Hoop Vision Weekly (March 21st): Special Thursday Quick Hitter

Hoop Vision Weekly
Thursday edition.
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Today, it gets real.

This is it! The most wonderful time of the year.

For those who are new here this week, we're excited to have you along for the ride. For the folks who have been here since the start...you know the drill by now.

Assuming you know your stuff about college hoops (and by subscribing to this newsletter, you do), the past two days were likely filled with texts from co-workers, aunts/uncles, college buddies and ex-girlfriends/boyfriends looking for bracket advice.

Here at Hoop Vision, yeah, we know the feeling.

Before we get into this week, first off - so many of you have gone and purchased/supported/shared the comprehensive e-book that our tiny little team put together.

THANK YOU!

(If you've totally missed it - yes - our first Hoop Vision "product" is the Hoop Vision NCAA Tournament Bible -- available for download now) — it's an e-book featuring detailed scouting reports and film breakdowns on the entire field, historical tournament statistics and trends, strategy tips for filling out a bracket, and much more.

For Hoop Vision Weekly subscribers, we're offering 20% off (sticker price: $14.99) with an exclusive coupon code. Simply enter "weekly " — without the quotation marks — at checkout and the discount will be applied.

Special thanks to Rob Dauster for having Rafi and I on his podcast on Monday, massive thanks to guest newsletter contributors Kevin Sweeney and Matt Giles, and a grateful salute to friends like Fran Fraschilla and John Gasaway (and many others) for the recent, kind words about the product we put together:

To be honest, the past few couple weeks have been both exhausting and exhilarating. From me, Rafi, and our other teammate who has been working behind the scenes without putting his name out there: THANK YOU. Truly.
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Just because the season's winding down does not mean we're scaling back. Keep an eye out for more content, more research, and a continued commitment to helping you do Basketball, Smarter.

More updates to come, but this is only the beginning.

(Btw - look out for this newsletter on TUESDAY the next two weeks, as that allows us the time and freedom to recap the previous weekend + explore the next few days of games.)

ALSO - Hoop Vision will be in Minneapolis for the Final Four. More info to come soon. We'll have at least one get-together for subscribers, and would love to meet as many of you as possible that weekend.

Final e-book Note: Are you on a coaching staff and looking to purchase copies for your entire staff? We have "Full Staff" packs available for purchase, as well ($50 per staff).

Ok. Sales pitch over.
Legitimately.
Next week, no more e-book promos and no more marketing announcements.

This week is a little bit different:
a) Today is Thursday. And for the first time in 13 weeks, this is not coming out on a Friday. Whoops.
b) This is gonna be a quick hitter. Three sections to get you primed, pumped, and prepped for the first weekend of NCAAT action.

Here we go….

[ROUNDUP EXCLUSIVE]
CINDERELLA STATS: WOFFORD
Matt Giles (Twitter: @HudsonGiles) is back in the newsletter this week with a more detailed look at Wofford — who we can only assume is your Cinderella pick this year.

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The first time coach Mike Young thought his Wofford squad might be the best he’s ever coached was in early January. Fresh off a 29-point against UNC Greensboro, the Terriers drove two and a half hours to their next game, against VMI, and Young — as he recounted to NBC Sports’ Rob Dauster — said to himself, ‘We’re going to be really good.’

Since that moment of introspection, Wofford has been one of the nation’s most dominant teams, posting an offensive efficiency rate of 1.2 points per posession while holding opponents to just under 1 PPP—an efficiency margin of +0.22 — a number that seems small, but is one of the main reasons why the Terriers are projected to be this year's mid-major darling.

Wofford doesn't commit careless turnovers.
Wofford’s starters are among the most dependable in Division I, a group that includes Fletcher Magee, Storm Murphy, Nathan Hoover, and Cameron Jackson — a 6-foot-8 big whose assist rate (24 percent) leads the team. During conference play, the quartet scored an absurd 1.27 PPP, connecting on nearly 60 percent of its two-point field goals, 48 percent of its threes, and committing a turnover on a minuscule 14.3 percent of its possessions (per HoopLens.com).

Those rates highlight Wofford’s most notable tendencies, ones that are imperative for any team that historically have advanced in the NCAA tournament: the team values its possessions, posting an overall turnover rate (16.2 percent) that ranks twelfth in the tournament field, and are also nearly unstoppable in the halfcourt, scoring 1.02 points per play—which leads all of DI by a wide margin (per Synergy Sports, Tennessee’s halfcourt efficiency, which ranks second, is 1.004 PPP).

"From Downtown!!"
More than 40 percent of the team's field goals are from beyond the arc, and Wofford makes 42% of those attempts. The team leader is Fletcher Magee, whose season percentages—shooting +40% on more than 300 three-point attempts, with a true shooting percentage over 60% — puts him in rarified air with some of college basketball's best all-time shooters, including Steph Curry, JJ Redick, and Buddy Hield (per CBB Reference).

Don't try to make a Cinderella comparison — 2019 Wofford has their own identity.
Take all of the above, yes, and then consider this:
What might be most fascinating about Wofford is that this team really doesn’t compare to any past Cinderellas: per BartTorvik.com, the team’s closest comparisons are Belmont (2012), Saint Mary’s (2013), and Cornell (2010), but the similarity scores are plus-four — hardly a legitimate comparison, and far from the previous four Wofford teams that made the NCAA tournament. Just as Young predicted two months ago, his 2019 group is unique, and a team that could upend a bracket this week.

Here at Hoop Vision, we don't make picks - but we keep an eye on the numbers and the trends that matter — and Wofford checks out.

For those who are filling out your brackets -- we salute you!

[Matt is a freelance college basketball writer whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, Bleacher Report, Deadspin, New York Times, and FiveThirtyEight, among other outlets.]

Hoop Vision Weekly Thursday edition. ———— Today, it gets real.

Hoop Vision Weekly
Thursday edition.
————
Today, it gets real.