Podcast Vs. Everyone: With Ken Pomeroy and John Andrzejek

If we’re being honest, the co-hosts have gotten to interview some pretty important people over the years. So it’s not often that we get a little starstruck for an interview — as we did this week when we welcomed Ken Pomeroy to the show.

Before Wednesday night’s recording, this was the closest we had gotten to riding the coattails of the man who brought analytics to the college hoops masses:

We had no business being on the same page with him then, and we certainly don’t now ... but hey — shoot your shot, right?

(Astute analytic types will recognize some other names on that page that we also had no business being around.)

And if that wasn’t enough awesome for you, we welcomed back Washington State Cougars assistant coach John Andrzejek — the program’s director of analytics, and the man who brokered this discussion — to join in the conversation.

WSU Athletic Communications

If you’re already champing at the bit to dive in, here you go:

If you need a little convincing that it’ll be worth your time ...

We covered a ton of ground in our nearly two-hour conversation, including WSU-specific topics such as:

• Ken’s projection for WSU in 2020-21;
• What makes Kyle Smith unique;
• How to try and reconcile the inefficiency of Isaac Bonton with the high burden that was placed on him in WSU’s offense;
• The amount of improvement that can be expected from WSU’s young players.

One of our favorite parts of the discussion involved Ken and John discussing the effects of team rebounding — specifically the role that Jeff Pollard played in allowing CJ Elleby to be such a superior defensive rebounder.

We also tackled some big picture questions about analytics and also dove into some nitty-gritty. Basically, there’s something in here for everyone, no matter whether you’re a hardcore nerd or just analytics curious.

And for those of you in the latter category, we made sure to get the most important question for you up front: Just how does Pomeroy’s rating system work?

(That was actually a little selfish, because now when someone complains about it on a thread we can just point them to the podcast!)

Hopefully you’ll find it as interesting and entertaining as we did. We talked for a long time! And if you don’t? Well, you already knew you’d probably hate it, and we don’t actually care.

(But if you do like it, please leave us a five-star review — it helps other people find the podcast.)

Also if you like it: You want to subscribe! It’s the fastest way to get our episodes; most of them hit the feed the night before and will be on the device of your choice before we post to the website.

You can also subscribe on ...

• Google Play
• Spotify
• Stitcher
• Or by manually adding this feed to your favorite podcast app