horrorsurprise

[sys]

Pomeroy said he makes a few dollars from advertisements on his site and has a small consulting deal with Baylor.

 

[Dr Rick Daris]

this site makes a small amount from advertising and pissclams has a consulting deal w/ the big green egg people. not much of a difference imo. seriously concerned that he actually might be dead this time though. 

[CatsFan_58]

this site makes a small amount from advertising and pissclams has a consulting deal w/ the big green egg people. not much of a difference imo. seriously concerned that he actually might be dead this time though. 

Poor clams. I hope he is not dead.

[KITNfury]

this site makes a small amount from advertising and pissclams has a consulting deal w/ the big green egg people. not much of a difference imo. seriously concerned that he actually might be dead this time though. 

Poor clams. I hope he is not dead.

Do you though? Would make for some incredible bbsing if he went out in some dramatic fashion.

[mcmwcat]

Basketball Number Cruncher Becomes a Go-To Guy
By PETE THAMEL
NEW ORLEANS — Well past midnight in the team hotel after Butler defeated Michigan State for a spot in the national title game last year, Bulldogs Coach Brad Stevens embarked on the biggest challenge of his coaching career. With less than 48 hours to prepare forDuke, Stevens flipped open his laptop.
He logged on to the basketball statistics Web site of Ken Pomeroy, a meteorologist based in Utah whom he has never met or spoken with. There, he found advanced data about Duke’s tendencies that helped him come within a missed shot of the national title.
Stevens is hardly alone. As the N.C.A.A. tournament enters its Round of 16, coaches are scurrying for the slightest edge. And it is becoming increasingly common for coaches to rely on Pomeroy’s statistics for scouting.
While they have not been universally embraced — programs like Connecticut and Richmond do not use them at all — advanced analytics have emerged as valuable preparation tools. Stevens uses Pomeroy’s numbers to seek trends in losses and to identify teams’ strengths and weaknesses. It is all part of trying to crack the code of the opposition.
“That’s one of the most fun things for me, personally,” Stevens said. “Trying to see if you can solve a puzzle.”
Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski is enough of an admirer that he has had Pomeroy on his radio show. Kevin Kuwik, a video coordinator at Ohio State, calls the statistics at KenPom.com “the bible” and the “first thing I look at every time I go into a scout.” The statistics resonate enough at Arizona that the assistant coach Archie Miller said jokingly that he would get the Ohio State assistant Brandon Miller a framed copy of KenPom’s offensive rankings after the Buckeyes finished No. 1 in Pomeroy’s regular-season offensive statistics.
“In most offices the water cooler gossip is about last night’s television shows,” Danny Peters, a graduate manager at Arizona, said. “We talk about KenPom.”
Pomeroy, who has a civil engineering degree from Virginia Tech and a graduate degree from Wyoming in atmospheric science, started researching statistics a few years back when he heard television announcers lauding Air Force for its defense. He hypothesized that the Air Force opponents’ low scoring came more from its patient offense, which limited possessions, than from a suffocating defense. Then he devised a formula that proved he was right.
Pomeroy’s statistics are often referred to as tempo stats because they take into account the pace of the game. So, instead of using traditional numbers like points per game to gauge an offense or a defense, his statistics are predicated on offensive and defensive efficiency, which is essentially points per possession.
For example, Virginia Military Institute was the top-scoring team in the country thanks to its run-and-gun style, but it is No. 198 in Pomeroy’s ratings.
Rebounding numbers can be misleading as well. A team may outrebound its opponent but lose by a large margin. Why? If the opposition is making a high percentage of its shots, there are fewer defensive rebounds to grab. That’s why Pomeroy calculates rebounding percentage as a more accurate gauge of a team’s rebounding ability. Arizona Coach Sean Miller values offensive rebounding percentage so much that he uses the statistic during timeouts and at halftime.
There are other helpful figures, like effective field goal percentage, turnover percentage and the percentage of points teams score and yield from the free-throw line.
“I’m not a math geek,” said the George Mason assistant coach Chris Caputo, who does all of the team’s scouting reports. “But it gives me a quick statistical synopsis of who they are before we watch tape and personnel. What do they do well? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Where do their points come from? It’s a snapshot of relevant statistics.”
Caputo is one of the few coaches who regularly talk with Pomeroy, and many coaches said they would pay for the information on his site. But Pomeroy gives it away for free, joking that he is waiting for a wealthy program to pay him a large amount of money to shut down the site and hoard the information.
Pomeroy said he makes a few dollars from advertisements on his site and has a small consulting deal with Baylor. But it is far from a windfall. Pomeroy, 37, said he spends about 20 to 30 hours a week on the site and watches college basketball another 10 to 12 hours a week. His full-time job is at the National Weather Service; he isn’t sure what the future is for his site.
“It’s something that I always ask myself, exactly where do I want this to go,” he said. “There’s a lot of conflicting thoughts about that. I don’t really have any basketball background.”
Pomeroy said he does a few write-ups each week for Baylor, crunching information not available on his site. He said he tailors the information to what Baylor is looking for, like studying opponents’ fast-break percentages, which can determine how many players Baylor sends to the offensive glass. He said one of the frustrating parts for him is how to better communicate the information.
“I wish I knew how I could tailor this information better to help coaches,” Pomeroy said. “I can’t communicate information the way that I read it because it will overwhelm them and make their eyes bleed. I feel like I need to whittle it down to two or three highlights.”
Programs like Virginia Commonwealth, Ohio State, Marquette and Butler use KenPom’s statistics as a complement to Synergy, a video scouting system that has become popular in the past five years. (The full Synergy package costs $5,000 to $7,000 each year.) Synergy is so advanced that the Butler assistant coaches Matthew Graves and Micah Shrewsberry said they could take a player like Old Dominion guard Kent Bazemore, whom they faced in their first game of the N.C.A.A. tournament, and find out that he drives to the right 75 percent of the time (despite being left-handed). The Synergy statistics back up what is shown in the clips. With a few clicks, Butler coaches can watch clips of every post move on the right block that Wisconsin forward Jon Leuer made this season and how many times he turned over his left and right shoulder.
“It reassures us what we saw,” said Darnell Archey, Butler’s coordinator of basketball operations.
When George Mason’s Mike Morrison missed his first field-goal attempt against Ohio State in the Round of 32, Ohio State forward Jared Sullinger pointed to Kuwik, the video coordinator, on the bench. He had used the go-to move that Kuwik showed Sullinger in film that week.
Stevens said one challenge is not to overwhelm the players with too much detail. Butler’s coaches focus more on showcasing clips of personnel and tendencies, which guard Ronald Nored said helped tremendously.
“There are two things that go into game planning,” Stevens said. “The players need to know things and I need to know things. They don’t always need to be equal.”
Marquette Coach Buzz Williams is a self-proclaimed “freak for numbers” and studies the KenPom rankings. But Williams said when Marquette does scouting breakdowns he gives the team three tendencies and two numbers on every player.
“I give them the highlights of what I know they have to know,” Williams said.
These days, there is plenty of information and film available. But for all the sophistication, there is a good chance that some of the teams who advance this weekend to reach the Final Four are relying on a meteorologist’s free Web site to form their game plan.

[mcmwcat]

why don't schools/athletic departments have someone on payroll for this type of statistical analysis.  ksu has a pretty good stats dept.

[sys]

why don't schools/athletic departments have someone on payroll for this type of statistical analysis.  ksu has a pretty good stats dept.

my understanding is that the synergy stats are extremely comprehensive, and everyone gets those.  i actually was really surprised to read this about staffs actually using kenpom.  i don't know what they're getting from that site that isn't in synergy.

[mcmwcat]

why don't schools/athletic departments have someone on payroll for this type of statistical analysis.  ksu has a pretty good stats dept.

my understanding is that the synergy stats are extremely comprehensive, and everyone gets those.  i actually was really surprised to read this about staffs actually using kenpom.  i don't know what they're getting from that site that isn't in synergy.

and how much are they paying for the extra content?

[kso_FAN]

It's funny that Bzdelik inspired Pomeroy to come up with his formulas.

And as far as why schools don't do this themselves, realize these formulas for stats are pretty new, and only have started to gain acceptance the last few years by media and/or coaches. Plus, Pomeroy hasn't hid how he comes up with the numbers, besides his tweaks for efficiency. Anybody can use the formulas and a spreadsheet to compile the same or similar data.

[MadCat]

"I wish I knew how I could tailor this information better to help coaches,” Pomeroy said. “I can’t communicate information the way that I read it because it will overwhelm them and make their eyes bleed."

[CNS]

"I wish I knew how I could tailor this information better to help coaches,” Pomeroy said. “I can’t communicate information the way that I read it because it will overwhelm them and make their eyes bleed."

Needs a partner.  One who can actually communicate with people.

[AbeFroman]

"I wish I knew how I could tailor this information better to help coaches,” Pomeroy said. “I can’t communicate information the way that I read it because it will overwhelm them and make their eyes bleed."

It sounds like something this guy would say:

[kso_FAN]

It's pretty clear kenpom is pretty proud of his own work on twitter... If he would just stop posting win percentages during games...

[sys]

and how much are they paying for the extra content?

The full Synergy package costs $5,000 to $7,000 each year.

[MadCat]

"I wish I knew how I could tailor this information better to help coaches,” Pomeroy said. “I can’t communicate information the way that I read it because it will overwhelm them and make their eyes bleed."

Needs a partner.  One who can actually communicate with people.

  Too bad that guy's set for life.

[michigancat]

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/xavier/2011/03/17/numbers-with-buzz-williams/

[MakeItRain]

It's pretty clear kenpom is pretty proud of his own work on twitter... If he would just stop posting win percentages during games...

Such a jackass