Showing posts with label N.C. State. Show all posts
Showing posts with label N.C. State. Show all posts

Thursday, July 17, 2008

2009 Player Projections: UVa, NCSU, and GT

I've uploaded the player projection reports for Georgia Tech (Mo Miller is poised for a breakout), N.C. State (the real Brandon Costner was the one we saw in 2007; Ben McCauley's great sophomore season looks like it was a fluke), and Virginia (a healthy Solomon Tat could be the Wahoos' best player). Boston College, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina, and Wake Forest have all posted their '08-'09 rosters on their official sites, so I'll have them up relatively soon.

There's a new section in the reports this year, and it's the key to the player comps. Each player-season in the database has been assigned these eight numbers, and each number represents a facet of the player's game:
  • Size is height, with an adjustment for bulk using Body Mass Index (BMI). Skinny players tend to play shorter than their height, and bulky ones play taller. Each standard deviation of BMI adds or subtracts an inch from height.
  • Physicality is Free Throw Attempts plus Personal Fouls, divided by 1 plus the ratio of 3-Point Attempts to Field Goal Attempts.
  • Activity shows how often a player does something that shows up in the box score.
  • Shooting is the average of: FT%; 3G% times 3GM, divided by 3; and 2G% times 2GM, divided by 8.
  • Scoring is simply Points scored.
  • Passing is Assists minus Turnovers.
  • Rebounding is the number of Rebounds recorded.
  • Defense is height-normalized Blocks plus Steals.
All the numbers used are per-40. Each category is then normalized to a 0-to-100 scale. The similarity scores are based on a combination of the correlation and the closeness of the two players' profiles. The projections based on the new system are about 25% tighter on average than the ones from a year ago.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Tourney Preview: (5) Miami vs. (12) N.C. State

The tables below might not show up in an RSS reader; if all you see is text, either click back to the blog to see them, or click here to view the source spreadsheet.

Miami's a better team than N.C. State, but not so much better that it would qualify as a huge surprise should Sidney Lowe's charges win. State won the first and only meeting between these two teams eight weeks ago in Raleigh by a score of 79-77 (77 possessions), but it took an unlikely comeback in overtime to get the job done.


Miami's offensive efficiency is 1.0698 points per offensive possession in conference play, good for third-best in the league, despite being one of only four ACC teams to average less than 1 point per field goal attempt. With a turnover rate right around league-average, almost all of that offensive production is tied up in Miami's offensive rebounding prowess. Strong defensive rebounding teams should be able to negate Miami's advantage on the offensive glass, making them beatable by even some supposedly weaker teams. Unfortunately for Wolfpack fans, State is not a strong defensive rebounding team. Look for Miami to win the game on the glass.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Game Preview: Virginia Tech at N.C. State

Those of you reading this in a feed reader might need to click back to the blog to see the tables.

State's ability to get to the free throw line is the only thing that makes them even remotely functional at the offensive end of the floor. The Wolfpack are third-best in Division I at getting to the line, with just under 20% of their adjusted possessions ending in a trip to the charity stripe. (Incidentally, they're also 4th-best at keeping opponents off the line, with just over 10% of adjusted defensive possessions ending with a free throw.)

This game shapes up to be every bit as ugly as the marquee matchup tomorrow night promises to be attractive. Those of you who don't get ESPNU probably should count yourselves lucky.

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Game Preview: N.C. State at Duke

Those of you reading this in a feed reader might need to click back over to the blog to see the tables.

It's mismatch night in the ACC to close out the month of January: the two lowest-rated teams travel to the two highest-rated. How big of a mismatch is the Duke-State tilt? In the 10,000 trials, Duke won by 40 points more than twice as often as N.C. State won by any score in regulation (925 times to 421). With the potential blow out brewing, I'm just happy to be in an ACC market where Rathbun and Packer--say what you will about the guy, but he's great in a blowout--and the Raycom telecast will save me from two hours listening to Jay Bilas pretend to be objective while Mike Patrick heaps praise on each and every Duke player for each and every thing they do.

Friday, November 9, 2007

6. N.C. State

2007 ACC Record: 5-11, t-10th Place
Projected 2008 Record: 7-9 (1092 PARTOBS*, .445 Raw W%)

State plays a completely unremarkable conference schedule in 2008, and it's unlikely to play much of a role in the Pack's progress.

Projected Player Contributions:

Gavin Grant predicts his team will only lose four games and make the Final Four. Some sportswriters think so, too. Three-quarters of the ACC sports media think the Wolfpack will finish in the league's top three. The future in Raleigh is brighter than Sidney Lowe's jacket (no fence is safe!).

I'm not buying it. State was a nice feel-good story last year. They exceeded all expectations (expectations that were unreasonably low, in retrospect). The wins over Carolina, the three-game sweep of Virginia Tech, and the runs in the ACC and NIT tournaments were impressive. But let's not get carried away here.

With everyone but Engin Atsur returning from last season's team, as well as the addition of talented freshmen J.J. Hickson and Tracy Smith, the Wolfpack will be better this year than last. They just won't be that much better. A .500 conference record should be a nice accomplishment for a young team without any experience at the point guard position, but it will probably be seen as a disappointment for this group.

*The PARTOBS number next to the team's projected record uses the projected Points, Assists, Rebounds, Turnovers, Blocks, and Steals to arrive at a number that correlates pretty strongly with a team's overall and conference record. The order of the PARTOBS number correlates even more strongly with the order of finish. The predicted order of finish and number of conference wins will be based on that number.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Pack Predictions Posted

Hey, I said no more bad puns. I didn't say anything about alliteration. N.C. State's projection is up. The full roster's not posted yet, but they've got all the returning players listed, and I used the LOI list from Rivals to populate the freshmen.

Miami is on deck.