V Extrapolation

I thought it might be fun to take a look at last year’s statistics and extrapolate them into PCTI V, assuming that we will ever have one. So I took the IV numbers for Esk, Pitto, McK, BC, Wilson, DK, Hops, and Smo and aggregated them into one set of totals. Then, the IV stats for JT, Sabin, Spot, Abe, Beas, Bruise, Donley, and Wes were aggregated into the other set. These are the findings:

FG%

Wilson’s team shot 137/370 last season for 37.0%, while Abe’s team shot 136/382 for 35.6%. Slight shooting advantage to Wilson’s team mainly due to the Pitto factor. But you have to think that Wes will give us a better performance than last season’s 0-10 hot mess.

3 Balls

Wilson’s team shot 44/152 for 28.9% last season, while Abe’s team shot 42/164 for 25.6%. Again, slight 3 ball shooting advantage to Wilson’s team even though neither team should boast about this category. More like which team is the least worst in this statistic.

Free Throws

Abe’s team shot 66/105 for 62.9% last season, while Wilson’s team shot 45/91 for 49.5%. Abe’s team got more attempts and shot a better percentage. This may be misleading since both Pitto and Esk shot uncharacteristically low percentages last season and you can't count on that happening again. However, for self-proclaimed "fundamental basketball players", we sure do struggle with fundamental things like free throws.

Rebounds

Abe’s team grabbed 250 rebounds, 68 offensive, while Ben’s team grabbed 236 boards, 69 offensive. Abe’s group may have a slight advantage here with Abe, Donley, and Bruise as good rebounding bigs and solid rebounding guards JT and Beas. BC and Esk will need to go big in this category to mitigate the advantage. BC doesn’t always embrace his bigness or leftiness, so time will tell if he can lead his team and be BIG.

Points

Abe’s team scored 380 total points to Wilson’s team’s 363 total points. Slight advantage to Abe’s team. This only represents less than 3ppg difference, but given how difficult it has become to score in PCTI, this difference may be larger than what it seems. On second thought, 3ppg seems like a mountain to climb in terms of scoring. Large advantage to Abe’s team.

AT

Wilson’s team had 86 assists and 53 turnovers for an AT ratio of 1.6, while Abe’s team had 80 assists and 71 turnovers for an AT of 1.1. No surprise that DK and Esk are on the team that wins PCTI’s cutest and least relevant metric. Wilson’s team takes care of it a little bit better than Abe’s team, but this advantage may not mean much since PCTI’s career shooting percentage is 36%. Inability to convert turnovers into points hurts both teams here.

Blocks and Steals

Wilson’s team had 29 steals and 13 blocks for 42 total hustle points, while Abe’s team had 36 steals and 7 blocks for 43 total hustle points. Slight edge to Abe’s team with stealers JT, Beas, Donley, and even the old man. BC is the main block threat along with Pitto’s steals. Can Smo protect the rim for his team this season? Playboy has length.....

eFG%

Wilson’s team shot 43.0% when accounting for 3 balls, while Abe’s team shot 41.1%. Edge to Wilson’s team, but perhaps not as wide a margin to be significant. Like BC says, this thing comes down to who makes a couple a 3 balls at the right time.

Points per Shot

Abe’s team scored 0.99 points for every shot, while Wilson’s team scored 0.98. Dead heat. PCTI mainly comes down to which team gets the most shots, given that very few teams in its history have shot the ball well. Hi Kittens!

Conclusion

Statistics tell us that this could be a very evenly matched tournament. Wilson’s team will need above-average offensive performances from players who typically are not primary weapons, while Abe’s team may need some primary players to fill certain roles and sacrifice their scoring. Of course, this could all be irrelevant if we can’t get this weekend on the calendar at some point. Chaos and controversy reign at the moment….

Sabin

Dan the one man no one can stand

An unprecedented and seemingly inexplicable delay in the announcement of the date for PCTI IIIII has many within the league wondering if a leadership change is needed for one of the country's most widely heralded pick up basketball weekends.

PCTI boss Danny Krow has delayed an announcement for months, prompting speculation on his capability to lead. Krow is the puppet master of the “bored of directors” but lately has been too preoccupied with non-basketball affairs to pull the strings. Keeping with a long held personal tradition, Krow has once more evolved in to the type of person he has previously ridiculed. After years of lambasting anyone who used work as an excuse for...anything, Krow has disappeared in to the bowels of big business produce distribution. Some wonder if “Dan the one man corporate yes man,” thinks of PCTI as anything other than a networking tool he can use to mine for potential corporate talent.

Krow's excuses for the delay in a date are so inadequate that many wonder how he can even deliver them with a straight face. The one time respected leader has offered up three excuses for the delay, each seemingly more absurd than the other. For starters, Krow has tried to unfairly redirect the ire of impatient PCTI participants on to Scott Donley. Donley and his wife are expected the couple's first child in early 2014. Puzzlingly, Krow speaks of the exact time frame of the forthcoming arrival of Baby Donley as an unsolved mystery. It doesn't take recent first time parents (though Krow is one of those, too) to know that a baby's due date is usually “revealed” in the seconds after the baby's existence is confirmed. Still, Krow gives the impression that he and Donley are speaking regularly, waiting for news to break on his availability for PCTI. A decision that could have been made – and on Donley's end, probably was made - months ago.

Then there's the issue with Dan's number one pawn and cohort on the “bored” the scholar and man of letters himself, Anthony Hopkins. As if figuring out when a baby is going to be born isn't going to be difficult enough, Krow has the added task of trying to crack the code of when Hopkins will graduate. Certainly Hopkins knew the approximate time of his graduation before he ever logged in to his first graduate level webinar, yet somehow his impending graduation has PCTI in a holding pattern.

But both of these excuses make like Joe Thompson and pale in comparison to Krow's third date conflict he's juggling, the infamous Bryan McKinney fishing trip. Going in to his fifth year in PCTI, only two things have elicited any sort of emotion from McKinney: colorful language in the Rancho and Cilantro High School gymnasium and fucking with the dates of his fishing trip.

This is how I picture it.

A nervous Krow walks through a plate glass door and in to a nondescript, sparsely decorated State Farm office in Arizona. He faces a large wooden desk, meticulously clean. Behind the desk is a large leather chair, it is turned so Krow is facing its back. The blinds are closed and only creases of sunlight peak in the otherwise dark room.

Slowly, the chair turns around. A straight faced McKinney, dressed in chinos and a button up shirt, resembling a white Cliff Paul, lifts his chin up and peers through Krow with an unblinking stare.

After several seconds of silence that feel like hours, McKinney breaks the stare and looks at the wall, where a mounted Blue Gill hangs.

McKinney: That's a nice fish isn't it, Danny?

Danny: Ahh, man you know I don't...

McKinney, cutting him off: I'm not going to tell you the story of how I caught that fish, Daniel. You know fish stories...people tend to exaggerate....say things they really didn't do....sometimes things they...can't do. I'm not that kind of guy, Daniel.

(McKinney spins the computer monitor on his desk so it is facing Danny and silently motions Danny to look at the screen)

McKinney: Get in close, real close.

(McKinney with his left hand cups the back of Danny's head, moving it inches from the screen. Using his right he opens his Outlook Calendar to a week in the summer.)

McKinney, talking to Krow as if he is a child: See this week, Danny? This is the week for my fishing trip. Don't. Fuck. With. My. Fishing. Trip.

(McKinney lets go of Dan's head gently and slowly spins his chair back around)

McKinney: Now get the fuck out of here.

This is the only way I can conceive of this conversation happening. How else could the single quietest and easy going guy in PCTI have such influence over the date of PCTI? Certainly both he and Krow know everyone else takes other vacations during the course of the spring and summer months. But yet here is Krow, seemingly paralyzed by fear, incapable of considering a date until he knows with absolute certainly that it won't conflict with....pause again for emphasis....a got damned fishing trip.

So as the league waits, where does PCTI IIIII stand? Obviously the off season schedule has taken a major hit. How can we know when is the appropriate time to train, talk trash, buy plane tickets, etc. until we know when the off season ends?

One could argue that this PCTI more than any before it needs a date set. Do not forget that it was Krow himself that went against everything he had stood for previously (and perhaps his better judgment, though he's unlikely to admit it) to send this year's event to Denver. A daring and potentially reckless move considering weather could be drastically different in the spring versus the summer. Also, while he wowed the league with his presentation, this PCTI is in the hands of Abe. Read that last part of the sentence again before continuing. That's the guy who in years past didn't know who was on his team or bothered to book a flight until days before tip off. Now we're trusting him to plan an event that as of Thanksgiving, still doesn't even have so much as a preliminary date set.

Maybe PCTI is overdue on making two important decisions. Picking a weekend for IIIII and picking a successor to their distracted, incapable leader.

Draft Commentary and Analysis

Thought I might throw out some draft commentary and analysis since I haven't had a chance to discuss with anyone outside of the Commissioner.

1st pick: Eskildsen. There are probably a few PCTI participants who think that Esk had a down tournament in IV, but that is only judged against the backdrop of his noteworthy performances from I and III. Player still shot a respectable 37% from the field and could have been much higher had he not uncharacteristically missed some makeable layups in Scottsdale. Also recorded 5.6 RPG, good for second on his team. Led his team in assists and also graded out second in the Productivity metric. Although he is probably not terribly pleased with his 4-17 free throw performance, this player will most likely find his way back to the all-tournament team in short order.

Grade: A-

2nd-3rd picks: Beas and Joe. Abe wisely locked up a scoring, defending backcourt that is sure to cause a significant degree of problems for Ben's team. Although Beas didn't shoot it as well as he wanted to in Arizona, he still averaged 6.4PPG, 5RPG, led his team in steals, and was second in assists. He also made tons of plays during the tournament and especially in Game 7 that helped his team to bring home the title. Joe was also very productive in IV with 7.4PPG and 4.7RPG while placing second on his team in steals. He also shot a respectable 38% from the field and showed great leadership to his team in a losing effort. Always gave a crap. These two give you shooting, creating, defending, and heart.

Grade: A+

4th-5th picks: BC and Pitto. By most accounts, BC was a solid performer on his team with a couple of spectacular moments. Player shot an outstanding 43.5% from the field while leading the tournament with 7.6RPG and 21 offensive rebounds. Player also led his team in blocks with 7 and was second on his team with 14 assists. Also won his team's productivity metric with 63. Pitto seems to be something of an enigma in PCTI. His own team doesn't vote him to the AT team after a performance in which he averaged 12.4PPG on a robust 47.5% from the field. Also led the tournament with 15 three balls on 43%. Second to only Abe on his team's efficiency scale and led the tournament in both true shooting percentage at 60.4% and 1.43 points per shot. Shot an uncharacteristic 56% from the free throw line. Meanwhile, opponents almost unanimously voted him to the AT team including the author. Player seems to earn respect from opponents while frustrating teammates. Player that more than any other on the court must be accounted for by the defense.

Grade: B+

6th-7th picks: Sabin and Donley. Sabin was efficient in IV, but perhaps not as good as his team needed him to be on day 3. Averaged 8.6PPG and 4.4RPG on 45% from the field and 38% from 3. Led team in free throw percentage, steals, assists, and points per shot with 1.18. Player laid an egg in game 7 though as legs quit on him and he couldn't breathe. Donley slapped up a respectable 7.3PPG and 4.3RPG while taking the primary responsibility for guarding PCTI's most versatile offensive player, Abe. Player gave such a great defensive effort (including 7 steals) that it hurt his offensive efficiency to the tune of 32% from the field and 22% from 3. But player never lost confidence in his swashbucklingness and gave a worth performance in Arizona.

Grade: B

8th-9th picks: Krow and Hops. Krow got loose in Scottsdale with 4.4PPG and 3.6RPG. Player looked to be aggressive with his efficient mid-range shooting game and had primary responsibility for guarding PCTI's oldest player. Shot a respectable 37% from the field and even got to the foul line 5 times. Led the tournament in A/T ratio and shot an above-average 33% from deep. Coming off a significant injury, Hops struggled from the field at 19%, but was third on his team in offensive rebounds and shot a respectable 64% from the foul line. Also had a couple of blocks and 3 steals.

Grade: C+

10th-11th picks: Spot and Bruise. By almost all accounts, Spotlight played really well in Scottsdale. Player shot an above-average 37% from the field and 35% from deep. Was also third on the team in offensive rebounds with 9. Spot also did a respectable job defending Pitto, who is one of the toughest covers in PCTI. Bruise was very good as he averaged 6PPG on 39% from the field and 60% from the line. Second in the tournament in total rebounds at 7.3RPG. Third on his team in the productivity metric and scored an above-average 1.02 points per shot.

Grade: B+

12th-13th picks: McKinney and Smo. BMac had perhaps his best showing in his hometown as he produced 7.7PPG and 6 steals on 37% from the field and 10 three balls. Player also had 3 blocks but a strangely absent rebounding game with just 1.3RPG. Smo was highly efficient as he shot 47.6% from the field with 3.6RPG. Player also had 9 assists from the block and an A/T ratio of 3. Threw in a couple of steals but no rim-protecting blocks.

Grade: A-

14th pick: Wes. Player had a difficult time shooting the ball at just 11%, but performed well from the free throw line at 67%. Wes was also very encouraging and positive with his teammates. Led the league in sweating gravy.

Grade: C