When I dined and enjoyed fellow Dynasty Defender member, Ironhorse's company a couple of weeks ago, he asked me if I had made any forecast at this point about the upcoming season, now that we have Clyde. At that time I had not, and over the next two months, as October 12 approaches, I will be considering many such issues. Today, I have begun that process with the following question:

What impact will Billy Clyde Gillispie have on the UK basketball efficiencies in the 2007-08 season?

I wish I could answer this question today in definitive terms because within this answer lies the answer to the bigger question, what kind of season will Kentucky enjoy this coming year, with Clyde at the helm?

Our starting point for this analysis must be the efficiencies that Tubby Smith's last teams posted at Kentucky because much of the personnel on the 07-08 team will be the same. Yes, UK lost Randolph Morris, Sherray Thomas, and Bobby Perry. And, Kentucky adds Patrick Patterson, Alex Legion, AJ Stewart and Mike Williams to the mix. One big unknown for this year's playing rotation is whether Jared Carter will return to the team and be physically able to log significant playing time without another injury to his shoulder. This will be Jared's third year as a cat, and the total playing time he has enjoyed during his first two years has been anemic.

Last season's team ended the year with a Net Game Efficiency [NGE] of 0.089 points per possession. The last three Tubby Smith teams posted an average NGE of 0.095 ppp. As a point of reference, my data and analysis over recent years indicates that teams that post a NGE of 0.160 ppp or higher are legitimate NCAA elite 8 quality and compete for final four berths. Teams with a NGE of 0.200 ppp or high are legitimate contenders for the national championship. UK's 0.095 ppp over the last 3 years was really not even close to these necessary levels of performance.

Can Billy Clyde Gillispie increase the UK NGE for 07-08 to 0.160 ppp or higher, because that is what he must do for UK to make a serious post season run this coming season. Some recent history. No Tubby Smith Coached UK team posted such lofty NGE values for an entire season. Only the 98 team was able to do so over the course of their last 13 games, the 13 game stretch that propelled UK to #7, and handed Tubby Smith his infamous national championship. However, lest we forget, Derek Anderson had predicted the year before that the 98 team would carry Tubby to that end result. Four of Pitino's last five teams posted season long NGE values of 0.160 ppp or greater. 93-0.165 ppp; 95-0.173 ppp; 96-0.203 ppp; and 97-0.201 ppp.

So how did Pitino achieve these results? The answer is quite obvious, but can't be stated often enough. He did it with efficient offense and efficient defense. It will never be sufficient to have one without the other.

DEFENSE:

The defensive efficiency for Pitino's last 5 teams averaged 0.761 ppp. Tubby only had one team that posted a defensive average this good [99-0.754 ppp] and over the last two years, the defensive efficiency rose [deteriorated] to 0.845 and 0.833 ppp respectively. Therefore, for UK to return to the national stage, they must improve their defensive efficiency by a significant amount. In my opinion, the 08 defensive efficiency must be below 0.800 ppp and if it is below 0.790 ppp this will be one of the better UK defensive teams of the last 30 years. As a point of reference, the 96 and 97 teams posted defensive efficiencies of 0.749 ppp and 0.715 ppp respectively, and the 95 team was not too shabby, at 0.758 ppp. These are defensive performances worthy of note, but it may be too much to expect that Billy Clyde Gillispie will have that level of impact in year 1 of his tenure.

However, last year's A&M team posted a defensive efficiency of 0.741 ppp, so we know that Billy Clyde Gillispie can and has coached defensive basketball at these championship levels.

OFFENSE:

The offensive efficiency for Pitino's last 5 teams averaged 0.937 ppp. Tubby only had one team that posted an offensive average this good [03-0.935 ppp] and over his 10-years at UK, Tubby's teams only averaged 0.902 ppp on offense Therefore, for UK to return to the national stage, they must improve their offensive efficiency by a significant amount. In my opinion, the 08 offensive efficiency must be above 0.935 ppp, and if it is above 0.950 ppp, this will be one of the better UK offensive teams of the last 30 years. As a point of reference, Pitino's most efficient offensive groups were 92-0.961 ppp; 93-0.954 ppp; and 96-0.953 ppp. These are offensive performances worthy of note. In my opinion, an offensive efficiency of 0.935 is likely this season, but it may be too much to expect an offensive efficiency greater than 0.950 ppp during Billy Clyde Gillispie's first year.

Last year's A&M team posted an offensive efficiency of 0.933 ppp, and I do not know if any Billy Clyde Gillispie coached team has ever posted an offensive efficiency above the 0.950 ppp threshold.

NET GAME EFFICIENCY:

As you now understand, the NGE is the arithmetic difference between the offensive and defensive efficiencies. NGE is a normalized measure of average victory [or loss when NGE is negative] margin. Here are some combinations of offensive and defensive efficiencies that could achieve a NGE of 0.160 ppp, the first key performance threshold.

OFF EFF DEF EFF
0.950 ppp 0.790 ppp
0.940 ppp 0.780 ppp
0.930 ppp 0.770 ppp

Similarly, here are some combinations of offensive and defensive performances that reach the ultimate goal, 0.200 ppp or higher:

OFF EFF DEF EFF
0.970 ppp 0.770 ppp
0.960 ppp 0.760 ppp
0.950 ppp 0.750 ppp
0.940 ppp 0.740 ppp
0.930 ppp 0.730 ppp

Kentucky once performed at these lofty levels on a regular basis. Each season, there are only a handful of teams that are able to post numbers at these levels for an entire season. To be elite means doing just that.

In my opinion, the biggest single impact of Tubby Smith's time here was a lowering of expectations to the extent that few UK fans regard these elite performances as possible any longer. But they are possible, and they are achieved each year by some teams. I want UK to return to that elite list as soon as possible.

Using the separate offensive and defensive analyses provided above as a benchmark, this coming year may see a UK NGE in the range of 0.140 ppp [Off Eff: 0.930 ppp; Def Eff: 0.790 ppp]. That will be equivalent to the performance posted by the 03 team, for perspective. Anything above 0.140 ppp for the 08 season will be a wonderful surprise, despite all the great things in store for UK under Billy Clyde Gillispie's leadership. It took Pitino 4 years to exceed this modest threshold [93-0.165 ppp], and I expect the 08 group will have a season more like the 92 season than the 93 season, making 0.140 ppp an achievable, but difficult goal.

WINNING PERCENTAGE AS FUNCTION OF NGE:

Historically, there is a statistically significant relationship between the season NGE and the season winning percentage. A NGE of 0.140 ppp corresponds to a winning percentage of about 82 percent [with some scatter of course], and for a 31 game season, that corresponds to about 25-6 regular season. Based on the scatter in the data, that level of performance could be as good as 26-5 and as bad as 23-8. Therefore, as I approach this season, this range will form my initial standards for comparison of actual results.

However, the future looks bright, and I fully expect the Cats to exceed 0.160 ppp in 09 [historical winning percentage of about 85%], and reach the promised land of collegiate basketball, e.g. NGE > 0.200 ppp [winning percentage of about 88% or higher] by the 2010 season.

Finally, I want to point out that it is flying blind to attempt such forecasts for the Billy Clyde Era without any historical Billy Clyde Data at UK because of the differences in platforms that UK provides as compared to nearly every other program, including A&M. I have relied upon Billy Clyde's performance last year at A&M to a great extent, and that is risky, but should be cautious as well because the UK platform is stronger for Clyde to operate than the A&M platform is, even today after his time there.

Lastly, I do have considerable data concerning trends should Tubby Smith have stayed at UK. Many of you will understand what I mean when I say that should Tubby have stayed, based on this historical data, the 08 season would have been a clear disaster, with an NGE approaching 0, and certainly below his prior low water mark of 0.046 ppp in 06.

Therefore, I am already convinced that Clyde has reversed the downward sliding by bringing a real coaching philosophy back to UK, and Clyde has already stopped the hemorrhaging simply by doing some real recruiting.

What a concept.