Which program is the polar opposite of these guys?

One thing I’ve always respected highly is the ability to faithfully support a team that’s consistently terrible. Today I want to salute the fans of the worst major-conference program in the nation.

Not merely the worst team at this moment, mind you. I’m after something more enduring, the program that can make the best case that it is nothing less than ontologically hapless.  Continue reading →

The SEC’s seen a quick trigger finger before.

Marshall Henderson attempted 23 threes in 36 minutes in Mississippi’s 115-105 overtime loss to Oregon yesterday. Henderson fared quite well against the Ducks, sinking 10 of those attempts and scoring 39 points, but it was not quite enough for the Rebels to win at home against a top-15 opponent.  Continue reading →

The only thing more awkward than Maryland representing the conference it’s leaving against the conference it’s about to join is the ACC choosing the Terps to represent the league over Clemson, Virginia Tech or Wake Forest.

In the beginning the ACC dominated the Big Ten in the two leagues’  annual Challenge, winning the first 10 installments in the series (by razor-thin margins at first but soon rather handily — see below).

Then about the same time that people stopped laughing at the Big Ten’s fledgling new TV network, Jim Delany’s league stormed back and won three in a row. That’s where things still stand today — ACC 10, Big Ten 3 — because last year’s event ended in a draw. I still can’t believe that across the vast archipelago of impassioned fan sites no blog did a “[My Conference] BEATS [Other Conference] 6-6” headline, but apparently that really did not happen. I blame the poor historical instruction of our young people today. Somebody form a task force.  Continue reading →

Years of advanced hoops analysis have revealed a shocking truth. In order to block a shot you have to be in the game.

You don’t hear much about Chris Obekpa, and it’s easy to see why. For starters St. John’s hasn’t been very good lately. Steve Lavin’s team went 17-16 last year, and is off to a so-so 5-2 start this season. (Look fast. Right up until New Year’s Eve, St. John’s will continue to be the only team in the 161-year history of intercollegiate sports that has played 100 percent of its games inside the respective city limits of New York City and Sioux Falls, South Dakota.)

But if you do find yourself in the odd position of talking about St. John’s at some point, I’d recommend starting with Obekpa as opposed to usual suspects like D’Angelo Harrison or JaKarr Sampson. This team is again significantly better on defense than it is on offense, and I’ll nominate Obekpa as the largest single factor behind that good D. Not only does he block a high number of shots, he plays a goodly number of minutes as well.

I was mulling how a player whose home court is Madison Square Garden can possibly be under-hyped when I resolved to see if my confusion’s premise had any basis in performance. As a first step I turned to the rather unimaginative but commendably easy recourse of indexing block percentage by playing time.  Continue reading →

C.J. Fair glowers disdainfully at your traditional basketball metrics like “shooting.”

Yesterday at Insider I wrote about Syracuse, and in passing I mentioned a curious feature of this team that’s already become apparent. Jim Boeheim’s men have proven they can win games while not shooting as well from the field as do the overwhelmed opponents (Cornell, Fordham, Colgate, and St. Francis NY) that are imported into the Carrier Dome. Since that post hit the interwebs, the Orange went out and extended this rather remarkable streak, defeating Minnesota in Maui 75-67 despite the fact that the Gophers (52.9 effective field goal percentage) were more accurate from the field than were Boeheim’s men (47.3).

Winning teams are outshot from the field every day of the week, of course, but what’s fun about Cuse is that they’re raising this to an art form.  Continue reading →

ACC, meet your future: The Big East in 2009.

My unplanned multi-day ACC festival continues! Yesterday I pointed out that the 10 programs that constituted the “other” teams in the pre-expansion league — Boston College, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest — haven’t been very good at basketball over the past eight years.

Today I want to flesh out the “Who cares?” objection to that line of critique. So:  Continue reading →

Some ACC guy in 2004 — was this The Best Conference Ever?

Today I have a piece at Insider considering the new-look ACC’s claim to being “the best conference in the history of the game,” as Mike Krzyzewski memorably put it. Specifically I look at just how good the league can reasonably expect to be starting next season when Louisville arrives (and Maryland leaves for the Big Ten).

I’m not at liberty to divulge any conclusions I reached as a result of that particular effort, but as part of my daylong festival of Greatest Conferences, I thought I’d cover some of the other candidates for this particular title from years gone by.  Continue reading →

Another draft, another June, another Calipari recruit.

Tonight Kentucky (ranked No. 1 in the nation), Michigan State (2), Duke (4) and Kansas (5) will get together in Chicago for what is being billed as the greatest concentration of college hoops talent under one roof since…take your pick. (The 2008 Final Four? The 1979 national championship game? Anytime Oscar Robertson is indoors?)

Blue-chippers will indeed be lurking under every set of Beats in the United Center this evening, but before we get to counting those noses let’s acknowledge one curious analytical note. Tom Izzo is a bold iconoclast on this whole “winning requires NBA talent” thing.  Continue reading →

Ah, Marcus Thornton and the 2009 SEC, when the game was “open” and offenses “flowed,” truly the golden age of college hoops. Wait, what?…

We now have three days of the 2013-14 season under our belts, more than enough hoops to hand out some awards:

Player of the Year: Trevor Cooney, Syracuse (an effective FG percentage of 112.5 is quite good)
Coach of the Year: Tom Izzo, Michigan State (the “forfeit” line was precious)

Congratulations, everyone. And as for that whole business about the rulebook and the number of foul calls we’ve seen this season, here’s one admittedly subjective tour-guide’s quick narration of the still shifting terrain. Continue reading →