Early Season Player Evaluation

This blog definitely has been neglected — one post since March of 2011 — but I decided to run some numbers to get reacquainted with the Mid American Conference basketball scene.

What I did was use Points Over Replacement Per Adjusted Game, or PORPAG. I’ve written twice about this metric before — once when I performed a midseason check-up on the MAC last February and again after the MAC Player of the Year award was handed out.

PORPAG was the brain child of KJ over at The Only Colors, the Michigan State SBNation blog. Essentially what it’s measuring, though, is the marginal points a player is providing his team over a theoretical ‘replacement level’ player. It is adjusted for a three-year weighted average of the Conference’s tempo (possessions per game). If you’ve ever wondered how many points Player A brings to the table versus, say, the average 9-10 man on a MAC squad, this is the statistic for you. It does, however, say nothing about defense.

State of the Team: Dissecting the 0-6 Start

Like many, last years Western Michigan men’s basketball team raised my expectations for the 2011-12 season. However, unlike many, I felt that the optimism surrounding the squad should be tempered. Sure, you expect a team returning it’s entire core to be better. But, as Graham Couch outlined in a recent article, the non-conference slate was brutal. No, no, it was beyond brutal. The Broncos non-conference schedule was downright mean.

How bad, though, is it compared to other schools? The nature of the beast is that small schools cash pay checks in exchange for the privilege to be routed by a bigger, better school. To put it bluntly, the Broncos have played — and will play — one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country.

Who should be the MAC Player of the Year?

It’s been pretty dark around here as of late, but I wanted to chime in on the Mid American Conference Player of the Year Award which was handed out on Monday.  Kent State‘s junior Justin Greene took home the honors and it left me a bit puzzled. The MAC seems to vote the leagues best player from the team that won the better division (read: the East) and ditto for the Coach of the Year. I wasn’t alone in my bewilderment in that, as Matt Sussman pondered the same question over at The Hustle Belt.

So how will I attack this debate? I’m glad you asked.

Epic First Half for WMU, Cruise to Win

Graham Couch lays out just how nuts the first half was for Western Michigan versus the hapless Toledo Rockets. Actually, I’ll just let him set the scene:

Toledo’s Delino Dear pulled down an offensive rebound just to the left of the rim, jumped back up and, with one hand, scored over a couple of Western Michigan University defenders.

Light applause erupted from the University Arena crowd, along with a few merciful cheers.

Toledo had just scored its seventh point.

WMU had 43.

With 3:45 remaining in the first half.

So, that happened. WMU hit 17 of their first 22 shots, went 7-for-9 from three in that time frame, and jumped out to a lead that was insurmountable — though Toledo did try their best.

Kent State Beats Buzzer and Broncos

Kent State’s Mike Porrini hit a bucket with two seconds left to give the Broncos the L and finish with a 3-3 mark against the Superior Division.

By all accounts, the Broncos did everything they needed to do to beat Kent State and some of the statistics bear that out. WMU led them in shooting by posting a 48.3 effective field goal percentage to Kent’s 46.4 percent; got to the free throw line a ton. WMU had a 31.7 percent free throw rate and Kent had just a 17.1 percent rate.

However, WMU didn’t do two things particularly well. While it’s true that they rebounded 31.4 percent of their own misses, they also allowed Kent to grab 31.7 percent of their own misses. Also, the Bronco’s 31.4 percent offensive rebound percentage is worse than their average in conference play this season which made it a downfall as Kent State is the 9th worst defensive rebounding team in the MAC. Western should’ve dominated the offensive glass, which they didn’t.

Previewing Kent State

Western Michigan will belatedly complete their swing through the East Division of the Mid American Conference tonight as they host Kent State in a make-up game postponed by the blizzard a couple weeks ago.

Kent State comes in with an 8-3 league mark and 17-9 overall. Kenpom’s newly added conference only team stats show that Kent State’s been the fifth best team in offensive efficiency during MAC play (104.8) and the third best defensively (95.4). Western on the other hand is fourth offensively (104.7) but just seventh defensively (102.9).

What are Kent State’s weaknesses?

Flenard Whitfield Lifts Broncos to Victory over Illinois State

I’m a bit late with this, but Western Michigan downed the Redbirds of Illinois State 68-65 in their BracketBuster match-up on Saturday.

WMU struggled in a game without one of their newly go-to guys, Flenard Whitfield, falling behind by ten with just under two minutes left in the first half. The Broncos cut the lead to 33-26 heading into the break.

Western was down 39-28 with just three minutes gone in the second half, and at the 16:54 mark, Steve Hawkins gave Flen Whitfield the nod. Graham Couch gives the details from there:

At the time Whitfield entered the game — after staring at Hawkins for several minutes — WMU trailed 39-28.

A six-point possession — 3-pointers by Nate Hucheson and Alex Wolf, separated by a foul — three minutes later, began to turn the game on the scoreboard, trimming the deficit to 41-36.

The Broncos took their first lead, 49-48, on a baseline post hook-shot by Whitfield with 8:50 remaining.

Flen’s raw numbers won’t look phenomenal, but given his limited minutes, and the fact that I didn’t think he would even play, it’s arguably his best game of the season and maybe even his career.

Flenard Whitfield is Questionable for BracketBuster

Graham Couch writes that Flenard Whitfield is questionable for the BracketBuster game on Saturday against Illinois State.

Coach Hawkins acknowledges the quandry in that you want to rest for the Kent State make-up game on Monday, but you don’t want to punt your chances for Saturday’s game. While WMU isn’t likely bound for the NCAA or NIT tournaments, it’s still in the process of building a resume.

At this point, in my opinion, it’s best to sit Flen and that’s what I think Hawk will do — Graham said he got the same vibe in gathering the quotes for the story. Here’s hoping Matt Stainbrook can get back to form from 4-5 weeks ago and/or Nate Hutcheson or Demtrius Ward show up with huge nights.

Ohio Bobcat and Northern Illinois Recaps

I’m late in recapping the last two games, so I’m going to do it quickly since one could just go read the wonderful recaps written by Graham Couch for both games.

First, the Broncos beat Ohio 85-83 when a Bobcat three-ball didn’t go. That’s a big win for Western against an East Division foe, albeit not one of the better teams in that division on a tempo-free basis. Still, Western overcame getting beat on the offensive boards for one of the rare times in MAC play, turning the ball over more than Ohio, getting to the free throw line less than Ohio by shooting about 7% better than the Bobcats in effective field goal percentage.

Individually, the Broncos got good offensive games from Flenard Whitfield (27 points on 22 shots) and Demetrius Ward (22 points on 13 shots). Juwan Howard had 12 points as well, including a two-for-three night from behind the arc. Matt Stainbrook was non-existent, playing just ten minutes. Mikey Douglas had a hard time hanging onto the basketball, turning it over five times to his four assists. He did pour in ten points and pluck five rebounds, however.

Tempo Free Aerial: 2-16-11

One of the things I like to do with tempo free numbers is to compile the data for Points Per Possession for and against for each team in conference play. It’s basically been coined as the Tempo Free Aerial and gives you, at a quick glance, who have been by-and-large the best teams in a given conference. This is, essentially, the graphical version of what John Gassaway presents in his Tuesday Truths.

Click image to enlarge