Excerpts from 1953: New rules
by Ken Pomeroy on Friday, January 29, 2010
There are nothing like rules changes to cause a little controversy. As the ‘53 season approached, two issues were burning in fans’ minds. The first was a change in free throw rules. No longer was a team allowed to turn down the opportunity to take a free throw after a foul. (Yes, free throw is singular on purpose. The penalty for a foul was one shot.) In ‘53, teams were now required to shoot. As a compromise, the reverse bonus rule was instituted - if you missed the free throw, you’d get a second chance. Apparently, scoring just one point on a possession was a big deal then. Fouls in the last three minutes of the game were worth a two shot guarantee.
The more interesting section is the one on coaching behavior. Of course, this is a topic that is still discussed today. In ‘53, the game was…
Conference projections
by Ken Pomeroy on Monday, January 18, 2010
At long last, I’ve added projected conference records to the conference pages. So now, you don’t have to be left in wonderment by statements like this:
After beating Miami handily, could Virginia could be 9-7 in the ACC and make the NCAA tournament?
You can just click on the conference page and get an idea of what’s expected in the ACC. It turns out the Cavaliers could be could in a contentious battle for at-large bids among the seven indistinguishable teams forecast to finish within a game of .500. Get out of the way for a conference title race between Duke and…nobody.
Though for total conference dominance, check out Morgan State in the MEAC. For some reason, the Bears’ first five conference games are roadies. With a win tonight they will end that stretch unbeaten and will have pretty much clinched a top…
OMG Marqus Blakely
by Ken Pomeroy on Friday, January 15, 2010
Every once in a while, I’ll see a feature where the writers try to construct the perfect player in a sport based on the qualities of existing players. In college hoops this season, it would be something like a combination of the vision of John Wall, the rebounding of Brian Zoubek, the quick hands of Al Nolen, and the gritty determination of that guy that puts up horrible stats but everybody knows he’s awesome because of his gritty determination. (Actually, I’ve never seen such a feature, but it provides the only premise I could think of here.) There’s no need to write that story this season, because that player exists - he is Vermont’s Marqus Blakely, a rare 10/20/30 guy. (Hat tip to my pal Lou from Burlington for bringing this to my attention.)
Currently he sports offensive and defensive rebounding rates north of 10% and 20%, respectively,…
Exclusively 2’s: A bad idea
by Ken Pomeroy on Friday, January 8, 2010
Watching the Michigan/Penn State game last night, I was riveted. The Wolverines spent a large part of the game playing horrible basketball, but more importantly, they were scoring exclusively with the two-point shot. I wondered if we were about to witness a feat more rare than a 6 OT game, an accomplishment that would never be duplicated for the rest of humanity - could a team go the distance scoring two at a time?
When Zack Novak hit a three with 11:59 left, all of my speculation was pointless, but it did force me to do some research. I now have over 9000 play-by-plays in my database dating back to the 2005 season. Michigan’s two-fer was the second longest on record.
Date Team Opp 1st non-2 Score before shot 3/01/08 Texas A&M Oklahoma 11:39 18-44 1/07/10 Michigan Penn St. 11:59 26-42 12/05/07 San Jose St. San Diego 12:17…
Most likely to go winless
by Ken Pomeroy on Wednesday, January 6, 2010
This ...
I’d say there’s a 50-50 chance the Hawkeyes will not win a game in the Big Ten this season.
got me to thinking about which teams really could go winless in conference play. The thing that Seth Davis doesn’t appreciate is that even if a team is worse than any other team in its conference, it’s really difficult to navigate through your conference schedule with nary a win. Only six teams have done it over the past five seasons, and while Iowa could join that list this season, their chances would appear to be far less than 50 percent. One reason is that their conference schedule is extremely favorable for picking up a win somewhere.
For starters, they get two games against Indiana. When the Hoosiers go to Iowa City, it would seem that based on what we know now, the Hawkeyes should have at…