Sports and Numbers

Kansas at Oklahoma (Norman, OK)

PSAN-Related Player Ratings - Cumulative This Season

(PSAN-O = Offensive impact, PSAN-D = Defensive impact.  For PSAN-D, lower ratings are better.  PSAN70 ratings are just PSAN expressed as "per 70 possessions" to reflect efficiency.  The difference between ePSAN and PSAN is that "e" is enhanced and weighs recent games more - used for Kansas only.)

Last 7 Game Analysis

Down to the Wire?

 Margin of game was less than 1 point in 5.1% of simulated games from "Last 7 Game Analysis."  Many of these would be "overtime" games.

(Methodology of Last 7 Game Analysis: Here, we look at the last seven venue-appropriate games to see how the teams are performing.  If the game takes place on the road for Kansas, for example, the analysis looks at the five most recent non-home games for Kansas.  In addition, the two most recent games, regardless of venue, are added.  That way, we get a picture of the how the team is performing of late.  This season, the analysis also splits offense and defense.  Teams often are more or less consistent on one side of the court than the other.  This analysis will reflect that.  Based on the strength of the opposing offense and defense they've played over the last seven games, each team's offense and defense is evaluated based on strength and consistency.  Those numbers are then plugged into a simulation of 8,000 games.  The results are what you see in the table.)

Opponent Four Factor Analysis

Based on the cumulative season boxscore for the opponent, we can look at the Four Factors to see where the team has derived the bulk of its (dis)advantage in terms of scoring margin versus its opponents to date.  Team 1 is KU's opponent, while Team 2 represents that team's opponents.  Here is the breakdown for KU's opponent this game:

ANALYSIS:  Like most elite teams, Oklahoma gets most of its advantage from getting better shots, thus shooting a much better percentage from the field.  But in OU's case, they are phenomenal at getting to the FT line much more often than their opponents.

Game Projections

(Not a prediction.  Read more details in "FAQ & Terms" section.)

Manual adjustments: None.

Projected Boxscore

Projection Summary

Adjustment If Blake Griffin (OU) Does Not Play

The dynamics of the game would adjust in a way that is too difficult to assess quantitatively in any automated way.  What we can attempt to do is replace the efficiency of Blake Griffin with that of those players whose minutes would presumably increase.  The offensive and defensive efficiencies would translate into point differentials expected on either side of the ball with Griffin out.  One important caveat to this is that the "whole is not equal to the sum of the parts" in this case.  The team will operate differently, and most likely the removal of Griffin would mean more than just the removal of his usual ratings impact.  But in this case, we are simply trying to find a quantitative estimate of the impact of his absence.

Blake Griffin's offensive efficiency (PSAN70-O) of +4.88 translates to a +4.21 points impact in this game.  This accounts for the fact that he was projected to play 34 of the available 40 minutes, but also that the tempo woud be 71 possessions instead of the standard 70 used in the efficiency ratings.  On defense, he was to have a -3.99 effect on KU's points.  Thus, the loss of Griffin results in a net differential of 8.2 points in favor of Kansas.  However, those 34 minutes will be played by other players, most of whom have positive efficiency ratings.  By increasing all other player minutes by a proportional amount, calculating each of those player's changes in impact as a result of the increased playing time, we can see what the overall change in score is projected to be when Blake Griffin's minutes are replaced.

The analysis shows that Blake's brother, Taylor, picks up more slack than anyone else, although it isn't much.  Taylor Griffin's net impact projects to be +0.53 higher with the increased playing time, while Warren's projects to be +0.48 points better.  Johnson comes in just above +0.4, while Pattillo and Davis each project to add about a quarter of a point.   The net impact of the loss of Griffin is thus -2.2 on offense for OU and +3.86 more points for KU.  That means the scoring margin would shift approximately 6 points in favor of Kansas with Griffin out.  Without changing the overall points scored, that would project to a 73-67 KU victory.