Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Basketball Prospectus Preview is Out

It's Heeeerrre!
The folks (John Gasaway, Ken Pomeroy, Kevin Pelton...) over at Basketball Prospectus have released their College Basketball Prospectus for the 2009-10 season. This time they decided to focus their attention on teams in the 6 BCS conferences, because (as Gasaway explains in his introduction) "42 of the last 43..." championships were claimed by schools in those 6 conferences (so the chances are pretty good the next one will come from that group too). Basketball Prospectus regular John Parretto does cover the next 7 or so conferences, but with a little less depth than the BCS conferences.

Dan Hanner, who blogs out of Yet Another Basketball Blog did the honors for the Big East. And put together a terrific analysis of each of the conference's 16 teams. Dan's work is worth the price of admission ($16.95 if you want the hardcopy, $7.95 if you have to have it now!), but there is a lot more. A host of contributors (Jay Bilas, long-time NBA stats analyst Kevin Pelton, Basketball Prospectus regular Bradford Doolittle and of course Ken Pomeroy and John Gasaway) all wrote essays (Bilas wrote the forward) about the D1 stars, Final Four coaches, analysis using returning possessions (as an alternative to minutes...rats!) and DeJuan Blair (very interesting essay by Ken Pomeroy). Will Carroll penned an essay on a personal agenda item of mine -- player injuries and why they happen. While my gripe is with the D1 programs/NCAA, Carroll looks at the AAU circuit and scholastic-level athletics. He provides a concise oversight to the problem and how lack of medical personnel at AAU tournaments may be a contributing factor to lingering injuries. Great work all around.

This preview satisfies my need for a quantitative look at the coming season. Now please excuse me, I have to get back to my reading...

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