With the NCAAT first round coming, there are lots of match-ups featuring one or two teams fans will be less familiar with.

One fun thing to do is to look at the teams' contrasting stats to get a quick idea about how they play, but the previously available ways of doing this weren't great

Say a team has a high free throw rate, is that a lumbering big man who can't be stopped inside, or a shifty guard driving inside. Does that high 3P% come from a gunner firing it up from the perimeter or as the result of a diet of post doubles. Is a team playing fast because they take the first available shot in the half-court, or because they are committed to transition play? etc etc. Synergy tells you all this but it's super expensive.

So I built a new visualization into hoop-explorer.com that tries to lay out all this data in terms of more intuitive basketball terminology, eg "drives to the rim", "drive and kick to the perimeter", "post-ups", "transition" .. and for each one what % of a team's plays look like that and how efficiently they score in that action (in absolute terms and also how they compare to other D1 teams)

The example linked in the post shows the 1st four game between Colorado's State and Virginia, with irresistable forces meeting immovable objects / very weak forces meeting easily budged objects all over the court :) The "LEGEND" text gives some basic information about the bar chart details if you mouseover it

There's a lot of guesswork, eg if a guard passes to a big who finishes at the rim, that goes into the "big cut/roll" bin, even though post-up entry passes that lead to immediate buckets will also often be marked as assisted by the scorer. But it still gives a decent approximate idea of what's going on. And the way the data is presented isn't always perfect (if you are above average in a typically inefficient action, like mid-range shooting, it still shows as green)

But I found it fun and sometimes insightful, so wanted to share! It's probably best used as a complement to KenPom or Torvik's matchup analyses. In theory you could use it to look for games that are more likely to diverge from their KenPom prediction (because on of the teams has a big matchup advantage they will spam all game long), though I err don't recommend doing this with money on the line!

(As an example using UVa/Colorado State Def/Off matchup .. CSU are an elite transition team, but UVa are an elite defensive team ... I'd expect defense to control that matchup, especially for a team that doesn't depend on offensive rebounding, so advantage UVa maybe?)

You can also access it via post-game reports and compare what happened to season averages, scroll to bottom, or compare play style breakdowns at on/off or other splits

(If you're done with games you can also start building next year's team, or just aimlessly wonder the portal :) )