PTL Twitter Report

The stats do not correlate, and the play in the PTL is more loose and less physical than Big Ten play.

However, you can take away a lot of from people in the PTL.

1.) Bigs normally don't get many points, as 1-3 usually have the ball the most and take the most shots. A lot of the bigs gets their points on put backs.

2.) If a guy is putting up 30-40 pts a game in the PTL. He's got the physical gifts to play some minutes for Iowa. Basabe isn't going to put 30-40 up every game as a frosh, but what you can take from it is that his game, physical abilities, etc... will let him get onto the court and will allow him to contribute for Iowa.

You can take something from the PTL, there are a lot of insight you can take from the games. Esp. with the type of play we have been promised, PTL results will be closer to the end result under Fran than under Todd. (READ: closer, not directly correlated or 1:1 stats or anything like that).

You have to take everything that happens in context in the PTL (little defense, guard/SF oriented, etc...) If you can do that, you CAN take away a lot from the PTL.
 
Troy Skinner did light up the PTL pretty good. Furthermore for as much crap as skinner got while he was at Iowa and after (even by me) I will maintain that if he would have had the luxury to be utilized more as a hybrid guard, and not been forced into handling the ball, he would have been remembered differently.

He had the ability to score in the B10 coming off screens and shooting. Unfortunately he was utilized as a primary ball handler.
 
The stats do not correlate, and the play in the PTL is more loose and less physical than Big Ten play.

However, you can take away a lot of from people in the PTL.



You can take something from the PTL, there are a lot of insight you can take from the games. Esp. with the type of play we have been promised, PTL results will be closer to the end result under Fran than under Todd. (READ: closer, not directly correlated or 1:1 stats or anything like that).

PTL.

I am not talking about direct 1:1 correlation. That would be silly. I am wondering if there is a correlation such that if you average 30+ in PTL if that correlates with 10+ in NCAA play? It would be easy to figure it out. Take scores of NCAA players in the PTL and compare their PTL averages to their NCAA averages.

My initial hypothesis would be that you would see some correlation that higher PTL scorers would be higher NCAA scorers. It would be pretty easy to plug it into SPSS or some other stats program if you had the data.

Sorry Spank, but I just can't accept your claim of no correlation without some evidence to support the claim.
 
I agree with you Caarhawk

I can't imagine a zero correlation between PTL points and NCAA points. It seems as if the PTL is more guard oriented, so I wonder if the correlations might be a bit higher for guards than for posts.

If anyone had access to the data I'd be real interested in looking at the stats myself -- I have a lot of experience with SPSS.
 
I am not talking about direct 1:1 correlation. That would be silly. I am wondering if there is a correlation such that if you average 30+ in PTL if that correlates with 10+ in NCAA play? It would be easy to figure it out. Take scores of NCAA players in the PTL and compare their PTL averages to their NCAA averages.

My initial hypothesis would be that you would see some correlation that higher PTL scorers would be higher NCAA scorers. It would be pretty easy to plug it into SPSS or some other stats program if you had the data.

Sorry Spank, but I just can't accept your claim of no correlation without some evidence to support the claim.

I said they don't correlate 1:1, but that you can get good info from PTL as far as how good players are going to be.

I'm not going to go back and try to find data on the PTL and match it up w/ regular season performance, I don't have time like that to waste.

The long and short of what I was trying to say was: What happens at the PTL can show you a players potential, but the stats that are put up won't correlate to the reg. season. So those that see 38 by Mel and get excited should temper their enthusiasm, likewise those that see Cougill put up 12 shouldn't be down on him because bigs typically don't get a lot of touches.

It's all about context.
 
storm, if Mel was getting 4-8 points a game I would be very disapointed. We already have 2-3 of those players.

The way he is playing now puts him ahead of what we have now. Sorry but I am going to be pretty enthused about that.
 
Bottom Line Mel Basabe is the 2nd coming of Ricky Davis/Doug Thomas/Kurt Looby...is that a stretch????:rolleyes:

I'll go out on a limb and predict that if he stays all 4 years he will be more effective than Doug or Kurt all kidding aside. Neither came in with much in the way of offensive tools other than the dunk. And yes I know you were just kidding about Ricky, then again ya never know. .
 
I'll go out on a limb and predict that if he stays all 4 years he will be more effective than Doug or Kurt all kidding aside. Neither came in with much in the way of offensive tools other than the dunk. And yes I know you were just kidding about Ricky, then again ya never know. .
I agree with you that if he stays all 4 years he will be more effective/well rounded player then Doug or Kurt. You have to give Ricky credit for his athleticism though.
 
I grew up in IC and used to watch PT games. Take them for what they are worth. But I find it amusing that we sit here and pretend they are absolutely meaningless. Uh, this is a college sports online message board. This site's purpose is to speculate. And for the PTL, this speculation involves live "game" action against other Division I basketball players, including ones who have recently played in NCAA tournaments or in the Big Ten.

Sure, living in Seattle I can't look at a PTL box score and take a ton from the game, but don't tell me they are meaningless. I recall watching guys like Helmers and Ramos and Gomez and Vernon Simmons in PTL games and realizing they'd never play much in the Big Ten, or hadn't made much progress from the previous season.

If Brommer consistently scores under double digits this summer, I think it is safe to put him in that category. His performance, or lack thereof, will be telling. On the other hand, you can't tell me you wouldn't expect to see some improvement from him this winter if he was putting up 25+ points and 20 rebounds in the PTL.

The league usually indicates, if nothing else, who looks ready to contribute at the Big Ten level and who doesn't. And that applies to both returning players and freshmen to be. There is some gray area, of course, but pay attention to the players performing on the far ends of the spectrum.
 
If you want to know the truth, you can make correlations about any two random facts. Causation is a whole other issue.

That being said, I don't think what you and the others are saying are incompatible nor inconsistent. No, PTL stats don't mean squat when it comes to the Big Ten. Generally speaking though, the better PTL players are also the better college players. I think that's a fairly accurate statement.
 
I wonder why Lucas O'Rear for UNI isn't playing in the PTL. Maybe getting drafted by the Reds has pushed him toward a pro baseball career. Anybody heard anything about him?
 
storm, if Mel was getting 4-8 points a game I would be very disapointed. We already have 2-3 of those players.

The way he is playing now puts him ahead of what we have now. Sorry but I am going to be pretty enthused about that.
I agree w/ that.. I lean more to getting pumped about PTL than saying it's meaningless. As I've been trying to say - players that do well in the PTL generally do well for the Hawks... as general guideline.
 
I said they don't correlate 1:1, but that you can get good info from PTL as far as how good players are going to be.

I'm not going to go back and try to find data on the PTL and match it up w/ regular season performance, I don't have time like that to waste.

.

Yeah, I am not either. That is why I said it would be interesting if someone else did it. I just have a problem with people making claims about correlation without any data to back up those claims. And again, 1:1 correlation is so silly it really is a red herring.
 
Nobody ever made a claim that points are a 1:1 correlation.

All storm, myself and several others who have seen PTL are saying is that you can recognize relative strengths and weakness and tell who by and large who will make an impact.

Basabe isn't putting up these points in a rec league against 50 year old guys that can't jump. Nor are the players currently in the league not trying on defense. It seemed to me they were getting after each other pretty well. As mentioned it is not as physical and the intensity isn't obviously the same but it is really a pretty good test for a freshman.

Based on two games from Basabe I can almost guarantee that barring injury he will be a better player as a freshman than all but a handful of guys we have had the last three years. I would say the same for Marble although probably not quite as big of an impact as Basabe. This shows the problems we have had recruiting and keeping talent the last three but also shows we maybe headed into the right direction.

I expect Gatens to be our leading scorer again but I wouldn't be surprised if Basabe is second or third.
 
Okay, I can see the word correlation is causing some confusion. I first said it would be interesting to see if there was any correlation. Spank came back and said "No." But in so doing used the figure 1:1 correlation. That limits correlation too radically. Correlations don't have to be so precise just as long as there is a statistical relationship.

Now, people (including Spank) keep saying that players who do better in PTL generally do better in NCAA. That is a statement of correlation. I was just thinking that it would be interesting to see if the stats would actually show this correlation.

At this point I would run the stats, but I don't know how to get old PTL stats.
 
Last edited:
I wonder why Lucas O'Rear for UNI isn't playing in the PTL. Maybe getting drafted by the Reds has pushed him toward a pro baseball career. Anybody heard anything about him?

Pretty sure O'Rear is playing minor league ball this summer, but will be back at UNI in the fall.
 
Top