The Only Colors

Minnesota 72, Michigan State 67: Aftermisery Thread

2010-03-13T04:41:17Z

More photos » Darron Cummings - AP

You happy now? Finally?

State battled, but some clutch shots by Minnesota--and more importantly, 17-33 free throw shooting by Your Spartans--doomed us to a loss sadly reminiscent of the 03-04 dark years. Minnesota probably punched their NCAA tournament ticket, but our hopes for a 3 seed are now dashed (and we might now be looking at a 5 seed. Bleh).

MSU hockey was also crushed by Michigan, making tonight a crappy evening, indeed. So grab a glass of scotch and drown your sorrows here.

OPEN GAME THREAD: MICHIGAN STATE VS. MINNESOTA

2010-03-13T02:17:05Z

Al Goldis - AP

about 1 month ago: Michigan State's Draymond Green (23) dunks against Minnesota's Colton Iverson, left, and Justin Cobbs (3) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)

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Your starting five: Raymar Morgan, Draymond Green, Isaiah Dahlman, Durrell Summers, Kalin Lucas. All week we've heard about how we're putting a bigger emphasis on the conference tournament this year. Time to go out and get it done.

Spartans vs. Gophers -- this is your OPEN GAME THREAD!

Big Ten Tournament Day Two Open Thread

2010-03-12T17:49:24Z

More photos » Michael Conroy - AP

He good.

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[Bumped to the top of the page to keep the discussion going. The Minnesota preview is below. --LVS.]

A little late on the posting here, but we'll go with it. Today's games (all times EST):

#1 Ohio State vs. #8 Michigan (ESPN, noon)
#4 Wisconsin vs. #5 Illinois (ESPN, 25 minutes after OSU-UM is over -- probably about 2:30)
#2 Purdue vs. #7 Northwestern (BTN, 6:30)
#3 Michigan State vs. #6 Minnesota (BTN, 25 minutes after Purdue-NU is over -- probably about 9:00)

Objectively, the most interesting game here is probably the Wisconsin-Illinois rematch, as Illinois is fighting for their tournament life. (As SpartanDan pointed out, the championship week results from across the country so far have probably improved Illinois' chances.) Your Spartans have the late game, and a preview will be going up shortly.

Until then, enjoy a great Friday of basketball, and talk about it here.

Big Ten Tournament Quarterfinal Preview: Michigan State vs. Minnesota

2010-03-12T19:48:34Z

More photos » Paul Battaglia - AP

Hey Gophers, remember me?

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Your MICHIGAN STATE SPARTANS vs. the MINNESOTA GOLDEN GOPHERS
QUARTERFINAL, BIG TEN TOURNAMENT
CONSECO FIELDHOUSE, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA

APPROXIMATELY 9 PM (EST), FRIDAY
TV: BIG TEN NETWORK (GUS JOHNSON, SHON MORRIS)
ONLINE RADIO FEED: WJR
ENEMY BLOGS: THE DAILY GOPHER, FROM THE BARN

The Gophers earned a third matchup with Your Spartans by handily dispatching Penn State last night, 76-55. That final score is somewhat deceptively impressive, as Talor Battle (37 minutes, 10 points, 3-10 shooting) was slowed by injury. Nonetheless, this was clearly Good Minnesota that showed up in Indianapolis yesterday: the Gophers shot the ball very well (67.0 eFG), were extremely efficient on offense (126.7 offensive efficiency), and didn't turn the ball over much (13.3 TO%). Conversely, they didn't do a good job on the boards (20.0% OR), though Penn State is (was? Can we move to the past tense at this point?) one of the better rebounding teams in the conference.

Much has been made of Minnesota's improvement in the past month. With one very notable exception (an uuuuugly 83-55 loss at Crisler Arena), the Gophers have looked good: decisive wins against Wisconsin, Indiana, and Iowa, a close win at Illinois, and one extremely close loss against Purdue (in the Robbie Hummel injury game). Ken Pomeroy's computer still likes Minnesota quite a lot (#28 nationally, only 5 spots below MSU, and the highest-ranked 12-lost team by far), and while most NCAA tournament projections have the Gophers on the outside looking in, a win tonight would do wonders for their tournament hopes.

Minnesota is one of the only teams in the conference that can match MSU in depth and athleticism. Even after taking the ineligible Al Nolen out of the equation, Minnesota has nine players who average more than 10 minutes per game; they're led at the top by Lawrence Westbrook, who leads the team with 12.8 ppg (56.7 eFG), including 15 and 16 points, respectively, in the two games against MSU. Devoe Joseph has taken most of Nolen's minutes, and has acquitted himself quite well, with double-digit scoring efforts against Indiana, MSU, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Penn State. Blake Hoffarber has been dynamite against pretty much everyone but MSU: he's averaging 10.4 ppg, and is shooting 48.4% from 3 (69.4% eFG!), but he's been a total non-factor against State, with 4 points at the Breslin Center and 6 at The Barn. Damian Johnson (who was robbed in the all-conference awards) leads the Gophers defensively, ranking in the top three in the league in both steals and blocks; he and Ralph Sampson III (1.7 bpg, 7.8 block %) severely limit opportunities for interior scoring. As KJ wrote in his recap of the second game:

For the game, the Spartans shot just 35.1% on 2-point attempts. That was largely a credit to the Minnesota interior defense, led by the incomparable Damian Johnson who posted 5 blocks to go with 3 steals. Ralph Sampson III somehow ended up with only one blocked shot in the box score. But it was a monstrous block--snatching the ball out of Durrell Summers' hands on an attempted offensive putback.

Interior scoring, of course, is what MSU used to such good effect to blow out Michigan in the first half on Sunday. (Not enough prepositions in that sentence, methinks.) We'll need better performances from the guards to compenstate.

Which, like, hooray, because our best outside shooter will be missing the game. Rexrode reports that Chris Allen traveled with the team to Indianapolis, and is likely to play on Saturday if we can get through Minnesota. Unfortunately, he won't be playing tonight, meaning that the good performances we've been expecting from Korie Lucious and Durrell Summers would be mighty useful right-freaking-now.

The offensive keys to the game clearly will be crashing the offensive glass and not turning the ball over. (Those are the keys to all of our games, no?) Anyway:

Minnesota is allowing its opponents to rebound 32.1% of their misses -- only 8th best in the conference -- while MSU rebounds 40.1% of our misses, which is best in the league. It's surprising that Minnesota isn't better on the defensive glass, given their size, but we need to take advantage of the weakness. In our previous two games against the Gophers, our OR% was 40 and 33.3; continuing that trend will surely portend good things.
Similarly, holding onto the ball is always a challenge for our heroes, but we've done a fairly good job against the Gophers this season: 16.4 TO% in both of the games; any higher and we almost certainly would have lost the second game. One thing has changed: Minnesota has usually played strong man-to-man defense, but over the past month they've shifted to a 2-3 zone look. Our success against the zone has been mixed, but then again, our success on the turnover front against all kinds of defenses on the turnover front has been mixed.

KenPom sees this game as a 69-68 Michigan State victory. As Minnesota fans have noted, Tubby Smith is in the midst of a rather stunning drought against Tom Izzo: Smith 2-11 overall against Izzo, and his last victory against MSU came with Kentucky in the 2003 BasketBowl (man, that was awful). Izzo seems to have put a greater emphasis this year on the conference tournament than in previous seasons, but this is a talented, well coached team we're facing, and one that must win this game in order to have any shot at the Tournament. Can we overcome that, and the loss of Chris Allen, to pull this one out? An effort similar to the one the team brought against Michigan would certainly go a long way.

Big Ten Tournament Day One Open Thread

2010-03-11T18:29:56Z

More photos » Al Goldis - AP

Let's be honest - if one of today's teams wins, I'll eat my hat.

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Here are today's games (all times Eastern):

2:30 - #8 Michigan v. #9 Iowa, ESPN2

30 min. after UM-Iowa - #7 Northwestern v. #10 Indiana, ESPN2

7:30 - #6 Minnesota v. #11 Penn State, BTN

To reiterate, Michigan State gets the winner of Minnesota and Penn State tomorrow sometime around 9 PM Eastern. As for today, let's try to enjoy these games even though they'll involve four of the five slowest major conference teams. Ugh.

Hockey Preview: CCHA Quarterfinals

2010-03-11T04:59:10Z

[Bumped. Fantastic stuff. Beat Michigan. -KJ]

Michigan State vs. Michigan
Best-of-3 series
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (if necessary) at Munn Ice Arena

No upsets in the CCHA first round (in fact, the home team swept all four series), so Michigan comes to town. This preview is going to be a bit light on personal observations; I've seen very few games this year (one of the hazards of living over 1000 miles away) and thus have to rely on the boxscores and team stats. Pairwise update will follow the series preview.

Tale of the Tape

	Overall				Conference
	Record	GF/gm	GA/gm	GD/gm	Record	GF/gm	GA/gm	GD/gm
MSU	19-11-6	3.08	2.42	0.67	14-8-6 (2nd)	2.61	2.29	0.32
Mich	21-17-1	3.18	2.33	0.85	14-13-1 (7th)	2.96	2.46	0.5

Season series: MSU won 3-1 (3-2 at Yost, 2-0 at Munn, 3-2 at Munn, 4-5 at Joe Louis)

Despite a better record, we're both scoring fewer goals and allowing more overall. In conference play, our goals against was slightly better but net goal difference was still worse. If we define difference between the record you would expect based on goal difference and the actual record as "luck", then Michigan has been spectacularly unlucky this year: one game over .500 in conference despite a +14 GD in 28 games is pretty hard to do. My minimal observations, combined with reading some previews and recaps from Brian and looking at the boxscores, have led me to a possible alternate explanation for this phenomenon. (Be sure to check there, as his preview will almost assuredly be more thorough than mine. That's the advantage of actually being able to see games.)

One observation Brian had early in the season is that Michigan has had a tendency to put up insane shot totals but lose as most of the shots are stopped and the few shots the opponents get trickle through. In losses this season, they have outshot opponents by 10, 13, 15, 12 (the 2-0 loss at Munn), 10, 25, 18, 33 (a 4-3 GLI semifinal loss), 15 (their only tie of the season), 9, and 18. Their 33 shots on goal per game is probably near the top nationally (I can't find a list of teams ranked by shots per game), but they rank just 20th nationally in goals. This leads me to suspect that Michigan tends to just throw the puck at the net at every opportunity and hope something good happens - not a bad strategy in general. Against bad teams, these chances typically result in a lot of goals as they get many good scoring opportunities or pick apart a weak goalie. But against stronger opposition, this often leads to frustrating games where you're outshooting the opponents by a wide margin but they're all poor-quality shots and easy saves. (Red Wings fans will probably recognize that description all too well.)

Game-by-game goal totals seem to bear this theory out a bit:

(We have one game scoring more than 6 - a 10-1 win over Michigan Tech. Rather than stretching the axis, I just lumped that into the "6+" category.)

Michigan's per-game totals against all opposition have a surprisingly flat distribution. Break it out into games against the RPI top 25 and the bottom 31, and there's a clear pattern: they scored 3 or more goals 80% of the time against the lower tier, but just 37% against the top. We, on the other hand, scored 3+ 67% against the lower tier and 56% against the upper. Michigan does have four 5+-goal games against teams under consideration (Alaska, Minnesota, Northern, and us) to our one, but they've been shut out twice by TUCs and held to one goal four more times. We've been held to one goal or none six times against TUCs as well, but we put up 3+ ten times to Michigan's seven.

What does it all mean? Our defensemen and goalie Drew Palmisano are going to have their work cut out for them. An off night in our own zone is probably going to be an ugly loss. If we can limit Michigan to taking mostly low-quality shots, we may well get outshot but we'll likely come out ahead in the only category that matters. Palmisano is certainly capable of stealing a game or two if we get outplayed; he ranks ninth nationally with a .922 save percentage. Michigan's goalie situation is not so bright: Bryan Hogan ranks 55th at .901. (Hogan has been out for the last few games due to injury; backup Shawn Hunwick is .915 in five appearances, which would be good for 18th if he had the minutes to qualify. He has two shutouts - one of which was the game in which Hogan was injured midway through the first - but gave up five to Notre Dame on just 25 shots in another game. I haven't been able to find any confirmation on Hogan's status for this weekend.)

Pairwise Update

A fair amount of movement around us over the weekend. New Hampshire's 0-1-1 weekend against Boston College has us stealing the point thanks to a tiny TUC lead (9-9 to 11-12). Unfortunately, UMass sweeping Maine turned out to be far more significant than I expected: it gave them an insurmountable common opponents lead and a lead in TUC (11-9 to 9-9). End result: Still 12th, still with 12 out of a possible 24 points. Assuming Bemidji State wins the CHA tournament and the four major conferences (WCHA, CCHA, ECAC, Hockey East) do not have a surprise auto-bid winner, we need to remain at least 15th to get in.

Doesn't look likely that there will be much movement around the TUC cliff. There's a .006 gap (which works out to about the equivalent of a win for the trailing team and a loss for the leading team, give or take) between RPI #25 BU and #26 Northeastern, and Northeastern's season is done. Ohio State is another .0027 back and about to be disemboweled by Miami. Short of a Merrimack sweep of BU or a major upset or two involving teams near the cut line, the top 25 looks unlikely to change.

Comparisons in play:

Alaska: Their RPI lead has grown to .0066. We lead TUC, 8.5-7.5 to 7.5-7.5 (head-to-head does not count in TUC) and common opponents 17.5-9.5 to 17-13. 0-1-1 head-to-head. If we don't face them at the Joe, we have to flip RPI. If we do, we have to beat them, as there's no way we can overcome the RPI deficit otherwise; playing them even is probably enough the rest of the way, as we'll only need to either keep TUC or flip RPI.
Last week: 2-0 vs. Western Michigan 4-0, 4-1
This week: CCHA quarterfinals @ Northern Michigan, best-of-3
New Hampshire: Their RPI margin has dipped to .0057, and we've overtaken them in TUC, 9-9 to 11-12. Common opponents is a lock for us. Keep TUC and this is ours. I don't see any route for us to flip RPI while losing TUC (unless Michigan drops out of the top 25, and that appears unlikely, though not impossible, even if we sweep them), but if we do that we win the comparison as well.
Last week: 0-1-1 @ Boston College 3-3, 2-3
This week: Hockey East quarterfinals vs. Vermont, best-of-3
Cornell: Our RPI deficit has grown slightly to .0031. Cornell is still short of the 10 TUC games needed for that criterion to count, at 4-5 to our 9-9. Common opponents is a lock for us. Win our series with Michigan, and assuming Michigan stays in the top 25 we guarantee the comparison if Cornell faces Union and/or Yale in the final four and loses or splits (even if we lose both at the Joe, we'll be 11-12 at worst and they'll be 4-6 or 5-6). If Cornell beats both to win the ECAC tournament, we can't take the comparison without winning the CCHA tournament (we won't be able to catch them in RPI, and the best we can do in TUC would be a tie at 12-10 to 6-5). If Cornell beats one and does not face the other, we just need to beat Michigan and avoid losing both games at the Joe (even a tie in the third-place game, assuming that it would be decided via shootout to avoid delaying the championship game, should be sufficient if we sweep Michigan; if we win in three we would have to win one of the two games at the Joe). And if they don't make it to the final four, a series win over Michigan probably flips RPI (though we might need to avoid losing twice at the Joe).
Last week: Idle
This week: ECAC quarterfinals vs. Harvard, best-of-3
Ferris: Same situation as last week. If we meet at the Joe, winner probably takes the comparison - although if the loser wins their series in two and wins the third-place game while the other wins their series in three and loses the final the head-to-head point could be overcome (we might flip RPI in that scenario, and they would flip common games while keeping RPI). If we don't meet there (which requires that one of Ferris, Miami, or us gets upset in the quarters), matching Ferris win for win keeps TUC and common opponents and gives us the point.
Last week: Idle
This week: CCHA quarterfinals vs. Nebraska-Omaha, best-of-3
Northern Michigan: Same situation as last week. If we meet at the Joe, winner probably takes the comparison, although scenarios like the ones for Ferris could overcome that. If we don't meet there, we need to keep RPI and common opponents, which means matching them win for win. An extra win might be necessary, even, because Northern is so close in RPI and will face teams with higher RPIs than we will in the quarterfinals (and, should we both make it there, the semifinals).
Last week: Idle
This week: CCHA quarterfinals vs. Alaska, best-of-3
Minnesota-Duluth: We've gained a little ground in RPI (the gap is down to .0012). We lead TUC, 9-9 to 9.5-12.5. They lead common opponents 9-5 to 5.5-3.5 (possible relevant opponents for us: Northern; possible relevant opponents for them: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan Tech). If we keep the TUC lead and defeat Northern at Joe Louis (only way we can meet in the semis is if Ferris is upset by UNO and the rest of the chalk prevails), UMD would have to go 1-0 or 2-0 (1-0-1 is sufficient if they win against Tech or Minnesota in the opener of the Final Five, lose to someone else in the semis, and tie the third-place game assuming that's allowed) against relevant opponents to keep common opponents. If we do not face Northern, we take common opponents only if UMD goes 0-1 or 0-2 (or 0-1-1) against relevant opponents. If we lose to Northern, we cannot take common opponents and would need RPI to win the point.
Last week: 1-1 @ Alaska-Anchorage 2-3, 6-3
This week: WCHA first round vs. Colorado College, best-of-3
Nebraska-Omaha: RPI lead is down to .0045. Down in TUC (7.5-8.5 to 9-9), up in common opponents (15.5-10.5 to 16-12), 1-0-1 head-to-head. Keep the RPI lead and we just have to keep common opponents (very likely if we keep the RPI lead). Lose that and we need to make TUC even at worst and keep common opponents (unlikely if we lose the RPI lead). Should we meet at the Joe, it will be a similar scenario to those for Ferris and Northern - winner probably gets the point unless everything else goes as far the other way as possible.
Last week: 2-0 vs. Bowling Green 6-1, 6-1
This week: CCHA quarterfinals @ Ferris, best-of-3
Vermont: We lead RPI by .0060. Common opponents is now guaranteed. We have a slim lead in TUC, 9-9 to 10.5-11.5. Keep either RPI or TUC and we win the point.
Last week: 0-1-1 at Mass-Lowell 2-5, 1-1
This week: Hockey East quarterfinals @ UNH, best-of-3
Mass-Lowell: Our RPI lead is still a solid .0105. Common opponents is a tie at worst (that only if Mass-Lowell sweeps Maine and we lose to UNO at the Joe). TUC record is ours as well for the moment: 9-9 to 8.5-10.5. Pretty hard to lose this if we win the series with Michigan, although it might be possible if we lose twice at the Joe and Lowell wins the Hockey East tourney.
Last week: 1-0-1 vs. Vermont 5-2, 1-1
This week: Hockey East quarterfinals @ Maine, best-of-3
UMass: The poster child for "Why The Pairwise Is Weird". We lead RPI by a whopping .0141, but we lose the comparison because they're 4-0 vs. common opponents (3-0 against Maine, a win against Rensselaer) and lead TUC 11-9 to 9-9. We have to flip TUC. Hopefully Boston College will do us a favor there - a sweep means that as long as Michigan stays in the top 25, getting to Joe Louis will do it for us if we don't beat Michigan in three and then lose both at the Joe.
Last week: 2-0 at Maine 5-2, 4-3
This week: Hockey East quarterfinals @ Boston College, best-of-3
Maine: RPI lead of .0140 is practically insurmountable (barring a collapse which would have a lot of other teams passing us anyway). With no common opponents, RPI is enough to keep the point.
Last week: 0-2 vs. UMass 2-5, 3-4
This week: Hockey East quarterfinals vs. Mass-Lowell, best-of-3
Colorado College: Our RPI lead is just .0010. TUC record looks like a safe win. We only flip common opponents if CC loses to two of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan Tech in the WCHA Final Five. Best bet is to keep the RPI lead.
Last week: 1-1 in home-and-home vs. Denver: 2-1 away, 3-7 home
This week: WCHA first round @ Minnesota-Duluth, best-of-3
Union: RPI lead is .0110. Thanks to UMass replacing Northeastern in the top 25, Union has nine TUC games instead of eight now. We lose common games, but it will be hard to lose TUC now even if Union beats Cornell and Yale to get to 5.5-5.5. This one's safer than it was last week simply because of UMass making the top 25 (otherwise Union would be 5.5-4.5 if they win the ECAC, which would beat us unless we win the CCHA tourney).
Last week: Idle.
This week: ECAC quarterfinals vs. Quinnipiac, best-of-3
Boston University: RPI lead is .0142. Dead even in TUC (9-9 to 10.5-10.5), slight lead in common opponents (5.5-4.5 to 3-3; their only potential relevant opponent is Maine, ours is Michigan). Win the series against Michigan and we lock up common opponents, which with our RPI lead makes this a virtual lock. Get swept, and we need BU to lose to Maine in the Hockey East final four. Lose 2-1, and we need them not to beat Maine (they can lose, tie, or not play).
Last week: 2-0 in home-and-home vs. Northeastern: 5-4 home, 4-3 away
This week: Hockey East quarterfinals vs. Merrimack, best-of-3

Outlook

We seem to be in reasonable shape as teams behind us start having to play each other. That limits the amount of damage that can be done. With Vermont and UNH facing each other, and Ferris and UNO, it's unlikely that any more than two of those teams can take the point if we lose 2-1.

All predictions here should be taken with a grain of salt, as there are so many games in play and it's hard to say exactly how much the RPI will swing one way or the other on a win or loss, but the bottom line: Win the series and it will be hard for us to be left out (though it might still be possible if we lose twice at the Joe). Lose 2-1 and we're likely to be sitting right around the cut line. Get swept and all bets are off.

Conference Tournament Rooting Interests

All with an eye toward guaranteeing qualifying. Seeding really doesn't make that much difference except on the 1 line, where you are potentially playing for a home site and/or a weak auto-bid for your first opponent. Otherwise, bracketing follows the S-curve perfectly as long as it doesn't result in a conference matchup in the first round.

CCHA

#7 Michigan at #2 MSU: Duh.
#5 Alaska at #4 Northern: Alaska winning this is the low-variance option: Northern almost assuredly won't catch us (unless they lost 2-1 and we get swept) - the difference between playing Alaska and playing Michigan shouldn't be enough of an SOS boost for them to flip it - and we'll be hard-pressed to catch Alaska even if we win. If we beat Michigan, a Northern series win might let us catch Alaska but it keeps Northern in play as well. A bad showing at the Joe might leave us losing both, a split there with Northern not winning it all and not beating us may let us win both. If we lose to Michigan, a Northern series win all but guarantees we lose both. Importance: Critical if we lose, significant if we win
#8 Ohio State at #1 Miami: An upset here means we would play OSU first and be a (slight) favorite to win the auto-bid, but this really doesn't matter much. OSU is the only non-TUC still alive in the CCHA tourney (assuming Michigan stays in the top 25). The only complicating issue is the potential for bid-thievery. Better to have Miami (who can also help knock off the other CCHA bubblers - we won't face them until the final or third-place game) and not risk a stolen bid. Importance: Minimal
#6 Nebraska-Omaha at #3 Ferris State: Neither team is far from taking the point on us. Root for a 3-game series. If we win our series, the loser here is not catching us. If we lose, we're losing the point to the series winner. If Ferris wins and we win, we play them (assuming Miami does not lose to OSU). If UNO does, we cannot face them in the semis but could in the final or third-place game. For matchup purposes, Ferris might be a better opponent to face than UNO should it come to that - we're 1-1 against Ferris, 0-1-1 against UNO. I don't know that we care too much who wins, as long as it goes three games. I lean slightly toward Ferris, but even bid-thievery isn't likely to matter here as either of these teams winning it all would push them into the top 15. Importance: Minor

AHA

Totally irrelevant, as they have no one in at-large contention.

CHA

Root for Bemidji State to win it all, as they're the only at-large contender in the conference. They face Niagara in one semifinal; Robert Morris vs. Alabama-Huntsville is the other. Importance: Critical if we lose, minor if we win

WCHA

#10 Michigan Tech at #1 Denver: Immaterial by itself, except in the unlikely case that MTU makes a bid-thief run. Best for Denver to win this and keep stomping everyone in sight, limiting any gains on us in TUC record by fellow bubblers from the WCHA. Importance: Minimal
#9 Alaska-Anchorage at #2 Wisconsin: Ditto.
#8 Minnesota State (Mankato) at #3 St. Cloud State: Ditto.
#7 Minnesota at #4 North Dakota: Minnesota can't realistically catch us unless we fall apart (we have a solid RPI lead and an insurmountable TUC lead), but we're better off knocking them down to 1) prevent possible bid-thievery and 2) make it tougher for whoever emerges from the 5-6 series. Importance: Minor
#6 Colorado College at #5 Minnesota-Duluth: UMD in 3 would be ideal. It keeps CC off our back (they're close in RPI and we would need a miracle to flip common games) while giving us a solid shot at taking RPI from UMD. Importance: Significant

ECAC

#5 St. Lawrence at #4 Colgate: Both would be bid-thieves if they win the whole thing. Importance: Irrelevant
#11 Brown at #1 Yale: Prevent bid-thievery. Yale and Cornell are the only sure bets for the tournament from the ECAC at this point (and even Cornell could fall out if they get swept and certain other series go the right way). Importance: Significant
#7 Quinnipiac at #3 Union: Union could play their way in (and has an outside chance of stealing the point, especially if UMass should fall out of the top 25). Quinnipiac is auto-bid or bust. Easier road for the teams that are definitely in makes bid-thievery less likely. Importance: Minor to significant
#9 Harvard at #2 Cornell: Harvard winning this series almost certainly gives us the point on Cornell (if we win the Michigan series), but it also increases the risk of bid-thievery (Yale would be the only team left assured of a spot already). Given that we would pass Cornell in the pecking order, that's a trade I'm more than willing to make. Importance: Significant

Hockey East

#8 Vermont at #1 New Hampshire: If we win, we want this series to go 3. If we lose, we want it to be a sweep. A UNH win is probably better; it risks losing that point on TUC record but we'd be losing the point to someone who's already (relatively) safe rather than risking a loss of the Vermont point to a fellow bubbler. Importance: Minor to significant
#5 Mass-Lowell at #4 Maine: Maine can't catch us barring an RPI disaster, Mass-Lowell is a little closer in RPI but would also need to flip TUC or tie common opponents (the latter only possible if they sweep this series). The key point is probably that Mass-Lowell is ahead in the Pairwise (winning eight comparisons to Maine's five). But I think we're okay with anything that could happen here as long as we win our series; if we lose, Maine is the safer point but not by much (and we may need them to deal with BU; see below). Importance: Significant if we lose, minor if we win
#6 Merrimack at #3 Boston University: Win our series and this is moot. Get swept, and we lose the comparison to BU (assuming they don't drop out) unless they win the series and then lose to Maine. Lose 2-1, and we're mostly safe (though if BU plays Maine they must not win). Importance: Irrelevant if we win, minor if we lose 2-1, major if we lose 2-0
#7 UMass at #2 Boston College: Eliminate a potential bid thief, and knock UMass's TUC record into range for us to prevent them from stealing the point. Importance: Significant to major

After this weekend's games, USCHO will put up the Pairwise Predictor, which lets you input hypothetical results for the final weekend and see the resulting Pairwise standings. So by Sunday night we should know exactly where we stand and what we need. Win the series and we'll probably be looking more at seeding and bracket possibilities than whether or not we're in. Lose and it will be a long wait until the tournaments resume next weekend and we learn our fate.

The 2010 Big Ten Basketball Season in Groovy Chart Form

2010-03-11T05:08:58Z

We had some fun with this a couple years ago, so I thought I'd take another crack at it. Bulleted explanation/caveats:

The charts below show game-by-game offensive and defensive efficiency numbers for each Big Ten team in conference play this year. (Efficiency is points scored/allowed per 100 possessions.)
The thinner lines in the graphs are polynomial trendlines of the third order. They show trends for the teams' performances on each end of the court, allowing for two peaks/valleys (i.e., trend reversals) over the 18 games.
The graphs have to be interpreted very carefully due to the nature of contemporary Big Ten scheduling--bunching up of home/away games or two games vs. a good/bad opponent in a short span. I've included 2-letter opponent abbreviations for reference.
Finally, 18 games is not a reliable sample for the trendlines to have statistical significance.

Still, I think the charts help tell the story of each team's conference season. Plus they're just cool for gazing at. Right?

Here's MSU's chart:

Outside of spikes for the two Northwestern games and the Indiana game and the slugfest in West Lafayette, the offense was actually fairly consistent (but not highly efficient) over the course of the season. The defense improved after the midseason open-shot-fest, although it would have been hard not to. Funny how Kalin Lucas' injury appears to have impacted the defense more than the offense.

After the jump, we'll run through the other 10 teams in the league, in ascending order of Big Ten Tournament seeding.

I call this one "Evan Turner makes a difference--a really big difference." The Buckeyes are scoring very efficiently and playing consistent defense right now, but that's basically been true over the last 14 games.

Outside of the basement-level offensive output against MSU, the Robbie Hummel injury doesn't really show up here. But that's a function of playing two of the three worst teams in the league in the final two games.

Exhibit B as to why the fourth-place Badgers may, in fact, be the favorites to win the conference tournament. Offense steadily improved over the course of the season; Jon Leuer's return from his wrist injury for the final five games helped. Defense is surprisingly inconsistent (but mostly good).

Decidedly average team most of the season--up until the end, when they tanked on both sides of the ball. Backloaded schedule is a major factor there.

Slightly below average team for the first half of the season. Showed some life with blowout wins vs. Wisconsin and Indiana (the latter more impressive than the former, obviously). Back-to-back blowouts of inverse directions to end the regular season make for an inelegant-looking graph.

Defensive numbers form what looks like the output from a heart rate monitor--nearly perfect up-and-down pattern between a well-defined range of 100 and 120 (i.e., not good). Doesn't correlate with home/away games, either. Offense improved some over the course of the year; Wildcats posted eFG% of at least 50% in all of their final 9 games.

On average, this was an average team. But the averageness was the net result of very inconsistent play on both ends of the court. Offense looks pretty dismal if you take the two Minnesota games out--not that Minnesota is a complete defensive pushover; they just apparently have no idea how to guard Manny Harris (42 points) or DeShawn Sims (50 points).

Defense went from average to very, very bad as season progressed. Offense looked decent for a bit there, but two games against Northwestern in a four-game stretch tends to do that.

If not for that closing win against Northwestern, the simplest interpretation of this graph would be that the team completely quit on its coach. On the other hand, you have to give the Hoosiers for playing like a semi-competitive team for the six-game stretch to start the conference season on the heels of losing Maurice Creek.

I told you the Nittany Lions were the most dangerous conference tournament #11 seed in the country. The trendlines say this is a (slightly) above average Big Ten team at the moment. Offense has improved markedly since the beginning of the year, as Talor Battle's supporting cast has stepped up. Defense is still below average, but not to a last-in-the-conference degree.

Big Ten Tournament Preview: The Coronation of ...

2010-03-10T17:58:26Z

Big Ten Tournament Preview: The Coronation of ...

Pomeroy's Log5 projections don't like MSU's chances much: 62.8% to win Friday (KenPom ratings still like Minnesota a lot), 27.3% to get to the tournament final, 9.5% to win the thing. (100.0% chance of getting to the second round, though!)

The model's favorites are Wisconsin, Purdue, and Ohio State, in that order (but of course the model doesn't know Robbie Hummel will be in street clothes).

Numbers, schmumbers.

BTW, there are still 24 hours left to enter The Third Annual and (As Far As We Know) World's Only Big Ten Tournament Bracket Contest.

On Chris-Allen-lessness

2010-03-10T01:43:04Z

More photos » Darron Cummings - AP

One of these guys will be shooting 3-pointers Friday night; the other will not.

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Some of this has been covered in the comments to LVS's post, but here are my thoughts on the Chris Allen suspension.

First, the precise cause of the suspension is still fairly mysterious. If you listen to Tom Izzo's comments on the topic, he sounds downright chipper, several times stressing how pleased he's been with Allen's performance on the court in recent games. Joe Rexrode transcribed quite a bit of the give and take (major props for the LOST smoke monster analogy, BTW). Here's the opening:

    On the reason for the suspension:
    "Just not being a good teammate. There’s some guys that don’t understand that your team is the most valuable thing you have. You have a responsibility and an obligation to your team. He’s not demonstrating that to me or my staff, and so I told him to take the day off, which he did. But I’m telling him he’s taking a game off, and we’ll go down there and try to compete without him."

    This is a basketball issue?
    "Yeah, it’s a basketball issue."

Later, Izzo attributes the suspension to "an accumulation of things." It doesn't sound like academic issues were a big part of this. The portion Rexrode has on his blog ends like this:

Is this surprising because he’s bought in the court, on defense?
"Yeah it is, but still, when you’re starting to talk about these things as a junior, that’s concerning, too. I mean we had the Morrises of the world and by the end of their sophomore year, you know, they’re ready to move on. We’ve got a couple guys that are in their junior year and still immature. And my job is to make sure that they either get mature -– you know, I know this will sound trite and stupid. Probably 50 percent is for my team, none is for the program, none if for me, and the other 50 percent is probably for him. And I swear to you, that is the truth."

It would be tough to do a Venn diagram analysis here. The suspension is the result of "basketball issues," but apparently not on-the-court basketball issues.

Anyway, the next question is what this means for Friday (and potentially beyond--Izzo hasn't decided whether Allen would travel separately to Indianapolis if MSU wins the first game). Allen's absence probably moves the needle a nudge toward wanting to play Minnesota rather than Penn State--but not beyond the 50% mark.

Allen's shooting and ball-handling skills are valuable against Penn State's zone looks. In the two games against the Nittany Lions, Allen combined for 19 points on 5-11 three-point shooting, 4 assists, and zero turnovers. And he provides a good defensive option against Talor Battle.

Of course, Minnesota also plays some zone. That's almost a relief, though, given that they can also play an aggressive, turnover-inducing man-to-man defense (although they haven't been doing much of that of late). In the two games against the Gophers. Allen went for 19 points on 5-14 three-point shooting, 8 assists, and 2 turnovers. And he'd be useful on defense against Lawrence Westbrook, too.

So I guess scrap my initial judgment: Allen's absence will be a distinct disadvantage on both ends of the court against both potential opponents in MSU's Big Ten Tournament opener.

While he hasn't been scoring in bunches over the last few games, Allen has arguably been MSU's most consistent perimeter players in terms of avoiding mistakes over the second half of conference play. He's posted either one or zero turnovers in 9 of the last 10 games, and he's been the most reliable perimeter defender.

The suspension substantially reduces the margin for error for the remaining guards. Kalin Lucas probably has to now spend more time as the primary defender on Battle or Westbrook, in addition to trying to regain his scoring touch (just 36 points over the last 4 games). Durrell Summers will play 30+ minutes and becomes the sole athletic wing option. Korie Lucious needs to knock down 3-pointers against the zone. (Disconcerting stat: If you exclude Allen's .431 three-point shooting, MSU shot only .279 from beyond the arc in conference play.) Either Austin Thornton or Isaiah Dahlman will see double-digit minutes; they simply need to make smart decisions with the ball and knock down any wide open shots that come their way.

Based on Izzo's tone today and the precedents with Lucas (back after one missed practice) and Lucious (back after one missed games) earlier this season, I'd expect to see Allen at Conseco on Saturday. But that'll hinge, of course, on winning Friday night. Chris Allen would be fourth on my list of players I wouldn't want to go into the tournament without right now (behind Lucas, Morgan, and Green). Apparently, this team won't be doing anything the easy way this season.

Linking Laconically is overwhelmed with the amount of link-worthy material that pops up in March

Basketball Prospectus | Articles | Entering the Mainstream
Dean Oliver: "Individuals see a basketball game better than the numbers, but the numbers see all the games."
The state of basketball analysis - TrueHoop Blog - ESPN
Interview with Oliver on impact of statistical analysis at NBA level; more extensive than I would have guessed.
Tempo Free Aerial - Final Edition | Big Ten Geeks's Blog - Big Ten Network
Big Ten is downright offensive this year; 9 teams above 1.00 mark on offense, 7 on defense.
Whodunnit: Crean or Izzo? | Eleven Warriors
My guess: Someone voted for Robbie Hummel. Which would be wrong, but not completely unreasonable.
Ohio State's David Lighty captains 11th annual All-Glue Team - Seth Davis - SI.com
No Draymond Green. Outrage. (Update: He was the first guy left out.)
Welcome to The Dance, Wofford Terriers - The Dagger - NCAAB Blog - Yahoo! Sports
Two Dahlmans going dancing.
Big Ten Tournament Preview: Top Teams Look To Separate After Three-Way Regular Season Title - SB Nation
TMill with the preview at the mother site.
It's Big Ten Tournament Week, and SBN has got this locked down. - Hail to the Orange
He and Joe K from Hail to Orange will be on-site in a press capacity. (I will be on-site in an irrational fan capacity.)
This is how it’s going down: Big Ten Tournament preview - Hammer and Rails
TMill's preview on his own site. Picked PSU over MSU.
Big Ten Tournament History and trivia. - The Crimson Quarry
Five teams (Illinois/Iowa/MSU/OSU/Wisconsin) trying to become first team to with BTT 3 times.
BT expansion push could force ND's hand - Big Ten Blog - ESPN
Who'd a thunk the Big Ten would have this much leverage (or perceived leverage) with the expansion gambit?
Jennifer Hudson will be new voice of 'One Shining Moment' - NCAA Basketball - SI.com
I think is a good--or, at least, not bad--thing.

Chris Allen Suspended

2010-03-09T17:10:30Z

More photos » Al Goldis - AP

about 1 month ago: Michigan State's Chris Allen shoots a 3-pointer during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Purdue, Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2010, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)

Browse more photos »

Per the Detroit News MSU Twitter feed, and now Joe Rexrode. Not many details yet on why or how long; all Izzo has said is that the suspension is for the cumulative effect of academic problems -- Rexrode's language, not Izzo's, apparently -- and that he'll be out for at least Friday's game. ~~He won't practice with the team this week~~ (edit: see below), and won't travel to Indianapolis for Friday's game, although he might be back a semifinal game on Saturday.

It's disappointing because Chris has matured so much as a basketball player this season; it seems that the maturation may not have continued off-the-court. Also (obviously), because he's been playing great basketball.

UPDATE #1: Quote from David Mayo's story: "Izzo said Allen would practice Wednesday in some capacity. 'Whether it’s with the team or not, I don’t know. He may have an individual practice with me,' Izzo said."

Also, more wonderful news from DetNews Twitter: "More breaking news: Delvon Roe says he will most likely need surgery on right wrist and right knee after the season. Been in pain all year."

Real, Non-Wonkish Honors Garnered by Lucas, Green, and Morgan

2010-03-09T02:20:15Z

More photos » Al Goldis - AP

Yesterday's hardware.

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Awards:

Kalin Lucas is a first-teamer in both the coaches' and media's books.
Draymond Green is a third-teamer and the Sixth Man of the Year in both sets of voting. (Update: Unanimous on the sixth-man pick.)
Raymar Morgan was given third-team status by the coaches (whom I trust less in matters of national polling but more in matters of all-conference picks). Honorable mention in the media voting.
Isaiah Dahlman is the Michigan State sportsmanship award winner.

Kudos.

Evan Turner is Player of the Year. Obviously. McCamey/Lucas/Turner/Hummel/Moore is the consensus first team. Matt Painter and Thad Matta split the Coach-of-the-Year honors; no obvious winner there (except that you could give it to Bo Ryan every year if you wanted to). Tom Izzo probably equally deserving. Crawford and Richardson split Freshman-of-the-Year honors.

I don't have any major beefs with any of the selections. Lucas obviously gets a boost relative to his numbers based on reputation, along with some big late-game shots this season. John Shurna suffered a little bit due to Northwestern's lower profile (and win total).

One gripe: What does Damian Johnson have to do to get some love? He was excluded from coaches' all-defensive team (Nash/Lauderdale/J. Johnson/Kramer/Hughes), despite ranking in the top 3 in the league in both steals and blocks per game.

Linking Laconically is appending itself to this post

MSU's Izzo doesn't believe Lucas plans to turn pro | detnews.com | The Detroit News
All signs point to "No."
LSJ Blogs: Hey, Joe: Lucas, Green, Morgan get Big Ten honors
Rexrode notes: Lucas dealing with foot infection, Izzo talked to Tom Herzog about Senior Day but Herzog opted to wait on the decision.
Yahoo! Sports All-American Team - College Basketball - Rivals.com
Yahoo gives Day Day national Sixth-Man-of-the-Year honor.
The Bracket Matrix
Creeping up toward 3-seed territory.
Around the Big Ten: Postscript | UM Hoops.com
Predicted 14-4 record for MSU. Of course, had no idea about the path we'd take to get there. (I'd also like it noted I picked Evan Turner as the most feared Big Ten player.)
Afternoon Linkage: Let the madness begin - College Basketball Nation Blog - ESPN
"Obsessive second-chancing." I like it.
Forbes says Matta's contract is fourth-richest (Hoops & Scoops: an OSU basketball blog)
Izzo not in top 10. (?)
Gophers' Tubby Smith: Oregon has not contacted me - TwinCities.com
I like having Tubby in the Big Ten (as long as he doesn't start making runs at league titles, at least).
Meet this year's Mr. Basketball finalists | freep.com | Detroit Free Press
Keith Appling in the mix. Averaging 28 points/game on 62% FG shooting.
MSU players get 18 months probation in assault case | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Cunningham and Dell. Attorney says it's unclear whether Dantonio will let them return to team. Seems very likely they'll be back, but complete radio silence from football program is getting strange.
Ranking the Big Ten: Greg Jones, No. 5 - Big Ten Blog - ESPN
Not in football mode; can't think of 4 players left who would be ahead of him.
Revisiting Big Ten Bowls in 2009-10: Turmoil in Texas as MSU gets dropped in the Alamo Bowl - The Rivalry, Esq.
Did not enjoy.
IgniteA2 #3 - 03/04/10 - Part 2 - Slide View, Ignite Ann Arbor #3 - 03/04/10 - Part 2 - Slide View Part of Global Ignite Week (GIW) igniteannarbor.com ht...
How to build an MGoBlog. I think I've been doing it wrong.

Bonus! Quote from the second link above:

Izzo made it clear he really wants to win the Big Ten Tournament this year. Really. Really really. Offense is going to be a focal point this week, striking a balance. MSU has been going inside with great success lately, but Chris Allen has 10 shots in three games. The Spartans will need both working in the postseason.

I like the sound of that. With the three-way tie for the regular season crown, the BTT serves as sort of a tie-breaker for king-of-the-hill bragging rights (although Wisconsin may have something to say about that). It hasn't felt like the conference tournament has been a high priority for MSU in the last several years, serving as more of a warm-up for the Big Dance. As a fan with a seat reserved at Conseco Fieldhouse this weekend, I say let's go all-in this time around.

Your PORPAG-Based All-Big Ten Basketball Teams

2010-03-08T22:12:21Z

Original post on Points Over Replacement Per Adjusted Game (PORPAG) is here. Mid-conference-season numbers are here. Big picture concept/caveats:

As a refresher, this stat is an attempt to measure the marginal points per game a player contributes to his team on offense above what a "replacement-level" player would provide.

Major caveats: (1) Basketball is a team, not an individual, sport and (2) this stat tells you nothing whatsoever about defense.

Technical stuff:

Pace factor is set at 62 possession/game--roughly the average for Big Ten play.
I've continued to leave the "replacement-level" offensive rating at 88.0.
This stat is meant to measure cumulative, rather than average, offensive impact. So missing time due to injury hurts you (Evan Turner/Robbie Hummel).
This is conference-only data.
The table below includes all players who've played at least 40.0% of their teams' minutes in conference play.
Data pulled from StatSheet.com. The Minute% numbers are a little glitchy for players that have missed time due to injury/etc. I've corrected any obvious errors.

Numbers after the jump:

Player	Yr	Team	OffRtg	Poss%	Min%	PORPAG
John Shurna	So	Northwestern	118.1	25.2	93.7	4.41
Jason Bohannon	Sr	Wisconsin	127.4	17.2	94.5	3.96
Robbie Hummel	Jr	Purdue	125.8	23.7	67.6	3.75
Evan Turner	Jr	Ohio State	109.3	34.2	79.3	3.59
Demetri McCamey	Jr	Illinois	110.0	26.2	90.6	3.23
William Buford	So	Ohio State	112.4	24.2	87.8	3.21
Talor Battle	Jr	Penn State	105.8	29.7	94.9	3.12
Blake Hoffarber	Jr	Minnesota	135.3	14.2	74.9	3.11
Michael Thompson	Jr	Northwestern	115.1	18.5	94.0	2.92
DeShawn Sims	Sr	Michigan	106.2	30.2	82.9	2.82
Jordan Taylor	So	Wisconsin	111.0	24.4	80.1	2.79
Trevon Hughes	Sr	Wisconsin	107.4	27.7	82.8	2.75
E`Twaun Moore	Jr	Purdue	105.3	28.9	82.8	2.57
David Jackson	Jr	Penn State	118.4	16.9	80.6	2.56
Keaton Nankivil	Jr	Wisconsin	119.6	18.8	68.6	2.52
Mike Tisdale	Jr	Illinois	114.3	19.5	77.9	2.48
Damian Johnson	Sr	Minnesota	116.8	20.6	64.7	2.38
Chris Babb	So	Penn State	114.7	16.7	83.6	2.31
Kalin Lucas	Jr	Michigan State	106.4	25.7	75.6	2.21
Draymond Green	So	Michigan State	113.0	22.1	64.3	2.20
Jon Diebler	Jr	Ohio State	112.3	14.7	95.6	2.12
Raymar Morgan	Sr	Michigan State	109.7	22.4	69.4	2.09
Lawrence Westbrook	Sr	Minnesota	106.7	24.9	68.9	1.99
David Lighty	Jr	Ohio State	106.5	18.4	92.6	1.96
Manny Harris	Jr	Michigan	100.3	29.4	84.7	1.90
Aaron Fuller	So	Iowa	104.3	24.7	75.3	1.89
Verdell Jones III	So	Indiana	99.8	29.7	85.1	1.85
JaJuan Johnson	Jr	Purdue	102.2	24.2	85.8	1.82
Jeremy Nash	Sr	Northwestern	107.6	16.9	87.2	1.79
Ralph Sampson III	So	Minnesota	111.6	18.4	59.8	1.61
Drew Crawford	Fr	Northwestern	104.2	21.5	71.7	1.54
Zack Novak	So	Michigan	108.7	13.6	84.8	1.48
Durrell Summers	Jr	Michigan State	105.8	19.8	66.8	1.46
Luke Mirkovic	So	Northwestern	104.6	20.5	68.8	1.45
Chris Allen	Jr	Michigan State	107.3	15.7	71.9	1.36
Bill Cole	Jr	Illinois	117.0	11.4	62.8	1.28
Jordan Hulls	Fr	Indiana	107.3	13.7	74.0	1.21
Dallas Lauderdale	Jr	Ohio State	109.5	12.6	66.3	1.11
Jarryd Cole	Jr	Iowa	103.9	18.6	59.3	1.09
Keaton Grant	Sr	Purdue	104.9	18.0	56.9	1.08
D.J. Richardson	Fr	Illinois	100.2	17.7	79.2	1.06
Delvon Roe	So	Michigan State	106.3	19.4	46.9	1.03
Jeff Brooks	Jr	Penn State	102.1	20.4	56.1	1.00
Devoe Joseph	So	Minnesota	98.7	21.9	65.1	0.95
Chris Kramer	Sr	Purdue	104.1	12.4	74.7	0.93
Matt Gatens	So	Iowa	92.4	22.5	91.0	0.56
Tim Jarmusz	Jr	Wisconsin	107.9	6.8	56.1	0.47
Christian Watford	Fr	Indiana	91.5	25.1	74.7	0.41
Eric May	Fr	Iowa	92.3	17.3	85.0	0.39
Darius Morris	Fr	Michigan	93.8	15.8	64.6	0.37
Laval Lucas-Perry	So	Michigan	91.3	14.8	48.1	0.15
Stu Douglass	So	Michigan	89.8	14.0	83.9	0.13
Mike Davis	Jr	Illinois	88.9	19.0	77.2	0.08
Andrew Jones III	Jr	Penn State	88.4	14.0	62.3	0.02
Tom Pritchard	So	Indiana	88.3	10.8	51.0	0.01
Devan Dumes	Sr	Indiana	87.8	25.7	44.9	(0.01)
Korie Lucious	So	Michigan State	79.9	17.5	51.1	(0.45)
Jeremiah Rivers	Jr	Indiana	77.8	16.5	71.0	(0.75)
Cully Payne	Fr	Iowa	77.0	21.9	82.9	(1.23)

You weren't expecting that name at the top of the list, were you? John Shurna was pretty remarkable in conference play (shooting line of .537/.397/.795, 10.4 TO%); he also benefits from the fact that Bill Carmody never took him off the court.

I tend to discount the PORPAG numbers of players with usage rates below 20%. Players with high offensive ratings and low usage rates tend to be 3-point specialists. That's a valuable specialty, but also a unidimensional one.

If you remove players below the 20%-usage-rate threshold, you end up with, voila!, exactly the same team of first-team all-conference picks the Big Ten Geeks came up with: Shurna, Hummel, Turner, McCamey, and Buford. Case closed, eh? You can click through to the Geeks' site for extended commentary on that quintet.

Using the same methodology, your second team would be Battle, Sims, Taylor, Hughes, and Moore (a little guard-heavy), and your third team would be Damian Johnson, Lucas, Green, Morgan, and Westbrook (a little Spartan-heavy). You could bump Johnson up to the first team (and demote one of the guards) based on his defensive contributions; he led the league in both steal percentage and block percentage during the conference play.

You can certainly quibble with those results. Maybe Bohannon, Hoffarber, and Thompson deserve more credit for their highly-efficient-but-not-that-assertive offensive performances. You could also make a pretty good argument for David Lighty, based on his defensive prowess and the way he stepped up when Turner was out. But those three sets of all-stars look pretty solid to this blogger's eyes.

Your two major disappointments in conference play would be Manny Harris (46.0 eFG%--basically flat from 2009) and JaJuan Johnson (47.8 eFG%, 6.6 OReb%--both down from 2009). Harris was on my first team based on nonconference play, but falls all the way off the top three teams here.

DeShawn Sims (#2 in PORPAG through 9 games), Kalin Lucas, and Draymond Green took a bit of a tumble from their rankings on the midseason list. The ankle injury obviously hurt Lucas, as did the tougher schedule down the back stretch. Outside of 3-point shooting, Lucas' conference numbers were actually pretty steady from last year, when the batch of offensive stars was significantly weaker (8 players over the 3.00 PORPAG mark this year vs. just 2 last year).

PORPAG likes Drew Crawford for freshman of the year. The top five again matches the Geeks' list: Crawford, Hulls, Richardson, Watford, and May--with Darius Morris (who I thought played very good defense on Lucas yesterday, by the way) right there.

The official all-conference selections come out tonight. More commentary to follow.

The Third Annual and (As Far As We Know) World's Only Big Ten Tournament Bracket Contest

2010-03-08T17:00:33Z

The BTT bracket is now set. Why wait to make predictions about a bunch of teams you know almost nothing about (Quinnipiac? Sam Houston? Stony Brook?) when you can make predictions right now about the 11 teams you’ve been watching nonstop for the past 10 weeks?

Same rules as last year:

To submit an entry in the contest, post a comment to this blog post. Include your pick for the winner of each of the 10 games of the tournament. Scoring will be as follows:

Round 1 winners (3): 1 point each
Semi-finalists (4): 2 points each
Finalists (2): 4 points each
Champion (1): 8 points
Total points available: 27

In keeping with the tempo-free statistics bent of this blog, the tie-breaker will be the number of possessions in the final game of the tournament. The official data source for that number will be StatSheet. For the less statistically-inclined, go ahead and pick a random number between 55 and 75.

Here’s an example of a contest entry, based on the assumption of the higher seed winning each game:

Game 1: Michigan
Game 2: Northwestern
Game 3: Minnesota
Game 4: Ohio State
Game 5: Wisconsin
Game 6: Purdue
Game 7: Michigan State
Game 8: Ohio State
Game 9: Purdue
Game 10: Ohio State
Tie-breaker: XX possessions

(Feel free to drop the "Game" on each line to save time, but please include the numbers.)

Legal boilerplate:

All entries must be received by 2:00 ET on Thursday (before the tip-off of Game 1) to be valid.
In the case of a tie between one or more contestants in both contest points and the number of possessions in the final, the winner will be determined by coin-flip or other random mechanism determined by the The Only Colors, Inc.
The prize for the contest winner consists of one (1) copy of When March Went Mad by Seth Davis.
The Only Colors, Inc. is the final authority regarding interpretation of the contest rules and determination of the winner.
Live contest scoring updates will be provided only to the extent one or more generous readers volunteer to compile and update the results.

Happy bracket filling outing.

The Spartans pose with the Big Ten Championship Trophy in front of the new banner.

2010-03-08T04:57:33Z

The Spartans pose with the Big Ten Championship Trophy in front of the new banner.

That Felt Good: Michigan State 64, Michigan 48

2010-03-08T03:09:38Z

More photos » Al Goldis - AP

All smiles.

Browse more photos »

Only stat you really need to know: For the first 25 minutes of today's basketball game, Raymar Morgan outscored the entire Michigan Wolverine basketball team by himself, 19 to 18. Michigan State held a 46-18 lead with 14:57 left to go in the game. The Spartans couldn't keep up the intensity and got outscored 30-18 from that point on (it'd be great if we could look a little less shocked to see a full-court press), but this game was never in doubt after the halftime break.

Before the break, MSU played perhaps its best 20 minutes of basketball of the season. They hounded Michigan mercilessly on defense. The downside to that approach was getting called for a half dozen fouls in the first 10 minutes. But the advantages more than offset: forcing 11 Michigan turnovers (in roughly 32 possessions) and holding the Wolverines to 5-23 field goal shooting.

Manny Harris (4 points on 10 FGA for the game) and DeShawn Sims (9 points on 8 FGA) could never find a rhythm, and the supporting cast couldn't step up. Michigan shot just 4-21 from 3-point range over the course of the full game. Zack Gibson (10 points on 6-7 FT shooting) was the only Wolverine to take advantage of MSU's defensive aggressiveness and score going toward the hoop.

Offensively, MSU's game plan was to pound the ball inside. There were some sloppy moments along the way in executing that game plan (9 first-half turnovers), but Raymar Morgan and Delvon Roe combined to score 23 points before halftime. And MSU pulled down 8 of 16 offensive rebounding opportunities in the first half to further take advantage of their size/strength advantage.

MSU's dominance in the paint shines through in the four-factor graph:

College Basketball

One minor gripe: For a team that purports to like getting out in the open court, MSU sure blew quite a few fast-break opportunities off Michigan turnovers. Something to work on before the team plays non-Big Ten foes in the NCAA Tournament who might not exert so much effort preventing the Spartans from running on offense.

Let's restrict the bullets to just the three seniors tonight:

Raymar Morgan showed up in a major way for his final home game as a Spartan: 22 points on 10-15 FG shooting, 10 rebounds (5 on offense), 4 steals. He was a man among boys today. I sure hope people remember this 3-game, title-clinching stretch when they think back at Morgan's college career a few years from now: 18.0 points and 9.7 rebounds per game.
Isaiah Dahlman got the start and went for 14 minutes tonight. He only got 3 shots off, but 2 of them were of the highlight-reel variety: an alley-oop dunk off a pass from Morgan and a second dunk off an off-the-backboard feed from Kalin Lucas.
Jon Crandell got into the game in the final 2 minutes and almost recorded the second made field goal of his career, but couldn't quite get the bank shot to fall.

(Other quick hits: Very quiet game for Draymond Green--2 points, 1 rebound, 3 assists. How 'bout that sequence where Derrick Nix shut DeShawn Sims down on two attempted drives and forced him to kick it back out? Durrell Summers continues to look discombobulated on offense, but it was good to see him knock both of his 3-point attempts. Added: Forgot to mention Chris Allen's superb defensive efforts against Harris.)

As far as Senior Days go, this one measures up quite nicely. There's not quite the same level of satisfaction as there was with last year's outright conference title, but the banner that was raised today wasn't a cheapie, either. Tom Izzo on this topic:

"I said at the beginning of the year, we had a chance to win a Big Ten championship," Izzo said. "Maybe it didn’t go all like we wanted, but promise me, please enjoy it. Because it’s not an easy feat these days."

Next Up: MSU will be the last Big Ten team to take the court in Indianapolis this week, playing at 9:00(ish) Friday night against the Minnesota-Penn State winner. That's a fairly unattractive pair of possible first-(second-)round opponents: A team playing for a last-gasp shot at the NCAA Tournament and the most dangerous conference tournament #11 seed in the nation. The upside, I suppose, is that neither team should be able to coast in the Thursday game.

Bonus! A Slideshow of Photos That Could Have Only Been Taken by a Random Fan in the Stands!

Courtesy of Charlie Bell.

2010-03-08T00:23:14Z

Courtesy of Charlie Bell.

BIG TEN CO-CHAMPS AFTERGLOW THREAD

2010-03-07T23:19:39Z

What a beating. What a performance by Raymar.

BIG TEN CO-CHAMPIONS, 2010. Revel in the afterglow here.

[LVS edit: And we celebrate a championship the only way we know how . . .

Game Thread: Big Ten Title or Bust

2010-03-07T19:30:16Z

Al Goldis - AP

We need one more, good sirs.

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(And by "Bust," I mean "a loss that would have epically disastrous consequences for the psyches of both the Michigan State basketball team and its fans.")

Mrs. KJ and I are headed to Breslin to take in the biggest MSU-UM game (from our end at least) since--well, since I don't know when.

Let's bring it boys. Suffocate Manny and DeShawn. Close out hard on Zack and Stu. Get the ball to Raymar and Day Day in the lane. Crash the boards with abandon.

Go State. Beat Michigan.

The Raymar Morgan Story: An Act in Four Tumultuous-Yet-Accomplished Parts

2010-03-07T02:44:59Z

More photos » Carlos Osorio - AP

The high point. Definitely. So far.

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For a college basketball player who has had the label "inconsistent" engraved on to his public image, Raymar Morgan has a remarkably uniform set of career statistical indicators:

	G	Min/G	Pts/G	OffRtg	Poss%	eFG%	FT%	FTR	OReb%	DReb%	Ast%	TO%	Stl%	PF/G
2006-07	28	27.5	11.7	96.4	25.2	49.5	69.0	46.5	8.6	14.9	7.1	23.0	1.6	2.8
2007-08	36	27.7	14.0	110.1	25.7	57.3	67.2	53.7	10.1	15.8	12.3	20.0	2.0	2.8
2008-09	35	22.5	10.2	103.2	23.4	53.5	65.9	53.7	9.3	17.9	11.1	20.1	1.7	2.6
2009-10	29	26.4	10.7	110.4	21.0	54.0	66.0	45.9	9.2	16.9	13.2	18.5	2.1	2.9

Buried in those numbers, though, are a nearly continuous stream of ups and downs over the course of Morgan's career. Let's review, starting at the beginning.

Factoid I think I knew at one point but had forgotten: Only three players in the history of Michigan State basketball have averaged more points per game as freshmen than Raymar Morgan did: Earvin Johnson, Shawn Respert. and Scott Skiles. You may recognize those three names, as they can all be found on banners hanging from the rafters of the Breslin Center.

Going into the 2006-07 season, MSU had lost its three top scorers--Maurice Ager, Paul Davis, and Shannon Brown, all of whom had averaged more than 17 points/game in their final season. The top returning scorer was Drew Neitzel at 8.3 points/game. The second leading returning scorer had averaged 3.0 points/game (a tie between Goran Suton and Marquise Gray). (Matt Trannon was actually the fifth highest scorer during the 2005-06 season, at 4.6 points/game, but he opted not play basketball as a senior.)

Morgan became the #2 scoring option by default. He wasn't terribly efficient in that role, making less than half of his shots from the field and turning the ball over at a fairly generous rate, but he and Neitzel bore enough of the offensive burden (25% usage rates for both) to allow players like Travis Walton, Maurice Joseph, Isaiah Dahlman (more on him later), and Drew Naymick to post adequately efficient offensive numbers. That, coupled with the best defensive effort since the back-to-back-to-back Final Four appearances of 1999-2001, kept the Spartan NCAA Tournament appearance streak alive.

Going into his sophomore season, even bigger things were expected from Morgan (who had missed 7 games due to injury as a freshman). He did indeed improve his scoring average and his shooting percentage, but there were concerns about the consistency (or lack thereof) in his offensive output:

Morgan scored in double digits in 27 of MSU’s 36 games. Of the 9 exceptions, 8 were road/neutral-site games. And all of them were against conference or NCAA tournament opponents (Ohio State, @Minnesota, @Indiana, @Wisconsin, @Illinois, Ohio State in BTT, Wisconsin in BTT, Pittsburgh, Memphis).

Against weaker opponents, Morgan could use his size and athleticism to create good shots around the basket. Against more athletic opponents, Morgan struggled. His outside shot disappeared in the second half of the season, allowing defenders to sag off him a bit and prevent good scoring chances. This seemed to effect his overall confidence, leading to less aggressive rebounding and undisciplined defense (his average personal fouls per game increased from 2.2 in nonconference play to 3.6 in postseason play).

Nevertheless, it was a solid sophomore season--and a healthy one: zero missed games. The bar was set even higher for his junior year:

Going into next season, he has to be more consistent against teams where the size/athleticism advantage is smaller and/or the opponent players better help defense. To make that happen, he needs to hit the mid-range jumpshot consistently to force defenders to guard him closely, opening up the ability to drive to the basket. His offensive production needs to become a cause, rather than a symptom, of MSU’s success as a team.

And he needs to keep his head up when the shots aren’t dropping. Morgan has the ability to make major contributions on the boards and on defense. He can’t allow his entire game to be negatively impacted on nights when he’s struggling offensively.

Unfortunately, injury problems once again intervened. After averaging 15.3 points/game on stupendous 69.3% two-point shooting during nonconference play, Morgan was hit with a bout of pneumonia that forced him to miss three Big Ten games and limited his minutes in five other games. The result was a junior-year statistical line that was a step backwards in almost every respect (exception: defensive rebounding).

There were, however, two reasons for optimism to emerge from Morgan's disappointing junior campaign. First:

Our chief scoring option, Raymar Morgan, struggled to score, as I had foreseen (chalk me up for one accurate prediction so far this season). Damion James (15 points, 10 rebounds, 3 steals) was too much for Morgan, holding him to just 8 points. But I give Morgan tremendous credit. He continued to play aggressively on offense and didn’t pout. He stayed on the court for a team-high 33 minutes and used the fact that the Texas defense was keying on him to create scoring opportunities for his teammates. He finished the game tied with Kalin Lucas with four assists, one of which came on the game-winning 3-pointer.

Morgan's performance in MSU's win over Texas at the end of December seemed to mark a turning point in his emotional attitude. Since that game, he's continued to often look like he's pouting when things go badly (inability to score, picking up cheap fouls, etc.), but he's generally rebounded to play through the issues and contribute to the team's overall success.

The second reason for optimism were a couple signs he'd gotten over the hump against bigger and more athletic opponents:

Given the nature of this past season, we can't say definitively that Morgan has beaten this rap, but we do have two pretty encouraging data points:

21 points and 6 rebounds in the first meeting with North Carolina (a bright spot among a sea of stink).

18 points and 9 rebounds against UConn in the national semifinals (wearing that mask in the photo above, no less).

All in all, I think there's quite a bit for Raymar Morgan to build on going into his senior season--more than initially meets the eye in perusing the stats from his illness-marred junior season. If he can put the statistical efficiency from his sophomore season together with his improved attitude and aggressiveness from this past season, he could have a very special senior season.

Morgan's senior season has been a mixed bag: he's played as efficiently as he ever has (particularly in the ball-handing department), but he's taken on a less assertive role on offense--partly due to Draymond Green's emergence as an offensive playmaker. Unfortunately, inconsistency has continued to be a problem. Morgan has scored 16 or more points in 10 games this season, but he's also scored 6 or fewer points in 7 games. (To be fair, two of those low-scoring games came early in the season when he was still dealing with an ankle issue.)

He's been an improved player on defensive this season, more regularly taking on top scorers from opposing teams on both the perimeter and inside. His personal foul numbers haven't gone down, but that's partially a result of having to play at the 4 spot so much this year.

Gauging the net level of success Raymar Morgan has achieved in a Spartan uniform is not a simple task. Relative to his potential as an incoming recruit, he's never hit his perceived ceiling. Players who were ranked within 15 spots of Morgan's RSCI ranking of #34 in the 2006 high school class included Mike Conley, Earl Clark, Jon Scheyer, D.J. Augustin, DeShawn Sims, and Scottie Reynolds. On the other hand, his numbers stack up pretty well against guys like DaJuan Summers, David Lighty, Ramar Smith, Willie Kemp, and Deon Thompson. (Also in Morgan's vicinity on the 2006 list: Tom Herzog.)

Judged from a broader team-level perspective, Morgan's career looks anything but disappointing. He's basically been a one-man class in terms of major contributors for MSU. His career began at a time when MSU was rebuilding from losing almost all the talent that got the team to the Final Four in 2005. He stepped in immediately to help keep the team afloat in 2007, was part of the team that built off that foundation to get to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament in 2008, and played a not-insignificant role in getting MSU all the way to the final game of the tournament in 2009.

Raymar Morgan's list of career achievements is not too shabby:

Over 1,500 career points--something only 14 other Spartans have done
Over 700 career rebounds--something only 10 other Spartans have done
48 regular season Big Ten wins (one more to go, pretty, pretty please)
A Big Ten championship--with a second conference title within reach Sunday afternoon
8 NCAA Tournament wins--with the possibility of a few more
A Final Four appearance

All that despite missing games due to injury in 3 of his 4 seasons and being asked to play multiple positions throughout his career. Beyond those two obstacles, Morgan's reputation has probably suffered somewhat due to (1) starting his career with such a bang in terms of being a go-to scorer and (2) having his athletic ability perhaps somewhat overhyped. (Morgan's a very quick player for his size, but he's not a tremendous leaper--which has been the problem against more talented opponents at times.) Compare his career output to that of Alan Anderson--the other athletic forward asked to slide between the 3 and 4 spots during the Tom Izzo era, but who wasn't asked to regularly perform in the role of offensive star.

Zeroing back in on the current moment, it sure looks like Morgan is closing out his career in top form. Over the last two games, with MSU's Big Ten title hopes on the line and most of his teammates not playing to their full ability, Morgan has scored 32 points and pulled down 19 rebounds.

For as much criticism as we Spartan faithful have lobbed at Morgan over his career, I think we can step back now and salute him for a Spartan career that, in its totality, is worthy to be remembered as being among the best ever.

Other Players Without Many Career Statistics to Analyze Who Are Nevertheless Salute-Worthy

Isaiah Dahlman is a rarity among college basketball players: a player who played over twice as many minutes as a freshman (403) than he has during the final three years of his career combined (157). Dahlman came into the program as fairly high-profile recruit: the 67th-ranked prospect in the 2006 high school class and Minnesota high school basketball's all-time leading scorer. His career shooting line as a Spartan is actually pretty good: .513/.342/.692. The problem has always been that he couldn't get his shot off. He averaged just 8.1 field goal attempts per 40 minutes played over four seasons. The intangible contributions Dahlmans has made to the Michigan State basketball program are evident to outside observers by (1) the fact that he didn't transfer out of the program to get playing time elsewhere and (2) the highly enthusiastic role he plays in cheering his teammates on during games. Joe Rexrode has the inside take on the intangibles theme.
Jon Crandell has played in 27 games and scored 4 points as a Spartan. For whatever reason, he's never been as big a fan favorite as walk-on guards like Matt Ishbia and Mike Kebler. But I'd think that having a walk-on (and not one of the preferred variety) who can play the post spots has been a rare and valuable commodity to Tom Izzo.
I haven't seen any word on whether Tom Herzog has made a decision about his future, but I won't be surprised if he decides to have his career honored after the Michigan game and moves on to post-college activities of the non-basketball variety. Herzog obviously never panned out as a pretty-highly-sought 7-footer out of high school. But there was never any sign that was the result of a lack of effort. He struggled to put on weight and could never seem to bring the offensive skills he reported displayed in practice to a game setting. Should he decide to depart after this season, there's every reason to think he'll find the success off the court that he couldn't quite grasp on the court.

Give that Block S a big smooch, gentlemen. You are full-fledged Spartans, all.

Purdue 64, Penn State 60

2010-03-06T22:02:40Z

Purdue 64, Penn State 60

For the second straight game, Penn State gives a conference title contender everything they could take before finally succumbing in the final seconds. And this time the Nittany Lions did it without Talor Battle's services late--closing a 12-point deficit to just a 1-point margin in the final minute with Battle on the bench due to leg cramps.

That makes two. Can MSU make it a full three-dish co-champion combo platter tomorrow night?