I did a technical analysis of ISU shooting and turnovers of the game. I hope you guys find it useful.
The following is the ISU vs TAMU shot chart (from ESPN). ISU's on the left.
ISU Shooting Stats Analysis:
Overall FG 26-64, 2PT FG 10-34, 3PT FG 16-30.
As you can see from the shot chart, ISU took most shots only in the paint or behind the 3pt line. ISU only took 2 mid-range shots outside the paint (1 for 2, all in the first quarter). They shot 9 of 32 in the paint, which is 28% compared to 60% beyond the 3pt line.
For FG made/attempted in the paint, here's a breakdown quarter by quarter:
1st (0-8), 2nd (3-9), 3rd (2-3), 4th (3-9), OT(1-3)
I've been following CycloneWBB all year long and this is a typical short chart you will see in most of their games. ISU takes the most efficient types of shots used in the NBA which are layups, 3-pointers and free throws, rarely midrange shots.
This kind of shot selection works in most games but when ISU faces opponents with a strong defense or can't get enough foul calls from the refs in a game, they will get into trouble like this game. Give them full credit that they shot the 3 balls extremely well but they finished in the paint very poorly and didn't get enough fouls calls. In the final 4 minutes of the 2nd quarter, ISU was in bonus so they kept driving to the paint expecting to get foul calls but they didn't get any, which resulted in 4 turnovers and 0 points. The same thing happened in the final minutes of the 4th quarter and the overtime, fewer whistles, more turnovers.
There's a word in basketball strategy called "optionality". When facing tough situations when your opponent has taken away all of your best options, it'd be helpful if a team has more offensive options, such as taking uncontested midrange pull-up jumpers or moving the ball to an open area for an uncontested shot. I'm not saying ISU should completely abandon their current shot selection system. I hope the team can add more offensive wrinkles next season. The bottom line is: the best shot is an open/uncontested shot.
Turnover Breakdown:
In this game, ISU has committed a season-high 24 turnovers. I have rewatched and charted every single of them. A lot of them were unforced and the players' fundamental mistakes. Because of it, TAMU had 19 more FG attempts and scored 15 more points than ISU off turnovers.
Travel (6), Bad Pass (6), Lost Ball while Dribbling (4), Shot Clock Violation (3), Offensive Foul (3), Jumpball (2)
Of all the 24 turnovers, one was obviously the officiating error (Lexi jump ball call with 10 sec left in the regulation), the other 2 bad pass turnovers might be caused by the TAMU's physical plays. The rest were just our players' own mistakes. If we could reduce the number of those unforced turnovers in half, we should've had a comfortable lead near the end of the regulation and the refs wouldn't have had any chance to show their ugly rears to bait out TAMU. Our young team averages the least turnovers per game among all Big12 teams in the regular season. It's kind of surprising they committed so many "unforced" errors in the game. I hope they can learn the lesson and improve their fundamental skills in the offseason.