Advanced Statistics

[NaughtybyNapier]

I'm curious about the advanced stats that people like. Ideally, good neo-metrics provide insights into two things: first, how to better evaluate a player's productivity, and, second, how to adjust strategy in light of a roster of such evaluations.

What are the good new stats? I'm not entirely ignorant, but I am a little lazy about going on to Ken Pom (or whatever other site might doing this type of stuff) and figuring it all out.

I know some of the thought - as simple as it sounds - revolves around the idea that, if you have the ball with say 47 seconds left, you should get a shot up in time so that you get the ball back (i.e., within 12 seconds). This sounds really obvious, but there have plenty of times when JC definitely doesn't rush a shot to gain a 2-1 possession advantage, preferring to get a "good" shot instead. Just one - admittedly very basic, and perhaps not "sabermetric" - example.

Anyway, I'm interested to hear about where others are in terms of embracing/understanding/acknowledging any new bball stats out there...or discussing why they don't work as well as they do in baseball for the purposes suggested above.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

In my experience I've found (and this works for most sports) that the team that scores the most points in any game normally ends up winning that game. Beyond this, the term paralysis bu analysis often takes effect. The things is you can isolate events and qualify statistics on incomplete portions of the whole, working them to make anything seem like a valuable measurement. Most of the time what your eyes tell you is enough.

 

[woodmanjh]

I am interested in a section, possibly pinning, of address that answer our questions. People come in here and ask where can they find the schedule.

I just found
www.coachjimcalhoun.com

It should be at the top of this BOARD
and the site for the big east, University of Connecticut sports maybe ESPN, ABC, KenPom, and others

 

[Scot-e]

If you can form an equation that explains how we got RB, DD and AD as our new class of pups that would be helpful. I still have no idea how that happened.

 

[UChusky916]

The stats I care about:

Wins and losses

 

[arnie3]

We might have been the lowest ranked team (#10) in Ken Pom's rating system last year to ever win a championship! We were 5-1 against 4 teams ranked higher than us. That never made sense to me.

 

[UConn5]

I havenever bought into the kenpom nonsense and last year just reaffirmed it.

 

[mets1090]

We were 5-1 against 4 teams ranked higher than us. That never made sense to me.

Statistical reasoning for that is, in most cases, a small sample size. However, no one is likely to ever come up with a stat that quantifies resilience or chemistry or anything like that. These are the reasons why last year's team was special and won the title.

 

[willie99]

I've learned that Ken Pom, who adjusts actual stats based on tempo, always seems to adjust UNC & Duke upwards (seriously)

I think he likes more offense and the way he weighs different variables makes more fluid offensive teams appear better on paper.

 

[Waquoit]

We might have been the lowest ranked team (#10) in Ken Pom's rating system last year to ever win a championship! We were 5-1 against 4 teams ranked higher than us. That never made sense to me.

Ken Pom is a fraud by any measurement.

 

[Palatine]

Points per possession would seem to be a good measure of offensive efficiency.

Opponents points per possession would seem a good measure of defensive efficiency.

 

[Walker11]

There is definitely some value in Ken Pom but some people put way too much value into his stats. Luck coefficient? C'mon.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

There is definitely some value in Ken Pom but some people put way too much value into his stats. Luck coefficient? C'mon.

There has to be a luck coefficient. How else can you explain our beating (per KenPom stats) better teams and winning the title?

 

[auror]

Basketball is a game of infinite minute interactions. You cannot hope to break them all down to which ones have added value towards a win or not. Therefore basketball statistics will never be as exact as baseball statistics.

However, there is a difference between seeing things logically and without bias and being exact. KenPom (and other advanced basketball metrics sites, like basketballprospectus.com) use tempo-free analysis, basically using per possession or per shot, etc. stats instead of per game stats, which are infinitely more valuable.

As to Luck coefficient: "The easiest one to understand is Luck, which is the deviation in winning percentage between a team’s actual record and their expected record using the correlated gaussian method. The luck factor has nothing to do with the rating calculation, but a team that is very lucky (positive numbers) will tend to be rated lower by my system than their record would suggest"

As to those who are saying that we were rated 10th so the system is obviously flawed. We "got hot" last year. We were 8-8 in Big East play. KenPom's system takes more recent games performance into account, but not strongly enough to overcome 8 losses in the previous 15 games. The rest of the games still have weight. Had the season gone on another 20 games and we played as well as we did in the Big East Tournament and NCAA Tournament, I'm sure we would have ended up #1.

Advanced statistics are a tool to help better understand what you see with your eyes. As I said, they aren't exact and they aren't the gospel, but anyone who dismisses them out of hand remains intentionally ignorant.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

Points per possession would seem to be a good measure of offensive efficiency.

In theory this is correct but the application is quite important. Ken Pom had some offensive efficiency stat that claimed Wisconsin had the #3 or #4 offense in the country. Try saying that with a straight face after watching the B-10 tournament championship game (PSU 36 - UW 33).