The 3 most appealing games (according to FanMatchTM): 1) Oregon 70, Arizona 66 [67] (Thursday) Oregon as Pac-12 champs? It’s now a realistic statement. (My simulator says they have a 33% chance now.) The Ducks spotted Arizona the first eleven points, but eventually built a 14-point of their own early in the second half. And […]

New Mexico beat UNLV 65-60 in a 73-possession game on Wednesday night. I was there (representing an entire branch of science). This is what I saw. 1) New Mexico take a lot of free throws ‘Tis better to miss free throws than not take them at all. People often lament missed free throws and the […]

The 3 most appealing games (according to FanMatchTM): 1) Kansas State 73, Oklahoma State 67 [69]. (Saturday) This game is another of a million examples why college basketball is wacky. Poor shooting Kansas State facing a solid defense in Oklahoma State was surely a recipe for some bricks. But the Wildcats made 51% of their […]

The 3 most appealing games (according to FanMatchTM): 1) Gonzaga 69, Oklahoma State 68 [58]. (Monday) Gonzaga rebounded 57% of its misses to conclude a 5-0 swing through the Big 12. Kelly Olynyk continued to be stunningly awesome. He fouled out in 23 minutes but still scored 21, which is especially huge in a game […]

If you have been a regular reader of this blog, you have figured out that I do not like Kevin O’Neill’s coaching style. He is often referred to as a brilliant defensive coach. Indeed, O’Neill’s track record indicates as much. His teams have been consistently able to prevent points pretty well. Like Ben Howland and […]

I’ve turned on the kPOY leaderboard. This will update daily as player stats are updated. The kenpom.com Player of the Year award is not designed to predict the human POY winner. It’s not really designed to be a contrarian award, either. It’s just a way to identify the most valuable player in the land. (Do […]

With the calendar turning over, it’s time to forecast the regular season champs for each of the 32 conferences. As a reminder, here are the assumptions… Using the offensive and defensive ratings through 12/31, 10,000 simulations of the rest of the season were run. I dumbed down the pythagorean exponent a bit for this exercise […]

One of the more annoying things about preparing for a game is figuring out which players are available for action. I’ve made a small but useful change to the player stats section on the team page to help interested parties figure this out. Players that have missed their team’s last game have their game total […]

The 3 most appealing games (according to FanMatchTM): 1) North Carolina 79, UNLV 73 [72]. (Saturday) Nice win for the Tar Heels, especially without Reggie Bullock. A win Sunday at Virginia will be more impressive but probably get less fanfare. I can feel a post coming on about how the media undervalues the invisible powers […]

There were only 15 games played this week, thus there’s limited action to review… The 3 2 most appealing games (according to FanMatchTM): 1) Arizona 68, San Diego State 67 [68]. (Tuesday) The Wildcats got a game-saving block from Nick Johnson on Chase Tapley’s lay-up with three second to go to seal the win. Jamaal […]