Watchable basketball dies a little each time UVA basketball wins. So says ESPN bloviator Colin Cowherd, who has added an anti-UVA crusade to his list of racist, sexist and other nonsensical trolling.
Cowherd roots for “better bb in the long term,” whoever on his staff takes care of his social media for him tweeted on Monday, picking up on a rant from his radio show.
“If Virginia wins it promotes slow down hoops.”
Gotcha. And he has a point, because according to KenPom.com, UVA’s average offensive time of possession this year is ranked 341st among the 351 D1 teams.
Duke, which plays lightning-fast, if you ask anybody without access to stats, is 117th, and Kentucky, which is Kentucky, whether or not you have access to stats, is 105th.
Which means they play faster than UVA, way down there in the bottom 11.
Then you dive into the numbers. Kentucky’s average offensive time of possession is 17.8 seconds, just over halfway into the 35-second shot clock.
Duke’s time of possession is 17.9 seconds per, same thing, basically.
Virginia, according to another Cowherd rant, stands around 40 feet from the basket dribbling the ball until the end of the shot clock.
Virginia’s average time of possession must be, like, what, 32, 33, 34 seconds?
Ah, actual numbers, they’re so much fun.
According to KenPom.com, the average UVA offensive possession is 21.0 seconds.
Which is three seconds longer than the average possession of lightning-fast Duke and Kentucky.
Nobody’s saying Cowherd or anybody else out there has to like Virginia basketball. But while you’re entitled to your own opinions about what you like and what you don’t like, you can’t just make stuff up and say it’s true, even if you’re a racist, sexist troll like Colin Cowherd.
– Column by Chris Graham
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