Questions, Questions, Questions
by Ken Pomeroy on Tuesday, January 31, 2006
So this e-mail is from, um, some…body. It never hurts to sign your name, people.
Ken,
There are a few question i was hoping you could help me out with. First, I was wondering if you knew what the record is for most 40 point games in a season? Also, who you thought this year’s player of the year is? Finally, i was wondering how good a pro you think Rudy Gay will be. Personally I don’t see much from him other than his great athleticism, and without an outside shot i see him more as a Stromile Swift than a Tracy McGrady.
Record for 40 point games: Don’t know. But considering Pete Maravich averaged 40 ppg for his career, I doubt either Redick or Morrison is very close to a new record.
Player of the year: Based on last week’s performance, I’ll side with Redick for the next…
Measuring Intangibles
by Ken Pomeroy on Monday, January 30, 2006
Maybe I’ll just answer e-mail the rest of the season, or at least this week. Send me your questions, criticisms, complaints, insults, etc.
Ken,
Jordan Farmar is “occasionally celebrated” because he’s just a sophomore and he is one of the reasons the Bruins continue to compete in spite of a rash of injuries. When they need a big play, he makes a big play. Efficiency stats are great but they don’t reflect intangibles, and can’t measure heart. He put the team on his back against Memphis, Arizona St., West Virginia, and Oregon. The Bruins came up short against Memphis and West Virginia, but without Jordan those games are blowouts. Here’s a description (from Bruin Basketball Report) of Jordan’s game against Oregon St. which encapsulates what he means to the Bruins:
[Sophomore Jordan Farmar showed again why he is one of the top point guards in the…
Somebody Besides Redick or Morrison Going for 40
by Ken Pomeroy on Friday, January 27, 2006
FG 3pt FT Reb Min M-A M-A M-A O-T A F S TO BLK Pts Calvin Wooten 35 10-20 5-12 15-16 1-4 4 2 1 3 1 40 Result: Win. Oakland 95, Valparaiso 89.
A Correction
by Ken Pomeroy on Thursday, January 26, 2006
Ryan K. had a beef with my leniency on Marco Killingsworth yesterday. So I decided to do a little investigating. How does Killingsworth’s TORate compare with other high usage players around the country? There are 27 players that have used over 30% of their team’s possessions (minimum 40% minutes played).
Here are the most turnover prone of those 27.
Player TORate Robinson, Rhode Island 26.3 Gordon, Stetson 26.1 Owens, UT San Antonio 25.9 Farmar, UCLA 25.8 Killingsworth, Indiana 25.3 Smith, E. Tenn St. 24.5 Smith, Colorado St. 23.1 Singletary, UVa 22.8 Mensah, Siena 22.5 Guions, NC A&T 22.4This makes me wonder why Jordan Farmar is occasionally celebrated. Sure he piles up assists, but he commits a lot of turnovers and is an ordinary shooter (47% eFG).
For your curiosity, here are the ultra-high usage players that commit the fewest turnovers.
Player TORate Tucker, Wisconsin 11.3 Morrison, Gonzaga 11.6…
Mmmmmm….Turnovers
by Ken Pomeroy on Wednesday, January 25, 2006
A couple of housekeeping notes. I forgot that I put together some notes on what various individual stats mean before the season. Here’s the link. It doesn’t cover everything, but I’ll add the rest shortly.
Hi Ken, I love that you have added tempo-free stats for every team. Just a quick question about that. How do you calculate individual possessions used? And as a tie-in, how do you calculate the TO Rate? I was just curious because at Big Ten Wonk, Marco Killingsworth has by far the highest TO Rate in the conference, while on your page he isn’t even the highest on IU. I assume it has something to do with the calculation of individual possessions - Wonk’s are just based on minutes played/team minutes played. Thanks a ton, keep up the good work, Matt
Counting individual possessions used (as opposed to the number of possessions…
Strange Indeed
by Ken Pomeroy on Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Long-time reader Louis from Vermont provides us with a nomination for the wacky box score of the year:
Ken: Yesterday’s game between Vermont and BU was very strange. BU won 43-41. Vermont outshot BU 55% to 25%! The killer stat was BU’s 25 offensive rebounds to 2 for Vermont. Vermont was able to take only 9 shots in the second half. See the box score.
All of the o-rebs helped give this game an extremely low count of 49 possessions. I counted 22 in the second half. BU had a possession that lasted 2:04 in there.
Line o’ the Night
FG 3pt FT Reb Min M-A M-A M-A O-T A F S TO BLK Pts Adam Morrison 37 14-23 5-7 8-8 1-9 1 2 0 2 0 41 Result: Win. Gonzaga 84, San Francisco 75.
Practice Makes Perfect…ly Bad
by Ken Pomeroy on Monday, January 23, 2006
Some random notes from the weekend that was…
- Baylor is close to owning the triple crown of bad shooting. They currently rank dead last in the nation in free throw shooting and three-point shooting. There are only 17 teams worse than Baylor in the two point shooting department. This is a combination of Baylor being not very good and having to play the nation’s most difficult schedule. All of Baylor’s raw stats are going to look worse than they should this season. Well, except for the free throws.
- The mystique of Saint Louis’s bipolar record continued with a stunning upset against emotionally deflated Xavier last night. This is good news for Saint Joe’s. The Hawks are on the verge of A-10 irrelevance and badly need a win. Fortunately they have to go Saint Louis on Wednesday.
- If you want another interesting progression of a team…
Break Time
by Ken Pomeroy on Thursday, January 19, 2006
I know I promised some more explanation on individual stats, but I haven’t had the time to get to it. I’ll give it a shot next week when I should have some individual leaderboards for your examination. I’m not expecting to be able to do any updates to the site (ratings/RPI/stats) until Sunday.
Line o’ the NightFG 3pt FT Reb Min M-A M-A M-A O-T A F S TO BLK Pts Greg Brunner 50 6-17 0-4 5-9 7-23 2 2 1 5 1 17 Result: Win. Iowa 76, Minnesota 72 (3OT).
Not a scintillating offensive performance, but according to Kyle’s database, it’s the second best rebounding total of the season. Even if it did take him 50 minutes to get it.
A Better Passer Than His Pops
by Ken Pomeroy on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
FG 3pt FT Reb Min M-A M-A M-A O-T A F S TO BLK Pts Ledell Eackles 31 4-13 0-5 3-5 1-1 11 1 3 1 0 11 Result: Loss. Florida Atlantic 97, Campbell 88.Not the most sensational line, but this guy brought back memories of when his dad played on some woeful Bullets teams in the early ‘90s with such notables as Haywoode Workman and John ‘Hot Plate’ Williams.
Offensive Rating/Possession Usage
by Ken Pomeroy on Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Offensive rating is a measure of an individual player’s efficiency. In its simplest form, it’s points produced divided by possessions used. If you want to know more than that, you must read Dean Oliver’s Basketball on Paper. Otherwise you’ll have to take my word that the formula is about as good as it gets for assessing personal efficiency based on the stats that are recorded.
Values of ORtg fall in the same range as team efficiencies - 100 is about average, higher values are better. Considering that individual stats are often dependent on team interactions, to say that Player A is better than Player B because he has a better offensive rating is a serious misuse of this metric.
A very important aspect of offensive rating is that it must be used in conjunction with the possession usage (%Poss) column to have any value. The average player will use…