The BadgerBucco Blog

What a Kick in the Teeth

2010-03-22T15:20:00.000-05:00

"You've GOT to be kidding me!" I found myself saying those words over and over yesterday as I witnessed Cornell demolish the Badgers. With every contested three-pointer and off-balance runner in the lane, I could feel the game getting further and further away.

As John Gasaway has noted, this wasn't a problem with Wisconsin's offense. The Badgers scored at a good clip. The real issue was that Cornell's amazingly prolific offense overwhelmed a normally stout Wisconsin defense. When your opponent shoots over 50% from distance (53.3%), over 60% overall (61.1%), and over 80% from the line (81.2%), you are going to lose. Every other statistic was virtually even. There wasn't a turnover, rebounding, or blocked shot gap. It was all about the shooting, and I don't think I've seen a team shoot as well as Cornell since Providence beat Georgetown for the National Championship.

When something this unexpected happens, you have to ask whether it was Cornell's offense or the Badger defense. As with virtually every other case, I view it as a bit of both. Certainly, Cornell was hitting every shot. Ryan Wittman dropped a couple three-pointers a couple feet outside the line while fading away from an out-stretched hand, and he and Louis Dale made some runners in the lane that just don't go in most of the time. However, there were a few times that Chris Wroblewski found himself wide open under the basket because of defensive breakdowns. I also noted a decent amount of confusion in how to handle the pick and roll, which has been a problem on and off all season, especially against teams like Illinois, who use it as a staple of their offense.

One of the story lines that has come out of this game is how underseeded Cornell was. I don't know that I buy that. Two games with amazing shooting do not negate what Cornell has done the rest of the season. Cornell couldn't shoot like this on a regular basis against Ivy League competition, so why should we believe that they can keep this up over the long haul. I'll stick with the overall body of work rather than the two-game sample. However, I think that Cornell has proven that their offense can play with anyone, making them a very dangerous team. Just don't expect them to be able to score a point and a half per possession over and over again.

Today is a new day, so I'll be enjoying the rest of the tourney and looking forward to next season.

WIAA Division I Finals

2010-03-21T11:38:00.002-05:00

As you can see from the title, above, this little blog is meant to be a repository of my thoughts on a bunch of different subjects. In reality, it has been mostly restricted to college hoops, specifically the Wisconsin Badgers. However, I watched the Division I Finals for Wisconsin Boys Basketball last night and wanted to post a few thoughts.

Whether this is true or not, I viewed Arrowhead as the underdog in their matchup with Madison Memorial and I tend to root for the underdog, so I'm happy that they won. I dare to suggest that shooting 10-13 from three point land really led the way for Arrowhead's victory. A more average 5-13 shooting performance would have dropped 15 points from Arrowhead's total and made this a close game.

Ben Mills, Arrowhead's 7'1" center, had quite a good game. I wouldn't call it subjectively dominant or anything, but he recorded a robust 1.61 Point Per Net Possession (PPP) in the game. That means he scored about 1.6 points every time he used a possession for Arrowhead. In Division I college hoops, 1.00 is about average, so Mills had a very good game on offense. Throw in three blocks with only two personal fouls in 31 minutes, and you have the player of the game in my book.

There was talk during the broadcast that Mills may open up his recruitment now that the coach at Boise State is out the door. It will be interesting to see if this rumor has legs. I still don't see a place for him with the Badgers. First, there aren't any scholarships open. Second, he seems like the type who won't ever weigh much, which will make life tough in the Big Ten, unless he has an outside game like Mike Tisdale, something I didn't see in the championship game. Finally, it appeared to me that Mills has short arms, which, if true, makes him effectively shorter than his listed height would suggest.

The other big prospect on the floor last night was Vander Blue. He de-committed from Wisconsin and cast his lot with Marquette. In my mind, that was the wrong choice, but I'm a Badger homer and would have liked to see a player of Blue's ability in the cardinal and white. I believe that Wisconsin is a great landing place for most players, partly because of my homer tendencies and partly because of the development that I subjectively see in Bo Ryan players. Blue could have been a great player for Wisconsin. Hopefully, he ends up as a great player for Marquette, and hopefully he loses to the Badgers each and every time he plays them.

Blue had a terrible game, registering just 0.60 PPP. That is a truly bad number, predicated on poor shooting (4-15) and bad decisions (8 TO's). He did flash his athletic ability and potential, though, recording 8 rebounds and 7 steals.

Here are the PPP totals for all the players in the game who played more than 1 minute (except for Ryan May, who didn't use any net possessions in the game):

Player	Pts	Poss	PPP
Tre Burnette	15	4.88	3.07
Charlie Fischer	11	5	2.20
Jordan Fredrick	2	1	2.00
Ben Mills	18	11.2	1.61
Miles Chamberlain	6	5	1.20
Charles Rushman	14	11.88	1.18
Blake Mattson	3	2.76	1.09
Brandan Ortiz	2	1.88	1.06
Andy Fox	15	15.52	0.97
Tre Creamer	9	10.88	0.83
Andrew Reichl	8	10	0.80
Junior Lomomba	5	7.32	0.68
Vander Blue	8	13.44	0.60
Jamar Morris	2	6.88	0.29
Michael Skarie	0	1	0.00

Tre Burnette was the best player last night. He used fewer than 5 Net Possessions to score 15 points. He did this by not turning the ball over while gathering 3 steals and grabbing 1 offensive rebound. The way I calculate PPP, the steals and offensive rebound reduce the possessions that he actually used through field goal attempts, free throw attempts, and turnovers. In this way, the only stats not counted in PPP are defensive rebounds and blocks. That was an amazing game for Burnette.

Unfortunately for Memorial, Burnette's production was blunted by Blue, Lomomba, Creamer, and Morris, who are all in the bottom half of the PPP list.

Fischer and Mills led Arrowhead with an inside/outside type of attack. Fischer did most of his damage with threes and didn't turn the ball over, while Mills got his points inside the arc and at the line while only turning it over twice.

Skarie shows up at the bottom but he is an example of the limits of evaluating players solely by PPP. Blue's poor production had a lot to do with Skarie's defense. Without watching the game, there would be no way to know how good a game Skarie actually played. I'm not saying he should rival Mills for Player of the Game in anyone's evaluation, but he was a valuable contributor, whose role is not well-recognized by PPP.

Congratulations Arrowhead! Good luck Ben Mills and Vander Blue. May you both find further success on the basketball court and in life.

Next Up: Cornell

2010-03-20T23:37:00.002-05:00

Wisconsin survived Wofford in a closer contest than I would have liked. Next up for the Badgers: Cornell.

Cornell beat the tar out of a tough Temple squad in their opening game, relying on an offense powered, as it has been all season, by three-point shooting, overwhelming the 6th ranked defense in the nation.

What Cornell did to the Owls on the offensive end shouldn't really surprise anyone. Cornell shoots well from the outside. Strike that - Cornell shoots better than anyone in the country from outside; their 43.7% shooting from downtown is number one in the country this season.

However, as strong as Cornell is on offense (20th in the country), they can't match such success on defense, where they are only ranked 137th in the nation. Temple's moderately strong offense wasn't enough to take advantage of Cornell's weakness, but the Badgers' 17th ranked offense should do better.

The whole "live by the three, die by the three" thing is a bit tired. At the same time, it's true. A team like Cornell that relies so heavily on the three can beat just about anyone when the shots are falling. However, they don't have as much to fall back on (especially defensively) as other teams, when the threes aren't going in. If Cornell can drop those bombs on Wisconsin like they did on Temple, the Badgers are in for a game.

Still, I'd rather be facing Cornell than Temple. Cornell's weakness on defense is greater than Temple's is on offense. Essentially, Cornell is a more flawed team than Temple, and I'd rather play the team with more and deeper weaknesses to exploit, even if they have one strength that seems very dangerous.

The Cornell team is deep. Seven of their players have Player Efficiency Margins (PEM's) in double digits and only one player drops into negative territory. While nice to have, such depth is less important in the tournament, where rotations can be shortened to keep your best players in the game longer.

In the Big Dance, it is more important to have a couple high level performers. If they need to play 40 minutes rather than 30, that's 20 minutes that you give to very good players rather than reserves. Cornell doesn't have that type of player. I consider a high level performer as any player with a PEM over 30.0.

To give some perspective, there were only 19 players in the Big Ten with PEM's over 30.0 this season. Wait for it, Badger fans ------- five of those players were Badgers! Cornell doesn't have a single player over 30.0. In fact, they only have one over 25.0, little-used Max Groebe. Jeff Foote is the highest-ranked of the players who played over 50% of available minutes, with a 21.9 PEM.

Foote does worry me, though, because he has the size to bother Jon Leuer's shots (8.0% of shots blocked) if he matches up with Wisconsin's best player. If that occurs, though, I like Leuer's ability to take Foote out to the three-point line for an outside shot or a dribble drive, neither of which the seven-footer should be able to contest well, and both of which are part of Leuer's arsenal. If Foote matches up with Keaton Nankivil, instead, I like Leuer's short jumpers over the 6'6" and 6'7" types that Cornell runs out there at power forward.

Here are the numbers for Cornell's players:

Player	POE	PDE	PEM	OPAA	DPAA	PAA
Wittman	120.1	100.1	20.0	69	2	71
Foote	116.8	94.9	21.9	46	17	63
L. Dale	119.9	100.3	19.7	51	1	52
Jaques	120.4	98.5	21.9	31	4	34
Reeves	118.9	101.6	17.3	34	-2	33
Wroblewski	108.3	101.2	7.1	24	-1	22
Groebe	127.1	100.9	26.2	14	0	14
Coury	108.7	97.0	11.7	9	4	14
A. Wire	107.3	98.4	9.0	8	3	11
Peck	108.3	99.5	8.7	6	1	7
A. Tyler	90.5	99.2	-8.8	-9	1	-8

Pomeroy v. Sagarin

2010-03-15T08:52:00.002-05:00

I just filled out a bracket and based my picks on the brackets compiled by Erich Doerr for the Wages of Wins Journal. Erich took Ken Pomeroy's numbers and Jeff Sagarin's Predictor numbers and completed brackets for based on each.

The congruence of the two is simply amazing. In the first round, the only differences are that Sagarin predicts New Mexico, Texas A&M and Missouri to win, rather than Norther Iowa, Utah State, and Clemson. After that, they are very much the same, including predicting the same final four and final game. Of course they differ in a couple ways, as Sagarin's numbers show Vanderbilt in the Sweet 16 and Villanova in the Elite 8 while Pomeroy's indicate Butler and Baylor will be the winners of those contests.

The biggest difference, though is the eventual champion. Pomeroy's numbers pick Duke while Sagarin's pick Kansas. I view those two as a toss-up for favorite to take home the trophy.

It is apparent from these brackets that Wisconsin has a very good draw. Of course, both Pomeroy and Sagarin like the Badgers quite a bit more than the selection committee, but Wisconsin was still set in the region where both metrics agree the worst No. 1 seed resides. The East region also lays claim to a terrible No. 3 seed in New Mexico; clearly the worst of the 3 seeds. That makes for a good chance to make it to the Final Four.

The sweet bracket shows in the chart that Erich created to show the chances for each team to advance to particular stages in the tournament. Depending on which statistician you pick, the Badgers have either a 23% or 25% chance of making the Final Four and have either the third (6%) or fourth (4%) highest chance of finishing the season with a win. Those are some amazing numbers that make these heady days for Badger fans. Go Bucky!

What About Wofford

2010-03-15T00:03:00.004-05:00

It looks as though I was a bit pessimistic about the Badgers' seeding. They drew a 4 seed and got matched up with Wofford, the No. 87 ranked team in Division 1 according to Ken Pomeroy. Work done over at the Wages of Wins Journal shows Wisconsin with a 90% chance of beating Wofford per Pomeroy's numbers, or a 92.5% chance of taking them down by Jeff Sagarin's Predictor scores. Either way, Wofford shouldn't be an upset selection: that's right, I'm chastising you, David Steele, of Fanhouse.

So, what does Wofford bring to the table. I'm only sort of exaggerating when I say, "They bring Noah Dahlman, and that is all." According to my numbers, Dahlman could play in any conference in the nation and play exceptionally well. His PAA would rank 4th in the Big Ten and his PEM would settle in at a slightly less, but still impressive 7th. Dahlman can hoop, don't doubt that. I guess that is why he was Player of the Year in the Southern Conference.

After Dahlman, Wofford can claim moderate PEM marks from Jamar Diggs and Terry Martin. Unfortunately, Martin gets just under 30% of available minutes, which is probably a big reason their coach, Mike Young, can only muster a Lineup Correlation of .234. But Young was named Southern Conference Coach of the Year for a reason: Martin has a foul rate of 7.3 per 40 minutes. Basically, he can't stay on the court, leaving Coach Young's LC artificially low. Still, having that sort of governor on your second best per-possession player makes this team even more reliant on Dahlman.

After Dahlman, Diggs, and Martin, you are looking at essentially average Division 1 players. A team full of those types would finish at or about 172, so you can see how high Dahlman has carried them (87th, if you recall). Here is the full list of Wofford players for you to peruse:

Player	POE	PDE	PEM	OPAA	DPAA	PAA
Dahlman	130.7	93.5	37.2	95	23	118
Diggs	106.0	92.8	13.2	14	22	35
T. Martin	111.4	91.3	20.1	14	12	26
Rundles	102.0	93.8	8.1	3	16	18
Salters	98.0	94.3	3.7	-7	17	10
T. Johnson	91.3	87.9	3.4	-24	33	9
Godzinski	99.2	93.1	6.1	-2	10	8
Giltner	96.6	95.4	1.2	-5	7	1
N. Parker	90.1	88.5	1.6	-5	6	1
Loesing	96.2	96.1	0.1	-13	14	0
J. Dawson	81.6	93.7	-12.0	-28	10	-18

In addition to being generally out-gunned, Wofford has another problem against the Badgers: they are undersized. The Terriers have only one player over 6'6" and he gets a meager 29.7% of available minutes. Jon Leuer should have a field day taking his turn around jumpers in the post over these relative mighty mites.

My prediction is an easy Badger victory. However, whenever you have a player the caliber of Dahlman on ateam, there is always a chance that he could single-handedly deliver a victory if he gets crazy hot. That's pretty unlikely, but it is possible, and that's the only way I could see Wofford delivering on the 10% or less chance of winning both of the well-publicized stat-heads are showing.

A Rough Day At the Office

2010-03-13T09:52:00.000-06:00

What a poor performance by the Badgers yesterday. Some of the credit goes to an energetic defense by Illinois, but that alone can't explain 20% shooting in the first half.

Every Badger other than Jon Leuer deserves as much credit as the Illini defense for the poor offensive numbers. There was some poor shot selection and decision-making and some plain, old cold shooting. In my mind, it was just one of those days where everything goes wrong. If the Badgers hadn't taken care of the ball so well, this thing would have been a complete blowout.

The run at the end was amazing. Not only did it get the game close but it showed that the Badgers are capable of playing an up-tempo game and do it well. They just choose not to employ such an offense.

Unfortunately, dreams of a 3 seed are gone (even though I think the Badgers still deserve it). In fact, a 4 seed is probably out the window as well. My guess is the Badgers end up as a 5 seed, but given past history with the selection committee, I wouldn't be surprised to see Wisconsin dropped to an even more absurd 6 seed. If the Badgers are a 5 and the end up matched with a 12 seed Utah State (a 4-5 seed in disguise), that would be a felony crime. Let's hope nothing like that happens.

All Big Ten Team

2010-03-12T10:11:00.001-06:00

The coaches and media came out with their All Big Ten teams some time ago. Now, BadgerBucco steps into the mix. What I present today is strictly a by-the-numbers Big Ten team. It doesn't necessarily represent my opinion on the matter but it is definitely my starting point. If I have the time, I'll give you my personal list at a later date.

What I present is a list showing the per-possession offense (POE), per-possession defense (PDE), the difference between those two (PEM), the total offensive points above average (OPAA), defensive points above average (DPAA) and total points above average (PAA). The list is ordered by PAA, which takes playing time into account. PAA is best for judging All "X" teams, because being available to play is valuable. However, it gives an edge to players like Jon Diebler and Jason Bohannon, who rarely leave the game, as compared to some post players, who play about 2/3 as many minutes.

Look to the Player Efficiency Margin (PEM) if you want to see how a player did without taking playing time into account. This measure helps smooth out coaches' playing time choices and allows you to figure out how good an injured player really was.

Here are the top 15 players by PAA as of the end of the regular season:

Player	POE	PDE	PEM	OPAA	DPAA	PAA
Hummel	125.7	77.3	48.4	68.2	64.7	133.0
Turner	131.0	84.8	46.2	85.7	45.8	131.5
Bohannon	124.2	88.2	36.0	76.5	41.8	118.3
Harris	124.1	90.6	33.5	75.8	33.5	109.4
J. Johnson	112.2	77.4	34.7	35.3	73.7	109.0
Hughes	123.2	86.7	36.5	65.3	41.7	107.0
Diebler	119.1	91.3	27.8	68.2	35.9	104.0
Hoffarber	133.3	95.5	37.7	88.5	14.7	103.3
Moore	113.7	81.1	32.5	40.0	62.0	102.0
Buford	119.6	89.5	30.2	63.2	38.5	101.7
Sims	124.2	90.6	33.5	69.9	30.9	100.8
Battle	123.8	96.7	27.1	83.6	15.5	99.0
Shurna	125.5	99.8	25.7	89.4	4.1	93.6
McCamey	119.8	94.4	25.3	66.2	22.7	88.8
Leuer	134.1	84.1	50.0	57.8	29.2	87.0

As you can see, Robbie Hummel edges out Evan Turner for the lead. They are neck and neck, so I think Turner was a good choice by everyone as Player of the Year. If Hummel made it through the entire season, he would have beaten everyone by a mile, but I doubt that he would have beaten Turner for POY, which would have been a shame. As it is, it's a shame that the POY race was so hampered by injuries.

Speaking of which, take a look at the last name on the list, Jon Leuer. I believe he was left off the All Big Ten teams, which is a shame. Even with his missed time, he was one of the top 15 in the conference, and when you look at PEM, he was the best player on a per-possession basis. Yes, I'm saying that Leuer was a better player than Turner this year, at least when they were both able to make it on the court.

Once again, Diebler, Bohannon, and Blake Hoffarber are very high on the list. I'm still not sure if my system overranks players of their ilk, but here they are for now. I'd probably drop them a few slots on my personal list.

Demetri McCamey's low finish may be a surprise for some, but he just doesn't play enough defense to rank higher. Kalin Lucas really fell off at the end of the year and wasn't deserving of being on the All Big Ten team, no matter how much subjectivity you put into the process. He ranked 25th with a PAA of 63.6.

I've read many posts on message boards dogging DeShawn Sims and Manny Harris because their team can't win, even with their talent. As you can see, the Wolverines' poor results have nothing to do with Harris and Sims and everything to do with their teammates, who, outside of Zack Gibson, are not very good.

How do the teams stack up. Purdue has three players in the top 10. Michigan has two in the top 15. Wisconsin places three in the top 15. Ohio State betters the Badgers, with three players in the top 10. No other team has more than one player in the top 15. The shutouts include, surprisingly, Michigan State, which I think speaks to their depth if not their star power. That said, if Draymond Green got more playing time, he would be in the top 15. Indiana, and Iowa were deservedly shut out as well.

The following players are the near misses for All Big Ten based on PAA. Badger fans should note that this gives the team five players in the top 20. In my opinion, Wisconsin possesses great depth of high quality players, moreso than any other team in the Big Ten. Ohio State is the only team that quite rivals them.

Player	POE	PDE	PEM	OPAA	DPAA	PAA
Nankivil	123.4	87.3	36.1	52.4	31.7	84.0
Tisdale	120.6	92.2	28.4	57.7	25.4	83.1
Taylor	120.6	89.3	31.3	51.8	30.4	82.2
D. Johnson	119.8	89.6	30.2	49.2	29.3	78.5
Lauderdale	116.0	85.9	30.1	38.1	37.8	75.9

If you are looking to drop players out of the top 15 listed above, these would be the next candidates. David Lighty (74.6) and Draymond Green (70.2) come next and after that there is a nearly 6 point drop. In my mind, it would be difficult to make a credible argument for any player on the All Big Ten team beyond these players. That is why Kalin Lucas making it is based more on reputation than substance.

I'm working on All "X" teams for the other power conferences as well and hope to be shooting those out in the near future.

Big Ten Conference Strength of Schedule

2010-03-08T10:55:00.001-06:00

Ken Pomeroy calculates an over strength of schedule and a non-conference one, but omits the conference strength of schedule. Here is a post that I put up on the BadgerManiac message boards trying to come up with a short hand for the conference SOS:

This may not be completely accurate, but it could work as a shorthand. Pomeroy has the full season strength of schedule adjustment and the non-conference one. If you subtracted the full season number from the non-conference season and ordered them top to bottom, you'd have a pretty good proxy for the conference strength of schedule.

Here are the results. In some respects, they seem to be an ordering of the lowest ranked teams to the highest ranked. This is to be expected, since the lower ranked teams can't play themselves and vice versa.

Team	Overall	Non-conf	Conf
Penn State	0.7278	0.3238	0.404
Northwestern	0.6583	0.2849	0.3734
Indiana	0.7324	0.3592	0.3732
Iowa	0.752	0.466	0.286
Minnesota	0.714	0.4311	0.2829
Ohio State	0.7115	0.4504	0.2611
Purdue	0.7445	0.5015	0.243
Michigan State	0.7424	0.507	0.2354
Illinois	0.7664	0.5683	0.1981
Wisconsin	0.7595	0.565	0.1945
Michigan	0.7891	0.6209	0.1682

A couple interesting notes:

Michigan had a TOUGH non-conference schedule (the most difficult in the conference) but also (at least according to this) the hardest conference schedule.
Northwestern played some real patsies during its non-conference slate.
The overall ranks are bunched up quite a bit compared to the non-conference numbers. Maybe that's because there are more conference games, so that drowns out the non-conference results a bit.

That last bullet point may be a weakness of simply subtracting, since the number of conference games is not equal to the number of non-conference games.
______________________________________________________

I've taken a stab at correcting for the problem that I see (there may be others). Looking at Wisconsin's schedule, it appears that 3/5 of the games are in conference and 2/5 are out of conference. By weighting each team's non-conference strength of schedule by 2/5 then subtracting that from the overall, I should get a more accurate rating. I'm looking for an easy shorthand, so I want to find a good general fraction rather than doing each team individually.

Team	Overall	Non-conf	Conf
Penn State	0.7278	0.3238	0.59828
Indiana	0.7324	0.3592	0.58872
Iowa	0.752	0.466	0.5656
Northwestern	0.6583	0.2849	0.54434
Purdue	0.7445	0.5015	0.5439
Minnesota	0.714	0.4311	0.54156
Michigan	0.7891	0.6209	0.54074
Michigan State	0.7424	0.507	0.5396
Illinois	0.7664	0.5683	0.53908
Wisconsin	0.7595	0.565	0.5335
Ohio State	0.7115	0.4504	0.53134

Things have changed a bit, now. Michigan's in-conference strength of schedule is much higher, as is Purdue's. Ohio State goes to the easiest schedule in the league, with Wisconsin staying at 2.

Let me know if you have any comments in the comments.
______________________________________________________

And I've done another look at this by adding in two games against themselves for each team. In that hypothetical case, the schedules now look like this.

Team	Overall	Non-conf	TmSOS	Conf
Penn State	0.7278	0.3238	0.7739	0.657968
Indiana	0.7324	0.3592	0.5072	0.631513
Purdue	0.7445	0.5015	0.9537	0.620018
Michigan State	0.7424	0.507	0.9274	0.614102
Minnesota	0.714	0.4311	0.9058	0.612724
Wisconsin	0.7595	0.565	0.9687	0.612205
Michigan	0.7891	0.6209	0.8305	0.611629
Iowa	0.752	0.466	0.5148	0.61157
Illinois	0.7664	0.5683	0.86	0.610621
Ohio State	0.7115	0.4504	0.9584	0.606493
Northwestern	0.6583	0.2849	0.7799	0.603456

Badger Opponent - Iowa

2010-03-03T09:33:00.001-06:00

Tonight, the Badgers go up against Iowa in the penultimate game of their conference regular season. The Badgers are heavy favorites in this one. Jeff Sagarin makes the Badgers a 20-point favorite while Ken Pomeroy has them winning 67-49. The Vegas line is 17.5. All signs point to a Badger victory.

When looking at the individual players, I don't see much reason for Hawkeye optomism. Unlike Penn State, with Talor Battle, Iowa does not have a single player who would belong on an All-Big Ten team or even compete for honorable mention. No player on this team strikes the fear of anything in anyone.

Player	POE	PDE	PEM	OPAA	DPAA	PAA
Fuller	116.0	99.3	16.7	30	3	33
Gatens	107.1	100.6	6.5	21	1	22
Cole	108.1	100.5	7.6	16	1	17
Cougill	107.2	100.1	7.1	9	1	10
Bawinkel	107.6	101.7	5.9	10	-1	8
Brommer	104.0	97.5	6.5	1	2	3
Tucker	100.5	100.7	-0.2	0	0	0
May	98.0	98.3	-0.3	-8	7	-1
Lickliter	94.0	101.6	-7.5	-4	0	-4
Payne	90.9	101.8	-10.9	-30	-3	-33

Aaron Fuller is clearly the best player on the team. Why he has only played 53.8% of available minutes is a mystery to me. It's no wonder Todd Lickliter has a negative Lineup Correlation (-.01). A negative LC indicates that the coach is allocating minutes in a way that is to some degree opposite of the Player Efficiency Margins (PEM) of his players. Lickliter's LC is pretty much 0, so his allocation of minutes is pretty much what you would get if playing time was random.

Now, part of that is a result of Anthony Tucker leaving the team, but he wasn't a very productive player anyway. The bigger problem is giving Culley Payne a team high 82.5% of available minutes. Either Lickliter is an awful judge of player ability or he has given up on this season and is preparing for next season by giving youngsters like Payne a good amount of experience to help in their development. I prefer the latter explanation.

The amazing thing about the Hawkeyes is their utter lack of differentiation among their players. Fully half of them rank between 5.9 and 7.6 in PEM. There is plenty of consistency here but not much quality.

I have an hypothesis that underdogs are more likely to be able to score an upset if they have a very good player or two. Occassionally, that player or players will get really hot and enable their team to pull an upset. A team like Iowa, however, has no such players, so no player on their team is likely to get hot enough to carry their team to a win. Because of this hypothesis, I believe that an Iowa win is even more unlikely than the straight numbers show.

Marquette Thus Far

2010-03-03T08:58:00.003-06:00

In a blatant bid to up my readership (which I don't even really track), I've run the numbers for Marquette for every game this season other than the blow-out of Louisville. If you look at Ken Pomeroy's numbers, Marquette is woefully under-rated (as are the Badgers). The Louisville game was beyond their true level of play, but it's nice to get a game like that after getting so many close games going against them early in the season.

For years people have talked about how Marquette is such a guard-oriented attack. However, this season, it's the "bigs" who are doing the damage. I put bigs in quotes because Marquette has no rotation regular listed over 6'7". For the Golden Eagles (f/k/a Warriors), you can think of bigs as any player 6'6" or over.

Before I developed this new system, I used another, more complicated and more flawed system to rank players. The results consistently showed that Lazar Hayward was as or more valuable than the guards who got all the publicity for the team (Wesley Matthews, Jerel McNeal, and Dominic James). In the off-season, I plan to go through the last 5 years of Marquette results to give a historical perspective on who the best players were on those teams and to check if Hayward was really as good as those old numbers suggested.

This season, Hayward is still performing at a high level, but he is not the best player on the team. The player who ranks above him would rank 4th in the Big Ten this season in Player Efficiency Margin (PEM). That's pretty high praise. And since this player isn't Darius Johnson-Odom, I can't help but think that Steve "the Homer" True is missing something by praising the wrong player.

Player	OEAA	DEAA	EDAA	OPAA	DPAA	PAA
Butler	135.5	92.4	43.2	107	26	133
Hayward	122.3	90.2	32.1	62	31	93
Acker	115.9	95.0	20.9	38	14	52
Johnson-Odom	111.1	95.0	16.1	27	15	42
Cubillan	109.0	96.2	12.8	22	13	35
Fulce	114.0	89.0	25.0	13	12	25
Buycks	97.3	92.9	4.4	-8	18	10
Maymon	95.2	91.7	3.6	-3	4	2

Jimmy Butler is the best player on the Warriors and it isn't even close. He has the 4th highest Offensive Rating in the nation and still uses an average number of his team's possessions, so he isn't a sharp-shooter type, like Blake Hoffarber, who only takes high percentage (for him) shots. Butler is an offensive force in just about every phase of the game. He hits a high percentage of shots from every part of the court, draws a ton of fouls, rarely turns the ball over, and hits the offensive boards well. On defense, he's not quite as special. He doesn't foul much and rebounds opponent misses fairly well, but is good but not great at garnering steals and blocking shots. However, that all adds up to one great player, who really has no weaknesses on the court and quite a few exceptional traits, especially on the offensive end. I would love to have Butler on the Badgers.

Joe Fulce doesn't get many minutes (just 27.9% of those available), but my numbers suggest that he deserves more. On a per-possession basis (PEM), he is the 3rd best player on the team. Part of that is probably due to his propensity to foul, but I'm sure Buzz Williams could squeeze more minutes out of Fulce than he does. Fulce's lack of playing time is a big reason that Williams has a Lineup Correlation of only .51. The best coaches in the Big Ten (who don't have players miss time), tend to have LC's around .80.

When looking at the Bracket Project's composite bracket based on the many "bracketologists" around the country, we see that Marquette is projected as a 10 seed. That is close to bubble territory, but with the Louisville win, they probably have avoided the bubble and may yet improve on that seed. Still, looking at the efficiency numbers would indicate that Marquette is more of a 5 seed. That's a pretty big discrepancy and means that whatever 7-8 seed plays Marquette will probably lose. It's just unfortunate that Marquette will likely end up facing a 2 or 3 seed after that rather than likely 4 seed they would face as the 5 seed they most likely are.

Badger Update

2010-03-03T08:23:00.001-06:00

I just had a chance to run my stats for the Badgers after their 32 point blow-out of Indiana. As you can imagine, the numbers were quite good. Every player had a positive Points Above Average (PAA) for the game and all but Rob Wilson and Jason Bohannon improved their Player Efficiency Margin (PEM) by playing the Hoosiers. Talk about getting right.

Player	POEch	PDEch	PEMch	OPAAch	DPAAch	PAAch
Nankivil	1.4	-1.0	2.4	5.1	3.4	8.5
Jarmusz	2.9	-1.0	3.9	5.1	2.6	7.7
Hughes	0.8	-0.9	1.6	4.0	3.6	7.6
Taylor	0.4	-1.2	1.6	2.5	3.9	6.3
Leuer	-0.2	-1.2	1.0	2.2	3.1	5.4
Bohannon	-0.9	-0.7	-0.2	0.1	3.5	3.7
Bruesewitz	-0.1	-1.4	1.3	-0.2	1.1	0.9
Wilson	-1.7	-0.8	-0.9	-0.8	1.4	0.6
Evans	-1.1	-1.2	0.1	-1.4	1.8	0.4

Keep in mind that a negative number for the Player Defensive Efficiency (PDE) means the player improved their defense.

Keaton Nankivil is continuing to play very well, leading the team in PAA for the game. I call out Tim Jarmusz for his average play, so I want to herald him for his excellent game. On a per-possession basis, he was the best Badger on the floor. He's been playing better of late, but still needs to up his offensive game to be more than a "contributor". In my mind, that comes down to hitting the open three, which he gets fairly often via penetration or kick-out. He's hitting only 29.3% of his triples this season. I think that his true level of outside shooting is better than this, though. He nailed 42% of his 3's last season and has continued to shoot over 70% from the line, so I think he could be much better than he is on offense if he just got back to numbers like those. That would make him much more valuable.

Jon Leuer mad a positive impact, but interestingly, it was all on the defensive end. Maybe he's still worrying about his wrist on offense. It could also be the bodying, though. Subjectively, I saw quite a few fouls against him that went uncalled, probably because the game was a blow-out. If I'm not being biased in that assessment, that hurt his offensive numbers since it's tough to hit a high percentage of shots on which you get hacked.

Rob Wilson and Jordan Taylor have fallen off a bit recently from their heights 5 games or so ago. They are still very positive producers but they are in the midst of a stretch of lesser performance. That happens for all players during the season and I still believe in them for this, and future years.

The One(s) That Got Away

2010-02-23T20:10:00.002-06:00

The Badgers boast Trevon Hughes, Keaton Nankivil, J.P Gavinski, and Tim Jarmusz, all highly ranked recruits from the State of Wisconsin. But there are some Wisconsin prep players who didn't commit to the cardinal and white. Whatever became of some of those players that Badger fans lament losing?

Jerry Smith

Jerry Smith was one of three players vying for two scholarship spots with the Badgers, along with Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon. There were rumors that Smith committed to the Badgers only to rescind that commitment a short time later. Does Wisconsin miss Smith?

The short answer is: no. Smith seemed to have the whole package coming out of Wauwatosa East. In fact, a friend of mine who played ball there back in the day said the coach thought Smith was headed to the NBA. Four years later, Smith will be lucky to play in the NBDL. His numbers are low, especially on offense. Comparing his numbers this season to the other two players who signed with the Badgers is not even a fair fight, so I've included someone with numbers more comparable to his.

Player	POE	PDE	PEM	OPAA	DPAA	PAA
Bohannon	126.4	89.6	36.7	75	33	108
Hughes	121.2	88.5	32.8	55	33	88
Smith	107.7	94.9	12.8	15	13	27
Evans	95.7	86.1	9.6	-5	15	10

Smith is much more similar to Ryan Evans than he is to Bohannon or Hughes. The Badgers definitely came out ahead when Smith fell under the siren song of Rick Pitino. Or did they? While it is true that Bohannon and Hughes are manifestly better players, the question remains whether Smith would have developed as well had Bo Ryan been coaching him. I don't have the answer to that question.

Jamil Wilson

At some point during his time in high school, Jamil Wilson was considered one of the 20 best recruits in the nation. As a Freshman, he isn't showing that sort of talent, but it's still early, so this is by no means the final word on him.

Player	POE	PDE	PEM	OPAA	DPAA	PAA
Wilson	107.3	100.8	6.6	9	0	9

Oregon is not a very good team this season. That, alone, doesn't mean that Wilson is not a very good player, but his numbers show that he isn't making much of a positive contribution so far. He's better than Div. 1 average on offense and exactly average on defense. I don't know whether there is something in the water in Eugene, but the Ducks always seem to be better on offense than defense. Could we be witnessing an Ernie Kent effect?

The returns are not in on Wilson, but I'm not so worried about the Badgers losing out on him.

Jeronne Maymon

Jeronne Maymon stayed at Marquette about as long as I stick around when my wife throws on The Bachelor. He was a highly productive player at Madison Memorial, but rumors swirled about his father's influence. Whatever the reason, he left Marquette, and last I heard, might be headed to give Bruce Pearl headaches at Tennessee.

Maymon flashed talent in high school but not in his brief stint at Marquette. Keep in mind that he played so little that we can't make meaningful judgments about his talent level, but what he showed is about equivalent to what the Badgers are getting from Mike Bruesewitz.

Player	OEAA	DEAA	EDAA	OPAA	DPAA	PAA
Maymon	94.9	92.0	2.9	-3	4	1

Maymon put up decent defensive numbers, but his offense was atrocious. As with Wilson, let's reserve our judgment of Maymon's on-court efforts, as he compiled these numbers in about 50 minutes of play. As for his decision-making or that of his father, I have my opinions, but I'll leave you to judge that.

Conclusion

Nothing in the numbers indicates that the Badgers should resent not capturing this in-state talent. Tim Jarmusz has put up numbers this season that aren't much different from these three guys, and he's the worst player the Badgers have in their regular rotation. Bo Ryan really knows how to choose recruits, he got lucky on the recruiting trail, he possesses a talent for "coaching them up", or some combination of the three. Any way you slice it, Badger fans should be happy with the results.

The Latest Player Statistics for the Badgers

2010-02-22T23:06:00.005-06:00

Not the best couple games for the Badgers and the numbers show it. Only Jason Bohannon and Mike Bruesewitz improved their Player Efficiency Margin (PEM), which measures points per 100 possessions above-average. And only Trevon Hughes and Keaton Nankivil posted positive Points Above Average (PAA).

These numbers show the changes from the last time I did the stats (2 games ago). I've ordered the numbers by PAAch.

Player	POEch	PDEch	PEMch	OPAAch	DPAAch	PAAch
Bohannon	2.5	2.2	0.3	11.8	-3.1	8.7
Nankivil	1.5	2.1	-0.7	4.7	-2.5	2.2
Hughes	0.2	2.1	-2.0	3.6	-2.6	1.0
Bruesewitz	3.6	2.9	0.7	0.9	-0.1	0.8
Leuer	-2.8	2.3	-5.1	-0.1	-0.9	-1.0
Taylor	-0.9	2.3	-3.2	1.3	-2.6	-1.3
Evans	0.3	1.8	-1.5	0.1	-1.5	-1.4
Wilson	-0.1	2.1	-2.2	0.1	-1.6	-1.5
Jarmusz	-2.4	2.1	-4.5	-6.0	-2.3	-8.3

If you total the PAAch, it is almost zero, meaning that over the past two games, the Badgers have played about as well as an average Division 1 men's basketball team (think worse than Penn State).

Overall, Bohannon is widening his lead in PAA, well clear of Hughes in second place.

Player	POE	PDE	PEM	OPAA	DPAA	PAA
Bohannon	126.4	89.6	36.7	75	33	108
Hughes	121.2	88.5	32.8	55	33	88
Nankivil	121.7	88.8	32.9	43	25	68
Leuer	131.1	85.8	45.3	45	22	67
Taylor	118.5	91.2	27.3	42	23	64
Wilson	117.8	89.2	28.5	16	11	27
Evans	95.7	86.1	9.6	-5	15	10
Bruesewitz	95.2	89.5	5.7	-3	6	3
Jarmusz	89.1	90.1	-1.0	-23	21	-2

Could the recent doldrums be a result of integrating Jon Leuer? I can't tell. I just hope the Badgers can improve their play, because what they've given us over the past couple games would get them knocked out of the NCAA tournament in the first round.

A Look at Minnesota

2010-02-18T15:25:00.001-06:00

Tonight's game at Minnesota may be the biggest stumbling block in the way of the Badgers making a run for a share of the Big Ten title. Let's take a look at the Gophers.

The Gophers are more of a defensive team than an offensive one. And they do a lot of their defensive damage with blocks and steals, where they are 6th and 11th in the nation, respectively. Those are some amazing numbers. Not surprisingly, opponents don't shoot very well inside against shotblockers like these, hitting only 43.5% of their 2-point attempts. The shotblocking may hurt the Badgers, but Wisconsin should be able to blunt the Minnesota turnover machine with their surehandedness in holding onto the ball. The Badgers rank 4th in the nation in fewest turnovers.

Minnesota has defensive weaknesses, though. Possibly as a result of their focus on defending the paint, they give up a lot of free throws and allow opponents to shoot very well from 3-point range. While Wisconsin is actually quite bad at getting to the line, they are decent at hitting the 3, so they should be able to exploit the Gophers from distance.

There is really only one standout player on the Gophers by my numbers, Blake Hoffarber. He ranks very highly in my system, which I think may be a fluke in not penalizing him enough for his position defense. However, he outpaces his teammates by so much, that I doubt any adjustment would bring him down to the next best player, Damian Johnson.

Player	POE	PDE	PEM	GmPts	OPAA	DPAA	PAA
Hoffarber	133.4	93.4	40.0	3.7	73	16	90
Johnson	113.9	87.7	26.2	2.3	28	27	56
Westbrook	110.6	93.8	16.8	1.4	21	14	35
Sampson	106.0	88.9	17.1	1.4	10	23	33
Nolen	106.3	89.8	16.5	1.1	9	17	26
Williams	112.3	90.1	22.1	0.9	12	10	22
Joseph	102.4	93.7	8.7	0.7	4	13	17
Carter	102.8	90.5	12.3	0.7	3	13	16
Bostick	90.6	87.3	3.4	0.1	-4	6	1
Iverson	81.3	88.6	-7.2	-0.4	-25	16	-10
Cobbs	81.5	93.6	-12.1	-0.5	-17	6	-11

Beyond Hoffarber and Johnson, the Gophers don't seem to have much firepower. To give a sense of comparison, only Jason Bohannon outpaces Hoffarber in Points Above Average (PAA), but four other Badgers score higher than Johnson. And, on a per-possession basis, the Badgers have six players with a Player Efficiency Margin (PEM) over 30.0, while Minnesota has only one.

Any way you slice it, the Badgers are the better team, especially with Jon Leuer planning to play. However, the game is on the road, so I'm predicting a 71% (or so) chance of a Badger victory. Now, we get to see what actually happens, which is the really fun part. Hopefully, I'll have my HD service hooked up by tonight.

The Chances of Winning Out

2010-02-16T13:01:00.003-06:00

Let's start out with the premise that to have a legitimate shot at the Big Ten regular season title, the Badgers will have to win all their remaining games. Although they will be favorites in every game, that doesn't mean that they will necessarily win them all.

The starting point for figuring out Wisconsin's chances to finish 24-6 and 14-4 in the Big Ten is Ken Pomeroy's predictions for the Badgers. Here is what he predicts for the remaining five regular season games:

Thu Feb 18	(43) Minnesota	W, 63-60	62	65%	Away
Sun Feb 21	(71) Northwestern	W, 67-54	57	92%	Home
Thu Feb 25	(136) Indiana	W, 69-56	62	91%	Away
Wed Mar 3	(143) Iowa	W, 66-48	56	97%	Home
Sat Mar 6	(51) Illinois	W, 64-59	60	68%	Away

If we multiply all the chances of winning together, we will get the chance that the Badgers will win all the games. Doing this gives us a 36% chance, which jibes with Pomeroy's final prediction of a 23-7 (13-5) record.

However, Pomeroy's numbers don't take into account the loss of Jon Leuer. Leuer has missed 9 of the Badgers' 25 games this season but is expected to play in the upcoming Minnesota game. I have previously calculated his impact as something between 2.5 and 4.5 points of victory margin in a game depending on the subs Bo Ryan uses. Let's take the middle road and assume that his return will improve the Badgers by 3.5 points. We need to multiply that by the ratio of games missed to total games to get the amount of the "Leuer effect" that isn't captured in Pomeroy's numbers. The result is 1.26 points.

Leuer's return means the Badgers will be favored by more in each game than Pomeroy's numbers show. I've taken the adjusted point value of each game and given it a revised Pomeroy win chance based on similar spreads in other games. The point value in each game is increased by one, except the final game, where it is increased by two. Although this isn't the best way to do it on a game-by-game basis, the overall effect on the chances of winning all games will be right. The results are below:

Thu Feb 18	(43) Minnesota	W, 64-60	62	71%	Away
Sun Feb 21	(71) Northwestern	W, 68-54	57	95%	Home
Thu Feb 25	(136) Indiana	W, 70-56	62	95%	Away
Wed Mar 3	(143) Iowa	W, 67-48	56	98%	Home
Sat Mar 6	(51) Illinois	W, 66-59	60	75%	Away

If we multiply all of these chances, we get 47%. So, adding Leuer increases Wisconsin's chances of winning out by 12 percentage points, or by about 33%. That's a pretty big impact and gives the Badgers a coin-flip chance to be in the race for the Big Ten regular season title. Let's watch some hoops and see how things play out.

Anatomy of a Defensive Rebounding Juggernaut

2010-02-15T15:34:00.001-06:00

The Badgers are ranked No. 2 in the nation in defensive rebounding. I noted on the BadgerManiac message board that their success is a result of more than just their height. Here is an edited version of that post:

The Badgers have a very good defense. When you look at our "four factors" from kenpom.com, there are two keys to that defense. One is getting opponents to miss shots and the other is to capture the rebounds on those misses. Wisconsin is very good at the former and elite at the latter.

It's hard to drill down to individual players when looking at field goal defense, but it's much easier with defensive rebounds, which is the team's elite defensive skill. When looking at the individual players, it's easier to see why a team that ranks 148th (basically Div. 1 average) in effective height is so good at defensive rebounding:

Player	DR%
Hughes	14.3%
Leuer	21.7%
Taylor	9.7%
Evans	21.5%
Bohannon	11.9%
Nankivil	15.1%
Bruesewitz	18.6%
Wilson	13.5%
Jarmusz	13.6%

Note: DR% is defensive rebounding percentage. It is the percentage of the opponent's missed shots that a player rebounds.

If I had done a list like this before this week, every player listed would be in double digits. So, the secret to the Badgers' success on the defensive glass is getting everyone involved.

The average team defensive rebounding percentage in Division 1 this season is 67.2% and there are 5 players on the team, so each player on an average defensive rebounding team would claim 13.4% of the defensive rebounds if each were equally likely to rebound the ball. When you look at the Badgers, every player other than Jordan Taylor and Jason Bohannon exclipses that mark.

And, when talking about Bohannon, Taylor, Trevon Hughes and Rob Wilson, it pays to note that the taller you are the easier it is to grab rebounds, so the high totals from Hughes and Wilson are quite impressive. Even though height helps, the Badgers show that rebounding is about much more than just how tall you are.

All Big Ten . . . By the Numbers

2010-02-15T15:00:00.001-06:00

I just finished my statistics for the Big Ten through yesterday's games. There are some changes at the top. To begin with, I'll give you the top 20 without commentary. These would be the three All Big Ten teams and five honorable mentions:

Player	POE	PDE	PEM	GmPts	OPAA	DPAA	PAA
Hummel	136.2	84.5	51.7	5.5	90.1	40.8	130.8
Turner	131.8	84.5	47.4	4.0	68.4	35.4	103.8
Bohannon	123.9	87.4	36.4	3.9	63.7	36.0	99.7
J. Johnson	123.5	84.4	39.1	4.0	56.1	39.7	95.9
Harris	126.5	90.5	36.0	3.9	67.5	26.3	93.8
Moore	124.4	88.2	36.2	3.8	59.9	31.2	91.1
Diebler	120.9	91.6	29.3	3.5	62.7	27.8	90.5
Hoffarber	133.4	93.4	40.0	3.7	73.4	16.1	89.5
Lucas	127.6	94.4	33.2	3.4	70.9	16.3	87.2
Hughes	121.1	86.3	34.7	3.4	51.1	35.6	86.7
Sims	125.9	90.9	35.0	3.5	61.5	23.6	85.1
Green	124.2	87.0	37.3	3.2	53.0	30.5	83.5
McCamey	122.5	94.7	27.9	3.1	64.2	17.3	81.5
Shurna	123.2	97.4	25.8	3.0	65.9	9.3	75.2
Buford	116.9	90.0	26.9	2.8	44.5	29.0	73.6
Tisdale	122.2	92.2	30.0	2.8	52.0	20.3	72.4
Battle	123.0	98.6	24.4	2.8	62.8	5.6	68.4
Leuer	134.0	83.5	50.4	2.7	45.0	23.1	68.1
Taylor	119.4	88.9	30.5	2.6	40.5	25.2	65.7
Nankivil	120.2	86.6	33.6	2.6	38.2	27.1	65.4

Notes on the abbreviations:
POE = Player Offensive Efficiency (points scored/100 possessions used)
PDE = Player Defensive Efficiency (points allowed/100 possessions defensed)
PEM = Player Efficiency Margin (POE - PDE)
GmPts = that player's contribution to the margin of victory over an average opponent in a single game
OPAA = Offensive Points Above Average (points scored above average on the season adjusted to assume all opponents were average Div. 1 teams)
DPAA = Defensive Points Above Average (defensive contribution in terms of points scored on the season above average adjusted to assume all opponents were average Div. 1 teams)
PAA = Points Abover Average (OPAA + DPAA)

The Badgers place 5 players in the top 20, although just barely. And if Leuer doesn't get back in action, Wisconsin's best player will fall off this list.

Many of the names that you would expect are at the top of the list, with Robbie Hummel still way out in front. However, there are a few names that you wouldn't expect to rank so high: Jason Bohannon, Jon Diebler, and Blake Hoffarber. They rate mostly because of extremely high offensive production combined with playing a tremendous number of minutes.

I still haven't decided if my system overranks them or if they are that underrated by the public, the media, and the coaches. My working hypothesis is that, if I could adjust for their positional defense, they would fall down the boards. I'm working on a system to serve as a proxy for position defense, but it's not ready for prime time. For now, the proxy is the team's overall defense, which, after removing the effect of blocks, steals, and defensive rebounds, is added back to each player evenly.

Subjectively, I think that Bohannon and Diebler are better players than Hoffarber overall and their ranks shouldn't be affected as much by such an adjustment. Bohannon and Diebler stay in the top 20 for me but Hoffarber falls out. His replacement is:

Player

POE

PDE

PEM

GmPts

OPAA

DPAA

PAA

Lauderdale

116.3

85.3

31.0

2.4

32.3

31.4

63.7

Going back to my posts on Demetri McCamey v. Trevon Hughes, right now it looks as though there isn't too much separating them. I still think Hughes is the much better player as shown by his superior PEM, but McCamey plays more minutes, and when looking at total value, the minutes played count. And Kalin Lucas is right there with those two value-wise.

Now, with some subjective adjustments, which I won't explain because this post is already long, here are my All Big Ten players for this season:

First Team
Robbie Hummel
Evan Turner
JaJuan Johnson
Jason Bohannon
E'Twaun Moore

Second Team
Manny Harris
Kalin Lucas
Trevon Hughes
Draymond Green
Jon Diebler

Third Team
DeShawn Sims
Demetri McCamey
John Shurna
William Buford
Mike Tisdale

Honorable Mention
Talor Battle
Jon Leuer (if he plays soon)
Jordan Taylor
Keaton Nankivil
Dallas Lauderdale

Chris Kramer just misses, although his numbers grade out right with Lauderdale. After them, there is a bit of a break in the numbers, so I feel fairly confident with leaving others outside looking in.

This list has changed since two weeks ago and will likely change in the future, especially if Leuer gets back in action.

The Bohannon pick might be a little bit of a homer move. Switch him and Manny Harris if you don't like Bohannon as first team.

John Wall is the Top Draft Pick . . . or is He?

2010-02-15T12:02:00.000-06:00

Here is another comment that I made on the Courtside Analyst blog, to a post by the author about whether John Wall should be the consensus top draft pick or whether someone else on his team might be an even better choice. What I found backed up the thoughts of the author. Here is my edited comment:

What I found backs up your analysis. DeMarcus Cousins is the best player on Kentucky, although he hasn't played as many minutes as some of the other players (54.7% of available minutes). That may be due to him being a Freshman big or to his high foul rate (5.8/40 minutes). But on a per-possession basis, he grades as the best and would be the best player in the Big Ten were he playing there. Here are the Player Efficiency Margins (PEM's) for Kentucky through yesterday:

Player	PEM
Cousins	54.4
Patterson	42.6
Wall	34.9
Dodson	32.9
Liggins	26.9
Miller	22.5
Bledsoe	12.0
Orton	11.1
Stevenson	3.6
Harris	-8.5

The interesting thing is that Patrick Patterson is also ahead of Wall. That is mostly a result of an absurdly high Offensive Rating (ORtg) of 130.0 (8th in the nation!). Yet, he uses only 18.3% of his team's possessions (20% is average) when on the court, while his teammate Eric Bledsoe uses 20.9% to generate a 12.0 PEM.

I have a toy that I use called Lineup Correlation (LC) that does a correlation of the percentage of minutes against the PEM for each player. LC roughly measures how well a coach has judged his talent by giving the most minutes to the best players. The highest correlation that I've seen in the Big Ten through January 13 is .87 (Tom Izzo) while the lowest is actually -.37 (Todd Lickliter). The average appears to be around .50.

However LC, is just a toy, because it can be thrown off by a few things. One stumble is small sample size players who have high PEM's but really low minutes because they are limited as players and might be exposed with more regular playing time. The other is players who miss games but are very productive, such as Jon Leuer, who makes Bo Ryan's LC look lower than it should be.

John Calipari's LC is .39, which is fairly below average. Part of this might be due to Cousins' foul trouble not allowing Calipari to play Cousins more. However, I haven't watched Kentucky play, so I don't really know if Calipari can use this as an excuse.

The bigger issue is playing Bledsoe 72.3% of available minutes with a PEM of 12.0. Bledsoe is the fourth worst player on the team on a per-possession basis. It looks as though Kentucky is very tall, so maybe Calipari doesn't have any legitimate guards with which to replace Bledsoe. This is another situation where the stats can't tell the whole story and we need eyes watching games to help.

And overall, here are the Points Above Average (PAA) for each player, which measures how many points they have scored more than an average player so far this season. Cousins is not the top dog here because of playing time:

Player		PAA
Patterson		120.8
Cousins		105.9
Wall		100.3
Miller		41.9
Dodson		38.9
Bledsoe		30.9
Liggins		22.6
Orton		13.0
Stevenson		2.6
Harris		-10.0

Wall may be more valuable as a prospect because he is a point guard who can play at the same level as a Freshman that Trevon Hughes plays at as a Senior, but it's hard to ignore Cousins' production. On a per-possession basis, it blows away anything we've seen in the Big Ten this year and his size and weight predict that he will be a post in the NBA, which is just as, if not more valuable than a point guard.

All in all, I agree with you that Cousins would be the better pick. Maybe the scouts see something the numbers don't in Wall, Evan Turner, and Derrick Favors, who are all ahead of Cousins on Draft Express, but I'll go with these insane numbers that Cousins has put up.

The Polar Bear Rises

2010-02-15T11:08:00.001-06:00

I read an excellent blog called Courtside Analyst, which mainly covers the Milwaukee Bucks, but also touches on the NBA in general and occasionally on the Wisconsin Badgers. Yesterday, the author posted about Brian Butch winning the MVP award for the D-League All-Star game. Here is an edited version of my comment on his blog:

I have created a stat called Player Efficiency Margin (PEM). PEM is an allocation of the team's Efficiency Margin to each player on the team based on their offense and defense. As should be clear, PEM is a per-possession stat, so it does not take playing time into account.

Here are Butch's PEM's for the 4 seasons he played:

2008 - 43.7
2007 - 34.9
2006 - 25.6
2005 - 25.4

As you can see, Butch was always a very good player and got really good in his last season. In fact, only two Badgers have had a better PEM from 2005 - 2009. Alando Tucker had an amazing 48.1 in 2007 and Mike Wilkinson had a very good 44.3 in 2005. As a side note, Jon Leuer could finish as the best of the bunch; he has a 50.1 through January 31.

As another bit of context, Butch's 43.7 PEM would place him 4th in the Big Ten this season after Robbie Hummel, Jon Leuer, and Evan Turner. That's some pretty good company.

I think that Butch's skills were not much appreciated for a number of reasons. First, he wasn't a traditional back-to-the-basket big, although he did have some moves down low.

Second, he took a lot of shots from beyond the arc, and I hypothesize that viewers automatically dismiss the value of a big shooting 3's. However, in Butch's case, I agree with them, because he was never a good enough shooter to consistently take that shot.

Third, he was an amazing rebounder, which is a truly undervalued skill. His senior season, he corralled 10.9% of available offensive rebounds for a team that chooses not to pursue offensive rebounds much. That was good for 200th in the nation. However, he was even better on the defensive boards, grabbing 21.2% of missed shots his senior year, good for 105th in the nation.

Fourth, for a big man, he just never turned the ball over. In his senior season, he ranked 115 in the country with a turnover rate of 13.1%, all while using 28.2% of his team's possessions. And his rank compares him to low usage shooting guard types and others who generally have lower turnover rates than bigs. Avoiding turnovers is a great ability, especially in a big, but viewers don't tend to pay much attention to its value.

Finally, from a subjective point of view, he looked awkward. It's funny how no amount of production can seem to overcome the awkward, white-guy stereotype.

Butch was (and still is, given his D-League All-Star MVP) a really good player. Based on his college production, what he's done in the D-League, and the value of bigs in the Association, I would say he deserves a shot on a 10-day contract.

Another Stab at Game Points

2010-02-10T21:32:00.000-06:00

I still haven't solved including efficiency in the offense, but I've made strides (I think) on the defensive side of things. I've divvied up the points the opposing team has scored largely according to the plus/minus of the player for the game, adjusted for that player's playing time. The steals, blocks, and defensive rebounds are removed from the calculation and then included later on a player by player basis. The result is the rest of the defense aside from that in the box score gets allocated according to an objective measurement.

Now, I'm the first to say that plus/minus has it's faults, but the only other way that I've thought to do this is giving each player equal credit. This is trying to take a step in the direction of greater player by player accuracy, by using plus/minus as a proxy for position defense. I'm mulling over the idea of adjusting the plus/minus to consider the player's offensive contribution, so a player with a higher offensive contribution wouldn't get as much credit for his plus/minus on the defensive end. If anyone has any other ideas for an appropriate proxy, please let me know.

As a side effect of all this, the OGP for a team adds up to their points scored and the DGP adds up to the opponent's points scored. Therefore, all the TGP's added together should equal zero.

Without further review, here are the revised results:

Player	PPS	OGP	DGP	TGP
D. McCamey	1.44	23.8	-9.4	14.4
T. Griffey	1.39	6.6	1.9	8.5
R. Wilson	1.13	8.7	-0.4	8.4
M. Tisdale	1.54	19.3	-11.9	7.4
J. Jordan	0.00	0.0	7.0	7.0
B. Paul	0.00	0.0	3.8	3.8
D. Keller	0.00	0.0	1.0	1.0
J. Berggren	0.00	0.0	0.7	0.7
R. Evans	0.00	0.0	0.6	0.6
J. Bohannon	1.5	12.1	-13.6	-1.5
T. Jarmusz	1.29	4.8	-6.5	-1.7
T. Hughes	0.73	10.2	-12.1	-1.9
K. Nankivil	0.62	11.7	-13.8	-2.1
J. Taylor	0.89	8.4	-16.6	-8.2
B. Cole	0.84	5.6	-13.9	-8.4
D. Richardson	1.31	8.7	-19.2	-10.4
M. Davis	0.00	-1.0	-15.2	-16.2

As you can see, another effect is that players with limited playing time will congregate toward the middle because they won't have been on the court long enough to have much of an impact, positive or negative.

I can see already that my method is flawed as some players with negative plus/minuses ended up with positive defensive contributions. Back to the drawing board.

Game Points for the Illinois Game

2010-02-10T16:54:00.000-06:00

It was a bummer of a game overall. The Game Points show the story of two Illini having dominant games.

I've revamped the Game Points system so the Offensive Game Points (OGP) add up to the points scored by the team. Unfortunately, I have not yet figured out a way to add a player's scoring efficiency into the Game Points. Therefore, take a look at the Points per Shot (PPS) to see how efficiently that player was scoring. You have to look at OGP and PPS together to get a good sense of how the player did.

For example, Game Points show Trevon Hughes and Ketaon Nankivil as the 4th and 5th best players on the court last night. However, looking at their PPS's shows you that they were not very efficient, so their ranking should be much lower. I'm working on a solution, but for now, if you see someone over 1.00 PPS, they are probably better than their OGP ranking and if someone is below 1.00 PPS, they are probably worse.

A couple final notes, DGP is Defensive Game Points and is the number of points that player prevented the opponent from scoring via their blocks, steals, and defensive rebounds. TGP is the total of the OGP and DGP.

Player	PPS	OGP	DGP	TGP
D. McCamey	1.44	23.8	0.5	24.4
M. Tisdale	1.54	19.3	2.5	21.8
J. Bohannon	1.50	12.1	3.9	16.0
K. Nankivil	0.62	11.7	1.5	13.2
T. Hughes	0.73	10.2	2.1	12.3
D. Richardson	1.31	8.7	2.5	11.2
J. Taylor	0.89	8.4	2.6	11.0
R. Wilson	1.13	8.7	0.5	9.3
B. Cole	0.84	5.6	2.6	8.2
T. Griffey	1.39	6.6	0.8	7.4
T. Jarmusz	1.29	4.8	2.0	6.8
M. Davis	0.00	-1.0	2.2	1.1
B. Paul	0.00	0.0	1.0	1.0
J. Jordan	0.00	0.0	0.7	0.7
D. Keller	0.00	0.0	0.5	0.5
R. Evans	0.00	0.0	0.0	0.0
J. Berggren	0.00	0.0	0.0	0.0

Hughes v. McCamey

2010-02-10T11:46:00.000-06:00

Here is another post from the message board. I might do a little of this borrowing to supplement my other analysis when an interesting topic comes up on the message board that I respond to in some depth.

This one comes from some posters claiming that Demetri McCamey is better than Trevon Hughes. He sure was last night, but one night does not a season make. My response is to someone calling out (and deservedly so), my unsubstantiated claim that Hughes is "clearly" better than McCamey this season. On to my response:

The problem is that you are looking only at shooting. It is true that McCamey shoots it better than Hughes. Using True Shooting percentage, which takes into account 3's, 2's, and free throws, McCamey bests Hughes 59.3% to 54.2%.   However, Hughes uses more possessions on offense. If he used the same number as McCamey by eliminating the worst shots he takes, his TS% would be higher.

But let's look beyond the scoring. Here are Hughes' rebounding advantages over McCamey, and they are huge:

Off. Reb. % -   14.5% to 9.2%
Def. Reb. % -   4.2% to 1.5%

McCamey has the advantage in assist rate at 37.5% to 21.2% but he turns the ball over more than Hughes with a turnover percentage of 21.5% to Hughes' 14.8%. And let's be clear here, a turnover is much more harmful than an assist is valuable.

Hughes is also better at blocking shots and grabbing steals:

Block % - 1.9% to 0.6%
Steal % - 3.1% to 2.5%

McCamey does foul less than Hughes at 3.0 fouls/40 minutes compared to 3.7 fouls/40.

McCamey's shooting is better, but when you include usage rate, the difference is not that big. McCamey doles out many more assists and fouls a little less. Hughes does everything else better and in the case of rebounding, blocking shots, and not turning the ball over, he is dramatically better.

And this doesn't even consider defense that isn't part of the box score, Hughes is part of the 8th best defense in the nation while McCamey's team ranks 52nd. Even though we can't measure some of defense objectively, we can use the team's rank as a decent proxy. And when looking at any box score stat that measures defense, Hughes blows McCamey away.

When I combine all of the above in my stats, McCamey has a Player Efficiency Margin of 27.4, which is lower than Hughes' 36.8. PEM is a measure of how many more points/100 possessions a player would score than an average player and it captures all of the box score stats and the team defense. Basically, it shows things beyond scoring.

Hughes has clearly been better than McCamey this season.

Let's Not Panic

2010-02-10T11:32:00.000-06:00

The following is an edited post that I made to the Badgermaniac message board. It's lazy blogging, but it carries some of my thoughts on the results of the game:

I looked at the Badgers as an 80% favorite to win the game. Last night, the Illini hit their 4-1 bet.

The numbers show that just about every Illinois player scored over 1.0 points per net possession. Subjectively, that scoring came as a result of hitting some very difficult shots (Demetri McCamey) or hitting at a weirdly high rate, even when open (Mike Tisdale).

Occasionally, things like that will happen with good players like McCamey and Tisdale. it just happened for both of them on this night and was combined with a subpar offensive effort by the Badgers. All that and the game was still close throughout. I predict that the rematch will be a completely different result.

Speaking of the Badger offense, there were a couple missed layups and many missed open shots that have been falling recently. Again, that happens at times, especially for a team that is as perimeter-oriented as the Badgers are without Leuer. Trevon Hughes and Keaton Nankivil were the main drags on the offense, taking 30 of the team's 56 shots while scoring less than 1.0 points per net possession.

It didn't happen for the Badgers last night, so on to the next game. I don't see any cause for long-term concern.

Illinois Preview

2010-02-09T09:22:00.003-06:00

Ken Pomeroy rates the Badgers as a 12 point favorite over Illinois in tonight's game at the Kohl Center (68-56), with a 90% chance of winning. I've written about the effect of not having Leuer as being anywhere from 2-4 points of victory margin. However, Pomeroy's numbers take some of this into account. Therefore, I think that the Leuer effect (as compared to Pomeroy) is something more like 1-2 points right now. The Badgers are still a 10 point favorite, which is something more like an 80% chance of winning.

We know what to expect out of the Badgers, but this is the first time that they've played Illinois, so let's see what makes the Illini tick. The long and short of it is Mike Tisdale and Demetri McCamey. Didn't I tell you a few posts back that I like the pun?

McCamey and Tisdale are 2 of the 3 Illini with PEM's over 20.0. McCamey has a PEM of 27.4 and 73 PAA. Tisdale has been just as productive on a per possession basis, with a 28.2 PEM, but as with many bigs, he doesn't play as many minutes, so he has only amassed 62 PAA. The rough Badger equivalents for each player are Jordran Taylor (33.4 PEM, 66 PAA) and Keaton Nankivil (37.0 PEM, 66 PAA).

The other Illini (what a difficult nickname) who has a PEM over 20.0 is Tyler Griffey, who has only played 16% of the minutes available to him. His 25.1 PEM could be a result of the small sample size or it could be an example of Bruce Weber not giving him as much burn as he should.

To be honest, I don't blame Weber for not playing Griffey more as his team is awash in moderately productive players. Beyond the three players already discussed, every player still on the team (Alex Legion's numbers sucked) not named Jordan has a PEM between 12 and 17. That's a lot of depth, but it's all in the role player stratum. To compare, the Badgers have depth at the top, which is why they haven't missed Leuer as much as expected. Wisconsin boasts 6 players with PEM's higher than 30.0, which means they have 6 players who are arguably better than anyone on Illinois.

This really shouldn't be much of a game, especially at home. And watch out for a blowout if Tisdale or McCamey have foul issues.

Michigan Overview

2010-02-06T21:57:00.001-06:00

That was quite a whooping the Badgers put on the Wolverines. As you'll see, below, it was largely predicated on keeping Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims in check. If you can do that, you'll blow out Michigan. Unfortuntately for most teams, it's difficult to keep those two players down. Give credit to Keaton Nankivil and Tim Jarmusz for some excellent defense.

My Game Points are still in development, but they do paint a decent overall picture of the players in the game.

Player	Off Pts	DefPts	TotalPts
J. Taylor	14.6	2.1	16.7
J. Bohannon	13.3	1.1	14.4
D. Morris	13.1	0.0	13.1
T. Hughes	12.0	1.1	13.1
R. Wilson	10.4	0.5	11.0
D. Sims	8.6	0.5	9.1
M. Harris	6.8	2.2	9.1
K. Nankivil	8.0	0.8	8.9
Z. Novak	5.4	2.8	8.3
T. Jarmusz	6.6	0.7	7.3
L. Lucas-Perry	1.7	0.0	1.7
R. Evans	0.0	1.6	1.6
A. Wright	0.0	0.5	0.5
Z. Gibson	0.0	0.5	0.5
S. Douglass	0.0	0.3	0.3
J. Gavinski	0.0	0.3	0.3
J. Bartelstein	0.0	0.0	0.0
M. Vogrich	0.0	0.0	0.0
C. Person	0.0	0.0	0.0
M. Bruesewitz	0.0	0.0	0.0
J. Berggren	0.0	0.0	0.0
B. Valentyn	0.0	0.0	0.0
W. Smith	0.0	0.0	0.0

It was all backcourt for the Badgers. And check out that Rob Wilson guy. I think some blogger touted him early today.

I can't say that I know much about Darius Morris, but it appears that he was a 3-star recruit per Scout. He was Michigan's best player tonight. He made his mark with efficient scoring, 3 assists, and only 1 turnover. Maybe this Freshman point guard can develop into something in the next few seasons.

The Amazing Rob Wilson

2010-02-06T15:35:00.001-06:00

I teased an analysis of Rob Wilson a couple posts back and now I'm going to deliver. Wilson has only played 27% of the minutes he could have this season, so he is not a big part of the Badger attack. That said, this is a player every Badger fan should keep an eye on, as shown by his excellent play in the most recent Michigan State game.

Since Wilson hasn't played many minutes, his Points Above Average (PAA) is only 19 (6th on the team), well behind No. 5, Jordan Taylor (53 PAA). As you may recall from my discussion of Zack Gibson, we need to look at a player's Player Efficiency Margin (PEM) to take playing time out of the analysis.

Even when looking at PEM, Wilson still rates as the 6th be player on the team but he's much closer to No. 5 than he is in PAA. Wilson has a 27.4 PEM, right behind No. 5, Jason Bohannon (28.1 PEM). As surprising as this seems, the numbers show that Wilson is just about as productive on a per-possession basis as Bohannon. It looks as though the team has a ready-made replacement for Bohannon's productivity next season.

On the offensive side of the ball, Wilson is an excellent shooter, leading the team in eFG% and TS% by large margins. His shooting is the key to his high Offensive Rating. If he can sustain that using more than the 13% of possessions he's using this season, he could be quite an offensive force. He's not much of a distributor, with an assist rate that ranks down with the big men on the team.

The big drag on his offense, though, is his turnover rate, which is second worst on the team, tied with Ryan Evans, and well behind the top 5 players. His shooting makes up for it, but it's hard to have such a high turnover rate while playing more than 50% of available minutes for a Bo Ryan-coached team. Subjectively, Ryan appears to be able to teach players to value the basketball, so Wilson may get better with this.

On the defensive end, Wilson is good (but not great) at getting steals but not much for blocking shots, putting him in the same realm as Jordan Taylor. His defensive rebounding is actually quite good for someone his size.

Overall, Wilson has a lot of good attributes and a major weakness that Bo Ryan seems to correct in players. This bodes quite well for a player who already produces quite a bit of value for this team.

A Brief Preview of Michigan

2010-02-06T14:09:00.004-06:00

As shown in my prior post, Michigan has a couple truly top-notch players in Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims. In fact, those are two of the top 10 players in the Big Ten. So, why is Michigan only 11-11 (4-6 in the Big Ten)?

The answer is that there isn't much in the cupboard once you get past Harris and Sims. As of February 1, Harris had amassed 90 points above average (PAA), while Sims had accumulated 80 PAA. The next highest players are the two Zack's: Novak with 23 PAA and Gibson with 20. No one else has more than 8 PAA.

To make this relevant for Badger fans, imagine that you didn't have Jordan Taylor, Jason Bohannon, or Keaton Nankivil on the team. Such a team (assuming Jon Leuer is playing) would be the equivalent to this year's Wolverines.

When I see teams with production difficulties like this, I look to another one of my stats, called Player Efficiency Margin (PEM). It measures how much better that player would be on a per-possession basis than an average Division 1 player. Essentially, it is how many more points that player would score over 100 possessions. Since it doesn't count playing time, it can show us if there are any productive players who aren't playing big minutes.

Unfortunately for the Wolverines, there is only one player of that description - Gibson. Gibson is a clear third on the team with a 33.3 PEM (the next best is Novak at 11.1), but he only plays 22% of the minutes that he could. Even more unfortunately for the Wolverines, there isn't much coach John Beilein can do about this. Gibson's foul rate is an obscene 7.1 per 40 minutes. That's a level the Badger fans haven't seen since a 2007 Greg Stiemsma played for the team.

The upshot here is that Michigan is not a good team and doesn't have much prospect of getting better this season. And once Harris and Sims leave, I'm not sure what Beilein will do.

The Top 25 in the Big Ten

2010-02-04T14:54:00.001-06:00

The best of the best of the best. When the season ends, the All Big Ten teams give us rankings of the best 15 or so players in the conference. How about a preview using an objective measurement?

The beauty of the system developed by my minions here at BadgerBucco HQ is that it adjusts all of a player's contributions to Division 1 average, which allows us to compare players across teams (and across eras, but I'll address that in a future post).

I'm still working on the acronyms, but you'll see PAA and 34pace today. PAA is the points scored above average and 34pace is and estimate of the PAA that player will have at the end of the season.

Player	PAA	34pace
Hummel	115.4	186.8
Harris	89.7	144.4
Diebler	85.5	132.1
Green	81.9	126.6
Hoffarber	81.4	131.0
Sims	80.1	129.0
Turner	80.1	123.7
Moore	79.6	128.9
Lucas	78.3	121.0
J. Johnson	78.2	126.6
Hughes	77.3	123.7
Leuer	68.8	110.0
Bohannon	65.4	104.6
Shurna	64.3	103.4
Buford	61.3	94.8
McCamey	61.2	93.5
Tisdale	57.8	88.3
Kramer	57.2	92.6
Nankivil	57.0	91.3
Morgan	56.6	87.5
Battle	54.1	87.1
Taylor	53.2	85.1
D. Johnson	50.0	80.5
Lighty	49.5	76.4
Lauderdale	48.6	75.1

Robbie Hummel is just lapping the field! It's amazing how little hype he gets compared to some of these other players. It must be the lack of flash, but he is clearly the player of the year in the conference.

Supporters of Jon Leuer and Evan Turner can turn to the per-possession numbers, where those two rank right behind Hummel. If they hadn't been hurt this season, it would be an exciting 3-player race for the best player in the conference.

Most of these names come up in conversations of the best players in the conference. However, there are a few showing up on the above list that you might not expect. Jon Diebler, Blake Hoffarber, and Chris Kramer are all in the top 25, with Diebler and Hoffarber in the top-5.

Part of the surprise with these players comes from the fact that they don't tend to use a lot of possessions. They are not the first or even second option on their teams. However, when they do use a possession on offense, they use it well. Hoffarber, for example, has one of the top 5 ORtg's in all of Division 1 college hoops. These players are better than they are given credit for.

That said, I think my system loves the very high efficiency, lower usage players a bit more than it should. Don't drop these guys too much, but I don't believe Diebler and Hoffarber belong in the top 10 in the Big Ten.

Badger fans can rejoice, seeing 5 players from their team in the top 25, while Purdue can crow about having 3 players in the top 10. Ohio State plants 4 players in the top 25. No other teams truly stand out the way these three do. That shows why I believe these three teams are the best in the Big Ten. Michigan has two players in the top 10 but almost nothing else on the team.

Game Points for the Michigan State Game

2010-02-04T14:21:00.000-06:00

I've taken a stab at creating a system to value players based on the box score of the game. It's sort of a scaled down version of my overall rating tool. It gives point value credit to offense and defense for each player.

The offensive point values for each player are not the actual points they scored, as the stat includes turnovers, offensive rebounds, and efficiency. However, the total of all the offensive points for each player on the team roughly adds up to the overall scoring by the team.

The defensive point values measure the point value of the box score captured defense for each player. They represent the extra points the opponent would have scored without that player's box score-measured contributions. They do not measure all defense, specifically position defense, and that is why there isn't much spread from the highest to the lowest values. However, this is all that I can objectively measure given the stats that are tracked.

Overall, there were 11.8 defensive points scored by MSU and 13.0 by the Badgers. For example, the Spartans would have scored 62 points without the contributions by the Badgers in terms of defensive rebounding, steals, and blocks.

Here are the results for the game:

Player	Off Pts	DefPts	TotalPts
K. Nankivil	14.4	2.9	17.2
J. Bohannon	14.8	0.8	15.6
J. Taylor	12.3	1.4	13.7
R. Morgan	12.0	1.6	13.6
D. Summers	13.3	0.3	13.6
R. Wilson	10.3	2.6	12.9
D. Green	6.5	3.1	9.6
D. Roe	6.9	2.5	9.3
R. Evans	4.9	3.1	7.9
T. Jarmusz	7.1	0.8	7.9
K. Lucious	6.2	1.7	7.9
T. Hughes	3.2	1.4	4.6
K. Lucas	3.6	0.5	4.2
I. Dahlman	0.0	1.1	1.1
C. Allen	0.0	0.9	0.9
G. Sherman	0.0	0.0	0.0
A. Thornton	0.0	0.0	0.0
M. Bruesewitz	0.0	0.0	0.0

It's no surprise that the top three names are all Badgers. One of the first things that pops out to me is the Star Watch from the game - Hughes v. Lucas. It was pretty much a dead heat but neither of them proved to be stars.

The next thing that I see is the sixth player on the list, Rob Wilson. I've been planning a post on him for a while, but I'll tease you with this: My numbers for the season predict big things from Wilson
if he is given more minutes. How big? You'll have to come back to the site to find out.

Izzo Loses Again

2010-02-02T22:32:00.001-06:00

That's 0-7 for Izzo in Madison in the last seven meetings there. What a run and what fun to do it in such fine fashion.

Shouldn't my title really have been Michigan State Loses Again, though? I know there are many Badger fans who like to get all over Izzo, but don't count me among them. Izzo is a hell of a coach, who's been successful for a long time. There's no reason to make this personal. We should just enjoy beating the stuffing out of a really good opponent on a regular basis.

I hope to have a little look at the game tomorrow and look for some All Big Ten lists in the near future.

Let's all wish Kalin Lucas a speedy recovery. We know how tough it is to lose your best player. Let's hope Michigan State can rally as the Badgers have.

Preview of the Michigan State Game

2010-02-02T15:06:00.001-06:00

Can a plucky 16th ranked team full of "system guys" pull a dramatic upset over a No. 5 ranked perennial top team? That is the question that the media will be asking. The question BadgerBucco is asking is whether Jon Leuer's injury will be enough to allow Michigan State to beat the Badgers at home.

Ken Pomeroy has the Badgers winning this game 65-59. 4 points or so of that margin is due to home court advantage, so Pomeroy's computer sees the Badgers as the slightly better team. However, that's based on the entire season, and only slightly takes into account Leuer's injury and any improvement Michigan State has made over the course of the season.

I've blogged about the effect of Leuer's injury before and for a game like this , it probably swings the point spread by 3-4 points. That nearly nullifies the home court advantage.

Has Michigan State improved over the course of the season such that they can make up the remaining 2-3 points of victory margin? Luckily, this is one of the Badger opponents that I profiled in my system before the last time the two teams played. That allows me to compare my stats from that time period to the ones that I just did.

Michigan State has, indeed, improved since the beginning of the season, but the impact is not nearly as large as you would expect. What I was able to do is take each player's per-possession improvement or decline from the last Badger game to now and turn that into the number of points that they add to the victory margin over an average team based on their minutes played. Here are the points of victory margin each player has added since the last Badger game:

Kalin Lucas -           0.38
Draymond Green -   0.25
Durrell Summers -    0.25
Delvon Roe -            0.21
Raymar Morgan -     0.18
Derrick Nix - -0.04
Austin Thornton -     -0.20
Garrick Sherman -    -0.20
Korey Lucious -       -0.30
Chris Allen -            -0.31

The sum of all this is 0.21 points, not enough to make up the margin. However, once you get within 2 points, the game becomes a virtual toss-up, with the Badgers as a 57% favorite.

Badger fans might (or might not) be happy to see the Korey Lucious has fallen off a cliff as the season has gone along. His overall value to the team is now only 16 points above average. The equivalent Badger would be Rob Wilson or Ryan Evans. Needless to say, Lucious is not living up to his recruiting ranking.

Overall, the best players on the Spartans are Lucas and Green. Green is much more productive on a per-possession basis, but he doesn't get nearly as many minutes as Lucas. Here are the points above average for the season along with a rough Badger equivalent:

Draymond Green -    82 (Trevon Hughes - 77)
Kalin Lucas -            78 (Trevon Hughes - 77)
Raymar Morgan -      57 (Keaton Nankivil - 57)
Delvon Roe -            44   (Jordan Taylor - 53)
Chris Allen -              40 (Jordan Taylor - 53)
Durrell Summers -     37 (Jordan Taylor - 53)
Korey Lucious -         16 (Rob Wilson - 19)
Garrick Sherman -      4   (Ryan Evans - 11)
Derrick Nix -      1   (Mike Bruesewitz - -1)
Austin Thornton -       -6 (Tim Jarmusz - -3)

For those of you wondering, Jason Bohannon sits at 65 and Jon Leuer has 69, even though he's been injured (pretty impressive). The Badgers are a deeper team, with 4 players having a per-possession efficiency margin over 30.0 and 6 players with one over 25.0 (the loss of Leuer brings the team down to 3 and 5, respectively). Sparty has 3 over 30.0 and 4 over 25.0 for comparison.

I want to do the entire Big Ten right now so I can do some player rankings through the end of January and give some overall lists. That should be fun once I've completed it.

Anyway, enjoy the game. The numbers say it should be an exciting duel.

The Purdue Game

2010-02-02T14:18:00.001-06:00

What a tough loss. I was commenting on the excellent Courtside Analyst blog about the Badgers before the game and mentioned that I thought Purdue was about a 5 point favorite. I hate being right.

Of course, there was talk on the Badgermaniac message board that the spread was much higher than that, coming in at +8.5 or more for Purdue. That sounds like the Badgers were being clearly underrated.

Some will say that the line was correct and that Keaton Nankivil's shooting was the only thing that kept the team in the game. The implication is that such an outburst could not be expected. While that's probably true, some of the other performances from the game probably weren't predicted, either. And that's what makes this sport great.

One of the nice things about only having one game during the week is that the Ken Pomeroy numbers that I use to update my stats only included the Purdue game. That means that I can give you each player's Points Above Average for the game. This shows how much value the player contributed during the game adjusted to assume that they had been playing an average Division 1 basketball team. Here are the numbers with the average that the player has contributed throughout the season in parentheses:

Keaton Nankivil - 9.1 (2.7)
Jordan Taylor - 4.1 (2.5)
Trevon Hughes - 1.9 (3.6)
Ryan Evans - 0.6 (0.5)
Mike Bruesewitz - 0.0 (0.0)
Jason Bohannon - -1.1 (3.1)
Rob Wilson - -1.2 (0.9)
Tim Jarmusz - -2.1 (-0.2)

Nankivil's night was certainly unusually good, but every player other than Jordan Taylor had either average or below average nights. Bohannon is usually 3.1 points better than an average player but last night he was 1.1 points worse than an average Div. 1 player. That is mesmerizingly bad for a player that I lauded in my last post (Bonus point: with his recent performances, Bohannon is now below both Hughes and Jon Leuer in total value on the team). You can't discount Nankivil's performance without acknowledging how badly some of his teammates played, especially Bohannon, Wilson, and Jarmusz. He picked up the slack for them.

And Nankivil was all over the court, providing the most value on the team on offense and defense. He led the Badgers 7.9 points above average in offensive value and also with 1.2 points above average in defensive value.

This game it was Nankivil. Next game it may be Hughes, or Taylor, or Bohannon. One thing
I will say about this team is that it's depth, and Bo Ryan's willingness not to go much beyond his best players, is really helping these Badgers weather the loss of Leuer.

Bohannon on the Upswing

2010-01-18T17:04:00.000-06:00

Ah, I love gratuitous puns in the headline. Of course, it's only a pun to Badger men's basketball fans or college hoops nuts. Guess I'm shooting for a small audience.

Since I last wrote, the Badgers were pretty much dominated by the Buckeyes. I expected more out of my beloved team. They played one of those games where, even when the margin is four points, you just sense that the game was beyond their reach. Oh well, everyone has off-days.

Except, maybe, Jason Bohannon. Most of the other starters put out decent offensive efforts in the OSU game, but for Bohannon, it was a continuation of a run over Big Ten Conference play that has led to him being the most productive Badger.

I have a statistic that I created called Point Margin Above Average. I'm looking for a better name for it, but it measures the points that player has contributed to the team's victory margin over the course of the season. PMAA is adjusted for strength of schedule to the average Div. 1 team. Say a team has outscored opponents by 100 points on the season but they've played a tougher than average schedule. The adjusted margin may be something more like 150 points, which is what they would have scored if all the teams they played had been average. This is how we can compare players across teams on the same scale.

PMAA takes the adjusted margin for the team and allocates it among the players based on their offensive and defensive contributions to the team. If a player is around 0 in PMAA, they would be an average player on an average Div. 1 team. This year, that would be some team like UMass or Montana St. The best players in the Big Ten are around 70 right now.

The Badgers are lucky to have three players who are among the best in the conference: Trevon Hughes (66 PMAA), John Leuer (70 PMAA, even injured), and Bohannon (71 PMAA). That Bohannon has been the best player on the team may surprise many Badger fans, but they are confusing volume for efficiency. Hughes is a high volume scorer, so he gets a lot of ink, but he's not especially efficient. Bohannon doesn't shoot a lot, but when he does, he makes it count. Their strengths and weaknesses are different, but at the end of the day, they are about equally valuable. Leuer is another animal altogether, who combines many shots with a high level of efficiency. Maybe I'll get to him in another post, because he is amazing.

Anyway, back to Bohannon. What's amazing to me is what he's done during the Big Ten season. After the first Penn State game (14 games into the season), Bohannon had 43 PMAA, good for third on the team, behind Hughes (54) and Leuer (67). Since that time, Bohannon has strung together a great stretch of games, adding 28 PMAA in just 4 games. To put that in context, Ryan Evans, Rob Wilson, Mike Bruesewitz, and Tim Jarmusz have 29 PMAA all season long!

Because he's not a gunner and because a certain amount of his value comes from not turning the ball over, Bohannon doesn't appear to be a top player. However, when you properly analyze the numbers, you can see that he's one of the best in the conference. Go J-Bo!

The Iron Five

2010-01-14T15:11:00.005-06:00

Back when I worked for one of the big firms, downtown, I played on the firm-sponsored basketball team. For such a large place, we sometimes had trouble coming up with enough players to play the league games. One night, another attorney who played on the team saw that we only had 5 players show up that night and called us "The Iron Five." I don't know where he got that, but I've always loved the sound of it. Well, last night against Northwestern, Bo Ryan showed us his version of The Iron Five.

In my previous post, I estimated an increase in playing time for Jordan Taylor, Keaton Nankivil, Ryan Evans, and Mike Bruesewitz. Well, so much for my mind-reading powers. Ryan took things in an unexpected, but very smart, direction. Bruiser got a few extra minutes, but he basically stole those from Evans. The "beneficiaries" of the extra time were not only Taylor and Nankivil, but also Tim Jarmusz, Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon.

Based on my numbers, the best per minute producers on the team are (in order):

1. Jon Leuer (ouch!)
2. Trevon Hughes
3. Jordan Taylor
4. Jason Bohannon
5. Keaton Nankivil
6. Rob Wilson (Wow!)
7. Ryan Evans
8. Tim Jarmusz
9. Mike Bruesewitz

So, what Ryan did was properly evaluate his best players and ride them most of the game rather than just elevating the next player on the ladder to the minutes of the one above him. That Bo guy can coach, huh?

You may notice a couple differences between the numbers and Bo's lineup. One, Wilson didn't get much PT. Two, Jarmusz got a ton of minutes. Three, Bruiser got more minutes than Evans. I don't have much of a problem with Bruiser and Jarmusz getting time as they are the tallest of the group that includes them and Wilson. There were rebounds to be grabbed and posts to be defended and it takes size to do that. Still, I wonder if a little more Evans and a little less Jarmusz might have been a better bet.

As you may recall from my last post, we lost about 3.1 points of victory margin versus Northwestern based on my assumed allocation of minutes. I just did an analysis of the change in expected production going into the game if we assumed that Bo allocated minutes as he actually did. The result of Bo machinations was to cut the loss just about in half, resulting in a net loss of about 1.6 points of margin. That would have made the Badgers something more like a 4.4 point favorite rather than a 2.9 point favorite. 2.9 points of margin is roughly a 59% chance of winning, but 4.4 points is more like 70%.

Have I ever told you that I'm glad Bo Ryan coaches the Badgers? If not, then I should.

Jon Leuer's Injury

2010-01-13T11:32:00.003-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted here but now I'm back with new Badger analysis. I developed a new (and better system) for analyzing college basketball teams and players. The best part is that it takes me less than 5 minutes to do each team.

The short of it is that my system takes the schedule-adjusted efficiency of the team and allocates that among players based on the statistical markers for their offense and defense. The offensive efficiency adjusts for player possession usage based on some research from Eli Witus. The defensive efficiency takes the box score stats for each player to generate a defensive efficiency for that player based on the efficiency value of those stats. There is some portion of efficiency that isn't captured by these measures and I've added that back in to all players equally. The big problem with this is on the defensive end, which has quite a bit of this excess value. At some point, I would like to poll Badger fans to allocate this value of position defense among players.

The key to this is that I can evaluate the point value of the loss of a player. As awful as Jon Leuer's injury is, it gives me a chance to test the impact of his loss. So, how did I do it?

To begin, I detemined what part of the overall point differential against an average Div. 1 team Jon Leuer would contribute. The answer is 4.3 points. The Badgers would outscore the average D-1 team by 18.3 points this season. Therefore, losing Leuer drops that to 14 points.

Of course, this is not the end of the analysis. We have to figure out what the value is of the points that would be replaced by the playing time given to other Badger players. I estimated changes in playing time by bumping up each player to the playing time level of the player ahead of him on the playing time ladder and dumping the remainder on Jordan Taylor, who I believe will see more minutes in a 3-guard lineup. So, Keaton Nankivil jumps into Leuer's minutes, Ryan Evans takes over Nankivil's, and Mike Bruesewitz grabs, Evans' minutes.

So, how much of Leuer's production do we make back under this assumption? 1.4 points. That means that we are losing 2.9 points against an average D-1 team. However, the more minutes Bo Ryan takes from Bruesewitz and gives to any other players, the better off the Badgers will be. Bruiser is one of the best defenders on the team (largely due to him grabbing almost 25% of opponent misses) but he is clearly the worst offensive player on the team, with an efficiency of only 80.4. To put that in context, Leuer is at a team best 132.4 and Evans is third worst on the team at 99.2.

But, there is more of an effect here than there seems. This 2.9 loss is worse as the competition gets better. And in the Big Ten, there are only two teams (Indiana and Iowa) who are below D-1 average. I just did the adjustment for the next opponent, Northwestern. When adjusted for their team efficiency, we are losing 3.2 points against them.

Fortunately, the Badgers are 6 point favorites (per kenpom.com), so we are still roughly 3 point favorites. However, moving from a 6 point favorite to a 3 point favorite takes us from a roughly 77% chance of victory to something more like 59%.

Notwithstanding Bo's statements to the press that other players will just have to step up to fill Leuer's shoes, there really is no one capable of replacing the Badgers' best player.

Wisconsin v. Michigan State

2008-02-28T14:37:00.004-06:00

As usual, the Badgers are the better team. It's a nice feeling as a Badger fan, to be able to say this before every conference game. Ken Pomeroy's stats agree, with Wisconsin a 7-point favorite on the road (65-58) and a 79% chance of winning. My gut tells me the Spartans will be a tougher test than those numbers make it seem, but only by a little.

When you review the data, virtually all teams have shooting percentages matching up strongly with their offense and defense. Where it gets interesting is teams that have other significant factors. For Michigan State, those are committing and forcing turnovers and defensive rebounding.

The Badgers rank 88th and 99th in committing and forcing turnovers, so they are not a great opponent for the Spartans. This is not the rarefied air the Badgers normally breath when we talk about committing turnovers, but they are no slouches, either. With MSU struggling in those areas, themselves (186th in committing and 279th in forcing turnovers) you can see that those significant factors don't play well for them in this game.

As for defensive rebounding, the Spartans rank 100th. Unfortunately for them, the Badgers rank 40th in offensive rebounding, so we could see a lot of second opportunities that have a larger effect on the game outcome than for other teams.

Turning to the Badgers, their significant factors are opponent turnovers and defensive rebounding. They are 99th and 30th, respectively in those factors. As I mentioned before, the Spartans are 186th in committing turnovers, so that doesn't play well, but they are a robust 8th in the nation at offensive rebounding. So, we should see a titanic battle on the Badger defensive glass tonight.

All in all, this is a bad matchup for MSU.

As for the players, as my intuition has told me over the course of the season, Raymar Morgan is the straw that stirs the Spartan drink. His ANPV is greater than the next two players on his team combined.

What's interesting about this team is that it, like Bo Ryan's team, has a full eight players with positive ANPV's. However, unlike Ryan, Tom Izzo doesn't stick with those players. Like other coaches in the Big Ten, he is giving substantial time to a player who is killing the team. That player's name - Travis Walton.

Walton is just okay on defense, but he's truly atrocious on offense, where he has an effective FG% of 39%. That's right 39%! Remember a while back when I was excoriating Chester Frazier, well, Walton is worse than Frazier. Of course, the damage doesn't end there. Walton also hurts his team by turning the ball over on a full 32% of the possessions that he uses. By comparison, the worst player in the Badger rotation turns the ball over on 30% of his possessions; I'm looking at you, Greg Steimsma. What's worse is that Walton sits only second from the bottom on his team; the butter-fingers award goes to Marquise Gray at 34%. At least Gray has a positive ANPV, though.

I mentioned Walton being like Frazier, but that doesn't mean Izzo is like Bruce Weber. Weber doesn't have enough guards, so he is forced to use Frazier. Izzo has other options. I call them Drew Neitzel, Kalin Lucas, Durrell Summers, and Chris Allen and they all have positive ANPV's. Maybe Izzo doesn't want to have Neitzel running the point when Lucas is on the bench, but I think it would be a darn sight better than having Walton hamstringing his team. This team could have been something special if Izzo had re-ordered his troops. It's a sad miss for the fans in East Lansing but a happy mistake for the rest of the Big Ten.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Raymar Morgan	1.25	27%	0.88	249.0
Drew Neitzel	1.09	25%	0.84	138.3
Goran Suton	1.33	15%	0.80	84.0
Durrell Summers	1.21	25%	0.91	72.6
Marquise Gray	1.26	18%	0.94	39.0
Kalin Lucas	0.88	30%	0.90	25.8
Drew Naymick	1.81	7%	0.92	17.3
Chris Allen	0.98	24%	0.90	15.6
Mike Kebler	4.35	1%	0.84	-1.3
Isaiah Dahlman	0.77	16%	0.95	-15.8
Tom Herzog	1.83	3%	0.90	-20.9
Idong Ibok	1.25	3%	1.09	-35.7
Travis Walton	0.72	14%	0.93	-128.4
Jon Crandell	####	0%	0.94	#####

ANPV for Wisconsin (Game 27 - Ohio State)

2008-02-25T10:41:00.006-06:00

What a good win under the circumstances! With their best player stuck to the bench for much of the first half and a good portion of the second with foul trouble, the Badgers came through with a win on the road against a good Ohio State team.

I wasn't a big fan of the dribble-the-ball-until-the-
end-of-the-shot-clock-starting-with-three-minutes-left game plan that the Badgers appeared to employ at the end of the game. It was way too early to be playing that way with only a 5-point lead. The lead came from driving forays into the zone and dishes out to open players. Why stop that and leave yourself with low-percentage shot after low-percentage shot, especially when Trevon Hughes is having such a tough game? Wisconsin was lucky to emerge from that game with the win. The team's strong defense saved its bacon.

Marcus Landry keeps throwing up big games and jumps into triple digits in ANPV. Jason Bohannon also had another big game and is now threatening to leapfrog Hughes on the ANPV list, partly due to his own good play and partly due to the fact that Hughes had a real stinker of a day.

Michael Flowers appeared to have a better game than he did. While his contribution was a net positive, it wasn't as positive as a team-second-high 14 points makes it seem. Those 14 points required 15 possessions to achieve (.933 points-per-possession). By comparison, Bohannon scored his 16 points in only 10 possessions (1.60 points-per-possession). So far this season, the Badgers as a team have scored 1.09 points-per-possession, so Flowers was below team average.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.16	29%	0.78	194.4
Marcus Landry	1.13	22%	0.83	106.9
Trevon Hughes	0.94	27%	0.79	65.2
Jason Bohannon	1.23	18%	0.87	62.9
Michael Flowers	1.09	19%	0.83	46.0
Jon Leuer	1.16	19%	0.83	25.5
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.26	12%	0.80	12.6
Greg Stiemsma	1.27	13%	0.77	11.3
Tanner Bronson	0.53	16%	0.65	-6.6
Wquinton Smith	0.00	2%	0.83	-7.1
Morris Cain	1.40	4%	0.85	-7.3
Keaton Nankivil	1.91	3%	0.85	-8.4
J.P. Gavinski	0.53	5%	0.98	-20.3
Tim Jarmusz	0.93	5%	0.85	-20.7
Kevin Gullikson	0.95	8%	0.92	-38.3
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.73	####

ANPV for Wisconsin (Game 26 - Illinois)

2008-02-21T11:55:00.002-06:00

The Badgers beat up on the Illini pretty convincingly last night. The offense seemed to be a big part of the win, but it really wasn't. Wisconsin's offensive efficiency sat at 1.10 for the game, which is the second lowest offensive efficiency in the last 5 games. The big change from recent performances was on defense, where the team clocked in with a 0.87 defensive efficiency, which is its best level in the last 5 games. Don't kid yourself, this team was driven by it's defense.

A couple interesting things happened in the game. The first was Chester Frazier nabbing 13 rebounds! 13 REBOUNDS! That's crazy nonsense from a tiny waterbug point guard.

The second interesting item was Tim Jarmusz getting some non-garbage-time burn. Since we didn't see Jon Leuer, I'm guessing that Jarmusz has jumped into Leuer's rotation spot. There are some on the Badger message board who claim that this was just a match-up situation. I don't agree. Leuer has dropped from a season-high 63.5 ANPV after game 15 to his current level of 27.1. That's such a big drop off in play that I can't believe Bo Ryan could have missed it. I would try Jarmusz as well if I were him.

The third interesting thing to come from the game was Brian Randle's injury. Replacing Randle with an average Illini player for the rest of the game that he didn't play would lose 2.5 points for his team. I won't get into the math here but I used AOPPP and ADPPP for the team and for Randle adjusted for the possessions that he missed during the game. This doesn't make up the difference in the score, but it sure didn't help his team.

Marcus Landry, Trevon Hughes, and Jason Bohannon all had really good games while Joe Krabbenhoft continues his big slide from 38.0 ANPV 4 games ago to 14.3 now.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.17	29%	0.78	191.6
Marcus Landry	1.11	23%	0.83	98.5
Trevon Hughes	0.95	27%	0.79	74.4
Jason Bohannon	1.20	17%	0.87	47.4
Michael Flowers	1.09	19%	0.84	38.4
Jon Leuer	1.16	19%	0.83	27.1
Greg Stiemsma	1.31	13%	0.78	15.6
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.26	12%	0.80	14.3
Tanner Bronson	0.52	17%	0.65	-6.2
Wquinton Smith	0.00	2%	0.83	-6.9
Morris Cain	1.39	4%	0.85	-6.9
Keaton Nankivil	1.90	3%	0.85	-7.8
Tim Jarmusz	0.70	5%	0.84	-18.3
J.P. Gavinski	0.53	6%	0.99	-19.7
Kevin Gullikson	0.95	8%	0.92	-36.7
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.73	####

Wisconsin v. Illinois

2008-02-20T10:31:00.004-06:00

Illinois might be the single most underrated team in the Big Ten. Their record is 11-15, but they have outscored their opponents on the season - 1711-1614. Using the Pythagorean Method for turning point differential into expected record, we can see that a point differential like Illinois' should lead to a record of 17-9. Illinois is underperforming expectations by a full 6 games.

Most Badger fans probably don't think this will be much of a game because of the Illini's 11-15 record. I wonder if they would change their tunes if the Badgers were heading into hostile territory to face a 17-9 team? Since point differential correlates better to future performance than record, we Badger fans should be treating this more like the latter scenario. This should be a close game. Ken Pomeroy says Badgers by 4. The scuttlebutt on the message boards says the line is Badgers by 2.5. I don't think either of those is far from the truth.

As for players, Bruce Weber hamstrings this team with his guards. The Illini have 6 players with positive ANPV, including a monster in Shaun Pruitt. So, what is the problem? Actually, there are two problems - Chester Frazier, and to a lesser extent, Demetri McCamey. Both of these players have negative ANPV and both low scores are driven primarily by horrific shooting. Neither player can find the bottom of the basket, having effective field goal percentages (eFG%) that are clearly the lowest of any rotation regulars (41% and 43% respectively). eFG% includes 2 and 3-point shooting and to give you a relevant example, the lowest figure for a rotation regular on the Badgers is Trevon Hughes' 47%.

The problem for Weber is that he can't bench these offensive hacks, because his team is unbalanced. There is only one true guard with a positive ANPV on the team (Trent Meacham), but he is more of a shooting guard. That leaves Weber giving full minutes to a couple of players that are scuttling this team. With better luck and a competent point guard, this Illinois team would be competing for the top spot in the Big Ten this season. Unfortunately for them, they have lost their close games (2-7 in games determined by 5 points or less) and have been forced to use ineffective players for long stretches.

I expect a win but wouldn't be surprised with a loss; you shouldn't be surprised, either.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Shaun Pruitt	1.36	22%	0.87	224.4
Brian Randle	1.11	22%	0.94	76.9
Rodney Alexander	1.22	20%	0.80	71.1
Mike Tisdale	1.35	19%	1.00	57.5
Trent Meacham	1.07	21%	0.90	56.1
Calvin Brock	1.04	20%	0.87	25.8
Mike Davis	1.06	15%	0.86	-4.6
Chris Hicks	0.12	15%	0.90	-10.3
Bill Cole	1.21	9%	0.79	-11.9
Richard Semrau	0	0.01	0.89	-18.3
Demetri McCamey	0.81	24%	0.84	-21.1
Jeff Jordan	0.58	15%	0.82	-24.8
Steve Holdren	0.71	7%	0.90	-48.8
Chester Frazier	0.72	13%	0.82	-143.7
Brian Carlwell	####	0%	0.83	#####

ANPV for Wisconsin (Game 25 - Minnesota)

2008-02-20T10:27:00.002-06:00

Michael Flowers, Jason Bohannon, and Greg Steimsma are the big risers since the last edition. For all the statements by the announcers about how he might be the best player, Joe Krabbenhoft dropped the most. I like Krabby but am realistic about how much he brings to the table. He's just not on the same level as Brian Butch and Marcus Landry, who are clearly the best players on the team.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.18	28%	0.78	189.8
Marcus Landry	1.11	23%	0.82	91.4
Trevon Hughes	0.94	27%	0.79	63.0
Michael Flowers	1.09	19%	0.84	38.0
Jason Bohannon	1.17	17%	0.86	34.2
Jon Leuer	1.16	19%	0.84	26.9
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.30	12%	0.80	26.3
Greg Stiemsma	1.27	13%	0.77	13.2
Morris Cain	1.39	4%	0.86	-6.5
Wquinton Smith	0.00	3%	0.84	-6.6
Tanner Bronson	0.52	16%	0.66	-6.7
Keaton Nankivil	1.90	3%	0.86	-8.7
Tim Jarmusz	0.84	6%	0.88	-11.6
J.P. Gavinski	0.53	6%	1.00	-19.1
Kevin Gullikson	0.95	9%	0.93	-34.9
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.76	####

ANPV for Wisconsin (Game 23 - Purdue)

2008-02-11T13:08:00.000-06:00

Another loss to Purdue - suck. That's how I felt immediately after the game, because a conference championship drifted much further away in that moment. The dream has not fully flown but it is starting to recede in the distance.

That said, I got over the loss pretty quickly. A few bounces this way or that and the Badgers could have come away with the win. They weren't dominated, which is a good sign for future games.

I've been thinking about the game and what it tells us about this Badger squad; here's what I've come up with: Wisconsin has trouble with teams that spread the floor with penetrators and it becomes worse if those players can hit the three. Basically, I view it as a version of the European offense Mike D'Antoni uses in Phoenix, or at least did use before the immovable object known as Shaq showed up in the desert.

Since the Badgers have trouble containing penetration (especially on the pick and roll), teams who have the talent to run this type of offense are troublesome. They really take advantage of the sluggish bigs (Brian Butch and Greg Steimsma), which is why you see Bo Ryan put those guys on the bench more often against these teams (Duke and Marquette are included, here). And, as you can see below, stapling Butch to the bench is the best way to beat these Badgers.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.17	29%	0.79	172.1
Marcus Landry	1.12	22%	0.81	90.1
Trevon Hughes	0.93	27%	0.78	61.2
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.33	12%	0.79	38.0
Jon Leuer	1.19	19%	0.83	33.2
Michael Flowers	1.06	19%	0.83	26.5
Jason Bohannon	1.13	17%	0.86	13.5
Greg Stiemsma	1.18	14%	0.75	7.2
Morris Cain	1.38	5%	0.86	-5.7
Wquinton Smith	0.00	3%	0.83	-6.1
Tanner Bronson	0.52	16%	0.67	-7.0
Keaton Nankivil	1.89	3%	0.85	-8.9
Tim Jarmusz	1.05	5%	0.88	-11.0
J.P. Gavinski	0.53	6%	1.01	-17.8
Kevin Gullikson	0.94	9%	0.94	-31.3
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.76	####

Purdue Matchup

2008-02-09T16:29:00.001-06:00

Purdue is one of the better teams in the Big Ten. They have seven players with an ANPV above zero. Unfortunately, two players who have negative ANPV's get a lot of time for this Boilermaker squad: Chris Kramer and Tarrance Crump.

The best player is clearly Robbie Hummel, who is making a good account of himself in this, his freshman season.

Purdue just isn't quite as good as Wisconsin and the Badgers are at home, so I predict a UW victory. Hopefully, the refs won't allow the Boilermakers to get away with their physical play, especially on the ball. People talk about the physicality of Big Ten play and I'm one of them, I just don't talk about it with pride. Maybe if the officials didn't allow Riley-ball to be played in conference, the games might have more possessions and be a little more interesting.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Robbie Hummel	1.44	16%	0.88	135.2
E'Twaun Moore	1.07	23%	0.86	77.9
Keaton Grant	1.11	20%	0.87	61.3
Scott Martin	0.97	26%	0.90	39.3
JaJuan Johnson	1.04	20%	0.83	22.9
Marcus Green	1.05	19%	0.92	4.8
Nemanja Calasan	1.02	21%	1.00	0.8
Chad Sutor	0.00	7%	0.93	-12.5
Chris Reid	0.00	2%	0.89	-23.4
Chris Kramer	0.95	15%	0.77	-27.1
Bobby Riddell	0.29	6%	0.83	-29.7
Tarrance Crump	0.82	22%	0.94	-33.3
Garrett Mocas	####	0%	0.86	####
Mark Wohlford	####	0%	0.86	####

ANPV for Wisconsin (Game 22 - Iowa)

2008-02-09T16:26:00.000-06:00

I don't have much time for commentary, but Brian Butch continues to lead the Badgers and Marcus Landry continues to grow into a special player, himself. Trevon Hughes was down against Iowa, but he'll be up again. Jason Bohannon had a good game for himself.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.15	29%	0.77	165.1
Marcus Landry	1.14	22%	0.80	95.9
Trevon Hughes	0.95	28%	0.78	71.9
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.33	12%	0.77	34.7
Jon Leuer	1.18	19%	0.82	30.3
Michael Flowers	1.07	19%	0.83	22.8
Jason Bohannon	1.12	16%	0.86	7.3
Greg Stiemsma	1.16	14%	0.75	4.7
Morris Cain	1.38	5%	0.85	-5.2
Wquinton Smith	0.00	3%	0.83	-5.8
Tanner Bronson	0.52	17%	0.66	-6.4
Keaton Nankivil	1.88	3%	0.85	-7.9
Tim Jarmusz	1.05	5%	0.88	-10.3
J.P. Gavinski	0.53	6%	1.01	-17.0
Kevin Gullikson	0.94	10%	0.93	-29.0
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.74	####

Wisconsin - Iowa Matchup

2008-02-06T13:49:00.000-06:00

On paper, this game is a complete mismatch, and a complete snooze-fest. Both teams play good defense (although the Badgers are significantly better) and both move at a sluggish pace. What this means is a low-scoring affair with a lot of missed shots, not most people's cup of tea. That said, I'll be glued to my newly-acquired Big Ten Network feed.

I posted below about the Badgers, so I won't rehash things here. They are better on offense and defense than Iowa, so this should be a win for Bucky.

Iowa is a strange squad. Most teams end up being a little top-loaded with talent and then end up playing a player or two that hurts the team by being on the court. Basically, most teams aren't as lucky as Wisconsin, which has a rotation of players who are all positive-ANPV on the season. Iowa, however, is an extreme top-heavy team.

Justin Johnson leads the way with a 134.7 ANPV, marking him as a very good player. Behind him, Kurt Looby (81.4) and Cyrus Tate (46.4) serve as good back-up, even though they each play about half the minutes Johnson does. If Looby and Tate got more time, the Iowa top-three would be about as good as Wisconsin's best. What really separates these teams is the rest of the Hawkeye squad. Not a single one of them has a positive ANPV! This is a roster that can't possibly compete with the rest of the Big Ten, and it will hamstring them tonight against the Badgers.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Justin Johnson	1.02	25%	0.81	134.7
Kurt Looby	1.65	9%	0.74	81.4
Cyrus Tate	1.17	19%	0.96	46.4
Tony Freeman	0.91	18%	0.85	-16.2
David Palmer	0.69	15%	1.09	-18.2
J.R. Angle	0.94	14%	0.90	-21.7
Jarryd Cole	1.34	8%	0.93	-29.0
Seth Gorney	0.96	12%	0.83	-43.4
Jake Kelly	0.79	21%	0.97	-55.0
Dan Bohall	0.69	13%	0.97	-66.2
Jeff Peterson	0.61	23%	0.91	-90.6

ANPV for Wisconsin (Game 21 - Minnesota)

2008-02-06T13:25:00.000-06:00

The Badgers finally hit a level in the national rankings commensurate with their actual ability. This team is a sleeper for the national championship. With a defense that ranks second in the country, the Badgers can hang in there with any squad. Even if they don't reach that exalted level, they are still the strong favorites for the conference crown in my mind.

On to the players. Brian Butch, Trevon Hughes and Joe Krabbenhoft have been surging in ANPV while Jason Bohannon and Jon Leuer have been falling back. Butch remains the heart of this team, with Hughes and Marcus Landry playing strong second fiddles. I'm still curious about Leuer's problems. I suspect that the league has caught up with his playing style (e.g. not leaving him open for three-pointers) and that he has not, yet, adjusted. I like the kid and expect big things of him going forward.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.14	29%	0.74	157.7
Marcus Landry	1.14	22%	0.80	87.9
Trevon Hughes	0.96	28%	0.77	78.7
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.31	12%	0.77	31.7
Jon Leuer	1.19	19%	0.81	31.6
Michael Flowers	1.05	19%	0.83	20.2
Greg Stiemsma	1.16	14%	0.74	6.9
Jason Bohannon	1.09	16%	0.84	1.4
Morris Cain	1.37	5%	0.84	-4.7
Wquinton Smith	0.00	3%	0.82	-5.5
Tanner Bronson	0.52	18%	0.65	-5.9
Keaton Nankivil	1.87	3%	0.84	-7.1
Tim Jarmusz	1.04	5%	0.87	-9.7
J.P. Gavinski	0.52	7%	1.01	-16.3
Kevin Gullikson	0.94	10%	0.93	-27.2
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.74	####

ANPV for Wisconsin (Game 18 - Michigan)

2008-01-25T12:34:00.000-06:00

The Badgers haven't blown their past two opponents (Northwestern and Michigan) out of the water quite like I expected of them. Still, this is a good team. The Michigan game is the real oddity because it should not have been nearly as close as it was. However, what Michigan did in that game is not repeatable. They gathered in more than half their missed shots. That doesn't usually happen to anyone, so I'll call this an anomaly and move on.

The big upward movers over the past couple games are Michael Flowers and Marcus Landry. Flowers' offense is back to the level that it's been in the past, which is good to see and has really improved his ANPV. Landry is using more possessions (up from 19% to 21% on the season over the last 10 games). You can see how aggressive he has become. The great thing is that he's retaining his efficiency (1.20 AOPPP) while increasing his offensive contribution. Landry is now clearly the second best player on the team by ANPV, and in the last few games, has probably been the outright best.

Brian Butch has fallen off a bit in the past few games, but I expect that to be a blip and he will be back to playing productive basketball soon. Jon Leuer and Jason Bohannon are also slumping. With those two, I have less confidence in a turnaround. That said, I don't think they are bad players, just that they don't have an established track record of very good play like Butch does.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.10	30%	0.76	121.2
Marcus Landry	1.20	21%	0.81	84.3
Trevon Hughes	0.95	27%	0.79	54.0
Jon Leuer	1.24	20%	0.81	39.0
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.25	13%	0.77	22.2
Michael Flowers	1.06	19%	0.85	19.3
Greg Stiemsma	1.14	14%	0.70	8.6
Jason Bohannon	1.12	16%	0.86	4.9
Morris Cain	1.36	6%	0.86	-3.7
Tanner Bronson	0.55	18%	0.64	-4.7
Wquinton Smith	0.00	3%	0.83	-4.8
Keaton Nankivil	1.47	5%	0.86	-8.7
Tim Jarmusz	1.03	6%	0.89	-8.9
J.P. Gavinski	0.52	8%	1.05	-14.5
Kevin Gullikson	0.93	12%	0.96	-22.5
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.73	####

ANPV for Wisconsin (Game 16 - Penn State)

2008-01-18T16:41:00.000-06:00

This game was about two things - a ridiculous shooting spree by the Badgers and their ability to retrieve those rare missed shots. The Badgers shot an obscene 69.2% eFG%, which is like shooting that percentage from the field if all the shots were 2-pointers and is by far the highest the Badgers have seen this season. But when Wisconsin did miss, they grabbed almost half their errant shots (48.8%). When you shoot this well and get it back half the time when you miss to shoot well, again, the other team really has no chance outside of forcing turnovers on a significant number of possessions, which didn't happen here. This was a butt-kicking, but we are unlikely to see an offensive performance like it again.

On an individual level, Michael Flowers really went to town against Penn State scoring 23 points with an OPPP of 1.77. Most of the other players, also had good-to-decent games, with the notable exception of Jon Leuer, who didn't score a point in 13 minutes. He' s in the midst of a slump. Is there are reason for it? Maybe. Other teams could now have enough film on him to know his tendencies and defense him better. But, maybe it's just an anomaly. When you only play 10-20 minutes a game, two of your games are like one of someone else's, so low production in a couple games would be like another player having one bad game.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.13	31%	0.75	124.9
Trevon Hughes	1.00	26%	0.77	60.6
Marcus Landry	1.16	20%	0.80	55.4
Jon Leuer	1.28	20%	0.79	46.1
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.25	13%	0.75	21.7
Greg Stiemsma	1.18	15%	0.69	13.0
Michael Flowers	1.05	20%	0.85	12.9
Jason Bohannon	1.14	16%	0.84	8.6
Morris Cain	1.37	7%	0.85	-2.7
Tanner Bronson	0.56	20%	0.60	-3.6
Wquinton Smith	0.00	4%	0.81	-4.3
Keaton Nankivil	1.48	5%	0.85	-6.6
Tim Jarmusz	1.04	6%	0.88	-7.5
J.P. Gavinski	0.52	9%	1.06	-13.1
Kevin Gullikson	0.93	13%	0.96	-18.3
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.71	####

Penn State's Misery

2008-01-18T15:56:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to make a quick post about the effect of losing Geary Claxton on Penn State. As I mentioned below, he was a HUGE part of any success the Nittany Lions had on the hardwood. In losing Claxton, the Nittany Lions lost about 10 ANPV per game, which would reduce their total ANPV/game to about 1.8, meaning they would beat an average D-I team by about 2 points on a neutral court. That's obviously not good.

But, it's not just the loss of that ANPV, it is who is going to soak up that time. My analysis in the first paragraph assumes that Penn State would replace Claxton with a 0.0 ANPV player. That is unlikely. If Brandon Hassell or Andrew Jones grab those minutes, Penn State would essentially be replacing a highly productive player with moderately productive ones, leaving the team not quite so bad off. However, if Jeff Brooks or Talor Battle accumulate more time, Penn State may suddenly become a below average D-I team. I didn't see the game and I haven't followed the hoops team from Happy Valley, so I don't know which way they will go, but it will be interesting to find out.

Still, Hassell and Jones can't make up for everything. Claxton used 30% of his team's offensive possessions when on the court. Hassell and Jones each use 6%. If they garner more playing time, they or the remaining rotation players will have to up their shot-taking. Since Battle and Brooks use a decent number of possessions (16% and 25% respectively), they could more easily make up for the possession usage problems without adversely affecting their efficiency. However, when those two have AOPPP's of 0.71 and 0.70, respectively, there really isn't much more that they can do to lower their efficiencies. Contrast that with the 2.59 and 2.29 of Hassell and Jones, and you see that they would have to suffer greatly from attempting more shots before hitting those kinds of efficiency depths.

Preview of Game 16 - Penn State

2008-01-15T11:21:00.000-06:00

Penn State possesses a decent offense and average defense and they have the home court advantage. This leads to my prediction that the Badgers are favored by 2.5 points. Ken Pomeroy has the Badgers winning by 9. I'd put more faith in his prediction on this one.

ANPV shows that Geary Claxton is having a great season, doing a little bit of everything for the Nittany Lions. His specialty is the glass where he gobbles up rebounds at rates approaching those of Brian Butch, and that is really saying something for a guy his size. He also gets a steal on 2% of opponent possessions and blocks 3% of opposing 2-point shots. Adding good assist and turnover rates means that there is no area where he is statistically deficient, although I'll bet that he can get overpowered in the post.

Claxton is followed on the list by a couple players who use very few possessions on offense (6%) but are efficient with those that they do use. Danny Morrissey and Jamelle Cornley round out the five Lions who post strong ANPVs. This leads us to the depth issue - the Badgers have more depth. Although Claxton grades out as the best player to take the floor tonight, the Badgers have the better top 8 players by ANPV (313-280). That's a 33 point difference over 15 games or about 2 points per game.

But the story does not end there. As with Illinois, Penn State chooses to give significant minutes to players with significantly negative ANPV's. In this case, those players are Talor Battle and Jeff Hicks, who collectively have sucked away 71.1 points on the season, or about half of Claxton's value.

And this is where we see a big difference - Bo Ryan knows who his best players are and gets them on the floor. The only Badger player who has a negative ANPV and receives much playing time is Michael Flowers at -7.2 ANPV. Not only are the Badgers deeper but they don't play their bad players, so they receive a double advantage. I credit the coaching staff for this proper use of resources.

Geary Claxton	1.14	30%	0.92	149.2
Brandon Hassell	2.59	6%	0.99	54.8
Andrew Jones	2.29	6%	1.09	33.4
Danny Morrissey	1.06	22%	0.95	23.5
Jamelle Cornley	1.11	18%	0.87	21.4
Mike Walker	1.00	22%	0.96	4.4
Will Leiner	2.49	3%	0.87	1.5
Schyler King	0.69	17%	0.86	-8.3
David Jackson	1.19	14%	1.06	-13.2
Nikola Obradovic	0.00	6%	1.06	-14.2
Joonas Suotamo	0.00	5%	1.00	-16.7
Stanley Pringle	0.81	22%	0.91	-18.7
Jeff Brooks	0.70	16%	0.83	-32.3
Talor Battle	0.71	25%	0.87	-38.8
Steve Kirkpatrick	####	0%	0.99	####

ANPV for Wisconsin (Game 15 - Illinois)

2008-01-15T10:59:00.000-06:00

Trevon Hughes is the big riser this week, re-taking the second spot in the ANPV rankings. He had a tremendous game on both ends of the floor and it shows in the numbers. The big faller is Jon Leuer, who had as bad a game as Hughes' was good. At least Leuer wasn't on the floor nearly as much, so his overall effect was much smaller.

Every other member of the team had a good game against Illinois except Michael Flowers. I don't know what to make of him. The numbers say that he isn't a very good player but I think that he's more valuable than the numbers say. The main missing element of the formula may hit him the worst - position defense. Flowers is very good at that part of the game, but that doesn't show up in the box score.

Why is Greg Stiemsma so good on defense? He combines a high block rate (13% of 2-pointers) with a high steal rate (3%) that is the equal to that of Flowers. This combination of stats doesn't come around all that often.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.15	31%	0.75	127.5
Trevon Hughes	0.98	27%	0.76	60.2
Jon Leuer	1.30	21%	0.76	53.7
Marcus Landry	1.14	20%	0.80	45.0
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.22	13%	0.76	14.5
Jason Bohannon	1.13	17%	0.84	11.2
Greg Stiemsma	1.09	14%	0.68	2.6
Morris Cain	1.36	7%	0.85	-2.0
Tanner Bronson	0.68	17%	0.69	-3.4
Wquinton Smith	0.00	4%	0.81	-4.0
Tim Jarmusz	1.39	5%	0.91	-5.0
Keaton Nankivil	1.48	5%	0.84	-6.3
Michael Flowers	0.97	19%	0.86	-7.2
J.P. Gavinski	0.52	9%	1.08	-12.4
Kevin Gullikson	0.93	14%	0.97	-16.2
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.70	####

Notes from Badger-Illini Game

2008-01-12T21:23:00.000-06:00

Steve Lavin is one of the best color-guys around. He's insightful and far from annoying. You can tell that his comments come from actually understanding the game rather than simply hyping it like some pro wrestling "manager" - Dick Vitale, I'm talking to you.
Bo Ryan briefly had his Giants-of-the-Earth lineup on the floor, with Brian Butch, Greg Steimsma, Jon Leuer, Joe Krabbenhoft, and Michael Flowers sharing minutes. This one really enhances the Badgers' 26th ranking in Ken Pomeroy's Average Minutes-Weighted Height.
Illinois simply can't shoot the ball. Chester Frazier and Demetri McCamey (each possesses an eFG% in the low 40's) are horrible shooters, but no one on this team can hit a jumper.
Butch has some highly effective post moves. I've read and heard many comments about how he's not skilled in the post; those people are quite simply wrong. Butch has the best post moves on the team.
Once Mike Tisdale fills out and gets better wind, he'll be a good player. For now, he plays like a Freshman big.
When Trevon Hughes plays under control, he is incredible. Unfortunately, he is still prone to a few bone-headed moves, such as shooting contested 3's off the dribble. He reminds me a lot of Baron Davis in this way, as well as with his quickness and body-type.
Shaun Pruitt was pushing Butch around but the Badger team defense made up for the muscle mismatch. Pruitt is a good player on a bad team, so he won't get his due from the public or media.
Brent Mussberger is as bad as Lavin is good. He can't call plays correctly and messes up player names on a regular basis. A slip-up here or there is acceptable, especially if an announcer catches himself, but it seemed as though Mussberger didn't realize his screw-ups at all.
Erin Andrews (I think) mentioned that the Illinois coaches like what Frazier brought to the court, saying that "the game changes" when he is out there. It sure does - the other team breathes a sigh of relief, knowing that they don't have to worry about him hitting a shot and can count on a much higher level of Illini turnovers.
The Illini killed the Badgers on the boards, grabbing 39% of their misses. The Badgers only hauled in 17% of their own errant shots. Of course, Wisconsin made up for this by hitting the shots that they did take (59% eFG%) and not turning the ball over (14.5% turnover rate).
Flowers needs to calm down with the fouls. My numbers show that they are hurting his defensive value, both because of giving up free throws and because he can't be on the court as much as he otherwise would. This is a particular problem for the Badgers, who sometimes have to resort to Krabbenhoft as a shooting guard if Hughes, Flowers, or Jason Bohannon are unavailable.
The Illini losing Pruitt to foul trouble is worse than the Badgers losing both Flowers and Krabbenhoft - that's how good Pruitt is.
Marcus Landry is being more aggressive this season and has great timing and quick elevation on his blocks. That block from behind on Brian Randle that left the ball wedged between the rim and the backboard was a thing of beauty.
Hughes has some amazingly quick hands. I loved his leap to knock away a pass as Butch was heading back to his man after hedging the pick. If Hughes hadn't shown that aggressiveness, Butch's man would have had an easy dunk.
Krabbenhoft really needs more arc on his shot. The best shooters have a high arc - it provides a larger target area, creating more margin of error. He could be quite a shooter with more loft on his shot.
Soon, I'll have the ANPV up on the site.

AOPPP from the Wisconsin-Illinois Game

2008-01-11T08:46:00.000-06:00

I'm hoping to put up a notes column on the game later today and to follow that up with the ANPV rankings (once the Big Ten has updated their stats). For now, I'd just like to give you the AOPPP for the players in last night's game. Not surprisingly, the Badgers have a bunch of above average (1.00) performances while the Illini only have a few.

On the Wisconsin side of the ball, Joe Krabbenhoft and Jason Bohannon continued their high-efficiency ways, while Marcus Landry had a good game and Trevon Hughes broke back out following his recent slump. Keep in mind, that AOPPP only counts the offense, so Hughes' contribution of six steals and Krabbenhoft and Landry's additions of two blocks each don't get counted. Adding those in makes their overall contributions pretty stellar. Brian Butch had a relatively poor game, but it was nothing compared to Jon Leuer. Leuer missed terribly on a couple threes and didn't do much else in the game, which is by far his worst effort of the season.

NAME	AOPPP
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.60
Macus Landry	1.38
Trevon Hughes	1.38
Jason Bohannon	1.33
Michael Flowers	1.00
Greg Steimsma	1.00
Brian Butch	0.89
Jon Leuer	0.33

For Illinois, Calvin Brock, surprisingly, led the way. Only Trent Meacham joined Brock as an above average player, while Shaun Pruitt was simply average, held well below what he has done so far this season by the amazing Badger defense. Chester Frazier provided a very poor performance. Frazier had his rib injury to blame, but as I mentioned in my last post, the Illini might have been better off if he had missed the game, given his production so far this season. Brian Randle also had a poor game, but unlike Frazier, this was an aberration for him.

NAME	AOPPP
Calvin Brock	1.56
Trent Meacham	1.08
Shaun Pruitt	1.00
Demetri McCamey	0.90
Rodney Alexander	0.89
Mike Davis	0.67
Mike Tisale	0.67
Brian Randle	0.53
Chester Frazier	0.40
Jeff Jordan	0.00

Illinois at Wisconsin Preview

2008-01-08T20:47:00.000-06:00

Illinois has not been playing well this season. The Badgers have been playing quite well. My prediction is a 10-point win by the Badgers. Ken Pomeroy has the Badgers as 12-point favorites.

Even though the Badgers are clearly the better team, a look at the numbers tells us that the Illini have a couple dangerous players - Shaun Pruitt and Brian Randle. Pruitt is a beast on the boards who shoots reasonably well and doesn't turn the ball over as much as most high-usage big men not named Brian Butch. Pruitt also grades out as a good defender. Randle is a jack of all trades who has many of the attributes Pruitt does at a lesser level but does other things well (like stealing the ball).

Unfortunately for Illinois fans, there isn't much beyond these two, especially when we look at the player who is absorbing by far the most minutes on the team - Chester Frazier. Frazier combines painfully poor shooting with turnovers on 36% of his possessions and a modest 1% steal rate. The only thing that he does well is to rebound well for a 6'2" player. I'm not terribly familiar with the Illini, but the numbers make it seem that Frazier tries to play the point. I say "tries" because he obviously is not getting the job done as a point guard. Maybe there is no one else on the team who can absorb his minutes, but he is a real drag on the team, and playing him 100 more minutes than any other player is killing this team. He almost single-handedly undoes the good work of Randle and Rodney Alexander, the Illini's second and third best players this season.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Shaun Pruitt	1.33	22%	0.86	133.5
Brian Randle	1.17	23%	0.96	65.8
Rodney Alexander	1.13	21%	0.80	35.6
Calvin Brock	1.08	19%	0.83	29.0
Mike Tisdale	1.24	20%	1.02	23.7
Trent Meacham	1.02	21%	0.89	21.7
Mike Davis	1.14	15%	0.79	7.0
Bill Cole	1.12	13%	0.83	-1.8
Chris Hicks	0.00	13%	0.84	-5.2
Richard Semrau	0.00	3%	0.90	-11.6
Jeff Jordan	0.27	15%	0.78	-18.9
Demetri McCamey	0.75	26%	0.90	-23.1
Steve Holdren	0.63	6%	0.91	-37.5
Chester Frazier	0.71	13%	0.85	-90.5
Brian Carlwell	####	0%	0.84	####

ANPV for Wisconsin (Game 14 - Iowa)

2008-01-07T19:33:00.000-06:00

The Iowa game served as a flashback to wins of yore for the Badgers. Unlike most of this season, Wisconsin really limited its turnovers against the Hawkeyes, turning the ball over on only 12% of its possessions. This is a far cry from the 20.5% of this season and more like the 17.3% from last year.

Once again, the Badgers did a bang-up job on the defensive end, which is old hat for the best defensive team in the nation.

The winners on the offensive end were Brian Butch (1.47 AOPPP), Michael Flowers (1.54 AOPPP), Joe Krabbenhoft (1.71 AOPPP), and Jon Leuer (3.50 AOPPP).

I watched the game at a Damon's near the Kalahari Resort in the Wisconsin Dells. I haven't been to a Damon's in years, and now I wonder why I've been away so long - being able to listen to the audio of any of five different sporting events at my table is a true wonder. The key here, though, is that the Big Ten Network did not prevent me from seeing this game, allowing me to make some scouting observations.

1. Butch is greatly improved on defense. You can see is in his block rate (4%), which is second on the team, but you can also see that he is MUCH quicker in hedging picks and getting back to his man.

2. Butch gets a great deal of help on defense from Marcus Landry, though. Landry is a special defender who can do a passable job defending any opposing player, making him valuable when a switch happens. What makes him a big help to Butch, however, is that he makes the right rotation on defense every time. When Butch doesn't make it back to his man in time, Landry is right there, allowing Butch to rotate onto Landry's man. Butch should get credit for making the right read as well in these situations, but as improved as Butch is on D, Landry is better.

3. Michael Flowers is a good defender but is overrated. He looks good out there because he gets in the face of the opponent much more than most others on the team, but he seems to get picked off as much a Jason Bohannon, who no one thinks is a good defender. Flowers is better at staying in front of his man, but he gives up some of that value with his 2.8 fouls/30 minutes. By comparison, Bohannon commits 1.9 fouls/30 minutes, Trevon Hughes commits 2.5/30 minutes (while garnering steals on 4% of possessions to Flowers' 3%), and Krabbenhoft clocks in at only 1.5/30. Flowers is far and away the most foul prone perimeter defender on the team, which hurts his value.

4. Leuer is going to be special. He's very valuable because of his versatile game. At 6'10", he can post up or shoot the 3. You can tell that he doesn't have the defensive rotations down like Landry and Butch, which is something my numbers don't cover. When it comes to position defense, all players on the team share equally in the credit.

5. Krabbenhoft has upped his aggressiveness quite a bit. He's driving much more than in the past, which is good to see. It's also good to see that his drives are under control, allowing him to pull out of the penetration and kick the ball back out to restart the offense. This is an underrated ability that most players don't have.

6. Seth Gorney is awful. I found myself lamenting every time he was removed from the game. None of the Iowa bigs were much of a threat on offense, but Kurt Looby and Cyrus Tate had some defensive chops - they just need to learn not to bite on the shot fake so much. That was one of the keys to Butch's stellar performance.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.16	30%	0.75	122.1
Jon Leuer	1.38	21%	0.75	63.5
Marcus Landry	1.11	20%	0.79	41.1
Trevon Hughes	0.94	27%	0.77	40.8
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.19	13%	0.74	10.3
Jason Bohannon	1.10	17%	0.84	7.7
Greg Stiemsma	1.08	14%	0.65	4.7
Morris Cain	1.35	8%	0.84	-1.5
Michael Flowers	0.96	20%	0.83	-2.6
Tanner Bronson	0.68	19%	0.67	-2.8
Wquinton Smith	0.00	4%	0.80	-3.7
Tim Jarmusz	1.37	6%	0.90	-4.4
Keaton Nankivil	1.46	6%	0.84	-5.2
J.P. Gavinski	0.52	10%	1.08	-11.6
Kevin Gullikson	0.92	15%	0.97	-14.0
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.68	####

ANPV for Wisconsin (Game 13 - Michigan)

2008-01-03T14:52:00.000-06:00

This was one dominating performance, and very much in line with statistical expectation. What wasn't expected was the "break-out" performance by Jon Leuer. I put the phrase in quotes to indicate that this performance only confirms what I've been saying - give Leuer the minutes and he will give you the production. Of course, he won't keep hitting all his three-pointers, but he will continue to be effective.

The game provided a rarity - the top scorers on the Badgers were also the team's most effective offensive players, as Marcus Landry (1.36 OPPP) joined Leuer (2.08 OPPP) as the only players over 1.00 OPPP. Offensively, the win was driven by the efforts of these two players.

Overall, we can see that Brian Butch is still very much at the top for this team. The big news is that Leuer and Landry have now leapfrogged Trevon Hughes in overall value. This might change once I incorporate the value of assists into the AOPPP formula, but I don't have the time to do that right now. Joe Krabbenhoft has fallen off the pace in the last couple games.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.13	29%	0.75	98.3
Jon Leuer	1.37	21%	0.73	58.2
Marcus Landry	1.14	20%	0.78	49.2
Trevon Hughes	0.95	27%	0.78	45.2
Jason Bohannon	1.15	16%	0.83	16.2
Greg Stiemsma	1.14	13%	0.65	7.8
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.14	13%	0.74	0.8
Morris Cain	1.35	8%	0.84	-1.1
Tanner Bronson	0.67	20%	0.66	-2.3
Wquinton Smith	0.00	5%	0.79	-3.4
Tim Jarmusz	1.37	6%	0.91	-3.8
Keaton Nankivil	1.46	6%	0.83	-4.3
Michael Flowers	0.92	20%	0.83	-5.2
J.P. Gavinski	0.51	11%	1.10	-10.9
Kevin Gullikson	0.92	15%	0.94	-13.2
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.67	####

ANPV for Wisconsin (Game 11 - Valparaiso)

2007-12-28T13:39:00.000-06:00

I haven't had much of a chance to work on the blog during the Holidays, but I did get the numbers done for the team after the Valparaiso game. The Badgers won with defense, but I'm worried about the turnovers and free-throw shooting. These issues have arisen recently and bear monitoring. This should have been an easy win and it wasn't, largely because of those two problems.

Brian Butch continues to show just how valuable he is to the team and gives example #816 of why the Badgers struggled in last year's tournament. Trevon Hughes needs to make the Valpo game a turnaround from his recent slump, especially given the matchup on Saturday at Texas. Jon Leuer continues to put up positive numbers every time he steps on the court.

I probably won't be able to get to a preview of the Texas game, but I'll give a couple thoughts here. This game is basically a coin-flip. The key will be how the Badger guards match-up with the Longhorn guards. The backcourt powers Texas, so if Hughes and Michael Flowers can slow them down, Wisconsin should win the game.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.11	29%	0.73	78.5
Trevon Hughes	0.95	31%	0.78	54.8
Marcus Landry	1.10	19%	0.76	30.3
Jon Leuer	1.21	20%	0.75	24.1
Jason Bohannon	1.24	15%	0.82	20.3
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.24	13%	0.73	17.6
Greg Stiemsma	1.16	13%	0.64	7.4
Michael Flowers	0.93	21%	0.81	3.4
Morris Cain	1.33	10%	0.85	-0.3
Tanner Bronson	0.67	23%	0.64	-1.3
Keaton Nankivil	1.44	7%	0.85	-2.5
Tim Jarmusz	1.36	7%	0.93	-2.8
Wquinton Smith	0.00	5%	0.80	-2.9
Kevin Gullikson	1.01	13%	0.94	-9.2
J.P. Gavinski	0.51	12%	1.16	-9.7
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.65	####

ANPV for Wisconsin (Game 10 - UW-Green Bay)

2007-12-17T10:24:00.000-06:00

I don't have Big Ten Network, so I wasn't able to watch the game. However, the numbers can tell me part of the story. Joe Krabbenhoft had a really good game as did Greg Stiemsma. Marcus Landry also had a good game, although not quite as nice as those others. On the other hand, Trevon Hughes had a real stinker, combining low efficiency with high possession usage. He's not done too well recently - he once possessed the highest ANPV on the team, but now Brian Butch is well ahead of him.

As for the overall game, the 18 point victory fell well shy of my prediction from the prior column. I can't help but think that Jon Leuer may have helped with that. However, he probably wouldn't have made a 10 point contribution over what Kevin Gullickson offered, so the big effect was probably Hughes' poor play. Speaking of Gullickson, he remains the worst player on the team (partly because he gets more time than players like J.P. Gavinski, who would grade out much worse in similar playing time), but he did provide a positive contribution in this game. Way to go, Gully.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.11	29%	0.73	73.3
Trevon Hughes	0.94	31%	0.77	49.2
Marcus Landry	1.15	19%	0.74	34.3
Jon Leuer	1.22	19%	0.75	21.5
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.37	11%	0.77	17.7
Jason Bohannon	1.27	15%	0.84	16.9
Greg Stiemsma	1.16	14%	0.63	8.3
Michael Flowers	0.98	21%	0.84	6.6
Morris Cain	1.34	11%	0.87	0.0
Tanner Bronson	0.67	26%	0.63	-0.8
Keaton Nankivil	1.45	8%	0.86	-1.7
Tim Jarmusz	1.36	8%	0.96	-2.3
Wquinton Smith	0.00	6%	0.81	-2.7
J.P. Gavinski	0.51	14%	1.21	-9.2
Kevin Gullikson	0.89	13%	0.95	-12.6
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.64	####

Wisconsin vs. UW-GB Matchup

2007-12-15T08:41:00.000-06:00

Ken Pomeroy has the Badgers as 29 point favorites while I have them as 28 point favorites. I don't have time for much more than the numbers, but Schachtner is the engine that runs this team.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Mike Schachtner	1.33	28%	1.13	113.1
Rahmon Fletcher	0.88	34%	1.09	10.4
Ryan Tillema	1.05	23%	1.06	6.5
Pat Nelson	1.98	6%	1.15	-0.3
Terry Evans	1.07	16%	0.87	-2.9
Cordero Barkley	1.50	9%	1.10	-4.8
Randy Berry	1.47	10%	1.13	-9.4
Tevah Morris	1.35	10%	1.30	-10.2
Eric Van Cleave	0.00	-2%	1.03	-11.0
Bryquis Perine	0.61	24%	1.00	-23.5
Edgar Segura	0.62	20%	1.15	-27.5
Troy Cotton	0.71	23%	1.29	-43.2

Wisconsin ANPV (Game 9 - UW-Milwaukee)

2007-12-14T17:03:00.000-06:00

There are some big changes in ANPV this week. The big risers are Michael Flowers, Marcus Landry, Brian Butch, and Greg Stiemsma, who each saw their ANPV rise by more than 5 points. Welcome back Michael and Greg and way to keep up the good work Brian and Marcus. Flowers still has room for his numbers to improve based on past performance, so look for his name as a riser in the future. And Landry is now solidly the third best player on the team (check out his defense in the numbers, which shows one reason that Torre Johnson was a relative non-factor).

Even in a lop-sided game like this one, there are fallers. In this case, these were Joe Krabbenhoft (-8.0) and Jason Bohannon (-4.9). You can check out the Badger message board for arguments about whether these guys were overhyped of not. From Joe and Jason's performance in this game, you can see why that thread got started on the message board. The problem is that it is short-term, reactionary thinking, that only looks at the most recent game rather than all the data available. My feeling is that they are somewhat limited but still can bring a lot to the table. ANPV shows that Bohannon is the fifth best on the team so far and Krabbenhoft was up there until the last couple games. Bohannon has trouble on defense but is a very efficient scorer. Krabbenhoft is good on defense but doesn't take enough shots to let his good offense shine. These are good players who bring value to the team. They are not the best, but neither was Trevon Hughes last season.

NAME	AOPPP	%Poss	ADPPP	ANPV
Brian Butch	1.13	30%	0.74	71.8
Trevon Hughes	0.97	32%	0.74	59.7
Marcus Landry	1.12	19%	0.72	30.1
Jon Leuer	1.22	21%	0.74	24.7
Jason Bohannon	1.36	14%	0.87	17.9
Michael Flowers	0.97	21%	0.82	6.0
Joe Krabbenhoft	1.28	11%	0.77	4.9
Keaton Nankivil	1.83	6%	0.89	0.6
Greg Stiemsma	1.05	13%	0.62	0.4
Morris Cain	1.34	11%	0.87	0.1
Tanner Bronson	0.67	27%	0.63	-0.6
Tim Jarmusz	1.36	9%	0.98	-1.8
Wquinton Smith	0.00	7%	0.81	-2.5
J.P. Gavinski	0.51	15%	1.26	-8.5
Kevin Gullikson	0.58	11%	0.96	-15.0
Brett Valentyn	####	0%	0.65	####