Bad Career Move
by Ken Pomeroy on Monday, April 26, 2004
Frank Haith recently made the jump from associate head coach at Texas to head coach at Miami Florida. However, his chances for success in his first head coaching job are slim. I think it's safe to say that Miami comes into the ACC at the bottom, having won a combined 25 games over the last 2 years. The problem Haith faces is that the ACC is a conference with a glass ceiling. If you're at the bottom, you're not going up.
Since the 1991-92 season when the ACC last expanded, there have been 30 times that a team has racked up at least 11 conference losses in a season. Three teams account for 22 of those instances - Clemson (9), NC State (7), and Florida State (6). Among the other 6 teams, each has no more than 2 such seasons.
Here's that idea in table form...
Wins Expected Expected…
The Possession
by Ken Pomeroy on Monday, April 19, 2004
During tourney-time, I played with some stats on how efficient teams were on offense and defense. In order to best evaluate this, one should look at how well a team does per possession, as opposed to per game or per minute. For instance Billy Tubbs' Lamar team averaged 79.1 points per game last season, good for 15th nationally. But they used around 80 possessions per 40 minutes, the fastest pace in the nation. They averaged .963 points per possesion, which ranked 242nd nationally and partially exposes why they lost 18 of 29 games this year.
Across college basketball, teams average .994 points per possession. So Lamar's offense was 3% less efficient than the average college team. And the average college team isn't getting close to thinking about getting to the NCAA Tournament with something other than an automatic bid.
So how does one compute possessions?
Before I go any…
The Graveyard of Coaches
by Ken Pomeroy on Monday, April 12, 2004
Hoops season is over, but there are all sorts of things for one to occupy the offseason with. Right now it's coaching changes and early entries. Today, I'll focus on the coaching changes of note, which are less notable than last year.
St. John's (Mike Jarvis out, ??? in)
It's hard to say what the best job available this year is, but I'll give the nod to St. John's. It sounds like Matt Doherty is the frontrunner, and may even get the gig Monday. DePaul's Dave Leitao and Kansas assistant Norm Roberts also got interviews. Personally, I would take Leitao. The job he has done at a similarly urban university has been tremendous. St. John's should feel honored that he would consider taking their job.
UNLV (Charlie Spoonhour out, Lon Kruger in)
UNLV has a lot going for it - great facilities, good tradition, and quality recruits within a…
Depth Matters
by Ken Pomeroy on Sunday, April 4, 2004
I don't know exactly how much depth helps a team. But the way things shook out on Semi-final Saturday, having something more than warm bodies on the bench can be the difference between winning and losing. Georgia Tech is headed to the final game after having survived two previous games without any production from its most productive player, BJ Elder.
Two teams that finished ahead of them in the ACC, NC State and Duke, have been eliminated after blowing large leads with their most important player(s) on the bench after picking up a fifth foul.
So now its Jackets vs. Huskies, the sequel.
Here's the box score from game 1.
A lot was made tonight about how Okafor was hurt for that game. However, he played 34 minutes, had 6 blocks and 13 boards! He had a typical Okafor game defensively, but was shut down on offense. I don't…