No (NCAA Tourney) Admittance Without ID
01.10.05
There is one individual statistic that is being dominated like no other this season.
Free Throws Made Diogu, Arizona State........136 Mendez, Niagara..............95 McGowan, Pepperdine..........94 Roberts, Mississippi State...90 Green, Oral Roberts..........88
No one goes to San Francisco Giants games to see Barry Bonds walk. And no one goes to a basketball game to see a player's ability to get to the line. But much like Bonds ability to draw walks, Ike Diogu's free throws are a big reason he is so effective. Diogu has played in 74 games in his two-plus seasons in Tempe, and has been to the line in every one of them. The guy goes to the line a lot, and shoots 85% when he gets there. This season he's made nine free throws per game. (By contrast, Kansas starter J.R. Giddens has played in 11 games this season and attempted a total of nine free throws.)
For some reason, records for made throws in a season are dominated by players from the '50's and '60's. If someone can clue me in as to why, you'd be my hero. The games were faster paced back then, and before 1973, all fouls involved the shooting of at least one free throw. But I don't think that totally explains this phenomenon. In the modern era - since 1973 - here are some conference records for free throws made in a season:
Big East: Mourning, Georgetown 272 (1992)
WAC: Durrant, BYU 242 (1984)
Pac-10: Counts, Oregon State 237 (1964)
SEC: Stroud, Mississippi 233 (1980)
ACC: Laettner, Duke 225 (1990)
A-10: Brown, GW 221 (2000)
The Pac-10 record goes back to ye olde times, because I couldn't find the modern record. Oh, wait - here it is...Diogu 243 (2004). Assuming ASU participates in just one Pac-10 tourney game and one postseason game, Diogu is on pace for 290 free throws this season. The NCAA record of 355, set by Frank Selvy in 1954, is out of reach even if Arizona State goes deep in the Pac-10 tourney and whatever postseason tourney they'll be a part of. Nonetheless, it's possible Diogu is on his way to establishing a new standard under the current set of rules.
(It should be obvious here that I only have records for six conferences and thus, there may be a better modern free throw season out there somewhere. I have no idea whether Diogu is on his way to a national record, but based on the sample I have, his ability to make free throws is certainly unusual.)
As for the rest of his game, here are Diogu's averages on the season (rank through Sunday): 23.3 ppg (5th in the nation), 62.1% FGs (14th), 10.4 rpg (11th), and 2.7 bpg (21st), 84.5% FTs (not ranked nationally, but well above the national average of around 68%).
In Pac-10 play he's been better so far: 25.3 ppg, 60% FGs, 11.0 rpg, 3.3 bpg, 20-32 FTs. This is in road games against Arizona, Stanford, and Cal.
So who's your pick for national player of the year?
Celebrating the West
01.09.05
What a crystallizing weekend of hoops. It's pretty obvious that the five best teams in the nation are Illinois, UNC, Wake Forest, Kansas, and Oklahoma State in some order. I can't believe someone from outside that group will get a #1 seed. Other random thoughts...
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Those of us who thought that the Pac 10 race was between Arizona and Washington need to recalibrate our predict-o-meters. Arizona State belongs in the discussion as well after going to the Bay Area and sweeping Stanford/Cal with ease on Thursday/Saturday. Ike Diogu is simply the best player in the nation. More on that tomorrow. Nobody likes an "I told you so," but I'll say it in nine weeks when the Sun Devils are the Cinderella pick du jour to go to the Final Four.
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Thanks to Paul Marigney's 30 points, Saint Mary's upset Gonzaga on Saturday. The Gaels have won eight in a row, but against mainly weak competition and mostly at home. Saint Mary's could be an at-large quality team, but because of a less than at-large quality schedule, they must get a home win against Air Force on Tuesday to give them any hope. On the Gonzaga side, Ronny Turiaf has dropped off the face of the earth with a total of 20 points on 7 of 30 shooting over the last three games. The 'Zags give up too many points (#195 nationally in defensive efficiency) to win with one of their offensive weapons firing blanks.
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Dick Vitale and Brad Nessler expressed shock at the frenetic pace at which the Maryland/UNC contest was played on Saturday. But the stats page reveals all - Maryland and UNC were the top two teams nationally in the tempo category entering the weekend. The game finished with an astounding 92 possessions - only the Maryland/Mercer game on November 23rd was played at a faster pace this season.
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Last Thursday, Hartford lost to Boston University 78-22. It was the second lowest total posted by a D1 team in the shot clock era. Fortunately for you, basket-blogger Kyle Whelliston was on hand, and even has pictures (in color!) of the almost-history-making scoreboard. You'll be comforted to know that Hartford came back with a season-high 80 points in a win against UMBC on Saturday.
Total Rebounding
01.07.05
Hello, Ken
Thanks for your great work. I love the efficiency stats.
A stat I would like to see kept somewhere is offensive rebounding percentage (plus defensive rebounding percentage = rebounding efficiency). As I'm sure you know, OR% = OR/missed FGA. DR% = DR/opponents' missed FGA.
Michael
I'm going to use Michael's idea with a few changes, defining offensive rebounding percentage as,
OR% = your offensive rebounds / (your offensive rebounds + their defensive rebounds)
and defensive rebounding percentage as,
DR% = your defensive rebounds / (your defensive rebounds + their offensive rebounds)
Then the two percentages can be summed to get Total Rebounding (TR). When TR is greater than 100, a team is better at getting rebounds than its opponents. TR is a much better way to measure rebounding ability than the NCAA's stat of choice, average rebounding margin, because TR eliminates the effect of shooting percentage.
If your opponent misses many more shots than you, you tend to get more rebounds because there are more opportunities for defensive rebounds, which are easier to get than offensive rebounds. I offered an example of this in a post last season. TR is a true measure of a team's ability to rebound the basketball relative to the competition they have faced.
So check out the stats page and see how your team stacks up in this category.
As always, you can e-mail me with suggestions for the next Stat O' the Week or with questions like: What the hell are you talking about?
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