Inside the Numbers - Team Stats

REBOUNDING - Thanks to Landen Lucas and to Frank Mason's great rebounding stats for a PG, this KU team is a very good defensive rebounding team. Not so much on the offensive rebounding. Aside from Landen, we really have no one who is above average at offensive rebounding. We have grabbed 72.4% of our defensive boards but only 31.3% of defensive. The goal is always 35%. We have been outrebounded 8 times. This poor offensive rebounding is a weakness that would hurt us if we shoot poorly.

SHOOTING - No secret here, this is a very good shooting team. We have shot thus far in 201649.9% overall, 53.9% on 2 pointers, 42.2% from the arc and we have a FG Efficiency of 56.7% which is equal to 2008 and tied for the 3rd best ever. We have had some poor FT shooting over the last 7 games but we have shot 70% for the season which is pretty good.

Opponent Shooting -- We have been so bad the last couple years that this team seems very good on FG defense. We are not very good. We are simply good. We allow 40.3% overall which is 2nd worst under Bill Self. Our def FG Efficiency is 45.3% which is also 2nd worst under Self. So we still are not a good defensive FG team but we are pretty good in other defensive areas.

SHOT SELECTION -- This is the best 3 point shooting team ever at KU and we shoot it a lot. We have made 28.6% of our shots from 3 point range which is well above the 22.7% average under Self. We are scoring 30.5% of our points from the arc compared to 24.3% average under Self.

BALL HANDLING -- After 3 years of turning the ball over more than our opponents we are actually turning it over less this year by about 1 per game. Our 2 guard offense is showing since we turn the ball over at the lowest rate ever. I like that stat. We have a %LoB of 17.4%. We have averaged 19.9% under Self. That is over 3 points a game impact. That is huge. And we are among the top A/TO in KU history.

DEFENSE - We are average at stealing the ball at just under once poer 10 possessions. And this team is one of the lowest shot blocking teams under Self. Where we excel is not allowing effective ball movement. We have allowed assists on less than half of the FG's. Only the 1993 team was better in the last 30 years.

POSSESSIONS - The critical goal is to score every possession and to keep the other team from scoring every possession. Points per possession is the best overall measure of performance. We have arguably played the toughest schedule KU has played. Our defense is still not up to snuff. Our PPP allowed is 0.958 which is above the average under Self of 0.926 and even farther above his 1st 10 years of 0.913. That is over 3 points per game allowed above our average. Our PPP offense is very good, though at 1.15. That is the 5th best since 1990.