Basketball By Numbers

#1 posting 8.3.2006
your daily dose of girls basketball news & information

BASKETBALL BY NUMBERS
How do we know a player is worth the money or worth recruiting? Conventional wisdom sometimes gets turned upside down. I came across this article by Malcom Gladwell in the blogosphere and I think it is required reading. Check out the links in it. I purchased the Wages of Wins on Monday as I went to Chisago Lakes.

Also it might be worthwhile to read about Gladwell's take on the Case for Kevin Garnett. Another interesting article is the Wages of Wins blog on Isiah Thomas and role players.

As you know I have been using the number crunching used in Basketball on Paper by Dean Oliver. This book also takes a look at players and how many wins a player is worth. Basically it rates who is the best. The Wages of Wins is another system, and I haven't gotten very far, but as someone who rates players I like to have information on how others do their job.

RECRUITING ANOTHER VIEW
Here is a couple of different views of the recruiting wars and how they would change them. From the Women's Hoop Blog.

INJURY UPDATES
Here is the progress of two players that went down at the Meltdown
North Tartan's Tara Steinbauer hurt her ankle and will be out for about two weeks.
The Purple Aces' Erin Riutta who left the game with a head injury is doing fine according to my sources. Riutta's dad by the way is a former Olympic and professional hockey player. Erin will be headed to St. Norbert's in the fall.

RECRUITS
If you missed it last night Kiara Buford, and Kristin Dockery have verballed Minnesota and Porsha Zimmerman verballed Concordia St. Paul. (It was a special edition posting) Buford attended the Elite Position camp the last two days. Also in attendance was incoming first year players Brittany McCoy and Korrine Campbell.
WI
Kayla Tetschlag, Sheboygan North has made a verbal to Wisconsin Green Bay. Tetschlag was player of the year in the Fox River Valley conference last year. She played for Dysktra Engineering and I saw her in the Great Lakes Shootout championship in early July. Here is the news from the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Of course the Sheboygan Press also has a take on the news.

VERBALS

OPEN ENROLLMENT
MN
The StarTribune has an article about open enrollment. Like in Wisconsin, a player would be ineligble to participate if they transfer after their sophomore year. Exceptions would be made for moving houses.

TRANSFER
MN
Sarah Dzik will be attending Osseo HS this year. She was at Heritage Christian last year.

HS TRANSFERS

RUNNING AS PUNISHMENT?
Here is what Greenville HS in Michigan is doing to help players get in shape for the season. Girls basketball starts on August 14. Greenville Daily News tells the story.

COACHING OPENINGS

BOOK PROGRESS
I have been doing publishing recruiting guides in Minnesota for over 10 years now, and I have expanded into other neighboring states. I have started giving players a number rating instead of just listing players 1, 2, 3. To be sure the list is still there, but now I have an idea on how close #2 is to #1.

Right now I have completed the Minnesota portion of the books. It still needs touch ups and refining and any other changes that will happen in the next two months. I still need to enter quite a bit for SD, IA, WI. MI and ND have their entering finished. The data entry is going well for the colleges too.

The Minnesota book will be ready to go at the Minnesota Girls Basketball Coaches Convention usually held the first weekend in October. It runs $30. The other states I don't rate the teams like I do in Minnesota. I rate teams in MN because of the HS market there. I don't market my books yet to the HS in the other states. The third book is trends and analysis of recruits in college.

Next up: Friday morning with the general news of the day.