Welcome to a new feature around these parts: advanced statistical recaps of every Maryland men's basketball game. The concept here draws on research by Dean Oliver on the "four factors" that key team efficiency: effective field goal percentage (eFG%), turnover percentage (TOV%), offensive rebounding percentage (ORB%) and free throw attempts per field goal attempt (FT/FGA).
Oliver's research suggests, and years of data corroborates, that winning the game on both ends of the floor in these four categories makes a team very likely to win a given game, and vice versa. The stats are pretty simple: eFG% is a simple shooting percentage that weights 3-pointers as being 50 percent more valuable than 2-pointers. TOV% is the percentage of a team's possessions that end in a turnover. ORB% is the percentage of a team's missed shots it gets back on rebounds. And FT/FGA measures how often a team gets to the foul line.
So, let's get into Maryland's effort against North Carolina:
Shooting
Maryland: 61 eFG% / North Carolina: 60.5 eFG% / National average: 49.4 eFG%
Maryland's shooting was a bit frustrating all night, because Jake Layman and Jared Nickens had a tough time hitting on a few wide-open looks and a few players missed lay-ups. Some of us even felt, in the moment, like that was why Maryland lost. Not true. Maryland actually shot slightly better than North Carolina from the field, bolstered by 12 made 3-pointers against 9 for Carolina.
Turnovers
Maryland: 24.8 TOV% / North Carolina: 17 TOV% / National average: 18.5 TOV%
Maryland took it on the chin here. The Terps gave the ball up on a full one in four possessions, and that's the exact opposite of how you beat a top-10 team on the road. North Carolina attempted 62 shots against 59 for Maryland, which is probably worth a 3- or 4-point swing on its own. That's because Maryland kept giving up the ball.
Offensive rebounding
Maryland: 25 ORB% / North Carolina: 30 ORB% / National average: 30.4 ORB %
The Terps actually did a decent job sealing their own defensive glass, but North Carolina extended enough possessions to make things hard on Maryland. North Carolina won the second-chance points game by a 10-6 margin. It's easy to see how these things start to add up when a team loses by 8 points.
Free throw attempts
Maryland: 0.153 FT/FGA / North Carolina 0.226 FT/FGA / National average: 0.377 FT/FGA
A classic strength of Maryland's eluded it. The Terps didn't foul much on defense, but they only got to the charity stripe 11 times in total. Melo Trimble, who might be the best player in the country at getting to the line, only took 3 foul shots all night. This is usually something that bolsters Maryland's efficiency a ton, but that didn't happen here.
For a detailed accounting of Maryland's advanced-stats efforts in every game so far, go here.