Sports and Numbers

One of the most accurate ways of assessing a team's strengths and weaknesses is by looking at how it performs on a per-possession basis, as opposed to looking at the per-game averages most frequently shown on statistical previews.  The information in these analyses come from efficiency ratings calculated by Ken Pomeroy.

Each table has three columns: "Clear Advantage for Team A", "No Clear Advantage", and "Clear Advantage for Team B."  If a particular statistic falls into one of the clear advantages columns, it is because it represents a strength of one team that coincides with a weakness of the opponent.  Thus, it is reasonable to assume that it will be an advantage for one team.  The determination of whether it is a strength or a weakness is based on a formula that takes into account the national ranking of that team as well as the opponents' national ranking.  In addition, if one of the teams is particularly strong at that statistical category, while maintaining an advantage over the opponent, it is listed as a "[Team] Strength - [statistical category]."

Some categories need to be taken with a grain of salt.  For example, if you see one team with an advantage in its opponent's FT%, it doesn't mean that the team has good "freethrow defense."  Instead, it means that the opponent doesn't shoot freethrows well, so it is an advantage that will play in one team's favor.

NOTE: From top to bottom, the statistics are sorted such that, at the top are the greatest advantages to the team on the left, and at the bottom are the greatest advantages for the team on the right.  In some cases, a "no clear advantage" category may appear ahead of or behind a category that appears in a "clear advantage" column.  This is because there are special rules for when a team has a "strength" in a category (i.e., Top 50 ranking) and the other team is not quite so high, but the difference in their rank may not be as high as in another category in which neither team has a "strength."  It is not a typo.

Here are what the various statistical categories mean:

• Points per possession - Number of points scored per possession.  In general, a game has the same number of possessions for each team, so whoever wins this battle wins the game.
• eFG% - A formula that adjusts the usual field-goal percentage to account for the fact that 3-pointers are worth 1.5 times the number of points that a 2-point FG is worth.
• TO rate - Percentage of possessions that end in a turnover
• OREB - Percent of available offensive rebounds that a team is able to grab
• FT Rate - Represents the ability of a team to use the freethrow line enough times and efficiently
• 3pt FG%, 2pt FG%, FT% - self-explanatory
• % Poss Blocked by Opp - Number of BLK credited to team divided by its opponents' total 2pt field goals attempted (on offense, lower is better)
• 3FGA % of FGA - The percentage of field goals attempted that are three-pointers
• AST / FGM - Basically represents what percentage of field goals made are the result of an assist
• Tempo - Represents the number of possessions, on average, for each team in a game.  This determines the pace of the game much more accurately than the score of the game, which would need to take into account the scoring efficiency of each possession also.