Thursday, February 11, 2010
The loneliest number
Last Friday, it was announced that Wyoming’s A.J. Davis would be leaving the program to pursue playing time elsewhere. On the surface, this was not big news. Davis was a solid player and will make a nice transfer for some mid-level program out there, but Wyoming is battling it out with Air Force to determine which team will wear the white jerseys in the 8/9 opening round game of the MWC tournament.
No, the real significance of Davis’ departure was that we are on the the verge of having a uniform number retire itself. Davis wore number 51 for the Cowboys, one of just four 51’s nationally who got meaningful (at least 10 percent of his team’s) minutes. And now we won’t see Davis for the remainder of the season. That leaves three active 51’s: Utah’s David Foster, JMU’s Pierre Curtis, and Campbell’s Preston Dodson.
I’m not sure why 51 is on the verge of extinction. Curtis is a senior, and with Davis out of action for next season, we could be down to just two players wearing the number during competitive play in 2011. There are actually five benchwarmer-types wearing it this season, so there’s still hope. The problem is there’s no role model that wears 51 - the list of NBA players to wear it is not exactly loaded with all-stars. Actually, it’s not loaded with any all-stars. It appears the best 51 of all-time is a toss-up between Michael Doleac, Lawrence Funderburke, and Michael Ruffin.
Here’s the list of players by number this season (10% of minutes played to qualify)...
No. Players 1 219 5 201 3 193 23 170 21 164 24 162 32 161 2 154 11 149 22 147 15 147 10 139 33 137 12 137 4 125 0 111 20 109 34 104 13 93 25 88 44 84 30 80 14 78 42 69 31 69 45 51 35 42 41 38 50 34 40 30 55 29 54 18 52 18 43 11 53 7 51 4
Monday, February 08, 2010
Give Coach Boze a chance
Some of this was recently covered by DeCourcy and Miller, but I was already planning to do some bookkeeping on the chances of unbeaten/winless teams remaining perfect mainly because it gives me a hook to blab about Todd Bozeman. First, let’s take a look at the eight teams that have an unbeaten conference record as of this morning…
Remaining perfect teams, chances of going unbeaten, remaining games
Butler 60.5% 5 Morgan St. 48.7% 7 Siena 40.8% 5 Murray St. 32.6% 5 Cornell 26.7% 8 Kansas 21.5% 9 Sam Houston St. 16.1% 8 Princeton 1.7% 10
All told, this collection is most likely to produce two perfect records when conference tournament play starts. After the Saturday win over Wright State, Butler’s the first team to have a projected undefeated conference record this season. Morgan State is right around 50 percent with less than half their conference slate left.
This got me to thinking about the best coach in college basketball (that’s only a small exaggeration), Todd Bozeman. Sadly Bozeman’s blog has been dormant this season, but his work lives on in terms of dominating the MEAC. Which again makes me wonder what it will take for him to move up to a level worthy of his ability.
I realize there’s much baggage there, but if you’re DePaul, can’t you at least interview the guy who is one of the best coaches in college basketball? Anyway, you’ll be hearing from me again when DePaul makes its selection, especially if it’s Craig Robinson. Or even worse, Isiah Thomas. That’s just moronic. Bozeman came to Baltimore and turned a horrible team into a winner overnight. Isiah’s first season at FIU is not going well despite an overhaul of the roster with an influx of Thomas-picked juco recruits. Consider that if Morgan State played DePaul in a seven-game series right now, it would be a toss-up.
I realize there isn’t much precedent for a coach from a conference as bad as the MEAC taking over a power-conference school. But you know what? There isn’t much precedent for DePaul winning NCAA tournament games in the last 20 years either. (Actually, they’ve won one.) It’s time to think outside the box.
Now for the winless teams…
Fordham 63.6% 7 Evansville 62.2% 5 Toledo 48.1% 6 Bryant 39.4% 6 UT Martin 23.5% 6 LSU 23.4% 7 Dartmouth 21.2% 8 Alcorn St. 20.3% 8 Penn St. 18.5% 7 Coppin St. 3.3% 7
Fordham continues to lead the pack here, but their chances actually decreased a smidge after giving Charlotte a scare on Saturday. Which brings me to my next coaching rant - why does the media make such a big deal about mid-season firings? (Examples: here and here.)
The most common criticism is that it sends the wrong message to the kids. But what message are you sending by letting Dereck Whittenburg suffer through this train wreck of a season? Maybe he should have been fired before the season, but at least the Fordham administration gave him a chance to turn things around. When it was obvious he couldn’t (and his star player transferred) then he had to go.
Keeping coaches like him and Penn’s Glen Miller around during historically bad seasons is just inhumane and I would argue sends a worse message. “Even though the season is a disaster and the fan base doesn’t support your coach, we accept this and are going to force him to finish the season when he otherwise could be looking for his next job. Sorry kids.”
Monday, February 01, 2010
Majerus does the unthinkable…again
(Note: Thanks to all that made me aware of this story.)
Rick Majerus has had a colorful career. He’s done some amazing things on the floor, most notably leading a WAC team to the NCAA title game in 1998. He’s done some amazing things off the floor, which include a variety of interesting motivational tactics, most thoroughly detailed in this piece. He’s publicly declared that the team he coaches is in the wrong conference, and announced on national TV that he’s “not a big gay guy”, as if there was some confusion about that after his on-air comments about Ashley Judd.
He was also the architect of the 20-point game, the lowest point total in the shot clock era. I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise that if there was one man that could defy logic and take on the challenge of completing a game by making only 2-point shots, it was Majerus. And on Saturday at the Robins Center in Richmond, that’s exactly what Saint Louis did - and they made it look a lot easier than it should have been.
It started innocently enough: The Billikens actually got to the free throw line on their very first possession. But Willie Reed failed to complete a three-point play, and SLU wouldn’t get to the line again in the first half, missing all five of their 3-point attempts in the process. Despite trailing by 17 at the half, the Billikens would only launch five more 3’s in the second half. The only tense moment was when Reed went to the line for two free throws at the 7:28 mark. Reed was just a 53 percent shooter coming in, but even so, there was a 78 percent chance he would make at least one.
He clanked them both and suddenly the miracle was possible. Saint Louis didn’t get back to the line, and when Justin Jordan, a 40 percent three-point shooter, missed a long-range attempt in the final minute, the impossible happened. As I said in my original post, it’s possible this has happened before. But it definitely hasn’t happened since the ‘04 season and it would seem unlikely for it to happen more than about once in every ten years, although it probably occurred more often in the late ‘80s when the three was not shot as often as it would be in the ‘90s.
There was really nothing to suggest that Saint Louis was a good candidate for this. They shoot a normal amount of threes and while they don’t get to the line often, they get there often enough. The real key is to have a crappy oh-fense, which the Billikens do have under their defense-obsessed coach. When you take 80 percent of your shots from inside the arc and only get to the free throw line three times, you are doing something wrong.
(On a related note, I have one interesting observation from looking at that 20-point box score. Marcus Relphorde was one of the reserves for SLU in that game. He hardly ever got off the bench that season. He’s now starting for Colorado and performing well enough that you have to think he could have had an impact in the A-10. I don’t care if he didn’t grasp the defensive system. You need to score some points to be successful.)
I’m not sure how the Majerus era at Saint Louis will work out, but at least he continues to give us some special memories.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Excerpts from 1953: New rules
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 still adjusting to less stringent restrictions on coaching behavior. Gone were the days when a coach could only communicate to his players during a timeout. “Coaching from the bench” was born. It’s almost like the author pines for the days before substitutions and time outs were allowed. (I’m with him on timeouts.) Oswald Tower (born in 1883, eight years before the sport was invented) is pretty much the 1953 version of the guy that laments shorts extending below the knees today.
Click the thumbnail for the full text.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Conference projections
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 seed in the conference tourney.
Also, you can use this feature like a time machine and anticipate the stories of the future! Marquette and Arizona State aren’t going to appear in the respected opinion polls any time soon, but on their current trajectory we could expect them to do some noteworthy things in the weeks to come.
This is still a beta technology and it’s possible the records don’t sum to .500 in a rogue case here and there. If you see something like that, let me know.