Yet Another Basketball Blog (YABB)

ESPN the Mag

2011-11-04T20:01:00.003-04:00

With many thanks to John Gasaway, I am pleased to announce that my preseason rankings appear in ESPN the Magazine’s Nov. 14th College Basketball Preview. If you are not familiar with my preseason predictions model, here is an overview:

The best predictor of future success is opponent adjusted margin-of-victory. This is the basis for Jeff Sagarin’s Predictor Rankings and Ken Pomeroy’s Tempo Free Rankings. But college rosters experience significant turnover between seasons. Fortunately, Dean Oliver developed statistics that estimate each player’s contribution to the offense and defense. These individual “tempo free” statistics can be used to estimate how each team’s offense and defense will change from one year to the next. Today I use this information to predict the 2011-12 season.

The basic model incorporates several well-established basketball facts: First, experience matters. Teams that have more returning minutes (and possessions) tend to improve. Second, teams that return more efficient scorers (i.e. better shooting percentage, fewer turnovers) improve more than teams that return less efficient scorers. Third, the biggest leap in development is from a player’s freshman year to his sophomore year. Teams that give major minutes to freshmen tend to improve significantly the following season. Fourth, the loss of injured players (such as USC’s Jio Fontan), and the return of injured players (such as Purdue’s Robbie Hummel) has a predictable impact on team performance. Fifth, for incoming transfers, the performance with the previous team provides some information about the player’s future performance. Sixth, coaching ability impacts performance in a predictable manner. And finally, high school recruits can have a significant impact on a team’s performance. High school recruits ranked in the Top 10 have the biggest impact, but players ranked in the Top 100 are also important. This year I also account for the fact that historical team prestige impacts recruiting. (This is less important for BCS teams where the biggest factor is Top 10 and Top 100 recruits. But for smaller schools, historical team prestige is often the only factor we have to separate the quality of recruiting classes.) These factors are combined to produce a numeric ranking of teams for the upcoming college basketball season.

ESPN voted for the Top 25 and only used my rankings to rank the other 319 teams. For the most part, I think ESPN got the top 25 right. But if you have questions about why my model loves or hates certain teams, send me a tweet @DanHanner.

Where You Can Find Me

2011-09-12T00:37:00.004-04:00

I write for RealGM.com. You can find my columns at http://basketball.realgm.com/ncaa. But if you want a direct link to my content, I actually have two archives on the website:

Here is the archive for articles

Here is the archive for blog posts

What is the difference between an article and a blog post? I have no idea. I just write them and send them in and they appear somewhere.

Starting today, I am going to try to highlight my new content on Twitter. Find me @DanHanner. But if you want to know what you missed this summer, here is a quick summary.

You probably do not want to read more about conference expansion, but I tried to be creative when I wrote about it. For the record, I am the rare person who enjoys it when conferences re-arrange themselves. I would like to see Texas become an independent in football and join C-USA in all other sports. Here I wrote something about Baylor that was a little bit mean. I also wrote this where I blame Texas for Texas A&M leaving.

This is a fun article where I try to pick dark horse teams in 2011-2012.

When writing the article for the Tar Heel tip-off, I started thinking about whether Tony Bennett was really an elite basketball coach.

Here is something I wrote about whether college stats predict NBA draft position. For the record, I have tried to adopt the philosophy of embracing early entrants. I am not sure I can always do it, but that’s my new philosophy.

I went looking for players with great stats but an under-achieving team. It was harder than I thought.

This is the worst title for a post. I would never click on any link that said that. But the article includes a number of tangents and I think it is one of the better pieces I have written. I seriously need to go back and come up with a better title.

If you can read these tables (wow those things are hideously ugly), here is a nice analysis of Harrison Barnes and Jared Sullinger.

Some nice blurbs on the 2012 holiday tournaments.

Here are some things that seemed good at the time, but may be slightly out of date. I tried to average the coaching stats again this year. I thought these articles were a bit bland, because I have hit this topic before and I didn’t really learn anything new in the process. But if you haven’t seen it before, it is useful. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6. Also, my “predictions” model is being updated, and the predictions are all out-of-date. But the theme about the Big 12 being wide open this year (found at the end of this column) is something you will be reading everywhere soon. In my opinion, nothing else is worth going back to read.

And now this blog will go back to being dormant.

Welcome to Twitter

2011-09-11T22:58:00.006-04:00

I have finally caved.

You can now follow me @DanHanner

I have been reluctant to join Twitter for several reasons:

1) I cannot seem to write anything that is less than 140 characters.

2) Twitter is often about sharing thoughts instantly. I like to wait. Allow me to explain. Most live blogs are exceptionally boring. Bill Simmons' live blogs work because they are retro diaries. He jots down numerous thoughts during a game, and then edits those into a humorous summary later. I give credit to people who can think of witty things to say on a moments notice, but that is not me. When I think of random Twitter-length things to say, I jot them down in a notebook and try to turn them into a column. In fact, this is exactly how I generate my Monday Morning column during the college basketball season.

3) When my wife and I went to Maui for our 10 year annivesary, we were walking on the Kaanapali beach boardwalk and there was this gorgeous sunset. We walked by one of the restaurants and I noticed a table of six people, all sitting with their heads down staring at their smart phones. That doesn't make any sense to me. And that's one of the reasons I'm afraid to go on Twitter. If you send me an @reply, there's a good chance I'm not going to check your message right away, and I hate to be the guy who never responds. But I am that guy.

But a few things have swung me to the dark side:

1) Every once in awhile I write something that I enjoy. Usually I hate everything I write, but when I write something good, I want to be able to shout about it to the world. But email is a poor way to do this. Twitter seems better.

2) I am afraid Ballin is a Habit is going to do another one of those, "People to Read" features and I'm going to be the only one without a Twitter account.

3) People tell me it is a better way to communicate. I'm skeptical, but why not try?

But I am warning you in advance: I am not going to check it every day, and I would like to apologize in advance for anything stupid that I do.

Misc

2011-09-01T21:48:00.001-04:00

Uploading an image for a RealGM.com post.
I will explain on Twitter later.

For Monday

2011-04-03T19:54:00.003-04:00

I am testing out ways to include this in an article. Visit RealGM.com on Monday.

A New Home

2011-02-14T11:10:00.011-05:00

As YABB is approaching its four-year anniversary, the time has come to make a change. My content will now be appearing on a website called RealGM.com. If your interests are only college basketball, you may not have heard of these folks before. But RealGM has been covering the pro sports since 2000 with a focus on analytics and player movement.

Recently they have decided to expand their NCAA coverage, and they have asked me to join them. The type of material that I write is not going to change, but my internet home can now be found at http://basketball.realgm.com/ncaa

I realize that there is a crowded landscape of sports coverage on the internet. You have a lot of choices about who to read and when to link to content. But I want to emphasize that I am committed to providing the best original and unique content that I can develop.

In February on RealGM.com, I contrasted how Roy Williams and Bo Ryan utilize their players. I looked at the 4th through 6th year head coaches (the ones whose job is normally on the line). I reviewed of this year’s surprises and flops, using my tempo free predictions to identify who “broke out” and who “broke down” this season. In a column staple, I provided the latest injury splits. And of course, I talked about the games.

Why Partner with RealGM.com?

I am joining RealGM.com because they sought me out and asked me to join. But as a data person, I was also attracted to the chance to work with new databases and features. The goal is not to replace your favorite stats. You should still get your Tuesday Truths from John Gasaway and your tempo free euphoria from Ken Pomeroy. But I want to emphasize that there are other interesting ways to think about teams and players. RealGM.com has a number of databases that I think will make for an exciting opportunity.

The one thing I fell in love with immediately is a database that links players by high school. Here is my ridiculous insider example of how to use this. Suppose you plan to interview Indiana’s Victor Oladipo and want to strike up a conversation. Why not ask him about his high school and the players who recently played on the team? On the list you will quickly see some familiar names. Why not ask him if he ever played with fellow DeMatha graduate Austin Freeman? Was Austin that impressive in high school? Even if you don’t plan on meeting one of the players, I think these are fun to explore. People always talk about all the graduates to come out of Oak Hill Academy. But when I sorted by graduation year, I recognized fewer of these players than I expected.

One word of caution: The NCAA section is currently under construction, with a few bugs and kinks preventing them from signing off completely on the content. (See the “Beta” moniker in the upper left hand corner.) But as those last kinks are worked out, I think you will find features, like the last 5 games depth charts, to be an extremely useful resource.

Final Notes

Please keep YABB in memory. As you may know, I am very reluctant to go on twitter. That may eventually change, but I want to continue to use this space to highlight when my work appears elsewhere on the web.

And as I make the transition to a new internet home, I would sincerely like to thank all the people that have read my content and linked to YABB over the last four years. Every time I see a link it gives me all the more motivation to work a little harder to do something new and unique. And thank you for all your kind words and support over the years.

Sincerely,
Dan Hanner
DLHanner@gmail.com

Litmus Test

2011-02-10T23:28:00.011-05:00

Here is how you know if you are an unmitigated “homer”. Has your favorite team ever been over-seeded in the NCAA tournament? Have you ever looked at the bracket and seen a 4 seed next to your team and thought “that seems a little generous.” If that answer is no, you probably see your team through rose-colored glasses.

Note: This litmus test does not work if you are a Northwestern fan.

What is the line between fan and analyst?

One of the things that constantly baffles me is the little games people play about admitting their affiliations. Jay Bilas and Kirk Herbstreit are two of the most knowledgeable, articulate, and effective commentators in the business. But if one of their colleagues asks them if they might be exerting a little “Duke” or “Ohio St.” love, you can practically feel the fingernails scratching on the chalkboard. I much prefer Clark Kellogg’s style. If someone mentions that Ohio St. is his alma mater, he says he is happy to see the Buckeyes do well. And then he moves on. There is nothing wrong with being human. The may be “no cheering in the press box”, but being an alum does not prevent someone from being a successful analyst.

In 2011, the myth has long been debunked that someone cannot provide passion and insight at the same time. Bill Simmons is the most famous “fan” commentator of all time, and he is also one of the most insightful NBA writers on the planet. Lou Holtz may be the target of constant ribbing on the College Football post game show because of his Notre Dame ties, but he still knows a thing or two about football. Doug Gottlieb may have once played for Oklahoma St., but that does not prevent him from stating the biting truth.

And truthfully, Joe Posnanski might be the best at the business at using his past affiliations appropriately. He includes details from his personal past in stories without making it seem disruptive. When Posnanski wrote about the Cavs recent losing streak, he so subtly mentioned the terrible Cavs teams of his youth that you forget he might still care for the team.*

No, the worry about analysts should not be whether or not they are alumni or fans. The worry should be whether their opinions are well-founded. Sid Hartman of the Minneapolis Star Tribune is a long-time newspaper reporter. He has covered Twin Cities sports teams for over 50 years and a statue of him was even built in front of the Target Center. No one questions his success. But many people question his unrelenting praise. No matter what happens at a Minnesota sporting event, the players never did wrong. The loss can always be blamed on an injury or bad luck. And no Gopher or Viking coach has ever been fired for cause. Many believe that Hartman praises individual targets to retain access. Whether this is true or not, trading access for one-sided commentary does no one justice.

But caring about a team, or articulating the passion of the game is not a crime. From the joy of a fanbase when Baylor beat Oklahoma for the first time in 30 games last January, or the resigned disgust as Clemson lost for the 54th time at Chapel Hill, passion is a large part of the equation. As we enter the pulse-pounding portion of the season, the games mean something to everyone. To the elite teams, the goal is to get a high seed to reward a season of hard work. For the bubble teams, the goal is one more quality win to impress the selection committee. And for the bad teams, the goal is to win one more time for the seniors. In college basketball every game counts, and communicating that truth should never get lost.

So certainly I condemn the inappropriate praise and unsubstantiated propaganda. But if the insights are real, and the content is true, I don’t care if the analyst is a fan or not.

*An honorary Posnanski star note. Have you seen his SI photo that appears in the magazine - the man with the cowboy hat and hand extended? That is one amusing photo.

Will Bruce Pearl’s return to the sideline make a difference for Tennessee?

2011-02-07T23:11:00.004-05:00

Eric Angevine emailed me tonight with this very interesting question. Here was my response:

First, let me emphasize the value of basketball coaches relative to the other sports. According to Forbes magazine NBA head coaches make slightly more than NFL head coaches, and both make significantly more than MLB head coaches. There may be numerous reasons NBA coaches earn more. But a reasonable inference is that incrementally, basketball coaches can make a significant difference to winning. Phil Jackson isn’t earning $10 million a year because he is a lucky rabbit’s foot. He is earning $10 million a year because he understands all the little details of what it takes to win. From the X’s and O’s, to in-game adjustments, to how to motivate his players over the long grind, Jackson has the formula down to a science. Or a zen art.

The lesson for college basketball is that coaching is a lot more than simply deciding whether to bring the walk-ons into the game at the 2 minute mark or the 1 minute mark in a blowout. Coaches can make a significant difference to whether a team is ahead when the final buzzer sounds.

And Bruce Pearl is not just another coach. I currently rank Bruce Pearl as the 30th best coach in terms of adjusted efficiency margin from 2002-2011, (which includes his successful final 3 seasons at UW-Milwaukee.) That might not seem phenomenal, but I don’t think the margin-of-victory numbers really do Pearl justice. Tennessee plays a very long rotation which tends to make some games closer than they should be. But in crunch time, Bruce Pearl always has the best lineup on the floor. And over the last seven years, no BCS coach has out-performed his efficiency margin more than Pearl. Ken Pomeroy refers to this as luck. Bruce Pearl’s teams have been consistently lucky. And there is certainly an element of winning close games that is good fortune. (Florida’s Erving Walker hit one of the biggest shots of the year to force a second overtime against Georgia, but I’d be shocked if he could repeat it.) But there’s also something to the cliché that you make your own luck.

But none of this really gets to the key question. Will Bruce Pearl make a difference when he returns to the sideline this year? The difficulty is that we know Pearl is a good coach, but we don’t know what makes him a good coach. Is it his recruiting? Is it his unique drills in practice? Is it his style of offense? Is it his pressure defense? If it is those things, then his return to the sideline should have little impact on Tennessee.

But what if Bruce Pearl’s teams win for other reasons? Is it his ability to know when to apply pressure defense? Is it his calling of set-plays? Is it his ability to draw up plays on the clipboard? Is it his half-game adjustments? Is it his key substitutions? Is it his ability to motivate players in the locker-room?

Unfortunately, when it comes to the data, we don’t have a lot of variation to sort out these factors. Coaches don’t usually leave their team in the middle of the season. I think there is some anecdotal evidence that coaching absences hurt a team. Connecticut struggled at times when Jim Calhoun was missing because of health issues. (And when Louisville’s defense was historically bad last year, I wondered how much of that was because Pitino was mentally checked out with the Karen Sypher situation.)

Perhaps most relevant this season, Rick Majerus somehow cut his leg during the Bowling Green game and missed the next three games with a leg infection. St. Louis lost all three games without Majerus on the sideline. Based on the quality of opponents, the Sagarin Predictor method says St. Louis should have lost those three games by a total of 27 points. But St. Louis was defeated by 36 points in those 3 games, or about 3 points more per game than we should have expected.

Was Rick Majerus really worth 3 points a game? That number seems a little high. Although I cannot find the citation online, I think the top coaches tend to be worth about 2 points in the Vegas lines.

Will Bruce Pearl make that big a difference when he returns to the sideline? I’d assume he is worth a little less than a point a game. But over the course of the season, when lots of games come down to the wire, you never know when that extra something will be the difference between winning and losing. And in an SEC East, where no team is under .500, every win means a lot.

Unintentional Comedy

Note to self: Learn how to take screen-shots. If anyone can send me a screenshot or youtube link of Stacey and Ray Paine, (10:41 to go in the Kansas - Missouri game), this item will be much more amusing.

DLHanner@gmail.com

But the Paines are not the subject of this header. After a commercial break, we had this exchange.

Brent Musberger, "I can't believe, especially given that his dad is in the basketball business, that Larry Drew would just walk out on North Carolina in the middle of the season. To walk out on a team like that, I'm surprised the young man would act that way."

Bob Knight - No Response

Hmm, recalling the Texas Tech situation? You just cannot make this stuff up.

Have new coaches made a difference?

2011-02-07T00:02:00.000-05:00

What can Ken Pomeroy’s Efficiency Margin data tell us about how new coaches have done? Have they turned their programs around?

Scroll down for the tables, but first some comments:

Big Improvements

-In two years, John Calipari’s average efficiency margin has clearly outshined that of former Kentucky head coach Billy Gillispie. But Calipari has even exceeded the average efficiency margin of Tubby Smith’s Kentucky teams from 2003 to 2007. I think that is pretty amazing given the reliance on freshman over the last two years. Like most people, I’m puzzled by the recent close losses, but I think there is no doubt that Kentucky hit a home run when it hired Calipari.

-I hope people are not overlooking the job Mike Rice Jr. has done at Rutgers this year. Sometimes his expressions on the sideline seem overzealous, but he is holding his players accountable and delivering results. I thought his most impressive result of the season was his three point home loss to Pittsburgh, but his team has played well in close losses at St. John’s and at Notre Dame since that game. Interestingly, Fred Hill is starting to look like a negative blip for Rutgers, as Gary Waters at least had Rutgers fielding passable teams from 2003 to 2006.

-Is it fair to question whether Jeff Bzdelik is a good coach at this point? Colorado has improved since he left, and Wake Forest has gotten much worse since he arrived. Of course there are extenuating circumstances. Colorado is a veteran team, Wake Forest lost a ton of talent and has started over with a bunch of freshman. But the decision to remove Dino Gaudio is looking more and more puzzling.

-St. John’s coach Mike Jarvis was fired mid-season in 2003-04, and interim coach Kevin Clark could not keep the recruits. This meant Norm Roberts inherited a disaster. Meanwhile, Steve Lavin has started with a group of experienced seniors and been in much better position to succeed immediately. That’s the story most people tell to be kind to Norm Roberts. But I also think it is also fair to credit Lavin with getting his senior group to play at a higher level. I think Lavin did the right thing in increasing St. John’s strength-of-schedule. St. John’s is not a dominant enough group to win every day. But by playing enough quality teams, they’ve put together enough nice wins to look like an NCAA team at this point.

-No one is surprised to see Mike Montgomery’s teams playing at such a high level once again. The man who once dominated the Pac-10 at Stanford has California playing winning basketball again. (Did anyone see highlights of Saturday’s 3OT thriller against Arizona? The game was not on ESPN3, or any of the three Fox Regional channels on my Verizon Fios box. Where was it? On the Sportscenter U program on ESPNU, they only showed the box score. Did this game really happen?)

-I cannot give enough love to Fran McCaffery for bringing some up-tempo basketball back to Iowa. But he also has his team playing better basketball. They won at Indiana this weekend, something Illinois and Minnesota could not do.

-I’m surprised Mark Fox did not get a job offer for a BCS gig sooner. And Nevada has taken an epic fall since he left.

-Is Buzz Williams a better coach than Tom Crean? His teams have had better efficiency margins than Crean’s did. And this data includes Crean’s team with Dwayne Wade. Until Williams gets to a Final Four, I think the answer is no. But I will say this: Buzz Williams' teams almost never get blown out.

-I’m not quite in agreement that Iowa St. has played well this year. They beat Creighton early in the year before Gregory Echenique was eligible, beat an Iowa squad that was still learning to play for Fran McCaffery, and currently sit 1-8 in the Big 12. Obviously the close losses to Kansas St, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St. Nebraska, and particularly Kansas mean this team is competitive. But until they start winning some Big 12 games, it is hard to proclaim this a success story yet. Realistically, the true evaluation of Fred Hoiberg will come next year when all those transfers become eligible.

Notes on the table:

EM is the average efficiency margin over the coach’s tenure.
Impact is the difference in EM between the current coach and the previous non-interim head coach.

Avg adj off is the average adjusted offense over the coach’s tenure.
Avg adj def is the average adjusted defense over the coach’s tenure.

Scroll to the right to see the average performance of the former coaches. Ken Pomeroy only tabulates data back to 2003, so there is no coaching data before the 2002-2003 season.

Not a Good Start

-Wake Forest suffered a huge talent drain, and Indiana suffered an epic talent drain, but those teams are still performing substantially below historical expectations.

-I actually thought that when Oliver Purnell took over at DePaul, he could get the team to win some Big East games on hard work alone. But no team in a BCS league has fewer natural shooters. At 28.2% from 3 point range, DePaul shoots too poorly to run an effective offense.

-At least Auburn has Earnest Ross who can get hot and make a game fun once in a while. (See OT loss to Georgia, where Ross scored 30 points.)

-I really like LSU newcomer Andre Stringer, but LSU needed more than one player to turn around last year’s debacle. Two years of horrific basketball may have shortened Trent Johnson’s clock.

-Also, shouldn’t Trent Johnson and Tony Bennett get some blame for departing along with their seniors and leaving rebuilding projects at Stanford and Washington St.?

-I think Sean Miller is doing a fantastic job at Arizona, but it is worth noting that he has a long way to go to duplicate Lute Olson’s level of success. I think he’ll eventually get there, but it would help if the rest of the Pac-10 was not so down. Even when Arizona wins Pac-10 games, it has not improved their efficiency margin very much.

-I don’t think anyone thinks the Pat Knight experiment is working.

Notable Non-BCS Impacts

It might seem that non-BCS turnaround projects would be a great place to find prospective BCS coaches. And while that’s true, coaches in the CAA and similar places only tend to get credit when they finish the job. Turning a team from a 1-15 doormat to an 8-8 competitive team is a nice accomplishment, but it usually will not get you hired. You usually have to make it to the NCAA tournament, and maybe even win a game. As such, I am not going to present the whole table for non-BCS turnarounds, but here are some highlights:

- James Madison was a perennial CAA cellar-dweller under Dean Keener, and Matt Brady currently has the team at 7-6 in the conference, the second winning mark in the last 3 years. He probably needs to do more to earn a BCS job, but if James Madison makes the tournament in a couple of years, he will definitely be a top candidate. (For those of you tripping over the name, this is not former LSU coach John Brady who now coaches at Arkansas St.) Matt Brady also coached at Marist in the MAAC which has really struggled since he left.

-With the WAC falling out of national relevance, Don Verlin probably won’t get much credit at Idaho. But he took over a team that was usually the worst in the WAC, and has them playing .500 ball.

-North Florida had a pair of 3-26 seasons under its previous coach which is making Matthew Driscoll look like a miracle worker for finishing near .500 in the A-Sun.

-Finally, the UCF story has been ruined by a terrible performance in conference play this year. Donnie Jones looked like a great prospect for a BCS job in December, but not right now.

That "game" may be on Sunday, but I live for Saturday

2011-02-05T21:47:00.006-05:00

I think the high point of the day came around 5:30pm ET on Saturday. Four games came down to the wire simultaneously:

1) Leading by only one point at LSU with a minute to go, Mississippi St. needed some stops. And the much-maligned pair of Renardo Sidney and Dee Bost came through for Mississippi St. First, Sidney blocked a shot in the lane. Then on the next possession, Bost stripped the ball allowing time to expire. Normally you expect star players to win the game on the offensive end, but today Mississippi St.’s stars won it on the defensive end.

2) Trailing by one point while hosting Iowa, Indiana called time out. Then the Hoosiers wasted about 15 seconds without doing anything which caused a frustrated Tom Crean to call time out again. After this time out, Indiana’s Verdell Jones took a tough pull-up in the lane, and Victor Oladipo missed a tip-in that would have won the game at the buzzer. Iowa held on.

3) Generally, FG droughts are a dumb statistic. If a team is still scoring at the FT line, the fact that they do not make any FGs from the floor is irrelevant. But at a certain length of time, FG droughts do become an interesting stat. And Memphis went 11:47 in the second half vs Gonzaga without making a bucket from the floor. At a certain point Gonzaga just realized that Memphis could not make jumpers and started packing 4 or 5 players in the paint. The strategy almost worked, but a couple of late baskets, most notably Antonio Barton’s game-winner, were the difference. Barton’s game-winning shot was all the more amazing because it was a complete brick. It hit the back of the rim, but instead of the normal ricochet out of the basket area, the ball died, and fell into the hoop. Hey, sometimes when you go 11:47 without a made basket, you catch a break.

4) Meanwhile, on the tree-floor at Oregon, Washington suffered its 3rd straight loss. Despite a relentless effort by Isaiah Thomas to get the ball to the basket and extend the game, Oregon made enough free throws to hang on. Washington was rated 6th in the Pomeroy ratings last week, but 2 losses to Oregon schools have caused their rating to plummet. Credit should go to Oregon's Joevan Catron for a number of key baskets that put the game away late.

Speaking of Washington, things have not gone that well for the Maui invitational field lately. Washington has lost 3 in a row. Connecticut barely won at Seton Hall tonight and Kemba Walker is falling out of the national POY race. Ignoring Saturday night’s game (which is in progress), Kentucky was only 4-3 in SEC play. And Michigan St. is struggling more than any of these teams. You have to believe all four coaches can get their teams back on track, but while these Maui particpants once looked like Final Four contenders, none would be a clear Final Four pick right now.

Other thoughts in my head:

-Thursday night my wife noted the following: Doesn’t Abromitis sound like some sort of medical condition. As in:

“Did you know that kid has been playing with Abromitis all year?”
“Wow, that can really be painful. I’m glad to see he’s toughing it out.”

-When USF plays at the St. Pete Forum in Tampa, why don’t they paint the floor green? A lot of these Big East schools have alternate arenas, but most of them make some effort to make it seem like a home floor. Poor Stan Heath, this is what he is working with.

Georgetown - Providence

I have not had much to say about Georgetown this year. Part of that is because this is such a veteran team, that there are not a lot of NEW observations to be made. But I still remember how upset Doug Gottlieb got when the Hoyas "got lucky" and won a ton of close games with Jesse Sapp, Jonathan Wallace, and Roy Hibbert. And I wonder if Doug Gottlieb is going to freak out when he sees the ending of the Georgetown-Providence game today. Chris Wright made an amazing play to steal the ball, but it looks an awful lot like he calls time out despite the fact that Georgetown did not have any timeouts left. The officials didn’t grant it, so it was not a technical foul. But if I was a Providence fan, I would have definitely wanted two free throws in that situation.

Georgetown continues to struggle in games where a single player gets hot. I think of Stephen Curry in the tournament a few years ago, Armon Bassett in the tournament last year, and even Dominique Jones at the Verizon Center not that long ago. Today Marshon Brooks scored 43 points. I’ve always thought it was because Georgetown did not have a single lock-down defensive stopper. But now I wonder if it might be a flaw in John Thompson’s coaching. He said after the game that when a player is having a career day, he tells the players to focus on shutting off the other players. He figures it is rare that one player can win a game single-handedly. Over the long haul, I think that’s right. But in the NCAA tournament, I’m not sure I would want to risk it. I’d love to see someone (Jerrelle Benimon perhaps?) take it upon himself to become a lock-down defender for this team.

Also, even though he did not play well today, I have to commend Hollis Thompson for hanging tough and realizing what a spark he can be off the bench. His three pointer against Louisville on Monday was the deciding factor, and you need players who are willing to put the team first. After Larry Drew transferred this week in response to his new role as a bench player, I am reminded what a mature decision it is for Hollis to accept a role coming off the bench. As we saw against Louisville, just because he does not start, that does not mean Thompson will not be on the floor in crunch time.

Northwestern-Illinois

The Illinois vs Northwestern game was not on TV in my area, but thanks to the miracle known as a “Slingbox”, I was able to watch the game. A few notes:

-CBS claimed this was the first time CBS televised a game at Northwestern. Is that really possible?

-CBS kept talking about how long a streak it had been since Northwestern had defeated a ranked team. But their last win over a ranked team came in 2010. I’m not saying it is a meaningless streak, but we’re not talking about DePaul here.

-Northwestern won despite Luka Mirkovic being called for an unintentional punch to the face. Northwestern won despite a bad-offensive goaltending call wiping out a basket.

-Davide Curletti’s block of Mike Tisdale’s shot in the first half was one of those plays that was quite symbolic of Tisdale’s career. For all the big shots he has made, smaller defenders can still easily guard the Illini’s 7 foot center. Bruce Weber responded by putting Meyers Leonard in the game and Leonard proceeded to get a monster wrap-around dunk. You sometimes wonder if the Illinois freshman should be playing more because the seniors continue to fail in key situations. Mike Tisdale seemingly can only score on the pick-and-roll, and when teams play zone he is a non-factor. Mike Davis made some key plays in this game, but he also missed a ton of two point jumpers. Davis, more than anyone, needs to realize the value of drawing contact inside. And Demetri McCamey was once again a non-factor for the first 35 minutes of the game.

Last week I mentioned that Illinois had been unlucky for 7 years in a row, and David Hess recently did a little analysis of what impacts luck. If you have not read it, please check it out.

NCAA Odds

I really hate the focus on seeding and the bubble this time of year because there are so many games left to play. If teams win, things tend to take care of themselves.

But Northwestern’s resume has to be mentioned. Even with this win, Northwestern is just 1-8 vs the RPI top 50, and 2-8 vs the RPI top 100. As much as I’d like to see Northwestern make a surprise run at the NCAA tournament, if I’m going to cheer for a surprise Big Ten team at this point, it has to be Penn St.

I’ve also started to believe that Alabama is a solid team this year based on their improving Pomeroy rating and great conference record, but we cannot overlook how terrible the SEC West is this year. Alabama is just 2-4 against the RPI top 100 (beating Kentucky and Tennessee.) With the weakness of the SEC West, Saturday Night’s OT win at Tennessee was enormous for the Crimson tide.

49-47 in the ACC and the Unintended Consequence of the New Injury Sub Rule

2011-02-03T00:02:00.001-05:00

I love Tony Bennett in the ACC. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to watch Big Ten teams play Wisconsin or Penn St., and I love seeing Bennett bring that painful slow-paced magic to the ACC. Clemson scored 13 in the first half of this game. Virginia had 13 through the first 19 minutes of the second half. Ouch.

The end of this game actually had a very interesting sequence. Virginia’s Mustapha Farrakhan was 6 of 6 from the free throw line, and showed no signs that he would miss. But Clemson hit him in the gut on a late game foul which caused Farrakhan to leave the game. The unfortunate thing was that the new “replacement player” rule came into effect. Instead of Virginia choosing a replacement free throw shooter, Clemson got to choose a player, and Clemson chose Assane Sene who was shooting 56% on the year. So apparently the new best strategy when you can’t get the ball out of a good free throw shooters hands might be to innocently hit them below the belt.

In some sense, the NCAA rule is a catch 22. The old rule rewarded teams for faking an injury. The new rule rewards teams for injuring a good player and getting him out of the game. The good news is that it is usually hard to intentionally injure a player without getting a flagrant or technical foul, so the new rule is probably the right rule. But late in the Virginia – Clemson game, it certainly did not seem that way.

But despite this 49-47 drama, the real fun of the night was elsewhere:

With 10 seconds left, and trailing #6 San Diego St. by 2 points, Colorado St.’s Travis Franklin got the ball in the lane and converted a bucket to tie. Then, without calling timeout, San Diego St.’s DJ Gay took the ball the length of the floor and hit a pull-up jumper for the game winner.

Not to be outdone, Rutger’s Robert Lumpkins hit a pair of threes to pull Rutgers close to St. John’s in the final seconds. Then coming off a beautiful screen, Lumpkins hit a wide open three to tie the game with 20 seconds left. St. John’s ran some clock and called timeout, and then Justin Browlee, who injured his finger earlier this week, caught the ball in the lane and made the game-winning basket. Four fantastic end-game shots in a five minute span. This is why I watch.

A few other notes on these games:
CBS CS was airing the SDSU-CSU game, and the post-game interview with Steve Fisher was one of the longest post-game interviews I have heard in some time. Um, isn’t there suppose to be a limit of 3 questions or something?

Obviously the Duke win was more important, but in a lot of ways, this game was vital to St. John’s NCAA chances. Their schedule was front-loaded with a ton of Top 25 opponents, but if St. John’s does not beat some of the lower level Big East teams down the stretch, everything they have done so far will be meaningless. And Mike Rice’s Rutgers team is no longer a push-over. I thought Rice was going a little crazy when he was taking players out one-at-a-time for committing stupid turnovers in the second half. But Rice has Rutgers believing they can compete. Lumpkins, a transfer from New Mexico St., still has hideous three point shooting numbers on the year, but he is on fire right now. He also hit some big shots late in the loss to Pittsburgh.

Other games:

-Missouri had another frantic comeback at Oklahoma St. Almost all Missouri games seem more entertaining when they are behind. Unfortunately for the Tigers, they could not finish the comeback, and they are now winless on the road in the Big 12.

-Mason Plumlee’s dunk with 8 minutes to go when Maryland had cut the lead to 5 was one of those critical, rally interrupting plays. I keep seeing flashes of brilliance out of Plumlee, and that’s why I enjoy watching him despite his horrific turnover rate and worst efficiency rating in the Duke rotation. I assume Mike Krzyzewski puts up with his turnovers because of his great rebounding numbers.

-I am becoming a huge fan of Villanova’s Mouphtaou Yarou. When he is in the ball-game, Villanova is just a different team defensively. 7 footers can do that. Marquette now sits as the 11th place Big East bubble team. This is probably a good time to take the trip down to USF, right?

-On a night when C-USA leading UAB and Memphis both lost at home, UTEP’s game was postponed. Sometimes the best thing your team can do is not play. If the game is made up tomorrow and UTEP loses, there would be 6 teams in first place with 3 losses. (Southern Miss at 6-3 would technically have a half game lead.)

-Thanks to VCU’s loss, George Mason is now tied for first in the CAA.

-Duquesne crushed George Washington. The margin-of-victory numbers are going to continue to love this team. And thanks to Xavier’s surprise loss at Charlotte, Duquesne now sits alone in first place in the A10.

-The bottom of the Big Ten is making the middle of the Big Ten look very incompetent. Here are my thoughts on Indiana’s three point win over Minnesota:

Hoosier Havoc Part 2

Sports do not always follow the script. I had a couple of themes in my head prior to the Minnesota – Indiana game.

The first theme was going to be how Indiana is a bad match-up for Minnesota. The Hoosiers foul at a higher rate than any team in a BCS conference, and Minnesota is not particularly adept at the charity stripe.

The second story was going to be how Minnesota was going to struggle with ball-handling now that Al Nolen is out. While Michigan and Northwestern, by virtue of their passive defensive, were not going to expose Minnesota’s ball-handling, Indiana surely was going to attack this weakness.

Of course neither storyline really came to pass. Minnesota struggled with ball-handling early, and Indiana’s ball-pressure prevented Minnesota from passing the ball inside. But Minnesota’s turnover rate for the game was not excessive. And the Gophers actually forced a number of Hoosier turnovers during a late comeback.

As for the free throws, Minnesota made only 11 of 22, and Blake Hoffarber surprisingly missed two technical free throws, but free throws hardly seemed like the story of the day either.

The story of the day was Indiana’s tenacity on the offensive boards. Tom Pritchard scored what will be his career highlight dunk in the first half on a run-the-lane, sky-in-the air, and thunder-home the offensive rebound dunk. And despite the fact that Minnesota did grab a slightly higher percentage of offensive boards 41% to 36%, Indiana’s competitiveness in this category was the difference in the game. Amazingly the Hoosiers two big wins, against Illinois and Minnesota, came in games when Indiana did not shoot the ball incredibly well. But they made enough of the other plays to hang on for victory.

I honestly cannot decide whether I respect Tom Crean a lot as a coach or dislike him. On the one hand, no coach in the country (outside perhaps former assistant Buzz Williams), is better at teaching great post defense to smaller players. (Note to Bill Carmody, just because the other team is bigger, does not mean they have to dominate the paint.) But I also question the length of the rebuilding process in year three at Indiana. Maybe John Calipari sets the bar too high, but you might expect a storied program to be winning some game on talent, not just grit.

I also tend to dislike many of the defensive techniques Tom Crean’s players use. When Daniel Moore pulled Blake Hoffarber out of bounds by hooking his elbow, that was just an unnecessary play. There was also the play where one of the Indiana players kicked Trevor Mbakwe’s foot out from underneath him. After the Derek Elston’s trip at Northwestern earlier this year, I expected Tom Crean to suspend him and try to clean up the program. Instead, I’m starting to believe he teaches his players to push the boundaries. The fact that they lead the nation in fouling leads me to believe they do.

Has Tom Crean saved his job with a nice mid-season streak of games? Who knows? Let’s see how the team finishes the season.

Kentucky is not a terrible road team, Harrison Barnes is getting better

2011-02-02T00:02:00.000-05:00

After watching Kentucky fall on the road for the 3rd time in SEC play, I’m sure a lot of people are going to say that Kentucky is a terrible road team this year. And certainly, the splits bear that out to some degree. Here is Kentucky’s Adjusted Offense and Defense, replicating the Pomeroy formula, but NOT adjusting for venue:

Home
Adj Off: 120.3
Adj Def: 84.3

Neutral
Adj Off: 116.1
Adj Def: 85.6

Away
Adj Off: 114.0
Adj Def: 94.1

Kentucky’s defense has been a little bit worse on the road, but Kentucky’s splits are very similar to the average D1 team. In fact, when I adjust for venue, using Pomeroy's traditional home/road weights, the road/home difference is not that big, especially regarding the offense:

Home
Adj Off: 118.6
Adj Def: 85.5

Neutral
Adj Off: 116.1
Adj Def: 85.6

Away
Adj Off: 115.6
Adj Def: 92.8

The real problem for Kentucky is that the teams they have played on the road in the SEC are not as bad as people think. Georgia has at least three or four of the top players in the SEC, depending on your metric. Alabama, much like Florida St., is an incredible defensive team that can beat anyone any time. And Ole Miss was a pre-season favorite to contend for the SEC West title. Ole Miss has not played well, but that does not mean the Rebels do not have some good players on the team.

Mississippi's Chris Warren is destined to go down as one of the most under-rated players in SEC history. Despite playing in virtual obscurity thanks to the SEC West having a limited number of TV games over the last 4 years, Warren has done nothing but produce. This year he once again has a nice assist rate, and a high number of threes made. But most importantly he is great at avoiding turnovers despite being a primary ball handler. Here are his career ORtgs according to StatSheet:

Freshman: 108.4
Sophomore: 110.7
Junior: 116.3
Senior: 122.4

Tuesday is a night we should be applauding Chris Warren for winning a big game in his senior season, not knocking the Wildcats.

The other big story Tuesday was Harrison Barnes emerging with his second 20 point game of the season. I’m not quite ready to anoint Barnes as a star, because the debacle at Georgia Tech was not that long ago, but he has definitely improved his shooting. Here are his eFG% splits. (Remember eFG% gives 3/2 weight to made threes.)

Harrison Barnes eFG%
First 9 games: 38.1%
Next 10 games: 47.2%
Last 2 games: 72.6%

72.6% is not sustainable over the course of the season, but it is a sign that Barnes is now at least sometimes, a dominant player.

Can we ask for a Delayed Reality Series?

2011-01-31T22:59:00.003-05:00

Ken Pomeroy asked a new question on Monday. Should the NCAA committee go out and watch games? But that is not his real question. His real question is whether the NCAA committee should care about style of offense, the quality of guard play, and the quality of post play? And he answers with a resounding “no”. He argues that we should not confuse an already ridiculous process with more irrelevant variables. And I cannot imagine anyone disagreeing with him on that point. (Unless you have an injury situation to analyze, these types of data points should not come into the discussion.)

But I think his general question is actually more fascinating. Should the NCAA committee go out and watch college basketball games? I think the answer is a resounding yes. If the NCAA committee was made up of librarians who never watched college basketball, would they really have a handle on how to rank basketball teams? NCAA committee members should care about basketball and want to watch basketball games whenever possible.

Stats Do Not Tell Us Everything in Basketball

One of the things I love about basketball is that it is not baseball. Not every important piece of information can be found in a Sabermetric log. There are a ton of things you can learn by watching games that you just cannot pick up in the box score data. As an example, Kevin Pelton recently posted a fantastic discussion of what stats can and cannot tell us about NBA players. It is not a fair comparison, because Ken Pomeroy is asking about team quality and not player quality. And I cannot currently think of any team statistics that are not measured in the box score. But I would put it this way: Having more information is a good thing. I do not think anyone should harass the committee for attempting to learn more about teams throughout the season.

But the real problem that Ken and others identify is what happens if watching a subset of games causes the selection committee to have biased perceptions. [[This concern about “human bias” has long been discussed in the context of the BCS. The problem is that even if humans can be biased, at least humans are dynamic. People can put the wrong weight on certain pieces of data, but absent new forms of artificial intelligence, computers can only handle the problems they have encountered before. Formulas cannot anticipate or deal with unique or unusual new situations. I don’t know which form of bias is larger. I don’t know whether “personal experience bias” or “new situation bias” is a bigger problem. But I do know that computers will never win this argument. No selection process will survive if its conclusions do not mesh with popular opinion. And in the BCS, virtually all the weight has been put on the polls because that is the only system people will accept.]]

The idea that the NCAA selection committee may be biased by seeing a subset of games does not bother me. I happen to believe that people are quite capable of putting things in context. They can watch St. John’s win on Sunday and know that it is only one data point. Perception bias is a risk I am willing to take in order to have an engaged, aware, and thoughtful committee.

Moreover, if we are really concerned about personal biases, I would love to see the NCAA committee institute a monitoring system. We want the committee members to be free to have open and honest discussions, so I would not release the documentary immediately. But what if CBS recorded the NCAA selection process and agreed to air it 10 years after the tournament occurred? Would that be the most fascinating reality series of all time?

Wouldn’t you love to someday go back and listen to the discussion of where Davidson deserved to be seeded when Stephen Curry had led them on that long winning streak? What about when Memphis earned a 1-seed in 2006 with a questionable resume but a dominant late-season performance.

And wouldn’t it be fun to hear the committee debate the age-old questions? What value should we put on winning on the road relative to at home? What value do we put on close losses? What value do we put on how a team has played recently?

Ken Pomeroy may find his formula to be the best way to answer these dilemmas, but I think he would agree this is not a one-dimensional question. People can differ in the weights they put on different factors.

Ken’s rightful crusade is to try to remove the RPI from team data sheets, because the RPI is very weakly correlated with anything meaningful. And his crusade to eliminate non-essential variables like “style-of-offense” from the discussion is important. But I would never discourage the committee from following college basketball and collecting more information, even if watching games induces the possibility of “subset bias”.

Saturday Notes

2011-01-29T23:59:00.002-05:00

1) I’ve come to take it for granted that every enjoyable game is available on cable or ESPN3.com, but this week a lot of the interesting non-BCS games were nowhere to be found. UAB took a late lead against UCF and continued the UCF conference play collapse, but I could not find the game. Charlotte and La Salle went to double overtime, but it was not on locally. Meanwhile the non-BCS games that were on TV tended to be blowouts. George Mason easily beat William & Mary in the annual battle of green and gold. Xavier at Richmond was surprisingly not competitive. And so I have no lead story about the under-rated game of the day.

2) Despite my hopes that Penn St. vs Wisconsin would be a 40-38 affair in a 46 possession game that would break the shot clock, the two slow paced Big Ten teams produced a relatively exciting game. Penn St. beat a 3rd ranked opponent at home to improve to 5-4 in the Big Ten. But why do the Big Ten schedule makers hate Penn St. so much this year? Penn St. plays ever team twice EXCEPT Indiana and Iowa. That’s just not fair.

Of course, if Penn St. finishes 9-9 in the Big Ten and 16-13 on the year, they will be a very interesting bubble case. Before you condemn the 16-13 record, remember they are projected to finish with a top 5 SOS. And even though it is really too early to speculate who will be in the RPI top 100, a 16-13 Penn St. team would probably have 8 top 100 wins. That would certainly put them in the discussion.

3) Is the SEC West better than we think? Or is the SEC East worse than we think? Given what happened in the non-conference schedule, I know some people expected a 36-0 sweep by the East, but halfway through the East-West matchups, the East only leads the series 12-6. Even Auburn earned a win against South Carolina on Saturday, and no one expected that at the end of December. I do question Tony Barbee’s sanity leaving a C-USA leading UTEP team for this mess, but Auburn has become a no lose situation for him, at least in the short term. Any Auburn win is considered a huge accomplishment at this point.

4) I wrote on Tuesday that Arizona St. was not as bad as their record indicated, and I was looking forward to saying “I told you so”. But then UCLA pulled out the win at ASU in overtime. (And if UCLA could have grabbed missed free throws, it would not have taken the extra session.)

5) Remember when Iowa St. was picked to have a winning Big 12 record by kenpom.com? After losing at home in overtime to Oklahoma, Iowa St. is now 1-6 in Big 12 play. Non-conference games don’t tell us everything.

6) Most of my other comments today seem like clichés:

-College teams often win a huge game and then go on the road and overlook their next opponent. See BYU and St. Mary’s.

-Teams often get caught looking ahead. See Texas A&M, looking past Nebraska prior to the Big Monday game against Texas.

-There is parity in college basketball. See Pittsburgh and Ohio St.’s close wins.

But hold on a second. I get the feeling people think Ohio St. is not that good because they keep winning close. But I think it is very impressive to keep winning, even when you do not play well. It is very impressive to win when your opponent is on fire, as Michael “Juice” Thompson was late in Saturday’s game. I keep hearing that there are no “great” teams in college basketball this year, but I don’t buy it. I think there is a huge gap between the top tier and the next tier. Forget SI’s “Magic Eight”. I think there are only 6 teams with a legitimate shot at a national title. Here’s the list:

Ohio St.
Pittsburgh
Duke
Texas
Kansas
Washington

I don’t think anyone else is really close.
-John Calipari has really been a magician this year, but I don’t think Kentucky can win 6 games in a row with that young a team.
-I think Purdue’s lack of depth in the paint will eventually cause them to lose in the tournament. (Although they proved again today that they can rebound against bigger teams.)
-I think BYU and San Diego St. are fantastic, but I don’t see either really cutting down the nets.
-And most of the rest of the team’s with the best margin-of-victory numbers are in the Big East. And I’m not quite ready to endorse anyone other than Pittsburgh in that conference.

7) Speaking of the Big East, fantastic win for Marquette on Saturday, but it really was not a surprise. Everyone who follows college basketball knows that Buzz Williams’ teams work as hard as anyone in the country. And another fantastic win for Louisville. After I blasted Mike Marra for his terrible 3 point shooting, of course he hit a critical shot late in the game. With three one point wins this month, people are going to start calling Louisville “lucky” and over-rated, but I’d rather be 6-2 and lucky than 3-5.

And of course a fantastic win for Georgetown at Villanova. A few quick bullets from the Hoya perspective:

-I continue to be concerned about Georgetown’s big men’s ability to score in the paint. Teams keep hugging the shooters and daring Julian Vaughn and Henry Sims to win the one-on-one battle, and while both have improved this season, neither can consistently score against taller players. This may seem like an odd comment after a win, but until Mouphtaou Yarou got in foul trouble, I thought he was a huge defensive difference maker. Sims has turned into a great passer this season, but he needs to develop at least one true post move.

-I loved Georgetown’s ability to avoid charges against Villanova. I know the fans in attendance must have been going nuts, but when you looked at the replays, Georgetown was constantly jumping to the side of Villanova players that were trying to draw the charge.

-I loved the emotion Julian Vaughn gave us around the 10 minute mark of the second half. Vaughn was fouled after grabbing a defensive rebound and realized he needed to go to the other end to shoot a one-and-one. The look on his face said he was not sure he could convert, but he knew the free throws were critical. And after he made them both, you could just tell his smile was a little bigger than normal.

-I hated ESPN for giving us “bonus coverage” of the UConn game and missing the late 7-0 run for Villanova. How did Georgetown go from up 8, to up 3 with Nova at the free throw line? Like the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie-pop, the world may never know.

-I loved Austin Freeman’s toughness in this game. His heavily guarded pull-up jumper in the corner was not his only amazing shot. He also hit a jumper in the lane while falling to the ground where Doris Burke and I simultaneously praised Freeman’s incredible strength. And Freeman got a key offensive rebound on another of his misses. Freeman does not have the classic quickness of most guards, but his strength and touch are off the charts.

Illinois continues to fold under pressure

2011-01-28T00:02:00.000-05:00

With 25 seconds left and trailing by one point, Mike Tisdale caught the ball in the lane for Illinois while being guarded by a smaller Indiana defender. He took two dribbles away from the basket, and proceeded to throw the ball in the corner and out-of-bounds. It was the perfect microcosm of the Illinois season to date. The announcer said it perfectly. “No one on Illinois looks like they want to take the shot right now.”

Here in brief, is a recap of all conference games and key non-conference games for Illinois this season:

Wins
Big lead vs Maryland, Maryland comes back late but basically runs out of time
Big lead vs North Carolina
Big lead vs Gonzaga
Big lead vs Iowa
Big lead vs Northwestern
Relatively close game against Wisconsin, but Wisconsin can never make any shots or make a run
Clutch win against Michigan St., McCamey makes some very tough threes to seal the game

Losses
Loss to Texas in OT - Texas forced the ball out of McCamey’s hands and Illinois could not execute
Loss to UIC – Illinois took a late lead, but could not execute on the final possessions
Loss to Missouri - Illinois was down by one in the final minute, but Missouri sealed it with an 8-0 run
Loss to Penn St. – Penn St. wins in the final seconds
Loss to Wisconsin – Never really close
Loss to Ohio St. – Illinois blows 8 point second half lead and cannot execute in the final minutes (but a lot of that may be because Ohio St. is legitimately an elite team)
Loss to Indiana – Mike Tisdale throws away a chance to take the lead late

What you see is a pattern very consistent with a team with solid margin-of-victory numbers. When Illinois wins, they win big. But in virtually every pressure situation this season, Illinois has failed. This leads to several thoughts:

1) Demetri McCamey is still not a consistent winner.

Demetri McCamey was told by NBA scouts that to be a 1st round draft pick, he needed to win more games. So far, he is failing again this season. Over 4 years, McCamey has developed an incredible chemistry with his 3 fellow seniors. His gaudy assist numbers are a function of the fact that he knows the type of shot each teammate likes, and he can find them in perfect rhythm. McCamey also runs the pick-and-roll exceptionally well with Tisdale, and he has picked up on a lot of Deron William’s NBA mannerisms for how to run selectively and surprise opponents with a change of acceleration. In a lot of ways, McCamey the college player is like Deron the NBA player. But that is actually why I think the comparison to Deron Williams is a terrible one. McCamey’s college game is very refined. He seems to be playing at near his peak performance. On the other hand, Williams was only using a fraction of his talent by the time he was a junior at Illinois. Williams never ran the pick and roll. He was still learning how to use his quickness effectively. Williams had significant upside as a junior. McCamey is a polished college senior without much more room to grow.

2) Bruce Weber should be on the hot seat.

I am very hesitant to say this, because I think it is wrong to be reactionary to close losses. And Bruce Weber is absolutely one of the great teachers of college basketball. But I jump back to something Weber said after his Final Four run in 2005. After the team went 37-2, there were lots of fans that said, “We’ll win it next year.” And Bruce Weber was very cautious. “You have to enjoy this season for what it was. 37-2 was a very special year. Seasons like that do not come around very often.” Weber hoped to be back in the Final Four, but he knew that even for dominant coaches like Mike Krzyzewski, there can be long Final Four droughts.

The question for most teams is not whether they can make the Final Four every year. The question is whether, when the team is back, when the talent is there, can they live up to their potential?

And there can be no question that this is a talented Illinois team. This is one of the greatest collections of shooters ever assembled. No BCS conference team shoots better from 3 point range than Illinois, and seven of the nine rotations players are clearly great shooters.

But when the shots are not falling, Illinois does not step up and make the basketball plays it needs to win. They do not drive and get fouled. They do not get the key steal. They do not get the key stop. Statistically, the most glaring deficiency is probably the team’s defensive rebounding. And Indiana and Penn St. both beat Illinois with offensive put-backs.

The end result is the scatterbrained outcomes you see above. When the shots are falling, Illinois blows teams out. But when things are not clicking, players are afraid to take the shot.

At one point, the question was whether Illinois could compete for a Big Ten title. Then the question was whether the team could make a Sweet Sixteen run and make some real noise in the NCAA tournament. Today, the question is more appropriately whether Illinois can make the NCAA tournament at all. Like Purdue, Illinois has a schedule that was very favorable early. But Illinois ends the year with road trips to Ohio St., Purdue, Michigan St., Minnesota, and a desperate Northwestern team. Simply finishing 10-8 or 9-9 and qualifying for the NCAA tournament would probably qualify as a success at this point. And that is why Bruce Weber should be on the hot seat this year.

3) Margin-of-victory is not everything.

Illinois continues to be ranked much higher in Sagarin’s predictor than in their Elo Chess ranking, reflecting what I stated above. When Illinois wins, they win big. When they lose, they lose close games.

Pomeroy calls this difference luck. And for the most part, we tend to believe this is random noise, not a real skill. (People have argued very persuasively that clutch hitting does not exist in baseball. And I’ve studied the “luck” numbers in college basketball, and the year-to-year correlations in “luck” are pretty small.)

To the extent some coaches are consistently unlucky, that reflects the fact that if you have a large enough sample, sometimes a coin will come up tails 7 times in a row. But I think it is interesting that Bruce Weber’s teams have not had a positive luck rating since his first year with the team (2003-2004). Many years his team’s luck ratings have been close to zero, but at no point have Bruce Weber’s teams really over-achieved.

And at a certain point, you do ask if there is something to the poor play in close games. If Mike Tisdale takes that shot in the lane and it clangs off the back rim, I probably deem it to be bad luck. But when he passes up the shot, and kicks it to a corner where no one is currently standing, that is when I scratch my head. Big Ten Geeks described Illinois' performance this way. "The Illini simply looked lost offensively down the stretch, when almost any aggressive play to the basket would have probably gotten them a trip to the foul line." That type of description is not just bad luck.

At a certain point, when a team fails to execute in pressure situations, I begin to believe that they are a bad team. And that is where I am with Illinois. Until I see them play well under pressure, I am very skeptical that they can perform under pressure.

And this also causes me to ponder a frequent blog question:

4) Should margin-of-victory matter for NCAA seeding?

In past years, fans of the tempo free stats have discussed in length the idea that when seeding teams, margin-of-victory should not be ignored. It is important that the 1-seed not face an 8-seed with great margin-of-victory numbers in the second round or there is no benefit to earning a 1-seed.

But watching Illinois reminds me that I’m not even sure that is right. The question is not necessarily the average quality of a team, but how often they play great. Would you rather face a team that is dominant half the time, and terrible half the time, or a team that has rarely shown signs of being dominant, but usually executes in close games?

Or to put it another way, I would be much more afraid to face Michigan St. than Illinois this year. In terms of margin-of-victory, Michigan St. has not been nearly as good as Illinois. But when the games are close, when the pressure is on, Tom Izzo and his players have been able to execute. And even when they lose, as they did Thursday, they still had a shot to win at the end. Against Michigan, Keith Appling’s three was in-and-out, and with a different flip of the coin, that game goes differently. For Illinois, I don’t feel the same way. I don’t think Illinois deserves a better seed just because they have better margin-of-victory numbers.

And this is why, despite people’s complaints about New Mexico’s seeding last year, or possible complaint’s about Washington’s seeding in mock bracket’s this year, that I continue to love the NCAA tournament selection format. In the end, a group of people reach a consensus and decide on the bracket. There is no formula; there is no guaranteed critical criteria. There are just a group of smart basketball people that are using the best available information to reach a consensus. The process is not perfect, but I think it is the best outcome of any sport.

Is Kansas better with Josh Selby? How much did Notre Dame miss Carleton Scott?

2011-01-25T00:02:00.000-05:00

No numeric ranking system that I am aware of includes the impact of injuries or transfers. As I discussed last year, Ken Pomeroy’s does weight recent games more heavily, and after studying his methodology last year, I’m convinced that in the vast majority of cases this is adequate. But let’s face it. We are all curious. We want to see the injury or suspension splits. Are teams better or worse without their stars?

Today I am going to talk about almost every major injury, suspension, and transfer this season. My list includes over 100 events that caused players to miss games, but even my list is not exhaustive. First, I am limiting myself to the top 7 RPI conferences (plus the top of the A10, Butler, and Gonzaga).

I am also going to limit myself to players who play at least 50% of their team’s minutes when active. The NCAA tournament committee does take a look at a player’s on-court contribution when evaluating injuries, and almost no player can be deemed irreplaceable when he plays less than half the team’s minutes when healthy. In the end, you’ll see of the approximately 100 events, only a handful really make a difference in our evaluation of NCAA tournament teams.

A few quick notes:

-Data are through Monday January 24th.

- I am NOT presenting raw offensive and defensive splits. I am replicating the Pomeroy method that adjusts for the quality of opponent. I calculate the adjusted offense and adjusted defense. To the extent my splits do not add up to his totals, keep in mind that he weights recent games more heavily.

-Also keep in mind that the sample sizes are small in almost every analysis you see here. Quite a few of these results seem believable, but with small sample sizes unusual outcomes can always skew the results.

-Finally, notice that my list does not include players that have missed the entire season. When a player misses the whole season, the ranking is no longer misleading. If we want to know how Purdue will perform without Robbie Hummel, the full season ranking is adequate.

25 Splits You Need to Know

I present a table with the numeric splits below. (Scroll down if you are impatient.)

1) I’m mostly going to focus on players who missed games, but John Shurna is the lone exception. He injured his ankle against Mt. St. Mary’s and he has been trying to play through it. I think it is interesting to note that Northwestern’s offense has continued to play well even after his injury. But Northwestern’s defense has taken another step back since he was hurt. Obviously having one of your defenders lose lateral quickness is not going to help you win games. The difference is pretty minimal however.

2) Next, I present Minnesota with and without Al Nolen. Nolen re-injured his foot on Saturday, and may miss the rest of the season. Minnesota has been a substantially worse team defensively and offensively without its starting point guard. And the future outcome may be even worse when you remember that Minnesota had Devoe Joseph to fill in for Nolen during his previous injury. Joseph has recently transferred and now the Gophers must turn to three freshman guards to fill the void. I’m a little skeptical that Nolen is as big a difference maker as these splits show. But Nolen has historically been one of the Gopher’s best defenders. And as someone who has watched almost all their games this year, let me confirm that Nolen does matter to the Gopher offense. When he can drive into the lane and create, this is a different team. If you don’t think Nolen matters, go back and watch the Gopher's wins in Puerto Rico. Nolen almost single-handedly won the game against West Virginia by driving into the paint and creating for his teammates.

3) Louisville has been a bit of an injury nightmare, and I’m not even counting Jared Swopshire who is out for the year. First and foremost, Rakeem Buckles injured his finger and has been out for a month, and Mike Marra injured his ankle and missed four games. And Terrence Jennings and Kyle Kuric have also missed games this season. I’m going to slice it three ways. Louisville without Buckles (which is the current state of the world), Louisville without various other players, and Louisville at near full-strength (but minus Swopshire of course.)

Louisville has been struggling substantially on defense without Buckles in the lineup. At first his impact on the defense may seem too big. But remember he has a 25% defensive rebounding rate and he is one of the only Louisville players who is an elite defensive rebounder. They clearly miss his defensive post presence.

More surprising is the fact that Louisville’s offense has been much worse when the team has been at full strength. That might be a bit of a fluke. Louisville blew out St. John’s in a game Marra and Jennings sat out, and blew out some non-conference opponents when Marra sat out. If you really want to believe Marra is a drag on the Louisville offense, consider that he is only shooting 27% on 95 three point attempts this year. In other words, Louisville without Buckles is worse defensively, Louisville without Marra might be a better offensive team.

4) Carleton Scott missed four Notre Dame games with a hamstring injury and the team played substantially worse when he was out. Scott is currently Notre Dame’s most efficient offensive player, so I think we need to seriously discount their performance in losses at Marquette and St. John’s. This team is almost certainly better than the 26th best team in the nation (the current Pomeroy rank.) With Scott healthy, I have Notre Dame as the 14th best team in the nation.

5) Seton Hall’s Jeremy Hazell injured his wrist and then was shot. Seton Hall’s offense suffered tremendously when he was out, but since he is not 100% yet, the offense has not rebounded to form either.

6) South Florida’s Augustus Gilchrist had philosophical differences with his coach that caused him to miss 3 games in December. (Jarrid Famous was also out for one of these 3 games, a five point loss to Kent. St.) And I can’t even remember why Anthony Crater was out for 3 games in December. But the offense is clearly better with everyone available. The splits are even more surprising when you consider Crater missed USF’s best performance of the year, a near win against BYU. In non-BYU games without Gilchrist or Crater the team has really struggled.

7) Josh Selby was declared eligible part of the way through the season and the Kansas offense and defense have played worse since he joined the team. The Pomeroy rankings currently have Kansas 3rd nationally, but with Selby they have looked more like the 7th best team in the country. Now, you can argue that Kansas was never really tested before Selby showed up, but I don’t think that is fair. Selby currently has a terrible assist to turnover ratio and has struggled with his two point field goal shooting. I fully expect Selby to get better, but so far Kansas has not played better with him on the floor.

8) I think Nebraska’s loss of Christian Standhardinger is a little over-rated. He only played six games and the team has performed at a high level without him. (But the story about him being cited for indecency was still crazy.)

9) Kansas St. rebounded with a nice win Monday night. One is tempted to ask whether the team’s poor Pomeroy ranking is simply because Curtis Kelly and Jacob Pullen have missed time this year. Curtis Kelly was suspended early in the year because he was not practicing hard enough. Then he missed six games for receiving improper benefits. Jacob Pullen was also suspended for three games for improper benefits. Sadly for Kansas St. fans, these suspensions are not the explanation for Kansas St.’s poor play. Clearly Kansas St.’s defense has been better with both Pullen and Kelly on the floor, but they have struggled offensively even with Pullen and Kelly on the floor.

10) How has Duke performed without Kyrie Irving? Very well, thank you very much. The team has not missed a beat without its star freshman point guard.

11) How has Virginia fared without forward Mike Scott who is out-for-the-year with an ankle injury? Shockingly well. I thought his loss was devastating, but you cannot overlook the emergence of Assane Sene in the post for Virginia this year.

12) How has Virginia Tech fared without Dorenzo Hudson who is out-for-the-year with a foot injury? Surprisingly, they have played better. You might think that is unrealistic, but consider that Hudson had by far the worst ORtg on Virginia Tech. His high turnover rate and low eFG% was a terrible combination. This may legitimately be a case of addition by subtraction.

13) Tracy Smith missed most of November and December and NC State is glad to have him back. The offense has jumped back up with his return.

14) Washington’s splits are the most puzzling of all. Why would the loss of a great scorer and distributor in Abdul Gaddy hurt the defense? Perhaps it is a fluke or perhaps Gaddy’s injury is forcing Washington to play 5’8” Isaiah Thomas and 5’11” Venoy Overton more minutes. Given their lack of size, you can understand the perimeter defense sagging. Then again, this was always going to be a problem once conference play started and Washington started playing taller guards on a regular basis. So maybe it is just a coincidence that Washington’s defense has sagged in Pac-10 play.

15) Jio Fontan joined USC as a mid-season transfer. He’s been playing 33 minutes a game and from the moment he joined the team, USC’s offense and defense have improved. (Note: when joined the team, Bryce Jones playing time shrunk dramatically, which ultimately led to his transferring from the team. I could come up with a new “split” of data after Jones left, but the reality is that Jones ceased being a key member of the rotation the day Fontan showed up.)

16) Gary Franklin decided to transfer from Cal mid-season. He had a 75.7 ORtg prior to the transfer, so it is no surprise that California’s offense has improved with him absent. The defense has slipped however since he left the team.

17) Besides Kansas St., one of the puzzles this year has been the extremely poor play of Arizona St. Say what you will about Herb Sendek, his teams are usually competitive. Clearly injuries have hurt in Pac-10 play. Jamelle McMillan was injured for three games which may have cost Arizona St. in home games against Stanford and California. And the team was missing leading scorer Trent Lockett during the previous trip to Oregon and Oregon St. Arizona St. is playing poorly right now, but when healthy, they are not the worst team in the Pac-10.

18) UNLV’s Tre’Von Willis missed the start of the season after being arrested, then missed two conference games with a knee injury. But the team did not play substantially worse with him out.

19) Drew Gordon transferred to New Mexico mid-season and New Mexico’s defense has slipped since he joined the team. This strikes me as a bit of a surprise because Gordon has been a rebounding machine. Of course, around the time Gordon joined the team, Emmanuel Negadu left the lineup with an injury and he was posting similar rebounding numbers. Perhaps Gordon just needs time to fit into the New Mexico offense and defense.

20) Utah’s Jay Watkins has missed games because of abdominal and back problems this year, and he may be done for the season at this point. But JJ O’Brien missed the start of the season with a foot fracture and has stepped into the lineup. With O’Brien’s additional size, the defense has improved, but the offensive improvement is a puzzle because O’Brien is not an efficient offensive player.

21) Alabama’s best player, JaMychal Green, was suspended for three games in the middle of the season. The offense was substantially worse without him.

22) Georgia’s Trey Thompkins missed the first three games of the season with an ankle injury, and Georgia barely snuck by teams like Mississippi Valley St. without him. Thompkins was missed more on the defensive end. With Thompkins, I have Georgia as the 43rd best team in the country, but Pomeroy lists Georgia as 51st nationally.

23) Mississippi St. finally got Dee Bost back for the start of SEC play, after getting Renardo Sidney on the court a few games earlier. But the team has not played substantially better with both players on the floor. Pomeroy currently predicts a 5-11 finish for Mississippi St. and my splits do not disagree with that assessment. Mississippi St. might finally start to click at some point, but they just do not look like a dominant team right now.

24) LSU’s Ralston Turner has been out for four games with a foot injury and the offense has fallen apart without him. (I know you are laughing and saying LSU’s offense was not great before Turner’s injury, but it has reached a new low.)

25) Auburn’s Andre Malone has decided to transfer, and Frankie Sullivan is out for the year with a knee injury. This might seem irrelevant, but remember Sullivan’s last game for Auburn was the win over Florida St. At the time he was injured Auburn had just started to find a rhythm, winning four in a row. OK, who am I kidding? This was a bad team before; this is still a bad team now. But without Sullivan and Malone the offense is worse, while the defense is trying a little harder.

Less interesting, but here are the splits:

Iowa point guard Cully Payne played the first five games of the season before suffering a season ending back injury. Matt Gaten’s was also struggling to return from an injury and missed a couple games early in the year, so throwing those first five Iowa games out seems to make some sense when evaluating the team. Clearly Iowa has been a better team after the first five games, but part of that may be the fact that Iowa was learning a new system too.

Pittsburgh’s Nasir Robinson had knee surgery and missed the first three games of the season, and played sparingly in the fourth game. Pittsburgh has looked similar before and after he returned.

Texas Tech starting forward D’walyn Roberts has been injury plagued throughout his career and missed much of the non-conference schedule. Texas Tech has looked similar whether he plays or not.

LaceDarius Dunn missed the first three games of the season after an arrest. (AJ Walton also sat out the season-opener.) The offense did not really take off until he returned.

Washington St.’s Reggie Moore missed 5 games with a wrist injury, and one game due to a marijuana charge. (DeAngelo Castro missed two of the same games early in the year.) Washington St. was playing an unsustainable level of defense while he was out.

Vanderbilt’s Andre Walker has missed a ton of games due to injury. But despite hitting the game winner against Marquette, Vanderbilt has not really missed him.

Trevor Gaskins sprained his hamstring and missed three games for Ole Miss. No one really noticed.

Kevin Smith missed the first three games of the season for Richmond. They played great defense early in the year, but with only a three game sample, it was pretty unsustainable.

Sammy Yeager was kicked off the TCU team five games ago with little impact on the team. I know no one cares about TCU, but they will be in the Big East soon.

Worth monitoring

Indiana’s Maurice Creek is out for the season, and Verdell Jones missed the last game with an injury as well. It is still too early to know how the team will respond, but the blowout loss to Iowa was not a good start.

Clemson’s Tanner Smith missed Saturday’s two-point loss at Maryland thanks to a knee sprain. It is not clear how soon he will return.

Washington St.’s Faisal Aden sat out the Arizona St. win with a knee injury and played only limited minutes in the Arizona game.

West Virginia's Casey Mitchell was just suspended indefinitely.

It might have mattered, but it was only one or two games, so I’m not listing a split:
Jereme Richmond missed Illinois’ loss at Wisconsin due to a personal issue.

David Jackson missed Penn St.’s narrow win over Mt. St. Mary’s. That would seem significant except Mt. St. Mary’s was missing five players in that game too. You can also argue that Jackson’s neck injury played a role in the team’s next two games, losses to Virginia Tech and Maine. But that probably wouldn’t be fair. Jackson played very well in those two games. Right now the loss to Maine is Penn St.’s only loss to a team outside the Pomeroy top 75. Penn St. has actually played the second toughest schedule in the country according to Monday Night’s Pomeroy rankings.

Dominic Cheek missed Villanova’s two-point loss to Connecticut. That’s exactly the type of fact that will be passed along to the NCAA committee by the Big East regional scout. (Cheek also played against Syracuse, but I’m not convinced he is fully healthy yet.)

Kris Joseph missed Syracuse’s loss to Pittsburgh after banging his head on the court. And he may not have been full strength in the team’s subsequent loss to Villanova, but based on his 8 of 15 shooting night, I think you would have a hard time making that argument.

Cade Davis missed Oklahoma’s 13 point loss to Baylor. By the way, in case you have not seen an Oklahoma game this year, Cade Davis is a starting guard averaging 36 minutes and 13 points per game, so his absence is nothing to sneeze at.

Texas Tech’s John Roberson missed the team’s one point loss to New Mexico. The starting guard almost never scores, but he is a decent distributor, so perhaps his ball-handling was missed in that game.

Corey Raji was missing for two Boston College wins, but both games were close, and he could have made the margin more comfortable. More importantly, when Biko Paris had the stomach flu on Saturday and missed the game against Florida St., Boston College was blown out. And Danny Rubin did not play in Boston College’s loss to Yale. These guys may not be household names, but all log major minutes for BC and with a team learning a new system, it does not help when players are missing in action.

Erick Green missed Virginia Tech’s loss to UNLV in the 76 Classic thanks to a calf injury. He also missed the team’s win against Oklahoma St. and most of the game against CS Northridge in the same tournament.

Tyler Honeycutt missed UCLA’s one point win over UC Irvine. If he was healthy, it might not have been so close.

Joevan Catron sprained his calf and missed a pair of games against USC and UCLA. Oregon went 1-1 and probably was not going to beat UCLA anyway, but you never know. Malcolm Armstead also missed the loss to Washington St.

Kawhi Leonard and Chase Tapley missed San Diego St.’s win against Cal Poly. I bet San Diego St. wins that game by more than 6 points if they play.

Ronnie Moss missed TCU’s loss to Rice.

Taylor Broekhuis sat out Air Force’s blowout loss to UTEP.

JayDee Luster missed Wyomings’s losses to Missouri and TCU. Djibril Thiam was also out in the loss to TCU.

Melvin Goins missed Tennessee’s four point win over Missouri St. He could have helped make the final margin a little more comfortable.

Lance Goulbourne missed Vanderbilt’s one point win over Marquette. He might have made the final margin more comfortable.

Storm Warren missed LSU’s loss at Virginia. He might have made the final margin more respectable.

Juan Fernandez missed a pair of Temple wins, but the Saint Louis game probably would not have been nearly as close if he played.

Jamel McClean somehow only missed 1 game after fracturing a bone in his eye socket, but Xavier clearly missed him in a close win over Western Michigan.

Ronald Nored missed Butler’s loss to Evansville. They probably win that game if he plays, right?

Steven Gray sat out Gonzaga’s win over Xavier. Would that win have really been better with him on the floor?

Irrelevant

Korie Lucious missed the season opener after an off-season drunk driving incident, but Michigan St. won easily. William Buford missed Ohio St.’s blowout win over Morehead St. Northwestern’s JerShon Cobb missed a pair of blowout wins in the non-conference schedule, and Iowa’s Eric May missed the team’s close home loss to Ohio St. Darryl Bryant missed West Virginia’s blowout win over VMI. Dwight Buycks missed Marquette’s blowout win over TAMU-CC. Julian Vaughn missed Georgetown’s blowout win over Tulane. Scott Martin missed Notre Dame’s blowout win over Chicago St. And Herb Pope missed Seton Hall’s blowout win over NJ Tech.

Nate Tomlinson missed a pair of mindless blowouts for Colorado. Michael Dixon was suspended for Missouri’s blowout wins against Oral Roberts and Central Arkansas, but returned for his team’s key victory against Illinois. Carl Blair missed two blowout wins at the start of the season for Oklahoma. Jamar Samuels missed a meaningless non-conference blow-out by Kansas St. And Scott Christopherson missed Iowa St.’s win against Northern Illinois. Bonus question: Does anyone remember Scott Christopherson playing at Marquette three years ago before transferring? Yeah, me neither.

Deividas Dulkys missed Florida St.’s blowout win over Hartford. Demontez Stitt missed a pair of blowout wins for Clemson. Malcolm Lee missed UCLA’s blowout win over Pacific. Venoy Overton must have known Washington would blow out Nevada even if he did not step on the court. Markhuri Sanders-Frison missed California’s win over Hartford. His name is somewhat hard to spell.

Alex Tyus missed a game that Florida won by 50 points. John Jenkins missed Vanderbilt’s big win over Davidson. Ravern Johnson missed Mississippi St.’s big win over Alabama St. Reginald Buckner missed Ole Miss’s blowout win over Alcorn St. Hank Thorns sat out TCU’s blowout win over Chicago St., and TCU’s Nikola Gacesa missed the two opening games of the season. Michael Lyon’s sat out Air Force’s win over Sam Houston. Desmar Jackson missed Wyoming’s win over North Florida. Damian Saunders sat out the season opener for Duquesne. Gonzaga’s Elias Harris sat out the blowout win over Eastern Washington.

Comments on 18 Games on a very busy Saturday

2011-01-23T13:12:00.009-05:00

UNLV vs New Mexico:
In my opinion, this was the ending of the day. This was a match-up of arguably the third and fourth best teams in the MWC. (New Mexico has not played very well so far this season, but they have a young team, and Steve Alford has proven he can develop players over time.)

With 45 seconds left, UNLV trailed by 1 when UNLV’s Tre’Von Willis stole the ball. He was striding towards the basket when he saw Chace Stanback at the three point line. Willis kicked the ball to Stanback, but Stanback assumed Willis was going to go for the lay-up, and so the ball went out of bounds. It seemed like a crushing turnover so late in the game. But just 15 seconds later, with only 30 seconds left in the game, Willis stole the ball again!

This time, Willis drew the foul and made two free throws to give UNLV the one point lead. After New Mexico failed to score, UNLV made another free throw to extend the lead to two points. Now New Mexico had the ball with the shot clock running down and needing a basket to tie or a three to win. And that’s when Kendall Williams tossed the ball out of bounds off teammate Phillip McDonald with two seconds left. The UNLV crowd went nuts. The game was over!

But not so fast my friend, New Mexico’s Kendal Williams proceeded to steal the UNLV inbounds pass, and put up a jump shot. It clanged off the back of the rim, but he was fouled. New Mexico now had a shot at redemption too. Williams made the first free throw, but missed the second free throw, and as time expired, he fell to the floor. The Lobos came up just short. Just a series of crazy plays to end a crazy MWC game.

Memphis at UAB:
This is one of those games that deserves a lot more hype. In 2006, Memphis suffered its only conference loss at UAB. Two years later, Memphis won by 1 point at UAB en route to their second straight undefeated conference season. (This was the game that practically led to a riot when a game-winning UAB basket was waived off.) Even last year’s game was close as UAB pulled within 3 in the last two minutes. And this year’s game was not a disappointment, as it went to overtime. I was distracted with other games, but the key sequence came in the final seconds of overtime. Trailing by three, UAB drove into the lane, but seemed to lose the ball out of bounds. But the UAB player dived to save the ball and somehow kicked it to a teammate for a wide open three. Had the shot gone in, we would have had a second overtime. But instead, it was an air-ball. Another great game, but a tough series for UAB.

Less than a week ago, kenpom.com was predicting an 8-8 finish for Memphis in C-USA. But after Memphis won at a veteran Southern Miss team by 1 point, and after they won in OT at UAB, kenpom.com now predicts an 10-6 finish for the Tigers, which would put them 2nd in CUSA. It just goes to show that any team can change its own destiny by playing better. In expectation, it is not likely that teams will improve after this many games. But every year some teams will begin to peak later in the season, and that is why we watch.

By the way, UTEP is back to being the CUSA favorite again. Despite a shaky non-conference slate, the defending conference champs are currently tied with Memphis for first place.

Clemson at Maryland:
Up by two points, with two seconds left, should you intentionally miss the free throw? The idea is that if you miss, the rebounding team will only be able to get a full-court heave at the basket. But if you make the free throw, they can inbound the ball with the clock not running and get a better shot.

On Saturday, Maryland proved that missing is not always a fool-proof strategy. Maryland intentionally missed with 1.6 seconds left, but the ball ricocheted off the side of the basket and went out of bounds, untouched. That meant Clemson was able to inbound the ball and throw a full-court pass even with the free throw miss. Clemson got a very good look at a three that bounced off the rim as time expired.

Colorado at Oklahoma:
All I have to say about this game is that it was “Star Wars” day at Oklahoma. They had a bunch of people in Star Wars costumes dancing during the commercials, and a special appearance by the guy who played Chewbacca in the original Star Wars films. Also, we all knew Colorado was going to come back to earth at some point, but it would have been fun if their crazy run lasted a little bit longer. Losing to Oklahoma hurts.

Tennessee at Connecticut:
Tobias Harris and Brian Williams facial features seem eerily similar to me. Ok, maybe it is just the haircut. So the upcoming Duke blowout of St. John’s not withstanding, the Big East has pretty much dominated the non-conference slate again. But will the Big East deliver in the tournament?

Villanova at Syracuse:
College basketball is often about match-ups, and Villanova’s great shooting and quickness is just a bad match-up for the Syracuse zone. (Jay Wright’s 10-5 record against Syracuse makes that clear.) There was one play where Corey Fisher sliced through the lane and threw up a crazy shot for the bucket and the foul and Rick Jackson had a look of shock on his face. What do we have to do to shut these guys down? Of course about a month ago I was talking about how Tennesee’s lateral quickness on defense was a terrible match-up for Villanova. Tennesee shut down penetration, and kept Villanova from getting anything other than a series of forced jumpers. Is Tennesee better than Syracuse? Probably not. But in college basketball, style of play and match-ups do matter.

Ohio St. at Illinois:
How odd is it to be watching a Big Ten game and be impressed with the dominating freshman players? Jared Sullinger was the differnce maker for Ohio St., but Deshaun Thomas hit arguably the two biggest shots of the game (when Ohio St. took the lead). And Jereme Richmond of Illinois also had his best performance this season. I’m used to needing to watch Big 12 or ACC games to see freshman shine on the biggest stage. But at least for one day, the Big Ten delivered.

By the way, I’m still in the Terrence Jones camp over Sullinger. I just think given the amount of experienced talent around Sullinger, Jones performance this year has been more impressive. But there’s no question that Jared Sullinger put Ohio St. on his back and refused to let the Buckeyes lose on Saturday.

Rutgers at Seton Hall:
What a brutal week for Seton Hall. They blew a late lead against Georgetown and then lost to Rutgers at home. They probably thought they’d be a .500 team a few days ago, but now they are 2-6 in Big East play. Ouch. I think as a whole Seton Hall is becoming a better “team” without Jeremy Hazell launching threes like crazy. So in some sense, his injury was a blessing. But what they really need is a healthy Hazell hitting threes within a more cohesive offense.

Rutgers coach Mike Rice said the other night that his team needed to not settle for playing better basketball, and start getting wins. And at least against the bottom of the Big East he came through this week beating South Florida and Seton Hall. Whether that translates against better quality opponents remains to be seen, but Rutgers is 3-4 in league play, and that’s a nice start for the first year coach.

Nebraska at Texas Tech:
I said last week that Texas Tech was a scary team. Essentially, I think they have quit on Pat Knight which is why they are playing so poorly. But if they manage to hang close in a game, I think are capable of pulling an upset given all their experience. And despite Nebraska being favored by 10 points on kenpom.com, the Red Raiders did in fact earn the narrow win on Saturday. Texas Tech won with a tip-in with 4 seconds left. Sadly I did not see it.

Virginia at Georgia Tech:
Virginia is another team I would not want to play right now. They have a terrible record, but when their guards get hot, they can be very dangerous. When Virginia’s Mike Scott was injured, it seemed likely they would fold up their tent, but not under Tony Bennett. After playing Duke close for half a game, Virginia dominated Georgia Tech on Saturday.

Minnesota at Michigan:
This game was one of the biggest contrasts in style of all time. Michigan was completely dependent on their ability to make jump shots, and Minnesota was completely dependent on their ability to get lay-ups in the paint. Minnesota was the bigger, more athletic team, and in the long-run that seems like it should win out. But the Gophers turned the ball over at a horrific rate, making things much closer than you might expect. Part of that was an injury to Al Nolen which had Blake Hoffarber as the Gophers only experienced guard for much of the game. But much of it was the Minnesota players just making dumb, unforced errors. In the end, Minnesota prevailed, but the contrast of styles made for a very amusing game.

Eastern Kentucky at Morehead St.:
After a great feature on Kenneth Faried in Sports Illustrated, the rebounding machine pulled down 21 boards in the televised home loss. But he also committed a key offensive foul late in the game with his team trailing by 4 points. The OVC was supposed to be a fun race between a Murray St. team that nearly beat Butler in last year’s NCAA tournament and Faried’s Morehead St. team, but neither team has been dominant, and the OVC race is wide open.

VCU at Old Dominion:
VCU won at Old Dominion, and with three losses in conference play, it may be time to stop labeling ODU the conference favorite. I still think ODU has the best chance of winning in the NCAA tournament of any mid-major because of their size in the paint. But the CAA has a lot of quality teams, and the odds of ODU making the tournament are starting to slip.

Rice at UCF:
Speaking of tournament odds slipping, what has happened to UCF? How can they lose at home to one of the worst teams in C-USA? I don’t think we should take anything away from what UCF did in the non-conference. Winning against Florida is a big accomplishment for a C-USA school in any year. But at 1-4 in conference play, UCF’s NCAA tournament hopes are looking very slim right now.

Louisville at Providence:
Providence became the first team with a losing record in the Big East to beat a team with a winning record in the Big East. Our first true upset 50+ games in?

Charlotte at Duquesne:
Why do the margin-of-victory numbers think Duquesne is now the A-10 favorite? Because when they win, they win convincingly. Duquesne crushed Charlotte on Saturday. Get ready to hear head coach Ron Everhart’s name mentioned for job openings in the upcoming hiring cycle.

Kansas St. at Texas A&M:
I’m going to have about 500 more words on Kansas St. before the season is over, but I think it is fair to ask how a team that was picked to win the Big 12 by the coaches (and me) is 1-4 in league play. Mostly, the offense has gone in the tank. No one has been able to replace Denis Clemente’s ball handling, and turnovers are up substantially. Also, the team’s free throw rate is down substantially, but that is because the team is afraid to go to the line right now. The team is missing free throws as such a horrific rate that they are now being more tentative around the basket. The net result is a Kansas St. offense that has gone in the tank.

Kansas at Texas:
Bill Self is unquestionably one of the best coaches in college basketball, but I disagree with Seth Davis’ halftime assessment that this might be the best Kansas team in several seasons. I think this team has more experience and plenty of depth, but it lacks the NBA level talent of some of the recent teams. Because of Bill Self’s ability to teach elite defense, Kansas is going to be in the hunt until the very end. But I could very well see them losing in the NCAA tournament like they did today, to a persistent talented team.

I cannot wait for BYU vs San Diego St. on Wednesday night!

Why is John Calipari yelling at Terrence Jones? Why are all Big Ten Teams living on the Perimeter?

2011-01-19T00:10:00.004-05:00

Boy did Tuesday night sneak up on me. It had some intriguing games on paper, but the games were way above and beyond expectations. Let’s start with Kentucky vs Alabama. I was not surprised that Alabama could shut Kentucky down. Like Florida St., they are one of those sneaky good defensive teams. And when you play elite defense, you can surprise anyone. But to get a near 20 point lead and then blow a near 20 point lead made for great TV. When Kentucky pulled with four points with 5 minutes left, this looked like it was going to be a Wildcat rout. The crowd had surprisingly few Kentucky fans in attendance, but those in attendance started a loud “Let’s go Big Blue” chant, and it seemed like there was no way Alabama could hang on for the final stretch.

During this time, the focus on Kentucky’s Terrence Jones fascinated me. He had two fantastic head fakes leading to wide open finishes. And then they showed a close up of him and Alabama’s JaMychal Green bumping each other the entire way up the floor. I was impressed they could give that much contact and not get into a fight.

And then there was John Calipari yelling at Jones for not being tough enough when all Jones had done was put the team on his back. What is Calipari thinking? Tough love for his best player? I honestly don’t think there is a freshman in the country as tough as Jones, and that includes Jared Sullinger of Ohio St. (Sullinger is really benefiting from the fact that he has a super-talented team around him. He faces far fewer double-teams and he usually does not handle them well. Jones gets mugged on a regular basis, and just takes it in stride.)

So of course, after all this focus on Jones, he was irrelevant in the final decision. Kentucky turned it over twice trying to drive into the paint (once on a charge call, and once on a live ball turnover.) And in the end, Alabama hung on for victory. But this game was so intense that even that 2.5 second remaining full-court heave seemed dramatic.

Then we had the Illinois vs Michigan St. game. One of the universal laws of basketball is that if you are shooting lights out, and you have a small lead, you are going to lose. Eventually, all teams have a cold stretch. And Illinois had that cold stretch after shooting 60% for most of the game. But for Illinois, the fact that they only made one FG in the last 10 minutes did not matter. That’s because Michigan St. refused to take the ball to the basket and extend the game. They took three after three, and despite a lot of long rebounds, they could not catch back up.

What has happened to the Big Ten inside games? Ohio St. has Sullinger, but is principally a spread attack. They rely on great spacing to get good looks at the bucket, but no one would confuse Ohio St.’s offense with a 1980’s physical inside attack. Purdue’s JaJuan Johnson has become a lights out mid-ranger gunner, but with him on the perimeter, we are reminded that he is the only true inside presence for the Boilermakers. Wisconsin’s bigs are all better three-point shooters than inside players. And Illinois’ bigs have been soft for so long, it isn’t even a story anymore. So Michigan St.’s move to the perimeter is somewhat distressing. Yes Michigan St. crushed Illinois on the boards in this one, but where has the inside focus gone?

Is this some sort of Big Ten conspiracy or are the teams just adapting? I.e., interior defenses are too good, so they move to more perimeter-oriented attacks? I find this all a little bit of a riddle. (And yes, I’m conveniently ignoring Minnesota, the one true inside-oriented attack in the Big Ten.)

But, I want to go back to the rules of shooting logic for a moment. Georgetown games often violate the laws of shooting logic. That’s because when the Georgetown-offense (don’t call it Princeton offense around JT3), can create so many lay-ups that a 70% shooting rate can be sustainable for long stretches. But in the Seton Hall game, it was Seton Hall taking advantage of lay-ups. By earning 17 transition points (and about 11 in a row at one point), Seton Hall was maintaining a ridiculously high shooting percentage in the second half. And were it not for a bunch of odd free throw misses, they would have won the game. That’s because the Hoyas could not stop Seton Hall from scoring or getting to the line.

But ignore Herb Pope's foul out, and Georgetown's fine free throw shooting in the final seconds. Georgetown vs Seton Hall had one of the most bizarre end of game situations I had seen this year. Seton Hall appeared to hit the game tying three with 10 seconds left, but the Seton Hall player had his foot on the line, so it was only a two. The arena went crazy for about 8 seconds, until it slowly sunk in. "We’re still behind. Rats." That's a tough way to lose a game.

But that ending was topped moments later, when I saw the highlights of Georgia vs Tennessee. Brian Williams, the big bulky Tennessee center practically throws a Georgia player to the ground while grabbing an offensive rebound and putting in the game winning bucket as time expired. I’m pretty sure if he tried to do that again 100 times, he couldn’t time it like that. Forget all the arguments about whether he went over-the-back (which should not be a foul) or through-the-back. I’m sure opinions will vary depending on whether you bleed red or orange. But as a college basketball fan, I live for weird endings. That’s why I watch 14 games a Sunday and hate days like this last Saturday where 2/3rd of the games are blowouts. Celebrate the unusual. Tuesday was special.

Life is Good

2011-01-16T23:44:00.003-05:00

Here are some things I am thankful for this season:

1) Two Hour Games - College Basketball has ruined all other sports for me. As much as I have historically loved football, this season has convinced me that games are just too long. But maybe I'm just bitter that I sat through all those Vikings games, while the Bears and Packers are in the NFC title game.

2) Fran McCaffery – Iowa is not very good yet, but seeing them on Sunday reminded me how happy I am to see that Todd Lickliter is gone. Was that really Iowa following a made Minnesota basket with transition lay-up? Was that really Iowa taking multiple transition three pointers? In tonight’s episode of the Journey, McCaffery talked about how Iowa fans miss the days when Tom Davis used to run-and-gun. And I’m glad to see him attempt to embrace it, even if it is going to take a few years to get the talent to make it work.

Aside #1: The Big Ten is now down to four coaches who hate college basketball. (I.e. prefer brutally slow-paced games.) That list includes Bo Ryan, Ed DeChellis, Bill Carmody, and John Beliein. Bo Ryan isn’t going anywhere, and I can’t blame Penn St. for trying to shorten the game. But the Big Ten only needs one Princeton-style offense.

Aside #2: By the way, how lucky is Minnesota to have a week off and then play Michigan and Northwestern back-to-back. If there was ever a time to practice playing against 1-3-1 defense and the Princeton offense, the Gophers got a gift by the Big Ten schedule-makers.

Aside #3: The ACC is getting slower. In 2008, there was only one slow team, NC State, and they were a last place team so it was hard to blame them for wanting to slow the tempo. Now Virginia, Boston College, and Clemson have started to move to the dark side. Steve Donahue said he was going to play much faster than he did at Cornell, but it has not happened so far. I think he prefers trying to win to trying to impose a faster-paced system.

(Much to my surprise, Wake Forest head coach Jeff Bzdelik is not playing a slow-paced system as he did at Colorado. Apparently he wants to make sure Wake Forest gets blown out every game. Of all my pre-season predictions, none looks better than picking Wake for last in the ACC.)

But back to things I am thankful for:

3) JaJuan Johnson – Has he been playing out of his mind or what? I can’t believe that he didn’t get the final shot when trailing by two against West Virginia. He was making impossible shot after impossible shot. Why not give him the chance? I was among those who thought Purdue would struggle this year. Johnson was good but not great last year, and I thought there was no way he could perform at a high level with so much defensive attention focused on him. I was wrong. Johnson has become a superstar.

Aside #1: It is hard to argue with Ryne Smith’s shooting, but Lewis Jackson’s ability to take the ball to the basket and draw fouls seems to be the missing piece for Purdue. Or maybe both are important, but I’m a sucker for driving guards. The three point shot might not fall, but if you can beat your man off the dribble, that’s always there.

(You probably think it odd that I praise a team that lost twice in the week, but nothing about Purdue’s performance convinced me they were a bad team.)

4) North Carolina's inconsistent three point shooting – North Carolina is in a perfect sweet spot. They are one of the must-see “brand names” in college basketball, and yet most of their games have been competitive this year.

Many factors have been identified as reasons for North Carolina’s struggles, but my favorite factor is their inability to knock down wide-open threes. Teams used to have to work so hard to keep North Carolina out of the paint, and then Wayne Ellington and Danny Green would just punish them. Now those same shots just seem to clang off the rim.

I’m in an odd position this year. As a Gopher and Fighting Illini fan, I want North Carolina to win and remain a quality non-conference victory. But as a fan of college basketball, cheering for North Carolina against Georgia Tech just seems wrong.

5) Colorado – It depresses me a little bit how much we “know” at this point in the season. (Just look at the Big Ten standings and it has already started to sort into various tiers.) But what I love about college basketball is when a team just goes out and proves us wrong. Colorado was supposed to be an 8th or 9th place Big 12 team. And the defense still is not great, so maybe they still will be. But winning at Kansas St., and beating Missouri and Oklahoma St. at home has Colorado at 3-0 and first place in the Big 12. Sweet.

6) Duquesne – But I also like it when the margin-of-victory numbers pick out a surprise. Ken Pomeroy picked Duquesne as an A-10 sleeper and they just beat league favorite Temple.

7) The SEC title race – Kentucky has feasted on two terrible SEC West teams at home, but they have all their good games coming up. I just have no idea which games those will be. Who else is good in this league? Why is everyone so inconsistent?

8) Afternoon basketball – If you have Monday off, enjoy the quadruple-header.

A Day’s Worth of Channel Flipping

2011-01-08T23:22:00.002-05:00

People who wait until March to watch college basketball have it all wrong. With staggered ending times, and great finishes across the board, regular season Saturdays are fantastic. I was able to watch part of all of the following games on my basic cable package on Saturday:

West Virginia at Georgetown: The Hoyas turned it over on four straight possessions in the final minute allowing West Virgina to hang on for victory. With three veteran backcourt stars, Georgetown’s inability to execute in crunch time is somewhat puzzling to me. One of the turnovers was probably a bad call (going out of bounds off the back of a West Virginia foot), but the other three were not. Georgetown still has a quality resume overall, but at 1-3 in the Big East, the pressure is on to start winning league games.

North Carolina at Virginia: Virginia led by 10 halfway through the second half, but this turned into a half-court defensive battle. And whether Roy Williams likes it or not, that’s when North Carolina is at its best. Despite constant double teams of Tyler Zeller, and an inability to make wide-open threes, North Carolina was able to draw contact and put the game away at the free throw line.

Syracuse at Seton Hall: Every team in America could use Herb Pope. He had 20 rebounds today as Seton Hall made a late run to make Syracuse nervous. But the Pirates could never quite get over the hump. I thought Scoop Jardine was the difference for Syracuse. He was relentless in crunch time. When Seton Hall thought Syracuse would run clock, he simply took the ball to the basket and kept getting lay-ups or foul shots. I never understood why Brandon Triche was starting ahead of Jardine last year, and Jardine continues to grow as the team’s lead point guard this season. He may still commit a few too many turnovers or take a few too many questionable shots, but he also makes a lot of winning plays.

Austin Peay at Murray State: Defending OVC champ and preseason pick Murray St. trailed Austin Peay in the standings, and trailed by 14 in this game. But some full court pressure and home court momentum allowed Murray St. to get close. That’s when one of the Murray St. players was called for an offensive foul for swinging his elbows. That meant a loss of possession, two shots for Austin Peay, and of course Austin Peay had a chance to score. But somehow this did not decide the game. Austin Peay made one of two free throws and was called for a five second (closely guarded) violation, and the door was still open for Murray St. After some more missed free throws, Murray St. had a three pointer to win at the buzzer, but it came up short. Austin Peay is now in the driver’s seat in the OVC standings.

Kansas St. at Oklahoma St.: In a relatively close game, Oklahoma St.’s Marhall Moses pushed Kansas St.’s Jamar Samuels out of the way in order to get a wide-open lay-up. Samuels complained to the referee and was given a technical. After Keiton Page made both free throws, Oklahoma St. made a three pointer less than a minute later. Samuels technical helped swing momentum and turn a close game into an Oklahoma St. blowout.

Michigan St. at Penn St.: Michigan St. always seems to struggle at Penn St., and this game was no different. And despite the fact that Talor Battle struggled mightily shooting the ball, his pull-up jumper with a 1 point lead in the final seconds sealed the victory.

Missouri at Colorado: By the time I flipped to this game, Missouri was down by a major margin. But despite forcing a number of turnovers late in the game, Missouri missed a ton of wide open lay-ups late in the game. Also, Colorado’s Alec Burks is good. He scored 36 points.

Baylor at Texas Tech: This was a crazy game. Baylor started on an 11-0 run. Then Texas Tech slowly grinded it out and took the lead. But a late 20-2 Baylor run sealed the victory. I would not want to play Texas Tech right now. They have a bunch of seniors who might decide to start playing at any point, but their record is horrible, and a loss to Texas Tech would look horrible for any team at this point.

George Mason at Old Dominion: Despite a late three from George Mason’s Cam Long, Old Dominion’s Frank Hassell had a couple of key lay-ups late to seal the victory. I became a fan of George Mason’s Luke Hancock down at the Charleston Classic, but his late attempt to get a lay-up or draw a foul could not penetrate ODU's interior defense.

California at Arizona St.: Trailing by three with 30 seconds left, Arizona St. grabbed three offensive rebounds and took four three-pointers, but could not make a shot to tie the game.

Connecticut at Texas: Kemba Walker’s three point prayer as the shot clock expired was not his only ridiculous shot in this game. He is playing out of his mind right now.

Charlotte at St. Bonaventure: Not all 3 OT games are created equally. This one included a bunch of missed baskets and questionable shot selection. One sequence probably best sums up the game. In the second overtime one of the Charlotte players swatted the ball away, corralled it, and then started dribbling. The refs felt the initial swat should have counted as a dribble, and called a double dribble. It was not only the wrong call, it cost Charlotte an easy lay-up that would have won the game. Instead St. Bonaventure prevailed.

UTEP at UAB: On the other hand, this 3 OT game was fantastic. Both teams exchanged huge shots, and UAB won with a three pointer by Cameron Moore at the end of the third overtime. But it was a pair of game tying threes by UTEP’s Randy Culpepper and Christian Polk that made this an instant classic.

New Mexico at Wyoming: Not to be outdone, the following game on CBS College Sports was equally good. Steve Alford’s New Mexico squad clawed back to take the lead late in this one, but with one tenth of a second left, Wyoming’s Francisco Cruz released a 5 foot floater that went in for the one point win. New Mexico was extremely lucky in close games last year, so perhaps they were due for a tough loss.

Vanderbilt at South Carolina: Despite a great day’s action, my ability to keep track of the action was fading at this point. I know South Carolina had some late threes, and Vanderbilt had some bad decisions late, including throwing a ball off the back of Jeffrey Taylor’s head in the lane. But by the time South Carolina prevailed, I had reached my limit. What a great start to the regular season!

The Random-Fan Look-Ahead

2011-01-06T21:00:00.004-05:00

What college basketball junkies understand is that every game matters. Every game can be a fantastic win against an RPI top 50 team or a horrific loss to an RPI 100+ team. And not only do all 30+ regular season games matter, through the matrix of opponents, 100’s more games matter every week. Today I chose a team at random, the Temple Owls. Though Temple is off on Saturday, January 8th, let’s see what a crazy Temple fan will be cheering for:

Saturday, January 8th through the eyes of a Temple Owl’s fan

(Note: I am pretending to be a Temple fan here, hence the use of “we”.)

11am
West Virginia at Georgetown

Hey, a week or so ago Georgetown was #1 in the RPI. We had a win over the #1 RPI team in the land. Don’t fall apart Hoyas. Temple needs that quality win on its resume.

Noon
Syracuse at Seton Hall
North Carolina at Virginia

We beat Seton Hall too, but that’s not looking so great. Keep it together guys, we need the Hall to be an RPI top 100 win at the end of the year. (Sadly, there are not going to be a lot of those in the A10 this season.) As for the other game, rooting against North Carolina is not as much fun as rooting against Duke, but it is still fun.

1:30pm
Tennessee at Arkansas

Remember when Tennessee beat Villanova? That made me smile. Real Temple fans just have to cheer against the Wildcats and their "best-team-in-the-city" attitude. The thought of Villanova going to the Big East in football still makes me want to puke. We would be a Big East member in all sports if it wasn't for Nova keeping our basketball team out 10 years ago. Go Volunteers.

2:30pm
California at Arizona St.

I still can’t believe Temple lost to Cal in the Old Spice Classic, but that loss would look a little better if Cal won here.

3:30pm
Connecticut at Texas

Oddly the "game of the day" does not interest me.

4pm
Kentucky at Georgia
Texas A&M at Oklahoma
Georgia Tech at Boston College
George Washington at St. Joseph’s
Richmond at La Salle
East Carolina at Memphis

We beat Georgia and lost to Texas A&M down in Orlando, which makes us a fan of both teams I guess.

Too bad we didn’t get to play Boston College in Orlando. That would have been a nice chance for revenge against Steve Donahue whose Cornell team knocked us out of the NCAA tournament last year. But for some reason, I still find myself cheering for the guy. I guess I just respect former Ivy league coaches. Go Fran Dunphy, go Steve Donahue!

Isn’t it hilarious how St. Joseph’s has fallen apart the last few years? I love to hear their fans complaining on the Philadelphia sports radio stations.

Richmond is so over-rated. I can’t believe some people are picking them to win the A10. I’d love to see them go down.

And don’t get me started on Memphis. Who have they beaten exactly? Let’s look at the Pomeroy Rankings: Temple =29, Memphis = 73. If anyone from a non-BCS conference deserves to be ranked, I think it is pretty clear who that should be.

5pm
UCF at Houston

And don’t get me started on UCF. Are they ever going to play anyone who is good? I’d love to see them go down to a team like Houston. Temple would be right back in the driver’s seat for a top 25 ranking.

6pm
LSU at Auburn

Just know that when Kentucky wins the SEC and everyone says how great they are, I’m pretty sure our A10 schedule is tougher than this.

6:30pm
Stanford at Arizona

Do you think the Pac-10 might only get 2 bids again? That would be great. I’m pretty sure Stanford is bad again, so let’s cheer for them.

7pm
Toledo plays Central Michigan.

Temple beat Toledo, so go Toledo. Oh, who am I kidding? Half the MAC could transfer and Toledo still couldn’t crack .500, let alone an RPI top 100 ranking. Can you believe we play these guys in football? Come on Big Ten, expand and cause more chaos! We need back into a BCS league in football at least.

8pm
Providence at Rutgers
St. John’s at Notre Dame

Down goes Rutgers! I love to see those New Jersey recruits come to Philadelphia.

Well, we watched Notre Dame win the title down in Orlando and they were a pretty good team, so why not cheer for them here? They have to show up in our opponent’s opponent’s schedules a lot, right? Go third factor in the RPI rating!

Real Opponent - Cupcake Splits: Why Missouri is Finally Catching up to their Preseason Rank

2011-01-04T17:34:00.001-05:00

Some people like to say we have not learned anything about Cincinnati yet. That’s because the Bearcats have played only two top 100 Pomeroy teams, and neither of those games was a true road game. But even if they have played a lot of cupcakes, there is obviously something to be learned from their margin-of-victory (MOV) in various games. We can compare the final margin in Cincinnati’s drubbing of Toledo to the margin when other teams drubbed Toledo. And that is how a MOV stat like the Pomeroy rankings determines that Cincinnati has been the 40th best team, despite the fact that they have not played anyone.

But as many experts believe, you need to see how a team performs against real competition to get a true evaluation. Because not all coaches use non-conference games the same way, MOV is sometimes misleading. In particular, how a coach uses his bench in cupcake games varies substantially. Some coaches like to keep a tight rotation even in blowouts. I remember a few years ago Georgetown had virtually no bench, so they simply played the starters all the time, even when non-conference games were blowouts. On the other hand, many coaches use the non-conference games to give the freshman meaningful playing time. This may result in only a 10 point win against a bad team, but the coach is evaluating players, not trying to perform at a peak level.

One such team may be the Missouri Tigers. Despite, playing a deep roster in many games this season, against quality competition Mike Anderson has used his bench much more strategically. For example, in an overtime loss to Georgetown, Missouri essentially used a 7 player rotation. But in the close season opening win against Western Illinois, Missouri played 10 players over 10 minutes.

Cupcake blowouts also often measure the quality of the second and third unit. But whether the bench is deep may become less important as rotations are shortened.

To the extent these differences in bench utilization or bench quality impact the final MOV, one thing we can do is look at various splits. We can compare how teams have performed against quality competition to how they have performed against cupcakes. The next table shows that comparison. It compares team's adjusted offense and defense in games against the Pomeroy top 100 to the adjusted offense and defense in games against teams ranked 100+. Notice that this is not always correlated to win-loss record. (I.e. a close loss at Duke was still a solid performance for Michigan St.)

Efficiency Margin is the different between Adjusted Offense and Adjusted Defense. Efficiency Margin Difference is the Difference in Efficiency Margin in games against the top 100 relative to 100+. Efficiency Margin Difference essentially measures whether teams have played better or worse against quality competition.

(Note: If the splits do not seem to add up, recognize that Ken Pomeroy puts a higher weight on recent games in his official rankings.)

Ohio St. looks even more scary now that I see this table. Not only is Ohio St. winning by an impressive margin, it is not based on wins over cupcakes. Ohio St.’s best performances have come against good teams.

On the flip side, Duke is a classic case of a team that is going to be over-rated by a margin-of-victory stat. Mike Krzyzewski’s philosophy is to play his best players. He believes bench players can learn through practice. He does not believe they need game experience to develop. And thus his margin of victory against small schools is almost always large.

As noted above, Missouri has been much better against quality competition. That is one of the reasons the Tigers have been steadily rising from 40th in the Pomeroy rankings a few weeks ago to 16th today.

On the other hand, Kansas has been much worse against quality teams. The sample size is much smaller, and Kansas is still an elite team no matter how you slice it, but the two point win against USC is reason to make us question whether Kansas will dominate a deep Big 12 this year.

Alabama has been frankly horrible against good teams. Their defense has seemingly disappeared whenever they’ve faced a quality opponent this year.

Meanwhile Missouri St.'s offense has disappeared whenever they have played good teams.

The big problem with a table like this is sample size. Cincinnati’s defense was phenomenal against Dayton, but that was only one game. I think it is fair to say we have no idea how good Cincinnati is yet. But conference play is here in the Big East and will be everywhere else soon. The left-hand side of this table will have a lot more information soon.

RSCI Top 20 Recruits who are now upperclassmen

2011-01-02T23:50:00.003-05:00

I intended to continue the RSCI posts awhile ago but it turns out South Dakota does not have a lot of WiFi hotspots. Go figure.

This used to be the “McDonald’s All-American Watch”, but because the MAA team usually includes a few too many duds, I started posting this “RSCI Watch” last year. Sadly, when you remove the duds this exercise is a little less entertaining. For better or worse, RSCI top 20 recruits almost always develop eventually. Some took a few years, but have now become stars. See Tyler Zeller and Kemba Walker who have finally become elite players this year. The next table shows the career numbers for RSCI top 20 seniors and juniors who are still in school. Scroll to the right to see the full set of numbers.

Twelve juniors have already left school early,

1 Brandon Jennings
2 Jrue Holiday
3 Tyreke Evans
4 Samardo Samuels
5 Demar DeRozan
6 Greg Monroe
7 Al-Farouq Aminu
8 BJ Mullens
9 Ed Davis
13 Willie Warren
16 Elliot Williams
19 Luke Babbit

and most RSCI top 20 seniors have already left school early.

But what can we learn about the players who have stuck around? First, note that Duke and Georgetown are the only two programs who brought in a top 20 recruits who stuck around for four years. (While Vernon Macklin is now at Florida, he started at Georgetown.)

-Vernon Macklin has finally learned the value of rebounding this year.

-2007’s 13th ranked recruit, Austin Freeman has seen his percentage of shots taken and efficiency rating slowly creep up over his four years. I think he probably is not going to live up to the Big East player-of-the-year accolade, but he is on pace for a very solid season.

-Some of Kyle Singler’s shots are going to Nolan Smith who is looking to make the most of his senior season. While it is true that Smith is not a natural point guard, his assist rate is at the highest point of his career. And Smith has also learned to draw fouls this year, posting a career high free throw rate.

-Looking at the Juniors, 2008’s tenth ranked recruit Delvon Roe has yet to become a dominant player. Certainly injuries have played a large role in his lack of progress, but his progress does seem disappointing.

-Scotty Hopson has developed into a go-to scorer for Tennessee, significantly upping the number of shots he takes when on the floor. And he has done it without a drop in efficiency. (We have not reached SEC play yet, so it is unclear if he will be able to maintain his rating against SEC East defenses, but it is a nice start.) One key is that he is drawing fouls at the highest rate in his career, and he has finally learned how to make free throws.

-2008’s 12th ranked recruit, William Buford is going to go down as one of the most over-shadowed great players in Big Ten history.

-Florida St.’s offense still has problems with turnovers, but Chris Singleton is posting his best offensive season to date. His three point shooting and free throw shooting are improved and his ORtg is finally over 100.

-Kemba Walker has gone from being a player like William Buford (solid, but not spectacular), to a player of the year candidate. I might have expected him to shoot more frequently this year, but to simultaneously increase his efficiency this much is phenomenal.

-JaMychal Green needs some help.

-2008’s 18th ranked recruit, Tyler Zeller, has finally stayed healthy, and he is the most efficient scorer on North Carolina. And until recently, he was the only efficient scorer on the Tar Heels.

-Malcolm Lee has cut down his turnovers this year which has led to a bump in efficiency, but his assists are also down, which leads me to believe this is not a “real improvement.” Lee is just handling the ball less often this year.

The RSCI Sophomores

2010-12-22T00:01:00.005-05:00

Sunday I presented the stats for the RSCI Top 20 Freshmen. Today I want to look at the RSCI Top 20 Sophomores who stayed in school. Among the RSCI Top 20 from last year, 8 have already left for the NBA:

1 Derrick Favors
2 John Wall
3 DeMarcus Cousins
4 Avery Bradley
6 Xavier Henry
8 Lance Stephenson
10 Tiny Gallon
20 Daniel Orton

Here are the numbers for the returning players: (Use the scroll bar at the bottom of the table and scroll right to see all the stat categories.)

Last years 5th ranked recruit John Henson has seen his playing time and per-game totals increase from last year. But his overall efficiency is still not great, and that free throw percentage is still hideous. The key for the Tar Heels is that he has become a dominant rebounder on both ends of the court.

Last year’s 7th ranked recruit Renardo Sidney has finally debuted.

I had high expectations for last year’s 9th ranked recruit Kenny Boynton to take a big leap forward this year. But his shooting has not improved from last year, his assists are down slightly, and that’s a bad thing because Florida has not reached the hard part of their schedule yet. Unless Boynton improves in SEC play, he is on pace to have a slightly worse year as a sophomore than as a freshman.

11th ranked Washington Husky Abdul Gaddy has become a star this season. Despite taking shots at the same rate as last year, he is now making a ton of them and his assist rate has jumped significantly as well. In fact his assist-to-turnover ratio is one of the highest in a BCS conference.

With JayVaughn Pinkston suspended for the year, Mouphtaou Yarou has become a much more important post player for the Wildcats this season. Yarou was considered a long-term project when he went to Villanova, and while he still has moments where he looks confused, he has improved his aggressiveness, and his defensive rebounding fills a critical need for the team.

Dante Taylor continues to get a puzzlingly low amount of playing time for Pittsburgh, but his numbers have been getting better. Everyone talked about how he was going to be the next Pittsburgh monster on the offensive boards, and we’ve seen flashes of that this season. But he is playing too much against the other team's backups for me to trust that that efficiency rating is for real.

Last year’s 14th ranked recruit Ryan Kelly still is not playing much for Duke, but he’s shown a much better shooting touch so far.

With too many turnovers and horrific free throw shooting, last year’s 15th ranked player, Wally Judge, is struggling.

Lost in Kemba Walker’s magical season is the improvement Alex Oriakhi has shown this season. The reason UConn was picked so low in the pre-season was because neither Walker nor Oriakhi were dominant last year, but that has obviously changed.

While Florida St.’s Michael Snaer has found a little bit of a shooting touch early this year, he still turns it over way too much to be an effective offensive player.

It feels to me like Mason Plumlee is playing a lot better than last year, but maybe he has just had a few more highlight reel plays. In reality, his biggest improvement has been on the boards.

Villanova’s Dominic Cheek was actually ranked higher than Maalik Wayns in the RSCI rankings last year, and so far he’s having a better sophomore year.

Tristan Thompson and Josh Smith’s Biggest Weakness, (Not Free Throw Percentage)

2010-12-19T20:05:00.005-05:00

We are getting far enough in the season that I thought it was worth reviewing the stats for the RSCI top 20 freshmen.

Despite Harrison Barnes dramatic game-tying three, North Carolina still lost on Saturday. And despite a 16 point performance from the super-hyped freshman, we know that Barnes full-season numbers are still disappointing. (That’s right folks, we are a month and a half into the season and Harrison Barnes still has the worst eFG% among the top 20 recruits. Yikes.)

But what else have we learned about the marquee freshman class this year? See the next table. You will have to scroll to the right to see all the categories.

Josh Selby just came back so it is too early to say anything about him. And Enes Kanter is still ineligible. But everyone in the RSCI top 10 is getting playing time. The same cannot be said for players ranked 11-20. Fab Melo, Reggie Bullock, DeShaun Thomas, and Patric Young are barely breaking the lineup for their teams.

Terrence Jones is scoring at an incredible rate thanks to his very high usage rate, and he is still posting a respectable 108.5 ORtg. But Kyrie Irving and Jared Sullinger have been simply unbelievable. Not only have both players been scoring machines -- they have been ridiculously efficient. Too bad Irving is injured, because I would love to see what kind of numbers he could have put up over the full season.

Also, Irving was clearly posting amazing numbers, but very few freshman guards can put up great assist to turnover ratios. Brandon Knight and Joe Jackson have had decent starts, but neither has a winning assist to turnover ratio at this point.

Also, no one has noticed Joe Jackson’s poor shooting this season because Memphis has played pretty well, but like many freshman point guards he needs a lot of possessions to get his points. Jackson’s free throw touch suggests his shot might come around, but right now only Harrison Barnes has a worse eFG%.

You might assume because Texas point guard Cory Joseph has been so quiet offensively that he is doing a great job feeding his teammates. But Joseph’s assist numbers are not that great, and his turnover rate is still too high for him to be considered an elite point guard at this stage. Still, you cannot question his heart, hitting that huge game-winning jumper against North Carolina. In fact, Joseph’s rare three point shots have been his biggest asset so far.

You’ll notice in the table that I post the raw Block and Steal numbers instead of Block or Steal rates. I just don’t know what to make of a block rate for a player who barely plays, so I prefer to see the total numbers on the season. Not only has Terrence Jones been fabulous at swatting the ball, he has been great at grabbing steals too.

OK, but now what did I mean by the title of this post? What is that big weakness for Texas’ Tristan Thompson and UCLA’s Josh Smith. You might have thought it was Thompson’s free throw percentage, and that is abysmal. But I think Thompson's 93 free throw rate and his ability to foul out the interior players for the other team is still pretty valuable even if he is not making his free throws. (Texas might want to take him out when they get to the one-and-one though.)

No, the thing that jumps out to me on this page is how Tristan Thompson and Josh Smith have been horrible defensive rebounders. Despite both players crashing the offensive boards, both players have been ridiculously passive on the defensive end. Thompson has been one of my favorite players because of his offensive tenacity, and his basket in the final minute of the North Carolina game was huge. But those are the kind of numbers you put up when auditioning for the NBA, not when you are trying to win a Big 12 championship. Thompson’s defensive rebounding rate has to improve or Texas is going to get crushed in Big 12 play.

There is a reason Jared Sullinger and Terrance Jones will be contenders for national freshman-of-the-year. They work hard on both ends of the court. Thad Matta and John Calipari would not accept anything less. I wish I could say the same thing for Rick Barnes, but recent Texas' collapses suggest otherwise.

Agony

I think it is a cliché when the game announcers say, “These guys are playing like this is an NCAA tournament game.” I would say that 85% of college basketball games between high major teams are played at an NCAA tournament level. That is why I love college basketball. But finals week brings out the worst in a lot of teams. This is one of the few weeks in the season when seemingly only a handful of teams are playing at their peak performance.

The other cliche I love is when the game announcers decry the death of the mid-range jumper. There are two goals in basketball, to get lay-ups and to get wide open three pointers. The mid-range jumper is dead because it is a terrible shot. And yet so many announcers seem to miss this obvious fact.

Georgetown coach JT III is the master at getting his team to get lay-ups. And while I did not think Georgetown looked sharp when returning from finals, their offensive philosphy was the difference in Saturday's game. Anytime an opponent lacks a little bit of focus, a little bit of attentiveness, Georgetown's offense becomes a lay-up line. On Saturday, Georgetown overcame their “finals hangover” by simply taking the ball to the basket.

Illinois on the other hand did not. Illinois has been a great offensive team this year. They have so many offensive options, I wondered how Demetri McCamey would keep them all happy. But not one player looked confident on Saturday. How could every single rotation player look passive at the same time?

But even Illinois seemed to recognize this, and instead of settling for the normal slew of jump shots, Illinois did try to get the ball inside. But Illinois-Chicago did a fabulous job denying the paint. Even on live-ball turnovers, Illinois-Chicago always seemed to have two guys back defensively. Dare I say it? UIC looked quite similar to Bo Ryan’s Wisconsin team (and their head coach is a former Bo Ryan assistant.) Forget the jump shots, it was these lack of transition baskets, on a day when Illinois forced 19 turnovers, that was the difference in the game. The net result was Illinois putting up an 83.4 ORtg against a bad defensive team. Illinois had yet to post an ORtg under 100 over the whole season, but despite numerous steals, they could not put the ball in the basket. There are few words to describe the feeling of losing when your team is favored to win 98% of the time. You can blame the “finals hangover” all you want, but this is an extremely difficult loss to get over.

And it also proves the old axiom. My blog posts are proportional to how my team’s fare. If Illinois wins, I probably provide 50 words on Alabama’s continued struggles, Gonzaga finally winning a big game, and LSU’s solid performance (in a home loss.) Instead, I commiserate with my wife, the Washington Capital’s fan. The Capitals once had the best record in the NHL, but they have lost eight in a row. Bah humbug.

Fatal Flaws?

2010-12-16T23:02:00.007-05:00

With the caveat that the numbers are still early, and not all schedules are equal, let’s see what fatal flaws we can uncover for various teams while playing around on kenpom.com.

Lack of Height

You cannot teach height. But teams cannot play an immobile 7 foot center and expect good things either. Teams have to play their best players. So now that we have a little better idea who is receiving playing time, which teams are lacking size inside? Keep in mind that even though height is not everything, as Ken Pomeroy established long ago, height is a key predictor of a team’s long term defensive performance.

Lack of a single quality big man

No BCS team is shorter in the middle then Oregon, for whom the tallest player on the court if often 6’6” tall. (See EJ Singler and Joevan Catron).

Among BCS contenders, Virginia Tech might be the shortest team in the middle, deploying 6’8” Victor Davilla and a bunch of 6’7” players when he goes to the bench.

Lack of depth in the middle

In terms of BCS depth, Providence probably has the least with only 6’8” Bilal Dixon playing major minutes inside. Based on their strength at guard, Providence's best strategy may be to play a 4-guard lineup.

Among contenders, Purdue has the biggest issues in the middle with only JaJuan Johnson providing reliable minutes inside.

Honorable Mention

Michigan, St. John's, Seton Hall

Also, when Donte Smith and Maurice Jones are on the floor, USC has one of the shortest backcourts in the country. (At least USC has a couple quality big guys.)

No Bench

You can win in the NCAA tournament without depth thanks to the frequent TV timeouts. But over the course of the season, a lack of depth will usually come back to haunt a team. Either foul trouble or injuries can lead to a string of losses.

No BCS team has a shorter bench then Virginia Tech. While starters have played 69% of the minutes for most teams this year, Virginia Tech’s top 5 players have played 84% of the minutes.

Among elite team’s, Kentucky is the team with the least depth. Kentucky’s top 5 play 78% of the team’s minutes.

Honorable Mention

USC’s top 5 play 81% of the minutes. Iowa St.’s top 5 play 79% of the minutes. And Notre Dame’s top 5 play 78% of the minutes, which is nothing new for Mike Brey.

Youth

BCS leagues are actually notoriously younger than non-BCS leagues because they get the kind of high school talent that can play right away. But it helps to have some seniors to lean on when the going gets tough.

No BCS team plays a rotation with less experience than Michigan. With no seniors, and a pair of freshman playing key roles, Michigan is as young as it gets.

Among contenders, UConn is the youngest with Kemba Walker leading a cavalcade of underclassman.

Honorable Mention

You might choose the Kentucky Wildcats here. After all, they do play a lineup with three freshman. But Kentucky is not really one of the youngest teams in a BCS league. The other four rotation players, DeAndre Liggins, Darius Miller, Josh Harrelson, and Eloy Vargas are all upperclassman. Memphis, NC State, LSU, Providence, Wake Forest, Auburn, South Carolina, UCLA, and Georgia Tech are all playing younger rotations than the Kentucky Wildcats.

Too Much One-on-One Play

You might not think it matters to share the ball. A team like Kentucky can run the dribble-drive and score one-on-one, right? Well, last year's elite Kentucky team shared the ball quite a bit. Team's that don't share the ball eventually tend to fall apart like last year's South Carolina squad.

No BCS team shares the ball less than Oklahoma St. Keiton Page and Ray Penn get some assists, but neither is a true BCS point guard, and no one else on the team seems to pass the ball at all. Obi Muonelo and James Anderson are sorely missed.

Among national contenders, no one shares the ball less than Kentucky. Brandon Knight is not nearly as talented a passer as John Wall was last year. But there is still a lot of season left for him to develop into more of a distributor.

Honorable Mention

You would think with two very short guards, USC would pass the ball well, but they do not have many assists. This is a combination of the team’s still shaky shooting touch, and the fact that Donte Smith is a scorer, not a distributor at 5’11”.

Too Many Live Ball Give-Aways

Nothing is more crushing than giving up steals, and this flaw becomes even more fatal in conference play.

Three BCS teams are tied with the most steals given up. Baylor, Florida St., and LSU’s opponents each steal the ball 12.0% of the time. To put this in perspective, BYU only turns it over 13.7% of the time in total (including charges and balls lost out of bounds). So Baylor’s live ball turnovers almost exceed all of BYU’s turnovers.

Also keep in mind that Florida St. has the best defensive efficiency rating in the nation. Now imagine how good Florida St.’s defense would be if they were not giving up that many transition opportunities every game.

Poor Free Throw Shooting

How many teams have blown leads and lost games because they could not hit their free throws?

No BCS team has a worse free throw percentage than Kansas St. at 55%. Thank goodness Jacob Pullen is shooting 71% and has taken almost half the team’s free throws or Kansas St. would be even worse.

Honorable Mention

Arizona St. (59%), South Carolina (61%), Georgia (62%), Washington St. (62%), and Minnesota (63%) have all had their problems at the charity stripe.

Inability to Draw Fouls

This is old news for jump-shooting Illinois and Michigan. You can debate whether it is a good long-run strategy or not, but that is what Bruce Weber and John Beilein’s teams seem designed to do.

But no BCS team draws fouls at a lower rate than Alabama. And unlike Michigan and Illinois, Alabama has very little outside shooting. For a team with no shooting touch, Alabama absolutely has to start getting to the line.

The same can be said for offensively challenged Temple where Lavoy Allen and Michael Eric tend to shy away from contact in the post.

Poor Defensive Rebounding

A few years ago John Gasaway wrote about Georgetown's hideous defensive rebounding, and the Hoyas fell apart finishing 7-11 in Big East play.

This year no BCS team has a worse defensive rebounding rate than NC State. Giving up a 47% offensive rebounding rate to Georgetown was bad, but giving up a 44% offensive rebounding rate to Farleigh Dickinson was simply unacceptable, even if forward Tracy Smith is injured.

No contender has had a worse defensive rebounding rate than West Virginia. Giving up a 50% offensive rebound rate to Minnesota was bad, but giving up a 43% offensive rebounding rate to teams like American is simply unacceptable.

Honorable Mention

Texas Tech, DePaul, Oregon St., Memphis,

Bottom Line

There are a lot more flaws I could point out, none more important than a teams shooting ability. Perhaps that is a post for another day.

Close Games, ACC Plus / Minus

2010-12-12T00:02:00.007-05:00

Why when I have to travel for work in December is it always somewhere like Portland, Maine and not Raleigh, North Carolina? Answer: Because covering basketball is not my full-time job. I also have to complain for a moment about how when I stay in nice hotels I miss the free internet access that cheap hotels provide. But if I am going to be disconnected from ESPN3.com, this is the time of the season to miss games. “Mid-December = Finals” and that means the calendar is a little less sparsely populated.

Yet even with less quality games right now, there were still plenty of incredible endings this week, most of them on Saturday:

Ending of the Week 1

Dayton trailed Old Dominion by four with 9 seconds left when Chris Johnson hit a three pointer to cut the lead to one. Dayton then went for the steal but ODU hit a home run pass over the top. ODU’s Frank Hassell put in the wide-open lay-up to extend the lead back to three with 7 seconds left. Now, trailing by three, Dayton advanced the ball and Josh Parker took a three point shot as time expired.

There are a lot of things that can happen here. The ball can go in the net. The ball can bounce of the rim. Either one of these usually results in an ecstatic reaction by one of the teams. But in this case, we saw an ending I have never seen before. The ball wedged between the basket and the backboard. I’ve certainly seen balls get stuck there before, but never on the final play of the game.

After a few seconds of puzzled expressions, ODU realized that this was as good as a normal miss. But as the ball hung snuggled against the backboard, it had a certain metaphysical absurdity to it. Dayton could take 100 shots in a row and not get the ball wedged that perfectly. But as rare as that shot was, it was not a game-tying three.

Ending of the Week 2

Washington has been hovering near the top of the Pomeroy Rankings. I find this a little odd, but it has something to do with some of their blowout wins. For example, they crushed Virginia by 40 and Virginia went on to beat Minnesota and Virginia Tech. So by any adjusted margin-of-victory calculation, Washington is going to look pretty good right now.

But for whatever reason Washington has not looked as good in big games this year. They fell to 6-3 on Sunday, and 0-3 against teams ranked in the top 50 of the Pomeroy rankings. And this ending was more puzzling than any of the others. Texas A&M led by 7 in the final 3 minutes, but the Aggies had a huge drought. And after a late steal by the Huskies, Washington had the ball trailing by one. Isaah Thomas, the quick and feisty 5’8” point guard had the ball in his hands. He seemed like the perfect player to make a play in this situation. Would he take it into the paint? Would he dish to a taller shooter for a three point shot? Would he pass to one of his bigs, cutting for a lay-up? No. Thomas randomly drove to the top of the key, and attempted an odd pull-up jumper with two Texas A&M defenders in his face. The ball was blocked back into his chest.

I know that it is often hard to get a good look at the end of the game, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what Thomas was trying to do here. But it was not the only questionable decision of the week:

Ending of the Week 3

Trailing by 3 with a chance to tie Wisconsin, two of Marquette’s players failed to exchange the ball, and un-pressured by Wisconsin, Marquette let the ball roll out of bounds.

Ending of the Week 4

Georgetown held the ball against Temple trailing by one with a chance to win at the end of the game. But instead of any of Georgetown’s three premier guards taking the shot, Hollis Thompson drove the lane and came up short. Don’t you think with the game on the line, you would like Austin Freeman, Chris Wright, or Jason Clark taking the shot?

Bonus Georgetown thoughts:

Julian Vaughn kept getting his shots blocked by Temple's interior players. That was scary because I can see that happening against certain Big East teams. On the other hand, Vaughn, normally a horrible free throw shooter, was perfect from the line.

I seem to be noticing a trend where many of Georgetown's losses involve one player having a career day. See Ohio in the NCAA tournament, Davidson in the NCAA tournament, and South Florida at the Verizon center a couple of years ago. Thursday Temple’s Ramon Moore scored 30 in the win over the Hoyas. I was very high on Ramon Moore in the preseason and I do not think his 30 point game was a fluke. But Georgetown needs someone to become a lock-down defender who can shut down a hot shooter for the other team.

Ending of the Week 5

Last week I went through the plus / minus data and saw that Brad Tinsley was the leader for Vanderbilt. I saw he had a nice assist rate, but I could count at least two or three other Vanderbilt players who I thought were more important than Tinsley. Jeffrey Taylor may be off to a slow start, but he is very mobile, and a polished scorer in the paint. John Jenkins is the oft-mentioned three-point gunner. And Festus Ezeli is emerging as a consistent post threat, which is sensational given that he has only played about four years of organized basketball. So I eagerly watched the Missouri game to see what I was missing about the Vanderbilt point guard.

And of course with my eyes trained on Tinsley, he put up his worst performance of the year, being rattled by Missouri’s pressure defense on numerous occasions. And with Vanderbilt holding the ball in a tie game, with a chance to win or go to a second overtime, Tinsley committed the only unthinkable mistake in that instance. He threw the ball away leading to a live ball steal and lay-up for Missouri’s Marcus Denmon.

The only good to come from my discussion of Tinsley’s early plus / minus numbers was that I learned Anchor of Gold, the SN Vanderbilt blog regularly publishes plus / minus data. (This filled in the North Carolina game that Stat Sheet was missing.) The blog is also definitely worth a read if you care about Vanderbilt basketball. And no one is giving them enough credit in the SEC East this year, so we probably should be reading more about the Commodores.

But for me, the Tinsley experience was a nice reminder that all these stats are still early. I started to type up the stats for the ACC and I quickly saw more Brad Tinsleys than Demetri McCameys. Since I typed up the ACC leaders, I might as well post them, but I think I am going to move on to some other statistical reviews rather than continue this plus / minus project in the future.

ACC Most Indispensible Players
Best plus / minus (Through Sunday’s games)

Duke – Kyle Singler

Singler has always excelled because opposing big men cannot close out on his outside jump shot or match his quickness. A 6’8” lethal sharpshooter is pretty indispensable.

Georgia Tech – Iman Shumpert

No one doubts the former McDonald’s All-American, now a junior, is not vital to Georgia Tech’s chances. But he still does not look like a star to me. In the big rivalry game against Georgia, I felt like the only time I heard his name down the stretch was when he was chasing down a Georgia player from behind on a fast-break. He is good, but Georgia Tech needs him to be great.

Miami – Durand Scott

Malcolm Grant is probably the better known player, but Scott has the same PPG and APG averages this season. Grant is the better three point shooter, but Scott is much better inside the arc meaning the players are almost equally efficient.

Wake Forest – Travis McKie

I suspected one of the highly ranked Wake Forest freshmen would make a name for himself, and so far McKie is the best of the bunch. He has been rebounding, scoring, and most importantly, not missing many shots. The same cannot be said of fellow RSCI top 100 freshman JT Terrell whose horrific shooting on two point jumpers relegated him to a bench role in a recent game. Sadly few people have noticed McKie because Terrell was the Wake Forest player with the game winner against Iowa.

Everyone listed above makes a lot of sense to me as the plus / minus leader, but then things start to get a little more questionable.

Indispensible? Really?

Maryland – Cliff Tucker (Jordan Williams)

Cliff Tucker narrowly edges Jordan Williams, but I will be stunned if Williams is not the team leader in plus/minus in a few weeks. Williams is the heart of the team this year. But let’s talk about Tucker. A secondary scorer is obviously important. But I think the best thing Tucker has going for him at this point is that he does not make nearly as many bad decisions as Sean Mosley. Maryland’s guards need to stop acting like Greivis Vasquez (and trying to take the impossible shot), and just start running the offense.

Virginia Tech – Jeff Allen (Malcolm Delaney)

Shouldn’t Virginia Tech think about sitting Malcolm Delaney for a few minutes a game? Last year he played 36 minutes per game, this year he is averaging 39 minutes per game. Wouldn’t just an extra couple minutes on the bench in the second half give him a little more energy? So far he has the lowest ORtg of his career thanks to a career high in turnovers per game.

Clemson – Devin Booker

He is clearly not as good as his brother Trevor was, but on a team without a lot of depth in the paint, Booker has been important. But I don’t even think he is the Tiger’s best post player. Jerai Grant has more blocks and makes a greater percentage of his shots.

Boston College – Danny Rubin

The plus / minus team leaders reveal different players to be indispensible. For some teams, they show the star scorers. For other teams, they reveal that the backup center is a defensive liability. Sometimes they show the backup point guard does not run the show with the same smooth crispness. In BC’s case, it turns out that a non-scoring freshman wing has been the most vital player so far. How can this be? How can Danny Rubin be so important to BC’s cause? As it turns out, Rubins’ backup Danny Elmore has been a complete liability on the court this year. Rubin may not be a star, but at least he is executing the offense and defense. Danny Elmore is not.

NC State – DeShawn Painter

With Painter on bench, NC State was -15 against Georgetown. I understand that his limited experience is critical with so many freshmen. But CJ Leslie has a higher block rate and a higher defensive rebounding rate, and other player’s are more vital to the offense.

North Carolina – NA
Virginia – NA
Florida St. – NA

Five of North Carolina’s games are missing substitution data, meaning the plus / minus splits are basically useless. I’ve seen some clear errors in the Florida St. plus / minus data that I have not taken the time to fix. And Virginia’s numbers are even more screwed up thanks to that 40 point loss where all the good players played.

Presumably, there is a North Carolina blog somewhere with all the plus / minus data codified (just like that wonderful Vanderbilt blog). But given the caveats with this data, I think I am ready to move on from the plus / minus data for now.

Terrence Jones, Demetri McCamey, and Cameron Tatum?

2010-12-05T18:08:00.002-05:00

Most Important Players?
SEC and Big Ten edition

I have been thinking so far in this young season that certain players seem indispensable to their teams. When Terrence Jones got in foul trouble in Maui, Kentucky looked like a completely different team. And when Terrence Jones fouled out against North Carolina, I was almost certain the Wildcats would lose. Similarly, when Demetri McCamey goes out for Illinois, the Illinois offense just does not move with the same crispness and continuity.

I was very curious if the numbers backed up these observed phenomenon, and luckily last spring Stat-Sheet finally made readily available the plus / minus statistics. It is probably still a little too early to draw many conclusions from these data, but that is not going to stop me from perusing what the data say so far.

There are a few caveats with the plus / minus numbers. First, play-by-play substitution data is still not available for every Division 1 NCAA game played. If you are talking about a top 25 team, the data is great, but as you go down to smaller schools, you tend to be out of luck. Second, you should adjust for the quality of competition. But today I am only going to compare players within a team, so that is less of an issue. Third, some people also argue for adjusting the plus / minus stats for who is on the floor. I.e., the backup center may look better than the starting center, because he plays against weaker competition. I will try to point out examples where that may matter in what follows.

SEC Most Important Player
Best Plus / Minus By Team (Through Saturday’s games)

Alabama – JaMychal Green
Arkansas – Rotnei Clarke

Fans of the SEC know how important JaMychal Green and Rotnei Clarke are to their respective teams. These are not surprises.

Auburn – Kenny Gabriel

Poor Auburn. If you only count games against D1 competition, no one on Auburn has a positive plus / minus rating. (By the way, the worst offender is Allen Payne, a 6’6” freshman forward. Payne just tends to get abused in the second half of games. Auburn’s lack of depth is forcing him to play before he is ready.)

Florida – Patric Young (Chandler Parsons)

McDonald’s All-American freshman Patric Young has been dominating as a backup forward for Florida. And that matters, because even in the SEC, very few teams have a lot of depth in the paint. But Young has not been starting, and it probably is not fair to label him Florida’s most indispensable player. Chandler Parsons has the best plus / minus among starters.

Georgia – Gerald Robinson

Everyone knows how important Travis Leslie and Trey Thompkins are to the Bulldogs, but when Robinson went out in the first half of the Colorado game, Georgia fell apart. Point guard play is critical for a Georgia team that has talent, but needs to make efficient decisions with the basketball.

Kentucky – Terrence Jones

When Jones goes out, the other team almost always makes a run. The good news for Kentucky is that he has been able to stay on the court for major minutes in most games.

LSU – Andre Stringer

LSU is trying to break in a number of unknown players this year, and they may have found a point guard in freshman Andre Stringer.

Mississippi – Reginald Buckner

I would have guessed Chris Warren was the most important player for Ole Miss, but when Buckner went out of the Dayton game at the start of the second half, Dayton had a huge comeback. Maybe that was just a coincidence, but Buckner’s shot-blocking ability and defensive presence in the paint are very important for Ole Miss.

Mississippi St. – Bryan Bryant (Ravern Johnson)

First off, until Dee Bost and Renardo Sidney join the team, there is no point discussing anything. But let’s discuss why Bryan Bryant is leading Mississippi St. in plus / minus. Mississippi St. has been playing a host of ultra-cupcakes, the kind that can compete for part of a half, but eventually get worn down. And Bryant has the perfect splits. He has not been starting (when the opposition has the most energy), but he comes in and helps Mississippi St. slowly put away the little guy. Ravern Johnson is the true most important player right now.

South Carolina – Brian Richardson (Bruce Ellington)

You would have a hard time arguing that Bruce Ellington is not the most important South Carolina guard right now. He played the entire game against Michigan St. and played every regulation minute in the overtime win against Western Kentucky. But that is sort of the problem for Ellington. He has been around for all the good and all the bad in an inconsistent start for the Gamecocks. The reality is that no one is indispensable for South Carolina yet.

Tennessee - Cameron Tatum

I think plus / minus is a very important statistic for teams that use full-court pressure. The Tennessee player who gets the steal is not always the only important player on the play. And when you look Cameron Tatum’s splits this year, they have been unbelievable:

Margin
With Tatum, Without Tatum, Opponent
20, 0, Chattanooga
18, -9, Belmont
13, -9, Missouri St.
19, -14, VCU
9, 1, Villanova
24, 6, Middle Tennessee St.

When Tatum is on the floor, Tennessee looks like a different team this year. Just look at those splits against VCU! Tennessee has a lot of intriguing players from Tobias Harris to Scotty Hopson, but these stats make me want to watch Cameron Tatum a little more closely.

Vanderbilt – Brad Tinsley (All Five Starters)

Remember when I said the substitution data was poor. We do not even have player substitution data for Vanderbilt’s win over North Carolina. (Someday.) Brad Tinsley has the best numbers, but if you look at Vanderbilt, all five starters have nearly equivalent plus / minus stats.

Big Ten Most Important Player
Best Plus / Minus By Team (Through Saturday’s games)

Illinois – Demetri McCamey

As noted in the introduction, if you want to beat Illinois, you either have to force McCamey to the bench, or deny him the ball (as Dogus Balbay did at the end of the loss to Texas.)

Indiana – Christian Watford

Watford has replaced Verdell Jones as the team’s leading scorer, and that’s a good thing. Jones continues to shoot a very poor percentage from three point range and turn the ball over a ton, meaning Watford is a much better primary offensive option.

Iowa – Zach McCabe

Why not leading scorer Eric May? He started the first and second half of the Alabama game and the Hawkeyes had a margin of –5. But with May out, Iowa outscored Alabama by 13. McCabe was mostly in for that turnaround, so he gets the nod as the plus minus leader. But no one on Iowa has proven to be indispensable yet.

Michigan – NA
Penn St. – NA

The lack of good substitution data is mind-boggling. Penn St. only has three games with substitution data. And Michigan’s biggest games Syracuse and Clemson do not have substitution data either.

Michigan St. – Kalin Lucas

I personally am a bigger fan of Draymond Green, and I was disappointed with Lucas in Maui, but there is a reason he was voted the Big Ten preseason player of the year.

Minnesota – Trevor Mbakwe

None of us really knew how well Mbakwe could play which is why we did not have Minnesota higher in the preseason. But Al Nolen deserves an honorable mention as the team’s second place plus / minus leader. Without Nolen’s defense and ball-handling, Minnesota lost to Virginia and barely defeated a Cornell team that lost a ton of players this off-season.

Northwestern – Drew Crawford

John Shurna and Michael Thompson have almost identical splits and deserve equal billing.

Ohio St. – David Lighty

Jon Diebler, Jared Sullinger, and Aaron Craft have almost identical plus / minus stats, but until Aaron Craft gains some more experience, Lighty’s ball handling is vital to Ohio St.’s success.

Purdue – JaJuan Johnson

E’Twaun Moore is second. (No surprise) The key question is who comes in third for the Boilermakers. So far Lewis Jackson has the third best plus / minus.

Wisconsin – Jordan Taylor

I am not sure Taylor is Wisconsin’s most important player, but the point guard has rarely left the floor this year, and he has been around to enjoy all of the Badger’s success.

Quick Bullets

2010-12-01T23:25:00.003-05:00

-Richmond and Virginia Tech are quality defensive teams, so I’m sure Purdue’s offense will look better later. But Purdue’s JaJuan Johnson looks frustrated to me. At times I see a look in his eyes that says, “Can I get a little help?”

-Why does Bob Knight explain the game as if the viewers are 4th graders? “OK, so now if Purdue just holds the ball, the game clock will expire. So Virginia Tech has to foul.” Really? Really?

I wish I had more observations like these, but after I wore a tire tread across my living room floor pacing back and forth Tuesday night, I do not have anything left in the tank. North Carolina vs Illinois was very important to me, and Georgetown vs Missouri might have been the game of the year so far. And all I have are these painfully inadequate thoughts:

-During the Georgetown s Missouri game, they put up a stat that said “Missouri is on a 60-43 run” Um, how is that a run?

-I thought Doug Gottlieb explained Georgetown’s offense better than anyone I have seen in a long time. Drive, cut, and replace (meaning someone slides in where the cutter just came from.) It helps when you score 111 points. You really get to see all the ways the offense works.

-I’ve always wondered what would happen if Austin Freeman, Chris Wright, and Jason Clark all had a huge game at the same time.

-What a crazy schedule for Georgetown this year. The physical ODU half-court defense. The swarming Missouri full court defense. And now on Saturday the brilliant Utah St. offense.

-As for Illinois beating North Carolina, I feel like the Tar Heel problems are already a broken record (turnovers, lack of depth). I’d be shocked if they win many games where Tyler Zeller has foul trouble this year.

-But I also think the formula for beating Illinois is pretty clear. Force the ball out of Demetri McCamey’s hands. Dogus Balbay of Texas was able to do it, and Texas won. And for a brief while UNC was able to do it. But if Illinois is just allowed to run their stuff, with McCamey handling the ball, they can be lethal.

Emotional Investment is a Good Thing (as long as you win)

2010-11-29T09:57:00.001-05:00

Despite Minnesota’s football triumph over Iowa for the Floyd or Rosedale trophy (a statue of a pig for those of you living outside the Midwest), I had long abandoned my emotional investment in the 2-9 Gopher football team. Don’t get me wrong -- I was happy to see Minnesota win. I might even look for the pig in the team trophy case when I visit my home state. But because of the football team's struggles this season, I could not put my full emotional energy into the rivalry game. The win was not deeply satisfying, more like mildly amusing.

On the flip side, I have readily embraced a streaking Gopher basketball team and its Puerto Rico Tip-Off tournament title. And with the Gophers leading a terrible Virginia basketball team by 13 at home, my rooting energies were firmly behind the Gophers on Monday. This made the 26 point collapse (from a 13 point lead to a 13 point deficit) all the more painful. I was emotionally invested in a punch to the gut.

In the process, Minnesota became our first "double surprise" team of the season. They surprised us by being better than we thought, and now surprised us by reminding us that maybe they are not so great. Many teams have not even given us one surprise yet; Minnesota has already provided two. But the heartbreak is still tolerable. It is early in the season, and it is hard to be crushed by any loss.

But I cannot say I feel the same way about Tuesday's Illinois vs North Carolina basketball matchup. It has nothing to do with the ACC - Big Ten challenge. I could care less about the challenge title. The ACC has unquestionably been the deeper league for most of the last decade. The ACC has produced more recent NCAA titles, more NBA players, and had more high profile recruits. Probably the only area where the Big Ten has had more success is in hiring high profile coaches. Those coaches have helped the Big Ten win a decent number of NCAA tournament games and make the Final Four on numerous occassions. But by almost every metric, including challenge wins, the ACC has been the better basketball league. So my desire to see Illinois beat North Carolina has nothing to do with the challenge. The equation is much simpler:

1) Illinois fans do not like North Carolina. It is no longer about North Carolina stealing Roy Williams from Kansas which led to Kansas stealing Bill Self from Illinois. Bruce Weber is the coach for better or worse. The formula is simpler than that. North Carolina beat Illinois in the national championship game in 2005 and until Illinois gets back to the Final Four, that game is always going to resonate.

2) This is supposed to be the Illini’s year. Since 2005, Bruce Weber’s teams have been hard-working squads that have performed admirably, but lacked the talent to win consistently against good teams. But this year is supposed to be different. Illinois has high profile recruits and talented veterans. The time is now.

3) This does not look like North Carolina’s year. While the national writers mostly put the Tar Heels in the top 10, my statistical model said they were not a top 25 team. And while it is still early, my statistical model looks right. The Tar Heels have suffered from the same problems as last year (lack of guard play, lack of depth), and North Carolina has looked extremely vulnerable. Not only have the Tar Heels lost twice, home wins against NC-Asheville and College of Charleston have not inspired confidence.

4) This is a very experienced Illinois team. If they are going to be better than North Carolina, they should be better in November, not March.

All together this is a horrible recipe. Nothing more than a resounding blowout victory will really satiate Illinois fans. And if Bruce Weber’s squad does not play well from the opening tip, the normally supportive home crowd will not hesitate to boo vociferously.

In many ways, the pent-up emotional energy is a recipe for disaster. That is because Illinois is a jump shooting team and an inconsistent one at that. True, Illinois has perhaps the greatest collection of jump shooters in team history. As Tim McCormick said during Saturday’s win over Western Michigan, if you had to pick a team to play HORSE you would pick Illinois every day of the week. They have 7 or 8 guys who can consistently knock down shots from 17 feet or further and that can be a nightmare for opposing defenses. But basketball is not a game of HORSE. And despite sophomore Brandon Paul’s improved hustle stats, despite freshman Jereme Richmond’s ability to score in traffic, and despite freshman Meyer’s Leonard additional size inside, Illinois still has the same starting rotation as last year. This is still the same team that was inconsistent enough to miss the NCAA tournament last year. In other words, even if Ken Pomeroy labels Illinois a 72% favorite, that 28% possibility is far from impossible.

Given the high expectations and high emotion, the game is almost a no win situation for Illinois fans. A win will only satisfy, it will not be worthy of a full celebration. And given this no win situation, it is tempting to employ the "DVR strategy". The "DVR strategy" is an evil idea, but one that works wonders when you have limited time and do not want to miss the good stuff. You record all your teams games, and watch them the next day, but only if they win. On the surface this sounds great. Lots of fun wins, no punches to the gut.

But that is not what sports are about. If all we cared about were monster dunks and three point shots, all we would need is SportsCenter. The joy of the game is the uncertainty. That unscripted, punch-to-the-gut, tears of joy, emotional investment you make in your team for two hours.

And so again, I will try to minimize my expectations for tommorrow. I will sugar-coat things and say Big Ten titles and NCAA tournament runs are more important than any November game. And I am sure Bruce Weber will tell his players to treat this like just any other game.

But it is not just any other game. This is North Carolina. When Deron Williams went to shake Marvin Williams hand after the championship game in 2005, Marvin Williams ran away from him to peel off his shirt and scream in victory. I remember the confetti falling from the rafters, and the Illini coming up one game short of winning it all. It might seem like November, but this is not just another game.

We Need More Friday Night Games

2010-11-26T22:34:00.006-05:00

I have been watching Feast Week, but up until tonight, I have had pretty much the same thoughts as everyone else:

-Kemba Walker is good.
-Kyrie Irving better than I expected.

OK, maybe I had some different thoughts. My dominant thought during the Maui invitational was how important Terrance Jones is going to be to Kentucky this year. When Jones was in foul trouble, Kentucky looked lost. When Jones was on the floor, he looked like a freshman-of-the-year candidate. But I hate to make redundant observations, so my keyboard stayed quiet. Thankfully Friday’s South Florida vs BYU game knocked me out of my Thanksgiving stupor.

South Florida vs BYU, South Padre Island Semifinal

A ball rolled under the bleachers (in the South Padre Island gym) which delayed play for 90 seconds at the end of regulation. Someone in a shirt and tie climbed underneath the bleachers to pull it out. I love these random neutral site tournaments. You just cannot make this stuff up.

Hello to South Florida’s Ron Anderson Jr. You transferred from Kansas St. but I guess you learned a thing or two about rebounding from Frank Martin before you left.

Welcome back BYU’s Jackson Emery. You tend to get over-shadowed by Jimmer Fredette, but you are a fine three-point shooter, and your shot at the end of regulation tied the game at 58.

And say hello to South Florida’s Jawanza Poland. His three pointer gave USF a 61-58 lead seconds later. (Poland was only 4-10 shooting the ball, but he had a key steal and dunk minutes earlier and made all his buckets in crunch time.)

And who is this? Why it’s BYU’s Charles Abouo hitting a three to tie the game and send it into overtime. Dueling threes at the end of regulation is always amazing, but we are not done. No, that would be too easy.

What about BYU’s Jimmer Fredette hitting a three at the end of overtime to give his team a three-point lead. It was also one of the only leads BYU had in this game.

But then there is South Florida’s Jawanza Poland again, making another three to send the game to double overtime.

And now in double overtime, with 90 seconds left, there is Fredette hitting a three again. How do they make these shots? In particular, how does Fredette looks so strong after 38 minutes of gametime? If you watch enough of these neutral site early season tournaments, you never want to take a three in these situations. Players are always too tired; the arena is always too unfamiliar. The smart play is to take the ball to the basket. But Jimmer Fredette is not your average player.

I sense that South Florida does not have another three in them. So of course they make the smart play and take it inside. Augustus Gilchrist makes a beautiful post move to cut the lead to one. Gilchrist was seriously in my doghouse two years ago. He was doing what Indiana’s Verdell Jones is doing this year. (Taking a ton of shots and missing a ton of shots.) But in fairness, Gilchrist was coming back from an injury. Seeing that Gilchrist has reemerged as a confident post player, I feel I owe him some sort of apology. Uh, sorry. I guess you don’t suck.

Then there is USF’s Mike Burwell with an incredible block from behind to preserve the one point deficit. Hmm, I’m noticing a lot more of these South Florida players now that my eyes are not glued to former South Florida Bull Dominque Jones. Maybe this was not a one-man team. And Tony Fitzpatrick makes one of two free throws to tie the game. Do I hear overtime number three?

Jimmer Fredette says no. He drives the lane, draws the double team, and passes underhand to Noah Hartsock who knocks down a wide-open jumper as time expires. BYU wins. Awesome.

South Florida is really going to kick themselves about this one. They blew a lead at the end of regulation. And the Bulls had the ball and a four point lead in overtime. But USF missed too many free throws and committed a pair of costly offensive fouls with the lead in OT. You just cannot give Jimmer Fredette that many chances to win the game.

I am going to be honest. I hate west coast and mountain time zone teams. I like sleep. But after the Utah St. – BYU game last week, the double overtime BYU – Florida NCAA tournament game last year, and basically a ton of fun Fredette games over the years, I need to carve out room on my calendar to watch this team more. Scary.

Other Friday Thoughts

-I cannot believe Steven Pearl is playing so much for Tennessee. He is such an offensive liability, I just assumed that with a new recruiting class he would not get any playing time anymore. But every time I flipped to the Tennessee game he seemed to be getting a steal or deflection. I think people forget how much match-ups matter. Tennessee is a terrible match-up for Villanova because they have long and mobile perimeter defenders. Very few teams will be able to slow down Corey Fisher as much as Tennessee did tonight.

-Speaking of match-ups, the Michigan offense is a terrible match-up for the Syracuse zone defense. All Michigan wants to do is shoot threes and get an occasional pass to someone for a lay-up near the baseline. And Syracuse’s zone is extremely vulnerable in these areas. I think Jim Boeheim is happy that John Beilein does not coach in the Big East anymore.

-Horrific blown dunk by Syracuse’s Rick Jackson at the end of regulation by the way, but Syracuse still hung on for the win.

-It was kind of fun to hear Seth Davis do color commentary on a game. (He was announcing the Legend’s classic on HDNet.)

-Teams that go to double overtime almost always lose the next day. (Emotional letdown / exhaustion.) And I think Georgia just ran out of gas against Temple. This also makes Notre Dame’s win earlier today against California all the more impressive.

-Looking at the ticker, Kansas is winning by 40. Explain to me again why they had to pre-schedule an Arizona-Kansas final in their Las Vegas event instead of making a real four-team bracket?

-UAB just won in OT at Arkansas. I would say congratulations to Mike Davis, but with the way things are going for the SEC West, that win might not be worth much at the end of the year.

-Texas Tech is down by 24 to St. Mary’s at halftime. There are so many seniors on Texas Tech, this qualifies as a huge embarrassment. I think Texas Tech might be our first job opening this year.

Charleston Classic Recap

2010-11-22T00:19:00.008-05:00

A lot has been going on the last few days. I should discuss the fact that no freshman has impressed me more than Texas forward Tristan Thompson. I should ask whether Auburn will ever win a game. But since I have spent the last four days in Charleston, I am going to stick with a recap of the Charleston Classic.

Henry! Henry! Henry!

College basketball fans care about wins, stats, and amazing plays. But if that is all you get out of it, you are missing a lot. College basketball is about watching players develop into men. To a national audience the story is probably minor, but to the Georgetown fans in attendance, the Charleston Classic was Henry Sims breaking out party.

On Thursday I was still complaining about forward Henry Sims tentative play when on the court. After three years, Sims was playing like a player afraid of making a mistake. But something sparked the junior on Friday. Perhaps he was excited to be playing a shorter Wofford team. Or perhaps the coaching staff lit a fire under him. But on Friday, Sims started playing aggressive basketball. He went 3-3 from the floor, but more importantly, he forced the action. He wanted the ball in his hands and he was visibly upset to have his minutes limited by foul trouble.

Then on Sunday, Sims responded with his best game of the season. He scored only four points, but he had 5 assists, and was the heart of the offense for a long stretch early in the second half. In fact, Sims, the scoring-challenged Jerrelle Benimon, and freshman Markel Starks were all on the floor for much of the Hoyas 15-0 run that broke open the championship game. When the lineup first went out on the floor, I was asking myself how they were going to score. But when they left, they left to a standing ovation.

Whether Sims can turn into a consistent inside presence for the Hoyas remains to be seen. No one expects him to replace Greg Monroe. But for the Hoya offense to work, everyone needs to make the right reads, passes, and cuts. And that requires confidence. And while it was a minor improvement, for the die-hard boosters and family members in attendance, they knew what a breakthrough Henry Sims experienced this weekend. And they were more than happy to cheer his name. "Henry! Henry! Henry!"

Chris Wright was the tournament MVP. And this is Chris Wright’s team. But if he turns into a legitimate Big East player, this weekend meant a lot more to Henry Sims.

Eight More Thoughts

1) NC State is one of the fastest teams in the country, and freshman CJ Leslie and Ryan Harrow are wicked quick. I think with the right coaching, NC State could become a top 25 team by the end of the year. But they made a lot of questionable decisions in the championship game. There were too many bad jump shots by a frustrated Leslie. And the Wolfpack fell asleep on a number of back door plays in the second half. And as quick as NC State was in this tournament, Georgetown was equally quick. Once the margin got to 10 points in the second half, Chris Wright was relentless in forcing the fast-break.

2) As someone who has watched a lot of Minnesota’s Blake Hoffarber, I think NC State’s Scott Wood could easily be one of the best three point shooters in the country this year. His stroke is as smooth and as pure as it gets. But the problem with some of these pure shooters is that they need their teammates to set them up. With Georgetown keying on Wood at the three-point line, he was really neutralized in Sunday’s final, shooting just 2-7 with most of his misses coming on plays where he really did not have enough space to get an open shot. I think Georgetown keyed on Wood for two reasons. First, Georgetown played some of its only zone defense when Wood was out of the game. Georgetown seems to play about 50-50 zone these days, and they were far below that on Sunday. Second, I remember a 5-on-2 NC State break where Chris Wright abandoned the middle in order to jump out at a streaking Wood. Wright guessed correctly that Wood would try to take a jumper on the break, and Wood missed a contested three instead of getting an easier basket on the break.

3) Despite NC State’s questionable shot selection at times, I thought the players had a really solid understanding of good spacing. Over the course of the tournament, forwards DeShawn Painter, CJ Leslie, and Richard Howell constantly snuck in position for wide-open lay-ups. It is hard to feed to post in college basketball against well-coached teams, and NC State’s forwards seemed to have an incredible IQ for where to be on the floor to catch the pass, grab rebounds, and finish.

4) Wofford’s Noah Dahlman has a bizarre free-throw shot. He gets down to about his knees before standing up and releasing the ball. It looks like way too much motion to me, but he seems to hit nothing but net most of the time. But Dahlman’s free throw stroke looks normal compared to George Mason’s Mike Morrison. Morrison leans as far forward as possible and seems to release the ball about a foot in front of the free throw line. Hey, whatever works.

5) I am always going to have some major conference bias. But it really is fun to see dominant small conference players in person, like Wofford’s Noah Dahlman. Dahlman was incredibly smart about getting himself in position to score over the whole weekend. And despite often being triple teamed by George Mason, he still managed to find open shooters on his team on Sunday. Kudos to Wofford for winning in overtime after Dahlman fouled out, and particularly Jamar Diggs for hitting a huge three pointer to ice the game in overtime. Diggs really seemed to want the ball in his hand in crunch time.

6) I was also really impressed with George Mason senior Cam Long. He is one of those quiet scorers that every good team needs. He does not get the flashy dunks or make the off-balanced shots. But he is just one of those guys who knows what he is supposed to do in the offense, and where to get the easy baskets.

7) Unfortunately, George Mason does not have a go-to playmaker. In a lot of ways, forward Luke Hancock is that player. He has incredible assist numbers for his size over the course of his career. And in this tournament, he had great scoring totals in the second half of games. I tried to figure out why he was waiting until the second half of games to score, and I think he is simply trying to play smart basketball. He knows he does not have the quickness to blow by people early in the game, but often late in the game, when legs are a little more tired, he has the tenacity to put himself in position to finish. (And I should mention that his late dunk against Charlotte practically blew the roof of the building. I had no idea he could jump that high.) But the reality is that Hancock does not have elite quickness or a great shooting stroke. And against an equally well-coached Wofford team, he could not make quite enough plays to win the game. But Hancock, Long, and the whole George Mason team, play smart basketball. And that will win a lot of CAA games again this year.

8) Charlotte’s Shamari Spears made the all-tournament team and deservingly so. He has a similar body-style to Michigan St.’s Draymond Green, but both players are out to prove that skill sets do not always match body types. While Spears is not nearly the passer as Green, he seemed to have a very nice outside shot in this tournament. But for everything nice I want to say about Spears, emerging point guard Jamar Briscoe, or even An’Juan Wilderness who rebounded from a horrible game against George Mason to have a good tournament, I would be really nervous if I was a Charlotte fan. This team just does not look well-coached right now. I saw a bunch of players playing one-on-one basketball, not putting themselves in position for rebounds, and generally playing well below their ability. Sometimes when a disciplined coach leaves town and the players are given more freedom, good things happen. Mike Davis took Indiana to the Final Four right after Bob Knight left. But, I do not see a similar spark following the departure of Bobby Lutz. I think Coastal Carolina and George Mason beat Charlotte because they played smarter basketball, not because Charlotte lacks talent.

A Few Thoughts as a Fan

The George Mason band completely made the four-day weekend special.
Let me count the ways:
-The crazy yellow and green suits on the band leader
-The awesome saxophone solos
-The fun woman in a wheelchair and her drum
-The cowbell
-The way everyone in the band would dance when they were not performing
-The amusing guitar riffs
-The green and gold headbands
-The nicknames on the back of their jerseys (like Big Kahuna)
-The way the band would continue to sing after the action re-started. (They are not allowed to play instruments while play is going on, but that doesn’t mean they could not continue singing the melody.)
-The three-part George Mason rouser

The Dayton Flyers are always going to be my favorite NCAA tournament band, but if you get a chance to see George Mason somewhere, please make the effort.

-In some minor ways, these early season tournaments are better than those held in March. Win or lose, you are guaranteed to see your team play three times.

-There is no reason to stress about games this early in the season, but I cannot help it. That is why there is no better feeling then having your team win early in the day. You have the euphoria of the victory and you realize you can just relax and watch some great basketball.

-I thought when Georgetown went on a 9-0 run to take a 7 point lead and the band started playing that I could not be happier. But to keep pouring it on and coast to victory after trailing much of the first half, this was a very satisfying win. I have never seen my team win a tournament in person, and I really tried to soak in the moment, even if this was "just" the Charleston Classic. From the MVP presentation to Chris Wright, to the team photo, to the in-house DJ playing “Celebration”, the moment could not last long enough.

Charleston Classic

2010-11-18T23:27:00.000-05:00

The Charleston Classic is underway.

Random Thoughts:
-There was almost no one here for the afternoon session. The small section of Georgetown fans you see on the right of the picture were about it. In the evening session, the arena was practially full with NC State, George Mason, and Charlotte fans. NC State clearly has the largest contingent in town.

-I love watching the body language at court level. Georgetown freshman Markel Starks is making the right plays. He dribbles around, guards the ball handler, and makes the right fake-passes before passing against the zone. But when you look in his eyes you see a player who is still awestuck by the college game.

It is amazing what body language can say for a player. Georgetown junior Henry Sims still looks like a player who lacks confidence when on the floor, while Georgetown freshman Nate Lubick looks completely confident. Of course Lubick was making the wrong cuts on a number of plays and practically driving Chris Wright insane, but he looks like a player who believes he can contribute this year.

Seeing how quickly freshman can step in is always fascinating to me. I wish the recruiting rankings had some sort of a confidence meter, but sometimes you really do not know. Players that dominate in high school can look so tentative when playing against 20 and 21 year old defenders.

-Most amusing sequence: Austin Freeman was called for an elbow to the back. He complained rather innapropriately to Ted Valentine. Valentine then explained what Freeman did wrong. And when Freeman kept pouting, Valentine rather loudly mocked Freeman's expression. "Oh, what did I do? Oh, what did I do?" It was amusing to see an official call out a player. But then Chris Wright's contact fell out and had to be replaced. And for some reason it took about 10 minutes for him to get it back in. During this whole time, Valentine and Freeman kept discussing the call.

-Eventually Georgetown just blitzed Coastal Carolina in the second half. They had a gear, particularly from three point range, that Coastal Carolina could not match. The same could be said of Wofford in the following game against SC Upstate, and NC State against East Carolina.

The George Mason vs Charlotte game was also a blowout but it had a little different feel. Charlotte point guard Jamar Briscoe, a transfer who became eligible this year, practically carried the 49ers on his back in this game. His ability to get to the free throw line was the one factor that kept Charlotte competitive. But I was shocked at Charlotte's hideous defensive rebounding in this game. I have not checked the final box score, but I thought Charlotte did one of the worst jobs boxing out that I have seen in awhile.

Early Season Printable Brackets

2010-11-14T23:18:00.003-05:00

Note: I am off to the Charleston Classic later this week. I highly recommend you attend one of these early season tournaments if you get a chance. They are easily some of the most under-rated basketball of the year.

While I am gone, allow me to repost the printable brackets for the major early season tournaments. I posted this a month ago, but since the tournaments are about to start, it seemed like a good time to bump it up to the front page.

A few updates since last month
-The Charleston Classic now has a printable bracket.
-And it turns out the Great Alaska Shootout has one too. It has been up since August, but it was hidden in the depths of the Seawolves website.

You can find these types of brackets everywhere these days, but posting printable brackets is a YABB tradition. And, because I can never find it anywhere, I've created my own South Padre Island Invitational Tournament Bracket. So take that. Other websites may have this same information, but this is your ONLY source of an SPI bracket. (Of course google docs has interpreted my PDF as a document making it virtually impossible to print. Grr. But now is not the time to be annoyed at minor grievances.) Having printable brackets in my hand always brings a smile to my face. Print them out and fill them out. Life is good.

Old Faithful
Preseason NIT – Nov 15, 16, 17, 24, 26

8 Team
Puerto Rico Tip-Off – Nov 18, 19, 21
Charleston Classic – Nov 18, 19, 21
Paradise Jam – Nov 19, 20, 21, 22
Maui Invitational – Nov 22, 23, 24
Great Alaska Shootout Nov 24, 25, 26, 27
76 Classic – Nov 25, 26, 28
Old Spice Classic – Nov 25, 26, 28
Cancun Governor’s Cup – Dec 22, 23, 24
Diamond Head Classic – Dec 22, 23, 25

4 Team Predetermined Semis
Coaches vs Cancer – Nov 18, 19
CBE Classic – Nov 22, 23
Cancun Challenge – Nov 23, 24
Legend’s Classic – Nov 26, 27
Chicago Invitational Challenge – Nov 26, 27
South Padre Island Invitational - Nov 26, 27
Madison Square Garden Holiday Festival - Dec 20, 21
Las Vegas Classic - Dec 22, 23

ESPN has a few more listed, but even ESPN cannot bring itself to list everything. (That Dr. Pepper Classic does not hold much appeal nationally.)

The next table shows where each conference is sending its teams this year. I list the Top 13 RPI conferences from last year. (Scroll to the right to see additional conferences.)

A few notes on the table:
I list the Cable Car Classic in the table because it includes three mid-major schools, but I could not bring myself to make a printable bracket for it.

*The LV Classic should not be confused with LV Invitational, or LV Holiday Hoops/Tarkanian Classic which are pre-scheduled non-tournaments this year.

**St. John's and Davidson both play in the MSG Holiday Festival Tournament and another exempt tournament.

***San Diego St., Rhode Island, Louisiana Tech, James Madison, and William & Mary are not in the pre-determined Final Four, but they will participate in these exempt events.

****UCF hosts a holiday tournament with a real bracket and the field includes Northeastern from the CAA, but it is nothing to get excited about.

*****Georgia St. also plays in tournament with a real bracket, the Dr. Pepper Classic in Chattanooga, but it is nothing to get excited about.

In addition to these tournaments there are a number of other exempt events that should produce good games. For example, one exempt event will pit Florida against Ohio St. And other event will have Kansas facing Arizona in Las Vegas. But organizers have removed all the fun by removing the bracket from these events. All games are simply prescheduled.

In particular, I laugh at the Las Vegas Invitational. The under-card (Valparaiso vs Northern Colorado and Bethune Cookman vs Texas A&M CC) gets a real bracket, but not the main event. Were the organizers really that concerned that Arizona and Kansas would fall to Santa Clara or Ohio in the semifinals?

Besides the Las Vegas Invitational under-card, there are a few other mini-tournaments I am not listing here. In particular, VCU hosts an event that will include Cornell. But I had to draw the line somewhere. Print these off and fill them out and you will have a very happy holiday season.

Old Dominion vs Georgetown

2010-11-12T22:48:00.006-05:00

I realize that elite defense often results in ugly games, but Old Dominion’s defense is a thing of beauty. A year after posting a top 10 defense nationally (according to the Pomeroy ratings), Old Dominion played lock down defense on the Hoyas for 33 minutes. ODU played some man-to-man but when they realized the Hoyas were not hitting their shots, they ended the first half on a zone blitz. And then, perhaps wisely fearing a Hoya adjustment at halftime, ODU went back to man-to-man to start the second half.

I normally hate zone defense this time of year. When a team like Florida Gulf Coast busts it out against Indiana, you just know you are in for some ugly basketball. But with ODU switching from man to zone and back to man, the defensive strategy was in mid-season form. Count 10 blocks for ODU, 11 first half turnovers forced, and a 77% defensive rebounding rate, and the Monarchs dominated this game defensively. When it came to physicality, ODU was a taller, stronger, deeper team. And for most of this game they looked like the better team.

But this has been a backwards series. The road team has won every game in the four game home-and-away, and even the rules of basketball seemed reversed in this one. They say in college basketball, the great equalizer is the three point shot. It is the thing that allows the mid-majors to stick with the BCS boys, and occasionally spring an upset. But this time around the three point shot swung the other way. It was the factor that allowed the smaller Hoya team to upend the Monarchs at ODU.

And the play-of-the-game clearly belonged to Chris Wright. Sure he was 4 of 6 from deep and had a couple of key threes as the Hoyas came from behind with a late three-point barrage. But it was the timing of one of his threes that was so critical.

With 3 seconds left on the shot clock, Hollis Thompson was seemingly unaware of the timing as he held the ball in the corner. Then Thompson skipped a cross-court pass from one offensive corner to the other. It was a foolish play, destined to end in a shot-clock violation. But then Wright pulled off what the announcers called the Larry Bird shot. Wright caught the ball and in one motion released a three as the shot clock hit zero. It was a miracle to get the shot off, and even more amazing when it went it. The Hoyas took the lead, the momentum, and soon after the game.

Chris Wright was not perfect on this night. He had a couple of fast-break opportunities where he seemed to want to finish himself, instead of making the right pass to an open teammate. I was ready to call him selfish. But it is hard to not blame the senior for wanting to put the team on his back. This is a team that will go no further than its three sensational guards take it. While Hollis Thompson was missing a critical second half lay-up on a gorgeous pass from Julian Vaughn, and Vaughn was seeing his own shots swatted away on a regular basis, the elite backcourt led the way. Wright had 19, Jason Clark had 18, and Austin Freeman had 17, accounting for all but 8 of the Hoyas points.

Before the season is over, Georgetown will find a way to get more inside baskets. But with such a perimeter presence, this is going to be an inconsistent team. Georgetown will beat some teams when they make their shots, and lose to some teams that make you scratch your head. But what is new about that? The Hoyas beat Duke last year but were blown out by Ohio in the NCAA tournament. You never know which team will show up.

So the story of this game cannot be the Hoyas. The story of this game is Old Dominion. Come March no one will remember this game played on the first day of the season. But the selection committee will hold it against ODU. They were a mid-major with a chance to beat one of the big boys at home, a chance to prove they deserved an NCAA bid. And if you watched this game, and watched this team smother teams in the CAA last year, you know they are worthy of an NCAA spot. But mid-majors don’t get second chances. Georgetown will have plenty of chances to win and lose big games this season. For ODU, the heartbreak begins before the season even gets started.

But you know what? We need more games like this. Forget these early season tournaments with two home games and a guaranteed slot in the tournament semis. More teams need to go on the road against the mid-majors. We need more games like this.

Two Final Comments
-CSN picked up the CAA feed from Norfolk for this game, and boy were the production values low. Several times they were caught showing instant replays, missing 10 seconds of game action at a time. I think I take for granted the high production values you see on ESPN, and even in the ESPN3.com games.

-Georgetown used full-court pressure at the end of the first half. That’s right, the short-benched, boring half-court Hoya team is looking to make this a transition game this year. This is what I love about college basketball. Every season is full of surprises.

Three Games at Once - Finally

2010-11-09T00:08:00.009-05:00

Pittsburgh vs Rhode Island

About three minutes into the game, Rhode Island center Will Martell caught the ball wide-open under the Pittsburgh basket and looked completely lost. His shot was eventually blocked by Pittsburgh’s Talib Zanna. I immediately wondered whether he was some freshman playing in his first big game. But no, upon further review that was Will Martell, the Rhode Island senior center. Then by the end of the first half, I was wondering if Martell was Rhode Island’s best player. His two-step hook shot over Dante Taylor was a thing of beauty. Of course as soon as I jumped on the Martell bandwagon, Martell picked up his fourth foul early in the second half. At this point the Rams other interior players were either injured or a wobbly nervous freshman. And Rhode Island had already made 8 three pointers and only led by two points. Every one of my basketball instincts said Rhode Island was done at this point. How could they hang with Pittsburgh for another 15 minutes when Brad Wanamaker was penetrating the Rhode Island defense like a revolving door?

By hitting another 6 three pointers, that is how. The continued perimeter onslaught allowed the Rams to stay within two points until the final minute. Rhode Island did not win, but they gave us an incredible ride for the season-opener. But if I am a Pittsburgh fan, I am very happy. The odds of someone hitting 14 threes again are slim to none. Pittsburgh had this horrific draw, and still won. That is the mark of a good team.

But can I ask what has happened to Pittsburgh’s Dante Taylor? People talked about the former McDonald’s All-American like he was the second coming of DeJuan Blair last summer. So I assumed with Nasir Robinson injured that Taylor would at least be starting in this game. Instead he is stuck behind Talib Zanna on the depth chart, and every indication was that Jamie Dixon was making the right call.

Illinois vs UC Irvine

Illinois won by 14. An Illinois optimist would say Irvine went on an 8-0 run to end the game with the supersubs in the game, and the final margin was not reflective of how well Illinois played. An Illinois pessimist would point out that Illinois was once again dazzlingly inconsistent, following a dominant first half with a dreadful second half. The team was so mediocre in the second half that Weber did not feel comfortable pulling Demetri McCamey until the 3 minute mark at the end of the game. I fall somewhere in the middle. I think this game was more about UC Irvine’s inconsistency. Irvine could not make a shot in the first half, but quickly drew 4 fouls on Illinois in the first four minutes of the second half. After that, the complexion of the game changed. Illinois was much more tentative defensively and Irvine was able to make the final score respectable.

But there were a ton of reasons for Illinois fans to be optimistic. Brandon Paul played extremely well making five threes in the first half, but it was his effort diving on the ground for loose balls that is going to earn him playing time. And Meyers Leonard and Jereme Richmond look like a serious upgrades from Dominque Keller and Jeffrey Jordan. Leonard had a sparkling play running the floor and tipping in a McCamey miss on the fast-break. And Richmond looks like the rare Illinois player who can create his own shot. That is huge for the team since McCamey cannot be asked to carry the entire offensive load all season. Let me be blunt. If Bruce Weber does not start Jereme Richmond soon and give him more minutes, I think he is making a serious mistake.

Maryland vs Seattle

The lack of transition defense in the first half would scare me if I was a Maryland fan. Maryland was eventually able to wear down Seattle, but there are some ACC teams that will be able to run for the full 40 minutes. But a lot of young players were given a chance to shine, and from a pure entertainment perspective, this was a very entertaining track meet.

Texas vs Navy

I was pretty burnt out by the time this game came on. Let me keep it short and sweet. Texas is scary. If you want to pick North Carolina as a top 10 team based purely on talent, why not Texas? Oh, that’s right, because they squandered that talent last year. Well so did North Carolina.

Three games at once. Life is good. Thank you ESPNU, CSN, and ESPN3 on my laptop.

Three Plays to Search for on Youtube

I’m not going to mention any rim-rattling dunks, although there were plenty, particularly in the second half of the Texas – Navy game. Instead here are three more plays that made me smile:

Seattle vs Maryland – The Flip
With just under 9 minutes to play in the first half, Seattle’s Aaron Broussard stole the ball. He drove towards the basket and had his shot partially blocked, but despite some reverse-spin, the ball carefully banked in for a fast-break basket. You often see wild “continuation” baskets in the NBA where players flip it up on the rim and hope for a prayer, but there is no “continuation” in college. But this was one of those crazy buckets.

Illinois vs UC Irvine – The Tip
With four seconds left in the first half Joseph Bertrand put up a prayer three pointer. Jereme Richmond tips it in at the buzzer, but is not quite sure if he did the right thing. Was he nervous about goal-tending, taking away a three from his teammate, or was he just worried that he didn’t beat the clock? Either way the tip was good and Illinois led by 24 at the break.

Pittsburgh vs Rhode Island – Hot Potato
This is my favorite sequence of the night. Near the 13 minute mark in the first half, Pittsburgh inbounds the ball under their own basket, only to throw the ball away to Rhode Island. It is a horrible pass. It seemed like there was not a single Pittsburgh player in the area. Rhode Island then dribbled once and passed it straight back to that same Pittsburgh player. You can’t make this stuff up.

(My notes are a little sketchy on this one. I have this happening at the 12 minute mark in my notes, but it looks like it happens around the 13 minute mark in the play-by-play, with Pittsburgh’s Travon Woodall and Rhode Island’s Daniel West making the foolish passes.)

Seven Minimally Bold Opening Day Predictions

2010-11-08T00:01:00.004-05:00

1. Jamie Dixon or Bo Ryan will make the Final Four this year. These coaches have been performing at too high a level for too long not to catch a break one of these years.

2. The Big 12 will get more NCAA bids than the Big 10. The Big 10 is very good at the top, but I’m not as confident in the bottom or middle of the league.

3. The ACC will once again dominate the early season tournaments. This is not particularly controversial, but I bring it up because I think the ACC is not getting nearly enough publicity this pre-season. The middle of the league has a lot of question marks, but there is simply too much talent here not to expect another dominant non-conference performance.

4. The ACC will have the slowest pace in the last 10 years. Just look at the new coaches.

5. Out of Memphis, Kentucky, and North Carolina, one team will be great, one will be good enough, and one will be awful. I just have no idea where each team will end up.

6. Oliver Purnell will lead DePaul to 4 conference wins. (DePaul has had 0 and 1 conference wins the last two seasons.) I completely agree with people who say Purnell has inherited a disaster. And I’m more optimistic about 2012 than 2011. But Purnell has done this rebuilding thing before and there are a lot of vulnerable teams in the Big East this year.

7. Northwestern will not make the NCAA tournament.

Two Random Facts

If you are watching ESPNU tonight and your team is not playing, you may be a college basketball addict.

If you are reading this blog and not watching ESPNU tonight, you must really hate your cable operator.

The Uncertainty Principle

As much as I love all the preseason prognostication, the great thing about college basketball is that we know so little. This is not the NBA with its handful of clear favorites. Every college basketball season is filled with fresh faces. Every year is filled with uncertainty. We have no idea whether Kyrie Irving can keep Duke’s offense running at a high level. And we have no idea if Kentucky’s youngsters can compete for an SEC title. (Heck, we do not even know if Enes Kanter will play.) But that uncertainty, that fresh start, is what makes each season great. November is like spring training, a time of year when everyone can believe and anything can happen. College Basketball is back tonight!

Basketball Prospectus Book Now Available

2010-11-04T22:00:00.001-04:00

The Basketball Prospectus Book is finally here! If you are so inclined, please check it out. For the second straight year, I contributed to the conference previews. As I've noted previously, not everything that gets written can make it into the final publication. Here is something I wrote about Mississippi head coach Andy Kennedy that did not make it into the SEC preview because of space considerations:

While Andy Kennedy was Bob Huggins choice for a successor at Cincinnati, Andy Kennedy has not been the same caliber of coach as his mentor Bob Huggins. Based on six years of tempo free data for Bob Huggins and five years of tempo free data for Andy Kennedy, the data reveal a clear pattern. Huggins teams have been much more physical. Huggins’ teams dominate the offensive boards and force teams to send them to the free throw line, while Andy Kennedy’s do not. And Huggins’ teams play a level of tenacious defensive that Kennedy’s teams have not been able to match. While Huggins’ teams allow an average effective FG percentage against of only 46.1%, Andy Kennedy’s squads are much more forgiving, averaging 48.4% against. True, Andy Kennedy’s teams have been slightly better at ball-handling and shooting. But what Ole Miss fans have discovered is that they have a coach who is not nearly as dominant as his mentor.

When something like this does not make the cut, I think it should be apparent that there is plenty of quality analysis to be found within the 345 pages.

Bracket Luck

While I sneakily saved my most interesting summer project for my own blog, I did contribute an essay on Bracket Luck to the beginning of BP publication. Here is the premise:

We know Duke was placed in a fortunate region last year, but has Duke faced easier than expected opponent’s historically? We know Tom Izzo has exceeded expectations in the NCAA tournament, but how much is due to the hard work of his teams and how much is due to fortunate NCAA tournament draws?

The full article is found within the publication, but today I wanted to include a few hyperlinks and give the article a mini-preview. While everyone correctly emphasizes the importance of NCAA seeding, your NCAA path does not just depend on seeding. Who you play depends on regional slotting and how the bracket breaks in front of you as the tournament progresses. This is what I refer to as bracket luck. If you are looking for something similar, Neil Paine of the Sports Reference College Basketball Blog did a similar analysis using SRS data instead of the Pomeroy data. Paine focuses on whether teams were lucky in the year they won the NCAA title. I focus on bracket luck for all teams in all seasons that we have tempo free data. I calculate and show bracket luck in two ways:

-Which teams have faced easier than expected opponents as measured by average Pythagorean Winning Percentage? (Table 1)

-Which teams have faced easier than expected opponents as measured by the probability of winning, (i.e. expected wins)? (Table 4)

-Then I look at how often teams exceed expectations in the NCAA tournament (Table 5), and make a statement about how important bracket luck is to exceeding expectations.

I also include two other tables:

-Each team’s most fortunate NCAA opponent in the last 7 years. (Table 3)

-And an analysis of Michigan St.’s entire NCAA path over the last 7 years. (Table 2)

The essay is a bit table heavy. And the middle gets a little bogged down discussing one of the tables. But if you read to the end you'll learn why Table 1 and Table 4 do not always lead to the same conclusion. And you will learn the answer to the aforementioned question about Tom Izzo, whether you want to know that answer or not.

A10 Prediction – Modeling Injuries, Transfers, Coaches

2010-10-31T15:50:00.003-04:00

Future Tweaks to the Model

I developed my predictive model last spring and the model is still in the experimental stage. Similarly, Ken Pomeroy’s predictive model in the Basketball Prospectus book is humbly referred to as Projections, Version 1.0. There are still a lot of things we can and will improve in future years. Today I want to talk about some of the things I have in mind for the future.

Can we learn anything from this year’s rankings?

Looking back at all my conference predictions, there are a few teams that stand out as surprises. Teams like Michigan St. and Villanova are a little lower in my rankings than where most experts have them pegged. But that is largely because neither of these teams had dominating efficiency numbers last year.

But the ranking that bothers me the most is North Carolina’s low ranking. And I think Seth Davis’ recent review of North Carolina points out the current biggest problem with my model. My model does not adequately account for injuries. My model looks at Tyler Zeller and sees a player that could barely crack the rotation last year. But that is clearly wrong. Zeller was not being held out because he was not good enough. He was not playing because he was injured on multiple occasions.

Now, this is not such a simple adjustment as you might think. The model may under-rate Zeller’s return, but it is important to realize that not all players will successfully recover from injuries and return to a dominant level of play. Are players with ACL tears more likely to suffer future ACL tears? Are players with foot problems (see Zeller) more likely to continue to miss games in the future? Ideally we would have a database of injuries and project how likely players are to recover from each type of injury. But because that database does not exist, my future project will try to look at how well players recover from a “general” injury.

Second, we need to do more to account for transfers. Simply plugging in a transfer into the new lineup is probably not sufficient. And despite the occasional Wesley Johnson type player, we need to do more to understand how often players succeed in their new environments. For every Wesley Johnson, how many Alex Legion’s are there out there?

Third, there are some problems that will be solved when we have a larger sample size. Right now, I am estimating my model based on three years of returning tempo free player data. That is not a lot of data to draw conclusions about unusual situations. For a team that loses 2 starters, and 3 rotation players, the model probably does a very good job. But for a team that returns almost no players (Kentucky), there simply are not a lot of historical examples. I would like to have a statistical reason to treat Kentucky differently, but for now I am mostly making an out-of-sample projection.

Similarly, the three year data set causes problems because of some recent trends. In particular, teams without elite recruits have been having more and more success from 2007 to 2010. Let’s throw out Memphis, Gonzaga, and Xavier, because all three teams have been recruiting at a different level that most non-BCS teams. Look at the non-BCS teams in the top 35 of the Pomeroy Rankings in 2007 vs 2010:

2007
22nd Air Force
25th Butler
28th Southern Illinois

2010
10th BYU
12th Butler
22nd Temple
25th Utah St.
26th Dayton
29th Northern Iowa
34th Old Dominion

There are a lot more teams without elite recruits performing at a high level recently. (BYU’s Jimmer Fredette was not an elite prospect coming out of high school. Butler’s Matt Howard and Dayton’s Chris Wright were top 100 recruits, but they were the only elite recruits on these teams.) Thus the recent data tends to have more confidence in non-BCS teams than may be warranted.

But I also suspect this is somewhat cyclical. While the SEC fell off the map a couple of years ago, and the Pac-10 fell apart last year, I do not believe those leagues are permanently down-trodden. And as those leagues improve again, I think the recruiting data will start to have a little more predictive power, and I’ll start to rank a team like Wake Forest, a little higher than I do this year.

To deal with this cyclicality, I currently make an adjustment that moves non-BCS leagues downward. But I would like to have the data to determine the proper level for this adjustment. Right now, it is rather ad-hoc.

Finally, I want additional data so we can do a better job modeling how different coaches respond to different situations. We know Mike Brey has a special ability to teach offense; we know Bruce Weber has a special ability to teach defense; and we know Jamie Dixon has a special ability to bring young players along quickly. But modeling the interaction between coach and returning player effects will take more data.

A10 Prediction

Correction: If you have been following my blog closely, you may have noticed that Rhode Island showed up in the Biggest Departures Category in a recent post. That had me scratching my head. I knew Rhode Island lost Lamonte Ulmer, but the ranking seemed wrong. I recently went back and checked my code and found the problem. Even though I have the full rosters of eligible returning players, for some reason I included a line of code that classified all of last year’s “seniors” as departing players. Not only was this line of code redundant, it was also wrong. Many schools list players as seniors who are not really in their final year of eligibility. And Rhode Island had just this problem. Delroy James and Ben Eaves were both listed as seniors on kenpom.com last year, but both are listed on the Rhode Island’s roster again this year. I have now re-run the numbers for all conferences, and fixed the previous conference predictions. This only makes a meaningful difference for two teams whose numbers I have presented previously. First, I had mistakenly coded Notre Dame’s Ben Hansbrough as departing. With Hansbrough, Notre Dame is projected to be in the hunt for an NCAA bid. And given the way Notre Dame played without Luke Harangody last year, I think this is a very reasonable prediction. Second, Miami’s Adrian Thomas was also listed as a senior on kenpom.com last year. After fixing the code, Miami is now projected as an NCAA bubble team. I apologize for any confusion.

The first table shows the expected changes for the A10. Fordham has performed at such a hideously low level the last two years that it almost seems unsustainable for an A-10 team. Almost every player Fordham lost was among the worst in the conference, hence the positive number in the “players lost” column. Even for a team like Fordham, they should be able to replace players with efficiency ratings in the 70s with better options. Fordham will continue to be horrible this season, but with a batch of recruits that do not look like they should play in the MEAC, you have to expect at least modest improvement. Fordham will still be the worst team in the A10, but I suspect they will win more than two games this year.

Among the contenders, Temple is the most likely to improve. St. Louis was going to be the most improved team this year. They were a team that played a lot of young players last year and a team that was peaking at the end of last season. But Willie Reed and Kwamain Mitchell are not enrolled in school due to a recent legal issue. I have heard some speculation that at least one of them will return for the second semester, but for now I am assuming neither player comes back. And instead of being a 5th NCAA contender in the conference, St. Louis is another team that should slip back this year.

Thanks to the recent season-ending ACL injury to Brad Redford, Xavier is now expected to take the biggest fall in the A10.

The next table shows the expected changes in offense and defense. Xavier loses its two most prolific offensive options in Jordan Crawford and Jason Love, and both were very efficient as well. Plus they lose the great three point shooting of Brad Releford. While they return some other players who can rebound and defend, the model thinks Xavier’s offense will take a step back.

The next table shows the conference prediction. Temple is a logical favorite. They had one of the top defenses in the country last year, and while they lose a tough scorer in Ryan Brooks, the departing Luis Guzman was hardly an efficient player. But I am a little concerned that Temple may not have the depth to really get better. They gave a number of young players minutes last year, and outside the starting rotation, no one really stepped forward. In expectation, Fran Dunphy should be able to replace Brooks and Guzman’s production, but in practice I’m not sure where those replacements are going to come from. My model views a Villanova – Temple game as a toss-up, and I’m not quite as comfortable making that conclusion. But assuming Temple’s defense is better than Villanova’s defense, as it was last year, the teams should have similar efficiency margins once again.

Dayton loses a ton of players from their rotation. But their two most efficient and critical players, Chris Wright and Chris Johnson, are back. And some of the role players who are returning are also very efficient. (See Luke Fabrizius.) Dayton will depend on a solid recruiting class, led by Juwan Staten, to fill in the missing playing time. I’m a little concerned about integrating so many new faces given that Brian Gregory likes to play a deep rotation. But by leaning on the team’s two stars, Wright and Johnson, Dayton should be able to stay near the top of the A10 standings.

The A10 looks like a three-bid league, but Richmond is clearly in the hunt. At one time, St. Louis was also in the discussion for one of the top spots in the league, but the loss of two of their key players is devastating to their chances of becoming an elite team.

Are you certain BYU is not the MWC favorite?

2010-10-29T22:32:00.003-04:00

I understand the arguments against BYU. Here is what Mike DeCourcy said recently. “Set For a Fall: No. 24 BYU. The Cougars have one of the nation’s best players in guard Jimmer Fredette, and they’ll be an NCAA tournament team. But even with Tyler Haws, Chris Miles, Michael Loyd and Jonathan Tavernari, BYU only made it into the NCAAs as a No. 7 seed.“

And I have certainly read the arguments for San Diego St. They bring back five starters. And they were a pretty effective NCAA tournament team too. But my model thinks BYU and San Diego St. are a toss-up for MWC champ, and here is why I think that is right:

First, if you believe in margin-of-victory, BYU was much better than a 7-seed in the NCAA tournament last year. BYU was 10th in the nation according to Jeff Sagarin’s Predictor rating, and 10th in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings, meaning BYU had some of the best margin-of-victory numbers in the country. And it has been well established that margin-of-victory is a huge predictor of future success.

And while BYU loses some of the players that led to those dominant margin-of-victory stats, the key players are back. BYU returns one of the most explosive and efficient players in the country in Jimmer Fredette. But they also return guard Jackson Emery whose 127.0 ORtg on 20% of the shots when on the floor would have people raving if not for Fredette’s success. Plus as will be discussed below, Emery and Noah Hartsock posted some fantastic defensive stats last year. Basically, BYU may not return as many players as San Diego St., but they return the most important players on offense and defense and there is every reason to think they will be dominant once again.

For everyone who thinks that Purdue should still be a top 10 or top 15 team despite the uncertain rotation, then you should be equally in love with BYU. They have the offensive and defensive stars, they just need to fill out the rest of the rotation. And as five straight years of first or second place MWC finishes have shown, head coach Dave Rose is plenty effective in developing players to fill out the lineup.

MWC Prediction

Once again, I start with the expected changes. As with Indiana, Air Force and Colorado St. experience a case of addition by subtraction. While Air Force will clearly miss forward Grant Parker, Mike McClain and Avery Merriex were so ineffective, as a whole the team should be better allocating shots elsewhere. McClain in particular was just a source of dead possessions for Air Force. He turned it over fully 30% of the time and shot just 24% while taking 45 threes. His block rate was less than 1% as the team’s center. Even with Air Force’s recruiting limitations, they can do better.

Man, I feel bad saying that. What did Mike McClain ever do to me? He did shoot 59% on his twos last year, so he did some things right. And yes, he probably has more athletic talent then I will ever have in my whole life. (Just putting that out there.)

Maybe I should not name any Colorado St. players by name. Colorado St. loses four players who could most generously be called role players. Two of them had ORtgs of 56.8 and 68.0. That’s really all I need to say.

New Mexico might be a little under-rated here. They obviously lose a ton of talent, but I think the model may under-rate what they have joining the team. True, they will only have half a season of Drew Gordon, and that will make the early numbers weaker, but his tempo free stats at UCLA were quite impressive. Also, Alex Kirk is only 98th in the RSCI top 100. Given the inconsistency of recruits at that level, the model does not expect much. But Steve Alford has had a pretty good eye for talent lately.

But here is the kicker for the model. New Mexico played three freshmen last year, but all three barely made it on the floor. In other words, they were mostly playing a deep experienced lineup last year that performed near peak performance. That is not the type of team that improves a lot the following season.

The next table shows the expected changes in offense and defense. BYU suffers some critical defections, but Jackson Emery, one of the national leaders in steal rate, and Noah Hartsock, one of the national leaders in block rate are both back. While the offense may take a small step back because they have to integrate so many new faces, because head coach Dave Rose has two critical defenders coming back, he should be able to keep the defense playing at a high level.

The next table shows the final prediction. The MWC looks like a three bid league, with a huge drop-off after the top. But New Mexico may be back in the mix by the end of the season. And Colorado St. returns five fairly efficient starters from last year and may be prepared for a surprise run.

College Alumni in the NBA

2010-10-26T17:01:00.003-04:00

In honor of the NBA season tipping off tonight, I thought I would present the former college of all players on the opening day rosters. (I’ve actually seen some other links that have done the same thing recently, but I wanted to download the full rosters on opening day myself.)

The opening day rosters include:
59 International players that did not attend a US college
56 ACC
54 Big East
48 Pac10
41 Big 12
40 SEC
31 High School
29 Big Ten
12 CUSA
11 A10
10 MWC
9 WAC
5 WCC
5 CAA
5 Sun Belt
3 MVC
18 Other

-In addition to the 59 international players who did not attend college in the US, there are some international players that did attend college in the US, such as Australia’s Patrick Mills who attended St. Mary’s.

-Eventually the high school group should shrink because it is much harder for players to jump directly from high school to the NBA. But the 31 high school players still include the best players in the NBA from Kobe Bryant to LeBron James to Dwight Howard. Brandon Jennings is currently the only player in the “high school” club with less than 5 years of NBA experience.

-The rest of the talent has mostly come from the ACC and Pac 10. Because the Big East includes 16 teams, they have a number of NBA alumni, but the Big East has fewer alumni per team. And the Big Ten has the fewest NBA alumni among BCS conferences with only 29 on opening day rosters.

Here are the numbers by team:
14 UCLA
13 Duke
13 Kentucky
12 North Carolina
12 Kansas
11 Connecticut
10 Arizona
10 Texas
9 Florida
8 Wake Forest
7 Ohio St.
7 Georgia Tech
7 LSU
7 Syracuse
7 Memphis
6 Stanford
6 Michigan St.
5 USC
5 Washington

The next table shows the full rosters broken down by college conference and then by college team. Scroll down to see the full table.

If I had a lot of money and power and could build my dream NBA charity event, I would love to make an exhibition tournament and pit some of these alumni teams against one another.

-Imagine Rajon Rondo leading all those young Kentucky players.

-Is North Carolina’s NBA roster starting to look a little bit weak? Vince Carter might be the only “star” left and I’m not sure how much he has left.

-Could a Wake Forest team with Chris Paul, Tim Duncan, and Josh Howard compete with players like Jeff Teague and James Johnson filling out the rotation?

-Allen Iverson is finally retired and the days of Georgetown being able to fill out a reasonable starting lineup are now long gone.

Big East Prediction - Four Starters Back, One Star Gone

2010-10-25T22:13:00.008-04:00

We are about a week away from the release of the Basketball Prospectus book which includes more words on all these teams, but in the meantime, here is my model's prediction for the Big East.

Once again I start with the expected changes. Due to lingering injury issues, Anthony Mason was unable to use a meaningful number of possessions for St. John’s last year. And St. John’s brings back virtually their entire roster. (Ironically, this is true for just about the third year in a row.) With almost everyone back, St. John’s should experience a slight improvement in efficiency, and Steve Lavin has a chance to make the NCAA tournament in his first season.

Cincinnati loses a pair of fabulous guards in Deonta Vaughn and Lance Stephenson, but Stephenson was not a very efficient player last year. (See 16 of 73 on threes.) The team also loses back-up interior defender Steven Toyloy who was not a particularly effective interior player either. The model tends to view the loss of ineffective players as a good thing. On the whole, by reallocating minutes and shots on a team that still returns Yancy Gates and Rashad Bishop, Cincinnati may play better than some people think.

My model also likes Oliver Purnell to turn things around for DePaul in his first year as head coach. There is no question he inherits a disaster, but he also knows a thing or two about how to rebuild. I fully expect him to get DePaul to play better defense this year, and I expect him to steal a few games in the Big East, despite his decimated roster.

The next table shows the expected changes in offense and defense. Notice the contrast between West Virginia and Syracuse. While both teams lose substantial offense, Syracuse’s defense takes a bigger hit. Syracuse loses Wesley Johnson, Arinze Onuaku, and Andy Rautins. Meanwhile West Virginia loses Da’Sean Butler, Devin Ebanks, and Wellington Smith. While West Virginia’s trio were actually more efficient offensively, the three Syracuse players posted significantly more blocks and steals, and their ability to change the game on the defensive end of the court will be missed.

The next table shows the prediction for the season. My model picks Pittsburgh to win the Big East with a similar top five to most publications.

In addition to rolling out a detailed Big East preview, Villanova By the Numbers recently posted the conventional wisdom on the Big East standings, and the consensus agrees with Pittsburgh as league champ. But my model departs from the consensus in three key ways.

First, Villanova is ranked substantially lower in my model. Villanova does have a natural replacement for Scottie Reynolds in Maalik Wayns, but the reason for the poor prediction here is Villanova’s poor defense last season. Two years ago they had three great defensive rebounders in Dante Cunningham, Dwayne Anderson, and Antonio Pena, but last year they only had Pena. Perhaps the loss of Reggie Redding and Taylor King will actually help the defense. Redding was often asked to play forward despite his limited size. And despite good defensive rebounding numbers, King had a reputation as a poor defensive player. But that assumes Wright will give more minutes to Mouphtaou Yarou and top recruit Jayvaughn Pinkston. Wright has shown he will not simply use a taller lineup to block a few more shots. For Villanova to play better defensively, those players will need to execute and earn Jay Wright’s trust. If Jay Wright uses a smaller lineup and Antonio Pena is the only dependable interior defender once again, Villanova may lack the defense to be a true NCAA tournament contender. Of course Villanova nearly won the Big East despite their defensive shortcomings last year, so it would be foolish to count Villanova out.

Second, my model ranks UConn substantially lower than some other sources. UConn loses its two most efficient scorers in Stanley Robinson and the highly underrated Gavin Edwards. And UConn loses the team’s most prolific scorer in Jerome Dyson. Kemba Walker will need to bring three freshman top 100 recruits along quickly, and my model suggests that in the Big East, that could be a recipe for a long season.

But the ranking that most makes me scratch my head is Georgetown’s position on this list. The Hoyas are ranked second in my model despite the loss of an NBA lottery pick in Greg Monroe. Statistically, I understand where this calculation comes from. Georgetown’s defense is expected to slip without Monroe, but Austin Freeman, Chris Wright, and Jason Clark, might be the most efficient returning guard trio in the nation. They were all incredibly effective scorers, and based on John Thompson’s ability to teach efficient offense, the model expects another precision attack for the Hoyas.

But this is the first time in about six years that John Thompson will be playing without a dominant big man in the middle. One has to wonder how much of Freeman, Wright, and Clark’s success the last few years was due to the attention Roy Hibbert and Greg Monroe drew in the paint.

And this leads to an important question. How well do teams do when they return the entire starting rotation, with the exception of one star player?

Four Starters Back, One Star Gone – What happens next?

Ohio St. and Georgetown are ranked very high in my model. Both teams return four starters from rotations that were incredibly efficient last year. But both teams also clearly lose their star player in Evan Turner and Greg Monroe. This brings up an interesting question. Historically, how have teams fared that lost their most talented player, but almost no one else from the lineup? Let’s look at some examples:

Texas: Lost Kevin Durant
Off 2007 - 120.6
Def 2007 - 94.6
Off 2008 - 123.8
Def 2008 - 91.8
AJ Abrams, DJ Augustin, Damion James, and Justin Mason were all efficient players with Durant, but all three played better after he was gone. And Connor Atchley improved tremendously after Durant left.

Texas: Lost DJ Augustin
Off 2008 - 123.8
Def 2008 - 91.8
Off 2009 - 112.4
Def 2009 - 91.6
All the players mentioned above played significantly worse in 2009 without their star PG. Only the emergence of Dexter Pittman kept Texas from plummeting further.

Boston College: Lost Tyrese Rice
Note: Boston College fell apart last year and fired their head coach. But according to kenpom.com, Boston College was very unlucky last season and had a very solid efficiency margin.
Off 2009 - 112.9
Def 2009 - 99.8
Off 2010 - 110.2
Def 2010 - 95.8
Without Rice, Rakim Sanders numbers fell off precipitously, and several other returning players suffered smaller drops in efficiency. Only Joe Trapini performed slightly better. The only reason Boston College was able to post decent efficiency stats on the year was the emergence of Tyler Roche and Evan Ravenel as effective role players.

LSU: Lost Anthony Randolph
Off 2008 – 105.4
Def 2008 – 95.6
Off 2009 – 111.2
Def 2009 – 94.5
Without Randolph, LSU saw a number of improvements. Bo Spencer’s efficiency rating increased dramatically and Garrett Temple and Marcus Thornton also played significantly better. LSU went on to win the SEC regular season title.

Georgetown: Lost Jeff Green
Off 2007 – 124.8
Def 2007 – 89.3
Off 2008 – 117.2
Def 2008 – 86.4
Roy Hibbert was forced to shoot more and saw his efficiency rating fall and everyone else on the team saw their efficiency rating fall slightly, with the exception of Jonathan Wallace. Georgetown did not return to the Final Four.

Kansas: Lost Julian Wright
Off 2007 – 117.8
Def 2007 – 82.2
Off 2008 – 125.3
Def 2008 – 82.8
Brandon Rush and Darrell Arthur got slightly better, and Mario Chalmers and Darnell Jackson improved tremendously after Julian Wright left. Julian Wright probably was not Kansas’s best player, but he did use the most possessions among all starters in 2007. Kansas won the national title in 2008.

Duke: Lost Josh McRoberts
Off 2007 – 113.9
Def 2007 – 85.6
Off 2008 – 118.2
Def 2008 – 87.6
DeMarcus Nelson, Gerald Henderson, Greg Paulus, and John Scheyer all played significantly better without McRoberts, but Duke’s defense did slip slightly without McRoberts in the middle.

Conclusion: There is reason for optimism. Several teams on this list did get substantially better in years in which they returned four starters and lost a star player. But I think the successful teams also had had a number of talented players who were ready to take on larger roles. DJ Augustin was ready to shine when he could break out from Kevin Durant’s shadow. Darnell Jackson was ready to shine when he could take Julian Wright’s minutes. I am not as confident Georgetown has a player as ready to step into a larger role and take the Hoyas to the next level.

But the important thing to note is that we have limited data to reach these types of conclusions quantitatively. For now, my model picks Georgetown for second in the Big East and Ohio St. first in the Big Ten. But in a few more years, as the seasons of tempo free player data continue to grow, future data should allow us to draw better parallels.

SEC Prediction, The Biggest Departures, and a BP Book Update

2010-10-20T22:24:00.008-04:00

If you have been following the “Players Leaving” column in my tables, you’ll eventually determine that the top ten teams with the biggest losses this off-season are:

10. St. Mary's
Omar Samhan, Ben Allen, Wayne Hunter

9. Mississippi St.
Jarvis Varnado, Barry Stewart, Phil Turner, Romero Osby

8. Baylor
Ekpe Udoh, Tweety Carter, Josh Lomers

7. Marshall
Hassan Whiteside, Tyler Wilkerson, Chris Lutz, Darryl Merthie, Cam Miller

6. Nevada
Luke Babbitt, Armon Johnson, Brandon Fields, Joey Shaw, London Giles, Ray Kraemer

5. Kansas
Sherron Collins, Cole Aldrich, Xavier Henry

4. Syracuse
Wesley Johnson, Andy Rautins, Arinze Onuaku

3. California
Jerome Randle, Patrick Christopher, Jamal Boykin, Theo Robertson, Omondi Amoke, Nikola Knezevic, DJ Seely, Max Zhang

2. Cornell
Ryan Wittman, Jeff Foote, Louis Dale, Geoff Reeves, Jon Jaques, Alex Tyler

1. Kentucky
DeMarcus Cousins, John Wall, Patrick Patterson, Eric Bledsoe, Daniel Orton, Darnell Dodson, Ramon Harris, Perry Stevenson

No team in the nation lost more quality players than the Kentucky Wildcats. The key question is whether the top recruiting class in the nation will be enough to replace those players. But as you may guess from my prediction for North Carolina in the ACC, my statistical model is not confident that Kentucky will be able to make a successful transition.

As I noted in the ACC post, recruits have had a surprisingly inconsistent effect on team performance over the last three years. The key is probably that recruiting is endogenous. Elite recruits are much more likely to go to teams where they are likely to play. Kansas did not have a dominant recruiting class this year, but that was partly due to the fact that Kansas already had a number of under-utilized players who are ready to take on a much larger role for the Jayhawks. Meanwhile Kentucky’s successful recruiting class was partly based on the fact that they had few pieces already on the team that were ready to step in. Kentucky could pretty much guarantee playing time to recruits under all circumstances. But the lack of emerging backups should also temper our expectations for Kentucky this season.

Basketball Prospectus Book Update – An Alternative Model

But if you are not happy with the weight I put on recruits, I am pleased to announce that there is a numeric alternative. As I hinted at previously, Ken Pomeroy has developed his own predictive model for tempo free team performance and you can find it in this year’s Basketball Prospectus Book. While Ken and I use the same basic underlying factors (the Dean Oliver statistics for returning / departing players), his model puts a higher weight on previous seasons and a much higher weight on elite recruits.

So for the next week or so, you can continue to get a few free tempo free predictions from me, but due to the upcoming release of the book, I have provided very few words on the various teams.

But if you pick up the book, you will get
-A detailed statistical analysis of all major conference teams
-Some analysis of all the non-major teams
-Several insightful articles combining stats and basketball
-And Ken Pomeroy’s tempo free predictions for every conference in the nation.

Somewhere John Gasaway is carefully crafting the finishing touches on the publication, but the wait is almost over!

SEC Prediction

The first table shows the expected changes for the SEC. If it were not for John Calipari’s incredible recruiting ability at Kentucky, we could be looking at a repeat of what happened to Indiana a few years ago. (OK, maybe not that bad, but Kentucky lost a lot of talent.) I assume Enes Kanter will not be eligible in these projections, but even with Kanter, Kentucky would have a hard time duplicating last year’s success. That does not mean it cannot happen, but the expected value of any recruiting class is clearly less than 5 NBA first round picks.

While Kentucky is depending completely on recruits to step in, Florida both adds an elite recruit in Patric Young and gains from having given substantial minutes to Kenny Boynton last season. The model expects the freshman guard to develop into a much more consistent player this year.

Georgia’s recruiting class kind of fell apart due to ineligibility issues, but they bring back enough key players to get better this year.

The next table shows the expected changes in offense and defense. My model is aware that Dee Bost and Renardo Sidney will be joining Mississippi St. mid-season. (And Mississippi St. has used some creative scheduling to try to minimize the impact of the games those players will miss.) But even with Bost and Sidney, Mississippi St.’s defense is expected to get substantially worse this year. You simply cannot replace the top shot blocker in NCAA history (Jarvis Varnado) and not expect the defense to take a step back.

Offensively, the loss of Dan Werner is irrelevant to Florida. He was the team’s least efficient player. But defensively, the Gators will miss his high steal rate.

The next table shows my model’s prediction for the SEC. The Gators barely made the NCAA tournament last year but they bring back all their most efficient players and are the clear favorites in the league. Meanwhile, people tend to overlook the talent Vanderbilt brings back. And Alabama was very unlucky last season. The Tide may very well be the favorites in the SEC West.

Personally, I’m not comfortable with ranking Kentucky this low. In my contribution to the basketball prospectus book, I did not trust my own model and picked Kentucky for a higher finish. But even John Calipari admits his team could struggle early in the season.

More on Hummel

2010-10-19T12:58:00.006-04:00

Ah, fantastic, we have some disagreement to fill the weeks until the actual season starts. In my last post I said Andy Katz’s decision to drop Purdue from 2nd to 23rd seemed about right. But Ken Pomeroy does not agree. He states that “If you added a healthy Hummel to Temple, I don’t think you would consider the Owls to be national title material.”

I understand the argument, but from a statistical perspective, I do not agree. I think if you put Hummel on Temple they would be among the top teams nationally. First, Purdue was projected as a Final Four contender because they play such incredible defense. But Temple played incredible defense last year too:

Purdue 2010
Adjusted Offense Rank = 70th
Adjusted Defense Rank = 3rd

Temple 2010
Adjusted Offense Rank = 75th
Adjusted Defense Rank = 7th

And from a lineup perspective, I’m not sure Hummel would not make just as big a difference to the Temple lineup as the Purdue lineup.

Consider Purdue’s key returning players this year:

F JaJuan Johnson 107.2 ORtg, 18.2% Defensive rebounding rate
G E’Twaun Moore 102.9 ORtg on 31% of his teams shots

The only other returning Purdue player with an efficiency rating over 95 was Ryne Smith who posted a 104.9 rating while playing 26.9% of the team’s minutes last year. Purdue also brings in just one RSCI top 100 recruit.

Compare that to Temple’s key returning players:

F Lavoy Allen 114.3 ORtg, 23.7% Defensive rebounding rate
G Juan Fernandez 108.7 ORtg, 73 made three pointers
G Ramone Moore 103.3 ORtg and very effective inside scorer as a freshman

Now these individual ORtgs are not adjusted for quality of competition, and the A10 defenses were a little easier to score against, but not as much as you might think. And I have every reason to believe that if you put a player with Hummel’s stat line on Temple, they would be an elite team.

F Robbie Hummel 122.1 ORtg, 20.8% Defensive Rebounding Rate

Even if Hummel’s offense only made Temple an above average offensive team, he is also a huge defensive force. Just look at that defensive rebounding rate! I have no doubt that with Robbie Hummel, Temple would be near the top of the rankings.

Of course, I would also agree that Temple would not be the 2nd place team in the nation. But my model did not pick Purdue for 2nd either. My model liked Purdue 5th with this Final Four:

Duke
Kansas St.
Ohio St.
Pittsburgh

Perhaps the argument could also be made that teams need some outstanding recruits to make it to the Final Four, and even with Hummel, Temple would not have multiple NBA ready prospects. And yes, there is evidence that recruits are important to a deep NCAA tournament run. Wisconsin is almost always among the national leaders in efficiency, but the Badgers have not been able to make the Final Four or stay in the Top 5 of the polls during the season. But I think evaluating a team based solely on recruits is wrong too. My favorite example of this is the Florida Gators, which have traditionally had great recruiting classes, but won two national titles with a group of less heralded recruits. (Plus Butler made the national title game with only one top 100 recruit last year.) Temple may not feel like an elite team, but winning is not all about having McDonald's All-Americans.

But I think that is mischaracterizing what Ken Pomeroy was saying. The key point is that in any given season, the difference between the top 5 teams and the bottom of the top 25 is huge. Whereas the top 5 teams are far out in the tail, teams from 20-40 in the national rankings are usually bunched together at a much lower level of performance. And I agree completely.

But, I’m not convinced that Purdue was so far out in the tail of the distribution that the loss of a player as efficient as Hummel will be easily overcome.

The Robbie Hummel Effect (Revisited)

2010-10-17T15:31:00.005-04:00

[Note: I made a minor change to this post on October 29th. I apologize for any confusion.]

By now I am sure you have all heard the news about a devastating ACL tear. Penn St. forward Sasa Borovnjak has torn his ACL and is out for the year. Oh wait, that is not the ACL tear that everyone is talking about? No, the news that has saddened college basketball fans everywhere is that Robbie Hummel is out for the season.

I’ve already presented the tempo free prediction for Purdue with Robbie Hummel:
Predicted Efficiency Rank = 5th Nationally
Predicted Adj Eff Margin = 25.4
Predicted Adj Off = 110.1
Predicted Adj Def = 84.8

One thing we can do is run the model again and see what it predicts if we do not count Robbie Hummel as a returning player this season.
Predicted Efficiency Rank = 24th Nationally
Predicted Adj Eff Margin = 19.4
Predicted Adj Off = 106.6
Predicted Adj Def = 87.1

Andy Katz has moved Purdue from 2nd to 23rd in his top 25, and my statistical model roughly agrees with that prognostication. But you may notice that these numbers are still better than Purdue’s splits without Hummel last season.

I think the key difference is that replacing a player like Hummel is a lot easier in October than in February. With this injury taking place in October, Purdue will still have a number of practices, exhibition games, and early season cupcakes to build a team without their star forward. Making this adjustment in February when their opponents were peaking was a very difficult adjustment for the team to make in such a short amount of time.

Regardless, Purdue may now be the 5th best team in a top-heavy Big Ten, and that is a shocking development for a team that was a Final Four favorite in most preseason publications.

Big Ten Prediction – A surprise pick for champ?

2010-10-14T22:26:00.003-04:00

A Note on Midnight Madness

I’m excited for Midnight Madness this weekend, but I caution anyone who tries to learn anything from the inter-squad scrimmage or any of the exhibition games that will follow. Exhibition games are not a great place to evaluate talent. As evidence I provide two anecdotes. Two years ago Maryland’s Jin-Soo Kim (now Jin-Soo Choi) scored 20 points in an exhibition game against Northwood University. The fans were shouting his name and there was serious talk that he was the surprise gem in Maryland’s recruiting class. But Jin-Soo went on to score a grand total of 41 points in his two years with the Terrapins. And if the exhibition games are not a great place to evaluate players, they are not a great place to evaluate teams either. Michigan St. lost to Grand Valley St. in an exhibition in 2007-08, but it did not stop the Spartans from finishing 15th in the Pomeroy Rankings that year. Enjoy meeting the teams, enjoy the atmosphere, and enjoy the theatrics this weekend, but do not take anything too seriously until the real games begin.

A Note on Ken Pomeroy

As I alluded to a few weeks ago, Ken Pomeroy is also in the business of modeling returning talent. I’ll have more thoughts on the various ways to make tempo free predictions in a future post, but for now I will simply steal his punch-line. The Big Ten is a league on the rise.

Big Ten Prediction

Today I roll out the 4th of my tempo free conference predictions, and no league has intrigued me as much as the Big Ten. The traditional consensus seems to have Michigan St. and Purdue as the best teams in the league, but Doug Gottlieb has picked Illinois to win the league this year. So when I first ran these numbers, I was very curious to see what the model would say. But before I get to the full conference prediction, let’s look at the expected change in efficiency margin. I list the losses due to players leaving and the other changes due to recruits, player development, and coaching changes.

First, note that Indiana’s rating in the Players Leaving column is not a misprint. Indiana has a positive rating for Players Leaving. Devan Dumes had the second lowest efficiency rating on the Hoosier’s last year (84.2) and used a ton of possessions. For the Hoosiers, this should be a case of addition by subtraction. By letting other players take Dumes’ shots, the team should be better. But the Hoosiers will improve for a more important reason. They gave playing time to a number of key freshmen last year. And those players are expected to play significantly better this year. That list includes Maurice Creek (who was injured and played in only 12 games last year), Jordan Hulls, Christian Watford, and Derek Elston.

Also on the upswing are the fighting Illini who replace the last few spots in the rotation with three top 100 recruits. The model likes last year’s freshman to develop, and it expects Brandon Paul to emerge for the Illini. Paul took a lot of shots last year, suggesting he has the confidence to become a star, but he was also the team’s least efficient scorer last year. Will he play with more consistency as expected, or will Paul find his spot in the rotation taken by another great recruiting class? Regardless, this is the most talented team Bruce Weber has had since his Final Four squad, and the pressure is squarely on Illinois to play at an elite level this year.

On the opposite end, everything went wrong for Michigan this off-season with Manny Harris, DeShawn Sims, and even Laval Lucas-Perry leaving the team. And Minnesota loses Damian Johnson, Lawrence Westbrook, and Paul Carter. Johnson’s loss really hurts because not only was he quietly efficient on the offensive end, he was a key force on the defensive end for the Gophers.

But despite these defections, the Big Ten is clearly a league on the rise. If the Big Ten finishes 5th in the RPI again this year, it will definitely be a disappointment.

The next table shows the expected change in offense and defense. Wisconsin loses its most efficient offensive player in Jason Bohannon, and the team’s second leading scorer Trevon Hughes. And despite Trevon Hughes’ high steal rate, those losses should hurt the offense more than the defense.

Fran McCaffery will need time to bring in more talented offensive players to Iowa. But based on his success teaching defense at his previous jobs, the model predicts Iowa will improve more on defense than offense.

On the other hand, Illinois should expect a bigger offensive improvement than defensive improvement. While the departures of Dominique Keller and Jeffrey Jordan will not mean much on the offensive end, those players did contribute on the defensive end for the Illini.

And what do all these numbers mean for the projected league standings? My projected winner may be a bit of a surprise. My model likes the Buckeyes to repeat as league champs. (OK, my model is not the only source that likes Ohio St. Blue Ribbon picks the Buckeyes for the Final Four. But this is far from the consensus pick.)

Evan Turner is gone, but the Buckeyes bring in an incredible recruiting class and return some phenomenal players. People just don’t have a handle on how well Jon Diebler, Dallas Lauderdale, William Buford, and David Lighty played last year. (I’m still having nightmares about Jon Diebler knocking down threes by the way.) Yes Evan Turner was good, but it was not all Turner. While the Buckeyes are expected to slip slightly, my model projects the newcomers will fill most of the void Turner left behind.

Some may be surprised to see Michigan St. picked so low, but it makes perfect sense when you look at the numbers. The Spartans were only fourth in the Big Ten in efficiency margin last season, and they do lose some key players in Raymar Morgan and Chris Allen.

To put it another way, Michigan St. was only a five seed in the NCAA tournament last year, and I’m not sure how wins against Maryland and Tennessee in last year’s NCAA tournament make them a clear Final Four favorite this year. Tom Izzo and his players deserve a ton of credit for what they were able to accomplish, but I think people tend to overlook the fact that the Spartans were not a dominant team last year.

Now, nothing about where I’m projecting Michigan St. says the Spartans cannot win the Big Ten or go the Final Four. But Tom Izzo plays a lot of players and builds a team that peaks in March and not November. If his team has another slow start and is not among the nation’s leaders in efficiency margin, it should not come as a surprise.

Penn St. was the second unluckiest team in all of D1 last year, and I think some people are under-rating the Nittany Lions. It will be no shock if Talor Battle keeps Penn St. in the NCAA tournament hunt this year.

And I’ll be cheering for Northwestern to finally break through and make the NCAA tournament, but the model is not confident. As many people have said, the defense has to take a serious step forward for Northwestern to be a serious NCAA tournament contender.

In the end, the Big Ten is a league with five potentially dominant teams, and three bubble teams. Assuming the league plays as expected in non-conference play, Minnesota, Northwestern, and Penn St. will have plenty of chances to earn RPI top 50 wins and earn an NCAA tournament spot. But I don’t think any of them are a lock. Minnesota is projected to finish in 6th place, but the Gophers would only be projected as the 8th place team in the ACC or Big 12. This is my way of saying that the Big Ten may be stronger at the top, but some of the other leagues may still be deeper this season.

Pac-10 Prediction

2010-10-12T00:05:00.003-04:00

Once again, I start with the predicted changes. Cal loses a ton of talent this off-season. They not only lose the four players on the team that played the most minutes last year (Jerome Randle, Patrick Christopher, Jamal Boykin, and Theo Robertson), but all four were incredibly efficient scorers. This is going to hurt. On the other hand, things are starting to come together for Sean Miller at Arizona. Arizona played only two upperclassmen in the rotation last year, and the playing time given to younger players should pay dividends this year.

Next I present the expected change in offense and defense. USC loses a number of players, but the return of Nikola Vucecic, the team’s only efficient scorer, and the addition of Bryce Jones should lead to a slight uptick in the offense. Shot-blocking DeAngelo Casto is back for Washington St., and he should contribute to a slight defensive resurgence for the Cougars.

The next table shows the prediction for the conference. While a few teams are ticking upward, the bottom of this league is still very mediocre. One problem is that recruiting did not really turn around this year. The Pac-10 does not have any RSCI top 10 recruits this year, and even trails the Big 10 in top 100 freshmen this year.

The Pac-10 is the type of league where I love having an empirical model, because I do not have a good feel for how this league will perform this year. And the model does point to some sleeper teams like USC. The natural instinct is to say that USC loses four key players from a hideous team last year, and should finish near the bottom of the league. But that’s probably an overstatement. The Trojans return their two most important defensive players in Alex Stephenson and Nikola Vucecic, and Kevin O’Neil has the team believing they can win by playing elite defense. While USC may still have the worst offense in the Pac-10, if the defense stays dominant, the team should be able to finish in the middle of the pack.

Five Second College Football Rant

2010-10-09T23:57:00.001-04:00

Earlier this week I read that the Pac-10 had the best record against other BCS conferences this season. (The Pac 10 is 10-4.) And I was curious how the other leagues had done, so I decided to pull the numbers. The next table shows the non-conference records of all the BCS leagues against one another and Notre Dame. (Scroll down and right to see all the BCS leagues.) There are 48 of these games scheduled this season. 41 of these have now been played and 7 are scheduled for week 13.

Still to come in Week 13
Georgia at Georgia Tech
Wake Forest at Vanderbilt
Florida at Florida St.
South Florida at Miami
Boston College at Syracuse
South Carolina at Clemson
Notre Dame at USC

(In the table I also list the losses to non-BCS teams as “other losses”. The only thing that stops the Pac-10 from being the top conference in all the computers is the fact that Pac-10 teams suffered five losses to non-BCS teams while the SEC only suffered one such loss.)

This paltry list is all we really have to compare the leagues to one another. There is not much to learn here, but there is one clear lesson. There is no reason to watch the Big East or ACC. The Big East and ACC are a disappointing 2-11 and 3-10 against other BCS leagues. But you probably already knew that.

So why does ABC keep insisting on airing ACC games every week in the Washington DC market? Are they trying to minimize their viewers? Do they want me watching stuff on my computer every weekend? Regional viewing windows suck.

But guess what? For the NCAA tournament, they are going away soon. I don't think people have any idea how awesome this is going to be.

Big 12 Prediction and a Quick Review of the Model

2010-10-06T22:18:00.002-04:00

My model is incredibly simple. The idea is that

Efficiency =
f{Player Talent, Coaching}

Thus the difference between any two seasons is

Change in Efficiency =
f{Players lost, Player development, Incoming recruits, Coaching changes}

When evaluating players lost, I look at the possession-weighted tempo free statistics of the departing players. This is critical because when a team loses a very inefficient scorer (think someone with an 85 ORtg), that is not going to have a negative impact on the team. But if the team loses a player with a 120 ORtg, that will hurt a lot. And because it also matters how often a player shoots, I weight by the percentage of possessions used over the full game. (This incorporates both percentage of minutes and percentage of possessions on kenpom.com.) This year in addition to the tempo free offensive player statistics, I also include the tempo defensive player statistics in the model.

Player development emphasizes the fact that the biggest leap is often from freshman to sophomore year.

And I include incoming recruits which is simply a measure of the average impact of RSCI top 10 and top 100 recruits.

Finally, my model also accounts for coaching changes. On average, new coaches tend to have a negative impact on the offense. (It can take time for the players to learn a new offensive system.) But successful veteran coaches will usually improve the defense in the first year.

Today I present the model’s predictions for the Big 12.

Big 12 Prediction

For the record, I do not include Josh Selby for Kansas and Tony Mitchell for Missouri based on the fact that neither has been cleared academically. I’m currently still including LaceDarius Dunn of Baylor, but after yesterday, that may be a mistake. (These player eligibility issues are becoming more irritating by the day.)

The first table lists the changes we should expect this year based on players leaving and other factors. Texas Tech loses almost no key players, and should be better. But there are a lot of teams that are not so fortunate. Iowa St. loses a ton of talent, and unless I’ve read things incorrectly, transfers Chris Allen and Royce White will not be eligible until next year. That means there is really no reason to expect Iowa St. to be better this year.

And no Big 12 team lost as much talent as Kansas. Kansas will still be very good. After all, they did have the top Sagarin rating in the nation at the end of the regular season. But with Cole Aldrich, Xavier Henry, and Sherron Collins leaving in the off-season, Kansas will take a significant step back.

Texas and Baylor also lose a lot of talent, but Texas adds a pair of Top 15 recruits in Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph. And Baylor adds Top 10 recruit Perry Jones.

Next I isolate the expectations for offense and defense. While Oklahoma St. loses two incredible scorers in James Anderson and Obi Muonelo, they should return two of the best defensive rebounders in the nation in Matt Pilgrim and Marshall Moses. While the Oklahoma St. offense is expected to slip a little this year, the defense may be better.

Finally, I present the standings. As it turns out, these are eerily similar to how the Big 12 coaches voted. On the one hand, that is very comforting. This model is still in the experimental stage, so it is nice to see the model matches with what others are thinking. On the other hand, the whole point of the statistical model is to identify misperceptions, (things that other folks are over-looking). But in the case of the Big 12, the coaches seem to agree with what the statistics predict. Kansas St. is the favorite, and Kansas and several teams are within striking distance.

For me the interesting story this season will be Texas Tech. Pat Knight has an extremely senior-laden team, and he needs to make the NCAA tournament this year. Texas Tech is currently 7th in these projections, which would put them squarely on the NCAA tournament bubble. But with a few late bloomers, Texas Tech is not that far behind Baylor for 3rd place in the league. On the other hand, with a few injuries or players not living up to their potential, Texas Tech could have a new coach this time next year.

ACC Prediction - The Harrison Barnes Effect?

2010-10-02T00:01:00.003-04:00

Do Top 10 Recruits Really Make a Difference?

When I start to share my conference predictions, the first thing that is going to jump into your head is that I am clearly under-valuing elite recruits. But the next table should illustrate the reason. On average, teams that rely heavily on Top 10 freshman do not perform substantially better than the previous season.

Once you control for the other factors impacting the team (players leaving, player development), you do get a positive impact from top 10 recruits. But on average, it is not nearly as large as most people expect.

There are two problems here. First, there are top 10 recruits that were simply disappointing. (Think John Henson for North Carolina or Lance Stephenson for Cincinnati last year.)

Second, consider the alternative. If a top 10 recruit did not show up, they would not necessarily be replaced by a player with a 75.9 ORtg. Top 10 recruits tend to go to programs that have pretty good alternatives. For a quality team like Duke in 2008, what would have happened if there was no Kyle Singler? Well, Taylor King, Nolan Smith, or Brian Zoubek might have earned more playing time. And while Coach K clearly had his reasons for limiting those player’s minutes in 2008, they were all very effective when on the court. In other words, we have a value over replacement player (VORP) issue. For super talented teams, adding a top 10 recruit usually takes playing time away from other very talented players.

Do not misunderstand what I am saying. As Luke Winn and others have shown, top 10 recruits are often difference makers on the court. But basketball is still a team game. To expect one player (Harrison Barnes) to catapult North Carolina into the top 10 is optimistic. The team still loses its best player in Ed Davis and one of its top scorers in Deon Thompson. If Harrison Barnes only replaces Ed Davis’ production, the team will be treading water. For North Carolina to get better, it is going to require that other players develop at a rapid pace. Can Larry Drew finally cut down on his turnovers? Can Tyler Zeller finally stay on the court?

Or will North Carolina’s rebuilding project follow the path that Connecticut took earlier this decade? In 2006, a deep and talented UConn team lost to George Mason in the regional final. Then after seeing numerous players depart for the NBA, UConn went 6-10 in 2007. And it was not until 2009 that UConn returned to the Final Four.

If North Carolina returns to being an elite team it should qualify as a pleasant surprise. It should not be the expectation.

ACC Prediction

I’ll explain my model again in future posts if you missed it this spring. Suffice to say, I am going to try to replicate what most analysts do in their head. I’m going to look at players that leave and players that return and make a statistical prediction.

Technically, I’m going to look at the drop in efficiency we should expect based on the possession-weighted Dean Oliver statistics of departing players. If a team loses a player with an ORtg of 120 who shoots a lot, that will hurt that team’s predicted efficiency rating. If a team loses a player with an ORtg of 120 who shoots a little, that will hurt less. And if a team loses a player with an ORtg of 85, that will not have a negative impact on the team.

The first table shows the predicted changes in efficiency margin for the ACC teams. At the top we see Virginia Tech. The Hokies return a player-of-the-year candidate in Malcolm Delaney and lose almost no one from last year’s team. (I included the fact that JT Thompson is out for the season in the model.) That means Virginia Tech is going to be better.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Wake Forest, and Duke all suffered major player losses in the off-season. Duke makes up for those slightly by bringing in a top 10 recruit in Kyrie Irving.

The key thing I added to my model this summer is the defensive player statistics. This allows a more detailed prediction of why efficiency margins may change. The next table shows what the model predicts will happen to each team’s adjusted offensive efficiency and adjusted defensive efficiency.

As an example, Maryland loses some incredible offensive players, but retains some of its best defensive players. Jordan Williams, who was one of the top defensive rebounders in the entire ACC, and Sean Mosley who had the top steal rate on the Terrapins, are back. Thus while Maryland’s offense should be significantly worse, my model predicts a slight improvement in the Maryland defense.

Similarly, Chas McFarland struggled offensively last season for Wake Forest. But the team will miss his defensive intensity in the middle. Wake Forest’s offense is expected to take a small step back this year, but the defense is expected to take a major step back.

Everything I’ve listed above makes intuitive sense to me. But I’m not as satisfied with the projected ACC standings, which I present in the next table. These don’t quite add up to what most people are predicting. For example, Maryland and Boston College seem a bit high, and North Carolina seems a bit low.

But what the predictions really say is that outside of Duke, the ACC is wide open. Virginia Tech should be good, but the difference between the teams in the middle of the ACC is almost meaningless. The final standings will depend on which players surprise us by developing more than expected.

I’ve read some people who like Wake Forest as a sleeper team based on all the top recruits. But based on the poor defense Bzdelik displayed at his previous job, and the lack of returning starters, even a lineup of top 100 freshmen is going to have a hard time playing at an elite level right away. Jeff Bzdelik has been a great offensive mind and I expect him to turn Wake Forest into a dominant offensive team in the next few years. But remember that the ACC tends to eat its young. In any other BCS conference, Wake Forest would be predicted to finish in the middle of the pack. In the ACC, they are predicted to finish in last.

In the end, these ACC standings are not very satisfying to me because they do not conform to popular opinion. But as you will see in the next few weeks, many other conferences come closer to matching expectations.

Articles, Upsets, and Plans

2010-09-29T23:02:00.006-04:00

I’ve spent the last few weeks finishing my contribution to the 2010-11 Basketball Prospectus Book. I’ll have more to say in the future, but suffice it to say I am very excited about the publication. Besides the normal preview content, (the returning players and predictions), the heart of the book is the detailed statistical discussion of every major conference team. You knew South Carolina was fast, but were you aware of South Carolina’s woeful defensive rebounding and commitment to one-on-one play? And thanks to John Gasaway’s hard work expanding the publication, the book now includes several words on all the small conference teams as well. Are you prepared for a full discussion of Eastern Kentucky’s unorthodox style of play?

Early this summer, I also wrote an article for the Jayhawk Tip-Off. I’m always hesitant to suggest a team-specific publication. If you are a fan of Georgia Tech, I assume you have better ways to spend your money. But if you do care about the Jayhawks, I was blown away by the quality of work Eric Angevine was able to pull together last year; and I expect even better things this year.

When you write these articles, not everything you write makes the final cut. I’ll have some posts on what did not make it into the Basketball Prospectus Book in future weeks. But today I wanted to share something that did not make the final cut in the Jayhawk Tip-Off.

One concern for Kansas fans is that Bill Self keeps showing up in the next table. Using the post-tournament Pomeroy Ratings, here are the most unlikely NCAA tournament upsets in the last seven years.

Most Unlikely Upsets in the NCAA Tournament in the Last Seven Years

If you ask him, Ken Pomeroy would probably point out that some of these upsets do not pass the eye test. Dayton hardly qualifies as a dramatic upset. But if you look at the full-season numbers for those teams, (their margin-of-victory against the quality of competition), the numbers do not lie. West Virginia was blowing teams out in 2009, and it was a significant surprise to see them perform so poorly against Dayton.

Similarly, you may be surprised that George Mason only appears on this list once. But by winning four NCAA tournament games, including wins over Michigan St. and North Carolina, George Mason had the profile of a very strong team at the end of the season. History no longer looks at the first round win over an inconsistent Michigan St. team as a huge surprise.

The shocking thing is that Wisconsin and Kansas show up as upset victims three times. Is that a sign of good coaching or bad coaching? These teams have clearly been dominant in the regular season. But for the large segment of fans that only watch NCAA tournament games, Bo Ryan and Bill Self are not leaving a good last impression.

More Quality Writing

This summer I also posted some “free” articles on this blog. First, I discussed the off-season coaching changes. I also followed that up with a detailed discussion of coaching turnover in the NCAA tournament era. And I concluded the series here. Coach ratings are my signature blog feature and this analysis is definitely worth a read if you missed it this summer.

What else can you expect from YABB this season?

For starters, I’ll be rolling out statistical predictions for all the major conferences. You may remember this spring I estimated a statistical model that predicted the tempo free stats for various teams. Here is an example of the output. Well, one thing I promised was to add some individual defensive stats to the model. And after playing with the numbers, I can say the defensive player statistics have some predictive power. Teams that lose a player with a high block rate or steal rate will perform worse on average on defense the following season. The model is still a work in progress, but it is becoming more refined. I plan to present predictions for the major conferences in the coming weeks.

(By the way, Ken Pomeroy continues to do a number of amazing things. After he revealed his win probability charts, I’m not sure I will be able to look at a game the same way again. Am I in the red zone or the green zone? And while I cannot speak to what brilliance Ken will share next, I may not be the only one developing a predictive model for tempo free stats. If Ken shares anything, I think it will be worth examining which model does a better job predicting the season.)

But the most important thing I want to do this season is get back to talking about the games. Last winter I bought a townhouse and moved to the suburbs and it significantly curtailed the number of college basketball games I watched. But now that I have a treadmill set up in my basement, and fewer worries about moving and painting, I can re-focus my leisure hours on the things that matter. While the stats are not going away, this season’s theme will be simple. Enjoy the games!

Yawn

2010-09-07T21:51:00.004-04:00

After the 6 to 12 games per day in the FIBA preliminary round, the 2 games per day in the FIBA knockout round has been a crawl. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday’s games were all blowouts with the exception of Brazil vs Argentina. And despite all the crowd shots showing fans agonizing in the stands, the Argentina-Brazil game lacked drama. Argentina built a small lead thanks to Luis Scola’s incredible shooting and simply held off Brazil. It just goes to show that just because a game is close, it isn’t necessarily memorable. Onto the Elite Eight and some potentially better match-ups.

Wednesday
Serbia led by Oklahoma City’s Nenad Krstic and 2010 Euroleague MVP Milos Teodosic face the incredibly deep Spanish team featuring Portland’s Rudy Fernandez, Memphis’ Marc Gasol, and a host of players that could play in the NBA if it wasn’t so enjoyable and lucrative to play in Europe (i.e. Fran Vazquez, Ricky Rubio, and Juan Carlos Navarro).

Fran Vazquez has particularly impressed me in this tournament. The Orlando Magic holds his rights in perpetuity, and if some NBA team can ever convince him to come to the US, he seems like an impact post player.

Then the host country Turkey featuring Phoenix’s Hedo Turkoglu and three lesser known NBA players takes on a Slovenian team featuring Phoenix’s Goran Dragic, Milwaukee’s Primoz Brezec, and 8 year NBA veteran Bostjan Nachbar.

Spain vs Turkey seems like the likely semifinal based on Spain’s superior talent and Turkey’s home court advantage, but any of these teams could advance to the Finals.

Thursday
The US team faces a Russian team featuring former Kansas Jayhawk Sasha Kaun.

Then Lithuania featuring former Missouri Tiger and future Toronto Raptor Linas Kleiza faces an Argentina squad featuring Houston’s Luis Scola, Milwaukee’s Carlos Delfino, and Washington’s Fabricio Oberto.

The US is the prohibitive favorite against Russia. Lithuania can advance if Linas Kleiza can continue his incredibly hot shooting. Kleiza is averaging 19.5 points per game and 7.2 rebounds per game in the tournament. But that’s nothing compared to what Argentina’s Luis Scola has done to date scoring 30.3 points per game and 8.3 rebounds per game. In fact, these are the two top scorers left in the tournament.

Argentina is deeper and Scola had better numbers to-date, but Lithuania’s overall toughness intrigues me in this one. For some reason I predict a Lithuanian victory in a minor upset.

The First Saturday in September

2010-09-05T00:16:00.007-04:00

I was watching Kansas St. vs UCLA on ESPN2 and the announcers said, “There haven’t been a lot of close football games today.” And as of 10:30pm Saturday, that’s still true. The college football season has started with a thud. I know the joy of the first weekend is just seeing real football games again, but usually one or two of the BCS matchups goes down to the wire. Today we saw North Carolina crippled by suspensions against LSU, UConn and Purdue providing surprisingly little resistance to Michigan and Notre Dame, and not a lot else. Heisman hopeful QB Jake Locker of Washington could not even mount a drive when trailing by 6 against BYU. Oregon St. trailed TCU by 7 late, but rather than rally for a tie, they had a bad snap and kicked the ball out of the endzone for a safety. This is not drama. Even matchups that are usually great rivalries like Colorado-Colorado St. simply had no sizzle this weekend. I enjoyed watching North Dakota State beat Kansas, but not quite enough to write a blog post. But there was obviously one game of the day, Jacksonville St.’s win over Ole Miss.

(Of course as soon as I was putting the finishing touches on this post, I flipped back to ABC and saw North Carolina inside the 10, trailing LSU by 6 points with 2 seconds left. UNC’s pass fell incomplete as time expired. What?!! North Carolina came back? And after a day of garbage games, I missed that comeback. Sigh.)

Jacksonville St. vs Ole Miss

We start with the back-story. Mississippi head coach Houston Nutt was a former assistant under Jacksonville St. head coach Jack Crowe from 1990-1992 when Jack Crowe was the head coach at Arkansas. But in 1992, in his third year at Arkansas, Jack Crowe lost the season-opener to the Citadel. Crowe was fired immediately. (I love how whenever someone gets fired in the middle of the season, people act like this is a “new trend”. But this has been happening for decades, and it was certainly not a new trend in 1992.)

The other piece of back-story is the QB situation at Ole Miss. TMQ Gregg Easterbrook would probably label this game the curse of Jeremiah Masoli. Masoli, the former Oregon quarterback had multiple off-field incidents that led to him being dismissed from the Oregon team. But Ole Miss was happy to snap him up and let him play immediately. Anytime you are willing to look past indiscretions other teams take seriously, it usually comes back to haunt you.

But that did not appear to be the case early. Ole Miss had a huge lead in this game, something like 20 points, and I almost deleted it from my rotation of channel flipping. But nothing else was really must-watch TV, so I kept coming back. And in the fourth quarter, Jacksonville St. brought in freshman Coty Blanchard to play some snaps. It seemed like an innocent move at the time. Both teams wanted to play some of their backups to get them some game experience.

But out of nowhere Blanchard immediately sparked the offense and helped pull Jacksonville St. within 5 points. Arkansas added a field goal to make it an 8 point lead, and then with limited time remaining, Jack Crowe made the head-scratching decision to put QB Marques Ivory back in the game. Was he trying to give the game to his former assistant? This logic was baffling. Blanchard was the hot hand, why not continue to use him? But of course, Ivory now saw that his job was in serious jeopardy and lead the team down the field for the touchdown and game-tying two point conversion. And we headed to overtime.

In OT, Jacksonville St. scored first and Ole Miss needed a fourth down conversion for a TD to send the game to a second OT. Then after Ole Miss scored a TD again, Jacksonville St. found themselves with their back against the wall. After a loss of 5 yards, Jacksonville St. faced a 4th and 15 from the 30, needing a TD to stay alive. And of course Jack Crowe chose this moment to reinsert QB Coty Blanchard. Blanchard then proceeded to throw a 30-yard precision touchdown strike, caught at the very back of the endzone by a Jacksonville St. receiver. It was an insane pass and an insane moment. This type of QB shuffling almost never works, but here Crowe shuffled QBs at the end of regulation, and in OT, and whoever he played rose to the occasion.

At this point, Jacksonville St. just decided to end the insanity and go for the two point conversion. Either they would win or lose, but it would all come down to this play. Ole Miss blitzed, Jack Crowe faced huge pressure up the middle, and calmly flicked the ball ahead for the game winning conversion.

You might coach 20 years, and only once are your QB substitutions going to work as perfectly as they did in this game. Congratulations to Jack Crowe, and here’s hoping Houston Nutt doesn’t get fired after week 1, even if he was willing to play Jeremiah Masoli.

The FIBA Knockout Round is Here

First, here is a quick recap of Thursday. In a complete shocker, Ivory Coast upset Puerto Rico and that allowed China to advance to the knockout round.

Elsewhere New Zealand beat France which allowed Spain to steal the second spot in Group D. But because Greece finished third in Group C, this meant Greece and Spain met today in the first round of the knockout round. Spain and Greece were effectively 1-seeds and expected to be semifinalists in this tournament. But because neither team could win their group, they make for an insanely marketable first round match-up.

Meanwhile the other “1-seed” Argentina fell to Serbia which means that only one of the group favorites, the United States, won their group.

Today we had two knockout round games on tap.

Spain vs Greece

The matchup of these two heavyweights was a disappointment, because in the end, it wasn't close. With Greece within 4 points, Spain grabbed a pair of late steals, built a 10 point lead, and coasted to victory. From what I could tell, the early part of this game was back and forth and if you watched the whole thing, you probably were not disappointed. But if you tuned in with 6 minutes left in the game like me - sorry.

Serbia vs Croatia

I start with two pieces of background on this game. First, like Turkey-Greece in the opening round, Croatia and Serbia are geographic rivals. Croatia and Serbia are both part of the former Yugoslavia. Here’s a map. Second, note that there have probably been over 100 players from this region to play in the NBA. This region tends to be a huge recruiting zone for NBA big men. And college basketball is full of them too. I remember a time when nearly every player on Northwestern’s basketball team had an “ic” at the end of their name.

Also note that Serbia was the heavy favorite in this game. They’ve already beaten Argentina in this tournament and they have the Euroleague MVP form last year in Milos Teodosic and NBA forward Nenad Krstic. Meanwhile, Croatia has a decent team, but after losing to the US, Brazil, and Slovenia, they finished 4th in group B. On paper this was a mismatch. But that’s why they play the games.

With 1 minute to go in regulation, Croatia’s Roko-Leni Ukic had one of the best drives and passes of the tournament as he drew two defenders and flicked the ball to Marko Banic to pull within two points.

Fast forward to 24 seconds left. Croatia was still down three points, but they had the ball with a chance to tie. And Serbia decided to foul with 15 seconds to avoid the game-tying three. I thought this was a horrible decision. 15 seconds was way too early to foul in that situation. And for once this instinct was correct. After Croatia made both free throws, Croatia’s Marko Tomas stole the inbounds pass. Instead of a last second desperation three to tie, Croatia now needed just a two-point bucket to win the game.

But Serbia fouled again and this time Croatia made 1 of 2 free throws to tie the game. Then after a time-out, Croatia fell asleep on the inbounds pass and Serbia hit the home run ball for a wide open-layup to take the 72-70 lead. But once again Serbia fouled. What were they thinking fouling when up two? Again, the logic seemed to be to avoid a three pointer, but I was baffled by this strategy as it almost certainly meant overtime.

Croatia made both free throws to tie the game at 72. But in a tie game with 5 seconds left, Serbia pulled it out. After driving the ball up court, Serbia drew a foul with 1 second left and hit a free throw to hold on to win the game. Yes Serbia won, but the crazy fouling at the end almost cost them to game. I’m sure at some point, fouling while leading by three makes sense. But I’m pretty sure it is not with 15 seconds left.

Day 5 FIBA

2010-09-01T18:57:00.001-04:00

Group A:

On Wednesday Angola played Germany with the winner advancing to the knockout round. And in a major shocker, Angola was victorious in overtime. Remember this same Angola team lost by 50 to Serbia, and Germany beat Serbia in double overtime. But after winning that 2 OT game, Germany simply hasn’t shown up for two straight games and the loss to Angola eliminated them from the field. Angola (2-2) now faces Australia (2-2) with the winner taking third place in the group. Meanwhile Serbia (3-1) faces Argentina (4-0) with the winner taking first place in the group.

Group B:

Slovenia (3-1) edged Brazil by three to clinch second place in Group B, behind only the US (4-0). Brazil (2-2) now faces Croatia (2-2) for third place.

Group C:

As I expected, Turkey had a bit of a let down after beating Greece, but Turkey still rode the home court advantage to a two point win over Puerto Rico. Turkey (4-0) has now won Group C thanks to head-to-head wins over Greece and Russia. Greece (3-1) and Russia (3-1) play for second place on Thursday. China (1-3) and Puerto Rico (1-3) can both still take the final spot in the knockout round, but Puerto Rico holds the tie-breaker after winning the head-to-head matchup on Wednesday. And with Puerto Rico facing winless Ivory Coast Thursday, it looks like China is done.

Group D:
The top four are set after Canada stayed winless losing to New Zealand and after Lebanon lost to Spain and was eliminated. That leaves only seeding to discuss. Lithuania (4-0) won the group on Wednesday beating France by 14. France (3-1) now faces New Zealand (2-2) on Thursday with second place on the line in the group. If France wins, they get second. If New Zealand wins and Spain (2-2) beats Lebanon, there will be a three way tie for second place and points scored tie-breakers will come into play.

Day 4 FIBA

2010-08-31T22:53:00.002-04:00

Turkish fans can rejoice. The host country defeated Group C favorite Greece in front of a packed house in Istanbul. Turkey is now in the driver's seat to win the group. But like the US team, I took the day off. I have nothing to tell you about today’s action other than the fact that two thirds of today’s games were decided by 8 points or less. Well, after you check the ESPN box scores, and peruse the standings, let’s look at Wednesday’s games:

Group D:
Lithuania (3-0) and France (3-0) meet with first place in Group D on the line. Both teams upset group favorite Spain, and now one of them will clinch first place with a win. Elsewhere, Spain (1-2) faces Lebanon (1-2) and the reality that they might not make it to the knockout round if they don’t pull things together fast. And Canada (0-3) must beat New Zealand (1-2) and hope for some tie-breakers if Canada is going to make it to the knockout round.

Group B:
Brazil (2-1) faces Slovenia (2-1) with second place on the line. Iran and Croatia are tied for the final knockout round spot, but Iran (1-2) faces the US (3-0) while Croatia (1-2) faces Tunisia (0-3). In other words, it looks like Croatia is advancing to the knockout round.

Group A:
Assuming Germany (1-2) holds off Angola (1-2) tomorrow, the top four should be set here too. Australia (2-1) can now rise up to second in the group if they knock off Serbia (2-1) Wednesday. Argentina (3-0) meets Jordan (0-3) in a game that sounds extremely boring on paper.

Group C:
Here’s where things get interesting. Puerto Rico (1-2) faces Turkey (3-0) and you wonder if the host country might have a let down after beating Mediterranean border rival Greece. A Puerto Rico win almost certainly lifts them to the knockout round since Puerto Rico still faces Ivory Coast on Thursday. And poor Ivory Coast (0-3), I can’t imagine they’ll have fun against an angry Greece (2-1). But the key game is clearly China (1-2) against Russia (2-1). If China wins, the tie-breakers for the knockout round will come into play.

Day 3 FIBA

2010-08-30T18:43:00.002-04:00

A day after Germany beat Serbia in double overtime, Germany laid a goose-egg, losing by 35 to Australia. I enjoyed the take of the announcer on NBA.tv. “Germany looks like a team playing with a hangover.” Dramatic pause when he realizes the implication of what he said. “Oh, I don’t mean to imply they were out drinking last night, but certainly their double overtime victory was on their minds.” Sure.

But the game of the day was clearly the US vs Brazil. I feel like I’ve already used my quota of praise for the FIBA tournament, but this game was definitely worth an hour and a half on the DVR. And if you did not record it, go watch the replay in the ESPN3 archives.

Also, it may be tempting to fast-forward to the end of the game, but to enjoy Brazil vs the US, you have to watch the first quarter when Brazil was playing insane basketball. This was a classic case of one team shooting lights out, and it being apparent that the other team was eventually going to come back. But Brazil's early run kept the game entertaining. Teams cannot match up with the US in the long-haul, but over 10 minutes, and sometimes over 40 minutes, plenty of these teams can play impressive basketball.

Day 2 FIBA

2010-08-29T16:57:00.002-04:00

I love having 4 games on at once. These FIBA sessions are great. Here were Sunday’s highlights.

Game of the tournament so far: Germany defeats Serbia 82-81, 2 OT

A day after Serbia crushed Angola by 50, Serbia trailed Germany at several points in this game. Down the stretch in regulation, Germany was nursing a 3 point lead and appeared to get a key steal that would seal the game. But the German player’s toe was on the out-of-bounds line and Serbia got the ball back. Then with time running down Alex Rasic of Serbia made a three pointer to tie the game.

Next Germany missed two chances at buzzer beating game winners. At the end of regulation Germany had a good look at a three but missed, and at the end of the first overtime period Germany drove for a game winning lay-up, but the ball was batted out of bounds as time expired.

That sent the game to the second OT where guard Demond Greene caught fire and Jan Jagla hit a ridiculous turnaround three pointer while falling out of bounds. Jagla’s prayer shot turned out to be the difference maker and may be the highlight of the tournament so far.

Serbia continued to use pressure defense down the stretch and cut the lead to one in the final seconds. But Serbia missed a lay-up as time expired and Germany held on for the victory.

Lithuania defeated Canada 70-68

Interesting strategy at the end of the game when Canada trailed by two late, but Lithuania had the ball. There was a seven second differential between the game clock and shot-clock and Canada elected not to foul. Lithuania used the full shot clock and missed the shot, but after the rebound and pass ahead, all Canada’s Jermaine Anderson could do was take an off-balance three as time expired.

You may not remember, but Anderson was a key player for Fordham from 2002-2006. Why are players like Jermain Anderson and Demond Greene taking the key shots? Well, the US team is not the only team missing the A-list NBA stars. Steve Nash last played for Canada in 2004, and he has said he is done with international competition. Dirk Nowitzki plans to play for Germany again, but just not this year.

Greece defeated Puerto Rico 83-80

Greece may be the favorite in Group C, but after getting crushed by the US in an exhibition, after almost losing to China yesterday, and after almost losing to Puerto Rico today, they do not look like a team that will challenge for the FIBA title this year. But the story of this game was Puerto Rico falling apart in the fourth quarter for the second game in a row. The Puerto Rico bench looked completely exasperated after a number of missed shots down the stretch. They’ll need to pull themselves together quickly because at 0-2 in a group with 5 viable teams that could advance to the knockout round, Puerto Rico needs to win its next games.

Argentina defeats Australia 74-72.

Group A favorite Argentina trailed by double digits in the 3rd quarter but came roaring back to take the lead late in the game. Then after Australia’s Patrick Mills hit a three pointer to tie the game at 69, Argentina’s Pablo Prigioni hit a three pointer to break that tie. And after an exchange of free throws and a crazy reverse put back by Australia’s Joe Ingles, Argentina seemed to have the game in hand.

Argentina had the ball with a two point lead and just over 3 seconds left. But Argentina’s Hernan Jasen threw the inbounds pass away which gave Australia one last chance at glory. Australia’s Adam Gibson had a look at a three pointer, but it was off the mark as Argentina held on for victory.

Really, these games have been much better than I ever expected.

FIBA 2010 is Underway

2010-08-28T19:42:00.005-04:00

Finally, competitive basketball has returned. Look, I’ve been enjoying spending the summer writing about stats as much as the next guy. And I’ve enjoyed peeking in at the Las Vegas summer league games on NBA.tv.

(I particularly enjoy listening to maligned former Timberwolves General Manager Kevin McHale call games. I kept thinking to myself, there’s a huge difference between “sounding like you know how to evaluate players” and “knowing how to evaluate players. I also really enjoyed when John Thompson Jr. joined a game for commentary and spent 10 minutes complaining about how Greg Monroe needs to be more aggressive and how he has foolishly accepted the label of “unselfish” when that’s not going to make him a star in the NBA. Thompson certainly spoke out about the need for Monroe to be more aggressive in the past, but he was unleashed here. John Thompson Jr. must have felt he needed to hold his tongue until Monroe was drafted.)

But the Las Vegas summer league games are simply exhibitions designed to get the young players some playing time. This weekend with the start of the FIBA 2010 tournament, we finally get games that feature elite players and teams that are trying to win the game.

The best part of this is the timing. The reality with niche sports is that they work best when they fall in a quiet period on the calendar. August definitely falls in that category. Preseason NFL, golf, and endless baseball can easily be pushed aside for a chance to see Nick Calathes and Patrick Mills playing to win one more time.

By the way, if you are wondering how best to watch this tournament, it is almost NCAA quality on the weekend. This Saturday and Sunday feature three blocks of 4 simultaneous games. Some of the games are on ESPN and NBA.tv, but all are free online. So I recommend you check the ESPN box scores at the end of the 3rd quarter of each tier of games, see if there are any endings worth watching.

Best yet, the games are not broadcast in the middle of the night. I thought with the games in Turkey we’d be looking at 4am start times, but that’s not the case. The earliest games start around 9am while the latest start around 2pm. Not bad at all. Here’s my review of Day 1:

Almost Upset of the Day: Greece defeated China 89-81.

I started watching this game in the third quarter and the first thing that occurred to me was how poor these international teams seem to be at stopping dribble penetration. There seems to be a staple play where teams spread the floor, place a player at the top of the free throw line, and use a simple screen to drive inside for a lay-up or free throw. Where is the help defense? On some level I understand this play working for Greece because they have a number of good three point shooters, but I was surprised to see this working for China.

Maybe this means that China’s guard play has improved. China has always had good depth in the front court, but today guard Sun Yue absolutely looked like a star. When he drove the lane for a one handed dunk in the third quarter, I practically fell off the couch. Sun also made some clutch jump shots in this one. And his good play seemed to pay off with some luck. China cut the lead to 81-79 on Sun Yue’s banked three pointer with just over 3 minutes to play.

But after that point China fell apart. They couldn’t make shots, players like Wang Zhizhi committed too many turnovers, and Greece held on for victory. The back-breaker was probably Vasileios Spanoulis drive to make the score 83-79. China had switched to a zone defense to cut off penetration and Spanoulis drove all the way to the basket against the zone and scored a lay-up. It was simply atrocious defense and it cost China a chance to win.

Closest Game of the Day: Australia defeated Jordan 76-75.

Sadly the game didn’t involve a clutch last second shot, but there was still plenty of drama. Australia, which had to be the favorite due to participation in the 2008 Olympics trailed by 5 with just over a minute to play. But thanks to an offensive foul by Jordan’s Osama Daghles, and clutch free throws by Patrick Mills and David Andersen, Australia took a one point lead with 13 seconds left. At this point we got one of those crazy sequences under the basket where Jordan kept getting the rebound and kept missing shots. It looked like they got up about five attempts, but the box score shows only three. Regardless, Jordan had several chances to win, but couldn’t make a lay-up and Australia hung on for victory.

Upset of the Day: France defeated Spain 72-66.

If you did not catch this live, it is almost worth watching this game just to listen to how excited the announcer was down the stretch. Sadly, I didn’t catch his name. Spain is one of the few international teams that is capable of beating the US, as seen by their one point exhibition loss to the US earlier this week. So this result was a major shock.

Down the stretch
-Spain missed free throws
-Juan Carlos Navarro, who played extremely well against the US team last week had his thumb injured on a play when France went for the steal.
-Ricky Rubio was called for an offensive foul
-and Spain let Boris Diaw drive all the way to the basket uncontested.

But all of that could be overcome. Spain made a last minute run and could have been back in the game if not for an extremely dumb move by Rudy Fernandez. Fernandez thought he had a clean block with about 2 minutes left. In his upset state he ran up into the stands. This drew a technical from the officials. Fernandez mistake cost the team two standard free throws (one of which was missed), two technical free throws, and possession of the ball (which resulted in a basket.) Overall it was a five-point swing. And in a game where Spain was within 5 points several times in the final minute, Fernandez’s bad decision was the difference.

Once College Football kicks off, it will probably be harder to pay any attention to these games. And sadly, due to a larger field for the FIBA championships relative to the Olympics, the talent dilution makes for fewer must-see games until the elimination rounds. But when your other option is listening to the Nationals talk more about the Stephen Strasburg injury, competitive basketball is a nice change!

Who says the summer is quiet?

2010-08-22T01:27:00.001-04:00

If you think the off-season drama ended when the last of the elite recruits made their college decisions, if you think the drama ended when vital players announced their intentions to transfer, if you think the off-season drama ended on May 8th when the last early entrants stayed in the draft pool, well you would be sadly mistaken. The summertime is the time when the “crazy” roster changes occur for college basketball teams.

-First, Mississippi St. guard Dee Bost mysteriously withdrew from the NBA draft after the deadline and decided to re-enroll at Mississippi St. While Mississippi St. still lists Bost on their roster for this year, the consensus seems to be that he has little chance of regaining his eligibility. (Perhaps Mississippi St. just likes to have ineligible players on their roster after watching Renardo Sidney sit out all of last year.)

-Then my jaw dropped when I read that Providence’s leading scorer and rebounder Jamine Peterson was leaving school early, but not for the NBA. Say what you will about the crazy fast-break style Keno Davis has installed in his two years with the Friars, but one thing the system did was develop Peterson into a scoring star. And the fact that Peterson will not be returning is devastating to Davis’ attempt to rebuild the Providence program. The goal last season was to give young players a lot of minutes and identify the stars. Then this season would have been the year to focus on fundamentals and develop complimentary players to try to make an NCAA tournament run. Instead Providence is once again a team desperate for an offensive leader. (And as Ballin’ is a Habit describes it, ridiculously desperate.)

-Then by late summer, as is too often the case, we had a number of high profile recruits who were declared academically ineligible. I do not have the full list, but in the SEC alone this includes Mark Fox’s first big signing at Georgia Cady Lalanne, Auburn recruits Shawn Kemp Jr. and Luke Cothron, plus LSU recruit KC Ross Miller.

-Then there was the former Northwestern scoring star Kevin Coble, who was academically eligible, but athletically disinterested. Coble has decided not to return to the basketball team and focus on graduation. While I agree with statistical arguments John Gasaway and others have made that Northwestern needed to improve its defense more than it needs Coble’s scoring, Northwestern is not such a deep team that another offensive option would be irrelevant. And Coble’s return would have allowed the team to be more aggressive defensively and not worry as much about the starters fouling out. Plus Coble’s return may have helped motivate the fan-base and sell more tickets, building a more consistent home court advantage. Northwestern fans needed to have faith that the team would finally make the tournament and Coble provided much of that hope. And now he is done.

-Also this summer, there was the rare story of a player being declared academically eligible as Memphis recruit Will Barton was re-instated after further review. Ah academic eligibility, it just never gets old does it?

-If it does, the fun new summer event is the graduate school transfer. This is the rule that allows random players like Justin Knox to leave Alabama and play for North Carolina without sitting out a year, simply because he finished his undergraduate studies. And Knox is not the only player to take advantage of this rule.

-After that, the summer was filled with the normal “force-out” stories. Do not be fooled by Bo Spencer’s 14.5 points per game production, he was a horribly inefficient player for LSU shooting just 28% on his threes and 39% on his two point shots. I wonder if Trent Johnson was not happy to find an academic reason to officially dismiss the shot hog from the team.

-Taylor King was forced to leave Villanova after violating a team rule and now he’s transferring to USC. King was such a versatile scorer at Duke and Villanova making him the perfect fit for a USC team that couldn’t put the ball in the ocean last season.

-But it’s the high profile teams that get most of the attention. People seem to really care that Chris Allen is leaving Michigan St. And while Allen was a fantastic shooter and talented player, Michigan St. is not without other options at the off-guard position. Similarly, Kentucky’s Darnell Dodson will not be returning. The loss means Kentucky returns just two players with over 10% of the teams minutes last season, Darius Miller and DeAndre Liggins. While I agree the loss of a proven three point gunner will hurt a young Kentucky team, losses like Dodson and Allen tend to get magnified because Michigan St. and Kentucky are such high profile teams. If similar role players left Seton Hall or Nebraska, I doubt anyone would even notice outside of the fan-base. Heck, most of the Oregon basketball team has left and no one even blinked.

-But what makes the silly summer roster season so fun is the odd stories that surround many of these roster changes. Take Phil Turner’s dismissal from Mississippi St. as an example. Turner claims he got the equivalent of a pink slip in the mail from his former employer. Now this is possible. Turner was not a great point guard or solid shooter and Mississippi St. was never going to use him as more than a reserve guard. But I doubt Rick Stansbury is that heartless. After all, Turner did hit a game winner for Mississippi St. in February, and Stansbury must have given him some respect to allow him to take that shot. Sadly, we may never find out what really happened. It seems like the topic is not up for further discussion.

In the end the summer season reminds me of the rule I instituted after Charlie Villanueva de-committee from Illinois a few years back. Until the players show up in uniform for Midnight Madness, don’t make any assumptions about what the roster will look like.

(Final note: I don’t have the time or the resources to update these stories on a daily basis which is why I include the Rush-the-Court link on the left, but I also have to emphasize the terrific work the folks at Ballin’ is a Habit are doing covering these stories. They are all over the summer drama including the current story of a top Texas recruit who is now considering Kentucky.)

Yet Another Set of Coaching Numbers

2010-08-15T00:04:00.001-04:00

Ken Pomeroy measures "luck" and "consistency" on his website. Today I look at all seven year coaches and present each coach’s cumulative luck ranking and each coach’s average consistency ranking in all jobs over the seven year period.

Of BCS coaches, Rick Barnes of Texas has been the least consistent. (If his teams have high variance every year, does that make them consistently inconsistent?) And Paul Hewitt, Stan Heath, and Mike Brey's teams have been the unluckiest. I.e., they consistently lose more games than their point differential would predict. Is it random chance? After all, someone has to be the unluckiest coach? Or do these coaches have a lot of talented players but poor execution in tight games? You can draw your own conclusions. Scroll down to see the full table. The unluckiest coaches are at the bottom.

Don't Blame the Freshman Forward

2010-08-07T16:11:00.006-04:00

-You have to make your free throws to win close games.
-You have to be aggressive for the officials to give you the benefit of the doubt.
-Senior players are more likely to excel in pressure situations.

There is some truth to all these statements. Teams need to make shots to win and on average players get better over time. But do these factors help teams over-achieve? Does experience and free throw success contribute to a team winning more games than their point differential would indicate?

The short answer is yes. Experience and free throw shooting are correlated with Ken Pomeroy’s measure of “Luck”. Teams that have these qualities are more likely to win more games than their Pythagorean ranking predicts.

But the next three pictures should suggest that statistics are often misleading. These pictures plot Pomeroy’s Luck rating for teams over the last seven years relative to the team’s FT%, the team’s FTA/FGA, and the team’s Experience level. (Over this time period, the unluckiest team was Florida Atlantic in 2004, while the luckiest team was Wagner in 2008. Wagner won 5 overtime games in 2008 and won a number of other close games as well.)

Figure 1 confirms what a regression analysis shows - a team’s free throw percentage is not a statistically significant predictor of Luck. There is a minimal positive correlation, but as the wide scatter plot shows, the relationship is virtually meaningless. There are bad free throw shooting teams that are lucky and good free throw shooting teams that are unlucky.

The trend line for free throw attempts is a little steeper than the trend line for free throw percentage, but as the scatter plot reveals, the relationship is not very strong. Playing aggressive and taking the ball to the basket often fails. But aggressive teams do tend to have a little more luck on average.

Finally, we come to the role of experience. I am certainly not going to convince you based on the scatter plot that there is a relationship between the variables. But I can tell you that the positive correlation is statistically significant at the 1% level. And if you want to visualize the reason, I think it is hidden in the upper left-hand corner of the plot. There is not a single inexperienced team with a luck rating over 0.1.

There is no magic formula for winning close games. Sometimes veteran players make their free throws; sometimes they do not.

But this should be a bit empowering. I recall when Illinois could not make their free throws in 2008 and skidded towards the "unluckiest team of the year" award. There was a sense that there was nothing they could do to win close games. The numbers suggest otherwise. Don't blame the freshman forward if he misses a free throw that costs you the close game. There were plenty of other plays that made a difference too.

Again Texas Tech? Again?

2010-08-01T00:06:00.003-04:00

NFL training camps are starting and the first college football game is 32 days away. Thus it must be time to re-run my annual complaint about scheduling.

This year six college football teams have not scheduled a single BCS opponent in the non-conference schedule. This year’s list:

Indiana
Baylor
Mississippi St.
Ole Miss
Virginia Tech
Texas Tech

I can sort of understand what Indiana, Baylor, and the two Mississippi schools are doing. Those schools are desperate to go to a bowl and if they have to go 4-0 in the non-conference schedule and 2-6 in the conference schedule to do it, they won’t be ashamed. But what’s perennial power Virginia Tech doing on this list? Yes, they play Boise St. this year. But this year’s schedule seems like a step down for a team that has had a series with LSU in recent years.

But Texas Tech remains my number one enemy. This is the 7th year in a row Texas Tech does not have a BCS opponent on the non-conference schedule. And I don’t see any on their announced future schedules either. All of these other teams at least played one BCS team at some point in the last three years.

Looking at conferences, once again the Big East leads the way with 1.88 non-conference BCS games per team. But due to only 7 conference games, Big East teams play the fewest total BCS opponents. Pac-10 teams will play the most BCS schools thanks to 9 conference games.

The 96 non-conference BCS games are double counted, so there are actually only 48 non-conference games between BCS teams. That’s down from 50 games in 2008 and 53 games in 2008.

This trend remains distressing because these games are the only way to evaluate conferences. Whether it be human voters determining this year’s reputation, or computers determining the best conferences, sample size is critical. 53 games was a very limited sample with which to draw any conclusions, and 48 games is even worse.

The Future of NCAA Pods that Almost Happened

2010-07-25T00:05:00.001-04:00

Remember the plans to expand the NCAA field to 96 teams? While everyone was predicting doom and gloom, there was one benefit to the scrapped proposal. The new plan would have meant easier travel.

Right now the west coast is usually the land of misfit toys, the place where all the four and five seeds get sent. Consider the placement of the top seeds this year:

Spokane
4 Maryland
5 Michigan St.
4 Purdue
5 Texas A&M

San Jose
4 Vanderbilt
5 Butler
3 New Mexico
6 Marquette

Oklahoma City
1 Kansas
8 UNLV
2 Kansas St.
7 BYU

Milwaukee
3 Pittsburgh
6 Xavier
2 Ohio St.
7 Oklahoma St.

New Orleans
3 Baylor
6 Notre Dame
1 Kentucky
8 Texas

Buffalo
1 Syracuse
8 Gonzaga
2 West Virginia
7 Clemson

Providence
3 Georgetown
6 Tennessee
2 Villanova
7 Richmond

Jacksonville
1 Duke
8 California
4 Wisconsin
5 Temple

And this is not a one year trend. The Pac-10 was weaker last season, but if you look historically, the 4/5 seeds are much more likely to get shipped out west. The problem is that the best seeds get the spots closest to home, and in recent years teams in the East and Midwest have been more likely to get seeds 1-4. Meanwhile, while the WAC, MWC, and WCC have had some of the best teams in the country, those teams tend to be seeded 5-8.

But now consider one of the primary proposals for a 96 team tournament. The idea was to play the extra game on the Tuesday/Wednesday of the 2nd week. In other words, after the first weekend there would still be 32 teams left. And in the first week, instead of 16 four team pods, there would be 32 three team pods. The huge advantage of this is that more teams could be rewarded with shorter early round travel. Consider how this year’s field might have looked:

1 seeds – No change
2 seeds – 35 miles closer
3 seeds – 773 miles closer
4 seeds – 5550 miles closer
5 seeds – 4894 miles closer
6 seeds – 1042 miles closer
7 seeds – 3500 miles further
8 seeds – 3789 miles closer
Total - 12,583 miles closer

Spokane
8 Gonzaga – 1894 miles closer
7 BYU – 252 miles closer
7 Clemson – 1425 miles further
7 Richmond – 1707 miles further

San Jose
8 California – 2324 miles closer
8 UNLV – 600 miles closer
8 Texas – 1029 miles further
7 Oklahoma St. – 620 miles further

Oklahoma City
1 Kansas – No change
2 Kansas St. – No change
3 Baylor – 168 miles closer
3 New Mexico – 359 miles closer

Milwaukee
4 Purdue – 1404 miles closer
4 Wisconsin – 896 miles closer
5 Michigan St. – 1458 miles closer
5 Butler – 1682 miles closer

New Orleans
1 Kentucky – No change
4 Vanderbilt – 1471 miles closer
5 Texas A&M – 1258 miles closer
6 Marquette – 919 miles closer

Buffalo
1 Syracuse – No change
2 West Virginia – No change
2 Ohio St. – 35 miles closer
3 Pittsburgh – 246 miles closer

Providence
2 Villanova – No change
3 Georgetown – No change
4 Maryland – 1779 miles closer
5 Temple – 496 miles closer

Jacksonville
1 Duke – No change
6 Tennessee – 397 miles closer
6 Xavier – 296 miles further
6 Notre Dame – 22 miles closer

First, the top lines are barely impacted because they get their first choice of location in the current system. Now Ohio St. and Pittsburgh can join Syracuse and West Virginia in Buffalo, but there are few changes overall. But then the big gain comes for the teams given 4 and 5 seeds. Now virtually every one of these teams is 1000 miles closer to home, with virtually no negative consequence. A few of the seven seeds now get shipped out west to fill in the final slots. But there is a net gain for the NCAA because more of the quality west coast teams get to stay close to home such as California and Gonzaga.

For the first time in the pod system, the west coast pods would finally have decent representation from the Pac-10, MWC, WAC, and WCC. These regions typically only have a couple of local teams and now they would have several. In fact, these west coast conferences would be 5429 miles closer to home, almost half of the overall gain. Instead of the Pacific Northwest being the toughest ticket to sell out, Gonzaga would have owned the region for the last decade.

But more importantly, more teams would get to play close to home in all parts of the country. With the top 8 seeds slotted 12,583 miles closer to home, many more fans could drive to see their team play. Right now, fans that want to travel to see their team have to make reservations to fly across the country on very shot notice. And that can be very expensive if you do not have a ton of frequent flyer miles.

Of course the disadvantage is that fans traveling to see the protected seeds would only get to see one game. But for many fans, one near-to-home, weekend game would be the perfect cap to the season.

And for fans that want to see multiple rounds, it gives them more time to make their reservations for the round of 32. The round of 32 would have been at least 9 days after the brackets were announced giving people enough time to make plans to fly to a now 8-team regional final.

I know this advantage was not going to convince anyone that a 96 team tournament was a good thing. But if you believe 68 teams is just the first step towards further expansion, I hope the second Tuesday plan continues to be discussed as a possibility.

Can a role player catch a break?

2010-07-18T17:04:00.004-04:00

Besides sports, I obviously have a crazy love for numbers and spreadsheets. Thus I had to smile this weekend when my wife decided to create a spreadsheet categorizing her “mostly inexpensive” shoe collection. Here’s what I’ve learned from the database so far. Sandals and flip flops seem to dominate. Also, purple shoes were always the favorite, but black shoes are just as numerous. And brown shoes have a surprisingly high count.

In basketball news, I’ve been meaning to compile the bench utilization data for some time. And I finally got around to putting it together. The next table lists the average percentage of bench minutes for each coach from 2007-2010. APBM = Average percentage of bench minutes. (Kenpom.com only has bench utilization data back to 2007 so we only have 4 years of data at most for each coach.) For the 347 coaches for the 2011 season, 318 of them have at least 1 year of data. Scroll up or down to see the full table.

There are not a lot of surprises in these numbers. Mike Anderson, Tubby Smith, and Bruce Pearl all give their young players a lot of playing time, in part because they use high-energy pressure defense. But it seems like a larger number of BCS coaches stick to very tight rotations. Guards are less subject to foul trouble so perimeter-oriented-teams like Marquette, Notre Dame, and Ohio St use their bench less frequently. Also, some of the back-cut systems that rely on precision and execution also rely heavily on their starters. See Herb Sendek’s Arizona St. team.

I also want to emphasize that playing your starters major minutes can be a winning strategy. As Mike Krzyzewski and Billy Donovan have shown, you can win a national title by finding a tight rotation of elite players and sticking with them. But Roy Williams has also won a national title while running an up-tempo attach and using his bench more frequently. So it is not really a question of whether fewer bench minutes is bad or good. Both can work with the right players.

The key is simply finding what works for the coach. Rick Barnes at Texas has traditionally had a tight rotation, but the embarrassment of riches last season simply led to an embarrassment of an inconsistent lineup. Barnes played his bench way more minutes than normal in 2009-2010 and the season did not live up to expectations.

I am also intrigued that many of the new coaches are such extreme outliers. Jeff Bzdelik’s precision offense at Colorado used a very short rotation and Fran McCaffery also shined with a few star players at Siena. On the flip side, Tad Boyle, Kevin Willard, Mike Rice Jr., and Dana Altman all went deep on their bench with their previous teams. Altman’s numbers are particularly stunning as he used his bench almost half the time the last three year’s at Creighton. Now part of that was the fact that Altman could not find a consistent rotation the last few years. But it also suggests that if you are a recruit and you want to play next year, it would not be a bad idea to give Oregon a chance.

In general, I wonder how important bench utilization is to recruiting and keeping players in the program. Consider these examples: Under John Thompson III, Georgetown has frequently been able to recruit star players, but has lost numerous bench players to transfers. Conversely, Minnesota has not been able to matriculate elite recruits, but Minnesota seems to find an endless supply of decent three-star prospects. Could bench utilization explain some of this? While Georgetown’s John Thompson III plays his starters heavy minutes, Minnesota’s Tubby Smith will gladly play a rotation of 11 players even in March. I think this difference can mean a lot to a recruit. If you are a star player and you go to Georgetown you are going to get major minutes and plenty of exposure. But if you are a borderline prospect, you may never get off the Georgetown bench after December. On the flip side, if you are a starter for Minnesota, Tubby Smith will not hesitate yank you if you make a couple of idiotic decisions in February. But even the weakest scholarship player will still get on the court in conference play. There is a lot that enters in a recruit's decision to choose a school, but as the July recruit evaluating period passes by, I wonder how important this type of factor can be to a recruit's final decision. Because for many recruits, playing time is the best thing a coach can offer.

The Akron Grill or the Cheescake Factory?

2010-07-10T00:13:00.003-04:00

Wow, I posted three straight weekends, and since there is some benefit to readers from being predictable, here's another post. (Sadly the tempo free stats will be getting a DNP - coaches decision this week.)

“A superstar player decided to take less money and sacrifice individual glory to try to win championships, but it’s not OK because he’s not having to work hard enough to win them, so they don’t count as much. To announce his decision, he created a special TV program that wound up generating millions of dollars he donated to the Boys & Girls Club, but he’s a bad person because it was egotistical.”-Kevin Pelton points out the irony at Basketball Prospectus

“Big freakin deal, Cleveland. Signed, Seattle.” -Bill Simmons reader comment on ESPN

I guess the fact that these were my two favorite comments means I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Cleveland fans.

Part of that is probably just pettiness on my part. As long as the Vikings are near the top of Bill Simmons’ Levels of Losing, I just don’t have a lot of empathy when bad things happen to other cities. Everyone says Cleveland has not won a title in 50 years. But if you grew up in Cleveland and have not cheered for Ohio St. winning a national title down in Columbus, then that is your own fault. (Sort of like being a Cubs fan and not fully enjoying the White Sox recent World Series.) I just do not believe that Cleveland fans have had nothing to cheer for in their lives. Perhaps if the Vikings were two-time Super Bowl Champs, I’d be a bigger person, but I’m not.

But I think my reaction is a little more than my personal lack of empathy. I think part of it is a general acknowledgement of what pro sports have become. The days of players spending their whole career with one team are over. ESPN has a list of “lifers” in MLB, long-term players that have stayed with one team. And the list is incredibly short. I simply no longer hold it against players for changing teams. When Kevin Garnett won a title in Boston, I smiled. And when Joe Mauer signed with the Twins I was happy, but I didn’t feel he was obliged to do so as a hometown player. If Mauer had gone the way of Johan Santana and moved to New York, I would not have batted an eyebrow.

And maybe that is why I have grown to like college so much more. Players are only making short-term commitments. We know that even under the best of circumstances they will be gone in four short years. But no matter where they go and no matter who they become, they will always be alumni of the university fraternity. Dee Brown and Deron Williams will never have another shot at a national title at Illinois, but they will always be Illini.

Moreover the spontaneous support of team is so much more genuine with a university. I remember when Illinois lost in the national title game, the fans held an unplanned pep rally to congratulate the returning team. It was an unbelievable experience.

But watching part of the extravagant welcoming ceremony down in Miami where Wade, Bosh, and LeBron received keys to the city, none of it felt genuine. Perhaps it was the callous celebration when nothing had been accomplished yet. But I think I was more offended by congratulating people for making a business decision.

When you graduate from college, people celebrate. When you switch jobs to take advantage of a new opportunity, you go out and have a nice quiet dinner with your immediate family.

Which New Hire was the Biggest Mistake?

2010-07-04T00:04:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago I listed some doubts about recent coaching hires:
1) Iowa St.’s Fred Hoiberg – Can he really succeed with no college coaching experience?
2) Clemson’s Brad Brownell – Is it a bad sign that he did not make the NCAA tournament the last three years at Wright St.?
3) Colorado’s Tad Boyle – Can a small conference coach successfully jump directly to a BCS league without a stop at a mid-major first?

Today I want to see if we can learn anything from the historical record. One outcome to examine is wins and losses. For example, how many games have Big Sky coaches won after they jumped to a BCS league? Unfortunately, we have a limited sample of hires, and each school’s situation is unique. As an example, Bill Carmody left Princeton for a Northwestern team that has never made the NCAA tournament. Shortly thereafter, John Thompson III left Princeton for a Georgetown team with a rich history and NCAA title. It might not be fair to label Carmody’s tenure a failure just because he has fewer wins per season.

Instead today I am going to focus on whether coaches are meeting expectations. To do this I will use the “termination” model I presented last week. The basic idea is simple. If a coach keeps his job, he is meeting expectations. If that coach is fired, he is not meeting expectations. And I can ask three questions that may help us to evaluate former hires:

1) When a BCS school hired someone who was not a D1 head coach, was he more likely to get fired?
2) When a BCS school hired someone without a recent NCAA appearance, was he more likely to get fired?
3) When a BCS school hired someone directly from a small conference, was he more likely to get fired?

Today I am focusing on only BCS coaching hires made after the 1984-1985 season. This limits my sample substantially to only 233 coaches. This includes
-26 from small schools
-48 from mid-majors
-74 from high majors and other BCS schools
-85 from the assistant coaching ranks, the NBA, unemployment, or non-D1 employment

When a BCS school hired someone who was not a D1 head coach, was he more likely to get fired?

The first table essentially presents the raw survival data. The blue data are hires of D1 head coaches. The red data are hires from assistant coaching ranks, the NBA, unemployment, or non-D1 employment.

As you may remember from last week’s post, the format of my database includes a number of interim head coaches who are usually assistants. This leads to a large peak in assistant coaches who get fired after 1 year and a large drop in the red line at year 1. But since these are not official hires, I do not want them to skew the results. Thus I’m going to drop all one-year coaches and estimate the rest of the hazard curve. The model also includes controls for NCAA appearances, as discussed last week.

The next table shows an estimate of the probability a coach will be fired at any point in time. Again, the blue data are hires of D1 head coaches and the red data are the other hires.

The results are only borderline statistically significant, but the results do match expectations. Coaches hired from the NBA or assistant ranks, that have not been D1 head coaches lately, are more likely to struggle and be fired.

When a BCS school hired someone without a recent NCAA appearance, was he more likely to get fired?

Next I include a control for whether the coach made the NCAA tournament in the year prior to taking their current job. And the graph looks very similar to the graph above. But in fact, the result is driven by the graph above. It is the lack of success by assistants and NBA types that makes previous NCAA tournament appearances meaningful.

When I contrast only D1 head coaching hires, the tournament effect disappears. For D1 head coaches that move to new programs, whether they made the tournament the previous year or not has no measurable effect on their future job security.

Now this doesn’t mean that any D1 coach could just step into a BCS job and do well. But it does say that the candidates that get hired without a recent NCAA tournament appearance have demonstrated their ability in other ways. Brad Brownell may not have that signature NCAA tournament appearance lately, but he’s proven he can win at Wright St. regardless. And Clemson fans should not worry that a 2nd place Horizon league finish is a permanent black mark on their new coach.

I tend to think people jump on the bandwagon a little bit too much based on one or two tournament upsets. I prefer to look at the larger body of work for any coach. But there is some information in an NCAA tournament run. Coaches that make the NCAA tournament and win in the tournament do demonstrate something about their ability to build a winning team.

And in fact when I control for NCAA wins in addition to appearances, a run in the tournament does predict future success to some degree. But based on my small sample and the large variation in coaching outcomes, the results remain statistically insignificant.

When a BCS school hired someone directly from a small conference, was he more likely to get fired?

Next I break out small majors, mid-majors, and high majors and see if any groups are more or less likely to keep their jobs. I find that there is not a statistically significant difference between the three groups.

To directly address my small school question, here is a graph of the raw survival data comparing small schools (in red) to the others (in blue.)

Again, this does not mean that any small school coach could step into a BCS job and thrive. But the small school coaches that are selected are often quality candidates.

And believe it or not, you can succeed even if you come out of a small conference and did not make the NCAA tournament. Did you know that both Mike Montgomery and Ben Howland were both initially hired to BCS leagues directly from the Big Sky conference? And did you know that neither played in a post-season tournament the year before they were hired? Tad Boyle seems like a bit of a reach, but if he succeeds after being pulled from Northern Colorado, it would certainly not be unprecedented.

More thoughts

I still question the Boyle hire for another reason. In four years at Northern Colorado, Tad Boyle’s teams have played mostly atrocious defense. I realize the defense improved somewhat in his final year, but I think a quality defensive coach would have made more of an imprint in four years.

But is this fear valid? This is also a testable hypothesis. Do coaches with horrible adjusted defense at their previous school struggle in BCS leagues? Sadly, we only have seven years of tempo free stats on kenpom.com, so we do not have a large enough sample size to do this issue justice.

Also, while the above numbers make the Fred Hoiberg hire appear to be the most suspect, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Just because certain non-traditional hires have failed in the past, does not mean any specific hire will not work out. Any of these coaches can still prove to be great or prove to be mediocre.

Boring Data Notes:
-When defining mid-majors, I use a variation of Kyle Whelliston’s red line. Small schools are in conferences with avg MBB budgets under 1.4 million, mid-majors are from 1.4-2.4 million, and high majors are 2.5 million and above.
-I forgot to mention it last week, but much of the data is censored. Obviously we do not have data after 2010, so we do not know how things will end for many coaches. But the model accounts for this. It only uses coaches to estimate the shape of the curve in the years for which the coach has data.
-Also, I am only estimating the probability of being fired, not the probability of taking a new job voluntarily. Coaches that voluntarily leave are also treated as censored.

Coaching Myths and Truths

2010-06-27T00:50:00.013-04:00

If you ask most college basketball fans they would probably tell you that it is much harder to be a college basketball coach today than it was in the past. The days of Gene Keady and Tom Davis coaching forever seem like a distant memory. Today’s coaches either win now or find another line of work.

Three statements certainly seem true:
1) Coaching turnover is worse than it has ever been.
2) BCS coaches face much worse pressure than non-BCS coaches.
3) You need to win to make the NCAA tournament.

But do the historical data really support those statements? To answer these questions, I built a database of coaches in the 64+ team NCAA tournament era, 1984-2010. Coaching data is readily available from a number of sources including ESPN’s College Basketball Encyclopedia, sports-reference.com, statsheet.com, and Wikipedia. Sadly all are incomplete in some way, and there are various inconsistencies between the various databases. If you want more details on the data, see a very boring section at the end of this post.

Let’s start by looking at whether turnover is worse than it was in the past. Table 1 graphs the percentage of coaching turnover each year. Table 1 also breaks turnover into its two components, BCS jobs and non-BCS jobs.* Of the 347 schools that participated in D1 last season, 51, or 14.7% will have new coaches this fall.**

Table 1

The first trend in Table 1 is that coaching turnover has been roughly stable over time. Perhaps due to the recession it tapered off substantially last summer, but the last five years are very consistent with the historical levels of turnover.

Table 1 also breaks the turnover into the BCS and non-BCS component. Obviously more non-BCS coaches lose their job every year because there are more non-BCS jobs. But do non-BCS coaches have a higher probability of being fired? Table 2 looks to answer this question. Table 2 separately shows the amount of BCS turnover as a percentage of BCS jobs and the amount of non-BCS turnover as a percentage of non-BCS jobs.

Table 2

A few trends are apparent in Table 2.
-2009 had the lowest non-BCS turnover rate on record. Thanks to the recession, barely 10% of non-BCS coaches were replaced last summer.
-In the late eighties and early nineties, the amount of BCS turnover briefly reached even lower levels.
-Turnover is very similar between BCS and non-BCS positions. If anything, BCS turnover rates are minimally lower.

Sadly I don’t have documentation on all the coaching changes back to 1985. Thus I don’t know how many of these changes were voluntary and how many coaches were forced out for poor performance. But other details in the data can tell us something about why the job change happened.

Of the 1272 coaches to change jobs,
-946 did not start another head coaching job immediately
-326 jumped to a new Division 1 head coaching position

Of those without another job, some like Tom Brennan of Vermont voluntarily retired. But I think we can assume that the vast majority of these 946 changes are situations where the coach was forced to leave.***

Of the 326 coaches to move to a new job
-37 moved from a BCS job to another BCS job

-148 moved from a non-BCS job to another non-BCS job
Besides the BCS conferences, the most common conferences to hire D1 coaches away from other conferences include the MWC, A10, MVC, CUSA, and the CAA. Other elite leagues like the WAC, Horizon, and WCC have not traditionally hired many coaches away from other schools.

-115 moved from a non-BCS job to a BCS job
These are the yearly success stories.

-26 moved from a BCS job to a non-BCS job
These are another type of failure. Certainly some non-BCS jobs are very prestigious today. Think Memphis, Gonzaga, ect. But I’ve looked over the 26 moves from BCS to non-BCS jobs and none of them appear to be a move to a more prestigious position. Some like Greg McDermott moving to Creighton from Iowa St. might have been a mutual agreement, but I would classify all 26 of these moves as a situation where the coach was forced to leave.

Tenure at the Time of Termination

I’d next like to document some facts about the coaches that were forced out. (These are the 26 coaches who moved down to a non-BCS conference and the 946 coaches who lost their job and did not have another D1 coaching job immediately.)

First, I’m going to calculate the tenure of each coach. Sadly, I do not have clean data prior to 1984-85, so I do not know the tenure of all coaches in the early years of my data. But starting in 1994, I can make at least a 10-year tenure calculation.

Of the 650 coaches forced out starting in 1994,
55 had 1 year tenure
45 had 2 years tenure
64 had 3 years tenure
85 had 4 years tenure
81 had 5 years tenure
72 had 6 years tenure
46 had 7 years tenure
33 had 8 years tenure
35 had 9 years tenure
134 had 10 or more years of tenure

A few notes:
-Year 1 is somewhat high because of the large number of interim head coaches in my sample.
-The data also includes many assistants who take over when a long-term coach leaves the school. It appears that these assistants make up a disproportionate fraction of the coaches released in Year 2. Perhaps these coaches get a shorter leash because they were expected to recruit while they were an assistant.
-The peak in terminations appears to be year 4, 5, and 6. But this is a bit misleading. The denominator, the number of jobs that still exist in year 7 and 8 is much smaller. Even though the number of terminations is smaller, that’s also because the number of coaches who make it this far is smaller. As an alternative, let’s estimate the probability a coach will survive to various points in time.

I re-define my exercise as follows: Assume you were hired after 1984-85 to a D1 team****. What is the probability you would survive to various points in the tenure clock?

One advantage of asking the question this way is that I do not have to wait to start using data until 1994. Table 3 shows a step-function with the probability you would survive to various points in the tenure clock.

Table 3

Obviously the odds you survive 10 years are fairly low. But what is the probability you get fired at any single point in time? Table 4 graphs the probability you are fired as a smooth curve.

Table 4

Table 4 estimates a smooth curve and that curve suggests that job separations do not begin to decline until after year 7.

Now clearly at this point, a number of factors can influence whether a coach keeps his or her job. Some of them are easily quantifiable, such as wins. Others are harder to quantify, such as expectations. (Expectations may depend on school prestige, recruiting success, and the interest level of the Athletic Director, which is certainly hard to measure.)

But for today I’m going to stick to a simple question. Does making the NCAA tournament improve a coach’s chances of keeping his or her job?

I estimate a model based on the percentage of seasons the coach has made the NCAA tournament at any point in time. I could obviously graph a number of lines, but to keep the graphs easy to read, I’m just going to show the estimates for two situations. In blue, I show the probability the coach is fired if he never makes the NCAA tournament. In red, I show the probability the coach is fired if he makes the NCAA tournament 50% of the time.

I’m going to look at non-BCS coaches and BCS coaches separately. Tables 5 and 6 show the non-BCS coaches. Tables 7 and 8 show the BCS coaches.

Table 5 and 6: Non-BCS Coaches

Table 5 and 6 shows that making the NCAA tournament half the time in a non-BCS job ensures almost perfect job security. The red line is close to zero in Table 6.

Table 7 and 8: BCS Coaches

Table 7 shows that if you never make the NCAA tournament in a BCS job, the probability you survive a decade is extremely low. (There are exceptions. See Bill Carmody.)

Table 8 also shows that simply making the NCAA tournament half the time does not provide as much job security in a BCS job. It certainly is a lot better to make the tournament half the time instead of never at all, but many coaches make the tournament half the time and still get fired.

Notice that the odds of getting fired from a BCS job always appear higher. But this is conditional on how often you make the NCAA tournament. And because BCS coaches make the tournament much more frequently, BCS coaches are much closer to their red line and non-BCS coaches are much closer to their blue line. As we saw in Table 2, the overall level of turnover is roughly equivalent.

You may wonder whether survival probabilities would reach 100% if the coach made the tournament every season. The answer is clearly no. Just ask recent Arizona head coaches Kevin O’Neil and Russ Pennel. Or ask Jim Harrick who made the tournament every year at UCLA but was fired for lying to NCAA investigators. Making the tournament matters, but it is not the only thing you have to do to keep your job.

Nonetheless, Tables 5-8 show that the data support the popular perception. Making the NCAA tournament is very important for keeping your job. And this is particularly true if you coach in a BCS conference.

A Few Extremely Boring Notes

* The BCS didn’t exist in 1984-1985, but I count ACC, Big 10, Big East, SEC, Big 12, and Pac-10 members as BCS schools all the way back to 1984-85. Some schools joined a BCS conference in the middle of the database. See Miami FL, Penn St., Rutgers, Virginia Tech, ect. I list these schools in a BCS conference only after they joined a BCS conference. For the Big 12, I had a choice to make about whether to count the Big 8 or SWC as a historical BCS conference. Because many of the SWC schools are not in a BCS conference today, I count only Big 8 schools as being in a BCS school historically and not SWC schools.

**In my merged database, if an interim coach served most of the season, I count two coaching changes. For example, when Minnesota coach Dan Monson was replaced by Jim Molanari early in the 2006-2007 season, I credit that season to Molinari and count a second coaching change when Tubby Smith took over in 2007-08. I do this because when trying to understand coaching styles (tempo, bench utilization, ect.), I want each season to count towards the coach who was actually managing the team.

Besides the obvious impact on volume, this can also alter the timing of some job changes. For example, Jerome Allen actually took over at Pennsylvania as an interim head coach during the 2009-2010 season. (And I use the 2009-2010 data to try to understand his style-of-play.) But most sources do not credit him as officially becoming head coach until this summer. Since he took over early last year, I refer to 51 coaching changes this summer instead of the 52 reported elsewhere.

***You might think I could identify the Tom Brennan voluntary seperations by finding coaches with winning records or some other metric. But that is not as clean as it first appears. Due to NCAA violation issues, graduation issues, and unrealistic expectations, even winning coaches can get forced out.

****I also include coaches whose teams moved to D1, but only after they move to D1. For example, Doug Knoll took over at IPFW during the 1999-2000 season and the school began playing D1 hoops in 2001-2002. Thus I do not include him in the database until 2001-2002, but I do count him as a third year head coach in 2001-2002.

"Mutter Ineffectually" is Usually my Policy

(That's a nod to John Gasaway for those of you who don't recognize it.) I maintain this blog in my spare time and I would like to stay a happily married man so I’m trying to avoid joining Twitter and I rarely respond to email promptly.

But one thing that makes me sad is that I do not have enough time to link to other great statistical articles on college basketball. Linking is very important and I sincerely thank everyone who has linked to me over the years. (A single Luke Winn Top 25 can keep me motivated for weeks.) Thus if you have something statistical that you think would interest me, please send me an email to DLHANNER at GMAIL dot COM.

Recently Villanova By the Numbers managed to contact me and remind me that I’m not the only one writing about the coach hiring process. Do you know how often coaching changes happen after the spring signing period? Did you know that sometimes D1 coaches take assistant coaching positions voluntarily? Here’s Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the VTBN series.