Turnovers

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SoonerNorm

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A friend mentioned that the women's team is turning the ball over at a higher rate than the men's team. Men turn it over about 12 times per game while the women turn it over about 16 times per game.

If the women could reduce turnovers to 12, that would give us 4 more opportunities to score per game and would give the opponent 4 less opportunities to score.

If we are shooting 45% from the field, that means we would theoretically score approximately 2 more points per game.

The opponent would theoretically score 2 points less, assuming they also shoot 45%.

Those 4 points might not sound like much but here are the games we probably could have won by holding turnovers to 12:

Louisville...that game went into overtime where we lost. However, in this game we turned the ball over 20 times so we should have won fairly easily in regulation by controlling turnovers.

UCLA...we turned the ball over 18 times. We lost the game by a score of 82-76. If we would have held turnovers to 12, undoubtedly we would have had a great chance to win that game. How many points did UCLA score from OU having to foul at the end?

Duke...we turned the ball over 21 times. We lost by a score of 94-85. If we would have held the turnovers to 12, I think we would have had a pretty good chance to win that game. How many points did Duke score from OU having to foul at the end?

ISU...that game went into overtime where we lost. We committed 15 turnovers. Could we have scored one more point in regulation by holding down turnovers? Very possibly.

Texas...we had 22 turnovers and lost in overtime. We most probably would have won in regulation by simply controlling turnovers.

These are the games we probably would have lost even by holding turnovers to 12:

Marist 76-69 L
W. Virginia 77-63 L
KSU 86-78 L
Baylor 81-67 L

So, instead of being 15-9 overall and 6-5 in Big 12 play, we would likely would be 20-4 and 8-3. That would likely give us a top 10 ranking.
 
This has been a contentious bone for years and nothing has changed> I have given up on
Sherri's becoming insistent on not turning the ball over. I keep thinking that there are some coaching tips that would help. If there are, no one is listening..
 
Your logic is flawed, but the end result is about the same. We lose those opportunities, but it doesn't give our opponent more opportunities.

If we reduce our turnovers by 4 a game, we would theoretically score about 3.6 more points a game (or slightly higher since a 3 ptr is a possibility).

To know how to adjust our opponents numbers, we would need to know what percentage of turnovers caused transition points for our opponent. That's a lot harder to figure out.

Turnovers that stop play, don't give our opponents any advantage. It's just takes away an opportunity for us to score. For turnovers that don't stop play, if we don't allow a fast break and the opponent has to setup their half-court offense, those also don't affect our opponents score. If they score in transition, that will give them an advantage above having to run their half-court offense.
 
I have given up on Sherri's becoming insistent on not turning the ball over
Click to expand...

pretty much. to morgan's credit, however, i haven't seen a Sooner get as many assists as she has lately. 9 in the last game, if I'm not mistaken
 
I know there isn't much of an additional breakdown of the turnover category into what type of turnover it really was. If there those subcategories, I would label one of them the "What-The-Eff-Were-You-Thinking-About? subcategory.

I think we average about 2.6 of those per game. They are usually that cross court diagonal, or down the sideline, or over the top of the moon lobs into the post or corner where an opponent is just waiting for you to be that stupid.

I'd settle for just stopping that crap.
 
Turnovers are a part of women's basketball. There is more passing in order to get a good shot. Some teams do it better, like UConn. It seems to me that one of the reasons that they don't turn the ball over as a result of their passing is that they are constantly working to find an open area in which to receive a pass, except when they played at Baylor.

Good offensive teams often have a lot of turnovers, and, as I have posted many times, there isn't much correlation between turnovers and success.

That being said, there are things that this team could do to reduce turnovers. Aaryn could quit dribbling into a crowd, or dribbling off her foot. Morgan is losing the ball due to lack of concentration as someone just picks her pocket. T'Ona has a tendency to try to be DRob or Hardin and throw the ball away on fast breaks or trying to get it inside. If we would move, those passes might be easier. When we get lazy, we are turnover-prone.

I don't know that I would tell the players not to turn the ball over. I would more likely yell at them for not moving. When we are active, good things happen on offense and defense. Hard to pass out of a trap when nobody comes to meet the ball. This team has been plagued thus far with uncertainty. Let's hope that this is coming to an end.
 
That actually makes my point, just as it has in the past. Let's look all the way down to the fourth page:

166 Oklahoma
Well, that must be our problem

But, wait:
169 Louisville
173 Georgia
184 Kentucky
193 Texas A&M

Let's go on to page five:
229 Georgia
230 Tennessee
233 Duke
239 Penn State
246 North Carolina

From page six:
290 Texas

On the other hand, if you look at Field Goal Percentage (to which some of those turnovers can be ascribed---trying to get a better shot), I think you will be shocked at how closely rated ranking and the top teams are associated, and you won't find top twenty-five teams on page five.
 
You are overlooking the games I mentioned specifically that we could have won by reducing turnovers. If a team isn't shooting a high percentage, they can still win many games if they defend, rebound, limit turnovers, etc.
 
I'm not overlooking anything. I am simply saying that some turnovers result from attempts to get a better shot. Those are "good" turnovers, if they are reasonable in their attempt.

Bad turnovers due to carelessness are always a negative.
 
Turnovers prevent a scoring opportunity and often give the opponent an easy scoring opportunity.

Not all of our turnovers are from passes, some are when we get our pocket picked. That happened because our point gurd has a very predictable behind the back dribble, we often expose the ball to defenders making it easy to eclectic the dribble, and 3 we turn our dribble back directly into a defender. Habits and a failure to communicate on the court.

We also have a tendency to drive in too deep without an easy pass back out.

Playing hard doesn't justify playing dumb. A lot of our turnovers are the result of mental errors, failure to talk to each other and habitual moves.
 
The logic is indeed flawed. I don't feel we can isolate any one statistic in most, if not all, games to decide the outcome. There are too many variables. Momentum can change, positively or negatively, as a result of a single play.
 
euphguy said:
The logic is indeed flawed. I don't feel we can isolate any one statistic in most, if not all, games to decide the outcome. There are too many variables. Momentum can change, positively or negatively, as a result of a single play.
Click to expand...

While there are many variables to any game, you can look at the games I listed and exclude everything except turnovers and see those games very well could have been won had they reduced turnovers to 12 per game. It isn't a guarantee we would have won them all, but it is likely we would have.
 
How good our record will be if we can get shooter open like we had in the past. That's why players like Jo, Courtney, Ashley, Amanda and Abi (senior year) are more valuable than the stats say. Nicole is just not big strong or wide enough to shooters open.

P.S it also helps to have a PG with Drob speed.
 
Last edited:
SoonerNorm said:
While there are many variables to any game, you can look at the games I listed and exclude everything except turnovers and see those games very well could have been won had they reduced turnovers to 12 per game. It isn't a guarantee we would have won them all, but it is likely we would have.
Click to expand...
You can't take one thing and say that it is THE defining statistic. In those same games, we could have won if we had had one or two more rebounds, one or two more made shots, one or two more blocked shots, etc.

When I attempted to correlate winning with the various statistics a few years back, I looked at the top eight seeds in the tournament as compared to every one of the NCAA statistics. By a rather large margin, the correlation between field goal percentage and rankings was the most accurate. But, that doesn't mean that it was the only thing that affected the outcome. It does suggest that a coach might want to take actions which would result in a high field goal percentage---like maybe making the extra pass, using motion and screens to get an open shot, or even making a steal and a one-on-none layup. Although no one statistic is the defining factor, it would make sense to do what has the highest probability of success.

The comparison to the men's team is misleading since women have more turnovers as stated by the statistics.
 
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