WCC Four Factors: Breaking Down the Teams

Today we discuss Dean Oliver's Four Factors and we apply it to West Coast Conference Men's Basketball.  We discuss its effectiveness in this setting and use it to see how the different teams can improve.

The Four Factors are the brain child of Dean Oliver, the current Vice President of Data Science at TruMedia Networks.  He has also worked in important roles for the Seattle Supersonics, Denver Nuggets, and Sacramento Kings.  He authored the book "Basketball on Paper."  The four factors of basketball are shooting, turnovers, rebounds, and free throws.  The four factors are the answer to how do basketball teams win games?  They were designed for the NBA, but today I will be applying them to West Coast Conference Basketball teams.  I will first explain how the factors are measured (with their weights next to them), how teams are ranked (offense, defense, overall), and then make some suggestions on where I believe teams should focus on improving.

Factors

Shooting (40%)

Shooting is measured in terms of effective field goal percentage.  Effective field goal percentage is calculated by (FG + 0.5*3P)/FGA.  EFG is basically a team or person's field goal percentage with three-pointers weighted to make the percentage, well more effective.

Turnovers (25%)

Turnover percentage is measured by this formula: TOV / (FGA + 0.44 * FTA + TOV).

Rebounds (20%)

Rebounds is measured by offensive rebound percentage, which is measured by this formula: ORB / (ORB + Opp DRB).  The teams defensive rebounds are also included as you consider the four factors of a team's opponent.

Free Throws

Dean Oliver measures free throws by FTA / FGA.  However, I found that it is more accurate in the WCC to measure free throws by FT / FGA, meaning made free throws instead of free throw attempts.

Rankings

The Four Factors seem to work decently well for the WCC, although they are not perfect.  Here is how the Four Factors would rank the WCC Men's Basketball teams as opposed to how they finished the regular season.  I calculated the overall number by multiplying the factors by weight, then adding the factors together (subtracting turnovers), and subtracting the defensive numbers from the offensive numbers.

Team	Four Factors Number	Record	Win PCT	Four Factors Rank	Actual Rank
Gonzaga	0.0732	17 - 1	0.944	1	1
Saint Mary's	0.0603	16 - 2	0.889	2	2
BYU	0.0289	11 - 7	0.611	3	3
San Diego	0.0002	9 - 9	0.5	4	4
Pacific	-0.0015	9 - 9	0.5	5	6
San Francisco	-0.0074	9 - 9	0.5	6	5
Santa Clara	-0.0353	8 - 10	0.444	7	7
Pepperdine	-0.0374	2 - 16	0.111	8	10
Portland	-0.0450	4 - 14	0.222	9	9
Loyola Marymount	-0.0454	5 - 13	0.278	10	8

Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount swapping places is the only hitch that seems to be a little concerning, but overall this seems to be a good measure.  So, here is how the teams stack up in defense and offense.

Team	Defensive Number	Defensive Rank
Gonzaga	0.218	1
Saint Mary's	0.224	2
BYU	0.236	3
San Diego	0.252	4
San Francisco	0.259	5
Pacific	0.265	6
Santa Clara	0.267	7
Portland	0.269	8
Pepperdine	0.284	9
Loyola Marymount	0.298	10

Team	Offensive Number	Offensive Rank
Gonzaga	0.291	1
Saint Mary's	0.285	2
BYU	0.265	3
Pacific	0.264	4
Loyola Marymount	0.253	5
San Diego	0.252	6
San Francisco	0.252	7
Pepperdine	0.247	8
Santa Clara	0.231	9
Portland	0.224	10

I believe that it is now apparent why Gonzaga finished first, Saint Mary's finished second, and BYU finished third.  You can see all of the Four Factors statistics here (also including pace).

Improvements

Obviously improvements are easier said than done and with new recruits coming in and players graduating, things are complicated.  So, with that being said, let's see what the statistics tell us!

Gonzaga

What can Gonzaga improve on?  Now that's a good question.  The only factor on offense or defense that they are in the bottom half of the conference on is free throws.  Gonzaga has a lot of room to improve on getting to the free throw line, they rank 9th in the conference.

Saint Mary's

Saint Mary's also did well last year and does well in most of the Four Factor categories.  However, they didn't do very well in forcing other teams into committing turnovers.  They ranked 10th, or last in the conference.

BYU

BYU ranks 7th in getting offensive rebounds and they rank 6th in committing turnovers.  Turnovers has a higher weight than turnovers, so it is most important for them to reduce the amount of turnovers that they commit.

San Diego

San Diego ranks dead last in committing turnovers and stopping the opposing team from getting to the free throw line, they also rank second to last in offensive rebounds.  Out of these three categories, the most important aspect of the game for them to improve on is taking care of the ball and not turning it over.

San Francisco

San Francisco is in the middle of the conference for most categories, which is good and bad.  However, they rank dead last in getting to the free throw line and second to last in stopping their opponent from getting to the free throw line.  With this information, getting to the free throw line just edges stopping their opponent from doing the same.

Pacific

Pacific is all over the place in the Four Factors, ranking all the way from 1st to 7th depending on the factor.  They rank 7th in opponent shooting, opponent offensive rebounds, and opponent free throws.  In short, they basically need to just play better defense all across the board.  However, since shooting is the most important aspect of the game, they need to find a way to make their opponents' shots more difficult.

Santa Clara

Santa Clara ranks 8th in four different categories and 10th in another category  They rank 10th, or last in shooting.  Santa Clara needs to find a way to get the ball in the hoop.  They need to find more easy shots and convert.

Loyola Marymount

Loyola Marymount ranks 7th in two categories, 8th in two categories, and 10th in two other categories.  The two categories that they rank last in are opponent shooting and opponent rebounds.  As opponent shooting is way more important than opponent rebounds (no knock on rebounds, but obviously you need to score to win), Loyola Marymount really needs to challenge more shots and slow their opponents' shooting success.

Portland

Portland ranks 9th in two categories and 10th in two other categories.  The two factors that they rank last in are shooting and rebounds.  Portland biggest challenge is shooting.  Just like Santa Clara, they need to find some way to improve their effective field goal percentage.  Obviously this is easier said than done, but they will not win more games until they fix that problem.

Pepperdine

Pepperdine ranks 8th in two categories and 9th in another category.  They rank 9th in opponent shooting.  Just as I said with Pacific and Loyola Marymount, they need to find a way to slow their opponents' shooting success.