Every year about this time I practically strip the gears in a noisy transition from football to basketball. Your mileage will almost certainly vary, but for me, it's never as smooth as I'd like. Just how do football previews translate into basketball previews? They're two almost totally different things.
So I thought maybe we'd all do a little crowdsourcing to really delve into hoops and create a template for RTT's basketball previews. There are several fantastic resources for bball info on the web, most notably KenPom.com, Statsheet.com, and the good old trusty NCAA. But what's important among all of that data?
For instance, there's this from Statsheet.com:
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| Rankings | ||||
| Conf Standing | 1 | 1 | ||
| AP Rank | 11 | 3 | ||
| RPI Rank | 3 | 4 | ||
| SOS Rank | 14 | 21 | ||
| Projected SOS Rank | 14 | 6 | ||
Okay, good. Both Tennessee and Pitt sit atop their respective leagues and are essentially neck and neck in the all-important RPI. The voters think more highly of Pitt, but the Vols' strength of schedule is a bit better. All right. Detail:
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| Wins & Losses | ||||
| Overall | 6-0 | (1.00) | 9-0 | (1.00) |
| Home | 4-0 | (1.00) | 6-0 | (1.00) |
| Away | 0-0 | (NA) | 1-0 | (1.00) |
| Neutral | 2-0 | (1.00) | 2-0 | (1.00) |
| Conference | 0-0 | (NA) | 0-0 | (NA) |
| Top 25 | 1-0 | (1.00) | 0-0 | (NA) |
| Blowout (> 19) | 2-0 | (1.00) | 4-0 | (1.00) |
| Close (< 6) | 2-0 | (1.00) | 1-0 | (1.00) |
| Overtime | 0-0 | (0.00) | 0-0 | (0.00) |
| NCAA Tourney | 0-0 | (0.00) | 0-0 | (0.00) |
Pitt's played three more games than have the Vols, probably because they don't have to really worry about all that "school" business (ha!) (actually, I don't have a clue about Pittsburgh's academics, so whatever). Tennessee has the best pelt (Villanova). Okay. More (much more) detail:
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| Stats | ||||
| Pts Per Game | 78.0 | (49) |
82.8 | (15) |
| Poss Per Game | 73.0 | (58) |
67.9 | (202) |
| Pts Per Poss | 1.07 | (78) |
1.22 | (4) |
| Floor Pct | 54.2 | (87) |
64.2 | (1) |
| FG Made Per Game | 25.2 | |
29.9 | |
| FG Att Per Game | 55.7 | |
61.7 | |
| FG Pct | 45.2 | (111) |
48.5 | (29) |
| FT Made Per Game | 22.3 | |
16.6 | |
| FT Att Per Game | 32.7 | |
24.9 | |
| FT Pct | 68.4 | (159) |
66.5 | (215) |
| 3FG Made Per Game | 5.3 | |
6.4 | |
| 3FG Att Per Game | 16.5 | |
17.6 | |
| 3pt FG Pct | 32.3 | (217) |
36.7 | (97) |
| Effective FG Pct | 50.0 | (156) |
53.7 | (43) |
| True Shooting Pct | 54.8 | (105) |
56.3 | (60) |
| Free Throw Rate | 58.7 | (2) |
40.4 | (134) |
| 2pt FG Point Pct | 50.9 | (209) |
56.6 | (68) |
| 3pt FG Point Pct | 20.5 | (302) |
23.4 | (249) |
| FT Point Pct | 28.6 | (3) |
20.0 | (218) |
| RPG | 42.3 | (15) |
45.6 | (3) |
| Off Rebs Per Game | 13.7 | (61) |
17.6 | (4) |
| Off Reb Pct | 39.6 | (33) |
48.3 | (1) |
| Def Rebs Per Game | 28.7 | (10) |
28.0 | (23) |
| Def Reb Pct | 70.2 | (90) |
72.2 | (50) |
| Assists Per Game | 14.3 | (107) |
20.0 | (3) |
| Assist Pct | 57.0 | (112) |
66.9 | (8) |
| A/T Ratio | 0.9 | (176) |
1.64 | (4) |
| Steals Per Game | 8.2 | (80) |
5.8 | (253) |
| Steal Pct | 11.2 | (102) |
8.5 | (259) |
| Blocks Per Game | 4.2 | (104) |
4.3 | (93) |
| Block Pct | 7.2 | (121) |
7.6 | (100) |
| TOPG | 16.0 | (83) |
12.2 | (300) |
| Turnover Pct | 21.9 | (128) |
18.0 | (292) |
| Fouls Per Game | 22.5 | (38) |
17.7 | (251) |
Wow. See? That's a whole lotto stuff. How much of that is important?Which of it is most important? From that stuff above, it looks to me like Pitt is simply a better shooting team (in every category except -- brace -- free throws, in which Tennessee is better). The Vols make up for it somewhat in having more possessions, but not enough to make up the difference in total points. Pitt rebounds better on the offensive end, and the teams do equally well on the boards on the defensive end. Tennessee generates more steals (woo!)
But do us all a favor and spend some time over at Statsheet.com. Play with their cool embeddable charts. Which of those are not only cool but relevant and informative? What's with that Four Factors analysis? You tell me, and I'll begin to incorporate them into our basketball game previews.
Do the same with KenPom.com (which is just cool to say). For instance, he currently lists Pitt as Tennessee's best opponent of the season. He predicts a 75-66 Pittsburgh victory and gives the Vols an 18% chance of winning. That's good stuff. We've taken a look at how he arrives at such conclusions before. Should we revisit that?
There's good stuff at the NCAA site, too, but is there anything worth including in a preview?