At some point in the distant past, time of possession became a popular stat in football. Control the ball and you win the game. Eventually, analytically-minded people realized that wasn’t true at all. You controlled the ball because you won the game. A lead added incentive to run the ball more often which drained the […]

The 113th U.S. Open Championship starts tomorrow, though not much golf will be played on Thursday with heavy rain expected most of the day. This continues a trend at Merion where nearly a half a foot of rain has fallen over the past two weeks. The U.S. Open typically features the most difficult scoring conditions […]

The story this week at the Wells Fargo Championship has been the poor quality of the greens. After a harsh winter and perhaps some questionable efforts to nurse them to health in recent weeks, the greens at Quail Hollow were borderline unplayable days before the tournament began on Thursday. Only the finest care and attention […]

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 […]