MBB: American Southwest Conference

[Sand Man]

Congratulations to the HPU and LC men's basketball teams, coaches and fans for being awarded the ASC Sportmanship Awards for Winter Sports in each division.

With some of the not so pleasant happenings at some of the ASC games this season, it is nice to see recognition for positive sportmanship.  Great job!

Hats off to UMHB and LeTourneau women's teams, coaches and fans for the same.

http://www.ascsports.org/Pdfs/gen/2008/3/26/WinterSAACSportsmanship0708.pdf

[Ralph Turner]

Gruene Hall

The writer of Double A zone blog visited Gruene Hall outside of New Braunfels  when he was in San Antonio for the Men's Finals.

It is good that he was exposed to real culture!

http://www.doubleazone.com/2008/04/foul_shooting_one_shining_mome.html

Please scroll down and click on the YouTube. 

[Ralph Turner]

The poll on the home page asks

"Which D-III player will do the best at the CBI?"

One of the names is Mardochee Jean. 

Congratulations!

[hsusid]

Mardochee Jean, HSU's All-American center, had 12 points and 13 rebounds in his first game at the CBI on Thursday. They will play at 11 a.m. on Friday.

Incidentally, Jean went head-to-head with Ben Strong of Guilford, who was the person ahead of him on a couple of All-American lists. Strong had two points and four rebounds.

[Ralph Turner]

Mardochee Jean, HSU's All-American center, had 12 points and 13 rebounds in his first game at the CBI on Thursday. They will play at 11 a.m. on Friday.

Incidentally, Jean went head-to-head with Ben Strong of Guilford, who was the person ahead of him on a couple of All-American lists. Strong had two points and four rebounds.

Way to go, Mardochee!

Stats

[Pat Coleman]

Mardochee Jean, HSU's All-American center, had 12 points and 13 rebounds in his first game at the CBI on Thursday. They will play at 11 a.m. on Friday.

Incidentally, Jean went head-to-head with Ben Strong of Guilford, who was the person ahead of him on a couple of All-American lists. Strong had two points and four rebounds.

I'm satisfied with our All-American team, considering Mardochee Jean scored two points when Ben Strong was on the floor.

They were on the floor together for 63% of Jean's 22 minutes in which Jean scored 16% of his points.

[golden_dome]

Mardochee Jean, HSU's All-American center, had 12 points and 13 rebounds in his first game at the CBI on Thursday. They will play at 11 a.m. on Friday.

Incidentally, Jean went head-to-head with Ben Strong of Guilford, who was the person ahead of him on a couple of All-American lists. Strong had two points and four rebounds.

I'm satisfied with our All-American team, considering Mardochee Jean scored two points when Ben Strong was on the floor.

They were on the floor together for 63% of Jean's 22 minutes in which Jean scored 16% of his points.

Pat,
   I like the layout of your All-American teams as well, Strong was my pick for best DIII player in the country this year. Still a very nice showing from Jean with a double double. I would be more interested to see Jean's rebounding totals and defense against Strong, since those were his strengths on the court. He can score, but he changed a lot of games in the ASC defensively.

[CUAfan]

Well, I finally managed to get Excel to cooperate in an effort to calculate the various individual statistics used and developed by Dean Oliver and Ken Pomeroy (amongst others I'm sure) to better evaluate player performance. I'll put a brief explanation of what they mean, and will elaborate if anyone asks. I also have more statistics than I'm posting here, so if anyone wants more I have more. There's a minimum of 40% of possible minutes played to qualify, so it's pretty much starters and sixth-men.

Effective FG% (like FG%, but gives an extra half-credit for making a three)
1. J. Chambers, ETBU - .648
2. D. Ray, UMHB - .631
3. P. Trotter, MC - .619
4. C. Jeffery, MC - .606
5. T. Hermann, HPU - .591

Offensive Rebound Rate (percentage of possible offensive boards actually gotten)
1. C. Jeffery, MC - 12.6%
2. D. Ray, UMHB - 11.8%
3. M. Jean, HSU - 11.2%
4. J. Eppink, UTD - 11.0%
5. M. Louimeus, LETU - 10.6%

Free Throw Rate (how good a player was a drawing a foul and getting to the line)
1. M. Caskey, UMHB - 106.9
2. J. Davis, LETU - 84.2
3. M. Hill, UTT - 82.1
4. J. Collins, MC - 72.7
5. J. Hutton, TLU - 67.0

Assist Rate (how many of the FGM while a guy was on the floor he assisted on)
1. R. Moreno, MCM - 29.8%
2. T. Brock, UO - 25.1%
3. B. Woods, HPU - 21.9%
4. C. Tellis, SU - 21.3%
5. M. Moore, CTX - 21.3%

Offensive Rating (how many points a player produces per 100 possessions used)
1. P. Trotter, MC - 128.7
2. B. Weasby, UTT - 128.7
3. J. Packer, SRSU - 115.7
4. J. Collins, MC - 115.3
5. M. Skluzacek, LC - 112.9

Block Rate (percentage of possible shots actually blocked)
1. R. Burgart, UMHB - 9.7%
2. J. Chambers, ETBU - 9.3%
3. M. Jean, HSU - 9.3%
4. B. Blalock, HPU - 6.0%
5. P. Trotter, MC - 4.5%

Steal Rate (percentage of opponents' possessions a guy got a steal on)
1. A. Reese, UTT - 5.1%
2. S. Rodgers, UTD - 4.4%
3. E. Lowery, UTD - 4.0%
4. T. Brock, UO - 4.0%
5. R. Moreno, MCM - 3.9%

Defensive Rating (an estimate of how many points a player allows per 100 possessions)
1. R. Burgart, UMHB - 83.6
2. T. Gaddy, UMHB - 87.9
3. M. Jean, HSU - 88.2
4. D. Ray, UMHB - 89.8
5. M. Caskey, UMHB - 90.0
(before anyone freaks, think about it; UMHB was the most efficient defense, so it makes sense they'd have the best defensive players)

Note: The decided lack of CTX players on these lists shows why you can't just trust per-game totals all the time.

[mcmfanatic]

Okay, I'm looking at the defensive ratings and transferring from points to shots made.  Are you saying that 42% of the time an offensive player went up to make a shot against Burgart that the offensive player was successful?  (or 58% of the time Burgart put up a successful defense if you a glass half full versus half empty person)

Or that Trotter scored 64% of the time he got his hands on the call during a possession?  That wouldn't seem to jive with his .619 effective FG rating.  Maybe the adjustment for 3's balances this out.

[CUAfan]

I'll try to answer your questions as best I can, but I'm not entirely sure how you're deriving the numbers you mention.

Regarding Trotter, there's a stat I didn't post called floor percentage that, for him, is .672. That means that about 67% of the time that his actions ended a possession (made shot, TO, etc.), that it was because he scored in some way. The effective FG% has to do with field goals only. When you look at regular FG%, 2's and 3's are weighted equally with a value of 1.0 (or half of 2 points). What effective FG% (eFG%) does is fix that so that 2's have a weight of 1.0 (as now), but 3's get a weight of 1.5 (reflecting their greater value if made). If you double a guy's eFG% (for Trotter .619 -> 1.28), you essentially get the number of points per shot attempted. (coincidentally, that also approximates his offensive rating, or points per possession)

Regarding Burgart, I don't know where you're getting the 42/58 split. His block rate means that he blocked 9.7% of shots taken while he was on the floor, which is very, very good (Ken Pomeroy considers 8.0% to be good). His defensive rating means that, on average, opponents scored .83 points when his actions were the deciding factor. There's another stat I didn't post called stop rate, which for Burgart comes out to 0.74. What that means is that roughly 74% of the time opponents came at him, he produced a defensive stop (block, forced miss, steal, and so on). That was the highest on the team by quite a bit...when attacking UMHB, he was a man to avoid.

[mcmfanatic]

Where the 42 successful shots allowed came from was your 83.6 points per 100 possessions.  Since you can't give up a single point it is only logical to assume the 83.6 points would come off of 42 shots made.  If that is correct that would imply that Burgart stops a shooter 58 times out of 100 times he is in the defensive position.  The blocked shots I would assume are included in the defensive rating.  I was simply trying to translate your numbers to a useful tool.  When I go to a baseball game and a player has a .321 average and has gone 0 for 3 so far in the game the odds are that his average will hold and he is very likely to get a hit at the 4th at bat.  As a rating tool your numbers work in comparing players, but I wanted to see if they would be a useful predicter of performance.

[CUAfan]

Ah, but it is possible to give up a single point....if you commit a shooting foul and the guy only makes one. The formula being used for defensive rating attempts to account for that possibility. Frankly, defensive rating is a useful tool as is. Say you have two players to choose from, one having a defensive rating of 83 and another of 93. If they play with the same teammates until both players are involved in 100 defensive possessions, one would expect the team to do 10 points better with player A than player B on the defensive end.

Besides, the point of the numbers is to compare players. Who's a better shot blocker? Who's a better overall defender? Who's the best offensive player? Things like that.

[#1ascfanman]

I have not been on in some time and just caught up reading the last posts.  Any news on recruiting from anywhere.  I have heard some rumors around the LC campus.  I have heard about a 6'5'' shooter but heard in considering other options as well.  Any news from anyone?

[Pat Coleman]

Mike Jones steps down again at Mississippi College.
http://www.d3hoops.com

[hsusid]

Hardin-Simmons has a new athletic's web site. If you have www.hsuathletics.cstv.com as your bookmark, you will have to change it to just www.hsuathletics.com.