Re: Rusty David Hoskins Sports Blog Post

[Kat Kid]

In the past I've called David Hoskins a one-dimensional player before and I think that the statistics reinforce my perception that Hoskins game is largely predicated on the officials throwing him a bone.  http://www.ksufans.com/forums/index.php?topic=11026.msg120732#msg120732 
In a weird aside, I posted this during winter break in a summary of the teams and noted Hoskins had 79 ft attempts (team high) and had 34% of his points from the line (same as now).  http://www.ksufans.com/forums/index.php?topic=6307.msg63148#msg63148

David Hoskins last year

FT M/A
171-231

FG M/A
162-359

34% of Hoskins' points last year came from the line.  That coupled with the fact that he had more FT M than FG M seemed odd to me, so I decided to check around the Big XII.

Turns out, it is weird.  You can scroll through ESPN's team expanded stats and eyeball the league for yourself, but the only other major contributing player I could find that had more FT M than FG M was Corey McIntosh of Iowa St. (53FTM/37FGM) who averaged 4.4 ppg and 24 mpg.

Others who were close: D.J. Augustin (150/154), Martin Zeno (178/186) and Charles Richardson Jr. of Nebraska.

Rusty?  I will add more later, but just wanted to throw this out there.

[AzCat]

You've really got to stop taking stats classes.   

[michigancat]

I'll take a look at it.

Here's a good starting place:

FT Rate: Free throw rate is calculated by 100*FTA/FGA. This measures a player’s ability to get the line using the number of free throws shot per 100 field goal attempts. Players that shoot a lot of free throws tend to be efficient scorers, so a high free throw rate is a good thing unless the player is horrible from the line. Anything over 50 is good, and 70 is excellent. Dwayne Jones (109.3) of Saint Joseph’s was the only player in 2005 to exceed 100 in this category among players with at least 200 FGAs. Jones shot only 54% from the line, so all those trips to the line didn’t hurt the opposition much. The oft-injured Jason Fraser of Villanova deserves mention for posting 115 FTAs with 90 FGAs for a free throw rate of 127.8. Below are the top ten players in FTRate with at least 200 FGAs. Only two return in 2006.

 1 Dwayne Jones      St. Joseph's 109.3
 2 Ellis Myles       Louisville    98.8
 3 Steven Thomas     Texas Arl.    91.9
 4 Jamar Howard      Wichita St.   91.4
 5 Jason Maxiell     Cincinnati    90.4
 6 Ronny Turiaf      Gonzaga       83.8
 7 Blake Hamilton    Monmouth      83.2
 8 Ike Diogu         Arizona St.   78.1
 9 Chad McKnight     Morehead St.  77.6
10 John Bowler       E. Michigan   77.6

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/individual_stats/


I'll see what I can do with made FT's soon...maybe with my next post.

[chum1]

KK, you should start a blog that features responses to Rusty's blog. 

[ksu_FAN]

I don't necessarily think its a bad thing that Hoskins gets fouled a lot and makes most of his FTs.

[sys]

I don't necessarily think its a bad thing that Hoskins gets fouled a lot and makes most of his FTs.

i'm also having a hard time understanding kk's point.

[michigancat]

I don't necessarily think its a bad thing that Hoskins gets fouled a lot and makes most of his FTs.

i'm also having a hard time understanding kk's point.

He's saying that it relies on how the refs call the game.  I don't agree, but I have a few other angles I'll look at.  The obvious problem he has is playing ku.

[ksu_FAN]

I don't necessarily think its a bad thing that Hoskins gets fouled a lot and makes most of his FTs.

i'm also having a hard time understanding kk's point.

He's saying that it relies on how the refs call the game.  I don't agree, but I have a few other angles I'll look at.  The obvious problem he has is playing ku.

Part of being a smart player and taking advantage of your skill set is knowing how refs generally call a game and taking advantage of that.  Hoskins is great at that, though yes he will get a game where calls don't go his way (see NU in Lincoln) but more often than not IMO its a great strategy.  He's going to continue to get guys guarding him that can't very well, and the best thing to do is attack the rim. 

While not a 100% indicator, generally teams that go to the line quite a bit (and hit a decent percentage) are successful in the win-loss column and they usually have 1 or 2 guys that get to line a lot.

[sys]

if that is his point, then it is stupid.  great shooters will occasionally shoot 1-15, guys great at drawing fouls will occasionally not get calls.  that doesn't negate the value of either skill.

[michigancat]

if that is his point, then it is stupid.  great shooters will occasionally shoot 1-15, guys great at drawing fouls will occasionally not get calls.  that doesn't negate the value of either skill.

No blog comments?

[sys]

i haven't had time to compose anything that seemed worthy of posting yet.

[yosh]

Rusty...I'm curious about the Walker numbers.  Was he consistantly bad during the six game stretch, or did the Xavier game kill his percentage?  I recall him knocking down several mid-range jumpers during the four Vegas tourny games.  I was really suprised to see those stats.

[michigancat]

Rusty...I'm curious about the Walker numbers.  Was he consistantly bad during the six game stretch, or did the Xavier game kill his percentage?  I recall him knocking down several mid-range jumpers during the four Vegas tourny games.  I was really suprised to see those stats.

I'm in the process of breaking things down game-by-game.  I'll look at the XU game next just to see how much it skews things.

[catzacker]

Rusty, when are you putting up the layup/dunk numbers?  I'm interested to see how many layups Blake Young misses and how many Hoskins makes. 

[michigancat]

Rusty...I'm curious about the Walker numbers.  Was he consistantly bad during the six game stretch, or did the Xavier game kill his percentage?  I recall him knocking down several mid-range jumpers during the four Vegas tourny games.  I was really suprised to see those stats.

He was 0-7 on 2J's in the Xavier game.  Throwing out the XU game brings his average up to 28%, which I guess is respectable when compared to his teammates.

*Side note:  KSU shot 1-17 on 2 point jumpers against Xavier.  1-17.  When you throw in the 4-15 on 3's, that's a sparkling 5-32 (15.6%) on jumpers.

Rusty, when are you putting up the layup/dunk numbers?  I'm interested to see how many layups Blake Young misses and how many Hoskins makes. 

Well, you'll just have to check the blog regularly, won't you?   

I'll try to update at least once a week - maybe more.  When you focus on one team, there's just so much you can do.  For the offseason, I'll probably alternate a season-in-review post with some of my favorite general stats posts from "gurus".

[cireksu]

I don't remember DH taking hardly any Jump shots last year.

[yosh]

Rusty...I'm curious about the Walker numbers.  Was he consistantly bad during the six game stretch, or did the Xavier game kill his percentage?  I recall him knocking down several mid-range jumpers during the four Vegas tourny games.  I was really suprised to see those stats.

He was 0-7 on 2J's in the Xavier game.  Throwing out the XU game brings his average up to 28%, which I guess is respectable when compared to his teammates.

*Side note:  KSU shot 1-17 on 2 point jumpers against Xavier.  1-17.  When you throw in the 4-15 on 3's, that's a sparkling 5-32 (15.6%) on jumpers.

Thanks!  I'll be checking the blog regularly.  Good stuff.   

[coitus]

the blog owner has to approve messages before they'll be posted?

shi+.

what a &@#%ing joke.

[michigancat]

the blog owner has to approve messages before they'll be posted?

shi+.

what a &@#%ing joke.

changed it back.  I'm figuring out how the software works as I go.

You had a valid point in your first comment, but I was seeing if "comment moderation" meant I could edit out your useless BS w/o completely deleting your post.

No approval required now.

[coitus]

 

[bigdeal]

Hoskins is a very good inside player.  The limitation to Hoskins is that he is too short to do what he does well.  He can get away with it and be successful most of the time.  However, against ku he faced several taller, more athletic, quicker players inside.  If he beat his man, there was another of similar talent.  I hated that matchup last year from before the 1st time we played them and it played out every time.  It is kind of like when players move up from high school to college, or college to the pros, the recruiters have to analyze whether the player has sufficient athletic ability to be able to do at the next level what they did at the previous level.  Hoskins is going to be very successful against most college teams but ku's team last year was perfect for giving him fits (add in the favorable "perception" calls they get, or don't get in this case, and he didn't have a chance).  This year, matchups will be different.  Teams won't be able to focus on him exclusively which will force backside defenders to stay home and he'll only have to beat one guy...also, hopefully, he improves his ball handling, quickness and outside shot...OK, his outside shot anyway. 

[Kat Kid]

The problem I have with sys' explanation: "great shooters will occasionally shoot 1-15, guys great at drawing fouls will occasionally not get calls.  that doesn't negate the value of either skill." is of course that I would nearly every time take a great shooter over a guy that is great at getting calls.  There is a pretty fundamental difference between being a good shooter and being good at getting to the free throw line because the shooters value is innate and not dependent on other circumstances.  Of course teams could double team the player, deny him the ball etc. but that would not take away the great shooters innate ability to shoot, it just modifies the environment that he has to shoot in.  A player that relies as much as Hoskins does at getting to the line has much more direct and varying influences on his game, players playing solid D, teams giving him jump shots instead of letting him drive the lane, denying him the ball, doubling down or most importantly the referees not calling fouls.  A referee has almost no ability to deny a great shooter his skill, but referees can have drastic effects on a player like Hoskins.

I decided to look at Hoskins free throw attempts on a home/road split:


Max   13
Min   0
Avg   5.75
Median   6





Max   13
Min   2
Average   7.47
Median   7

As one might expect, on the road Hoskins gets fewer calls.  Couple that with the other players I mentioned before who were similar to Hoskins (Zeno and Augustin) and it worries me a little more.  Both those players clearly have significantly better shooting range.  Both Zeno and Augustin shot around 44% from 3 (Zeno had half as many attempts as Hoskins, but one more make) so while I don't have the play-by-play data available for Hoskins I will assume they are better shots.  This makes Hoskins even weirder in my book.  I have a bias against Hoskins because I perceive him as one-dimensional, but I'm not sure if all this means he will collapse next year or that he is just a really unique player.

Thoughts?

[michigancat]

There is a pretty fundamental difference between being a good shooter and being good at getting to the free throw line because the shooters value is innate and not dependent on other circumstances.

That's false.  If an official allows aggressive hand checking or something, it affects a "good shooter" along with someone good at getting to the free throw line. 

[ksu_FAN]

Kid, I'll go the Hos is a unique player route.  He's a tweener, and has made the most of his situation here by becoming stronger and using his ability to his fullest.  There were a few games where he really struggled, but in Big 12 games he only had 4 games in single digits so to me he's a fairly consistent player.

He would be one dimensional in my book if he could only score in the paint, but not draw fouls or rebound effectively.  However, he showed he could do all 3; he was great at getting to the FT line and solid as a scorer in the paint and on the boards.  

If anything next year he will be more effective b/c he'll have at least 2 legit scoring threats (instead of 1) to take the pressure off.  He'll get better match-ups playing against SFs rather than PFs.  He should be able to maintain his scoring and rebound averages IMO and be an all league player for the 2nd season in a row.  He is unconventional, one of those good to great college players, but not a guy that will translate to the next level b/c of his skill set.

[Kat Kid]

Another thing to add about the data.  I did not include neutral site games (no TTech, ku in OKC or USC/NM in Vegas) and the numbers are in order. 

Road Conference play
I didn't add a trend line, but you can see that from the 12 on is conference play.  Seems like much more variance in the non-con (strength of opp/playing time) and a slight decline from the peak @ Mizzou and an average of 6 attempts per game on the road overall.

Home Conference play
The two 10s start off home conference play with TTech and Baylor.  Throw out the 2 (Chi St.) and also throw out the last two (NIT) then the interval is between 5 and 12 with an average of 7.75 ftapg.

[Kat Kid]

There is a pretty fundamental difference between being a good shooter and being good at getting to the free throw line because the shooters value is innate and not dependent on other circumstances.

That's false.  If an official allows aggressive hand checking or something, it affects a "good shooter" along with someone good at getting to the free throw line. 

Yes, but an official MUST call a foul to benefit Hoskins, a good shooter CAN overcome something like you're describing.

[ksu_FAN]

All I know is this; David Hoskins is a high quality consistent college basketball player.  In 2 years he only had 15 games where he didn't score in double digits, 2nd only to Cartier's 8.  And he 2nd on the team both years in scoring while being 2nd and 4th on the team in rebounding those seasons.  If he truly is a one dimensional player, he's a pretty darnd good one.

[coitus]

i love hoskins, great college player.  he's not a complete package, but he's plenty good to be a leader on a college team.

my only concern is how to split up the minutes between him, walker and beasley.  i know beasley can shoot from well beyond the arc, but his best stuff is still inside.  having our three best players all being better inside than outside just causes us to sit one of them.

[ksu_FAN]

i love hoskins, great college player.  he's not a complete package, but he's plenty good to be a leader on a college team.

my only concern is how to split up the minutes between him, walker and beasley.  i know beasley can shoot from well beyond the arc, but his best stuff is still inside.  having our three best players all being better inside than outside just causes us to sit one of them.

All three should be able to drive.  Isolate to one side and let them work.  I think all 3 on the side can work, as long as Stew or someone can spot up and hit jumpers when their man has to help. 

[Kat Kid]

All I know is this; David Hoskins is a high quality consistent college basketball player.  In 2 years he only had 15 games where he didn't score in double digits, 2nd only to Cartier's 8.  And he 2nd on the team both years in scoring while being 2nd and 4th on the team in rebounding those seasons.  If he truly is a one dimensional player, he's a pretty darnd good one.

Yeah, I'm not on a Hoskins hunt here.  I just was trying to explore the weirdness that is More FTM than FGM.

Personally I'm all for someone on my team getting two ftA @ 70% a piece rather than 1 2ptJFGA @ 38% I just am skeptical of Hoskins.  Maybe that is truly undeserved, but I just find him perplexing more than anything else.  It seems like he is overachieving.  That certainly isn't a bad thing, just a thing that makes me skeptical (yet fully prepared to embrace) of his continued performance on this level.