There is some interesting stuff on KenPom.com.

First of all, we are ranked 135, which is the highest we've been in 23 months. We hit 133 after we won at Valpo on 1/2/2013. We finished at 170 that year, despite going 5-11 in conference.

Defensively, everyone knows we're getting killed on the glass, and we are ranked 310th in defensive rebounding percentage. Our opponents are getting offensive rebounds on 37.4% of chances. Keep in mind it's only three games in (only D1 games count), but 37.4% would have finished last year as 6th worst in the country. We've got to find a way to crash the boards especially once we get into conference play.

Our opponents are hitting a lot of threes. They are taking an average amount, but unfortunately, they're hitting 41.4% against us right now. That should come back down to earth a little bit.

Two things we do well defensively are create turnovers and not foul. We're getting steals on 9.9% of possessions (rank 144), and we are ranked 39th in defensive free throw rate. It's kind of crazy that in two of our three D1 games, the opponent has shot under 50% from the free throw line. We are still #1 in free throw defense! 48.9%. That's wild.

On the offensive end, our three point shooting is really carrying us. According to the stats, our offensive style is pretty much: pass the ball around, shoot threes. Not a bad strategy, really. We're 19th in 3P% at 42.4% and we're 19th in Assist Rate (62.4%).

Make of all this what you will. It's a fun offensive style to watch when the threes are falling. Watching us give up tons of offensive rebounds is less fun.

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I am glad you invested in kenpom. I used to use it a lot when it was a free site. I've got a subscription to bbstate, which has a lot of historical info. It's been a particularly good tool for getting an overview and a sense of history of the other MVC teams, something like an almanac.

The FT defense stat is pretty crazy. I guess you can control it a bit by directing players who to foul and who not to foul, and using defense to get the ball into the hands of poor free throw shooters. But having watched our games this year, that tactic hasn't seemed obvious. In the Kent State game, for instance, Jimmy Hall missed all three free throws after coming into the game as a 56% free throw shooter. But Brewer came into the game shooting 82% from the line and missed three out of four, and Spicer came in shooting 45% from the line and hit both.

It's going to even out, of course. My fear is that it will even out in some random game that we should win. Like Jackson State will go 19/19 or something crazy and beat us.

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