I finally have completed the acquisition of all Division I team data since 2002, and from that I've seen some fascinating trends and relationships in the data. In this daily series I'll present some of the most interesting data.
We'll start with scoring. The graph shows total points per game, by year, for the last 23 seasons, through this morning (242,432 games in all). Because the NCAA's data only goes back to 2002, we'll start from that point. The grey line shows the annual average for all of Division I, while the green line shows the scoring average for teams that made the NCAA tournament that year. Surprisingly there is little difference in the overall scoring for tournament compared to the national average.
The national average, incidentally, is trending upward at a rate of 0.29 points per game, but it isn't a consistent rise at all.
Unsurprisingly, UNC, shown in blue, has had significantly higher scoring games than the rest of the nation. It's difficult to conclude anything about that, however, without considering Game Tempo, which will be coming at a later date.
Next up: Total Possessions per Game (Tempo)
We'll start with scoring. The graph shows total points per game, by year, for the last 23 seasons, through this morning (242,432 games in all). Because the NCAA's data only goes back to 2002, we'll start from that point. The grey line shows the annual average for all of Division I, while the green line shows the scoring average for teams that made the NCAA tournament that year. Surprisingly there is little difference in the overall scoring for tournament compared to the national average.
The national average, incidentally, is trending upward at a rate of 0.29 points per game, but it isn't a consistent rise at all.
Unsurprisingly, UNC, shown in blue, has had significantly higher scoring games than the rest of the nation. It's difficult to conclude anything about that, however, without considering Game Tempo, which will be coming at a later date.
Next up: Total Possessions per Game (Tempo)
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