Changing of the Guard
02.03.05
Tonight, Saint Mary's visits Gonzaga where the Zags will be looking to avenge an early January loss to the Gaels in Moraga. If Gonzaga loses tonight, they fall two games behind Saint Mary's in the WCC race. Gonzaga is a solid favorite to win, and they have been steady in the new Kennel this season. But with a loss, Gonzaga would be in serious danger of not winning the conference's regular season title for the first time since 2000. Both of these teams are heavily imbalanced, with Gonzaga winning with offense and Saint Mary's (winners of 13 out of 14) successful with defense. The first matchup was played under Gonzaga rules, with both teams shooting over 50%.
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The big news from yesterday was at Iowa, where Steve Alford and Pierre Pierce parted ways. Headlines today are some derivative of "Iowa's leading scorer Pierce booted off team." Conventional wisdom says Iowa will suffer tremendously. But with a modicum of analysis, it becomes apparent that Iowa will not be hurt much, if at all. (With the thorough analysis at Hawkeye Hoops, you should be convinced.)
What if the headlines said "Iowa's leading turnoverer Pierce booted off team." Other than the use of the made-up word "turnoverer", the first impression of that headline is that Iowa will be better off. When Pierre Pierce was on the floor, he committed a third of his team's turnovers. So while Pierce did score a lot of points, those points came at a great cost. Pierce spent a lot of possessions averaging 18 points a game.
This reminds me of last season's suspension of Drew Schifino by West Virginia coach John Beilein. Schifino was far and away the leading scorer on the Mountaineers, so when Schifino quit 11 games into the season, it was widely believed that 7-4 WVU would tank the rest of the season. However, the Mountaineers showed little change in their performance and went on to win two games in the NIT. Schifino was not the turnover-maven that Pierce is, but he was an unbelievable gunner. Schifino shot a lot, and he shot worse from two, three, and the free throw line than the rest of his team. So it was pretty easy for his teammates to pick up the slack after his departure. Pierce's shooting numbers are similar (he's slightly better from two than his teammates, but worse from three and on FTs) but with more turnovers. So don't write Iowa off yet.
Basketball ShrinkTM
02.02.05
Perhaps no team in major college basketball has changed its personality from last season as much as the Arizona Wildcats. Last season they were an up-tempo offensive machine, but prone to giving up too many easy baskets. This season, with Ivan Radenovic eating up a lot of the minutes vacated by NBA early-entry Andre Iguodala, the Wildcats are more controlled and efficient defensively, but prone to stretches where they have difficulty scoring.
We can get an idea of a team's personality by comparing their major stats (in adjusted form) - tempo, offensive efficiency, and defensive efficiency - to every other team in college basketball. Sum the percentage difference in each category and the resulting number is the similarity between two teams. The lower the number, the more similar two teams are. It's a device I'll call the Basketball ShrinkTM.
For instance, the Shrink says the following five teams turn out to be most similar to Arizona in 2004 and 2005:
2004 2005
Washington Iowa
Wake Forest Mississippi State
Wisconsin Milwaukee Cincinnati
North Carolina Texas Tech
UNLV Arizona State
Last season, Arizona was similar to Washington and Wake Forest, and this season they resemble Iowa and Mississippi State. The results from the two seasons have been fairly similar, with Arizona mainly beating teams you would expect them to beat, but not able to pull off that big win that propels them into the national spotlight.
Let's get the Basketball ShrinkTM to give us a diagnosis on a few other interesting hoops characters. The biggest headcase in the game may be Maryland. Get smoked by NC State at home, then win at Cameron Indoor. Take care of Georgia Tech at home, then get trashed at Clemson. Who is Maryland most similar to?
Connecticut Iowa Texas Tech Mississippi State George Washington
Maryland keeps some of the same company as Arizona. The Terps and UConn share not only a penchant for up-tempo basketball, but they've both failed badly to meet pre-season expectations.
Now let's look at a team that is a mystery to everyone - Vermont. The Catamounts sport a lofty #19 ranking in the RPI thanks to a new formula that treats a road victory like a win over a top ten team. Shrink, what do you say?
Boston College Boston University Pittsburgh Notre Dame South Carolina
UVM is a small conference team that has a big conference personality. You like BC? Then you should like Vermont. Vermont is a team with only two top 100 RPI wins so far, so their margin for error in the at-large chase is slim. The Bracket Buster game with Nevada will have a lot riding on it. If they get blown out, then their at-large chances are probably shot. They will be considered a heavy favorite to win the America East Tournament. But with conference-mate Boston U. ranking #2 in similarity to Vermont, a win over BU in the AE championship shouldn't be taken for granted, even in Burlington.
On Friday, I plan to make Basketball ShrinkTM available on the stats page. Then you can schedule an appointment for your favorite team to get a check-up from the neck up.
Random Junk
02.01.05
Back from a weekend of getting out of the house and watching some hoops in-person, I return with the following tidbits...
ESPN announced the February 19th Bracket Buster schedule on Monday. Surely one of the cadre of personalities at The Mid-Majority will have an in-depth breakdown of the key matchups with the proper aplomb that can't be provided here. The headline game is Vermont/Nevada in a rematch of a first round preseason NIT game last season which the Wolf Pack won convincingly, 69-49.
Once again, the ESPN matchmakers ignored geography. It's one thing to send Vermont to Reno or the U. of Buffalo to Fresno in the name of good TV, but another to send 10-9 Cal State Northridge to Bridgeport, Connecticut to play 10-9 Fairfield.
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Florida International and Arkansas Little Rock participated in a Sun Belt classic for the ages on Sunday in Pharmed Arena in Miami. FIU prevailed 118-114 in quintuple overtime. UALR guard Zach Graber played all 65 minutes.
Unfortunately, it appears that no one knows when the last five overtime game was played, with all accounts of the game referencing the D1-record seven overtime affair between Bradley and Cincinnati in pre-shot clock 1981. But using some info on overtime games over the past two and a half seasons, one can make an educated guess on how rare five overtimes are.
In 2003 and 2004, 4.32% of all games required bonus basketball. Once in overtime, a game has about an 18% chance of being extended another period. So the chance of any game going 5 OTs is .0432 x .18 x .18 x .18 x .18. Which is 0.0453% or about once in every 22,000 games. With about 5,000 games played each season, this works out to once in every four to five seasons.
(As a footnote, in looking for the last five overtime game I found that there was a high school game in 1996 in Michigan that went five OTs with the final score of 7-6. That's 52 minutes of action and 13 points. Talk about taking the fun out of the game. At least the 5-2 game from Vermont in early January ended in regulation.)
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ESPN has rolled out wall to wall coverage of the miserable 0-24 season Savannah State is having. Over the last 50 years, winless seasons (one) are much rarer than undefeated seasons (eight). Shannon Sharpe's alma mater appears to have a great (maybe the wrong choice of words) chance of losing their last four games and finishing 0-28. But it was only two years ago that North Carolina A&T was expected to take on the same fate before pulling off a March shocker at Norfolk State. There won't be any March Madness for SSU - their season ends on Valentine's Day, before any other D1 team.
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The upset of the weekend was Washington State winning 70-63 at Arizona, ending a 38 game span where Arizona won every game between the two teams. Four players on the Wazzu roster weren't born the last time the Cougars beat the Wildcats on January 30, 1986. The longest in-conference winning streak now belongs to Kansas over Kansas State. The Jayhawks have won 28 in a row since falling to K State in a January 17, 1994 loss.
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Speaking of one team's domination over another, Princeton won every home game against Brown between 1929 and 2002 - a total of 52 games, the longest streak of its kind in NCAA history. With Brown's 57-52 win at Princeton on Friday, the Bears have taken two of the last three at Princeton.
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