Marquette vs. Mount St. Mary's (MD): The Four Factors (And More) In Graphic Form

In our effort to get you, the sophisticated Marquette fan, better prepared for MU's games this season, we're kicking around a few ideas for game previews. This is Mark One.

What you see below is a concept I've borrowed (fine: hijacked) from SBN's excellent Mets-devoted blog, Amazin' Avenue. It's a graphic representation of how Marquette and tomorrow's opponent, Mount St. Mary's, perform relative to the Division 1 average in things like effective field goal percentage (eFG%); turnover percentage; offensive rebound percentage; and more.* I, m'self, am a visual learner, so seeing the numbers presented like this gives me a better feel for the strengths and weaknesses of the respective teams.

Plus: it saves me the time of typing: "Mount St. Mary's can't shoot, turns the ball over a ton, doesn't hit the offensive glass, and can't keep its opposition off the boards."

The overall efficiency stats (the top two bars in the graphs) are based on Ken Pomeroy's 2012 projections. The other numbers are KenPom's end-of-year statistics from 2010-'11:

Click to make the graph all big 'n stuff.

* If you don't know what eFG% is or why it -- and offensive rebound percentage, turnover percentage, and free throws attempted vs. field goals attempted -- is so important, check out Cracked Sidewalks' excellent primer on the four factors.