Introducing the Four Factors

Oh yeah...you're impressed, admit. Last year, I read the book "Basketball On Paper," by Dean Oliver. I was impressed with his analysis. Although his data primarily translated to the NBA game, TGM is utilizing his "four crucial aspects of the game"(A clever nickname will be unveiled soon, feel free to submit ideas) for the college game and the Gauchos.

Oliver says that teams are good if they control four aspects of the game, which he calls his "four crucial aspects." Conversely, bad teams are bad because they don't control. We're going to experiment and see how well this translates to the Gauchos.

The Four Factors are:

1. Shooting percentage from the field
2. Getting offensive rebounds
3. Committing/Forcing turnovers
4. Going to the foul line a lot and making the shots

TGM is trying to make a chart to use for each game. If I can become technologically sophisticated in the next day or so, I'll get it up for the UCI game.

I think it will be interesting to see how this plays out. However, I took a look at some of the Gauchos games to see how well this works out. For example, in the Gauchos loss to CSUN they "won" two categories (FT, and Shooting %), "tied" one (Offensive rebounds) and "lost" the turnover battle.

In the matchup against LBSU, the Gauchos "won" three categories (Offensive rebounds, turnovers, and FT's), while "losing" only shooting %.

Lastly, against Eastern Washington, UCSB "won" two categories (shooting % and FT), "tied" turnovers and "lost" offensive rebounds.

As you can see, UCSB has to win at least two categories to win the game, and even then it's not guaranteed. Because I don't want to go through the entire schedule I can't confirm this, but I have a feeling that UCSB won at least two categories in each victory and probably three.

On the other hand, we might not be using this measures very long because they are pretty obvious. We'll give it a go and see what happens.

Go Gauchos!