On U of L's struggling offense, stifling D

I got my first chance to listen to the voicemails on my office line on Thursday, and one particularly snide message led me to write this post, though the meanness of it wasn't why I'm writing.

The caller -- we'll call him Toby because he didn't leave a name -- said he knows that all I want to do is "pump up my beloved Louisville Cardinals" and get all the Louisville fans in a lather about "how great their team is." He really nailed me there. Actually, the only thing he came close to getting right in that entire call was my phone number, but I digress.

Related:U of L's Chris Jones struggles with shooting slump

Instead of responding to the silly, untrue and oddly personal stuff from Toby's voicemail, I'd like to cover the part of the message that was actually the reason he called: Louisville's offensive woes.

He thinks we at The Courier-Journal are doing our very best to gloss over Louisville's shooting struggles early this season. (Here are a few links to our stories in the past three days that touch on U of L's offensive issues.)

Now, let's actually look at some facts about Louisville's offense before we get into Louisville's defense, which is currently ranked No. 1 in the nation in efficiency by Ken Pomeroy's ratingsand very much the main reason why the Cardinals are 6-0 with wins over Minnesota and Ohio State, two NCAA tournament-quality teams.

First, on the offense

The raw stats are no bueno: Louisville's shooting 42 percent as a team and a meager 26 percent from 3. That's bad. The Cardinals are shooting 58 percent from the free-throw line. That's worse. They also have more turnovers (80) than assists (74). That's the worst, at least to U of L coach Rick Pitino.

The box scores for Louisville's two biggest games don't help the bottom line: The Cards scored 1.04 points per possession vs. Minnesota and 0.97 vs. Ohio State. In fact, Louisville ranks 82nd in the country in PPP, with a 1.04 average.

You can view the box scores here and here.

Here's another way of looking at it: U of L has attempted 354 shots this season ... 37.6 percent of them are 3s, 33.3 percent of them are 2-point jumpers and 29.1 of them are "at the rim" (layups and dunks). Now, stick with me, Louisville's shooting 26 percent from 3, 33.9 percent on 2-point jumpers and 72.8 percent on layups and dunks. Hence the 47.3 percent effective field-goal percentage.

U of L coach Rick Pitino will tell you a big reason for that is contested jumpers, which the Cards have tried way more than he'd like. "It's not our shooting as much as the type of shot we're taking," he said.

So how is U of L's offense still 26th in efficiency on KenPom? It's ninth in offensive rebounding percentage and 10th in free-throw/field-goal attempt ratio. Louisville, in its eight games, has corralled 42.5 percent of its own missed shots. Chinanu Onuaku, Mangok Mathiang and Anas Mahmoud lead the team in offensive rebounding percentage, and Montrezl Harrell isn't far behind.

Louisville's also been to the foul line 197 times already, or 24.6 trips per game. Harrell's FT rate is a whopping 83.9 -- he's attempted 56 shots and been to the line 47 times.

In other words, the Cards have made up for all their misses -- and there have been a lot of them -- by coming up with other ways to get points. They generate more scoring chances through offensive rebounding, drawing fouls and creating extra possessions with that 26.6 turnover percentage on defense. That's their current formula to winning while they work out their ball movement and shot selection problems.

And now the defense

If you read my colleague Tim Sullivan's column on U of L's defense, you'd know that the Cardinals are winning games with frenetic pressure and quick rotations. Louisville's defense is a deflection machine -- the Cards had 27 vs. Ohio State -- and that's led to 112 turnovers in eight games, or 14 per contest. Turnover generation is a huge reason why U of L has the nation's most efficient defense, but it's not the entire story.

An underrated part of Louisville's defensive prowess is its shot defense. Opponents have a 34.2 effective-field goal percentage, the second-worst in the country. Only Kentucky, at 32.3, is rated higher. eFG percentage is a slightly adapted, more telling shooting stat, as it gives more weight to 3-pointers than raw field-goal percentage because, you guessed it, 3-pointers are worth one more point.

Cards opponents have the following shooting stat line: 30.3 percent from the field and 21.5 percent from 3. Their shot distribution is as follows: 27.5 percent are layups or dunks; 35.5 percent are 2-point jumpers; 37 percent are 3s. The corresponding field-goal percentages? A meager 48.5 percent on layups and dunks; 25 percent on 2-point Js; and 21.5 percent on 3s.

What does all this actually mean? For one, it means U of L is rotating quickly on defense and challenging shots. That the Cardinals have a much higher "effective height," a stat that evaluates the height of a team and weights it to include how many minutes the tall guys play, probably helps on those challenges. And U of L is blocking shots at a higher rate, too.

Louisville has blocked 20 percent of its opponents' layup or dunk attempts. That's how U of L's block percentage is 17th in the nation a season after it was 57th. Onuaku, with his team-best 16 blocks, is (literally) a huge source of blocked shots. And it certainly helps that Louisville's getting 73.1 percent of the rebounds off those blocks.

So, forgive me for the statistical geek out, but there are reasons why Louisville is winning despite its measly shooting numbers.