Tag Archives: KenPom

College Basketball Power Rankings: Cutting Down the Nets

1 Reply

The Super Bowl is over a week in our rear-view mirror, so by now, you’ve seen all the bracket projections, conference races, and AP rankings you can handle.  But what you really want to know is who’s going to cut down the nets in Atlanta.  We’ll count down from 30, and these rankings won’t be which teams are playing the best right now, who’s the hottest, or who has the best resumes.

This a gut-feel list of who we’d bet on to win the National Championship – whether it be talent, coaching, team makeup, or any other reason we feel plays a role.  In Part I, we started at 30 and went through 9. In this installment, we’ll give a rundown of our “Elite Eight” and some more in-depth info on those teams.

Countdown to the Cut-Down

How They Match Up: A Statistical Look-Ahead to the Rest of the Week

Leave a reply

Let's just concede that this is an offensive rebound, OK?

Let’s just concede that this is an offensive rebound, OK?

A Big Ten Paint Crew of a Different Kind

  • Michigan is #1 in FTA/FGA Defense (FT attempts per FG attempt)
  • Minnesota is #22 in FTA/FGA Offense
  • Michigan is #2 in OReb% Defense *
  • Minnesota is #1 in OReb% (percentage of offensive rebound opportunities secured)

Michigan plays at Minnesota on Thursday. Strength against strength, anyone?

Continue reading about the week’s biggest games

I Want Winners: An Introduction to a New Daily Feature

Leave a reply

I love writing insightful features that make my readers think, utilize stats, and are unique in a variety of ways.  But most people really just want to see how an “expert” (yes, that’s pretty much the loosest use of that term ever) does at predicting the future.

Therefore, I’m going to pick games of note everyday.  I won’t be utilizing point spreads, so I’m going to limit my picks to games that have a “Thrill Score” of 50 or higher on Ken Pomeroy’s FanMatch rating system.  For those yet to be indoctrinated, see below for a the highlight of what I linked in the last sentence.

Actually, the games are rated for competitiveness and level of play with a lean towards higher-scoring games without using any cookies.

Continue reading →

NCAA Tournament Upsets: How Do They Happen?

1 Reply

So I was racking my brain on what my first post of the New Year, first post in a week’s time, and first college hoop-only post (as a Steelers fan, my NFL season is over; but I will roll out some NFL playoff predictions tomorrow).  This post fits all of those three things and shouldn’t disappoint.  With college hoop, few watch the beginning, but everyone watches the end.  So the end is where we’ll begin.  Confused yet?

I was reading Matt Norlander‘s every-morning post – the Wakeup Call - today and was guided to Luke Winn‘s fantastic Power Rankings column today, where I found something interesting in the Notre Dame section.  Luke’s write-up for the Irish referenced KenPom.com rankings for Offensive Efficiency (OE) and Defensive Efficiency (DE).  In the interest of word count, I’ll summarize:

Continue finding out which teams are prime to be picked off in March

2012-13 College Basketball Preview – The FnB College Hoops 100

Leave a reply

Holy cow! College hoops season starts this Friday! I can’t believe it is already here. For those of you who have started following me this fall because of my fantasy football work, I hope you like the college hoop as well. If not, please don’t abandon me – simply “read selectively.”

If anyone read my college hoops content last year, I plan to bring it all back and more. More stats, more opinions, more evaluations of teams, and more predictions come February. Perhaps my best call last year was having Kansas in my top three teams on January 28 – well before they began dominating the Big 12 and making a run to the National Championship game.

Without further ado, I’m going to give you 100 notable items about the 2012-13 college basketball season. I’ve broken them out into ten categories. Yes, I’m aware that this has been done before – but not for college hoops (as far as I know). Plus, it gives me a way to avoid writing long paragraphs, which will hopefully delay you clicking the X in the top-right corner. Let’s get going, shall we?

“Dougie Swish” – I could get used to it, I guess

Top Ten Players You Know

  1. Cody Zeller – C, Indiana (Sophomore)
  2. Doug McDermott – SF, Creighton (Junior)
  3. Mike Moser – F, UNLV (Junior)
  4. DeShaun Thomas – SF, Ohio State (Junior)
  5. James Michael McAdoo – PF, North Carolina (Sophomore)
  6. Michael Snaer – SG – Florida State (Senior)
  7. Trey Burke – PG, Michigan (Sophomore)
  8. Phil Pressey – PG, Missouri (Junior)
  9. Isaiah Canaan – G – Murray State (Senior)
  10. Aaron Craft – PG, Ohio State (Junior)

Continue reading the College Basketball Blowout