College Basketball Prospectus 2008-2009: The Essential Guide to the Men's College Basketball Season (College Basketball Prospectus: The Essential Guide to the) (Paperback)

~ Ken Pomeroy (Author), John Gasaway (Author)
Key Phrases: assist rate, block rate, steal rate, Big East, Big Ten, North Carolina (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

In the winning tradition of the New York Times bestselling Baseball Prospectus, the ultimate guide to college basketball.

From the brand that brought sports fans the New York Times bestselling Baseball Prospectus comes an all-new, one-of-akind, authoritative guide to college basketball. Utilizing the same unique prediction model, College Basketball Prospectus 2008-2009 applies objective knowledge, original hardhitting statistical analysis, and provocative writing to one of America’s most popular sports.

Divided into three sections, the prospectus includes essays on various aspects of the college game and the past season, previews of all thirty-one Division-I conferences, and a statistical abstract with the same cutting-edge mathematical analysis that has yielded a winning record of accurate predictions for the Baseball and Pro Football Prospectus series. For the 60 million Americans who are diehard college basketball fans, College Basketball Prospectus 2008-2009 is a slam dunk.

About the Author

Ken Pomeroy is routinely described on college hoop blogs as the Bill James of college basketball. Ken was a writer for ESPN.com and his work has been cited in Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. John Gasaway was the author of the Big Ten Wonk blog and has been cited by ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons, SI.com’s Grant Wahl, and MSNBC.com’s Mike Miller as among the most influential in his field.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Plume (October 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452289874
• ISBN-13: 978-0452289871
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #315,805 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just muttering ineffectually, November 11, 2008

By	josh (Chicago) - See all my reviews

John Gasaway might be the best sports writer out there (check out his old blog, Big Ten Wonk, or his new space, Basketball Prospectus, for a taste), and it's clearly on display in this new annual. Outside of the numbers, predictions, findings, etc., he's just fun to read. This book is worth picking up for the prose alone.

Ken Pomeroy is something like the Bill James of the basketball statistical universe (at least, on the college level). He's been putting together his numbers for years, and he's starting to dip his toe into the really interesting stuff, like play-by-play data. In this book, he considers some coaching axioms (ice a free throw shooter? Down by 5, shoot a 2 or 3?), offers thoughts on moving the 3 point line back (by looking at data when this occurred briefly in the past), and drops small pieces of information casually throughout the book.

If you've reached this page, you're probably at least aware of the Baseball Prospectus series. In terms of quality, this is just as good, though less focused on individuals and more focused on teams (though there is plenty of individual discussion for major players).

The downside - if your team is a mid-major not playing in the A10, MVC, Conference USA, or Mountain West, there won't be many words on them. Ken & John have stats from those conference in this book, but not many words.

Overall, it's a great start to the series.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a good stat reference, January 16, 2009

By	M. Butler - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While I thought the articles were decent, I was disappointed by the actual lack of stats in the book. I know you can get stats off the internet, but when I'm watching a game on my couch, I like a book. Compared to the Baseball Prospectus, this is very weak, which was surprising. Most of the magazine annuals have more numbers.