Another Interview with Mike Gillian
by Ken Pomeroy on Thursday, November 30, 2006
It’s a little late, but here’s the annual interview with Longwood head coach Mike Gillian. One of the guys I root for, because, well, he reads my web site. Previous interviews from 2004 and 2005 are available for a little background. In Year 2 of Longwood’s Division I odyssey, the Lancers posted a record of 10-20 after the memorable 1-30 season from Year 1. Without further ado, here is another informative chat with the fourth-year head coach…
Before we talk about Longwood, I have to give you some space here to comment on George Mason’s run last season. You helped recruit and coach Jai Lewis and Lamar Butler as freshmen. You worked for six years under Jim Larranaga. How much did you enjoy watching that team advance to Indy?
Watching Coach Larranaga, the George Mason team, and that whole university community go through their…
Ratings Explanation
by Ken Pomeroy on Wednesday, November 29, 2006
[Also see this page for an explanation on adjusted efficiency calculations. -kp]
The first thing you should know about this system is that it is designed to be purely predictive. If you’re looking for a system that rates teams on how “good” their season has been, you’ve come to the wrong place. There are enough systems out there that rank teams based on what is “good” by just about any definition you can think of. So I’d encourage you to google college basketball ratings or even try the opinion polls for something that is more your style.
The purpose of this system is to show how strong a team would be if it played tonight, independent of injuries or emotional factors. Since nobody can see every team play all (or even most) of their games, this system is designed to give you a snapshot of a team’s current…
Predictions
by Ken Pomeroy on Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Contrary to how it may appear, this portion of the site is not quite dead, yet.
I’m feverishly catching up on e-mail from the holiday weekend. One question I’ve been getting a lot has to do with when predictions will be posted. We’re still on the fringe of having meaningful ratings, and hence, meaningful predictions. I’ll probably turn on the predictions portion of the schedule pages beginning with Saturday’s games, but a lot of them won’t look too pretty. Plans for this week include a ratings explanation page, with conference pages and individual data going up next week. Beyond that, I need to get tempo-free stats on an expanded version of the schedule page, as well. Oh yeah, and a plea to stop asking RPI questions is on the way, too.
If you want some more reading, check out the wild game Dominic James had last night.
Who is Joe O’Brien?
by Ken Pomeroy on Sunday, November 19, 2006
If anyone knows something about this guy, I’d love to hear it. All I know is this:
- He took over as Idaho State’s coach this season after winning 300+ games at the juco level.
- One of his assistants is former prep phenom Rodrick Rhodes.
- He inherited a team that finished last in the Big Sky and had a wretched defense.
- So far, the Bengals have gone on the road and taken Marquette and BYU to overtime, with an easy neutral-site win over Maine sandwiched in between.
- He relies on some sort of funky zone which lulled both Marquette and BYU into shooting more 3’s than normal.
Their next opponent is Washington State, a team that has shot the 3 very well so far. Which means we should find out on Tuesday whether ISU has benefited from a good bit of fortune or whether their D…
Future Attractions
by Ken Pomeroy on Friday, November 17, 2006
I know, there’s been a stunning lack of posting here. (But did you see that post I did on Oral Roberts a while back? It’s sort of timely now.) What’s coming in the future…
A thorough explanation of my power ratings, including what all those columns mean.
The annual sit-down with Longwood head coach Mike Gillian. Hey, they’re 2-1! (It’s not such big news, though, compared to Savannah State, NJIT, and Texas-Pan American being a combined 9-0 at the moment.)
And exciting things like e-mail and blogroll policies!
For today though, I’d like to add a player to the all-kenpom.com team. I already have Maarty in middle. Today, you can meet my point guard. He’s UW-Milwaukee’s Allan Hanson, and he makes the team with the most bizarre shooting stats in the nation.
Season 2PM-2PA 3PM-3PA 2005 3-22 3-10 2006 2-28 21-45 2007 0-5 7-18 Career 5-55 31-73…
The Year of Maarty Leunen Begins Now
by Ken Pomeroy on Friday, November 10, 2006
Tonight is the real tip-off of college basketball, with a majority of schools (or nearly so, I haven’t counted) beginning their season. As usual, I’ll be trying to document the surprises that slip under the national radar. If my calculations are correct, one of those will be Maarty Leunen of the Oregon Ducks, a team that may take the college hoops world by storm despite getting a combined one vote in the two major pre-season polls. (My track record of predicting Pac 10 hoops is particularly pathetic, however.)
If they do, the praise will go to Aaron Brooks and Malik Hairston, but I’ll be giving attention to Leunen, the 6-9 junior who had 35 boards in 56 exhibition minutes against Lewis & Clark and Southern Oregon. That’s 25.7 rebounds per 40 minutes. You may be questioning the level of competition, but those teams provide a good proxy for the Ducks’…
And They’re Off!
by Ken Pomeroy on Wednesday, November 8, 2006
For the record, last night’s Maryland/Hampton game had an estimated 96 possessions. That would have ranked as the third-most hectic game for all of last season. The 54 free throws shot by Maryland would have been second-most in a game (55 by Penn vs. Navy, 12/2/05).
State of the Site
by Ken Pomeroy on Sunday, November 5, 2006
As many of you have noticed, things have been behind schedule around here. I mentioned it a few times last season, but the old-style Pomeroy Ratings are going away this season in favor of a system based on basketball things. Due to this, there won’t be any preseason ratings. We’ll just watch it evolve together through the first weeks.
In addition, the functionality of the power ratings page will take a while to spin up. Eventually, I will have a game-by-game listing of the four factors on each team’s schedule page, along with predictions rooted in the adjusted efficiency equations and Bill James’ log5 creation. This will add a little more meat to the “scouting report” concept I’m trying to provide for each team. But with my additional duties providing statistical packages for selected ESPN telecasts, this will be a slower process than usual.
Of course, there are other…