Let’s start with the most basic stats to measure the ability of a team’s offense and defense. Offensive efficiency Points scored per 100 offensive possessions. Defensive efficiency Points allowed per 100 defensive possessions. In order to compute efficiency, we need to know how to compute possessions. Possessions We can estimate possessions very well from box […]

The Basketball Shrink finds teams most similar to the team you selected, based on the stats on the page you are looking at. On the summary page, teams are compared by adjusted tempo, adjusted offensive efficiency, and adjusted defensive efficiency. On the other stats pages teams are compared by all the stats listed on the […]

The last post about home court advantage by conference generated quite a bit of e-mail traffic. It was actually only three people that responded, but that represents half of my readership at this time of year. The point raised in the e-mails was that [major conference] was at a disadvantage because dominant teams at the […]

There’s nothing like an unsubstantiated assertion to motivate me to post. The principal difference between the ACC and the Big East is the level of home-court advantage. Sure, there are a few dominant courts in the Big East, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a weak one anywhere in the ACC. Even traditional bottom-feeders, such […]

After John Thompson said goodbye to Patrick Ewing and before he said hello to Alonzo Mourning, he had a void at the center position. In light of the quality of the aforementioned players, it was a huge void. In 1987, Thompson brought seven-footer Ben Gillery to Georgetown from the junior college ranks. Gillery, in a […]

It’s been real slow around here, which is somewhat of a shame since the season moves too fast and the off-season provides a time to catch up on things I missed in frantic weeks of February and March. I am working on things behind the scenes (that is, in the rare times I am sitting […]

Back in the day – which was like three years ago – I read a column by Rob Neyer. Rob is a baseball columnist for ESPN.com, and despite that I was not much of a baseball fan, I was addicted to his work. In March of 2002, he wrote what I believe to be his […]

My favorite part of the off-season is the coaching changes. Late-season recruiting and early entries are fun, but schools that change coaches are establishing the direction of their basketball squad for the next few years. And it’s an interesting time in the coaching industry, because it’s an employers market right now. D1 coaching changes Year […]

Tracking 330 teams is the maddening part of following college basketball, but the strength of the sheer volume of teams is that, when taken as a whole, you get a great idea of how the game is played in general. There is a tremendous variety of decisions being made by 330 coaches and their players, […]

The best passing team in college hoops last season was Boston College. Illinois was widely admired for their ability to pass the basketball, but they had nothing on BC. I’ll define the best passing team to be to be the team that can best make the difficult passes that produce points. One of the stats […]