Coach of the Year Candidates

It is impossible to argue with the job Mark Few has done in Spokane this year.  Even with a loss in the WCC tourney, they could easily be the number one overall seed out of a non-power conference.  The reason that I am not putting him on the top of my Coach of the Year short list is because he is basically doing the same thing he has done every year, and the Bulldogs continue to get results.  He is not necessarily exceeding expectations given the resources and competition faced.

1.     Andy Enfield, USC: Funny story.  When I was contemplating Enfield as a candidate, I was floored to realize that he is now in his fourth year at USC (not second- man FGCU seems like it was yesterday) and that he inherited the program from years of Kevin O’Neill damage, not just Tim Floyd fallout.  Holy crap!  Has USC been that anonymous for this long that the last 10 years are a total blur?  Was Mayo/Young the last time they really had any hope?  I pegged them to finish 5^th again, but this is the 3^rd best team in the conference, except in those rare instance UCLA decides to play both ways.

2.     Mike White, Florida: Billy Donovan left the program in decent shape, but this was expected to be a down year for Florida, likely sitting on the fringes of NCAA contention.  They are the best team in the SEC this year.  Maybe not the most talented team, but certainly the most effective team.  The Egbunu injury may take away any Final Four prospects, but this will remain a Top 15 team despite playing just 8 home games to date.

3.     Grant McCasland, Arkansas State: Remember when ASU was good? Me either.  They scheduled ambitiously and were rewarded with a 2-3 mark against the Top 100 non-conference… they would love another shot at Arlington.

4.     Scott Drew, Baylor: Like, literally spitting in the face of adversity.  He has kept a talented, but certainly not elite, team focused amid a brutal schedule and negative publicity… many people want to see Baylor fail, but certainly not the basketball team.

5.     Kermit Davis, MTSU: The Blue Raiders encore to throttling Michigan State last year has been to go 5-1 against the Top 100 (kenpom) and look like the best mid-major program nobody talks about.  It would be a travesty for a 5 loss MTSU team to miss out on the Dance if they get upset by decent ODU, Rice or LaTech teams.

6.     Mark Few, Gonzaga

7.     Bob Huggins, West Virginia: Just when you think the game has passed him by, Huggy Bear grabs a drink and takes you to school.  The shorter shot clock encourages teams to press more to prevent teams from getting into their offense.  However, most teams that press run standard configurations that can be exploited for 3 on 2 breaks, or pick up fouls taking poor angles.  The Mountaineers broke many a weak-willed teams with disciplined reaching and shifting to force horizontal movement, limiting the ball handler’s vision to take the next pass.  Players rotate quickly and everyone plays free safety when it’s their turn.  Huggins doesn’t have a deep lineup, but gets top seed performance when it clicks.

8.     John Becker, Vermont: The Cats brought back a solid 3^rd place squad, but wasn’t expected to run the table like this.  Unfortunately, they missed all 4 opportunities to take a Top 50 win to secure their at large spot, but Becker’s name will be at the top of many coaching short lists.

Honorable Mentions: Cuonzo Martin, Rick Pitinos (both), Brad Underwood, Frank Martin, Dana Altman

February 17 Poll

Moving Out: UNC Wilmington, Butler, South Carolina, Maryland

1. Gonzaga
2. Villanova
3. Kansas
4. Oregon
5. Florida
6. Baylor
7. North Carolina
8. Louisville
9. Duke
10. Saint Mary’s
11. Arizona
12. UCLA
13. Kentucky
14. Purdue
15. Florida State
16. Southern Methodist
17. Wichita State
18. West Virginia
19. Virginia
20. Cincinnati
21. Wisconsin
22. Creighton
23. Illinois State
24. Middle Tennessee State
25. Notre Dame

Moving In: Florida, Southern Methodist, Wichita State, Middle Tennessee State

How are they out?: Maryland, Southern California, Butler, Dayton, Vermont, Iowa State

Man, I feel like Wisconsin should be doing so much more...

Valentine's Day Bracket Update

Numbers were compiled through the 14^th, but a couple of adjustments have been made.  First, Rhode Island’s tank job against a pretty bad Fordham team has been reflected.  Seton Hall gets the benefit of the doubt in their place, though they were not convincing beating Creighton (like seriously, how does a clock suppressing “roll-in” get intercepted?) and still have to host Nova, Xavier, and go to Butler… they need two more wins there, because DePaul is not helping the RPI.  I bumped Arkansas up to the 11 line against Syracuse.

So, apologies go out to Indiana as I am not seeing them getting back in the mix without winning at least 5 in row.  Georgia also has a case, but needs to beat UK and Bama to make a statement to be considered in the first four out, let alone the field.  Providence has not fared well away from the Dunk, and that DePaul loss is killing them… they are basically Syracuse in different uniforms, just not getting the computer number love.  Georgetown also continues to lurk out there, without any bad losses since Arkansas State turned out pretty good… just can’t win enough games.

LAST FOUR IN: Seton Hall, TCU, Arkansas, Syracuse.  I think Arkansas is most likely to establish themselves in the bye field as a 10/11.  The other 4 are just too inconsistent to have any margin of error to hold off…

FIRST FOUR OUT: Rhode Island, Texas Tech, Marquette, Clemson.  Clemson has the best numbers and as recently as the last federal holiday was looking more like a 5/6 seed in the NCAA tournament, not a road team in the NIT.  Marquette and Texas Tech possess criminally low RPI numbers despite decent Top 50 records.  They were squaring off in the last play-in game at some point and that looks to be their only destiny.  The Rams were the A-10’s only hope for a 3^rd at-large bid, and that is long gone without extraordinary circumstances.

NEXT FOUR OUT: Utah, Wake Forest, Alabama, East Tennessee State.  Wake needs something.  The Clemson loss drops them to 0-37 against the Top 50.  A win at Cameron isn’t saving them.  4 in row in the ACC might.  Utah is in the same boat as Wake; so little quality to support their standing with Cal and USC.  Need to beat Oregon tonight and avoid any slip ups.  Alabama started pretty far behind the curve, but I have been saying for a month now that it is a better candidate than Georgia.  ETSU gets a fair chance to enhance their profile against Furman and Chattanooga, but they are really only here because nobody else has stepped up.

THE SLUDGE AT THE BOTTOM: Michigan, Michigan State, Virginia Tech, Houston, Cal, Miami, Kansas State.  Once again, these are all teams that are making this season so frustrating.  Typically, there would be more mid-major strength to weed these teams out, but they all seem comfortable getting trounced on the road and pulling a home upset or two to get people excited.  This why I feel Illinois State, Middle Tennessee State, Wilmington, and Vermont are all fairly safe at-large candidates.

No surprises with the 1 seeds.  Gonzaga and Villanova continue to pull away, while Kansas fights to the death every night.  It is impossible to imagine the ACC not grabbing a 1 seed, but it is not likely to sort out until the ACC tourney semi-finals.  In this order: UNC, UL, Duke, FSU, UVA.  Gonzaga would probably benefit from the game in Sacto, as elevation could be a factor working against them.

Games of interest: Northwestern vs. Illinois State… Wisconsin, bounced to the 4 line with Purdue,  vs Nevada, Notre Dame vs. Wilmington.  Monmouth has huge upset potential vs Creighton, and we all know what to expect from Gulf Coast, who played Baylor tight and only lost to MSU by 1.

One ACC conflict, as Duke could inherit Syracuse via the play in game the first weekend.

Also not happy that Baylor and Kansas ended up in the same bracket... that will be avoided next time if they are 1/2.

Rating Teams and the Three Factors

To develop my own customized team ratings for seeding, I wanted to get away from the RPI.  The RPI is a fair litmus test to validate “how real” a team’s record is, but does little to evaluate “how good” a team is.  RPI ratings can be manipulated by clever scheduling, and can also be sabotaged by things outside of a team’s control.  I also did not want to just cut and paste Pomeroy or Sagarin ratings and say “Hey, look what I did…” Not cool, and honestly, not much fun. 

The best way I felt to display these figures was to take a page from the immortal Dr. Emmett Brown’s playbook when he converted the DeLorean into a Time Machine.  The internal display gave the operator 3 readings: where you are, where you were, and where you are going (in some order).  This led me to create three different rankings: Basic, Strength, and Normalized.

As you can see from the graphic, each ranking values the teams differently, as it takes into different factors that rate performance.  While we know West Virginia can blow the door off any team any given night, it doesn’t tell us if they can achieve consistent results, or if they can sustain those results going forward.

The Basic Rating tells us Who You Are.  Weighted primarily off Pomeroy efficiency and Sagarin Ratings, normalized for a minimal level of performance, it gives a fair indicator of how well you score, how well you prevent scoring, and how good the overall quality of opponent has been.  This is great in a vacuum for theorizing which team is over/underrated, but does little to get us to a bracket.

The Strength Rating tells us Who/Where You Were.  In order to actually incorporate a tool the NCAA uses, I have used the teams’ RPI numbers to determine Top 50 W/L, Top 100 W/L, and bad losses.  It answers the question: When I have stepped on the court with my peers, what results have I delivered.  Some teams, like Iowa State and Georgia Tech, benefit immensely here.  The mid-majors, due to down years in the gut of many of their conferences, defections, and just bad scheduling luck, are getting crushed in this aspect.  Few teams got many opportunities, and many of them blew those.  And you just can’t help the fact that you may have put BC, Washington, and Texas on your Big Boy schedule and those teams are Butt.  This does give a fairly reliable rating of who is tourney caliber, and I used it for a few published brackets… but as I said before, opportunity and schedule can be manipulated here to mask what a team will do come NCAA time.

So… the Normalized ratings attempt to tell us Where you are Going, particularly in March.  Here, we reduce those opportunities to percentages, while giving additional weight to road neutral win % and win % in the last 12 games.  This puts mid majors on a level playing field with majors. Syracuse can buoy their record with wins at the Carrier Dome, but the NCAA Tourney isn’t at the Carrier Dome.  While Iowa State bangs around the Big 12, their quality numbers get a boost by doing it consistently and occasionally stealing one on the road.  Belmont and Vermont, lacking the quality opportunities, can be fairly rated by taking on all their challengers without slip up.

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While not perfect, these numbers output consistent values that don’t have teams jumping all over the grid.

NCAA notes by conference

Once the league season has taken shape, sometimes it helps to take a step back and look at the standings as a whole to see where the major battle lines have been drawn.  Usually, it is pretty easy to see who is a real contender based on the combination of non-conference and conference results.  Some teams seem to hit the wall every year (Clemson) while others drag ass early and then find their way (Georgetown, Michigan State).  With only 10 conferences really pushing for multiple bids, this is the softest bubble in years for these sub-.500 layabouts to take advantage of.  Here is a very rough sketch of the conference breakdown:

22 1 bids (with a couple with the potential to be two, but unlikely)

Big 10: top 5, 2 fringe

ACC: top 9, 2 fringe

Big 12: top 7, 1 fringe

AAC: top 2, 1 fringe

A-10: top 2, 1 fringe

Big East: top 4, 4 fringe

PAC 12: top 5, 1 fringe

SEC: top 3, 2 fringe

WCC: top 2

MVC: top 2

CAA: 1 fringe

OVC: 1 fringe

MWC: 2 fringe

MAC: 1 fringe

MAAC: 1 fringe

HC: 1 fringe

C-USA: 1 fringe

AE: 1 fringe

That means as of today, 63 of the 68 spots are more or less comfortably owned by a team that performed above its leagues median line.  There are a couple riskier interlopers (Syracuse, USC, TCU, MSU, the MVC) that are really a bad loss from turning their RPI upside down, but right now are high enough in their leagues respectfully.  And it's possible for Saint John's to finish in the top half of the league and still have no shot at an at large.

The fringe teams are the one who have compiled a fair at-large profile, but are buried with league losses and need to win their way in.  Obviously, 3 CAA losses is much worse than 9 ACC losses.  These fringe teams should feel that they either need a strong league finish to push ahead of the those teams above them, or compete against the other 23 teams for these 5 spots.  Sure, it helps to win the autobid to take the 3rd party out of the decision process, and all of these mid-majors should feel like that is the only way.  These teams are Wilmington (losing to Elon killed their at-large profile), Belmont (ditto their first league loss), Boise State and Nevada out of the MWC, Akron, Monmouth, Valpo, Middle Tennessee State (who far and away has the best at-large shot), and Vermont (who right now would have the second best shot if they ran the table and dumped to somebody in the AE final).

On the other hand, Michigan, Michigan State, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Texas Tech, Houston, URI, Seton Hall, Marquette, Providence, Georgetown, Utah, Arkansas, and Alabama have to feel that one or two more losses really hurts their chances.  Doing the "Team A/Team B" blind comparisons will lead to the major conference teams that have more opportunities to do damage; like Wake being 1-8 against the Top 50... just reeks of NIT despite the gaudy RPI... look up Southwest Missouri State 2004 if you want to see how a good RPI can get you snubbed... the Deacs would be in better shape if they dropped the NC State game but beat Syracuse.

I'll be generating new numbers today, but will take a couple days to get the bracket seeded... had to paint the house this weekend.

Minnesota

Apparently I lost them in my last bracket... it happens.

February 7th (Pats Victory) Bracket

RPI Top 50/100 records reweighted.

Apologies to: Seton Hall, Wake Forest.  I am just not getting there with the lack of good wins.

FIRST FOUR OUT: Clemson, Miami, Arkansas, Michigan.  Clemson got blown out as I was making this bracket, and I already was having trouble finding Virginia Tech a home.  Syracuse is up to 7-4 in the ACC, so they will likely be one of the Top 9 teams to find a home.  Miami should really feel screwed here, but their who campaign is tied to the UNC win right now.  In this case, I just went with 8 ACC teams.  Arkansas loses to Missouri, which, I mean, come on.  I would give them a loss or two to anybody except Missouri... even LSU on the road.

NEXT FOUR OUT: Houston, Utah, Seton Hall, East Tennessee State.  Utah just doesn't have the quality of schedule to pull this off.  Need some help.  Seton Hall will likely get there as long as they continue to beat the bottom of the conference and steal one against the Top 4.  Houston needs a big win.

LAST FOUR IN: Texas Tech, Virginia Tech, Michigan State, Syracuse.  The ACC will shift forward a couple lines as we get through February.

Enjoying the soft bubble: Welcome to the field Cal.  Also, Just to see how it rolled out, UNC Wilmington has been dropped from auto qualifier to at large.

Gonzaga is the #1 overall out of the west which flips the bracket.

One-Bid League Reality Check

I like to stand by my preseason call as long as possible.  Some of these calls, such as Howard in the MEAC, were flawed from the start.  Other calls, such as Liberty in the Big South, were sabotaged by injury or circumstance.  Sometimes you tried to ride a darkhorse, like Bryant, who just does not have the talent to emerge.  And finally, sometimes you think you really understand a team and its ability to deploy a tactic upon lesser competition, only you were dead wrong, as in the case the case of my Horizon picks.

First, preseason to league play, I maintained 25 of 32 projected winners.  Better than 75% isn’t bad, but there is still work to be done.  Also, it warrants mentioning that for the for the “surely auto-bid” leagues, we are selecting who is most likely to make the field, not necessarily who is going to have the best league win percentages.

Conferences that I definitely need to amend:

Northeast

America East

Southland

MAC

Conferences that will not fall my way, but intend to stick with my call to upset the tourney:

Summit

Patriot

Big West

Conferences way too close to call:

Sun Belt

Southern

Ivy

Big South (Liberty, back from the dead!)

Northeast

Let me disclose- this is an awful conference this year.  I rolled the dice with Bryant early, flopped to Robert Morris, but now it impossible to decide.  I love a local pick in Mount St. Mary’s, but not so sure they can sustain their run trotting out a bunch of mites.  FDU has warts, and LIU just dumped to a very weak CCSU team.  Nobody has shown that they can compete at the “Field of 68” level, but we will reward the Mountaineers for their consistency that will lead them through the NEC.

America East

Straight up, Vermont may be one of the 68 best teams in the country.  Seriously, you wouldn’t take them in your bracket over the bottom 10 SEC teams?  I originally, and still, wanted New Hampshire to put it all together because they have never been anywhere near the postseason before.  Nobody in this league has the ability to solve Vermont’s attack.  UMBC may be able to push the pace, but they won’t get the stops.  The Cats also live around the rim, so they are less prone to a cold shooting night.

Southland

It doesn’t look like the “Community College” turning it around soon enough.  There is still a lot to like there, but the results aren’t happening.  The Jacks are near the top of the standings, but the kenpom numbers tell another story.  New Orleans has come out of nowhere, but I’m leaning toward the Bearkats.  After a slow start, they have won 7 in a row, including at New Orleans.  Both teams are poor shooting and loose with the ball, but I expect the Privateers to regress (two OT wins).

Mid-American

Akron is one of the few teams enjoying success maintaining a slow tempo when the game has opened up to “embrace the pace”.  This is the slowest team Keith Dambrot has put on the floor at Akron, but they work to exploit the 3-point shot, and make just enough to be dangerous.  Outside of a sloppy start against Youngstown State, they have beaten everyone they were supposed to beat.  They still have Ohio and EMU on the road that could expose a flaw, but I expect them to coast through.

Fun stat: Since reaching the Final Four in 2007, the Georgetown Hoyas have been knocked out of the NCAA tourney 6 straight times by lower seeds.  It will be interesting to see if JT3 gets a chance to extend that streak, because it will not be this year.