Congratulations Kim English on landing the top job at George Mason University, and a fine Patriot you shall make. I’m sure you are busy shopping the transfer portal and watching reams of film on your new squad. Here’s a summary of what you are walking into.
Is George Mason more like Duke, or more like DePaul? The Simple Rating System (SRS) puts the Pats right around the Blue Demon line. Larranaga’s surprise Final Four team of 2005-06 stood out, as did his last squad in 2010-11. Mason has not been back to the NCAA tournament since.
Turning our attention to the players, here is a look at how the current roster matches up with Patriots of the recent past. There is some tempo bias built into these ratings but that should not weigh heavily, as GM has only varied from slow to moderate in the transition from Jim Larranaga to Paul Hewitt to Dave Paulsen. This list is also not portal-aware, meaning some of these fellows bolded as current may in fact be departing.
To calibrate this system, let’s compare it to what you have been focusing on the past few years. Among recent Vols, Jaden Springer stands out as a future pro, separating from the pack of Punter, Hopson and even the great Admiral Schofield. Grant Williams is still another level above.
Going back a little further, here are this year’s Colorado Buffaloes and how they compare to recent clubs. Very high level of talent for your old team this season, and the consistency of McKinley Wright IV stands out in particular. Your guy D’Shawn Schwartz shows a similar consistency; it will be interesting to see how his contribution grows with a larger role.
Finally, just for fun let’s see how this year’s Mizzou Tigers compare to you and your teammates. These listings go all the way back to 1999, because I am a Mizzou fan and took the time to assemble boxscores before the time they started becoming readily available in 2010-11. The tempo bias we dismissed earlier is very strong here — as you would expect the Mike Anderson teams were among the highest tempo in the country, while the Cuonzo Martin editions are among the most deliberate. DMC the JYD’s excellence is undeniable — $73.5M in career NBA earnings — though he benefits in this analysis from both a higher tempo and eliminating the drag of his freshman year at Vanderbilt.
Beyond my undying gratitude to you for hitting those two free throws against Marquette in 2009 — how many other guys can say they had enough impact to force a rule change — and for reconciling by winning in 2012, I wish you the best in your new endeavor and am happy to help in any way that I can. I’ll be rooting hard for the Pats whenever they don’t play Mizzou or SLU 🙂
References
Data from Basketball Reference and Ken Pomeroy
Game Score metric created by John Hollinger detailed here: http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/glossary.html
Plot format by Aaron Baggett: https://baseballwithr.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/conceptualizing-the-mlb-strike-zone-using-pitchfx-data/
Inspiration from Ken Pomeroy: http://kenpom.com/
Inspiration from Rock M Nation: http://www.rockmnation.com/missouri-tigers-basketball
Team colors courtesy:
Benjamin S. Baumer and Gregory J. Matthews (2020). teamcolors: Color Palettes for Pro Sports Teams. R package version 0.0.4.