An Homage to the Team Rebound (aka Dead Ball Rebound)

Here's something that often goes unnoticed in a basketball game: the team rebound. A "team" rebound, also known as a dead ball rebound, occurs when the opposing team knocks the ball out of bounds. A rebound is credited, but since no individual player gained possession, it's counted as a "team" rebound.

Most box scores don't count team rebounds, including ESPN and CBS Sports. Kenpom, on the other hand, does. Using data from TeamRankings, I determined the average percentage of total rebounds that are team rebounds: 9.57%. This is equivalent to 3.24 dead ball rebounds a game per team, so an average game will have 6.48 team rebounds.

For some reason, I find this statistic (team rebounds) fascinating. Even though North Carolina is a very good rebounding team (2nd in the country), I can't necessarily determine that UNC will acquire more team rebounds than average, since a team rebound can result from a tipped ball out-of-bounds, or a horrible shot that bounces off the rim at such a bad angle that it goes directly out-of-bounds. So I took the data. Turns out UNC games actually do have more team rebounds than average, at least this year: 7.92, which is 10.45% of the total rebounds in each game. Now I know something I didn't know I wanted to know.