the kenpom.com blog

All For One

02.28.06

So Oklahoma pulled off an astounding fourth straight one-point victory last night. This hasn’t been done before in the limited data I have. Three straight one-point wins has only been done once since the ‘99 season - two years ago by High Point. If you have followed this streak, you have seen some examples of how luck is a large factor in determining the outcome of close games. As a further demonstration, I pulled every occurrence of a team playing two consecutive one-point games in the last eight seasons. Here were the results:

Record   Times
 2-0       43
 1-1       84
 0-2       33

This works out almost the way a coin flip situation should. You’d expect 25% in each of the first and last bins and 50% in the middle one. Take 3 each from the 2-0 and 1-1 and put them in the 0-2 and that’s exactly what you would have. I don’t know what this proves, as the outcome of one-point games is not totally determined by luck - you’d expect talent to have some impact. It would be more instructive to look at cases where there is a big talent gap and see how the favorite fared in these games.

Line o’ the Night

                           FG    3pt  FT   Reb
                      Min  M-A   M-A  M-A  O-T   A F S TO BLK Pts
Paul Millsap           35  8-13  0-0  4-5  7-18  2 3 1  2  0   20
Result: Win. Louisiana Tech 74, Idaho 49.

Lost in the hysteria over the scoring title is that Millsap is in a tough battle for his third consecutive rebounding crown with Hartford’s Kenny Adeleke. With this effort, it’s Millsap 13.069 rpg, Adeleke 13.037 rpg. Conference tournaments will decide this one.

D-Day

02.26.06

Unfortunately, defensive stats are not to the point where I can consistently honor defensive specialists in a Line o’ the Night. But Saturday was a day for defenders to shine in obvious ways.

Temple’s Dustin Salisbery shut down J.J. Redick to the tune of 11 points on 3-for-10 shooting. Hey, give John Chaney credit. His teams have given up the highest percentage of opponents points on three-pointers this season (to go with a #2 ranking last season, and #1 in ‘04). So this figured to be a game where J.J. would get his looks. But the typically stubborn Chaney showed some flexibility by using a lot of box-and-one, and when he used a straight zone, extending it farther than normal.

San Diego’s Corey Belser once again slowed down Adam Morrison. Morrison also tallied 11 points on 3-for-11 shooting. In five career games against Belser, Morrison has been held to a total of 67 points on 46.6% eFG. San Diego is 0-5 in those games.

Finally, Boston College’s Sean Williams played a career-high 35 minutes and had a career-high 8 blocks in a double overtime win against NC State. His 10 free throw attempts nearly doubled his total for the season. That Sean Williams could be the missing link for BC, but I have a feeling this is more of a blip on the radar than an emerging trend. A footnote here: the 10 minutes of overtime produced a score of BC 7, NC State 5.

Speaking of blocks, I should have known the folks over at 82games.com would have long ago used their supercomputers to test the theory I posed about blocks and offensive rebounds in NBA terms. The upshot is that NBA blocked shots are rebounded by the defense 57% of the time, compared to 71% on all shots. Thanks to Kevin Pelton for the link.

Friday

                           FG    3pt  FT   Reb
                      Min  M-A   M-A  M-A  O-T   A F S TO BLK Pts
Keydren Clark          45 15-35  9-20 4-4  1-3   1 2 1  5  0   43
Result: Loss. Canisius 91, St. Peter's 84. (OT)

Senior night always seems to bring out the Kobe in guys who have been given the green light to shoot all season.

Saturday

                           FG    3pt  FT   Reb
                      Min  M-A   M-A  M-A  O-T   A F S TO BLK Pts
Dwayne Curtis          32  8-17  0-0  2-2 10-10  2 3 2  2  0   18
Result: Loss. Auburn 58, Mississippi 54.

Sunday

                           FG    3pt  FT   Reb
                      Min  M-A   M-A  M-A  O-T   A F S TO BLK Pts
Brandon Roy            34  9-13  3-6  6-6  1-5   2 2 1  4  0   27
Result: Win. Washington 73, California 62.

A Look Back

02.24.06

Back on January 5th, I jotted down some of the more unusual developments in our little Pythagorean baby. Let’s go back and look at how some of the surprising conference frontrunners have fared now that the regular season is drawing to a close. All preseason predictions cited come from Blue Ribbon.

A-10: Xavier.

Nice collapse by Xavier. You have to consider their season a disappointment.

Big Ten: Illinois, with Indiana a close second.

Illinois has struggled of late, but I wouldn’t give up on them just yet. But Ohio State has made a good case as the Big Ten’s best. And Indiana is right up there with Xavier in terms of collapses. Another point is that Pythag was down on Michigan State and they haven’t consistently shown themselves to be of Final Four quality.

Big XII: Texas by a lot, but Colorado is a comfortable second.

Sheesh. Well, Colorado was picked for 10th and should finish no worse than 6th. So the stats will do at least as well as the preseason prediction.

Big East: Villanova, with Pitt second.

Up to that point Marcus Williams had not suited up for UConn. Pitt was picked for 6th and I think has proven to be the 3rd best team in the conference.

Big South: Winthrop is so far ahead of its competition, they should go undefeated.

And they did go undefeated. Except for three games. I think this is partly explained by the gravitational pull that a conference has. Any team that is a strong outlier, either good or bad, tends to come back to the pack during the season.

CAA: George Mason.

Chalk one up for Pythag. GMU was picked for 5th, and much of the press was still going to ODU in early January. A win on Saturday against lowly JMU, and Mason gets a share of the CAA title.

Horizon: Butler.

Another winner. Even Butler fans were selling their team short in early January. If they win at Detroit on Saturday, they tie preseason-favorite UWM for the regular season title. Butler was picked for 6th.

MAC: Miami (East), Toledo (West).

And back to the crapper. Actually, Miami is 12-3 and has outplayed everybody’s favorite in the East, Ohio. Toledo is another story. The Rockets started 1-6, partly due to a front-loaded schedule. They’ve clawed back to 7-8 and have a realistic shot at finishing 10-8.

MVC: Missouri State.

It took the Bears a while to play up to their numbers, but Mo State gets Creighton at home on Saturday to try and finish with a share of 2nd in the conference. They were picked for 6th in the preseason.

Mo. West: Air Force, with BYU a surprising second.

San Diego State will probably take the conference, but they added the services of a key transfer in the 2nd semester. Air Force should finish 2nd, and BYU is currently tied for 3rd with a favorable remaining schedule after being picked dead last by Blue Ribbon. Not bad.

Pac-10: Arizona, with Washington State 3rd?

I recently had a nightmare that I said some really good things about Washington State at some point.

SEC: Florida (East), LSU (West).

LSU was picked 3rd in the preseason, but now has a three game lead in the West. Florida has been dusted by Tennessee in the East, yet still leads in Pythag.

WAC: Utah State.

Nevada was still getting the press in early January, but the Aggies - the spurtiest team in the country - have a home date with Wolf Pack on Saturday for all the conference marbles.

Overall, efficiency wasn’t without its tremendous failures, but I think on balance it was insightful early on. There will still be some more judgments to make in the coming weeks as we see how the current outliers perform.