SB Nation - Craig Brackins

Iowa State Beats Bradley Up A Little Bit

Mark Kieffer — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:02:26 -0000

More photos » by Charlie Neibergall - AP

But still gets outscored in the 2nd half. The game was OK, but not great. To be honest, I was surprised with how poorly Bradley looked in this one. Part of them only scoring 19 was due to them missing some decent looks in my opinion. Either way, Brackins, Gilstrap, Christopherson, and Boozer all had nice games to help lead the Cyclones to victory.

On the plus side of things, I thought our energy in the 1st half was great. There were guys fighting for loose balls, going for steals, and actually guys moving around without the ball on offense! I KNOW! I can't believe it either!

In seriousness, I thought the group of guys who looked the best out there was the group of: Garrett, Brackins, Gilstrap, Dendy, and Christopherson. When Lucca and Hamilton were in the game, there were too many easy baskets in the post, and not as much movement on offense. I thought it was clear that those guys should be the "first team", and I'm not sure what Dendy and Christopherson have to do to start and eat up minutes. Everyone is going to have their good and bad games, but Dendy and Christopherson are less one-dimensional, and do the little things to help win games, even when they are having an off game. Lucca and Hamilton can help a team, but they play roles that seem more condusive to coming off the bench, as opposed to clocking serious minutes and starting.

On the down side of things, we got outscored in the second half. Our guys do not know how to play with a lead. It was clear that Bradley wasn't going to score 38 points in the whole game, but to give up big 2nd half points to Bradley and Iowa, a lot of which when our starters were out there, is kind of silly. Secondly, I didn't think our rebounding was that great, yet again. Bradley was able to pull in 10 offensive rebounds, and they are literally one of the worst 5 teams in the nation in offensive rebounds.

As I eluded to earlier, my players of the game were a tie between Brackins and Gilstrap. Brackins finished with 16 points, 12 rebounds, 7 assists, and 1 steal. Gilstrap had 25 points, 8 rebounds, and 1 monster block.

The guys now have to play a challenging game against North Dakota. Not challenging because the team is good, but because they stink (they are 1-11). It's tough to get up for a bad opponent, so I hope our guys can bring the same kind of energy they did in this game, and win by 40-50 points.

Big 12 All Decade Team

Evan Pfaff — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:15:09 -0000

More photos » by Orlin Wagner - AP

With almost a full year yet to play, Kansas center Cole Aldrich muscled his way onto the Big12Hoops.com First Team All Big 12 Decade Team (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

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In the first full calendar decade of the Big 12 conference, one thing was apparent: there were two schools that produced a good majority of the talent. And while the best individual players may not have come from Kansas or Texas, a look at the Big12Hoops.com All Decade team reveals that a majority were either Jayhawks or Longhorns.

Don't see your favorite? The Honorable Mention list is after The Jump

First Team All Big 12

PG – Jamaal Tinsley, Iowa St
SG – Tony Allen, Oklahoma St
SF – Kevin Durant, Texas
PF – Blake Griffin, Oklahoma
C – Cole Aldrich, Kansas

Second Team All Big 12

PG – Kirk Hinrich, Kansas
SG – Acie Law, Texas A&M
SF – Michael Beasely, Kansas St
PF – Marcus Fizer, Iowa St
C – Chris Mihm, Texas

Third Team All Big 12

PG – TJ Ford, Texas
SG – Andre Emmett, Texas Tech
SF – PJ Tucker, Texas
PF – Drew Gooden, Kansas
C – Nick Collison, Kansas

[UPDATE: Lots of good suggestions and opinions in the comments section. Lemme give a little insight into how I compiled this list.

I started with a list of Big 12 Players of the Year. My rationale was that if someone was good enough to be the best in the league, even for one year, he warranted entry into this exclusive club. 9 of the 10 Big 12 Players of the Year made the top three teams. The only one who didn’t was Wayne Simien, and that is because he played a PF position that, if you look at the past decade, was just STACKED. Blake Griffin, Marcus Fizer, Drew Gooden. Really you could put Simien in there, but who gets bumped off?

As for PG, Tinsley over TJ Ford and Kirk Hinirich has also garnered a lot of attention. Tinsley’s place as the 2000-01 POY got him on the first team. But you really cant go wrong with any of them.

Lastly, there is this question on what to do with Durant and Beasley. Each only played one year, but they dominated the league (and the country). Durant was a Naismith winner as the best player in the country and Beasley was a finalist for the award. Both were league POYs. Because they didn’t play a full 4 years, they didn’t accumulate career stats that some others players did, but my list was based on selecting the best players, during their time in the Big 12, at each position.]

All Big 12 - Honorable Mention

Baylor Bears
LaceDarius Dunn
Lawrence Roberts

Colorado Buffaloes
Reggie Roby
David Harrison

Iowa St Cyclones
Craig Brackins

Kansas Jayhawks
Wayne Simien
Aaron Miles

Kansas St. Wildcats
Cartier Martin

Missouri Tigers
DeMarre Carroll
Clarence Gilbert
Arthur Johnson
Kareem Rush

Nebraska Cornhuskers
Aleks Maric

Oklahoma Sooners
Taj Gray
Hollis Price

Oklahoma St Cowboys
Byron Eaton
Joey Graham

Texas Longhorns
DJ Augustine
LaMarcus Aldridge

Texas Tech Red Raiders
Jarrius Jackson

Texas A&M Aggies
Bernard King

ISU Gets Back On Track: Some Things Improved, Others Not So Much

Mark Kieffer — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:38:57 -0000

More photos » by Charlie Neibergall - AP

Apocalypse Avoided!

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I'm not trying to be "that guy", but a game that should've been a 20 point blowout, turned into an average win for Iowa State. Brackins led the way in the victory, starting off the game with an alley-oop and bringing some intensity to start the game offensively. After scoring 20 in the first half, Brackins finished with 28 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 blocks, and 1 steal on 9-13 shooting (4-5 from 3pt) in 36 minutes.

Overall it was a fun night at Hilton. The crowd was 13,000+. The bucket boys from Chicago performed. Jake Sullivan was hitting 3 pointers like mad during the breaks, winning dollars for Hy-Vee for someone. It was Craig Brackins poster night for season ticket holders. The football team came out at the court at halftime and got some props. Coach Rhoads told us again he's proud to be ISU's football coach. To the best of my knowledge, no-one died on the ice in the parking lot.

I think sometimes I get so wrapped up in the game, that I don't necessarily take the time to reflect on the other things that make for a fun time at the game, but tonight was not the case at all. Sometimes you have to realize that this is sports. There is more to life, and really this should be something that is fun.

I just really appreciate being able to have the opportunity to live a couple of miles away from Hilton, and having the ability to attend a majority of the home games. It makes for a fun winter, and there are certainly worse things I could be doing right now, than going to some basketball games. I think having this blizzard roll through, and spending the better part of the past few days inside my apartment has really allowed me to reflect and appreciate my time at Hilton. I hope all of you out there were able to be safe during this bad weather.

I talk a lot about the "Four Factors" on here, so below is how it looked tonight:

NCAA Basketball Stats

We shot better, took care of the ball better, and did a better job of getting to the line, which was good enough for the victory. Iowa did do a better job on the offensive boards than we did, and I'll touch on that more later.

On the next page, I'll get into what I liked and didn't like from tonight's game. Feel free to add your own in the comments!

What I Liked:

Starting the game quickly. Brackins dunking on the first play was nice. Opening on a 12-4 run was also great. The fans got excited and it was fun to watch.
Playing with more energy. There was more diving and going for lose balls. Brackins and Hamilton actually attempted offensive rebounds. I loved the defensive play when Boozer dove at the courtside fans and knocked over a bunch of chairs. That type of play is contagious, and hopefully we can play more like that with other guys feeding off of it as well. We saw more of our guys attacking the hoop, and better boxing out, although the rebounding can still be a lot better.
Speeding up the tempo at times. There were times when the guys were flowing, and were able to get in transition. At other times they were not. Part of the problem was rebounding, which I will get to later on. When we're rebounding better, we can get out in transition more. When we're giving up offensive rebounds, then we cannot. Also, you have to force turnovers to get in transition as well. At times we pressed and were able to get turnovers, at other times when we pressed, we got exposed, giving up easy buckets in the paint. Still though, I think this team looks 10x better when they are in transition, playing a faster-paced game. They need to continue to find ways to play that style, because that's the style they're going to need to play in order to get as many wins as possible.

What I Didn't Like:

Poor execution the last 4 minutes of the game... again! With 4:31 left, we were up 70-52... The game ended 81-71. Not acceptable at all. These guys still do not know how to close it out strong! There's NO WAY Iowa should be scoring 44 points in a half! ESPECIALLY when they are playing games when they're just getting into the 50s.
Being too complacent with a lead. As ISU fans we see it all the time. They get to a 12-4 lead, but then allow Iowa to go on a 12-5 run. They get up to a 70-52 lead, but then allow Iowa to get as much back into it as they can, winning by only 10. You have to get that killer instinct. If this lead was any smaller and/or if ISU was playing a better team, this would've been another Northwestern or UNI game on our hands. We can't have that. This is a game that ISU should've won by 20.
Poor rebounding. ISU got beat on the boards again. Iowa outrebounded ISU 29-27. Iowa also got 9 offensive rebounds to ISU's 5. Iowa had 16 2nd chance points, to ISU's 2! Gilstrap really gets it, and Brackins was more aggressive going for the boards. I just don't see how Hamilton, a guy that's logging 20 minutes and playing Center, is only getting 1 rebound the entire game. Yeah there was a lot of switching and Hamilton did guard their smaller guys at times, but still he should be getting more than 1 board.

I don't want to come off the wrong way. I'm glad this team won. They really needed it. At the same time, this is a team we should be much better than on paper, and there still are a lot of issues with this team. There has been some improvement, which I liked. Hopefully they can continue to improve and put together more of a complete game against Bradley. There is finals next week, so the guys aren't playing until a week from Sunday.

Four Factors From ISU-Cal Game

Mark Kieffer — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:10:30 -0000

More photos » by Dino Vournas - AP

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I attached probably the funniest picture of the night. Look at the facial expression from Zhang.... Yeah it was a foul, but he wasn't giving a fuck!

Below are the Four Factors from last night's game. Really tells the story if you weren't able to catch any of it:

NCAA Basketball Stats

Look at the OR%! 47% to 25%! Forget the 25%, the fact that Cal had 47% is crazy good! Combine that with shooting the ball better, and turning it over less times, and that's the recipe for the blowout.

Again, from just looking at the game, rebounding was the obvious issue here, and this chart does a nice job showing the disparity on the boards.

I'm not going to rant anymore about this, and let this ruin my weekend. Today, I'm going to sit back, see teams get selected to Bowls, and watch the Iowa-Iowa State Wrestling dual tonight.

Cal-Iowa State Men's Basketball Open Thread + Interview With Clone Chronicles

Avinash — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 03:15:10 -0000

More photos » by Charlie Neibergall - AP

Can Cal's bigs contain Craig Brackins?

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(To discuss the remaining college football games or the Cal-Washington game, scroll down to the postgame thread. This thread is for the basketball game only!)

Line: Cal by 8
Injuries: Robertson (questionable, gametime decision), MSF, Gutierrez, Amoke (probable, all with flu/cold)

After a tough loss to New Mexico, Cal is fast approaching must-win mode to avoid being in come-from-behind mode for the Pac-10 season. That bid kicks off with a home matchup against Iowa State in the continuing Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood series. Other than an Oregon State win yesterday, the Pac has been shut out, making it very imperative Cal wins tonight to boost the conference's image and their team's ability to beat quality big conference opponents.

This game is on ESPNU, tips off at Haas at 8 PM PST/11 PM EST. After the jump, we interview the Iowa State SBN blog, Clone Chronicles, to discuss tonight's matchup and learn more about Iowa St. basketball.

1) Tell us about your top players. Who are the Cyclones Cal fans should be worried about?

Our top players are Craig Brackins, Marquis Gilstrap, and Diante Garrett. Brackins is a 2009 Preseaon All-American who was a projected Lottery Pick in 2009, decided to come back to try to get this team to the NCAA Tournament. He's a natural 3, that has to play the 4 and 5 due to a lack of post presence. He has issues against physical players, but has a nice mid-range jumper and fade-away spin move in the post. Gilstrap is a JUCO Transfer who is true wing player in that he is a good rebounder, can score from anywhere, and attacks the hoop. Garrett is the point guard. He isn't a scorer, but great at distributing the ball, and not giving up turnovers. His A/T is 3.31 on the year.... Lucca Staiger played on the German National Team this past summer. He's a 3 point specialist, so he can't be left open.

2) How well is the offense running now? Defense?

Offense is not running well at all. This team plays much better in transition than in half court sets. They are having a tough time against physical defenses, man-to-man defenses. They play much better against the zone. Defensively, they are alright. The post defense isn't great as they've allowed a handful of easy layins, but the perimeter defense is pretty good. They do not pressure too much, so they do not pick up many steals.

3) What are the expectations going into this season for the Cyclones?

The expectations were to get to the NCAA Tournament. With 2 professional prospects in Brackins and Gilstrap, along with some starters becoming upperclassmen, along with being able to go 9-10 deep, anything short of that is a disappointment...So far this season has been disappointing, but the potential is there. This game against Cal is a must-win for the Cyclones... I think some would be ok with a NIT, but most of the top players will likely leave ISU after this year, so 2010-2011 looks to be a rebuilding year. If they do not make the dance, this would be the longest NCAA Tournament drought for ISU since the early 1980s.

4) Tell us something about Iowa State that granola-munching, tree-hugging, flag-burning heathens on the West Coast would probably not know.

Over the past 24 years, they've made the NCAA Tournament 12 times. Jeff Hornacek, Marcus Fizer, Kelvin Cato, and Jamal Tinsley played at Iowa State. Tim Floyd coached here in the mid-1990s prior to coaching the Chicago Bulls. Hilton Coliseum used to be considered one of the toughest places to play in all of College Basketball. The last time it's been truley, floor shaking hostile, was in 2004 or 2005. Winning more will cure that I think.... ISU is mostly an AG school, so of course most students hate everything that Berkeley stands for.

5) As an Iowa State fan, who do you want to punch in the face the most and why?

Not really anyone, but the closest is Roy Williams probably. Every single top recruit from the state of Iowa he has plucked for himself. The latest was #1 Recruit Harrison Barnes who is an Ames, IA native. In the later 1990s into the early 2000s, ISU had a good rivalry going with Kansas with some pretty competitive games, so some of it stems from there.

Poll

Who you got?

Cal -8

30 votes

Iowa State +8

5 votes

35 votes | Poll has closed

Friday Afternoon Big12Hoops.com Link Dump - 12.4.2009

Evan Pfaff — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:15:08 -0000

The goal of the Friday Afternoon Big12Hoops.com Link Dump is to help you ease into the weekend by giving you things to occupy your time at work until the clock strikes 5pm.

All the links available after the Jump

Big 12 North

Colorado Boulder Daily Camera - Hornbuckle turns in highlight dunk

Kansas Lawrence Journal World - Robinson mocked - Free-throw woes prompt nickname

Kansas St Manhattan Mercury - Martin looking for his new guys to buy in

Iowa St GoCyclones.com - Brackins wants to be more aggressive

Missouri Columbia Daily Tribune - MU adjusts to reality as the hunted

Nebraska Lincoln Journal Star - Huskers' Richardson ready when called upon

Big 12 South

Baylor Baylor University Lariat - Saturday contest reunites hall of famers (Lady Bears)

Oklahoma Norman Transcript - Coale, Sooners have choices (Women Sooners)

Oklahoma St Stillwater NewsPress - Viva champs

Texas Austin American-Statesman - Balbay content to come off the bench

Texas A&M AggieSports.com - Walkup enjoying role as starter

Texas Tech The Basketball Blog - Hyperbole, with a dash of truth

Non Big 12 Links

SBNation.com The Name's Chris Johnson; Have You Heard of Him? [NFL]

ESPN.com Golf Section (I think you know why) [Golf]

CBSSports.com Boxing's Greatest Champs and Hall of Famers [Boxing]

The Good Phight Peanuthead II: The Return! Polanco signs with Phillies [MLB]

Rock Chalk Talk - The Mangino Era is Over [Kansas Jayhawk Football]

Fantasy Football Projections - CBSSports.com | ESPN.com [Fantasy Football]

Another Look At Iowa State's Rebound Rate Improvement

Mark Kieffer — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 23:32:02 -0000

A few days ago, I posted an analysis of individual stats. You can read the whole post here. Well, I realized today that I had the rebound rate formula. I wanted to repost the improvements from last year to this year thus far, with the correct calculation. On Tuesday, I will post team and all of the individual stats for November, along with my player of the month for November.

The table below is looking at the improvements from returning players year over year for Rebound Rate:

	2009-2010	2008-2009	Change
Brackins	14%	17%	-3%
Vanderbeken	13%	12%	+1%
Hamilton	12%	12%	--
Boozer	8%	11%	-3%
Buckley	5%	7%	-2%
Garrett	5%	6%	-1%
Staiger	4%	5%	-1%

Fundamentally, I think being within 3-4% of the previous season is just variance. Nothing to be too worried about yet.

Now that I'm squared away with this, expect to see correct amounts from here on out. I just wanted to get this fix out there before going forward with more stats later this week.

'09-'10 Cyclones Basketball Analysis #2: Background And Individual Improvements Thus Far

Mark Kieffer — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:37:19 -0000

In Part One of the series for this year, I talked about statistics being looked at on the team-level. That helps explain what the team as a whole is doing, but it doesn't address some of the individual players.

What I'm going to jump into on the next page are some stats for individual players I like to use, look at our individual stats for this year, and also look at the changes in these from the previous year for our returning players:

For individuals, I like to look at True Shooting % (TS%), Rebound Rate, and Points Per Weighted Shot (PPWS). There are other useful ones when evalauting positional players like Assist Ratio (for point guards), and these will be looked at from time to time as well. But for evaluating across the team, I'm just looking at how efficient the scoring is, and how efficient are rebounding is.

TS%: Shooting percentage that implicitly accounts for 3 point shots, but explicitly accounts for free throws

Rebound Rate: The percentage of missed shots rebounded by an individual while he was on the floor. In my opinion, you have to look at these amounts for each individual on the team. When there's a missed shot, only 1 guy can get the rebound. The key in my opinion is to look at the distribution across the team, before jumping to conclusions on an individual

PPWS: Created a few years ago by the Big Ten Wonk. It aims to measure how efficient a scorer is. A score of below 1.0 is considered an average scorer, while results in the 1.2 range and up mean you're having a great year.

Let's take a look at each of our players on the roster and their stats through the first five games of the year:

	G	Min/G	TS%	Rebound Rate	PPWS
Craig Brackins	5	29	58%	7%	1.16
Lucca Staiger	5	24.4	73%	3%	1.46
Marquis Gilstrap	5	24.2	58%	10%	1.16
Diante Garrett	5	23.2	57%	2%	1.17
Scott Christopherson	5	21.6	76%	3%	1.53
LaRon Dendy	1	15	64%	13%	1.28
Justin Hamilton	5	14.8	88%	7%	1.75
Chris Colvin	5	14.6	36%	3%	0.73
Jamie Vanderbeken	5	14.2	78%	7%	1.57
Charles Boozer	5	13.6	54%	5%	1.08
Dominique Buckley	5	8.2	50%	3%	1.00
L.A. Pomlee	5	5.6	47%	8%	0.95
Alex Dorr	5	3.6	61%	5%	1.21

If someone is playing a limited number of games (Dendy), you have to take the stats with a grain of salt. Same goes for players aren't logging significant time (Buckley, Pomlee, and Dorr).

Here are my takeaways from the above chart:

Hamilton, Christopherson, and Lucca are knocking down open shots. They have extremley high PPWS, and TS%. From watching these guys play, they aren't the first option in the offense. But what they have been able to do well is make open shots. When they are shooting the ball, most of the time it has been the right decision in the offense.
Brackins and Gilstrap are similar players. They have the same TS% and PPWS, while Gilstrap is the better rebounder thus far. Dendy
You see that Colvin has been struggling the most offensivley, and I think that is a fair assesment of his production thus far.
We've been a much better rebounding team, and you see a wide distribution of rebounds grabbed. The guards have lower amounts than the forwards, but across players of similar positions, no one is really dogging it too much compared to the other.
It will be interesting to see how these numbers change as we play more games. 5 games is a small sample size, and this team hasn't been challenged too much yet.

Now that we've seen how we're doing this year, let's look at areas our returning players may have improved or regressed:

TS%

	2009-2010	2008-2009	Change
Brackins	58%	53%	+5%
Staiger	73%	55%	+18%
Garrett	58%	48%	+10%
Hamilton	88%	59%	+29%
Vanderbeken	78%	62%	+16%
Boozer	54%	53%	+1%
Buckley	50%	40%	+10%

Everybody's shooting better this year thus far. Who doesn't like that?

PPWS

	2009-2010	2008-2009	Change
Brackins	1.16	1.06	+0.10
Staiger	1.46	1.11	+0.35
Garrett	1.17	0.96	+0.21
Hamilton	1.75	1.17	+0.58
Vanderbeken	1.57	1.24	+0.33
Boozer	1.08	1.07	+0.01
Buckley	1.00	0.80	+0.20

Everybody is making better decisions on when to shoot it. The notable improvement I think is DG. He went from being below the mendoza line, to having a nice year thus far. He's shooting it way less, but he's forcing it less, making him much more efficient with the ball. Also what's interesting is that Vanderbeken was our most efficient shooter last year. People seem to forget that he was our best 3 point shooter last year, but he can really make a team pay for leaving him open.

Rebound Rate:

	2009-2010	2008-2009	Change
Brackins	7%	8%	-1%
Staiger	3%	3%
Garrett	2%	3%	-1%
Hamilton	7%	6%	+1%
Vanderbeken	7%	6%	+1%
Boozer	5%	6%	-1%
Buckley	3%	4%	-1%

Overall, the numbers are flat. Those movements are likely variance, as the changes are not significant.

Well, that concludes the analysis of the first five games of the season. I'll definitley be pulling these stats back out throughout the year. I will likely add a few more in as they are relevent to what I am talking about. Often times it helps to compare individuals outside of their own teams, and I will do some evaluating of notable players using these types of stats as well.

'09-'10 Cyclones Basketball Analysis #1: Background And Team Improvements Thus Far

Mark Kieffer — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:35:21 -0000

It is obvious that this year's team is better than the previous years. What is interesting though are reasons that the media, "Cyclone Insiders", etc., are attributing to the results. Mostly, they are qualitative, which are OK, but I'm more of a hard stats type of a guy. I want to be able to measure changes, and use qualitative observations to explain the results, more-so than being the conclusions.

I wanted to take a look at some of the statistics to see how we can explain not only the team's improvement, but the players improvement as well.

Before I jump into the numbers, I wanted to give a little bit of background regarding basketball statistics. In short, most of the traditional ones in box scores do not tell us everything we need to know, but with putting together some of these stats, along with using research done by prominent basketball statisticians, we can put together some thoughtful numbers that explain the whole picture.

Traditionally, stats are used in terms of averages/game or averages/minute. While I use these from time to time it doesn't necessarily give the whole picture. A much better way to looking at this is per possession. The main reason being that the number of possessions can vary from game to game. In a slow tempo game, it might be great to score 75 points in a game where there are less possessions. In a more uptempo game, there will be more possessions, so perhaps 75 points is not enough as perhaps the other team is scoring 85-90.

As far as players go, we often times talk about a player scoring a certain number of points/game. But again, the amount of possessions a player is on the court for, really varies. Instead of taking what he does on a per game basis, it's better to look at what he's doing when he's on the floor.

When looking at team stats, there are 6 that I like to look at: Offensive Efficiency, Defensive Efficiency, and each of the "Four Factors". Below is an explanation of each stat:

Offensive Efficiency: Points scored per 100 possessions.

Defensive Efficiency: Points allowed per 100 possessions

The efficiency stats are tricky to calculate, but luckily Ken Pomeroy calculates this for all of the teams, on a daily basis. Below is a table that summarizes the efficiencies in 2008-2009 vs. The First 5 Games thus far:

	2008-2009	2009-10 (First 5 Games)
Off. Efficiency	101.6 (163rd overall)	105.4 (109th overall)
Defensive Efficiency	96.3 (75th overall)	85.9 (42nd overall)

When looking at the offensive numbers, it may be surprising that the change is relatively small, compared to the previous year. I think there are a few of factors going on. First is free throw shooting. Second is that a lot of the reserves are getting more minutes early on, and our offense definitley slows down when Brackins, DG, and Gilstrap are out of the game. The third is that possessions aren't actually charted but instead approximated from the box scores. There's a formula that uses field goal attempts, offensive rebounds, turnovers, and free throw attempts to approximate possessions.

When looking at the defense, the numbers may be a bit suprising. From looking at the team, I don't think we are all that great defensively. What's helping the numbers it the fact we're playing teams that do not shoot the ball well. I would expect us to allow more points/100 possessions than last year. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as we're scoring more than giving up. I'd rather have a good offensive team that is OK at times defensively, than a great defensive team that's OK at times offensively.

Four Factors

Basically a guy named Dean Oliver did some research that's widely accepted across basketball statisticians. He determined the Four Factors that lead to wins in the game of basketball. They are shooting, turnovers, rebounding , and free throws. Makes sense right? Nothing too groundbreaking here.

The main difference lies in how to measure the shooting, turnovers, rebounding, and free throws. Below is a quick explanation of each:

eFG% (40% Weighting): Effective Field Goal Percentage. It adjusts for 3 pointers, as it's worth more points. Whoever has the better eFG% at the end of the game, wins the "Shooting" Component.

TOV% (25% Weighting): Turnover Percentage. Percentage of possessions that are turnovers. Whoever has the lower TOV% wins the "Turnover" Component.

ORB% (20% Weighting): Offensive Rebound Percentage. It's the percentage of rebounds that are offensive rebounds. Whoever has the higher, wins the "Rebound" Component.

FT Rate (15% Weighting): Measures the amount of free throws attempted vs. field goals attempted. The idea here is that whoever gets to the line more, is going to have a better chance at scoring more easy baskets. Whoever has the higher FT Rate, wins the "Free Throw" Component.

Hopefully that's all straightforward. I know I've seen my fair share of Cyclones games where we did almost everything better than the other team except for shooting. Now one can understand why it's hard to overcome superior shooting.

Let's take a look at how the Cyclones have done in this areas compared to last year:

	2009-2010 (First Five Games)	2008-2009	Change
eFG%	61.5% (2nd)	50% (132nd)	+11.5%
TOV%	21.1 (164th)	18.4% (296th)	+2.7%
ORB%	40.2% (39th)	23.5% (340th)	+16.7%
FT Rate	32.6% (252nd)	28.3% (331st)	+4.3%

I think the TOV% will go down as the season goes on. Diante Garrett has done a pretty good job managing turnovers in my opinion, and we've given a lot of playing time to Colvin who's making some freshmen mistakes. As DG plays more, and Colvin improves, the TOV% will get better.

It's amazing to see how bad we were last year. I really am amazed that we won as often as we did, but as you can see, we were only mediocre at shooting last year, as opposed to bad at everything else.

So far our numbers and ranks are obviously a small sample size, but it explains how we're rolling the competition at this point... Remember at this point last year, we were coming off a loss against a horrible Hawaii team, and opened the season with a nail-biter against UC-Davis.

Pomeroy and Sagarin Ratings:

I feel like I should say something about these as well. Both Ken Pomeroy and Jeff Sagarin are respected statisticians. Both rank the teams throughout the season, based on different factors. I would say that Pomeroy is intended to show what teams have already done. It isn't a predictive model. With Sagarin, I only look at the predictor column. Sagarin takes into account other factors and aims to not only rank the teams, but also to give a user an idea of what margin of victory would be against another team.

Pomeroy Rating (as of 11/25): 41st

Sagarin Rating (as of 11/26): 48th - remember I'm looking only at the predictor. Iowa State would beat Saint Louis by 3.5, Northwestern by 8, and Notre Dame by 3.5 as well, in case you were curious of our chances this weekend regardless of opponent.

I know that's a lot of info, but I find this stuff interesting. Of course, all of this changes throughout the season, and I will be referencing these stats and rating systems throughout the year.

In my next installment, we'll shift the attention from the team as a whole, to the individual players.

MBB '09-'10 Game #5: ISU 84, TSU 53

Mark Kieffer — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:00:48 -0000

More photos » by Charlie Neibergall - AP

28 days ago: Iowa State's Craig Brackins (21) dunks over Tennessee State's Robert Covington during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009, in Ames, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

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A lot of what happened last night at Hilton basically echos the previous games against MVSU, Chicago State, etc. The one difference that I liked about last night was that I felt like we got off to a quick start for the first time all year, opening the game on a 15-2 run.

It wasn't until the last portion of the first half, did ISU not look as good. They basically were trying to get cute out there, and that resulted in sloppy play. Alley-oops going out of bounds, bad passes resulting in turnovers, etc. To start the 2nd half, the guys didn't try to do too much, and we were back on a roll, leading as much as 39 points. Tennesee State did get a little bit going during the last 8 minutes of the game, mostly due to the fact they were playing their starters, while we were playing all of our backups.

As far as who I thought had the best game, I'd give it to Marquis Gilstrap. He finished with 18 points (7 of 9 from the floor), 10 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 1 steal in 23 minutes of play. Brackins had a decent game also, getting 12 points (4 of 6 from the floor), 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals in 25 minutes of play. DG also had a nice game, finishing with 11 points (7 of 9 from the floor), 2 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 turnover, and 1 steal. To finish the first half, DG was looking to score first instead of passing, and he put up two bad shots (the two he missed), but he fixed that later in the game.

Now the team takes the Chicago Invitational to Chicago, playing Saint Louis on Friday, and the winner of Notre Dame vs. Northwestern on Saturday. What stinks is that neither ISU game is going to be on TV it would seem, so you have to bust out the radios if you're hanging around here over the weekend.

Anyone going out to Chicago to catch the action?