Who gets the ball?

Yesterday on ESPN 850 WKNR, Chris Fedor proposed the question "You're down 1, the shot clock is turned off. Who do you want taking the shot to win you the NCAA title?" My immediate answer was not one that any basketball expert would expect. It's easy to say Jimmer Fredette, he's the leading scorer in the country. It's easy to say Kemba Walker, he has carried his UConn team through 5 straight games in the Big East tournament. Jacob Pullen, Harrison Barnes, Nolan Smith and Kyrie Irving, I'll give them to you. But I'm still going to stick with my first answer.

Matt Howard is 16-3 in March (8-3 in NCAA Tourney games, the National Championship game against Duke was played in April). Howard through two 2011 games already has two game winning buckets. In the first game he got an offensive rebound and a putback. In the second game he had to make a free throw.

You can say all you want about those shots but Matt Howard's 89 offensive rebounds accounts for 25% of all of Butler's 2010-2011 totals. It makes sense that he would have been in that position. When you account for the fact he shoots 51% from the field inside the three point line, there really isn't much of a surprise. Meanwhile his free throw percentage is 78% for his career, and he accounted for 30% of the Butler's made free throws this season.

Using John Hollinger's efficiency ratings. Matt Howard ranks 17th, Kemba Walker 15th (Norris Cole is sandwiched in between the two at 16) Hollinger's rating is the overall rating of a player's per-minute statistical production, the average is always 15. Howard stands at 29.44 with Walker .14 points ahead of him.

How about Jimmer Fredette. Hollinger's Efficiency stats has him #7 in the country. Here you can see a comparison of Howard to Walker at statsheet.com. In another statsheet.com comparison, Fredette's offensive rating is actually lower than Walker's and Howard's. The formula for Offensive Rating is shown below.

Meaning that while Fredette may score more points then Walker or Howard, it takes him more possession to do so. While the website shows that Walker and Fredette may be better players in the the clutch the three are very tight in every other category. As pointed out before Howard has started 11 tournament games. Walker has only played in 7. Fredette has started and played in 5. And while they may be a great players, experience counts in the NCAA tourney.

When you look a bit further into a stat called True Shooting percentage, which accounts for, three pointers being worth an extra point as well as free throws. Essentially giving you a points per shooting possession ratio you see that the true shooting percentages of the three players is
61.3% for Howard, 59.7% for Fredette and 54.7% for Walker.

Of course if you are down three, the answer is simple you are going to Jon Diebler. Diebler leads the True Shooting percentage category with a 72.5%, three percentage points higher than the next player with at least 300 FG attempts, that player is Derrick Williams from Arizona.

So you can have your Lottery pick guards to take the shot, but I'm gonna stick with an undersize power forward who I've seen hit way to many tough shots for my liking.