Wed. Evening Session – A Senior’s Last Gasp

My feeling with college basketball is that quantity always makes up for quality. And Wednesday proved that once again. We had major conference teams playing “win or your season is over” games that came down to the wire. Boston College came back from 11 down to take Georgia Tech to OT, only to lose in the extra session. We saw Butler cut a 13 point deficit down to one point, and then fail to score on the two final possessions when the Bulldogs could have pulled ahead. We had bubble drama as Georgetown lost to DePaul, sealing the Hoyas fate as an NIT team. But for me the highlight was not the games, but the seniors:

Victor Rudd was a key part of a USF team that made the NCAA tournament in 2012. And in his final college game, USF had fought back to cut the Rutgers lead to two points. After Rutgers missed its second FT, all USF needed to do was grab the rebound, and they would have a chance for the win or tie at the end. But Rudd failed to box out, Rutgers grabbed the rebound, and you could see on Rudd’s face that he didn’t want his last memory on the basketball court to be a failed rebound on a FT.

Conversely, Brenton Williams was a seldom-used bench player on South Carolina. Some people thought Frank Martin thought he was a walk-on. But with South Carolina struggling late last-season, he was inserted into the lineup and promptly scored 38 points. Williams became a starter in his final season and his efficiency rating is currently in the Top 20 nationally. And even though South Carolina’s record is not what he would desire, there he was in the SEC tournament playing his heart out. He made 4 of 5 threes in the first half and helped his team pull away from Auburn.

Or what about Texas Tech’s Jaye Crockett? He has had four different head coaches in his four years (Pat Knight, Bill Gillispie, Chris Walker, and Tubby Smith.) But under Tubby Smith, Texas Tech won six conference games, the most of his career. This season was not a disappointing ending. That was until the Big 12 tournament when he ran around a screen, slipped, and wrenched his knee. Crockett went off the court in agony, and while he returned and scored 20 points, by the time he was back in the game, the game was a blowout loss.

Or what about UCF’s Isaiah Sykes? Sykes scored a career high 36 points on Wednesday. Just think about that for a moment, scoring a career high in what could be your final game. At the end of regulation Sykes hit a turnaround jumper that would have won the game, but unfortunately the ball was still in his hands when the clock struck zero. Luckily, thanks to his teammates’ effort in OT and double OT, he lives to play another game.

Look, the bubble talk will be amusing and the NCAA tournament will be great. But when the season is at its end, all these games have great storylines.

Random Evening Session Thoughts:

-Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery showed a profile for Butler’s Kyhle Marshall. His dream date is Sofia Vergara. Gus and Bill said that neither one of them had heard of her.

-Gus and Bill also had a discussion about whether the proper term was Derriere or Keister.

-Georgia Tech’s Robert Carter Jr. got kicked in the face against Boston College. It was an accident, but it sure looked like it hurt.

-I enjoyed the sideline interview with Frank Martin where he said his team needed to stop fouling. Well yes, but your team ranks 346^th nationally in FTA per FGA, so this isn’t new.

-Charles Barkley was in attendance at that Auburn loss and he did not look happy.

-Doris Burke, on playing Cincinnati a day after playing a 2 OT game which is what UCF now faces, “Not ideal.”

What if Everyone Came Back?

Now might be a good time for a statistical aside. ESPN is currently running a feature on what would happen if the NBA raised the age-limit and the crop of elite freshmen spent another year in school.

In response to their request, I used my lineup-based predictions model and simulated the 2015 season for Kentucky, Kansas, Arizona, and Duke if all their elite players returned. Click here to see my simulation results and Jeff Goodman’s take on the top teams.

Kentucky’s elite freshmen would likely see their ORtg improve between 3 and 11 points across the board, which translates into the enormous leap in team offensive efficiency you see in the projection. I would also expect Alex Poythress to have a big efficiency improvement next year as his shooting numbers are down in all areas this year (FG%, 3FG%, FT%), and he will probably bounce back somewhat. I project the team with Willie Cauley-Stein returning, which seems incredibly unlikely, but given Kentucky’s incoming depth in the paint, he isn’t the key to that projection.

Similar results would be likely for Kansas. But the reason you do not see quite as big a jump for Kansas is that the team would still have some weaknesses on the perimeter. Wayne Selden and the PG rotation would remain the weak link even if everyone returned.

Duke will benefit from the enrollment of top recruit Jahlil Okafor who, combined with Marshall Plumlee, will give the Blue Devils a true low post defensive presence next year. Tyus Jones would also likely crack the rotation, which leads to the following lineup projection if everyone came back: 

That is a scary offensive lineup. But Duke would have such an embarrassment of riches if that happened, a number of highly talented recruits would be left on the bench.

Finally, Arizona would benefit from the return of Brandon Ashley, as the offense has already taken a hit without him. But the biggest reason for optimism for Arizona if everyone returned is that both Aaron Gordon and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson are not polished offensively. Both could still reach the next level by developing their jump shot and free throw stroke.

The surprise in the projections is probably not the offense, but the defense. The problem for Kentucky (and to a lesser extent Kansas) is the personnel on the perimeter. Even if everyone comes back, and even with traditionally elite defensive coaches, these teams have had huge defensive lapses this year. Despite their size, players like James Young and Andrew Harrison get shockingly few steals and blocks. And those numbers are unlikely to change dramatically. Realistically, with a whole new crop of players, Kentucky’s defense might actually be better than if this group of freshmen returned.

Duke will likely make the biggest jump thanks to the addition of Okafor and the development of Plumlee. But depending on new faces to anchor the defense may limit Duke’s defensive upside.

Intriguingly even though Arizona might have the least top line talent if all the freshmen returned, because Arizona’s freshmen have already proven to be elite defenders, Arizona might prove to be the best team overall. To see how high I would project these teams in the preseason with everyone back, click here.

Wed. Afternoon Session

-ESPN’s ACC tournament video montage features old footage of NC State winning the ACC tournament, recent footage of Syracuse beating Pittsburgh at the buzzer, and highlights of various ACC teams. Oddly, the teams change for each game, and sometimes the list is just wacky. In the second game they showed North Carolina, Syracuse, Virginia, Duke, and then… Boston College. Hmm, one of these things is different from the rest.

-Jay Bilas and Sean McDonough are our first hosts, live from Greensboro, NC. ESPN may be sad that the Big East tournament is gone, but they made sure to mention that the ACC tournament has more history and tradition than any other tournament.

-Jay Bilas followed this up by reminding us that the good teams in the ACC are not playing until Friday. Umm, why are we watching then?

-The first half of Wake Forest vs Notre Dame was about what you would expect with both teams having defensive issues at times. Wake Forest pulled ahead thanks to some timely threes by Coron Williams. Williams played for Robert Morris but his dream was to play in the ACC tournament, and as a 5^th year graduate school transfer, he is living his dream.

-They showed injured Notre Dame leading scorer Jerian Grant in the stands along with the graphic “Played 12 games this year”. This was just sad.

-As expected, at half-time Digger Phelps argued that Florida St. should be in the NCAA tournament and used the words “eye-test”.

-In the second half a graphic showed that Wake Forest had made 59% of its shots and 70% of its threes.

-According to Jay and Sean, Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey usually tells his team to dream about playing in the conference tournament championship game. This year he told his team to try and get one win in the conference tournament. Ouch. Notre Dame doesn’t get that win and Wake Forest wins in the ACC tournament for the first time in six years.

-On to game 2, Virginia Tech vs Miami FL. Virginia Tech has just two wins this year in the ACC, but both came against Miami.

-At one point in the game, Sean McDonough noted that this looked like an ugly Big East game, like the kind they used to call. Well, the ACC was the conference that raided these teams.

-Jarell Eddie started out 3 for 3 from deep, Virginia Tech started out 5 of 7 from deep, and the Hokies didn’t turn the ball over at all in the first half. But this is Virginia Tech, so of course the game was tied in the final seconds of the first half.

-Truthfully, this game can best be described by two plays. With time winding down in the first half, and Virginia Tech about to take a desperation three to end the half, Miami’s Manu Lecomte leaned in too hard on the ball-handler and sent Tech’s Devin Wilson to the line with 0.7 seconds left in that half. Bad teams commit dumb fouls. But Wilson made only 1 of 3 FTs. Bad teams do not make their FTs.

-Then at the end of the game, Miami led by one and foolishly fouled Joey Van Zegeren in the act of shooting. But of course Van Zegeren missed both FTs. Ugly.

Wednesday afternoon lacked quality and quantity. Luckily Thursday brings a packed slate of games with four full games in every major conference tournament. Thursday is going to be good.