Unfinished Business
09.11.05
On January 19th, LSU beat Arkansas 66-63 in overtime. It was a particularly fortunate victory for LSU, because the game went to overtime only when officials conferred about a would-be game-winning three-pointer by Arkansas’ Michael Jones at the end of regulation. The shot was ruled a three by one official and a two by the other. Ultimately, replays were inconclusive (can we get some HD monitors, please?), the officials ruled the shot a two, and LSU got an extra chance with the overtime.
This is one example of how a goofy break can influence the outcome of a contest. Over the course of a season, these breaks are supposed to even out, but they don’t for some squads. For some closure on my earlier look at the unluckiest teams of 2005, here were the 20 luckiest teams in conference play from 2005, based on the difference between expected and actual conference winning percentage, with actual conference record in parenthesis.
1 Davidson +0.224 (16- 0) 2 Arkansas Little Rock +0.214 (10- 4) 3 Virginia Tech +0.189 ( 8- 8) 4 Dartmouth +0.187 ( 7- 7) 5 NC Wilmington +0.165 (13- 5) 6 Jacksonville +0.161 (11- 9) 7 Wisconsin Green Bay +0.158 (10- 6) 8 Louisiana St. +0.154 (12- 4) 9 Pacific +0.154 (18- 0) 10 St. Mary's +0.150 (11- 3) 11 Texas Tech +0.147 (10- 6) 12 Missouri +0.136 ( 7- 9) 13 West Virginia +0.136 ( 8- 8) 14 Boston College +0.124 (13- 3) 15 Northwestern St. +0.123 (13- 3) 16 Charlotte +0.120 (12- 4) 17 Southern Illinois +0.118 (15- 3) 18 Missouri Kansas City +0.116 (12- 4) 19 Nevada +0.113 (16- 2) 20 Minnesota +0.113 (10- 6)
Interestingly, Southern Illinois makes the list for the third year in a row - they were 3rd in 2004 and 4th in 2003 - suggesting their performance isn’t so much luck, but more related to not stretching that 10-point lead to 20 in garbage time. They’re the bizarro-Cincinnati.
Much like the unluckiest list contained mainly losing teams, the lucky list contains mostly winners. It’s most interesting to pick out the teams on the list that didn’t win so much. Virginia Tech improbably played their way into a 4 seed in the ACC tournament despite an expected conference record of 5-11. They lose their second-leading scorer from last season in swingman Carlos Dixon. They also have faced an unfair share of off-season tragedy, what with junior forward Allen Calloway diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and freshman forward Deron Washington losing the family house to Katrina. They return enough talent, including a couple of quality recruits, to maintain their level of performance from last season, but it probably won’t be reflected in their ACC record.
Then there’s West Virginia, whose expected winning percentage was actually lower than Providence’s. Providence finished 4-12 in Big East play, four games behind the Mountaineers. WVU was 8-9 within the conference regular-season window (8-8 in the Big East plus a January loss to Marshall) with losses to bad teams and a couple that went beyond lopsided. But they were 17-2 outside this period with quality wins out the ying-yang.
The turnaround at the end of the season was fueled by “center” Kevin Pittsnogle getting increased minutes. It’s hard to believe a guy who played less than half of his team’s minutes (by coach’s decision) could seriously consider an early jump to the NBA. Well, the NBA didn’t seriously consider Pittsnogle. But take a look at his line from last season, and you can see why he makes for a great player in the John Beilein system, surrounded by four excellent passers.
O-Rtg %Poss %Shots %Min PPG TO% OR%/DR% FTA/FGA eFG% PITTSNOGLE..116 28.1 34.1 47.7 11.9 12.3 8.8/14.8 .248 56.1
Pittsnogle has an incredible appetite for shooting the ball, hoisting over a third of his team’s shots while he’s on the court. In playing only 19 minutes per game, he was just 7 field goal attempts from leading the team in that category. He provides little else - you give him the ball, he shoots. He doesn’t turn it over much, he won’t get to the line often, his rebounding is nothing special, and he doesn’t set up his teammates (22 assists all season). But he shoots in bulk, and is successful an awful lot.
Something to watch in ‘06 is how his numbers will be affected by more playing time. Prorate last season’s stats to 30 minutes a game and he would have placed 12th in the nation with 488 field goal attempts. Among the top 20 in FGAs, only Pat Carroll had a better eFG% (57.6) than Pittsnogle. Which leads me me to believe that Pittsnogle won’t duplicate either the volume or the efficiency (or both) from last season. This is not to say that WVU is headed for a disappointing season. They’ll be somewhere in between the 17-2 version and the 8-9 version. But the only way they will challenge for the top of the Big East is if Pittsnogle can approach his 2005 production with the massive increase in playing time he is likely to receive.
Feeling Lucky?
08.08.05
I did this last year, and looking back on it, it was revealing. You can read last year's editions of the luckiest and unluckiest teams from 2004 and judge for yourself. Just ignore my comments about Florida State.
If you don't know what the Pythagorean method is, then you'll have to read the 2004 write-ups. All I am doing is subtracting a team's expected winning percentage from its actual conference winning percentage based on its points scored and allowed during conference play. I have decided to rank the teams by winning percentage difference, instead of by win difference. This is so the system is not biased towards conferences that play a lot of conference games.
These are the teams whose actual conference regular-season record was exceeded by their expected record the most. You could say luck went against these teams the most. The numbers are winning percentage difference followed by actual conference record.
1 Utah St. -0.185 (13- 5) 2 Northern Arizona -0.171 ( 4-10) 3 Campbell -0.167 ( 0-20) 4 Middle Tennessee -0.158 ( 7- 7) 5 Providence -0.156 ( 4-12) 6 Nicholls St. -0.155 ( 1-15) 7 High Point -0.155 ( 7- 9) 8 Princeton -0.152 ( 6- 8) 9 Hawaii -0.150 ( 7-11) 10 East Tennessee St. -0.138 ( 4-12) 11 South Carolina St. -0.132 (11- 7) 12 New Mexico St. -0.131 ( 1-14) 13 Jacksonville St. -0.130 ( 2-14) 14 Louisiana Monroe -0.130 ( 2-14) 15 Purdue -0.127 ( 3-13) 16 Vanderbilt -0.125 ( 8- 8) 17 Tulsa -0.122 ( 5-13) 18 Loyola Marymount -0.118 ( 3-11) 19 Memphis -0.116 ( 9- 7) 20 Arkansas Pine Bluff -0.116 ( 5-13)
For predictive purposes, one needs to take the data in context. If a team is decimated by graduation and other defections, then the fact they were unlucky last season is not useful when looking ahead. But teams with some continuity heading into next season can generally be expected to improve a little more than expected. Two teams I'd like to discuss from this list are Purdue and Utah State.
Matt Painter has a lot to thank Gene Keady for. Mainly for setting the bar real low with talent that didn't match the dismal season of year ago. Painter is a guy that guided a mid-major with few expectations to the top 15 during his only season as a head coach, so it's not like he goes to bed at night wondering if he's good enough for this job. But nonetheless, he has a nice situation in which to get his feet wet in the Big Ten, which hasn't exactly treated young coaches well in recent years.
Purdue's record last season was 7-21, and it was ugly at times. But the non-conference schedule featured Cincinnati, NC State, Memphis, and Oklahoma. Then there was brilliant idea of scheduling eventual sweet sixteen participant Wisconsin-Milwaukee smack dab in the middle of the conference season. The Big Ten office gave Keady one hell of going away gift, also. In the Big Ten, you face six conference foes twice, and the other four once. The six teams Purdue played twice? First place Illinois, second place Michigan State, third place Wisconsin, co-fourths Indiana and Minnesota, and seventh place Iowa. It was just about as tough of a conference schedule as could be devised. Despite this, the Boilermakers played like a 5-11 team, better than Michigan and Northwestern which finished ahead of them.
But wait, there's more.
Superstar Carl Landry missed the last two and a half regular season games due to injury. During that time, Purdue was outscored 189-128. Granted, most of that involved games at Illinois and at Wisconsin that would have been unwinnable anyway, but considering Landry missed 15% of the conference season, Purdue's expected winning percentage looks that much better.
Painter wisely scheduled a few more non-conference wins this season. The Big Ten schedule has to get easier. Painter has a solid group of new players coming in. If Landry's knee recovers fully (not a trivial matter) and Purdue avoids other forms of bad luck, a .500 conference record and an NIT bid is a realistic goal.
Utah State is a team I wrote volumes about on the eve of the NCAA Tournament. The Aggies are to me what the Oakland A's are to the baseball sabermetric community. Just like a segment of the baseball statheads hopes the A's succeed to justify their own theories, so will I be pulling for Utah State to support their gaudy efficiency numbers from last season. As you can see from the list, it's rare for teams that win as much as USU to get where they are despite bad luck. The Aggies had far and away the best record among the unlucky teams - and they were the unluckiest of them all.
It's easy to explain their perch among the unluckiest teams in conference, each of their wins was dominant, and the losses were close. In fact, this extends to the rest of their schedule. They won 24 games, and save for two games that they won by seven points each, all of their wins were by double digits. Of their seven losses, only the season-ender to Arizona was by more than seven points. Basically every game that was decided in the final minute went against Utah State, including the memorable February 12th collapse against Pacific.
Taking USU's adjusted offensive and defensive efficiencies from 2005, their expected winning percentage places them 24th among all division 1 teams. No, I don't think they were that good. This is a team that lost to IPFW and Idaho, after all. The Aggies numbers were inflated by playing especially well in garbage time. However, I also don't think they were as bad as the 14th seed that the selection committee gave them. Though this was probably done as a punishment for USU's stubbornness in maintaining a weak non-conference schedule outside of the government-mandated game against Utah.
Perhaps the least competition expected for the top spot in any conference is in the WAC. There's not a soul associated with the conference that will pick against Nevada. The Wolf Pack are the prohibitive favorite, due in equal parts to the return of reigning WAC player of the year Nick Fazekas, and the talent hit the WAC took by losing UTEP, Rice, and SMU to Conference USA. This leaves a free-for-all in the chase for second, with all but newcomers Idaho and New Mexico State feeling capable.
Utah State is also capable, despite losing point-forward Spencer Nelson to the professional ranks. A lot will depend on how scorer Nate Harris and gunner Jaycee Carroll adapt to increased attention from the defense due to Nelson's absence. Both fared well against Arizona, a game where Nelson was ineffective as he struggled with his health.
If Utah State plays 2006 the way their 2005 stats suggest, there won't be any competition for second in the WAC, either. And with a little luck, there will be some competition for first.
The Lucky Ones
08.11.04
Just like with my post on the unlucky teams, I'm going to start this post on the lucky teams with a look at what happened two years ago. The following are the ten luckiest teams - as measured by wins over expected - from 2003 with their actual 2003 conference record in parenthesis.
1 Niagara +2.5 (12- 6) 2 Mercer +2.5 (14- 2) 3 Prairie View A&M +2.4 (14- 4) 4 Southern Illinois +2.4 (16- 2) 5 Wake Forest +2.3 (13- 3) 6 Wyoming +2.3 ( 8- 6) 7 Weber St. +2.2 (14- 0) 8 Massachusetts +2.1 ( 5-10) 9 William & Mary +2.1 ( 7-11) 10 Wichita St. +2.1 (12- 6)
In 2004 the teams above lost an average of 3.5 more conference games than in 2003. This shows much more of a decline than the unlucky teams showed improvement.
Here's the top 10, plus some other notables from 2004:
1 Toledo +3.2 (12- 6) 2 Stetson +3.1 (10-10) 3 Southern Illinois +3.0 (17- 1) 4 Prairie View A&M +2.8 ( 7-11) 5 Wisconsin Green Bay +2.7 (11- 5) 6 East Tennessee St. +2.7 (16- 1) 7 Virginia Tech +2.5 ( 7- 9) 8 Chicago St. +2.5 ( 9- 7) 9 Austin Peay +2.4 (16- 0) 10 Alcorn St. +2.3 ( 9- 9) 13 Pacific +2.2 (17- 1) 14 Stanford +2.1 (17- 1) 15 Syracuse +2.1 (11- 5) 16 Princeton +2.0 (13- 1) 22 Tennessee +1.9 ( 7- 9) 25 Virginia +1.8 ( 6-10)
Stanford and Virginia were beneficiaries of the most high-profile last-second heroics last year, so it's comforting to see them show up fairly high on the list.
Syracuse is the team I want to focus on. They'll likely be a preseason top 10 team and it's hard not to buy into the hype with Hakim Warrick and Gerry McNamara among the best in the nation at their positions. Then there's the expected return of point guard Billy Edelin who missed a good chunk of last year with personal problems.
So yeah, there's reason for optimism in Orangeland. But there's also reason to believe that the opinions of last year's Syracuse team are inflated. Even their sweet 16 run was built on a couple of games that were decided in the final minute, including a win over an overseeded Maryland in the second round.
Sure, the 'Cuse will be better this year. But if they prove to be a top 5 team, it would be a better coaching job by Jim Boeheim that the national championship run of two years ago.