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 The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

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 George William James (born October 5, 1949) is an American baseball writer, historian, and statistician whose work has been widely influential. Since 1977, James has written more than two dozen books about baseball history and statistics. His a ...

in baseball. As of 2012, Pomeroy was also an instructor of atmospheric sciences at the

University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...

. Pomeroy earned his undergraduate degree at

Virginia Tech The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, commonly referred to as Virginia Tech (VT), is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States ...

, and received a graduate degree in atmospheric science from

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

. After working as a meteorologist for the U.S. government, he quit that job to focus full-time on his website. He previously worked with the

Houston Rockets The Houston Rockets are an American professional basketball team based in Houston. The Rockets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Southwest Division (NBA), Southwest Division of the Western Conference (NBA) ...

, teaming up with noted advanced statistics user,

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

Daryl Morey Daryl Morey (born September 14, 1972) is an American basketball executive who is the president of basketball operations of the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). His basketball philosophy, heavily reliant on analyt ...

. Pomeroy has written articles in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'',

ESPN.com ESPN.com is the official website of ESPN. It is owned by ESPN Internet Ventures, a division of ESPN Inc. History Since launching in April 1995 as ESPNET.SportsZone.com (ESPNET SportsZone), the website has developed numerous sections including ...

, and ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with a circulation of over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellen ...

''. He was a co-author of ''The 2008-09 College Basketball Prospectus'' and has been an author for the past four years.

Kenpom.com

Pomeroy's website has helped explain basketball on a possession by possession level. His peers have taken to calling him "Doctor Po-Po." 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. 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. The equations for Pomeroy's log5 projections were originally created by Bill James. 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. 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. The accuracy of Pomeroy's rankings in predicting game outcomes has been noted by popular newspapers and blogs such as

FiveThirtyEight ''FiveThirtyEight'', also rendered as ''538'', was an American website that focused on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging in the United States. The website, which took its name from the number of electors in the U ...

Mediaite Mediaite is an American news website focusing on politics and the media. Founded by Dan Abrams, it is part of the Abrams Media Network. Mediaite saw its largest audience ever in 2023 with a total of 701 million pageviews for the year. That grow ...

, and ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

''.

Syracuse Syracuse most commonly refers to: * Syracuse, Sicily, Italy; in the province of Syracuse * Syracuse, New York, USA; in the Syracuse metropolitan area Syracuse may also refer to: Places * Syracuse railway station (disambiguation) Italy * Provi ...

head basketball coach

Jim Boeheim James Arthur Boeheim Jr. ( ; born November 17, 1944) is an American former college basketball coach and current Special Assistant to the Athletic Director at Syracuse University. From 1976 until 2023, he was the head coach of the Syracuse Orange ...

mentioned Pomeroy in a press conference rant about analytics on February 20, 2020, mistakenly attributing his consternation about certain stats to Pomeroy.

Personal life

Pomeroy graduated from West Potomac High School in Alexandria, Virginia in 1991. In 2017, he was a resident of

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...

References

External links

Kenpom.com Official websiteKen Pomeroy University of Utah Department of Atmospheric Sciences profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pomeroy, Ken Living people American bloggers American meteorologists 20th-century American mathematicians American statisticians University of Wyoming alumni Virginia Tech alumni Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American mathematicians Sports statisticians Houston Rockets personnel Sportswriters from Utah Writers from Salt Lake City