Pac-12 Basketball: How Much Does Height Influence Rebounding?

Rebounding is an imperative key to winning in college basketball. Offensive rebounding leads to more opportunities to score, while defensive rebounding prevents the opponent from attempting more field goals - fairly straightforward.

My question is whether or not height truly matters when it comes to rebounding. As a Purdue fan, I always hear analysts preview a game by saying that the Boilermakers will win the rebounding battle (to be fair, they usually do) due to their size, as they have 6-9 Caleb Swanigan and 7-2 Isaac Haas in the frontcourt.

Is it really that simple, though? Two of the tallest players in college basketball the last half-decade are UCF’s Tacko Fall (7-6) and UC Irvine’s Mamadou N’diaye (also 7-6). Both of these two giants expectedly have led their respective teams in rebounding, but nationally aren’t nearly as high up the ranks as one would imagine for a player that’s 90 inches tall. Both Fall and N’diaye’s lack of mobility enable smaller, more athletic players to maneuver around the big men and position themselves for boards.

I gathered all rebounding data for players that have played at least 20% of their respective team’s minutes this season in one table, in hopes of finding a trend.

• Ht: Player’s total height (in inches)
• OR%: Offensive rebounding percentage
• DR%: Defensive rebounding percentage
• Avg Reb %: Average of offensive and defensive rebounding percentages
• %OR: Percentage of rebounds that are offensive
• %DR: Percentage of rebounds that are defensive

Below is the data from the preceding table in a linear graph, with a trend line showcasing the anticipated average rebounding percentage for each Pac-12 player.

Surprisingly, the correlation between average rebounding percentage and height isn’t nearly as high as I anticipated. The r^2 value of .67039 indicates that goodness of fit of the linear regression is evident but not particularly strong, meaning that there is a relationship between height and rebounding percentage, but there are consistent exceptions. The equation to project average rebounding percentage is:

Projected average rebounding percentage = .9949 * (height in inches) - 68.162

Here are the 10 largest difference in projected and true average rebounding percentage in the Pac-12 this season:

Obinna Oleka, despite his medium 6-8, 225 frame, is a far more impressive rebounder than what is expected from a player of his size. The Arizona State forward averages a 17.9% rebound percentage while 6-8 players are projected to log a rebounding percentage of only 11.4%. Stanford’s Reid Travis (+5.9%) and Washington’s Noah Dickerson (+5.9%) are close behind.

Conor Clifford, standing at 7-0, 260, only grabs 3.3% on the offensive end and 15.2% on defense, yielding a 9.3% average rebounding percentage. Players that are 7-0 are expected to maintain an average rebounding percentage of at least 15.4%, over 1.6 times Clifford’s total. This may be due to the other Cougar in the Washington State frontcourt, Josh Hawkinson, who has led the Pac-12 in defensive rebounding percentage the past two seasons.

Who do you believe is the best rebounder in the Pac-12? Feel free to send a tweet to @PacificTakes and @boettger_eli or leave a comment below.

(All stats used in this article are courtesy of KenPom.com.)