I figure a long winded stat analysis is not going to be that appealing in the "dog days" of the offseason, but at least I will save those that actually want to read it some time scrolling down 270 or so comments on the main bball thread.

1. Wins and losses (specifically in the Big 10). The good news for the Bucks under Diebler is in the 9 Big 10 games (out of 29 total) decided by double digits, they have won 7 of them. I am not doing a parade for close losses or anything, but the fact they only have really one full game "wtf was that?" performance in nearly 30 Big 10 games (Northwestern), shows his teams consistently compete at a pretty high level. The bad news is they are 8-12 in Big 10 games decided by single digits. So besides the late game coaching, which has been discussed and rightfully criticized, what are 3 areas that we can greatly improve on from last season?

2. Fouling. Not going to get into the weeds of how much blame is on the scheme and how much was on high foul rate players (most of which transferred out), but it obviously needs to get way better. 352nd in the country and nearly two fouls more per game than the 17th best Big 10 team is objectively atrocious. Our Big 10 opponents went to the line more times in 17 of 21 games. We went 6-11 in those games versus 3-1 (3 pt loss to UM) in the rare times we went to the line more than our opponent.

3. Rebounding. Not as atrocious as fouling, but being 231st in the country with only 5 Big 10 teams worse (all non NCAA teams) is not great. We were outrebounded in 15 of 21 Big 10 games and went 4-11 in those games. We went 5-1 in games with a rebounding edge with a 2pt loss @Wisky being the only blemish.

4. Scoring depth. In our 12 Big 10 losses, the Buckeye bench was outscored in 10 of the losses. They were even in a 2pt loss @Wisky and edged out Oregon in a 2pt loss at home. If you extend it our 5th starter, we had only 5 double digit scoring performances in our 21 Big games outside of our Top 4 scorers and 2 of those came in OT games. The thing that stings about this stat is that much like fast break pts, bench pts/scoring depth was such a huge strength under Diebler in 23-24. Despite Bruce and Jamison Battle each missing a game and Middleton leaving the team for the NIT, the Buckeye bench outscored their opponents in 7 of 11 games and went 6-1 in those match ups.

So the big questions to me are can we get much better in these areas. Even if we were middle of the pack in all 3 areas (fouling, rebounding, scoring depth), that could potentially go a long way in our less than stellar record in single digit scoring games IMHO. Not saying there is a lot of meat on the bone for Diebler to improve with his after timeouts/late game Xs and Os as well. But major improvement in those areas could be the difference in a few games over .500 in close games versus a few games under regardless of the late game Xs and Os. That to me could be the difference in 8-12 Big 10 wins/bubble territory and a potential 13-15 Big 10 wins/top 5 seed in NCAA tourney type team

One final crazy stat (if you made it this far): osu had a better score differential (-2 pts) in Big 10 play than Michigan did (-8 pts). Not saying Diebler needs to go 13-2 in single digit scoring Big 10 games like May did. I don't think that is sustainable. But a 9-6/10-5 type record in such games would go a long way for Diebler and the Buckeyes.