Friday, January 09, 2004
Big 10 + Pac 10 < 10
Nice piece by regular ESPN.com contributor and all-around nice guy Pat Forde in today's Courier-Journal. It's even better since he makes prominent mention of my site.
His point is one that will gain more steam nationally in the coming weeks. The demise of the Pac 10 and Big 10 is going to help a team from a non-BCS conference get more consideration than they would 2 or 3 years ago. It's possible the two conferences will only get a combined 9 bids this year.
NCAA Bids for the Pac-10 and Big 10
2001...12 2002...11 2003...10 2004....9 (??)
Fantastic Four
The ACC is at the end of its golden age this year. This is the last year that all members will play each other twice. Fans can savor this last year of double round-robin play because 4 teams have a claim to be among the top 10 in America. Duke, UNC, Georgia Tech, and Wake Forest will most likely finish 1-4 in the ACC in some order. But in the process of beating each other up, they won't all stay in the top 10.
Once a week - and sometimes twice - for the rest of the year one of these teams will play another, providing a potential insant classic. One of these 12 matchups has already occurred: December 20th, 2003. Wake Forest 119, North Carolina 114, triple overtime. It was the game of the year so far, but it may not hold up. Next up on Sunday, it will be Georgia Tech at UNC.
Thursday, January 08, 2004
Jason Conley, Where Art Thou?
I don't know what Mizzou fans expected from Conley, but I know I was expecting more than this in his first 6 games...
Points by game: 19, 0, 2, 1, 5, 0
Minutes by game: 21, 23, 21, 19, 14, 9
Looks like Conley is heading further down Quin Snyder's bench with each performance.
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
Temple/Chaney Continued
The table below summarizes the shot distribution of Temple's oppenents this year - both in the games against Temple, and over the whole season. (3PA = 3-point attempts, FGA = field goal attempts, %3PA = 3PA/FA)
vs. Temple Season
Opponent 3PA FGA %3PA 3PA FGA %3PA
Villanova 18 43 41.9 219 602 36.4
Illinois 22 51 43.1 215 682 31.5
Rutgers 23 58 39.7 181 563 32.1
Drexel 28 55 50.9 181 582 31.1
Arizona St. 11 48 22.9 181 555 32.6
Penn St. 29 53 54.7 160 561 28.5
South Carolina 35 73 47.9 290 853 34.0
Miami FL 20 45 44.4 219 753 29.1
Indiana 39 61 63.9 234 606 38.6
TOTAL 225 487 46.2 644 1880 32.7
The only numbers that matter are the one under %3PA. From this we see that eight out of Temple's nine opponents so far have shot more three's than they normally do. Overall, teams have made 33.3% of their 3-point attempts compared to 34.3% on the season, so it's not like Chaney's defense is particularly good at affecting a team's accuracy from long range.
The previous post was titled "John Chaney, Genius". But really he is a defensive genius. Offensively, Temple becomes more and more anemic every year. Yet still, they are able to pull off a few upsets, clogging up the middle offensively and preying on teams laying bricks from the perimeter.
Monday, January 05, 2004
On the Radar: UCLA
Ben Howland may be a great coach, but in the case of taking the UCLA job this year, timing was everything. It really didn't matter whether UCLA improved this year, only that they didn't take a step back. Just standing still, UCLA is able to watch the rest of PAC 10 slide down a notch or two. Only Stanford, and maybe Washington St., are improved this year. After their sweep of the Oregon schools over the weekend, the Bruins look likely to return to the postseason. They take on the Washington schools on the road this Thursday/Saturday, and both games are winnable. Well, just about every game the rest of the way for UCLA is winnable, since almost every conference foe already has an embarrasing loss on their record.