I’ve rolled the site over to 2013, fresh with my stab at pre-season ratings and reasonably accurate schedules. (If you see something wrong with your team’s information, kindly drop me a line.) These rankings might not match what you’ve seen in any other venue. The uniqueness is due to two general reasons. First, my computer […]

In 2010, Conference USA ceased issuing a preseason poll, and continues to be the only conference in America that doesn’t. The decision is questionable since it deprives the member teams and the media that cover them of a noteworthy blurb leading into the season. In order to fill the void, kenpom.com commissioned an expert panel […]

A while back, I expressed my support for the pre-season AP poll. A refresher: During the season I have no use for the polls because nobody really knows what they represent. But before games are played – and voters minimize the importance of scoring margin, game location, and schedule strength – everyone is trying to […]

A while back, I wrote this article describing a new way of understanding positions in basketball, the focus being separating offensive responsibilities from defensive responsibilities. Another guy in the basketball office and I were arguing recently about whether a specific player deserved to be termed a “scorer.” The argument basically went like this: He said […]

One of the more famous comebacks last season was Western Kentucky’s triumph over Mississippi Valley State in the NCAA tournament. Sadly, it just missed the list published here last week. But since it was probably viewed in real-time by a few of you, I thought it would be a way to show why the win […]

The new win-probability algorithm has been activated and it’s time to look at the most improbable wins of last season. Going forward, I plan to have better tools around here so you can identify these games without having to wait five months after the season ends for me to write something on them. What follows […]

There’s been quite a bit of recent discussion on this blog on the topic of three-point shooting. (Here, here, here, here, and here.)  There are two key takeaways from these articles: First, that it’s really hard to predict a team’s three-point percentage for a game, even knowing how well they tend to shoot three-pointers, and […]

Forty years ago yesterday, the USSR beat the USA 51-50 in the 1972 Olympic gold medal game, handing the Americans their first loss in Olympic competition. From a global perspective, it’s the most famous basketball game ever played. The contest is notorious not only for the outcome, but for the series of game management errors […]

About three seasons ago I tried to develop some sort of algorithm to assess a team’s chance of winning at various points in the game. It was the middle of the NCAA tournament, and as favored teams were finding themselves in a deficit at some point during the game, it seemed like it would be […]

The good folks at cbssports.com provide shot location data for selected games during the season. Typically, I make use of this data as a sanity check on a player’s two-point percentage. For instance, it can be useful to distinguish poor two-point shooters that take too many mid-range shots from those that just can’t finish near […]