Panthers lose to in- state rival FGCU

Giancarlo Navas/ Staff Writer

Blown out by 30+ points by Florida Gulf Coast and the euphoria of a 16 point season opening win seemed like forever ago as the Panthers drop their second straight game. Since FIU’s 81-65 win vs Florida A&M, the Panthers have not gotten to 80 points like new head coach Marlin Chin desired.

Actually they have an offensive rating of 94, which is the points a team scores per 100 possessions. Why the number is important is because it evaluates an offense while adjusting for pace. An old way we evaluated an offensive was how many points a team scored, however if a team plays faster and uses less clock more shots go up. That creates more scoring opportunities, so even if a team isn’t playing efficiently, they can still put up a lot of points because they are playing at a faster pace. More shots means more points. A team with 40 field goal attempts is probably not going to score as many points with a team that has 70.

So what has been done is a way to measure an offense by each possession and extrapolating it out to 100. Field goal percentage isn’t a great way to measure offense either, because it doesn’t account for teams that get a lot of free-throws. If you look at the NBA, a player like James Harden routinely shoots 5-15 and ends up with 30 points. That’s because, despite him shooting a low percentage on his shots he shoots many free-throws. He had 30 points on 15 field goal attempts. That is a more efficient game than a player shooting 15-30 and scoring 30 points. Harden needed fewer shots to do so.

So offensive rating takes into account pace as well free-throw’s to provide an accurate assessment of a team’s offense. Now going back to FIU, they score 94 points per 100 possessions, which isn’t terrible. A 94 offensive rating is a better number than the NBA Philadelphia 76ers, who have an offensive rating of 90.

What is most alarming are FIU’s defensive metrics. They have a defensive rating of 105, which means they are allowing 105 points per 100 possessions. What that number means is, FIU is essentially allowing other teams to score a little over a point every time they have an offensive possession. You could imagine how it would be difficult to win basketball games if you are doing that.

The other thing to look at is pace, which is the amount of possessions per 40 minutes of play. FIU plays at a pace of 74. Which has kept steady since game one. Of all the numbers I expect this one to stay closest to what it has been for three games. What makes this interesting is that FIU only gave 9 minutes to the 5-11 Soraya Page, who is the biggest bench contributor to the Panthers. If her minutes continue to go down in favor of quicker guard player that pace number may go up.

What is important to keep in mind is the sample size that we are provided with. FIU has only played in 3 games and there isn’t enough data to make an accurate assessment based on the numbers provided. Trends can change very quickly and a lot of those numbers are influenced by the opponents they have played, but as the season plays out we will have a larger sample size on FIU and who they are.