Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Ray Floriani Sighting(s)

Just took a look in my inbox and noticed a prod from Ray Floriani (occasional contributor), who wanted to let us know that he's now also writing for College Chalk Talk (A-10 Conf. blog). I especially liked his write-up of the UMass NIT run, where he points out that defense was the difference maker (one of my favorite themes). As usual, greyCat from VbtN is out ahead of me on this.

If you didn't know, Ray has been writing about college basketball for more than 25 years now - he's based out of the Garden State. In addition to numerous articles for a number of on-line websites (e.g. Hoopville, Cracked Sidewalks, Villanova by the Numbers, Basketball Times), he's also the author of a pictoral history of the NIT, available on Amazon (5-star rated!).

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Speaking of other blogs, if you haven't had a chance, do go over to Cracked Sidewalks (Marquette blog), as Henry Sugar is just killing it in the off-season with his 2-part Big East preseason preview (Intro, Part 1, Part 2).

Also, a relatively new Big East blog has arrived, Cards Hoops (now linked on the right sidebar), which got out of the gates with a run-down of the top-75 Big East players for the upcoming season (here's the top-10). No obvious methodology, as far as I could tell, but a good read nonetheless.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Yeah, not much going on around here

If you're looking for your Georgetown Hoyas fix, as always your best bet is HoyaTalk.

Having said that:

  • Max Wasserman of the Big Lead (and Cornell University) has worked out the odds that UMCP and Georgetown will actually meet up in the last round of the Old Spice Classic: 9%. Feel free to critique his methodology, but at least he's offering Hoya-related analysis in this long summer of our discontent. He also explains the convoluted reasons why the Terrapins and Hoyas don't play every year.
  • I haven't been completely complacent this summer - I took a tempo-free look at a couple of Hoya recruiting targets based on their performance at the 2008 FIBA Americas U-18 Championship (with John Thompson III serving as an assistant coach). Yes, I did already post these tables in that thread, but I'll repost here.

Player Name          G   % Min  % Poss  O Rat  PPWS  eFG%   OReb%   TO%   A Rate  FT Rate
Walker, Kemba 5 70.0 21.9 105.7 1.11 52.8 3.0 24.9 26.5 27.8
Kelly, Ryan 5 60.0 20.1 86.1 0.82 36.2 9.9 23.7 4.6 27.7
Releford, Travis 5 52.5 13.2 116.0 1.04 51.6 2.4 10.4 10.8 18.8
Lee, Malcolm 5 49.5 21.4 113.1 1.13 53.4 6.0 18.0 12.7 25.0
Wear, Travis 5 43.0 20.7 116.7 1.07 50.0 13.8 10.7 6.9 65.6
Green, JaMychal 5 41.5 22.0 131.5 1.51 72.4 19.4 20.9 4.0 58.6
Wayns, Maalik 5 39.5 22.1 88.9 0.96 44.8 4.3 32.8 23.2 17.2
McDonald, Leslie 5 36.0 15.4 86.2 0.76 32.0 2.4 17.2 5.6 24.0
Cheek, Dominic 5 31.0 19.3 96.3 0.88 42.6 6.8 16.0 4.6 22.2
Plumlee, Mason 5 30.5 21.3 101.9 1.01 40.0 12.5 25.7 13.2 55.0
Humphrey, Matt 5 28.0 24.6 101.4 0.79 37.5 13.6 10.4 12.8 25.0
Wear, David 5 18.5 19.2 119.6 1.28 64.3 11.5 20.1 13.1 14.3


Player Name DReb% Bl Rate St Rate FTM FTA % 2FGM 2FGA % 3FGM 3FGA %
Walker, Kemba 10.8% 1.8% 2.0% 10 15 0.667 21 38 0.553 5 16 0.313
Kelly, Ryan 16.2% 6.3% 0.4% 9 13 0.692 14 36 0.389 2 11 0.182
Releford, Travis 6.4% 0.8% 3.6% 3 6 0.500 15 27 0.556 1 5 0.200
Lee, Malcolm 9.4% 1.7% 3.9% 8 11 0.727 19 35 0.543 3 9 0.333
Wear, Travis 12.8% 3.9% 2.2% 12 21 0.571 16 32 0.500 0 0 0.000
Green, JaMychal 23.4% 11.1% 5.2% 13 17 0.765 21 29 0.724 0 0 0.000
Wayns, Maalik 9.6% 2.1% 3.0% 4 5 0.800 10 21 0.476 2 8 0.250
McDonald, Leslie 5.9% 1.2% 0.0% 5 6 0.833 8 20 0.400 0 5 0.000
Cheek, Dominic 9.5% 0.0% 2.3% 3 6 0.500 7 10 0.700 3 17 0.176
Plumlee, Mason 29.1% 8.2% 2.3% 9 11 0.818 5 16 0.313 2 4 0.500
Humphrey, Matt 15.1% 3.0% 1.7% 4 8 0.500 3 13 0.231 6 19 0.316
Wear, David 18.2% 2.3% 2.6% 1 2 0.500 9 14 0.643 0 0 0.000

Potential Hoya targets italicized.