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. 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!
Don't just mutter ineffectually; email me!

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!
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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.

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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!