Caleb co-Defensive Player of the Year
- Thread starter kcg88
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I think that is fair....congrats to Caleb not often someone comes along and can win awards like this consecutively
He fought through being hurt all year. Great program member.
Crazy impressive to win B2B especially considering all of the injuries
He deserved it and coaches know. Besides the steals and guarding the other teams best guard or wing , Caleb does so many things to help team defense , including denying the opponent ‘s top guard even the opportunity to get the ball and get in a rhythm, knock balls out of bounds to prevent points on bigs , actually fights thru screens and one of the few that do (Cam and Derek should watch his film ). Plus he rebounds like heck for a guard after guarding and preventing a second chance opportunity which helps the defense even more. He does so much that is not on a stat sheet defensively.
The shame was that MAG was having the same type of year and our defense was elite and has not been since MAG went down . Having 2 elite defenders would not have resulted in some of these offensive explosions against us. Just a damn shame.
We are going to miss Caleb’s intangibles and things that don’t appear on a stat sheet.
Well. If you believe the on/off data Caleb's presence has virtually no impact on our defensive performance.
(Games vs. top 200 only, garbage time filtered)
2021/22 defense with Caleb: 1.067 points per possession
2021/22 defense without Caleb: 1.071
2022/23 defense with Caleb: 0.959
2022/23 defense without Caleb: 0.945
I don't fully or even mostly buy this as being an indicator of his impact, for what it's worth. But the offensive numbers certainly match the eye test (we're much worse on offense with Caleb on the floor). And I buy what they say about Hyatt and Mag (our defense is much better with Hyatt OFF the floor).
Caleb, Congratulations! Your grit and determination to play at a high level through what for mere mortals would be a debilitating back injury is very impressive to say the least. You have been a credit to our University and Basketball Team. Thank you for the memories and best of luck going forward.
Amazing career. Congrats caleb.. he might win national defender of the year too (already did on ESPN). Now go lock down Michigan and get to the tourney.
Good for Caleb. Well earned. A Loyal Son, who could have left but stayed.
He hardly ever sits. Maybe 2-3 minutes first half and second half.
And are they the same minutes that the opponent's top threat sits?
Not sure. But just to add how impactful he was ; He was in foul trouble in the first Penn State game and when Pickett started to get hot , Caleb came in with 3 fouls and shut him down leading to the 65-45 victory. In the second game , Pickett had 11 at half not all on Caleb but had 0 points and 0 shot attempts in the second half. He didn’t cover him exclusively as Paul and a double team did when he took a breather , but still incredible. Pickett is not only BIG 10 unaminous 1st team selection , he will likely be a 2nd or at worst 3rd team All American. Picket was coming off 3 straight games scoring 41,32 and 25 and he was held to 11, which we needed to do to comeback from 19 down. He also scored 10 points in that second half comeback.
For the cherry on top , despite not practicing before Northwestern , he held Audige to 5 points and but for the breakout by NW role players Blashauser, Nickerson and Berry , none of which were his man , NW likely doesn’t win that game with the lockdown of Audige who was becoming their go to scorer.
This all seems right to me but I'm just trying to find an explanation for that stats that kcg posted.
Congrats to him. He deserved this award consecutively. His value will be truly seen next season.
I haven't seen that many non RU minutes of B1G games, but I have seen practically every RU minutes.
We can debate Mag and Caleb who was a better defensive player for us. We can also say Cliff is very important to our defense. However almost every shot blocking center is important to team defense.
Mag deserves to be on any B1G 2022-23 defensive team over Cliff.
We can debate Mag and Caleb who was a better defensive player for us. We can also say Cliff is very important to our defense. However almost every shot blocking center is important to team defense.
Mag deserves to be on any B1G 2022-23 defensive team over Cliff.
Just because Caleb is locking down his man that doesn’t mean we are not giving up 3’s to the other guys and Paul and Cam and Hyatt have done a ton of that. That would equalize the # ‘s in some impactful way.
The bottom line is Caleb plays so many minutes that there isn't enough data to form any type of conclusions when he isn't in.
I'd also add PPP gets a bit bloated in intentional fouling time. Starters for the most point are in for those possessions.
I'd also add PPP gets a bit bloated in intentional fouling time. Starters for the most point are in for those possessions.
Not really. If Caleb doesn't impact the other team in a way that actually results in them scoring fewer points then he's not actually good at defense. Or are you saying that the other players are for some reason playing worse with him in?
Again "he's not actually good at defense" is NOT my thesis, but that's basically what your answer means.
An alternative theory could be Caleb does make the defense worse because when he is in the game Pike thinks he can get away with playing poorer defensive players.
I suppose my wording is wrong because it is Pike or the guilty players and not Caleb making the defense worse.
I suppose my wording is wrong because it is Pike or the guilty players and not Caleb making the defense worse.
Bad wording but I understand the concept.
Is Caleb usually still in when the mass sub happens that everyone hates?
Would be very curious to see the data there. He almost always is the last guy to sit
The on/off numbers also say our offense is significantly worse with Cam on the floor. I can't wrap my head around that one either.
This could be a factor (among other things), but Fluox, you of all people should know this stat cannot be analyzed as a blended average this way anyway.
Caleb played 39 minutes vs. Northwestern and his defense was excellent. Unfortunately everyone else sucked on D that day which is why Pike had to keep him in so long (certainly wasn’t playing for his offense). On a different day, against a different team (Wisconsin), Caleb doesn’t play and they score 57. In a vacuum if those are our only 2 games does that mean the team defense is better without Caleb since our opponent “averaged” less points without him? No way.
The only way to do this analysis and have it sort of be apples to apples would be to go game by game and compare.
I mean, yeah, but over the long haul it would average out. These kind of noise factors are what I am specifically looking for
I would love to do a full adjusted +/- but gathering the necessary data is quite a lot of work. Maybe someday.
My take is that Mag is an awesome defender worthy of recognition. He was most effective in scramble and pressing situations where his energy, speed, and length wreaked havoc on opponents. You can see how much we missed him by the decreased effectiveness of our press/trap after his injury. We we’re simply a different team on D without him.
At the same time you can say much the same about Caleb’s energy, speed, and length then add his anticipation, craftiness and strength. On top of that, and again keep in mind Mag is an awesome defender (All Big 10 level in my view), Caleb is a better on the ball defender. Mag often fell for ball fakes and allowed the shooter a more open shot.
On the ball D is Caleb’s main strength, while trapping/scramble is Mag’s main strength. They’re both Defensive studs.
I don’t think it necessarily would though is what I’m saying - I don’t want to beat on Paul but his defense was really awful against NW. Hyatt is never a great defender. The point is Caleb played a very good defensive game even though the relative team defense stats don’t indicate that. He’s still only one person and played 39 minutes of the game. If he didn’t play NW probably would’ve scored close to 80 and they aren’t even a good offensive team. In games where our shots are falling - guys like Paul and Hyatt tend to be a bit better on defense (they seem to let frustration on one end impact the other). We’re not better in those games defensively with Caleb sitting than with him playing in those games, but perhaps our defense in those stretches without Caleb is better than our defense with Caleb against Iowa and company (like NW). It’s not evening out because he plays a lot more minutes than he doesn’t and the point is that Pike typically sits him for some minutes in match ups where he feels he can.
I guess this is a long winded way of saying that on average the 5 players we’re facing with Caleb playing are likely a statistically significant amount better offensively than the 5 players on the court when he sits.
There are systemic factors (i.e. what lineups he plays in/against, does he play more minutes against better teams, is he in for more intentional foul situations, etc.) and noise factors (luck stuff like which game you got injured for, how your teammates happened to perform when you were on the court vs off, etc). The noise factors will even out over time (that's basically the definition of noise factor) though it may take a lot more time than even a single season for a guy where the "off court" sample is so small. The systemic factors won't even out, so they are the interesting ones if they can be identified.
I don’t think +/- is fair to Caleb. He’s punished in that metric IMO for being our second best (but unfortunately still not a good main option) for so many things. He’s not a PG but he’s the next best ball handler after Paul and second most assists. When Paul sits, Caleb is bringing up the ball. After Cliff, Caleb has next most rebounds and tied for next most blocks. He rarely if ever sits with Cliff which obviously has a negative impact on his +/-. There’s only so much he can do to overcome Dean.
I think the team would be way worse without Caleb playing these minutes when those guys sit even though those line ups aren’t good (they would be worse without him). The bottom line is Caleb is a part of our best line up that sees the bulk of the game action. So all +/- for him is saying that maybe he does a worse job spelling Paul and Cliff than they’ve done for him.
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That's why I said adjusted +/-, it controls for who you are on the floor with and against. The issue is you need to get all that data (i.e. what lineup is in at all times) in order to calculate it which is a huge PITA (would require parsing the play-by-plays AFAIK)
Something like this:
(This is actually slightly more complicated.. pure, original adjusted plus/minus has some issues with multicollinearity due to some players basically always being on the floor with others so they use some more advanced regression techniques but it's the same general idea)
(This is actually slightly more complicated.. pure, original adjusted plus/minus has some issues with multicollinearity due to some players basically always being on the floor with others so they use some more advanced regression techniques but it's the same general idea)