Ken’s Rules Corner
01.27.12
Ken,
I was at the UNLV-UNM game [Saturday] and saw something I’ve never seen before. A UNLV big man takes an elbow to the face on defense which results in a flagrant 1 foul. He has to be removed from the game. UNLV puts in guard Kendall Wallace who hits both the free throws and then is immediately subbed out for a big man.This occurred with about 17 minutes left in the 2nd half. Statistically the ESPN Box gives Wallace one minute played, however the UNLV box gives him 0. For reference, when a player has less time that a full minute the UNLV box normally lists their minutes as 0+. Even the UNLV play-by-play doesn’t list Wallace’s entrance or exit from the game.
Robert
This was actually the second consecutive game where I’d seen someone come off the bench to take flagrant free throws. Last Thursday, Utah’s Alex Mortensen shot free throws without entering the game after Solomon Hill’s ejection-worthy elbow early in the second half against Arizona. Mortensen would reappear in the game during garbage time, therefore he didn’t get the zero-minute designation in the box score.
Having officiated one college basketball game in my life, I feel like I have a slightly-advanced knowledge of the rules of the game. I’m no Jim Burr, mind you, but I have a larger interest in the rules than most folks that cover the game. As you may know, part of the flagrant foul rule is that if the offended party is injured, the coach of the offended team can select anyone on the roster to shoot the free throws.
Art. 3. (Men) When an injured player is unable to attempt a free throw try(s), one of the four remaining players on the playing court shall be selected by the opposing coach to attempt the free throw try(s) unless the committed foul was either intentional personal or flagrant. In such a case, the injured player’s coach shall select any player or team member to attempt the free throw try(s)
The only other time I recall a zero-minute, two-point performance was in the 1997 Final Four when Rick Pitino sent Derek Anderson in to shoot technical free throws when he was sidelined while recovering from a torn ACL. Which brings me to my own personal rules obsession: I’ve never seen anyone use the Pitino move since, and that stuns me because there have to be times when a team’s best free throw shooter is not on the floor when a T is called.
Like the flagrant/injury scenario, technical free throws do not have to be shot by someone who was on the floor when the call was made. Unlike the flagrant/injury situation, pulling this kind of stunt for a technical foul comes at a slight cost. The substitution isn’t a freebie. If a player subs in to shoot the free throws, someone must go to the bench, and the departing player can’t come in again until after the next live ball.
So if a benchwarmer is a stud free throw shooter, the coach is forced to make some sort of lineup change to accommodate him shooting technical free throws and returning to the bench. Still, unless a coach has an extremely short bench it seems like there would be cases where this is a worthy trade-off. Besides, how often do you see a shooter sub in for technical free throws even to stay in the game? It doesn’t seem like it ever happens, and I don’t understand why.
Either coaches aren’t aware of this possibility or they are very particular about their substitutions. One would hope if Scott Wood isn’t on the floor when a technical is called against an N.C. State opponent, that Mark Gottfried would have him shoot the free throws anyway.
How much is air worth?
01.24.12
Wyoming hosts San Diego State tonight (if the Aztecs make it to Laramie) and it got me to wondering about the importance of altitude. The Aztecs won at New Mexico last week, and while observers were impressed with the win in the Lobos’ building, nobody really mentioned that they had to overcome the thin air of Albuquerque (elevation 5300 feet) as well. There are a few studies out there that have looked at the difference in a high-elevation team’s winning percentage between home and road games. For some reason, I’d rather know how many points altitude is worth.
Wyoming has played San Diego State home and away every season since 2000. In 12 games in Wyoming, the average margin as been +1.0 for Wyoming while the games at San Diego have produced an average margin of +9.4 for the Aztecs. The difference of 10.4 points can’t be explained by raw home court advantage alone, which has long been calculated to be around four points. There are 2.4 points left unaccounted for. This is only a 13 game sample, though, and the error bars are large enough so that we can’t get too carried away about the results.
A bigger sample is available if we look at the University of Colorado during its time in the Big 12. For 15 consecutive seasons the Buffaloes played a home and away series with Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Iowa State, and Nebraska. In 75 games at Boulder over that span, the average margin was Colorado +1.5 and in the 75 games at lower elevation, Colorado’s average margin was -13.0, for a whopping 14.5 point difference, leaving 6.5 points unexplained.
Six points seems a bit much to account for altitude but there’s another possibility to consider as well. Teams residing at altitude might have an increased disadvantage when they go to lower locations. I’m not a runner and I don’t completely understand the concept of “living high and training low” but it seems to be accepted as an optimum way for endurance runners to train.
Obviously, teams living at high elevation can’t take advantage of this because they also train at high elevation. This might explain the additional disadvantage for these teams when they play at lower elevations. Perhaps higher elevation teams are in poorer shape than their lower elevation counterparts, an effect that is overwhelmed when the lower elevation team is suddenly deprived of its usual oxygen, but appears at sea-level when both teams are on equal footing air-wise.
Whatever the reason, there almost surely is an altitude effect that low-elevation teams have to suffer through when playing in thin air. If San Diego State wins tonight, I expect they won’t get as much credit as they deserve. Wyoming is a better team than RPI believers, or those that rate teams solely based on quality wins, would think. But also, there’s the altitude issue. Throw in the travel problems as well and it’s not unreasonable to think that the Aztecs are dealing with something approaching a double home-court advantage tonight. Keep that in mind if they pull out an ugly victory.
The untrained eye: New Mexico vs. UNLV
01.22.12
UNLV beat New Mexico 80-63 in a 64-possession game Saturday night. I was there. This is what I saw.
Mike Moser is great offensive rebounder considering his shot selection.
I don’t think there’s a useful position descriptor for UNLV’s Mike Moser. Whatever you want to call him, he was a busy man on Saturday night, taking 16 shots, grabbing 13 boards and recording two blocks. It’s not Moser’s activity that makes him unique, though. It’s that his shot selection skews towards the perimeter, yet he’s a major factor on the offensive glass. This is best explained in graph form.
What you see here is the distribution of D-I players that have played at least 40% of their team’s minutes this season, according to their OR% and 3PA%. Two players have separated themselves from the cloud, er, crowd. Moser and Belmont’s Brandon Baker. Even though Baker takes a higher percentage of his shots from three-point range, he takes many fewer shots than Moser in general (Baker’s %Shots is 16.2 to Moser’s 25.6), and thus has a little more time to hang out near the rim than Moser does.
Carlos Lopez is no longer a minutes-thief
I was not a big fan of UNLV center Carlos Lopez last season mainly because I felt like he was taking minutes that rightfully belonged to man-child Quintrell Thomas. But this year you could make the case that Thomas is stealing Lopez’s minutes. If it weren’t for his part-time status, Lopez would be getting more credit for an amazing turnaround in his game. He’s gone from an ORtg/%Poss combo of 96/23 as a freshman to 126/21 as a sophomore and has made 73% of his twos so far. He didn’t disappoint in this game, either, getting to the free throw line 14 times in 14 minutes of action. Free Carlos!
Where has Steve Alford’s defense gone?
Back during Monte Carlo sim-time, I mused about Alford finally channeling the magic of the top-ranked ‘06 Iowa defense again. But the last two games have done a lot of damage to the Lobos’ defensive rating, and for good reason. The 1.25 points per possession surrendered to UNLV was the sixth-best offensive performance for the Rebels this season, with the top five occurring against teams outside the top 150. San Diego State has its third-best offensive game of the season (1.26 PPP) against New Mexico last Wednesday.
And the Aztecs’ two best games occurred against a non-D-I and 271st UC Riverside. You can’t single out just one weakness for New Mexico’s decline. The Lobos can’t stop dribble penetration, and the breakdowns leave the perimeter wide open too often. But also, whomever Alford plugs into the 3 and 4 spots are atrocious on the defensive glass. It’s essentially up to Drew Gordon to prevent second-chances, and as good as Gordon is at rebounding (tenth in the nation in DR%), he needs help.