Midway through this season, Duquesne coach Ron Everhart threw caution to the wind and decided to have his team start pushing the tempo like crazy for all 40 minutes.
As a result, the Dukes entered tonight's game with the 16th-fastest tempo in the country, 73.1 possessions per minute. St. Louis, on the other hand, is 266th at 64.0 possessions per minute. So I figured that I'd try to keep an eye on the tempo tonight to see who wins this battle, and whether it has an impact on the result of the game.
I'll do the calculations at each media timeout. Now of course I didn't think of doing this until after the game started, so I'm starting at the sub-8:00 timeout of the first half.
6:31 1st, 26-24 Duquesne: Duquene 26.85 possessions, St. Louis 25.245 possessions.
3:52 1st, 34-28 Duquesne: Duquesne 30.85 possessions, St. Louis 29.375 possessions.
If you take this out a little, St. Louis averages 6.4 possessions per 4 minutes and Duquesne averages 7.31. So with four such chunks gone, St. Louis' average is 25.6 and and Duquesne's is 29.24. Therefore, Duquesne is winning easily, because the tempo is above both teams' average.
Halftime, 43-37 Duquesne: After a buzzer-beating three by Reggie Jackson (amen to that), Duquesne has 38.75 possessions to St. Louis' 36.75. The Dukes average 36.55 possessions per half while the Billikens average 32.0, so the Dukes are still clearly winning the tempo battle.
14:09 2nd, 53-52 Duquesne: This comparison is weakened because the timeout didn't come until nearly two minutes after the 16:00 mark, but Duquesne has 47.125 possessions and St. Louis has 45.275. The averages with 24 minutes played are 43.86 for Duquesne and 38.4 for St. Louis. The game is definitely at Duquesne's pace, but might not be above it anymore.
11:32 2nd, 59-54 St. Louis: Duquesne has 51.075 possessions and St. Louis has 49.275. The averages with 28 minutes played are 51.17 for Duquesne and 44.8 for St. Louis. So while the Billikens have surged into the lead, they've done it at the Dukes' pace, even if the tempo now is just a fraction below Duquesne's average.
5:00 2nd, 73-71 St. Louis: I missed one because the sub-8:00 media timeout came rather late in the block of time and I got caught in a conversation. Oops.
3:47 2nd, 75-71 St. Louis: Duquesne has 64.5 possessions and St. Louis has 60.7. hrough 36 minutes played, Duquesne averages 65.79 possessions and St. Louis averages 57.6. This discrepancy comes from the big differences in field goal attempts and offensive rebounds, which shows why the possessions formula (FGA + 0.475 * FTA - OR + TO) is nothing more than a formula. Still, St. Louis is definitely winning at Duquesne's tempo.
1:00 2nd, 78-76 St. Louis: Interlude to note that this place is quite empty at the moment. Yeah, there are 40 minutes remaining before the Temple-St. Joe's tip, but it's still not a good sign.
0:06.5 2nd, 78-77 St. Louis: Man, Duquesne's Scott just had a chance to tie the game at 78-all, but blew the second of two free throws. St. Louis' Ian Vouyoukas will now go to the free throw line for a one-and-one, and I have a suspicion he'll do something that will stop the game from going to overtime.
As in, miss the first shot! Aaron Jackson had the ball stripped by Kevin Lisch, then Jackson got it back and threw the ball towards the basket as the horn sounded. It would have counted, but it hit the back iron, and St. Louis wins, 78-77.
The final possession count was 71.925 for Duquesne and 66.6 for St. Louis. Wow, is that a big discrepancy, accounted for mainly by the 18-shot difference in field goal attempts. I would think, though, that the offensive rebounding differential (17 for Duquesne, 7 for St. Louis) would negate that, but apparently not.
Anyway, the final numbers are below Duquesne's average, but still higher than St. Louis' average. So you get the point, if you didn't already.
