Dave Sez

A Measure Of Efficiency

Ken Pomeroy is always coming up with some interesting number crunching on college basketball. His latest project is a ranking of temp and offensive and defensive efficiency. I won't try to explain his numbers. Ken had a .hard enough time himself.

Actually, the concepts are that difficult. Tempo refers to the pace a team likes to play (duh) and is measured in possessions per 40 minutes.

Offensive and defensive efficiency are a bit more complicated, but basically measure how many points a team would score or allow in 100 possessions. According to Ken, a typical game has about 70 possessions, so these numbers are gonna be higher than standard points-per-game calculations.

The results are here.

Tempo is only partially related to actual performance, as teams win with many different styles. Three ACC teams - Maryland, UNC and Georgia Tech - rank in the top 20 of pace. I was surprised at how low Wake ranked, number 73. I considered them an uptempo team, but I'm either wrong or they haven't been as effective as they'd like.

Offensive and defensive efficiency are much more closely related to actual success. Not surprisingly, when you rank by those measures, you see mostly Top 25 teams near the top. Carolina is the most efficient offensive team in the ACC, followed by Duke and Wake. Georgia Tech is the best defensive team in the country, with Duke #2. Carolina comes in at #6, showing that Ol' Roy has had some success with his preaching this year.

A quick look at the numbers shows that Duke has the best Offensive-Defensive efficiency in the country, just ahead of Oklahoma State. That says good things about the Blue Devils, methinks.