Ray Floriani on Synergy

The Geeks are taking the day off. We'll be back tomorrow with more number-crunching ramblings. In the meantime, here is a guest column by Ray Floriani, a writer for several sites focused on college hoops.

By Ray Floriani, Basketball Times, Hoopville, College Chalk Talk

In the process of visiting a number of sites I came across this interesting note last Spring. A stat I found on the APBRmetrics board, Synergy, gives a measure of ball distribution. The basic formula is…

Synergy = Field Goal Pct + (assists/Field Goals Made)

The statistic, as noted gives a measure of sharing the ball. The leader in Synergy is not necessarily guaranteed to run the conference table and punch their ticket for the NCAA Sweet Sixteen. It can give you an indication or tendency of a team. A lower synergy suggests they may have more players able and willing to beat you off the dribble. A high synergy rating suggests a team running some kind of motion or flex offense and moving the ball . Following is a rundown of Big Ten teams for the 2007-08 season. Only regular season Big Ten contests are factored.

Big Ten Synergy Results

Team	Synergy
Michigan State	1.171
Minnesota	1.151
Northwestern	1.128
Iowa	1.096
Purdue	1.056
Illinois	1.049
Wisconsin	0.996
Ohio State	0.994
Penn State	0.982
Indiana	0.979
Michigan	0.947

A few quick observations…John Beilein’s offense is very motion oriented with a great deal of passing, cutting and ball movement. His Michigan team was at the bottom for a simple reason. To get an assist a field goal must be made and the Wolverines were the worst shooting team in the conference (.387 percentage). Assists are relied on which brings in scoring subjectivity. Remember the Clemson joke in the Eighties, a Tiger player got an assist for handing a teammate a towel during time out. Seriously, scorers table personnel on the Division I level are better trained and objective than years ago. Scorers make mistakes but so do officials (yes we do we’re human), coaches and players.

Northwestern was ninth in conference field goal percentage (.418) but did have a respectable synergy rating thanks to Bill Carmody’s Princeton offense which requires a great deal of passing and movement, and virtually no transition baskets. The gaudy synergy rating, unfortunately for Carmody & co., didn’t carry over to the won-lost column. Not too surprised Michigan State led the way with synergy given Tom Izzo wanting structure on both ends of the floor. Interestingly, Wisconsin (champion) and Indiana (third) had relatively modest synergy ratings.