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?
Shelden Williams is not Emeka Okafor
01.06.05
But he's close.
Williams '05 Okafor '04 FG% 57.3 59.9 PPG 14.5 17.6 RPG 12.3 11.5 BPG 3.5 4.1
Williams has averaged one less minute per game than Okafor did, but fortunately Duke plays at a faster pace than UConn did, making this an apples-to-apples comparison in terms of possessions played per game.
Okafor was more skilled offensively, but Williams is not far behind. The difference in field goal percentage is offset by the fact that Williams gets to the line more, and is a better free throw shooter.
Williams '05 Okafor '04 FTA/FGA .56 .50 FT% 64.8 51.8 PPWS 1.21 1.19
PPWS is points per weighted shot, an idea created by John Hollinger and pushed further by Big Ten Wonk. If you do a google search for PPWS, you'll find Wonk's page describing PPWS sitting behing the Virginia Tech Department of Plant, Physiology, and Weed Science. So the stat hasn't gone mainstream yet. However, this weed identification guide proivided by Virginia Tech is indispensible.
PPWS is like an effective field goal percentage accounting for free throw production. So a Shelden Williams shot in 2005 is about as productive as an Emeka Okafor shot in 2004. Okafor took more shots in 2004, so his points per game was higher. And even with the increased role in the offense, Okafor turned the ball over less than Williams has this season. So there's no doubt Okafor has the edge in this area, but Williams ain't chopped liver.
Williams has an advantage in rebounds, an advantage that may decrease slightly as he faces the more accurate shooting teams of the ACC. But don't expect his average to go down much - it actually increased during conference play last year.
The disadvantage Williams has in blocks is a little misleading because teams took more shots against UConn last season than they are against Duke this season. UConn is one of the worst teams in the nation at forcing turnovers, allowing UConn's shot blockers more opportunities to do their thing. Williams blocks 9.8% of his opponents two point shot attempts when he's on the court. Okafor blocked 11.0% last season.
Shelden Williams isn't going to make any all-American teams this season. People outside of ACC country hardly know who he is. Yet there's a strong case to be made that he is the best all-around player in the ACC.
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