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Miller vs. Gillispie this season

Published March 29, 2009 11:04 am UK basketball 6 Comments
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Just for the sake of discussion, let’s say Xavier’s Sean Miller is a serious candidate for the position of UK basketball coach.

If so, how did Miller’s Xavier team compare to Billy Gillispie’s Kentucky team this past season?

A chart:

Category Xavier Kentucky
RPI 17 79
Pomeroy ranking 20 49
Pomeroy tempo ranking 157 131
Pomeroy offensive ranking 50 78
Pomeroy defensive ranking 12 34
Sagarin ranking 20 51
Sagarin strength of schedule 60 71
FG percentage 45.9 48.1
Opp FG percentage 38.6 38.9
3-point percentage 39.4 35.3
Opp 3-point percentage 32.6 35.2
3-point attempts per game 17.3 15.9
Rebound margin +8.3 +4.9
Assists per game 13.3 15.7
Turnovers per game 14.6 16.9
Points per game 71.7 74.1
Opp points per game 61.9 66.3
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6 Responses to “Miller vs. Gillispie this season”

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  1. 1 Challen March 29, 2009 12:04 pm at 12:04 pm

    John,

    Can you explain the Pomeroy Tempo Rating? I couldn’t find anything on his site to explain it. The reason I ask may be obvious: I’m wanting to know if Miller plays an uptempo (run & gun, pressing) type game versus Gillispie’s slower approach.

    Thanks,
    Challen

  2. 2 John Clay March 29, 2009 12:27 pm at 12:27 pm

    Ken Pomeroy, who does a great job with stats, developed the tempo rating to determine how fast a team plays. It’s based on possessions per game. Because you can’t chart every game out there, he and others developed a possession formula as follows:

    field goal attempts – offensive rebounds + turnovers + (0.475 x free throw attempts)

    Pomeroy takes that to the next step by figuring a team’s opponent factor on the pace of the game — slow team vs. fast team, etc. — for an adjusted tempo figure. That’s the figure he goes by for the ranking I used.

    So, with an adjusted tempo ranking of 157 out of 344 teams, Xavier played at a slower pace than did UK, which ranked 131.

    Hope that helps.

  3. 3 Challen March 29, 2009 12:42 pm at 12:42 pm

    Thanks John. I was afraid the 157 made Miller’s team slower than Gillispie’s and that dampens any enthusiasm for Miller as a coaching candidate. This may sound like heresy from a Kentucky fan, but I think I would prefer a coach that plays more the Pitino style (90s) than a grind it out type coach, even if the grind it out style won a couple extra games each year.

    Perhaps it is asking too much, but I’d like a team that wins and is fun to watch as well.

    Challen

  4. 4 John Clay March 29, 2009 1:11 pm at 1:11 pm

    I don’t think that’s too much to ask. Often, they go hand-in-hand. Look at North Carolina.

  5. 5 JTapp March 29, 2009 1:39 pm at 1:39 pm

    Just a slight correction– Dean Oliver developed 90% of what is on Pomeroy’s site, including tempo. It’s in Oliver’s book Basketball on Paper.

  6. 6 John Clay March 29, 2009 3:10 pm at 3:10 pm

    I have Dean’s book. In fact, that is Oliver’s formula.

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