2005 Player Stats and the Case for Renaldo Balkman
by Ken Pomeroy on Thursday, April 27, 2006
In case you haven’t noticed, the offseason will be reserved for administrative notes in this space. In this instance, I’d like to direct you to individual stats from the 2004-05 season, which I just posted.
In doing so, I’ve noticed there is a select group of guys that posts a Block Rate of at least 6 and a Steal Rate of at least 2.5 over a full season. Among power conference players, the list in 2006 was Shelden Williams, Joakim Noah, Al Horford, and Julian Wright. All will eventually be first round picks, perhaps lottery picks.
There was only one power conference player in the 6/2.5 club last season. That player was…Shavlik Randolph?? Er, I mean, Shavlik Randolph! Anyway, Randolph leaving Duke early was widely viewed as a practical joke gone bad, but he did manage to get fairly regular non-garbage time minutes after catching on with…
Assist Rate
by Ken Pomeroy on Monday, April 10, 2006
I’ve changed assist rate to something more consistent with the tempo-free philosophy. It’s now assists divided by teammates’ made field goals, scaled for playing time. Thus, like rebound percentage, turnover rate, steal percentage, and block percentage, it is based on opportunities available. The leaderboard contains the people you would expect to see there. For the curious, the worst assist rate among players with at least 40% minutes played is Tyronne Beale of East Carolina, who had zero assists in 504 minutes, and an estimated 189 of his teammates’ shots.
Charting the Championship
by Ken Pomeroy on Tuesday, April 4, 2006
Florida 73, UCLA 57 [65.5 possessions] - Not much analysis needed here. The “knowns” discussed yesterday worked out pretty well. Florida struggled from beyond the arc (6 of 19), Afflalo (3 of 10, 10 points) and Brewer (4 of 12, 11 points) played to an inefficient draw. That left Farmar to overachieve offensively. He put up a career-high 21 shots and scored 18 points. He didn’t overachieve and he needed to because the Bruins didn’t get offense from anywhere else.
On the flip side, Florida’s big men were dominant in every phase of the game, and Noah may have just positioned himself to be the first pick in the draft. Over the last 15:30, nine of Florida’s 11 made field goals were dunks, the first of which was by Noah on a move that had to be a travel, but replay confirmed was not. That play alone may have vaulted…
Championship Breakdown
by Ken Pomeroy on Monday, April 3, 2006
The Final Four games were totally lacking in anything resembling excitement. But there’s good news on the way. For tonight’s game, the efficiency model predicts 62.9 points for Florida and it predicts 62.9 points for UCLA. So maybe we’ll cap this wacky event with some late-game drama, because the matchup couldn’t be any more even. UCLA’s slight advantage on D is offset by Florida’s advantage on O.
Let’s get to the particulars (national rank listed)...
UCLA O Fla D AdjEff 24 8 eFG% 24 17 TO% 229 87 OR% 49 101 FTRate 96 43
When you get this far, it’s hard to find weaknesses. UCLA has balance, with every player except the point guards sporting offensive ratings better than 100.
Jordan Farmar’s shot selection has been maligned in this space before, and a prime example was given against LSU. He took a couple of ill-advised 3s, but…
Charting the Final Four
by Ken Pomeroy on Sunday, April 2, 2006
Florida 73, George Mason 58 [60 possessions] - Wonk’s lecture on eFG% from yesterday applies here. There’s a sense that Florida didn’t shoot that well by virtue of their 43.4 FG%. But going 12-25 from 3 makes their eFG% a gaudy 54.7, while Mason shot only 42.9% by that measure. And that was the difference.
Mason won the turnover battle as expected (11 to 15), and lost the rebounding battle as expected, but not embarrassingly so (50.0 to 31.4 in OR%, with four of Florida’s offensive boards coming in their final two possessions). The game was decided in the first three possessions of the 2nd half, which resulted in three Lee Humphrey 3-pointers against two Jai Lewis free throws for GMU and turned a five-point Florida lead into 12.
UCLA 59, LSU 45 [62] - An interesting possession split by half in this one: 37/25. UCLA was willing to…
Four Final Points
by Ken Pomeroy on Saturday, April 1, 2006
1) The AP revealed yesterday that their Coach of the Year award went to Roy Williams. Here’s how the voting went:
Roy Williams 29 Jay Wright 15 Bruce Pearl 11 Bill Self 7 Thad Matta 5 John Calipari 2 Karl Hobbs 1 Ben Howland 1 Al Skinner 1
My first reaction to this list was, why in the heck would you vote for Al Skinner? BC was picked to finish second in the ACC, and they finished third. Without any injuries or mitigating factors. Way to go, Al. You clearly did the best coaching job in the country.
If you want to be different, which I can relate to, you should have voted for Billy Donovan. Look, I realize that the vote for Skinner was most likely from a Boston writer trying to curry favor with Skinner and that voting took place before the tournament, but couldn’t someone have…