Related pages Coach's comments Box score Season stats Possession analysis Explanation of NEP

If you who watched the game on ESPN you no doubt heard the quote credited to Kirk Hinrich, “Stats are like bikinis. They show a lot but they don’t show everything.” After hearing that I thought about changing the name of this column to the “Bikini Review”. That would give props to Kirk but it also might improve readership. I mean would you rather read a column titled Inside the Numbers or Bikini Review? Yah, that’s what I thought. Whatever it’s called we are back with a look Inside the Numbers to find those little jewels to help us understand and appreciate the game a little bit more. This column will have some permanent features this season until I decide to change them. For now, anyway, look for the PLAYER OF THE GAME, the SIGNIFICANT STATS OF THE GAME, and of course the world famous NEP analysis. So sit back and get ready to look... INSIDE THE NUMBERS. PLAYER OF THE GAME: Keith (Isotoner) Langford When you lead the team in NEP and n-NEP and lead or tie in most other categories you will have a pretty good shot at player of the game. The most glaring deficiency of the NEP is its lack of a comprehensive defensive assessment. Keith (Isotoner) was like a glove on defense against Holy Cross. He was in position most of the time and rarely let his man get past him. He shot 7 for 8 from the field, had a team high 4 assists against only two TOs. He was second on the team in scoring with 15 points and pulled down 4 boards, had 1 block and 2 steals. His NEP was a team leading 26.2 and his n-NEP was also a team leading 41.9. That would have ranked as the 27th best single game performance on the team last year. To put this in perspective, last year we played 38 games with 7 players logging significant minutes. That equates to 266 individual performances. Of those 266 only 39 exceeded a n-NEP of 40. Oddly enough with all the great performances Keith had last year he reached the 40 plateau only once. That, of course, was his monster game against Oregon in the NCAA Tournament. This was Keith’s second best game as a Jayhawk. Honorable mention goes to Bryant Nash who also had his second best game as a Jayhawk next to his 8 point, 4 rebound performance against Pittsburg St. last year. He came up big off the bench for the Jayhawks with 8 points and 5 rebounds and an NEP of 10.7 and a n-NEP of 26.7 (third best on the team). Of course with the monster slam in the first half he definitely gets the highlight of the year. Below is a table of the NEP data for last nights game. Player NEP n-NEP Langford, Keith 26.2 41.9 Collison, Nick 26.1 37.3 Simien, Wayne 19.0 23.7 Miles, Aaron 16.8 23.9 Hinrich, Kirk 15.5 19.4 Nash, Bryant 10.7 26.7 Graves, Jeff 4.6 22.8 Hawkins, Jeff 3.2 14.1 Niang, Moulaye 2.5 11.2 Lee, Michael 2.0 11.7 Moody, Christian 0.2 3.0 Olson, Brett -0.8 -16.0 Vinson, Stephen -1.1 -22.6 SIGNIFICANT STATS Among the more significant stats are Nick’s free throws. Both his FTA and FT% are significant. Nick went to the line 11 times and made 8 for 72.7%. The FTA are significant because this is going to be a key part of our game this year, namely an aggressive Nick and Wayne either making chip shots or getting fouled in the process. Not only does this put points on the board but it weakens the other team if we can get their big men in foul trouble. The FT% is important because last year Nick shot only 57.5% from the line which almost makes it worth fouling him. Last year Drew led the team by getting to the line an average of 7.29 times per 40 minutes. Last night both Nick and Wayne were well above that. Nick was at 15.71 and Wayne was at 10. That is a winning formula if you are a Jayhawk fan. Few aspects of this game were more satisfying than Nick’s and Wayne’s aggressiveness in the offensive paint. I point this out because Holy Cross’s strength is supposedly their big men. While they certainly aren’t a national power they are heralded in the front court. On the downside the team as a whole had an A/TO ratio of 0.63 and only 43% of the FGs were assisted. Last year the Jayhawks averaged an A/TO of 1.27 and assisted on 61% of their FGs. You can chalk part of this up to first game trying to get acquainted with each other but that is stiflingly low. Hinrich had only 1 assist. This will need to radically improve via better ball movement as the season goes on. The question of who will pick up the slack for Drew will take more than one game to answer but last night Nick shot at a rate of 21.43 FGA per 40 minutes versus 16.73 last year and compared to Drew’s 20.23 last year. Keith also picked up the slack shooting 12.80 per 40 minutes versus 10.73 last season. Wayne, ironically while playing many more minutes than last season shot less frequently, 12.50 versus 14.61. The biggest change was in Bryant Nash. He was second most offensively minded on the team with 15 FGA per 40 minutes last night versus an average of 10.00 last season. That is even more pronounced since a higher percentage of his minutes last night were in prime time versus mostly garbage time last season. The Jayhawks continue to be a very quick team this year logging 9 steals or 12.0% of the opponents possessions. Last year we swiped on 10.19% of their possessions. Our offense was a little below last year in terms of points per possession (PPP) with 0.92 versus last season 0.971. However, our defense was outstanding holding Holy Cross to 0.687 PPP versus an average last season of 0.816. We shot the ball at a nice clip of 52.8% which is about where we should average. What is odd about that stat is the two guys you’d expect to boost that number, Nick and Wayne, both shot 40%. Overall the Jayhawks clocked in with a team NEP of 125.6 which was below heir 2001-2002 season average of 140.0. That’s to be expected for the first game. Free throw shooting was poor but FG% was good. TOs were poor but defense was great. There is definitely room for improvement but there are also signs of another great season. Next game I will give an overview of the freshmen. Stats all for now... Don

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