Open Records

The new open records law just speaks to the general paranoia in the SEC. The problem is, this is bigger than just football. It’s a detriment to the student and professional journalist who want to serve the public.

If an athletic program can push to delay it’s response time to records request, why wouldn’t other state agencies follow suit? The lawmakers wrote the new open record pretty broadly. the new law puts a delay on releasing new contract terms, any NCAA complaint letters, or if there are any new projects that come from taxpayer money.

Changing operating procedures won’t even give Smart an advantage on the field or in recruiting. The football department has access to doghouses full of money, near-professional facilities, and is in arguably the best state for high school football talent. Restricting access to public documents won’t help UGA win a national title. It won’t keep its wide receivers from dropping passes. But it does hurt taxpayers in Georgia, fans and anybody who cares about UGA — and any other athletic department in the state.

Georgia curbs journalists’ access to information with new law

The issues regarding the changes to the state of Georgia’s Freedom of Information Act — nicknamed Kirby’s Law — were at the forefront of the football discussion for most of the spring for me. I wrote about this issue in a column for The Red & Black in the spring, and it continues to be a notable problem for writers seeking information.

The biggest issue I have with the law change is the time increase. If the adaptation had been from a response having to be made in three days to one in, say, one or two weeks, I would have been OK with that. There’s no denying that requests take time to fulfill, and when you throw several different writers into the mix, it’s definitely isn’t an easy task to take care of. However, the jump from three days to 90 days remains nothing but absurd.

What also bothers me is the ridiculous arguments that some tried to make defending the change. Many people said that the driving force in the change was that the athletic department receives so many requests concerning recruiting, but that cannot possibly be true. Writers at publications such Rivals or 247Sports don’t go through the athletic department to find out recruiting news; they go straight to the source, i.e. the high school player involved or his head coach. That’s not to say there are no recruiting requests made, because I know at one point The Athens Banner-Herald’s Marc Weiszer sent in requests regarding graduate transfer quarterbacks. That being said, there are so many other areas that could have held up a better argument in this case than recruiting.

But it wasn’t like everything was perfect with FOIA requests before. As Matt Brown outlined in this post on SB Nation, there were times where the charges for certain documents were outlandishly high. The state legislature just took a process that often rendered peculiar requirements from the requestee and turned it into a process that’s practically not worth the investment due to the time involved.

I watched the FOIA law change’s implications play out recently. My boss, Jason Butt, broke a story regarding Virginia and Georgia facing off in the Chick-fil-A Bowl in 2020. Butt made a FOIA request to Georgia about the contract, but knowing the information would not be available for 90 days, promptly did the same thing in Virginia for the Cavaliers’ side of the contract. As a result, he got the information in a matter of days and was able to break the story.

The inclusion of the Fetty Wap rider is an important example for us to consider. Since the concert occurred before the new law kicked in, The Red & Black was able to get the contract and flesh out the details. This is important considering the circumstances of the concert, in that Fetty Wap was late and performed well short of the requirements of the contract. Considering the funds for Fetty come from the students, they deserve to know how much money was dedicated for that show and whether he had fulfilled his required duties. Without this access, no one would have been aware that he in fact did not follow through with what the contract stipulated from him.

Tom Brady Season Interceptions vs. Team Losses

https://public.tableau.com/views/Brady/Sheet1?:embed=y&:display_count=yes

sheet-1

I struggled with the logistics of this so apologies if it doesn’t look too great.

Anyways, I did Tom Brady’s season interceptions against team losses. With the exception of a year he didnt play and an anomaly year, basically the more interceptions he threw, the more the team lost. While this may seem like basic thought, one poor performance could affect an entire season, but this seemed to be more consistent. The years the Pats won the superbowl, he threw minimal interceptions for the entire season, which sometimes included more games than others.

Louisville Cardinals finish 23-8 in 2015/2016 Season

I used Sports Reference to look at how the Louisville Cardinals finished up last season. They went 23-8 in regular season and did not play in post season play due to NCAA violations that had happened. Most teams don’t even make it to the NCAA tournament, as only 68 get the chance to play in it. I wanted to look at UK but someone already did that so I thought I would take a look at UofL.

The majority of UofL’s losses were only by a few points but in a couple instances they lost by more than 15 points and both of those were to Virginia.

Looking at their FG, FGA, 2P, 2PA, 3p and 3PA – UofL was almost 50% for FG, more than 50% for 2P and below 50% for 3P. As strong of a team UofL is, I think they need to work more on the 3p.

I’ve also tried to upload my Tableau graphic multiple times and it won’t let me upload it or a screenshot of it. I’ve emailed it to you Professor Suggs.

Uploaded:

Efficient Drives lead to wins

It doesn’t matter how much you drive to the basket if you can’t score.

Through this research I found that the best teams in the NBA last season were actually on the bottom half of the league leaders in drives to the basket per game. The difference in what got them to a championship though was not only to finish at the rim, but also find an open man and score some sort of fashion.

Golden State only averaged 19.9 drives to the basket per game — the second lowest amount long the 30 NBA teams, but was the highest in efficiency, scoring a point on nearly 75 percent of its drives. The champion Cleveland Cavaliers were in the same boat, averaging 25 drives per game and cashing in on 67 percent of those drives.

Georgia Volleyball in a Graphic

I covered Georgia volleyball last season, and it was clear that the team did not fair well against conference opponents. Honestly, I could have chosen a variety of statistics to show weaknesses in Georgia’s offense and defense, but I picked three that I think show a complete picture of the team’s shortcomings.

The Bulldogs finished 0-18 in Southeastern Conference play in 2015 and 5-25 overall. They also finished last in the SEC in kills, assists and digs. I chose to make a Tableau graphic to illustrate these stats, because they represent issues in offense, defense and team play. As is obvious in this graphic, Georgia’s average stats per set are significantly lower than all of its conference opponents. It would not be difficult to argue that any one of these stats accounts for the Bulldogs’ record, but I think showing all three gives a more accurate picture of the season. Accordingly, Texas A&M has the highest combined average per set in kills, assists and digs. The Aggies were the 2015 SEC champions.

Tableau: Eagles Defense

The Eagles' defense has drastically improved in its first three games of 2016 — The Eagles’ defense has drastically improved in its first three games of 2016

The Philadelphia Eagles have had a remarkable turnaround in their first three games of 2016. I had a feeling why, but I wanted to investigate. One of the biggest knocks on Chip Kelly as a coach and his offensive scheme was that it forced the defense to stay on the field for too long. 2015 obviously saw the departure of Kelly. I wanted to use a baseline stat like yards allowed to illustrate the discrepancy that already exists with the implementation of Doug Pederson as head coach and in control of the offense and Jim Schwartz in charge of the defense. The Eagles now have a more pro-style offense, and the benefits have been reaped immediately. The personnel is largely the same, and that same personnel is allowing almost half the yards through three games this season compared to what it did in the last three games of last season.

2016 NBA Finals: Why Atlanta was swept

I chose to show statistical evidence of why the Atlanta Hawks were swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2016 NBA Finals. Each graph represents a game in the series and the last one demonstrate each teams total in the series.

In every game, besides Game 4, the Cavs managed to shoot and hit more field goals than Atlanta. In fact, the Hawks only consistently beat Cleveland in team fouls and turnovers. Cleveland also constantly out-rebounded them on offense and defense. The Cavs had a pretty monstrous game in the paint which may have been the cause of Atlanta’s struggle to rebound the ball. In Game 2, the Hawks also turned the ball over twice as much as Cleveland.

As for the overall series, Cleveland scored 30 more 3-pointers (90 more points) that Atlanta. This could be because of the works from Kevin Love, J.R. Smith and Shannon Frye, notorious for their 3-point shooting ability. The Cavs also collected almost 20 more offensive rebounds than the Hawks, giving them more possessions and opportunities for second chance points.

Each teams’ averages seem to be pretty standard, for example, the Hawks scored in the range of 9-16 three pointers in the series. Neither team had a night where the stats were just off the charts, or unusually different. This to me shows that the Cleveland Cavaliers are just an all around better team than the Hawks. They didn’t allow the Hawks to throw them off their game, while at the same time they didn’t allow Atlanta any wiggle room to dominate.

The Falcons came and went with Devonta Freeman last season

There were two distinct parts to the 2015 season for the Atlanta Falcons.

The first seven games of the Dan Quinn era boasted great promise from the team. Atlanta began the year 6-1 thanks in large part to second-year running back Devonta Freeman. Freeman went from merely the first up in a two-back punch with rookie running back Tevin Coleman to the league’s leading rusher on one of the league’s hottest teams.

Then, Freeman’s impressive play tapered off, and so did the Falcons.

In the final nine games, Atlanta managed only two victories. Meanwhile, Freeman didn’t have a particularly terrible end to the season, but it was far from the production he had found when the Falcons were winning.

In these two sections of the season, Freeman’s yards per game dropped from 88.7 yards per contest to begin the season to just 54.4 yards to end. His yards per carry also saw a considerable drop, falling from 4.7 yards per carry to 3.2.

Georgia Football 2015

My graphic analyzes how percentage of pass completion had a relationship to how the team fared in the game overall. If Georgia completed over 50% of their passes they won their game. However in all of Georgia’s losses, they completed less than 50% of their passes. The graph helps to show how the season progressed as well.

Games where they especially struggled included Alabama and Florida.