Big Ten Geeks

This space is on hiatus

2009-11-12T06:55:00.000-08:00

You can find us here, however.

But I Can't Work in Fast Food All My Life

2009-11-11T07:56:00.000-08:00

We told you we were moving, and here's the scoop: we're going to be blogging for the BigTenNetwork.com this season (and hopefully, beyond). We hope this is the beginning of a great partnership. But we understand there might be concerns, so here's our best attempts to answer those:

Why the Change? Well, the expectation is that we'll get more readers this way. We're proud of the loyal audience that we have here, but you still have to dig a bit into the tempo-free blogosphere in order to find us. We're hoping that won't be the case once we make the move. We're also secretly hoping we can get Gene Keady to mention "turnover percentage."
Will the Content Change? Heavens no! As a condition for making this change, Mike & I made sure that we weren't going to be mouthpieces for a corporation, and that we could still write what we wanted to about college basketball. If Ohio State doesn't play defense this season, we're going to write about it. And Thad Matta will just have to deal.
What about next year? We don't know yet. I think both sides of this are feeling things out, so think of this season as a trial period. If it doesn't work out, we'll just come back here to bigtengeeks.com. As a sidenote, we'll keep this site up and alive in case you need anything.
So, what do we, the readers, get out of this? There are some things that we're hoping come to fruition as a result of this partnership. For example, we're hoping we can bring some live coverage, highlights, and maybe even get some dialogue out of the BTN.com analysts. And though not related to the partnership, we have some new ideas for the season that we think you'll enjoy. We always want to be improving.
You guys are sellouts. We didn't sell out, we bought in. Seriously though, we genuinely appreciate all of the readers and support we've received. We honestly thought it would just be our friends, and probably not even half of them, that would read this blog. We're truly humbled by the feedback, and we want to especially thank all of those blogs (most of which appear in the sidebar) and major media outlets (thanks, Luke Winn!) that gave us a look, and a link. We won't forget it.

Starting tomorrow, you can find us here. We'll kick off with our predictions on the season. See you then.

And Boom Goes the Dynamite

2009-11-10T06:46:00.001-08:00

Evan Turner became the second player in Ohio State history to record a triple double in the Buckeyes' 100-60 win over Alcorn State. As Mike alluded to yesterday, it's hard to take anything away from early season games like this. That said, OSU posted an offensive efficiency (1.39) that was higher than any figure in any game they played last year. Then again, you knew the Buckeyes were probably going to be good offensively. While we're telling you things you already knew, take note that these Buckeyes can shoot (63.0 eFG last night). Turner's performance (14/17/10) is indeed praiseworthy, but how about Jon Diebler? 22 points on 10 shots (in 24 minutes) - not bad. Box score.

And if you haven't heard, there's a book out that you should buy. I can't quibble with the predictions much. In fact, I expect Gasaway's Indiana Prediction Accuracy Index to improve quite a bit this season.

2009-10 Season Begins - Ohio State vs. Alcorn State

2009-11-09T10:38:00.001-08:00

Amazingly, the 2009-10 regular season is upon us, as the Ohio State Buckeyes prepare to take the floor tonight against the Alcorn State Braves (7pm, Big Ten Network). This game is part of the Coaches vs. Cancer event, which will see the Buckeyes head to New York next week for some marquee match-ups (North Carolina and California/Syracuse). Tonight’s game, however, figures to be little more than a tuneup for Ohio State, as Alcorn was among the worst teams in the nation last season (340^th in Pomeroy rank) and will be forced to give significant minutes to true freshmen (8 of the 15 players on the roster are frosh). Indeed, Alcorn has already lost an exhibition game to NAIA Tougaloo College – by 23 points!

Alcorn’s best returning players are 6’3’’ sharpshooter Jonathan Boyd (103.6 ORtg, 21.6 Shot%, 40.3% from downtown) and 6’8’’ 255 rebounder JaMarkus Holt (80.9 ORtg, 20.7 Shot%, 8.8/16.5 OR/DR). The Braves played very fast last season (6^th nationally in adjusted tempo), and it appears from their exhibition games that new head coach Larry Smith is not changing that approach. This could potentially be the highest scoring game of the season for the Buckeyes, rust aside.

So what numbers should we be watching for from Ohio State? Well, considering the competition level, we won’t be able to divine much from this one game – remember that last year’s early 59-22 shellacking of Samford ranked Ohio State as an elite defensive team for much of the first month, and they only ended up at 65^th nationally in defensive efficiency. David Lighty’s injury had something to do with this, but most of it was simply small sample size. So, with that in mind, we’ll try to view the numbers in an overarching “early season tea leaves” sense, and say that turnovers and rebounds are the Ohio State numbers to watch. These were big weaknesses for the Buckeyes on both ends of the court last season, and improvement in these areas is mandatory if Ohio State hopes to contend for the title in a deep and improved Big Ten. And maybe the biggest reason to watch is to see if Matta is going to make good on his promise to play more man-to-man this season.

All analysis aside, let’s all take a deep breath and appreciate one simple fact – college basketball is back. Hallelujah.

Fun with Rosters!

2009-11-05T08:41:00.001-08:00

With the season fast approaching, we thought we'd utilize the updated 2009-10 rosters (along with a few of last year's conference numbers) for some interesting lists. So, without further ado...

Mixing it up with the trees (best defensive rebounders below 6'3''):

Player	Height	DR%
Talor Battle	6-0	15.4
Devan Dumes	6-2	11.9
Jason Bohannon	6-2	10.8
Trevon Hughes	6-1	10.5
Al Nolen	6-1	10.3

Talor Battle's rebounding is awfully impressive and puts him among the best "little man" rebounders in the nation. Among the top 200 Pomeroy teams from last season, only three players under 6'3'' posted a better DR% than Battle while playing significant minutes - Jared Quayle (Utah State), Alex Renfroe (Belmont), and Lester Hudson (Tennessee Martin). With Renfroe graduated and Hudson in the NBA, Battle could be the best rebounding little man in the nation.

If only I had his height... (worst defensive rebounders above 6'7''):

Player	Height	DR%
Keaton Nankivil	6-8	8.9
Kyle Rowley	7-0	10.8
Mike Tisdale	7-1	11.4
Andrew Brommer	6-9	11.7
Dallas Lauderdale	6-8	11.9

When really tall guys struggle, whether it be in the NCAA Tournament or at the YMCA, men of normal stature (or less) love to speculate as to how dominant they would be with those extra inches. Nevermind that increased height brings its own set of challenges, especially for those still developing their game. Case in point - the only player on this list that is over 20 years old is Lauderdale, who just recently turned 21. It's tough to play a big man with a DR% below 12, but there's still time for these gentlemen to get their mitts on a larger share of caroms.

The slimmest of frames (pounds per 6 feet of height, excluding walk-ons):

Player	Team	Height	Weight	Lbs/6Ft
Tim Frazier	Penn State	6-1	160	158
P.J. Hill	Ohio State	6-1	165	163
Jeremie Simmons	Ohio State	6-2	170	165
Rob Wilson	Wisconsin	6-4	175	166
Talor Battle	Penn State	6-0	170	170
Matt Vogrich	Michigan	6-4	180	171
Darius Morris	Michigan	6-4	180	171
Ryne Smith	Purdue	6-3	178	171
Verdell Jones	Indiana	6-5	183	171

It can be difficult for us normal-sized humans to put a player's weight in perspective. After all, our best frame of reference is our body, which for most of the population measures less than 6 foot in length. So, to give that improved perspective, we've prorated each player's weight into a 6-foot frame. It appears that Penn State and Ohio State have cornered the market on slight-of-frame guards, and I don't think either team would complain (especially Penn State!).

The beefiest of the beefy (pounds per 6 feet of height, excluding walk-ons):

Player	Team	Height	Weight	Lbs/6Ft
Derrick Nix	Michigan State	6-8	280	252
Kyle Rowley	Northwestern	7-0	280	240
Sandi Marcius	Purdue	6-9	261	232
Dallas Lauderdale	Ohio State	6-8	255	230
Ian Markolf	Wisconsin	7-1	270	229
Jarryd Cole	Iowa	6-7	250	228
Ben Cronin	Michigan	7-0	265	227
Brennan Cougill	Iowa	6-9	255	227
Colton Iverson	Minnesota	6-10	258	227
Zisis Sarikopoulos	Ohio State	7-1	265	224
Royce White	Minnesota	6-8	249	224

The same method was used here, pro-rating each player's weight onto a 6-foot frame. The takeaway here: Derrick Nix is a BIG BOY. All that bulk didn't stop Nix from having a successful exhibition debut, scoring 13 points on 6 shots and grabbing 5 boards in 13 minutes. Notice that 7 of the 11 bulkiest players are newcomers to conference play (I'm including Markolf and Cronin) - the Big Ten is getting a lot Bigger this season.

Home States of Big Ten Players (2009-10 official rosters):

We used the home state listed on the online rosters as gospel, so there's no accounting here for players that moved around a lot (D.J. Richardson, for example, is listed as an Illinois native despite playing in Las Vegas his senior year). Note that Illinois and Indiana natives comprise nearly a third of the conference (54 of 166 players), although that's not particularly surprising when you consider that 4 of the 11 teams (36%) are from these states. It's also interesting that there are more players in the conference from outside the United States (10) than from Pennsylvania (8), Wisconsin (7), or Iowa (5). Heck, there's nearly as many players from Texas, New York, or Arizona as there are from Iowa (4 from each). Does the Hawkeye state just not produce much basketball talent, or do they matriculate elsewhere?

Another interesting question: which schools dedicate the biggest chunk of their rosters to in-state talent?

Team	In-state players	Total players	Percentage in-state
Purdue	13	17	76%
Illinois	9	14	64%
Michigan State	9	15	60%
Northwestern	8	15	53%
Ohio State	8	15	53%
Michigan	8	16	50%
Penn State	8	17	47%
Indiana	7	16	44%
Minnesota	6	14	43%
Wisconsin	5	15	33%
Iowa	4	12	33%

Purdue leads in this measure by a wide margin, while their in-state rival Hoosiers are towards the bottom. Clearly, some of Tom Crean's recruiting decisions were driven by the fact that he basically had no roster when he arrived, but it's interesting to see nonetheless. This could show, in some way, the benefit that Purdue has derived from Indiana's recent turmoil (the end of the Mike Davis era and the rocky Kelvin Sampson era). I'd expect Indiana's in-state percentage to increase over the next few years, at the possible expense of Purdue's, as the Hoosiers become bigger players in Indiana recruiting.

Another interesting tidbit - there are eight Big Ten players from Pennsylvania, and every single one decided to, as JoePa would say, "COME TO PENN STATE!!" Nittany Lion fans can watch the entire Big Ten season without ever cheering against a Pennsylvania player - even Iowa, whose state has produced just 5 current Big Ten players, let a player get out-of-state and onto an opposing Big Ten roster (Jason Bohannon at Wisconsin). Wouldn't Iowa fans love to have Bohannon in Lickliter's offense right about now?

None and Done

2009-11-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

For some reason, it seems like the "one-and-done" rule gets a lot of attention this time of year. Certainly I'm guilty of writing about this subject in the fall, and here I am doing it again. But anytime college basketball makes the Times' opinion page, it's going to bring bloggers out of the woodwork. Bissinger and Gasaway probably agree on a few things, but one of them is that one-and-done needs to go. Frankly, I'm of the same opinion. But it strikes me as odd that neither of them follows the money.

Bissinger alleges that Stern's reasons for backing the one-and-done rule (and the proposed "two-and-through") are two-fold. First, it's to protect NBA GMs from themselves. The scars of Kwame Brown and Korleone Young still haven't healed, so the argument goes, and one-and-done is the Sabarnes-Oxley to those Enron-level disasters. Second, Bissinger argues that one-and-done is a sort of handout to the NCAA, forcing superstar high schoolers into collegiate gyms, boosting school revenue.

Gasaway endorses the first line of reasoning, but rejects the second. He points out that the NCAA revenue is largely fixed well in advance of any signatures on letters-of-intent. There's the counterpoint that it doesn't really matter who the great freshmen are, or where they go to school - the NCAA wins if they simply know that every single season, the best high schoolers in the game join the college ranks. And that's fair as well. But even if you accept that the NCAA benefits financially from one-and-done (and given the late Myles Brand's support for one-and-done, I think it's fair to reach that conclusion), you have to wonder why David Stern would want to subsidize the NCAA in this elaborate and complicated manner. I mean, can't he just write a check? He's not above doing that, certainly.

Actually, I think Brand has it right on Stern's motivations. In the midst of endorsing a two-and-through arrangement, and buried in the article, Brand notes one of the benefits of more years in school:

The marketability of the stars would be increased in that they would be better known before beginning their professional careers.

Well, I can't disagree with that, I certainly said as much last year. No one knows where Dwight Howard or Amare Stoudemire went to high school; we all know where Derrick Rose went to college. If draft picks are well-known by the public before they ever play their first professional game, there's certainly the possibility that more butts will be in the seats. It certainly makes more sense than an overwhelming need to protect some of the sharpest businessmen (DeJuan Blair's draft night notwithstanding) in the country from their own bad decisions.

Unfortunately for Mr. Stern, the NBA does not own a worldwide monopoly over professional basketball. The most famous reminder of this fact might be Brandon Jennings. Jennings opted to play ball in Rome rather than suffer the indignity of going to English 101 for a semester while playing basketball for free. Some have pointed out that Jennings didn't necessarily go to Europe for the money, rather it was simply the case that he didn't qualify. Of course, since when has a top point guard needed a qualifying test score in order to play college basketball? No, if Jennings wanted to play college ball, I'm quite sure he would have found a way. But he opted to take his game overseas. And as far as I can tell, he stunk in Europe. And even though there were reports that his game was advancing, there was a lot of smugness waiting for Jennings stateside.

But then something interesting happened - turns out, Jennings is really good. Through his first 3 NBA games, Jennings is averaging 22 points (18 shots per game) and 5.3 assists. Not bad for a rail-thin rookie in his first week. And as good as Jennings was in high school, it's hard to imagine that he was this good. The most plausible conclusion is that Jennings got better overseas. Now, it's true that he might have hurt his draft stock. Though he was taken 10th overall, it's certainly possible that he would have been drafted higher if he played in the Pac-10 instead. But keep in mind, Jennings was the test case. There was a lot of uncertainty and concern over his European numbers. Jennings may have cost himself some money, but he also might have made some money for the likes of Jeremy Tyler.

And therein is the lesson for Mr. Stern. Jennings' success might tempt other superstar high school seniors (and juniors!) to follow his lead. Now that NBA teams know that players can get better overseas, the fact that a 19 year old played in Madrid rather than Memphis shouldn't be a reason to not draft him. And getting paid a couple million euros can't hurt, either. Time will tell if Jennings & Tyler remain the exception, rather than the rule. But Mr. Stern is on notice - players like Jennings & Tyler want to be paid to play basketball. And it's entirely his choice whether they play in his league or in Europe.

They Grow Up So Fast

2009-11-02T06:31:00.000-08:00

We didn't invent tempo-free stats. Neither did John Gasaway, Ken Pomeroy, or even Dean Oliver. Best we can tell, some guy who won a few games in North Carolina did. The fact that tempo-free stats aren't new should not come as a surprise. They're not terribly difficult to understand, and most are pretty easy to calculate as well. And moreover, they seem to illuminate productive basketball moreso than the traditional "per game" stats. So of course coaches (who tend to understand basketball pretty well) know about these things. Maybe that's why the tempo-free revolution that was to be televised has been met with a collective "ho hum" from the industry. Some of these stats already litter your local head coaching office, and probably did before Dean Oliver ever wrote his book. And this nugget, which I hope to illustrate in this post, is already something very well-known among coaches:

"The best thing about freshmen is that they become sophomores."

Al McGuire said that, and he was absolutely correct. As much as freshmen titillate with potential, they spend even more time frustrating coaches with uneven play. Freshmen commit more turnovers, miss more shots, are more timid in the offense, rebound less, etc. In general, freshmen are the worst class of player in college basketball.

But everyone reading this blog already knows that. The more interesting question is how much further back are freshmen relative to sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Or, put differently, how much we can expect freshmen to improve as sophomores? And how much we can expect sophomores to improve as juniors? And so forth with juniors to seniors.

And that's how I spent my summer (ok, I had an intern helping. And by "intern" I mean "college-aged family member who slept on my couch all summer.") -- looking at the statistical profiles of every BCS conference player who first stepped on campus between 2000 and 2005 (i.e., the last group's senior year was last season), with some additional filters:

No players with less than 10% Minute Percentage as a Freshman: In this study, the freshman year is the baseline number. We're measuring change, and that measurement is no good if you can't get a reliable relative point. Ten percent is arbitrary, admittedly.

Omit successive years with less than 10% Minute Percentage: Again, I didn't want small samples polluting the data.

Omit one-and-done players: Again, the measurement is change. A player has to give me at least one change data point to be considered.

No transfers: By and large, transfers not only change schools, but significantly, levels of competition. The most common transfer was from a BCS school to a low-level conference school. When the numbers improve, it's impossible to separate player development from the change in the competition level.

Conference games only: My affinity for conference game numbers is well-documented in this space. The idea is to try our best to hold the level of competition constant.

Results

The big, overarching conclusion is this: a player shows the most improvement between his freshman and sophomore seasons than he does any other offseason. In fact, the freshman offseason improvement is, on average, greater than the improvement between a player's sophomore season and his senior season. That's not to say every player follows this pattern. There are lots and lots of exceptions, and this is no hard-and-fast rule. It's just a remark about the averages. And frankly, that's all we do around here, play the averages.

Pretty graphs below (going left-to-right is freshmen to sophomore to junior to senior):

The pattern is clear in all of the graphs, and perhaps most striking in the Shot% and TO% graphs, where a logarithmic growth & decline are shown (Keep in mind, this doesn't contradict Pomeroy's earlier work on shot percentage - that range is showing a pretty narrow band between 18% and 20.2%).

And now, to bring on home to why our readers should care. For that, I bring you the 2008-09 Fighting Illini. This team won 24 games after going 16-19 the year before. Yes, a lot of that was bad luck (or "bad DeChellis" if you prefer), but the Illini also lost 1/3 of the minutes from that 16-19 team. It's not like everyone came back. Another key piece in the Illini's resurgence is that 48% of the minutes were played by sophomores. In other words, 48% of the minutes were played by guys who figured to improve the most. And they did.

So what does that mean for this season? Well, nothing definitive, but we have started factoring this into our analysis of the teams for this season. And this graph should prove handy for others who want to do so as well:

(Note: In this table, I counted Alex Legion as a sophomore for the upcoming season, even though that's not technically accurate. Laval Lucas-Perry played in 5 games at Arizona, Legion played in 6 at Kentucky. It didn't make sense to treat them differently.)

As the graph shows, Illinois figures to be at the other end of the spectrum this season. Not surprisingly, Indiana laps the field. And maybe the people ranking Michigan and Minnesota (#15 and #18, respectively, in the initial coaches' poll) aren't so crazy after all.

Preview of the Wisconsin 09-10 Season

2009-10-30T06:33:00.000-07:00

08-09 Overall Record: 20-13
08-09 Conference Record: 10-8 (T-4th)
09-09 Conference Efficiency Margin: +0.08 (2nd)
Percent of Returning Minutes: 65.2
Percent of Returning Freshman Minutes: 8.2

Of all the previews we've had, this one has to be the most boring to write. And that's not a slam on Wisconsin -- it's praise. Bo Ryan's management of the program all but ensures an effective and consistent team every single year. You could read last year's preview (go ahead, read it), and it would probably give you a pretty good sense of how the Badgers will fare this season. The formula for Wisconsin's success is pretty simple -- recruiting.

That sounds strange to say about a team that doesn't typically reel in McDonald's All-Americans. But there's more than one way to skin a cat (another expression I hate. I mean, is there really some cat-skinning expert out there dispensing knowledge of his trade?). And Ryan's way has been to "balance" his classes. Every year, about 2/3 of the minutes return, and he always seems to have a couple of seniors capable of shouldering a heavy load. Three years ago, it was Kammron Taylor and Alando Tucker. Two years ago it was Brian Butch and Michael Flowers. Last year, it was Marcus Landry and Joe Krabbenhoft. This year, it will be Trevon Hughes and Jason Bohannon. Next year, it will be Jon Leuer and maybe Keaton Nankivil.

So does that mean that we stop there, figure Wisconsin finishes in the top half of the conference, goes dancing, and call it a day? We could, but Badger fans have to read something (especially now that they've all unsubscribed from Vander Blue's Twitter), so we'll give them some good news/bad news analysis.

First, the good news -- offensively, this team should be every bit as strong as they were last season. Sure, losing their best offensive player is a blow, but there are a lot of pieces in waiting. For one, Leuer and Hughes are fully capable of taking a "go-to" amount of shots, so you probably won't see a lot of "desperation possessions" in Madison. Second, guys like Bohannon and Nankivil are very efficient players (so is Tim Jarmusz, who would be downright scary if he somehow were able to keep his efficiency while increasing his shots). Third, although the freshmen didn't play a lot of minutes last season, it was a big class, and it's reasonable to believe that someone could have a big breakout. Add it all up, and Wisconsin should not have difficulties on offense.

Then there's the bad news -- defense. Ryan's defensive philosophy has been to let the other side take shots, but do not let them get more than one per possession. Last year the Badgers were 4th in the nation in defensive rebounding percentage. They won't be that good this season. Part of that is simply because it's hard to repeat elite performances like that, but the bigger reason is that they lose a tremendous rebounder in Joe Krabbenhoft. In conference play, Krabbenhoft was the second-best defensive rebounder, behind Goran Suton. The next best Badger, Leuer, ranked 18th in the conference. After Leuer, the highest returning Badger was Jason Bohannon. I submit that when Jason Bohannon is the second best returning defensive rebounder, there's reason for concern.

The guys most likely to fill Krabbenhoft's minutes (Nankivil, Jarmusz), were not impressive rebounders on the defensive end of the floor. Of course, these things could change. After all, Leuer was a terrible rebounder in his freshman season, and he was decent in that area last year. Furthermore, guys like Ian Markoff and Jared Berggren might be monster rebounders that haven't had a chance to show their abilities yet. All these things, however, are conjecture. Here's what we do know -- Wisconsin was a great rebounding team last year, and they do not return a lot of those rebounds. Expect them to take a step back, but I still anticipate that rebounding will be an overall strength. The good news is that the additions of Markoff and Berggren to the rotation will make Wisconsin taller, which should result in more missed shots.

So that's it folks, 11 season recaps and previews to chew on. As we've been alluding to, the Big Ten should be very good this season. We've still got a lot of ground to cover before the season begins - a Preseason All Big Ten, a list of Breakout players, a look at the nonconference slate, and our predictions on the season are still yet to come. We'll be back Monday.

ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

2009-10-29T13:36:00.000-07:00

Just a heads up - we're going to have some new digs this season. We'll let you know more as soon as we can, but you can rest assured that we aren't leaving the Big Ten for the ACC or anything like that. You can expect the same content, just a new address.

We'll still be here tomorrow morning, pontificating on Wisconsin's upcoming season, if you're into that sort of thing.

Wisconsin Recap of the 08-09 Season

2009-10-29T06:29:00.000-07:00

It seemed like a massive step back. The Badgers went 20-13 last season, a significant drop from their back-to-back 30 win seasons. However, that step was not as large as it seems at first blush. Wisconsin went 10-8 in conference play last year, but based on their point differential, they played like a team that won 12 or 13 conference games. But you don't need to be Pythagoras to recognize that the Badgers had some tough breaks last season. During a 6 game losing streak in January, the Badgers lost two overtime games, a one-point contest against Purdue, and suffered a 3 point loss in Evanston. That means Bo Ryan's team was 8 points away from winning those four, and that Wisconsin was not as average as their record suggested.

But it's still true that the Badgers were not as good as they had been. Although they were second in the league by conference efficiency, it's easy to forget how dominant Wisconsin was in 2007-08, sporting an efficiency margin of 0.18 in Big Ten play. For reference, those 15-3 Michigan State Spartans of last season "merely" posted a 0.13 number. Sure, Michigan State went all the way to the title game, but evaluating the body of work over the season, the 07-08 Badgers might have been even better.

(America likes to settle things on the field. We want playoffs, we want undisputed champions, and when we aren't getting that, Congress gets involved. That's all well and good, and even if I wanted to change that, this is not the time nor the place. But I will point out that there are some side effects to this approach. It means that a .500 team will occasionally win the World Series, that a mediocre 9-7 team can go to the Super Bowl, and that a skinny kid from Akron can send a dominant team home a week early. Whether or not those things are good or bad is entirely a matter of perspective.)

The cause for Wisconsin's fall is apparent -- defense. Specifically, field goal defense. Forced to shoot over the towers of Brian Butch and Greg Stiemsma, opponents shot under 42% on their two pointers. When the team got shorter last season, that figure jumped to 49%. Ryan's scheme has never been about turning teams over. Instead, the Badgers typically rely on creating missed shots and gathering lots of defensive rebounds. They were outstanding on the defensive boards again last year, but there weren't quite as many missed shots as there used to be.

Offensively Marcus Landry had a tremendous senior season, especially during conference play. But it was hardly a one-man show, as five Badgers averaged 9 points or more per game in conference play. Overall, Bo Ryan put together a solid offensive team in Madison, yet again. And yet again, not many people noticed.

That brings me to the "Wisconsin Tax." The following chart details Wisconsin's offensive efficiency under Bo Ryan:

Even at the low points, the Badgers were averaging 1.03 points per possession. That would have ranked 4th in the conference last season. More often, the Badgers find themselves well ahead of that mark. Last year, they were the best offensive team in the conference. No doubt, however, that casual followers of the Big Ten probably don't realize how good Wisconsin usually is at converting possessions into points. Frankly, I think the pace at which Wisconsin plays helps create this perception. The Badgers generally walk it up the floor, and they are content to let the opponent do the same. Pace aficionados can complain all they want about the entertainment value of this approach, but they can't dispute that it can work - Ryan's tremendous success is proof of that. Moreover, the ways in which the offense excels (namely, avoiding turnovers) are not the kind of aesthetically-obvious methods that fit nicely into a 30-second SportsCenter highlight.

But I fear this approach has a harmful element to it as well, because Wisconsin is also perennially underseeded in my opinion.

Year	Pomeroy Rank	NCAA Seed	Should Have Been...
2009	29	12	8
2008	5	3	2
2007	8	2	2
2006	48	9	12
2005	18	6	5
2004	11	6	3
2003	15	5	4
2002	43	8	11

Sure, there were a couple of times when the Committee bailed them out, but generally speaking, Wisconsin gets the short end of it come Selection Sunday. I'm not suggesting Ryan start running a full court trap and attempting high-risk dribble drives. Winning games, after all, is still the highest priority here, and Ryan clearly has found a style that helps his team win. But maybe it's up to the Badger faithful to start some kind of letter writing campaign to their local committee member. Hopefully this practice of taking away 2 or 3 wins away from Wisconsin ends soon. The way the Big Ten is shaping up this season and beyond, Wisconsin probably can't afford to continue shouldering this tax.

Preview of the Purdue 09-10 Season

2009-10-28T06:19:00.001-07:00

08-09 Overall Record: 27-10
08-09 Conference Record: 11-7 (T-2nd)
08-09 Conference Efficiency Margin: +0.07 (T-3rd)
Percent of Returning Minutes: 81.6
Percent of Returning Freshman Minutes: 12.3

I could tell you that Purdue fans should expect big things this year. I could tell you that the Boilermakers return a lot of minutes from a very strong team, and that defensively, they have few peers. I could tell you that, sure, the offense wasn't spectacular, but with another year of experience it should get better. And I could tell you that Purdue is a favorite to win the conference title thanks to their unmatched starting lineup.

But all of those things were true last year, right? So I'll focus instead on what's different.

1. The players that left: Nemanja Calasan was about as soft as they come in the Big Ten. That said, he did figure out how to make the ball go into the hoop in his senior season, which is more than can be said about Marcus Green, who was about 3 inches too short for his skillset. Bobby Riddell was great for converting free throws after technical fouls were called, and for winning games of H-O-R-S-E, but he's overmatched at this level. Overall, the losses were not significant.

2. Hummel's back: It's healthy, right? Hummel may never match the eye-popping efficiency of his freshman season, but simply being on the floor more will represent a big boost to this team. This is especially the case because of Purdue's shaky rebounding.

3. The freshmen: D.J. Byrd appears to be the most talented, but minutes at shooting guard will be tough to come by. The good news is that everyone else is 6-6 or taller, and there's minutes available for anyone who can rebound.

4. Lewis Jackson's eventful offseason: With his legal issues mostly resolved, Jackson's punishment has been handed down: one game suspension.

Assuming things go according to plan, I can see the Boilermakers making some big strides, especially if Keaton Grant and E'Twaun Moore find their shooting strokes. But it would be nice if the Boilers found some offensive rebounding as well. Or shot more 3s. But they ought to do one of the two. While overall the Boilers kept the turnovers in check, a breakdown shows it was a very different story in the conference season:

The offensive rebounding, however, was mediocre throughout the season, despite the fact that Purdue was balanced between 2s and 3s. If Matt Painter expects the rebounding to, well, rebound, then there's no need to change the style. However, if he does not see the offensive rebounding getting much better, perhaps it's time to open up the perimeter attack, which would cut down on the turnovers. This probably depends on which Robbie Hummel shows up, however. The 2007-08 version was an excellent offensive rebounder, last year's version, however, was not. Whatever the case, the "step forward" that Painter is looking for has to take place on offense, because there aren't many more gains to be had on defense.

Purdue Recap of the 08-09 Season

2009-10-27T06:30:00.000-07:00

Was last season really a disappointment? Most experts pegged the Boilers to take the conference crown after the unexpected success of the "Baby Boilers" squad. And although that prediction was a reasonable one, it was nonetheless optimistic for a team that did not have more than 8 players that the coach wanted to play. Yet that's the storyline that's been written about Purdue - Robbie Hummel's back, combined with a lack of a suitable backup, led to the "disappointment" of last season.

But I think that assessment is not completely accurate. For one, Purdue's season was hardly a bad one. They won 27 games (2 more than the season prior), and advanced to the Sweet 16 (a round further than the 07-08 version). And where the Baby Boilers were bounced in the first round in the Big Ten Tournament to an upstart Illini team, the sophomore version won the championship. Maybe it's not the progress envisioned by Boiler fans, but it's progress nonetheless.

Though there is no denying that some things took a step back for the Boilermakers. And sure, part of that was Hummel's injury, that's undeniable. But as we detailed last season, E'Twaun Moore and Keaton Grant did not play up to their 07-08 standards, either:

Player	Shot %	ORtg
07-08 Moore	26.2	115.7
07-08 Grant	19.6	112.7
08-09 Moore	27.2	97.5
08-09 Grant	18.0	97.8

The primary factor behind both regressions was three point percentage. Signs point to Moore's recovery, given his steady and solid free throw percentage, but it's anyone's guess with Grant, who has been all over the place in West Lafayette. Figure he'll hit somewhere in the middle of the two seasons.

Of course, there were significant steps forward last season as well, mostly in the form of JaJuan Johnson. Over the course of 6 months, Johnson transformed himself from "raw project" to "All Conference." He's everything you want in a big man - makes shots, rebounds, draws fouls, makes free throws, and blocks shots, all without turning the ball over too often. Johnson may spend the next year (or two) at Purdue in an effort to make his body look NBA-ready, but from my perspective he already plays at a professional skill level. He's on the short list for player of the year.

The aforementioned Hummel was efficient when he played, but not as efficient the year before. Sure, you can attribute some of that to the injury that lingered throughout the conference season, but you might also attribute it to the difficulty in repeating a performance that included hitting 50% on three pointers. Nonetheless, Hummel does so many things on the court that he's the only player that can seriously challenge Evan Turner in versatility.

As a team, Purdue is clearly coached by a defensive coach. They sported a top-5 defensive efficiency overall last season, and were third in the conference season behind Illinois and Michigan State. However, it was a bit strange to see Purdue's pressing style translate into a conference turnover percentage that ranked 5th in the Big Ten. Indeed, though the defense overall improved, this area took a significant step back. If the Moore and Grant return to form, and the Boilers can recapture some of those turnovers, they'll go far. I'll discuss how far tomorrow.

Preview of the Penn State 09-10 Season

2009-10-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

08-09 Overall Record: 27-11
08-09 Conference Record: 10-8 (T-4th)
09-09 Conference Efficiency Margin: -0.04 (T-8th)
Percent of Returning Minutes: 56.6
Percent of Returning Freshman Minutes: 6.4

For the past two seasons, the win totals of Ed DeChellis' teams have exceeded what we would expect based on their play on the court. And really, this has been a staple of the DeChellis Era:

Season	Actual Conf. Record	Pythagorean Record	Difference
08-09	10-8	7-11	+3
07-08	7-11	4-14	+3
06-07	2-14	3-13	-1
05-06	6-10	5-13	+1
04-05	1-15	2-14	-1
03-04	3-13	2-14	+1

Only in two seasons has a Penn State team coached by Ed DeChellis underperformed relative to its Pythagorean projection. On the whole, DeChellis is up a cool 6 games. If it happens again this year, I'm jumping on Gasaway's bandwagon -- I will no longer call it "luck," I will simply call it "DeChellis."

In fact, the Lions will need a bit of DeChellis magic if they are to avoid a pretty significant dropoff from last season. Not only do they lose a fair amount of minutes, the minutes they lose (mostly in the form of Jamelle Cornley and Stanley Pringle) were responsible for much of the scoring. Furthermore, last year's Penn State team did not feature very many freshmen who could be expected to take big leaps forward in their sophomore seasons. Third, the conference as a whole should be better. And finally, there's the whole prospect of Pythagoras exacting his revenge.

Add it up, and it does not look pretty. But a couple of things could change that. For one, Talor Battle's actual shotmaking ability could start to catch up to his reputation. I mentioned Battle's struggles from the field on Friday, and unless he put in a lot of time working on his stroke over the summer, things could get even worse. That's because instead of devoting resources to guarding the likes of Pringle and Cornley, defenses will be focused almost entirely on stopping Battle. He shot 30% from 3 point range with a couple of very capable scorers threatening to make teams pay for guarding Battle too close -- how much can he be expected to improve now that those two are gone? Ideally incoming freshman Tim Frazier can help take a load off here, as well returning sophomore Chris Babb.

The interior scoring might be in even worse shape. Last year, the general idea was to let Cornley go to work in the paint. This year, the Nittany Lions will have some tall bodies (Jeff Brooks, Andrew Ott, Andrew Jones, and David Jackson should all see some action), but they are either reluctant shooters (Jones and Jackson), poor shooters (Brooks), or both (Ott).

I won't talk about defense here because Penn State is routinely mediocre in that area, and I don't see any reason for that to change, unless Ott improves enough to be on the court long enough to disrupt a healthy amount of shots. Or unless DeChellis changes his "don't foul" scheme to something that better fits his roster. So it'll be up to the offense, yet again, and probably with an assist from some DeChellis fairy dust if this team is going to flirt with the Dance again.

Penn State Recap of the 08-09 Season

2009-10-23T06:37:00.000-07:00

I think the Big Ten owes Penn State an apology. The Nittany Lions were 22-11 (10-8 in conference play) last year come Selection Sunday, and the Committee left them at home. And I have little doubt that a perception of the league (much of it deserved) played into that. Whether it was years of mediocrity, slow play, or heck, even some revenge for Jim Delany's constant meddling with the BCS, Penn State was a team that probably would have gone dancing had they been in some other power conference. It seems crazy to think about now, but pundits were calling the Lions' road win at the Breslin Center a "bad win." That's right - beating the National Runner Up at their own place is somehow less deserving than squeaking out a one point victory over a Wyoming team that went 7-9 in the Mountain West. Consider it punishment for the league as a whole.

Give Penn State credit, however. After receiving the disappointment that they were headed for the NIT, all the Nittany Lions did was go out and win the whole thing. And frankly, most of the games weren't that close, with the exception of the opening victory over George Mason. After the title game, senior Jamelle Cornley lifted his tournament MVP trophy and waved to the fans, creating a scene that summed up his entire career. Cornley was too short for his position, but he always outworked most guys on the floor. From a statistical perspective, he was a capable if unspectacular rebounder, and very good scoring inside the arc. In his senior year, he even developed an outside shot, making 38% of his 50 three point attempts.

That display was nothing compared to the barrage library enthusiast Stanley Pringle unloaded on opponents last season. Pringle shot 45% on his 160 attempts from downtown. Inside the arc was a different story as Pringle shot just 38% on his 2s in conference play.

The final member of Penn State's Big Three is the only one that returns from last season. When most people think of Talor Battle, they probably think of a guy that takes (and makes) a lot of big shots. That's definitely true. Also true is the fact that Battle really isn't that great of a shooter. He shot 36% from the field in conference play (30% on his 3s), down from a 37.2% effort in his freshman season. Battle makes up for this by creating opportunities for others without turning the ball over, and he also gets to the line at a pretty decent clip.

Beyond those three, everyone else was pretty much a role player. But that's going to have to change for next season. One thing that probably won't change with Battle's steady hand is Penn State's distaste for turnovers.

Team	Off. TO% + Def. TO%
Notre Dame	28.1
Connecticut	34.3
Iowa State	34.4
Penn State	35.1
Wisconsin	35.3

Only 3 major conference teams' games featured less turnovers per possession than Penn State's (and yes, Notre Dame led the nation in preventing turnovers on both ends of the floor). As you can imagine, this aspect of Penn State's play has dramatic effects. On offense, it means Penn State was able to score much better than they shot. But it also helped opponents score (and they did, to the tune of 1.04 points per possession in conference play). The Nittany Lions were an elite defensive rebounding team, and they weren't bad at defending shots either. But their real strength was limiting free throw opportunities for opponents (they ranked 2nd nationally in defensive free throw rate). Of course, that's part of the problem - teams that don't foul also tend not to create turnover opportunities. With a tall, slowfooted team that makes shooting in the paint a nightmare (without sacrificing rebounds), it works great (Connecticut is one example here). But for a short team like Penn State? Probably not the best utilization of personnel. PSU figures to get a little taller next season, as guys like Andrew Ott and Jeff Brooks play more, but this is still a short team. Seems like they would do well to pressure the ball more. However they attack it, the defense is going to have to improve to offset the losses of Cornley and Pringle. We'll pick that subject up on Monday.

Preview of the Northwestern 09-10 Season

2009-10-22T07:14:00.000-07:00

08-09 Overall Record: 17-14
08-09 Conference Record: 8-10 (9th)
09-09 Conference Efficiency Margin: -0.04 (T-9th)
Percent of Returning Minutes: 79.1
Percent of Returning Freshman Minutes: 25.4

On paper, everything points to a possible, if not probable, NCAA Tournament berth for the Wildcats. They return a ton of minutes (Craig Moore's departure is the only significant one), have a lot of sophomores with playing time experience, and they're coming off a 17-win season in which they sniffed the bubble.

But there are three things standing in Northwestern's way, as I see it. For one, the conference as a whole should be better (more on that in a later post). The second issue is a bit more hair-raising: have we reached the limits of Bill Carmody's offense? Last year's team was easily his most efficient, and it's not hard to figure out why. The Wildcats shot 39% from 3 point range as a team, and dedicated 42% of their shots to the deep ball. It was enough to make Todd Lickliter and John Beilein green with envy. Not only did they shoot 3s often and well, but they also limited turnovers in true POT fashion, coughing it up on just 17.8% of their possessions.

In short, Northwestern played its style perfectly. But that's the thing - even having done that, the Wildcats "only" ranked 4th in the conference in offensive efficiency. Northwestern's trouble areas are obvious and longstanding. They don't rebound their misses (last in the conference), they don't get to the line (9th in the conference), and they don't shoot 2 pointers well (8th in the conference). These are the classic symptoms of a short team. The bad news is that Northwestern was not short last season. In fact, they were one of the tallest teams in the country, as we noted yesterday. Sure, they were better than they were in 07-08 in these areas, but they were still pretty bad. Ultimately, there are limitations in every offensive scheme, and Carmody's version of the Princeton offense appears to suffer considerably when it comes to "in the paint" stats. Making matters worse is Kyle Rowley's uncertain status after fracturing a bone in his left foot.

All of this means that if the Cats are to improve on last season, most of the gains will be seen on the defensive end. Carmody has some built-in benefits here, however, as his zone consistently creates turnovers. Even when they went 8-22, this was an elite team in terms of getting opponents to cough up the ball. John Shurna's statline indicates he can be a capable defender, and Craig Moore's absence will ensure that he gets a lot of minutes (given Shurna's offensive abilities). Beyond him, Northwestern fans hope that Rowley's defensive presence includes more blocked shots, and less blocked forearms.

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, someone is going to have to start pulling down rebounds. In Big Ten play, opponents grabbed bearly 40% of the available boards on the offensive end. In other words, the average Big Ten team became Michigan State on the glass when playing against Northwestern.

The above graph tracks the offensive rebounding of Northwestern's conference opponents as well as the offensive rebounding of Michigan State. Over the past five years, it's been a coin flip as to whether NU opponents or MSU will have the better offensive rebounding season. Given the amount of time Izzo & his squad put into going after boards, that's a very bad thing. Bill Carmody is certainly aware of the problem, but so far he's been short on solutions. In any case, defensive rebounding figures to play a big part in whether or not Northwestern goes to its first Dance.

Northwestern Recap of the 08-09 Season

2009-10-21T06:52:00.001-07:00

For about four days, Northwestern fans got a taste of what it feels like to be excited about basketball in March. On March 4, the Wildcats upended Purdue (ranked in the top 20 at the time) in West Lafayette. The win pulled the Cats' record to 17-11, and 8-9 in conference play. They were staring down a matchup against Ohio State in Columbus for the regular season finale, and the Buckeyes were coming off a near loss to Iowa. During this four day span, I wonder how many purple sweatshirts made their journey from the back of the closet. Heck, I'm pretty sure I even saw a couple of Vedran Vukusic jerseys in Chicago. I can't blame the fans for being a bit shy about their team -- it's now common knowledge that Northwestern has never before been to the NCAA Tournament. And they really did come so close last season.

But unfortunately, Northwestern didn't win another game after Purdue. They lost at Ohio State, got trounced by Minnesota in the Big Ten Tournament, and Tulsa finally put them out of their misery in the NIT. It's a sad ending to what was a pretty nice story.

The turnaround from 8-22 to 17-14 consisted of a lot of factors. And give Coach Bill Carmody credit, because many of them were his doing. One of the offseason projects from Carmody was clearly to get taller. Northwestern ranked 267th in Effective Height in 2007-08, but they improved to 18th in the country last year. Carmody welcomed five freshmen last season, all of whom were at least 6-5. Three of them instantly became the tallest guys on the team. Here are a few areas where that height helped:

	Northwestern 07-08	Northwestern 08-09
Offensive Rebounding %	20.6	27.5
FTA/FGA	23.8	29.4
Defensive Rebounding %	62.5	64.0
Block %	7.0	9.8

That's across-the-board improvement in all of the areas we would expect height to play a major factor. Well, except one...

Northwestern 07-08
Northwestern 08-09
Opponent Block %
12.0
13.4

Geez, just how many of Michael Thompson's layups are getting swatted?

Mind you, Northwestern wasn't exactly good in any of these categories last year. But they were a cut above "horrific," which is where they were two years ago. Other than those improvements, this was largely the same team. They shot lots of 3s, took care of the ball, and created tons of turnovers with their zone defense. On an individual level, Kevin Coble and Craig Moore provided the bulk of the scoring. Thompson was steady and efficient at the point guard spot, and freshman John Shurna showed flashes.

That said, there's a window here, and it's closing. The Cats lose Moore from last year's team, and after this season they'll lose Coble. After that happens, there might not be enough talent left on the roster to make another run at the Dance. I'll explore Northwestern's chances for this season tomorrow.

Preview of the Ohio State 09-10 Season

2009-10-20T06:48:00.000-07:00

08-09 Overall Record: 22-11
08-09 Conference Record: 10-8 (T-4th)
08-09 Conference Efficiency Margin: +0.02 (5th)
Percent of Returning Minutes: 88.8
Percent of Returning Freshman Minutes: 17.6

Last year, Ohio State was arguably the most talented team in the conference, with seven RSCI top 100 players on the roster. But the pieces didn't fit very well together, and more significantly, that talent was very inexperienced. This year, the team is less talented ("only" 5 RSCI top 100 players remain), but more experienced. The pieces, however, still don't fit very well.

We predicted last year that the Buckeyes would struggle with turnovers due to a lack of a true ballhandler, a prediction that held true. Unfortunately, a steady point guard has not materialized in Columbus, so turnovers will still be an issue this season. However, everyone else returned, and the overall numbers should get better, if still a liability. The point guard responsibilities will likely again fall to Evan Turner, who did an admirable job considering he's ideally suited for the small forward position. For most teams, that situation would result in disaster. For Ohio State, the result was an NCAA Tournament berth, which was due in no small part to Mr. Turner's skills. Simply put, there is no better one-on-one player than Turner in the conference, and probably all of college basketball right now. He's quick and skilled enough to easily drive past big men, and he's tall and strong enough to shoot over smaller players. The "21" number on the back of his jersey is appropriate, considering that it usually takes 2 men to guard the 1 Mr. Turner.

All of that attention devoted to stopping Turner opened things up for the rest of the Buckeye offense, one of the better shooting teams in the country. The 57.2 eFG for Thad Matta's team easily outpaced the league. The difference between Ohio State and the next best shooting team (Northwestern) was greater than the difference between Northwestern and the worst shooting team in the conference (Minnesota).

To be fair, a lot of that shooting came on a result of a play that has been summed up as "Mongo Go To Rim." There really isn't enough information out there to know if Mongo's replacement, Zisis Sarikopoulos (can't wait to see the 10 point font on that jersey), is equally adept with the skill of catch-ball-and-make-go-through-orange-circle, but based on his statline at UAB, we can probably expect a less aggressive player than Mullens, and probably less efficient at scoring when he does shoot.

That's not too much of a problem, however, considering how many other options are present in Columbus. David Lighty returns for his final season after missing most of last year with an injury, though his presence is mostly felt on the defensive end. Jon Diebler regained his shooting touch after a disastrous freshman season, making 46% of his 3-point attempts in conference play last year. However, the biggest piece of the puzzle returning alongside Turner is last year's Freshman of the Year, William Buford. Though he didn't get a lot of credit for it, Buford was every bit as efficient as, say, Eric Gordon was a year before:

Gordon
Buford
Offensive Rating
109.1
108.1
Shot Percentage
28.4
27.6

Although they were different players style-wise (Buford is much more of a pure shooter than Gordon was), the efficiency and usage rates were quite similar. But there is one big difference -- Gordon never returned for his sophomore season (not that you could blame him, given the NBA millions and the circus in Bloomington at the time). Buford figures to improve on his freshman numbers, and he and Turner comprise the best duo in the Big Ten. In short, when this team doesn't turn the ball over, they will be extremely difficult to stop.

Defensively, however, Ohio State was mediocre, and this one I pin on Matta. For three seasons in a row, Matta has had two outstanding shotblockers in his starting rotation. Over that same time period, however, the defense has allowed opponents to make plenty of three point shots. That's excusable -- every defense has a weakness. What I don't understand is why Matta installs a zone defense that encourages opponents to play to OSU's weakness, rather than its strength. This season, Ohio State will again feature outstanding shotblocking talent. Whether or not the Buckeyes get any mileage out of it will depend on the scheme Matta goes with. And there are signs that some changes might be coming.

Regardless, because of this team's offensive ability, the only way this team misses the NCAA Tournament is if Evan Turner goes down (knock on that wood, Buckeye fans). Frankly, the talent and experience is there for this team to compete for the Big Ten title.

Ohio State Recap of the 08-09 Season

2009-10-19T06:59:00.000-07:00

Recapping Ohio State's 2008-09 season is a matter of perspective:

Glass Half Empty: Thad Matta again enters the season with a freshman center after last year's freshman declares for the NBA draft. Without the steady hand of Jamar Butler, the Buckeyes struggle all season along with turnovers. The closest thing to a point guard on the roster transfers after becoming frustrated with his playing time. OSU's most experienced player, David Lighty, sustains an injury and misses the rest of the season. West Virginia pounds the Buckeyes at home. In January, Illinois defeats Ohio State for the first time in 4 years, and in February, they beat them again in Columbus. Defensively, OSU ranks behind Penn State. The Buckeyes sweat it on the bubble before Siena bounces them in the first round of the Tournament. Thad Matta does not recruit a single player for the 2009 class. For the third season in a row, the Buckeyes lose their freshman center to the NBA draft.

Glass Half Full: Thad Matta again enters the season with a McDonald's All-American at center. With do-it-all phenom Evan Turner leading the offensive attack, the Buckeyes jump out of the gate with 9 wins to open the season, including impressive victories over Miami, Notre Dame, and Butler. OSU continues its success in Big Ten season, going 10-8 as freshman William Buford puts on a show. Buford ends up as the conference's freshman of the year, spearheading an impressive shooting display. The Buckeyes advance to the title game of the Big Ten Tournament, and are the last team to defeat Michigan State before the NCAA Championship. Miraculously, Evan Turner postpones his payday to return for his junior season in Columbus. Team cancer B.J. Mullens leaves the team, but everyone else comes back.

The real story is some combination of the two. Whether or not the season is a success depends on your expectations, though I doubt very many in Columbus are clamoring for Matta to leave anytime soon. The guy just recruits too well. In the three classes spanning 2006-08, Matta recruited 11 top 100 RSCI players. Imagine a roster with B.J. Mullens as the backup to the backup center behind Greg Oden. A team with Evan Turner, DaQuan Cook, David Lighty, William Buford, and Jon Diebler at the wings. With Mike Conley backed up by Noopy Crater at the point, and with Dallas Lauderdale as a defensive stopper down low. Frankly, that's an NBA team, and that's been the problem: 5 of those 11 are currently in the NBA. Another one transferred. And there's the rub with recruiting top talent, it doesn't stick around for long.

That makes Matta somewhat a victim of his own success. By recruiting superstars, he increases the likelihood he's going to have to continuously overhaul his roster. And despite the success of the 2006-07 team, most freshmen-dominated teams do not go on deep tournament runs. The attrition that Matta virtually guarantees himself also limits the success of his teams.

And that's why Evan Turner's frustration was so important. In fact, one might argue that Siena's upset for Ohio State last year was actually a good thing. After the game, a frustrated Turner remarked that he felt he had unfinished business to take care of, and that the NBA would have to wait for at least another season. Turner is the best player in Matta's tenure that chose to stay in school, and if the Buckeyes had made it past the first weekend, that might not have happened. Suddenly, the team with the revolving door returns 89% of their minutes. And the portion that they lose (B.J. Mullens) will be replaced by another highly-regarded 7-0 newcomer. Some habits are hard to break.

And Now for Something Completely Different

2009-10-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

Ok, ok, we know what this looks like. You've seen this before. It's starts innocuously enough -- perhaps just some tempo free aerials of other conferences linked discreetly in the sidebar. Maybe a recap of a visit to a mid-major contest. By the end of March, two weeks notice has been given, and then later your ex-girlfriend drops off a forwarding address where she's been shacking up with some weird dude from Utah.

We swear this isn't that. We have no current plans to jump ship. But we do want to show that we have an understanding of college basketball that extends west of Minneapolis, and east of State College. So with that, here's a quick look at the 2009 Pomeroy Top 50, and whether we expect improvement ("Up") or decline ("Down") or neither ("--").

Rank	Team	Up/Down	Comments
1	UNC	Down	UNC loses a lot from last year. How do you replace a guy like Bobby Frasor?
2	Memphis	Down	Memphis sees talent leave, but perhaps more importantly, a pretty good defensive coach (for all his off-the-court controversy) exits as well
3	UConn	Down	This is still a very good team, but one that loses too many minutes to be this high
4	Louisville	Down	It's the loss of Terrence Williams, not Earl Clark, that hurts the most here
5	Pitt	Down	Was DeJuan Blair really a 2nd round pick? Related question: are NBA GMs taking crazy pills?
6	Mizzou	--	Missouri returns a lot more minutes than you might think. Kim English and Marcus Denmon are breakout candidates.
7	Gonzaga	Down	Bouldin is a nice player, but he can't carry the team by himself.
8	MSU	--	The national runner ups will again be dangerous, though catching fire in the Tournament again is hardly a sure thing
9	WVU	Up	Huggins' team returns a ton of minutes from a really good team. Darkhorse title contender
10	Kansas	Up	Memphis' loss is again Kansas' fortune: Calipari's departure led to Kansas nabbing #2 RSCI recruit Xavier Henry
11	Duke	Up	Gerald Henderson is gone, but Singler, Scheyer, and Nolan Smith return. Is this the best PG-less team in the country?
12	UCLA	Down	It's an exodus in Westwood, and the Bruins are rebuilding. A tournament bid is still within reach.
13	Oklahoma	Down	This is Willie Warren's team now. The Sooners do bring in some bulk to help replace the rebounding monster known as Blake Griffin.
14	Villanova	Up	63% of the minutes return, and Jay Wright welcomes one of the country's best recruiting classes.
15	Syracuse	Down	After losing Flynn, Devendorf, and Harris, don't be surprised if Boeheim renews his call for a 128 team tournament.
16	ASU	Down	ASU was the second-best 2 point shooting team in the country last year. Without Harden and Pendergraph, they won't be this season.
17	Washington	Up	For this prediction to pan out, the Huskies will likely have to re-tool the offense without offensive rebounding monster Jon Brockman.
18	Purdue	Up	Step aside, Levance Fields: This year's "He's Still in School?" Award goes to Chris Kramer.
19	Marquette	Down	The Golden Eagles are very young this season, welcoming six new faces.
20	Xavier	Down	Former Hoosier and Internet Legend Jordan Crawford will help fill in the shoes of Anderson, Raymond, and Brown.
21	BYU	Up	The Cougars are loaded, and it won't surprise us if they beat up on 'Zona in the December matchup in Tuscon.
22	Clemson	Up	If Terrence Oglesby had stuck around, this team could have been thinking about a Final Four run.
23	Texas	Up	The Longhorns return over 70% of the minutes and welcome a monster freshman class highlighted by Avery Bradley.
24	Illinois	Down	The shooting in Champaign needs to improve if the Illini are to make the Dance again.
25	Wake Forest	--	Sometimes when you catch lightning in a bottle the lightning decides to declare for the NBA draft.
26	USC	Down	Kevin O'Neill sure has a thing for putting out fires.
27	Georgetown	Up	Monroe's decision to return for his sophomore season should put the Hoyas near the top of the Big East.
28	Oklahoma St.	Down	This is a nice change of pace from the repetitive "I don't care about awards" talk.
29	Wisconsin	--	Despite the bad luck from last year, the record might not improve much given the quality of the conference.
30	Utah	Down	Pack it in: The Utes led the country in defensive rebounding percentage, but were 341st in forcing turnovers.
31	Tennessee	Up	Probably will rank as the best bad shooting team in the country this season.
32	California	Up	Jerome Randle is a frontrunner for the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award.
33	SDSU	Down	There were 5 20-win teams in the Mountain West Conference last year. That was 56% of the conference, but we don't think many noticed.
34	Baylor	--	While the actual quality of the team won't improve all that much this season, the record should better reflect the on-court play.
35	WSU	Down	While we think Klay Thompson will have a huge year, it won't be enough to overcome the loss of the 4 seniors.
36	FSU	Up	Sure, Toney Douglas is gone, but 70% of the minutes came back. Scoring is the concern - this is a defensive powerhouse.
37	Ohio St.	Up	Thad Matta's got a lot of returning minutes? Are we reading this right?
38	Notre Dame	Down	Harangody took 653 shots last season. With all those seniors gone, he might break 700 this year.
39	New Mexico	Down	We're tempted by the amount of returning sophomores with experience, but we think the Lobos finish a hair below last season.
40	Miami	Down	McClinton is a tough player to replace, and the Hurricanes lost a lot more minutes on top of that.
41	Arizona	Down	Nic Wise is an underrated player, but his assist numbers will surely take a dip without Jordan Hill and Chase Budinger.
42	Florida	Up	Superstar recruit Kenny Boynton will take a lot of the sting out of the loss of Calathes, but someone needs to play defense.
43	LSU	Down	Life without Marcus Thornton will be difficult. Cool stat from last year - LSU had only 1 win over a Pomeroy Top 40 team, but still won 27 games.
44	Kansas St.	Down	Some kids got pushed out the door after Frank Martin oversigned last year's class.
45	Butler	Up	Up, up, and away - the Bulldogs return everyone from last year's young and overachieving squad.
46	Texas A&M	Up	Donald Sloan shot 40% on 2 pointers last year, but was 48% on such shots as a sophomore. Expect a turnaround.
47	Temple	Down	Our long, national nightmare is over. Dointe Christmas is gone, and with him go all those bad puns.
48	UAB	Down	The DeMarcus Cousins story is complicated, and should make us think hard about the recruiting process. But surely, it sucks to be Mike Davis.
49	Stanford	Down	The good news: Stanford's performance should be more consistent this season. The bad news: not in a good way.
50	Michigan	Up	Shoot 3s! Share the sugar! Play basketball the John Beilein Way! Rebounding optional.

In addition, here's some teams we feel could break into the Top 50 this season:

Minnesota (#51 last year) - The Gophers return everyone (save for a couple role players), and add a stellar 4-man recruiting class, including RSCI top 50 forwards Royce White and Rodney Williams. Tubby's got depth, and he knows how to use it.
Kentucky (#52 last year) - Needless to say, John Calipari has brought major excitement to Kentucky hoops. Excellent big man Patrick Patterson returns, and he'll be surrounded by an incredible recruiting class that includes 3 of the RSCI top 20 and two other top 100 prospects. The Wildcats will be young, but they'll be oozing with talent.
Maryland (#54 last year) - Another team with tons of returning minutes, Maryland will need to shoot better if they hope to make some noise this season. Greivis Vasquez, for all his great ballhandling and playmaking, could stand to greatly improve his 46.7 eFG%. His superb FT shooting indicates that an uptick is attainable.
Siena (#59 last year) - The Saints lose leader Kenny Hasbrouck, but they otherwise return a lot of experience from a solid team. Hasbrouck's impact may be felt most on the defensive end - on a team that relies on getting steals and not fouling, Hasbrouck was among their best at both. Still, there's enough here for the Saints to challenge for an at-large tourney bid.
Mississippi State (#61 last year) - The Bulldogs would have been a potential top-50 team anyway, with lots of minutes and shot-swatter supreme Jarvis Varnado returning, but they have the potential to really make some noise if PF Renardo Sidney (#7 RSCI) is cleared by the NCAA. Fellow top 100 big man John Riek could provide another boost if he can stay healthy.
Tulsa (#63 last year) - Seven-footer Jerome Jordan is a legit NBA prospect, and he's got a solid sidekick in fellow senior Ben Uzoh. If Glenn Andrews - he of the higher shot diet (26.7%) than 3-point accuracy (25.2%) - can start hitting the broad side of a barn, Tulsa's offense has a chance to catch up to its very solid defense.
Vanderbilt (#77 last year) - A.J. Ogilvy, Jermaine Beal, and a ton of returning freshman minutes - is that enough reason? Oh, did I mention they add SG John Jenkins (#29 RSCI)? This team could be top 25 this season, and even better in 2010-11.

So there you have it, the Geeks go national. We'll be back to our regularly-scheduled midwestern programming on Monday.

Preview of the Minnesota 09-10 Season

2009-10-16T07:03:00.000-07:00

08-09 Overall Record: 22-11
08-09 Conference Record: 9-9 (T-7th)
08-09 Conference Efficiency Margin: +0.01 (6th)
Percent of Returning Minutes: 89.4
Percent of Returning Freshman Minutes: 28.4

For those of you keeping score at home, Minnesota returns more minutes from last season than any other team in the conference. They also return the third-most freshman minutes, an important factor that we'll explain in more detail in an upcoming post. They had a positive conference efficiency margin last season. And finally, they welcome arguably the best incoming freshman class in the Big Ten, with top 50 RSCI recruits Royce White and Rodney Williams. It's hard to imagine how this team will not make the NCAA Tournament, and frankly, the goal ought to be to contend for a Big Ten championship.

And I'm not done listing the reasons why.

Consider that the Gophers ran into some bad luck last season, as opponents shot very well from the free throw line (72.6% overall, 74% in the conference season). Odds are those percentages will fall. Furthermore, despite the evidence that this team includes considerable shooting talent (71.8% FT overall, 75% in the conference season), they were poor from the outside (33% from 3 overall, 30.9% in the conference season). Again, I expect the outside shooting to improve, especially if Blake Hoffarber breaks out of his funk.

Sure, Minnesota might still turn the ball over too much, but considering the amount of options Tubby will have at his disposal, he won't be desperate for bodies. In other words, the turnover-prone will see the bench, and Minnesota's depth won't take a hit. That's the other thing about this roster -- other than Lawrence Westbrook or Damian Johnson (for his stellar defense), no one is crucial to the Gophers' success. Devoe Joseph (or even Westbrook) could take over at point guard. Ralph Sampson, Colton Iverson, White, Williams, and Paul Carter all figure to be quality contributors in the frontcourt. It's a long season. Players get hurt, suspended, ruled ineligible (or if you're Anthony Tucker, you get all three). Perhaps no team is better equipped to withstand losses to personnel than Minnesota. The real challenge is finding minutes for all of these guys.

And Tubby knows all of this to be true, putting a bit more challenge on the Gophers' schedule than last year (likely opposition in the 76 Classic over Thanksgiving: Butler, UCLA, and West Virginia). I'd still like to see a bit more rigor, but not everyone can be Michigan State.

With all of that said, there are some areas that Tubby will likely focus on improving. Namely, defensive rebounding, perimeter defense (as detailed yesterday), and getting to the free throw line (given the amount of scoring that comes from the paint, this should improve). Fix those things, and Gopher students can start thinking about spring break trips to second weekend venues in the NCAA Tournament.

Minnesota Recap of the 08-09 Season

2009-10-15T07:15:00.000-07:00

For the second straight season, Tubby Smith scheduled conservatively out of the gate. As a result, Minnesota sprinted out of the gate. On January 15, they stood at 16-1. And even though there were plenty of cupcakes left in the Gophers' wake, the team also sported a neutral site win over Louisville and a road victory at the Kohl Center. The rest of the season would not go so smoothly, as Tubby's team sputtered to a 6-10 finish, which included a first round dismissal in the dance at the hands of Texas.

Since arriving in Minneapolis, Tubby has left an immediate mark on the defensive end of the floor. The Gophers have adopted his frenetic pressing style with ease, trailing only Northwestern when it comes to forcing turnovers in conference games. Even more impressive, he has managed to integrate this style within a roster holding lots of shotblocking talent. In fact, Minnesota led the nation in Block Percentage last year, led by terrific individual performances by Damian Johnson, Ralph Sampson, and Colton Iverson. Combine that with an ability to force turnovers on 23% of your opponents possessions, and you have the makings of a powerhouse.

That isn't to say that the Gophers were not without faults. For all that blocking and thievery, Minnesota ranked "just" 4th in conference Defensive Efficiency. The culprits? Well, really, there were three. First, this was a bad defensive rebounding team (9th in conference in DReb%). The troubling this is that this might be difficult to correct without altering the shotblocking. After all, can it really be a coincidence that each of Johnson, Sampson, and Iverson were poor rebounders for their size (ok, maybe that's a little unfair to Sampson)? Two of those guys were freshmen, so there's a reasonable hope here that they can improve on the boards without losing too much swatting ability.

The second problem was that opponents shot a lot of (38.7% of FGA) and made a lot of (37%) three point shots. The conclusion? Minnesota's perimeter defense was soft last season. At first, this sounds counterintuitive. After all, isn't a successful pressing team going to have lots of pesky & quick guards playing in-your-face defense? Well, that's not entirely true in Minnesota's case. While they do press quite a bit, that means that other players on the far end of the floor are in a "zone prevent" defense designed to simply stop easy scores (layups). Moreover, once the press is broken, the Gophers tend to sag quite a bit off their men. This might be the biggest issue. Why worry about the dribble drive when you have the nation's premier shotblocking frontcourt on the help side? If we don't see improvement here, I'll be surprised.

And finally, the Gophers endured some bad luck - Big Ten opponents shot 74% from the line against them, good for dead last.

All in all, this was a good defense that can get better. But the real concerns were on offense.

After the January 11 game against Penn State, Minnesota's offense fell off a cliff. Indeed, as the competition got tougher, Minnesota's struggles came to light. Consider, they were

Last in the conference in eFG
Tenth in turnover percentage
Ninth in 2-point field goal percentage
Last in three point percentage

The real saving grace for this team was that they captured a lot of offensive rebounds. But even so, this was the second-worst offensive team in the Big Ten, behind only the hapless Indiana. That's the bad news. The good news is that all of that will very likely change this season. I'll discuss how tomorrow.

Preview of the Michigan State 09-10 Season

2009-10-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

08-09 Overall Record: 31-7
08-09 Conference Record: 15-3 (1st)
09-09 Conference Efficiency Margin: +0.13 (1st)
Percent of Returning Minutes: 66.3
Percent of Returning Freshman Minutes: 19.4

This season, Michigan State returns two-thirds of the minutes from a Final Four team. Their best player also stuck around. Last year's run included lots of minutes from talented freshmen, who are strong candidates to improve significantly. And they bring in a pretty decent recruiting class. So there are reasons to be excited.

And frankly, any holes found on the Spartans are just dark holes on an otherwise very silver cloud. But let's explore some of those dark holes, shall we?

The above graph shows the points per possession of conference opponents since the massively talented Flintstones left town. The takeaway I get from this chart is that Michigan State's defense is less than consistent from year-to-year. Of course, over the past two seasons, it has been very good. Then again Travis Walton has been a pretty good defensive player over the past two seasons, and he won't be suiting up in Green & White any more...

...Ok, I tried. But I just can't do it. Travis Walton is gone, sure. But I don't see that affecting the MSU defense too much, because of how MSU's defense operated last year. For one, opponents shot 29.9% from three point land last year, tied with Illinois for tops in the league. Not only that, MSU's scheme actually encourages teams to chuck those three pointers. What's strange about this phenomenon is that Michigan State wasn't blessed with any elite shot blockers that saw significant action. I mean, Delvon Roe was usually good for a swat every game, but it's not as if he was a one-person border guard. Idong Ibok was a good shot blocker, but he didn't play very much. That said, Michigan State was a tall team last year (ranking 45th in the country in Effective Height). They might get a little shorter by swapping Suton out for Draymond Green, but I'm not too concerned. This is still a team that starts a 6-8 small forward.

Moreover, there's room for improvement, especially on the offensive end of the floor. For example, take Kalin Lucas. He had a great season, sure, and certainly was worthy of his Big Ten Player of the Year hardware. But his two point shooting was terrible. This isn't especially surprising from a 6-0 player who likes to live inside the arc. But as I said last year, maybe that ought to change. Wing players Chris Allen and Durrell Summers were inconsistent over the season. Allen is probably a much better outside shooter than he's shown so far, given his 80% free throw percentage. Summers struggled with his shot in conference play, and was also too careless with the ball. And of course, if Raymar Morgan were to simply revert to his sophomore form, it would represent a substantial upgrade over last season.

This isn't to say that Michigan State doesn't have problems. Korie Lucious' lingering injury suddenly makes the point guard position of concern, and should Roe or Green miss any time, the most obvious scenario would be to move Morgan over to the 4 spot, which would certainly chip away at the Spartans' typical dominance on the glass.

Nonetheless, there's just too many reasons to be bullish on the Spartans this year. The biggest obstacle to a second consecutive league title will be the improvement of the conference overall. Put simply, it will take a better team to win the Big Ten this year than it would have taken last year. But I expect Michigan State to be better.

Michigan State Recap of the 08-09 Season

2009-10-13T07:17:00.000-07:00

What a strange season. In November, the Spartans were seen getting waxed by future bubble team Maryland on a neutral court. In December, Tom Izzo's squad beat Texas in the Lone Star State. In January, Michigan State thumped Kansas in front of the Izzone. They followed that up with home losses to Northwestern and Penn State. And they pretty much cruised the rest of the way in Big Ten season, save a minor scare at Indiana. MSU's performance in the Big Ten Tournament was not all that impressive, however. After a first round win over Minnesota, Ohio State beat the Spartans rather handily.

But then came The Dance. Michigan State advanced all the way to the title game (one that most fans of the Green & White would rather soon forget) to preserve Tom Izzo's streak of never allowing a graduating senior to leave without experiencing a Final Four. What's more, the road to Detroit was not easy for the Spartans, who had to go through USC, Kansas, and Louisville. During their run, it was Michigan State's ability to suddenly restrict their turnovers that got them to the final game. On the season, MSU sported a mediocre 20.7 turnover percentage. In the five games preceding the matchup with UNC, Izzo's squad dropped that number to 18.7.

It's been said over, and over, and over: when Michigan State turns it over, they are beatable. When they don't, it's a very different story. For 4 games, Michigan State kept the lid on the turnovers, and that's all they needed to do to get to Detroit.

That's not to say that MSU's title game appearance was "flukey." They played the games just like they did in the regular season, and the Spartans had a very difficult road to the Final Four. But on the whole, last year's team was the worst one that Izzo has ever taken to the Final Four:

Those wide splits around the 2000 timeframe indicate just how dominant the Flintstones teams were. And the 04-05 showing - where the offense jumped while the defense tighted up - shows another healthy split. But last year's team had roughly the same gap as the previous two incarnations. And yet, the Spartans ran the table in the Big Ten, taking the conference title by an impressive four games. Sure, it was an odd season, but we could also say it was Izzo's finest coaching job. He got everything he could out of that team. And as much as we love efficiency numbers, we don't lose sight of the fact that scoreboards are what matter the most. And Izzo's scoreboard still says that every 4-year player he's ever coached has been to a Final Four.

On an individual level, Kalin Lucas was clearly the straw that stirred the drink. In the non-conference slate, Lucas played the part of distributor, which is a great job to have on such a talented team. However, when conference play hit, Lucas' assist numbers went down. Not coincidentally, the Spartans were dealing with loss of Raymar Morgan and some cold shooting from Chris Allen. In short, Lucas did whatever the team needed, a big reason why he took home Conference Player of the Year honors.

Speaking of Raymar, he was all over the place last season. He started off well enough, with big games against Oklahoma State and UNC. And then he became sick and injured. From then on, you were never sure of what you were going to get. He started off conference play with 4 double digit scoring outputs, but then disappeared (when he physically was not able to play much). But even after his minutes increased, his performances were inconsistent. Could it be blamed on health? A side effect of missing time? Who knows, but much more will be expected of Mr. Morgan this year.

One piece that will not be coming back is Goran Suton, who played the best basketball of his life in March. We've always been fans of his understated, yet efficient game, so it was great to see the big guy finally get some recognition for his efforts. Behind Suton, Freshmen Draymond Green and Delvon Roe provided nice rebounding support. However, with the exception of Travis Walton, everything that leaves East Lansing is 6-8 or taller. That means there will be a lot riding on the health of Green and Roe this coming season, which we'll look at tomorrow.

Preview of the Michigan 09-10 Season

2009-10-12T06:18:00.001-07:00

08-09 Overall Record: 21-14
08-09 Conference Record: 9-9 (7th, tie)
08-09 Conference Efficiency Margin: -0.02 (7th)
Percent of Returning Minutes: 74.9
Percent of Returning Freshman Minutes: 36.7

As we asserted in our Michigan recap, it appeared last season that John Beilein's offensive system had been fully implemented in Ann Arbor, leading to marquee victories and an NCAA Tournament berth. Setting aside the returning minutes (which are indeed encouraging in and of themselves), let us ask the question - has Beilein's system been maxed out, or can we expect further improvement in his third season? It may be instructive to compare the numbers from Beilein's first three seasons at West Virginia to what he has done thus far at Michigan. Since defense has never been the driving force behind Beilein's best teams, we'll assume that Michigan's defense won't change much from where it was in 2009-09 (67th nationally, on par with Beilein's best defenses at West Virginia) and focus entirely on the offense's upside potential. Note that we are including data from the season before Beilein arrived, just to give us a comparative starting point.

First, the raw offensive efficiency (points per possession):

We see that Beilein steadily improved the West Virginia offense each of his first two seasons, then it exploded in Year 3. That was the Mountaineer squad of Gansey and Pittsnogle that nearly reached the 2005 Final Four and gave us one of the great Tournament games of this decade. Michigan was ahead of that curve in Year 2, but still appears to have room for growth.

As you'd expect, the eFG% chart looks very similar to the offensive efficiency chart. Again, we see that Michigan likely has some room for improvement, and it's easy to pinpoint exactly where it can come from - Manny Harris posted a mediocre eFG of 47.5% while taking a shot diet of 28.2%. We know he's a better shooter than that, evidenced by his excellence at the free throw line (86%). Even a slight improvement in Manny's FG percentages would pay big dividends for the Wolverine offense (and, eventually, for Manny's pocketbook).

Here's where we see Beilein's style being ingrained. It appears that Michigan may have already embraced this aspect of the offense in 2008-09. Beilein's West Virginia teams did continue to take more threes, peaking in Year 4 (2005-06) with a full 51% of their shots coming from downtown. Even an increase to that level wouldn't be much different from what Michigan did in 2008-09, so don't expect any big changes this season in terms of shot distribution - Michigan figures to take nearly half of their shots from downtown once again.

Here's where Beilein is truly a master, and it looks like he was able to reach his Michigan players on turnovers a year sooner than he did at West Virginia. Does that limit the upside for Michigan heading into 2009-10? Well, in Year 4, the Mountaineers further improved their turnover rate to a crazy-low 13.2%. So, if Michigan can stay a year ahead of schedule and reach similarly low levels in 2009-10, watch out - we could have a Big Ten title contender on our hands.

Michigan Recap of the 08-09 Season

2009-10-09T06:49:00.001-07:00

In 2008-09, Beilein Ball officially arrived in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines, fresh off a rough 10-22 campaign, shocked the college basketball world with early victories over two 4th-ranked teams, UCLA and Duke. This non-conference performance was enough to catapult Michigan into the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2006, where they sat for just three weeks before the Big Ten wringer knocked them out for good. Throughout the conference slate, the Wolverines played not like world-beaters, but like a middle-of-the-road team, defeating those teams generally worse than them and losing to those better than them (except for home wins over Illinois and Purdue). Add it all up and Michigan finished 9-9 in Big Ten play, forced to rest a large chunk of their tournament worthiness on their two big wins way back in November and early December. It ended up being enough for the selection committee, and Michigan returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1998 (does anyone else find it crazy that they were away that long?!). To put the icing on the cake, Michigan knocked off a good Clemson squad in the 7/10 match-up and even made Oklahoma work a bit in the second round. The season was an unmitigated success. Who could have seen it coming?

Well, the improvement actually wasn't that surprising given the traditional strengths of Beilein's teams. In our 5-year-trends post from last November, we noticed multiple areas where large improvement seemed likely based on Beilein's track record, specifically:

Turnover percentage (on both ends of the floor)
FG%, especially on two pointers
Assists as a percentage of made FG (which is more indicative of style than quality, but we'll include it anyway)

Here's a summary of how these categories changed year-over-year:

	2007-08	2008-09	Type of change?
Offensive TO%	19.7	17.5	Big Improvement
Defensive TO%	20.5	20.8	Slight Improvement
2-point FG%	45.2	50.4	Big Improvement
3-point FG%	31.2	33.4	Big Improvement
Assists/FGM	55.0	67.1	Big Improvement

It's clear that Beilein's style has been embraced by his players, and it's already paying big dividends for a program that had been scuffling for a decade. When a coach is able to get those kind of results in just his second season - and after that season loses only role players from his roster - expectations tend to skyrocket. Michigan already made a huge jump from 112th to 50th in Pomeroy's ratings - is it reasonable to expect another big jump into top 20 territory? We'll delve into this question on Monday.

	Northwestern 07-08	Northwestern 08-09
Opponent Block %	12.0	13.4

	Gordon	Buford
Offensive Rating	109.1	108.1
Shot Percentage	28.4	27.6