Thursday, February 18, 2010
Quick question
Let’s say you were given the following task: From a list of 320 college basketball teams, pick the 34 best. Not the most deserving, not the most difficult to play against, not the ones with the best athletes or the cutest stories. You had to pick the best teams. How would you do it? Would you use the RPI? Except, you wouldn’t actually use a team’s RPI rank, but you’d look at the ranks of the opponents that each team had beaten and lost to. Who would do that? Please e-mail me if you are one of those people. Just wondering if I am nuts for thinking that this is not the best way to accomplish this task.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
No, Kansas did not choke
It’s rare that I post e-mails in here anymore, mainly because most of the mail I get sucks. So I present this to you both as a thought-provoking piece and as a model for how to converse with me. Please address me as “Mr. Pomeroy” and keep it brief with something insightful for the subject matter. My time is valuable. Be sure to say how awesome I am, too. Also, use paragraphs and punctuation. Sign your work. Be proud of it.
The author, Chris, references one of the first posts I made on the blog, which wasn’t a very good post. But that was before I had even read Basketball on Paper.
As someone who has grown weary of the overuse of free throw shooting as a reason games are won and lost, I can sympathize with Chris’s reaction to old-Ken’s thoughts. But no more! New-Ken endorses the critical thinking behind this e-mail. And since there’s a non-zero chance of a rematch of the ‘03 title game occurring this season, it’s somewhat topical. Anyhow, I’ll let Chris take it away…
Mr. Pomeroy,
Huge, huge fan of your wesbite. I have a blast from the past for you tonight.
Re-watched Syracuse-Kansas 2003 title game tonight. Reminded me of your old blog post, “Did Kansas choke?” http://bit.ly/deST22
As a Syracuse fan, the idea that Kansas choked always bugged me. Not only does it feels like a swipe at the legitimacy Syracuse’s title, but the numbers don’t hold up. Surprising though it may be, Kansas was actually more efficient from the free throw line than Syracuse that night. Take a look at the play-by-play and box score here:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=234000063
Kansas went 12-30 from the line, and missed the front end of 2 one-and-ones. Effectively, that is 12-32. However, Kansas also scored 6 points via offensive rebounds on their missed free throws. So, effectively, Kansas produced 18 points from 32 free throw attempts.
Syracuse went 10-17 from the line. They also missed the front end of 1 one-and-one, and scored zero points from offensive rebounds on missed free throws. So, effectively, Syracuse produced 10 points from 18 free throw attempts.
Kansas: 18-32 for an efficiency rate of 0.5625 per free throw
Syracuse: 10-18 for an efficiency rate of 0.5556 per free throwThus, Kansas was actually slightly more efficient in terms of effective points per free throw attempt than Syracuse.
The 2003 national title game was actually won and lost at the three-point line, not the free throw line. Syracuse shot 11-18 beyond the arc, while Kansas went only 4-20. Whether or not you consider that to be luck might be another matter. However, as a Syracuse fan and a number cruncher, I feel a lot more comfortable discussing Syracuse’s timely three-point shooting than the illusion of Kansas choking from the line.
Keep up the great work. Thanks for reading my email.
Best,
Chris Bowers
Openleft.com
Thursday, February 11, 2010
The loneliest number
Last Friday, it was announced that Wyoming’s A.J. Davis would be leaving the program to pursue playing time elsewhere. On the surface, this was not big news. Davis was a solid player and will make a nice transfer for some mid-level program out there, but Wyoming is battling it out with Air Force to determine which team will wear the white jerseys in the 8/9 opening round game of the MWC tournament.
No, the real significance of Davis’ departure was that we are on the the verge of having a uniform number retire itself. Davis wore number 51 for the Cowboys, one of just four 51’s nationally who got meaningful (at least 10 percent of his team’s) minutes. And now we won’t see Davis for the remainder of the season. That leaves three active 51’s: Utah’s David Foster, JMU’s Pierre Curtis, and Campbell’s Preston Dodson.
I’m not sure why 51 is on the verge of extinction. Curtis is a senior, and with Davis out of action for next season, we could be down to just two players wearing the number during competitive play in 2011. There are actually five benchwarmer-types wearing it this season, so there’s still hope. The problem is there’s no role model that wears 51 - the list of NBA players to wear it is not exactly loaded with all-stars. Actually, it’s not loaded with any all-stars. It appears the best 51 of all-time is a toss-up between Michael Doleac, Lawrence Funderburke, and Michael Ruffin.
Here’s the list of players by number this season (10% of minutes played to qualify)...
No. Players 1 219 5 201 3 193 23 170 21 164 24 162 32 161 2 154 11 149 22 147 15 147 10 139 33 137 12 137 4 125 0 111 20 109 34 104 13 93 25 88 44 84 30 80 14 78 42 69 31 69 45 51 35 42 41 38 50 34 40 30 55 29 54 18 52 18 43 11 53 7 51 4
Monday, February 08, 2010
Give Coach Boze a chance
Some of this was recently covered by DeCourcy and Miller, but I was already planning to do some bookkeeping on the chances of unbeaten/winless teams remaining perfect mainly because it gives me a hook to blab about Todd Bozeman. First, let’s take a look at the eight teams that have an unbeaten conference record as of this morning…
Remaining perfect teams, chances of going unbeaten, remaining games
Butler 60.5% 5 Morgan St. 48.7% 7 Siena 40.8% 5 Murray St. 32.6% 5 Cornell 26.7% 8 Kansas 21.5% 9 Sam Houston St. 16.1% 8 Princeton 1.7% 10
All told, this collection is most likely to produce two perfect records when conference tournament play starts. After the Saturday win over Wright State, Butler’s the first team to have a projected undefeated conference record this season. Morgan State is right around 50 percent with less than half their conference slate left.
This got me to thinking about the best coach in college basketball (that’s only a small exaggeration), Todd Bozeman. Sadly Bozeman’s blog has been dormant this season, but his work lives on in terms of dominating the MEAC. Which again makes me wonder what it will take for him to move up to a level worthy of his ability.
I realize there’s much baggage there, but if you’re DePaul, can’t you at least interview the guy who is one of the best coaches in college basketball? Anyway, you’ll be hearing from me again when DePaul makes its selection, especially if it’s Craig Robinson. Or even worse, Isiah Thomas. That’s just moronic. Bozeman came to Baltimore and turned a horrible team into a winner overnight. Isiah’s first season at FIU is not going well despite an overhaul of the roster with an influx of Thomas-picked juco recruits. Consider that if Morgan State played DePaul in a seven-game series right now, it would be a toss-up.
I realize there isn’t much precedent for a coach from a conference as bad as the MEAC taking over a power-conference school. But you know what? There isn’t much precedent for DePaul winning NCAA tournament games in the last 20 years either. (Actually, they’ve won one.) It’s time to think outside the box.
Now for the winless teams…
Fordham 63.6% 7 Evansville 62.2% 5 Toledo 48.1% 6 Bryant 39.4% 6 UT Martin 23.5% 6 LSU 23.4% 7 Dartmouth 21.2% 8 Alcorn St. 20.3% 8 Penn St. 18.5% 7 Coppin St. 3.3% 7
Fordham continues to lead the pack here, but their chances actually decreased a smidge after giving Charlotte a scare on Saturday. Which brings me to my next coaching rant - why does the media make such a big deal about mid-season firings? (Examples: here and here.)
The most common criticism is that it sends the wrong message to the kids. But what message are you sending by letting Dereck Whittenburg suffer through this train wreck of a season? Maybe he should have been fired before the season, but at least the Fordham administration gave him a chance to turn things around. When it was obvious he couldn’t (and his star player transferred) then he had to go.
Keeping coaches like him and Penn’s Glen Miller around during historically bad seasons is just inhumane and I would argue sends a worse message. “Even though the season is a disaster and the fan base doesn’t support your coach, we accept this and are going to force him to finish the season when he otherwise could be looking for his next job. Sorry kids.”
Monday, February 01, 2010
Majerus does the unthinkable…again
(Note: Thanks to all that made me aware of this story.)
Rick Majerus has had a colorful career. He’s done some amazing things on the floor, most notably leading a WAC team to the NCAA title game in 1998. He’s done some amazing things off the floor, which include a variety of interesting motivational tactics, most thoroughly detailed in this piece. He’s publicly declared that the team he coaches is in the wrong conference, and announced on national TV that he’s “not a big gay guy”, as if there was some confusion about that after his on-air comments about Ashley Judd.
He was also the architect of the 20-point game, the lowest point total in the shot clock era. I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise that if there was one man that could defy logic and take on the challenge of completing a game by making only 2-point shots, it was Majerus. And on Saturday at the Robins Center in Richmond, that’s exactly what Saint Louis did - and they made it look a lot easier than it should have been.
It started innocently enough: The Billikens actually got to the free throw line on their very first possession. But Willie Reed failed to complete a three-point play, and SLU wouldn’t get to the line again in the first half, missing all five of their 3-point attempts in the process. Despite trailing by 17 at the half, the Billikens would only launch five more 3’s in the second half. The only tense moment was when Reed went to the line for two free throws at the 7:28 mark. Reed was just a 53 percent shooter coming in, but even so, there was a 78 percent chance he would make at least one.
He clanked them both and suddenly the miracle was possible. Saint Louis didn’t get back to the line, and when Justin Jordan, a 40 percent three-point shooter, missed a long-range attempt in the final minute, the impossible happened. As I said in my original post, it’s possible this has happened before. But it definitely hasn’t happened since the ‘04 season and it would seem unlikely for it to happen more than about once in every ten years, although it probably occurred more often in the late ‘80s when the three was not shot as often as it would be in the ‘90s.
There was really nothing to suggest that Saint Louis was a good candidate for this. They shoot a normal amount of threes and while they don’t get to the line often, they get there often enough. The real key is to have a crappy oh-fense, which the Billikens do have under their defense-obsessed coach. When you take 80 percent of your shots from inside the arc and only get to the free throw line three times, you are doing something wrong.
(On a related note, I have one interesting observation from looking at that 20-point box score. Marcus Relphorde was one of the reserves for SLU in that game. He hardly ever got off the bench that season. He’s now starting for Colorado and performing well enough that you have to think he could have had an impact in the A-10. I don’t care if he didn’t grasp the defensive system. You need to score some points to be successful.)
I’m not sure how the Majerus era at Saint Louis will work out, but at least he continues to give us some special memories.