Yet Another Basketball Blog

Better than the Summer League

2008-07-21T07:31:00.003-04:00

The Olympic basketball field is now set with Greece, Croatia, and Germany taking the final wildcard slots. Wikipedia lists the rosters for the 12 men’s teams. Courtesy these wikipedia files, I’ve gleamed the following:

Spain’s roster includes 4 current NBA players, Pau Gasol, Marc Gasol, Rudy Fernandez, and Jose Calderon. Spain’s roster also includes 3 former NBA players Raul Lopez, Jorge Garbajosa, and Juan Carlos Navarro.

Argentina’s team also contains 4 current NBA players, Manu Ginobili, Andres Nocioni, Fabricio Oberto, and Luis Scola, and former NBA player Carlos Delfino.

Russia’s roster includes Andrei Kirilenko.

Lithuania’s roster includes Darius Songaila and Linas Kleiza.

China’s roster includes Yao Ming, Yi Jianlian, and former NBA player Wang ZhiZhi. Yao’s health remains a question heading into the games, but the bigger question mark for China is guard-play. (At least that’s what I’ve read elsewhere on the web, sorry that I can’t remember the link.)

Germany’s roster includes Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Kaman.

Australia’s roster includes Andrew Bogut.

Croatia’s roster includes Roko Ukic who did not play in the NBA during the 2007-2008 season, but who has signed a contract to be the back-up point guard for the Toronto Raptors during the 2008-2009 season.

Other tournament teams (such as Greece and Croatia) are also expected to be very dangerous even without NBA players.

The tournament opens August 10th including a great game between two of the favored teams in Group A, Argentina and Lithuania. The US opens against China in Group B.

Cursed Cities

2008-07-18T07:34:00.002-04:00

In an effort to fill up programming, ESPN has come up with a “Titletown” segment on SportsCenter. (This would be a follow-up to the groundbreaking feature, “What is the greatest highlight of all time?”) Look, maybe these segments are well-produced, maybe they are entertaining for local fans, maybe they’ll settle some long-standing argument, but my immediate reaction to these segments is to change the channel.

Of course, we have to assume these types of segments will continue since ESPN always has a void of programming at certain times of the year. What features will we see in the future?

Vote for the greatest SportsCenter catchphrase of all time.
Vote for the player with the greatest mustache of all time.
Vote for what ESPN should have done with its NHL commentators after ESPN stopped carrying NHL games.

And inevitably all the “Vote for the Best” contests will be flipped to “Vote for the Worst” contests. And the logical conclusion is that instead of “Titletown”, in three summers people will be asked to choose the most “Cursed” sports city. So what is the most cursed sports town in America? Let’s look at the contenders:

Side Notes
1) I’m only counting NBA, MLB, and NFL titles. (Sorry to fans of the NHL, Arena Football League, Major League Soccer, WNBA, ect.)

2) I’m grouping all the LA teams, all the New York/New Jersey teams, all the SF/Oakland teams, all the Wisconsin teams, Memphis and Nashville, Tampa Bay and Orlando, and all the teams in the North Carolina triangle into various conglomerations. Obviously, this may not fully represent how some set of fans are scorned, but that’s life. I have to make some simplifications. So if you live in LA and have chosen to be a Clippers fan instead of a Lakers fan, well that’s your own fault.

3) I’m only going to count NFL titles since the first Super Bowl.

4) If a team left your city permanently, you vacate the joy of winning that title. I.e., Seattle can now claim that they’ve never had a world champion in a pro sport. Why does this make sense? Of course it doesn’t, but it makes my life easier. Also, I figure the pain of losing the team outweighs any past joy.

5) But if a team only leaves for a few years (See Cleveland Browns, Charlotte Bobcats, Oakland Raiders), I give the city credit for suffering in those intervening years.

So who are the most “Cursed” fans of all time?

Well, of the 92 franchises in the three pro sports, 40 have never won a world championship in their current city. In fact, 10 cities have never won a world championship. These are:

Two Pro Teams
San Diego
Seattle
New Orleans
NC Triangle (aka Charlotte)
Memphis/Nashville

One Pro Team
Buffalo
Salt Lake City
Sacramento
Jacksonville
Oklahoma City

This list is a little misleading, because it includes a lot of cities that have only had teams for a short time. (Oklahoma City is about to have a team for the first time.) A better metric might be the average number of years without a title for each team in a city:

1) Cleveland: The Cavs, Browns, and Indians have each spent over 3 decades without winning a title.
2) Buffalo: They’ve had an NFL team since the early days, and yet they have never won a Super Bowl with 4 straight painful defeats in the 90’s.
3) San Diego: Whether it is because of poor hitting (Padres) or Norv Turner (Chargers), the San Diego teams always have an excuse.
4) Chicago: The Cubs 100 year drought raises the average for the city. The other three teams have had plenty of success.
5) Philadelphia: The Eagles, Phillies, and 76ers have had plenty of good teams in the last 25 years, but no titles.
6) Atlanta: When expansion teams win titles, the Hawks and Falcons must curse. In basically 4 decades, they’ve done nothing. Thank goodness for the Braves title in the 90s or this city would really be cursed.
7) Seattle: With the Sonics leaving, the city is faced with the reality that the Mariners and Seahawks have failed for three decades.
8) Portland: Hey does everyone remember when Portland won the title in 1977?
9) Kansas City: At least the Royals and Chiefs have each won a world championship. Too bad they were 22 and 38 years ago.
10) Cincinnati narrowly edges the Wisconsin teams for the final spot in my top 10.

Of course, this average may not be an adequate reflection of suffering. Yes, Cubs fans haven’t seen a pennant in 100 years, but at least college graduates in Chicago were able to enjoy the Bulls run when they were young. And they could have chosen to enjoy the White Sox World Series title too. The real question is when has a city last won a world championship title of any kind? (Now I’m going to exclude cities with only one pro team and cities that have never won a title of any kind.)

1) Cleveland hasn’t won a title since the Indians won in 1948. The end. Case closed. Imagine if you were born in 1949. Imagine you’ve purchased season tickets to the Cavs, Browns, and Indians since the 70s. You probably hate everyone.

2) Philadelphia hasn’t won a title since the 76ers won in 1983. You could be graduating from graduate school and have never seen a title in your lifetime.

3) Kansas City hasn’t won a title since the Royals won in 1985. You could be graduating from college and have never seen a title in your lifetime.

4) Cincinnati hasn’t won a title since the Reds won in 1990. You could be graduating from high school and have never seen a title in your lifetime.

5) Minnesota hasn’t won a title since the Twins won in 1991. And unlike Kansas City and Cincinnati, Minnesota has had a pro team in all three major sports for that whole time.

Of course, if you grew up in Cleveland and Cincinnati, there’s a good chance you started rooting for the Ohio St. Buckeyes and have celebrated a BCS football title as recently as 2003. Similarly, a substantial number of people who live in Kansas City are Jayhawks fans and just saw their team win the Final Four. How would this list look if we exclude teams that have recent college titles for local teams?

1) Philadelphia hasn’t won a title since Villanova won in 1985. And Temple got dropped from the Big East in football.

2) Minnesota hasn’t won a title since the Twins won in 1991.

3) Seattle hasn’t won a title since the University of Washington won in 1992.

4) Toronto hasn’t won a title since the Blue Jays won in 1993. (I’m not sure if I should count a Canadian team because there aren’t any NCAA college teams for comparison, but I’ll list them for now.)

5) The San Francisco / Oakland area hasn’t won a title since the 49ers won in 1995.

Of course if you want to try to split the area into the SF side of the bay and the Oakland side, the Oakland side hasn’t won a title since the A’s won in 1989. I don’t quite buy that though because the Raiders moved to LA in the 80’s. Thus I’m guessing if you grew up on the Oakland side of the bay in the 1990’s, there’s a substantial chance you became a fan of Jerry Rice and the 49ers during this time period, and you would have been cheering for the 49ers in 1995. But, if you grew up a Raider fan, always hated the 49ers, then I guess you can move yourself up to second on this list.

Of course, this really leads to the obvious conclusion that any fan may have suffered even more than a city may suggest. Let’s say you hate baseball and live in Atlanta. Or let’s say you hate the White Sox, love the Cubs, hate the NBA and NFL, and have a strange rooting interest in Northwestern basketball. Well, then you’ve suffered a lot. The moral of the story is that a lot of fans are cursed.

And as for the people in Boston (recent titles for all 3 teams), St. Louis (Rams and Cardinals titles), and San Antonio residents who are University of Texas alumni, excuse me if the rest of us change the channel during your obnoxious “Titletown” segment.

Minnesota Twin wins Home Run Contest (In Other News, Elvis spotted visiting Mount Rushmore)

2008-07-15T07:17:00.001-04:00

There's an unwritten rule that whenever I say the blog is on vacation I come up with 12 things to post. In any event, I had to comment on last night's home run derby.

The only people who watch the home run derby are either
1) young and foolish
2) trying to signal that they have no opportunity cost to their time

And despite the fact that I often fall into category 2, I did not watch. (Instead my wife and I took a walk down to the national mall and later worked on a jigsaw puzzle.)

But I woke up this morning and heard that Minnesota Twin Justin Morneau won the contest, the first Twin in history to win the contest. So I flipped on SportsCenter to see what happened.
Classic. Morneau won, but Josh Hamilton hit 28 home runs in a round and so Morneau's 5-3 "victory" in the finals was a disappointment to the crowd. Morneau even cheered for Hamilton when he was batting and Morneau's victory speech included him saying, "I'm not the real winner here." Insert Canadian accent here: Those darn Canadians are always stealing the glory, eh.

So the first Twins "victory" in the home run derby is a bit by default. But that's not the end of the story. Check out these quotes from the StarTribune story by Joe Christensen.

"Proof that the Twins first baseman is still largely unknown came when the man representing the event's sponsor called him 'Jason' during the trophy presentation."

"Morneau wasn't even invited to participate in the derby until Sunday -- after Ichiro Suzuki declined an invitation. Suzuki's past 36 hits have all been singles."

Wow, after Ichiro Suzuki. I think that says it all.

10 More Team Games!

2008-07-14T07:18:00.002-04:00

About this time last year I did a feature on College Football schedules. I wrote this:

“The joy (or pain) of college football is the lack of overlap among football schedules, meaning that one can justify numerous different rankings of the teams. If you like to debate which team is the best, this is ideal and highly amusing. If you like to see things settled on the field, well you are probably disappointed.”

This year, battles between the BCS leagues are up slightly which could give us minimally more clarity when sorting out the BCS teams.

Teams with Zero BCS Non-Conference Opponents
6 This Year (Texas Tech, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, LSU)
8 Last Year (Texas Tech, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, Kansas, Texas, Baylor, and Arkansas)

Non-Conference Games between BCS/Notre Dame
53 This Year (106 team games)
48 Last Year (96 team games)

With the exception of the Big 10, the BCS leagues have all added more BCS opponents this year:

Non-Conference Games against BCS/Notre Dame
Average - Conf
2.00 Big East
1.92 ACC
1.40 Pac10
1.25 SEC
1.25 Big 12
1.18 Big 10

By playing an average of two BCS opponents, Big East teams can give us more clarity about the quality of BCS teams. But it should be noted that the Big East plays a shorter schedule and the Pac 10 plays a longer schedule:

Total Games against BCS/Notre Dame
10.40 Pac10
10.00 Notre Dame
9.92 ACC
9.25 Big 12
9.25 SEC
9.18 Big 10
9.00 Big East

Amazingly, all 12 of USC’s games this year are against BCS competition!

An interesting question is whether or not teams were hurt or benefited from their low-risk schedules last year.

Kansas
By virtue of having only one loss on the season, Kansas was able to jump ahead of a Missouri team that had beaten them a week earlier and Kansas earned a berth in the Orange Bowl. You have to believe that if Kansas had a 2nd loss to a team like Purdue that Kansas would not have been playing in a BCS game. Thus it seems like Kansas may have made the right decision about its schedule.

On the other hand, if Kansas had earned a non-conference win against a team from a BCS conference, they might have been able to argue that they deserved to play in the national title game. After all, Kansas was one of only two BCS teams to end the regular season with 1 loss. But, instead of being in the national title discussion, TV commentators mocked Kansas for their weak schedule and poll voters resoundingly said that they did not deserve to be in the title game discussion by placing them 8th in the final regular season poll.

With the end of the season loss to Missouri, Kansas probably wasn’t going to play in the national title game anyhow, but at minimum they would have been in the discussion. This would have also made the Kansas win in the Orange Bowl all the more intriguing as some people may have even thought about throwing them a first place vote in the final AP poll. (OK, I can’t even make that argument after the way LSU crushed Virginia Tech and Kansas only beat them by a field goal, but at least people would have watched the game.)

In the end, given Kansas’s history at the bottom of the conference, I can excuse their weak schedule last year. And since they ended up with a narrow Orange Bowl win, I think you have to believe things worked out about perfectly for the team.

Texas
Texas finished with 3 losses and 19th in the BCS standings, their worst performance in recent memory. An additional loss could have easily knocked them out of the Top 25 so I guess they made the right decision with last year’s schedule. Still after watching them pile up points in the Holiday Bowl, it is hard to believe that this team couldn’t have used another chance to prove themselves against a legitimate opponent.

Baylor
After Baylor went winless in the Big 12, I can’t argue with the non-conference schedule.

Arkansas
Yes, they’ll always have that 50-48 win against #1 LSU, but Arkansas was clearly overrated last year. It just took us awhile to notice because Darren McFadden was such a fun player to watch and because we didn’t look at the jerseys on the other side of the field early in the season. Consider this, on November 1st of last year, Arkansas was 5-3 with victories against Troy, North Texas, Chattanooga, Florida International, and Ole Miss (who would go winless in the SEC.) Arkansas finally got knocked out of the Top 25 for good after the bowl game loss, but they probably would have been knocked out sooner if they would have played any decent non-conference opponents.

Repeat Offenders

Indiana
I cheered when Indiana finally earned a bowl bid. But at 3-5 in the Big 10, wasn’t it a little less than satisfying? A win against a non-conference BCS opponent could have made the Hoosier’s remarkable season all the more legitimate. Of course, a 6-6 Hoosier’s team with a limited football fanbase could have been crunched out of the final bowl picture if things had broken differently, so they probably made the right decision.

Minnesota
Minnesota won only one game last year, in overtime at home against a non-BCS opponent. Look, when a team loses that many games, it is hard to argue with a weak schedule. But if you are going to lose anyway, you could avoid some embarrassment by not playing Florida Atlantic. Schedule Baylor! Schedule Ole Miss! Then you can at least pretend you lost to a legitimate team. Oh who am I kidding?

Texas Tech
Even with another loss, Texas Tech would have stayed in the top 5 in the Big 12 and they would have still earned a strong bowl bid. Piling up great passing numbers against cupcakes was a great way to get this program on the map, but if this program is going to take the next step, they may eventually need a better NCSOS. That said, I hope they maintain the series with SMU now that June Jones is head coach. First team to 100 points wins?

Arizona
Arizona was 5-6 going into the final game of the regular season and still had an outside shot at a bowl berth. But they lost to Arizona St, ended up 5-7, and the lack of BCS opponents didn’t make a bit of difference. Of course, Arizona did lose to two MWC teams, BYU and New Mexico. As a result, the schedule has gotten even weaker this year. Welcome Idaho, goodbye BYU!

Bottom Line
My biggest fear was not realized last year as no BCS team qualified for a bowl with a 2-6 conference record AND zero non-conference BCS wins. But it could still happen this year. I’m looking at you Indiana.

Billy Packer is Out

2008-07-14T06:56:00.001-04:00

Clark Kellogg is taking over many of Billy Packer's color commentator duties for CBS. I expect to see much rejoicing in the blog community.

In other smaller news, Julian Vaughn will be eligible for Georgetown this fall after transferring from Florida St. (He was apparently granted immediately eligibility because the transfer occured for personal reasons.) Vaughn provides some much needed depth for the Hoyas in the frontcourt and may cause me to upgrade my expectations for the season. (But Georgetown is still one injury away from looking like last year's Syracuse team.)

While eagerly awaiting August 28th (the start of the college football season), this blog remains on vacation.

Useless Stat Department

2008-06-13T07:24:00.000-04:00

The College World Series starts on Saturday. Here is a useless stat for you:

Elimination Games Faced in 2008 NCAA Tournament
0 - #2 North Carolina
0 - #6 Rice
2 - #1 Miami
2 - #7 LSU
3 - Fresno St.
4 - Stanford
5 - #8 Georgia
6 - #4 Florida St.

While North Carolina and Rice are undefeated, Florida St. has been living on the edge the whole tournament. Florida St. lost the opener in the regional and super-regional rounds.

Of the 8 national seeds, only #3 Arizona St. and #5 Cal St. Fullerton failed to reach the College World Series. Fresno St. remains the ultimate Cinderella. Despite receiving the lowest seed in their pod, they are still alive.

Who's fat, who has short arms, and who wears thick shoes

2008-06-06T19:11:00.000-04:00

Draft Express has a list of player measurements. It is kind of freaky to look at some of the disparities:

Sasha Kaun’s is 6’9” with a 7’6” wingspan.
Donte Green is 6’8.25” with a 6’10” wingspan.

I kind of get sick of Jay Bilas talking about how long various people’s arms are during the draft. Yes, we get it. NBA prospects have surprisingly long arms. The real question is whether it is a long or short reach RELATIVE to other players. Essentially, if your wingspan isn’t 5 inches longer than your height, you really aren’t above average by NBA standards. For the fun of it, here are some notable players:

Guys with relatively short arms:
Donte Green
Jerryd Bayless
Brian Butch
Ty Lawson
Drew Neitzel
OJ Mayo

Guys with relatively long arms:
Sasha Kaun
DeMarcus Nelson
Shan Foster
Joey Dorsey
Eric Gordon
Derrick Rose

Also, what’s up with the disparity in shoe thickness? Sasha Kaun apparently wore shoes that were 1.75 inches thick. But his teammate, Darnell Jackson wore shoes that were only 0.75 inches thick. Why the difference? UCLA players were more similar. Kevin Love and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute both went with the thick shoe, getting 1.75 inch boosts. On the slim end, Shaun Pruitt and JR Giddens also checked in with the 0.75 inch model.

What about vertical leaps? Patrick Ewing Jr. steps in with a sick 35 inch vertical which is no surprise to anyone that followed the Hoyas. Derrick Rose is an impressive 34.5 inches and a good reason he might be the top pick in the draft. And who knew Joe Alexander was up there at 32.5 inches? On the other hand, David Padgett and Brian Butch can’t jump. I’m sure you are all shocked.

Finally, Kevin Love is apparently fat. Well, he has more body fat than everyone on the draft list except Shaun Pruitt, Chris Daniels, and Kentrell Gransberry.

NCAA Baseball, Regional Recap

2008-06-03T07:41:00.000-04:00

On a weekend when the top eight national seeds all advanced, there were still a few surprises. The most notable upset occurred in the Long Beach region where four California teams were matched up:

1) Long Beach St. – BW
2) San Diego – WCC
3) California – P10
4) Fresno St. – WAC

I ignored Fresno St. in my previous column on the conference tournaments for one simple reason. Despite a stellar record, the team didn’t quite have the power ranking to earn a decent seed. Here’s the WAC bracket anyway for the sake of completeness. As a 4 seed, Fresno St. was simply one of the better automatic qualifiers for the field, nothing special. But that all changed over the weekend. Fresno St. beat Long Beach St. in the opener, San Diego in the matchup of unbeatens, and then when San Diego came out of the loser’s bracket, Fresno St. split with San Diego to claim the regional crown. Not bad for a football school.

Actually, according to the WAC website, Fresno St. was ranked at one time during the baseball season, so this isn’t quite a colossal upset. I think the low power ranking for the WAC pulled down Fresno St.’s seed. But it doesn’t matter what the computer said. On the field, Fresno St. was the regional winner.

Elsewhere, second seeded UC Irvine won Nebraska’s region, ensuring there will be no Nebraska teams in Omaha in a few weeks. And second seeded Wichita St., a traditional College World Series power, won Oklahoma St.’s region. This could be classified as a mini-upset, but Wichita St. was a great team playing in a weaker conference, so I’m not sure this qualifies as a true upset.

The other 13 regionals were won by the top seed. Eight of these teams went 3-0 over the weekend and coasted to victory. Texas A&M also had a fairly easy path since they won the first two games. Even though they lost game 6, Texas A&M was able to win game 7 as a fallback. The other four regional winners had no margin for error. Cal St. Fullerton lost to UCLA in the second game, and then had to sweep the Bruins in games 6 & 7 to win the tournament. And Georgia, Florida St., and Stanford all lost the first game of the weekend requiring those teams to win 4 straight games to escape with the regional title. Contrary to what some believe, the loser’s bracket is no aid to bad teams. What the loser’s bracket really does is give the best teams a second chance. And Georgia, Florida St., and Stanford were happy to take advantage of that opportunity.

The remaining conference count is as follows:
4 ACC
3 P10
2 SEC
2 BW
1 CUSA
1 Big 12
1 Big South
1 MVC
1 WAC
Many of this weekend’s Super Regional series games will be televised on ESPN. Check them out if you are so inclined.

Pro Sports

-Game 5 between the Red Wings and Penguins was terrific as it went to 3OTs. There is nothing better than overtime playoff hockey, as long as you care about one of the teams. My wife thought the Red Wings made a mistake at the end of regulation by switching into time-killing mode. The Red Wings had been an aggressive puck-controlling team all series, but with a lead and 5 minutes to go, they took their foot off the gas. And once you let up, you often can’t get it back.

-A month ago, I picked the Lakers to win it all. (Yes, I went out on quite a limb.) I still stick by that prediction. Charles Barkley said early in the playoffs that he thought the Jazz were the second best team, behind the Lakers, and thus far he has been right. Utah is the only team to get two wins against the Lakers in the playoffs this year. To me the question for the finals is not whether the Lakers will win, but whether they do it in five, allowing me to keep the silly claim that Utah was the 2nd best team, or whether they win in six or seven.

Off-Season Blues

2008-05-30T19:51:00.000-04:00

Wow, Card Chronicle has some great offseason coverage on the Big East. Ever since Bill Self left Illinois, and Charlie Villanueva decided not to come to Illinois (hmm, guess he didn’t want to be on a team that went to the national title game,) I’ve pretty much been of the following mindset: Don’t get excited until you see what team suits up in the fall. There are a lot of things that can happen (injuries, transfers, academic ineligibility) that can make your team worse, so don’t get your expectations too high.

But, since Georgetown had two rather significant defections already this offseason Vernon Macklin to Florida and Jeremiah Rivers to Indiana, and since recruit Chris Braswell is not academically eligible, I felt I should comment in some capacity.

My biggest concern is that Georgetown is about to have a season very much like the 2007-2008 Syracuse season. The Orangemen ended up with 3 players averaging over 88% of the minutes per game and the bench was virtually non-existent. The result was a team that had moments of glory, but often looked worn down by the end of the year. On paper Georgetown has three very talented recruits coming in (Monroe, Sims, Clark), two sophomore MAA guards coming back (Summers and Wright), and two veteran starters (Sapp and Summers). This group should produce a starting five that will be competitive with any team in the country. But what happens if one or more of the incoming players isn’t ready for Big East Competition? Who is going to fill that key 16-18 minutes of bench play? And what happens if one of the projected starters gets injured? The bench is the biggest question heading into the Big East season.

And that’s where a player like Jeremiah Rivers is sorely missed. Yes, he probably wasn’t going to start this year for Georgetown. Yes, he doesn’t have much of a jump shot. But Rivers did all of the little things. He rebounded; he played defense; he set up his teammates. He did all the “role player” things a team needs to win back-to-back Big East titles. And he will be missed. “Jeremiah was a Bulldog, was a good friend of mine…”

Conference Tournament Wrap-up

2008-05-30T07:26:00.002-04:00

8 Teams, Double Elimination

SEC: While top seeded Georgia bowed out after two games, 2nd seeded LSU won the title. This allowed LSU to jump ahead of top seeded Georgia in the NCAA tournament national seedings. (LSU is 7th nationally, Georgia 8th.) But the real story was 8th seeded Ole Miss making it to the title game and ensuring an at-large bid. The SEC ended up with 9 bids again, as even Arkansas who didn’t qualify for the SEC tournament, still earned an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.

CUSA: Like Georgia, top seeded Rice lost its first two games in the CUSA tournament, but still received a national seed (#6). And like Mississippi, 8th seeded UAB went on a mini-run, sitting undefeated after two games. But unlike Mississippi, UAB lost two straight to Houston and their season came to an end. The title game featured two teams, 4th seeded Houston and 6th seeded Marshall that had to come out of the losers bracket to play in the title game. But only Houston was victorious and Marshall was not one of the 5 CUSA teams to earn a bid.

Big East: Again, the top seed lost its first two games and was eliminated. But top seeded St. John’s received the Big East’s lone at-large bid. The other bid went to tournament champion Louisville who went 4-0 in the tournament.

Sun Belt: 5th seeded Western Kentucky won the tournament and may have knocked top seeded Louisiana-Monroe out of the NCAA tournament in the process. 2nd seeded New Orleans probably had the best at-large profile, but they also had to be sweating after losing the opener and then squeaking out a rain-delayed extra inning elimination game win. New Orleans rallied to make the title game and locked up an at-large berth.

Southern Conference: Top seeded Elon scored 21, 16, 12, and 17 runs in a decisive tournament sweep. 2nd seeded College of Charleston lost in the title game and despite a 39-20 record, was left out of the NCAA tournament field.

8 Teams, 2 Round Robins

ACC: Top seeded Miami swept its round robin, won the title game and earned the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament. Meanwhile, 6th seeded Virginia went 2-1 and edged Florida St. in the head-to-head tie-breaker to win its half of the round robin. This may have been key as Virginia was the 6th and final ACC team to make the field.

Big 12: 5th seeded Texas lost the opener in extra innings, but won the remaining games to capture the Big 12 crown. 7th seeded Kansas St. won its half of the round robin, but the loss in the title game proved costly, as KSU did not receive an NCAA invite.

6 Teams, 2 Byes, Double Elimination

MVC: Wichita St. won two games in less than 9 innings (thanks to a league mercy rule for blowouts) and went undefeated in the tournament. The Shockers earned the MVC’s lone NCAA tournament bid.

MWC: TCU lost to New Mexico in its second game of the tournament, but fought out of the loser’s bracket sweeping New Mexico on Friday and Saturday to win the tournament and earn the MWC’s lone bid.

Big 10: The Big 10 is never going to be a baseball powerhouse, but it can’t hurt recruiting when these games are shown on national TV on the Big Ten Network. Michigan went undefeated and the Wolverines earned the Big 10’s lone NCAA tournament bid. Michigan shouldn’t have been a host in the NCAA tournament, but was awarded a host site since there were too many West Coast locations.

A10: I failed to post the bracket last week. Shockingly the one team from a southern city, Charlotte, won the tournament and earned the lone NCAA bid.

6 Teams, Double Elimination

CAA: 2nd seeded James Madison went undefeated in winning the conference tournament and top seeded UNC-Wilmington did enough in the regular season for the CAA to earn two NCAA tournament bids.

Big South: Second seeded Liberty lost the opener, fought back and gave top seeded Coastal Carolina its only loss, but it wasn’t enough as Liberty was left out of the NCAA tournament field. Champ Coastal Carolina was awarded a host site in the NCAA tournament.

Elsewhere

-Dallas Baptist became the first independent to make the NCAA tournament since Miami did it in 1992.

-I never posted a bracket for the Summit League. Hey, when you have 6 teams in the conference, a 4 team bracket is all you can have. Oral Roberts, the good team in the Summit league, was victorious.

-San Diego swept Pepperdine in the WCC Championship series, but both teams received NCAA invites.

-The Pac10 had no conference tournament, but still earned 5 bids. One team with a losing conference record (California) earned an invite.

-The Big West had no conference tournament, but still earned 4 bids. If this was the NCAA basketball tournament, UC Davis would be an at-large with a 13 seed, clearly one of the last teams in the bracket.

-And here is the official NCAA bracket. Double elimination games begin on Friday!

Baseball Brackets

2008-05-19T07:37:00.001-04:00

I love printable PDF brackets. Here are the upcoming college baseball conference tournaments:

8 Teams, Double Elimination
SEC Tournament Subtle Point: Notice that the upper and lower bracket undefeated teams flip (the winners of Games 7 & 8 flip). This helps reduce the number of redundant games.
Conference USA Tournament
Big East Tournament
Sun Belt Tournament
Southern Conference Tournament (includes bonus opening round games)

8 Teams, Two Round Robin Tournaments
ACC Tournament
Big 12 Tournament

6 Teams, 2 Byes, Double Elimination
MVC Tournament
MWC Tournament
Big Ten Tournament

6 Teams, Double Elimination
Big South Tournament (includes bonus opening round games)
CAA Tournament

Championship Series
The WCC pits its first and second place teams in a weekend series. This year San Diego faces Pepperdine.

No Tournament
Long Beach St. got some nice publicity from Paul Goydos during The Players Championship, but they don’t believe in playing conference tournaments out west. Oh well, if we peruse the Big West schedule there are plenty of good games including Long Beach St. vs Cal St. Fullerton. Similarly, the Pac10 has some solid bubble teams finishing out the regular season.

ESPN’s college baseball coverage is one of the few things that isn’t “insider only” yet. Check out Jeremy Mills columns if you want a nice summary of weekend action. He also runs some bubble projections. Here was an earlier bracket projection. Baseball America has a more recent projection and some good coverage overall. As you know, I’m always stumping for Basketball Prospectus. And I’d do the same for Baseball Prospectus, except that the college baseball coverage requires a subscription.

Baseball’s championship week isn’t nearly as fun as basketball’s championship week, but it can still be a fun time. For example a team like Coastal Carolina is essentially like Memphis in basketball. They are far and away the best team in the Big South, and they’ll get a good tournament seed. But if they falter in the conference tournament, someone loses an at-large bid. That always makes for fun scoreboard watching.

Meanwhile, the SEC could send 9 teams to the NCAA tournament, despite only 8 teams qualifying for the SEC tournament. When a league is that deep, in a sport as unpredictable as baseball, you have a recipe for a great tournament.

Ouch

2008-05-09T07:38:00.000-04:00

Associated Press, May 8, 2008 - 3:01 PM

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - West Virginia University officials say basketball coach Bob Huggins has been taken to a hospital in Charlotte, N.C., for precautionary reasons after tripping on an airport tarmac and hitting his head on the pavement.

Athletic director Ed Pastilong says Huggins had a bump on his head, and never lost consciousness.

Pastilong says Huggins and other athletic department staff flew to Charlotte on Thursday morning for a Mountaineer Athletic Club event. After Huggins got off the plane, he was checking his cell phone messages when he tripped over a cone on the tarmac and hit his head.

Pro-Sports Filler

2008-05-08T23:28:00.001-04:00

Unless you are a potted plant in Tom Crean’s office, we’re in the quiet period on the college sports calendar. The major coaching vacancies have been filled, the early entry deadline has passed, and we are left to wait for some of the early entrants to remove their names from the draft list.

(By the way I’m thrilled as a college basketball fan that Tyler Hansbrough and Darren Collison are coming back next year. After Collison performed so poorly against Memphis, I’m glad to see him come back. And as much as I root against Hansbrough in the regular season, his intensity and energy are a perfect reflection of what college basketball is all about.)

No, instead we’ve come to the time of the year when I take a casual peak at the NBA. And despite numerous columns reporting how this is the greatest year of NBA basketball in recent memory, I’m just not seeing it. Other than a handful of great endings (West jumper, Butler lay-up, Duncan three pointer), the slate of games has been ridiculously predictable. Jason Kidd was slow just like everyone said. Shaq didn’t have enough left in the tank just like everyone said. Tracy McGrady lost again in the first round. And the teams seeded 1-4 won every single first round series. “The NBA, where predictability happens.”

But wait a minute, didn’t I praise the Final Four that included all 1 seeds? Yes, but that’s because the Final Four produced three great games where I had no idea who would win. The second round of the NBA playoffs has had no more drama than the first round. The second round has opened up with the better seeds taking a 2-0 advantage in every series and again there is little drama.

Sadly, it isn’t a new trend for the favored team to keep winning in these NBA playoff series. The NBA playoffs do a fabulous job of determining the best team at the expense of a potential Cinderella. As Charles Barkley has said numerous times, the best team might not win a five game series, but they’ll usually win a seven game series. While the NCAA tournament does a horrible job of picking the best team in the country (great teams can often lose one game), the NBA model often results in the favored teams eventually crushing all hope of an upset.

That’s all fine and good as long as there is some similarity in quality between the very best teams so there is some uncertainty about the best team. And at the start of the playoffs, we thought we had that. In fact, all 8 Western Conference teams looked legit, with 4-5 Eastern Conference teams looking pretty good too. But after a month of NBA playoff basketball, instead of looking forward to future potential match-ups, things have become all too clear: The Lakers are the best team in the NBA. After acquiring Gasol, they were the most dominant team in the regular season, and after crushing in 6 straight playoff games, it is hard to picture anyone from the East, or even the New Orleans / San Antonio winner slowing this team down. (Those brutal Boston – Cleveland games are particularly disheartening.)

So since the NBA has taken only 3 weeks to crush all my enthusiasm (Chris Paul and Dwight Howard notwithstanding), let’s move on to the NFL. I loved the shortened draft. It was almost watchable. Normally I sit around waiting, and waiting, and waiting for my team to pick. This year, with my Vikings trading out of the first round, I flipped it on as a casual viewer and I was still hooked. Nice job NFL.

The Vikings pre-draft trade for DE Jared Allen received mostly positive reviews, but I have a few comments on it.

1) The coaching staff must have a lot of faith in Tarvaris Jackson because Brad Childress has basically put himself in a position where he’s either going to win with Jackson or get fired.

2) I have no idea which of those two things will happen.

3) I feel a lot better about the trade after Jacksonville traded a virtually equivalent package of picks to draft rookie DE Derrick Harvey. Would you rather trade a bunch of picks for an untested rookie or for the NFL’s leading sack-getter in 2008? (OK, the Vikings also had to pay a lot more, but they had the cap room for it.)

4) I hear some minor criticism that Allen is often out of position against the run, and isn’t the most complete DE in the NFL. I still don’t care. Last year the Vikings were great against the run and opponents often abandoned the run for a highly successful, all-pass strategy. The issue was that no one on the Vikings could lay a hand on the QB and that teams could pass with impunity. Even if Jared Allen was so weak against the run that he could only play in obvious passing situations, he would still be a worthwhile acquisition because he fills such a glaring weakness for the team.

5) Dimitrius Underwood et al. One of a long line of failed DE’s drafted in the first round of the NFL by the Vikings. Hey, maybe Derrick Harvey will be a star, but you can only fail at drafting a DE so many times.

Coach Rankings Part 2

2008-04-30T17:59:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I explained the concept of my coach rankings. Today I provide the detailed numbers for each conference.

Big East      Coach             RECR  REG   PASE  TOT
Connecticut   Jim Calhoun       0.91  1.96  0.52  3.39
Louisville    Rick Pitino       0.91  1.09  0.46  2.46
Georgetown    John Thompson III 0.84  1.27  0.22  2.33
Pittsburgh    Jamie Dixon       0.44  2.04 -0.17  2.32
Syracuse      Jim Boeheim       0.93  0.82  0.30  2.04
Villanova     Jay Wright        0.92  0.91  0.15  1.99
Notre Dame    Mike Brey         0.68  0.33 -0.12  0.89
St. John's    Norm Roberts      0.23 -0.23
West Virginia Bob Huggins             1.32 -0.47
South Florida Stan Heath              0.35  0.40
DePaul        Jerry Wainwright       -0.09  0.07
Cincinnati    Mick Cronin             0.20
Seton Hall    Bobby Gonzalez          0.06
Rutgers       Fred Hill
Providence    Keno Davis
Marquette     Buzz Williams

Recent Hires: Keno Davis has zero NCAA wins, but one very shiny national coach of the year trophy. Buzz Williams has only one (moderately successful) year of head coaching experience. He was a serious downgrade for Marquette.

Hot Seat: Norm Roberts dodged the hot seat this year, but he needs to make the tournament.

ACC            Coach             RECR  REG   PASE  TOT
North Carolina Roy Williams      1.41  2.47  0.55  4.43
Duke           Mike Krzyzewski   1.80  2.33 -0.34  3.79
Georgia Tech   Paul Hewitt       1.02  0.43  0.29  1.73
Maryland       Gary Williams     0.69  0.50  0.47  1.66
Boston College Al Skinner        0.14  1.42 -0.24  1.32
Clemson        Oliver Purnell    0.20  0.55 -1.04 -0.30
Miami          Frank Haith       0.33  0.24
Virginia Tech  Seth Greenberg    0.32  0.23
Florida State  Leonard Hamilton  0.84 -0.69
Virginia       Dave Leitao             0.24
NC State       Sidney Lowe
Wake Forest    Dino Gaudio

Recent Hires: Dino Gaudio has some very talented young players and a great chance to prove himself in the coming years.

Hot Seat: Leonard Hamilton has clearly recruited a lot of talent to Florida St., but his teams can't seem to put it together.

Big 12        Coach             RECR  REG   PASE  TOT
Kansas        Bill Self         1.57  2.19  0.25  4.00
Texas         Rick Barnes       1.02  2.14 -0.07  3.09
Baylor        Scott Drew        0.50  0.03
Missouri      Mike Anderson           0.42  0.45
Iowa State    Greg McDermott          0.50 -0.44
Texas A&M     Mark Turgeon            0.44
Colorado      Jeff Bzdelik            0.31
Oklahoma      Jeff Capel III          0.31
Nebraska      Doc Sadler              0.22
Oklahoma St   Travis Ford            -0.18
Kansas State  Frank Martin
Texas Tech    Pat Knight

Recent Hires: I think Travis Ford will be fine at Oklahoma St., but you usually do not get hired after you narrowly miss the NCAA tournament.

Hot Seat: Frank Martin doesn't have Beasley anymore. Can he hang onto the job?

Big 10         Coach             RECR  REG   PASE  TOT
Ohio State     Thad Matta        1.13  1.45  0.32  2.90
Michigan State Tom Izzo          1.03  1.09  0.72  2.84
Wisconsin      Bo Ryan           0.55  2.02  0.13  2.70
Illinois       Bruce Webber      0.42  1.42  0.41  2.25
Penn State     Ed DeChellis      0.04  0.03
Northwestern   Bill Carmody      0.00 -0.02
Minnesota      Tubby Smith             1.77 -0.05
Purdue         Matt Painter            1.23 -0.13
Indiana        Tom Crean               1.07 -0.15
Michigan       John Beilein            0.55
Iowa           Todd Lickliter          0.47

Recent Hires: Tom Crean will have his work cut out for him, but he can get it done at Indiana.

Hot Seat: Ed DeChellis, Bill Carmody, nothing new here.

Pac 10        Coach             RECR  REG   PASE  TOT
UCLA          Ben Howland       1.10  1.90  0.67  3.68
Arizona       Lute Olson        0.88  1.49 -0.14  2.22
Washington    Lorenzo Romar     0.81  0.88 -0.46  1.23
Oregon        Ernie Kent        0.44  0.39 -0.07  0.76
Arizona State Herb Sendek             0.61  0.09
USC           Tim Floyd               1.12
California    Mike Montgomery              -1.14
Washington St Tony Bennett
Stanford      Johnny Dawkins
Oregon State  Craig Robinson

Recent Hires: In his last stint in the Pac10, Mike Mongomery was dominant in the regular season and struggled in the tournament. Johnny Dawkins looks to prove that Duke assistants are better than people think. Craig Robinson needs to work a miracle.

SEC            Coach             RECR  REG   PASE  TOT
Florida        Billy Donovan     1.31  1.57  0.71  3.58
Alabama        Mark Gottfried    0.81  0.48 -0.10  1.19
Vanderbilt     Kevin Stallings   0.43  0.74  0.01  1.18
Mississippi St Rick Stansbury    0.60  1.01 -0.53  1.09
Georgia        Dennis Felton     0.34  0.07 -0.30  0.12
Auburn         Jeff Lebo         0.31 -0.38
Tennessee      Bruce Pearl             1.77  0.01
LSU            Trent Johnson           0.82  0.09
Kentucky       Billy Gillispie         0.86 -0.02
Arkansas       John Pelphrey           0.07
South Carolina Darrin Horn            -0.06
Mississippi    Andy Kennedy           -0.21

Recent Hires: Trent Johnson is a proven winner and a great hire by LSU. Believe it or not, Darrin Horn actually recruited some talent to Western Kentucky, otherwise his regular season rating would be higher. South Carolina hopes he can recruit in the SEC.

Hot Seat: Jeff Lebo needs to show some signs of progress. Dennis Felton may have saved his job with an SEC tournament win. Still, what does it say that his team played better when they did not have time to practice?

Notable Non-BCS  Coach           RECR  REG   PASE  TOT
Memphis     CUSA John Calipari   0.90  2.02  0.20  3.12
Gonzaga      WCC Mark Few        0.35  1.99 -0.17  2.17
Xavier       A10 Sean Miller     0.28  0.84  0.47  1.59
S. Ill.      MVC Chris Lowery    0.02  1.31  0.05  1.38
UNLV         MWC Lon Kruger      0.24  0.62  0.32  1.18
George Mason CAA Jim Larranaga   0.00  0.36  0.66  1.02
Nevada       WAC Mark Fox        0.00  1.22 -0.20  1.02
Arkansas St   SB John Brady            0.65  0.28
Saint Joes   A10 Phil Martelli   0.05  1.11 -0.34  0.83
Davidson     Sth Bob McKillop    0.00  0.33  0.46  0.78
UAB         CUSA Mike Davis            0.16  0.56
Pacific       BW Bob Thomason    0.00  0.41  0.19  0.60
Saint Louis  A10 Rick Majerus          0.79 -0.33
G. Wash.     A10 Karl Hobbs      0.09  0.58 -0.22  0.45
Creighton    MVC Dana Altman     0.11  0.75 -0.42  0.43
Utah State   WAC Stew Morrill    0.00  0.48 -0.14  0.34
Wichita St   MVC Gregg Marshall        0.31  0.02
Temple       A10 Fran Dunphy           0.58 -0.36
Belmont     ASun Rick Byrd       0.00  0.19 -0.04  0.15
Oral Roberts Sum Scott Sutton    0.01  0.23 -0.14  0.10
Wright State Hor Brad Brownell         0.51 -0.42
New Mexico   MWC Steve Alford          0.27 -0.21
Charlotte    A10 Bobby Lutz      0.29  0.09 -0.35  0.02

Coach Rankings Part 1

2008-04-29T21:12:00.000-04:00

Although I've discussed this at length before, let's stick to the numbers. The perception of the top coaches is mostly based on NCAA tournament appearances and wins. Here are the coaches who have the most appearances plus wins in the last 10 years (NCAA tournaments 1999-2008).

NCAA Appearances – Wins, Coach - School
10 – 28, Roy Williams - North Carolina
10 – 26, Mike Krzyzewski - Duke
10 – 24, Tom Izzo - Michigan State
10 – 22, Bill Self - Kansas
10 – 16, Rick Barnes - Texas
9 – 22, Billy Donovan - Florida
9 – 17, Tubby Smith - Minnesota
9 – 15, Lute Olson - Arizona
9 – 9, Mark Few - Gonzaga
8 – 22, Jim Calhoun - Connecticut
8 – 9, Bob Huggins - West Virginia
7 – 17, Gary Williams - Maryland
7 – 11, Jim Boeheim - Syracuse
7 – 10, Bo Ryan - Wisconsin
6 – 17, Ben Howland - UCLA
6 – 12, Thad Matta - Ohio State
6 – 10, Bruce Webber - Illinois
6 – 8, Mike Montgomery - California
6 – 7, Jay Wright - Villanova
6 – 6, Al Skinner - Boston College
6 – 5, Mike Brey - Notre Dame
5 – 12, John Calipari - Memphis
5 – 9, Rick Pitino - Louisville
5 – 7, John Thompson III - Georgetown
5 – 7, Bruce Pearl - Tennessee
5 – 6, Ernie Kent - Oregon
5 – 6, Jamie Dixon - Pittsburgh
5 – 6, Paul Hewitt - Georgia Tech
5 – 5, Mark Gottfried - Alabama
5 – 5, Herb Sendek - Arizona State
5 – 5, Tom Crean - Indiana
4 – 7, Mike Davis - UAB
4 – 6, John Brady - Arkansas State

My rankings evaluate how coaches obtain these appearances and wins. Is it through recruiting? Is it through player development and by earning a high seed in the regular season. Or is it by exceeding expectations in the tournament?

Let’s start with coaches that exceed expectations in the tournament. Based on past NCAA tournament data, here are the wins expected for each seed.

ExpWins - Seed
3.42 - 1
2.41 - 2
1.82 - 3
1.49 - 4
1.15 - 5
1.24 - 6
0.88 - 7
0.67 - 8
0.58 - 9
0.64 - 10
0.49 - 11
0.50 - 12
0.25 - 13
0.18 - 14
0.04 - 15
0.00 - 16

This spring I discovered that ESPN also uses this concept. ESPN calls it PASE or Performance Against Seed Expectations. Here are the coaches with the highest PASE in the last 10 years, averaged over the number of NCAA appearances, with a minimum of three NCAA appearances.

PASE Coach -School
0.72 Tom Izzo - Michigan State
0.71 Billy Donovan - Florida
0.67 Ben Howland - UCLA
0.66 Jim Larranaga - George Mason
0.56 Mike Davis - UAB
0.55 Roy Williams - North Carolina
0.52 Jim Calhoun - Connecticut
0.47 Sean Miller - Xavier
0.47 Gary Williams - Maryland
0.46 Rick Pitino - Louisville

Jim Larranaga and Mike Davis show that if you rarely make the tournament, but then make the Final Four, you look like a good tournament coach.

PASE Coach -School
-1.14 Mike Montgomery - California
-1.04 Oliver Purnell - Clemson
-0.53 Rick Stansbury - Mississippi State
-0.47 Bob Huggins - West Virginia
-0.46 Lorenzo Romar - Washington
-0.44 Greg McDermott - Iowa State
-0.42 Dana Altman - Creighton
-0.42 Brad Brownell - Wright State
-0.36 Fran Dunphy - Temple
-0.35 Bobby Lutz - Charlotte

California is getting a good regular season coach, but Mike Montgomery had some colossal tournament flops before he left Stanford for the NBA. Oliver Purnell took Dayton to the tournament as a 4 seed and 11 seed and took Clemson as a 5 seed, but has won zero tournament games. Rick Stansbury has taken Mississippi St. to the tournament five times in the last decade, but he has never advanced to the Sweet Sixteen. Bob Huggins improved his numbers with a deep tournament run this year. In the last decade, Fran Dunphy took Penn to the tournament 6 times and Temple once, but he does not have a tournament win to show for it.

Some coaches earn their NCAA tournament wins and appearances through recruiting.
I ran a regression to estimate the impact of talent, looking within coaches over time. Not surprisingly, McDonald's All-Americans and upperclassmen that were top 100 recruits had the biggest impact on success. Based on these regressions I assigned a value to each type of recruit. I also lowered the value of McDonald's All-Americans based on the fact that most leave early for the NBA. With these numerical evaluations, I assigned a value to each recruiting class for the last 9 years. I only evaluated coaches at their current school, and I threw out the first year in the current job. Based on these numbers, the top recruiters are:

RECR Coach - School
1.80 Mike Krzyzewski - Duke
1.57 Bill Self - Kansas
1.41 Roy Williams - North Carolina
1.31 Billy Donovan - Florida
1.13 Thad Matta - Ohio State
1.10 Ben Howland - UCLA
1.03 Tom Izzo - Michigan State
1.02 Rick Barnes - Texas
1.02 Paul Hewitt - Georgia Tech
0.93 Jim Boeheim - Syracuse

Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated had a great article pointing out that Coach K gets a lot of McDonald's All-Americans, but the causality may be wrong. His recruits may be called McDonald's All-Americans simply because they decided to go to Duke, not because they are really top 20 players. If this is true, you may want to lower Coach K's recruiting rank.

Also, according to my evaluation, recruits aren't everything. Tom Izzo has enough of a tournament coaching advantage (see above) over someone like Bill Self, that he can make up for having less talented recruits. (The key problem for Izzo in recent years is that he has struggled in the regular season.)

Here are the worst recruiters at a BCS school for at least 4 years (i.e. minimum 3 recruiting classes.)

RECR Coach - School
0.00 Bill Carmody - Northwestern
0.04 Ed DeChellis - Penn State
0.14 Al Skinner - Boston College
0.20 Oliver Purnell - Clemson
0.23 Norm Roberts - St. John's
0.31 Jeff Lebo - Auburn
0.32 Seth Greenberg - Virginia Tech
0.33 Frank Haith - Miami
0.34 Dennis Felton - Georgia
0.42 Bruce Webber - Illinois

The worst of the worst recruiters tend to lose their jobs at about the 3 year mark, so I should add that Greenberg, Haith, Felton, and Webber are hardly horrible. In fact, the only way you keep your job if you can't recruit at the elite level is by knowing how to coach.

You can also earn wins and appearances during the regular season by developing players and earning a high seed. For the last 6 years, I take expected wins based on seed and subtract off expected wins based on talent and get regular season performance. (I only have 9 years of recruiting data, and I can only evaluate each team's seniors for the last 6 years, so I can only make this calculation for the last 6 years.)

REG Coach - School
2.47 Roy Williams - North Carolina
2.33 Mike Krzyzewski - Duke
2.19 Bill Self - Kansas
2.14 Rick Barnes - Texas
2.04 Jamie Dixon - Pittsburgh
2.02 John Calipari - Memphis
2.02 Bo Ryan - Wisconsin
1.99 Mark Few - Gonzaga
1.96 Jim Calhoun - Connecticut
1.90 Ben Howland - UCLA

Not surprisingly, the best coaches at winning in the regular season were also some of the best recruiters. (Players like to play for a winning coach.) The interesting feature here is that Jamie Dixon and Bo Ryan show up on this list even though they weren't on the recruiting list. Even with less talent, these coaches have been consistent winners in the regular season.

REG Coach - School
-0.69 Leonard Hamilton - Florida State
-0.38 Jeff Lebo - Auburn
-0.23 Norm Roberts - St. John's
-0.21 Andy Kennedy - Mississippi
-0.18 Travis Ford - Oklahoma State
-0.09 Jerry Wainwright - DePaul
-0.02 Bill Carmody - Northwestern
0.03 Scott Drew - Baylor
0.03 Ed DeChellis - Penn State
0.06 Bobby Gonzalez - Seton Hall

On the flip side, Leonard Hamilton has turned some great recruiting classes into zero NCAA tournament appearances at Florida St. I also give less weight to success at non-BCS schools based on the fact that most coaches making the transition fail. Even so, I find it a little surprising that Travis Ford earned the Oklahoma St. job after FAILING to qualify for the NCAA tournament with a talented team.

REC , REG , PASE , TOT, School - Coach
1.41 , 2.47 , 0.55 , 4.43, North Carolina - Roy Williams
1.57 , 2.19 , 0.25 , 4.00, Kansas - Bill Self
1.80 , 2.33 , -0.34 , 3.79, Duke - Mike Krzyzewski
1.10 , 1.90 , 0.67 , 3.68, UCLA - Ben Howland
1.31 , 1.57 , 0.71 , 3.58, Florida - Billy Donovan
0.91 , 1.96 , 0.52 , 3.39, Connecticut - Jim Calhoun
0.90 , 2.02 , 0.20 , 3.12, Memphis - John Calipari
1.02 , 2.14 , -0.07 , 3.09, Texas - Rick Barnes
1.13 , 1.45 , 0.32 , 2.90, Ohio State - Thad Matta
1.03 , 1.09 , 0.72 , 2.84, Michigan State - Tom Izzo

This list should look a lot like the list of wins and appearances at the start of this post. I've simply broken apart where the success comes from. Bill Self is a star recruiter; John Calipari fattens up in the regular season and earns a high seed and better NCAA tournament path; and Tom Izzo makes his money by exceeding expectations in the tournament.

The above number says Bill Self should average 4.0 wins plus appearances per year. But Bill Self's numbers in the initial list were 10 appearances and 22 wins, or 3.2 per year. The key difference is that the recruiting figure is ONLY for Kansas. This does not include Self’s recruiting at Tulsa and Illinois which was at a slightly lower level. The regular season and tournament figures are derived from all of Bill Self’s jobs. Even though he only earned 3.2 wins plus appearances per year, if he stays at Kansas, this model suggests that Bill Self should average 4.0 wins plus appearances in the future.

For someone like Coach K at the same school, the discrepancy between the actual 3.6 wins and 3.8 wins is explained by the different time horizons for the various factors. I evaluate RECR for 9 years, REG for the last 6 years, and PASE for the last 10 years.
Differences will also occur when there is an unusual amount of early entry at a school. I currently do not penalize coaches for early entry.

I'll be back later with a conference by conference breakdown.

Coaching Candidates

2008-04-08T17:03:00.000-04:00

Since I won’t get a chance to post my updated coaching rankings until later this month, I wanted to briefly discuss the top non-BCS coaching candidates.

In Your Dreams
John Calipari
Mark Few

Maybe the Oklahoma St. money could do it, but I highly doubt it.

Not Interested in Moving
Dana Altman
Jim Larranaga
Phil Martelli
Rick Majerus

Larranaga has already turned down the Providence job. I don’t see Majerus moving this soon. I also think he may prefer to keep a lower profile job.

Top Candidates
Sean Miller, 3 NCAA appearances, 4 NCAA wins
Keno Davis, 1 NCAA tournament appearance, 0 NCAA wins, 1 coach of the year award
Lon Kruger, 2 NCAA appearances, 3 NCAA wins at UNLV, extensive college & NBA history
Bob McKillop, 3 straight NCAA appearances, 4 in last 7 years, 3 NCAA wins this year
Rick Byrd, 3 straight appearances at Belmont, almost beat Duke

The interest in Keno Davis seems to have cooled some, but that coach of the year award is still impressive. McKillop probably won’t leave Davidson, especially with Curry coming back, but he deserves a mention. If Rick Byrd is looking to move up to a mid-major, now might be the chance.

Don’t Forget
Chris Lowery, 3 NCAA appearances, 3 NCAA wins
Mark Fox, 3 NCAA appearances, 2 NCAA wins
Bobby Lutz, 5 NCAA appearances in last 10 years, missed 3 straight

Bill Grier of San Diego and Brad Stevens of Butler are too new to get an offer, but are worth keeping an eye on. There are also a slew of people like Fran McCaffery of Siena (won in tournament this year) and Ronnie Arrow of South Alabama (two straight NCAA trips, one with TexasA&MCC) that are interesting, but probably need to do a little more to move.

This really looks like it is going to be a boring year for coaching moves. Last year there were a lot of major dominoes to follow, particularly due to the Michigan and Kentucky openings. This year, Indiana caused a major stir by hiring Tom Crean, but with Marquette choosing an assistant for the head coaching position, and California going to the NBA to get Mike Montgomery, there isn’t expected to be a lot of movement among BCS teams. About the only way things are going to get really crazy is if Oklahoma St. is able to pull over Bill Self or another BCS coach. Assuming that doesn’t happen, here are the three BCS teams with vacancies still open:

Oklahoma St.
LSU
Providence

Will they choose someone from the above list, or will they get another BCS coach? The fun is just beginning.

Conference Wrap-Up

2008-04-08T13:00:00.001-04:00

Here is how the multi-bid conferences fared in the NCAA tournament:
12-5 Big 12
6-4 ACC
11-8 Big East
8-6 Pac 10
5-4 Big 10
3-3 A10
2-2 Sun Belt
4-6 SEC
1-3 MWC
1-3 WCC
Memphis won more games than all the SEC teams combined.

As I’ve been discussing for several weeks, here is how the conferences did relative to the expectations given the seeds they received:
3.36 Big 12
0.89 Sun Belt
0.23 A10
0.11 Big 10
-0.04 Big East
-0.34 MWC
-0.74 WCC
-1.15 Pac10
-1.83 ACC
-1.89 SEC
Duke and Clemson bowed out earlier than would have been expected by seed, hurting the ACC’s ranking. The Pac10 was a media darling all year, but the Big 12 did more damage in the tournament, and it wasn’t just Kansas. Texas and Oklahoma lived up to seed, Kansas St. pulled an upset, and Texas A&M won the 8-9 game. Only Baylor, seeded 11th lost in the first round.

Rock Chalk

2008-04-08T12:45:00.001-04:00

As the confetti fell from the rafters in San Antonio, you have to appreciate the joy of winning a championship. Kansas went two decades without a title; Bill Self was the best coach never to have made a final four. And in storybook fashion, the Jayhawks hit a miracle three, won in OT, and gave their fans a final satisfying payoff. Here are five thoughts on an exciting finale:

1) Sometimes the numbers are right.

-Both the Pomeroy Ratings and the Sagarin Predictor tabbed Kansas as the best team in the country. No one was better at blowing out their opponents than Kansas, and in the end, the numbers predicted a tournament championship.

-Memphis was a horrible free throw shooting team in the regular season, and they missed key free throws in the final minutes of the championship game. Perhaps Chris-Douglas-Roberts can take solace in the fact that those weren’t the first painful free throw misses in Memphis history. Do you remember Darius Washington missing foul shots and collapsing to the floor a few years ago? Memphis has come a long way, but they still know how to do heartbreak.

2) Did Memphis choke?

Call me crazy, but I didn’t see a Memphis team that choked away the game. I saw a Kansas team that made plays to win down the stretch. One of my mottos on this site has been - “great comebacks require steals, not fouls.” Too often announcers claim that teams need to foul to get back in the game, eschewing the obvious fact that steals can bring a team back. And as Jay Bilas has pointed out numerous times, it is often easier to get steals at the end of the game because you can slap at the ball without worrying about the consequences.

In a game like this, steals were huge. How many times did we see Memphis steal the ball, only to have Kansas steal it back 3 seconds later. The teams had 11 steals apiece in the game. Heck, Memphis only turned it over 13 times, meaning they had only 2 turnovers that weren’t on steals. So when Kansas stole the ball under the Memphis basket (ala Pittsburgh at Syracuse), and Sherron Collins drained a 3 pointer from the corner, that was the play of the game. Chalmers 3 will be the shot that gets replayed, but if the earlier shot doesn’t cut it to 4 points, it isn’t even close at the end.

Some people view the steal as a choke job by Memphis, but I totally disagree. It was just a good basketball play. The bigger choke job occurred two days earlier when Ty Lawson and Tyler Hansbrough threw it away on a lazy 20 foot outlet pass after UNC had cut the lead to 4 points. That steal was inexcusable. The Kansas steal on Memphis was simply a terrific basketball play.

The biggest argument that Memphis choked was that they missed free throws. But given the way Memphis shot free throws in the regular season, a few misses were to be expected. If Memphis was going to win, they either needed to build a bigger lead, or execute on defense in the final minutes. They weren’t going to win a title by going 24 of 25 at the line. I don’t know anybody that believes the “We’ll make them when they count” theory. The only thing that tempers this is the fact that CDR was the player missing free throws (as compared to say Dorsey), but I still don’t view this as a choke.

3) What was John Calipari’s biggest coaching mistake?

I’ve heard a lot of complaints that Calipari should have called a time out to set up his defense after the Rose free throw at the end of regulation. Part of the reason is that Calipari didn’t handle his post-game interview very well. Calipari criticized the officials for not calling his team for a foul in the final seconds, and he claimed that his players were running away instead of listening to his instructions. But by launching this criticism, he actually put the target on himself. He made it seem like he should have called timeout. The truth is this is a bang-bang decision that only looks bad in 20/20 hindsight. The decision to let his players play defense and not call timeout fit much more with the Memphis season.

The Memphis team has been drilled all season on playing a free-flowing game and making plays in the rhythm of the game. This is not a team where you draw up a set play and expect them to execute. Recall what happened with 45 seconds left in the game. Kansas decided not to foul and the Memphis players started standing around like they didn’t know what to do. Calipari called a time out, but even that possession did not produce a point.

Calipari doesn’t want to micromanage the game. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about strategy. He does want to teach phenomenal defense and drill his team on offense, but in crunch time, he just wants to sit back and let his players make plays. And I think this is one of the major reasons Calipari took a job at Memphis instead of a BCS gig. This laid-back strategy works a lot better in a smaller conference where most of the games aren’t close, and you can just depend on your team’s phenomenal talent to win. There is a reason his recruiting pitch is “Come to Memphis where we won’t make you play a boring screening offense. We’ll just let you play the game.” Calipari is looking for players who will execute based on fundamentals and ability, not based on X’s and O’s.

So I have no problem with him not calling a timeout to set up the defense in the final minute. And despite the outcome, I thought his team executed flawlessly. Memphis nearly forced Collins to turn it over, Memphis pressured Chalmers enough that he double clutched, and then Chalmers made a very difficult 3 pointer. Memphis could not have played it any better.

Some people claim that Memphis should have fouled in the final seconds, but how could they? Kansas had the ball at the three point line with 5 seconds left. You just can’t foul when a team gets this close. You can foul if a player is facing the wrong way or out at half-court with 3 seconds left, but it is way too risky to foul when a player like Collins or Chalmers has the ball at the 3 point line. At contact, either of those players could just throw it up and act like they were shooting. I thought Memphis executed fine defense on the final play of regulation, Kansas just made a better offensive play.

The mistake I think Calipari made was how he handled the Joey Dorsey foul situation. The absence of Dorsey was clearly critical in the game. It didn’t matter in regulation, but with him out of the game in OT, the Kansas interior players were able to put the game away. How could this happen?

First, what was Calipari doing with Dorsey at the end of regulation? Dorsey is a terrible FT shooter, and an irrelevant offensive player, so why pull him from the game when he picked up his 4th foul with 3:36 to go? The only reason would be to tell him not to commit a stupid foul. But that’s clearly not what happened. Memphis took him out, realized it was silly, put him back in, and watched him commit a stupid foul on the perimeter to foul out of the game. I just don’t get what they tried to do here.

Second, if Calipari’s skill is in player management instead of X’s and O’s, why couldn’t he fire up his team for the start of OT? Why didn’t he go to Taggart and Dozier and challenge them to make it happen with Dorsey fouled out? That to me was a bigger mistake then not setting up the defense on the final possession.

4) What was the biggest coaching mistake in the championship game?

I thought the worst coaching move belonged to Bill Self, not John Calipari. The move to the junk defense (Box and One) was a horrible mistake. Kansas had led for most of the game and was doing a decent job on Rose and CDR. But when Kansas moved to the junk defense, Rose heated up, Kansas blew the lead, and Kansas almost blew the game.

Having watched a number of Bill Self press conferences at Illinois, it just didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Self has always said that he believes in order to win a championship, in the key moments of a championship, you have to be able to beat the other team with man-to-man defense. So why would he change his philosophy when he was finally playing in the championship game?

Yes, Kansas had used a box-and-one a little this season. But this totally played into the hands of Memphis. Ever since the USC game, Memphis had been expecting to see junk defenses, and they’ve been practicing against them on a regular basis. So while Kansas busted out a less effective defense that it used only occasionally, Memphis was playing against something they had practiced against all year. This decision didn’t cost Kansas the game, but it almost did.

5) Was Kansas a surprise champion?

As I said at the beginning, the predictive ratings loved Kansas in this tournament because they were great at blowing teams out. This was partly because they had the best interior depth so that it was easy to build a big lead, even when they went to the bench. This proved particularly true in the tournament when Sasha Kaun dominated the early rounds and was perhaps the MVP of a victory over Davidson. Similarly, Cole Aldrich came off the bench against UNC and played phenomenal. I wrote a few weeks ago that foul trouble would probably do Kansas in during the tournament, but I had no idea Kaun and Aldrich would play so well.

The truth is that Kansas was what we expected all year long, the most talented team in the country. Despite the fact that college basketball has become a game for ultra-talented freshman (like Rose and Love), at least for one year, experienced talent won it all. If Kansas hadn’t been so disappointing in the tournament the last few years, that talent might not have stuck around. If Brandon Rush didn’t get injured last spring, he might not have stuck around. But at the end of the day, no one stacked up to this team. The rotation of 8 players in the title game included 3 seniors who were top 100 recruits out of high school in Kaun, Jackson, and Robinson, a junior McDonald’s All-American in Chalmers, a junior who was a huge MAA snub in Rush, two sophomore MAA’s in Collins and Arthur, and a freshman MAA in Aldrich. It hardly seems fair when you can bring a player like Aldrich in off the bench as an emergency sub. (UCLA’s emergency MAA James Keefe was not nearly as brilliant.)

Honestly, if Kansas hadn’t been such a big disappointment the last few years in the tournament, if Bill Self didn’t have the Final Four gorilla on his back, we all would have picked this team to win it all. And they still only won in OT. That’s how great CDR and Rose and company played. These were two phenomenal teams. The numbers may not mean as much now that the seasons have been expanded, but Kansas has the most ever wins for a National Champion. Memphis has the most ever wins for a Runner-Up. And best of all, after weeks of blowout games, the final lived up to the hype.

Blog Notes

I intend to be back with updated coaching rankings and notes on the coaching changes later in the month.

Chalk Wins Again

2008-03-30T23:01:00.002-04:00

When the brackets were printed, I said to people:
"I do not want to fill out a bracket this year. I just can't figure out who to pick. Every time I look at it, I keep coming to the conclusion that the four number 1 seeds are going to make it to the Final Four."

Finally, and reluctantly, I filled out a bracket. And I picked my one sleeper team Louisville, to upset UNC, but I didn't feel good about it. I figured UNC was the better team, but I had to pick an upset somewhere, right?

It turns out all the boring "chalk" people are going to win their office pools. And I couldn't be happier. While there are no underdogs left to cheer for, this could be the most exciting Final Four in recent memory. We have the talented and uptempo Kansas - UNC matchup with its obvious Roy Williams storyline. And we finally get to see whether the ultra-talented defenders that are the UCLA guards can really shut down CDR and Rose and the Dribble Drive Motion Offense. It doesn't get any better than this folks.

Davidson - Kansas

"And the gorilla has been lifted off Bill Self's shoulders" - Gus Johnson

Streaks rarely end without some drama. Clemson isn't going to just walk into UNC's stadium and blow out the Tar Heels by 20. Minnesota may have had a better overall season than Illinois this year, but they weren't about to snap a 20 game losing streak to the Illini without some special plays.

In November, the Jayhawks were the obvious Final Four team. I said in one of my first posts of the season that no one had more experienced talent, and Bill Self (and the Big 12 North) would ensure that the Jayhawks were in position to make the Final Four. But I still didn't want to pick them until they proved they could get past that mystical Final Four barrier.

And whether the numbers or the line, or logic said Kansas should blow out Davidson, you just knew that Bill Self's first Final Four wasn't going to come easy.

When Sherron Collins had the ball stripped in the final minutes, and Dell Curry lined up for a 3 pointer, how many of you thought it was going in? Did you watch the Gonzaga game when Curry hit a crushing three to give his team the lead in the final minute? Did you watch the Georgetown game when Curry hit a crushing three to give his team a 5 point lead in the final minute? Did you watch him hit numerous devastating jumpers against Wisconsin? Sometimes the unexpected happens. With a momentum swingining turnover giving Davidson the basketball and Curry lining up for the perfect shot, it was off the mark.

And even though Curry hit another three to bring his team closer later, it was too little too late. On the final possession, Jason Richards was left clanging a 25 footer off the glass.

Two final comments:

1) Not to overanalyze one sequence, but Davidson really gave up the game the moment they decided to play for the final shot at the end of regulation. They essentially said, "We're not good enough to go to OT against Kansas. We need to take a 3 at the buzzer and hope to win. And yes, Lovedale had fouled out, but was that really the right call? Davidson was playing as well as anyone in the country. They should have tried to take a shot as quickly as possible and extended the game. First, if they tried for an early shot, it might have been better than the one they took. Second, even if they missed, they could still foul Kansas, and possibly have another chance. Obviously, it is cruel to second guess a sequence like this, but when you change your mentality from "we are going to win" to "we hope to win", you usually don't win.

2) Who knew Sasha Kaun would be the post player for Kansas to play so huge in the biggest game of the season? After he lost his starting job, (and after I wrote the piece on how Kansas needs to run the offense through Darrell Arthur), I always envisioned Kaun on the floor when Kansas lost in the NCAA tournament. Instead Kaun went 6-6 from the floor and made some vital plays to seal the victory for his team.