SB Nation User Blog: JLeverenz

Guess The Outcome Game 2009 #00

JLeverenz — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:37:08 -0000

Welcome to the Guess the Outcome Game, or GOG for short! The GOG is a season-long series in which we will see who possesses the most clairvoyant Magic 8 Ball by predicting the outcomes for games before they are actually played. Intrigued? Read On!

A little GOG History

The GOG was originally started at fellow SBN site Athletics Nation for the 2005 season and was run by AN members Alien and Jjjsixsix. In 2006, Alien handed things over to AN member AsGirl. The game was revived this past season by AN member colin who managed the dual feat of running the GOG (with 53 separate entries) and earning a PhD at the same time. I participated this year and had a lot of fun, so I thought I would bring the game over to ASoB where I think it will work quite well with basketball.

So How Do You Play?

This part is very simple. I will post a list of questions before each UK basketball game, usually the day before. Just come up with your answers and leave them as a comment. There is a deadline for the answers, which will typically be tip-off for the game in question. Examples of some AN GOG's are HERE and HERE to give you an idea of what they're like.

Questions are scored as follows:

Yes/no type questions are worth +1 point for a correct answer or -1 point for an incorrect answer. Example: if the question is "Does Patrick Patterson block a shot against UNC?" and then he swats a weak Ed Davis offering into the 10th row, you would get +1 point for answering "yes" and -1 point for answering "no".
Open ended questions are worth +3 points for a correct answer, with no penalty for a wrong answer. Example: "Which UK player grabs the most rebounds?" would be an open ended question.
A common question format is to guess some stat line for a particular player in a game. These questions will have three parts, worth two points each, with no penalty for wrong answers. Example: Predict Wall's points/assists/steals.
There may be questions with other scoring systems, but those will be explained as they occur.

After each game, I will tally up and post the scores and keep track of total points and "shooting percentage" for the entire season. I encourage everyone to play the entire season, but don't fret if you miss a GOG, just play the next time!

Round 00 of the 2009-2010 GOG is a very special one: you get to make your predictions for the whole 2009-2010 season! Will the Cats take the title? How many games will they win? I've already seen some pre-season prediction threads and you should comment on those, but answers for Round 00 will count DOUBLE so get them in!

Note: Unless otherwise specified, questions refer to the combined non-conference, conference and postseason (No exhibition games are included). No pre-season awards are considered (so pre-season All SEC, AA, etc don't count).

GOG 2009 #00: [max 77 points]

Predict UK's regular season record (31 games).[3 points]
Predict UK's postseason record (SECT + NCAAT/NIT/CBI). [3 points]
Despised Rivals: Predict UK's regular season record against Tennessee, Florida, Indiana, UNC, and Louisville (7 games). [3 points]
The SEC returns a lot of talent from last year and promises to have the strongest collection of teams we've seen in many years. With so many good squads, only a crazy person would try to predict the order of finish for the SEC East and SEC West. Predict the order of finish for the SEC East and SEC West. [+/- 1 point for each correct/incorrect]
Which SEC team improves their record (as measured by win percentage) the most from last season? Which declines the most? [3 points each]
Who wins the SEC Regular Season? [3 points]
Who finishes SECOND in the SEC regular season? [3 points]
How many Wildcats make either the AP or Coaches All-SEC team? [3 points]
Last year only 3 SEC squads made the Big Dance. This year there should be many more, with some coaches stating they think the conference can get as many as 7 or 8. How many SEC teams make the NCAA Tournament? [3 points]
What is UK's seed in the NCAA Tournament? [3 points] (Note: if you think UK will miss the NCAAT you can choose that too)
Entering the season, UK leads UNC 1988 wins to 1984 wins. How many games does it take for UK to reach the 2000 win plateau? Who gets to 2000 wins first: UK or UNC? [3 points, +/-1 point]
The last time a UK player earned a triple-double it was 1988 and Chris Mills went for 19 points, 10 boards, and 10 assists against Austin Peay. Will a UK player record a triple-double this season? [ +/-1 point]
I'm not sure when the last time UK had a player with 10+ assists, although Cliff Hawkins had 11 against SC in 2004. Will a UK player have a 10+ assist game this season? [ +/-1 point]
Filling Jodie's Enormous Shoes part I: Last season UK shot 35.3% from behind the arc and made 202 three pointers, thanks mostly to Jodie Meeks and his 40.6% on 288 attempts. UK doesn't have a shooter like Meeks, but does appear to have several players who can collectively pick up the slack. Does UK shoot better or worse than 35.3% from behind the arc? Does UK make more or less than 202 three pointers? [ +/- 1 point each]
Filling Jodie's Enormous Shoes part II: Who leads the team in scoring (ppg)? [3 points]
UK fans love the in-state players. How many combined starts for Darius Miller, Jon Hood, and Mark Krebs? [3 points]
Big things from Wall: predict his Minutes Per Game/Points Per Game/Assists Per Game. [2 points each]
Darnell Dodson is the obvious candidate to step in for Jodie. Predict his Points Per Game/3-Pointers Made Per Game /Steals Per Game. [2 points each]
Patterson will play more minutes, but Stevenson is the better shot blocker. Who has more blocked shots this season? [+/- 1 point]
More Patterson: Predict his Points Per Game/Rebounds Per Game/Blocks Per Game. [2 points each]
Even more Patterson (because he is so awesome): Does Patrick make AP 1st Team All-American? [+/- 1 point]
Beasts in the paint: Which tandem produces more double-doubles: Patterson/Stevenson or Orton/Cousins? [+/- 1 point]
No matter when the season ends, it will be too soon: Who scores the final point(s) for UK this season? [3 points]

Deadline is tip-off with Morehead State, Friday November 13.

Fixing the NBA Draft: A modest proposal

JLeverenz — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:42:26 -0000

There's been a lot of talk about the NBA draft recently, specifically with regard to the 1-and-done rule and potential problems it creates for colleges who recruit those types of players. Much of proposed alterations revolve around a baseball-esque system where a player can either go into the draft out of high school or go to college, but if they go to college they commit to play for either 2 or 3 years (depending on the variation of the rule change).

I propose that what needs to change is not the high school/college choice, but rather the way the NCAA handles basketball players who enter the draft. Specifically, basketball players should be able to retain their college eligibility if they go through the NBA draft, just as baseball players are able to do with the MLB Rule 4 draft.

For those not familiar with the MLB draft, high school players, college juniors and seniors, and in some cases college sophomores are eligible to be drafted. If a player does not sign with the team that drafts them they can go/return to college if they are a high school player or underclassman. If a high school player chooses to attend college, they are ineligible for the draft until their third year. There are circumstances under which a player can be eligible before that time, but they are fairly uncommon.

I propose that something similar happen with the NBA draft. To wit:

High school players are eligible
College sophomores and up are eligible
A player can go through the draft and, if they are not drafted may return to college (The Randolph Morris rule) in the case of an underclassman, or attend college in the case of a high school player. An undrafted player who returns to/enters college must go through the draft again (ie they are NOT a free agent and able to leave college early to go to the NBA as Randolph Morris was his junior year).
A college player may return to college 1 time after going through the draft. After that they lose remaining eligibility if they go through again, even if they are not drafted the second time.

A few thoughts:

1) High school player eligibility would obviously require the NBA to change their current thinking, but if undrafted players can go to college to increase their skills David Stern might be more willing to allow the Lebrons, Kobes, and Dwight Howards of the world to go straight to the NBA.

2) Likewise the college sophomore eligibility would require a change in the NBA draft rule that would make it similar to the MLB one - ie a player can jump straight from high school, but if they go to college they have to spend 2 years there minimum.

3) Rule 4 is essentially the current NCAA draft rule but with the withdraw date replaced by the actual draft. The withdraw date under the current rule could serve as a cut off for the application of Rule 4: That is, if a player withdraws before that date then it does not count as his "1 time freebie" but if he stays in past that date then he stays eligible for the draft. This also allows NBA teams to know who is and isn't available.

The main benefit of this change is that it allows players to know exactly where they stand with regard to the NBA. It would mitigate the influence of the "hangers on" whispering in the ears of good players who aren't yet ready by allowing them to still go to college. Consider the case of a high school player or college underclassman who believes they are ready for the NBA because certain people around them are whispering in their ear. If the player listens but goes undrafted they are less likely to listen to those people again and more likely to listen to coaches and scouts to get an accurate assessment of their abilities. This way, neither the player nor the school is hurt by a poor decision on the part of the player.

I expect the main criticism will involve the uncertainty for coaches and schools about a player who has committed to play for a college and also plans to enter the draft. These concerns are unwarranted. The same system exists in baseball and it has not hurt that sport. Indeed, this WAS the system before the NBA instituted a minimum age rule and college basketball did just fine.

Even if the NBA sticks with the current minimum age policy, it should not prohibit the NCAA from making changes to allow players to go through the draft (Rules 3 and 4 above, though certainly part of Rule 3 would require a change in the NBA rules).

There are likely some places where the specifics can be tweaked and I'm certainly interested in any ideas other people might have so please make suggestions. The main idea seems good to me though, and I don't see any downside for players, colleges, or the NBA.

Breaking down last season by shot selection: Part 2

JLeverenz — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:19:04 -0000

This is part 2 of my breakdown of UK's shot selection last season. In part 1 I looked at the team as a whole as well as their opponents to see how each group performed at making various types of shots and concentrating specifically on different kinds of two point field goals. In part I'm going to look at the three primary options on offense from last season - Meeks, Patterson, and Stevenson - and break down their shot selection in the same manner I did for the team.

Together Jodie, Patrick, and Perry accounted for 65.3% of the scoring last year (1742 of 2669 points) and took 60.1% of UK's field goal attempts (1164 of 1938). The trio attempted 63.4% (865 of 1365) of UK's 2 pt FGA. A large part of this came from Meeks and Patterson of course, but Stevenson did finish third on the team in shots attempted and field goals made by a pretty wide margin (Darius Miller was fourth, but well behind Perry).

Below is a shot summary for each player using the same categories and format for Part 1 with the exception of tip-ins which I combined with layups (there were not very many for any player). The data was compiled from the same sources as in Part 1.

Shot Type	Meeks	Patterson	Stevenson
Made 3 Point Shot	117	0	3
Missed 3 Point Shot	171	1	7
Made Dunk	20	54	53
Missed Dunk	2	2	1
Made Layup	80	118	22
Missed Layup	42	44	23
Made 2 pt Jumper	42	66	29
Missed 2 pt Jumper	83	109	60
Made Free Throw	211	129	62
Missed Free Throw	23	39	29

Despite my best attempt at accuracy, there are a few discrepancies. At some point (or various points) I missed 11 of Jodie's shots and 4 of Patterson's. Stevenson is correct though and I'm not going to sweat the ones I missed since we're only talking about 1% of each players' total attempts.

A couple of things to note:

Despite taking twice as many shots, Patterson only had 1 more dunk than Stevenson.
Patterson took more shots around the basket, but Jodie got to the free throw line 100 more times.
Patrick needs to change some of those layups into dunks.

Here are the shooting percentages for each player on each kind of shot. I ended Part 1 by asking who everyone thought was the best 2 pt jump shooter among these three players. Here's the answer.

Shot Type	Meeks	Patterson	Stevenson
3 Point Shot	40.6	0.0	30.0
Dunk	90.9	96.4	98.1
Layup	65.6	72.8	48.9
2 Point Jump Shot	33.6	37.7	32.6
Free Throw	90.2	76.8	68.1

And the winner is: Patrick Patterson! Most people guessed this correctly and Patterson was not only the best of the three, but was above average at shooting the jumper within the arc.

The shocking thing here, at least for me, is how poor Jodie was on his non-three point jump shots. There is a full 7 point difference in his percentages from behind the arc and in front of it - it astonishes me that someone who is such a good shooter would do so poorly on these shots. If there is one element that Jodie really needs to work on it's his midrange game.
If Jodie had made his two point jump shots at the same rate as he made his three point jump shots, he would have scored an additional 17 points.
As for Perry, his non-dunk percentages don't look so good, but consider that if he had hit just 2 more jump shots he would have been basically average.
Perry needs to work on finishing around the rim when he can't get a dunk. He didn't attempt many layups which is good, but someone with his length should be able to finish closer to 60% on those shots.
As I mentioned above, Patterson needs to redistribute his shot selection to get more dunks and fewer layups. He's good at converting both, but 96.4% >> 72.8%. Consider that if Patrick had taken 25% of his layups and tried to dunk them instead, he would have scored about 20 more points during the season.
If Patterson's shot distribution around the rim was more like Perry's (54.5% dunk attempts, 45.5% layup attempts) he would have scored an additional 29 points, raising his per game average by almost a full point.

There you go. I hope you found this as interesting as I did. I still have a lot of quetions about how the average D1 player performs this way, but I think it's going to be a while before someone makes that kind of information publicly available. It would certainly make analyzing player performance more sophisticated and thus more accurate.

Breaking down last season by shot selection: Part 1

JLeverenz — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 17:08:04 -0000

One aspect about college basketball that I've become interested in is the analysis of different kinds of 2 point field goals. Despite the obvious differences between layups, dunks, and jump shots, too often shot selection analysis is confined to a simple two point field goal vs three point field goal argument. This is true even for the people doing more sophisticated quantitative analysis out there, such as the good folks at Basketball Prospectus. (There are a few rare exceptions: before the season started Ken Pomeroy wrote a quick piece about shooting accuracy as a function of distance from the basket which Tru posted as a fan shot.)

The reason for this simplified approach is certainly understandable: box scores make the process of dividing shots into two pointers and three pointers easy. When we're talking about 340+ college basketball programs, "ease" is definitely a virtue. However, nearly every college game played these days comes with reliable play-by-play data that does a better job of categorizing two point shots, thus making a more detailed breakdown of shot types possible.

With this in mind, I went back over UK's season and looked at the various shots the Cats and their opponents attempted to gain a better understanding of how the offense and defense executed. In part 1 I'll take a team-wide view of UK and their opponents and in part 2 I'll look at the Cat's three best offensive players (at least in terms of ppg) and how well they performed at each kind of shot.

First a quick word about compiling these results. I started out by using the play-by-play data at Statsheet. In addition to play-by-play, Statsheet summarizes makes and misses for each shot type - a real time saver. Unfortunately, the site did not have data for several games (all of them away from Rupp) so I had to look elsewhere for 9 games. There are 4 games that come from CBS which also provides shot summaries for some (but not all) games and 5 games that I had to do the hard way using play-by-play data from the UK Athletics website. I won't go into detail - mostly because it's of no interest - but there are a few discrepancies with the CBS data. It only affects a total of maybe 12 shots though (UK and opponents combined) so I'm not going to sweat it. The Statsheet and UKA data is completely reliable.

Two point shots can generally be divided into the three categories I mentioned in the opening paragraph: layups, dunks, and jumpshots. In addition, we can make a fourth category for tip-ins, but as you'll see those shots are pretty rare. They are differentiated in the data though so I've included them as their own category (CBS lumps them in with layups and dunks though). Below is the summary of all shots taken by UK and their opponents, divided into these categories and separated into makes and misses. I've included three pointers and free throws just for completness.

Shot Type	Opponents	UK
Made 3 Point Shot	256	202
Missed 3 Point Shot	463	371
Made Dunk	101	154
Missed Dunk	6	8
Made 2 Point Jumper	224	236
Missed 2 Point Jumper	554	438
Made Layup	247	318
Missed Layup	248	182
Made Tip In	35	24
Missed Tip In	14	8
Made Free Throw	452	601
Missed Free Throw	214	176

As you can see, UK had a decided advantage inside taking and making more dunks than their opponents and making more layups with about the same number of attempts. Made two point jumpers were also about even, but UK took significantly fewer shots than did their opponents. The numbers make a lot of sense - UK had a big advantage inside with Patterson and Stevenson and the shot selection reflects that, with UK taking more shots around the rim than did their opponents. This also resulted in the Cats getting to the line about 120 more times than the opposition. Other teams took far more jump shots - both two point and three point varieties - than did the Cats and we can attribute a good portion of this difference to the shot blocking skills of Patterson and Stevenson forcing shots away from the basket.

Those are the numbers, here are the shooting percentages for each type of shot.

Shot Type	Opponents	UK
3 Point Shot	35.61%	35.25%
Dunk	94.39%	95.06%
2 Point Jumper	28.79%	35.01%
Layup	49.90%	63.60%
Tip-In	71.43%	75.00%
Free Throw	67.87%	77.35%

It should come as no surprise that dunks have the highest percentage, followed by layups, with jump shots bringing up the rear. What might come as a surprise is the actual shooting percentage on two point jump shots, particularly when compared to three point jump shots. Kentucky shot just as well from inside the arc as it did from outside when it came to jumpers. This surprised me until I went back and took another look at the Pomeroy article I linked to above.

A key piece of information that we lack is what the average NCAA Division 1 team shoots on dunks, layups, and jumpers. Getting this information is possible, but would require looking at the play-by-play of every game for every team - a daunting task that would certainly require a script of some kind. However, I think we can make a pretty good approximation about two point jump shots by using the afore mentioned Pomeroy article.

If you haven't already, click on over to the article and look at the graph. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Finished? Excellent.

Pomeroy charts not just the shooting percentages by distance, but also the average number of field goal attempts in a game from that distance. Using this information, we can get a weighted average for shooting percentages over a range of 5 feet to 20 feet from the basket and use this number as a proxy for what an average team shoots on two point jumpers. The distances work as anything closer than 5 feet could potentially be a dunk or layup and anything beyond 20 feet is likely to be a three point shot. Doing this gives us an estimated shooting percentage of 35.60% for the average D1 team.

Taking that estimate and comparing it to the chart above shows that UK was basically an average team last year when it came to shooting jump shots. On the other hand, UK's opponents had a terrible time against the Cat's defense shooting well below what an average team would be expected to do. You'll also note that other teams shot below 50% on layups. I'm not sure what the average shooting percentage on a layup is, but I'd wager it's a lot better than 50%. Last year UK had a real edge inside the arc, a combination of getting 50% more dunks than their opponents and making like difficult on layups and jumpers. If that continues next year - and there's no reason to think it won't - we could be looking at an exceptional defensive squad.

That ends part 1. In part 2 I'll look at how Meeks, Patterson, and Stevenson performed in each of these categories. There are some things there that I think will surprise some people.

Poll

Because every Fanpost should come with a poll: Who do you think shot the best percentage on 2 pt jump shots (options listed in alphabetical order)?

Jodie Meeks

7 votes

Patrick Patterson

45 votes

Perry Stevenson

30 votes

82 votes | Poll has closed

SEC Tournament Prediction Thread

JLeverenz — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:28:02 -0000

I don't think we had one of these last year, but I thought it might be fun. And lord knows we need some fun around here these days! This is a thread for everyone to make their predictions for the SECT. Predict the winner of each game up through the winner of the SECT. Win bragging rights and fabulous prizes!*

You can find the bracket and basic information here. Note: I tried to find an image of the bracket that I could put directly into the fanpost but was unsuccessful in doing so. If anyone knows where one can be found, post it in the comments and I'll include it to make things just slightly easier.

Here are my picks.

Round 1:

UK over Ole Miss

Mississippi St over Georgia

Alabama over Vandy

Florida over Arkansas

Round 2:

Kentucky over LSU

Miss St over South Carolina

Tennessee over Alabama

Auburn over Florida

Round 3:

UK over Miss St

Tennessee over Auburn

SEC Champion: UK

So normally I go with my head over my heart, but that hasn't worked too well the last few years so I say "screw it" - despite all the problems and issues of the last several weeks I'm picking the Cats to win it all.

*Prizes? Who do I look like, Chucky Cheese?

Poll

How far will UK go in the SEC Tournament this year?

First Round exit

11 votes

Quarterfinals

11 votes

Semifinals

12 votes

Final

4 votes

SEC Champions Baby!

18 votes

UK is so good they will win the SEC and ACC tournaments as well as get a 3 seed in the NAIA tournament.

2 votes

58 votes | Poll has closed

The Precipitous Decline of UK this season: A statistical look

JLeverenz — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:29:07 -0000

I've been trying to wrap my head around the idea that a UK team with 2 All America candidates can fall from 16-4, 5-0 in the SEC (with 3 SEC road wins to boot) to 3-7 over it's last 10 games culminating with perhaps the most mind-boggling loss in the last 20 years.

While watching the debacle last night, I couldn't help but feel that the defense just didn't look right. I've had this feeling for the last several games, but dismissed it because of the performances against Tennessee and Arkansas as well as a healthy dose of "small sample size" skepticism.

Last night's game ended that skepticism, so this morning I took a look at UK's game-by-game results while paying special attention to the Alabama/Ole Miss games. What I found was striking - UK's defense has fallen off a cliff the last 10 games.

What follows is a breakdown of Kentucky's season into two groups (well three, sort of): The first 20 games in which UK went 16-4 and the last 10 in which they have gone 3-7.

The stats were constructed by using the raw game-by-game numbers provided by Statsheet.com and then broken down into their possession-based cousins.

Key:

F20: Stats from the First 20 games of the season

L10: Stats from the Last 10 games

F20BCS: Stats from games against BCS teams in the first 20 games of the season (11 games total - 6 nonconference and 5 conference).

I've highlighted the stats that show notable changes from the first 20 games to the last 10, but the big one is at the top of the Defense section.

OFFENSE				DEFENSE
	F20	L10	F20BCS		F20	L10	F20BCS
PPP	1.084	1.039	0.982	PPP	0.877	1.062	0.887
eFG%	0.56	0.50	0.52	eFG%	0.42	0.50	0.42
2PT%	0.57	0.49	0.52	2PT%	0.38	0.46	0.39
3PT%	0.36	0.36	0.34	3PT%	0.33	0.38	0.33
FTA/FGA	0.43	0.39	0.50	FTA/FGA	0.32	0.38	0.32
FT%	0.79	0.76	0.80	FT%	0.69	0.70	0.65
OffReb%	0.35	0.35	0.36	DefReb%	0.70	0.64	0.69
Assists/FGM	0.63	0.58	0.60	Assists/FGM	0.44	0.40	0.45
Steal%	0.11	0.11	0.12	Steal%	0.09	0.10	0.09
Block%	0.07	0.16	0.10	Block%	0.18	0.16	0.17
TO%	0.25	0.23	0.30	TO%	0.21	0.19	0.21
Fouls/G	19.8	18	20.5	Fouls/G	17.6	19.2	17.8

UPDATE: It just occurred to me that not all of my abbreviations are decipherable, hopefully I've fixed that.

I have no words to describe that collapse in Defensive Efficiency (points per possession allowed). UK went from having one of the strongest defenses in the country (0.887 ppp would rank 3rd in the country right now) to one of the worst (1.062 ppp would be tied for 277th).

You can see from the other numbers that a good chunk of the decline in the defensive numbers has come from opponents shooting better from the field, both on 2PTers and 3PTers. Notice that UK is still blocking roughly as many shots now as they were earlier in the year, and they have actually made it harder on opponents to score off the pass (4 point decline in opponent AS/FGM). Opponents are getting to the line a bit more over the last 10 games, but I suspect that has more to do with UK fouling at the end of games more as part of time management strategy than it does with some shift in defensive execution.

On the other side of the ball, the offense has actually improved slightly the last 10 games, but I think most of that has to do with turning the ball over less. TO% has improved, particularly against the best teams, but the other offensive stats are down. UK is getting a LOT of shots blocked which explains most of the decline in 2PT%. Offensive rebounding has stayed the same, as has 3PT%.

I'm still shocked by the drop in defensive efficiency, not just by how much it has fallen but also by how quickly it did so. In games 18, 19, and 20 (@Georgia, Auburn, @Bama) UK allowed 0.65 ppp, 0.898 ppp, and 0.688 ppp respectively. In their next 3 games (@Ole Miss, USC, Miss ST) UK allowed 1.16, 1.055, and 0.993 ppp respectively. In their first 20 games UK allowed just 6 opponents to score 1.0 ppp or better and just 8 opponents to score 0.9 ppp or better. In the last 10 games, 6 opponents have scored 1 ppp or better and every opponent has scored better than 0.9 ppp.

If BCG wants to get this team ready for Florida and the NCAA tournament, the defense HAS to be priority #1. If UK can get back to playing the kind of defense we saw the first 20 games, I think they can make a run to the tournament finals. If not, it's going to be an early exit.

Turnover Improvement: Real or Mirage?

JLeverenz — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:41:34 -0000

[Promoted from the Diaries. -- Ed.]

I think it's fair to say that turnovers are on the mind of the Big Blue Faithful heading in to the annual tilt with Louisville. We've seen improvement in the number of turnovers committed by the Cats in their last four games, but there is still some question as to how much of that improvement reflects real growth by the team and how much is a result of playing inferior teams.

There is some anecdotal evidence that players, particularly Michael Porter, are becoming more comfortable with their role on the floor and are making fewer mistakes leading to fewer turnovers. Still, there's a nagging doubt (for me anyway) that the gains made over the past two weeks are a mirage of competition, and that on Sunday against a good UL team that plays the kind of pressure defense that has given UK trouble this season the same turnover bugaboos that plagued the squad agianst UNC, VMI, Kansas State, West Virginia, and Indiana will reappear.

With that question in mind, I decided to take a closer look at UK's performance and that of its competition to see if there was something in the numbers to backup what my eyes have told me and what the players and coaches have said.

The Basics

Here are UK's turnovers and possessions for all their games so far this season. Stats come from StatSheet.com.

Opponent	VMI	UNC	Del St	Longwood	KSU	WVU	Lamar	Miami (FL)	MVSU	Indiana	App St	Tenn St	Florida Atl	Cent Mich
Possessions	92	73	65	82	76	64	77	73	72	74	78	77	64	68
UK Turnovers	25	28	12	19	31	23	16	14	14	23	15	16	7	13

In their first ten games UK committed 205 turnovers, 20.5 per game.
In their last four games UK committed 51 turnovers, 12.75 per game.

Of course, games are played at different paces and this can affect the number of turnovers committed.

In their first ten games UK had 748 possessions and turned the ball over 27.4% of the time.
In their last four games UK had 287 possessions and turned the ball over 17.8% of the time.

That's pretty good. UK averages about the same number of possessions per game in each group (74.8 vs 71.7) but is committing roughly 35% fewer turnovers in its last four. This tells us that UK's turnover numbers are not being artificially deflated by a slower pace over its last four games. So far so good, the improvement looks real.

The Competition

The real meat and potatoes of this analysis though is to look at the teams UK has played and try to determine the extent to which the quality of the competition affects the number of turnovers UK commits. The way I have chosen to do this is to get an Expected Number of Turnovers in each game based on the number of possessions and each opponents' defensive TO% (supplied by Ken Pomeroy and current as of Jan. 2).

Opponent	VMI	UNC	Del St	Longwood	KSU	WVU	Lamar	Miami (FL)	MVSU	Indiana	App St	Tenn St	Florida Atl	Cent Mich
Possessions	92	73	65	82	76	64	77	73	72	74	78	77	64	68
Opp def T0%	26.5	24.6	16.9	25.5	27.0	28.8	19.2	19.2	21.4	25.1	17.6	20.1	16.8	22.9
Exp. UK TO	24.4	18.0	11.0	20.9	20.5	18.4	14.8	14.0	15.4	18.6	13.7	15.5	10.8	15.6
Actual TO	25	28	12	19	31	23	16	14	14	23	15	16	7	13

There's some good news and bad news here. The bad news is that over the last four games the turnovers are about what we would expect them to be given the number of possessions in the game. This suggests that competition was a big factor in the apparent recent improvement. The good news is that aside from the two games against UNC and Kansas St and to a lesser extent the games against West Virginia and Indiana, UK has performed 'as expected' against its competition. This might imply that the team is actually closer to average than we thought when it comes to taking care of the ball.

On the downside, I don't think the results against UNC and Kansas St. can simply be dismissed as outliers. Both of those teams play pressure defense and in each case UK turned the ball over far more than expected and more than any other team has that has faced UNC and KSU. It could very well be the case that given its lack of a true or experienced PG UK is more susceptible to this kind of pressure defense than other teams are. That certainly does not bode well for Sunday's game.

The Competition, Part II

There's another way to break down these numbers. Turnovers aren't all the same. Generally they can be divided into two categories: Dead ball Turnovers and Live ball Turnovers (aka Steals). As the names imply, Dead ball TOs are turnovers that result in a stoppage in play (walks, five second calls, stepping out of bounds, etc). Live ball TOs (henceforth referred to as Steals) do not involve a stoppage in play.

There are other differences. Steals often lead to fast break opportunities whereas Dead ball TOs require the receiving team to inbound the ball and allow the defense to get set. More importantly (for the purposes of this post), steals are usually caused by direct physical action by the defense whereas dead ball turnovers are usually caused by mental mistakes by the offense. This is not to say the defense has nothing to do with forcing dead ball turnovers or that mental mistakes don't lead to steals, but speaking generally the defense has more control over forcing steals and the offense has more control over committing dead ball turnovers.

We can account for this in breaking down the game results for UK. Instead of using the Opponents defensive TO% (as I did above) to get an expected TO count for each game, we can divide turnovers into the two groups and get an expected value for each. This should allow us to more accurately assess the affects of competition.

Opponents Steal% is easy to get as it is supplied by Ken Pomeroy. Kentucky's Dead ball TO% can be found by taking the Offensive TO% (how often the offense turns the ball over) and subtracting the Offensive Steal% (how often the offense gets the ball stolen from it). These numbers are, again, supplied by Pomeroy. As a quick aside, both percentages have a common denominator (possessions) so we are mathematically justified in subtracting one fraction from the other.

Opponent	VMI	UNC	Del St	Longwood	KSU	WVU	Lamar	Miami (FL)	MVSU	Indiana	App St	Tenn St	Florida Atl	Cent Mich
Possessions	92	73	65	82	76	64	77	73	72	74	78	77	64	68
Opp Steal%	15.8	13.7	7.8	10.9	10.3	12.9	9.5	9.3	10.3	11.7	8.1	10.3	6.4	11.7
Ex Opp. Steals	14.5	10.0	5.1	8.9	7.8	8.3	7.3	6.8	7.4	8.7	6.3	7.9	4.1	8.0
Actual Steals	13	16	5	5	10	6	9	6	7	9	8	8	2	7
UK dbTO%	13.6	13.6	13.6	13.6	13.6	13.6	13.6	13.6	13.6	13.6	13.6	13.6	13.6	13.6
Ex db TOs	12.5	9.9	8.8	11.2	10.3	8.7	10.5	9.9	9.8	10.1	10.6	10.5	8.7	9.2
Actual db TOs	12	12	7	14	21	17	7	8	7	14	7	8	5	6

There's a lot of numbers up there so here's the summary:

	Exp. Opp. Steals	Actual Steals	Exp. UK db TOs	Actual UK db TOs
First 10 Games	84.8	86	101.7	119
Last 4 Games	26.3	25	39	26

Looked at this way, there are some reasons for major optimism. Throughout all 14 games UK has had the ball stolen pretty much exactly the number of times we would expect with practically no difference between the first ten games and the last four. Contrary to what the previous results showed, this suggests that UK might not have any weakness to a particular type of defense after all.

Where the team has made great strides is in cutting down on the number of dead ball turnovers. That makes a lot of sense if you think about it. As I mentioned earlier, deadball turnovers are mostly due to mental mistakes. As players become more comfortable with their roles and with each other on the court, those kinds of mistakes should decrease. The improvement probably isn't quite as good as what is shown because the defense will have some indirect affect on those turnovers, but I feel comfortable in saying that improvement is real and not due to competition.

So You're Saying There's A Chance?

What does all this say about the team heading into Sunday's game against Louisville? The Cards steal the ball 12.4% of the time, good for 39th in the nation. I think we should expect that to continue on Sunday and maybe go a bit higher since they are at home. UL plays at the same tempo as UK (71.4 adj pos/40 min versus 71.3). I would put the over/under on total turnovers at 18. If UK commits fewer than that they will be in the game with a good chance to win. If UK commits more than 18 turnovers, it will be a long afternoon.

A look at how Liggins affects his teammates' turnover rates

JLeverenz — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:06:51 -0000

[Promoted from the diaries -- Ed.]

Tru said something that struck me as an interesting question in a comment he made in the thread looking at UK's stats through the first 30% of the season.

… that is what, in fact, has happened. It has. Liggins may have more turnovers than everyone else, but when he is in the game, the team has less.

It’s easy to see why that may be. Liggins has the ball in his hands a lot more, while almost everyone else had to help out when Porter was playing the point. The problems with Porter go beyond his personal turnovers. He was often getting the ball to the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I think we all believe the offense runs much, much better when Liggins is in the game, but I was curious to see how closely the numbers matched the Mark 1 eyeball test and particularly whether Liggins' presence on the floor might help prevent his teammates from turning the ball over moreso than when he is on the bench.

What I have done is gone through the play-by-play data and sorted turnovers for each game into two groups depending on whether Liggins was in the game at that time or not.

The results are below. A couple of caveats first however.

* There is no data for the Kansas State game because I couldn't find a play-by-play record for that game that included substitutions. I'm not particularly worried about it however, since Liggins only played 2 minutes due to, shall we say, unusual circumstances.

* CLEARLY there are going to be turnovers committed by players that have absolutely nothing to do with who else is on the floor, but I assume those kinds of turnovers will even out when looking at this kind of split.

* In addition to a breakdown of turnovers, I've also included the +/- for Liggins since I was looking at the play-by-play data anyway. It doesn't have any direct relevance to this question, but I thought it was interesting. I don't know of any sites that track this for college players, but if somebody else does please share the link in the comments.

* The column "TO w/ DL" is the number of turnovers committed by the other four players when Liggins is in the game. It does not include turnovers committed by Liggins. Those turnovers get their own category.

I think the abbreviations I used are fairly self-explanatory, but just in case:

'MIN' is Minutes Played

'DL' is DeAndre Liggins

'TO' is Turnovers

OPPONENT	MIN w/ DL	MIN w/o DL	DL TO	TO w/ DL	TO w/o DL	DL +/-	no DL +/-
VMI	27	13	7	8	10	-4	-4
UNC	18	22	4	7	17	-2	-17
Del. State	16	24	1	3	8	15	14
Longwood	19	21	4	7	8	16	18
West Virginia	27	13	4	11	8	21	-10
Lamar	25	15	2	7	7	26	16
Miami	32	8	3	6	5	4	-10
Miss. Val. St	20	20	3	4	7	21	2

TOTALS	184	136	28	53	70	97	9

In summary, in the 184 minutes played with Liggins on the floor, the team committed a total of 81 turnovers of which 28 were committed by Liggins and 53 by his teammates. In the 136 minutes played with Liggins on the bench, the team committed 70 turnovers.

With Liggins, the team averages 17.61 TO/40 minutes
Without Liggins: the team averages 20.59 TO/40 minutes

I'll need to do something similar with Porter before we can make a direct comparison between the two, but in the meantime I think we can say a few things about Liggins' affect on his teammates.

Liggins averages 6.09 TO/40 minutes here (remember, it doesn't include K-State). That's roughly 34.6% of the total when he is on the floor.
Porter averages 5.27 TO/40 minutes. Now, some of those turnovers occur when Liggins is on the floor with Porter, but I think it is safe to say that the majority of Porter's turnovers occur when he is the primary ball-handler (and Liggins is on the bench).
Assuming that to be the case, this would mean that Porter accounts for roughly somewhere between 20-25% of the total when he is on the floor.
This means that the other 4 guys average 11.52 TO/40 min when Liggins is on the floor and the other 4 guys average roughly between 15-16 TO/40 minutes when Porter is on the floor.

Like I said, I'll need to do a breakdown for Porter before we can say for sure, but it certainly looks like the numbers support the first hand observations that Liggins does a better job taking care of the ball even though he personally averages more turnovers than Porter.

Putting Kentucky's recent seasons into context

JLeverenz — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:08:21 -0000

There’s been a lot of understandable weeping and gnashing of teeth among the BBN lately over the fall from national prominence of “once proud Kentucky”. There is a feeling that UK as a program shouldn’t have to go through these kinds of struggles, but I think it would be helpful to gain some perspective on UK’s performance the past few seasons by looking at what a couple of comparable power programs have gone through this decade.

There are two historically great programs that have been through rough stretches this decade. UNC is familiar to pretty much everyone, but I think most people forget that UCLA also fell off the college basketball map not too long ago. For those two programs I’ve listed seasons beginning with the last time each made the NCAA tournament prior to their first bad season and ending with their first season attaining notable success thereafter.

UNC

SEASON	RECORD	CONF RECORD	POSTSEASON	NOTABLE LOSSES
2000-01	26-7	13-3	2 seed NCAA, 2nd round
2001-02	8-20	4-12		Hampton, Davidson, Ohio (home), College of Charleston (neutral)
2002-03	19-16	6-10	NIT, 3rd round	Iona (Neutral)
2003-04	19-11	8-8	6 seed NCAA, 2nd round
2004-05	33-4	14-2	1 seed NCAA, Champs

UCLA

SEASON	RECORD	CONF RECORD	POSTSEASON	NOTABLE LOSSES
2001-02	21-12	11-7	8 seed NCAA, Sweet 16	Pepperdine (home), Ball State (neutral)
2002-03	10-19	6-12		San Diego, Northern Arizona (home)
2003-04	11-17	7-11		UC-Santa Barbara (home)
2004-05	18-11	11-7	11 seed NCAA, 1st round
2005-06	33-7	14-4	2 seed NCAA, Finals

Notice that UNC and UCLA each had seasons well below .500 that included some embarrassing home losses on the same order as what UK went through last year. Both went through a coaching change (oddly enough both occurred in 2003), and both had a mediocre re-appearance in the NCAA tournament before getting back to the Final Four.

Now here’s Kentucky. Since UK hasn’t had a below .500 season recently, I started with their last notable NCAA appearance which was the Elite 8 run a few years ago.

UK

SEASON	RECORD	CONF RECORD	POSTSEASON	NOTABLE LOSSES
2004-05	28-6	14-2	2 seed NCAA, Elite 8
2005-06	22-13	9-7	8 seed NCAA, 2nd round
2006-07	22-12	9-7	8 seed NCAA, 2nd round
2007-08	18-13	12-4	11 seed NCAA, 1st round	Gardner-Webb, San Diego, Houston

Wow. Kind of makes you appreciate our guys a bit more doesn’t it? Despite their struggles, at no point has UK been anywhere near as bad as UCLA and UNC have been in the recent past. UK has kept their NCAA appearance streak intact while finishing better than .500 in conference every year – something neither UNC nor UCLA can claim.

I’m not about to predict a Final Four appearance for this year’s squad – that would just be silly. But I think a Sweet 16 appearance is very much possible and I remain optimistic about this year’s team. I firmly believe that once the PG situation gets straightened out everything else will fall into place and this will be the best UK team since 2004-2005.

Poll

I still BELIEVE! (that UK will...)

Make the NCAA tournament

91 votes

Make the Second Round of the NCAA tournament

77 votes

Make the Sweet Sixteen

79 votes

Make the Elite 8

14 votes

Make the Final Four

2 votes

Make the Championship Game

5 votes

Make delicious burgers on their Foreman Grills

41 votes

309 votes | Poll has closed

Joe Blanton (and friends) wins the World Series!

JLeverenz — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:12:31 -0000

Former UK pitcher Joe Blanton and the Phillies finished off the suspended Game 5 and the Tampa Bay Rays last night, 4 - 3. Cole Hamels was named WS MVP (cue Wildcat supporters claiming anti-UK bias on the part of the media for the snub of Sluggin' Joe)

Blanton won Game 4 for the Phillies, going 6 IP, giving up 2 ER on 4 hits and 2 BB while striking out 7 and adding his first ever homerun for good measure. For the 2008 postseason he was 2-0 in 3 games with a 3.18 ERA in 17 innings, striking out 18 while walking 6 batters and giving up 16 hits. Joe is now 2-0 with a 2.84 ERA in 4 career postseason games.

Joe is the only UK player to ever pitch in the World Series, and of course is also the only UK player to ever win a game in the World Series.

Joe is the second UK player to play in the World Series; the other was Jim Leyritz who played in 3 World Series in the 1990's with the Yankees (1996 and 1999) and the Padres (1998).

Kentucky doesn't have much history of good MLB players, so celebrate Joe's accomplishment and be proud that he is one of ours!