Category Archives: Fun Stuff

“Our conference is in the worst condition officiating I’ve ever seen. When people come out and steal basketball games from our young people like that crew did, they deserve to be put in jail and not working basketball games” – Lute Olson, March 6, 1982 There’s nothing treated less objectively in college hoops than the […]

When the case is made for Kentucky being the best team in the country and possibly going 40-0, the argument is simply that they have an enormous amount of talent. Indeed, if you look at the most respected mock drafts, you’ll find seven players on Kentucky’s roster projected as first-round picks. But if you are […]

Here’s a histogram of the home team’s scoring margin in all conference games over the past ten seasons. For the most part it has the look of a normal distribution. But it’s not exactly normal. Most noticeably, there’s the lack of data at the values of 1, 0, and -1. There are many fewer one-point […]

There are many ways to measure one’s legacy, but in my opinion one of the best is by how many people name children after you. Shaquille O’Neal’s ultimate mark on humanity isn’t his four NBA championship rings, his two scoring titles, the critically-acclaimed rap album “Shaq Diesel”, or defeating Charles Barkley in the world’s first […]

Today’s episode of PBPT comes via a suggestion from John Ezekowitz, one of the brains behind the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective. Ezekowitz was at a game in which Brown’s Tyler Ponticelli fouled out with 13:34 left in the game, which appears to be remarkably early for a DQ. Usually a player in foul trouble, even […]

Last season, North Carolina’s John Henson made 47.9% of his 142 free throw attempts. What is a reasonable expectation for Henson’s free throw percentage this season? One way to make a prediction is to look at players with a similar free throw percentage in a single season and see how they performed in the following […]

The current record holder for three-point accuracy in a season is Glenn Tropf who made 52 of his 82 attempts (63.4%) for Holy Cross in the 1988 season. Arizona’s Derrick Williams has made 27 of his 40 attempts so far this season, which is good for 67.5%. Of all the things Williams has done this […]