ACC Hoops Rewind: How They Fared At Home

This is the third in a series of posts which discusses some of the possession-based data I have collected this season. The previous installments:

Luck And The Regular Season
Home/Road Split: Offense

In this post, I'm looking at each team's efficiency margin in home conference games. The table below ranks the schools by efficiency margin. In parenthesis, I've included each team's conference rank in home OFF EFF and home DEF EFF.

At Home In-ConferenceRank TeamGamesOFF EFF (Rk)DEF EFF (Rk)EFF MarginExpW-LActW-L1 Duke8110.9 (6)94.5 (1)16.46.7-1.37-12 UNC8111.2 (4)97.2 (2)14.06.4-1.65-33 Virginia8112 (3)102.7 (7)9.35.6-2.46-24 Florida State8104.9 (9)98 (3)6.95.3-2.76-25Miami8111.1 (5)104.5 (8)6.65.2-2.84-46 Clemson8106.3 (7)100.4 (5)5.95.1-2.95-37 NC State8113.2 (2)107.7 (10)5.55-36-28 Boston College8114 (1)110 (12)4.04.7-3.36-29Maryland8103 (10)101 (6)2.04.4-3.66-210Georgia Tech897.4 (12)100.2 (4)-2.83.4-4.64-411 Wake Forest8105 (8)108 (11)-3.03.4-4.63-512Virginia Tech8100.4 (11)104.5 (9)-4.13.2-4.82-6
Conference Averages: OFF EFF (107.4), DEF EFF (102.4)

-- Duke had the best home record in conference play, so it is no surprise to see that reflected in their home efficiency margin. No team played better defense on its home court than Duke.

-- I've heard people argue that Duke gets away with a lot of physical defensive play at home (hand checks, bodying up to opponents on the perimeter, etc), so I thought about examining the difference in each team's home and road defensive efficiency to see if I might be able to suggest a connection between Duke's defense at home and lenient officiating. That is, if the difference between Duke's home and road DEF EFF was significantly larger than the other teams' home/road differentials, that could indicate that Duke, for some reason, was getting a larger defensive boost than the other schools by playing at home. But I think that making any sort of conclusion about officiating based on this data would be stretching things.

If you're curious, below are the teams that saw the biggest gains in defensive efficiency at home, with the differential calculated by subtracting Road DEF EFF from Home DEF EFF. Wake Forest, which had the highest differential this past season, allowed 120.8 pts/100 poss on the road and 108 pts/100 poss at home, and thus the -12.8 number below. We're talking defense, so the higher the negative number, the larger the improvement in the defense a team played at home versus on the road.

Team / Margin

1) Wake Forest / -12.8
2) Florida State / -10.7
3) Duke / -10.4
4) Georgia Tech / -10.3
5) Miami / -5.8

Duke allowed 10.4 fewer points-per-100-possessions at home than it did on the road, but three other teams had similar boosts to their defensive efficiency when they played at home, which means the Devils' differential significant but not irregular.

-- UNC is the only team to rank in the top five in home offensive efficiency and home defensive efficiency.

-- Boston College had the league's best home offense...and the league's worst home defense.

-- Georgia Tech's home offense was a full 10 points-per-100-possessions below the league average. Yet the Jackets still managed to scrape together a .500 record at home.

-- The "luckiest" home team: Maryland. The Terps were 6-2 at Comcast, whereas their expected win-loss record indicates they were more of a .500 team. On the flip side, Carolina was the "unluckiest."