Which single hole was the most representative of a player’s performance in the first round of the Masters? It turns out it was the 13th. Dustin Johnson was the only player to eagle it an he finished one shot off the lead. The 38 golfers that birdied it finished with an average score of 71.7. […]

It is my honor to announce that Louisville’s Russ Smith is the winner of the 2013 kenpom.com Player of the Year award. Smith posted a 109 offensive rating while using a whopping 32 percent of Louisville’s while he was on the floor. He also played a key role in the Cardinals’ defense, which was rated […]

Sometime during the national semifinals Clark Kellogg remarked that some threes were easier than others. I can’t remember his statement exactly. It had to do with Wichita State getting open looks against Louisville and the particular shots they were getting were the easiest shots to hit. In the NBA, it’s been documented that the corner […]

The unpredictability of the NCAA tournament often leads to Final Four teams meeting via completely divergent paths. Sometimes we talk about a team reaching the Final Four because the bracket broke in a favorable way— a one-seed was knocked out early or a team drew a Sweet 16 date with an 11 seed. Ken Pomeroy […]

I try to avoid dropping names, but allow me to use a one-time Nate Silver exception. It was in 2007 when the old Basketball Prospectus site was launching that I spoke to Nate. One of his first questions was whether I had some sort of projection system for the upcoming season. I had to politely […]

Michigan’s comeback over Kansas, trailing by ten with 2:32 left and playing defense, had a 0.62% chance of occurring according to my win probability model. This was the 15th least-likely comeback of the season. (Ranking just ahead of Michigan’s own collapse to Penn State on February 27.) What follows are the 13 comebacks from this […]

With action moving to Cowboys Stadium tonight, there’s liable to be some discussion about how such a large venue affects the participants’ shooting. Or at least there should be, considering both Florida and Michigan are likely to be more dependent than normal on three-point shooting. Brian Cook at MGoBlog recently summarized what little research there […]

Explaining the game-to-game variation in a team’s performance is difficult. Sometimes, a team’s star player just plays well, or the opposing team plays more poorly than usual, or a team avoids foul trouble, or most of the dozen or so 50/50 calls go a particular team’s way. These explanations are uninteresting and not satisfactory, though, […]

The round of 32 was a bad scenario for the victorious teams from the East Region. While other regions were going up in flames to varying degrees, giving remaining favorites Florida, Louisville, and Ohio State a decent boost to their title chances, the East has gone to form. Previous odds that built in the potential […]

The order of the top six favorites remains the same, but there are changes after that due to the stunning upset of Georgetown by Crazy Go Nuts University. The team that should be least appreciative of this result is Kansas because it’s now more likely they must go through Florida to get to Atlanta, and […]