Tuesday, December 16, 2003

On the Radar: BYU

Before a review of today's team in issue 3 of OtR, let's review how the previous 2 OtR picks have fared in their next game, just to establish some credibility.

Week 1: Troy St. Next game: Lost to a D2 team who had won like 6 games the year before and had to hitchhike to the game.

Week 2: Portland. Next game: Lost to Duke. By 41 points. Shot 3-28 (10%) in the first half.

This weeks entry features a BYU team led by Steve Cleveland. Seven years ago he was called in to rebuild a program that was coming off one of the worst seasons any team in a semi-major conference has ever had. But each year since then, BYU seems to have improved every year under Cleveland (except for a step back 2 years ago). Yet they have never accomplished any more than they deserved. They've never been ranked during the last four years in which they avaraged about 22 wins a year. They haven't won a game in the NCAA tourney either. They haven't had a game that propelled them into the national limelight. This year is no different. Save for a one-point loss at Cal in their second game, they would be getting some attention. As it is, they need to leapfrog 7 teams to get a ranking in the AP poll. But they are a top 25 team.

BYU is not only lead by an experienced core of seniors, but they are really experienced. 5 seniors get significant playing time: 4 of them are 23, and one is 25. The one making the difference this year is 6-11 Rafael Araujo:

Araujo 2002-03 (PPG/RPG/FG%/MinPG): 12.0/ 8.9/55.8/25.1
Araujo 2003-04 (PPG/RPG/FG%/MinPG): 21.8/11.8/63.8/27.0

His playing time really hasn't changed, but the production has. Last year, Araujo would disappear for entire games. This year, he busted out 32 pts. and 17 rebs. in a win over Oklahoma State. BYU is more than Araujo. Heck, their lineup is filled with guys who are old enough to be 5 year vets in the NBA. Maybe this is the year they get some attention.

Friday, December 12, 2003

Don’t Call it a Comeback

A follow-up to last night's post on how teams making big comebacks fare in overtime:

I looked back on all the OT games played so far. I limited my search to games involving the "BCS" conferences and the A-10, Mountain West, MVC, and WAC. When you start dealing with lower conferences, it becomes difficult to get accurate game information. Below is a list of teams that overcame at least a 15 point deficit in the 2nd half to force OT.

12/6 Michigan St. vs Oklahoma (MSU down 15 with 13 minutes to go) Result: OU 80-77 12/6 Kansas St. vs. Oregon St. (KSU down 16 with 15 minutes to go) Result: OSU 87-82 12/10 Florida vs. Maryland (Florida down 17 with 16 minutes to go) Result: Md 69-68

So the team making the big comeback is 0 for 3 in overtime games. By the end of the year hopefully there will be 15-20 such games to give a decent idea of whether there's a legitimate trend here. If so, I think it would suggest that the effort needed to make up a deficit is greater than the effort needed to build a lead. Hence, the team coming back is pretty much pooped in OT and often loses.

It was somewhat arbitrary that I chose 15 points as my cutoff. If I had chosen 14 I would have included Xavier's comeback against Indiana which ultimately was also a loss. But 15 is a nice round number so I am going with that. I could go with 10, but then I saw Duke make up that deficit in less than a minute against Maryland once, so it doesn't seem like a big deal.

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Number 1 and done

I guess I wasn't really surprised that Florida once again failed to win a game as #1. They couldn't put away a dreadful Stetson team in their last game, like a top team should.

This game provides an introduction for one of my wacky theories: A team making a big comeback to force overtime often loses. I don't have the facts to prove or disprove this at the moment, but hopefully I can get to it soon. College basketball record keeping is so poor it's going to be difficult.