Comments on Big Ten Geeks: They Grow Up So Fast

Saw your preview pieces over at Hoya Prospectus. I...

2009-11-11T11:04:29.710-08:00

Saw your preview pieces over at Hoya Prospectus. I guess Dante Cunningham proves the exception to the rule!

This is very nice. I did a related analysis last month - looking at the relationship between possessions used and offensive rating for successive years - but this was a bit flawed since I didn't segregate by player year.

It looks here, and also from some data presented by Dan Hanner in his Notre Dame preview in the new College Basketball Prospectus, that most freshman improve tremendously through their junior season, but the difference between juniors and seniors is marginal.

At least, that's my take away

If John Beilein's history at West Virginia is ...

2009-11-08T09:34:32.204-08:00

If John Beilein's history at West Virginia is a guide, lack of talented (ie -- athletic rebounders and shot blockers) post players should not be a handicap to Michigan's prospects this season. Beilein employed a 1-3-1 zone with the Mountaineers that drove shooters either into the corners (low percentage shot areas) or lured them into the interior seams where the handler could be double and triple teamed. On offense his WVU teams were notoriously poor rebounders, often ranking in the lower quarter of the conference in both offensive and defensive rebounding. His #4s (especially) and #5s could as easily step out to the arc to take a 3 as they would back down a defender in the low post. The statistical profiles of his teams more resembled those of Georgetown (Princeton Offense), than they did those of the other conference teams. But they won, and won consistently. Very paradoxical considering the physical nature of Big East play.

Terrific piece BT Geeks. I enjoyed this one very much.

Anonymous (the last one), shoot us an email at b...

2009-11-03T14:01:20.760-08:00

Anonymous (the last one),

shoot us an email at bigtengeeks AT gmail DOT com, and we'll be happy to send you the spreadsheet.

Off the top of my head, I think the following teams will start 2 players who probably are defined as post players:

Illinois
Penn State
Wisconsin

You mention Purdue, but I think Johnson is the only post starter there. And guys like Damian Johnson and Christian Watford are probably borderline, but they have a lot of diversity to their game.

Michigan will have to worry about the frontcourt, but they had to do that last year too, and this year they have a healthy 7-0 Ben Cronin to add. So if anything, things have gotten slightly better on that front. But I can't say it's a strength.

Hi, relatively new to the blog, but really appreci...

2009-11-03T13:42:01.385-08:00

Hi, relatively new to the blog, but really appreciate it. you've done some great work.

One request: any chance, since you've apparently gone through the trouble of putting all the teams rosters into excel, that you could post that file? I'd love it if starters were somehow tagged, but just getting the data would be great.

I ask b/c, as a Michigan fan, I remain concerned about our lack of interior talent. But my impression from reading the previews is, despite the apparent uptick in the Big Ten's talent level, that in fact this specific weakness may not be as fatal as I once feared. It seems few teams will be able to trot out two classic post players, w/ Purdue and Wisc being notable exceptions. Anyway, could you discuss? Or post data so I can draw my own conclusions?

Thanks tons!

Much thanks to you and your in-house intern for pr...

2009-11-02T17:32:29.744-08:00

Much thanks to you and your in-house intern for providing empirical support for the proposition that college players generally improve the most between freshman and sophomore years.

I wonder if you broke it down by position: guards and wings vs. big men. My guess is that there is a significant difference, and that big men experience an even bigger improvement than guards and wings after their freshmen years.

Big Ten examples last year: JaJuan Johnson, Andrew Jones, Mike Tisdale and Mike Davis. On the other hand, E'twaun Moore, Manny Harris, Kalin Lucas, Jon Diebler, Taylor Battle, Michael Thompson all improved as sophomores, but except for Diebler it wasn't as dramatic as the improvement in the sophomore big men above.

If this is true (and I think there are good reasons related to the bigger adjustment from high school play for big men), one would expect the biggest improvements this year from Minnesota's Sampson and Iverson, Northwestern's Mirkovic, Rowley, Shurna and Curletti and Indiana's Pritchard rather than from Michigan's Zach Novak and Stu Douglass, Indiana's Verdell Jones, Iowa's Gatens or Purdue's Jackson.

extremely interesting post! is there any correlati...

2009-11-02T17:25:48.539-08:00

extremely interesting post! is there any correlation between % of returning minutes and change in conference record?

Oops, posted to the wrong thread. Meant to post co...

2009-11-02T16:16:10.391-08:00

Oops, posted to the wrong thread. Meant to post comment on greater relative improvement in big men as sophomores and not the Wisconsin preview thread.