Big Ten Wonk: 2004-07

2007-10-15T10:18:00.000-05:00

My 598th post here
This blog is no more. It has ceased to be. Bereft of life it rests in peace. Etc.

My keystrokes can now be found at Basketball Prospectus. Hope to see you over there.

2007-04-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

Wonked out...for good
As previously announced, today is the last day for Big Ten Wonk (though not for John Gasaway).

So here are 11 valedictory posts, in honor of the conference that's given me a title and a topic for three seasons.

1. There was a national championship game last night
2. The Big Ten is better than people who link to me say it is
3. Funky stats: don't wait for the revolution, it's already here
4. Leave the tournament the way it is
5. Regress your view of your coach toward the mean
6. Jane Austen, college basketball, and press conferences
7. Glance toward your blogger without hope or despair
8. Nod perfunctorily toward your columnist
9. Hug your beat writer
10. Later, Wonk
11. Yo, John

Enjoy. (In installments.)

2007-04-03T08:30:00.000-05:00

There was a national championship game last night
#1 in a series of last-day posts
(1) Florida 84, (1) Ohio State 75
The thing that was supposed to be so important turned out not to be. Greg Oden wasn't in any foul trouble the entire night and thus posted a 25-12 dub-dub with four blocks. And yet Ohio State lost, due to 10-of-18 shooting from beyond the arc by Florida.

Thad Matta did what any coach blessed with Oden would have done against Florida: he kept his big man in the paint (even when Oden's man came out top to set screens) and took his chances with the Gators on the perimeter. The paint part worked—Florida's 2FG pct. was south of 50 for the first time in the tournament—but, alas, the Gators on the perimeter were unconscious. (Lee Humphrey and Taurean Green shot a combined 7-of-10 on their threes. Al Horford went 6-of-8 from the line and led the Gators with 18 points.) For their part, the Buckeyes were meanwhile posting their worst perimeter shooting of the entire 2006-07 season: 4-of-23. And that would fall under the category of really bad timing.

The Gators are different
My first season of blogging ended with North Carolina winning the national championship in very much the same fashion that they played during the regular season. And since that year was my formative hoops-analysis experience, I've been dutifully looking for that kind of team ever since.

But Florida the past two years challenges that model. They don't win national titles the way they win games during the regular season. Last year, for example, Billy Donovan's team flipped a switch come tournament time and played outstanding defense. That, along with their already very good offense, enabled them to win six games and sport some really neat ball caps.

This year, by contrast, their defense actually got worse during the tournament. (High school coaches, don't let your players read this part.) But little things like defense don't matter one bit when you're making 61 percent of your twos and 41 percent of your threes. Florida upped its number of attempted threes dramatically in the tournament and reaped a West Virginia-like benefit in improved accuracy on their (already quite accurate) twos. (Michigan fans take note.) Result: over six tournament games, the Gators scored 1.23 points per possession. And that will win you some hardware.

Fantastic, erratic, dynastic, elastic Gators of Florida, Wonk salutes you!

(Box score.)

BONUS continuation of tradition!
This year's poison pill was New Mexico State. The Aggies lost to Texas, who lost to USC, who lost to North Carolina, who lost to Georgetown, who lost to Ohio State, who lost to Florida.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
West Virginia (note correct spelling) coach John Beilein has reportedly accepted an offer to become the next head coach at Michigan. According to reports, Beilein will meet with his players today in Morgantown to inform them of his decision.

Butler coach Todd Lickliter will be the next head coach at Iowa. He will be introduced today at a press conference in Iowa City.

Note that with Lickliter joining Tubby Smith in the Big Ten coaching fraternity, eight of the conference's 11 coaches will enter next year having taken a team to the NCAA tournament in 2007. And coach #9 (Beilein, we think) has the current NIT title to his credit. Not bad.

2007-04-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

The Big Ten is better than people who link to me say it is
#2 in a series of last-day posts

I'm certainly not one of those crude unlettered souls that judges "power" conferences based solely on their performance in the tournament.

Oh, wait. (Crude grunt, unlettered scratch.) Yes, I am. Sometimes....

SEC (11-4)
Pac-10 (10-6)
Big Ten (9-6)
Big XII (6-4)
Big East (7-6)
ACC (7-7)

Behold the ACC, at the bottom of the heap and without a Final Four participant now for two years.

So why no crisis headlines from Tobacco Road? Why no navel-gazing? Why no irritably defensive quotes from coaches?

Because the ACC doesn't feel that its intrinsic worth is in play with every tournament. They can have a bad year and they're still "the ACC." No big thing.

Not so the Big Ten. When silly headlines appeared after the first weekend this year (headlines that, goodness knows, were not out of place last year), the hue and cry was instantaneous, familiar, and plaintive: oh, my goodness. The Big Ten only has one team into the Sweet 16, and that thanks to a non-call (or, more precisely, a possible mis-call on what could have been an intentional foul).

OK, Wisconsin losing to UNLV was disappointing for Big Ten believers, but was the performance of the conference as a whole really such a shock? Three of the Big Ten's six tournament teams were seeded in the 7-9 range, those three teams went 3-0 in the first round (against Gonzaga, Arizona, and Marquette), and every one of those three teams failed to advance past the first weekend (against UCLA, Florida, and North Carolina). Wow, who could have seen that coming? Well, anyone, pretty much.

I've faulted the Big Ten on aesthetic grounds this year and I know from the email I receive that some readers don't take kindly to that. So let me be clear:

The Big Ten happens to play at a slow pace. So did Georgetown this year—slower than any non-Northwestern team in the conference. And they got to the Final Four. My problem is not with slowness. If it works, do it. John Thompson III, I salute you.

But when every team in the conference plays the exact same speed (and nine of 11 teams play pretty much the same system at the same speed) the resulting homogeneity in style has the potential to do every conference team a disservice in the postseason. They just haven't seen enough variety to be prepared for what the tournament, by definition, throws at them: the best teams in the country. (Yes, if you have Ohio State-in-2007 or Illinois-in-2005 talent, you can work around this. Duly noted.)

Fans who like faster games tend to see defense as the culprit here. I, on the other hand, think teams that don't have confidence in their offense tend to go slower. You can have defense and eat your speed cake too, I dare say.

The larger point as it relates to the worth of the Big Ten, however, is that, while you may not care for the style, the conference's top teams did indeed play that style very well, losing to Florida by just seven and to UCLA by just five. I just happen to think those results can be matched and indeed exceeded by varying styles and picking up the pace a bit.

And there's even a hopeful example close at hand: those aforementioned Georgetown Hoyas. They achieved a nice level of success this year and, what's even more encouraging, a good many people seemed to understand that they did so at a slow pace. That is, observers were able to distinguish between style of play (which may not be one's cup of tea) and success within that style (which no one could, or did, doubt that Georgetown did in fact achieve).

That's all any team can ask. At any speed.

2007-04-03T07:30:00.000-05:00

Funky stats: don't bother waiting for the revolution, it's already here
#3 in a series of last-day posts

We who follow college basketball confront an odd situation in April 2007. To the extent that stats can on occasion be of some use in following this sport, the numbers we need come from blogs and nowhere else. Even national sportswriters employed by the MSM get their numbers from bloggers just like we all do.

Meanwhile conferences still occupy precious server space with numbers—these are the "official statistics," mind you—that no one really uses. (Not that such numbers are entirely meaningless, of course. In addition to perfectly good 3FG and FT percentages, there's an irony available on the Big Ten's stat page. The fact that all Big Ten teams averaged between 57 and 64 possessions per 40 minutes in conference play this year means you can look at their raw numbers with little need for meddling from the likes of yours truly. Such numbers aren't tempo-free but they sure are tempo-similar.)

So just how much longer will this odd situation continue? My current guess is: forever. And a good thing, too....

I didn't used to think this way. A while back it looked like these wacky new stats were going to sweep all before them with fall-of-the-Berlin Wall-style abruptness and ensuing celebration. I mean, all the signs were there: Pomeroy getting snatched up by ESPN, a D-II conference going tempo-free, skeptical harrumphing ($) from established media types—all within days of each other.

But, lo and behold, "the" moment never came. You know, the one where the scrolling message board in Times Square blares: "OLD BASKETBALL STATS WERE WRONG....(EXCEPT FOR 3FG and FT PCTS)....USE TEMPO-FREE STATS INSTEAD." (I was sure that part would happen.)

What I've come to realize is that the number of people interested enough or nerdy enough or both to use this stuff—even and especially among those paid to write about sports—is fairly small. And over the past 15 months or so, pretty much everyone who's going to board this particular flight has made it to their seats by now.

Yes, it's a small group. But even those not on board are aware of this flight and made a choice not to hop on. As a result, I see significantly fewer number-based assaults on hoops reality in print than I did two years ago.

Announcers working the games on TV? Ah, the last frontier. They still say things like "outrebounded by five." (Sigh.) We'll get them too, someday, comrade. (We already have Fran Fraschilla working, in their midst, on the side of the tempo-free angels.)

So, no, this will not be a change marked by a decisive moment. It will be marked instead by incremental adaptation.

Change that to "has been marked by." Yay, blogs.

2007-04-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

Leave the tournament the way it is
#4 in a series of last-day posts

There is grumbling every year in the immediate aftermath of Selection Sunday, of course, as to who gets left behind. This year the grumbling seemed even louder and was given a new sound bite: an unprecedented number of D-I teams, it is said, won at least 20 games.

Meaning: 1) there are more D-I teams than there used to be; and 2) the "power"-conference teams are becoming more savvy about scheduling numerous W's in November and December.

Be that as it may, where there's Selection Sunday grumbling there is always a proposal: expand the field of 65.

The most attractive aspect of this proposal is that it would greatly enhance the prospects of seeing genuinely interesting and competitive games in November and December. Big-name programs from different conferences could actually schedule each other home-and-away, or even create long-running series like Notre Dame-Michigan or Florida-Florida State in football.

But benefits gained in November and December would be paid for the rest of the season. Increasing the field to 128 teams would, for example, drain much of the suspense and uncertainty from February. Had there been an expanded field this year, the bubble discussion would have moved off of Illinois, Arkansas, Syracuse, and Missouri State and onto, say, Penn State, South Carolina, Cincinnati, and Fordham. True, bubble teams aren't much of a threat to do damage in the tournament as it is. But at least with the field of 65 there's always the hope, admittedly small, that one of the last teams in will pull a North Carolina 2000 and get to the Final Four. That hope would shrink to virtual nonexistence with a field of 128 teams.

Worse, an expanded field would mean a first round of the NCAA tournament that would unavoidably be populated by a critical mass of really dull games. Indeed, they wouldn't even be games as much as foregone conclusions. If there's never been a case where a 1-seed loses to a 16-seed, imagine the tense excitement of 1 vs. 32 and 2 vs. 31 matchups. (And don't even speak of first-round byes. Off the table. Entry to the tournament may be granted on grounds more or less aristocratic but once you get there it's a straight meritocracy. Has to be.)

So I say: let Syracuse think they were robbed. That's a way better tale to tell over a beer in 2017 than "we lost to New Mexico State in the round of 128." Selection is the necessary prelude of potential injustice, leading up to an almost ideally just tournament.

Besides, justice can sting as badly as injustice. Those beautifully "Euclidean" brackets have their ruthless side. Seeing the glass as half-empty, the March onslaught of conference tournaments is indeed something of a blood-letting. And then that hired goon known as the NCAA tournament finishes the job by exterminating 64 of the 65 teams left standing.

The nice thing about a botched travesty like the BCS, conversely, is that its very incompetence creates space to speculate recklessly and without contradiction by events: "If only...."

2007-04-03T06:30:00.000-05:00

Regress your view of your coach toward the mean
#5 in a series of last-day posts

There's a hoary old chestnut that says a quarterback receives too much credit when his team wins and too much blame when they lose. Said chestnut needs to be multiplied 100-fold and applied to college basketball coaches.

A coach in basketball has significantly less in-game control than a football coach (who calls the play or the defense before each snap) or a manager in baseball (who can call each pitch). Yet we talk about basketball coaches like they're each a modern-day Beethoven: not just conducting the orchestra but writing the music as well.

In fact, a coach's most significant achievement (or failure) takes place before the opening tip: recruiting. And while it's fun to talk X's and O's, the significance of play-calling in hoops surely pales in comparison to much less cerebral concerns, most notably personnel and their shooting accuracy on a given day or night.

The next time you hear an analyst talking about a coach in glowing terms more appropriate for a chess grand master, think of said coach instead as having roughly the same degree of control over his team that you have over your golf shots.

2007-04-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

Jane Austen, press conferences, and college basketball
#6 in a series of last-day posts

One of the nice things about having these here newfangled internets and eleventy-gillion channels on your HD is the ability this explosion of offerings has afforded to eavesdrop on previously restricted events. Take press conferences....

The last one I listened to start-to-finish was the one following the Xavier-Ohio State game in the second round, by any measure a wildly thrilling game. Here's the thing, though:

The press conference was stupefyingly dull....

Q. What were you thinking when you hit the three to force overtime?

A. On the three, I was just trying to get an open look. I told Mike before we left the huddle and he found me and I got the open look.

(Very long pause.)

Q. What were you thinking when Oden fouled out?

A. We lose a big inside presence when he goes out. We've played seven games without him this season, and he has been in foul trouble before, so we've learned to play without him. Our team did a good job of adjusting their roles when he fouled out.

(Very long pause.)

Q. What were you thinking when....

Mannered, deferential, and courteous to a fault, the talk at any college basketball press conference where Bob Knight is not in attendance is perhaps the last remaining venue in 2007 where Mr. Darcy and Miss Bennet could blend in seamlessly with the conversation.

Don't blame the questioners. Press conferences are structurally doomed: when was the last time you saw candor and spontaneity coming from a dais in front of an assembled group of reporters?

So when, despite all odds, a spark of the unscripted does indeed occur, that is itself news. It's why men and women who must, as part of their employment, go to a lot of these are so improbably and indeed needlessly fascinated with Joakim Noah. He actually says things. Bully for Noah but that doesn't mean his psyche's a compelling object of study worthy of a modern-day Camus.

Nevertheless, here's a salute to the men and women forced to attend these buzzkills. I now realize as I never did before that any insights and scoops are achieved in spite of press conferences and not because of them.

2007-04-03T05:30:00.000-05:00

Glance toward your blogger without hope or despair
#7 in a series of last-day posts

I'm here before you today to defend the college hoops blogosphere.

And it needs defending. It's become almost commonplace to decry the sorry state of blogdom where college basketball's concerned. (Hey, I've done it too.)

It's true that if you throw a dart at the mass of college basketball blogs you'll hit a middling target more often than not. That's true of blogs on any sport. But it seems like college football, pro baseball, and pro basketball have each seen the rapid coalescence of not only a core group of must-reads but also lively constellations of orbiting lesser fare. (With blogs on those sports, kind of like with music, I have the sense that I'll find more good stuff I don't yet know about if only I can make the time.) Blogs on college hoops? A little less numerous (many are team-based football blogs that moonlight in hoops—a gig that, granted, can on occasion be pulled off with excellent results), a little less lively, maybe fewer must-reads.

Still, let's not lose sight of the obvious. Issuing a cattle call for anyone with a keyboard to step forward may not bring in Shakespeare or Red Smith every time but it certainly leaves room for the welcome surprise. Or in this case surprises: the door was flung open and in came Ken Pomeroy and Kyle Whelliston. We wouldn't have them if not for this whole blog thing that happened—a few dozen middling and easily ignored blogs are surely a small price to pay.

Nor are blogs by people with first names not starting with "K" doomed to mediocrity. Quite the opposite. Given total freedom over what to write about and at what length, the potential to reach anyone on the planet with a network connection, hundreds of sports channels available 24 hours a day, the ability to record virtually any major-conference game with the push of a button, and access to years of the most detailed and enlightening statistics yet compiled on the sport, any blogger sitting down to a keyboard in 2007 has a set-up, albeit sans salary, that no New York Times sports columnist could have dreamed of as recently as 15 years ago.

So do it.

2007-04-03T05:00:00.000-05:00

Nod perfunctorily toward your columnist
#8 in a series of last-day posts

For decades the sports columnist, by virtue of their profession, enjoyed three effective though not total monopolies:

1. The ability to see the games
2. The ability to reach readers
3. The ability to talk to players and coaches

What we've seen over the past 20 years is the total breakup of monopoly number 1 by cable and satellite. Even more dramatic has been the antitrust action brought against number 2 by the internet over the past 10 years. Today the professional columnist is left with only monopoly number 3. And while it's true this realization can on occasion trigger a frightened yelp like that coming from a stagecoach manufacturer circa 1910, this state of affairs in fact doesn't faze most sportswriters.

Nor should it.

Take Simmons. I think the shift he heralds isn't that he's both a sportswriter and an avowed Boston Red Sox fan but simply that he writes as a sports fan would write instead of as a professional would write. That is, he hasn't shattered any paradigms but he's writing from the VIP seats and not from six feet closer to the court along press row. That's a big six feet: he's all about old monopolies 1 and 2 and not at all about number 3. And such is one way of finessing the current situation as a professional.

Another way for sportswriters to greet the present is even more obvious: if you have a monopoly on access, don't do penance. Use it. Please. In three seasons of reading MSM fare as a blogger trolling for good stuff, I still feel that perhaps the single best piece I came across was a feature by Mike DeCourcy and Kyle Veltrop of The Sporting News in December 2004. That month Illinois played Wake Forest in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge and basically DeCourcy and Veltrop each took a team and trailed them for a few days leading up to the game. The resulting article, posted a day or two after the game, was filled with fascinating details to be found nowhere else: how each coaching staff broke down the game tape, what they told their players about the opposing team's weaknesses, the stats that each coaching staff kept on their own team, what each player's assignments were, etc. All gold.

I'm baffled as to why we don't see more reportage like this. You have a press pass. Trail these guys! (Related: how come we never get any dishy off-the-record quotes on opposing players or coaches? Good grief, if mandatory job rotation were enforced and we had the Washington press corps assigned to college hoops, we'd have scandal within the week, guaranteed. More people than just Bob Knight talk like Bob Knight, they just do it off the record.)

Or take another example: every now and then I make sport of Seth Davis and rightfully so. He's prone to moments of extreme and debilitating mimbo-ism, offering such nuggets of hard-earned insider sagacity as: Greg Oden should work on staying out of foul trouble. (Future penetrating analyses from Davis: the sun is hot, velcro is sticky, and Hillary Clinton seems kind of scripted.)

But say this for Davis: he uses his monopoly on access. He broke the news that Mike Davis was out at Indiana. And he quotes NBA scouts and GMs anonymously on the draft prospects of college players. Davis should quit analysis altogether and just duel Katz to see once and for all who's going to be the Bob Woodward of this here sport (where "Bob Woodward" is understood in a 30-second-SportsCenter-spots kind of way). The gig is just sitting there: Deadspin-snarky but with health coverage and getting calls returned. Schmooze, build your network, quote them anonymously, and do it. There's a place for that.

Where I think columnists sometimes err, though, is in thinking that this last remaining monopoly can be of some use in divining what's going to happen (where the object under study is tonight's game and not, say, a coaching search). This year I had occasion to dissent from a columnist who had written about a game: "Breaking down [team X's] chances is simple. If [leading scorer for team X] doesn't have a big game, then [team X] is toast." With the phrase "breaking down team X's chances," the columnist was stating, in effect: by virtue of monopoly 3, I have this figured out in advance.

He turned out to be wrong, of course, which is why I chose this particular episode. (Bet you didn't see that coming.) But the larger point is that giving anyone—columnist, blogger, or free-lance blueberry inspector—the abilities of former monopolies 1 and 2 should enable them to run rings around anyone limited to merely number 3 where analysis is concerned (again, as distinct from coaching searches and the like).

Columnists, give us what we can't get ourselves. It's interesting to us and in your best interest.

2007-04-03T04:30:00.000-05:00

Hug your beat writer
#9 in a series of last-day posts

I don't know what the near future holds for sports coverage but I do know that, because people will continue to be interested in the games, relatively small numbers of credentialed professionals will continue to be granted access to report on these sporting events. It's a challenging job done under tremendous time pressure. And it's essential.

As one with a blog, I had the freedom to remark on one or maybe two things that I found interesting. And I could pretty much take as long as I wanted to do so. Yay, me. But if I were called upon to provide the comprehensive after-the-fact summary for those who might not have seen the game, and told I needed to get it done in X minutes, well, I would not be your best bet for such a service. I've lost count of the number of times I've hit "publish" on a post, turned to a game recap, and slapped my forehead, saying: d'oh! I meant to say something about that.

Hard-toiling beat writers, Wonk salutes you! You fell the trees so that the rest of us might argue about what to plant.

2007-04-03T04:00:00.000-05:00

Later, Wonk
#10 in a series of last-day posts

This blog had a good run: three seasons, 593 posts, and some page views by you all. The busiest month was this past March. The busiest day, February 21, 2006.

For reasons I still don't understand, I spent the first season writing in the third person, with the result that I now feel an actual physical shudder when I have to reach back into the archives to pull up something from 04-05. (Wonk says: he never should have pitched his prose in that way. He now finds it far too odd.)

Season 2 witnessed the full-force arrival of tempo-free stats. If you delve into the archives under, say, November 2005 and find yourself thinking there may have been moments when the numbers were so abundant that they got in the way, you're not alone. I think so too.

And then season 3: I was perfect in every way. First-person voice, balanced number-word ratio, modesty, the works.

The best part of doing this was the surprises it brought in the email. I heard from some Big Names and that was fun. But the other 99 percent of the email came from names I didn't recognize at first. Many of those names have since become highly valued email peeps—a republic of pixels, sort of. Nice republic, that.

And with that, I guess I should be going. For you see my sister-in-law (a past guest star) has saluted me for getting out before I jump the shark with this thing. (I hadn't realized that the danger was so near.)

In any event, I had a good time here. Hope you did too. Please watch for a referral here to my new digs.

2007-04-03T03:30:00.000-05:00

Yo, John
#11 in a series of 11 last-day posts

Last week I said that next year I plan to write about college basketball, the whole thing. What that usually means, of course, is "all the good teams, irrespective of conference."

That will indeed be my starting point. (Maybe I can branch out past that eventually.) Anyway, hope to see you there. Watch for a referral.

Take care and stay in touch,

j.

2007-04-02T06:46:00.000-05:00

A preface to previews
(1) Ohio State vs. (1) Florida (9:21pm ET)
Don't read any preview today without this handy accompanying piece at your side....

1. Accept no discussion whatsoever of defense in any preview.
Florida's players and coaches will mouth the right words at press conferences and say how important defense is, how it leads to transition opportunities, how it all starts with Corey Brewer, etc. Don't believe it. Some nice shot blocks against UCLA the other night notwithstanding, in their innermost Gator souls they don't really think about defense. They don't need to. Their shots go in at a rate that renders defense an afterthought. (This is, after all, the best-shooting team in the nation.)

And, though Ohio State can play some D and (oh, yeah) has a seven-foot shot blocker in the paint, no one expects tonight's game to be a defensive struggle. Florida's offense will be productive tonight. They have been in every game since the LSU fiasco. (Even in a subsequent loss at Tennessee, the Gator offense was excellent.) If I were Thad Matta, I'd write this number on the white board: 1.15 points per possession. That's the minimum required for a Buckeye win tonight.

The good news for OSU fans? That's feasible against this defense....

2. Corey Brewer is indeed a great defender, but....
No one needs to be told at this late date that Brewer is 6-9, has the wingspan of an even taller player, and yet still possesses the quickness to stick with opposing guards. All true. Problem is, Brewer knows all of the above too and he's been relying on it too much. I've seen him leave his feet a surprising number of times and I've seen him driven on with good results. Position D is not his long suit. (If you gave Ben Howland or Bo Ryan this guy for a couple seasons, ay, carumba....) Much more important than any chinks in Brewer's armor, however, is the fact that he has teammates in the starting lineup who are on the floor primarily for offense.

So Florida simply dares you to outscore them. Most times you can't....

3. Just because Florida's been shooting a lot of threes lately doesn't mean it matters whether they go in or not.
Never mind that the Gators have devoted 46 percent of their shots to threes in the tournament. With any other team that would mean winning or losing would ride on whether said team is "on" from outside. But this isn't any other team. It's Florida. Against Purdue the Gators shot just 28 percent on their threes and still scored 1.13 points per possession by making their twos and going to the line 31 times. This offense simply will not be denied. They don't care what you take away. They will find another way to score.

4. Mike Conley's the best player on his team.
And really it's no contest. Sure, Greg Oden's better when he's on the floor but over the past three games that's been just 52 percent of the time. In terms of impact over 40 minutes, Conley's your man.

Four months ago when I took the showily and self-consciously reckless step of titling a post "Ohio State will play in the national championship game," I was at root trying to share with readers the full depth and extent of my "Whoa!" reaction to this freshman Conley after just six games. His eerie calm and ruthless efficiency are, like Oden's face, an insistent and unanswerable refutation of the statement: he's just a freshman.

5. Greg Oden's the best player in the country.
Oden's wrist injury and his teammates' occasional unwillingness to give him the ball deprived him of his Durantian moment. Here he is about to play his last college game and we never did get that 33-16 kind of dub-dub from him. But make no mistake: uncannily Mr. Burns-like CBS analysts notwithstanding, Oden's potential is vast. Indeed, he's been improving exponentially before our eyes (during those random stray moments when he's actually in the game). Given the extra foul and permissive officiating at the next level, the aforementioned analyst will be shown to have been wrong within a few hundred days here.

Sweet.

2007-04-01T06:03:00.000-05:00

All other D-I schools can just withdraw from every sport
In lacrosse, tennis, field hockey, baseball, and volleyball, we'll just cut to the chase from now on and have Ohio State play Florida for the championship right at the start.

(1) Ohio State 67, (2) Georgetown 60
Forget Greg Oden, never mind Mike Conley, look past Ron Lewis, and even ignore recent Packer fixation David Lighty. The player of the game for Ohio State was Ivan Harris. Yes, Ivan Harris. You see, Harris had five offensive boards and only one turnover in 15 minutes. And his performance was emblematic: the Buckeyes won this game, even though they didn't shoot as well as Georgetown, simply because they got more shots.

On Friday I noted that the Hoyas aren't a good defensive rebounding team. That hurt them last night, as Ohio State (normally not a good offensive rebounding team) pulled down 16 misses out of 37 chances. That's the kind of performance Georgetown usually turns in on the offensive glass but last night the Hoyas were meanwhile being limited to getting just 30 percent of their own misses. (Yes, Roy Hibbert playing just 24 minutes helped that number.)

Nor did turnovers help matters, of course, for Georgetown: John Thompson III's team gave the ball away 14 times in a 59-possession game. That's bad, sure, but keep in mind it's almost exactly as bad as the Hoyas performed all season long in Big East play (where they donated the ball to opponents on 24 percent of their possessions) while still putting up arguably the best offensive numbers in the country. And they shot about as well last night as they did in-conference. The key difference: fewer offensive rebounds.

(Note that Ohio State committed only eight turnovers. For the tournament Thad Matta's team has given the ball away on just 14 percent of their possessions.)

My Friday forecast that the Buckeyes would play zone was half-right. OSU played a 2-3 off made baskets on their end throughout the first half but went exclusively man after Georgetown ripped off 11 points before the first media timeout after halftime. (So there's no readily available explanation for the odd silence of Jeff Green, who scored nine points on just five shots. Green faced a zone for much of the game so there's no single defender to credit.)

As for the big guys, Hibbert lived up to the hype, even with foul trouble, scoring 19 points on 9-of-13 shooting in just 24 minutes. Oden missed a 20-minute dub-dub by a hair, recording 13 points and nine boards. If he'd just secured that 10th rebound, maybe he would have been adjudged by a certain analyst as having the potential to be another Russell or Walton. Alas.

(Box score.)

(1) Florida 76, (2) UCLA 66
I thought the Bruins' defense would be good enough to win this game for UCLA and for the first five minutes I was right. (Let's see the glass as one-eighth full!) Then the threes started falling for the Gators (first from Corey Brewer, he of the game-high 19 points, and then from Lee Humphrey) and the Bruins did something I would never have expected from a Ben Howland team. They seemed to just lose hope. The foul trouble for Arron Afflalo seemed to be more damaging morale-wise than anything else. The Bruins, after all, trailed by just six after a first half where Afflalo didn't score. So instead of being good enough to win, the UCLA defense was the reason they lost.

Not that Florida didn't have something to do with that, mind you. For this year's tournament run, the Gators have apparently decided to model themselves on a Pittsnogle-Gansey-era West Virginia offense. They're shooting a ton of threes in the tournament and it's not so much that they're lighting it up from the outside (they've hit 39 percent of their threes in the tournament—very good but not unconscious by any means) as that all those threes, even misses, are opening things up on the inside, where Florida's connecting on 65 percent of their twos over five tournament games.

That kind of lethal efficiency on the interior should pose a formidable challenge Monday night for one Greg Oden.

BONUS notes for posterity! This game was nowhere near as close as its score. Florida missed 12 free throws, UCLA had only three turnovers, the Gators had 17, etc.

2007-03-31T07:14:00.000-05:00

BONUS all-red edition! Why has capitalism failed me?
Note: the Final Four preview was yesterday.

This evening, like every year, I'll grit my teeth and watch the games, knowing that a certain analyst comes with the games as a multi-decade package deal.

I didn't do any big wacky gimme-hits torch-and-pitchfork post about that analyst this year and that's a departure from tradition. I guess I've had my say and now there's nothing to do but wait him out. (I feel like a Cuban waiting for Castro to taste the inevitable.)

But let me note one thing: I am genuinely baffled by this analyst's longevity. I thought the whole deal with capitalism was that we would sacrifice a gemeinschaft of communally maintained minimal amounts of food, shelter, health care, etc., in exchange for a dynamic and open-ended if sometimes unsettling and unfeeling gesellschaft of promise, potential, and pitfalls.

And yet here is this analyst, as solidly entrenched as any Ukrainian apparatchik circa 1951.

I don't get it. Is CBS some kind of Mondragon-styled worker's cooperative?

Where oh where is a little creative destruction when you need it?

2007-03-30T06:22:00.000-05:00

The only Final Four preview I've read so far
I know everybody's doing previews and I thought about setting mine apart by doing, say, a very special vowel-free preview ("Grg dn nds th bl!") or some such. But, in the end, I decided that not reading anyone else's preview is gimmicky distinction enough. So if I'm out in left field it's because I'm clueless, not because I'm bucking any conventional wisdom. I'll find out what the conventional wisdom is after I post.

(2) Georgetown vs. (1) Ohio State (6:07pm ET)
If by some lightning-strike twist of fate Greg Oden is not in foul trouble in this game, I have a three-word preview:

Ohio State wins.

Last Saturday, for example, Memphis went on a 14-4 run in the second half with Oden on the bench with three fouls. At which point Thad Matta cried uncle, brought the big guy in, and OSU outscored the Tigers 41-20 from that point on. He's that important.

A much safer assumption, however, is that he is in foul trouble tomorrow night. (Oden played 24 minutes against Memphis and just 18 against Tennessee.) Then what?

Then the Hoyas should take the ball to the rim like mad fools on every single Oden-less possession. Because when Oden's on the floor the collision should be spectacular: the Georgetown offense, the nation's best, gets it done on the inside. Two-point shots (from Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert) and offensive boards (Hibbert) are what got John Thompson III's team this far.

If I were Matta, I'd have spent the week drilling Ivan Harris, Daequan Cook, and Othello Hunter on the finer points of pulling down defensive boards behind Oden's attempted shot blocks. The Buckeyes were excellent on the defensive glass during the season (pulling down 70 percent of their opponents' misses in Big Ten play) and have been spectacular there in the tournament (75 percent). That will need to continue.

One thing to keep in mind, however: I wouldn't be surprised to see zone off of every made basket from the Buckeyes—and not just to protect Oden. A zone's simply a not terribly creative but really effective comfort-denier against a Princeton-inflected offense. (And if you don't believe me, believe recent Northwestern grad Tim Doyle, no stranger to such offenses he: "The zone is better against it because you don't give up layups. [The offense is] back-cutting into nothing." Doyle also astutely points out the Hoyas' offense didn't look so hot against the Syracuse 2-3 last month. He's right. Good stuff, Tim! Start blogging!) True, the zone invites threes and Ohio State saw Memphis and Tennessee record 26 makes in just 53 attempts from beyond the arc in San Antonio. Still, I expect Matta will take that risk rather than play man against this particular buzzsaw.

As for Ohio State's offense, there's simply no avoiding it. The obvious must be stated. But I can tell you why the obvious should in fact be even more obvious: give Oden the ball. If I were Matta I'd hoard my timeouts specifically so I could use them following any offensive possession where Oden doesn't touch the ball. He's that important. With a foul-blighted Oden, the task at hand is to try to cram 35+ minutes of offensive production into just 18-24 minutes. He doesn't need to shoot every time, of course, but he does need to get the ball and force the Hoyas to pick their poison. For after a season of thoroughly meh outside shooting (33.3 3FG pct. in-conference), OSU is at last connecting on their threes (41.3 3FG pct. in the tournament).

Only exception to the law of feed-the-beast: good things happen for Ohio State when Mike Conley takes the ball to the rim. Points, trips to the line by Conley, offensive boards by Oden—these are all acceptable outcomes from where Matta's standing. (Also note that the Hoyas, for all their size, are in fact a poor defensive rebounding team. OSU's no Georgetown when it comes to offensive rebounding; still, if the Buckeyes can pick up some second-chance points, that's huge.)

BONUS note for the viewer's guide! If OSU does choose zone, watch for a certain analyst to delve into tedious and indeed blinkered and wholly mistaken detail as to the "matchups" on the floor when "Matta goes zone." Nonsense. The zone will simply be deployed on every defensive possession following either a made Ohio State basket or a whistle on their end (travel, charge, etc.).

(2) UCLA vs. (1) Florida (8:47pm ET)
I can't wait for this game. I think UCLA will win for three reasons.

1. Florida allowed conference opponents to make half their twos. In a Final Four where strong interior FG defense is the rule (even from an offensive juggernaut like Georgetown), the Gators' permissiveness in the paint is striking. (Note for example that undersized but plucky Carl Landry was able to do business against this team, to the tune of 8-for-14 for 18 points.) Florida won this year simply by outscoring teams. Hey, nothing wrong with that. It was effective. Stylistic pluralism reigns supreme in these here parts. Only thing: now the Gators are playing UCLA. And I don't think offense alone can win this game for Billy Donovan's team.

2. Florida's defensive specialty is irrelevant in this game. The Gators' defensive strength—making opponents miss threes—won't come into play because the Bruins don't shoot threes. (Kansas fans with vivid terrifying memories of Arron Afflalo may disagree with this last statement. That game—17 attempted threes out of 45 FGAs—did indeed mark a mild exception to UCLA's take-it-to-the-rim rule.) That being said, Florida's defensive rebounding in the tournament has been excellent and the Bruins don't "do" offensive boards (preferring to get back on D). It will be essential that Afflalo, Josh Shipp, and Darren Collison hit their first shots because there won't be many second shots.

3. UCLA is simply on another planet defensively right now. How can we tell? Well, for one thing they've turned the ball over on almost 25 percent of their possessions in the tournament—and yet here they are in Atlanta. Their defense has been so ridiculously good that little things like not being able to hold on to the ball haven't mattered. Now that D is about to go up against two-point-making monsters Al Horford and Joakim Noah. As I said, I can't wait.

BONUS "I boldly predict X unless of course Y in which case forget everything I said" note! The wild cards in this game are Lee Humphrey and Taurean Green. An otherwise Superman UCLA defense was surprisingly Clark Kent toward opponents' threes all season long. That has continued in the tournament. And, lo and behold, Florida's turned into a POT here in late March: 45 percent of their shots in the tournament (!) have been threes. Interesting....

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Maybe Michigan AD Bill Martin's been working the phones after all. A report in the Spokane, WA, Spokesman-Review states that both Michigan and Iowa contacted Washington State coach Tony Bennett and that the Wolverines were "especially vigorous" in their pursuit of the 37-year-old coach. To no avail, it seems: Bennett has reached an "agreement in principle" with WSU to stay in Pullman, courtesy of a restructured contract. Meanwhile this morning's Ann Arbor News reports that UM is down to three candidates in its search: West Virginia coach John Beilein (whose team won the NIT last night), Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings, and Southern Illinois coach Chris Lowery.

Former Iowa coach Steve Alford says he did nothing wrong in contacting recruits who've signed with the Hawkeyes and, reportedly, encouraging them to come to New Mexico. "You've got to make contact with the kids," Alford said. "They're your kids that you signed. One of the parents was upset that I didn't call earlier. You've got to tell them where you're going, that you're not going to be their coach."

NCAA president Myles Brand says the idea of expanding the field of 65 is "not off the table."

In addition to typing words, I can occasionally speak them....
I'll be talking Final Four hoops and anything else that comes up with Steve "The Homer" True on Milwaukee's ESPN Radio this afternoon around 3:20 ET. Tune in and listen to me wing it.

Wonk back!
Don't just mutter ineffectually; email me!

Actually, it was George Costanza who invented "It's not you, it's me"
On Monday I said this is the last season for this blog, though not for this blogger. The readers respond!

Hi Wonk,

Say it ain't so. You won't be largely dedicated to the minutiae of Big Ten hoops for IU's dramatic national title run next season? This reader feels the impending loss deeply.

You don't expect us jilted conference fans to believe this "Let's just be friends, it wasn't you" line, do you? What was it really? Your move to Indianapolis and the proximity of Hinkle Fieldhouse (the "Horizon Broadening" theory, pun intended)? The interminable grind of covering the agony that is Northwestern and Penn State basketball (the "Daily Doormat Inspection" Theory)?

Regardless, be sure to let us all know where you'll be posting, and I'll be reading every day. Yours is great stuff, and fans of the nation's top (or at least, most interesting) teams will benefit. I do hope you maintain your detailed Big Ten previews and a more than disinterested eye on the league!

Yours,
Ashton S.

It's not you! I swear I haven't been seeing ACC games behind your back! They mean nothing to me, honestly.

And good luck with that impending national title run. I'll be watching closely, rest assured.

2007-03-29T06:50:00.000-05:00

If the moving van goes from Morgantown to Ann Arbor....
Michigan has reportedly zeroed in on West Virginia coach John Beilein.

First order of business: Beilein's Mountaineers will play Clemson in the NIT title game tonight in Madison Square Garden. But once that's over and done with we should know within a few dozen hours if the reports are accurate.

Canonical blogger Brian Cook, for one, rather hopes they are. He has nominated the following ballot for the next coaching staff at Crisler:

HEAD COACH: John Beilein
RECRUITIN' ASSISTANT: Jalen Rose
GENERALLY IMPRESSIVE ASSISTANT: Jon Bon Jovi
UNICORN: Unicorn

(Let the record show Unicorn has a five-dollar buyout at his current gig and has released the following statement: "I am the Unicorn of Mythical Lands. I'm happy here at Mythical Lands and my only focus right now is being the best Unicorn for Mythical Lands that I can be. My wife, Diane, and I and our children, Caitlin, Dylan, and Cody, have enjoyed our years here immensely and have no current plans to make any changes.")

Brian, of course, paddles comfortably through Pomeroyean waters. Would that it were so for all who write on the Michigan coaching search....

It's been excruciating this week to read accounts that apply the adjective "Princeton" directly and unquestioningly to the noun "Beilein's offense." About as excruciating, in fact, as reading opposing views pointing out that West Virginia averaged more points per game than UCLA or Georgetown.

Points per game? Points (huff, huff) per game? Have I been doing this for three seasons just to give my typing a workout, people?

Here's what you need to know:

Big East--points per possession
(2007, conference games only)
1. Georgetown (1.14)
2. Louisville (1.09)
3. Pitt (1.08)
4. West Virginia (1.08)

I'd say that ranks as one impressive piece of coaching. Beilein lost not only the famous-for-his-name Kevin Pittsnogle but also the Wonk-wowing Mike Gansey ("a veritable freak of offensive nature") from last year's team. This year? Uh, not a lot on hand. (Quick: name one West Virginia player.) And yet the Mountaineers beat UCLA and are up there with the second-weekend boys in terms of offense.

So when writers covering Michigan fret about whether or not Beilein's system will "work" in the Big Ten, I would ask them to remember one thing: Beilein has a system. Has there been one in Ann Arbor this millennium?

Oh, and as far as pace....

Big East--possessions per 40 minutes
(2007, conference games only)
1. Syracuse (70.5)
2. Notre Dame (69.1)
3. Providence (69.1)
4. Seton Hall (68.9)
5. Connecticut (67.6)
6. Marquette (67.6)
7. South Florida (65.7)
8. St. John's (65.2)
9. Villanova (65.2)
10. West Virginia (64.2)
11. Louisville (64.1)
12. Cincinnati (63.2)
13. DePaul (62.8)
14. Pitt (62.0)
15. Rutgers (60.9)
16. Georgetown (59.4)

Comfortably in the Big East mainstream. (Keep in mind the Big Ten chugged along this year at 61.5 possessions per 40.)

There are other measures, however, by which "mainstream" does not do descriptive justice to the Mountaineers. Namely:

1. They shoot more threes than twos (52 percent of their attempts in conference play)
2. Their rebounding (both with- and post-PittsGansey) is poor on both ends of the floor
3. Their defense (both with- and post-PittsGansey) is average at best

Items 2 and 3 could conceivably give a Michigan fan pause. (Indeed, forget the "conceivably" and put this Wolverine on the record as pausing big time.) Still, mark me down, if Beilein's hired, as guessing that defensive rebounding will improve in lock step with an uptick in his average roster height, even as offensive rebounding stays low for system-based reasons. (Ah, height. You are to defense what skill is to offense.) And, in any event, I tend to see this in terms of what it would do for the conference.

I think it would provide a small but welcome jolt. Beilein is a Big East coach achieving SEC ends (we'll outscore you and worry about defense next year) through Missouri Valley means (X's and O's).

And this lumpy undifferentiated Big Ten porridge could use a dash of SEC tabasco. Badly.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Ohio State basketball: more storied than you think.

Square peg, round hole department. This is not the year to do a writes-itself on how important guard play is for Final Four teams. My diligent research has turned up the following: Greg Oden is seven feet tall. So is Roy Hibbert. Florida has flourished for two years now because Al Horford and Joakim Noah refuse to miss two-point shots. And UCLA has rolled through the tournament because they refuse to let opponents make two-point shots. No one thinks more highly of Mike Conley or Arron Afflalo than I. But this is not the year for this particular writes-itself. (This writes-itself, on the other hand, is more like it.)

Former Iowa coach Steve Alford reportedly contacted Hawkeye signees Jake Kelly and Jarryd Cole after taking the New Mexico job and tried to convince them to join him in Albuquerque. If true: unseemly? You bet! NCAA infraction? Heck, no! National letters of intent are governed by the Collegiate Commissioners Association, not that feckless band of gumshoes down Indy way. Meanwhile, Alford, having already indicted Iowa on charges of being a football-first athletic program, is apparently doing everything in his power to make sure that every last pier and every last plank on every single bridge leading out of Iowa City is burned down to the finest ash.

Illinois coach Bruce Weber, on being yelled at by his boss, athletic director Ron Guenther, during the Illini's first-round come-from-ahead tournament loss to Virginia Tech: I like it! I like it! (OK, my paraphrase. Actual quote: "I'd rather have someone like that than an accountant who doesn't know what's going on or what coaching or basketball is all about." Extended excerpt of the Q&A here.)

COMING tomorrow!
Your official Final Four preview. If Greg Oden promises to give Ron Lewis a dollar per occurrence, will Lewis pass the ball to the big guy on occasion? Tune in tomorrow!

Wonk back!
Don't just mutter ineffectually; email me!

2007-03-28T06:24:00.000-05:00

Do "hot" coaches stay hot after they're hired?
Some don't. No one could be hotter than Steve Alford was eight years ago this month. His 12th-seeded Southwest Missouri State team (since morphed into simply Missouri State) had beaten 4th-seeded Wisconsin and 5th-seeded Tennessee to reach the Sweet 16, before falling to 1-seed Duke.

And Alford's team did it with punishing defense: the score of the Wisconsin game was 43-32. If Alford could do that with the recruits he had in Springfield, MO, the thinking went, just imagine what he could do at a "power"-conference program.

We've since found out what he could do. Not much, and he's now fled the power conferences entirely.

Then again, some "hot" coaches do OK. Bill Self ("hot" class of 2000, Tulsa), Thad Matta (2004, Xavier), and Bruce Pearl (2005, Wisconsin-Milwaukee) are chugging along.

So the question facing ADs at Michigan and Iowa is: how can we predict who'll stay hot and who'll cool off?

Answer: you can't. But here's what I'd do if I were in their shoes....

1. Try first, last, and throughout to gauge your candidate's recruiting potential. Tough to do, of course, but also the most important skill for your new hire to possess. Matta and Self are where they are for one reason above all others: recruiting.

Self, of course, has been tagged this week as something of a Breck girl among coaches: catnip to the blue-chip recruits but doomed to be out-coached in Elite Eight games. Yesterday I registered my dissent to this characterization, not because I fancy that Self unwinds after a long day by doing some quick diffy q's but because I don't suppose any of this is exactly rocket science. If you're a towering intellect and you go into basketball coaching, you're in the wrong field. Please go where you're needed: Billy Packer job-relocation. We need our best minds working on that as a modern-day Manhattan Project.

(And, yes, I'm aware that Seth Davis agrees with me where Self is concerned. Save your taunts, please. The words "Seth Davis agrees with me" cut deeper than anything you could say.)

2. Look at the body of work, not just the tournament run.

3. Look at the three-point shooting of your candidate's team: if it was really good in March, discount that as a factor in your hiring. Example: for all I know, Ernie Kent will turn out to be the next John Wooden. But if he's hired based on what Oregon did this month, he'll show his true greatness in spite of his team's precociously hot outside shooting and not because of it. (Actually the same could be said, kind of, for Pearl. Tennessee left the building having shot 49 percent on their threes in the tournament.)

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Last year Ohio State lost to Georgetown in the tournament but this year the Buckeyes are reportedly bigger and better; profile of David Lighty.

Seven-foot high-school baller Beas Hamga is rethinking his commitment to Iowa in the wake of Steve Alford's departure....Think back to 2001. Michigan hired Tommy Amaker, while Wisconsin went with Bo Ryan (the latter an Adolph Rupp Award-winner, by the way). Inescapable conclusion for 2007: clearly Iowa should find some obscure old guy drilling fundamentals into plucky overachievers at a D-III school, preferably in, say, Cleghorn, Iowa.

P.S. Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl has officially said no to Iowa.

While he was at it, Pearl also disavowed any interest in the Michigan job, though it's unclear whether he's been contacted or if the Wolverines are even interested in him. Indeed, some observers think AD Bill Martin may be focusing instead on West Virginia coach John Beilein. (We'll have to wait a little longer to find out: the Mountaineers came back from 14 down and beat Mississippi State on a buzzer-beating three last night in the NIT semifinals in Madison Square Garden. West Virginia will play Clemson for the title.)

A Freudian analysis of all those Billy Donovan-to-Kentucky rumors.

Wonk back!
Don't just mutter ineffectually; email me!

How good was North Carolina, really? (Plus stuff about me.)
On Monday I said this is the last season for this blog, though not for this blogger. The readers respond!

Hi Wonk,

Great season of Wonking overall. Even though I'm a Michigan State fan, I'm pretty excited to have Tubby in the conference. He's a pretty stunning catch for the Gophers, and I think he'll be a credit to the Big Ten overall. Not sure he can ever make them a powerhouse but the upper-middle of the pack just got a little more crowded.

With an eye toward your new direction, let me just go ahead and say it: You didn't convince me that North Carolina had a good defense this year.

I'm absolutely convinced of the value of tempo-free stats and PPWS, but either UNC's D inexplicably tanked every time I watched them, or the stats painted an inaccurate picture in this case. Technically, you're correct that they don't allow many points per possession; if that's the sole measure, it's hard to argue with you.

But it seemed to me that it wasn't really "defense" in the classic sense; these guys were stellar rebounders who played really fast, but couldn't lock down anybody if they tried. Throughout the tourney, UNC got back-doored over and over, gave up an absurd amount of open threes, and generally seemed unable to adjust to complex half-court offenses. Their great rebounding and completely disorienting pace was the key to their low PPP on the defensive end, but isn't that a bit like having a punter who lays it on the one yard line every time? Most defenses will look good in that scenario.

Anyway, I really look forward to reading your stuff next season, wherever it may be located. As for the rest of this season, I strongly suggest you dispense with the winking modesty angle and switch directly to the full-bore, Mitch Albom-style, "Tuesdays with Wonkie" tearjerker angle. It would be cathartic for all of us.

Regards,

Shawn M.

Carolina made opponents miss two-point shots all year long--until Sunday night. And now they're sitting at home because of the exception to the rule. That's the way March works in this here game.

And thanks for the kudos, Shawn.

2007-03-27T06:11:00.000-05:00

Lincoln was right!
Judging from reactions to the past two NCAA tournaments, it would seem, just as the 16th president said, that you can please all the people some of the time and some of the people all of time. And that's as good as it gets.

Recall that last year with George Mason crashing the party, there was an insistent undercurrent of grumbling and even (I'm serious) talk of structural change: the Patriots? Who are they? We want UConn vs. Duke!

Then this year the brackets held form to such a ridiculous extent that seven of the Elite Eight teams were 1- or 2-seeds--and the eighth was a 3-seed. (Meaning "this year's George Mason" turned out to be Oregon.) More grumbling: we want Cinderellas!

Speaking only for myself, I count both the George Mason-Connecticut 2006 Elite Eight game and the UCLA-Kansas 2007 Elite Eight game among the entries in my "wow" hoops memory bank. Both were outstanding basketball games. The difference between the two? The Patriots were resented by some last year for confounding our expectations. Now this year's big dogs are resented by some for fulfilling our expectations.

A thought: let's forget our expectations. Let's watch the games. This year they've been incredible, albeit in a slightly different way than in years past.

All hail me: this blog will end its life without having once made a pun on Bill Self's name!
I don't usually rush to the defense of Big XII coaches blessed with more bona fide NBA talent than the Memphis Grizzlies. But some of what I'm reading this week about Bill Self surpasses "laughable" and reaches flat-earth society-level lunacy. Self's Kansas team, you see, lost to UCLA Saturday night. Meaning Self has now made it to four Elite Eights without once going to the Final Four. Not once! He can't win the big one! He's a hoops Schottenheimer, for goodness sake!...

Right. Let's look at those Elite Eights.

In 2000 Self's Tulsa team lost to North Carolina. Save your email: I know Tulsa was the higher-seeded team in that game (7 vs. 8). I don't care. It's still Tulsa vs. North Carolina.

Then in 2001, Self's Illinois team lost to Arizona. The starting five for the Illini that day: Frank Williams, Cory Bradford, Sergio McClain, Brian Cook, and Marcus Griffin (with Robert Archibald, who is now out of the NBA, coming off the bench). The starting five for the Wildcats: Jason Gardner, Gilbert Arenas, Richard Jefferson, Michael Wright, and Loren Woods (with Luke Walton, who is now a starter in the NBA, coming off the bench).

And then in 2004 the fourth-seeded Jayhawks rallied from seven down in the last three minutes to force the OT before losing to third-seeded Georgia Tech. (HT: Bret L.)

In other words, Saturday marked the first time Self had the more talented and higher-seeded team taking the floor in an Elite Eight game. And, yes, he lost. To UCLA, a team that is putting together the best run of sustained defensive excellence that I've seen any team put together in the three seasons I've been doing this. I've already pushed the numbers forward--I really don't know what else to say, except that right now Ben Howland's team looks like the college hoops equivalent of the 2000 Baltimore Ravens.

Just promise me that when Florida loses to the Bruins Saturday I'll hear about how Billy Donovan was oh-so-badly outcoached. Deal?

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Wisconsin senior Alando Tucker and Ohio State freshman Greg Oden were named first-team AP All-Americans yesterday. Also on board: Texas freshman Kevin Durant, Texas A&M senior Acie Law IV, and UCLA junior Arron Afflalo.

Mike Conley Sr. is proud of Mike Conley Jr.

Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings, Southern Illinois coach Chris Lowery, and Butler coach Todd Lickliter all say they have not been contacted by Michigan regarding the vacancy in Ann Arbor.

High school baller Jeff Peterson says he may still choose Iowa, Alford or no Alford (Pearl or no Pearl?). Speaking of Alford, the new coach of New Mexico says hoops is a distant second to that other sport in Iowa City: "I can talk for eight years all I want at Iowa about trying to get my own strength coach, my own weight room and own practice facility, but when that never happens and $100 million is being put into football complexes, recruits see that."

Michigan State assistant coach Jim Boylen will be the next head coach at Utah.

Penn State announced yesterday that Milos Bogetic and Maxwell Dubois will be transferring to yet-to-be-determined (possibly Division II) destinations.

Years ending in "7" are fateful for Minnesota.

Wonk back!
Don't just mutter ineffectually; email me!

Is it possible for a lame-duck blog to have an email section?
Yesterday I said this is the last season for this blog (though not for this blogger) and, precisely as I intended, this resulted in lots of nice emails from readers saying how much they'll miss the blog, how great I am, etc., etc. (This rocks! It's like being at your own funeral! I should have thought of this way sooner.)

The emails are much appreciated. (Keep 'em coming! Oops. Did that slip out?) At the same time, I didn't and don't want "Wonk back!" to be merely a Kennedy Center Honors ceremony with me sitting in the VIP box wearing a silly medallion.

So talk hoops to me: who's going to win Monday? Can Tubby Smith resurrect the moribund Minnesota program? Who do you want to coach Michigan? Iowa?

Thoughts? Anyone?

2007-03-26T06:25:00.000-05:00

I demand golf clubs! Rocking chairs! Liquor!
I've decided that this will be the last season of "Big Ten Wonk."

Next season I'll continue to write on a regular basis on college basketball. I just don't know where, exactly. Watch this space for a referral.

Regular readers know that this past season I spent less time on, say, Northwestern than on North Carolina, Florida, UCLA, Kansas, Georgetown, and Butler. I know this shift befuddled a few of you and, given this blog's title, any befuddlement was entirely reasonable. So now I want to end that confusion: I want to write about college basketball. The whole thing.

Last month when Kyle Whelliston visited the casa on the occasion of Butler-Southern Illinois, the following few seconds unspooled:

ME: I think this is the last season of "Wonk."

KYLE: You say that every year.

ME: No, I mean, I'll still write. I just want to flit wherever I want topically.

KYLE: Oh. Well, that's OK.

ME: Thanks.

So, really, this isn't much of a change. My words will still be available on your computer, should you be so inclined. And who cares what it says in the address bar up there while you're reading said words?

Still, it does mean the end of a nice three-season run here at bigtenwonk.blogpost.com. Knowing that, I ran through several exit scenarios.

For example, I toyed with the notion of pulling a blog-equivalent Ziggy Stardust: announcing in the last sentence of the last paragraph of the last post that this is it.

Or I could adopt the Roger Clemens/Brett Favre approach and make serial- or near-retirement into its own second career.

And then there's the "Seinfeld" model. It would mean I'd end my last post as I started my first post, talking about Quin Snyder and President James Buchanan. (No, I have no idea what I was thinking either. I was new at this.)

In the end I decided to steer a middle course between the first two. My last post will be next Tuesday, April 3. I'll talk about the previous night's national championship game, offer up a numerically appropriate 11 unsolicited homilies on 11 variegated topics, and then say au revoir, popping up at the new digs in the fall.

(For his part, Kyle has pledged that, taking his cue from Illinois fans bidding farewell to the Chief on February 21, he'll paint "WONK" in blue letters on his forehead and weep openly as he reads the last post, then don a black T-shirt. I, in turn, have asked that he plug the camera into the laptop that morning. This I have to see.)

Anyway, that's the plan. Now, back to our regularly scheduled madness....

2007-03-26T05:53:00.000-05:00

The return of scoring margin as a March advisor
In 2005 the top four teams in "power"-conference hoops nationally in terms of tempo-free scoring margin (i.e., efficiency margin) during their respective conference seasons were Illinois, Louisville, North Carolina, and Michigan State. Every one of those teams went to the Final Four that year. So the five or so of us tracking that kind of thing two years ago right now thought: wow. Neat.

Then last year the top four teams were Texas, Kansas, Connecticut, and Ohio State, none of whom made it to the Final Four. (Though note that both the Longhorns and the Huskies lost in OT in the Elite Eight.) So scrap that stat, huh? Turns out 2005 was a freak occurrence, like a lightning strike or Terrell Owens behaving rationally.

Well, not so fast. Granted, the four-for-four performance of 2005 might not return anytime soon. Still, look at what we have here....

Best "power"-conference efficiency margins, 2007
(Conference games only)
1. Kansas (0.24)
2. North Carolina (0.17)
3. Georgetown (0.16)
4. Ohio State (0.16)
5. UCLA (0.15)
6. Texas A&M (0.15)
7. Wisconsin (0.14)
8. Florida (0.13)
9. Louisville (0.13)

I'd class that, all in all, as a pretty good group of March performers. Yes, Wisconsin tanked, shamefully under-seeded Louisville had the misfortune of playing another team on this same list the first weekend, and said team, Texas A&M, lost a heartbreaker to Memphis in the Sweet 16. But every other team on this list was still alive up until 9:30 or so ET Saturday night, by which time, the Oregon fluke notwithstanding, they had started to collide exclusively with each other.

As indeed they'll continue to do in Atlanta....

(2) Georgetown 96, (1) North Carolina 84 (OT)
That, my friends, was one awesome display of offense put on by the Georgetown Hoyas. One hesitates to use the word "foreordained" with reference to a comeback, but when the team with the 11-point second-half lead can't hit shots from the field and is getting it done exclusively with free throws and boards, that's one shaky lead. (Consider for example this pair of numbers: the Hoyas' effective FG percentage in this game was 63.6. Carolina's was 38.7. Seen in that light, the amazing thing is that the Heels managed to get this thing to OT at all.) Pretty much all season long I touted how good North Carolina's interior defense was. Not yesterday. Georgetown made 58 percent of their twos (kudos to Roy Hibbert, Jeff Green, and DaJuan Summers) and it won them the game. There will be gnashing of teeth in Tar Heel country about all their missed shots but keep in mind 84 points in 74 possessions will win you a lot of games, assuming your D is merely adequate. Yesterday it wasn't but, then again, that's the best offense in the country they were up against. Cold-blooded big-stage performer Jonathan Wallace, Wonk salutes you! Seven assists, one turnover, and that game-tying three with 31 seconds left in regulation. You, sir, are a mensch.

(1) Florida 85, (3) Oregon 77
And it needn't have been this close: the Gators missed 15 free throws and coughed up the ball 18 times in a 71-possession game. Even so, the Ducks, a team that arrived in the Elite Eight courtesy of hot outside shooting, were sent home by their opponent's hot outside shooting. (O, the irony!) Lee Humphrey made 7-of-13 threes and led Florida with 23 points. The previously on-fire Tajuan Porter, conversely, went just 2-of-10 from outside for Oregon. Teammates Aaron Brooks (27 points on 19 shots) and Malik Hairston (18 points) fared notably better but it was not to be.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Will Kentucky call Michigan State coach Tom Izzo? Will he listen?

After-the-fact, behind-the-scenes: Tubby Smith-to-Minnesota. (Cue the air-quotes chick from Say Anything: "How did that *happen*?")

One vote for John Beilein-to-Michigan.

Hit play on the obligatory Green Day....Steve Alford at Iowa. What went wrong? ("What went right?" would have taken fewer column-inches.)

Wonk back!
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2007-03-25T05:46:00.000-05:00

Ode to an Odenian turn
Just 23 short days ago I wrote this about Greg Oden:

Greg Oden's been merely outstanding. Don't get the "merely" wrong, I want him on my team. Oden's an efficient scorer who leads the conference in defensive rebounding (now that Brian Butch is out) and, of course, shot-blocking. So, yes, he's been outstanding. It's just that I thought he was going to be beyond outstanding. I thought he'd be Durantian.

"Merely outstanding"? Listen, pal, his numbers are earth-bound only because he gets two fouls slapped on him when he trots out during player introductions before every game. But during those odd isolated minutes when he's actually on the floor, he changes the game on both ends of the court more than any other player, including and especially your beloved little Kevin Durant.

Take yesterday....

(1) Ohio State 92, (2) Memphis 76
This game reminded me so much of the Illinois-Louisville Final Four game in 2005: a Big Ten team is in a dogfight with a long, deep, and athletic team for much of the game before pulling away with surprising ease at the end.

The substitution data for Ohio State isn't complete on the play-by-play but keep in mind that it was the Tigers' 14-4 run early in the second half with Oden on the bench that forced Thad Matta to bring the big guy back in the game with a little more than 12 minutes left, foul trouble or no. From that point on, the Buckeyes outscored Memphis 41-20. Not bad, Mr. Oden.

Not that those minutes were all daisies and buttercups for OSU. The low point in my yelling at the TV came on Daequan Cook's airballed three attempt with a little more than eight minutes left, a possession on which Oden (again) hadn't even touched the ball. (And don't give me any canned speech about how Oden's too passive, has to be more aggressive, and "demand" the ball. That may have been true earlier in the season when he was playing with one hand. But now that he's healthy, he's getting great position and making it clear that the rock stops here. Watch the tape.)

But once the other Buckeyes at long last got the message (video clearly shows Matta writing on the whiteboard during a timeout: "GIVE GREG THE BALL"), good things happened in abundance. Oden scored 17 points on 7-of-8 shooting in 24 minutes. Ron Lewis went 10-of-10 at the line and led the Buckeyes with 22 points. Mike Conley was aggressive taking the ball to the hole and scored 19 but, unusually, coughed up five turnovers.

(Box score.)

BONUS leave-your-analyses-at-the-door note! For the second consecutive game Ohio State's opponent was unconscious from the outside. (Jeremy Hunt made 5-of-11 threes and led all scorers with 26 points.) This will get some ink this week: OSU must improve perimeter D, Matta's concerned, etc. Don't believe most of it (particularly if perimeter-averse North Carolina is OSU's next opponent.) It's mostly luck.

(2) UCLA 68, (1) Kansas 55
If you wanted to pick the team that's looked the most unbeatable in the tournament so far, you could make a good case for UCLA. When even Julian Wright, Brandon Rush, and company can't score in the paint, you're looking at a special defense. Or look at it another way: when you give away 25 turnovers in a 68-possession game and still win by 13 against what was the best defense in the country this season, you must be playing some serious D yourself.

Indeed they are. Here are the sobering numbers for the Bruins' next opponent (Florida or Oregon): Ben Howland's team is allowing just 0.80 points per possession in the tournament. And UCLA's opponents (which have included the likes of Wright, Rush, Aaron Gray, and D.J. White) have made just 36 percent of their twos.

BONUS outreach to the old school! A note to all readers who email to say they hate high-scoring games, defense is what wins, etc. I really hope you were watching last night. If you look at a game as 40 minutes played by 10 positions on the floor, then this game quite possibly supplied the best 400 minutes of defense I've ever seen. I was glued to the screen watching this game.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
So 1-seeds can lose! That adds some suspense to today's games....

(3) Oregon vs. (1) Florida (2:40pm ET)
Since the opening tip in the first game of the Pac-10 tournament, no less than 41 percent of Oregon's shots have been threes. And the Ducks have connected on 49.6 percent of all those attempts from beyond the arc. They are Providence '87 all over again and they're playing Billy the Kid today.

(2) Georgetown vs. (1) North Carolina (5:05pm ET)
Thank you, Ken, for saying what had to be said. Pace, schmace. Ty Lawson will rocket into the lane to start every Carolina possession. The Hoyas will run clock to start every possession of theirs. The result will be a pace mutt. May the best team win.

Wonk back!
Don't just mutter ineffectually; email me!

2007-03-24T05:29:00.000-05:00

The year of Lawrence Welk
In three of the four regional finals: and a 1 and a 2. (In the fourth region? A 1 and a 3. That hoops-ignorant weenie in your office pool that just picks the four 1-seeds every year has never been more smug than right now.)

(1) Florida 65, (5) Butler 57
The Gators have the template down. Come out slowly, cough up a lot of turnovers (six in the first eight minutes), give your opponent hope, and then win anyway. Not with complete dominance but with something, from your overmatched opponent's standpoint, much more frustrating: the minimum required. (My NBA simile for this team looks better and better.) Butler did an outstanding job limiting Florida's two-point shots (there were just 15 such by the Gators all night), forcing the defending national champs to either go to the line or shoot threes. But, unfortunately for Bulldog fans, Billy Donovan's men were hitting their shots from both spots, going 23-of-28 from the line (Joakim Noah and Al Horford were a combined 17-of-21) and 8-of-19 on their threes (Taurean Green hit 5-of-8 from outside and led all scorers with 17 points). The night's oddest result? The Bulldogs actually outperformed the Gators on the boards, getting to 70 percent of Florida's misses and 34 percent of their own. It helped them hang around on a night when A.J. Graves and Mike Green were a combined 8-of-25 from the field.

Next up for Florida....

(3) Oregon 76, (7) UNLV 72
Fact: Tajuan Porter is a 5-6 freshman. Fact: Porter hit 8-of-12 threes and scored 33 points in a Sweet 16 game for Oregon. Conclusion: In a tournament with precisely zero underdogs left standing, get ready to hear a lot about Porter. At one point in the first half the Detroit product scored 17 straight points for the Ducks. (That loud gnashing sound you hear is canonical blogger Brian Cook cursing Tommy Amaker for not giving Porter a scholarship. True, 71 other "power"-conference coaches passed on him, too.) Thanks in large part to Porter, Oregon led by 17 with a little more than five minutes left. But the Rebels made things interesting down the stretch, hitting three threes in the last 80 seconds, before Bryce Taylor's two free throws with 0.9 seconds left put this one away.

(2) Georgetown 66, (6) Vanderbilt 65
Jeff Green drained a bank shot with 2.5 seconds remaining to win this one for the Hoyas. (Replays show a pivot foot being dragged. Replays don't blow whistles. There you are.) I thought the Hoyas' machine-like offense would blow away Vandy's Oregon-like flimsy defense in this one. I thought wrong. For while it's true that Georgetown scoring 66 points in a 58-possession game is par for the course, the Commodores were meanwhile doing just as well on offense. Anyone who's seen a Northwestern game lately saw some familiar-looking offensive sets from Vandy: no one in the low post, an uncomfortable opposing big (in this case Roy Hibbert) forced to play out top on D, and plenty of room for wicked back-cuts. It worked, particularly in the first half, as Vanderbilt led by as many as 13. But the Hoyas were able to come back, thanks mostly to total domination on the boards, where John Thompson's men chased down 75 percent of Vandy's misses and 47 percent of their own. (See the excellent breakdown of this game at Yet Another Basketball Blog, a good blog with a misleading name.)

Georgetown now gets....

(1) North Carolina 74, (5) USC 64
The Heels were down 10 with 11 minutes to go, at which point they unreeled an 18-0 run. Look at the play-by-play here: not a single three-point attempt in that run, just lots of "GOOD! TIP-IN" and "GOOD! LAYUP." Both pieces of typography should be emblazoned across Carolina '07 commemorative T's, for such is how this team wins. Brandan Wright notwithstanding (21 points on 15 shots), Roy Williams' team couldn't shoot worth a lick in this game but they held on to the ball and took care of business on the glass. Taj Gibson, Nick Young, and Lodrick Stewart, conversely, scored a combined 46 points for SC but also committed a combined 12 turnovers, three more than the entire UNC team.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
We'll know at 9:30 ET tonight if it's permitted in the 2007 tournament for a 1-seed to (gulp) lose a game....

(2) Memphis vs. (1) Ohio State (4:40pm ET)
Buckeyes contractually mandated to take game to final seconds.

(2) UCLA vs. (1) Kansas (7:05pm ET)
The Jayhawks had the best defense in the country this year. The Bruins have had the best defense in the tournament. Enjoy.

Wonk back!
Don't just mutter ineffectually; email me!

Quick! Someone send Thad this link!
Longtime listener, first-time writer, love the show, etc....

Yesterday was the first time this season I watched Ohio State play while rooting for them. I'm a Badger fan but during tourney time I'm a Big Ten fan.

Now I know why the Buckeyes didn't beat Wisconsin as badly as I thought they would this season. It seems they have no idea (or no interest) in working the ball to that low-post guy, whatshisname. I counted the number of times they actually worked the ball around with the "intention" of getting it inside. I didn't use a lot of fingers.

If Oden had played for the Badgers this year, I'm convinced he'd have averaged 30 a game. Sure he was in foul trouble but, even when he was in there, they ignored him.

Jeez, how hard is this? Doesn't coach Matta read Big Ten Wonk?

Ohio State won't win it all this year. I'd love it if they did, but they won't.

Philip C.

Indeed, Philip. Here's hoping Thad's poring over his Big Ten Wonk right now (I'm sure he has nothing better to do today).

2007-03-23T05:32:00.000-05:00

Not exactly gliding smoothly through the bracket, are they?
(1) Ohio State 85, (5) Tennessee 84
Talk about taking Tennessee's best shot. Bruce Pearl couldn't have dreamed up a better set of circumstances:

1) The Vols made 16 of 31 threes.
2) UT turned the ball over just seven times in a 67-possession game.
3) Greg Oden was in foul trouble all night and recorded only nine points and three boards in 18 minutes.

And still the Vols lost. The Buckeyes trailed 49-29 with 30 seconds left in the first half but needed only 11 minutes to tie the game at 64. (I'm seeing some "more than just Oden"-themed recaps this morning. But note that, while it's true he played only 18 minutes overall, Oden was in fact on the floor for eight of the 11 minutes during this crucial 35-15 run.) And then it was close the rest of the way. In the end, Oden blocked a Ramar Smith runner as time expired to seal the win.

A couple days ago I offered this:

Ohio State's main defensive strength—defending two-point shots—is much less weighty against an opponent like Tennessee that simply bombs away from the perimeter. The key variable in this game is whether or not the Vols are hitting their outside shots. If they're not, they lose. If they are, they still might lose. Because against an interior D this leaky, Thad Matta's Bill Walsh-like script should read as follows:

Play 1. Get ball to Oden in the paint.
Play 2. Get ball to Oden in the paint.
Play 3. Get ball to Oden in the paint.

Well said! Quite right. Yes, I've got my eye on you, Gasaway. I like the cut of your jib. You seem like a bright young lad....

Anyway, as I was saying, OSU won this game in the paint, Oden or no Oden. Matta's men made 19-of-29 twos and got to the line 35 times. That was the difference on a (late) night when the Buckeyes' perimeter shooting was merely normal (8-of-22). Ron Lewis went just 3-of-9 on his threes but scored 25 points by taking the ball to the hole. Mike Conley added 17 points, six assists, and some nervous moments for his coach, as the youngster went 9-of-14 at the line (with four of those misses coming in the last 5:10). (Box score.)

Now Ohio State gets 2-seed Memphis, who looked beautiful in edging 3-seed Texas A&M 65-64 in front of a vocally and decidedly pro-Aggie crowd in the Alamo Dome. The Tigers, of course, were regarded as faintly dubious all year because, in the new-look declawed C-USA, they hadn't played anybody. Well, last night they played somebody. And won. They look very tough.

"Poor shooting background" conspiracy theorists, take note!
Over the course of two games in the Alamo Dome last night, four teams combined to shoot just 55 percent on their free throws.

(1) Kansas 61, (4) Southern Illinois 58
What a great, if strange, game. The Salukis ran clock and shot threes all night, missing most of them. (For the game they were 6-of-25.) Yet they were in this right to the end because they schooled the taller Jayhawks on the offensive glass, pulling down 17 offensive boards out of 37 chances. Kansas, perhaps rivaled only by UCLA in terms of beastliness on the defensive glass, is not typically so generous. Speaking of generous, Bill Self's team coughed the ball up 19 times in a 63-possession game. (Brandon Rush, Russell Robinson, and Mario Chalmers had four turnovers apiece. And, interestingly, SIU was credited with just six steals.) If they could have just held on to the ball KU could have made this evening much more comfortable for their fans, for the Jayhawks were hitting their shots from start to finish. As it turned out, they needed to.

(2) UCLA 64, (3) Pitt 55
The Bruins are playing the best defense of any team in the tournament. Over the course of three games opponents have now scored just 0.79 points per possession and made only 35 percent of their twos. Aaron Gray was held to 10 points and there were very few second shots for any of the Panthers. Hoops fans everywhere should send a thank-you email this morning to Berkeley, because Cal's win over the Bruins in the first-round of the Pac-10 tournament knocked Ben Howland's team down to the 2-line, thus setting up Saturday night's unimaginably good regional final: UCLA vs. Kansas.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
It's that time of year: when news from the human resources department rivals and on occasion even eclipses the news from the court.

Tubby. Minnesota. Wow.
In three seasons of doing this blog, no single piece of news has dropped my jaw so suddenly and so far as the news that Tubby Smith will be the next head coach at Minnesota. (The press conference is today at 1 ET.) Gopher AD Joel Maturi, last seen in this space bungling Dan Monson's dismissal in every conceivable way, is suddenly reaping the surprised and emphatic acclaim more traditionally associated with a commander-in-chief the morning after a spectacularly successful clandestine military strike.

Kentucky fans may be saying good riddance, of course, but keep in mind this is Minnesota we're talking about. A team with precisely zero recent (untainted) success in basketball, where "recent" is defined as "post-Kevin McHale." For a coach who's won a national championship, with Rick Pitino's players or anyone else's, to plant his flag under the hitherto sleepy rafters of Williams Arena is an abrupt and seismic occurrence.

I'll say it again. Wow.

Alford. New Mexico. Meh.
Steve Alford is leaving Iowa and will be the next head coach at New Mexico. (The press conference is today at 4 ET.)

Michigan. Vacancy. Patience.
What does all this do to the Wolverines' search for a new coach? Not much, unless they wanted Tubby. There are more than enough good candidates for Iowa and Michigan to both make smart hires.

Wonk back!
Don't just mutter ineffectually; email me!

POTs, Packer, and parallels
Yesterday I said that Butler is a POT and noted some striking similarities between this piece on Billy Packer from March 2007 and this piece on Billy Packer from March 2006. The readers respond!

Wonk,

I've been a fan of your blog since I first discovered it last season, probably off KenPom. I'm especially a fan of the POT nomenclature, the aerials, and the DAD watch.

I was glad to see you link to the Simmons piece on Packer today, because when I saw his piece I immediately thought back to yours. Given the choice, I'd rather read you.

In your Florida-Butler preview today, you pointed out that the Bulldogs are a classic POT. What you didn't point out, though, is that Florida defensively is a classic anti-POT nightmare. Only about seven percent of Gator defensive possessions end in a made three, one of the better rates in the country.

Which should set up an interesting matchup: 15.4 percent of Butler possessions end up in a made three-pointer, perhaps the highest rate in the country. (Note as well that Oregon's rate, at 13.3 percent, is also very good nationally. So the Gators' current opponent and their most likely next opponent are both exceptionally good offensively at the thing Florida is exceptionally good at defensively.

Keep up the great work.

Cheers,
Tom G.

Great points, Tom. A couple more: keep in mind Butler's percentage of possessions ending in a made three is a function not only of their marksmanship (which, at 37 percent, is OK but not excellent) but also of their shot selection (49 percent of their shots are attempted threes) and, as you note correctly, their poor offensive rebounding.

Also note that Florida's numbers for perimeter D are in fact coming back down to earth with notable speed. (As I predicted; yay, me!) While their season numbers are still quite scary (opponents have hit just 29 percent of their threes), the Gators' last six opponents in SEC play made threes at a much more normal rate (38 percent).

Wonk,

Ah, one of my favorite subjects! A group of friends and I compare preposterous, as well as painfully obvious, Packer statements after every game he calls. If I can compile the list, perhaps I'll send it to you for your amusement.

Here's the worst thing about Packer. He turns me into a bad person.

That's right. It's cruel. It's perverse. It's shameful. But Packer, like Bob Pulford and Dick Cheney (all three of whom have been inflicted upon us without end and in the face of whom we are utterly helpless), leaves me no recourse but to actively wish him ill.

I'm sorry.

By the way, your piece was better than Simmons' and I like Simmons. ("Understands the sport as well as anyone"?)

Dick M.

Thanks, Dick!

2007-03-22T06:22:00.000-05:00

Packer. Again.
Behind door number 1. A piece from last March, complaining that Billy Packer has been around forever:

Presidents come and go. Popes, Supreme Court justices, U.N. Secretaries General, Federal Reserve Chairmen, NFL Commissioners, even members of the Rolling Stones ("those damn kids," as Packer calls them)—they all rotate with more frequency.

This longevity stands in stark contrast, the piece notes, with the short life-expectancy of announcing teams for other major events:

The Super Bowl is covered by a different announcing crew every year. The BCS title game doesn't appear to be the sole possession of any one announcing team. I literally have no idea which network is carrying the NBA Finals this year, much less who will announce the games. Heck, even the FOX announcers who've been doing the World Series for the last several years are newbies compared to Packer.

The piece behind door number 1 then agonizes over Packer's ubiquity (he's "simply unavoidable") and laments that instead of simply enjoying our Final Four we have to approach it every year "with gritted teeth."

Behind door number 2. A piece from this week, complaining that Billy Packer has been around forever:

You have to admit, it's incredible that Packer has held the lead job ever since the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman were America's favorite couple. Back then, college basketball didn't have a shot clock or a 3-point line, coaches carried themselves like drill sergeants and stars stayed in school for four years, rarely dunked and wore tight shorts that would have made Richard Simmons blush.

This longevity stands in stark contrast, the piece notes, with the short life-expectancy of announcing teams for other major events:

Think how many different No. 1 NBA broadcasting teams there have been over that time. Think how many partners Keith Jackson has had. Think how many different pairings have called AFC and NFC championship games, Super Bowls, the ALCS and NLCS, the World Series, even WrestleMania. Packer's contemporaries in the longevity department (Tim McCarver and John Madden) started their careers in the 1980s and never had the same stranglehold on the big games.

The piece behind door number 2 then agonizes over Packer's ubiquity ("he can't be avoided") and laments that instead of simply enjoying our Final Four we have to "grit our teeth" every year.

Conclusion. Uncanny coincidence? Don't be so naïve! Indeed, you're missing the point, one that speaks to a remarkable degree of September 12-level unanimity across all ages, races, classes, education levels, and religions:

Sit any American male under the age of 93 in front of a keyboard and he will, independently and without need for prior example, write this exact same piece.

Key difference between the two. The piece behind door number 2 will, I scientifically estimate, be read by eleventy-gillion more people than was the piece behind door number 1. So many more people, in fact, that the piece behind door number 2 may represent a tipping-point (oh, yes, please) in the never-ending nationwide hoops prayer vigil that seeks blessed relief from Packer's decades of dyspepsia.

So I say: Go, piece behind door number 2. Go and work your wonders. Go to the four corners of the earth. Most importantly, go to West 52nd Street in New York and act as the epiphany, one where decision-makers realize, as if awakening from some horrible trance, "Gee. I guess, if you think about it, there's really no reason to annoy millions of people year after year. Is Raftery still under contract?"

You are on the side of the angels, piece behind door number 2. I bless you and wish you god speed on your journey.

2007-03-22T05:55:00.000-05:00

Patiently awaiting some salutary chaos
The downside of having so few upsets this year is that the tournament has lacked a certain anarchy that it's had before. (Though my oh-so-brilliant bracket is anarchic enough.) The upside, however, is that the stage is now set for a Sweet 16 that has more heavyweight collisions than any other in recent memory.

And so here's a look at tomorrow night's games. (Looking for thoughts on tonight's games? I did those yesterday! Because, you see, tomorrow there will be results to talk about. Get with the program!)

(5) Butler vs. (1) Florida (7:10pm ET)
The Bulldogs are a by-the-numbers POT: lots of threes and very few offensive boards. They actually don't shoot exceptionally well but they're fanatical about holding on to the ball—this much you knew already. (And Florida, like great Connecticut teams of yore, seems to view trying to create opponent turnovers as almost beneath their dignity. So Butler figures to get more first shots in this game.) What's less remarked upon, however, is the man-bites-dog aspect of Todd Lickliter's men, for here is a very undersized team that nevertheless plays excellent interior defense. Needless to say, that interior D will receive its largest challenge, by far, tomorrow night. The Gators are the best-shooting team in the country.

In brief, if the Bulldogs can hit that first shot they can hang around long enough to make things interesting. If not, Florida should roll. Emphasis on "should." For they just didn't look very roll-ready against Purdue, did they?

(6) Vanderbilt vs. (2) Georgetown (7:27pm ET)
No single tournament result—not even UNLV over Wisconsin—surprised me more than Vandy beating Washington State in two OTs. (Is it too late to get a recount?) The Cougars were typecast this year as just another fight-in-the-mud version of the 2000 Badgers when in fact their offense was really quite good. Not Texas-good, by any means, but serviceable. More to the point, the Cougars' offense was only a shade worse than the Commodores' offense. And, of course, WSU's defense was vastly superior to Vanderbilt's.

Be that as it may, the Commodores won and now their indifferent defense is about to collide with what may be the best offense in the nation. It won't be pretty.

(7) UNLV vs. (3) Oregon (9:40pm ET)
I pretty much covered my thoughts on this one the other day. In a nutshell, I like the Ducks in this game, which honks me off (har!) because I've been forecasting their lack-of-D doom for two months now. Ay, doom there shall be! Just not tomorrow night. UNLV arrives in late-March with no marketable skill other than their suddenly marketable coach. They don't shoot particularly well, nor defend, nor rebound. (Oregon's most glaring deficiency on a notably deficient D is their poor defensive rebounding, a weakness that the Rebels, as it happens, are ill equipped to exploit.)

Granted, Lon Kruger's men do hold on to the ball. That won't be enough.

Side note: Remember in December when half the college hoops nation traveled down to Lubbock, Texas, to see Bob Knight break Dean Smith's record for career wins—only it didn't happen because UNLV won that night? Guess now we know that really wasn't such a big surprise.

(5) USC vs. (1) North Carolina (9:57pm ET)
Readers of this blog should know their Heels by this point. (If not, start here.) As for those inscrutable Trojans, they've kind of got that A&M thing going on where they never shoot threes—but when they do they're deadly, hitting 41 percent from beyond the arc in Pac-10 play. Granted, Carolina will own the boards and should have some good opportunities on the offensive glass. But SC nevertheless has a good enough interior D to keep things interesting.

Note that, in breezing past Texas with surprising ease, the Trojans parlayed an exceptional lack of turnovers and 38 free throw attempts (14 by Taj Gibson) into a stellar offensive showing. It's doubtful the turnovers will be so few or the free throws so numerous this time, so SC's best hope is to limit Carolina's trips to the line and force them to hit jump shots. Which, of course, is what every Carolina opponent tries to do. It ain't easy.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
New Mexico has received permission to speak with Iowa coach Steve Alford about the Lobos' head coaching job. And this morning the Albuquerque Tribune is reporting that an Alford move "is close to a done deal." The Tribune also reports that Texas Tech coach Bob Knight has played a pivotal role in the discussions involving his former Indiana player. At ESPN.com, Andy Katz reports that a news conference announcing the deal could come as early as tomorrow. And Iowa City Press-Citizen columnist Pat Harty encourages Alford not to let the door hit his backside on the way out. (Curmudgeonly pedantic Melvin Lasky-style connoisseurs of bad copy editing take note! In this piece Harty and his editors fairly pulled off the 7-10 split of notably inept copy editing, to wit: misspelling both the first and last names of a nationally known sportswriter—"unverified voracity" indeed!)

Ohio State: savoring the moment; reportedly "rock-solid" on D; Daequan Cook should feel free to get hot any time now, etc.

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You say "tomato," I say "Thad Matta"
Yesterday I said Ohio State will beat Tennessee. The readers respond!

Let me first state that your stuff and that of your boy Pomeroy are the only basketball sites worth reading. Mass media has too much trouble divesting themselves of the NBA to focus on what makes a team good in the NCAA, but I digress....

I'm not as smart as you or Ken but being dumb has its advantages. Take Pomeroy. He chose Georgia Tech, a team with two freshmen starting at guard and an 8-8 conference record, to go the Final Four. You don't need Pythagoras to tell you they would have trouble with a senior-laden team that knows how to win on the road.

Now let's consider Ohio State and Tennessee. No doubt the key to OSU's success will be getting a big game from Oden. And I know I don't need to tell you that Tennessee already played the Buckeyes right down to the wire in Columbus—a game mass media will tell you was oh-so-long ago for a developing Oden. I say eight weeks is not that long and, anyway, Oden did have a big game: 24-15. OSU also hit 90 percent of their 20 free throws, compared to 45 percent of the Vols' 11 attempts. And yet Ohio State STILL needed a Lewis heart- stopper to pull out the win.

Speaking of Lewis heart-stoppers, did you notice the OSU bench when Ron nailed that bomb vs. Xavier, a shot that would have even the most unbiased observer jumping off the couch? Did you notice Oden casually rise from the bench and offer a golf clap for the senior's effort?...

Good luck, Wonk, and thanks for keeping up your site. It's a good read even for an outsider like myself.

David J.
Lafayette, LA

Nifty piece of advocacy, David. My thinking is this....

Yes, these teams played in January and, yes, it was close. I just think Ohio State will turn the ball over less this time. That game was in some ways Tennessee's season writ small: the Volunteers didn't shoot as well as the Buckeyes but an improbably extreme imbalance in turnovers turned this one into a nail-biter anyway. (Ohio State turned the ball over on 27 percent of their possessions in that game. Tennessee, 11 percent.) I don't see the imbalance being as pronounced tonight. We'll see.

2007-03-21T06:10:00.000-05:00

Ohio State will win tomorrow night
How can I be so sure? I'm not, but, hey, I already said the Buckeyes will be in the national championship game. So saying they'll win in the Sweet 16's no great shakes....

(5) Tennessee vs. (1) Ohio State (tomorrow, 9:57pm ET)
The Vols went 9-3 in the SEC when Chris Lofton was in the lineup and 1-3 when he wasn't. Tomorrow night, when Bruce Pearl's team faces Ohio State, Lofton will be in the lineup. So let's restrict our attention to only the conference games in which Lofton played....

Looking at just the 9-3 part, the Vols, not to put too fine a point on it, should still be doomed tomorrow night. Because even with Lofton Tennessee's conference opponents shot better from the floor than the Vols did. That's changed in the tournament, granted, where the Volunteers have hit 47 percent of their threes. But that may be yet another reason to doubt the life expectancy of this team: unsustainable outside shooting. Not to mention in conference play they lived off opponents' turnovers and allowed opposing teams to hit 53 percent of their twos (again, speaking only with-Lofton here). And now they're about to face a team with reliable ball-handling and Greg Oden.

Only caveat: Ohio State's main defensive strength—defending two-point shots—is much less weighty against an opponent like Tennessee that simply bombs away from the perimeter. The key variable in this game is whether or not the Vols are hitting their outside shots. If they're not, they lose. If they are, they still might lose. Because against an interior D this leaky, Thad Matta's Bill Walsh-like script should read as follows:

Play 1. Get ball to Oden in the paint.
Play 2. Get ball to Oden in the paint.
Play 3. Get ball to Oden in the paint.

Etc.

Also tomorrow night....

(4) Southern Illinois vs. (1) Kansas (tomorrow, 7:10pm ET)
I kind of had my say on this game already yesterday: contrary to popular belief, the best defense on the floor will be wearing Kansas uniforms, because the Jayhawks have the best defense in the entire country. As for SIU, their specialty is rebounding opponents' misses. If there are no misses, however, well....

If the Salukis manage to somehow win this game, never mind soon-to-be-relocating Chris Lowery and instead behold this year's Jai Lewis: Randal Falker.

(3) Texas A&M vs. (2) Memphis (tomorrow, 7:27pm ET)
Good grief. For a team that had such a great year, the Aggies seem like they have a really tough bracket: first Louisville (the Cardinals were the functional equivalent of more highly-lauded Pitt in Big East play) and now the Tigers, just to get to the Elite Eight.

I keep hearing what a "tough defensive team" A&M is. Maybe, but all I know is their offense was even better than the Kansas offense in Big XII play. And that's huge because Memphis might have one of the better defenses in the country, even if Chris Douglas-Roberts doesn't go tomorrow night. Opponents have made less than 42 percent of their twos against the Tigers this season (Joey Dorsey and Robert Dozier are both formidable shot-blockers) while turning the ball over on 24 percent of their possessions. A&M, conversely, shoots only twos and never turns the ball over—USA Today sports columnist Mike Lopresti, take note: here's your irresistible force vs. immovable object game.

This will also be our first glimpse of how much of an advantage the Aggies will really have in San Antonio, an advantage that already has opponents pretty steamed in advance.

(D'oh! After this passage was drafted but before I could hit "publish," Ken Pomeroy went and made a couple of the exact same points: 1) the love should go to A&M's offense more than its D, and 2) Memphis has a defense constructed to collide spectacularly with the Aggies' offense. So I guess I better hurry up and say the following before Ken "Me Too!" Pomeroy does: Vanderbilt is, like, so doomed against Georgetown. Take that, KenPom!)

(3) Pitt vs. (2) UCLA (tomorrow, 9:40pm ET)
Great pairing. Just like they did last year, the Bruins are again playing pitiless D in the tournament. (See yesterday for more on the men from Westwood.)

Still, don't minimize the games the Panthers won to get here. Wright State tied Butler in the Horizon League during the regular season and beat them in the conference tournament. And, of course, you can ask Coach K all about VCU. Aaron Gray is a beast on the defensive glass and he and his mates have recorded a cumulative effective FG percentage north of 60 in their two tournament wins. Only worrisome tea leaf for Pitt: even during a great couple games of offense, they've been turning the ball over. And so have UCLA's tournament foes. If the Panthers cough up the ball, they're in trouble.

(Actually I guess there are two worrisome tea leaves for Pitt, the other one being the Bruins have already showed against Indiana that they can essentially score no points and still win. Their D is that good.)

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
One vote for Lon Kruger as the next coach at Michigan. (But was not the UNLV coach's statement on the matter pretty much a General Sherman? You be the judge.)

One vote for Chris Lowery as the next coach at Michigan. Speaking of Lowery....Southern Illinois guard Jamaal Tatum is musical; the Salukis have a well-dressed radio-analyst, etc. (I'm going to be watching the site meter closely today. Anyone actually clicking on this last link will receive a prompt email: "In heaven's name, why?")

Illinois officials say athletic director Ron Guenther won't be disciplined for his outburst along press row during the Illini's first-round 54-52 loss to Virginia Tech. (More.)

Wisconsin will be strong again next year, even without Alando Tucker and Kammron Taylor.

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Big Ten Wonk readers: triskaidekaphobia-free!
Yesterday I complained that my bracket is shot and that I lag far behind those "unimaginative souls who just picked favorites." The readers respond!

Thirteen is my magic (as in I have no stats) number. Out of 65 games, I figure there will never be more than 20 upsets and never less than 10. Picking more than 15 upsets means you'll be losing too many later round teams when your upsets don't pan out. I go a little more conservative than that just to force me to be more patient in picking out the upsets. This year I'm currently tied for second (thanks, Wisconsin) after getting all Thursday games correct, and picking Notre Dame and five upsets that didn't pan out on Friday.

You don't have to be unimaginative with your picks, as people who had Duke playing this weekend have learned. Just patient. (The only thing my strategy cost me this weekend was when I chose to have the Hogs beat USC instead of Winthrop over Notre Dame, a decision I made about 30 minutes before the tourney tipped off.)

Thanks for the great commentary, numbers, and love of the game you bring to your site. As your best sporting event of the year post says, nothing compares to this game.

Craig W.

Thanks, Craig!

2007-03-20T05:39:00.000-05:00

UCLA was legit this year, Oregon wasn't. What about now?
I love the Pac-10. Every team plays every other team home and away. There's no need to worry about strength-of-schedule math. We can just look at the results of (what a concept) actual games.

And looking at the results of actual games tells me that UCLA is better than Oregon. Much better.

Both teams played the same 18-game schedule but the Bruins, while putting an offense on the court that was only a hair worse than the high-scoring Ducks, also happened to play excellent defense. Oregon, by stark contrast, didn't play defense at all. (Michigan fans interested in Ernie Kent take note.)

Then again, these numbers are based on conference play and that was eons ago, was it not? What about more recent indicators?

In two games against Miami (Ohio) and Winthrop, the Ducks have been very much the POT: lots of threes, very few turnovers (absurdly few, in fact), and very few offensive boards. Plain and simple, Oregon will go as far as their threes can take them because their defense, after a very strong Pac-10 tournament, has shown signs of reverting to indifference. (Note for example that the RedHawks and Eagles made a whopping 57 percent of their twos against the Ducks.) That being said, you might have Oregon to kick around just a little longer anyway. They've had the good fortune of drawing UNLV for their Sweet 16 game and the Rebels are, on paper, the field's weakest remaining team by a healthy margin.

As for the Bruins, the defense they've played against not only an overmatched Weber State team but also against a very good Indiana offense has been stellar. Ben Howland's wrecking crew is forcing tournament opponents into missing 65 percent of their twos and they're hauling in 73 percent of all misses. True, UCLA's offense hasn't exactly been a thing of beauty (and indeed has been strangely ineffective on the interior) but, if the other team can't score at all, you can get away with having an ugly offense....

For a while, at least. Pitt will be a good test for the Bruins. The Panthers are a balanced team that shoots well from inside and on the perimeter; they don't have to rely on being hot from outside (see Aaron Gray). And, like UCLA, Pitt dominates their defensive glass. (There should be no offensive rebounds in this game.)

In short, UCLA's clearly better than Oregon but that doesn't mean the Bruins will live longer than the Ducks in March. Specifically, UCLA's next opponent promises to be a tougher test than Oregon's next opponent.

So my love of the Pac-10 doesn't necessarily help me figure out what's going to happen in late March. (Obviously. My bracket is shot. I've been left far behind by the unimaginative souls who just picked favorites all the way through the tournament. This was a really dangerous year to fancy that you knew anything about these teams.)

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Michigan needs a coach and yesterday I exhorted canonical blogger Brian Cook to "give the posts on who's going to be fourth-string left tackle in spring practice a rest and own the coverage on this coaching search." Brian has responded! He's ranked the top candidates from both the mid-majors and the empyrean "power"-conference/NBA realm. (Note that Brian's much more suspicious of John Beilein than I would be, asking if his style of play can work at "the highest levels." Highest levels? UCLA?) Not to be outdone, canon 2.0 blogger Dave at Maize n Brew has done his own rankings. Make haste!

Minnesota needs a coach and officials there now have to contend with competition on the hiring front from the Wolverines.

OK, everyone who fell for the "Greg Oden says he's really enjoying college and might stick around!" meme for even a second, please step forward so I can slap your wrist.

Illinois athletic director Ron Guenther has apologized for his outburst along press row during the Illini's 54-52 first-round loss to Virginia Tech. CBS Sportsline columnist Gregg Doyel sat near Guenther during the game and reported that at one point the Illinois AD yelled at Warren Carter: "Warren, you idiot!"

Gannett News Service columnist Mike Lopresti has the upcoming Kansas-Southern Illinois Sweet 16 game pretty much precisely upside-down, to wit: "The unstoppable force will be wearing white, the immovable object maroon." What you need to know: 1) It is in fact Kansas that has the best defense in the country, better than SIU's or anyone else's, and 2) while the Jayhawks' offense certainly isn't chopped liver, it's at least mortal (Texas and Texas A&M both had better offenses in Big XII play) and is thus one or maybe even two steps down from its D, which fairly defies Newton's laws.

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2007-03-19T06:46:00.000-05:00

Why Wisconsin lost
(7) UNLV 74, (2) Wisconsin 68
Although the Badgers came out cold (again) and the Rebels did a nice job limiting Alando Tucker's touches, Wisconsin still came away with 68 points in a 65-possession game and shot more free throws than UNLV. True, they didn't get any offensive boards but then again they didn't turn the ball over either. So much of the above can in fact be slotted in comfortably under the heading of "how Wisconsin usually wins."

And, indeed, for a time it seemed like it would be enough for a win yesterday, as well. The Badgers overcame their slow start and, after trailing by as many as 13, led this game 53-48 with a little more than eight minutes left. All was right with the world. The 2-seed, playing in front of a friendly crowd just 150 miles away from home, had come to life and taken control of the game. It seemed like it would be enough.

Yesterday, however, it wasn't enough. Why not?

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnist Michael Hunt thinks it's because Wisconsin was "extremely vulnerable to the types of matchups presented by a league predicated on quickness." Close, but no stogie. Hunt's description is actually better suited to the Wisconsin team we saw before Brian Butch was injured. Speaking in the present tense, though, a starting lineup with Tucker, Kammron Taylor, Michael Flowers and Marcus Landry isn't lacking for quickness, even if it does include Jason Chappell. Don't blame the personnel.

I say blame two things, in this order:

1) Accursed fate (relative weight: 99 percent). Why did Wisconsin lose? Because this is college basketball. It's wildly unpredictable (the majority of this weekend's games notwithstanding) and that's precisely why we watch. UNLV shot 20 threes and made 10 of them. They "should" have made just seven. But what is this "should"? How do we know? Forget fans and bloggers and columnists. Look at the actual participants. A coach has no idea what's going to happen when the ref tosses the ball up. The players have no idea what's going to happen. The motto for every college basketball blog, including and especially this one, should be: "Just because we have no clue what's going to happen doesn't mean we can't have fun talking about it."

2) Style (relative weight: 1 percent). Also known as: don't blame the personnel, blame their previous opponents. UNLV shot 20 threes and made 10 of them. They "should" have made just seven. But what is this "should"? It's the cumulative record of how Kevin Kruger and company fared this season against opponents that weren't Wisconsin. But on this day the Rebels were playing an opponent unaccustomed to threes early in the clock. Of UNLV's 10 threes, six of them came in the first 12 seconds of the shot clock. (Hey, Norman Dale was wrong!) Wisconsin wasn't vulnerable to the types of players presented by a league predicated on quickness. They were vulnerable to the types of plays presented by a league predicated on quickness.

(Box score.)

(1) Florida 74, (9) Purdue 67
Why Purdue lost. Because they were playing Florida.

OK, a couple more things to note. Purdue was a different team this year in those relatively rare games, such as yesterday's, where they didn't turn the ball over. And you don't need me to know why that's true: in Carl Landry, David Teague, and Chris Lutz, the Boilers had a reliable post scorer with a predilection for getting fouled and two perimeter shooters who combined to hit 43 percent of their threes this season. But when the Gators (specifically Taurean Green) finally stopped turning the ball over 33 minutes into the game, Purdue was doomed. Every single two that Al Horford and Joakim Noah attempted was another nail in the coffin of Matt Painter's team.

One more thing. If you had told me before this season started that with my own two stunned eyes I would see the willowy and perimeter-loving Lutz drive and score on 2006 Final Four MOP Noah, I would have told you, uh, I would have told you that Butler would make the Sweet 16. That UNLV would beat Wisconsin in the United Center. That Illinois would be the worst-shooting team in the Big Ten this year. That Gonzaga's tournament chances would be crippled by law enforcement. That Penn State's defense would be even worse this year than it was last year. Etc.

(Box score.)

BONUS star-watching note! Prior to yesterday I knew, of course, that Noah's father, Yannick Noah, won the French Open in 1983. What I hadn't known until CBS showed the elder Noah in the crowd at yesterday's game, however, was that this particular tennis great is also apparently an enthusiastic member of the International "Fat Albert" Characters Reenactors Society, with "Rudy" as his particular area of emphasis and study.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Yesterday on a busy Sunday in Big Ten land I touched down on the Michigan coaching vacancy long enough to note that success as a basketball program doesn't correlate real well with geographic proximity to recruiting hotbeds. Canonical blogger Brian Cook has since registered his "mild" dissent to my comment and, after going back and reading what I said, I think if anything Brian was too mild.

It's true that locating your campus next door to a good pool of recruits is not enough all by itself to get you to the Final Four. But if you're a fan of the Wolverines you of course want to tap into and indeed dominate said pool. My observation of what's been true historically for the remotely-located-yet-hegemonic Duke's and Arizona's of the world needlessly left confusion as to what any four-year-old can see should be the correct agenda of action items in the present tense for the only Michigan of the world. My bad. Good catch, Brian. (Now give the posts on who's going to be fourth-string left tackle in spring practice a rest and own the coverage on this coaching search, one that will, at a minimum, define Michigan basketball for the better part of the next decade.)

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Who's the bouncer at this dance?
I was just noticing that 12 of the top 13 RPI teams (with the sad exception of Wisconsin) made the Sweet 16. This led me to wonder how often the RPI top 16 gets to the third round vs. the selection committee's top four seeds. In the past five years, I have the top four seeds getting there 47 times, while the RPI top 16 made it 50. (And, yeah, I know we're working with a couple of different RPI formulae, but still...)

Basically, I don't know why we keep the selection committee around at all. We could add a level of certainty to the process and eliminate all the pre-selection lobbying and post-selection whining by just doing the non-automatic bids, and the seeding by a straight RPI process. The only drawback I see is some lost ad revenue for CBS's selection show, plus a lot of hemming and hawing by the old-school technophobes.

Whaddya think?

Derek M.

In your list of potential opponents of such a move, you forgot to mention the Indianapolis Star, which would be out $10K if the Appalachian State's of the world no longer took out full-page ads to state their case to the committee. Anyway....

There is indeed a part of me that says when I'm crowned as unquestioned czar of the hoops world (and, clearly, this day is not far off), I will simply use the Pomeroy rankings for the at-large bids. (Although I guess teams and coaches would then break down Ken's equations and start scheduling and playing "to the test," as it were. Which, to an extent, would defeat the original intent and worthiness of the equations. How Hegelian!)

But in the end I think there's an ontological level of dissatisfaction that will occur with the selection of any 65-team field. Call this level "X." I actually think X is going to be pretty much where it is whether we use the current selection committee, a committee that goes Matlock and piles on the legends (John Thompson, Dean Smith, et. al.), or even just Ken as a committee of one. With all of the above, X will be there and it will be given voice at 7:02 ET on Selection Sunday evening every year by Dick Vitale, who has fairly become the Robert F. Kennedy of the 35th and 36th best teams in the country that didn't win their conference tournaments.

(Still, it would be swell theater to see Vitale yelling at Ken personally instead of some faceless "committee." There's a great YouTube mash-up just laying out there for the first person who splices together Vitale's comments from, say, each of the past five Selection Sundays. The team names would change, of course, but the impassioned references to being "unfair to the kids" would be as regular as the stanzas in a sonnet. And, truth be known, in a way Vitale is right. No system will eradicate X entirely.)

2007-03-18T06:06:00.000-05:00

Inspired, fired, and just too tired
Wow. Tumultuous day in the Big Ten yesterday. Let's try approaching this thing chronologically....

(1) Ohio State 78, (9) Xavier 71 (OT)
This was the early game on the first Saturday, the one that takes place all by itself and so has pretty much the whole country watching it. And of course this was the game that for years, seemingly, Duke always won. The Devils were thus the first team into the Sweet 16 year after year, or so it seemed. So the very structure of the situation suggested one parallel. But, as it happened, the particular course of events in this game suggested quite another.

No, I don't mean the classic double-overtime game between 1-seed Arizona and 9-seed Gonzaga in Salt Lake City in the 2003 second round, a game won by the Wildcats, 96-95. (I still remember the picture that the print edition Sports Illustrated ran of the closing seconds of that game, quite possibly the best single photo of college basketball I've ever seen.) That of course matches yesterday's OSU-Xavier bracket perfectly. But as far as the actual game I think the closest precedent is 1-seeded Illinois' storied 90-89 win in OT over Arizona in the 2005 Midwest regional final. In that game as in yesterday's the 1-seeded Big Ten champion looked finished with three minutes left in regulation. In that game as in yesterday's the last FG in regulation was a three from the 1-seed to send the game to OT (courtesy of Deron Williams in 2005 and Ron Lewis yesterday). And in that game as in yesterday's one had to think that just maybe the close brush with bracket mortality would do a confident and talented team some good.

There were a fair amount of threes in this game and Lewis's trey of course provided the contest's signature moment. (Lewis hit 4-of-5 threes and led all scorers with 27 points.) But this game took on the character it had—the "Ohio State was very lucky to win" character—because of twos. The Buckeyes were surprisingly ineffective on their twos and the Musketeers were, for an Ohio State opponent this late in the season, unusually successful on theirs. Kudos to Justin Cage and Justin Doellman, for they went a combined 10-of-13 on their twos and, in an inside-the-arc realm populated by Greg Oden, that is noteworthy. (This kind of Robert de Niro in The Deer Hunter accuracy on the first shot was also crucial—because OSU owned the defensive glass in this game.)

As for the big man himself, he had a 14-12 dub-dub in 35 foul-blighted minutes and went to the bench for good in the closing seconds of regulation. Mike Conley scored the first seven points of the OT (he had 21 for the game) and secured the win for the Buckeyes.

And so the Ohio State-Texas A&M regional final that everyone, and I mean everyone, has the Aggies winning was on life-support yesterday, as both the Buckeyes and A&M struggled mightily just to survive the day. In the end, both did. See you in San Antonio. (Box score.)

Next: The winner of (5) Tennessee vs. (4) Virginia.

Bill Self owns the recruiting hotbed of Lawrence, Kansas
During the Ohio State-Xavier game I learned that Tommy Amaker had been fired as head coach at Michigan. I reserve the right to say more on this in the coming days but for now let me just remark on one distressing aspect of the first cycle of coverage here. I'm already hearing references to the "recruiting hotbed" of Detroit and how important it will be for a new coach at Michigan to corner that market.

As we embark on a couple weeks of what promises to be rollicking good coach-hire chat, let us note at the outset that proximity to a recruiting hotbed doesn't correlate real well with success. If it did, the best programs in the country would be St. John's, DePaul, and USC. They're not. The most successful programs over the past 15 years, conversely, have tended to come from such more or less bucolic settings as North Carolina, Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan State, Connecticut, UCLA, and Arizona.

Just something to keep in mind as we talk about the two current vacancies in the Big Ten. (Don't forget Minnesota. Jim Molinari, brought in as interim coach on the last day of November, is a candidate but the job is being shopped around.)

(1) North Carolina 81, (9) Michigan State 67
Whoa. The Heels rang up 81 points in just 65 possessions on a tough Tom Izzo team. And they did it from the line. Tyler Hansbrough, mask-less in the second half, shot 17 free throws and made 13, on his way to 33 points. Watching Carolina is like hitting the "X2" button on your DVR during a Wisconsin game. Bo Ryan is fanatical about "touching the paint" on every offensive possession and so, in his velocity-loving way, is Roy Williams. Time and time again, the ball goes into the paint: whether it's rocketed there by Ty Lawson with 30+ still on the shot clock or it's fed to Hansbrough. It goes in and the result is points or a foul or both. Basketball's a simple game, particularly with the talent Williams has. As for the Spartans, they gave the Heels a good 14-minute scrap in the second half before running out of gas with a vengeance at the six-minute mark. (After a steady diet of Lawson-Hansbrough paint production, when Reyshawn Terry at last made a couple jumpers you could almost see the life drain out of MSU. If you can make jumpers too, State seemed to be saying, we can't keep up.) Drew Neitzel scored 26 points but needed 27 shots to get there. No wonder he got tired. (Box score.)

(2) UCLA 54, (7) Indiana 49
I thought Kelvin Sampson's use of timeouts in this game was interesting. For a while his deployment of TOs seemed almost impossibly effective—and then it seemed like maybe it cost the Hoosiers the game.

With seven minutes left IU was down 13 which, in a game where points were obviously at a premium, seemed to be a large deficit. At that point Earl Calloway sank a three and Sampson called one of those pre-scripted before-it-even-clears-the-net timeouts. Then with a little less than five minutes remaining and Indiana down 12, Lance Stemler made a three and Sampson again called an immediate TO. Whatever he drew up in those huddles must have worked because the Hoosiers tied the game at 49 with a minute left. But it also meant that IU entered the final minute with no timeouts. And that was a problem, because, down two with 38 seconds left, Indiana could not inbound the ball. Minus any opportunity for drawing up a different play (or substituting), Sampson watched as Stemler had his inbounds pass deflected twice. Then on the third try Stemler threw the ball almost directly to Darren Collison, whereupon Calloway fouled out going for the ball. It proved to be the game's decisive sequence—though it needn't have been, timeouts or no timeouts, had not the Hoosiers missed 11 of 21 free throws. D.J. White recorded a 12-14 dub-dub, as IU made just 5-of-16 threes. (Box score.)

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Today's doubleheader....

(9) Purdue vs. (1) Florida (2:15pm ET)
Wonk 360: Purdue in New Orleans
Boilers are respectful of Gators and all but Carl Landry is confident.

(7) UNLV vs. (2) Wisconsin (2:30pm ET)
Wonk 360: Wisconsin in Chicago
Alando Tucker is home; two Landry brothers are playing today; assistant coach Gary Close had the scout on the Rebels, etc.

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Speaking of too tired, emails tomorrow. Or sometime.

2007-03-17T06:23:00.000-05:00

See the glass as five-sixths full
The Big Ten stands at a very pleasing 5-1 and indeed would be a pundit-igniting 6-0—if not for the worst eight minutes of basketball imaginable played by Illinois....

(5) Virginia Tech 54, (12) Illinois 52
For the second consecutive year the Illini left the dance floor by squandering a lead and looking frightened and inept down the stretch. (Not that the collapse didn't get some help. Coming out of a timeout with 37 seconds left and his team down by one, Warren Carter was fouled as he attempted an 18-footer. The non-call was worse than unjust—it was visually odd.) This year Bruce Weber watched his team give away a 13-point lead over the final eight minutes, during which time the Illini scored just five points. Down 13 the Hokies went to a full-court press and time and time again the men in orange broke the press—and then turned the ball over. (Again, visually odd.) Virginia Tech won the way they've won all year: they took care of the ball, giving it away just nine times in a 62-possession game. The frustrating thing for Illinois, conversely, is that they found a new way to lose: this team that doesn't shoot well actually shot OK (significantly better than the Hokies, anyway) but no fewer than 21 of their possessions ended with a turnover. That number ended their season. (Box score.)

Bury my heart at Austin Peay. Before last night Illinois had won nine consecutive first-round NCAA tournament games.

(9) Purdue 72, (8) Arizona 63
Fans of Big Ten hoops, if you're looking for your paradigmatic case where an allegedly flimsy defense from another "power"-conference comes up against your hearty meat-and-potato land-grant fellows and is found wanting, look no further. After two months of slugging it out with Big Ten defenses, Purdue must have felt like they were playing a practice squad when they were on offense in this game. Specifically, a turnover-prone Boilermaker team gave the ball away just eight times in a 67-possession game. And Matt Painter's team, fair at best on the offensive boards this year, recorded 19 offensive rebounds out of 42 chances. (Credit Gordon Watt, who had seven offensive rebounds in just 23 minutes.) Carl Landry recorded a 21-13 dub-dub for the Boilers and Chris Lutz hit 4-of-6 threes for 16 points—all of the above meant David Teague's cold shooting (0-of-6 on his threes) was a moot point. For the Wildcats, Mustafa Shakur pulled off a feast-or-famine eight assists and eight turnovers. (Box score (pdf).)

Next: (1) Florida, emphatic 112-69 winners over (16) Jackson State.

(2) Wisconsin 76, (15) Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 63
The Badgers trailed the Islanders by 18 after the first 15 minutes and scored just 19 points in the first half. But Bo Ryan's team righted the ship: Kammron Taylor scored all 24 of his points in the second half and Alando Tucker added 23 somewhat more evenly sequenced points. Say this for the Badgers, even when their shooting's cold, as it was in the first half, they still get shots: Wisconsin gave away just 10 turnovers in a 68-possession game. (Box score (pdf).)

Next: (7) UNLV, 67-63 winners over (10) Georgia Tech.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Today's triple-header....

(9) Xavier vs. (1) Ohio State (1:10pm ET)
Wonk 360: Ohio State in Lexington
Receiving reports, as yet unconfirmed, that Thad Matta used to coach Xavier; Musketeers like being underdogs (they have a choice?), etc.

(7) Indiana vs. (2) UCLA (8:10pm ET)
Wonk 360: Indiana in Sacramento
These Hoosiers are thoroughly modern; oracular IU observer Terry Hutchens continues to be far more interested in Lance Stemler than I am, etc.

(9) Michigan State vs. (1) North Carolina (8:20pm ET)
Wonk 360: Michigan State in Winston-Salem
Idong Ibok and Jake Hannon are getting the pub; Tom Izzo has never lost a second-round game; Spartans like being underdogs (they have a choice?), etc.

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A Tar Heel's scout on the Spartans
I attended the Winston Salem sub-regional yesterday and got my first glimpse of Michigan State. (It was a close glimpse, as my seats were only 10 rows off the floor. How did that happen? I am obviously an ancient UNC alum.)

The Spartans were very impressive and I expect a good game Saturday. But Marquette baffled me. If you saw the game, can you offer an opinion as to why Marquette insisted on slowing the game, often getting no decent shot because the shot clock was winding down. The MSU defense was good, but was it good enough to keep Marquette without a 2-point basket in the first half? I don't remember one, only made threes and foul shots. Things were not much better in the second half.

It was a really boring game (I blame Marquette) and I'm glad I got a free ticket. Why do teams choose to play this way? It was obvious from the first that Marquette was going to lose using this approach.

My Heels handled the Eastern Kentucky 1-3-1 well until they went brain dead for the middle part of the game.

Jerry H.

Thanks, Jerry. I expect a good game but then I said the same thing about the UNC-MSU national semifinal in '05. We'll see.

2007-03-16T06:29:00.000-05:00

Quick, run out and print the "undefeated" t-shirt
Good news. Thanks to some strong performances on defense, the Big Ten already has as many wins—three—as it had in the entire tournament last year.

Ominous news. Severe bracket challenges now loom, in the form of 1-seed North Carolina and 2-seed UCLA.

(9) Michigan State 61, (8) Marquette 49
Newcomers to things Spartan, welcome. In this game you saw Michigan State's season in miniature: great D and very good shooting, the latter sabotaged by frequent MSU turnovers. The Golden Eagles mustered just 49 points in a 58-possession game. Dominic James scored 18 points but needed 16 shots to do it, while Raymar Morgan, Drew Neitzel, and Marquise Gray scored 14, 12, and 12, respectively, for the Spartans. This season in Big East play just 33 percent of Marquette's shots were threes but last night Tom Crean watched his men jack up 29 shots from beyond the arc (they made 10) while going just 5-of-18 on their twos. And set your watch for seven months from now, when the meme in Milwaukee will be about how Wesley Matthews wants to write a new chapter after having a really bad game at the worst time: mid-March. (Box score.)

Call me sheltered but I had somehow managed to safely navigate the first few decades of my life without ever once seeing someone dislocate an elbow. And now I've seen it happen twice in the past 19 days. Last night it was Idong Ibok's turn. Note to CBS directors in the trucks: no more zoom-ins on the replay like last night. Please. Some of us out here have HD.

Next: (1) North Carolina, 86-65 winners over (16) Eastern Kentucky.

(7) Indiana 70, (10) Gonzaga 57
Zounds, man bites dog. A hitherto suspect Hoosier defense held a previously potent Zags offense to just 57 points in a 67-possession game. Even more strangely, the Bulldogs made just 12 of 37 two-pointers against a short IU team that allowed Big Ten opponents to make more than half of their twos this season. (No, you're not hallucinating: Josh Heytvelt would have been a big help to Mark Few in this one.) D.J. White recorded a 16-10 dub-dub while Roderick Wilmont took 11 threes and made six, scoring 22 points. (Wilmont's teammates, however, were just 3-of-14 beyond the arc.) Defense, Rod Wilmont, and the dedicated and vigilant law enforcement officers of Cheney, Washington, in that order, brought home the win for Indiana. (Box score.)

Kelvin Sampson says: "I liked the way we won the game. With defense and intelligence. We're not an offensive juggernaut. This is the way we're going to have to win." (Say it ain't so, coach! Not you too!)

Next: (2) UCLA, emphatic 70-42 winners over (15) Weber State.

(1) Ohio State 78, (16) Central Connecticut State 57
Congratulations to the Blue Devils, who, by scoring 57 points in a 64-possession game, fared better on offense than any other Big Ten opponent last night. (Box score.)

Next: (9) Xavier, 79-77 winners over (8) BYU. Hang on, didn't Thad Matta used to coach there? Not that you'll hear anything along those lines over the next 24 hours.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Today's triple-header....

(15) Texas A&M-Corpus Christi vs. (2) Wisconsin (2:45pm ET)
Wonk 360: Wisconsin in Chicago
Brian Butch might play; Jason Chappell is mellow; Greg Stiemsma is improved.

(12) Illinois vs. (5) Virginia Tech (7:10pm ET)
Wonk 360: Illinois in Columbus
The Illini—"the best 12th seed in the history of the NCAA tournament,'' according to Hokies coach Seth Greenberg— are "in a chippy mood."

(9) Purdue vs. (8) Arizona (7:20pm ET)
Wonk 360: Purdue in New Orleans
Vowing not to "get into a running game" with the Wildcats.

In today's less prominent venues....
Florida State beat Michigan 87-66 in Tallahassee last night in the second round of the NIT. Let the speculation begin. (Box score.)

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And this too shall come to pass in eight days: Billy Packer will say Greg Oden is short
Wonk,

Love the site, love your calling out lazy sportswriters for falling back on "common assumptions" rather than actually looking at how a team has done.

Speaking of such writing sloth, I bring you Seth Davis on Indiana:

"The Hoosiers were undefeated at home this season, but when they left the friendly confines of Assembly Hall they were very beatable (2-8 on the road, 2-1 in neutral court games). I think a big reason is that this is still a pretty deficient team offensively, so their best hope for beating good teams is to defend with great energy and passion."

Aaron M.

"A pretty deficient team offensively"? Gosh. If only I had anticipated such vaporous flat-earth talk eight days ago.

2007-03-15T06:34:00.000-05:00

Drama, magnitude, and finality
(Today's post continues a young tradition.)

The tournament starts in earnest today when Davidson tips off against Maryland at the HSBC Arena in Buffalo. And so at 12:20 ET begins the best sporting event of the year. By far....

Every November, when college football is noisily twisting itself into bewildering BCS knots trying to determine who will play for the national championship, I thank the bracket gods for giving us such a beautifully Euclidean way of determining who will play for the national championship.

Every May and June, when the NBA inflicts upon us "playoffs" that occupy about as much time as the Crimean War (I especially appreciate the four-day pauses between first-round games, drawing out the suspense of that tense San Antonio vs. Denver series), I thank the bracket gods for giving us such a tidy three-week method of going from 300+ to 65 to one.

Every February, when the NFL presents a Super Bowl that feels so oddly disconnected from and unrelated to an actual football game, I thank the bracket gods for giving us tournament games that are the very epitome of college hoops (Laettner, Drew, et. al.).

Every October, when baseball gives us its best games in indigestible four-hour slabs in the dark of late-night in game-altering 30-degree weather, I thank the bracket gods for selecting their champion in two-hour installments in precisely the right game-enhancing venues (neutral floors, opposing fans, opposing bands).

And every October 15, I thank the bracket gods for starting the cycle anew.

"Drama, magnitude and finality"? It's lifted from those estimable wordsmiths at the Supreme Court, ruling against President Truman some 55 years ago. I think the Supremes of a half-century ago would happily concede that theirs is a better description of March Madness than of what they thought they were describing (the presidency).

Starting today, each game is the most important game of the year. Each game eliminates one more team. And there is one fewer game than there are teams.

As of this morning, it's all still in front of us. Nice moment, this.

(16) Central Connecticut State vs. (1) Ohio State (7:10pm ET)
Wonk 360: Ohio State in Lexington
The Buckeyes are wary; Ron Lewis is improved; Greg Oden is shy.

(9) Michigan State vs. (8) Marquette (7:20pm ET)
Wonk 360: Michigan State in Winston-Salem
Watch the turnovers: the Spartans commit a lot of them. It they can hold on to the ball, chances are excellent that MSU wins this game.

Detroit Free Press columnist Drew Sharp says: "Breaking down the Spartans' chances against Marquette tonight is pretty simple—if [Drew] Neitzel falters offensively, Michigan State is toast." Detroit Free Press columnist Drew Sharp couldn't be more wrong if he said "Ann Arbor has NIT fever!" (More in a similar vein from Detroit News columnist Bob Wojnowski.) Keep in mind the Golden Eagles—not exactly Texas where offense is concerned—generate an unusually large share of their points through offensive rebounds. And MSU is a very good defensive rebounding team. If Neitzel "falters offensively" (meaning he doesn't score 15) the Spartans can still win in any number of ways, most of them involving points from a foul-unblighted Raymar Morgan and a modest number of turnovers from Goran Suton and Marquise Gray. Or Neitzel could score 25 and State could still lose. It's why we watch.

Maybe the injured Jerel McNeal will play after all; Spartans play D; Izzo-and-Crean; Izzo-and-Crean 2.0; Izzo-and-Crean 3.0.

(10) Gonzaga vs. (7) Indiana (9:45pm ET)
Wonk 360: Indiana in Sacramento
Watch the threes: the Hoosiers shoot a lot of them. If they fall, chances are excellent that Indiana wins this game.

The Hoosiers will reportedly go as far as Roderick Wilmont can take them; Indianapolis Star columnist Bob Kravitz gives Kelvin Sampson a B so far.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Wisconsin big man Brian Butch is on the mend; Alando Tucker is focused; Badger freshmen are precocious.

Purdue is respected by Arizona.

Illinois opponent Virginia Tech is adversity-toughened (wow, a meme: 2.0).

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My streak of consecutive posts without a "Gator Aid" pun continues!
Yesterday I said Florida has "been given the tournament's overall 1-seed because of what they did last March, certainly not because of anything they've done in calendar 2007."

The readers respond!

Having just taken a moment to politely disagree with your friend over at kenpom, I've come to mutter semi-effectually at you.

I don't believe what we saw with Florida this year was an example of a team "turning it off" but of a team hitting a flat spot late in a long season at the top (see also UNC and UCLA). It is undeniably true that this team elevates its play in tournaments but I attribute that largely to its make-up. This is a team that plays best when they have a bit of an edge but, with the emphatic exception of Noah, the players are fairly unemotional and often need a bit of an external stimulus to get sufficiently fired up to face an opponent hopping on adrenaline.

(Not that being composed is necessarily a bad thing or being emotional a good one; a number of teams burnt off all their energy in the first half against UF this year and had nothing left in the second. And others - like UGA in the tournament - were so tight with nerves early they couldn't hit the easiest shots and fell impossibly far behind.)

Nathaniel G.

Thanks, Nathaniel. We agree Florida's underperformed. And as to why, you say "tomato," I say "Thad Matta." (Yes! I've been waiting all season to use that. It's gold, baby, gold!) Flat spot? Long season at the top? Ohio State? Kansas?

My attempted point yesterday was pretty mundane: if you had asked me four months ago today what Florida's numbers were going to look like this year, I would have held forth with great profundity on how beautiful they were going to be. (Like, say, North Carolina or Illinois in 2005.) But instead of "beautiful" the numbers have been merely "very good"; almost exactly as good, in fact, as Florida's numbers during the regular season last year.

I thought we'd see improvement to the level of dominance. We haven't. What that means for the next two weeks is, I think, a very interesting question.

How many points must a defense prevent, before you can call it a D?
(The answer, my friend....)

Hey, Wonk,

I just discovered your site this year and I'm really enjoying it. I know how much you love people talking about how bad North Carolina's defense is, so I just thought I'd give you an example by ESPN's Joe Lunardi from his tournament picks: "The Tar Heels are awesome...on offense. Kevin Durant will exploit their often suspect defense. UNC is out, 91-88."

Nick B.

Alright, look. Tell you what, world. I give up. I was wrong....

The pop-up window on ESPN's "Tournament Challenge" bracket says of Carolina: "The issue may be defense." Wow. This has proven to be one tough misconception to kill. But, what the heck, I'll give 'er another go: this team's defense is every bit as good as its offense. In ACC play this season the single statistical category in which the Heels enjoyed the greatest success on either side of the ball was opponent 2FG percentage: conference foes made just 45 percent of their twos against Carolina.

Oh so wrong....

This is an outstanding defensive team....They do it all: FG defense (especially on the interior), defensive rebounding (beastly eater of defensive glass Reyshawn Terry, Wonk salutes you!), the works. Thing is, they do it at a fast pace so commentators assume UNC is all about offense. In truth the Heels have been even more effective at preventing points in ACC play than they've been at scoring them.

Just plain flat out wrong!...

The Tar Heels' defense is already the ACC's best by a large margin. It's also significantly better than their offense. Truly. (Don't mess with me on this one. I've got tempo-free means and standard deviations for ACC conference play through last night. I'll use 'em, by gar, I will!) And the strength of that D is on the interior....They may be young but they're also tall, fast, and numerous.

So let me say here and now: North Carolina's defense is horrible. These guys are like Oregon only even more comically permissive. Five life-sized cutouts of Adam Morrison would provide better defense than Roy Williams gets out of this group.

There. That earns me five "bowing to the 180-degree incorrect conventional wisdom" credits.

2007-03-14T06:03:00.000-05:00

Remember Florida?
Defending national champion? All five starters returning? Number 1 overall seed?

It just seems like we're not hearing as much about the Gators as one might expect. And that's unfortunate because, whatever their fate, Billy Donovan's team is about to provide a very interesting test case:

Can a college team turn it on, NBA-style, when the time comes?

Speaking generally, of course, it would be nice if the answer to this question turned out to be "no." Granted, this year's Gators are a (very) unique case and it's not like this is going to be a worry every year. Still, one of the best things about college hoops vs. the NBA is that the regular season isn't cheapened by a defending champion knowing it can coast without consequence. (The Jordan-era Bulls and Shaq-and-Kobe-era Lakers were even able to give away playoff-series home-court advantage—and still win it all. So what's the point of a regular season?)

Make no mistake: Florida needs to turn it on. Their level of performance during the regular season in the SEC won't win their second title. In fact, their level of performance during the regular season this year is almost exactly what it was last year. The Gators have been given the tournament's overall 1-seed because of what they did last March, certainly not because of anything they've done in calendar 2007.

Recall what happened in the tournament last year: a young good-shooting team suddenly started playing defense and, a close game against Georgetown notwithstanding, pretty much marched straight through the bracket without hesitation until they were wearing ball caps and chatting with Jim Naantz and Billy Packer.

So I thought that we'd see a dominant regular season this year from that team. We haven't. They haven't been as good as we thought they'd be—or as good as people are saying they are.

Related: have they turned it on already? Isn't that what just happened in the SEC tournament? Hard to tell. The Gators certainly took their D to another numeric level (0.88 points per possession) in blowing away Georgia, Ole Miss, and Arkansas with ease. Then again the opponents were Georgia, Ole Miss, and Arkansas.

Can they play that kind of defense over the next couple weeks? We won't see the first glimpses of evidence until the Gators take the court against the winner of Arizona-Purdue this weekend.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Ohio State: pondering the possibility that coach Thad Matta may face his former team, Xavier, in the second round.

Wisconsin: feeling right at home in the United Center.

Indiana: thriving on threes.

Michigan State: tough on D, lucky that Marquette guard Jerel McNeal will not play against the Spartans. McNeal creates turnovers—and Tom Izzo's team has had its struggles in that area. (P.S. Izzo and former assistant Tom Crean are close. Really close.)

Purdue: enjoying the contrast between now and last season.

Illinois: benefiting from Shaun Pruitt's improved play but still without the services of Brian Carlwell.

Michigan: victorious, 68-58, in their first-round NIT game against Utah State in Ann Arbor last night. (Box score.) Next up: Florida State in Tallahassee.

Bracket help is just over yonder in the sidebar
The patented Wonk 360 technology has gone to work! Each venue hosts, in effect, a couple four-team tournaments—and if there's a Big Ten team involved, I've taken the liberty of breaking those four teams down. Get on over to the sidebar and enjoy.

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The similarities are uncanny!
Hi, Wonk,

Going into the last three games of the year, a national title contender, now one of the top seeds in the Midwest, was coasting along but facing two tough road games. Most thought they would win one, even maybe both, but losing both would not be entirely unexpected.

Alas, they lose both games. Not a tragedy but it still shocks the loyal fans. They'd better regroup! Fortunately, they rebound in their last game of the year and beat an arch-rival.

They head into the conference tournament. Victory! Another victory! They head into the championship game full of confidence!

Who am I talking about? My beloved Badgers?

Nope. The Florida Gators. The difference here? The Gators got to beat up on patsies Georgia and Mississippi in their conference tournament and then faced a not very imposing Razorback team for their conference championship. The Badgers meanwhile had to slug it out with heavyweights (in style if not ranking) Michigan State and Illinois before facing an Ohio State team that is clearly one of the best teams in the country.

The only difference between Florida's last three weeks and Wisconsin's last three weeks is that Wisconsin lost against OSU. That's it. Well, and Wisconsin didn't get humiliated at LSU. The only difference between Florida being on a roll and Wisconsin struggling is the Badgers losing a game to a team far superior to the one Florida beat.

One other note: I'm sick of hearing about how Wisconsin's offense is struggling. They just scored 70 on the Spartans! How many other teams scored 70 on MSU this year? One (Indiana).

The Badgers' offense is fine. They're going to find playing a couple of overmatched teams (and, yes, I consider TAMU-CC and then Georgia Tech or UNLV to be overmatched by the Butch-less Badgers) a wonderful cure for the offense that has been "ailing."

Greg S.

Vigorously asserted, sir. Many thanks.

2007-03-13T06:02:00.000-05:00

Does coming in "on a roll" really make a difference?
We're about to find out, courtesy of Oregon.

Here's a team, after all, that just won the Pac-10 tournament with an average victory margin of 20 points. (Fans of efficiency margin, take note: that's a +0.32. Not bad!) And it wasn't just precocious outside shooting, either—though, make no mistake, the threes were indeed falling for the Ducks this weekend at the Staples Center (52.3 3FG pct.). Still, after all those threes hit the bottom of the net, Oregon played defense on the other end, allowing just 0.88 points per possession. That's a vast improvement over their performance during the conference season, to say the very least.

(BONUS software note! My crack staff of software development engineers has perfected a hoops-savvy program called HoopCheck. When I typed the words "Oregon played defense," HoopCheck repeatedly highlighted the sentence with a green squiggly line. When I right-click I get the following "suggested changes":

"Oregon pleaded audibly with the other team to 'Hurry up and score so we can get the ball back.'"

"Oregon feigned five simultaneous injuries to avoid playing D."

"Oregon refused to cross the halfcourt line 'as a matter of principle.'")

Last year at this time a previously suspect-on-D team suddenly started playing defense and the result was a national championship. Will history repeat for the Ducks?

Of course not! But the more interesting question is simply: given their absolute perfection-incarnate conference-tournament send-off, how far can they go?

The three-point shooting will come back down to earth—this much we know. ("Earth" still being quite good, mind you. In Pac-10 play before the conference tournament, Oregon hit 38 percent of their threes.) And as for the D, assuming the Ducks get by Miami of Ohio in the first round, they'll receive a severe test of their defensive bona fides from the winner of Winthrop-Notre Dame. Don't be surprised if this highly-touted 3-seed "that can play with anyone in the country" reverts to defensive form. If so, they'll need every three they can hit.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Ohio State: all hail the beautiful (basketball) mind of Mike Conley.

Wisconsin: respectful of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, yet not above Old Testament-style woofing ("someone is going to feel our wrath").

Indiana: exhibiting total recall of their loss to Gonzaga in last year's tournament.

Michigan State: beyond respectful of Marquette and North Carolina (Izzo: "I know none of you are betting the house on us (to advance past this weekend) and I can't say that I'd bet my own house").

Purdue: expecting a "fast pace" from Arizona. They shouldn't. The Wildcats averaged just 67 possessions per 40 minutes in Pac-10 play. Sure, that's kind of fast in Big Ten terms, but it's not like the Boilers are playing Carolina. (Or Maryland, or Kansas, or Tennessee, or Virginia....All is revealed here.)

Illinois: hoping for some of that sweet 12-5 karma against Virginia Tech.

Michigan: "honored" to be part of the NIT. (Cue the incredulous second wave in three, two....)

Fellow midwesterners, also note that New Mexico is actually part of the U.S.
Today's "Stereotypes Are There for a Reason!" Award goes to columnist Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star, for bravely exemplifying every hoary stereotype concerning the total ignorance of west coast geography displayed by midwesterners. Writing about Indiana's upcoming first-round game against Gonzaga, to be played in Sacramento, Kravitz coughed up this cartographic gem: "For Gonzaga, based in semi-nearby Spokane, Wash., this is something of a home game."

Bold geographical iconoclast Bob Kravitz, Wonk salutes you! At 821 miles, you define "semi-nearby" with admirable capaciousness! By your remarkable land-locked and blinkered accounting, other upcoming "home" games include the following local favorites coming to Chicago this weekend: Georgia Tech (717 miles) and Villanova (760). Pity UNLV and Kentucky, respectively, forced to in effect play road games in front of the notoriously rabid United Center faithful for the Wreck and 'Nova. O, the injustice!...

BONUS plea to citizens of Sacramento! This weekend when you see a guy with a press pass wandering around the parking lot outside Arco Arena in a plaid shirt and khaki shorts, asking in plaintive long vowels for directions for "a quick trip to Spokane and back during halftime," take pity upon him, please.

COMING this week!
The patented Wonk 360 technology goes to work! Each venue hosts, in effect, a couple four-team tournaments. And if there's a Big Ten team involved, Wonk 360 will break the four teams down, starting tomorrow with Lexington (Ohio State, Central Connecticut State, BYU, and Xavier) and Chicago (Wisconsin, TAMU-CC, UNLV, and Georgia Tech). Don't fill in those brackets without Wonk 360!

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If Michigan State's so good, how come they were 8-8?
Love your site. My question is how is it that Michigan State (my alma mater) placed fairly well in offensive and defensive stats, yet lost as many games as they did?

Yes, the schedule stunk, but so what. Our offense seems far less effective than the stats suggest. And our TO's "seemed" much higher than the numbers. Is it I'm not looking at the numbers correctly, or am I missing the big picture?

Gregory H.

Why was the record so mediocre? Combination of tough schedule and bad luck, mostly the former: three games against current 1- and 2-seeds but only three against insistent win-givers Minnesota, Northwestern, and Penn State.

Also keep in mind that, while your Spartans' efficiency margin vs. W-L's may look skewed according to some other teams this year, there have been even larger instances of skew. Example: in 2005 Minnesota went 10-6 in-conference with an efficiency margin of 0.00.

Lastly, if you thought there were even more TOs than the numbers say, I weep for you. The Spartans' numbers for turnovers are historically ugly.

2007-03-13T05:00:00.000-05:00

Wonk 360: Ohio State in Lexington
A look at the teams competing against Ohio State in Lexington this weekend to make it to San Antonio and the Sweet 16. (Non-"power"-conference stats of course graciously provided (they have a choice?) by that indispensable two-headed K-Dub/KenPom beast.)

(1) Ohio State Buckeyes (30-3, 15-1 Big Ten, aerial view)
Feast your eyes: Let's get the clichés out of the way at the top, shall we? This team is peaking at the right time and is a picture of balance offensively and defensively. On offense the Buckeyes turned the ball over just 23 times in 185 possessions over three games at the Big Ten tournament. Meaning only 12 percent of their possessions ended in a turnover. Do that and play some D and you can beat anybody—even with mediocre shooting (see below). And speaking of D, Thad Matta's team has allowed just 0.92 points per possession over their last nine games. During that time opponents have made just 42 percent of their twos. (Can't imagine why.)

Look the other way: This team doesn't shoot as well as I thought they would with Ron Lewis, Ivan Harris, Jamar Butler, and Daequan Cook on the perimeter and Greg Oden down low. If they ever did, ay, carumba.

Etc. In the entire Big Ten this year there was only one player that posted a higher offensive rebounding percentage than his corresponding number on the defensive glass. Meet Othello Hunter: the best offensive rebounder in the conference (and an efficient, if infrequent, scorer).

(16) Central Connecticut State Blue Devils (22-11, 16-2 Northeast)
Feast your eyes: CCSU shares at least one similarity to those other Blue Devils (last year's edition thereof)—their most frequent shooters are their most efficient scorers, namely: Obie Nwadike, Tristan Blackwood, and Javier Mojica. This is a good perimeter-shooting team.

Look the other way: The rest of the roster's only so-so on their shooting.

Etc. Well, I declare. Nwadike's almost as good on the offensive glass as the allegedly singular Othello Hunter (see above). And he goes to the line more than anyone else in the entire tournament.

(8) Brigham Young Cougars (25-8, 13-3 Mountain West)
Feast your eyes: Wow. This team can shoot the rock. (Which actually is odd because their FT shooting is horrendous.) BYU has that weird Florida thing going on where they don't shoot many threes but when they do they hit them (41 percent of them, to be exact). Keena Young and Trent Plaisted shoot often and well. Lee Cummard and Austin Ainge shoot rarely but very well. The Cougars also do a pretty good job taking care of the ball and rebounding their (infrequent) misses. Lastly, with Young, Cummard, and Plaisted all chipping in, BYU's excellent on the defensive glass.

Look the other way: Opponents never turn the ball over. Ever. If said opponent is making their shots, look out.

Etc. Plaisted shoots more free throws than any Big Ten player not named "Carl Landry."

(9) Xavier Musketeers (21-10, 8-8 A-10)
Feast your eyes: Man. There will be no missed shots in the BYU-Xavier game: the Musketeers shoot almost exactly as well as the Cougars. But it's a different kind of "well"! Xavier shoots a lot of threes, makes a lot (39 percent), and still manages to get to 36 percent of their misses. That is a very good combination of traits. Behold Justin Doellman, Drew Lavender, and Justin Cage: all averaging double-digits, all sporting a PPWS of 1.20 or above. (Stanley Burrell is less efficient but then again he absorbs a goodly share of defensive attention from opposing teams—to the benefit of his mates' efficiency.) And 6-7 freshman Derrick Brown wins today's double-take award: no matter how many times I look it still says that this youngster makes 72 percent of his twos. Zounds.

Look the other way: Interior D is a problem. Opponents make almost half their twos.

Etc. At 5-7, Lavender may have had the best height-to-performance ratio in the country this year. His shots go in (he's shooting 46 percent on his threes), he dishes assists, and he never turns the ball over.

2007-03-13T04:30:00.000-05:00

Wonk 360: Wisconsin in Chicago
A look at the teams competing against Wisconsin in Chicago this weekend to make it to St. Louis and the Sweet 16. (Non-"power"-conference stats of course graciously provided (they have a choice?) by that indispensable two-headed K-Dub/KenPom beast.)

(2) Wisconsin Badgers (28-5, 13-3 Big Ten, aerial view)
Feast your eyes: Consistency thy name is Badger. This team always defends, always takes care of the ball, and never fouls. It's been that way since Bo Ryan arrived in Madison. It works. And with Kammron Taylor having a nice little late-season spurt here, the opportunities given to Alando Tucker on offense figure to improve. (Speaking of spurts, Tucker, his last two games notwithstanding, has started to make threes late in his senior year.)

Look the other way: By this point we're all well into the fourth or fifth stanza in a nice chicken-and-egg minuet regarding the Badgers and their alleged "recent struggles" on offense. On the one hand, um, they've struggled on offense recently, scoring just 0.93 points per possession over their last six games. On the other hand, those six games have been played against three of the best defenses in the country: Michigan State, Ohio State, and Illinois. (And, mind you, the offense looked great in one of those three games against the Spartans.) Now we'll see what Wisconsin can do offensively against TAMU-CC and, fate willing, the winner of UNLV-Georgia Tech.

Etc. Tucker takes a larger share of his team's shots than any other player in "power"-conference ball.

(15) Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders (22-11, 16-2 Southland West)
Feast your eyes: There are precisely two teams in the country who shoot better than TAMU-CC: Florida and Air Force. That puts the Islanders in elite company where shooting's concerned. Look at Chris Daniels and Josh Washington: together they take more than half of their team's shots while they're on the floor, yet each sports an effective FG percentage north of 60.

Look the other way: The Islanders turn the ball over on 23 percent of their possessions. And TAMU-CC opponents shoot pretty well (though, granted, nowhere near as well as the team they're playing against).

Etc. Kevin Menifee leads the way for a team that rebounds 39 percent of their misses.

(7) UNLV Rebels (28-6, 12-4 Mountain West)
Feast your eyes: They're the Butler of the west! The Rebels are "merely" slightly above average in their shooting and on the offensive glass. But they never give the ball away. Wendell White, Jo'Van Adams, and Kevin Kruger each average double-digits in scoring, with Kruger being the most efficient of the group. And though listed at a mere 6-9, Joel Anthony belongs to that most select of clubs, the better-than-Oden shot-blocking group. (It's a seven-member society nationally—as I said, very exclusive.)

Look the other way: UNLV's defensive rebounding is poor. The Rebels get to just 65.3 percent of their opponents' misses.

Etc. The Rebels haven't won a tournament game since the 1991 West regional final.

(10) Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (20-11, 8-8 ACC, aerial view)
Feast your eyes: The Yellow Jackets are parable in human form for any traditionalist dinosaur who professes to hate threes, to wit: this year Tech's 3FG pct. has plummeted—and their offense has improved dramatically. The Wreck's getting it done on offense this season by holding on to the ball a little better (they've improved from horrible to well below-average) and crashing the offensive glass. (They get almost 40 percent of their misses. See above: there might be a Georgia Tech offensive board or two in the game against UNLV). The Yellow Jackets have also proven adept at creating turnovers: ACC opponents gave the ball away on 23 percent of their possessions. Mario West ranks as the most felonious team member.

Look the other way: Georgia Tech's ACC opponents shot better than the Jackets did. And it's the interior defense in particular that's poor: conference opponents made 54 percent of their twos.

Etc. This is a young team: leading scorers Javaris Crittenton and Thaddeus Young are freshmen.

2007-03-13T04:00:00.000-05:00

Wonk 360: Indiana in Sacramento
A look at the teams competing against Indiana in Sacramento this weekend to make it to San Jose and the Sweet 16. (Non-"power"-conference stats of course graciously provided (they have a choice?) by that indispensable two-headed K-Dub/KenPom beast.)

(7) Indiana Hoosiers (20-10, 10-6 Big Ten, aerial view)
Feast your eyes: These guys can really hit the three. (I know, I know: they didn't the last time we saw them, but for the season as a whole they have.) In conference games the Hoosiers hit 41 percent of their attempts from behind the arc. This level of shooting's been made possible in part by the surprising Roderick Wilmont, a player who came into this year shooting just 32 percent on his threes. This year he has hit 39 percent, a mark bested by teammates Armon Bassett (42 percent) and A.J. Ratliff (41). IU also takes good care of the ball (giving it away on only 19 percent of their possessions in conference play) and gets a goodly number of turnovers from their opponents.

Look the other way: The Hoosiers aren't what you'd call big—and Big Ten opponents made more than half of their twos against this team.

Etc. D.J. White is the best defensive rebounder Kelvin Sampson has—but not by much. For a guy listed at 6-4, Wilmont is something of a terror on the defensive glass.

(10) Gonzaga Bulldogs (22-10, 11-3 West Coast)
Feast your eyes: Not to sound like a broken record but, these guys can really hit the three. The difference here versus the Hoosiers is that the Zags don't shoot many from beyond the arc. But when they do they go in. The strength of this team is its shooting—outside and inside. Derek Raivio is a 41 percent shooter on his threes and, though he takes fewer shots, key sixth man David Pendergraft has one of those gaudy north-of-60 effective FG percentages. Gonzaga also values the rock, committing turnovers on only 19 percent of their possessions. Indeed, except for the number of threes flung up, this offense shares a number of similarities with Indiana's.

Look the other way: Opponents never turn the ball over. Ever. If IU's hitting their shots, look out.

Etc. The Hoosiers would be well advised not to foul Raivio, who is a 96 percent FT shooter. (Not a typo. He's taken 152 shots from the line this season and missed six. Six. A number so low you can spell it.)

(2) UCLA Bruins (26-5, 15-3 Pac-10, aerial view)
Feast your eyes: Even with the first-round loss to California in the Pac-10 tournament, what I said a couple weeks ago still applies: "The men from Westwood simply smother the defensive glass, pulling down no less than 72 percent of their opponents' misses in Pac-10 play. Luc Richard Mbah a Moute is the lead glass-eater for Ben Howland, but Lorenzo Mata isn't far behind. Opposing teams actually shoot threes surprisingly well against the Bruins but if they miss, that's it. Put simply, UCLA is a Big Ten team without the snow: voracious defensive rebounding at 63 possessions per game." They also force their opponents into a lot of turnovers. And one more thing: this is an excellent two-point shooting team. Though he shoots mostly threes, Arron Afflalo makes 56 percent of his twos.

Look the other way: UCLA, much like Wisconsin, chooses to focus on transition defense at the expense of offensive rebound opportunities. It's not a weakness, per se—more like a style. But it does mean opponents should be able to control their own defensive glass (and unable to fast break).

Etc. Darren Collison records steals with alarming (for opponents) frequency and makes 45 percent of his (somewhat infrequent) threes. On the other hand he himself turns the ball over with alarming (for his coach) frequency.

(15) Weber State Wildcats (20-11, 11-5 Big Sky)
Feast your eyes: Good grief. Dezmon Harris (1.26 PPWS), Juan Pablo Silveira (1.25), Arturas Valeika (1.27), Tyler Billings (1.34)...the Wildcats are a veritable murderers' row of scoring efficiency. The 6-9 Valeika in particular has been busy this season: making his twos, getting hacked, and cleaning the defensive glass. Coach Randy Rahe hopes all of the above continues against the Bruins.

Look the other way: Weber State has turnover trouble, giving the ball away on 23 percent of their possessions this season. Not a good omen when the next opponent is UCLA.

Etc. The Wildcats are remembered, and not fondly, by North Carolina fans. As a 14-seed in 1999, Weber State beat the Heels in the first round and took Florida to OT before falling in the second round.

2007-03-13T03:30:00.000-05:00

Wonk 360: Michigan State in Winston-Salem
A look at the teams competing against Michigan State in Winston-Salem this weekend to make it to East Rutherford and the Sweet 16. (Non-"power"-conference stats of course graciously provided (they have a choice?) by that indispensable two-headed K-Dub/KenPom beast.)

(9) Michigan State Spartans (22-11, 8-8 Big Ten, aerial view)
Feast your eyes: This is the closest thing Tom Izzo has had to a 2000-level defense in East Lansing since, well, 2000. Opposing teams struggle to make baskets, both from inside (Big Ten opponents made just 45 percent of their twos) and out (conference foes connected on only 30 percent of their threes). And, thanks to Marquise Gray and Goran Suton, MSU holds teams to one-and-done on seven of every 10 misses. (When Gray, Suton, and Raymar Morgan are on the floor at the same time, opponents have little hope of seeing an offensive board.) What's more, the Spartans are equally beastly on the offensive glass.

Look the other way: The Spartans turned the ball over on 26 percent of their possessions in Big Ten play. That's the worst performance of any "power"-conference team in the nation during conference play this year.

Etc. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, Drew Neitzel had an outstanding year, hitting 41 percent of his threes while also recording almost eight assists for every 100 possessions he played.

(8) Marquette Golden Eagles (24-9, 10-6 Big East, aerial view)
Feast your eyes: The apple doesn't fall far from the Izzo tree—Tom Crean's men attack the offensive glass. (And, believe me, the way this team shoots they need to. Oops, topic for the next paragraph.) Ousmane Barro has tidied up after a lot of misses this year. Speaking of a lot of misses, Marquette plays excellent perimeter D. Big East opponents made just 31.5 percent of their threes this season and turned the ball over on 22 percent of their possessions. (Only problem there: Jerel McNeal, among the national leaders in steals, is injured and will not play this weekend.) And Dominic James is a prolific creator of assists.

Look the other way: James is also a prolific creator of misses, shooting just 26 percent on his (curiously frequent) attempted threes. And, for such a reputedly Izzo-Crean kind of group, Marquette is in fact surprisingly feeble on the defensive glass. The Golden Eagles hauled in just 63 percent of their opponents' misses in Big East play.

Etc. Why oh why doesn't Dan Fitzgerald shoot more? I ask because he displays a tendency that sets him apart from his teammates: his shots actually go in! (What a concept.)

(1) North Carolina Tar Heels (28-6, 11-5 ACC, aerial view)
Feast your eyes: The pop-up window on ESPN's "Tournament Challenge" bracket says of Carolina: "The issue may be defense." Wow. This has proven to be one tough misconception to kill. But, what the heck, I'll give 'er another go: this team's defense is every bit as good as its offense. In ACC play this season the single statistical category in which the Heels enjoyed the greatest success on either side of the ball was opponent 2FG percentage: conference foes made just 45 percent of their twos against Carolina. Oh, and the offense ain't bad, either. This group of players, the fastest-paced "power"-conference team in the country, comprises a ruthlessly efficient mechanism for making two-point shots. See for example precocious freshman Brandan Wright, who's made 66 percent of his twos (i.e., his shots—granted, it's a different story when he goes to the line).

Look the other way: The Heels are not a good perimeter shooting team. So they do without.

Etc. Token senior Reyshawn Terry is a beast on the defensive glass; Tyler Hansbrough is a master of getting fouled; Ty Lawson is more than just fast, he generates assists with near-Conley-esque frequency.

(16) Eastern Kentucky Colonels (21-11, 13-7 Ohio Valley)
Feast your eyes: EKU is a POT's POT: 45 percent of their shots this season have been threes. And while they've hit just 36 percent of those treys (respectable but not great), a weird yet recurring dynamic—previously alluded to in the blog—has asserted itself: this perimeter-oriented team (chiefly Julian Mascoll) shoots twos really well.

Look the other way: The Colonels' rebounding on both ends of the floor is anemic and opposing teams shoot quite well against them.

Etc. Eastern Kentucky has never won a tournament game. They're 0-6.

2007-03-13T03:00:00.000-05:00

Wonk 360: Purdue in New Orleans
A look at the teams competing against Purdue in New Orleans this weekend to make it to St. Louis and the Sweet 16. (Non-"power"-conference stats of course graciously provided (they have a choice?) by that indispensable two-headed K-Dub/KenPom beast.)

(9) Purdue Boilermakers (21-11, 9-7 Big Ten, aerial view)
Feast your eyes: The Boilermakers thrive when their opponent turns the ball over—and Matt Painter's team makes sure that happens more often than not. In Big Ten play, Purdue opponents gave the ball away on 24 percent of their possessions. The men in black and gold have been lured into felony by precocious freshman Chris Kramer, who records a Big Ten-leading 4.8 steals for every 100 defensive possessions he plays. Speaking of thriving: good things happen for the Boilers when Carl Landry attempts a shot. The undersized but hard-working senior makes 63 percent of his twos and led the Big Ten by a country mile in free throw proficiency (FTM/FGA). And David Teague has provided surprising accuracy from the perimeter this season, hitting 43 percent of his threes.

Look the other way: Purdue creates turnovers—and not just from opponents. The Boilers coughed it up on 23 percent of their possessions in their own right against Big Ten competition. That has hampered a team that actually shoots better than its point totals would indicate. Another item to bear in mind this weekend: this is not a big team.

Etc. All hail Chris Lutz, the most efficient scorer in the Big Ten this year. Having hit no less than 47 percent of his threes, Lutz sports a gaudy 1.35 PPWS.

(8) Arizona Wildcats (20-10, 11-7 Pac-10, aerial view)
Feast your eyes: Think of the Wildcats' offense as the North Carolina of the west coast, only slower. Lute Olson's men, like Roy Williams' group back east, largely do without threes and hit their twos at a prodigious rate. Marcus Williams, precocious freshman Chase Budinger, and Ivan Radenovic (1.25 PPWS) account for most of those makes, often off a Mustafa Shakur assist.

Look the other way: Very good news for a turnover-prone Purdue team: Arizona opponents never turn the ball over. That has allowed opposing teams to rack up a lot of points on this defense. (Not as bad as Oregon's D. But close.)

Etc. Speaking of Oregon, in losing to the Ducks in the first round of the Pac-10 tournament, 'Zona scored just 50 points in 63 possessions, their worst performance on offense against a conference opponent this year.

(1) Florida Gators (29-5, 13-3 SEC, aerial view)
Feast your eyes: No team in the country shoots as well as the Gators do. Billy Donovan has the luxury of being able to call upon no fewer than five players (!) who sport effective FG percentages above 60: Walter Hodge, Chris Richard, Lee Humphrey, Joakim Noah, and Al Horford. So, no, I can't explain how this team could have lost at LSU. In fact, I'm not sure it really did happen. It's inconceivable.

Look the other way: Not counting their defensive rebounding (which has been excellent), Florida's defense has been indifferent. (Speaking of the defensive glass: the Gators' otherwise unobstructed march through the SEC tournament was curious for the Gators' uncharacteristically abysmal performance in rebounding opponents' misses. Horford, Noah, et. al., secured only 59 percent of their foes' missed shots. Odd.)

Etc. With the possible exception of Aleks Maric of Nebraska, Horford may just be the best defensive rebounder in "power"-conference hoops. He is a monster and his ink-to-chops ratio is surely one of the lowest around.

(16) Jackson State Tigers (21-13, 12-6 SWAC)
Feast your eyes: You've of course heard of Trey Johnson, 27 points per game, etc. But did you know he plays 94 percent of the available minutes? (Good grief, Johnson makes Big Ten iron man Drew Neitzel look like a seldom-used sub.) Also note: the Tigers force opponents into many turnovers.

Look the other way: Jackson State's offense is really bad.

Etc. The SWAC hasn't won a tournament game since 1993, when Southern beat Georgia Tech in a 4-13 game.

2007-03-13T02:30:00.000-05:00

Wonk 360: Illinois in Columbus
A look at the teams competing against Illinois in Columbus this weekend to make it to San Jose and the Sweet 16. (Non-"power"-conference stats of course graciously provided (they have a choice?) by that indispensable two-headed K-Dub/KenPom beast.)

(12) Illinois Fighting Illini (23-11, 9-7 Big Ten, aerial view)
Feast your eyes: The Illini defense is a thing of beauty that makes opposing offenses downright ugly. Bruce Weber's team has, for the most part, been consistently strong on D from game to game because they excel across the board: in FG defense (both on the perimeter and inside), on the defensive glass, and even in extracting turnovers from the opponent. With Shaun Pruitt (no surprise) and Warren Carter (mild surprise), Weber is blessed with two of the top defensive rebounders in the Big Ten. And 6-8 Brian Randle is an excellent, if foul-prone, on-ball defender.

Look the other way: Speaking of downright ugly, Illinois couldn't make a shot with a ladder and an empty court this year. Northwestern and Minnesota both shot better from the field in Big Ten play than did the Illini. Rich McBride and Chester Frazier have been unable to supply any kind of consistent perimeter threat, and opposing teams have collapsed on Pruitt and Carter accordingly.

Etc. Weber says: thank goodness for Memphis! If not for the Tigers, the Illini would be the single worst FT shooting team in the entire field of 65.

(5) Virginia Tech Hokies (21-11, 10-6 ACC, aerial view)
Feast your eyes: The Hokies never give up the ball. In ACC play, Virginia Tech committed turnovers on only 16 percent of their possessions. This allowed a team that almost precisely defined (the ACC) "average" in terms of shooting from the field to score a robust 1.08 points per possession in-conference. Kudos to Zabian Dowdell, his team's most frequent shooter and a guy who scores 18 a game—and yet he takes prodigiously good care of the ball. (Nearest Big Ten analogue: Adam Haluska.) On D, Jamon Gordon records steals at a level equaled only by Jerel McNeal (Marquette), Mario West (Georgia Tech), and very few others nationally.

Look the other way: The not-terribly-large Hokies are weak on the boards at both ends of the floor.

Etc. A.D. Vassallo is Virginia Tech's top perimeter threat, hitting 44 percent of his threes.

(4) Southern Illinois Salukis (27-6, 15-3 Missouri Valley)
Feast your eyes: The Salukis limit you to one shot per possession, period. Though listed at a mere 6-7, Randal Falker is in fact one of the top defensive rebounders in the nation—not to mention one of the top shot-blockers in the country. (That's a pretty rare combination, actually, and Greg Oden's another example of this elusive species.) But keep in mind all of this assumes you even get a shot, for SIU's also very adept at getting opponents to turn the ball over. (Kudos there to Tony Young and Bryan Mullins.)

Look the other way: The Salukis choose to get back on D instead of going for offensive boards. And they turn the ball over quite often (on 22 percent of their possessions).

Etc. After suffering through a tough season shooting the rock in 2006, Jamaal Tatum is hitting 42 percent of his threes this year....Few players in the country go to the free throw line more than Falker. He's a mensch.

(13) Holy Cross Crusaders (25-8, 13-1 Patriot)
Feast your eyes: The Crusaders have benefited greatly from forcing turnovers on an astounding 26 percent of opponents' possessions. (It's like they get to play Michigan State every game!) Torey Thomas and Keith Simmons both record a very high number of steals. And Simmons is a very efficient scorer (1.23 PPWS).

Look the other way: But with the exception of Simmons, Holy Cross really struggles to get the ball in the basket. And, symmetrically enough, with the exception of Simmons pretty much everyone on this team is at-risk to commit a turnover at any time.

Etc. At 6-10, Tim Clifford is an outstanding shot-blocker. (And with a defensive rebound percentage as low as his, he had better be.)

2007-03-12T06:35:00.000-05:00

Who did Arkansas sleep with? And other bracket thoughts....
The inclusion of the Razorbacks in the field of 65 frankly surprised me. Sure, they made it to the championship game of their conference tournament but then so too did NC State. And while the Hogs do have the best defense in the SEC, they also have that conference's worst non-LSU offense.

Besides, if we're suddenly feeling charitable toward meh teams from the SEC West, what about Mississippi State? Better conference record, better efficiency margin, and, most importantly, a better-looking dot on the aerial.

But then of course March is supposed to have surprises. So bring it on....

That lovable sextet of dancing Big Ten teams!
I like deference to champions so I have no problem with Florida (Midwest) being the number 1 overall seed, even with their shaky February. And once there's a number 1 overall it really doesn't matter who's 2 and 3 among the 1-seeds. (They'll have to play each other if they get that far and who cares who wears the road uniforms?) But just for the record: Ohio State (South) being made the third overall 1-seed to North Carolina's 2 overall (East) is adventurous seeding, to say the very least. First, these teams played, in Chapel Hill, and the Buckeyes took the Heels to the very limit before losing—without Greg Oden. Second, Ohio State hasn't lost a game since January 9th. Lastly, the Buckeyes haven't lost any game not played on the home floor of a 1- or 2-seed this season. If that's not worthy of a 1a. right behind the Gators, nothing is.

Wisconsin: a 2 in the Midwest, with Florida as the 1. No surprise there. The Badgers can just stay in the bowels of the United Center—that's where they'll play Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and, fate willing, the winner of UNLV-Georgia Tech.

Indiana: a 7 in the West. They will play Gonzaga in my old stomping ground, Arco Arena in Sacramento. (Truth be known, in the middle of a field north of Sacramento.) Should they advance the Hoosiers will play the winner of UCLA-Weber St.

Michigan State: a 9 in the East. Tom Izzo will face his former assistant, Tom Crean and Marquette. If the Spartans prevail, they'll get a shot at Carolina.

Purdue: a 9 in the Midwest. The Boilers face Arizona and, if they survive, Florida.

Illinois: a 12 in the West. With that "12" the committee, of course, fairly put a sign on the Illini's back: "Question our inclusion! Please!" But Bruce Weber's men should take the abuse gladly. Compare Purdue's bracket as a 9 (above) with the Illini's: Virginia Tech and, should Illinois prevail, the winner of Southern Illinois-Holy Cross. That is as kind a first two games as a bubble team could wish for.

COMING this week!
The patented Wonk 360 technology goes to work! Each venue hosts, in effect, a couple four-team tournaments. And if there's a Big Ten team involved, Wonk 360 will break the four teams down, starting tomorrow with Lexington (Ohio State, Central Connecticut State, BYU, and Xavier) and Chicago (Wisconsin, TAMU-CC, UNLV, and Georgia Tech). Don't fill in those brackets without Wonk 360!

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Ohio State beat Wisconsin 66-49 in the championship game of the Big Ten tournament yesterday. Nobody's paying attention, of course, but if anyone's interested: the Buckeyes took a team that was ranked number 1 in the country this year and disposed of them with casual mastery on a neutral court. Is it possible a team can go 30-3 and be underrated? Apparently. The patented Kelvin Sampson-Thad Matta 2-3 zone forced the Badgers into attempting 23 threes. They made four. Mike Conley scored 18 points on 14 shots and Greg Oden recorded a 12-10 dub-dub in 22 foul-blighted minutes. (Box score.)

I think this one's mentioned in Revelations....
One last thing. If, like me, you've navigated your days on this tiny terrestrial orb serene in the knowledge that the doughty and sagacious hoops analyst Ken Pomeroy could never conceivably have any possible reason to utter the words "Jenn Sterger" in his hitherto earnestly log5-laced blog, well, today is not your day.

Wonk back!
Don't just mutter ineffectually; email me!

2007-03-11T06:36:00.000-05:00

This morning's 11 pieces of conventional wisdom
Subject to significant revision this evening at 6 (ET)....

Ohio State: mortal lock for a 1-seed and likely already slotted in the Midwest regional—a win today would remove all doubt.

Wisconsin: thought to still be alive for a 1-seed, depending on events surrounding North Carolina and Florida today—and, of course, the Badgers' game today against the Buckeyes.

Indiana: early exit late Friday night may have the Hoosiers looking at a double-digit seed. (Good news! No 1-seed in the second round.)

Michigan State: though the Spartans finished two games behind Indiana in the standings, they played a tougher schedule—and so may end up with a slightly higher seed than the Hoosiers. (Bad news! Brings up a 1-seed in the second round.)

Illinois: rooting really hard for North Carolina and Florida today in their games against NC State and Arkansas, respectively. Go Heels! Go Gators!

Purdue: see "Illinois," above.

Michigan: the players, already well-acquainted with the NIT and headed there yet again, are defending their coach.

Iowa: if there's an NIT bubble the Hawks are on it.

Minnesota: watching the tournament closely, looking to see who the hot mid-major coach will be this year. Like Bruce Pearl in 2005. Thad Matta in 2004. Bill Self in 2000. Dan Monson in 1999. (Hey, wait a minute....)

Northwestern: pinning their hopes on Kevin Coble and the future.

Penn State: still a very respectable offense in search of a defense.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Ohio State beat Purdue 63-52 yesterday. Greg Oden notched the rare ascending-numbers dub-dub with a 17-19 in 32 minutes. (That's my POY!) Carl Landry scored 24 points on 16 shots for the Boilers. The Buckeyes have played 122 possessions in Chicago this weekend and given the ball away just 13 times. If they can get some threes to fall, this offense can be lethal. Consider: Ohio State players not named "Greg Oden" attempted 51 shots yesterday and missed 36 of them. And the Buckeyes won by 11. My audacious November headline's looking less wacky. (Box score.)

Wisconsin beat Illinois 53-41 yesterday in a 56-possession game. For the Illini, only the Ohio State game in January was uglier, both visually and numerically. Illinois attempted 28 two-point shots and made eight. Eight. A number so low you can spell it. Alando Tucker scored 21 points on 17 shots. The Illini depart Chicago having shot 59 percent on their free throws this weekend. (Box score.)

(2) Wisconsin vs. (1) Ohio State (CBS, 3:30 ET)
How sweet would it be if these two played four times this year?

Wonk back!
Don't just mutter ineffectually; email me!

Indiana's (allegedly) good offense
For a team that scores as efficiently as Indiana does, they do go through some absolutely brutal stretches without making a field goal. I can't be certain but I thought I counted six-, five-, and four-minute stretches against Illinois without any field goals.

How can the team be so good and so bad all at the same time?

Mike P.
Indianapolis

No offense looks good in every game. Georgetown has arguably the best offense in the nation this year and the one game of theirs I've seen start to finish was their loss at Syracuse, where they scored 58 points in 71 possessions. But taking in the season as a whole, the Hoosiers did indeed have the best offense in the Big Ten, thanks to outstanding perimeter shooting. Believe it.

2007-03-10T06:28:00.000-06:00

Alive yet uncertain
Granted, there are some knowns. Ohio State will be a 1-seed; Wisconsin, either a 1 or a 2.

Indiana and Michigan State are also, by popular acclamation, safely in—nevertheless they both lost last night.

But as for Illinois and Purdue, both are still alive, yet both are still unsure of what they'll hear tomorrow night. Losses last night by Nevada and Xavier likely reduced the number of bubble-ish bids available by two. And what if Oklahoma State actually wins the Big XII tournament? Or NC State wins the ACC tournament?

Welcome to the uncertain collisions of the Big Ten tournament....

(1) Ohio State 72, (8) Michigan 62
What a strange game. The Buckeyes suffered a total collapse on the defensive boards (the Wolverines recorded 22 offensive rebounds out of 41 possible), yet won with relative ease. Greg Oden scored 22 points on 12 shots and Ohio State turned the ball over just five times in a 61-possession game. As for Dion Harris, he'll actually want to play in the NIT so this isn't his last game: 1-of-13 with six assists and five turnovers. (Box score.)

Speaking of uncertainty....Detroit Free Press columnist Michael Rosenberg thinks it's time for a change and canonical blogger Brian Cook likewise has his annual Tommy-no-mas post up (the more lengthy position paper is here). As Brian notes, the sounds coming out of athletic director Bill Martin are much different this year ("I'm, at this stage, very, very open") than last year ("joined together hip to hip"). But might the celebrated-in-football "Michigan difference"—asking yourself in any given situation what an SEC program would do and then doing the exact curmudgeonly opposite—actually work to keep Amaker in place? We shall see.

(5) Purdue 74, (4) Iowa 55
The Hawkeyes came into the weekend knowing they'd almost certainly need to hoist a trophy Sunday to get a bid—so why'd they look so lifeless in this game? This was a 19-point win for the Boilers and it easily could have been even more lopsided if not for 17 Purdue turnovers. Carl Landry posted a 20-11 dub-dub. Adam Haluska will actually want to play in the NIT so this isn't his last game: 4-of-16 from the field. Purdue is now in the semifinals for the first time since the inaugural Big Ten tournament in 1998. (Box score.)

Speaking of uncertainty....Matt Painter says he thought his team was in before the game. After? We'll find out tomorrow night.

(2) Wisconsin 70, (7) Michigan State 57
Wow. Offense a-go-go from the previously struggling Badgers: 70 points in just 58 possessions. And a surprising defensive collapse from the hitherto stout Spartans—indeed, their worst defensive performance of the entire season. (Having Raymar Morgan limited to 24 foul-blighted minutes certainly didn't help.) Alando Tucker made 4-of-8 threes and scored 21 points. Drew Neitzel continued the day's struggling 2-guard tradition set by Dion Harris and Adam Haluska and went 3-of-13. (He did have eight assists, however.) (Box score (pdf).)

Speaking of (not nearly as much) uncertainty....Asked if his team is safely in, Tom Izzo responded: "I think this team has done its job. I'm tired of answering that question to be honest with you. If they don't take this team for what we have done, who we played -- the toughest schedule in this whole damn league -- we'll go to the NIT."

(6) Illinois 58, (3) Indiana 54 (OT)
Zounds! An overtime game! It is possible. The Illini kept missing free throws (15-of-27 for the game) and the Hoosiers kept missing shots (effective FG percentage: 37.3) but finally random chance dictated that someone had to win. Turned out it was Illinois, whose defense is increasingly looking like it really is as good as their offense is bad, to wit: over their past 12 games the men in orange have allowed opponents just 0.88 points per possession. That's Kansas-good. Warren Carter had 17 points but five turnovers. Shaun Pruitt posted a 16-12 dub-dub for the Illini in 33 foul-blighted minutes. Precocious youngster Armon Bassett made 3-of-6 threes and scored 18 for IU. (Box score.)

Speaking of uncertainty....Hear Bruce Weber: "We talked about if we got to Saturday we'd feel pretty comfortable about the NCAA bid, but you never know."

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Two teams with little to play for (or, in Ohio State's case, almost literally nothing to play for) against two teams fighting for bids. How symmetrical!

(5) Purdue vs. (1) Ohio State (CBS, 1:40 ET)
In an ordinary time the Buckeyes would pose a really bad match up for the Boilermakers: Thad Matta's team doesn't turn the ball over like other Purdue opponents. But this is no ordinary time: what motivation does OSU have for this game? Displaying cool new uniforms?

(6) Illinois vs. (2) Wisconsin (CBS, 4 ET)
The Illini have become eerily similar in appearance to a Bob Huggins-era Cincinnati team: abusive defense and abysmal shooting. The latter is likely to continue but will the former? (Fatigue?)

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Other thematic similes welcomed
Alert reader Andrea R. has posted her own distinct view of Big Ten hoops sociology. Make haste!

2007-03-09T06:27:00.000-06:00

Bubble teams gone wild!
The bubble teams held serve and yesterday went according to form at the Big Ten tournament. The field is now down to the eight teams that had a .500 record or better in-conference....

(8) Michigan vs. (1) Ohio State (ESPN, noon ET)
UCLA has provided the (sassy new-look) Buckeyes with a handy template for how not to spend your second week in March when you're thought to be a mortal lock for a 1-seed. And a win here from the Wolverines would actually trigger some interesting discussion. But a win here will require much better offense than what was displayed by Michigan yesterday (see below). (And at least one observer thinks the Wolverines are "genetically incapable" of winning this game. We'll see.)

(5) Purdue vs. (4) Iowa (ESPN, 2:30 ET)
If the Hawkeyes can hold on to the ball they stand a good chance to win this game. Purdue opponents committed turnovers on no less than 24 percent of their possessions in-conference and that helped an otherwise average Boilermaker defense achieve above-average results. On offense, David Teague and Carl Landry put up nice numbers—they just don't get enough chances, due to too many turnovers and too few offensive boards. Adam Haluska and the Hawkeyes, on the other hand, have achieved better results on offense simply by taking care of the ball. They'll need to continue that today.

(7) Michigan State vs. (2) Wisconsin (ESPN Full Court, 6:40 ET)
Game of the day: two very good teams playing for the third time in 18 days, each with a weary familiarity of their opponent—like Game 5 of an NBA series. Bo Ryan knows the Spartans will pack the paint and invite his team to shoot threes. Tom Izzo knows Michael Flowers will run over, around, under, and through any screen by Drew Naymick or Goran Suton to stick to Drew Neitzel. Sit back and enjoy.

(6) Illinois vs. (3) Indiana (ESPN Full Court, 9 ET)
Last year the Illini sat patiently through six games of Big Ten tournament action waiting for their Friday nightcap as a 3-seed—and lost to 6-seed Michigan State. Bruce Weber's team will try to visit the same fate upon the Hoosiers. IU was the Big Ten's best three-point shooting team this year (not to mention the conference's best offense, period) and if Roderick Wilmont, A.J. Ratliff and Armon Bassett are hitting their threes, the offensively-challenged Illini will be hard-pressed to keep up. On the other hand, Illinois boasts the Big Ten's best 3FG percentage defense (appearances to the contrary yesterday notwithstanding). Watch the threes.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
Michigan beat Minnesota 49-40 yesterday. No, not (unusually) slow (60 possessions). Just Edvard Munch-level horrific offense all around. Brace yourself: 0.81 points per possession won this game—by nine! Ye gods. There were 92 shots attempted from the field in this contest and 65 of them missed. (At halftime Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany could be seen pleading George Bailey-style with fans pushing toward the exits: "Now, we can get through this thing. We just have to stick together!") Dion Harris led the Wolverines with 14 points on 10 shots. Spencer Tollackson scored 15 for the Gophers. (Box score.)

Michigan State beat Northwestern 62-57 yesterday. Wow. The Spartans' shooting was so good in this game that each turnover cost them 1.6 points. And there were 17 such turnovers in a 56-possession game, otherwise this wouldn't have been close. Drew Neitzel hit 5-of-7 threes and scored 20 points. The Wildcats rallied from a 16-point deficit and had the ball down three with 12 seconds left but Jeremy Nash's pass to Craig Moore went astray and the game was lost. Kevin Coble and Moore were a combined 8-of-13 on their threes and scored 15 apiece. (Box score.)

Illinois beat Penn State 66-60 yesterday. If a player who's tournament-extinct by dinnertime Thursday night can still make the all-tournament team, Mike Walker is that player: 7-of-11 on his threes for 22 points. Meanwhile, Bruce Weber had Chester Frazier kidnapped before tip-off and replaced with Salim Stoudamire: "Frazier" hit 5-of-9 threes for 21 points. And Geary Claxton will want to burn the tape of this game, deposit the ashes in an urn, weld the urn shut, charter a plane, and drop the urn over the Pacific Ocean at its deepest point. (Box score.)

Earthquakes in other conferences
For the record, California beating UCLA 76-69 in OT last night at the Staples Center qualifies in my book as the single biggest upset of the year so far. Easily. Never mind that they led the Bruins in both of their previous games, the Bears were woeful during the Pac-10 season ("woeful" depicted visually here) and UCLA, you may have noticed, was correspondingly elite. Cal is a textbook POT, shooting more threes in-conference than anyone but Oregon and getting fewer offensive boards in-conference than anyone but transition-D-focused Washington State. And yet the Bruins, possibly the best defensive rebounding team in the country, gave the men from Berkeley 11 offensive rebounds out of 27 chances. That—and 14 missed UCLA free throws—was decisive.

I was interviewed by a site with "IQ" in its title—no wisecracks
Yesterday the good people at FanIQ.com took a break from their "wisdom of crowds" bread and butter to sit down with me and talk about March and any alliterative yet non-trademarked words pertaining thereto. Read it all here.

In addition to typing words, I can occasionally speak them....
I'll be talking about the Big Ten tournament, the NCAA tournament, and anything else that comes up with Steve "The Homer" True on Milwaukee's ESPN Radio this afternoon around 3:20 ET. Tune in and listen to me wing it.

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Say it loud! (I'm slow and I'm proud!)
Dear Wonk,

I'm always interested to see how people conflate slow pace with good defense. In fact, if you assume a slow team and a fast team earn and give up identical numbers of points per possession, then the slower team should be considered the better offensive team.

Why? There are two goals of an offensive possession:

(1) Score as many points as possible.

(2) Prevent a disadvantage when the ball goes back to the other team.

Fast and slow teams who score the same number of points per possession are accomplishing the first goal equally well, but the slow teams are accomplishing the second goal better than the fast teams for two reasons. For one, you're wearing out the other team more than you're wearing out your own team by playing patient offense (accepting the claim that defense is more work than offense), which gives you a long-term advantage at the defensive end based on something you're doing on offense.

Second, a slow team is less likely to be leaving its defense at a disadvantage at the start of the opponent's possession, since that disadvantage is almost always that you get beat down the floor, leading to quick buckets and thus a fast game pace.

So really we should think of slow pace as being a sign of good offense. Right?

Dave S.

Georgetown (59 possessions a game, 1.14 points per possession) supports your claim. Northwestern (57 possessions a game, 0.90 points per possession) does not. Inescapable conclusion: going slow aids your offense only if your campus is not within any U.S. state. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, bay-bee!

2007-03-08T06:40:00.000-06:00

Why is it so tough to know what we know in basketball?
No doubt due to our collective memories of past ugly-but-good Oklahoma teams coached by Kelvin Sampson, there appears to be a persistent belief afoot that this year's Indiana team is good on defense and so-so on offense. In fact the precise opposite is true, as a glance at the numbers or even a handy chart would reveal.

And yet the belief persists. This kind of persistence has repeatedly lured me away from what I thought I'd be doing with a hoops blog. I got into this thinking I'd aim for an impossible target like, say, "Roger Angell for college hoops," with jiggers of Easterbrook and Kaus thrown in for good measure.

But then I found teams with good offenses whose fans were complaining about bad offense. "Wait a minute," I would say in the blog, "according to the numbers I have here, this offense is good." And then I'd go back to my prosey works only to find people emailing me and saying their offense was bad. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Do other sports harbor such insistent misapprehension? Maybe, but it certainly doesn't seem as frequent or egregious. You know if your team's pitching staff is getting shelled. You know if your team is scoring touchdowns.

So what is it about basketball in particular that enables fans to watch an entire season and be mistaken on something as basic as whether they have a good offense or not? A guess:

The incorrigibly cumulative nature of hoops
The object of baseball is to score runs and each run is a big deal. One run can win a game. The object of football is to score points and each touchdown or even field goal is a big deal. One touchdown can win a game.

Basketball's different. While the object is to score points, each basket is not a particularly big deal. One basket will not win a game, not even a Northwestern game (hi-yo!).

In fact, points in basketball are devalued to an extent that would be unthinkable in other sports. So much so that a coach will on occasion deliberately seek to draw a technical foul even though doing so in effect gives points to the other team. (In Saturday's Michigan-Ohio State game, Tommy Amaker was praised for showing rare passion and drawing a T. Dion Harris was faulted for missing the front end of a one-and-one in the final minute. Both actions had the same net effect.)

Idea for an experiment
Before the installation of a mini-scoreboard within the padded scorer's table at halfcourt, Indiana fans in the very top rows underneath the balcony in Assembly Hall had no view of any scoreboard. What if we recreated those conditions, played a game, and polled fans afterward on who'd won? The guess here is this would be—for me, for you, for anyone—a much tougher question, sans scoreboard, in basketball than in baseball or football.

And because it's a tough question there's value in going back afterward and looking at a record of what took place: a box score. (Note that the official scorer in football is far and away the least prominent example of the species, with good reason. We don't need him.)

In the case of Indiana, going back afterward and looking at the record tells me that the Hoosiers played 1,003 possessions in Big Ten games this year. They scored 1,125 points and gave up 1,033.

All I know is that's good offense and so-so defense.

In today's less Wonk-ish venues....
It's a funky year at the Big Ten tournament. Michigan State is playing Thursday (against Northwestern) but, barring a loss, is considered a good bet to get into the NCAA tournament. Iowa, conversely, doesn't play until Friday but is widely seen as needing a win-it-all miracle. And Illinois, Purdue, and Michigan fall somewhere in between those two extremes.

So welcome to Thursday: sitting at the dork table in the Big Ten cafeteria, as Patriot-News writer David Jones put it well last year. Three more or less bubbly teams, each looking to avoid a catastrophic loss against one of the conference's untouchables....

(8) Michigan vs. (9) Minnesota (ESPN2, noon)
Last year a loss to Minnesota in the first round of the Big Ten tournament sent Michigan to the NIT. I see only two ways for this to occur again this year: 1) the Wolverines beat themselves, or 2) freaky three-point shooting by the Gophers. Otherwise, this is a fortuitous opponent for a turnover-prone Michigan team, for Minnesota opponents turn the ball over less often than do the opponents of any other Big Ten team.

Courtney Sims says his team assumes it needs to win today and tomorrow, too; Minnesota athletic director Joel Maturi says he'll talk to several candidates, including interim coach Jim Molinari, about becoming the permanent replacement for Dan Monson: "I've been honest with [Molinari] that if he's interested I will talk to him because he's earned that. Yet he also knows that I'm going to look beyond him."

(7) Michigan State vs. (10) Northwestern (ESPN2, 2:30pm)
The Spartans had a tough Big Ten schedule and their record reflects that. Now they get a struggling Northwestern team in the first round. So, as William Mulholland said: there it is, take it. Beat the 'Cats and a bid is almost certainly assured.

Drew Neitzel is dealing with a personal loss; Kevin "glimmer of hope" Coble says his team has "nothing to lose"; Bill Carmody says MSU is a tough match-up: "They're a very physical team and a strong rebounding team. Those are two things that have hurt us."

(6) Illinois vs. (11) Penn State (ESPN2, 5pm)
On paper, the Illini have been paired up with the best possible opponent, not just in the Big Ten but quite possibly in "power"-conference hoops as a whole. For Bruce Weber's men struggle on offense and Penn State has perhaps the worst defense in major-conference basketball. Of course, the same might be said for the Nittany Lions and the opponent they've drawn. How perspectival!...

Jamelle Cornley says his team needs to increase their "effort and intensity on the defensive end"; Shaun Pruitt says his team feels a "sense of urgency"; Warren Carter watches "SpongeBob SquarePants"; Bruce "play basketball and enjoy it" Weber says he'd feel good about his team's chances for a bid "if we got to Saturday, and really good if we got to Sunday. But Thursday is big, there's no doubt."

In today's less dork-ish venues....
Ohio State will sport new Nike LeBron-logo'd uniforms in Chicago this weekend, despite a tepid response from Buckeye fans afforded a sneak preview.

Wisconsin is struggling on offense; more points from Joe Krabbenhoft could help.

Wonk back!
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Down to it
Dear Wonk,

It seems that every year we hear that it is a "down year" for the Big Ten, and I cynically tend to believe that this label is cast about out of convenience—because it is already there, and most analysts seem to recycle talking points and clichés whenever possible—rather than scrutinizing the data throughout the season and making an informed decision from a location outside of the echo chamber within which they normally operate.

And so I look to you to shed some light on actual quality of product the Big Ten puts out, especially as we are likely to hear about the "down year" even more once we find out how few/many teams from the conference are invited to the tournament.

Thanks.
Jason P.

The relationship between being discursively "down" and success in the NCAA tournament is well nigh nonexistent.

In 2005 the Big Ten ranked a lowly sixth in conference RPI and was beaten up all season long for being "down." That year the conference sent three teams to the Elite Eight and two to the Final Four.

In 2006 the Big Ten ranked an impressive first in conference RPI and was the subject of admiring profiles all season long about how it was "back." That year the conference sent no teams beyond the second round.

As for this year, Ohio State and Wisconsin can play—have played—with anyone. Indiana's outside shooting gives them a shot (har!) to go further than they "should"—or get bounced with surprising speed. Michigan State can be lethal if they can just hold on to the ball. Etc., etc....