Conclusion
One of my "Someday" projects has been to gather basketball data and test Dean Smith's possession theory against those of Dean Oliver, Ken Pomeroy, and the like. I also wanted to see how the game has changed. Getting the data for this project was always too expensive of a proposition. Over the past few years I've downloaded certain NCAA.org tables at tournament time, but the idea of downloading 16 tables for each of the 23 years, lining all of the teams up on a spreadsheet, and cleaning up the columns seemed like a daunting task.In late January I discovered a deep link to those NCAA tables, and using software that I wrote, I was able to get the data into CSV files for each year, then import them into Excel pretty easily. Updating this year's stats each morning now takes all of 8 seconds for me, and you can download these daily updates using the link in the resources below.
I learned much in this journey. I've been focusing on too many variables and on the wrong variables. Knowing that the modern theory of points per possession and Dean's theory are, in the end, equivalent, now has me pondering a conversion of all of my data so that it can be equated with today's public conversations. (Though I still maintain that Dean's method is a more pure assessment of each offense and defense).
Does all of this make the NCAA Tournament make more sense? Probably not. A large one-and-done tournament is a pretty silly way to determine what the best team is. It's till The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, though.
Resources
NCAA.org Stats Deep Link
- year: Substitute the year (2002-).
- Ranking_period: The list of periods is revealed if you View Source in your browser, and find the line that says:"<select name="rp" id="rp" onchange="mask('Processing'); changeRankingPeriod(this.value);">. Currently they are posing 142.0 for the 03/10/2024 update, and that number doesn't consistently increase by 1 each day for some reason. They update this page daily these days, but in early years it was only occasionally.
- sport_code: You can change the sport_code entry and dig into all of the other NCAA sports.
- seq: This is the numeric code for the stat of interest. The stats I used are:
| Ast, TO | 474 |
| Blocks | 214 |
| FGs | 148 |
| FGs-Opp | 149 |
| PF, DQs | 286 |
| FT Shooting | 150 |
| Rebounding | 932 |
| Points, Opp Pts | 147 |
| Steals | 215 |
| 3pt FG Shooting | 152 |
| 3pt FG - Opp | 518 |
| Wins, Losses | 168 |
Opponent Stats
Not many opponent stats are offered by the NCAA, but TeamRankings.com has this info. Their links are in plain, readable English, and look like this:Click around there and pay attention to the Address Bar and you'll see the links to their pages easily.
Dean Smith's Book
Dean Smith's book is available in some bookstores, but also at Amazon.KenPom Stats Explanation
KenPom.com has the KP stats, but the explanation of the stats is here.Daily Stats Update
My daily CSV of this season's NCAA stats can be found in this directory:ACC Press Release
The ACC's often-updated Press Release is at this address. It is excellent, especially going into the tournament:Table of Contents
- Points Per Game
- Possessions Per Game
- Field Goal Percentage
- Field Goal Percentage Breakdown (3pt, 2pt, %from 3)
- Effective Field Goal Percentage
- Free Throw Percentage
- Winning Percentage Prediction
- Percentage Loss of Ball
- Assist to Turnover Ratio
- Assists Per Made Field Goal
- Tournament Selection Prediction
- Possession Differential (Rebounding)
- Offensive Rebounding Percentage
- Opponent Field Goal Percentage
- Opponent Field Goal Percentage Breakdown (3pt, 2pt, %from 3)
- Effective Field Goal Percentage Allowed
- Percentage Loss of Ball Forced
- Percentage Loss of Ball Forced vs. Points Per Possession Allowed
- Opponent Offensive Rebounding Percentage
- Points Per Possession History at UNC
- Points Per Possession National History
- Points Per Possession Against Winning Percentage I (Smith and Modern)
- Points Per Possession Against Winning Percentage II (Smith and Modern)
- Is KenPom Any Good (Winning Percentage)?
- Predicting Tournament Success
- State of the Game
Thank you for sticking through this. I originally thought this would take about 10 installments, but I kept discovering more interesting correlations, trends, and exceptions.
