Indiana's got to get it back & HPER rankings

This weekend versus Michigan. Indiana does not necessarily need to get back their three-point shooting to beat Michigan (tho sure, it wouldn't hurt) but they really have to shut Michigan down on the glass, and attack the shot-blockers Michigan has (and they have three good ones in Petway, Udoh, and Courtney Sims-if he ever cared).

Bold prediction:
Michigan and Michigan State's post-season hopes will come down to their game (at Michigan) on February 27th. Illinois is going to zoom past both of these teams in the standings with a ridiculously easy schedule from here out, and Michigan State and Michigan have a tough road to walk (both have to play OSU twice, and MSU has to play Wisconsin twice as well). Michigan might end up having to beat both MSU and OSU in their final two home games to get to the NCAAs. But I'm guessing that the Amaker era ends with a fizzle, and MSU gets the road victory to clinch that 5th Big Ten bid into the NCAAs. Does the Big Ten deserve 5 bids? The RPI says it's the 4th-best conference, so you'd think so, but honestly, I think it should probably just be 4 bids.

Conference-only HPER ratings:

New top 25 freshmen ranking (thru 1/23)

I've introduced my HPER rankings and said that I would do some number-crunching once we had some Big Ten only stats available. These are far from balanced (see below) but sure, why not?

Key:
#. School, Name (# of possessions per game they see on the floor) raw HPER total / HPER production per game = hpg / HPER production per possession = hpps

1. OSU, Mike Conley (50.1 pspg) 170.5 / 34.1 hpg / .6812 hpps
2. OSU, Greg Oden (49.1 pspg) 133 / 26.6 hpg/ .5414 hpps
3. Michigan, Ekpe Udoh (29.8 pspg) 78 / 15.6 hpg/ .5226 hpps
4. OSU, Daequan Cook (33.7 pspg) 75 / 15 hpg/ .4454 hpps
5. Iowa, Tyler Smith (56.8 pspg) 113.5 / 22.7 hpg/ .3999 hpps
6. MSU, Raymar Morgan (35.7 pspg) 53.5 / 13.4 hpg/ .3742 hpps
7. NU, Kevin Coble (38.1 pspg) 46 / 11.5 hpg/ .3019 hpps
8. Purdue, Chris Kramer (44.8 pspg) 76 / 12.7 hpg/ .2829 hpps
9. Indiana, Joey Shaw (23.5 pspg) 49.5 / 8.3 hpg / .3511 hpps
10. NU, Jeff Ryan (30.9 pspg) 62 / 10.3 hpg/ .3341 hpps
11. Indiana, Armon Bassett (43.9 pspg) 47 / 7.8 hpg/ .1783 hpps
12. Illinois, Brian Carlwell (10.3 pspg) 28.5 / 4.1 hpg/ .3965 hpps
13. NU, Jeremy Nash (13.9 pspg) 28 / 4.7 hpg/ .3369 hpps
14. Wisconsin, Trevon Hughes (6.6 pspg) 10 / 3.3 hpg/ .5031 hpps
15. Michigan, DeShawn Sims (13.9 pspg) 19 / 3.8 hpg/ .2740 hpps
16. PU, David Vandervieren (11.4 pspg) 15.5 / 3.1 hpg/ .2729 hpps
17. Indiana, Xavier Keeling (14.9 pspg) 14 / 3.5 hpg/ .2324 hpps
18. Wisconsin, Jason Bohannon (9.4 pspg) 5.5 / 1.8 hpg/ .1950 hpps
19. Purdue, Keaton Grant (32.5 pspg) 31 / 5.2 hpg / .1591 hpps
20. Minnesota, Bryce Webster (19.7 pspg) 17 / 3.4 hpg/ .1722 hpps
21. Minnesota, Kevin Payton (28.1 pspg) 21.5 / 4.3 hpg/ .1532 hpps
22. Michigan, Reed Baker (18.7 pspg) 15 / 3 hpg/ .1605 hpps
23. Purdue, Jonathan Uchendu (6.9 pspg) 1 / 0.5 hpg / .0724 hpps
24. Minnesota, Damian Johnson (5.9 pspg) 1.5 / .4 hpg/ .0512 hpps
25. OSU, David Lighty (20.1 pspg) 1 / 0.2 hpg/ .0099 hpps

Not ranked were Isaiah Dahlman (MSU) and Lawrence Westbrook (Minn.) who both got a zero (or less) in the stats.


Notes.
This system favors assists more than any other action you can take on the floor,
(excepting hitting a three-pointer or completing a 3-point play). I feel even better than before about using this stat to tell you what kind of player, and how effective that player is to his team's production. I think a good case in point is the one at the top, Mike Conley Jr. Greg Oden is fantastic, but he gets a lot of his points off of Dunks (or free-throws)created by Conley running the offense and/or magnificent dribble penetration. Also, Conley as a freshman has supplanted what was arguably the Big Ten's best point guard (Jamar Butler). Butler's good. Conley's better. And the numbers back it up.

Also, I like that a large part of this system penalizes the possessions lost, through turnovers, bad shooting, or bad free-throw shooting. Points are important. But gaining or even keeping possessions are every bit as important. I had to hand-crunch Northwestern's conference only stats, so there's a greater margin of error in those stats. And the schedule is far from balanced at this point, so we won't see appropriately balanced stats until the end of the season.

Overall Big Ten top 30 players ranking:

1. OSU, Mike Conley (50.1 pspg) 170.5 / 34.1 hpg / .6812 hpps
2. OSU, Greg Oden (49.1 pspg) 133 / 26.6 hpg/ .5414 hpps
3. Indiana, DJ White (48.5 pspg) 158.5 / 26.4 hpg/ .5443 hpps
4. Indiana, Earl Calloway (47.8 pspg) 128 / 21.3 hpg/ .4467 hpps
5. Penn State, Geary Claxton (51.2 pspg) 114 / 22.8 hpg/ .4452 hpps
6. Purdue, Carl Landry (49.6 pspg) 131.5 / 21.9 hpg/ .4416 hpps
7. MSU, Drew Nietzel (55.7 pspg) 104.5 / 20.9 hpg/ .3755 hpps
8. PSU, Jamelle Cornley (56.5 pspg) 104.5 / 20.9 hpg/ .3702 hpps
9. Michigan, Ekpe Udoh (29.8 pspg) 78 / 15.6 hpg/ .5226 hpps
10. Indiana, AJ Ratliff (28.7 pspg) 59.5 / 14.9 hpg/ .5177 hpps
11. Wisconsin, Michael Flowers (48 pspg) 98 / 19.7 hpg/ .4080 hpps
12. OSU, Daequan Cook (33.7 pspg) 75 / 15 hpg/ .4454 hpps
13. Iowa, Tyler Smith (56.8 pspg) 113.5 / 22.7 hpg/ .3999 hpps
14. Michigan, Dion Harris (50.4 pspg) 93.5 / 18.7 hpg/ .3714 hpps
15. Purdue, David Teague (49.9 pspg) 109 / 18.2 hpg/ .3642 hpps
16. Illinois, Warren Carter (52.2 pspg) 132 / 18.9 hpg/ .3611 hpps
17. Minnesota, Dan Coleman (56.1 pspg) 96 / 19.2 hpg/ .3420 hpps
18. Wisconsin, Alando Tucker (54 pspg) 88 / 17.6 hpg/ .3259 hpps
19. PSU, Danny Morrissey (43.8 pspg) 87 / 17.4 hpg/ .3972 hpps
20. OSU, Othello Hunter (28.1 pspg) 77.5 / 13.5 hpg/ .5157 hpps
21. MSU, Marquise Gray (35.1 pspg) 78 / 15.6 hpg/ .4450 hpps
22. MSU, Goran Suton (41.8 pspg) 83 / 16.6 hpg/ .3969 hpps
23. Michigan, Brent Petway (36.8 pspg) 73.5 / 14.7 hpg/ .3996 hpps
24. Michigan, Lester Abram (47.3 pspg) 90 / 18 hpg/ .3803 hpps
25. Northwestern, Tim Doyle (46.6 pspg) 91.5 / 15.3 hpg/ .3271 hpps
26. Iowa, Adam Haluska (55.8 pspg) 82 / 16.6 hpg/ .2973 hpps
27. Wisconsin, Marcus Landry (29.8 pspg) 70.5/ 12.1 hpg/ .4727 hpps
28. Indiana, Rod Wilmont (44.2 pspg) 83 / 14.9 hpg/ .3131 hpps
29. Illinois, Shaun Pruitt (43.5 pspg) 98 / 14 hpg/ .3216 hpps
30. Illinois, Chester Frazier (40.9 pspg) 79.5 / 13.3 hpg/ .3241 hpps

Again, an anomaly easy to spot is AJ Ratliff, who only played 4 games, but is due for a "return to the mean" in his unbelievable shooting. Also, look for Tucker and Haluska to rise as the season continues.