It was represented to me that some of the stats and lingo on the Hoops Charts are unfamiliar to a lot of readers, especially those who don't hang out all day on Kenpom and Torvik and Hoop-Math and Hoop-Lens and Synergy and...so.

click for big, or click here for a larger version of Michigan's

Let's go through it.

THE NEW BADGES: PLAYER ARCHETYPES

If you talk about enough basketball players you start to recognize certain types of role players repeated. Often they're invisible to stats, or require seeing several stats in several contexts, and it's easier to just represent them with a graphic. In the NBA there's the "Three and D" guys. The college game, with its much larger pool of less refined players, has more of them. Keep in mind that a player who fits a certain description might have skills beyond his archetype.

Just a Shooter is a modern basketball archetype. They're usually long enough to be annoying on defense, but they're primarily low-usage gunners whose job it is to sit outside the arc with a good three-point shot, creating space for the team's offensive creators. Think early careers of Duncan Robinson and Zak Irvin.

Not Just a Shooter is an MGoBlogism coined from the incredulity of Big Ten play-by-playmen whenever Nik Stauskas did something other than shoot threes. It's grown into an archetype unto itself of a guy who's out there to shoot a lot of catch-and-shoot threes, and generate the requisite spacing, but also can and will drive, pick up fouls, play excellent defense, and/or create on his own. Still mostly a shooter.

Maestro is a setup artist, usually a point guard with a super-high assist rate that's well above what his other abilities might create. Zavier Simpson is a classic Maestro.

Chuckers are guys who shoot a lot and clang a lot. Chuckers are notable because defenses can be prone to overreact to them: a guy is shooting so you try to close out, and then there's all this space inside. Smart defenders know to let them shoot. Minnesota's Isaiah Washington was the most extreme example. Late-career back-problem Zak Irvin was a famous chucker (Michigan hasn't recruited one in a long time). Rutgers is made of them. Chuckers also tend to get inflated assist rates because that measures assists on shots they don't take.

Slashers go to the basket. They tend to generate a lot of fouls along with rim attempts. Often highly athletic and highly rated by recruiting services because of their ability to generate rim opportunities and break down a defense's integrity by beating guys off the dribble. Think MAAR.

Gritty McGritsteins Often aren't of much help on offense, aren't particularly skilled, and rely on a lot of "technique" and "grit" to "get the job done" and "play annoying defense" often with tough, gutty, underappreciated tricks such as playing grab-ass, flopping, and punching guys in the dong. Wisconsin's Brad Davison is the quintessential Gritty. Aaron Craft was a Gritty. Zack Novak was a Gritty.

Traditional Bigs live in the paint. They're your big bangers who do most of their offensive work with their backs to the basket. You'll often find them camping out down low, using their arms as natural defensive barriers to anything at the rim. If they do attempt a three, e.g. Teske, it's rarely contested. Austin Davis is a traditional big.

Stretch Bigs are the opposite. They require attention wherever they shoot, and some can even take you off the dribble. Not always great defenders because of strength limitations, they make up for it and more by the extra dimension they bring to offense. Putting them at the line is dangerous, and defending them with traditional bigs on the court is hell. Moe Wagner is the type specimen of the stretch big.

Switchers are those modern bigs—e.g. Xavier Tillman of Michigan State, Isaiah Roby until recently of Nebraska—who may not have the height to match up with big traditional centers but make up for it by having the athleticism to switch onto anybody. Possibly offensively limited, their defensive impact still makes them highly valuable when facing modern four- and five-out offenses. They are however often useful in pick and roll offenses because of their mobility.

All-Americans or guys in the Kempon Top 10. Multi-dimensional stars who dictate your approach on defense. Think Trey Burke.

Defensive specialists are different from Gritty McGritsteins because they don't need a friendly whistle to be effective. Often superior athletes, these are potential conference DPoYs providing value on defense equal to a superior scorer's on offense. Charles Matthews.

Error-Prone guys are usually good for a bag of turnovers, even with lower usage. 2012 Jordan Morgan or Evan Smotrycz are the only examples from recent history because this is so rare for Michigan starters.

OCCASIONALLY I'LL ADD THESE:

Transition Speedsters are self-explanatory. We mostly have this here for [meep-meep] Ayo Dosunmu of Illinois.

Black Holes don't give up the ball once it's in their possession. Often found with a nickname like "Buckets"—or at least they imagine they do. Iggy Brazdeikis is the canonical black hole of Michigan history.

[After THE JUMP: The rest is probably self-explanatory?]

THE BAR CHARTS

One of the best ways I think you can visualize a team is see who's taking what shots and how many. This is what the bar charts were finally able to accomplish. The dark parts are the made and the secondary color are the missed shots, with three-pointers, 2-point jumpers, attempts at the rim, and free throws represented by their own bars. Data are collected from Hoop-Math (you can cull them yourself from box scores, as I discovered because Hoop-Math doesn't always update after every game).

I also use a formula to make sure the size of the charts are to scale.  There wasn't room for the labels on the bench bars so I hope everyone can suss that out for themselves.

The bars tell you most of what you need to know about a guy. What % does he hit his threes? Where does he like to shoot from? Does he get to the line, and make his shots when there? Looking at them together you can see where a team's points come from, and mentally put them against the guys defending them to get an idea of how this matchup will go.

Should I Be Mad (/Surprised) if He Hits a Three? (SIBMIHHAT) is an MGoBlogism carryover from the old text lineup cards. We are mad when players who don't normally make a three hit them (not when a proven shooter gets one off). You are allowed to be mad any time a three goes down--it's a free country. SIBMIHHAT (sib'-me-hat) exists because three-pointers have a lot of randomness, and this gets frustrating when our 45% shooter is missing open shots while some lug named Jones is canning 3 of 5 contested attempts against us. Rather than look up Jones's 3/24 career three point shooting on Kenpom, you can look at your lineup card which says "EXTREMELY" in the SIBMIHHAT line, and know in your heart that the fist you are shaking at the basketball gods is righteous indeed.

THE STAT BOXES

These are six player stats that we use to show a guy's effect on the court. Most of them are from KenPom, and one is my own.

ORtg (Offensive Rating) is Kenpom's score for a player's offensive output, taking into account his shooting and turnovers. A 100 is a fair player but a 90 is a real drag on an offense while a 110 is just good and guys often get past 120 or even to 130. It is VERY context-dependent: Offensive rating and usage (the next stat) are tied together--the more offense you use the more defensive attention you draw and the more impressive it is when you maintain that efficiency.

% Poss (Percent of Possessions), also known as "Usage," is Kenpom's usage stat, measuring the share of possessions the player will use on the court, either through a shot or a turnover or drawing a foul on the floor. Usage helps put a lot of other stats in context: someone using very few possessions will usually have a low turnover rate and an inflated ORtg. Take the example of a Just a Shooter with an ORtg of 125 (quite good!) and a usage of 9% (quite low)--that guy's offensive rating is basically a sampling error from taking only really good shots set up by his teammates. That's why I've added...

% PAst (Percent of Points Assisted) is my own statistic, based on data from Hoop-Math. It's the percent of points on the floor that were scored off of assists. This has to be considered in a team and positional context—some teams assist a lot more than others in general, and the gravity of a star player like Trey Burke or Cassius Winston tends to generate catch and shoot opportunities for his teammates—but usually a guy under 70% is doing a fair bit of his own creating, and under 50% is carrying an offensive load beyond his usage. You see a lot of Just a Shooters and developing bigs with 80-85% PAst. But it can also just mean a big who's developed an advanced pick and roll game with his team's distributor.

ARate (Assist Rate) is a Kenpom stat of assists divided by team shots that weren't his own. A 20% ARate is expected for a point guard, and 10+% is a good distributor elsewhere. When you get down to 5% or 6% a guy's probably not looking for his teammates for whatever reason (often because he's the guy they want to take the shot). Note that a guy who takes more of his team's shots will have an inflated assist rate. You should also consider assist rate when looking at turnover rate because a guy trying to generate clean looks is taking more risks.

TORate (Turnover Rate) is a Kenpom stat for how often a player coughs up the ball, simply his turnovers divided by his possessions. Again, it takes context—distributors have a lot more chances for turnovers than catch-and-shoot wings. For non-distributors, a TO rate in the teens is typical, 20 a bit high, 25 very high. For distributors, a 20 is normal, 30 is high. A Just a Shooter should have a very low TO rate.

Stl Rt (Steal Rate) is a Kenpom stat for percentage of opponent possessions when a guy is on the floor that he steals the ball.

OReb  (Offensive Rebounding Rate) is from Kenpom. It's the percentage of his own team's misses when he's on the floor that a player rebounds. For a big, 5 is mostly ignoring the offensive glass, 10% is good, 15% is very good, 20% is crazy.

DReb (Defensive Rebounding Rate) is the flipside. Here, a standard big should be at least over 20%, 25% solid, and 30% is excellent. If you see a big at 15% or lower that's usually scheme-related, e.g. Donnal/Wagner-era Michigan had their skinny bigs concentrate on boxing out while the guards scooted in to retrieve the balls. 

PLAYER CIRCLES

These are self-explanatory I think. A "Dangerman" is relative to the team we're playing—if there's a guy who stands out he gets a star. Top-50 recruits (by 247 Composite) are the ones expected to be draftable. The thickness of the ring is relative usage so you can quickly ascertain how ball-dominant each player will be. The two colors of the circle represent the % of minutes played (it's helpful to look at it like a clock). If the primary part is cyan he's an offensive liability, and if the off color is cyan he's a defensive liability.

TEAM STATS:

The bars show offensive identity as well as ability. They include Kenpom's four factors and a few by-choice measurements to give you a sense of how they play, high to the right, low to the left. Note that they are measured against all the teams that made the NCAA tourney since 2008. This is because there's a lot of bad basketball out there—over 350 teams that compete in Division 1—where numbers get inflated by a different brand of basketball, e.g. Michigan is currently 115th in 3PA/FGA, not because they don't take a lot of threes (they do), but because there are teams on the fringe that tend to resort to more extreme strategies. I figure enough readers have watched enough March Madness that I can make use of this large relatively stable dataset to represent how good a team is.

Generally this means you need to be a Top 100 team in a category to get to the second quadrant (quidrant?) from the left, and then it's progressively harder to get to the top, for example a team that's 35th nationally in something will be at the start of the 4th quadrant, while a Top-10 team is probably at the start of the 5th. Offensive and defensive efficiency have been adjusted this year because offense is way down (not just from threes—experts believe the game's being officiated differently this year).

They're all from Kenpom.

Efficiency (Offense/Defense): Generally points per possession, adjusted for opponents. KP uses a 100 scale, where 100 is average, 80 is quite bad, 120 is quite good. The Michigan measure in the example at right is 111.0, ranked 35th.

Tempo: How many possessions you're likely to cram into a game, adjusted for opponent speed. Michigan's this year is 68.9, which is 161st in the country this year but pretty fast compared to tourney teams since 2012 (not 2008 because the shorter shot clock changed this).

Shooting: This is eFG% or Effective Field Goal Percentage, which is two's made plus threes made times 1.5, all divided by shot attempts. It's a stat basketball fans use to replace the standard field goal percentage because it accounts for the fact that threes are worth 1.5 times as much as twos. An eFG% of 50 is getting a point per possession with your shots. Note this is a classic example of a stat for which my graphic's methodology produces a different result than a standard ranking because defense is so much better at higher levels. Michigan's eFG% in the snapshot at right was 53.3, just 45th nationally, but that's good for top quartile among historical tournament teams, for whom, like Michigan, shots are normally tougher to come by.

Ball Security/Turnover%: These are both Turnover %. The Michigan examples are 16.1% (24th) on offense, and 16.1% (327th) on defense. Offensively of course this is a metric of how good you are, but in context of efficiency it's also a suggestion of style. Defensively it has a lot to do with how you play—a defense that uses a lot of drop coverage won't get as many turnovers since they're more focused on creating bad shots. It also has a fair amount of luck involved.

Crash Boards/Rebounds: Again two different terms for Offensive and Defensive Rebounding. In the examples Michigan's offensive rebounding is 25.9% of their own misses (243rd) while their defensive rebounding is 74.1% of opponent misses, good for 81st nationally this year.

Draw/Avoid Fouls: Specifically shooting fouls, and not the ones from Tom Izzo Eats His Liver time. The stat on Kempom is called FTA/FGA or Free Throw Attempts divided by Field Goal Attempts. Michigan's FTA/FGA in the example at right is 25.9% (324th) on offense and 26.8% (49th) on defense.

Make FTs: Free throw percentage. Make your free throws.

3PA/FGA / Prevent 3's: This is a style heuristic on offense and somewhat of a style thing on defense, measuring how much you take or let opponents take three-pointers. It's three-point attempts divided by field goal attempts. Michigan's at right is 34.8% (93rd) in taking threes, and 27.8% (8th) in deterring them. Good defenses that give up a lot of 3's are often using a lot of zone, or else forcing offenses to jack up contested trips late in the clock—either way they're tough to score on in the paint.

Shot Blocking: Percent of FGAs blocked. Michigan's defense is at 10.5%, 94th in the country this year.

Avg Height: Kenpom figures this based on minutes. Michigan's is 77.6".

Experience: Another KP stat. It's based on years of college experience, weighted on the roster by minutes played.

Bench Minutes: The percent of minutes by non-starters.

THE FACES

I include these guys for fun. They're originally characters from the now-long defunct MGoRecruiting Board, but I repurposed them for HTTV and now they're here too.

Nefarious Eduardo means an elite unit. Usually that's top-10 but I might stretch it based on circumstances.

Data is alright. Not bad, really. At least, only a tiny, insignificant, complaint-oriented portion of the fanbase is upset about it. Top 35-ish. Iowa football-ish.

Memo means mediocre. Definitely not great, also not a total disaster. Salvageable perhaps. Below-average for a playoff-bound team. Top-100 at least.

Sad Josh is bad. They're bad. Really bad. Hopelessly bad.

 RANKINGS AND COACH

The Rankings bit is easy to understand. Kenpom and Torvik (he calls it BARTHAG) use play data to ascertain how good a team would be in a hypothetical matchup, while NET and the AP poll reward teams for winning games relative to their competition. I will dip into the "Others receiving votes" to extend the AP poll some, while also noting that the AP poll today is only still around because people talk about it, and just about every other measure is better. A substantial difference between rankings that matter for seeding (NET) and the rankings that matter to gamblers (KP/BARTHAG) means a team has probably been unlucky.

The Coach's conference record does not include conference tournament games, though I think it ought to.

Bo Ryan Index is an MGoBlogism that's been in the Glossary for years. I quote:

Bo Ryan Index (BRI): the percentage of photos in the first three rows of that person's Google image search in which they look enraged, incredulous, furious, or are expressing something otherwise unpleasant.

Bo Ryan's BRI is 94%

Does this mean anything? Well…

• Big Ten Coaches with BRIs >50%: Archie Miller (90%), Fran McCaffery (86%), Tom Izzo (75%), Brad Underwood (70%), Pat Chambers (60%), Chris Collins (57%), Greg Gard (57%)
• Big Ten Coaches with BRIs <50%: Fred Hoiberg (0%), Juwan Howard (4%), Chris Holtmann (20%), Steve Pikiell (21%), Richard Pitino (25%), Matt Painter (27%), Mark Turgeon (45%)

Notice a pattern?

The Trident goes to the team that won the Battle 4 Atlantis.