Impact Transfers?

John Gasaway was recently asking about the biggest impact transfers. I’m not going to answer his question, but I will agree that most transfers do not have a huge impact. Here is a list of former RSCI top 100 recruits who debuted with a new team last year. I limit this list to players who played at least 10% of the minutes for their new and old team. The old team is listed first and the new team just below that.



There are a few players that improved and took on a larger role in the new environment, notably Magnum Rolle and Vernon Goodridge. Most took on more playing time but were not substantially better. For example, Anthony Gurley of UMass doubled his minutes, but not his efficiency. And then there are players like Reginald Delk at Louisville who saw his minutes fall off a cliff, but at least he got to play for the Big East champions.

Still, I'm surprised by the large number of players whose efficiency gets worse in the new environment. Maybe Mike Mercer had limited time with South Florida, but he was not effective last year. And Marcus Johnson found USC was even less forgiving than UConn.

Will Top 100 recruit Curtis Kelly, another UConn transfer, really fare better at Kansas St.? And what about Wesley Johnson at Syracuse? Johnson wasn't a top 100 recruit, but he certainly took a lot of shots at Iowa St. Time to find out. The season is almost here.

Printable Brackets (Fall Edition)

My favorite week of the season is the first week of the NCAA tournament. My second favorite week is Championship Week. And my third favorite week would be Feast Week, with all the holiday tournaments, except that this year I’ll be spending most of Thanksgiving week with family and no internet or cable access. (Hey, family is important too.)

All the major websites have already previewed the Thanksgiving tournaments months ago, and most major websites even have a complete directory of these types of events. And Chris Dobbertean already did a fantastic job breaking the tournaments down by conference. But that won’t stop me from breaking down the brackets on my own.

There are 73 teams in the six BCS conferences. 34 BCS teams participate in eight real tournaments with real printable tournament brackets.
Charleston Classic – November 19, 20, 22
Puerto Rico Tip-Off – November 19, 20, 22
Paradise Jam – November 20, 21, 22, 23
Maui Invitational – November 23, 24, 25
Preseason NIT – November 16, 17, 25, 27
Old Spice Classic – November 26, 27, 29
76 Classic – November 26, 27, 29
Diamond Head Classic – December 22, 23, 25
I’ve said it a million times, but I’ll say it again. Printable brackets are fun. Why do you just print out the NCAA tournament bracket? Print these out too.

21 BCS teams participate in eight hybrid tournaments. These are four team tournaments where the four teams also get two free home games out of the tournament. These are an abuse of the “exempt tournament” rule to some degree, but at least there’s a real tournament at the end. The Gazelle Group events (* below) have a printable tournament bracket. Sadly the rest of the tournaments do not. I recommend you make your own mini-brackets and fill in the match-ups manually. The date listed is for the four team tournament and ignores the preliminary rounds since those do not count anyhow.
2K Sports Coaches vs Cancer Classic* – November 19, 20
CBE Classic* – November 23, 24
Cancun Challenge – November 24, 25
Legends Classic* – November 27, 28
Chicago Invitational Challenge – November 27, 28
Las Vegas Invitational – November 27, 28
South Padre Invitational – November 27, 28
Las Vegas Classic – December 25, 26

2 BCS teams, Oklahoma and Washington St., participate in the Great Alaska Shootout. The tournament which has been struggling for over a year (bottom story in Andy Katz archive) looks like it is on its last legs now that it is no longer televised by ESPN. For those of us who have been following these holiday tournaments for years, it is sad to see such a historic tournament struggle. Consider the late 1990’s when teams like Kansas, Duke, North Carolina, and Kentucky were making the trip to Alaska and winning the tournament on a regular basis. Now the field consists of six teams in two round robin pods, where the winners will meet in the title game.

12 BCS teams participate in creative tournaments. To me these tournaments just look like a way to abuse the “exempt tournament” rule. Find yourself limited to 29 games by the NCAA? Add a creative tournament and you get more games! The worst offenders are Providence, Washington, and Oregon who “host” round robin events. But really these are just events where the schools get 3 home games in 3 days between November 13th and 15th. Texas Tech also participates in one of these tournaments from November 13th to 15th, but at least Texas Tech had the dignity to invite another BCS team in Oregon St. Kansas, Memphis, Arkansas, and Louisville also participate in one of these sham tournaments with three home games against small schools. The only difference is that in their “tournament”, there will be a pair of neutral site games, Kansas vs Memphis, and Arkansas vs Louisville. Finally, the Glenn Wilkes Classic and Philly Classic are a bunch of home games and neutral site games all bunched together in a format that makes sense financially, but really is not a tournament. NC State and Auburn take advantage in the Glenn Wilkes Classic, and St. John’s and Virginia Tech take advantage in the Philly Classic. That’s not to say that some of these events won’t produce good games. But when every game is scheduled ahead of time, this seems like an abuse of the “exempt tournament” rule to me.

Only 4 teams do not participate in an exempt tournament this year: Wake Forest, Georgia, Georgetown, and Seton Hall.

Of course the real winners from these tournaments can be the mid-majors who get to play a BCS team on a neutral floor. Here are some of the non-BCS teams that play in one of the eight legitimate tournaments listed above, one of the eight hybrid tournaments listed above, or the Great Alaska Shootout. I ignore the creative pre-scheduled tournaments and tournaments that do not involve a BCS school.

MWC
BYU – Las Vegas Classic
TCU – Preseason NIT
Utah – Las Vegas Invitational
UNLV – Diamond Head Classic

A10
Charlotte – Preseason NIT
Dayton – Puerto Rico Tip-Off
La Salle – Charleston Classic
Richmond – South Padre Invitational
St. Joseph’s – Paradise Jam
St. Louis – Chicago Invitational Challenge
UMass – Legends Classic
Xavier – Old Spice Classic

MVC
Bradley – Las Vegas Invitational
Creighton – Old Spice Classic
Indiana St. – Preseason NIT
Northern Iowa – Paradise Jam
Wichita State – CBE Classic

CUSA
East Carolina – Paradise Jam
Houston – Great Alaska Shootout
Tulane – Charleston Classic
Tulsa – Las Vegas Classic
SMU – Diamond Head Classic

CAA
George Mason – Puerto Rico Tip-Off
Hofstra – Preseason NIT
Northeastern – Diamond Head Classic
Old Dominion – South Padre Invitational
UNC Wilmington – Charleston Classic

WCC
Gonzaga – Maui Invitational
Portland – 76 Classic
St. Mary’s – Diamond Head Classic
San Diego – Great Alaska Shootout

Horizon
Butler – 76 Classic
Cleveland State – Cancun Challenge
Wisconsin-Milwaukee – Preseason NIT

WAC
Nevada – Las Vegas Classic
Hawaii – Diamond Head Classic

Big West
Long Beach St. – 76 Classic
Cal State Northridge – Preseason NIT

Southern
Davidson – Charleston Classic
College of Charleston – Diamond Head Classic
Elon – Preseason NIT

Other D-1
Boston University – Puerto Rico Tip-Off
Coastal Carolina – Preseason NIT
Colgate – Preseason NIT
Iona – Old Spice Classic
Nicholls St. – Great Alaska Shootout
South Dakota St. – Paradise Jam
Texas State – Preseason NIT
Western Kentucky – Preseason NIT
Western Michigan – Diamond Head Classic
Yale – Preseason NIT

BCS Conferences:

ACC
Boston College – Paradise Jam
Clemson – 76 Classic
Duke – Preseason NIT
Florida State – Old Spice Classic
Georgia Tech – Puerto Rico Tip-Off
Maryland – Maui Invitational
Miami (Fla.) – Charleston Classic
North Carolina State – Pre-scheduled non-tournament
North Carolina – 2K Sports Coaches vs Cancer Classic
Virginia – Cancun Challenge
Virginia Tech – Pre-scheduled non-tournament
Wake Forest – None

Big East
Cincinnati – Maui Invitational
Connecticut – Preseason NIT
DePaul – Paradise Jam
Georgetown – None
Louisville – Pre-scheduled non-tournament
Marquette – Old Spice Classic
Notre Dame – Chicago Invitational Challenge
Pittsburgh – CBE Classic
Providence – Pre-scheduled non-tournament
Rutgers – Legends Classic
Seton Hall – None
South Florida – Charleston Classic
St. John's – Pre-scheduled non-tournament
Syracuse – 2K Sports Coaches vs Cancer Classic
Villanova – Puerto Rico Tip-Off
West Virginia – 76 Classic

Big Ten
Illinois – Las Vegas Invitational
Indiana – Puerto Rico Tip-Off
Iowa – CBE Classic
Michigan State – Legends Classic
Michigan – Old Spice Classic
Minnesota – 76 Classic
Northwestern – Chicago Invitational Challenge
Ohio State – 2K Sports Coaches vs Cancer Classic
Penn State – Charleston Classic
Purdue – Paradise Jam
Wisconsin – Maui Invitational

Big Twelve
Baylor – Old Spice Classic
Colorado – Maui Invitational
Iowa State – Chicago Invitational Challenge
Kansas – Pre-scheduled non-tournament
Kansas State – Puerto Rico Tip-Off
Missouri – South Padre Invitational
Nebraska – Las Vegas Classic
Oklahoma – Great Alaska Shootout
Oklahoma State – Las Vegas Invitational
Texas A&M – 76 Classic
Texas – CBE Classic
Texas Tech – Pre-scheduled non-tournament

Pac 10
Arizona State – Preseason NIT
Arizona – Maui Invitational
California – 2K Sports Coaches vs Cancer Classic
Oregon – Pre-scheduled non-tournament
Oregon State – Pre-scheduled non-tournament
USC – Diamond Head Classic
Stanford – Cancun Challenge
UCLA – 76 Classic
Washington – Pre-scheduled non-tournament
Washington State – Great Alaska Shootout

SEC
Alabama – Old Spice Classic
Arkansas – Pre-scheduled non-tournament
Auburn – Pre-scheduled non-tournament
Florida – Legends Classic
Georgia – None
Kentucky – Cancun Challenge
LSU – Preseason NIT
Mississippi State – South Padre Invitational
Mississippi – Puerto Rico Tip-Off
South Carolina – Charleston Classic
Tennessee – Paradise Jam
Vanderbilt – Maui Invitational

A few final notes:

-Why does the Southern Conference get three games in significant tournaments? Is it the Stephen Curry effect even though he is not in college anymore?

-The Big Ten did the best at exempt tournament scheduling. Every team is in at least a hybrid four team tournament. One key here is television. Many of these smaller tournaments are struggling to get the games on TV, and the Big Ten teams come with the Big Ten Network in hand.

-Finally, I mentioned his well-written preview above, but who is Chris Dobbertean anyhow? He’s posting about holiday tournaments (like me), he lives in the DC area (like me), he was probably at the Old Spice Classic last year (like I was). He’s even planning a trip to this year’s 76 Classic where my Gophers are playing. Scary.

Usage vs Efficiency and Blatant Plug #2

Last spring, I read this post which looked at Shaquille O’Neal, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, and Ray Allen and showed that as they took more shots, their FG% fell. We all know this phenomenon exists. At the basic level, if a player only took shots when they were wide open, they would clearly make a higher percentage. And this leads to my favorite phrase for terrible shooters. “Team X would be better off if Player X was more selective.”

But I wondered if we could quantify this impact for college basketball players. What’s the numeric impact of going from 20% of the team’s shots to 25%? Thus this summer, I spend a little bit of time looking at Ken Pomeroy’s tempo free player stats. I hoped to compare the percentage of possessions (%Poss) to the player’s individual offensive efficiency rating (ORtg) and quantify the impact. But the results were not as clear as I hoped.

Allow me to step back for a moment. If you look across all players, there is actually a positive correlation between shot volume and player efficiency. The good players get to shoot more. Thus in any study of this type, we have to look at how players change over time. And while college basketball has fewer time observations, (players have at most four years of observations), there are a lot more college basketball players to follow. So I was hopeful that there would be enough data to find some interesting results.

In general, I found for each additional 1% of possessions taken, efficiency changed by –0.25. Thus if a player used 24% of his teams possessions instead of 20%, his ORtg would be expected to fall only 1 point. Unfortunately, the results were not very robust. By varying the sample or the functional form, I could get the result to be positive or as high as about –0.80.

Here is a graph that may show the difficulty with this. This lists players who were top 100 recruits in recent years. Each player’s %Poss is listed on the x-axis, and ORtg is listed on the y-axis. The lines track the changes for individual players over time.

As you’ll note there are some lines that do slant downward. There are cases where players shoot more and end up shooting a worse percentage. But there are also many cases where players who shoot more actually make a greater percentage of their shots.

This leads me to believe I’m making a big mistake using annual college basketball data. The problem is that college basketball players are not likely to be equivalent from year-to-year. College is a key time for player development and skill improvement. I can control for the player’s year in the program (freshman, sophomore, ect.), but improvement is not uniform across players. And because improvement is not uniform, we really end up with the same problem we initially had when we compared players. The players who develop the most in the off-season (the players that show the biggest improvement in efficiency), are the exact players who are allowed to shoot more. Thus even within players, we will often find a positive correlation between usage and efficiency.

One way to get around this may be to focus on players who were regulars in all years, or who took a lot of shots in all years. And when I focus on these samples, I do get the larger negative impact discussed above.

But there are other problems to think about when using this data. Should we even expect a uniform decrease from additional shot volume? Is the marginal shot a forced three pointer or a jumper in the lane? Is the difference between 10% of a team’s possessions and 11% really the same as the difference between 29% of a team’s possessions and 30%? Players who have large changes in shot volume may be the best way to measure the overall shape of the shot distribution path. But players who show large changes in shot volume are the exact players who developed the most.

I guess this all leads me to conclude that the NBA may be a better place to study shot volume and efficiency. Certainly after the first few years, NBA players will not have the same major swings in development. Moreover, there may be some fun quasi-experiments in shot volume, as Kevin Pelton mentions here. Kevin also kindly points to this older post which summarizes the usage and efficiency discussion at length. Here is my general take on some ideas discussed in the thread. A lot of people will see a player with a high efficiency and say that player should shoot more, but that may not always work in the offense the team is running. If you have an immobile guard who is a spot up shooter, he may make a lot of wide open threes, but he might be terrible if he was asked to take an additional shot. Similarly, a player like Chase Budinger may not be the most efficient in the country, but he drew so many double teams with his shot volume that he still made his teammates better. I guess this is my way of saying that I think coaches are rarely idiots. And if a player’s efficiency seems out of line for their shot volume, there is probably a reason.

Even though my quest to quantify the impact of usage on efficiency is not definitive, because bias from player development appears to be the biggest problem, my guess is that the average effect is at least -0.25 and probably much larger.

Blatant Plug #2

While working with Ken Pomeroy’s player data, I was able to tabulate some fun descriptive statistics. For example, what’s the distribution of offensive efficiency for freshman? What’s the distribution of offensive efficiency for freshman top 100 recruits? What’s the average change from freshman to sophomore year? And so on. And if you want to read it, you can find it in the Basketball Prospectus 2010 College Basketball Preview. I was honored that John Gasaway asked me to write the Big East preview this year.

Make sure you read John’s article on experience and team performance. You may remember I had a series of posts on this last year, culminating here. I remain skeptical of the importance of experience, (because the most talented players rarely stick around), but John’s writing on the topic is starting to convince me otherwise.

Also, possibly because I am so skeptical of experience, I was perhaps the perfect person to write the Big East preview this year. That’s because almost all of the Big East teams are young this year. If you can find someone else who more enthusiastically wrote about a young Providence team, I’ll be surprised. (Believe it or not, I included a lot of stat factoids in the article on Providence, even though only three rotation players return this year.) I highly encourage you to head over to Basketball Prospectus and download yourself a copy of the whole book.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the folks over at Big Ten Geeks who are tackling some of the exact same topics. (Seriously, I did a double take when I saw they looked at the change in efficiency from freshman to sophomore year, ect.) And I want to acknowledge Villanova by the Numbers who has slowly been unveiling another Big East preview in tempo-free style. If you are interested in my Big East preview, you'll probably be interested in those as well.