Sunday, March 25, 2007
The Most Overblown Storyline of the Day
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 won by 16. Their most recent game against Vandy was 17 possessions slower than the regular-season contest, and the Hoyas needed a swallowed whistle to survive.
Sure, Georgetown shouldn’t play in a 75 possession game and UNC doesn’t want a 58 possession game, but it’s unlikely either will happen. You’ll hear the tempo thing brought up as the most important aspect to this game, and it’s not close. Let’s start with keeping Roy Hibbert out of foul trouble…
Saturday, March 24, 2007
End of the World Liveblog
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 PM MDT - Global destruction averted. I shall build a shrine to Arron Afflalo.
Final4 Finals Champs 1 UNC 63.8 39.0 24.2 2 UCLA 52.4 23.6 1 Ohio St. 43.9 22.5 1 Florida 75.1 40.6 19.8 2 G'town 36.2 17.1 8.3 3 Oregon 24.9 7.0 1.7
I’ll update these odds for the new ratings later. [Update: the final set of odds is updated with ratings including Saturday’s results.]
Friday, March 23, 2007
Scoring Oddities
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
Thursday, March 22, 2007
A Couple of Fun Notes
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.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Do You Really Know Texas A&M?
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) offensively
3/9 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 10 of them.
Let’s look at how many times a Texas A&M opponent experienced one its five worst defensive games against the Aggies. Again, these are raw figures, and include only conference games and at-large worthy non-conference opponents.
Louisville (5th)
Missouri (2nd)
Texas (1st)
Baylor (2nd)
Oklahoma State (5th)
Oklahoma (4th)
Kansas (4th)
Winthrop (2nd)
On the opposite side, A&M had fewer standout defensive performances this season. Here are the opponents that experienced one of their five worst offensive games at the hands of the Aggies.
Oklahoma State (1st, 3rd)
Baylor (3rd)
Iowa State (1st)
Winthrop (2nd)
So whether you believe in my schedule adjustments or not, it’s pretty clear that the A&M offense deserves a little more attention. The other part of the story is that while the defense has been steady under Gillispie, the offense has made huge strides from last season.
2007 2006 adjOE 120.4 (6) 107.3 (80) eFG% 55.9 (5) 50.8(104) TO% 18.3 (36) 20.2(108) OR% 33.7(159) 29.8(247) FTR 30.3 (40) 29.3 (40)
While Acie Law gets much of the credit for the improvement, this is not a one-man show. Figures represent offensive rating and percent of possessions used.
2007 2006 Law4 115.5/27.4 104.7/25.6 Kirk 109.9/12.8 105.6/12.9 Jones 121.1/23.4 110.1/27.0 Kava 111.1/22.1 105.0/20.3 Carter 132.9/17.3 106.6/20.9
Law is better, but he’s not the only one. The front line tandem of Kavaliauskas and Jones is much more dangerous than last season. And Josh Carter is the tourney’s best remaining pure shooter (sorry, Lee Humphrey). But the interesting thing about Law is he is taking fewer 3’s. Only 19% of his shots this season are from 3, compared to 29% last season, and his free throw rate (ratio of free throw attempts to field goal attempts) is up to 44.6 from 32.7. All of that explains this…
2007 2006 2-point FG% 52.8(32) 49.1(129) 3-point FG% 42.4 (2) 36.1(100) 3PA/FGA 28.3(290) 34.6(129) A/FGM 65.6(11) 70.2 (2)
The offense is still no thing of beauty. No, wait a minute. It is a thing of beauty. A&M doesn’t shoot 3’s nearly as often any more, but when they do, they are deadly. And when they don’t, they are deadly. I put the assist rate up there also, because while you might interpret that as “not sharing the ball as well,” I interpret that as being able to score off the dribble more frequently. Which all gets back to Law, whose personal stats say is scoring off the dribble more frequently.
Not only is Texas A&M’s offense the foundation of this year’s team, but it’s the kind of offense that will cram the ball down the opponents throat over and over given the choice. Memphis is going to be the ultimate test, as opponents take few 3’s against the Tigers and shoot 2’s horribly (5th worst in the country). The Aggies haven’t faced an offensive test quite like this one, but if they pass, you’d have to put this offense in the elite category.