Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Rulebook Rewind: 1974

The year was 1974. Teams were averaging an inefficient 75 points per game (six more than today) without a 3-point shot or shot clock. The next season would see the NCAA Tournament allow multiple teams from the same conference for the first time. It many ways it was different era for basketball, but in many ways it was no different from today.

The 1974 edition of the NCAA Official Basketball Rules begins with “Committee Action for 1973-74” which lays out rule changes for that season. The section begins, “The popularity and healthy condition of the game of basketball resulted in the the fewest significant changes for 1973-74 that the history of the game has seen.” And the changes that follow are mundane. Rules buffs may be interested to know that the correctable error rules in the book today were firmed up in this edition.

The most interesting things are in the Points of Emphasis and Comments on the Rules Sections.

There were three Points of Emphasis for the 1973-1974 season.

Fouling Away from the Ball - This was noted as the biggest shortcoming in officiating from the previous season. “Unfortunately, some of this fouling has been coached,” the following paragraph notes. Hey, Kelvin Sampson wasn’t even out of college yet!

Illegal Screening - Lest you think that the permissiveness of sloppy screening is a 21st century trend, the ‘74 rulebook provides historical documentation that it most certainly is not. “Unfortunately, there has been an increase in illegal screening recently, especially when the screening is away from the ball.”

Illegal Use of Hands and Arms - And yeah, hand checking wasn’t invented recently either. “Such contact shall not be considered incidental. It is a foul.”

The more verbose “Comments on the Rules” section provides us with a few gems.

Dunking Prohibited - “The pre-game practice or warm-up is for practicing various skills which may be used during the game, and since dunking is not a game skill, it is not to be used or permitted.” This rule continued even after the dunking prohibition was repealed for the 1976-77 season.

Lack of Sufficient Action - Looking back on it, it’s funny that this clause is in the rules in an era when dunking was prohibited. This rule refers to stalling tactics, although “the team behind in score is responsible for action.”

Held Ball - “Some officials call held ball to forestall fouls.” That part makes enough sense, but then this section goes into places that make no sense to me. “That is, they see a player about to charge into, or hold an opponent who has the ball, and they prevent the foul by declaring held ball. Some officials do this chiefly in connection with ‘guarding from the rear,’ claiming their method lessens whistle-blowing. In the long run it leads to a rougher game, more fouls, and more whistle-blowing. Calling ‘guarding from the rear’ strictly promotes a clean, open type of game.

At first, I thought this rule referred to loose-ball scrums which are common today, but now I’m not sure.

Other nuggets of note in the main rules section:

“Coaches shall remain seated on the bench except, while the clock is stopped, they may leave the bench to direct or encourage players who are on the court.”

“A team shall be prohibited from using television monitoring or replay equipment at courtside for coaching purposes.”

Free throw rules were somewhat modern, with the bonus being shot beginning with the seventh team foul. In an era when teams shot just 45% from the field with no 3-pointer available, the 1-and-1 actually was a small bonus for most offenses.

I have a couple of other older rulebooks which I’ll look at in the coming weeks as time permits.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

The Pac-Tenors Respond

Ken,

I enjoyed reading your recent post comparing the Pac-10 and the ACC in terms of the number of wins again Top 30 opponents (as measured by your index). You found that the ACC and Pac-10 had 13 and 5 wins, respectively. While you mention the ACC had more opportunities for wins, you didn’t mention exactly how many more opportunities. So I did some calculations:

ACC: 12 teams with 22 total games against Top 30 teams (as of Feb. 1) with 13 wins (59% winning percentage)
Pac-10: 10 teams with 8 total games against Top 30 teams (as of Feb. 1) with 5 wins (62.5% winning percentage).

Thus, while I think it is fair to point out that the Pac-10 has not played as many Top 30 teams (and perhaps subjecting the conference to a “soft non-conference schedule” criticism), I don’t think it is fair to use the 13 versus 5 wins as evidence that the Pac-10 is overrated.

I must fully acknowledge I am a big UCLA fan, so perhaps I am biased, but the above numbers are not.

Overall, I agree that the Pac-10 is probably overrated by most people, especially since the above numbers indicate that the Pac-10 is no better (but no worse) than the ACC in terms of their Top 30 winning percentage. Your larger point that the Pac-10 is just a good solid conference but not head and shoulders above the rest remains valid. I just wanted to point out that it is important to know the denominators when you are comparing numerators.

Thanks,

John

Nicely done, John. I like it when the readers do a little bit of legwork for me, and I think everything stated is fair.

Tomorrow, I’ll have the first edition of Rulebook Rewind - a scan of an old basketball rulebook to show just how the game has changed, and how it hasn’t, over the past century.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Hurricane Dicta

On this eve of Super Bowl Weekend involving Da Bears, it’s appropriate to acknowledge that we all have a little Dicta inside of ourselves. Big Ten Wonk reminded me of one my own dicta a while back, and I decided to create a complete list of the the others right here. If you’re ever wondering why things are so darn messed up around here, let this be your reference guide. These are my core hoops beliefs and philosophies.

Don’t confuse achievement with performance. If I somehow happened to become a coach, I would totally write this on the chalkboard after a close win over a lousy team. Future achievement can be better predicted by past performance than past achievement. How to measure performance is the tricky part, but I know it goes deeper than recording W’s and L’s, or even looking at who a team beat and lost to. If you’re wondering why I am often unconcerned about past achievements, it’s because so many other people have that covered. You can look at the conference standings and see achievement. Trying to figure out a team’s level of performance is more challenging, but also more insightful. Naturally, there comes a time in the season where achievement trumps performance, and that time is called March Madness.

The RPI is nearly useless. Following from above, the RPI measures achievement for the most part. I don’t have much use for it these days. (Although, a hearty thanks to Mr. David Rueth who continues to ensure that my site designations continue to match what the NCAA has in their database, thus ensuring a totally accurate RPI on this site for those of you that need that sort of info.) I know I once defended the thing, and in its original form, the combination of simplicity and accuracy was admirable. But the RPI was invented in 1981! In 1981, it was a state of the art formula. In 1981, Atari was a state of the art video game system. Kids aren’t playing games on an Atari, yet the RPI is still the gold standard for the NCAA.

One game matters little in evaluating performance. Honestly, I don’t think my mind is ever changed by one game. If you want to bore me, try to convince me that team A is better than team B because A beat B. I need a little more than that. It gets even better when you tell me that team A beat team C who beat team B. I need to see longer-term trends to base an opinion on it.

Stats don’t lie. Seriously. If Joe Blow scores 20 points in a game, he scores 20 points. If he does it on 10 for 36 shooting with 12 turnovers, and Johnny Analyst praises Joe Blow’s brilliant offensive performance, then it’s Johnny Analyst doing the lying, not the stats.

Offensive and defensive rebounding are different things. I mean, it was 14 years ago that the NCAA began distinguishing between offensive and defensive rebounds. It was a major advancement in stats keeping. Yet, with the exception of Fran Fraschilla, analysts will simply refer to a team’s “rebounding” either qualitatively or quantitatively, which often is misleading. These are two distinct, albeit related, skills. Offensive rebounding requires individual effort. Defensive rebounding is more team oriented. Florida is a great defensive rebounding team. They are not a great rebounding team - they are less than great on the offensive end.

PredictionsAbsolute statements are stupid. This is a slight adjustment from the old ‘predictions are stupid’ mantra. Predictions aren’t stupid, but applying total certainty to them is. I fall into the trap myself, and I usually regret it.

It’s more important what a coach does than what he says. I’m not saying to ignore what a coach says, but see if his quotes jive with the statistical record before you take his preaching as gospel.

The single most important factor in determining the outcome of close games is chaos. I used to call this luck, but that hurts people’s feelings, so the new PC term is “chaos.” Anyway, there’s no silver bullet to winning close games. It helps to be better than the opponent, but aside from that, there are dozens of factors that influence the outcome of the one-possession game, some of which a team has no control over.

Statistical and visual analysis go together. You’re foolish using one without the other, but so many people do, and they’re worse off for it. We all have biases, and of course stats do also, some much worse than others. By looking at the proper stats you can check your biases at the door and get another “opinion” on what is happening.

The ultimate goal should be to find the truth. And if somebody says they know it, that’s when you should get suspicious.