Saturday, March 15, 2008

By Lucas Peerman
Production Editor
It doesn¹t take a genius to know the New Mexico State front court must step up in today¹s game against Boise State to give the Aggies any chance of going to the Big Dance.

What may be less apparent is the fact that the Aggies with Hatila Passos are to the Aggies with Martin Iti as Fred Astaire is to Nick Fazekas. What I mean by that, is one of them is gonna take you the Dance, the other is gonna trip over his two left feet.

Let me explain, statistically.

For the first two games of the WAC Tournament, I have recorded the over/under for each Aggie player. That stat tells you how well a team performs when that player is in the game. There are numerous other factors that control the outcome of the game to read too much into the statistic, but it does give a good perspective into how a player affects the play of the team.

For example, in the Aggies¹ 73-53 victory over Idaho on Thursday, the team outscored the Vandals by 21 points when Justin Hawkins was in the game. Hawk had an over/under of +21. In blowouts like the Idaho game, however, it¹s hard to get a valuable over/under because there¹s so much “garbage time” when the points don¹t matter. In fact, every Aggie who played significant minutes had a positive over/under against the Vandals.

Except for one.

Martin Iti recorded a -2. You read that right. The Idaho Vandals (horrible team) outscored the New Mexico State Aggies (most talented team in the WAC) by 2 points when Iti, the reserve center, was in the game. Passos, the starting center, recorded a +25, the highest mark of any player. You can see the rest of the results from that game below.
As I noted above, however, it¹s hard to get an accurate read in a blowout. Let¹s take a look instead at Friday¹s game, a much more competitive 83-75 Aggies¹ win over Nevada.

Once again, Passos was the most valuable Aggie according to over/under numbers with a +22. That was 12 points better the next player (Fred Peete and Hawkins were both +10). Iti, as he was against the Vandals, was the least valuable player in the Nevada game. He recorded an astounding -14, including a -10 in a second half in which the Aggies as a team outscored the Wolf Pack by 10 points.

NMSU outscored Nevada 57-35 when Passos was in the game. Nevada outscored NMSU 40-26 when Iti was in the game. Each player was in the game about the same number of minutes (Passos played 21 minutes, Iti 19. There was no point at which either player was not in the game or in the game at the same time).

When Passos was in the game versus Nevada, the Aggies scored 2.71 points a minute and gave up 1.66 points a minute. When Iti was in the game, the Aggies scored 1.37 points a minute and gave up 2.11 points a minute. Quite a
discrepancy there. For all you stat geeks out there, here¹s the numbers, with over/under numbers for the first half, the second half and the (game in parentheses)

New Mexico State 73, Idaho 53
Jonathan Gibson, +11, +5 (+16)
Fred Peete, +12, +10 (+22)
Justin Hawkins, +11, +10 (+21)
Herb Pope, +14, +6 (+20)
Hatila Passos, +17, +8 (+25)
Jahmar Young, 0, +8 (+8)
Wendell McKines, -3, +6 (+3)
Martin Iti, -6, +4 (-2)
J.D. Luster, DNP, -3 (-3)
Trei Stward, DNP, -3 (-3)
Gordo Castillo, DNP, -3 (-3)
DeAngelo Jones, DNP, -3 (-3)

New Mexico State 83, Nevada 75
Jonathan Gibson, +4, -3 (+1)
Fred Peete, -2, +12 (+10)
Justin Hawkins, -3, +13 (+10)
Herb Pope, -7, +7 (0)
Hatila Passos, +2, +20 (+22)
Jahmar Young, -5, +11 (+6)
Wendell McKines, +3, +3 (+6)
Martin Iti, -4, -10 (-14)
J.D. Luster, DNP
Trei Steward, DNP
Gordo Castill, DNP
DeAngelo Jones, DNP

As I said earlier, there are many, many factors that affect a player¹s over/under rating that he cannot control, such as the play of his teammates and the play of his teammates¹ opponents. However, with Passos and Iti splitting time evenly against the Wolf Pack (meaning neither player was saddled with horrible teammates the entire game), the discrepancy between Passos¹ and Iti¹s numbers are that much more glaring.

Let¹s hope Passos, Pope and McKines (and maybe even Steward) get the majority of the minutes down low against the Broncos if the Aggies want to have any chance of putting on their dancing shoes.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lucas,
What the heck was that??
You are more worried about individual players over/ under.

What the team and the fans worry is how WE play as a team!
I'm sure Hawk could care less if he is the MVP of the tournament or if the bench gets more minutes than expected.
The most important thing is: how the team plays and how the crowd gives them the energy!

Big up's to our Freshmen! Pope, Young and Wendell played beyond there years last night!

Big up's to the ladies! 19 down and they won! One more game! Let's take that final step together!

ONE MORE GAME!
Stay focused and keep playing HARD! The house will be packed and rocking! Go Aggies!

Vic

Anonymous said...

Interestng stats, but upon further review I see vs. Idaho Pope was plus 20 and he was 0-8 from the floor with 4 turnovers,over the course of a season those stats might mean something, in a 1 or 2 game stretch it means nothing to me.

Anonymous said...

?????
Have you been smoking something that has certain, medicinal values??

Good win last night.
The wolfpack was swept by a major dust storm last night!
BTW, I saw a picture of Mark Fox in an Eastern NM BB uniform wearing "nutt hugger" shorts. Not a pretty site!

Let's pound the ponies tonight and give some love to the team and to OUR coach, Marvin Menzies!
We've been very critical of them and OUR coach thru out the year!

One more game and we go dancing!

Ganja Boy

Anonymous said...

Excellent article Lucas! I have had this feeling for a while, more so as this season has progressed. Now it is documented and serves to illustrate why it is so important to have Passos in the game. He has really stepped up his play this season.

Anonymous said...

It almost sounds like you are rooting for NMSU to lose - just to prove your point!!

Anonymous said...

These over-under stats are interesting ... I don't see him 'rooting' for the Aggies to lose. He's just pointing out that the Aggies are a very good team with Hatila Passos playing center and not so good with Iti ... it's pretty simple. It would've been hard to NOT see Iti tripping over his own feet last night and hacking the $#*% outta Nevada players. Lets hope he proves this article wrong tonight against Boise State.

Would you all agree last night was Herb Pope's break-out game?? I'd say so. Throughout the season, his confidence was diminishing .... and now with his confidence sky-high, I say he will be the leading scorer tonight ... Go Pope!

Anonymous said...

Very good post, Lucas. I believe an individual players' over-under is relevant, but not necessarily dispositive of who wins the game. As one blogger noted, Pope had a bad night against Idaho, but a positive over-under.

There is no question that Iti did not help us out there. He has good shot blocking ability, and is a decent rebounder. However, he may be the worst free throw shooter in the conference, is unable to make a jumper, and has bad footwork (hence, all the fouls). Iti's presence offensively is works against the Aggies because it effectively turns us into an outside team.

I think the type of game will dictate whether Iti should be in the game more. For instance, if our offense is clicking, but we are having trouble stopping people from making it to the hoop, a tall body will be valuable to have. If, on the other hand offense is a problem, Passos and Pope need to play the lion's share of the minutes.

Ross said...

I've been one that's stayed pretty critical of Menzies this year. Last night showed that they've come a long way, that was a very impressive win against a talented Nevada team. The play of the new guys, Pope, McKines, and Young, was pretty good, once Pope decieded to stop taking stupid shots, he was leading the team out there. Now, hopefully there's no let down tonight, because there's no doubt that NMSU is more talented than Boise State.

It was a great atmosphere last night, it hasn't felt like that in the Pan Am since Reggie was here. Tonight will be awesome, GO AGGIES!

Anonymous said...

get a life!

Anonymous said...

Hey Peerman, looks like your bagging on Iti was for nothing.

You need to report on home and gardening, not sports.