Yearly Archives: 2014

Who’s going to be the best three-point shooter in the land this season? If you can predict that, you can call yourself very good at predicting things although I would call you very lucky. I don’t have any special powers here, but I thought it might be fun to put together five shooters that would […]

The anticipation for preseason ratings is an interesting thing. People like to talk about the projections, poke holes in them, figure out why their team is underrated. But obviously, no team is bound by the shackles of its preseason forecast. Oregon State is predicted to finish last in the Pac-12 by most robots (and humans, […]

Which two teams have gone the longest without losing on the same day? You might not care but regardless, I feel I have an obligation to tell you. Your indifference only motivates me to continue to track this fact with the intensity of 1000 red suns. If you’re new here, you can check out past […]

With the release of the first AP poll last Friday, it’s time for a refresher on the historic value of those rankings. The preseason AP poll is not going to tell you exactly how the season will play out, but given the poll has a long track record, we can use history to tell us […]

By now, you’ve noticed the preseason ratings have been posted. Thanks to all that have stopped by the past 24 hours. My server thought it was March on Sunday night. (h/t to Matt Norlander for the tweet that generated the traffic. I usually enjoy flipping the switch and watching twitter spread the word organically over […]

This is the third and final part of my series of whether to foul when the game is tied and the shot clock is off. If you missed part 1 and part 2, don’t worry, you’re joining us just in time. The payoff was this guide to when the strategy of fouling is justified. Maximum […]

In Part 1, I went over some of the relevant win probabilities to consider for the strategy of fouling when the game is tied and the shot clock is off. If one assumes that any missed free throw is rebounded by the defense, then the strategy of fouling would be recommended in the majority of […]

Late in the 1983 national championship game, heavily-favored Houston held the ball with a little over a minute remaining in a tie game. In the pre-shot clock era, Houston had the opportunity to hold for the last shot. N.C. State head coach Jim Valvano implemented what would be considered a controversial strategy today, ordering Dereck […]

If it’s the middle of summer and you’re obsessing about trends in offensive rebounding, then you’re either me or some sort of lunatic. I was initially concerned about a very specific aspect of offensive rebounding for an upcoming feature, but along the way I decided to look at the different things related to offensive rebounding […]

You can now find a conference history page linked on each conference’s page next to the years list. While we tend to speak about the state of the game in terms of averages across Division-I, each league is an ecosystem in itself, with its own long-term norms distinct from the rest of the college hoops […]