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 →