February 25, 2010 –
by Brendon
I happened to catch about 10 seconds too much of some ESPN show this morning and saw that Mississippi State was Joe Lunardi’s last team in the NCAA Tournament field as of today. I try to avoid Lunardi’s thoughts on brackets, because it can be disinformation. Among experienced bracket projectors he is sub-mediocre. But on this I feel the need to comment.
Mississippi State, huh? I know the record is pretty — 20-8 overall and 8-5 in conference — but has anyone bothered to check who Mississippi State has beaten? The Bulldogs’ only win over a top-50 RPI or Pomeroy team this season was a 69-55 victory over Old Dominion in South Padre Island, Texas, on Nov. 28. Their next best wins are two against rival Mississippi. In its three games against top-25 teams, Rick Stansbury’s squad has lost to Richmond on a neutral court, Kentucky at home and Vanderbilt in Nashville. All three games have been close, but all three were losses. Oh, and MSU has also lost four times to teams outside the RPI top 100: Rider, Western Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama. Read More »
Posted in SEC
|
Tagged Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Joe Lunardi, Kentucky, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Old Dominion, Richmond, Rider, SEC, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Western Kentucky
|
February 16, 2010 –
by Brendon
In a span of 72 hours, each of the Big East’s top four teams — squads that once fit neatly on the top two seedlines of most NCAA Tournament projections — lost. In and of themselves, the losses for West Virginia, Syracuse, Georgetown and Villanova won’t do anything to affect their NCAA Tournament acceptance and will do little to affect their seeding, but what they did do was reveal potentially fatal flaws, which are often overlooked as teams pile up wins.
West Virginia: The Mountaineers’ 98-95 overtime loss at Pittsburgh was the most excusable of the defeats suffered by the Big East’s top four on this holiday weekend, but it was also West Virginia’s second-straight loss. It may come as a surprise to some that it’s WVU’s defense and not its offense that has been mostly to blame in the team’s five defeats.
|
Efficiencies |
Defense |
| Opponent |
PPP |
PPP |
eFG |
Turn |
Reb |
FTR |
2PT% |
3PT% |
| at Purdue |
0.987 |
1.225 |
0.536 |
0.111 |
0.318 |
0.411 |
0.545 |
0.333 |
| at Notre Dame |
1.130 |
1.164 |
0.616 |
0.150 |
0.180 |
0.558 |
0.533 |
0.538 |
| vs. Syracuse |
1.065 |
1.080 |
0.622 |
0.300 |
0.458 |
0.578 |
0.667 |
0.333 |
| vs. Villanova |
1.044 |
1.142 |
0.618 |
0.251 |
0.460 |
0.431 |
0.600 |
0.455 |
| at Pittsburgh |
1.165 |
1.202 |
0.508 |
0.098 |
0.274 |
0.536 |
0.500 |
0.346 |
| Composite |
1.078 |
1.163 |
0.580 |
0.182 |
0.338 |
0.503 |
0.569 |
0.401 |
You can see that West Virginia is allowing 0.085 points per possession more than it is scoring in its five losses. The main culprit is field-goal defense. Despite the Mountaineers’ notable length, they are allowing opponents to make 40 percent of their 3-pointers and 57 percent of their 2-pointers in these defeats. For the season, West Virginia is ahead of only the comparatively tiny Marquette and Providence squads in 2-point defense among Big East teams. Read More »
Posted in Big East
|
Tagged Andy Rautins, Antonio Pena, Arinze Onuaku, Big East, Billy Gillispie, Brandon Triche, Colorado, Corey Stokes, Georgetown, Georgia, Greg Monroe, Iowa, Jared Swopshire, Jessie Sapp, John Thompson III, Kansas State, Louisville, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Providence, Purdue, Rakeem Buckles, Rick Jackson, Rutgers, Samardo Samuels, Scoop Jardine, Sharaud Curry, Southern Cal, Southern Illinois, Syracuse, Texas A&M, Villanova, Washington, West Virginia, Western Kentucky
|
November 18, 2009 –
by Brendon
In retrospect, it was bad planning that I chose Arkansas-Louisville rather than the game that followed it, Memphis-Kansas, as the first game of the new season on which to take possession-by-possession notes. Still, there’s nothing as useful as taking possession data by hand to give me a good sense of a team and its players.
As it turned out, Arkansas’ lack of depth caught up with it in the game’s final 15 minutes, and Louisville’s 3-point shooting and ball-hawking defense ended the competitive phase of this game. The 96-66 Louisville victory, while lacking the last-second drama of the nightcap of Tuesday’s doubleheader, still left plenty of interesting conclusions to glean.
Let’s start with the basic tempo-free team box:
|
Poss |
PPP |
eFG |
Turn |
Reb |
FTR |
| Arkansas |
76 |
0.87 |
0.422 |
0.211 |
0.262 |
0.293 |
| Louisville |
75 |
1.26 |
0.568 |
0.132 |
0.390 |
0.178 |
For a team with just six scholarship players thanks to a bevy of suspensions, Arkansas did a pretty good job of taking care of the ball against Louisville’s zone press. Julysses Nobles had just two turnovers in 38 minutes as the point guard facing most of the heat from the Cardinals’ seemingly endless depth of aggressive guards. It was big man Mike Washington’s careless play — six turnovers — in just 28 minutes — that accounted for more than a third of the team total (16). The senior center was called for three travels and had two shots blocked in Arkansas’ first 21 possessions. Read More »
Posted in Big East, Game of the Night, SEC
|
Tagged Alcorn State, Appalachian State, Arkansas, Big East, Earl Clark, Edgar Sosa, Jared Swopshire, Jerry Smith, John Pelphrey, Julysses Nobles, Kansas, Kentucky, Kyle Kuric, Louisville, Marshawn Powell, Memphis, Mike Washington, Preston Knowles, Reginald Delk, Rick Pitino, Rotnei Clarke, Samardo Samuels, SEC, Stefan Welsh, Terrence Jennings, Terrence Williams, UNLV, USF, Western Kentucky, Yinka Dare
|
March 18, 2009 –
by Lukas
Welcome to your 2009 March Madness region of contrasting styles. Get ready for some fireworks and several battles for which team can control the tempo. Six of the top seven seeds have elite offenses. In fact they comprise half of the top-12 most efficient offenses in the country. Just for good measure, you’ve also got the two teams in the tournament that have the largest discrepancy between their horrific offense and lock down defense.
How fast should we go? Consider these Second Round matchups that all have a good chance of occurring with their national rank in possessions-per-game in parenthesis:
North Carolina (7) vs. Butler (286)
Gonzaga (88) vs. Illinois (283)
Syracuse (32) vs. Arizona State (333)
Oklahoma (94) vs. Michigan (267)
Tempo-free statistics help us understand these teams on a comparable level, but with such large gaps between the fast and the slow it will be interesting to see if any teams get thrown off its game. UNC’s secondary break tends to move at express speed no matter who the opponent is, so it’s safe to say that the other team is going to have to make an adjustment if they aren’t used to the pace. The looming Syracuse vs. Arizona State matchup is the most interesting out of these, and pits the two teams most equal in talent and ability to win. Read More »
Posted in National Perspective, Reviews/Previews
|
Tagged Akron, Arizona State, Butler, Clemson, Gonzaga, Illinois, James Harden, LSU, March, Michigan, Morgan State, NCAA Tournament, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Radford, South Regional, Stephen F. Austin, Syracuse, Temple, Western Kentucky
|
