SB Nation User Blog: MRickman84

Gamethread: Wake Forest vs. N.C. State

MRickman84 — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:31:13 -0000

I'm breathing a sigh of relief as I was able to figure out how to watch the game (the Lebronadors are on FSN here), so worry not and enjoy Wake's first ACC game while you try not to get snowed in.

Poll: Wake Forest vs. NC State

MRickman84 — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:27:49 -0000

Arf Arf

Poll

What will be the score of the Wake Forest-N.C. State game?

N.C. State wins by double digits or more

1 votes

N.C. State wins by 4-9 points

0 votes

N.C. State wins by 3 or less

1 votes

Wake wins by 3 or less

4 votes

Wake wins by 4-9 points

8 votes

Wake wins by double digits or more

12 votes

26 votes | Poll has closed

Wake Forest cornerback Kenny Okoro has been named to the ACC All-Freshman team by The Sporting...

MRickman84 — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:41:31 -0000

Wake Forest cornerback Kenny Okoro has been named to the ACC All-Freshman team by The Sporting News.

Okoro, who played at Greensboro, NC Dudley High School, was a redshirt freshman for the Deacons this fall.

Okoro led Wake Forest with three interceptions and 11 pass breakups. He finished his freshman season with 38 total tackles.

Okoro Named to ACC All-Frosh Team - WAKE FOREST OFFICIAL ATHLETIC SITE

Hayes of the Day: 12/17

MRickman84 — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:10:39 -0000

You didn't think I'd forget about Hayes of the Day just because finals put ACC basketball on hiatus did you? We're back and better than ever. So without further ado, who is today's Hayes of the Day?

Poll

Who is today's Hayes of the Day?

Clemson G Demontez Stitt vs. ECU: 5 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 3 TO

4 votes

GT G Mfon Udofia vs. Ark-Pine Bluff: 8 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 TO, 3-10 FG

2 votes

Miami G Durand Scott vs. Stetson: 4 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists

3 votes

GT G D'Andre Bell vs. Ark-Pine Bluff: 6 points, 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals, 2 blocks, 3 TO

2 votes

Miami G Malcolm Grant vs. Stetson: 9 points, 4 assists, 2 rebounds

1 votes

Maryland G Eric Hayes vs. Finals: Did his thing and is probably playing Call of Duty

8 votes

20 votes | Poll has closed

Around the ACC: 12.17

MRickman84 — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:41:47 -0000

More photos » by Stanley Leary - AP

Browse more photos »

We finally got a few ACC teams playing on the same day again. Finals are wrapping up and we're closing in on conference play. All four ACC teams won by double figures yesterday, but none played anyone in the KenPom top 100, so it was to be expected.

Let's recap the action in the ACC...

Miami 69, Stetson 49

Dwayne Collins beasted it with 20 points and 15 rebounds, and the Canes shot 56.5% from the floor. There weren't really any other spectacular performances for Miami, but defensively they held Stetson to 33% shooting and 20% from 3. Miami owned the boards +12. Pretty basic non-con cupcake win there.

Clemson 80, East Carolina 63

Another ho-hum game. Trevor Booker did what Trevor Booker does--13 points, 12 rebounds and a surprising 9 assists, not to mention 3 blocks. I've said it before and I'll probably say it a lot more, but Booker is one of the two most overlooked post players in the ACC. I'd take him and Lawal against just about anybody. Tanner Smith and Andre Young combined for 30 points on 10-19 shooting.

GT 65, Arkansas-Pine Bluff 53

Speaking of Gani Lawal, he only had 15 and 15 yesterday. No big deal. Derrick Favors looked like the ACC Rookie of the Year again with 15 points and 11 rebounds as the Yellow Jackets amped up the D and held the Golden Lions to 29.4% shooting.

Wake Forest 80, UNC-Wilmington 69

We know how this one finished up, but I'm still in awe of L.D. Williams and his career-high 23 points on 6-7 shooting and 11-12 FTs. If L.D. shows those kind of spurts more often, Wake is a much more dangerous team. Ishmael Smith hjad a complete game with 19 points, 5 assists, 3 rebounds and 4 steals and Al-Farouq Aminu overcame some really sloppy play to provide a highlight reel dunk and 17 points/13 rebounds. It didn't look pretty (16 turnovers) and UNC-W had a number of runs in the second half, but the Seahawks only hit 6-23 from deep and were plagued with bad free throw shooting (15-28).

Deacon Dump 12/17: Back from the beach

MRickman84 — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:58:11 -0000

Yesterday's game was a dog fight. Chad Tomko woke up from the dead to make the game really interesting at the end there. He's one of those mid-major guys. He's pesky and seems to get up for the big games. I won't praise him that much though because the announcers did a good enough job of slurping him yesterday. The real star for UNC-W is John Fields. That kid is a beast and is easily one of the best defenders in the league. There are a lot of ACC teams that could use him too. Huge get for the Seahawks. Onto the links...

| StarNewsOnline.com | Star News | Wilmington, NC
"They kept us on our heels all night," UNCW coach Benny Moss said. "Ish broke our defense down."

Senior leads Deacs to win
"L.D. Williams got us off to a great start in this game, and did a great job of ending the game for us," Coach Dino Gaudio said. "When we get that kind of point production out of him, he's as good as anybody in the league. I think he's the best defender in the league. I don't care who we're playing, we can put that kid on him. "And to get 23 points from him, that's huge."

As season progresses, depth surfaces for Demon Deacons | text, progresses, align - Sports - Burlington Times News
"It’s always comforting that the level of basketball is going to go up and up and you don’t have to go back in and be the savior," Aminu said of the emerging depth.

QB a priority for Wake, but not only concern - ACC Blog - ESPN
"We’ll certainly have trouble replacing Riley, I don’t think there’s any question about it," Grobe said. "Not just his ability, his leadership and experience and all those kinds of things. But as we learned this past season, having a good quarterback is important, but just having a good quarterback doesn’t make you a good football team. We’ll definitely take a step backwards experience-wise. I think we’ll find a couple of talented kids who will play for us."

Man among boys - EagleTribune.com, North Andover, MA
"Any team in the Merrimack Valley Conference with a kid going to play at Wake Forest (Central Catholic's 6-11 Carson Desrosiers) has to be the favorite," says Andover High coach Dave Fazio.

Enloe Box Scores: Raleigh N&O
Check out Melvin Tabb's box scores so far this season. He had 18 and 20 points in his past two games to lead Enloe to an undefeated start.

Ty Walker working for minutes | Star News | Wilmington, NC
"He's a Wilmington kid, he's worked hard for us. He deserved that," Deacons coach Dino Gaudio said afterward. "But I'm tellin' ya, my words are going to be prophetic. That kid is going to be a terrific player for us." Some thought that time would have already arrived. But it hasn't, prompting murmurs of a transfer that he's squashed numerous times. On Wednesday, Walker was all smiles, confident that his decision has been correct. "They said last year was going to be mostly a learning experience," he said, "now hopefully get a few minutes here and there to get in the games, and by my junior, senior years, be out there with Tony Woods, and that incoming class."

Wake Forest postgame – UNCW Basketball - Wilmington Star News - Wilmington, NC - Archive
Wake, primarily guards Ishmael Smith, L.D. Williams and C.J. Harris, ripped through the heart of the UNCW defense. In the first half, Wake shot 70 percent. In the second half, 11 of the Deacons 14 field goals were layups.

Gamethread: Wake Forest vs. UNC-Wilmington

MRickman84 — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:32:30 -0000

Here we are again folks. The game is at 7 PM on ESPNU, so no excuse not to sit down, order a pizza and join in on the chat goodness while you watch the Deacs as they take on the Seahawks.

"I had to step up, because I am the next-best shooter on the team," DeMaurice Terrell said, who had...

MRickman84 — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:52:57 -0000

"I had to step up, because I am the next-best shooter on the team," DeMaurice Terrell said, who had three 3-pointers and a three-point play. "I had to do it for (J.T.) because we had to get this win."

Terrell lights spark, but it's DeMaurice - CharlotteObserver.com

Q&A: StatSheet's Robbie Allen

MRickman84 — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:17:27 -0000

This Q&A is a special one for BSD. We obviously have been using StatSheet more and more since we started delving into it during Wake's season last year, but the more we use it, the more information we have been learning about this basketball team. I had the pleasure of asking Robbie some questions about his site and statistics in general. Thanks again to Robbie and if you haven't started going to StatSheet, I suggest you get on it.

You can find his answers after the jump...

BSD: How did StatSheet get started?

Robbie: I was looking to start a new business and wanted to do something sports related. I looked at the major sports sites and thought I could do a better job presenting stats in interesting ways. From that basic idea, the StatSheet Network (http://statsheet.net) has evolved into six different websites and lots of interesting new stuff coming in 2010.

BSD: I'm not great with math, although WakeJake is, but I am really curious as to what your process is. Without giving away top secret StatSheet info, what do you use/do in particular to compile stats?

Robbie: I use a sports stats provider for basic boxscore stats. I store the data at a very granular level and compute a variety of stats from those stats. There are over 50 background jobs that process all the data flowing through StatSheet. It’s a lot of data and a lot of computations.

BSD: Which sport do you think is the most statistically important and telling? Why?

Robbie: I’ve mainly looked at basketball, baseball, football and racing in depth. Most people are familiar with baseball when talking about sports stats, but a lot of stats analysis is happening in the other sports now. I don’t know if one sport is more important than the others from a statistics perspective. Stats are neither a complete measure of performance or a great predictor of success. As you say, it’s only part of the story.

BSD: In college basketball in particular, the box score never really tells the whole story. You use a number of statistics like turnover% and true shooting% to fill the game out. What should visitors to your website and my readers take away from the box score on steroids?

Robbie: What I’ve tried to do with StatSheet is present stats in the most lucid way possible. Traditional boxscore stats are rarely the best stats to look at when analyzing a game. In basketball, tempo-free stats help to compare apples to apples by leveling the playing field from a possession standpoint. Some teams get more possessions than others so naturally they’ll have more field goal attempts, points, etc. Tempo free stats allow you can compare a team that runs the Princeton offense with an fast-paced team.

BSD: Give us some background on the Four Factors.

Robbie: I’ve summarized it pretty well here: http://statsheet.com/blog/the-four-factors-to-winning-at-basketball In short, the Four Factors are four stats that Dean Oliver (author of Basketball on Paper) discovered are important determinants of success in basketball. I include a bar chart of the four factors for every basketball boxscore on StatSheet.

BSD: Just for fun, who do you think is going to win it all in March?

Robbie: I’m a UNC guy, but I think Kentucky will be strong (and not just because they beat my Tar Heels). If they stay healthy they’ll definitely be Final Four bound. I haven’t seen Kansas play yet, but on paper they look pretty tough.

BSD: Are you in contact with Ken Pomeroy at all? What do you think about his ratings system, especially in contrast with the RPI. Ken makes the claim that the RPI is dead. Do you support this conclusion?

Robbie: I’ve met Ken in person at a conference and we’ve exchanged emails, but we don’t chat regularly. RPI is dead to Ken because RPI isn’t a great predictor or necessarily a great measure of successful teams. RPI definitely isn’t dead (in the big picture) because the NCAA still relies on it heavily for determining which teams make it to the Big Dance. As long as that’s the case, it will be alive and well.

BSD: You do a lot with foul differential. Is there anything that really stands out from that standpoint?

BSD: What is your take on the Hollinger's rankings?

Robbie: Sometimes the most interesting things confirm what people suspect (the reverse is also true). Anyway, what stands out on the surface is that some of the best teams are very consistent in their foul differential. UNC, Connecticut, Duke, etc. always have a favorable foul differential JARS...just another ranking system. Ranking systems are a dime a dozen, especially in basketball. There are ea ton of team and player ranking systems and they all have pros and cons. People have asked when StatSheet will have a ranking system. It might be good for page vies, but it would take a lot of analysis for me to come up with a system that I really believe is better than any other rating system.

BSD: Thanks Robbie, it's been a pleasure.

via media.commercialappeal.com

MRickman84 — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:35:08 -0000

via media.commercialappeal.com