The only frustration of following college hoops is that it\u2019s impossible to follow everything. And I don\u2019t like trusting The Man to tell me what I\u2019ve missed, because The Man is missing stuff, too. That premise is the basis for this site, and it’s also the basis for America’s newest player of the year award.<\/p>\n
In the effort to produce something more objective than currently exists, I\u2019m introducing the first annual kenpom Player of the Year. Of course, it\u2019s not completely objective – nothing is – but my intentions are pure. I\u2019ve taken the work that I did to produce pre-season ratings and applied it here. <\/p>\n
To refresh: In order to determine the impact of departing players, a player’s minutes were weighted by the amount of value they provided to the team. On offense, I used a combination a player\u2019s offensive rating and his possessions used, which was valued relative to his team\u2019s offensive rating. On defense, I used the proportion of his team\u2019s Dean Oliver-formulated stops that he was responsible for.<\/p>\n
The beauty of this method is that both the offensive and defensive value of a player are captured in a way that correlates with team improvement. The drawback is that it\u2019s difficult to measure defensive value. But the work on the preseason ratings indicates that the “stops method” is better than ignoring defense altogether, and that\u2019s a start.<\/p>\n
Valuing minutes in this way accounts for a player\u2019s value relative to his teammates, but this isn\u2019t exactly what we\u2019d like to know. It’s also important that the player is contributing to some sort of team success. This where the more subjective part comes into play, and I have thrown in a dash of team strength based on my ratings. OK, more than a dash. We don\u2019t want Vlad Moldoveanu winning this thing! There\u2019s enough team influence such that it\u2019s hard to win the award if your team is not in the top ten and nearly impossible if it\u2019s not in the top 20.<\/p>\n