John Pudner wrote his first statistical analysis for the New York Post more than 20 years ago, ranking pitchers on opposite Sundays from when Bill James ranked batters, and he was named as the top sports news writer in his newspaper class in Virginia by the Virginia Press Association.
Since then he has run more than 200 political campaigns for candidates or ballot issues while continuing to write statistical analysis for sports and developing a database of thousands of basketball players at www.valueaddbasketball.com and writing for www.crackedsidewalks.com. He met with and advised several NBA teams to advice on the future performance of potential draft picks this year. His work for the Alabama Farmers Federation in 2010 included helping to coordinating door-to-door efforts that reached the homes of 170,000 voters, and his more recent statistical work was featured by CNN/Sports Illustrated.
Colorado came out of halftime and dominated Illinois for 11 minutes, outscoring the Illini 23-2, and lost. In a game of streaks, Illinois won the final seven minutes of the first half 13-0, and responded to Colorado’s run with a 16-2 run that left the game all but over at 55-46 with seconds to play en route to a 57-49 win. Tracy Adams rescued the Illini when it looked bleak.
22 Mar 2013
Miami became the fourth consecutive tournament champion of a power (BCS) conference to look excellent in their opening game. The ACC champion Hurricanes joined Louisville (Big East), Mississippi (SEC) and Oregon (Pac12) in taking momentum from a conference tournament run through a very impressive opening round game. Kansas (Big 12) and Ohio State (B10) play Friday night.
22 Mar 2013
Don’t mess with the A10 or the Pac12! In our preview, we said we did not know if Khalif Wyatt (pictured) had enough help to make a run, but he did not need any Friday as he shook off an injured hand to score 31 points and lead Temple to an upset of NC State. Wyatt also had five assists to set up teammates, and three of Temple’s five steals. Temple led throughout before a late rally made the 76-72 final closer than the game actually was.
22 Mar 2013
For the second straight day, the 32 NCAA tournament games run roughly from Noon to Midnight Friday. If Colorado can beat Illinois in the middle of that stretch, then UCLA will close out the night with a chance to make the Pac-12 undefeated in the opening round. Colorado is one of only eight teams in the tournament with two players in the top 50 in Value Add, and the others are all contenders in Duke, Florida, Gonzaga, Indiana, Kansas, Louisville and Ohio State. Assuming Albany does not challenge Duke in their 12:15 ET tipoff, the tournament gets fun quickly at 12:40 ET with the wild shooting of Mississippi's Marshall Henderson going up against a Wisconsin defense that can grind down opponents' scorers with disciplined play.
22 Mar 2013
Syracuse closed Thursday with the largest margin of victory of the day, beating Montana by 47 points – one better than VCU’s record 46-point win against Akron. The Orangemen advance to play a virtual road game against California in San Jose Saturday, but they are looking like the team that was in the top 10 most of the season before being pushed around in losses to Georgetown and Marquette.
21 Mar 2013
Lexington, KY – Once the thousands of Louisville fans filed out of Rupp Arena with their red wave filling the streets of the home of the Kentucky Wildcats, one of only three SEC teams to make the tournament was run off the court by Colorado State. The Rams are one of the only teams with two top 100 players in www.valueaddbasketball.com in dominant rebounders Pierce Hornung and Colton Iverson, but it was injured guard Dorian Green who came back from an ankle injury to score 26 points in the route.
21 Mar 2013
Ever since losing Taj Gibson, Darren Collison, Isaiah Thomas, Jrue Holiday, Quincy Poindexter, Landry Fields, James Hardin and others to the pros after their great 2009 season, the Pac 10/12 has been at the bottom of the BCS conferences in basketball. California’s Allen Crabb, ranked as one of the top 50 players in the country at www.valueaddbasketball.com, put an exclamation point on an incredible Thursday for the Pac12 that showed the conference is back on top.
21 Mar 2013
The average team has an effective Field Goal percentage of 48.8% (eFG%, field goal percentage plus half a shot made for every three-pointer made), and Louisville gave up 48.3% to North Carolina A&T - almost exactly average. The average team steals the ball on 9.9 percent of opponents trips down the court, and Louisville stole the ball on 28.6% of all North Carolina A&T trips - 20 of 70 times down the court.
21 Mar 2013
Lexington KY – With no timeouts left to set up a final play, Marquette coach Buzz Williams asked the officials to check the clock to see if the ball had gone out-of-bounds before the 5.5 seconds showing on the clock. While the referees reviewed the play, Williams drew up a final play to have the ball go to his best driver, Vander Blue (pictured), in the backcourt and the referees added 1.2 seconds – and that made all the difference.
21 Mar 2013
Brad Stevens is young but already legendary, and he has Butler in the second round again after defying the odds by taking the Bulldogs to the title game 2 of the last 3 years. Stevens had also already shattered the record for most wins for a coach in his first three years.
21 Mar 2013