Tuesday, November 11, 2008

My current list of Seniors...

I have tweaked my analysis a bit.

I used the following process to analyze the players I wanted to watch this season:

I took a list of prospects and ranked the top 25 in the following categories:

Shooting: 1/3 Floor %+ 1/3 Effective Field Goal %+ 1/3 True Shooting %

Rebounding: 1/3 Defensive Rebounding Percentage + 1/3 Offensive Rebounding % + 1/3 Rebounds per 40 minutes

Usage Percentage: Estimate of the percentage of team plays a player uses while on the court.

Adjusted WINSCORE: I took David Berri's WINSCORE rating and adjusted it for RPI.

BoxScores: An estimate of player impact developed by David Sparks.

Offensive Rating: I use Dean Olliver's formula for determing a players points per 100 possessions.

Adjusted Indvidual Rating: I use RPI to adjust the Individual Rating formula I use on this site (borrowed liberally from Kevin Pelton.)

Each player is given a score equal to their rank in each statistic as long as the crack the top 25 for that stat. I group the shooting stats and then the rebounding stats to reduce the overall weight of those categories on the total score. The total score for each player is then adjusted by the RPI of their school (using 2007-2008 stats and RPI). For players that sat out 2007-2008 I use their 2006-2007 statistics.

Note that this analysis does not really identify the top 25 seniors in college basketball. Players statistics can be inflated by a player's conference or by the talent of their particular position within a conference. I have some remarkable mid-market players on my list that may not translate to the pros from a personal scouting perspective because of their height (post players are generally MUCH smaller in college), athleticism (much more important in the pros) and other factors as well. The list below reflects statistically INTERESTING players that I want to see play this season.

Megan Frazee
Liberty
Megan is a 6'3" G/F for the Liberty. She has a strong shooting score ~57% across the three categories I measure. She gets to the line quite a bit and shoots 10th in the nation from the line. While she doesn't shoot a lot of three pointers, she shoots about 35%. She is a solid rebounder, likely from her height advantage. She has a hig Usage Percentage, using around 30% of her team's possessions. Her Rebounding, adjusted Winscore, Boxscores and adjusted Individual Rating push her to the top of the list.

Courtney Paris
Oklahoma
Courtney is virtually everyone's #1 pick in the draft this year. She is a 6'4" center who has dominated her conference. Her low post game leads to strong floor percentages and effective field goal percentages. She is the best rebounder on my list by miles. Her adjusted Boxscores, Winscore, Rebounding, and adjusted Indvidual Rating are key to her place on this list.

Angel McCoughtry
Louisville
Angel is a 6'1" small forward and a solid thief. She has the best steals numbers of the more than 80 players I looked at. She is not a great shooter, but is a strong rebounder, and her solid Usage %, BoxScores and adjusted Winscore lift her to third on my list.

Robyn Fairbanks
Utah Valley State
Robyn put up fantastic numbers, unfortunately, 6'1" is simply too small for a professional center or even a power forward. She appears to be a solid shooter and rebounder, so if she has the athleticism and rebounding, she could be a small forward in the W or an undersized power forward. She is one of the best shooters on the list, and a top notch defensive rebounder. Shooting, Rebounding, Usage % and adjusted WinScore are her strongest areas.

Ashley Walker
California
Ashley is an undersized PF for the WNBA at 6'1". She has a great Floor % and is a fantastic offensive rebounder. She had the best BoxScores rating of my prospect list, with a strong adjusted WinScore, decent rebounding and adjusted Individual ratings.

Danielle Gant
Texas A&M
Danielle is a 5'11" small forward with strong offensive rebounding and decent shooting skills. Her strength was in her RPI adjusted Indvidual Rating, and WinScores as well as her BoxScores rating.

Traci Edwards
UW Milwaukee
Traci is another undersized post at 6'2". She has the shooting numbers and rebounding numbers to play the power forward position in the WNBA off the bench. Her RPI adjusted WinScore and Individual Rating, combine with her shooting and rebounding to make my top 10.

Kristi Toliver
Maryland
Consensus says that the 5'8" Toliver is the best senior point guard, and I agree. Her true shooting percentage, BoxScores and adjusted Individual Rating make her #8 overall. She has a 1.69 assist to turnover ratio, assisting on 59% of her possessions and turning over 28% of them. She is also a decent overall shooter.

Kristi Cirone
Illinois State
This Kristi is another 5'8" guard, but she is a better shooter than Toliver. She has a great adjusted Individual Rating, and shows strong in BoxScores and adjusted WinScore. She has a 2.87 assist to turnover ratio, assisting on 61% of her possessions and turning over the ball on 25% of them.

Marissa Coleman
Maryland
My second Maryland player is a 6'1" small forward. Marissa is a decent shooter with excellent BoxScores, adjusted Individual Rating and adjusted WinScore.

Laura Kurz, Villanova
Shalee Lehning, Kansas State
Chante Black, Duke
Lindsay Wysdom-Hilton, Purdue
Jhasmin Player, Baylor
Kia Vaughn, Rutgers
Nadia Parker, USC
Devanei Hampton, California
Sade Logan, Robert Morris
Kaitlin Sowinski, Sacred Heart
Mandy Morales, Montana
Renee Montgomery, UCONN
Candyce Bingham, Louisville
Rashanda McCants, North Carolina
DeWanna Bonner, Auburn

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Definitely interesting rating. I'm going to have to do even more number-crunching when I get home. I don't have my full spreadsheet with me, so I can't do it now.

I'm wondering if some of the stats on your list are correlated, in other words, if there's already such a strong link between usage and boxscore that you're giving double bonuses (or double penalties). On the other hand, I heartily approve of Wins Score as opposed to Efficiency. I've been toying with the idea of an "altered wins score" that puts more of a premium on offensive rebounding.

Patrick said...

pt- you have a point on the similarity between usage and boxscore...i focused on eliminating repetitive rebounding and shooting, but the composite elements between usage and boxscores are similar. Strangely though, they don't line up when you look at the player results. Most of the top Usage players don't even rank in BoxScores.