Ken Pomeroy is the creator of the college basketball website and statistical archive KenPom. His website includes his College Basketball Ratings, statistics for every NCAA men's Division I basketball team, with archives dating back to the 2002 season, as well as a blog about current college basketball. His work on tempo-based basketball statistics is compared by many to the work of Bill James in baseball.[1] As of the spring of 2012, Pomeroy is also an instructor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah.[2]
Ken Pomeroy | |
|---|---|
| Education | Virginia Tech (BS) University of Wyoming (MS) |
| Occupation(s) | College basketball statistician, columnist |
| Years active | 2002–present |
| Known for | KenPom ratings |
| Website | kenpom |
Pomeroy earned his undergraduate degree at Virginia Tech, and received a graduate degree in atmospheric science from Wyoming.[3] After working as a meteorologist for the U.S. government, he quit that job to focus full-time on his website.[4] He previously worked with the Houston Rockets, teaming up with noted advanced statistics user, general manager Daryl Morey.[5]
Pomeroy has written articles in The New York Times, ESPN.com, and Sports Illustrated. He was a co-author of The 2008-09 College Basketball Prospectus and has been an author for the past four years.
Kenpom.com edit
Pomeroy's website has helped explain basketball on a possession by possession level. His peers have taken to calling him "Doctor Po-Po."[6] As well as maintaining and calculating a variety of statistics on his website, including tempo-free statistics, Pomeroy also maintains data on non-numeric factors such as offensive and defensive style of play.[7][3] One such measure that Pomeroy uses is called log5, a proprietary blend of data for projecting the likelihood of teams advancing in conference and national tournaments.[8] The equations for Pomeroy's log5 projections[9] were originally created by Bill James.[10]
Throughout the season, Pomeroy continually updates his KenPom ratings for all 363 Division I men's basketball programs with metrics such as offensive and defensive efficiency, tempo, and pace.[11][12] Although his site was more of a personal venture when it was founded, Pomeroy's research is used by numerous college basketball teams in an attempt to gain a competitive advantage.[3]
The accuracy of Pomeroy's rankings in predicting game outcomes has been noted by popular newspapers and blogs such as FiveThirtyEight,[13] Mediaite,[14] and The Wall Street Journal.[15]
Syracuse head basketball coach Jim Boeheim mentioned Pomeroy in a press conference rant about analytics on February 20, 2020, mistakenly attributing his consternation about certain stats to Pomeroy.[16]
Personal life edit
Pomeroy graduated from West Potomac High School in Alexandria, Virginia in 1991. In 2017, he was a resident of Salt Lake City.[17]