I’d like to do a comprehensive conference preview, with the usual objective stats-based analysis. However, I have no preference as to which conference I’ll preview. So please, help me decide among the available choices (OK, I do have a few preferences). Big Ten excluded because others can do it better. Voting ends Friday, July 28th […]

Using the principles discussed in the previous post, it may be possible to uncover some trends in player performance for the 2007 season. First, using the methods shown previously, there are five players that show up as bad 3-point shooters and good free throw shooters based on their 2006 stats. One thing to note is […]

In no other sport is there such a controlled experiment as the free throw. While statistical analysis of basketball can be more challenging than other sports in numerous ways, at least we have this. And it’s about time we took advantage of it. Specifically, there is a weak connection between 3-point shooting and free throw […]

Apparently, the relationship between rebounding and height didn’t rock the foundation of the basketball community. The connection between shooting percentage and height isn’t going to create any waves, either. As seen in the chart below, bigger players have a better two-point shooting percentage and shoot fewer 3’s than their smaller counterparts. We didn’t need to […]

It’s no secret that height is a factor in rebounding. We’d like to think it’s about desire and hustle, and to some extent it is, but being tall and having some springs is what matters most. What follows is a listing by height of the player that had the best rebounding percentage in the country […]

In case you haven’t noticed, the offseason will be reserved for administrative notes in this space. In this instance, I’d like to direct you to individual stats from the 2004-05 season, which I just posted. In doing so, I’ve noticed there is a select group of guys that posts a Block Rate of at least […]

I’ve changed assist rate to something more consistent with the tempo-free philosophy. It’s now assists divided by teammates’ made field goals, scaled for playing time. Thus, like rebound percentage, turnover rate, steal percentage, and block percentage, it is based on opportunities available. The leaderboard contains the people you would expect to see there. For the […]

Florida 73, UCLA 57 1 – Not much analysis needed here. The “knowns” discussed yesterday worked out pretty well. Florida struggled from beyond the arc (6 of 19), Afflalo (3 of 10, 10 points) and Brewer (4 of 12, 11 points) played to an inefficient draw. That left Farmar to overachieve offensively. He put up […]

The Final Four games were totally lacking in anything resembling excitement. But there’s good news on the way. For tonight’s game, the efficiency model predicts 62.9 points for Florida and it predicts 62.9 points for UCLA. So maybe we’ll cap this wacky event with some late-game drama, because the matchup couldn’t be any more even. […]

Florida 73, George Mason 58 [60 possessions] – Wonk’s lecture on eFG% from yesterday applies here. There’s a sense that Florida didn’t shoot that well by virtue of their 43.4 FG%. But going 12-25 from 3 makes their eFG% a gaudy 54.7, while Mason shot only 42.9% by that measure. And that was the difference. […]