Comments on: Layups: Correlations Between NCAA & NBA Stats

By: Michael Casper

Michael Casper — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:51:19 +0000

I think players have a hard time drawing fouls in the pros for a number of reasons. Above all probably they come into the pros and are suddenly surrounded by much better, faster, more athletic, and SMARTER defenders than what they faced in college. Then there's the possibilities that in college they only play 35 games and play every game full out. They have to. Otherwise the coach (and college ball is the coaches game) will bench their sorry behinds. Whereas in the pros (which is not a coaches game) players know that 82 (and hopefully more) games is a long season, so they might not go all out on every possession which means they might not play as physical, which means they might not get whistled. Then there's the star players that don't want to commit fouls because they want to stay in the game.

By: scott wallace

scott wallace — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:19:05 +0000

I believe that the stat is Free Throws Attempted per Minute- not Free Throws made. It's a correlation of the ability of a player to draw fouls in college and then draw fouls at the same rate in the pros. It's a comment on the differences in the refs between college and the pros.

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:32:24 +0000

It's true, the average for all of D-I this year is 69%, the NBA average (in a record-breaking year) is 77% (75.5% last year) -- though with selection bias you'd expect the avg. of NBA-caliber talents to be higher: 70% for power-conferences this season, 70.4% for NCAA Tournament teams, 71% for power-conference teams in the tourney.

By: kjb

kjb — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:41:51 +0000

Maybe pros get better with practice?

By: merl

merl — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:22:02 +0000

I think that there are lots of NBA big men who were bad FT shooters in college but gradually got better over the course of their nba career.

By: MyArvydas

MyArvydas — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:43:58 +0000

Well, it would seem to make sense that if you can make your FT in college, you could make them in the NBA as well. However, it's not quite the same job: I know there are stll no defenders and the line is at the same distance, but to take a FT you have basically to regain your composure after the foul (which are harder in the NBA), be able to slow down your heartbeat (which is more prone to high activity in the NBa), and so forth.

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:37:39 +0000

No clue, but yeah, you'd think FT% would be the most correlated, since it comes under exactly the same conditions at both levels. Could just be noise, but then that calls into question how relevant the other correlations are. On average, I wonder if FT% tended to be higher or lower in college or the NBA. I'll have to ask Jon what his thoughts are...

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:43:10 +0000

Any ideas on why free throw % wouldn't have the highest r^2?