only pretend to know or understand. Sometimes it works, sometimes shit happens.  The ups and downs of the year shouldn’t come as a surprise other than that there are for more ups than many here expected. Process. Process. Process.

GWRising wrote:

Poog wrote:

Team is shooting .708 from the line, opponents.682. I suspect Anthony Register, the team’s analytics guy, has a breakdown of play that we can only pretend to know or understand. Sometimes it works, sometimes shit happens. The ups and downs of the year shouldn’t come as a surprise other than that there are for more ups than many here expected. Process. Process. Process.

Yes, anyone with any training in statistics understands that when you play percentages it won't always work out in any one instance. You are betting that it works out more over a larger sample.Funny that we never hear about the times it worked out here (which may be far more numerous than any of us can imagine),

For baseball fans, think about infield shifts. Sometimes, yes, there will be a ball hit exactly where the third baseman would have been. But over the long-run, you take more hits away than you give up by shifting.

Late in tonight's game, MSU had no players on the lane when they were shooting free throws against UMD.  The players were all at mid court.