What's new
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

Projecting Josh Scott & Xavier Johnson's Numbers For 2012-13

Goose

Hoops Moderator
Club Member
Junta Member
Drew Cannon on KenPom's blog, did a statistical projection for the top 100 recruits in the nation. Because Tad Boyle is a badass, we actually have two players on that list. His projections (note: he mentions that they're not team specific, and actually mentions Scott by name saying his rebound numbers are high because it doesn't factor in that he's playing with Dre. He also warns that the projections are a touch optimistic):

ORtg%PosOR/DR%A%TO%B/S%FC/40FTRFT%2P%3P%3PA%
J. Scott1011911/175197/15.45159%51%15%7%
X. Johnson98187/1310202/2%3.83466%48%32%42%

For comparison's sake, here are a few Buffs numbers from last season.
ORtg%PosOR/DR%A%TO%B/S%FC/40FTRFT%2P%3P%
A. Booker96.525.13.3/11.214.819.10.2/2.13.240.576.2%41.4%37.2%
C. Brown102.424.63.7/11.317.216.71.1/1.62.326.772.3%52.9%30.7%
S. Dinwiddie111.019.43.1/11.913.615.81.0/1.63.459.881.6%38.0%43.8%
A. Dufault107.721.26.6/12.28.013.41.0/1.23.934.168.9%51.8%35.9%
A. Roberson108.721.912.7/29.68.816.56.8/2.63.156.861.4%53.7%38.0%
 
Looking over those numbers (and I'm sure JG will have a lot more to say about this), here are my initial thoughts:

* The battles for rebounds next year are going to be unreal. It's going to be a joy to watch.
* Surprised X's offensive rating is so low. 98 isn't bad, but as you can see it's kind of low. If X is starting (like many expect), I think it would be a touch higher. If he's in a Ski role where he's coming off of the bench and playing with slightly less talented players, then that makes sense to me (note: I just saw his 3PA%. If it is that high, and he's only a 32% shooter, then that explains that).
* Josh Scott is projected to have a higher blocked shot percentage than Dre. This is where I have to remind myself that it's harder for freshmen big men to adjust to the game in college and that these projections are slightly optimistic. Because DAMN.
* Surprised to see FT% so low on both of them. Wondering the thought process behind that one.
* The Mayor's numbers are unreal. I know I'm ridiculously high on the kid, but damn. I'd like to see his assist numbers go up, and his 2P% number seems really low, but even with that he still had the highest offensive rating on the team (and I believe it was top 250 in the nation as well). As a freshman. I said it to 'Nik at a game in December, but I honestly wonder if we're going to get a full four years from The Mayor.
 
Wow. If that is anywhere near correct, those guys should be on the free throw line practicing now.
 
Wow. If that is anywhere near correct, those guys should be on the free throw line practicing now.

Ha. Do you guys remember that year during Patton's reign where FT shooting was absolutely atrocious, so he had to hire a coach just to teach FT's? Man that was bad
 
Looking over the projections, FT% is down on EVERYONE. So I'm betting it's something with the system, rather than individual players. In a quick scan, the highest % I saw was 73%.
 
I just have a hard time understanding what data he's basing these projections on. Summer league, AAU competition? High School stats? Historical comparisons? All of those are skewed by varied level of opponents, and the veracity of the reporters, and assumptions based more on randomness than reality.

It's not that I'm saying his numbers are too high or low, I'm just saying that I get the general impression that they're an average of what he pulled out of his ass (that came off meaner than I originally intended; I just wish he had provided more source details).
 
I just have a hard time understanding what data he's basing these projections on. Summer league, AAU competition? High School stats? Historical comparisons? All of those are skewed by varied level of opponents, and the veracity of the reporters, and assumptions based more on randomness than reality.

It's not that I'm saying his numbers are too high or low, I'm just saying that I get the general impression that they're an average of what he pulled out of his ass (that came off meaner than I originally intended; I just wish he had provided more source details).

Agreed. And he admits that it's a work in progress. It sounds like most of them come from the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League.
 
Some PAC-12 players from the list.

ORtg%PosOR/DR%A%TO%B/S%FC/40FTRFT%2P%3P%3PA%
G Jerrett (Arizona)1012012/178186/24.54758%50%22%9%
K Tarczewski (Arizona)1012111/186208/24.75357%52%12%3%
B Ashley (Arizona)1032111/168184/24.34564%50%25%12%
G York (Arizona)97195/1014192/23.52864%45%29%42%
D Artis (Oregon)97212/923231/23.43972%44%29%40%
G Verhoeven (Stanford)951710/164236/25.64955%51%17%7%
T Parker (UCLA)1022011/168194/24.64364%50%25%12%
K Anderson (UCLA)104228/1511173/23.14167%51%25%26%
S Muhammad (UCLA)116247/1611144/22.34871%56%28%29%
J Adams (UCLA)101207/1311192/23.53468%48%27%28%
J Loveridge (Utah)95196/139201/23.74065%47%26%31%
 
A couple of things jump out to me on this. Rebounding, CU should be a much better at team rebounding. Obviously Dre is an elite rebounder, but CU as a team was a terrible at team rebounding. The other thing is the projected TO% for Smith and Johnson, for two guys that will spend a good amount of time in the post, projecting for them to turn over the ball 1 out of every 5 times they touch the it seems concerning.
 
Agreed. And he admits that it's a work in progress. It sounds like most of them come from the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League.

I emailed back and forth with him a bit on this in April when he was running the numbers for the Nike Elite Camp, he has done this before and with the full stats being kept this year he was pretty confident that his projections would be solid, not just a stab in the dark.
 
Better be doing that anyway. Atrocious ft shooting cost us multiple games last season

This wasn't actually the case. The FT shooting was atrocious in the first few games of the season but did get dramatically better as the season went on. Outside of the CSU game where CU went 13-29 from the line no other game in the season can be said to be lost b/c of FT shooting.

As a team CU shot 68.4%, Dufault, Brown and Tomlinson weren't great FT shooters, so if these Frosh can come in and shoot around 70% I won't be too worried about team FT shooting.
 
This wasn't actually the case. The FT shooting was atrocious in the first few games of the season but did get dramatically better as the season went on. Outside of the CSU game where CU went 13-29 from the line no other game in the season can be said to be lost b/c of FT shooting.

As a team CU shot 68.4%, Dufault, Brown and Tomlinson weren't great FT shooters, so if these Frosh can come in and shoot around 70% I won't be too worried about team FT shooting.

Not sure how you could possibly be content with it. In our most crucial part of the season, we were still shooting in the 50's and low 60's. That's not acceptable. For instance, 9/18 against Utah in the Pac-12 tournament, 8/14 against Oregon in the Pac-12 tournament, 10/16 against Arizona in the Pac-12 tournament, 17/27 against UNLV in the Big Dance.

You're right that we lose a lot of the top suspects in poor foul shooting, but I wouldn't just assume the freshman will come in and automatically be better. This was a problem throughout last season. We'd seemingly make progress and then take a big step back. It needs work.
 
Not sure how you could possibly be content with it. In our most crucial part of the season, we were still shooting in the 50's and low 60's. That's not acceptable. For instance, 9/18 against Utah in the Pac-12 tournament, 8/14 against Oregon in the Pac-12 tournament, 10/16 against Arizona in the Pac-12 tournament, 17/27 against UNLV in the Big Dance.

You're right that we lose a lot of the top suspects in poor foul shooting, but I wouldn't just assume the freshman will come in and automatically be better. This was a problem throughout last season. We'd seemingly make progress and then take a big step back. It needs work.

On the season as a whole CU was an average FT shooting team last year and was 7th in the Pac-12, would I like to have a year were Alec, Cory and Levi were all shooting near 90%? Of course I would, but that isn't realistic. This isn't the NBA, college teams as a whole don't shoot 80% from the line (1 in all of college basketball did last year). All of those games you reference, CU won all of them, maybe it isn't acceptable and it is probably lucky FT shooting didn't cost them more games but it didn't.

I honestly don't think that asking the Freshman as a whole to 70% should be a stretch, but Dinwiddie shot 82% and Ski shot 76%, so it can be done.
 
This wasn't actually the case. The FT shooting was atrocious in the first few games of the season but did get dramatically better as the season went on. Outside of the CSU game where CU went 13-29 from the line no other game in the season can be said to be lost b/c of FT shooting.

As a team CU shot 68.4%, Dufault, Brown and Tomlinson weren't great FT shooters, so if these Frosh can come in and shoot around 70% I won't be too worried about team FT shooting.

I have forgotten where I saw it, but they are now tracking NBA clutch free throws. I am curious to see where Nate and Brown rank on that scale.
 
I have forgotten where I saw it, but they are now tracking NBA clutch free throws. I am curious to see where Nate and Brown rank on that scale.

ESPN and 82games.com both track this for the NBA. The notion of "clutch" is actually a pretty hotly debated topic. In the book Scorecasting they spend a chapter investigating the notion of "clutch" and "icing players" and there conclusion was that they don't exist.

Here is a pretty good article on it as well:
 
ESPN and 82games.com both track this for the NBA. The notion of "clutch" is actually a pretty hotly debated topic. In the book Scorecasting they spend a chapter investigating the notion of "clutch" and "icing players" and there conclusion was that they don't exist.

Here is a pretty good article on it as well:
Never has the statement "good article" ever pointed to a bleacher report article before... All kidding aside, the article is fine. I might have to check out Scorecasting though.
 
Never has the statement "good article" ever pointed to a bleacher report article before... All kidding aside, the article is fine. I might have to check out Scorecasting though.

Bleacher report sucks, I just typed in "debunking clutch in the nba" in the google and that was the first that popped up, so I was lazy and just linked to that.

Scorecasting is a pretty fascinating book. Think of it as the Freakonomics of sports books.
 
JG would probably be able to describe it the best, but Goose can probably piece together an explanation if he needs to.

JG is EASILY the most knowledgable stat person here. Anyone who busts out a spreadsheet in the middle of a bar in Albuquerque has earned that title.
 
Back
Top