Best posts made by Jesse Newell

Hey Jaybate- You asked me about corner 3s in college. Dylan Burkhart of shotanalytics.com emailed me back with the stats. This from his email:

“With respect to avgs… 9.2% of (all) FGA are in one of the two corners (compare that to 23.7% are above the break threes). The avg percentage on corner threes is 35.4% and the average for above the break threes is 33.5%.”

So Hoiberg was right with his numbers. Corner 3s are more efficient than non-corner ones. I wonder which coaches know this and utilize it.

Just for fun, here’s KU’s shot chart this year compared to ISU’s.

How KU basketball (and Bill Self) get a 3.5% edge.

Media day is Thursday, so basketball is coming soon …

You guys always seem to enjoy a good discussion piece …

Bill Self’s story of toughness: “He was lucky that he ever walked again.”

Good stuff, HEM. I too went back to the tape to see what I had missed with Traylor … only to realize I hadn’t missed anything.

Hey guys — Hope you don’t mind me showing my face here.

Just wanted to let you know we’ve been doing live game blogs over at the CJ for the KU basketball games, in case you’re interested. It’s a little different setup with Cover It Live, but it has some cool features. Hoping to get some of the gang back together there, including (hopefully) Jaybate? We’ll see.

Shameless plug here, I know, but I figured the crowd around here would want to see this: 3 ways KU exploited New Mexico’s 2-3 zone.

It also shows how Frank Mason is behind Tharpe in attacking a zone and displays Self’s X’s and O’s with a smart set play that led to a dunk.

This will surprise no one … but KenPom. His projections are rarely more than 2 points off the Vegas line. His numbers aren’t perfect, but they’re as close as we have now.

@drgnslayr said:

@Jesse-Newell

I hate to beat a dead horse…

But I do have the golden question… I mean… the fools golden question!

Even if Cheick gains his eligibility, there will still be a question on whether or not we can effectively score in the low post.

Will we be running our typical hi-lo offense again? (regardless of the status of Diallo)

Will he be critical of our ability to maintain a high % from trey this year? Will it always be “fools gold?”

At crunch time do we go totally towards an emphasis on low post scoring? Even when it isn’t working?

And then other questions…

Will you be trying Wayne at the 3? Or… have you committed him to the 3 so we’ll watch him all year learn his new position?

Is Svi really as improved as some say? Should we expect him to earn a lot of PT this year, and if so, will it be at the 2 or 3?

I hear you on the 3-point questions. Though sometimes I feel like this when I bring it up …

Selden at the 3 is intriguing to me as well. He still will have to be the backup 2, correct? If not, who is? Svi? Definitely not Greene, which leaves his minutes in doubt if Selden is all 3 this year.

My daily assignment … plus I figured you guys would like this photo.

I’ve got a professional lurker if you need one, @jaybate-1.0.

There is no “i” in “Jesse.”

Here’s what it’s like to be Brandon Schneider. Have to assume Self goes through a lot of same tasks daily …

Just saw this. Thanks for all the kind words, guys … definitely appreciated.

Jesse, Who would you say is the most civil poster on kubuckets? If you’re not sure because you are new to the site, then I encourage you to base it on the posters’ names alone.

I’m going with Civilhawk. Do I win?

Think I got to most of your questions. Thanks for letting me chat. Check out the live blog here if you get a chance:

http://cjonline.com/blog-post/jesse-newell/2013-11-22/live-blog-ku-vs-towson

Just posted the Recap blog for those numbers folks out there.

@jaybate-1.0 No apology needed. We will take all the linking we can get at the CJ/Hawkzone.com. The point of the blog was to start discussion and not end it, so I’m glad that’s happening here.

@KUSTEVE I would think it has something to do with this change he made to his system before last season. Here’s an excerpt from that blog post.

“The most consistent exception is the impact on dominant mid-majors. Their movement tends to be more volatile since more emphasis is placed on postseason play when they finally get to battle teams of comparable strength.”

UConn isn’t technically a mid-major, but its conference took a hit a season ago. A quick glance, and the Huskies beat five top-21 KenPom teams to win the title, and each win was by 5 or more. I’m sure that helped, too.

@JayHawkFanToo A few random thoughts:

1. In the KU RPI story above, KenPom himself says the best method to seed teams would be to take a composite of the top ratings systems. That would eliminate outliers.

2. I think “Top 50” wins is a bad way to look at quality teams. Why not Top 25? Or Top 101? Or Top 213? Where is the game played? Winning on the road at No. 51 is much more impressive than at home vs. No. 5o, This kind of analysis doesn’t add these factors. KenPom does.

3. I don’t see the world in black and white. To me, a team’s strength is independent of its schedule strength. In 2003, Syracuse won a national title without playing a road noncon game. We always hear that scheduling hard is best … but is it true? I have no idea, but I’m not painting myself in that corner. Can a good team play a good noncon schedule? Yes. Can a good team play a bad noncon schedule? I would say the answer to that is yes too.

4. KU is knocked because of margin of victory. Wins and losses of each game don’t give us enough data … the scores (along with pace) tell us so much more. We only get 35 or so data points each year. Throwing away some of the most valuable information — how much you outscored your opponent per possession — seems silly to me, especially when that info is available.

@Crimsonorblue22 Assuming you just want KU, right? Here’s half 1 and 2:

@HighEliteMajor said:

@Jesse-Newell Excellent … thanks for posting.

Possible questions for Self:

1. Who is the presumptive starter at the 2 – Graham or Svi.? If the season were to start today.
2. Is Selden cemented as the 3.? Meaning, that’s his spot.
3. If you were to rank Mickelson, Lucas, and Traylor as far as minutes now, who would get the most, who would get the least?
4. If Diallo is not eligible to play, who is the odds on favorite to start the most games next to Ellis in the post?
5. Did you make any tweaks or changes to your offensive system from last season? Any hints on what those might be?
6. You said that you “learned a lot” from your experience at the WUG offensively, What exactly did you learn?
7. Can you explain why Traylor’s rebound rates are so incredibly low (meaning, as far a post players getting regular minutes, his is the worst rebounding rate aside from Justin Wesley since Self has been at Kansas).

I asked him No. 6 a few weeks ago. He was pretty vague will going back to the “giving players more freedom offensively” answer. I thought his previous comment about “learning a lot” was interesting too.

For No. 1, I can almost guarantee (if healthy) that it’s Graham. The coaches love him and want two ballhandlers out there together as much as possible.

Just to add to the discussion … would be shocked if Jamari didn’t start Wednesday. Self wouldn’t tip his hand on the big men, but he seems pleased with Jamari this year like every other.

As far as Traylor’s rebounding goes, I’ wrote about it here last year.

One final thing: The LJW’s Tom Keegan asked Self specifically about Traylor playing despite his poor rebounding numbers yesterday. Here’s the transcript:

Q. You had a lot of big guys, where can Traylor get on the floor, he hasn’t been a great rebounder, he’s not a naturally great scorer. Is it being disruptive?

BILL SELF: I think so. Just energy. Jamari has actually played better than he’s played at any point in time in his career or the last two weeks, so I don’t know who will start tomorrow night, but he certainly would be a guy that deserves to start as much as anybody else right now, but that doesn’t mean we’ll start him, just because we want to look at different combinations. We already know how he and Perry can play together, we may want to look at some different stuff. Not tomorrow night, Wednesday night.

Hey approx- A few things …

I don’t think you need to reinvent the wheel for a Q&A. I’d say just create a new thread, call it “Jesse Q&A” or whatever, then I can come at a set time and answer some of them with the quote function for a half hour or so. Maybe we could do that at 6 tomorrow, then at the end, I could provide a link to the game blog?

As far as sharing content … I think linking will work best for legal issues on both ends. For tomorrow at least, I can link back to the Q&A on your site to our live blog for anyone interested.

I’m checking on the public API for you.

Here’s a link to the last live blog. I think it has some neat features, but it’d definitely be a lot more fun with some familiar names in it.

http://cjonline.com/blog-post/ben-ward/2013-11-19/live-game-blog-iona-kansas

Hi there @Jesse_Newell! Great seeing you here. Love the idea of Q&A sessions and I’d be happy to hop over to CJ with whomever else wants to check out the live chat for the next game, if everyone is on board. I’d like to see what the format of the chat looks like, and was wondering if it would be cool if we cut and paste the chat log after its done on our board, with a link back to the original chat if you have it on your site. In addition, maybe you could take the Q&A sessions with us and post it over on the CJ if that makes sense for you.

Really excited to buddy up, and I’ve been thinking about how to automate the story postings here to update with links to stories on targeted sites in real time. It’s probably a longshot, but you guys don’t have a public API for that by chance do you?

@drgnslayr I really like your ideas on the Q&A format. I don’t know what level of effort Jesse will be able to put in right prior to the games, so I don’t know if we want to timebox it in that regard, but I do like the idea of building up a list of questions, and Jesse can cherry pick the ones he thinks yield the most intriguing responses. i do see your point that is he has the time to do so, before the game might be great as it would feed into the conversation of the game.

As for Jesse responding right below each comment, I’m beefing up my ability to modify the site, but this particular change is not going to happen fast – I’ve now built my linux virtual box, and today I researched and installed extensions that will help me develop in node js, and I’ve been looking around in the nodebb solution beyond the layout elements, but there will be a learning curve, and time and effort restrictions for me. So, trying to set realistic expectations. I do intend to try to nest comments, but it will probably take a while to get there, because that is a philosophical shift from everything the board currently does around notifying / updating threads, and I want to be careful.

That being said, I think we can alleviate confusion on what he is responding to if Jesse uses @ to address people, and the quote button on the left of the reply to reiterate the question. If he does this answers after an accumulation of questions from which he cherry picks, I think it might be easier for him to write a few more consolidated posts. This might be a more relaxed approach for Jesse, but I’d like to hear what @Jesse_Newell thinks about the format too.

Been told no API, but here’s an RSS feed for our KU stuff:

http://cjonline.com/rssfeed/44/media/fulltext

Jesse, you are a terrific and unexpected plus for this site. Thank you!

What are the chances that Mr. Wiggins will become an alpha dog this season? We seem to get OADs that are either underwhelming or team players, but not “put the team on their back” types. Is this inevitable in Coach Self’s system, or are we just waiting for the right game?

I’ve actually thought that Wiggins has been more “alpha dog” than I expected so far. He definitely had that look against Duke when he wasn’t in foul trouble (the stepback jumper showed that for sure).

Statistically, he’s taking 28 percent of KU’s shots, but only ending 22 percent of KU’s possessions. That might seem low, but it’s actually a good thing … it just means he never turns it over.

Self did give an anecdote about Wiggins yesterday, though, saying he’s a guy that won’t run as fast down the court after making three straight baskets because he feels like it’s someone else’s turn. Self wants to break that.

So yes, there’s still more “alpha dog” that needs to come out, at least in Self’s eyes.

Jesse,

Andrew Wiggins has been good - but not great offensively. He’s been efficient (except from 3) but not aggressive, as Parishawk mentioned above. I know its early, so sample size is low. But here’s my question:

Is there any clear statistical measure yet of how much Mr. Wiggins is effecting the game defensively?

Thanks. I’ll hang up and listen off the air.

As you know, it’s tougher to gauge a person’s defensive impact. Wiggins is leading KU’s regulars in steal percentage so far, which is a good sign for him, but also probably a bad sign for everyone else.

More impressive is his defensive rebounding percentage, which ranks in the top 400 nationally. He’s a big reason that KU is the No. 1 defensive rebounding team in the nation at this point.

For more in-depth defensive stats … Rockchalktalk.com is doing a defensive scoresheet, which is a little subjective, but gives a much better idea of how guys are playing than anything else out there. It’s definitely worth a look … they do one after each game.

Friendly reminder that the game blog is here for those not napping after their Thanksgiving feasts.

I’d be curious to see know how many of Wiggins points have come in the paint. Would KenPom have this?

@Blown, 22 of Wiggins’ 35 FGs have come at the rim, according to Hoop-Math.

Said this on WHB radio … Mason has a higher ceiling and is probably a better player, but Tharpe is a better fit on this team. Shots need to go to Wiggins, Ellis and Embiid in that order, and while he’s on the court, Mason has been hogging a lot of possessions. Tharpe more of a natural fit to be a ball-mover/role player on a team that really needs one.

@KUSTEVE Hey Steve - Respect your opinion.

Don’t know if you saw this, but KSU is 11th in the nation in free-throw defense. The Wildcats’ offense is terrible, they have no transition game and about an NCAA average bench. So why is KSU’s free-throw defense good?

I think it gets back to my main point … this is most likely a random stat.

One final question: I’m setting the line for KU opponent free throws at 65.5 percent (62 percent is what opponents have shot so far; 69% is NCAA average). Are you taking the over or under?

I’ll take the over. If you want to take the under, I think it’d be a fun thing to track the rest of this year.

Live blog is up for those who are interested …

@jaybate-1.0 Think we’ll be on the baseline this year. Should be able to report the aroma of the sweat.

@KUSTEVE Here’s my daily contribution … it’s as nerdy as you’d guess.

Not to hijack, but RPI is basically the worst measure out there.

KU manipulates its schedule to guarantee it’s high in the RPI. Any system that can be gamed shouldn’t be used.

Just for fun … that year Jack Harry said KU would be lucky to finish in the top 5 of the Big 12: here were the KenPom odds: KU 33.12%, MU 32.63%, BU 20.86%, Texas 7.23%, KSU 5.67%, OU .31%, etc.

@JayHawkFanToo Absolutely agree with you on No. 4 … a tougher schedule does mean you don’t have to win by as much to be considered a good team. I think what’s killing KU this year is its losses. Getting routed in two defeats (especially to Temple) drags down an otherwise strong resume.

@JayHawkFanToo Here’s the best way I can describe the way I look at it: Every team’s season is a book, and KenPom is able to read all the chapters.

A lot of the arguments that you made — and a lot of people make them — center on one team winning head to head or records against only certain teams. “Chapter 3 and 5 and 9 are good, so how can the book be bad?”

For me, KenPom’s computer is much better than me because it strips biases. Each chapter can add to the overall story. And teams can improve their stock even if they aren’t playing top 50 or 100 or 200 opponents.

In Michigan State’s case … it is the exact opposite of KU: It has lost every close game and blown out almost every other opponent. 30-point wins over top-100 KenPom teams should mean something. Losing an overtime game at Notre Dame (No. 14) also probably tells us MSU is better than its record.

We only get so many data points. Lots of people are content at stopping at head-to-head record or only looking at wins and losses. KenPom’s projection numbers, if you look, are almost a reflection of Vegas’ lines. And that’s because he takes each chapter of a team’s book into consideration.

@jaybate-1.0 Agree JB. Or even better, as Ken has suggested, take an aggregate of the top proven systems so that outliers are filtered out.

@JayHawkFanToo I didn’t think I was arguing Pom’s merits against Sagarin and Massey, which obviously are well respected as well. I can tell you that Pomeroy’s numbers almost directly reflect the Vegas line, which to me shows he’s right on the money in most cases. He also does test and retest and isn’t afraid to make changes if it improves his projections.

And I’ve got KU beating OSU by two.

Blog on the topic. I’ve been one of Alexander’s biggest supporters, but after going back to the tape, I can see Self’s beef.

@JayHawkFanToo He’s been fine stats-wise. Just think this is what Self does with certain guys. We always talk about how one of his best assets as a coach is that he gets talented guys to play hard for him. These tactics are one way he’s able to do that.

Yeah, I asked Dylan about it, and his hypothesis was that corner 3s almost never involve dribbling, which makes sense. Studies have shown that catch-and-shoot percentages are better than those that follow dribbling.

OSU 70-66. Devonte’ Graham.

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

Like I said, KU media days are tomorrow. Any topics (other than Diallo’s eligibility, of course) that you guys are particularly interested in?

Great suggestions, guys.

This one will be addressed tomorrow too, but CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein had today that Self said Greene was 80 percent and hoped he would be cleared to practice Friday.

@JRyman said:

@Jesse-Newell in sure it will get brought up but what about B. Green and his recovery and time table for return or if he will take a medical red shirt?

Thanks

What would we say WUG ball is? Selden at the 3 was probably the biggest difference, I’m guessing.

Love the avatar, by the way. Perhaps the greatest iPhone photo I have ever taken!

@ParisHawk said:

@Jesse-Newell Is Self still interested in continuing WUG ball during the season?

Come hang out if you’re interested …

With CoverItLive, you don’t need any account. Just scroll to the bottom to comment, put in whatever name you want, and you’re good to go. Might take a second to post (I haven’t gotten them to post automatically yet; still working on that), but once we see the comment, we’ll post it to the site.

And again this week …

Thanks @Wishawk. And just let me know about the Q&A @drgnslayr. Be happy to do it if there’s interest.

Thanks guys. Excited for the new opportunity. For now, just trying to get the word out that I’m over there now for those interested. Appreciate the positive feedback …