Here is a recap of what I saw in the 2023-24 season the most/best from teams and players. After that a look at what stats are critical in improving your chances for a win. Then we go deeper into the analytics with a look at the pp100s across all classes and then compare that with 2013, a year when I was out & about like this year without restraints on my schedule. Compounding that the next examination comes with pace/possessions. With the introduction of the shot clock, did things really change?

THE MOST 2024

CATEGORY	TEAM	OPPONENT	AMOUNT
Points	Duluth Marshall	Hermantown	96
Classic Assist	Rochester JM	Hastings	25
Offensive rebounds	St. Paul Como Park	St. Paul Washington	46
Defensive rebounds	St. Paul Highland Park	St. Paul Academy	38
Steals	Mpls Henry	Columbia Heights	35
FTA	Blm Kennedy	St. Louis Park	50
FTM	Blm Kennedy	St. Louis Park	31
FT% (10 A)	Rosemount	Woodbury	12/12-1.000
FT% (20 A)	Hopkins	Davenport North	19/22-.864
FT% (30 A)	Hayfield	Winona Cotter	22/30-.733
2FGA	Coon Rapids	Legacy Christian	70
2FGM	Southwest MN Christian	Tracy-Milroy-Balaton	32
2FG% (10-19)	New Ulm	Byron	13/16-.813
2FG% (20-29)	Springfield	GHECTML	21/28-.750
2FG% (30-xx)	Southwest MN Christian	Tracy-Milroy-Balaton	32/46-.696
3FGA	Dover-Eyota	Plainview-Elgin-Millville	45
3FGM	Fairmont	JCC	17
3FG% (10-19)	Sleepy Eye	GHECTML	8/11-.727
3FG% (20-	Fairmont	JCC	17/30-.567

 

CATEGORY	PLAYER	SCHOOL	OPP	AMOUNT
Points	Maddyn Greenway	Providence	Perham	49
Classic Assist	Jessa Heimerl	Lester Prairie	Central MN Christian	11
Off rebounds	Avary White Haley Geiger	St. Croix Prep Hinckley-Finlayson	Breck Ogilvie	17
Def rebounds	Hannah Lightman Karly Jusczak	St. Paul Highland Park Pine City	St. Paul Academy Braham	16
Blocks	Keira O’Rourke	Holy Angels	Richfield	7
Steals	Tori Oehrlein Chloe Johnson	Crosby-Ironton Duluth Marshall	New London-Spicer & Sauk Centre Hermantown	10
FTA	Macie Miller	Blm Kennedy	St. Louis Park	28
FTM	Maddyn Greenway	Providence	Perham	17
FT%	Maddyn Greenway Ava Zediker	Providence Des Moines Dowling	Crosby-Ironton Providence	11/11-1.000
2FGA	Rylie Cother	Jackson County Central	Fairmont	36
2FGM	Rylie Cother	Jackson County Central	Fairmont & St. James	16
2FG%	Marissa Pabst	Springfield	GHECTML	11/11-1.000
3FGA	Samantha Bennett	New Life	CHOF	19
3FGM	Tori Oehrlein Addi Mack Ayla Caskey Breaunna Mertz	Crosby-Ironton Minnehaha New London-Spicer Sleepy Eye	Sauk Centre Perham Watertown-Mayer GHECTML	7
3FG% (1-9	Lily Hubin Presley Tapani	BLHS Proctor	SE St. Mary’s Duluth Denfeld	5/5-1.000
3FG% (10+)	Ayla Caskey	New London-Spicer	Watertown-Mayer	7/10-.700

 

Category	Team	Opponent	amount
PP100	Rosemount	Woodbury	138.1
Touch/pt	Ogilvie	Hinckley-Finlayson	2.31
Floor %	Rosemount	Woodbury	.587
Touch/FT	Kennedy	St. Louis Park	6.54
Efg%	Southwest MN Christian	Tracy-Milroy-Balaton	.556
Most Touches	East Grand Forks	Park Rapids	484
Fewest touches	Ogilvie	Hinckley-Finlayson	240
Potential dist	New Life	CHOF	90
Distributions	Providence	Crosby-Ironton	37
D%	Providence	Crosby-Ironton	59.68
Touch/TO	Roseville	Mahtomedi	68.8
Dist/TO	Minnetonka	Andover	4.83

 

Category	Player	Team	Opp	Score
PP100 (10-19 pos)	Lily Hubin	BLHS	SE St. Mary’s	208.3
PP100 (20+ poss)	Olivia Olson Journey Houston	Benilde-St. Margaret’s Davenport North	Stewartville Hopkins	152.4
Floor % (10-13 pos)	Ava Welk	Walker-H-A	Pine River-Backus	.846
Floor % (20+ pos)	Journey Houston	Davenport North	Hopkins	.762
Touch / FT	Peyton Hoffman Macie Miller	Climax-Fisher Kennedy	Kittson County Central St. Louis Park	2.82
TLU	Rylie Cother	Jackson County Central	St. James	17
EFG%	Marissa Pabst	Springfield	GHECTML	.917
Touches	Brynlea Mahlen Destiny Schmitz	Fosston Chisholm	Mahnomen-Waubun Mesabi East	145
T%	Liana Buckhalton	Stillwater	Woodbury	37.3
D%	Hadley Sammons	Windom	St. Peter	100 (64 T)
Potential Dist	Eilana Hahn	New Life	CHOF	38
Distributions	Hope Counts	Providence	Dowling Catholic	15
D% 9 or less	Leah Sundby	EGF Sacred Heart	WAO	100 8/8
D% 10-19	Cora Grimser Tatum Woodson	Perham Hopkins	Providence Maple Grove	.818 (9/11
D% 20+	Chloe Johnson	Duluth Marshall	Hermantown	.636 (14/22)
T/TO (99 or less)	Aubrey Burkhart	SW Christian Chaska	Minnewaska	97
T/TO (100 or more)	Aaliyah Williams	Rochester Lourdes	Caledonia	120
D stops	Tori Oehrlein	Crosby-Ironton	New London-Spicer	23

 

IF…

2FG% 50% or better plus 40+ attempts               24-0       1.000

Touches per turnover 40 or better                            11-0       1.000

Steals 18+                                                                              45-1       .978

If your floor % was .500 or better, you were        27-1       .964

PP100 of 110+                                                                    24-1       .960

You scored every 3.49 touches you were             30-2       .937

pp100 of 100+ you were                                                 58-5       .921

3FG% 40% or better plus 20+ attempts               22-3       .880

3.99 touches you were                                                   62-9       .873

Touches per turnover 28 or better                            39-6       .867

2FG% 55% or better                                                        25-5       .833

3FG% 40% or better                                                        37-9       .804

Efficiency rules. Speed rules. Scoring quickly without a lot of muss equals a 94% chance of victory. Having you defense play “offense without the ball” leads to transition baskets. An improvement in the stat program that I dream about is the conversion rate….in other words what is the conversion rate after a live steal? A dead ball turnover? A defensive rebound after a missed 2? A missed 3? A missed FT? after a made basket? My guess is after a live steal has the highest conversion rate. The teams that utilize this the best play late into March due to easier shots (3 v 1 or 2 v 1), and fewer touches or faster pace.

 

PP100S

	AAAA	AAA	AA	A
PP100	83.04	79.77	79.60	84.27
PP100*	90.99	89.71	87.77	95.54
PP100^	90.61	88.53	87.89	91.72
poss	68.74	70.82	71.44	67.81
#	78	73	89	70

Here is what this means
* only the top 24 teams in each class. ^ only games by top 24 teams vs. top 24 teams.

The surprise here? Class A was ahead of AAAA by 1.11 points. The lowest totals belong to AA, 3.83 behind the A leaders. Still the arrow across all classes points to a strong pp100 hovering close to 90 regardless of who the opponent is. Obviously if the opponent has less wins than your team has losses the expectation is that your team will be north of 100.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Back in 2013 the pp100 for the year was 76.6. That was in 141 charted games. This year I charted 157 games and the pp100 was higher…. much higher at 81.6. Five points better to be exact. And the improvement that was the most dramatic came in class A jumping a whopping 11.67 points. All four classes got better, with AA just rising by half a point. The best of 2013, AAAA with 79.2 PP100 would not crack any top slot in any class this year. Look at the possession count. Pretty much the same up fractions or only slightly with the biggest jump coming in AA at 1.75. A actually dropped slightly by 1.43.

	AAAA	AAA	AA	A
24PP100	83.04	79.77	79.60	84.27
13PP100	79.2	74.6	79.1	72.6
Diff	3.84	5.17	0.50	11.67
24poss	68.74	70.82	71.44	67.81
13poss	68.56	70.53	69.69	69.24
Diff	0.18	0.29	1.75	-1.43

POSSESSIONS

2023-24

COUNT	TEAMS	AVE	WAVE	LAVE	MARG
96-85	8	76.35	87.57	69.62	17.95
85-79	26	79.11	89.40	68.85	20.55
78-72	97	79.14	90.49	66.56	23.93
71-65	116	83.54	96.24	71.27	24.97
64-57	55	82.86	100.50	65.73	34.77
56-49	12	85.86	100.00	71.72	28.28

So, it appears that slower, ball control games have the best pp100s. My guess is that several running time games contributed to the 64-57 slot with the largest margins there. The winners probably were on track for a 78 or higher possession game, but with running time eating up playing time the total possession count languished in the lower 60s. It is also probably true that higher possession counts are sloppy affairs. The lowest pp100s, my acid test, were the lowest in this category. The margins were also the tightest if you can consider 18 (technically 17.95) “tight.”

2012-13

COUNT	TEAMS	AVE	WAVE	LAVE	MARG
95+	2	81.6	95.9	67.3	28.6
94-86	26	83.4	93.4	73.4	20.0
85-77	47	77.0	84.4	69.9	14.5
76-68	107	76.7	87.9	63.9	24.0
67-59	85	76.3	88.7	65.2	23.5
58-49	31	74.6	86.1	62.3	23.8

Now let us look at the 2012-13 comparison. No shot clock existed back then. But the bottom possession count mirrored the same as in 2024 with 49 the lowest possession count. The high end again reflected right back. So, the shot clock had no effect on the window of top and bottom…. but there were more teams with 79 or more possessions that year (48) than in 2024 (34). What gives? It was expected that there would be more possessions and teams would not play stall ball. There was a pronounced shift away from 49 possessions going from 31 to 12. But that migration was more to the middle.

What I do find interesting is the pp100s are clearly much better in 2024, especially at the lower end of the possession count with anything under 71 getting roughly 83 or better. That is almost 7 pp100s better than 2013. That measure is a huge improvement. Most of this can be laid at the feet of the winners. There the improvement was north of 20. Even losers improved at the bottom end going from 62 to 71. One area 2013 was better at was the upper end, the faster game. There the average pp100 was over 80 with winners over 90s. The 2024 chartings did not support this.

It is also true that the lower possession games in 2024 had the widest margins again reflecting the running time nature of the contests. The competitive margins were closer much closer in 2013. The “best” or lowest differential was in the 85-77 segment with a gap of 14.5 points. You can throw out the 95+ count in 2013 because it was only one game, but the standard deviation required them to be out on the limb. In 2013 there were four segments under 24-point differential. There were only three in 2024 and all three were in the higher possession category.

So, the verdict? 2024 basketball is better. And in many cases, much better. I don’t know if we can credit the shot clock with the improvement. I believe club/summer/AAU ball does need to be acknowledged as a key driver in this improvement. More players from a wider school base are now playing throughout the year. Some players have their own private high-priced trainer. But I do think the rich are getting richer, and the bottom has dropped out on some schools. The competitive level has seen wider gaps—-not necessarily in the state tournament, although there was a running time contest (should have been a couple more). Not every school value the costs involved in the way the game is going. Some schools that used to flourish are languishing. Some of that is due to demographics. The homeowners that had kids are now empty nesters. The outer ring suburbs tend to send more schools to state from the metro area. Money matters. Those that have it spend it. Some areas don’t have the resources to keep up and have other challenges that the wealthier neighborhoods do not have to think about.

ABC

That stands for Anderson (me), Bueckers and Clark. I was present at the creation. This was back on June 21, 2015 at Ames, Iowa when All Iowa Attack 8, Clark’s team, beat North Tartan 7, Buecker’s team, 61-54. Clark was already playing up and her team not only won that game, but she bested Bueckers 16-7 in scoring, 94.1-77.8 in pp100 and had a productive outing getting 35 in the 31 Club to Bueckers 15. Is this a harbinger of tonight’s contest?

The two and I never did get a lot of contests since Clark was up and Bueckers stayed loyal to her age/grade. But I remember Clark’s mother talking to Bueckers father talking about how that the duo would be fun to watch in the future. They were the best in the Midwest area at the time. I did not have a reference panel to evaluate their trajectory to nationwide fame (combined they have three player of the year awards at the D1 level). I was more familiar with Bueckers having first charted her in fourth grade. Both players’ games were well established even by that point. Yes, they got better, or more polished, but you did not need glasses to tell the difference between the sun and the moon.