efficiency Stories - Black Shoe Diaries
Surprise! Iowa Is Still Least Efficient In Big Ten (But That's Okay For Now)
It's easy to have gotten caught up in irrational Iowa basketball optimism lately (or before this past Sunday, anyway), and why not? A win at Indiana, a smacking of Michigan State, the nearest of near-misses against Wisconsin; why not get optimistic? Why not think Iowa is basically interchangeable...
St. John's basketball: Inconsistent Storm
The efficiency margin for the St. John's Red Storm in conference is about -.05 points per possession (meaning that their current projected 6-12 record in the Big East seems about right). Yet the Storm have put up some bizarrely good offensive performances along with their usual hefty beatings. ...
Hogs Smell Blood in the Red Zone
I harped on offensive efficiency in my latest column, but for the purposes of the thought experiment I had to ignore one garish number: The 2009 Hogs offense successfully converted 92.95% of attempts in the red zone. Yes, that's better than the 2005 Louisville Cardinals. It's better than the 2009...
Front-Office Efficiency (FOE): How much can $1M get you?
Being a small-market franchise, the Rays need to be especially careful with how they're spending their money. Simply put, we cannot compete with the Yankees and Red Sox if we attempt to run our team the way they do, a concept our front office knows incredibly well; however, I feel that not all...
Luck! Huh! Good God Y'all. What Is It Good For?
(via xkcd, h/t mgo) I had a history professor in college, I don't remember her name or even the class she taught, but she would routinely stop her lecture in order to make sure we understood that no one knew how to say things quite like the ancient Greeks. In a constant attempts to get at...
Penn State Efficient, Says Football Outsiders
It's all the engineers, I think. Football Outsiders finished their work on the most "efficient" offenses and defenses of 2008 and they have good things to say about Penn State. Before the numbers, a quick precursor: Game Efficiency quantifies the success rate of a team scoring while in...
A primer on why we use different stats than everyone else
With basketball season now upon us, it's time to have a little talk. You might notice that when we write about basketball around here, we sometimes reference some obscure stats that you might not have ever heard of. "What the heck is efficiency?" you ask. Or perhaps you muse, "Turnover percentage?...
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