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 […]

We are in unusual times. Twenty teams are changing conferences this season and another 23 moves are set for next season. There’s a lot going on and the world seems out of balance with Florida International in Conference USA, San Jose State in the Sun Belt, and the WAC on life support. A look back […]

Alright it’s over. Congrats to Adam Scott. And congrats to the long putter. It saved his career. — Ken Pomeroy (@kenpomeroy) July 22, 2012 That piece of wisdom, offered after Adam Scott birdied the 14th hole yesterday and led Ernie Els by four shots, didn’t turn out so well. In truth, at this point my […]

Even if you have no interest in boxing (like me) you’ve heard about the bizarre decision by the judges of the Manny Pacquiao/Tim Bradley fight on Saturday night. Despite nearly everybody believing Pacquiao won the 12-round fight convincingly, two of the three judges gave the fight to Bradley prompting disbelief among observers. This caused me […]

[Written 12/8/12] I try to measure skills based on the opportunities for those skills to be observed. On the team level, this often means ratings the offense (and defense) on points scored (and allowed) per possession. That is the basis for the ratings system. If you’re looking for info on what the columns mean on […]

This is not the kind of thing that will make you smarter about college hoops. It might make you dumber because your knowledge of this will take the place of something more useful. But as I work on larger projects, it’s often necessary to wander off course and make something visual of the data I’m […]

With Monday night’s championship game in the books, the season-long race for the nation’s most-coveted statistically-based player of the year award has officially concluded. And it is my honor to announce that the 2012 kenpom.com Player of the Year is Michigan State senior Draymond Green. Against the fifth-most difficult defensive schedule in the country, Green […]

In today’s fast-paced society, it can be difficult to carve out time to break down video on your favorite team’s next opponent. One way to cheat the system and get a rough feel for offensive tendencies is to look at ‘assisted-on’ data, which indicates how many of a player’s made shots were assisted. Does a […]

Mercer beat Utah State 70-67 in a 66-possession game Wednesday night. I was there. This is what I saw. (Really, this is heavier on the random thoughts than game recap.) Travel and Altitude Redux There’s nothing like travel and altitude to enhance one’s road struggles. So serious credit goes to Mercer for overcoming a 2000-mile […]