Tweet
Since the 200-07 basketball season, Ken Pomeroy one of the most respected statistician / analysts, has tracked all Div 1 teams average height and effective height. In January of 2008, he posted an interesting article, “The Height of Expectations: Measuring Vertical Impact.” http://ww.basketballprospectus.com/a...p?articleid=82
You can read the full article, but here are some of the key conclusions (in red):
It should be no surprise that a team’s average height does correlate to its offensive and defensive prowess … defensive stats have a much better correlation with height than their offensive counterparts.
The deeper message here is that all those coaches lusting after seven-footers with hands of stone and happy feet don’t have the wrong idea. They may end up getting a defensive presence that the vertically challenged can’t provide.
… there is room for short people in this game, but let’s not get carried away. It really pays to have size up front. Of the teams that entered Wednesday’s play in the top 20 in adjusted defensive efficiency, only one had an effective height below the national average--and barely so, by two-tenths of an inch.
However, for most teams a great defense requires size at the four and the five. At least on the defensive end, basketball really is a big man’s game.
I love Bradley basketball and I like JL, but it has been so frustrating watching our tallest players languish on the far end of the bench for the last two seasons. If JL had played more zone D last year with DC and more zone D this year with AT at the 5 and WE at the 4, I am confident that we would have had 6-10 more wins over the last two years. I can’t prove it of course, but I can prove than playing an undersized lineup has been slightly better than .500.
Why recruit the height if you are not going to develop it and play it?
You can read the full article, but here are some of the key conclusions (in red):
It should be no surprise that a team’s average height does correlate to its offensive and defensive prowess … defensive stats have a much better correlation with height than their offensive counterparts.
The deeper message here is that all those coaches lusting after seven-footers with hands of stone and happy feet don’t have the wrong idea. They may end up getting a defensive presence that the vertically challenged can’t provide.
… there is room for short people in this game, but let’s not get carried away. It really pays to have size up front. Of the teams that entered Wednesday’s play in the top 20 in adjusted defensive efficiency, only one had an effective height below the national average--and barely so, by two-tenths of an inch.
However, for most teams a great defense requires size at the four and the five. At least on the defensive end, basketball really is a big man’s game.
I love Bradley basketball and I like JL, but it has been so frustrating watching our tallest players languish on the far end of the bench for the last two seasons. If JL had played more zone D last year with DC and more zone D this year with AT at the 5 and WE at the 4, I am confident that we would have had 6-10 more wins over the last two years. I can’t prove it of course, but I can prove than playing an undersized lineup has been slightly better than .500.
Why recruit the height if you are not going to develop it and play it?
Comment