For NBCSports.com: BYU, SDSU, and balance

My latest for NBCSports tackles tomorrow’s BYU-SDSU game, and specifically which of the teams has the balance and interior contributions necessary for an NCAA title run. Hint: The Jimmer doesn’t post up.

Don’t Worry, defense, I haven’t forgotten about you.

I just wanted to post a quick note to let everyone know that I haven’t abandoned Project Defensive Score Sheet. I have DVR recordings of the last three Kansas games, and I’ll eventually get around to charting them. I’ve just fallen behind because my flesh and blood girlfriend managed to pry me away from the computer long enough to smuggle me into Canada over the long weekend. And I won’t be able to catch up until after this coming weekend, because family’s visiting me in sunny San Diego, and I’d feel like a poor host if I turned them loose on their own just so that I could spend six hours watching basketball games that I already know the outcomes of. So, I’ll probably fall a bit further behind, then catch up in a massive 4-game post sometime next week.

Until then, best of luck to your favorite team.

Defensive Score Sheet: Iowa State@Kansas

[If you’re unfamiliar with the series, please check out my first Project Defensive Score Sheet post, or else you’re probably going to be very confused.]

Kansas had little trouble with Iowa State, but if you look at the final numbers, you’ll see that the Cyclones managed 0.95 points per possession, which is fine, but not Texas-esque. However, the numbers if the first half were Texas-esque, and with the game basically in hand before halftime, it’s easy to hypothesize that, had the Jayhawks played poorly on offense and thus needed to keep playing good defense, they might have been able to do so. In that light, besides the usual full-game totals, I’m adding a few summary columns for each half, so you can see which players were worse (slacking off?) in the latter period.

Here’s the table. [Apologies to mobile users if this is unreadable, but this was just too large to fit into my usual template.] My comments are after the jump.

Five (And One) For Friday

No new analysis tonight, but I have a couple posts I want to pass on, so I figured I might as well supplement them with a few more that I’ve enjoyed throughout the week. Most of these are taken from the Daily Feast, which I’ve been writing putting together every morning for the TeamRankings.com blog, so if you followed me over there, a lot of them will seem familiar.

First, the ones directly involving yours truly.

1. Jesse Newell of the Lawrence Journal-World and KUSports.com has apparently been following Project Defensive Score Sheet, because he has compiled the Kansas defensive stats for all the Big 12 games from my charts. It’s something I’d been meaning to do, but kept putting off, usually in favor of, you know, actually watching some basketball. I try to do that now and then. I’m glad he took the initiative, because he did a much more thorough job on the individual player write ups than I would have.

2. This one is a day late and a dollar short. Here’s my third article for NBCSports.com, which previews the two-days-ago North Carolina at Duke game. In hindsight, I think I did a pretty good job. I mean, doesn’t this sound like a bit like a recap of the actual game:

“… the Tar Heels, especially Harrison Barnes, have been playing out of their minds since Kendall Marshall took over at point guard. But that new car smell has to fade away some time, and Cameron Indoor seems a pretty reasonable place for that to happen.”

The Tarheels went to Durham, played out of their minds for a half, and then faded in the second as the Cameron Crazies went, well, crazy. So, maybe a day late and a dollar short was a misnomer. Two days late and a dollar up might be more accurate. Because if you placed a bet on the latest college basketball odds after reading my article, with the way I hyped up UNC, I bet you took the Tarheels and the points (+10). Win for you.

Now, here are a few other stories from this week that I want to make sure you caught:

• Maybe the most exciting news of the week took place off the court, with the release of this year’s new and improved NCAA tournament schedule. I agree 100% with this headline.
• Like Oregon’s court? Liar. Either way, check out what a similar design aesthetic might have produced at some other schools.
• Nathan Walker of The Basketball Distribution created a fun little junk stat called Offensive Decision%. Basically, good actions divided by total actions. Go check out the details. He also came up with a new way of estimating individual defensive ratings from box score stats. To be honest, I haven’t really looked at the equations in depth to see if they check out, so for now I’m taking his word for it. But he’s always right, so that should be fine.
• One of my favorite quotes is from the Chaitanya Charitamrita: “Essential truth spoken concisely is true eloquence.” By that definition, this may be the most elegant website in the history of the internet: DidTheCavsWinLastNight.com

Have a good weekend, folks. Tomorrow should be a fun one.

Heady Company

I don’t usually do link posts, but there’s one making the rounds today that’s worth a mention, for three reasons:

• It’s a pretty good list of what somebody thought were the 30 best college basketball blogs, so anybody looking for more daily reading material should make sure they’re already hip to those listed.
• The guy who pulled the list together wrote me a polite email about it.
• Audacity Of Hoops made it as one of 5 blogs listed in the “Stats” section. Huzzah!

So, head on over to College Crunch, and enjoy.

Defensive Score Sheet: Missouri@Kansas

If you’re unfamiliar with this series, check out my first Project Defensive Score Sheet post. This one’s a day late, but these numbers are pretty ugly, so I doubt anybody was exactly giddy with anticipation.

Let’s start with the table:

Nerds of a Feather Work Together

I don’t know if anybody has noticed my recent more frequent (and during usual business hours) posting, but that was a bit of foreshadowing. I’m excited to announce that, starting today, my primary job for the rest of the college basketball season will be to work with TeamRankings.com. I’ll be doing a lot of behind-the-scenes analysis and marketing work, but you guys will mostly notice that I should shortly begin posting regularly on their blog. I’ll continue posting here in my free time, but in order to read everything I write, I encourage you to bookmark the TR blog, and follow TR on Twitter (@TeamRankingsCBB for college basketball, @TeamRankings for general sports). So, head on over and check TeamRankings out. Here’s a fun place to start.