Can Basketball Be More Exciting? Is This The Brilliant Idea?

Norfolk State busted everyone’s bracket back in 2012.

A fellow writer named Nicholas Patrick may have come up with the best idea for improving a sport in our lifetime.

The sport: Basketball. The problem: The end of most basketball games consists of one team stalling and one team intentionally fouling.

You’ve seen it a thousand times, especially in the NCAA Tournament. Team X leads Team Y by 10 points with 1:46 to go. Team Y has no choice but to foul Team X, hope for missed free throws, then race the ball up the floor to jack a 3 or accept a gift lay-up, then foul, rinse and repeat until the game is over.

In another scenario, Team X leads Team Y by 10 points with 4:00 to go. Team X will generally abandon what got them the lead and begin using the majority of the shot clock on every possession, oftentimes waiting too long to get a quality look at the basket.

In both scenarios, the general flow of basketball is nowhere to be found. And in both scenarios, the culprit is the same: THE CLOCK.

Nick told me that he first realized this flaw back in 2004 when watching the end of a Duke/Xavier Elite 8 game with his college buddies at the University of Dayton. “It didn’t take long for me to realize that all of basketball’s late-game flaws are directly attributable to the influence of the game clock,” he wrote to me in an e-mail. “The question was (and is) how to compel teams to keep playing our beloved, crisp style (of basketball) through the end of each game.”

Now, I should interject here: You may not think there is anything wrong with basketball the way it is. The first weekend of March Madness is already plenty exciting, you might say—- we’ve got filling out brackets, betting in Vegas, upsets and the occasional buzzer beater to enjoy. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? But maybe it IS broke, and most people haven’t realized that. Further, most people wouldn’t be able to tell you a way to fix it.

Nicholas Patrick is not most people. This dude not only thinks outside the box, he punts “the box” out the window.

“Fixing” Basketball

Here’s how Nick would “fix” the ends of basketball games to ensure better quality of play and more importantly for you, exponentially more game-winning shots: Eliminate the game clock from the equation at the ends of games.

You get it? NO GAME CLOCK.

Okay, you say, so then how does the game end?

Nick’s idea: Play the 20 minute first half. Then play a timed 16 minutes of the second half. Shut the clock off. Add 7 points to the leading team’s score. THAT IS THE FINAL TARGET SCORE.

For example, Cincinnati leads Kentucky 56-50 at the end of that 16-minute second half. We shut the clock off, and the first team to 63 wins the game. Now both teams have equal incentive to both score and play sound defense without fouling. And, best of all, unless the final point comes via free throw, virtually every game will end with a walk-off bucket. No stalling, no foul-fests, no lengthy official clock reviews.

Scrapping the game clock would eliminate all the intentional fouling (which rarely works anyway, as Nick’s article points out) and encourage both teams to simply play basketball the correct way until the game is over. And while you wouldn’t have the traditional “buzzer-beaters,” you would have many more game-winning shots.

It’s an idea that turns conventional wisdom on its head. Nick has presented his idea to hundreds of media, coaches, and owners. So far, nobody has taken it seriously.

What do you think? Brilliant idea or unnecessary idea?

To receive all BergOnSports posts and podcasts directly into your inbox, enter your e-mail address in the box at the top of the right-hand sidebar.
Follow @bergonsports

 

 

#Bearcats vs #19 San Diego State: The Most Important Game on Cincinnati’s Schedule?

Octavius Ellis rocks the rim.

It’s only mid-December and it’s only the ninth game on Cincinnati’s schedule, but Wednesday night’s battle with 19th-ranked San Diego State could turn out to be the most important game in the 2014-15 regular season.

As I sit here eating a giant Nestle Crunch bar, scouring through ESPN’s Basketball Power Index rankings, it’s becoming painfully evident that the American Athletic Conference may be one of the weakest leagues in the nation this year. The highest ranked team in the conference is SMU at 39. UConn is next at 46. The Bearcats check in at 64. The next highest team? Tulane at 119.

Yikes. (And yes, Tulane really is in this league now.)

So, unlike those years in the Big East, and unlike last season when conference foes Louisville, Memphis and UConn all scored the Bearcats points in the computer rankings, grabbing wins against quality non-conference opponents will likely be necessary for UC to qualify for its fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament.

After having dropped its first two opportunities to Ole Miss and at Nebraska, “Oc” Ellis and the Bearcats will be afforded four more chances to bolster that March Madness resume:

Dec 17    vs #19 San Diego State
Dec 20    vs VCU
Dec 30    at NC State
Feb 18    vs Xavier

While Xavier currently (and inexplicably) ranks ahead of the Aztecs in the BPI (15th), chances are, the #@$&in’ Musketeers won’t be ranked in either Top 25 poll when we get to the Crosstown Shootout. VCU was ranked a couple of weeks ago, but suffered defeats to Villanova, Virginia and Old Dominion, knocking Shaka Smart’s crew out of the Top 25. NC State just lost to Wofford, so we can safely assume the Wolfpack won’t be ranked by December 30th.

Of course, there’s a chance Connecticut could work its way back into the rankings, but a home loss to Yale will be tough to overcome.

As you can see, this means that San Diego State could be the only ranked team UC plays all season. And that’s why this 9:00 ESPN2 (Bob Wischusen and Dan Dakich on the broadcast) tilt against Steve Fisher’s Aztecs might be the most important game on the schedule.

Your San Diego State Aztecs 2-Minute Preview

As it turns out, San Diego State is virtually a mirror image of the Bearcats. Both teams struggle to score, both teams graduated a senior leader/playmaker and both teams play Top 10-caliber defense.

Click Here to Listen to my 2-Minute preview

Rightclick Here to Download my 2-Minute preview

Thanks for reading. Stay positive. Stay patient.

To receive every BergOnSports post and podcast directly into your inbox, enter your e-mail address in the box at the top of the right-hand sidebar.  

 

What We’ve Learned From the NCAA Tournament’s First Weekend

March Madness? Really? Or is it March “Yeah, That Makes Sense-ness?”

A few weeks before Selection Sunday, I embarked on a research mission to see if discernible patterns exist in the NCAA Tournament. I tried to go about this a year ago, using a gang of statistics, and the predictions were nowhere close to correct. This year, I decided to limit my use of statistics and rely on my observational skills.

I took a look at what type of offense a team runs, what type of defense a team plays, what type of guards a team has and how athletic/quick/big a team is. The patterns I uncovered were:

Teams That Are Dangerous:

1) Explosive offense (can score points quickly)
2) Pressure defense (can force turnovers to score points quickly)
3) Dual-threat guards with either exceptional quickness or size
4) Size, athleticism and quickness to the max

Teams That Are Vulnerable:

1) Methodical offense
2) Conservative defense
3) One-dimensional guards
4) Slow afoot

I based my picks off of those criteria. That led to correctly choosing eleven of the Sweet 16 teams. Not a bad percentage, but also not that remarkable. Click here to pull my picks up in another tab.

So, what did I miss?

1) Teams Peaking at the Right Time are Dangerous

I did correctly predict Dayton to advance to its first Sweet 16 in 30 years, but I missed on Baylor and Tennessee. The Bears and Vols both went through rough patches in January/February before righting the ship (Dayton also did, but I picked them more on the type of offense they have, and they were matched up against two teams that couldn’t score) down the stretch. When a team handles adversity and grows closer together, it’s a TEAM. And it’s shown that you can make noise in the tourney when that happens at the right time.

2) Teams Struggling Down the Stretch are in Trouble

Unfortunately, my Cincinnati Bearcats fell into this category. UC peaked in late December/January/early February, when the Bearcats reeled off 15 straight wins. But after that, Cincy looked very average and probably, due to guys playing a ton of minutes, hit a wall. Same thing with Saint Louis, who won 19 straight before dropping 4 of its last 5.

Teams that are playing their best basketball down the stretch, regardless of W-L record, do hold an advantage in most cases. You take a look at a team like 2-seed Kansas and you see a team with a ton of talent but a team that wasn’t necessarily clicking down the stretch. Plus, KU was without 7-foot center Joel Embiid. Stanford had size, and took advantage of the matchup. 10-seed Stanford seems like an unlikely Sweet 16 team, but all things considered, not that unlikely.

3) Teams with sub-100 rankings in Offense or Defense are Extremely Vulnerable

I blew it with Duke and Creighton. I put too much stock in scoring punch–these two teams ranked first and second in Adjusted Offense (KenPom.com) this season. But Duke ranked 115th in Adjusted Defense and Creighton was even worse, at the 152 spot. That is just plum awful. Duke couldn’t stop Mercer (75th in AdjO) and Creighton had no prayer to stop Baylor (5th in AdjO) or score against Baylor’s size and length.

The sub-100 Offense rankings were something I did consider, which is why I felt Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Ohio State, San Diego State, Kansas State and VCU would go home early. Saint Louis should have been out in the first game, and SDSU benefited from one of the easiest draws I’ve ever seen–or else they woulda been done-zo right off the bat. If you can’t execute offensively, and you aren’t getting points off of your defense, you aren’t going anywhere.

4) Offense Can Be the Trump Card, Even if it is Methodical

I chose 7 Oregon to knock off 2 Wisconsin in the Round of 32 because of the explosive offense versus methodical offense theory. But Wisconsin, it turned out, wasn’t as methodical as in the past–and the Badgers ranked in the Top 5 in AdjO while checking in at a decent 55th in AdjD. Oregon brought the 11th best offense to the table, but Dana Altman’s squad ranked 86th in defense. By those numbers, it’s not a big surprise Wisconsin was able to win this game (especially since it was played in Milwaukee!). The pattern we’re seeing is that KenPom’s Adjusted Offense and Defense (click here to pull those rankings up) pretty much tells you what’s going to happen.

And this also backs up Baylor and Tennessee. Neither team runs up and down the court much, but both ranked in the Top 30 in Offense (Baylor was 5th). Seems like it’s all about the numbers, doesn’t it?

Bottom Line: When it all comes down to it, this tournament isn’t really all that random. It even seems to have a pretty good rhyme and reason to it.

Next season, when you’re making your picks, use KenPom.com religiously and figure out which teams are coming together down the stretch and which teams are fading. That should give you a leg up on your competition.

 

Cincinnati Bearcats: 3 Reasons Why the 2013-14 Season Ended Without an NCAA Tournament Win

Before I break down exactly what happened with the Cincinnati Bearcats down the stretch of this season, let me first acknowledge this: UC is one of just 16 teams to make the NCAA Tournament the past four seasons. For a program on a shoestring budget, that’s remarkable.

That said, this year’s Bearcats were ranked in the Top 15 for about a month and a half..yet failed to win a game in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season.

What happened?

1) UC Peaked Too Early

After dropping back-to-back games to New Mexico and Xavier, UC beat Pitt on December 14th and then reeled off fourteen wins in a row to run the team’s record to an astonishing 22-2. The only problem? It was still a month left before the tournament. Could UC keep the streak alive?

After an emotional, hard-fought home win over UConn on Feb 6, the Bearcats traveled down to Dallas to take on SMU. The Mustangs laid a woodshed beating on UC, who looked dead tired and two steps slow that night. Of course, it’s understandable, considering the short turnaround and travel following that draining game against Connecticut.

But was it a sign that the team had hit a wall? After all, head coach Mick Cronin was relying on guys like Sean Kilpatrick, Titus Rubles and Justin Jackson to play a ton of minutes.

UC bounced back to fight off Houston at home and then decimate UCF in Orlando, but then scored just 57 and 45 points against Louisville and UConn respectively. The ‘Cats put on an inspiring adrenaline-aided performance on Senior Night, blowing out Memphis 97-84 while executing near-perfectly on offense (just 3 turnovers)…then struggled to muster up enough fuel to fend off Rutgers to gain a share of the conference title.

But at what price? UC showed up for the conference tournament in Memphis as the 1-seed, but played more like the 8 or 9-seed. The Bearcats struggled to shake UCF, eventually holding on for a fortuitous 61-58 win. Central Florida should have won that game, too, if we’re being honest. The Knights blew a bunch of free throws and missed a couple of wide open 3’s late in the game.

Red flag for UC? If you’re a Top 15 team, you shouldn’t have trouble knocking UCF out.

The next night, UConn put UC out of its misery with a 58-56 stifling.

Heading into the NCAA Tournament, UC simply was not playing its best basketball. The same goes for 2013, when UC limped in to the tournament only to be bounced by Creighton.

As you’ve seen this year, the teams who are firing on all cylinders at the right time make runs (Dayton, Baylor, Tennessee). And you saw it in 2011 and 2012, when the Bearcats finished strong down the stretch and made runs in the tournament before slamming into Final 4 teams (UConn, Ohio State). It’s tough to get that mojo back at the last minute once you’ve lost it.

2)  The Stats Don’t Lie: UC Ranked 113th in Adjusted Offense (KenPom.com)

You don’t have to be a wise barber named James Noe to figure out that if your team struggles to score points, you’re going to have a hard time beating the best teams in the country. And, any way you slice it, UC was simply not very good offensively this season.

As I said, UC ranked 113th in Adjusted Offense. To put that number into context for you: Of the 16 teams still alive in the NCAA Tournament, 13 rank in the Top 40 in the stat, two are a little further behind (UConn is 56th, Stanford is 62nd) and the one outlier is San Diego State at 104th…but look how easy SDSU’s draw has been (vs 13 New Mexico St and then 12 North Dakota State).

The Bearcats ranked 9th in Adjusted Defense–but again, take a look at the 16 teams remaining. Only 9 ranked inside the Top 40 in Adj. Defense; only five of the Top 10 still remain. Four of those five have a Top 30 offense (SDSU is the team that doesn’t).

This data tells us that while it doesn’t hurt to have a really, really good defense (Arizona is #1, Florida is 2nd, Louisville is 3rd, Virginia is 5th), relying solely on your D is not enough to do damage in March.

Why did UC have so much trouble scoring this season? I’ll tell you exactly why:

A) No point guard.

Ge’Lawn Guyn is definitely not a point guard. Freshman Troy Caupain was not ready to step in and quarterback the offense. The best option at the point was Sean Kilpatrick, who also happens to be an All-American shooting guard–and you can’t play two positions at once. You look at the best offenses in the nation and you see stud point guards at the helm.

B) Not enough dual threats.

Look at most of the teams left in the tournament. Guards that can shoot and get to the rim. Bigs that can score inside and step out and knock down a jumper. When you look at UC’s starting five, other than Kilpatrick, the rest of the players were one-dimensional, or in the case of Guyn, no-dimensional. That equals EASY TO DEFEND. UC was too easy to defend this season. All a team had to do was put its best defender on Kilpatrick and offer a ton of help (didn’t work, though), put a bigger guy on Jackson in the post, and then dare Guyn, Titus Rubles and Shaq Thomas to shoot from the outside. If you could limit UC’s second chance points and keep the Bearcats out of transition, like Harvard did, you could win the game.

Of course, not many teams could keep UC off the offensive glass…and a lot of teams turned the ball over against UC’s pressure D, which led to some easy transition buckets…and in a lot of games, UC was able to attack and get to the free throw line to get easy points—and that’s why Cincinnati won 27 games. But, in the games the Bearcats lost, it was a halfcourt setting…and UC was way too easy to defend.

3) Heart, Grit and Toughness Only Get You So Far

Let’s not discount the tremendous effort put forth by the coaching staff and senior captains this season to lead Cincinnati from unranked to a Top 10 ranking and from conference after-thought to a conference title. It was a privilege to watch guys like Kilpatrick and Rubles give their absolute all and then some to will this team to victories. I can’t thank the players and coaches enough for their sacrifices.

That said, in the postseason, it comes down to execution. We’re battling it out in the half court. Which team can execute more effectively? Which team can convert its opportunities? Which team can avoid droughts and limit empty trips?

Against Harvard, the first half was a microcosm of the Bearcats’ rough stretches this season. The Bearcats embarked on a nice, long scoring drought early in the game, then let it effect the defense a little bit (like the SMU, Xavier and New Mexico games) and trailed by 7 at halftime. And yes, UC fought hard to get back into the game in the second half, but those droughts add up. You can’t get those 8 minutes without a basket back. You can’t get those four consecutive possessions with a turnover back. It all adds up.

The Bearcats repeatedly forced plays that weren’t there (turnovers) and missed 16 shots within five feet of the basket. You’re not beating anybody if you do that, regardless of how hard you play or how well you defend. It’s a shame, because the opportunities were definitely there. UC just wasn’t able to capitalize. And really, that was the case most of the season—except for a few games and except for the final 5 minutes of games during that 15-game win streak when UC shot 56.5% and held opponents to 27%.

And maybe it was a mirage, that stellar late game execution. You rely on that too much, you start to get burned. You let a team hang around that shouldn’t be in the game, things don’t quite go your way in the last few minutes, you lose. The stats said UC, over a 40-minute game, simply won’t score enough points. The margin for error for a team like UC (113 in Adjusted Offense, 9th in Adjusted Defense) becomes razor-thin. Just ask Ohio State (131 AdjO, 4 AdjD) , VCU (109 AdjO, 6 AdjD) , Kansas State (123 AdjO, 20 AdjD) and Saint Louis (186 and 8)–none of which advanced past the first weekend; and only Saint Louis won a game (very luckily, though).

Defense and effort keep you in a game when you’re not making shots, but if you rarely make shots anyway, you’re playing with fire. That’s what happened against Harvard (37 percent shooting), and UC was toast.

Moving Forward: It’s no doubt Mick Cronin’s Cincinnati Bearcats will defend. But, in order to make noise in March, Mick and his staff will need to crack the Adjusted Offense code. Will an effective true point guard be the difference? Can Troy Caupain be that guy? Will Mick find that guy to fill one of the remaining scholarships? Is it simply a matter of scheme? Not enough guys can shoot? Too much focus on the defensive side of the ball?

I can guarantee you one thing. Cronin and his staff are well aware of these statistics and shortcomings and will work tirelessly to find the solution.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy your week.

 

Dayton Flyers Advance to Sweet 16, Earn Cincinnati Fan’s Respect

You’re in the Sweet Sixteen, Dayton Fan. Congratulations. And it wasn’t no cheap Sweet 16 neither. Your Flyers nutted up and knocked off Ohio State AND Syracuse.

Jordan Sibert, junior guard for the Dayton Flyers, knocked down a HUGE 3 late in the game vs Syracuse on Saturday.

And, after Andrew Wiggins and Kansas blew it on Sunday, you’ll be facing 10-seed Stanford for a chance to advance to the Elite Eight!

How did we get here?

Back in November, the Flyers went out to Maui and put on a show for ESPN’s viewing audience. UD lit up Gonzaga, hammered Baylor for 39 minutes and then wiped their bums with Cal.

When the calendar flipped to 2014, and Atlantic 10 play began, UD had a rough first month or so. The Flyers showed a little bit of inexperience at that point in the season–which is understandable. Dayton’s team is loaded with freshmen and sophomores and Jordan Sibert, the transfer from Ohio State, sat out last season. Players in new roles, the guys still learning how to play with one another…but, in the overall scheme of things, it was simply adversity. And, as we all know, adversity can bring a team closer together if it is able to handle it.

And that’s when it started to get fun.

I’ve got a good friend out in Bellingham, WA, a Dayton alum, and I sent him an e-mail back on February 6th to help him make sense of Dayton’s season at that point in time:

UD – 15-8, 3-5 in the A-10

Been a bit of a rough stretch for the Flyers. Especially in terms of the difficult first half of the conference schedule. Those 5 losses are all to capable teams–a couple on the road (Richmond, Rhode Island)..then two at home to the best two teams in the conference (Saint Louis and VCU) and then the other one at home to an always game Saint Joe’s squad.

Dayton still has those good early season neutral court wins (Gonzaga, Cal), and a good win down at Ole Miss. So the non-conference resume is much more than shabby, and frankly, a lot better than most bubble teams’ will be.

Lookin’ at the stretch run in the A-10, if UD can grab games on the road against St. Bonaventure (tougher than you’d think), Duquesne and then in a payback tilt against Saint Joe’s, a loss down at Saint Louis wouldn’t hurt but a win down there will put Scoochie and his crew back in the picture. The home games are all quite tough, though, and UD hasn’t protected its homecourt too well so far. The four remaining games just down the road from The Pine Club will be versus Rhode Island, La Salle, UMass & Richmond.

A 6-2 finish is a must, a 7-1 completion probably gets UD a bid.

This team has a lot of good parts, but most of them are young (both point guards, Dyshawn and my boy Jalen Robinson) or trying to get back in the swing after essentially three years off from playing basketball in a real game (Jordan Sibert). The problem also is that Devin Oliver plays a ton of minutes and is mostly a liability. But he’s a senior and will be gone. And next year, when Sibert is a senior, this team will be Top 20 caliber—provided that one of the young point guards turns into a reliable playmaker and defender.

Good luck the rest of this season. I hope they make a run. Regardless, I like what this team will be next season an awful lot. 

Have a good weekend, brother man

Berg

Am I a fortune teller? Evidently.

UD did in fact go 7-1 down the stretch, the lone loss coming on the road against an extremely tough Saint Joe’s squad (a team that if it had gotten past UConn, probably gets to the Elite 8 or Final 4). The win down at Saint Louis on March 5 probably sealed Dayton’s tourney berth.

When the brackets came out on Selection Sunday, UD took a look at its draw and no doubt felt really, really good about it. Ohio State in the first round–a team that SUCKS at scoring points and a team that had everything to lose and all the pressure on them in that matchup of in-state schools. And, if UD could knock off the Buckeyes, Syracuse, another team that had struggled to score, would be waiting.

UD, a team with offensive weapons and a fast, explosive pace (the type of team built to do well in the tournament as my research showed) against two teams that can’t score. Advantage Flyers. Not only that, Syracuse was on the cover of Sports Illustrated! The Jinx!

Dayton took it to the Buckeyes for 40 minutes, and won in the coolest fashion possible: Vee Sanford taking Aaron Craft to the hole and scoring to get the victory. Then, that SI Jinx reared its usual head–Syracuse missed every single three-pointer it shot! The Flyers emerged from that brawl victorious, heading to the school’s first Sweet Sixteen in thirty years!

Soak it all in, Flyers fan. You deserve it. You’ve been loyal through a lot of lean years. But now you’ve arrived.

The Stanford Cardinal will be waiting next weekend–a team that UD definitely has a good shot to beat. But it won’t be easy. The Cardinal did win at UConn this season, and Johnny Dawkins’ squad features a lot of size, including three different types of big men: 6’11” Stefan Nastic, an inside-out threat, 6’10” Dwight Powell, a slasher with a jump shot, and 6’10” John Gage, a three-point marksman. Stanford’s leading scorer is 6’2″ junior Chasson Randle, at 19 points per game. UD should have the quickness advantage in this matchup, which generally gives that team an edge in the NCAA Tournament. Should be a helluva basketball game.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy and savor every single article and interview and mention on TV about the Flyers this week. Good luck against Stanford.

 

 

 

Debating the Cincinnati Bearcats: How Can UC Become a Perennially Effective Offensive Team?

In the locker room at halftime of Hickory’s first game in the movie Hoosiers, a frustrated team and a frustrated coach aired grievances.

Coach Norman Dale (Gene Hackman): I want you to close down those passing lanes. Your defense is awful!
Rade: What about our offense? We can’t win unless we score–

Both Coach Dale and Rade were correct. If you can’t defend, you have a very slim chance of winning games. But, as the Cincinnati Bearcats have found out, if you can’t score the basketball, you’ll have a very tough time advancing deep in the NCAA Tournament.

Saying that your team needs to be better at scoring points is not a new concept. After all, the team who scores the most points always wins. Of course, another way to look at it is that the team who allows the least points always wins.

So, what’s more important? Defense or offense?

Let’s take a look at the Cincinnati Bearcats under head coach Mick Cronin. When Cronin took the job, he knew he needed to instill a culture built upon defense and rebounding. “You need to be able to win when shots aren’t going in,” Cronin’s mantra became. Most coaches operate with this principle. Control what we can control, as the saying goes. Shots don’t always fall, you can’t control that, but you can control how hard you prepare and play; you can control your defense and your rebounding effort.

But can you control shots falling? That’s the question. What’s the answer?

Looking at statistics doesn’t always tell the story, but in some cases, it’s as clear as a stripper’s heels. I’m a big proponent of Ken Pomeroy’s calculations for Adjusted Offense and Adjusted Defense (available at www.KenPom.com). These ratings take a slew of factors into consideration, such as who you play, how many points you score and allow per possession, and more. Now, as Pomeroy’s ratings will show, Cronin has built a consistently stingy defensive program at the University of Cincinnati over his eight years at his alma mater. In Cronin’s first season, the Bearcats ranked 124 in Adjusted Defense and won just two Big East games. In 2008, that ranking leapt up to 56th, and the team grabbed eight Big East victories. After a setback in 2009 (ranked 85th), the ‘Cats improved to 47th in 2010 and have ranked inside the Top 25 the past four seasons (leading to four consecutive NCAA Tournament bids).

UC head coach Mick Cronin and fifth-year senior Sean Kilpatrick

Cronin has accomplished what he set out to do. UC is perennially one of the best defensive teams in the nation. And it’s led to success. Four straight tournament appearances is nothing to sneeze at. It’s not many schools who can boast that achievement.

The Bearcats have won three tournament games and lost four. Let’s take a look at the Adjusted Offense ratings for each of the past four seasons:

2011 – 53rd (Beat 11 Missouri, Lost to  3 UConn)
2012 – 61st (Beat 11 Texas, Beat 3 Florida State, Lost to 2 Ohio State)
2013 – 126th (Lost to 7 Creighton)
2014 – 117th (Lost to 12 Harvard)

As you can see, the teams that could score had success.

Now, when we take a look at the past two seasons (in which UC ranked 14th and 9th in Adjusted Defense), we all wonder the same thing: Why does this team have so much trouble scoring? And that brings us to…

The Great Cincinnati Bearcats Basketball Debate: Is it the offensive scheme or is it the players?

Team Swanedigidy will be arguing that it’s the offensive scheme. Opening statement:

The Bearcats stand around too much on offense. Too much passivity and lack of aggression. Most of the times a player catches the ball, he’s far away from the basket…and he’s required to either beat his man off the dribble or take a long jumpshot. Otherwise, he passes the ball to a teammate further away from the basket and then we begin the process again. Sometimes, a player beats his man off the dribble and either scores, gets fouled or creates a shot for a teammate. And sometimes the ball is entered into the post for a back-to-the-basket opportunity–usually with the intent of scoring/getting fouled. Too many times, though, we see a player get the ball too far away from the basket and that player is asked to make a play he may not be able to make.

Team Steinberg & Bergstein will be arguing that the players can’t execute or finish often enough. Opening statement:

While I can’t refute Team Swanedigidy’s opening remarks, I can point to the fact that the players simply struggle with the most basic element of playing basketball…putting the basketball through that tin cylinder and nylon net. Throughout the course of most UC games, Bearcat players get the ball in positions to step into a jump shot (either wide open or pretty open) or in positions to dunk the basketball or lay the basketball off the backboard. And, the majority of the time, the Bearcat players fail to get the ball into and through the basket. Case in point, the loss to Harvard on Thursday–both Justin Jackson and Titus Rubles failed to score from less than two feet away from the basket in the latter stages of that game…and UC ended up losing by four points. Scheme or no scheme, if you can’t put the ball in the basket, your point total won’t be very high.

Team Swanedigidy’s First Rebuttal:

Yes, I concede that you’ve got to be able to make lay-ups and close-in shots; and you’ve got to finish stronger at the rim and at least TRY to dunk the ball when you’re down there. And you should be able to knock down an open 15-footer once in a while if you’re a freakin’ college basketball player. All of that goes without saying. But when you watch this team try to operate in the halfcourt, you just see too much action going away from the basket. The focus needs to be on getting as close to the basket as possible as many times as possible. And how do you do that? Either you attack the rim more aggressively from the outside–or by pushing the ball up the court aggressively even after the other team makes a basket–or you get the ball in the post and work inside-out more often.

Team Steinberg & Bergstein’s Response:

You make a couple of good points. If the goal is to score, the idea should be to create as many high percentage opportunities as possible. By pushing the ball up the floor with a purpose on every single possession, you’re exploring the possibility of a mismatch to exploit when the defense hasn’t had time to set up…and if you do this 20 times in a game, and it works 5 or 6 times, you may be able to get 7-10 extra points out of it that likely wouldn’t have been scored in a halfcourt setting. As for the increase in post touches, that’s also a neat concept. You could post up your best passers and free throw shooters, as well as whoever has a size mismatch on offense (Shaq Thomas), and then work inside-out. You can invert your offense. Then, when a guy like Caupain (a strong, skilled point guard that can pass and make free throws) catches the ball about 6-8 feet from the hoop, he can either make a move or kick the ball out for a step-in 3 or find a cutter for an attempt at the rim. This way, he isn’t asked to beat his man off the dribble as much…especially when he’s up against a smaller, quicker defender.

Team Swanedigidy:

Right. Remember, the goal is to get the ball as close to the basket as possible as many times as possible. If you shoot more lay-ups and free throws than jump shots, chances are, you’ll score more.

Team Steinberg & Bergstein:

Emphasis on “chances are.” We’ve seen a slew of missed free throws and soft finishes at the rim. And that goes back to the players. If you’re a guy with a really high vertical leap, and you get the ball near the basket, and you flip up a shot off one foot, or you fade away, or you double clutch, then the failure is on you. If I’m the coach, and my guy can’t at least get fouled on a shot right at the rim, then what else can I do?

Team Swanedigidy:

You can emphasize offense more. You routinely yank guys out of the game for blowing a defensive assignment. But what about yanking a guy for failing to finish strong? Why not cut a guy’s minutes until he shows that he’ll go in there hard and try to rip the rim off? It’s okay to preach defense, and hold your players accountable on that end–and it’s worked…worked very well–but you’ve got to bring that same intensity to every single offensive possession as well. You can call a play, or run an offense, or set up your scheme any way you want…but sometimes, offense is about imposing your will. Your players should be of the mentality that, “I’m not gonna settle for this jumper. I’m going right AT you, sucka. You’re gonna have to foul me to stop me.” And, when the rim is within reach, “I’m gonna gather myself and then use 100% of my strength and athleticism and make you a f***in’ poster, boy.”

Team Steinberg & Bergstein:

I can’t argue with you there. And it looks like you’re arguing my side for me–so thanks for that. But I also think the point guard position has been the problem. In 2011 and ’12, Cashmere Wright was a dual threat point guard. He wasn’t necessarily a true point guard–even though he developed into an effective one–but he was a threat and he had a pretty good idea of how to run the show. In 2013, Cash got hurt and became one-dimensional and it threw everything off. This season, Ge’Lawn Guyn was not effective. Freshman Troy Caupain showed flashes, but he wasn’t ready to take over the position. Sean Kilpatrick did a pretty good job running the show, scoring and creating for others at times, but you can’t play two positions at once. Had SK and the seniors had a good lead guard this season, scoring points would have been a whole lot easier. My Uncle Attles, a former JCC national champion point guard, points directly to this issue when asked about UC’s offensive struggles. “You need a good point guard,” Attles told me. “Someone that can break the defense down, get to the basket, hit an open shot, and get the ball to the right guys at the right time.”

It’s too hard to run an offense without a point guard because when your goal is to “become a better passing team,” you forget that even if you pass the ball well, you’ll end up with the wrong guys taking shots. As the saying goes, “Sometimes, when you’re open, you’re open for a reason. Because you can’t shoot.” The effective point guard not only can score and break his man down off the dribble, but he also understands time and score, and he understands his personnel, and he makes sure to get the ball to the right guys in the right situations…otherwise he’s confident enough to take it himself.

Team Swanedigidy:

Well, we debated, but at the end of the day, we agreed on quite a bit. We need a better approach to offense. We need more emphasis on offense. We’ve got to be more aggressive, both at pushing the ball and attacking the rim. We need to work inside-out more. And we need a true point guard to run the show. We know Ge’Lawn Guyn is not that guy. We don’t know yet whether or not Troy Caupain is that guy. But, in order for the offense to run more smoothly in 2014-15, we’ll either need Troy to be that guy, or we’ll need Mick and his staff to find a true point guard to fill one of the two remaining open scholarships. One of those graduate transfers like a DeAndre Kane of Iowa State maybe?

Bottom line: Ranking 117th and 126th in Adjusted Offense won’t get it done. My research of past NCAA Tournaments showed that the teams with explosive/efficient offenses are the teams who go deep, granted that the defense is up to snuff. We know UC’s defense will be up to snuff year in and year out. Now we just need to shift the focus to the offensive side of the ball…and the Bearcats will be unstoppable.

Despite Everything I Just Said: This was an incredible season. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first saw this team play back in November. A bunch of question marks loomed. I felt like UC would be a bubble team. But, thanks to the sheer will, grit and heart of the seniors, the Bearcats went from unranked to the Top 10, from fringe tourney team to a 5-seed. Kilpatrick surpassed the 2,000 point mark and became the school’s second all-time leading scorer. Sure, we would have loved to see UC beat Harvard and make a run, but we all received enjoyment from this season…and we all appreciate the blood, sweat and tears the seniors (Kilpatrick, Jackson and Rubles) shed while leading this team to unexpected heights. We’ll miss those fellas dearly, and we wish them all the best.

Thanks for reading. Relax, reflect, rejoice and then get ready for Opening Day!

8 Tips To Help You Win Your NCAA Tournament Bracket Pool

Warren Buffett will pay you one billion American dollars if you correctly pick the entire NCAA Tournament this year.

One billion.

Would you like some help with your picks?

I thought so. Let’s get to it.

TIP NUMBER ONE: Don’t rely on statistics. (But two stats are worth looking at.)

You can’t just crunch a bunch of numbers and then predict the NCAA Tournament, as two hotshot Yale professors learned in 2007… and really, if stats told us anything, some egghead genius would be world famous for solving March Madness by now.

It’s over 340 teams in college basketball. Every team plays a different schedule. It’s simply wayyy too many variables in this sport for stats to be the tell-all.

That said, two statistical measures can reveal a diamond in the rough or a big red flag. Ken Pomeroy runs a website called KenPom.com in which he computes the strength/weakness of a team’s offense and defense. Pomeroy calls these ratings “Adjusted Offense” and “Adjusted Defense.” Each team is ranked from 1 to 346 in each category.

What These Ratings Can Reveal

Diamond in the rough: If you see a team ranked surprisingly high in one of the numbers, usually Adjusted Defense, you have a dangerous team. Case in point, take the Oregon Ducks last season. If you watched that team play, you saw explosive guards, great outside shooting, good ball movement and rugged rebounding. I figured the Ducks for an offensive juggernaut. As a 12-seed, Oregon advanced to the Sweet 16. When I went back and took a look at the numbers, I discovered that Oregon ranked 11^th nationally in Adjusted Defense. Wow. No wonder that team advanced. Explosive guards rule the tournament; couple that with a stout defense, and you’ve got a dangerous team.

Norfolk State busted everyone’s bracket back in 2012.

Red Flag: Back in 2012, 15-seed Norfolk State shocked 2-seed Missouri in the first round. At first glance, Mizzou looked anything but vulnerable. That team was loaded with explosive, versatile guards, and the Tigers went 30-4 that season with no bad losses and a Big 12 Tournament crown. So how in the name of Doug Smith (if you remember him, I’m impressed) did the Tigers lose to NORFOLK STATE? You guessed it: Defense. Swiss Cheese flavored Easy Cheese defense. 146^th according to Pomeroy’s calculations. This team couldn’t stop anybody!

Now, just because of that one stat, were we supposed to know ahead of time Missouri would lose to Norfolk State? Of course not. BUT, we would have recognized that team’s VULNERABILITY…and probably would have predicted they’d lose in the next round to 7-seed Florida.

Why is that significant? I smell the next tip…

TIP NUMBER TWO: Focus on the rounds that give you the most points.

When you enter a bracket contest, the scoring system is such that you receive more points for picking the later rounds correctly. It is crucial to avoid blindly picking the wrong high seed to get to the Final 4.

Here’s the smart play: Don’t worry about getting every single first round matchup right.  Instead, take a look at each group of four teams and determine the most likely of those four to advance into the Sweet 16. Write that team into the Sweet 16 and then work back from there. You’ll put yourself way ahead of the rest of the people in your contest if you’re on the money with 12+ of your Sweet 16 teams. In that scenario, you’ll likely have most or all of your Final Four teams still alive, giving you an advantage.

But how can you know which teams are vulnerable and which are equipped to get to the second weekend?

TIP NUMBER THREE: Utilize Jux Berg’s research and brain.

I’m single, and I’m house-sitting for my dad while he’s in Arizona, so I’ve got time on my hands to fervently research past NCAA Tourneys. And I’ve done just that.

I wanted to see if common characteristics existed for both vulnerable and dangerous teams. I went back over the past five years and inspected:

1)      1-4 seeds that were knocked out in the first weekend (happened 11 times – happened to Georgetown 3 of those 11 times)

2)      5-10 seeds that went to the Sweet 16 or further (Butler was a 5 and an 8 in their Final 4 years. Wichita State was a 9 in 2013’s Final 4 appearance)

3)      11+ seeds that won two or more games (Florida Gulf Coast was a 15 in 2013)

For each team involved (25 total), I evaluated six factors…and after concluding the observational portion of my study, I then went to the stats. I appraised the following:

1)      What TYPE of guards did Team X have?

Here’s why: You hear all the time that good guards can take you a long way in March. But a lot of teams have good guards…and not a lot of teams go far. So I looked at the type of guards on each team to see if any correlation emerged. Guards can be big, small, one-dimensional, 3-point reliant, slow, quick, inside-out/dual threat.

A pattern began to form. And it helped explain certain results that most people wouldn’t have predicted.

Michael Carter-Williams (6-foot-5) was a tough matchup for Indiana’s smaller guards.

For example:  Last season, number 1 seed Indiana, who looked incredible all season, lost to 4-seed Syracuse in the Sweet 16. I was sure Indiana’s precision passing and marksman shooting would carve up Jim Boeheim’s stubborn, get-over-it-already-dude 2-3 zone. But what actually happened was Indiana’s small guards (one of which, Jordan Hulls, was one-dimensional/3-point reliant) couldn’t score over Syracuse’s bigger guards; and Syracuse’s big, dual-threat guards scored at will against the smaller IU backcourt.

More on that in a moment.

After categorizing the guards, I moved on to

2)      TYPE of Defense: Conservative, aggressive, ball pressure, pressing, or change defenses

3)      TYPE of Offense: Methodical, explosive, 3-point reliant, inside-dominant, or balanced

4)      Experience

5)      Did team X have size, length, and/or quickness?

6)      Did anything Team X do or not do during the regular season appear to foreshadow that it could win (or lose) a game like this?

And then, after all of that…

7)      Adjusted Offense rank and Adjusted Defense rank (Kenpom.com)

After performing this classification process for each of the 25 teams in the sample, I stepped back and took a wide angle lens look at the findings…

What Makes a Team Vulnerable

The majority of the 1-4 seeds that were upset early in the tournament had four things in common:

1)      Methodical offense

2)      Conservative defense

3)      Lack of quickness

4)      Guards were small, slow and/or 3-point reliant

Take Georgetown for instance. The Hoyas have been shocked three times in the past five seasons. Once by a 15 seed and twice by a 14 seed (shout out to the Ohio U. Bobcats). Traditionally, John Thompson III’s teams run a very methodical, patient offense, they play sound defense without taking any risks or forcing the action…and really, the guards, as a whole, have not been especially quick.

Next, look at Notre Dame. The Irish have been ousted twice by double digit seeds in the first weekend recently. And man, that team looked unstoppable for most of those regular seasons. But, again, look at the four criteria above. Notre Dame fits the shit out of that mold, doesn’t it?

What Makes a Team Dangerous

Florida Gulf Coast had a gang of athleticism

In contrast, the majority of the lower seeds that exceeded expectations had the following in common:

1)      Quick or big guards – usually versatile, dual-threat (ability to shoot and drive to the bucket)

2)      Aggressive/Ball pressure defense (a lot of the teams pressed)

3)      Quickness and athleticism (Florida Gulf Coast much? VCU anybody?)

4)      Explosive offense – teams that create turnovers (with said quickness and athleticism) and present problems offensively because of versatile guards. 

The Question is Why

I sat on that information for a day or so.

And then, last Wednesday afternoon, after eating a peanut butter sandwich and quenching it with really cold white milk (Vitamin D), I realized something. The reason methodical, conservative teams are prone to lose early on in the NCAA Tournament is…  

Those teams lacked the ability to come back from a deficit. 

Think about it. The best teams in the country play in this tournament. Regardless of what seed you are, at some point—and it could be the first game you play—you will be trailing. Possibly by double digits.

You better be able to do something about it.

But if you’re not built for scoring points quickly, you run the risk of either falling too far behind or running out of time on your comeback and losing.

The teams that pulled those upsets and unexpectedly made it to the Final 4 were built to score quickly. Those teams survived and advanced. The teams that were not built to score quickly died sad deaths.

To summarize TIP NUMBER THREE: Do your homework. Determine which high seeds are vulnerable and which low seeds are dangerous.  Bringing us to…

TIP NUMBER FOUR: How to detect an over or under-seeded team

Seeds Explained

Obligatorily I must begin by telling you that the 1-seed is the highest rated team in each region and the 16-seed is the lowest. There are four regions. Now, with that out of the way, let me next say that sometimes, just because a team receives a particular seed does not necessarily mean it is the 10^th best or the 38^th best or the 59^th best team in the bracket. The seeding order is selected based on each team’s body of work over the course of the entire season.

But think about it. Teams go through all kinds of adversity throughout a season. Some teams start out hot, then something happens, they lose to a few bad teams, fall out of the Top 25, and then rally at the end to beat some good enough teams to be included in the field. You can end up with a number-9 seed that was ranked in the Top 5 earlier that season (Oklahoma State in this year’s bracket). That team’s gonna be dangerous, man. It has too much talent not to be. And in a one game situation, on a neutral floor, with all things being equal—it’s just Team X against Team Y—the more talented team often wins.

An example: Oregon had some impressive wins last season, but lost a bunch of games in a weakly perceived Pac-12, and, as a result, received a number-12 seed. That team was talented + It fit well together + Dana Altman’s a tremendous coach + It fit the criteria of dangerous + A tough defense = Underseeded. The Ducks knocked off 5-seed Oklahoma State and then 4-seed Saint Louis to get past the first weekend.

And then you have the overseeded teams. Usually, these are teams that either:

A)     received a high seed based on a gaudy win-loss record, even if it came against weaker competition, or

B)      lost a slew of early season games in the non-conference portion of the schedule and then got their shit together and did well in conference play (in familiar atmospheres against familiar teams and coaches).

Those overseeded teams are vulnerable. 1-seed Gonzaga in 2013 is an example. Virginia, a number 1 seed this season, could fit that mold.

And that segues into…

TIP NUMBER FIVE: What happens in conference play stays in conference play.

What a team does in conference play doesn’t mean a daggum thing. Look at the evidence. You see it both ways. In 2013, New Mexico won the Mountain West Conference regular season and tournament for the second straight year. And for the second straight year, New Mexico was bounced in the first weekend. Tom Izzo and Michigan State have made deep runs in countless NCAA Tournaments. The Spartans lose plenty of conference games and rarely win the Big 10 Tournament.

Conference play has a very high degree of familiarity involved. It also has a slew of extenuating circumstances, such as one team had a game two days before and the opponent had a week off to rest and prepare.

And this goes for the conference tournaments as well. Just because a team finishes strong and wins its conference’s tournament doesn’t mean it has an advantage in the Dance. Remember, all things are equal in the NCAA Tournament. It’s all about Team A versus Team B…battling in a vacuum. It becomes about matchups. And that’s when you take a look at the above criteria to determine which team has the advantage.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s no such thing as “momentum heading into the tournament.”  We’ve seen many-a hot team get knocked out in the first round, and we’ve seen many-a waffling team make a deep run. Again, it’s just Team A against Team B at a neutral site.

Finishing Strong

Thank you for reading all the way through this. You’ve received five tips to help you make your picks. As Judge Reinhold’s character Brad Hamilton said to Jeff Spicoli and his stoner buddies in Fast Times At Ridgemont High, “Learn it. Know it. Live it.”

But before you get started on filling out your bracket, here are THREE BONUS SECRETS to add to your arsenal:

1)      If Team X has legit NBA talent (usually two or more players of that caliber), it is a definite threat, regardless of its seed.

2)      If a school lost in a stunning upset the year before, it’s no such thing as that team “coming back this year with extra motivation because of last year.”

3)      If you weigh two teams, and the scales are completely equal, the tiebreaker should go to the team with the better head coach.

If you have any questions or need clarification about anything in this article (or just want to discuss the tournament), feel free to e-mail, call or text me. I’ve got time.

I will reveal the most dangerous and the most vulnerable teams in this year’s field, along with my picks, on Tuesday, March 18. Enjoy March Madness!

Cracking the NCAA Tournament Bracket, Part 1: Myths and Common Beliefs

March Madness? Is it really “madness?” Or maybe, just maybe, is it actually “March Rhyme and Reason?” 

People have been trying to figure out how to predict the NCAA Tournament for decades. So far, so wrong. We all enter pools with friends, family, co-workers and complete strangers. And we all wish we had the magic formula. Some of us have a specific way of making our picks, and we never waver. A lot of us change it up every year, or submit multiple entries, hoping that it’s a numbers game.  

I’m someone who watches the maximum amount of college basketball possible. I read about it, write about it, talk about it, think about it…a lot. From about December 1 through Selection Sunday, it’s fair to say I’m in a serious, committed relationship with college basketball. Yet I’ve never won a bracket contest. Last season was the first time I remember picking the correct champion.

Last year, I teamed up with a revered Excel Spreadsheet Master, a highly sought-after engineer in his field and an all-around brilliant fella (those accolades all describe the same friend of mine) to see if we could make heads or tails of the brackets. I spent countless hours compiling statistics from the past ten years of NCAA Tournaments; looking at the Final 4 teams, the teams who got upset, the teams doing the upsetting, and more. Then my ‘numbers guy’ ran a series of regression analyses. We looked at the data, compared it with the teams in the 2013 Tournament, and then decided which upsets were most likely to happen and which teams were most likely to reach the Final 4.

And, we were way off. Wayyy off.  

A few weeks ago, I googled “Predicting NCAA Tournament” and landed on this article about a couple of hotshot Yale professors who, back in 2007, attempted to use a gang of statistical data to predict that year’s Dance. After all of that number crunching, that team came up with a 58% success rate.  

In other words, those big shot Yale dudes did about as well as your pen pal in the United Arab Emirates would do.

This season, I’ve undertaken a different approach. Over the course of the next few posts, culminating with my predictions once the brackets are announced, you’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at what really happens in these brackets. We’ll cover myths and trends. You’ll see that “huge upsets” aren’t as random as you might think. You’ll know which teams are dangerous and which teams are vulnerable. You’ll have a game plan to maximize your bracket’s points. And, hopefully, you’ll be submitting the winning bracket in your group. (Or winning that billion bucks.) 

Let’s get started with myths and trends.

Myths

 Myth #1 – Girls are better than guys. You hear all the time that “My wife always does better than me in those things.” Well, that may be the case some of the time, but there’s no evidence available that girls are better than guys at this. Sometimes a girl can get lucky based on her picking strategy. For example, she could say, “Ooh, Pittsburgh. Yuck. I would never go to that city. I’m picking them to lose.” Or “Oh I love those Oregon uniforms! The Ducks! I’m picking them.” Or “Aww, Kent State. They had that shooting tragedy. They deserve to win.” But generally, I’ve seen girls do well, and I’ve seen girls do poorly. So guys, if you think the winning strategy is simply to “let my girlfriend make my picks,” you’re not assured of a damn thing.

Myth #2 – People who watch a bunch of college basketball are at a disadvantage against people who watch very little or none. This one probably has some truth to it. I’m living proof, considering who’s won some of the pools I’ve been in. I think, generally, the avid watchers simply overanalyze the matchups and focus on the wrong criteria when deciding which team will beat another. Biases play a role, too—like if you watch a team play a lot one year, you either focus too much on its shortcomings or give too much credit for a specific game you watched. That said, the “let my dog make my picks” versus doing it yourself will only yield better results in rare instances.

Myth #3 – If everyone and their mama are picking a specific upset to occur, it probably won’t occur. An example I remember was back in 1994 when Ohio University had Gary Trent, “The Shaq of the MAC,” and they were a 12-seed matched up against 5-seeded Indiana. Everyone thought OU would pull the shocker, but IU won by 12. Truth be told, upsets are unlikely to occur anyway. It has nothing to do with whether it’s a popular one to pick or not.

Trends

A common mistake we make (myself very much included) is that when we think back over the last few years, we think we have some things figured out. Things like:

• Team X always goes far

• This conference always does well/poorly

• This team went out early last year, so they’ll be extra-motivated this year

• This coach’s teams never go far

Then, those of us who watch a bunch of hoops and who really dive into each team’s stats and results start to focus on certain criteria like: 

• Team X won that game at Team Y. Nobody ever wins in that building. Team X is tough!

• Team X won its conference… or Team Y only went 10-8 in their league?

• Team Z is loaded with experience; those guys will be ready, and they won’t want their careers to end/ Team Y has too many freshmen; they won’t be able to handle the pressure

• Team X is in the Top 10 nationally in points allowed. And “defense wins championships!”

• Team Y makes their free throws/Team Z doesn’t make their free throws

• Oh man, Team Z is on a roll. They’ve won 14 of their last 15. They’re hot!

• What is up with Team X? Only 5-5 in their last 10? Not playing good basketball.

• It just seems like Team Z’s year 

When I went back and looked at the past five NCAA Tournaments, I realized that most of these “trends” were false beliefs.

Let’s return for a moment to statistics. Earlier I covered how far off my colleague and I were last season when we based our predictions solely on raw data; and the fact that those two Yale math whizzes didn’t prove much of anything with their methods. That said, my approach this season does not completely ignore stats. In some cases, a specific stat tells the story. A single stat that was overshadowed by the accomplishments and make-up of a team throughout a season would have, if identified before the games began, been a big shiny red flag. 

Take the stunning 2012 first round upset when 15-seed Norfolk State knocked off 2-seed Missouri. Missouri was 30-4 that season and had the best offense in the nation according to KenPom.com. The Tigers didn’t have a single bad loss all season. Mizzou won the Big 12 conference tournament, a strong feat considering the caliber of that league. And, probably most importantly, this team was loaded with tremendous guards—guards with quickness and inside-outside capabilities. As most experts will tell you, great guardplay is generally the common theme among teams that make deep runs.  

So how in the bald head of Anthony Peeler did Missouri lose to NORFOLK STATE in the first round? Well, the Tigers, despite all of their success and talent, forgot about one thing: Defense. According to KenPom, Mizzou ranked 146^th in the nation in adjusted defense. In other words, they couldn’t get stops down the stretch. Norfolk State continued to score, and as the game drew to a close, the pressure fell solely on Missouri. In a game that shouldn’t have been close, Norfolk pulled it out against Missouri’s shoddy D. (By the way, in the next round, Norfolk scored just 50 points against 7-seed Florida, a team perennially in the Top 10 in adjusted defense—just so you know.)

So, was that a random upset after all? I don’t think so. Easy to predict? Of course not. But, had you looked at the entire picture with Missouri, and discovered that Swiss cheese defense, you may have predicted they’d lose to Florida in the 2^nd round, and that could have saved your bracket from losing a Final 4 pick in the first weekend. (You get more points for the later rounds than the first couple.)

Alright, I’ll end Part 1 here. Digest this for a few days. Over the weekend, I’ll release the next post, which will cover the following:

• The actual trends we’ve seen recently in the NCAA Tournament

• Beware of overseeded and underseeded teams (and how to tell)

• Why certain TYPES of teams generally do not advance

• Why the TYPE of guards a team has makes a difference

• Why the TYPE of offense and TYPE of defense a team employs can spell vulnerable or dangerous

• Why what a team does in conference play doesn’t mean a hill of beans

• Foreshadowing/Which stats actually matter

And then, after the field is selected, I’ll release my predictions to the public. Have a great week, thanks for reading, and enjoy your March Madness!