Sports and Numbers

Tennessee at Kansas (Lawrence, KS)

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.)

Player Analysis:

(largely in context of ratings above)

Tennessee shows a bit more balance at the top of the ratings.  The huge dropoff from Cole Aldrich to the second batch of players for KU has no correlate for the Volunteers.  Also, note that the UT ratings are roughly in similar order in both impact ratings and efficiency ratings.  That is, you don't really see a player who is playing somewhat inefficiently but because he plays so much, he ends up having one of the greater impacts on the team.  Sherron Collins fits that mold for KU.  Instead, it appears the UT guys' playing time is roughly correlated to their efficiency levels.  If the ratings were perfect, this would mean Pearl is doing a better job of coaching than Sef.  Instead, it probably reflects the fact that Collins has underperformed compared to the talent level Self knows he has, and that Collins is attracting an extreme amount of attention from the defense.  Tyshawn Taylor also has a similar relationship, with a higher impact level than efficiency.  Both of them need to step it up if KU is to have a successful season, since it appears they will both garner lots of playing time regardless of how efficiently they are performing.

I didn't have time to look at individual players' stats and formulate any trends or observations for this preview.  These early start times are killing my preview work, as I am in California, and it's practically game time by the time I am up and ready to start the day.

Last 7 Game Analysis

Down to the Wire?

 Margin of game was less than 1 point in 4.2% 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.  Here is the breakdown for KU's opponent this game:

ANALYSIS:  Healthy advantages for UT in all categories except turnovers, where things have been even.  Given KU's tendency to give up offensive rebounds, this may be a tough team for KU to shut down.  Still, the single biggest advantage has been eFG% differential, as it should be for most good teams.

Game Projections

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

Manual adjustments: None.

Projected Boxscore

Projection Summary