Bad Career Move
04.26.04
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 Diff. this wins next wins in 3 over 3 year year years years 14 11.4 9.8 -4.2 13 10.6 9.0 -4.0 12 10.3 8.6 -3.4 11 10.0 8.6 -2.4 10 9.9 8.3 -1.7 9 9.5 7.9 -1.1 8 8.3 7.6 -0.4 7 7.2 7.0 0.0 6 6.4 6.8 +0.8 5 5.4 6.2 +1.2 4 5.3 6.0 +2.0 3 5.4 5.6 +2.6 2 5.2 5.5 +3.5
So here's how you read the table: On the left is how many ACC games a team won in year. The next column gives the number of conference wins they are expected to get next year. The third column contains the number of wins expected in 3 years. The final column is the difference in wins over 3 years. This was generated from ACC records since the league went to 9 teams/16 games in 1992. Thanks to Charlie Board's site for making this easy.
(There was some mathematical hand-waving done to come up with these numbers due to the small sample size. For instance, the wins in the current season actually includes all seasons within 2 wins of the number given. So the 10 win seasons include data for the 8 to 12 win teams.)
At the bottom of the table, one can see it is very difficult for a team below the 6 win plateau to get above it. It is very easy, or at least expected, that a team can go from 2 to 5 wins in a year. But the 5-11 team isn't expected to change much the next year. I am averaging data here, so some 5 win teams do improve, but most either get worse or stay the course. Let's look at the progression of FSU, NC State, and Clemson's conference wins over the last 13 seasons (most recent years listed last).
FSU 11-12-6-5-5-6-6-5-9-4-4-4-6 NCSU 6-2-5-4-3-4-5-6-6-5-9-9-11 Clemson 4-5-6-5-7-9-7-5-4-2-4-5-3
The difficulty these schools have had in trying to break into the upper half of the ACC is obvious, and Miami can expect the same.
I highlighted a couple key segments. The first being the last 3 seasons for NC State. Herb Sendek gets little acclaim as a head coach, but his job in improving NC State should be regarded more highly that it is.
The four years in bold for Clemson are the Rick Barnes years, the only time the glass ceiling was broken at Clemson. Barnes shrewdly jumped to Texas in what some viewed as a lateral move in prestige. However the success he has had in Austin would not have been easily duplicated at Clemson.
It is possible that Frank Haith will make a name for himself in the ACC, like Barnes and Sendek have done. Merely getting the 'Canes to .500 in the ACC would prove he's worthy of a better job.
The Possession
04.19.04
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 further, I have to recommend reading Dean Oliver's Basketball on Paper. He does some creative stuff with basketball statistics. The only problem is that he deals with NBA statistics, but the concepts apply to the college game. You'll learn a lot about the game after having read it. I'll be refering to this book more in the future.
Commercial over.
The most common formula for estimating possesions is (FGA - OR) + TO + (Y * FTA),
where FGA = field goal attempts, OR = offensive rebounds, TO = turnovers, Y = some number between zero and 1, and FTA = free throw attempts.
Going through the three terms in the formula, a possession can end by:
1) a shot not rebounded by the offense. An offensive rebound would continue the possession. This is captured by the term FGA-OR.
2) a turnover. (duh.)
3) Free throws - sometimes.
The only mystery here is what Y should be. First off, I'll clear up why Y needs to be there. We don't know how many possesions are used up by free throws, that's why. In the ideal situation, if every trip to the line resulted in two free throws, then we could multiply free throws by one half and be done with it. However, technical fouls, the "and one" situation, missing the front end of the 1 and 1, and shooting 3 shots resulting from a 3-point attempt all deviate from the ideal situation. Oliver estimates that Y should be .4. John Hollinger in Pro Basketball Prospectus estimates it to be .44. From the data I've seen for college hoops, .44 is more accurate so I've been using that.
So that's how possesions can be estimated, and using possesions, folks can get a better understanding of which teams do good things on offense and defense.
You might wonder why offensive rebounds are treated as continuing a possesion, rather than starting a new one. I've seen two good reasons. First, by including them each team's possesions can reasonably be assumed to come out equal for each game. Second, getting and preventing offensive rebounds are skills. So if some teams do those skills better than others, it makes sense to attach those skills to a team's offensive or defensive ability.
The Graveyard of Coaches
04.12.04
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 short drive. It also has a lot going against it, and these forces have won out since Tarkanian departed at the end of the '93 season, making UNLV 'the graveyard of coaches.'
The three non-interim coaches since Tarkanian have left in unusual times under unusual circumstances. The latest was Charlie Spoonhour, who resigned in mid-season due to "health reasons". This excuse was widely viewed as transparent. He was just sick of coaching a bunch of selfish players.
So the shady influences in Vegas tabbed Kruger as the next coach to see his career crash and burn as the head man of the Rebels. George Karl launched his own campaign for the job and would have been a better choice. Kruger has won at every college stop he's had, but even while getting Florida to the Final Four, he eventually bolted when they fell back to the middle of the SEC. Outside of that job, he hasn't been a head coach anywhere longer than four years.
Utah (Rick Majerus out, Ray Giacoletti in)
I don't think there's much difference in the chances to succeed at UNLV compared to Utah. Yet two coaches with NBA experience were banging down UNLV's door and Utah's first choice was someone from the Big Sky conference. Giacoletti's Eastern Washington team finished 1st or 2nd in the Big Sky each of his four years as head coach. Giacoletti promptly announced that Marc Jackson will return to the team in '04-'05. Jackson was among the best 6th men in the game in '02-'03, before deciding he hated Majerus so much that he dropped out of school last year.
Georgetown (Craig Esherick out, ??? in)
The Washington Post is reporting that Princeton coach John Thompson III is the frontrunner. I speculated before the tournament that he could be the preferred choice with a first round upset. It turns out he didn't even need that. This appeared to be Johnny Dawkins' job if he wanted it, but I guess the unspectacular head coaching performances of former Coach K assistants Quin Snyder and Tommy Amaker scared off the Hoya brass.
Auburn (Cliff Ellis out, Jeff Lebo in)
Chattanooga coach Jeff Lebo, UAB coach Mike Anderson and VCU coach Jeff Capel were the three candidates for the job. Lebo got the job, and both Anderson and Capel got pay increases from their current employer.
Miami (FL) (Perry Clark out, Frank Haith in)
Anderson, Capel, Norm Roberts, and Manhattan coach Bobby Gonzales were others considered for the Hurricanes post. The 'Canes future in the short term isn't very rosy as they head into a loaded ACC, and Anderson and Capel wisely took themselves out of the running. Haith is a Texas assistant (excuse me, "associate") head coach that has no previous head coaching experience. This really isn't a good place for him to cut his teeth in the business.
Houston (Ray McCallum out, Tom Penders in)
Plain and simply a horrible hire. Not quite Clyde Drexler horrible, but horrible nonetheless. Penders was canned from his previous two jobs at Texas and George Washington, and alienated a lot of people at those institutions in doing so. In his stint at GW he ruined Mike Jarvis' work. His successor Karl Hobbs has since rebuilt the Colonials to an NCAA tournament contender.
However, this is a great move for Penders. Houston can't get any worse, and they'll probably be middle of the pack in the weakening CUSA in a couple of years. Penders will bring the Cougars mediocrity if nothing else. But if Houston is looking to get back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1992, it won't happen under Penders watch.
Southern Miss (James Green out, Larry Eustachy in)
It will be interesting to see where Houston and USM are in five years. Eustachy also was fired from his last job, but for personal reasons as opposed to professional reasons. However, the fact that his last two teams at Iowa State only won 9 conference games probably contributed.