Tempo-Free Hate 2013-2014: Bo Ryan's Revenge!

Last year, between the Ohio and Wisconsin games, we spent the time wondering why do we all hate Aaron Craft so much? To answer this question, we proposed the Four Factors of Hate, and used these factors to find the Big Ten leaders in Tempo-Free Hate. This year, the question of why we all hate Aaron Craft was answered once and for all when Doug Gottlieb blamed this on the ball being too slippery:

GIF by Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog)

Even though unwarranted media attention and apologia are good reasons to be annoyed by a player, the Four Factors of Hate try to quantify just what makes a player so annoying using only the stats on the floor. The four factors are:

• Steals per personal foul (ST/PF). Also known as handchecking ability, or Craftiness.

• Ability to draw fouls (Free Throw Attempts/(Minutes Played * Usage %)).  Jordan Morgan is not as bad at this as you think.

• Three-Point Specialization (3FG/FG). The "Just A Shooter" Award.

• Free Throw Percentage (FT%). For those annoying players who just Win The Game. Since all players are supposed to be able to shoot free throws reasonably well FT% only counts half as much as the other three.

All stats come from Sports Reference College Basketball, except for team adjusted tempo, which is pulled from the front page at kenpom. Who is the most annoying player in the Big Ten? Find out after the jump!

Aaron Craft and the Four Factors of Hate

While thinking about Tuesday's game against Ohio State, I was struck like I walked through a plate-glass window by the observation that, although Deshaun Thomas is clearly OSU's most valuable player, Michigan fans didn't experience massive schadenfreude in seeing him lose. Instead, we were filled with glee to see Aaron Craft lying on the floor in defeat. Part of the reason I find Craft so annoying is that he's the beneficiary and victim of Ecksteinism, or "scrappy white guy media affection." Another part of the reason is that his aggressive defense always makes you wonder, "How on earth was that not a foul?"

I'm not going to try and quantify media overexposure in this post. What I'm going to try to do here is use nothing but freely-avaiable statistics to try and predict which players in Big Ten men's basketball inspire the most hatred in opposing fanbases solely by the way they play. I downloaded data for all Big Ten men's players this season, including conference and non-conference games through February 7, and then eliminated the players who haven't seen the court for at least 100 minutes. This left a dataset of 113 players for which I attempted to determine "The Four Factors of Hate."

The first factor I came up, inspired by Craft, is steals per personal foul. There are two kinds of players who can rack up the steals and not the fouls: the player who never gets whistled for overaggressive defense and the player who is actually really good at stealing the ball. Both of those players will drive you crazy when there's on the other team. Here's the leaderboard for ST/PF:

Rank	Player	Team	ST/PF
1	Tim Frazier	PSU	1.125
2	Austin Hollins	MINN	1.023
3	Branden Dawson	MSU	1.000
4	Victor Olapido	IND	0.931
5	Aaron Craft	OSU	0.860
6	Shannon Scott	OSU	0.857
7	Julian Welch	MINN	0.818
8	D.J. Richardson	ILL	0.809
9T	Josh Oglesby	IOWA	0.800
9T	Joe Coleman	MINN	0.800

The second factor is the ability to draw fouls. Sports Reference College Basketball doesn't have this listed as a stat, so I estimated it with the formula ADF = Free Throw Attempts/(Minutes Played * Usage %). This stat favors the frontcourt, with centers and forwards occupying eight of the top nine spots. Two factors in and it's clear Penn State really misses Tim Frazier.

Rank	Player	Team	ADF
1	Amir Williams	OSU	1.268
2	Aaron White	IOWA	1.080
3	Tim Frazier	PSU	1.020
4	Cody Zeller	IND	1.006
5	Trevor Mbakwe	MINN	0.972
6	Andre Ingram	MINN	0.894
7	Abodunrin Gabriel Olaseni	IOWA	0.861
8	Maurice Walker	MINN	0.852
9	Melsahn Basabe	IOWA	0.801
10	Pat Ingram	IOWA	0.793

The third factor measures three-point specialization: it's the fraction of made field goals that are three-pointers, of 3FG/FG. A whopping 92% of Penn State's Nick Colella's made shots are from outside the arc, almost 14% more that #2 Josh Oglesby.

Rank	Player	Team	3FG/FG
1	Nick Colella	PSU	0.920
2	Josh Oglesby	IOWA	0.784
3T	Kale Abrahamson	NU	0.733
3T	Travis Trice	MSU	0.733
5	Maurice Creek	IND	0.727
6	D.J. Byrd	PUR	0.712
7	George Marshall	WISC	0.700
8	Jordan Hulls	IND	0.667
9	Nik Stauskas	MICH	0.624
10	Maverick Ahamnisi	MINN	0.600

After the jump, read about the fourth factor and see the leaderboards of hate.

Stauskas: A Romance of Many Dimensions

Chapter 16. How the Stranger Vainly Endeavoured to Reveal to Me in Words the Mysteries of Spaceland

From dreams I proceed to facts.

It was the last day of the first month of the 2013th year of our era. The patterning of the rain had long ago announced nightfall; and I was sitting in the company of my wife, musing on the events of the past and the prospects of the coming months, the coming year, the coming Tournament.

Straightway I became conscious of a Presence in the arena, and a chilling breath thrilled through my very being. Looking around in every direction I could see nothing; yet still I FELT a Presence, and shivered as the cold whisper came again. I started up. There was nothing; and I resumed my seat, again exclaiming, "The boy is a fool, I say; a Two-Point Shot can have no meaning in Basketball." At once there came a distinctly audible reply, "The boy is not a fool; and a Two-Point Shot has an obvious Basketball meaning."

Desperate with fear, I rushed forward to the Stranger with an unceremonious, "You must permit me, Sir—" and felt him. There was not the trace of an angle, not the slightest roughness or inequality: never in my life had I met with a more perfect Circle. He remained motionless while I walked around him, beginning from his eye and returning to it again. Circular he was throughout, a perfectly satisfactory Circle; there could not be a doubt of it. Then followed a dialogue, which I will endeavour to set down as near as I can recollect it, omitting only some of my profuse apologies—for I was covered with shame and humiliation that I, a Square, should have been guilty of the impertinence of feeling a Circle. It was commenced by the Stranger with some impatience at the lengthiness of my introductory process.

Stranger: Have you felt me enough by this time? Are you not introduced to me yet?

I: Sir, excuse my awkwardness, which arises not from ignorance, but from a little surprise and nervousness. Would my Lordship deign to satisfy the curiosity of one who would gladly know whence his Visitor came?

Stranger: From Space, from Space, Sir: whence else?

I: Pardon me, my Lord, but is not your Lordship already in Space, your Lordship and his humble servant, even at this moment?

Stranger: Pooh! What do you know of Space? Define Space.

I: Space, my Lord, is the ability to make Three-Point Shots, infinitely prolonged.

Stranger: Exactly: you see you do not even know what Space is. You think it is of One Dimension only; but I have come to announce to you More: three-point shots, backdoor cuts, assists, and stout defense.

Via MGoBlog, Obviously.

Nik Stauskas is from Canada? Hey, I'm from Canada!

The second in a hopefully-not-ongoing series.

Stauskamania has taken Ann Arbor by storm, and it's brought a wave of Canadaphilia with it! Tim Horton's locations are popping up everywhere! Not only has Timmie's opened up a 24/7 location on South University, they are starting construction on a new location at S. State and Ellsworth! Most ominously of all, the Tim Horton's website claims the Big House is a Tim's location!

But there's more to Canada than Tim Horton's! There's also Justin Bieber!

You know what, guys? I can't fake this anymore. If you want to make a big deal out of a guy who's played eight college games, we're cool with that. We like it when 'mer'ca pays attention. We get passive-aggressive when you don't and do things like let Aaron Sorkin name his crappy show The Newsroom when there already was a Canadian show called The Newsroom which was a million times better. And we're not joking when we say that, by having scored 111 points against D-I competition, Nik Stauskas is already a lock for the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame. (Craig can chime in here and testify that it is, in the literal sense, a hallway.) But we're not cool with the obvious Canadian stereotypes. If you want to impress your Canadian girlfriend, you have to go the extra kilometre and know all the non-obvious stereotypes. When we say "Sorry, eh?" you don't get any cred for noticing the "eh." You get your cred for noticing the subtle vowel shift in the "o."

Archer went with the non-obvious stereotypes and created the funniest
Canadian-themed episode ever! They even cast the Trailer Park Boys and
didn't care that they were horrible voice actors!

Bieber? Although I am loathe to slag my hometown bro, we do have other musicians. Some of them are even widely considered to be good! And if you say Nickelback or Carly Rae Jepsen, you'll learn how false the stereotype of Canadian politeness can be. Bieber's not even the best musician from London, Ontario. We have listenable rap in Canada now! And if you can't name ten good musicians from Vancouver, not only should you not be slagging Canada for Nickelback, you really shouldn't be discussing popular music at all.

"The Old Prince Still Lives At Home" video should have gone viral.