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The Dagger - NCAAB

The Dagger

Thu Nov 12 04:34pm EST

Tempo-free statistics are your friend

By Eamonn Brennan

And, despite the photo at right, this friendship requires no math.

A few weeks back, when I was doing the requisite "oh, crap, the season's coming up" freakout, I thought it might be nice to write a long, detailed primer on tempo-free statistics. I sort of casually drop tempo-free stuff into game recaps and whatnot; why not explain, as simply as possible, what I'm talking about? Even if I wasn't sharing anything new, I could refresh my own memory and go into the season fully equipped. And maybe a reader or two would join me. Up with learning, and all that.

Turns out The Only Colors beat me to it, and their very simple, comprehensive explanation of tempo-free is much better than anything I would have done. Go read it, like, now.

Of course, there are other tempo-free resources on the Internets, including Basketball Prospectus, which just released its 2009-10 annual, much of it written by the inimitable John Gasaway. Gasaway's old site, Big Ten Wonk, still hosts a brilliant treatise on the origin, history, and usage of tempo-free statistics, which is required reading once you've finished TOC's point-by-point glossary. And once you finish all that, really dive in at Ken Pomeroy's advanced rankings site, which smashes all of the tempo-free scrap metal you just learned about into shiny, smooth blocks of invaluable hoops knowledge.

Maybe you know all of this; maybe you don't. If you don't, maybe you don't care. Whatever. That's, like, your journey, man. But if you want to keep up in the wild and wacky world of college hoops talk on the Internet -- not to mention its increasing creep into mainstream outlets -- you really should know tempo-free.

There. That's my sermon. Resuming regularly scheduled programming ... now.

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