Monday, April 16, 2007

News: Hoyas' newest recruit ???



MDVarsity.com's message board reports that Nikita Mescheriakov will sign a letter-of-intent to play for Georgetown. This was also reported by Josh Barr in the WashPost later today.

Here's a Google-cached article about the Belarus-native; the article was published by the Frederick News-Post in February, and has been pulled from their site already.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Analysis: Season Review, Pt. 2

Picking up where we left off in the last post, here are three more sets of stats for the Hoyas players for this season, breaking the season into three chunks: OOC (13 games, Nov. 11 - Dec. 30), BE regular season (16 games, Jan. 6 - Mar. 3) and post-season (8 games, Mar. 8 - 31).


Points per Weighted Shot

PPWS simply divides the points scored by a player by the sum of his field goal attempts and a fraction of his free throw attempts. As the (former) Big Ten Wonk says, PPWS is not the end-all of statistical analysis, but it's easy to calculate and can give an objective indicator of a struggling or surging player.

PPWS = PTS/(FGA + (0.475 x FTA))

A general rule is that a player under 1.0 is having a rough go of it, and a player over 1.3 is doing extremely well. Keep in mind that small sample size can give some curious results.

Player OOC BE Post
Green 1.28 1.17 1.13
Sapp 1.00 1.03 1.06
Wallace 1.32 1.33 1.42
Hibbert 1.34 1.45 1.25
Summers 1.26 1.06 0.97
Ewing 1.34 1.25 1.06
Egerson 1.11 - -
Rivers 1.10 0.71 1.01
Macklin 1.39 1.45 1.22
Crawford 1.10 0.95 1.50
Spann 0.00 1.40 2.00
Dizdarevic 0.00 1.50 2.11
Izzo 0.51 0.00 0.00

First thing that I notice is that the much-maligned guards showed no drop-off in performance as the competition improved, although Sapp's shooting was merely pedestrian, while Wallace was superb. Hibbert and Green slumped a bit in the post-season, but you just couldn't expect Roy to keep up that insane pace from the BE regular season. That stat may indicate just how little competition Hibbert had in the Big East this year (outside of Gray). Summers and Ewing, in their 1st year playing for Georgetown, did struggle to score later in the year. Rivers' offense was a real problem during conference play (he desperately needs a mid-range and long-range shot), but he didn't embarrass himself when it mattered most. And, dare I say, play Vernon Macklin.


Points per Possession Used

Speaking of that old post, I developed a couple of new (to me, at least) statistics then, based on the idea that you can credit - or blame - individual players for possessions used in addition to weighted shots. This is the same stat that was used to calculate possession stats in Part 1, albeit without explanation there.

Poss. Used = FGA + 0.475*FTA + TO - OR

The idea here is that a player ends a possession by shooting, by getting fouled and heading to the line or by turning the ball over. But a player who can get an offensive rebound saves a possession for his team, and should be rewarded. So a new stat, points per possession used [PPP] accounting for all possessions used rather than just shots, is simply:

PPP = PTS/(FGA + 0.475*FTA + TO - OR)

Here we go:

Player OOC BE Post
Green 1.11 1.08 1.15
Sapp 0.95 0.86 1.03
Wallace 1.02 1.12 1.38
Hibbert 1.52 1.66 1.65
Summers 1.08 1.05 0.92
Ewing 1.28 1.25 0.95
Egerson 1.15 - -
Rivers 0.87 0.46 0.67
Macklin 1.35 2.02 1.22
Crawford 0.99 0.87 1.13
Spann 0.00 3.50 2.00
Dizdarevic 0.00 0.75 0.68
Izzo 0.34 0.00 0.00

While this stat gives some interesting results, it tends to bias towards inside players who can accrue offensive rebounds while avoiding turnovers. So, instead of commenting, I'll just go straight to the final stat.


Points + Assists per Possession Used

And this stat is exactly as it reads, although I have come up with a funky acronym (take that Mr. Gasaway).

PAPU = (PTS + ASST)/(FGA + 0.475*FTA + TO - OR)

The idea here is to reward ball-handlers for their extra risk of turnovers that they assume by crediting them for finding teammates in scoring position. Traditionally, that would be the guards, although the sharing philosophy of Georgetown's offensive scheme isn't as heavily weighted that way as most teams (he says without a shred of statistical evidence to back it up).

Player OOC BE Post
Green 1.43 1.34 1.28
Sapp 1.29 1.19 1.39
Wallace 1.32 1.39 1.71
Hibbert 1.67 1.75 1.82
Summers 1.13 1.20 1.08
Ewing 1.52 1.56 1.23
Egerson 1.29 - -
Rivers 1.39 0.71 1.60
Macklin 1.60 2.41 1.22
Crawford 1.14 1.13 1.13
Spann 0.00 3.50 2.00
Dizdarevic 0.00 0.75 0.68
Izzo 0.34 0.00 0.00

I don't have a good enough feel for PAPU yet to make any absolute statements (another post for another day), but it seems that a score above 1.25 is an indicator of solid play.

What I find interesting here is that, for the 6 core players, three played above their season average in the post-season (Hibbert, Wallace and Sapp), while three did not. This is similar to what was shown in the PPWS table above, except that Roy is now being credited for his yeoman's effort on the offensive glass (3.8/g). Other winners are Rivers, although his post-season stat is heavily biased by the 7 assists he recorded mostly in garbage time against Belmont and (dare I say again?) Vernon Macklin.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Analysis: Season Review, Pt. 1

With yesterday's announcement of Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert submitting their names to the NBA for this year's draft (without signing with an agent) the predictable hysteria has broken out on HoyaTalk.


On with the stats.

I thought I'd post some player stats, breaking the season down into 3 sections: OOC (13 games, Nov. 11 - Dec. 30), BE regular season (16 games, Jan. 6 - Mar. 3) and post-season (8 games, Mar. 8 - 31).

Other than minutes per game, the stats presented here were also discussed in a previous post.

First, minutes per game:

Player OOC BE Post
Green 30.6 34.1 36.1
Sapp 30.9 34.2 33.3
Wallace 29.8 32.7 35.1
Hibbert 24.9 27.1 27.3
Summers 19.7 29.8 30.4
Ewing 8.1 16.1 19.9
Egerson 24.1 - -
Rivers 11.8 11.9 11.4
Macklin 11.0 8.7 4.0
Crawford 16.1 3.9 5.3
Spann 1.4 0.9 0.5
Dizdarevic 0.8 0.5 0.4
Izzo 0.6 0.3 0.3

A couple of points here:
  • I treat Did Not Play (DNP's) differently, depending upon whether they were due to coach's decision or injury/illness. A DNP-Coach's decision counts as a game with 0 minutes played. A DNP-Injury/illness does not count as a game, since the player is unavailable. Player availability is not always known, but I went from news reported by Barker Davis and/or Camille Powell. By my reckoning, the following players were unavailable for games this season (Macklin - 1; Crawford - 6; Rivers - 3). If anyone can confirm that Ewing missed the Duke game due to injury/illness, I'll change it, but for now, I have him listed as DNP-Coach's decision.
  • The transfer by Egerson, and resulting 24 min/game avaiable seems to have been mostly absorbed by Summers & Ewing, as you'd expect. Crawford's lost minutes don't seem to go to Rivers, as since the latter's minutes stay flat while Tyler has a big drop off. But this is due to their non-overlapping illness/injuries. In games where Tyler was unavailable, Rivers averaged 16+ minutes (here, I'm including the Duke game, where Crawford played the last few seconds as a 3-pt threat, but clearly wasn't at full strength). In games where Rivers was unavailable, Crawford averaged 18+ minutes.
  • Macklin's minutes showed a steady decline across the three parts of the season. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'd suggest that he followed the same pattern that Egerson had last season. I'd expect to see more of him next year, even if the 2 juniors return.

Possessions Used:

Player OOC BE Post
Green 17.0% 23.2% 23.7%
Sapp 15.1% 17.3% 15.3%
Wallace 17.6% 16.7% 14.1%
Hibbert 12.6% 13.4% 13.3%
Summers 11.5% 15.1% 18.9%
Ewing 3.2% 6.3% 8.0%
Egerson 10.6% - -
Rivers 2.4% 4.3% 2.4%
Macklin 3.9% 1.9% 2.0%
Crawford 5.0% 1.2% 1.6%
Spann 0.5% 0.2% 0.2%
Dizdarevic 0.4% 0.4% 0.6%
Izzo 0.4% 0.1% 0.0%

What's interesting here is that we can see that Egerson's lost possessions were taken up by Ewing, Summers and especially Green. What's also obvious is that, much like last year, the team had only 6 players likely to end a possession by the end of the season.


Available Possessions Used:

Just a reminder that this stat is the ratio of a player's possessions used over team possessions used while the player was on the floor. Since I'm not willing to go through the play-by-play by hand (and KenPom doesn't have HD box scores for all games played), it assumes that game pace is constant, an admittedly lousy assumption. An average player would use 20% of available possessions.

Player OOC BE Post
Green 22.2% 27.2% 26.3%
Sapp 19.5% 20.2% 18.3%
Wallace 23.6% 20.4% 16.0%
Hibbert 20.2% 19.7% 19.5%
Summers 23.4% 20.3% 24.8%
Ewing 15.7% 15.8% 16.2%
Egerson 17.6% - -
Rivers 10.6% 14.4% 8.4%
Macklin 15.2% 8.6% 19.9%
Crawford 20.2% 12.1% 14.0%
Spann 14.3% 8.9% 16.1%
Dizdarevic 19.3% 33.4% 63.5%
Izzo 23.7% 16.7% 0.0%

First, let me say "Hats off to Sead Dizdarevic!" That young man is not bashful. Otherwise, Wallace looks to have become more judicious as the season went along; his scoring average for the post-season was better than the season as a whole, as he took more than 1 extra 3-pt. (biased somewhat by the desperation 3s against OSU) and made more than half of them. Hibbert could have been a bit more aggressive, but perhaps was conscious of avoiding fouls. And Summers did his part to carry the team in the post-season, but his inconsistency (as to be expected from a freshman, and for a post on another day) was the wild-card that eventually caught up with the Hoyas (no, not Jeff Green's 5 FGA).

And for those of you curious, Jeff and Roy used up 48% of available possessions from this year. Last year, the 3 seniors (Bowman, Cook, Owens) used up 58% of available possessions.

Sunday, April 1, 2007

Final score: OHIO STATE 67, GEORGETOWN 60

  GEORGETOWN vs OHIO STATE  
3/31/07 6:07PM at Georgia Dome, Atlanta, GA
Final score: OHIO STATE 67, GEORGETOWN 60

GEORGETOWN Min +/- Pts 2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A FGA A Stl TO Blk OR DR PF
Summers, DaJuan 29:16 - 3 3 /47 1 -6 0 -4 1 -2 10/38 3 /18 1 /43 3 /44 1 /30 2 /20 1 /27 0
Green, Jeff 39:57 - 5 9 /60 4 -5 0 -0 1 -2 5 /50 3 /21 0 /57 3 /58 0 /43 3 /29 9 /37 4
Hibbert, Roy 23:58 + 13 19/49 9 -13 0 -0 1 -4 13/35 1 /12 0 /34 2 /37 1 /28 2 /17 4 /27 4
Wallace, Jonathan 37:08 - 6 19/56 2 -3 5 -9 0 -0 12/48 1 /16 1 /55 2 /56 0 /40 1 /27 0 /36 1
Sapp, Jessie 30:25 - 10 10/46 2 -2 2 -7 0 -0 9 /40 4 /16 1 /46 0 /47 0 /32 0 /23 2 /25 2
Macklin, Vernon 05:13 + 0 0 /9 0 -0 0 -0 0 -0 0 /5 0 /3 0 /8 1 /8 0 /4 0 /3 2 /5 0
Rivers, Jeremiah 13:31 - 5 0 /18 0 -0 0 -0 0 -0 0 /16 2 /7 0 /19 1 /17 1 /14 0 /12 1 /14 1
Crawford, Tyler 03:20 - 2 0 /0 0 -0 0 -0 0 -0 0 /4 0 /0 0 /4 0 /4 0 /4 0 /4 0 /3 0
Ewing, Patrick 17:12 - 17 0 /15 0 -1 0 -1 0 -0 2 /19 3 /7 0 /24 2 /24 0 /20 1 /15 1 /11 3
TOTALS 40:00 60 18-30 7 -21 3 -8 51 17/25 3 /58 14/59 3 /43 9 /30 21/37 15
0.600 0.333 0.375 0.680 0.052 0.237 0.070 0.300 0.568

OHIO STATE Min +/- Pts 2PM-A 3PM-A FTM-A FGA A Stl TO Blk OR DR PF
HARRIS, Ivan 14:50 - 1 9 /24 2 -6 1 -1 2 -4 7 /21 1 /6 1 /22 1 /21 0 /11 5 /15 2 /7 0
ODEN, Greg 19:41 + 5 13/41 6 -11 0 -0 1 -4 11/28 0 /9 1 /32 2 /32 1 /16 3 /16 6 /15 4
CONLEY JR, Mike 38:40 + 10 15/67 6 -9 1 -3 0 -0 12/56 6 /18 0 /57 1 /57 0 /30 2 /36 3 /30 1
LEWIS, Ron 34:10 + 3 9 /61 1 -5 0 -3 7 -8 8 /48 2 /21 3 /52 3 /50 0 /27 2 /31 3 /26 0
BUTLER, Jamar 34:10 + 3 10/61 2 -3 2 -6 0 -0 9 /48 4 /18 0 /52 0 /50 0 /27 0 /31 0 /26 1
LIGHTY, David 24:53 + 2 5 /37 2 -3 0 -0 1 -1 3 /36 0 /14 2 /36 0 /34 0 /19 2 /22 1 /22 2
COOK, Daequan 07:27 + 7 2 /12 0 -3 0 -1 2 -2 4 /10 0 /3 0 /10 0 /12 0 /3 0 /7 0 /5 0
TERWILLIGER, Matt 09:50 + 8 2 /15 1 -1 0 -0 0 -0 1 /14 0 /6 1 /13 0 /14 1 /7 1 /7 2 /8 1
HUNTER, Othello 16:19 - 2 2 /17 1 -2 0 -0 0 -0 2 /24 0 /5 0 /21 1 /20 1 /10 1 /20 3 /11 1
TOTALS 40:00 67 21-43 4 -14 13-19 57 13/25 8 /59 8 /58 3 /30 16/37 21/30 10
0.488 0.286 0.684 0.520 0.136 0.138 0.100 0.432 0.700

Efficiency: OHIO STATE 1.155, GEORGETOWN 1.017
eFG%: OHIO STATE 0.474, GEORGETOWN 0.559
Substitutions: OHIO STATE 19, GEORGETOWN 25

2-pt Shot Selection:
Dunks: OHIO STATE 1-1, GEORGETOWN 3-3
Layups/Tips: OHIO STATE 10-14, GEORGETOWN 11-17
Jumpers: OHIO STATE 10-28, GEORGETOWN 4-10