Louisville basketball parlays advanced analytics into top-5 ranking

Pat Kelsey likes to be innovative. Fortunately for Louisville basketball, he is not above copying a good idea.

Kelsey’s willingness to embrace what’s next is a good bit responsible for the Cardinals being ranked fifth in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll. His embrace of advanced analytics is now on display on the KFC Yum! Center interior scoreboard for his players and staff to view in real time:

Points per possession, which takes the number of points scored divided by the number of possessions. Anything over 1.1 is considered very efficient, anything less than 0.9 is considered very poor and 1.0 is about average.

Effective field-goal percentage, which uses a formula that takes into account the added value of a made 3-pointer.

Offensive rebounding percentage, which is the percent of missed shots that are rebounded. (This stat is computed by KenPom.com and some other analytic sites as the percentage of offensive rebounds among a team’s total rebounds.)

Turnover percentage, which is the number of turnovers divided by the number of possessions.

Free-throw rate, which is the number of free-throw attempts divided by the number of field-goal attempts and measures how often the team gets to the free-throw line.

“That, to me, that’s way more important than the old-school stats,” Kelsey said. “… if you win three or four of those things (categories), you’re gonna win most of the time.”

The NCAA doesn’t officially track any of these stats except effective field-goal percentage. It still gauges things like rebounding margin and offensive rebounds as categories along with turnover margin and free-throw attempts per game.

Western Kentucky ranks No. 1 nationally with an offensive turnover percentage of just 10.1%, according to KenPom.com. That frames how well the Hilltoppers take care of the ball a lot more than just knowing they’re 11th in turnover margin.

The advanced stats allow the Cards to hold themselves accountable and be challenged on those metrics during home games.

UofL guard Kobe Rodgers, returning to a huddle in their win over Ohio, noticed the Bobcats were scoring about 1.1 points per possession at the under-8 (minutes) media timeout. He said the Cards set a goal to get them down to 1.0 before the game ended.

Rodgers said they are constantly referring to those categories during games, and they tend to look at what they’re holding opponents to as much as they view how well they are doing offensively.

“Those are all massive, massive numbers and analytics that go into basketball,” Rodgers said.

Kelsey said he spontaneously asked the arena’s game operations staff just prior to the season opener against South Carolina State if it were possible to get those stats on the video boards. For that first game, UofL only had four factors. Free-throw rate was the last to be added to the board.

The idea came about by way of Jonah Wexler, the Cards director of video and analytics, who saw some NBA teams had already implemented it last season.

It’s not on all of the boards in the arena. Now, only those with floor seats or in the section closest to courtside can view the interior video boards that are placed in the inner section of the jumbotron that hangs above the court.

“It’ll be cool for our fan base to start looking at those, because they’re such an advanced basketball mind fan base,” Kelsey said. "I got 20,000 assistant coaches up in the stands that know what the crap they're talking about."

As advanced as the fans might be, Kelsey knows whether it's old-school metrics or the five-factors analytics, it still comes down to the same barometer for how success will be judged.

Wins and losses.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at [email protected], follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Pat Kelsey's use of advanced analytics puts Louisville ahead of most