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Monday, December 08, 2003
On the Radar: Portland
Time for another installment of On the Radar. You may recall in the premier edition of OtR I tabbed Troy St. as a team to watch (except that you really can't watch them unless you attend one of their games). The Trojans promptly fell on their face to Division II Christian Brothers University 62-61, almost forcing me to start another feature called "Off the Radar." Not only did the boys from Troy lose to a D2 outfit, but they lost to a D2 outfit who couldn't secure proper transportation to take their whole team to the game.
But I am pressing onward with another hidden gem. The University of Portland hasn't cracked the RPI top 200 or had more than 11 wins since 1998. However the times are changin' under 3rd-year coach Michael Holton (future coaching star, mark it down). All of the Pilots starters returned this year and they have reeled off a 4-1 record so far with wins over Nevada, at Oregon St., and at New Mexico. Nothing really shocking, but then this is the perennial West Coast Conference doormat we're talking about, so cut 'em some slack. Portland, like Troy St., is built on outstanding perimeter shooting (46% on 3's so far). But unlike Troy they're not totally dependent on it - only a quarter of their shots come from 3-land. They beat Portland St. in their most recent game making only one 3-pointer. Their next game? A nationally televised affair this Sunday at Duke. So most likely the "OtR Jinx" will continue. Duke's weakness - inside play - is something Portland is unable to exploit. And defending the 3-pointer is still something Duke does better than anyone.
Friday, December 05, 2003
First Prediction
There are 51 unbeatens left. The last one standing will be either Georgia Tech or Pittsburgh.
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Bad Stats
The college basketball box score is a very misleading thing sometimes. Take rebounds for example. Just because one team has more rebounds than its opponent does not mean it is doing a better job rebounding. When Team A misses a shot, Team B is more likely to rebound it, and vice versa. So total rebounds are influenced somewhat by shooting percentage. The team that misses more will have a difficult time coming up with more total rebounds. Yet this fact is totally lost on the mainstream basketball analysts. A more accurate way to evaluate rebounding is using rebounding precentage defined as...
Defensive rebounds / (Defensive rebounds + Opponents offensive rebounds)
This can be calculated for both teams in a game, and the team with the higher percentage has done the better job rebounding. In lopsided games, frequently the winning team out-rebounds the opponent, but that doesn't always tell the true story. Take the Connecticut-Sacred Heart game on November 22nd. UConn won 111-64 and won the rebounding stat 46-39. However Sacred Heart had a better rebounding percentage, .727 to .712.