I'd be lying if I said I knew much of anything about Eastern Washington and I assume that you are in the same boat.
Here is a little snapshot of the EMU Eagles....
Record: 3-1
Wins over: Idaho, UC-Irvine, Texas-Arlington
Lost to: Illinois by 16
Players to watch...
| Pnts / Gm | Reb / Gm | ||
| Bobby Valentine | Junior, PG | 18 | 1.8 |
| Brandon Moore | Junior, C (6-9) | 13 | 7.5 |
| Milan Stanojevic | Senior, G | 9.3 | 2.5 |
Efficiency stats for both teams (brief explanation below)...
| EWU | Minn | |
| Off Efficiency | 101.1 | 101.3 |
| Def Efficiency | 99.7 | 92.8 |
| Eff Differential | 1.40 | 8.50 |
| eFG% | 49.8 | 50.0 |
| Off Reb % | 30.5 | 38.3 |
| Def Reb % | 27.4 | 35.5 |
| Steal % | 7.6 | 11.6 |
| Turnover % | 18.9 | 23.3 |
You will see a heavy dose of efficiency stats from me throughout the season as it is so much more accurate than your typical accumulation of box score numbers. A full explantion of the KenPom Efficiency stats can be found HERE, but I'll give you the dummy version.
Basically everything gets broken down to the possession level. Ken Pomery explains the formulas to get to that point, but it is important that everything get reduced to that level. A team like North Carolina will have a ton of possessions which leads to a lot of points scored per GAME. This will also lead to their opponent having a lot of possessions which leads to a lot of points give up per game. A team like Wisconsin will obviously have opposite results. But this means points per game or points allowed per game are misleading stats so everything is reduced to possessions. Like I said you can find more info on the site, this isn't a lesson in statistics, but a brief explanation of the stats I picked for team comparison...
- Off / Def Efficiency - average points scored / allowed in a game with 100 possessions
- Eff Differential - obviously score more than you allow, teams that are +2 or greater do well come NCAA time.
- eFG% - combo of regular FG% and thee point %, basically you get a little bump for made threes because they are worth a little bit more (looking for 51.5% or greater)
- Off Reb% - the % of time you rebound your own misses (strive for 35%)
- Def Reb% - the % of time you rebound your opponents misses
- Steal % - % of opponents possessions you steal
- Turnover % - obviously the amount of possessions you turn the ball over (should be sub 19%)
Numbers that should jump out for this game are the Gopher's turnover % which is really high (234th in the nation). This overall really doesn't concern me through just a handful of games, but it is worth keeping an eye on tonight. Rebounding looks good for the home team tonight and there really is no reason to think we have anything to worry about.
With our young and inexperienced team I cannot ever expect a blowout (although it is possible), but I'm pretty confident in a W tonight over the Eagles.
PreGame Meal:
Hoffarber to have a "bigger role"
Tubby wants them to play defense
From the Barn has some keys to the game