Archive for the 'Virginia Tech' Category

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, […]

1st ROUND GAME ADJ. EFFICIENCY

  Tempo Offense Defense Overall
Southern Illinois 67.2 103.9 80.5 0.9498
Virginia Tech 63.8 107.3 82.2 0.9557

EFFICIENCY PREDICTIONS

  • Full Season Prediction … Virginia Tech 58, S. Illinois 57
  • Last 10 Prediction … S. Illinois 57, Virginia Tech 57
  • Vs. Good Prediction … Virginia Tech 59, S. Illinois 58
  • Trendline Prediction … S. Illinois 56, Virginia Tech 55
  • Best 6 Prediction … Virginia Tech 61, S. Illinois 60

UPDATED GRAPHS

Southern Illinois team capsule

Virginia Tech team capsule

When I fill out a bracket for an NCAA tournament pool (entered for pride only, no $$ exchanged of course), I’m obviously hoping in vain to get every game right. Not gonna happen. I have two other main goals (besides winning the pool): picking the Final Four correctly, and calling the first round […]

EFFICIENCY PREDICTIONS

  • Full Season Prediction … Virginia Tech 59, Illinois 58
  • Last 10 Prediction … Illinois 54, Virginia Tech 51
  • Vs. Good Prediction … Virginia Tech 58, Illinois 57
  • Trendline Prediction … Illinois 50, Virginia Tech 45
  • Best 6 Prediction … Illinois 58, Virginia Tech 57

explanation

ADJUSTED GAME EFFICIENCY DATA

  Tempo Rnk Offense Rnk Defense Rnk Overall Rnk
Overall 64.4 50 114.7 30 91.1 23 .9330 25
Vs. Good 64.1 48 115.1 28 91.2 22 .9356 25
Trendline 62.7 50 113.1 38 93.8 27 .8965 32
Last 10 62.1 55 116.4 29 94.2 32 .9193 31
Best 6 66.2 34 124.6 18 90.9 46 .9740 27

Virginia Tech is maddingly inconsistent, perhaps best evidenced by the following fact: they swept two games from North Carolina, but got swept in 3 games by non-tourney-team NC State. That inconsistency shows up in the graph, where the offense seems to alternate two good games with one terrible game, and defense yo-yos back and forth just as wildly. If I said I knew what this team was going to do in the tournament, I’d be lying. OK, not quite. I’d bet a LOT of money that they don’t put together 4 straight wins to reach Atlanta.

Points, assists, turnovers, blocks, and steals listed per 100 individual possessions

PLAYER STATS

Name %Min eFG% FT% PPWS Pts A TO BS S OR% DR%
Dowdell 83.4 52.4 81.6 1.19 33.1 6.0 3.5 0.4 3.9 3.1 9.8
Gordon 77.6 47.2 65.6 1.01 22.3 8.7 4.6 1.0 5.3 4.3 13.1
Washington 68.8 53.4 57.6 1.11 25.8 3.4 3.6 2.1 2.7 8.5 14.5
Vassallo 63.3 56.6 76.2 1.19 26.4 2.0 3.0 0.7 1.0 2.9 14.6
Collins 58.5 49.2 64.4 1.07 19.5 1.9 3.3 2.7 1.2 8.5 16.0
Sailes 39.0 44.8 44.7 0.92 8.7 3.9 1.5 0.3 1.9 4.0 5.5
Diakite 31.1 59.4 48.0 1.18 14.9 0.5 2.7 4.9 0.9 11.7 15.6
Witcher 29.0 47.9 50.0 0.98 14.3 0.3 1.7 2.0 1.2 13.2 10.9
Munson 26.9 53.6 83.3 1.10 17.2 6.6 4.4 0.0 1.3 2.2 8.0

ADJUSTED GAME EFFICIENCY DATA

  Tempo Rnk Offense Rnk Defense Rnk Overall Rnk
Overall 62.8 58 106.8 51 84.7 3 .9350 24
Vs. Good 62.2 59 106.4 50 86.5 5 .9155 34
Trendline 58.5 59 99.2 64 73.2 1 .9706 10
Last 10 59.9 61 104.3 57 80.6 2 .9511 18
Best 6 60.4 62 108.3 55 78.4 5 .9763 25

Illinois has quietly performed as one of the best defensive teams this season. They stumbled a little at midseason, but are back to an elite level, thanks to an improvement in defensive rebounding. Confusingly, their offensive rebounding has taken a step back at the same time, leading to a decline in their offensive efficiency that practically mirrors their defensive improvement. If the Illini can hit both boards hard in one game, they may put together a pretty decent game. Unfortunately for them, that hasn’t hapened often - they’ve only hit an overall game rating of .95 (NCAA quality) in 8 of the last 15 games. On a side note, the loss of Jamar Smith to a car accident doesn’t appear to have majorly impacted the team’s postseason chances.

Points, assists, turnovers, blocks, and steals listed per 100 individual possessions

ILLINOIS PLAYER STATS

Name %Min eFG% FT% PPWS Pts A TO BS S OR% DR%
Carter 74.2 53.0 71.2 1.15 28.7 4.2 5.5 2.0 1.5 7.1 17.9
Frazier 73.4 44.9 59.4 0.98 15.3 9.1 5.1 0.4 3.0 6.0 11.7
McBride 70.3 48.2 71.0 0.99 19.1 4.7 2.8 0.3 1.3 0.9 7.2
Pruitt 66.6 55.4 51.3 1.12 27.8 0.5 4.5 1.1 0.7 13.6 21.3
Brock 47.9 47.5 55.9 0.98 16.9 5.4 3.8 0.6 2.3 15.7 13.1
Meacham 44.6 50.0 78.7 1.11 18.1 6.3 4.1 0.0 2.0 1.2 6.2
Randle 43.1 53.1 61.1 1.11 18.6 2.6 4.8 1.1 2.4 6.5 16.1
Arnold 21.8 46.4 50.0 0.96 14.1 0.7 4.3 1.9 1.7 6.9 11.0
Smith 33.3 44.4 77.8 0.95 22.1 5.2 2.4 0.4 2.7 2.6 6.4




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