Hear This
by Ken Pomeroy on Friday, March 30, 2007
A breakdown of the Final Four, looking at a not-so-random strength and weakness of each team.
Ohio StateStrength: Oden.
If you don’t think Greg Oden is the most dominant player in the college game, you’re just not thinking. Luke Winn has documented the plus/minus data on Oden, but that’s only half the story. As done previously, I prefer to compare what happens to the Buckeyes while Oden is on and off the court. Here’s how Ohio State have fared in both cases:
Opp. ON OFF Memphis 64-38 28-38 Tennessee 40-26 45-58 Xavier 55-52 23-19 CCSU 60-39 18-18
Ohio State opponents not only need to get Oden off the court, but beat up the Buckeyes while he’s on the bench. (OK, Xavier was an exception. Mad props to Justin Cage and Brandon Cole.)
If I could see one stat from the Georgetown game, it would be…
A Little Something
by Ken Pomeroy on Thursday, March 29, 2007
I know content has been, um, lame this week. I’ll break down the Final Four teams tomorrow. In the meantime, I thought I’d share the breakdown of 2-point jumper percentage vs. 3-point percentage in the tournament.
So far, I’ve been able to create 42 HD boxes during the tournament. The following is the aggregated data for those 42 games.
M - A Pct 2-pt J 465-1410 .330 3-pt J 575-1635 .352
Scoring 2-point jumpers is pretty subjective. The scorer basically makes jumpers anything that aren’t considered layups or dunks and that can be a blurry line sometimes. But it is still fascinating that a 2-point jumper is such a bad value, even if you consider the potential for getting fouled more.
Offensive Final Four
by Ken Pomeroy on Monday, March 26, 2007
We have a pretty even field set for Atlanta, even though three of the four teams in this group defy the adage that defense wins championships.
Log5 odds:
Finals Champs Florida 54.0 28.5 Ohio St. 50.1 24.6 G'town 49.9 24.4 UCLA 46.0 22.4
The Most Overblown Storyline of the Day
by Ken Pomeroy on Sunday, March 25, 2007
The UNC/Georgetown game is so awesome on so many levels. One of those levels is the respective paces of each team - UNC ranks 9th fastest and Georgetown 9th slowest in the nation in adjusted tempo. And of course we’ll hear over and over from the CBS personnel how the team that controls the tempo will have a big advantage.
But neither team will control the tempo. Georgetown will play slow and UNC will play fast. I’ll go out on a limb here and guess that early on, Billy Packer will lament that the game is being played at Carolina’s pace and Georgetown won’t be able to hang because of it. The game will probably be played at a medium pace with a decent amount of points, making it seem a little faster paced.
Consider though that the Hoyas fastest game was a November 15th battle with Vanderbilt that they…
End of the World Liveblog
by Ken Pomeroy on Saturday, March 24, 2007
The chance of all four #1 seeds winning their Elite 8 games is 17.7%. I’ll keep you posted.
Final4 Finals Champs 1 UNC 63.6 42.2 24.7 1 Kansas 63.2 38.9 22.0 1 Florida 75.6 37.1 18.8 1 Ohio St. 58.2 24.3 11.0 2 G'town 36.4 19.3 8.7 2 UCLA 36.8 18.1 7.8 2 Memphis 41.8 14.2 5.4 3 Oregon 24.4 5.9 1.5
4:55 PM MDT - Joey Dorsey fails miserably to defend planet Earth. Doomsday is a very real 30.3% possibility now. If you don’t beat Ohio State when Oden is off the court, you’re not going to beat Ohio State. Now, maybe Arron Afflalo can save the world.
Final4 Finals Champs 1 UNC 63.6 40.2 23.6 1 Kansas 63.2 38.9 21.6 1 Ohio St. 41.7 19.0 1 Florida 75.6 37.1 18.5 2 G'town 36.4 18.1 8.2 2 UCLA 36.8 18.1 7.7 3 Oregon 24.4 5.9 1.5
7:18…
Scoring Oddities
by Ken Pomeroy on Friday, March 23, 2007
Anybody remember Tennessee’s Josh Tabb making a three-pointer last night? He was officially credited with Chris Lofton’s first 3-ball. Thus, Lofton officially finished with 24 points when he should have had 27. [Update: Tabb hit a 3 later in the first half which was credited to Lofton. So it’s all good, I guess.] And yeah, from the Vols perspective, it was nice to have Greg Oden on the bench for so long. While Tennessee was a scorching 16 of 31 on 3’s, they gave some of that back by going 0-for-11 on 2-point jumpers.
The other HD’s…
SIU/Kansas
Pitt/UCLA
Texas A&M/Memphis
A Couple of Fun Notes
by Ken Pomeroy on Thursday, March 22, 2007
These aren’t going to change your life, but they are interesting nonetheless:
- A tipster pointed out that the Texas A&M assist rate might be due in part to a friendly home scorer’s table (related article). Actually, there’s amazing evidence to that effect. I just looked at the Big XII foes that A&M plays a home-and-home against to eliminate any effect an unbalanced schedule would have.
Assist Percentage (A/FGM)
Home Road Texas A&M 75.6 33.1 Opponents 54.1 57.1
Even though this only includes five games on each side of the ledger, it is pretty startling. A&M gets credited with double assists at Reed Arena.
- In the first Ohio State/Tennessee game, a 2-point Buckeye victory, the Buckeyes were outscored 8-0 with Greg Oden on the bench. I’m sure this was as much fluke as it was something real, but I doubt you’ll here about it anywhere else.
Do You Really Know Texas A&M?
by Ken Pomeroy on Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Don’t fall into the trap that Texas A&M is led by their defense. The story with the Aggies is how incredible its offense is, especially considering how far it has come.
For the moment let’s ignore history and look at the facts in efficiency terms. A&M’s offense is just as good as its defense, but it’s not enough to say Texas A&M ranks 6th nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency and 11th in adjusted defensive efficiency. So let’s take the semi-secret adjusted part of the formula out of it and look at some raw data.
Games below national average (102.1) offensively3/9 Oklahoma St. (neutral) 92.4
1/9 Baylor (road) 97.1
12/9 UCLA (road) 97.8
12/5 LSU (road) 84.9
Just four times has Texas A&M had what could be called a bad offensive game. I’m not going to list all of their below-average defensive games, because there are…
Tracking the Doomsday Scenario
by Ken Pomeroy on Monday, March 19, 2007
Here are the odds on our 16-team tourney courtesy of Mr. Picklesimer.
- The chance of all four #1’s making it to Atlanta (my Doomsday Scenario) is up to 9%. If that happens, I’m not sure how I would cope. It’s comforting to know it’s still a longshot.
- The “Cinderella’s Revenge” Final Four of UNLV, Southern Illinois, Vanderbilt, and Tennessee has a .0009% chance of happening.
- Thanks to the Xavier scare and the relative improvement of the other three teams in their region, Ohio State’s chance at the national title has actually decreased despite winning twice.
- Kansas has become the team with the best chance to win it all.
- The chance of Maarty hoisting the trophy is over 1% now, although that doesn’t account for fate which is clearly on Maarty’s side.
elite8 final4 finals champ Midwest…
Charting Day 2
by Ken Pomeroy on Saturday, March 17, 2007
So, round 1 was a dud. But it makes us appreciate that none of this is staged, doesn’t it?
Virginia 84, Albany 57 [58 possessions]. In the first 7 vs. 15 game in history, the 7-seed wins easily. Considering what Connecticut went through last season, it’s an encouraging win for the Cavaliers.
UNLV 67, Georgia Tech 63 [59?]. Potential Final Four team goes down! For some reason I thought Will Bynum and BJ Elder were still around. Oh well, at least a couple others out publicly picked “Not Florida”, but yet made an intelligent selection. I’ll do better next year. How did this game end up so slow? I’ll tell you - crazy offensive rebounding on both ends. Both teams were able to grab over 50% of their own misses to cheat the shot clock and create multiple lengthy possessions. Useless trivia: Paul Hewitt’s substitutions equaled…