Olympics Team Stats

With the first three games of group play in the book, I've got my spreadsheet updated to take a look at advanced possession-based stats for all 12 Olympic teams. They're sorted below by differential per 100 possessions.

Team            Gr    Diff   ORating Rank   DRating Rank    Pace

United States     B    62.2    133.4    1      70.9    1     75.6
Australia         A    27.9    113.0    2      86.3    3     74.2
Spain             B    17.9    101.5    3      85.0    2     72.7
Russia            A     7.5    100.5    4      90.2    4     70.7
Belarus           A    -1.3     91.0    8      92.7    5     76.0
Brazil            A   -10.4     92.2    7     104.6    9     70.3
China             B   -11.2     95.2    5     104.7   11     74.2
Czech Republic    B   -11.2     86.4   11      97.8    6     74.4
Latvia            A   -12.0     88.9   10     101.7    7     72.1
South Korea       A   -12.8     93.0    6     103.2    8     70.3
New Zealand       B   -16.0     89.7    9     104.6    9     75.1
Mali              B   -41.8     70.7   12     114.0   12     74.9

The U.S. ... wow. Just wow. I'm not sure I've ever seen a number that big in any context. Spain figures to present a greater challenge on Friday, but my expectation was that China was the second-best team in Group B - and China will finish second with a win over the Czech Republic - and the USA ran the Chinese out of the building on Monday. So ... yeah.

The Opals are about where you'd expect on defense. They haven't scored as efficiently as is typical, largely because Lauren Jackson and Penny Taylor haven't lived up to their own lofty standards. I don't think that's much of a concern.

Since losing to China, Spain has played very well. The Spanish women will see their rating go way down after playing the USA tomorrow, however. It's possible that if the U.S. wins in a rout we could have only three teams with positive differentials.

A couple of decent teams - Brazil likely to be one of them - will be left home from Group A, which is much more balanced than the stratified Group B.

Here are the Four Factors numbers on offense and defense for all teams.

                            OFFENSE                           DEFENSE
Team             Gr    eFG%    OR%   FTM/FGA   TO%       eFG%    DR%   FTM/FGA   TO%

Australia         A   0.516   0.361   0.293   0.173     0.411   0.752   0.172   0.184
Belarus           A   0.399   0.287   0.227   0.177     0.442   0.683   0.233   0.207
Brazil            A   0.443   0.330   0.228   0.220     0.473   0.743   0.295   0.165
China             B   0.434   0.327   0.237   0.187     0.471   0.713   0.122   0.119
Czech Republic    B   0.449   0.291   0.185   0.249     0.481   0.651   0.230   0.219
Latvia            A   0.446   0.257   0.211   0.213     0.478   0.667   0.268   0.201
Mali              B   0.365   0.351   0.228   0.295     0.525   0.645   0.214   0.166
New Zealand       B   0.396   0.306   0.277   0.195     0.520   0.613   0.307   0.235
Russia            A   0.500   0.389   0.280   0.244     0.444   0.780   0.156   0.172
South Korea       A   0.476   0.136   0.141   0.166     0.532   0.596   0.260   0.258
Spain             B   0.514   0.294   0.204   0.212     0.419   0.700   0.263   0.244
United States     B   0.606   0.378   0.174   0.117     0.368   0.718   0.190   0.275

Q noted that the U.S. women struggled on the glass in the big win over Mali, but over the course of the tournament it has not been a big problem. Russia's giant frontline will test the USA on the glass. Remarkably, Russia and the Czech Republic, two good, veteran teams, have turned the ball over more frequently than anyone besides lowly Mali.