Auburn Basketball: The Four Factors and Game Flow

Bear with me, because this is going to be a lot of charts.

Auburn is now sitting at a 5-5 record with three games to play in the non-conference schedule. They're coming off two very good wins at home against Winthrop and Xavier. Let's look Auburn's "Four Factors" charts for the season to date. If you're unfamiliar with the whole "Four Factors" thing, here's a refresher.

The Losses.

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The Wins.

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In his original piece explaining the factors, WarRoomEagle said he wasn't sure just how effective that final "4F Rating" would be. I say this proves it's pretty danged effective. Auburn has not won a game unless they are over 50% in the 4F rating. They have been at 50% or greater in every victory so far this season. That rating weighs the other four factors into one final percentage, and it provides a pretty good benchmark going forward for where the Tigers need to be.

Oh but we're not done. Let's look at those excellent Game Flow charts. We're going to take this in order, though. I think that will better illustrate some benchmarks in the season.

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Antoine Mason is hurt in the Milwaukee game and sits for the next few.

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Antoine Mason returns from injury. Trayvon Reed joins the team.

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Every one of Auburn's loses involved either one long scoreless stretch, a number of long scoreless stretches, or a few short ones strung together. The Clemson loss was the one with the short stretches strung together, though. To me that makes me feel much better, as it shows that perhaps the addition of Mason and Reed back to the line-up have helped.

Auburn boasts the SEC's leading scorer in KT Harrell, but even KT is going to go cold at times. Other players have to be there to pick up the slack. I'm no basketball expert by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems like many of those scoreless stretches have come when Auburn was taking long shots from the perimeter. Mason is excellent at driving the basket, and having Reed will provide a big man down low to toss it in, as well.

Auburn has had one of the worst offenses in the nation this season. That's starting to change. The depth and the players figuring out and getting comfortable in the offense are starting to turn that tide a bit. The Tigers have scored above 60 in the last three games. With players getting healthy, added depth, and as the team gets more comfortable with themselves and Bruce Pearl's system, things will only get better.

I know there's not a lot of meat and analysis in this article. I just thought this was something our readers may enjoy looking at. Keeping above that 50% level on the 4F rating and avoiding the cold streaks seem to be the keys for Auburn. The 4F Rating isn't something we can really track in real time, though, so it's not that helpful for in-game analysis.