Yearly Archives: 2009

One team that deserves a little more press than it’s been getting – which is zero – is the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff. Like many HBCU’s, the Golden Lions are wrapping up their annual pre-New Year’s barnstorming tour, having zig-zagged the nation collecting paychecks in exchange for beat-downs. But a couple of things have […]

This is part of a continuing series examining pages from the 1953 Official NCAA Basketball Guide. Naturally, the stats section in the book was one of the first things I turned to. If it was possible to get 51 rebounds in a game, then you can probably make the inference that a lot of shots […]

There are some interesting things that Google Analytics provides to web site owners. The thing I’m constantly fascinated with is the geographic breakdown of visitors. They give you a map that colors each state in various shades of green to indicate the relative frequency of visits from each state. That map isn’t terribly insightful, though. […]

If you’ve perused your favorite MSM college basketball site, you’ve surely seen this story. It basically summarizes a paper by a couple of professors who determined that officials call fewer fouls on the home team, fewer fouls on the trailing team, and fewer fouls on the team that has more fouls at any particular moment. […]

Perhaps the most interesting statistical trend over the early weeks of this season is the number of 3-point attempts being jacked up. Here’s how 3-point attempt percentage has progressed over the past three seasons. 3PA% 2008 34.4 2009 33.1 2010 32.4 Obviously the dip last season was due to the movement of the 3-point line […]

The whole Belichick thing got me to reading football analysis this week. It also got me wondering, what do people do when everyone around the water cooler is taking the side of Wilbon in these situations?  My MO is to politely excuse myself from the conversation and then come home at night and blog about […]

A while back I picked up a copy of the 1953 Official NCAA Basketball Guide. Within the 269 pages of the Guide, there is almost everything one could want to try to reconstruct the state of the game back then, including previews of the upcoming season, standings for the previous season, and a rule book. […]

Or at least they have a very good chance. That’s all I can conclude from the odds put on them to go all the way. Witness: Up until a couple days ago, Bodog had the Tide at 20-1, with only 11 teams having better odds. They since dropped them to 40-1, but there are only […]

The Book

It’s possible there will be semi-regular posting here at some point, but not just yet. In the meantime, please purchase a copy of College Basketball Prospectus 2009-10: Major-Conference Preview (with some non major-conference content). It’s remarkably cheap, yet just as informative as last season. Throw some money our way so it can happen again next […]

In some future time, that will be the headline from a game like Syracuse’s exhibition loss to Le Moyne on Tuesday. The actual outcome of the contest, while surprising, isn’t terribly significant. Michigan State memorably lost to Grand Valley State in an exhibition two years ago and ended up as a five-seed. Heck, last season […]