Keith "F@!&ing" Smart: A One Sided Rivalry

Indiana vs. Syracuse. Two programs with storied pasts, who have met in a memorable tournament game once before. Back in 1987 a nerdy version of Jim Boeheim and a skinny Derrick Coleman were paired against a slim Robert Montgomery Knight and his Indiana Hoosiers. Keith Smart, a juco transfer, will forever live in Hoosier lore after hitting a mid range J to win the National Championship game.  As I found out this week, Syracuse fans still have a bad taste in their mouth and had some choice words for the Indiana great: 

• "I was only 7, but even I know that Keith Smart is an asshole."
• "To me, that's the pain of Keith Smart's shot. He didn't just end Syracuse's national title hopes in 1987. He single-handidly changed the course of the entire program. And while we've done quite well for ourselves since, there's always that nagging feeling that we could have been that much better. And it's 100% Keith Smart's fault we're not."

• The 1987 final's last play -- a fluke, mind you -- somehow fueled a narrative for Syracuse and Jim Boeheim as choke artists, one which the media still holds on to dearly despite the 2003 title. It created a permanent animosity for Indiana amongst most SU fans (despite how few times we play the Hoosiers).And most of all, it made Keith "F@!&ing" Smart (yes, that is his actual middle name) arguably the most hated figure in Syracuse sports lore.  As a Syracuse fan, I believed it to be my duty to let him know I'd never forget that play. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. 

These are just some of the the quotes I found from different Syracuse blogs. You would think after reading these quotes this match up would be some sort of rivalry. How many times have these teams played since? 3, 3 times in 26 years, 4 total. A lot of hate for an Indiana prgram that doesn't associate much with Cuse other than a 2-3 zone and Melo!

I recently watched the 1987 championship game. A couple things really stood out. How much closer the game was played to the basket in 1987 even though the 3 point line was in place. Syracuse didn't exclusively play 2-3 zone. They box and oned Alford for a good amount of time (probably because he hit 7 threes that game). Syracuse didn't like to hit game clinching free throws then and still doesn't now. Lastly, the composure of the Hoosiers on the last play. No one looked panicked at all, almost so much so that I started panicking for for them. Here is a clip of the last possession. Also notice how high Keith Smart jumps over Howard Triche (YES Brandon Triche's dad was on the court to lose that game).

GAME PREVIEW

Enough of the past, lets focus on the game at hand. The most intriguing match up has to be Indiana's efficient offense versus Syracuse's program defining 2-3 zone. All the same zone offense principles apply here. You want to move the ball quickly, preferably in the middle first to open up the wings. You have to make some outside shots. Lastly, crash the glass because Cuse has the ability to give up offensive rebound in bunches. What makes this zone different is its flexibility. The two guards up top normally sit up above the three point line on the same parallel as the elbows. Essentially pinching the top of the offense while the two wings on the bottom of the 2-3 sit higher up than normal. Syracuse does a really good job of forcing big men into passes the aren't comfortable making and thrive off turnovers.

The most consistent soft spots seem to be at either elbow or in the short corners. Many other teams' zone offense like to exploit the short corner and Cuse is normally happy to give it up. That is where they tend to pinch their zone together and shut down passing lanes. Then big men try to force a pass and Cuse is running the other way with the ball. Louisville did an exceptional job of attacking the elbows in the second half of the Big East championship game.

If you watch these possessions from 51 seconds on,  you can see how Louisville lined up both big guys at the mid post, a set normally called “horns”. Essentially having the point guard occupy both defenders up top, feeding the big men, and playing 4 on 3 from the free throw line down. This eventually opened up the base line for the Kevin Ware alley oop at 1:37 on the video. They made it look really easy. Both Watford and Zeller are skilled enough to make decisions with the ball and I hope Tom Crean can look at this tape and throw some “horns” looks into his zone offense.

The Syracuse offense thrives off of turnovers where it can showcase it's elite athletic ability. So Indiana's best defense will ultimately start on offense. Don't turn the ball over and make Cuse work for its buckets. It will also be interesting to see how IU matches up with Syracuse on defense. The most effective line up Cuse has is probably MCW (6-6), Brandon Triche (6-4), James Southerland (6-8), CJ Fair (6-8) and Baye Keita (6-10). That's tall for an NBA lineup, let alone a college roster. We could see a lot of Will Sheehey just to match up physically. The second key for IU on defense is rebounding. Cuse isn't the smoothest in the half court, in fact if Southerland is not hitting threes it looks borderline ugly. The Hoosiers can not give up second chance points.

I see this game being close and coming down to final 4 minutes after the last TV time out. IU will win if they limit their turnovers and really clamp down on the defensive glass. I think with enough quality possessions they will eventually break down the Syracuse zone, no bias of course. I'll be at the game tomorrow in Washington DC, cheering on the Hoosiers from the nosebleed sections. Hopefully the presence of Keith F@!&ing Smart can lead IU to victory.

Madness Thoughts and Opinions

It's that time of year. The best three weeks any basketball fan can ask for. The rankings are irrelevant (as always?). Big conference or small, everyone is on a level playing field. Is there anything more American than filling out an NCAA tournament bracket? Just like the players who settle it on the court, anyone can win a bracket pool. That's the beauty of it. My Asian roommate will pick based on who has the hottest cheerleaders (seriously) and my mom still thinks that the higher numbered seed is actually the better team (ok not really, but she just loves upsets). Both have beaten me in recent years.

Did you notice what i did? "Bracket" is always singular. Please do not be that person who claims to have correctly picked that upset "in one of my bracketS." It really gets annoying. Stick to you guns and have some integrity. I am not going to try and act like I know what going to happen in this tournament. I will give you 7 thoughts, predictions, stats that you should keep in mind before sending your bracket in. At the end of the post I will include link to a couple of guys who really know the brackets.

7 Thoughts to Ponder

1) The wild, wild west bracket will implode at some point. I just don't know who will lose and when. It is a crap shoot. This region will probably look similar to the west last year, who had a 4 seed play a 7 to get to the final four. Lets look at the top seeds and problems I have with them.

• Gonzaga - One of the weakest ones in recent memory, yet somehow underrated at the same time. 
• Ohio State - They are the smartest pick, but can you continue to rely on offense from Craft, Thompson and Ross? I really don't think so. 
• New Mexico - Strong resume but the analytics don't back it up. They struggle to score as well and Alford has not had the best tournament record.
• Kansas State - Coached by Bruce Webber. Yeah, 
  THIS GUY. Nuff said. 
• Wisconsin - A popular pick for the Elite 8. How quickly we forget Wisco can beat anybody and also lose to ANYBODY (Purdue at home). Their margin for error is really low. In a tournament, that isn't ideal. 
• Arizona- No true point guard. They have size but are really young down low. Can't trust em. 

2) VCU is a really trendy pick at the moment. Great coach, fun team to watch, but very flawed. If the rams can't force turnovers, the become an average defense. In fact, the haven't beaten a team in the top 80 in turnover % all season! Michigan is ranked #1 in the nation in turnover %, while South Dakota State is ranked 13th. Not surprisingly both are lead by fantastic point guards.

3) Louisville should be the favorite, but the fact that everyone is picking them to win it all doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Two weeks ago we were wondering if they had a shot at a 1 seed. They are hot, but apparently the Big East Tournament win put them over the top. Who did they beat exactly? A 7 seed in Notre dame and a 5 seed Syracuse who had lost 4 out of 5 going into the Big East tournament. The Cardinals are more susceptible than you think.

4) St. Louis has the look of a team who is ready to go far. Veteran guard play, big guys who stretch the floor and the emotional backing of Rick Majerus. The latter can't be underestimated after we saw the Colts and Ravens have improbable runs under similar circumstances. I think they can survive the Louisville pressure and will be in position to steal the game from the Cardinals.

5) Things going against the Miami Hurricanes:

• Only one team has ever won a NCAA championship without a McDonald's All American (Maryland '02). Indicating you need NBA talent to win it all.
• Teams not ranked in the top 25 in the pre-season have a historically poor record when given a high seed. Again indicating a lack of overall talent.
• Really old team though, some would say very experienced right? Their entire roster has played a total of 0 games in the NCAA tournament. Not saying they can't do it, just something to think about.

6) Marquette has been put in a tough pod (Butler, Bucknell and Davidson) and are a relatively over seeded 3. They also are trying to overcome having the worst 3 point % in the tournament, 30%.Historically, teams have found it tough when they shoot poorly from 3. Not many have made it to the sweet sixteen. 

7) Florida is the classic Eye test vs. Advanced stats team this year. They have lost 6 close games this year and I would tell you that is more unlucky than anything. They also are top 5 in offensive and defensive efficiency, the only team in the nation that can boast both. Lastly they are in a region with a relatively weak 1 and 2 seed. We know Billy Donovan can coach as well. Smells like a final four run for the Gators.

Actual Experts

Here are some links and a table to guide you through your tournament pool. This Basketball Predictions Blog has fantastic in depth write ups previewing each region. It is a little heavy on the anlaytical side, but really informative. Bracket Science also has any kind of article you could ever want to know about. Who fits the mold of cinderellas and who is most likey to get upset etc. Lastly please use the table below to see who has played well since January 1st (courtesy of @RealGM). Good luck and enjoy the rest of the madness.

Conference Tournament Tables

BIG EAST

BIG TEN

ACC

BIG 12

SEC

PAC 10/12

Conference Tournaments, Fatigue or Momentum?

Many coaches don't particularly like the idea of conference tournaments. After going through a grueling conference schedule you are expected to play up to 4 days in a row before the biggest and most important tournament of the year. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, especially because you have already played the teams in your conference at least once. Regardless, this week of conference tournaments influences the committee and becomes very important to how we view teams. Tournament births, seeding and regional sites are all at stake up until 2 hours before the bracket is released. 

Obviously the goal is to win every game you are in, but do some coaches take it more seriously than others? Would they prefer their team get rest instead of playing 3 tough games in 3 days? Rick Bozich recently wrote an article on how past NCAA champions and final four contenders have fared in their conference tournaments. He found half of the teams that made it to the final four since 2003 have won their conference tournaments. It got me thinking are these teams riding the momentum wave into March Madness or is just a self-fulfilling prophecy because they are the best teams and thus went farther in both Tournaments. This post will discuss whether we can find any correlation between playing on the last day of your conference tournament and how it improves or hurts your ultimate run to the final 4.

Assumptions

I went and looked back at all of the conference tournament winners and runner ups since 2000 in the big 6 conferences. In total it was 152 teams over a 13 year period, a solid sample size. Then I compared a teams seed to the expected wins a team of that seed normally gets. Essentially I am looking at if a team made it to the last day of their conference tournament, how is their performance compared to the average of a team with a similar seed. Below is a chart of the average wins per tournament seed.

This is actually a really good tool to use when making your brackets in general. As you can see the biggest separation is between the 1 and 2 seeds. A 1 seed on average advances a whole game further than a 2 seed. Other interesting notes are you would rather be a 10 seed than a 9 seed historically. Lastly, the glaring .000 expected wins for the 16 seed because they have never won a game. 

Also lets think about the implication of getting to the finals of your conference tournament. You are in most cases improving your seed. So even if there is no indication of fatigue or momentum, it is advantageous for teams to go as far as possible in their conference tournament (because the better the seed, the more wins you get on average).

Results

Here is a a look at one of the conference tables I set up to give you an idea of how i was looking at the data.

The above table is a list of the winners and runner ups of the Big East Tournament over the past 13 seasons. Next to the teams are their seed in the NCAA tournament, how many wins they had, how many wins that seed normally has and lastly did they over/under perform the expectation. The winners of the Big East have had a great run of late with both the 2012 Louisville and 2011 Uconn advancing to the final four. Overall the Big East winners outperformed the expected wins by 7.75 games, divide that by 13 and you get .6 wins above average per year. This is pretty significant but was skewed by the last two year results. Now if you look over at the runner ups portion, you can see on average they under performed compared to their seed by -.17 games per year. 

I won't bore you with the rest of the conference tables. If you want to take a look at them individually, follow this link. They are set up in the same format. 

After evaluating all 152 teams I found if you won your conference tournament you out performed your seed by an average of .05 games. Also, if you lost your conference tournament you under performed by -.03 games. Thus, there seems to be no fatigue factor at all and also no real momentum gain heading in to the field of 68. As I mentioned above, if there is no significant advantage or disadvantage to advancing to the last day of your teams respective conference tournament, they should try to improve their seed as much as possible. As my idol Johnny Tsunami once said, "Go big or go home". 

More in depth tournament match ups will be posted once the bracket is released tonight. Thanks to the people who actually got this far in the post as well.

Close Games in College Basketball: Not a Story of Wins and Losses

"Parity" is a buzz word in college basketball circles. The most trusted source on the internet, Wikipedia,  defines it as "when participating teams have roughly equivalent levels of talent." It is one of the driving reasons why many love college basketball. Specifically this year, any team can win on any given night. Yet the media and fans seemed obsessed with trying to decide who is "the best team in the nation", "head and shoulders above the rest of the field", "clearly the odds on favorite" etc.  Let me reiterate what everyone has said all season, that doesn't exist this year. It can be most seen by the revolving door of #1 teams we have had at the top of the polls. It astonished me two weeks ago when Indiana beat Michigan State in a really close game, they were anointed the clear favorite to win it all. What happens if IU loses that game? The narrative would be completely different. The Hoosiers would now be in crisis mode; losing 3 out of 5 and people would wondering what happened to the pre-season favorites. But in reality, if IU loses that game, does that make them any better or worse? Or is just our perception towards them that changes?

This post will discuss what close games can ultimately tell us about college basketball teams. Whether past clutch performances can predict future play in tight situations. Lastly, what teams in the NCAA we should trust going into the bracket. 

The Clutch Performance Fallacy 

Lets take a quick look back at that IU game I referenced. The Hoosiers were down 4 with 1:26 left in the game. I would venture to guess teams in that situation lose at least 90% of the time, probably more. Then Christian Watford drew and and-1 off balance push shot from 12 feet away and converted the free throw. That play in and of itself was not lucky, but IU was fortunate to pull out the game. ESPN analysts will rave about Indiana's late game execution, as they should, but thinking this will be a trend would be a mistake. 

Basically the theory boils down to this, in a close game there are only a certain amount of possessions to determine the winner. If a game is tied with 2 minutes left, there is only 6 or so possessions to dictate who the "better" team is. In 6 possessions, anything can happen and it would be foolish to judge who is the better team just based on the winner.

One of college basketball's most respected bloggers, Ken Pomeroy, recently collected a bunch of data on this. He found what I expected, regardless of how good a team is, close games (decided within 3 points) are basically 50-50 on who ends up winning. He even looked at if a team won its first 4 close games and would it predict how many close games they won in the future. It turns out teams who won their first 4 close games won 54% of the rest of their close games, while teams that lost their first four won 46% of their remaining close games.

It might shock people to hear this, but most coaches would prefer to not be in close games for this very reason. To quote coach Jack Reilly from Mighty Ducks 1, "it’s not worth winning if you can’t win big". Billy Donovan's Florida Gators have provided us with a perfect example of a team that is being criticized by the media for not being "battle tested". Florida has blown out SEC teams by an average of around 15 points a game. So the media would prefer that Florida play close games against sub par SEC competition and believe that somehow prepares them for March? 1) average margin of victory is one of the best indicators for how good a team is. 2) Lets say Forida ends up playing more close games, but inevitably loses some of them. Then Florida gets reamed for losing to a crappy SEC team. It is a no win situation for Donovan. So while it is nice to see your favorite team execute and win in the close games, please don't fall into the trap of thinking that will be the norm.

Consistency is King

So now that we are well into March, which teams should you trust heading into the tournament. Below is a table, courtesy of @RealGM, that tells us how many bad performances a team has had as of 2/26/2013. A "bad performance" is any game where the team’s game-specific Pythagorean Rating would be less than 0.9000. (Pythagorean Rating adjusts for opponent and venue as on kenpom.com.) In my opinion this is probably one of the best ways to see who is the cream of the crop in the NCAA and definitely a better indication than wins and losses.

Some things that jump out right away, again would be Florida. The Gators had 5 bad showings as off 2/26 and have played 5 total close games if you count yesterday's game against Kentucky. They actually have lost 4 of the 5 close games and will be penalized accordingly in next weeks rankings. We will probably see Florida as a 3 seed come March, but I would be buying their stock right now. This is one of the top 5 teams in the nation. 

Teams near the bottom of the table but top of the polls: Michigan State, Kansas and Miami. Most of the Spartans bad performances came in the non conference. As of Big Ten play they have been much better, so I wouldn't worry too much about them. Kansas and Miami on the other hand are teams to be wary of. Kansas has had some clunkers, TCU comes to mind and last night against Baylor was not pretty. Bill Self is top 3 in game coach right now so I would hate to doubt the Jayhawks, but their ranking could be somewhat inflated come tournament time. 

Then there is Miami. This is a team I want to love so bad. A cast of seniors from Kenny Kadji (who is older than Kevin Durant), to Reggie Johnson and Durand Scott who are led by coach Larranaga and sophmore point guard Shane Larkin. They are the media darling. Coming out of nowhere and looking like they could run the table in the Durham dominated ACC. Most of their bad performances came in February against ACC schools that aren't exactly power houses. Now they have lost two more in March and were tied going into half time last night at home against Clemson. I think this team is good and well coached, but I'm on the fence if they are a team I can trust.

If there is one takeaway from this post it is that close games can be decided by improbability  That is exactly why we love March Madness. The double digit seed upsets, teenagers being put in pressure situations that we over examine and everyone thinking they can predict what is going to happen. There is no favorite and that is exactly how I like it. Good luck in your tournament pools and I will have more about tournament match-ups as the end of March is on the horizon. 

Bonus Video 

Random video that popped up on my timeline the other day. Team is up 1 with 3.7 seconds left. All they have to do is hold onto the ball or get fouled. In bounding from the back court and a player loses focus for a split second. To quote the camera guy, "He stupid". The kid scored a buzzer beater for the opposing team. This isn't exactly what I had in mind when saying close games are impossible to predict. It's truly unbelievable.