Archive for the 'Kansas' Category

Elite 8 Viewing Guide

Mar 24, 2007 in monologue, Florida, Oregon, Kansas, UCLA, North Carolina, Georgetown, Ohio St., Memphis, Elite 8

A fantastic slate of games this weekend, with only one game that seems to have a clear favorite (Florida over Oregon). Here are summaries of the more in-depth analysis found in our game previews, along with a couple stat-based predictions.
Saturday, 4:40 PM: Ohio St. vs. Memphis
Not many turnovers or fouls (but if there are, […]

1

Kansas - UCLA Preview

This should look a whole lot like the previous round games for these teams. UCLA is playing the best defense in the tourney, and will try to slow down Kansas, just like Southern Illinois did.

The efficiency predictions look quite sensible. UCLA has played slightly better in the three NCAA Tournament games but Kansas was playing slightly better at the end of the regular season/during the conference tournament.

If Kansas can return to their normal levels of turnovers committed and defensive rebounds garnered, they’ll be dangerous for UCLA. Despite an outstanding defensive performance overall from Southern Illinois, Kansas did shoot 60.7 eFG% and that was their worst shooting performance of the tournament so far. UCLA (70.4 DR% on the season) should, however, be able to keep Kansas off the offensive glass when the Jayhawks do miss a shot.

The biggest problem UCLA will pose for Kansas is deciding which of Arron Afflalo or Josh Shipp Brandon Rush will guard down the stretch. Shipp’s numbers are certainly helped by the attention Afflalo draws from opposing defenses, but they aren’t really that different.

Name %Min eFG% FT% PPWS Pts A TO BS S OR% DR%
Afflalo 83.2 54.0 80.0 1.16 30.7 3.7 3.2 0.5 1.2 1.5 8.9
Shipp 72.5 53.3 77.0 1.15 27.4 5.1 3.7 0.5 2.4 4.9 11.0

If it comes down to free throw shooting, expect both fan bases to be covering their eyes. Kansas and UCLA both shoot 66.3% from the line on the year.

FIRST 3 GAMES ADJ. EFFICIENCY

  Tempo Offense Defense Overall
Kansas 71.3 127.5 87.0 .9831
UCLA 61.7 110.6 73.0 .9903

EFFICIENCY PREDICTIONS

  • Full Season Prediction … Kansas 65, UCLA 63
  • Last 10 Prediction … Kansas 68, UCLA 63
  • Vs. Good Prediction … Kansas 67, UCLA 66
  • Trendline Prediction … Kansas 66, UCLA 61
  • Tourney So Far Prediction … UCLA 62, Kansas 60

UPDATED GRAPHS

Kansas team capsule

UCLA team capsule

Regional Graphs

Mar 21, 2007 in monologue, Southern Illinois, Florida, Butler, Oregon, UNLV, Kansas, Pittsburgh, UCLA, North Carolina, USC, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Ohio St., Tennessee, Texas A&M, Memphis, Sweet 16

These are rolling 10 game averages of the offensive (top, up is good) and defensive (bottom, down is good) efficiencies of all the teams left in the tournament, broken down by region. If that’s not interesting to you, you are really missing out on a number of worldly experiences.
Basically, if a team’s top line […]

No Alarms And No Surprises Please

Mar 21, 2007 in monologue, Florida, Kansas, Georgetown, Texas A&M, Sweet 16, Final Four, Predictions

KenPom.com has eFG% data for the last 3 years, so I took a look at what, if anything, eFG% (definition) might be able to tell us about which Sweet 16 teams will make the Final Four. Turns out, if this year holds to the patterns of the last 3 years, the Final Four is […]

Sweet 16 Previews

Mar 21, 2007 in monologue, Southern Illinois, Florida, Butler, Oregon, UNLV, Kansas, Pittsburgh, UCLA, North Carolina, USC, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Ohio St., Tennessee, Texas A&M, Memphis, Sweet 16

Check out our game previews for the Sweet 16 … I know, we picked a lot of chalk. If we have to pick a #1 seed to lose, my gut says USC takes down UNC. (Which probably means UNC wins in a blowout.)
[BE SURE TO CLICK THROUGH TO THE ACTUAL PREVIEWS. THEY […]

1

Kansas - Southern Illinois Preview

Neither of these teams have a real defensive weakness, but there’s one thing they clearly both do least well defensively: they send their opponents on the free throw line fairly often. Their respective free throw rates allowed (opponents’ FTA/opponents FGA) are inflated somewhat due to the number of turnovers they force: Kansas forces turnovers on 24% of opponents’ possessions, Southern Illinois does so on 25% of opponents’ possessions so there’s a practical limit to how many field goal attempts either team allows. Still, Kansas allows their opponents a little more than one free throw attempt for every three field goal attempts while Southern Illinois allows one free throw attempt for every two field goal attempts.

Similarly, neither team’s offense appears likely to take advantage of frequent trips to the free throw line. Kansas shoots 66.6% on free throws, Southern Illinois shoots 69.1%. If Matt Shaw is unable to play, Southern Illinois’s free throw shooting is unlikely to match their season average. Shaw has made 81.7% of his free throws while taking about 15% of Southern Illinois’s free throws on the year.

Even with Shaw, Southern Illinois is far more limited offensively than Kansas. Whereas the Jayhawks feature seven players who score between 19.8 and 30.8 points per 100 possessions, Southern Illinois relies on Jamaal Tatum (30.4 Pts/100), Randal Falker (27.7 Pts/100), Tony Young (23.3 Pts/100), and Shaw (24.6 Pts/100) for almost all their scoring. Bryan Mullins (13.9 Pts/100) is the next most frequent scorer on the team. Tony Boyle provided a significant boost off the bench against Holy Cross (14 points in 21 minutes) but it was massively atypical (Boyle over the rest of the season: 67 points in 375 minutes).

In addition to their greater depth, Kansas does a much better job on the offensive glass (37.9 OR%) than Southern Illinois (31.7 OR%) and in taking care of the ball (19.8 TO% vs. 23% for Southern Illinois). The Jayhawks should put far more pressure on the Salukis’ defense than vice-versa. If Kansas can dictate the pace of play (they’d prefer 8-10 more possessions per game than Southern Illinois typically allows), each of their advantages will be magnified.

FIRST 2 GAMES ADJ. EFFICIENCY

  Tempo Offense Defense Overall
Kansas 73.5 133.7 87.4 .9925
Southern Illinois 63.1 113.0 77.6 .9869

EFFICIENCY PREDICTIONS

  • Full Season Prediction … Kansas 64, Southern Illinois 56
  • Last 10 Prediction … Kansas 69, Southern Illinois 59
  • Vs. Good Prediction … Kansas 65, Southern Illinois 58
  • Trendline Prediction … Kansas 68, Southern Illinois 60
  • Best 6 Prediction … Kansas 67, Southern Illinois 53

UPDATED GRAPHS

Kansas team capsule

Southern Illinois team capsule

Last 10 Ratings, Sweet 16 Edition

Mar 19, 2007 in monologue, Southern Illinois, Florida, Butler, Oregon, UNLV, Kansas, Pittsburgh, UCLA, North Carolina, USC, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Ohio St., Tennessee, Texas A&M, Memphis, Sweet 16, Last 10 Ratings

Hope these “Just Stats” posts aren’t too annoying, but Mondays are busy nights. Should have some commentary up tomorrow at the latest.

Tempo
Rnk
Offense
Rnk
Defense
Rnk
Overall
Rnk

Kansas
69.9
1
126.4
2
82.3
1
0.9928
1

N. Carolina
69.8
2
127.9
1
90.3
8
0.9822
2

Georgetown
60.1
15
121.1
8
85.9
3
0.9813
3

Florida
65.5
7
123.8
4
90.2
7
0.9745
4

Ohio St.
63.6
9
117.7
12
86.0
4
0.9736
5

Texas A&M
63.1
11
122.4
5
91.8
10
0.9650
6

Oregon
62.2
13
126.0
3
94.5
13
0.9646
7

UCLA
62.2
14
116.8
14
88.6
5
0.9602
8

Tennessee
69.6
3
121.4
6
92.1
11
0.9598
9

S. Illinois
62.5
12
110.9
16
85.8
2
0.9504
10

UNLV
64.1
8
117.3
13
91.0
9
0.9491
11

Memphis
66.9
4
114.4
15
89.0
6
0.9472
12

Pittsburgh
63.1
10
120.2
10
93.7
12
0.9457
13

Vanderbilt
66.4
5
119.3
11
95.8
14
0.9258
14

USC
66.0
6
121.1
9
97.4
15
0.9241
15

Butler
57.9
16
121.3
7
98.4
16
0.9171
16

Sweet 16 Report Cards

Mar 19, 2007 in monologue, Southern Illinois, Florida, Butler, Oregon, UNLV, Kansas, Pittsburgh, UCLA, North Carolina, USC, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Ohio St., Tennessee, Texas A&M, Memphis, Sweet 16

Here’s a chart of the adjusted tempo and efficiencies of all the Sweet 16 teams for the first 2 games of the tournament. I was going to post it with each team’s rank in each category, but the ranks exaggerate some differences in performance and minimize others. So I broke the offenses and […]

Sunday Viewing Guide

Mar 18, 2007 in monologue, Winthrop, Southern Illinois, Florida, Purdue, Oregon, UNLV, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Virginia Tech, Kansas, USC, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Nevada, Memphis, Viewing Guide

12:10 PM: #4 Virginia vs. #5 Tennessee
40 MINUTE GAME OF HORSE. Both of these teams played great on offense and poor on defense in the first round. The reason the scores look so different is all about the tempo and opponent. Both teams are likely to improve their defensive performance a bit, […]

1

Kansas - Kentucky Preview

1st ROUND GAME ADJ. EFFICIENCY

  Tempo Offense Defense Overall
Kansas 82.1 117.6 75.6 0.9938
Kentucky 60.2 125.9 84.9 0.9894

EFFICIENCY PREDICTIONS

  • Full Season Prediction … Kansas 72, Kentucky 66
  • Last 10 Prediction … Kansas 76, Kentucky 63
  • Vs. Good Prediction … Kansas 72, Kentucky 67
  • Trendline Prediction … Kansas 83, Kentucky 70
  • Best 6 Prediction … Kansas 71, Kentucky 59

UPDATED GRAPHS

Kansas team capsule

Kentucky team capsule

« Previous Entries

    Game Previews

  • Florida - Ohio St. Preview

    • Florida enters the National Championship game off of a terrifically impressive offensive performance against UCLA. The Bruins reached the Final ...

  • Florida - UCLA Preview

    • UCLA will have a more difficult defensive task facing Florida than they did in the regional final against Kansas. Florida, ...

  • Ohio St. - Georgetown Preview

    • Per Ken Pomeroy’s HD boxscores (and barring errors in my calculations), in the NCAA Tournament Ohio ...

  • Florida - Oregon Preview

    • Over the last 7 games, Oregon has averaged an eFG% of 59.5%, while holding their opponents to 45.2%. Compare ...

  • North Carolina - Georgetown Preview

    • The first thing that jumps out at me about this matchup is the difference in tempos - UNC is the ...

  • Ohio St. - Memphis Preview

    • There’s a very good chance that this game (though it will likely be played at a faster pace, and thus, ...

  • Kansas - UCLA Preview

    • This should look a whole lot like the previous round games for these teams. UCLA is playing the best ...

  • Georgetown - Vanderbilt Preview

    • These two teams played way back on November 15th. It was the first game of the season for Vanderbilt, ...

  • North Carolina - USC Preview

    • So far USC has been the most impressive team in the tournament. Their offense has been on par with ...

  • Florida - Butler Preview

    • There are a lot of parallels between the Florida - Butler matchup and the Kansas - Southern Illinois matchup. ...

Subscribe to HTB

Latest Entries

Archives

Categories