Positives. . .

[squirrel]

Still one game remaining on the season, but here's a brief overview of the good stuff on Bradley this year, as well as some real good things for next year.

We will finish around 45th best in the nation in AdjOE at 112.9.

Our 5 best OE's on the year were:

136.0 vs. Creighton (2/16/08 )
130.8 vs. Tulsa (4/2/08 )
125.9 @ Virginia (3/26/08 )
120.1 @ Creighton (3/1/08 )
119.3 vs. UMES (11/18/07)

Two of them were in tournament play and two of them were on the road, and two of them were against Creighton. All good.

BU will finish in the top 50 in the following efficiency categories:

FT%: 74.4 (32)
3PA/FGA: 43.4 (28 )
A/FGM: 64.0 (16)

BU will also finish in the top 100 in the following efficiency categories:

RawOE: 107.1 (85)
EFG%: 52.3 (72)
3FG%: 37.4 (73)
Stl%: 8.8 (75)

On the side of DE, we ranked 66th overall in Stl% at 11.3.

3 Braves were amongst the 500 best Offensive rating:

330. Jeremy Crouch (111.9)
332. Andrew Warren (111.8 )
447. Sam Maniscalco (109.8 ) * 49th among freshmen

In terms of Offensive Rating, the 48 freshmen ranked ahead of Maniscalco are:

1. Tony Easley (Murray State) 127.4
2. Kevin Love (UCLA) 127.3
3. Robbie Hummel (Purdue) 126.7
4. Darius Cox (Tennessee St.) 124.9
5. Matt Howard (Butler) 123.1
6. Tyler Newbold (Utah State) 120.7
7. Blake Hoffarber (Minnesota) 120.6
8. Michael Beasley (Kansas State) 119.8
9. Donald Sims (Appalachian State) 119.4
10. LaceDarius Dunn (Baylor) 119.3
11. Corey Raji (Boston College) 119.0
12. Steven Gray (Gonzaga) 118.8
13. Tomas Vazquez-Simmons (Canisius) 118.0
14. Josh White (North Texas) 116.7
15. Terrence Oglesby (Clemson) 116.2
16. Lavoy Allen (Temple) 116.1
17. Peter Sullivan (Brown) 116.1
18. Patrick Patterson (Kentucky) 116.0
19. Gilbert Brown (Pittsburgh) 115.8
20. Tai Wesley (Utah St.) 115.8
21. James Harden (Arizona State) 115.7
22. Ken Horton (Central Connecticut) 115.5
23. Noah Dahlman (Wofford) 115.2
24. Austin Freeman (Georgetown) 115.0
25. Matt Clark (The Citadel) 115.0
26. Reggie Holmes (Morgan St.) 114.8
27. Chandler Parsons (Florida) 114.3
28. Robert Kreps (UIC) 113.8
29. AJ Ogilvy (Vanderbilt) 113.4
30. Jeremy Simmons (College of Charleston) 113.4
31. Ayron Hardy (Jacksonville) 113.1
32. Jason Flagler (South Carolina St.) 113.1
33. Jonny Flynn (Syracuse) 112.9
34. Willie Powers (Georgia Southern) 112.6
35. Jerryd Bayless (Arizona) 112.5
36. Andrew Goudelock (College of Charleston) 112.4
37. Mike Holmes (South Carolina) 112.0
38. Daniel Eykyn (The Citadel) 111.9
39. Derrick Rose (Memphis) 111.7
40. Jeremy Hazell (Seton Hall) 111.7
41. J.J. Wesley (Jacksonville St.) 111.4
42. Dominique Jones (South Florida) 111.3
43. Nick Calathes (Florida) 111.2
44. Billy White (San Diego St.) 110.8
45. JT Thompson (Virginia Tech) 110.1
46. Eric Gordon (Indiana) 110.0
47. Thomas Coleman (North Carolina A&T) 110.0
48. Delvin Franklin (Florida Gulf Coast) 109.8
49. Sam Maniscalco (Bradley) 109.8

Pretty good company on that list, as there were many impact freshmen this year.

Matt Salley finished 109th in OR% and 85 in DR%. . .Collins had similar numbers in terms of %, but did not play the minimum number of minutes required to be included in overall rankings.

Theron Wilson was the only other Brave among the top 500 in rebounding at 493rd in DR%.

3 Braves were among the top 500 in FT Rate:

85. Theron Wilson 62.2
362. Andrew Warren 43.3
454. Daniel Ruffin 39.9

In general, our bigs were really good in this department with Austin and Singh's rates surpassing these with Collins checking in at 38.7.

Maniscalco ranked in the top 500 in 3 categories: ORtg (447), eFG% (380), ARate (371)
Warren ranked in the top 500 in 5 categories: ORtg (332), eFG% (414), FTRate (362), TORate (276), %Stls (388 )

Another positive is the Bradley players with the two worst TO rates were Ruffin (22.5) and Salley (24.2). Of the regulars, everyone else was considerably better at protecting the basketball.

So, BU will return 3 very competent players in Maniscalco, Warren, and Wilson. I believe Thompson can step right in and play the 4. Hopefully Egolf can put some weight and build some muscle so we have a relatively deep foursome that can give us some options inside with Collins, Austin, Egolf, and Singh. Collins is the most athletic. Singh is probably the best shooter and the strongest. Austin is the best rebounder. And Egolf can hopefully be an inside-outside threat. Those are a nice set of diverse options to have.

[Big Mike]

Nice work S........and maybe we can add to that list with another verbal or 2 in the coming weeks!

[tornado]

You have proven that everyone is entitled to their opinion, but just for the sake of argument, I looked up the freshman that you rank ahead of Sam M...
And whoever put that list together really needs a girlfriend, he has wayyyy too much time on his hands and is wasting it...

The guy just ahead is Delvin Franklin of FGCU.
Personally I don't know a whole lot about FGCU but then I'll bet not too many people do.
That's because they are kinda new to D-I, they did play BU earlier in the South Padre Tourney, and, yes, they were bad, 10-21 despite a hideously soft schedule, and your guy, Franklin played 27 minutes per game overall and 33 mpg in conference games, pretty much out of necessity because of depth of talent, but he did put up numbers that were very slightly better in some respect than Sam M.
9 ppg, and 1.5 apg...
compared to Sam's 8 ppg, 4 apg, but in fewer minutes, and way fewer shots.

Personally I think whoever would have seen both Delvin Franklin and Sam Maniscalco would have come to the same conclusion overwhelmingly.
The numbers simply are being distorted.

Nice to know Sam is only a couple spots behind the #46 freshman, Eric Gordon, and obviously ahead of the other top freshman in the Valley, as P'Allen doesn't appear anywhere on the list.

Now tell me, are you going to believe any list that says there are 45 freshmen in the country, including Daniel Eykyn, that are better than Eric Gordon??
I thought not.......

[BuBraves55]

eric gordon is a little overrated- shoots every time

[tornado]

so you'd put Daniel Eykyn ahead of Gordon?

[MacabreMob]

I am starting to get a little into this Efficiency Rating stuff. I don't have time to research or study it. But if Squirrel can find the time and then present an overview and review to us... I appreciate it. Thanks Squirrel. Thanks for the positive report, too. You've been sober too long - kinda nice to get you pickled on the kool-aide every now and then. Hehe.

[squirrel]

The ORtg is essentially what the NBA has been using for ten years or so. . .

Now granted tornado is right in that there is some distortion involved, but it's not all that illogical. All the players above had to play a minimum number of minutes for Pomeroy to rank them.

However, there may be some players that barely reach that plateau, but if they are padding several statistical categories, they will have an ORtg that may be in the territory of someone like Gordon that played significantly greater minutes and had stats, but because with more minutes those numbers aren't quite as overwhelming, the ORtg will take a slight hit.

Also one could do further sorting by % of possessions involved.

So there's that logical give and take. . .obviously there's a bit more behind those numbers that you have to dig a little deeper to find.

In the instance of Eyken, he is rated so highly because even though he barely met the minute requirement, he was involved in a small number of possessions, he was a better than 2nd best on the team on eFG%, 50% shooter, 80% FTs, and accounted for 7% of the teams offensive rebounds. So yes, there is some distortion. But it appears he is a very intelligent player.

And many of those same reasons tornado lists for Franklin are also the same reasons why Maniscalco is rated where he is.

Also, Stinnett wasn't very consistent early in the year. He had a decent ORtg at 102, but his FG% and eFG% were basically the same as Eyken's but because he played more minutes, was involved in more %poss, he had a very high TO rate as well. However, his ORtg would be obviously be more likely to stand up over time too. . .