Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Bubble Wrap

Begrudgingly, I submit my look at the at-large picture. In my patented piecemeal approach, I am adding bubble teams this week. This is probably more for my benefit than yours, so if you think I've missed something - maybe I have! Drop me a line to let me know.

I've had to ax three teams from the lock list I produced last week.

Texas - The reasons for the removal of Texas from this list were given last week in this space. Texas is still limping badly, evidenced by an overtime home win against Kansas State last Saturday, when the Longhorns went 11 for 20 from three. They are totally at the mercy of bombs and excellent defense from here on out.

Minnesota - Individually, a home loss to Northwestern or a road loss to Indiana are not back-breakers. But together they hurt a lot, especially since the Indiana loss was lopsided. I still think the Gophers will get a bid, but they need to do some work.

Stanford - Their profile looks great, but with the season-ending injury to leading scorer (and third-leading rebounder) Dan Grunfeld, who knows if the new version of the Cardinal will be at-large worthy? I'm guessing not. Jason Haas will move into the starting point guard role and Chris Hernandez will fill in for Grunfeld at the two. They lose a lot of size with that change, and Haas is not much of an offensive presence.

I've also had to turn the other cheek to keep Georgia Tech on this list. Ultimately, they will get enough done to get in.

The additions are Maryland, DePaul and Florida.

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

And now for the rest of the teams with a legitimate chance to play their way into an at-large bid. The principle here is similar to the locks - I am not listing every team with a glimmer of hope of getting a bid. I'm listing the teams I feel have the ability to play their way in. So that means while Indiana has a shot if they go something like 5-1 down the stretch, I don't think they will, especially with Bracey Wright coming back.

(Speaking of Indiana, I'm starting to buy the whole "woe is me" act from Mike Davis. Have you seen what opponents are shooting from the free throw line against the Hoosiers? 75%!! That's the second best opponents FT% of any team in the nation.)

ACC - Miami
Pac 10 - Arizona St., Stanford
Big East - Notre Dame, Georgetown
Big XII - Texas, Iowa St.
Big Ten - Minnesota, Iowa
SEC - LSU
WCC - (none)
MVC - (none)
CUSA - Memphis, UAB, Marquette
MWC - (none)
Atlantic 10 - George Washington
MAC - Miami, Kent St.
America East - Vermont
WAC - Nevada
Big West - Pacific
CAA - Old Dominion

Exhibits A and B for why tourney projections are nearly pointless this far out are the Big East and Conference USA. It is really difficult to separate teams three through seven in the Big East. I just think UConn and Villanova are better teams than Notre Dame and Georgetown, but based on their resumes, any of them should get in with nine conference wins.

Of the CUSA bubble teams, Marquette is the team with the best chance now that Travis Diener is back. It's between him, Diogu, and Coppenrath, for the single most important player to any team in the nation.

There are 52 teams and 16 conferences listed. So 36 of these teams are vying for the 34 at-large bids, assuming no upsets in conference tournaments, and you can count on at least two of those. So at least two of the above teams will not get a bid. But this list will change quite a bit from week to week, as a few teams that I'm not giving any chance pull off surprises.

Monday, February 14, 2005

The Lost Episode

On Saturday, there were two comebacks that will forever be remembered by fans of the teams involved in the games. UNLV's was the most impressive - an 11-1 run over the last 22 seconds against San Diego State to force overtime. But the most significant was Pacific's 11-2 run in the final 27 ticks to win at Utah State. It was only UoP's second win in 32 tries in Logan, and would seem to give them control of their own destiny in the at-large race.

Pat Forde has a nice (and free!) edition of Forde Minutes on espn.com, giving additional details on both games (example: Steve Fisher's teams are 1-11 in overtime). There are also some other nuggets using the AP poll to show that Cinderella is dead when it comes to Final Four access. Parity, schmarity.

[Update: Reader Jeff reveals another amazing - but more drawn out - comeback on Saturday. Western Kentucky overcame a 30-5 deficit to beat North Texas on a last second heave, 93-92. He provides video from his WKU fan page]

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I don't know who the worst free throw shooter in America is, but among major college teams, Pitt's Mark McCarroll has a good case. He's made 19% of his attempts this season on 4 of 21 shooting. The bizarre thing about McCarroll, a senior, is that he was 55 of 95 (57.9%) in his first three seasons. That's not exactly someone you would want at the line in crunch time, but also not someone you're tempted to send to the locker room in the final minutes of a tight game, either.

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Over the weekend, I discovered a half-started post from last April that I never published:

Air Force head coach Joe Scott has taken the head coaching job at Princeton. And so ends Air Force's day in the college basketball sun. The '04 campaign will be that fluky blip on the radar of AFA basketball history, kind of like the David Robinson years at Navy.

The move surprises me because there is no chance of getting an at-large bid at Princeton, while Scott just did that with Air Force. Scott essentially has decided that he will be a lifer at Princeton. He could succeed Bill Carmody at Northwestern, assuming they become successful enough where they want to continue with the Princeton scheme. But that transition won't take place for another 10 years.

For those who don't keep tabs on the 14-game tournament that is the Ivy League regular season, Princeton is in dead last in the Ivy at the midway point, with a 2-5 record.

In 49 seasons of the Ivy League's existence, the Tigers have never finished worse than .500 in conference play. It's a stunning turnaround for Scott, who last season led Air Force to their first winning conference record in it's 24 seasons of participation in the WAC/MWC.

This was not supposed to be a rebuilding job for Scott. There were high pre-season expectations for Princeton, who won the Ivy last year and lost only one player off that team. While Joe Scott intends to be a lifer at Princeton, it will only take a couple more seasons like this to take that decision out of his hands.

Friday, February 11, 2005

Defensive Assist Percentage

This blog has been one-dimensional this season: it can shoot the three, it can dish the rock, but it plays no defense. Today, I look at a defensive statistic that gets little press - the ability to prevent assists. See the stats page for the defensive assist percentage of all 330 teams.

Defensive assist percentage = assists allowed/total possessions

On Wednesday, the North Carolina Tar Heels were bottled up for 40 minutes like no other time this ACC season. They didn't get many points on the fast break, and they didn't get easy points out of the half-court set. UNC, a team that averages two assists on every three field goals made, had only ten assists in 25 made buckets. Shocking.

Or was it? In fact, there must be some skill at preventing fast breaks, preventing the smooth flow of the offense in the half-court, and thus preventing assists. It just so happens that the Duke Blue Devils are the best team in the nation at preventing assists. We can't rule out that the Cameron scorer's table is unusually stingy in awarding assists, given that Duke's own assist total is exceptionally low. But since Duke doesn't play all its games at home, the data has to be in the neighborhood of reality.

As a footnote, defensive assist percentage correlates less to an efficient defense than offensive assist percentage does to an efficient offense. You can look for yourself - while Duke and Kansas have great defenses and prevent assists well, there are some really bad defenses in the top 20 of defensive assist percentage.