"My rule was I wouldn't recruit a kid if he had grass in front of his house.
That's not my world. My world was a cracked sidewalk." —Al McGuire

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Fun with Numbers: Keegan Runs the Numbers on MU

Keeganoids rejoice...Tom Keegan of the Lawrence Journal-World has graciously returned to the blog with another offering. Enjoy......!

Fun With Numbers
by Tom Keegan



Stephon Marbury represents the litmus test of Larry Brown's greatness as a coach. Can Brown turn the ultimate stat-monster of a point guard into a winner? If anybody can, Brown can. But for most of his career, Marbury has monopolized the basketball, dribbling, dribbling, dribbling, and then passing for an assist or shooting. He seldom made the play that kept the offense moving along to a point where someone else would get the assist and points.

As Marbury has shown for much of his defensively challenged career, statistics can be misleading. They can also be tons of fun and in many cases revealing. Just for fun, here are the numbers for Marquette's roster, per 40 minutes of playing time:

Rebounds per 40 minutes played

Amoroso11.2
Grimm9.3
Barro9.0
Lott7.9
Novak7.2
Matthews7.1
McNeal6.3
Fitzgerald5.5
James5.4
Chapman4.9
Burke4.9
Kinsella3.2


Points per 40 minutes played

Novak20.4
James17.6
McNeal16.4
Amoroso16.3
Matthews14.4
Barro14.1
Lott12.4
Grimm12.1
Kinsella10.4
Burke9.8
Chapman9.7
Fitzgerald9.3


Points + Rebounds per 40 minutes played

Novak27.6
Amoroso27.5
Barro23.1
James23.0
McNeal22.7
Matthews21.5
Grimm21.4
Lott20.3
Fitzgerald14.8
Burke14.7
Chapman14.6
Kinsella13.6

Thanks for your time, Tom!

There's an interesting thread on this blog over at the Ring Out Ahoya! board. Please link to it here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess now I understand why Tom loves the inconsistent-one, Ryan Amoroso (per his interview last week where he said Ryan Amoroso (!?) was his favorite player on the team.

Anonymous said...

Is this Tom's way of trying to defend his "favorite" current Golden Eagle (the ever inconsistent Ryan Amoroso)? In his interview last week, Tom said that Amo was his favorite player on the current team. To each his own, but considering Tom's background and knowledge, I find it ridiculous that someone as inconsistent and as big of a non-finisher such as Amoroso is his favorite.

But I digress...