Monday, February 07, 2005

Battle Ready?

A question to get the week started: Who is the only D1 team that has yet to experience a game that was six points or closer at the end of regulation? Read on for the answer.

Now that an undefeated season by Illinois can be officially termed 'realistic,' we're going to see the usual diet of columns addressing whether a regular season loss would be good for them. Seth Davis got the ball rolling last week. He made the case that a regular season loss is beneficial, though he used circular reasoning.

I'm not as interested in the can-they questions as much as the big should-they question, as in: Do you really want to go into the NCAA Tournament undefeated?

My answer to that is no -- unequivocally, immutably, unquestionably, no. The last team to win a championship without a loss was Indiana in 1976. There's a reason nobody has done this in 29 years. It's hard enough to win six games in the tournament without having to wear the undefeated mantle.

So you don't want to go in the tournament undefeated because hardly anybody ever goes into the tournament undefeated - only twice has it been done in the 29-year period Davis uses.

To turn the argument around, over the last 30 seasons, four teams have entered the tourney unbeaten and one won it. That's a 25% success rate, which is probably better than the pre-tournament favorite has fared during that time.  (And it happened twice in '76, so only one of the two unbeatens could win it that season.)

This is not to say that Davis' conclusion is wrong, and in fairness he offers more evidence than just the snippet I copied. It may well be good for Illinois to remove the burden of going unbeaten before the tournament. But everybody without a reason to dislike Illinois should be pulling for them. An unbeaten Illini in the championship game would bring attention to the sport that hasn't been seen since the much anticipated '79 final.

The answer to the question posed at the beginning is North Carolina. If we're going to ponder whether a loss is good, then we might also want to consider whether experiencing the tension of a close finish is beneficial also. (True, it's a point that probably will be rendered moot during the remainder of UNC's conference schedule.)

The only unbeaten team I have seen enter the post-season was UNLV in 1991. In their semi-final loss to Duke, it didn't seem as though the unbeaten pressure did them in as much as their unfamiliarity with late-game pressure.

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With the passing of the Super Bowl, hoops gets the national sports stage to itself for a while. Last season, I started doing projections of the tournament field at this time. Then I learned that if-the-season-ended-today projections are pretty useless. For instance, if the season ended today, Vermont would probably be at-large worthy. But if Vermont's season ends before the America East championship game, then they won't get in without a win at Nevada on February 19th.

Additionally, there are a whole lot of people out there doing bracket or field projections - and spending a lot more on it that I would. So why duplicate the effort? However, I will give some piecemeal observations as the bubble picture becomes clearer.

Right now, I have 32 teams that I'm pretty confident will make the final field. Most are no-brainers:

ACC - UNC, Wake, Duke, Georgia Tech
Pac 10 - Washington, Arizona, UCLA, Stanford
Big East - BC, Syracuse, Pitt, UConn, Villanova
Big XII -  Kansas, Oklahoma St., Oklahoma, Texas, Texas Tech
Big Ten - Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan St., Minnesota
SEC - Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi St.
WCC - Gonzaga
MVC - Southern Illinois, Wichita St.
CUSA - Louisville, Cincinnati, Charlotte
MWC - Utah

A few of those teams could play themselves out of the field, but based on what has transpired so far, all should do enough down the stretch to get an at-large bid. These teams represent ten conferences, so if they snap up all the automatic bids - which is wishful thinking - it means that 22 of the 34 at-large spots locked up.

Friday, February 04, 2005

Assist Percentage

After thinking "outside the box" for last week's stat, I'm going to keep it basic this week and go with assist percentage, which is the percentage of field goals that are assisted on.

A% = assists/field goals made

The results (see the stats page) are a little surprising, given that "sharing the basketball" is always viewed as a good thing. With UNC (3rd) and Illinois (12th) near the top of A%, it's easy to think that this stat is a key to success, and I've heard that a lot lately. But Duke (299th), Texas (295th), and Villanova (308th) are among the worst teams at assisting, and all three sport very efficient offenses.

For the most part it appears that increased assist percentage correlates to a more efficient offense. But as is the case in college basketball, the exceptions are what spice things up. So I'd love to hear any possible explanations as to why a team can be very successful without a lot of helpers.

You'll also notice that the Basketball Shrink^TM is available for your use. For those who missed this post from earlier in the week, Basketball Shrink^TM is an affordable way for you to assess a team's personality. By clicking on a team of your choice, you'll get a listing of the most similar teams with respect to the three basic characteristics - tempo, offensive efficiency, and defensive efficiency, in the adjusted form of each stat.

For instance, click on Princeton and you get Princeton offspring Air Force and Northwestern as the two teams most analogous to the Tigers, based on their play this season.

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Changing of the Guard

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.