was thinking about bball today

[chum1]

The difference is less obvious when you compare groups of players against other groups of players where each player falls somewhere in that range.  Initially, I was thinking that what the assistant coach was saying was that almost none of the players met his standards.  Now, I'm thinking that he meant that almost all of them do.  So, we've got no worries.

[catzacker]

who will replace rodney and angel's production and do you think those indiviudals will produce at the same rate - further, if those individuals were on the roster last year, who will replace their production (and so on and so on).

i don't believe in the talent returning (or entering), therefore I don't believe they will produce like last year.  marginally or otherwise.

isn't it just that simple?

[Mixed-Nutz]

Youth is going to be a bigger issue then talent with this team. To compound that factor oscar is really bad a getting freshmen ready to play day one. One of the big questions is how long does oscar let this team fail with the motion offense before switching to a ton of ball screens for Jevon.

[Mr Bread]

This is probably true of most offenses, but when oscar doesn't have three-point shooters his teams struggle mightily to win games.  More than average I'd say.  His two worst records at Illinois (2007-08: 16-19 and 2011-12: 17-15) were also his two worst three-point shooting teams (31.9% and 30.4% respectively).  His next worst three-point shooting team was 2009-10 with 34.0%, which was the only other season he didn't make the tournament.  Fun fact, at Illinois if oscar's team shot below 34.9% from three they didn't make the tournament. 

The ksu purple go cats last season were at 36.2%, which was only bested by one of oscar's Illinois squads: 39.2% during the NC game season.  Point being, I haven't read of any of the incoming youngbloods being known as good outside shooters.  The primary reason that the wheels fell off for oscar on the court in his last season at Illinois was that he recruited a bunch of athletic guards that couldn't shoot the three well and that was with a lottery pick at center.  This would be my primary concern heading into next season for the fighting purples, just ahead of lack of height and depth in the paint. 

[pissclams]

well guys i don't know how good we're going to be next season but i hope we're good- really good

[EuroCat]

Well guys no point in recruiting any more. We're getting the same marginal players either way.

[Skipper44]

Well guys no point in recruiting any more. We're getting the same marginal players either way.

i would  say the staff  has already reached  this conclusion

[chum1]

who will replace rodney and angel's production and do you think those indiviudals will produce at the same rate - further, if those individuals were on the roster last year, who will replace their production (and so on and so on).

i don't believe in the talent returning (or entering), therefore I don't believe they will produce like last year.  marginally or otherwise.

isn't it just that simple?

There are many scenarios under which we could have worse talent this year yet a better season than last.  There are also many scenarios under which we could have worse talent this year yet better individual production than last.  There are also scenarios under which we get better individual production this year yet have a worse season than last.  You get the idea.  It's a complex issue, not a simple one.

[michigancat]

There are way more scenarios where worse talent leads to worse seasons and worse production

[catzacker]

who will replace rodney and angel's production and do you think those indiviudals will produce at the same rate - further, if those individuals were on the roster last year, who will replace their production (and so on and so on).

i don't believe in the talent returning (or entering), therefore I don't believe they will produce like last year.  marginally or otherwise.

isn't it just that simple?

There are many scenarios under which we could have worse talent this year yet a better season than last.  There are also many scenarios under which we could have worse talent this year yet better individual production than last.  There are also scenarios under which we get better individual production this year yet have a worse season than last.  You get the idea.  It's a complex issue, not a simple one.

fine.  run your monte carlo simulation and let me know what is says.  my catzacker modeling says that (perceived) less talented and less experienced players will not produce the same as (perceived) more talented more experienced players. 

[Kat Kid]

One thing I am absolutely confident of:  This team will be brutal to watch and Shane will have at least 10-15 great meltdowns during the season.

[chum1]

It just seems like sometimes we need a reminder that, while stars matter, we're not, in fact, talking about a 1:1 correlation between talent, whatever that is anyway, and wins - i.e. it is not that simple.  Furthermore, I have no idea what basis you guys have for these year to year player comparisons or, more importantly, why you have such high confidence in it.  I see things like people talking about players getting mentiond for just missing a top 150 list.  Things like those don't actually constitute very much to go on, do they?  Where does this high confidence in player comparisons come from? 

[Kat Kid]

It just seems like sometimes we need a reminder that, while stars matter, we're not, in fact, talking about a 1:1 correlation between talent, whatever that is anyway, and wins - i.e. it is not that simple.  Furthermore, I have no idea what basis you guys have for these year to year player comparisons or, more importantly, why you have such high confidence in it.  I see things like people talking about players getting mentiond for just missing a top 150 list.  Things like those don't actually constitute very much to go on, do they?  Where does this high confidence in player comparisons come from?

I agree with some of what you are saying, but now you are shifting ground.  It is much easier to project players in a program year-to-year than to project recruits outside of the top 25 to 50 which are significantly easier to project as solid contributors as their floor with varying ceilings.

If your point is that there is variance within player development in general, that's fine, but it isn't like "rough ridin' magnets how do they work?"  We can get a pretty good idea of what to expect from players based on a pretty limited number of metrics once they have a year under their belt.  I would guess that recruits are somewhat projectable in terms of the broad contours of the context of the roster of an NCAA tournament team. 

Obviously outliers would still exist, but I think we can acknowledge that we might know a bit about why they exist (superior coaching/underrated recruits or poor coaching/overrated recruits).

[sys]

chum1, my conviction that art, mcgruder and dob were well above average big 12 players (in dob's case on a per minute basis) is much stronger than is my conviction that the incoming players are below average incoming big 12 freshmen (in fact, i have pretty high hopes for the partial qualifier).

however, the conclusion that there will be a significant dropoff is little altered if, in fact, the incoming freshmen are better than i expect.

[michigancat]

Thanks for the reminder, chum.

[Mixed-Nutz]

Lack of experience is going to ass rape us. oscar has a guard oriented offense and we return EFFING Sprads. For crying out loud it took last year team half the season to figure out how to score and they had college basketball experience.

[chum1]

chum1, my conviction that art, mcgruder and dob were well above average big 12 players (in dob's case on a per minute basis) is much stronger than is my conviction that the incoming players are below average incoming big 12 freshmen (in fact, i have pretty high hopes for the partial qualifier).

however, the conclusion that there will be a significant dropoff is little altered if, in fact, the incoming freshmen are better than i expect.

Is that true for all teams?  8/10 of these well above average players are gone.

All-Big 12 First Team Pos. Ht. Wt. Cl. Hometown/Previous School(s)
Ben McLemore, Kansas G 6-5 185 Fr. St. Louis, Mo./Christian Life Center [Texas]
Jeff Withey, Kansas C 7-0 235 Sr. San Diego, Calif./Horizon
Rodney McGruder, Kansas State  G  6-4  205  Sr.  Washington, D.C./Arlington Country Day [Fla.]
Romero Osby, Oklahoma F 6-8 232 Sr. Meridian, Miss./Mississippi State University
Marcus Smart, Oklahoma State G 6-4 225 Fr. Flower Mound, Texas/Marcus
 
All-Big 12 Second Team Pos. Ht. Wt. Cl. Hometown/Previous School(s)
Pierre Jackson, Baylor G 5-10 180 Sr. Las Vegas, Nev./Desert Pines/ College of Southern Idaho
Will Clyburn, Iowa State  G  6-7  205  Sr.  Detroit, Mich./Romulus/Marshalltown CC/Utah
Travis Releford, Kansas  G  6-6  210  Sr.  Kansas City, Mo./Bishop Miege
Angel Rodriguez, Kansas State  G  5-11  180  So.  San Juan, Puerto Rico/Krop [Fla.]
Markel Brown, Oklahoma State  G  6-3  190  Jr.  Alexandria, La./Peabody

[sys]

no, it isn't.  there will be the same number of well above average players this year (although the value of the mean may be different), but i don't expect kstate to have as many (any) of them.

[8manpick]

I mean, we have one good basketball player coming back. One. Last year you could have argued for five. Martavious would be the second best player on this year's team.

[Mixed-Nutz]

I mean, we have one good basketball player coming back. One. Last year you could have argued for five. Martavious would be the second best player on this year's team.

Everybody is sleeping on Gib, but his value is diminished because he is a post in oscar's offense.

[8manpick]

I mean, we have one good basketball player coming back. One. Last year you could have argued for five. Martavious would be the second best player on this year's team.

Everybody is sleeping on Gib, but his value is diminished because he is a post in oscar's offense.

That and he is way too undersized and not athletic enough to be consistently good in big twelve play. Not to say he won't have some success against similarly limited players, but he is what, the tenth best center in the conference? Worse?

[ksupamplemousse]

I mean, we have one good basketball player coming back. One. Last year you could have argued for five. Martavious would be the second best player on this year's team.

Everybody is sleeping on Gib, but his value is diminished because he is a post in oscar's offense.

That and he is way too undersized and not athletic enough to be consistently good in big twelve play. Not to say he won't have some success against similarly limited players, but he is what, the tenth best center in the conference? Worse?

With the way that Drew and Self stockpile big men, I'm assuming he's worse.

[Mixed-Nutz]

I mean, we have one good basketball player coming back. One. Last year you could have argued for five. Martavious would be the second best player on this year's team.

Everybody is sleeping on Gib, but his value is diminished because he is a post in oscar's offense.

That and he is way too undersized and not athletic enough to be consistently good in big twelve play. Not to say he won't have some success against similarly limited players, but he is what, the tenth best center in the conference? Worse?

With the way that Drew and Self stockpile big men, I'm assuming he's worse.

Still sleeping. 

[chum1]

So, I haven't bothered to look at the schedule like I planned, but regardng 10 fewer wins:  how does this happen?  Our non con is pretty pud, I believe, so maybe 7 of those loses are to conference teams.  That cuts our win total from last year in HALF and has us finishing probably 7th or 8th.  That's the year after a first place finish.  And you account for this with the loss of two starters and a role player?  That's crazy.

[Mr Bread]

So, I haven't bothered to look at the schedule like I planned, but regardng 10 fewer wins:  how does this happen?  Our non con is pretty pud, I believe, so maybe 7 of those loses are to conference teams.  That cuts our win total from last year in HALF and has us finishing probably 7th or 8th.  That's the year after a first place finish.  And you account for this with the loss of two starters and a role player?  That's crazy.

If it happens, what will you chock it up to?