Yearly Archives: 2015

This is part of a series of posts examining whether offense or defense has more control of various aspects of a typical college basketball game. The introduction is here. A description of the methodology is here. So far in this series, we’ve focused on a specific stat in each entry, but today we’re talking about […]

This is part of a series of posts examining whether offense or defense has more control of various aspects of a typical college basketball game. The introduction is here. A description of the methodology is here. We always hear about how it’s desirable for the offense to share the ball. Although there are coaches like […]

This is part of a series of posts examining whether offense or defense has more control of various aspects of a typical college basketball game. The introduction is here. A description of the methodology is here. Today’s stat is three-point attempts, but it really could be “shot distribution”. As a team’s three-point attempt is also […]

This is part of a series of posts examining whether offense or defense has more control of various aspects of a typical college basketball game. The introduction is here. A description of the methodology is here. Rebounding is next in the pecking order of offensive control, checking in at an average of 73% over the […]

This is part of a series of posts examining whether offense or defense has more control of various aspects of a typical college basketball game. The introduction is here. A description of the methodology is here. Three-point percentage is next on the pecking order of offensive control, checking in at an average of 83% over […]

This is part of a series of posts examining whether offense or defense has more control of various aspects of a typical college basketball game. The introduction is here. A description of the methodology is here. A common crutch for analyzing a college basketball game is to propose that the team that controls the pace […]

In the last installment of Offense vs. Defense, we saw that offense controls the variance in predictions of free throw percentage. But the defense still had a two-percent influence on the predictions. It’s possible this could be explained away by random error. After all, if the offense truly controls 100% of free throw percentage, any […]

This is the second of a series of posts examining whether offense or defense has more control of various aspects of a typical college basketball game. The introduction is here. What predicts a basketball statistic the best: offensive data or defensive data? If we wanted to predict a team’s free throw percentage in the next […]

Last season, Kentucky’s opponents made a mere 27 percent of their three-point attempts, the lowest figure in the country. It’s probably not a coincidence that the longest team in college basketball history also had the country’s best defensive 3P% figure since VCU’s 26.9 percent in 2008. So is there such a thing as three-point defense? […]

Congratulations to the winner of the 2015 kenpom.com player of the year award, Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky. Kaminsky ran away with the title, establishing a lead in mid-November and maintaining it through the end of the season. Frank was the go-to guy on a Wisconsin offense that led the country in raw points scored per possession […]