Forte

[thebigabd]

Will be interesting to see what Forte does when he goes head-to-head with Cousins.

 

[HoHum]

I agree with you 100%. I'm not trying to make the argument that Forte is better than Cousins defensively, or even offensively. Just that Forte is not some liability and is certainly not someone "every decent mid-major has" as someone said earlier.

 

[AdaSooner]

There are 100 people on this board patting themselves on the back, discussing how good OU is, etc. And those same 100 people will be singing the opposite tune when OU loses to a TCU, OSU, Tech, etc.

I typically post about the topics that the herd isn't already discussing... For some reason it appeals to me a little more. I chime in occasionally on the pro-OU threads, but normally just read those and comment or post about other things.

Fair enough, carry on. You didn't answer my question about the jersey color.

By the way, send me a PM and bring me up to date on what you've been up to lately.

 

[snydrosooner]

I agree there are a lot of intangibles, particularly on defense, that are hard to quantify with statistics. But, steals and blocks absolutely do begin to tell the story, particularly if they have an extremely high rate in either of them. That doesn't mean you can't be an excellent defender and not get a lot of steals or blocks, but I don't think it's true to say they don't even begin to tell the story.

But, I would say considering OSU is ranked 25th in defensive efficiency according to kenpom, and Forte spends a lot of time on the court, he's leading the league in steals, that he cannot be too much of a liability, given the statistics that are available and that are useful.

Plus, most of the time, Forte draws a relatively weaker offensive player as his defensive assignment. Newberry and Hickey get the better offensive guards/wings.

I think he is getting lumped in with Keiton Page, who absolutely was a defensive liability, and getting painted with the short, white guy brush. Basketball has some very strong stereotypes that are hard to break, in my opinion.

But, besides anecdotal evidence there is no proof Forte is a poor defensive player. I've watched every second of OSU basketball this year in some shape or form, and Forte is consistently a pretty good defender, especially considering his physical limitations. Guys don't just rise and fire over him, like they could with Page and Raymond Penn, because Forte is a much better defender than those two.

Look at the Thunder. Serge gets most of his blocks coming in as help side defense, Serge is not a very good one on one defender at the NBA level. His block shots are very important, but I think it just evens out his defense game.

Forte is a liability on basic defense . His steals offset that and make him look decent and sometimes good. But Teams like Kansas, OU, Texas and Baylor should be able to exploit him. Of course I would have said ISU should exploit him and they didn't.

 

[DenverSooner]

The only thing Cousins does better than Forte at this point in his career is rebound. Everyone is just throwing out weird opinions that they can't prove, such as Cousins being one of the best defenders in the country, etc.

Stats can't prove someone is a good defender, per people on this board, but a total lack of stats supported by 100% opinion certainly can prove it.

Actually he shoots 3 pointers at a higher percentage, blocks more shots and rebounds way better. The fact that OSU fans say he generally gets an easier defensive assignment would seem to support the opinion that Cousins is the better defender.

Regardless to me why does it matter. They are both really good basketball players.

 

[152219]

Actually he shoots 3 pointers at a higher percentage, blocks more shots and rebounds way better. The fact that OSU fans say he generally gets an easier defensive assignment would seem to support the opinion that Cousins is the better defender.

Regardless to me why does it matter. They are both really good basketball players.

Cousins has a higher overall FG% as well.

 

[DenverSooner]

There are 100 people on this board patting themselves on the back, discussing how good OU is, etc. And those same 100 people will be singing the opposite tune when OU loses to a TCU, OSU, Tech, etc.

This needs to say if. Additionally, many of us will not bash OU if they lose a game. I might have a few comments about problems I observed but I am not going to go off the deep end over a loss. I didn't even do it on the 8-5 football season. I get upset when OU is competing like the Blake years or the last two years under Capel. I can live with an occasional 8-12 seed team. There is nothing wrong with that especially if those are the down years.

 

[skyvue]

That doesn't answer the question.

Not a red herring at all. I think your question was based on questionable logic.

To be explicit in answering the question: No, I don't agree that getting to the free throw 78 times vs 30 times is necessarily an indication of Forte's superior ball-handling and aggressiveness. It could instead be an indication of an offense that depends too much on a single player. It could be an indication of difference in the respective style of play favored by the two players. It could be an indication of their distinct skill sets. It could be a combination of all of the above, and other factors to boot.

There you go -- I made the same point AND I answered your question.

 

[DenverSooner]

Not a red herring at all. I think your question was based on questionable logic.

To be explicit in answering the question: No, I don't agree that getting to the free throw 78 times vs 30 times is necessarily an indication of Forte's superior ball-handling and aggressiveness. It could instead be an indication of an offense that depends too much on a single player. It could be an indication of difference in the respective style of play favored by the two players. It could be an indication of their distinct skill sets. It could be a combination of all of the above, and other factors to boot.

There you go -- I made the same point AND I answered your question.

It could be the competition they have played too. At the end of the season the schedules will be much more similar than they are today.

 

[152219]

It could be the competition they have played too. At the end of the season the schedules will be much more similar than they are today.

I already discussed that above. Here is part of my post.

It should also be pointed out that the offenses OU has faced rate 27th in the nation according to Kenpom whereas OSU's rate 259th. I know his overall defensive ratings take that into consideration when calculating the ratings, but raw stats like steals, blocked shots, and defensive rebounds for an individual player can be skewed because of the inferior competition. That also doesn't take into account that Ford's system allows for free wheeling on the defensive end in regards to going for steals. Nothing wrong with that if you have strong defenders on the back end who will cover for a player when he attempts a steal and misses.

 

[bocabull]

I'd like to know what makes kenpom less useful in gauging how good teams are. I find it, and I know I'm not alone, superior to the RPI in almost every way, as far as being used to evaluate teams.

The RPI is far superior because college basketball is like professional baseball with all the leagues combined into 1.

Kempom gives a major league team credit for putting up impressive stats against a single A ball club. The RPI says, we don't care what your stats are, we care how you do against major league teams. Congrats on winning those other games, but those were minor league teams. Stats against popcorn state are irrelevant.

This is why kenpom would be popular to mid majors and OSU fans. It props you up while the RPI tells the truth. That OSU has played a very weak schedule and has beat 1 team ranked in the top 110.

 

[StatGeek]

This is very similar to the argument I'm making. Is Cousins a better defender than Forte? Yeah, I'm sure he is. I haven't watched OU nearly enough to have an opinion on the comparison, but I'll take your guys word on it. If he's the best wing defender on an excellent defensive team, I'm sure he is very good.

But, to think Forte is a liability on defense when essentially every statistical metric is telling you the opposite, seems odd to me. (Not saying that you were making that argument, 152219). The fact that he has an extremely good steal rate (regardless of the style of play that it results in) and OSU metrically is a strong defensive team as a whole, to me insinuates that Forte can't be considered a poor defender.

In fact, Forte is actually 3rd on the team (as far as players who see regular playing time, sorry Alex Budke who is in 1st) in defensive rating on sports-reference.com. Which tracks the team's defensive statistics when a player is on the court. His first two years he was dead last on the team, and he has certainly improved. Keiton Page routinely brought up the rear too, And routinely, Defensive Rating is a stat that gives you a very good idea about an individuals impact on defense.


If you were wondering about OU, sports-reference has Cousins with a DRating slightly better than Hield and Woodard, this year and quite a bit in front of Walker and Booker (who brings up the rear for OU guards).


Just out of curiosity, I guess, I went through the last few years of OU teams on sports-reference to look at DRating, and it shows Sam Grooms as being (by far) the worst defensive guard of the Kruger era. I hardly remember the guy, let alone his defensive ability, but would you guys agree with that? I'm just curious if your guys observations matched up with the statistics.

Because my observations of the OSU Drating stats matched up pretty well.

Sports-reference's d rating is based off Dean Oliver's book and is severely flawed (this has been acknowledged by Oliver). It's basically a team defensive rating with a slight modification for steals and blocks with a significant bias towards post players (not that this matters in this discussion). I wouldn't go around citing that as evidence of anything. Just wanted to inform those who may not be aware of this.

 

[MNsooner]

Sports-reference's d rating is based off Dean Oliver's book and is severely flawed (this has been acknowledged by Oliver). It's basically a team defensive rating with a slight modification for steals and blocks with a significant bias towards post players (not that this matters in this discussion). I wouldn't go around citing that as evidence of anything. Just wanted to inform those who may not be aware of this.

Do you know of any good metrics for individual players or are we just stuck with the good old fashioned eye test and box score?

 

[StatGeek]

Do you know of any good metrics for individual players or are we just stuck with the good old fashioned eye test and box score?

IMO, we are stuck with the eye test. Individual defense has two many intangibles and there is a severe lack of data for anything other than simple systems based largely off modifications to the teams defense. Some people try to fancy it up but at the end of the day the methods all come back to the same basic idea (team avg X Turnovers, blocks, steals etc. & Player Y is responsible for X %, manipulate from there).

 

[MNsooner]

IMO, we are stuck with the eye test. Individual defense has two many intangibles and there is a severe lack of data for anything other than simple systems based largely off modifications to the teams defense. Some people try to fancy it up but at the end of the day the methods all come back to the same basic idea (team avg X Turnovers, blocks, steals etc. & Player Y is responsible for X %, manipulate from there).

Yeah that doesn't seem like a good measure. It looks like it just gives credit to the greatest risk takers on good defensive teams. To be honest, just the eye test is fine by me. I think you in general, defense is about effort, awareness, and athleticism and you can usually see that on the court. When I watch good defensive possessions all 5 guys are on the same page. I think good team defense should just be taken as a credit to all the guys who are playing.

 

[bocabull]

IMO, we are stuck with the eye test. Individual defense has two many intangibles and there is a severe lack of data for anything other than simple systems based largely off modifications to the teams defense. Some people try to fancy it up but at the end of the day the methods all come back to the same basic idea (team avg X Turnovers, blocks, steals etc. & Player Y is responsible for X %, manipulate from there).

I'm sure there are plenty of scouts with proprietary data that utilizes a smaller data set only including top caliber competition. But they won't be sharing that with anybody except their employer.

 

[usedtobe1]

I agree with you 100%. I'm not trying to make the argument that Forte is better than Cousins defensively, or even offensively. Just that Forte is not some liability and is certainly not someone "every decent mid-major has" as someone said earlier.

I've said before that I would love it if OU had Forte on their roster. No doubt he's a good D1 player and would get a lot of minutes. The guy can shoot and create some offense, and he hustles his butt off. I'm not saying he would start for OU but would definitely get a lot of minutes.

I remember the old Celtic John Havlicek who won a million 6th man awards say it wasn't who started that mattered, it was who finished the game that was really important. That's why I thought Hornbeak was crazy for transferring. He was going to get ~20 minutes a game subbing for the 3 guards.on a top 25 team.

I actually like your PG Hickey and Nash a lot, too.

 

[MenderofRoads]

This comparison to Clarke isn't valid. He was the premier shooting guard in the country when we missed on him.

I'm surprised that in a five-page thread, no one has bothered to point out the absurdity of calling Clarke the premier shooting guard in the country.

 

[DenverSooner]

I don't get why people run guys like Forte or Cade Davis down. I get it with Smart because the media hype is overbearing. I personally hope Forte does well in all but two of his games this season.

 

[thebigabd]

I don't get why people run guys like Forte or Cade Davis down. I get it with Smart because the media hype is overbearing. I personally hope Forte does well in all but two of his games this season.

I see what you are doing there.... trying to put Forte in the same class as Cade Davis. Forte is a different level player than Cade, no offense to Cade, but he just wasnt nearly as good as Forte.