The older I get, the more I see that one of the things I love most about sports is the variety of it, the diversity of it and the CHARACTERS. Men’s tennis is at its best in many years because, for the first time in a long time, the top three or four players all have wildly different styles. The Tim Tebow story was fun on so many levels, but one of those levels was that he was just SO DIFFERENT in how he played — I’d say we are entering a great time for quarterbacks, because Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers and Eli Manning and Drew Brees and Michael Vick and Cam Newton and Tebow and others are not really alike at all.

-- Joe Posnanski

As a basketball fan, I’ve never understood the division that exists between fans of the NBA and the NCAA. While the NBA has the best basketball players in the world, March Madness is compelling in its own right and as entertaining as anything that happens on the professional level.

In the NBA, the owners of the 30 franchises consider turning a profit and getting an equal shot at the top players a right, regardless of how well (or how poorly) they run their organization and the respective size of their fan-bases. Since every losing team is a few ping pong balls from the rights to a LeBron James, Kevin Durant or Dwight Howard, personnel determines scheme in the NBA.

In contrast, the vast majority of the 344 Division I programs in college basketball have little chance of ever receiving a commitment from a McDonald’s All-American. But instead of petulantly trying to sabotage the sport in a misguided effort to legislate fairness, schools try many creative ways of leveraging the talents of the players they can recruit. As a result, scheme determines personnel in the NCAA.

At Syracuse, Jim Boeheim has made a Hall of Fame career out of running a contrarian scheme, in his case an aggressive 2-3 zone. The Orange traditionally have rosters full of “1.5’s”, 6’3+ combo guards lacking the quickness to defend elite PG’s and the size to defend SG’s, and “3.5’s”, 6’8+ combo forwards lacking the quickness to defend elite SF’s and the size to defend PF’s. However, because Syracuse never plays man defense, the athletic deficiencies of their players are minimized.

So while nearly every NBA team runs a fairly similar system of isolations, pick-and-rolls and man defense, an incredibly diverse array of styles can be found in the college game. On one end of the spectrum, teams like Missouri play four guards and pressure the ball 94 feet for 48 minutes, on the other, teams like Wisconsin run a deliberate motion offense, trying to minimize the number of possessions and shoot at the very end of the shot-clock.

In the NBA, the players are too good for the “40 Minutes of Hell” system (which Mike Anderson has brought to Missouri and Arkansas in the last few years) to be successful. Like Mike Leach’s bizarre pass-happy offense in college football, Anderson’s system, which he learned as a member of Nolan Richardson’s staff in Arkansas in the 1990’s, has philosophical holes that professional athletes can exploit. Nevertheless, that doesn’t make them any less entertaining on the collegiate level.

And with 68 teams set to compete in the NCAA Tournament, there are a lot more surprises in the college game. Even programs ranked in the top-15 like Murray State have barely been on national TV this season.

We have a pretty good idea of how teams like the Pacers and the 76ers match up with the top of the Eastern Conference but not whether an undersized Murray State squad can handle the size of an elite team from a Power Six conference. It’s an open question how Isaiah Canaan’s speed and athleticism translates outside of the Ohio Valley Conference. Non-conference play in college basketball generally ends in late December, so it’s almost impossible to gauge how younger teams like Texas, Washington and Tennessee who have found their groove in the last two months will fare in March.

In the NBA, it’s hard to envision a scenario where Chicago, Miami and Oklahoma City aren’t three of the final four teams left in the playoffs. In the NCAA, as many as two dozen teams have a legitimate shot at making a run at the Final Four.

Of course, in terms of entertainment, none of this makes the NCAA necessarily better or worse than the NBA, just different. But, as Posnanski writes, there’s something to be said for the concept of “different” in the modern sports world. Basketball fans of all stripes should enjoy March Madness; the NBA will still be here in a few weeks.

It does not take much statistical analysis to realize that Vanderbilt returns the “right” players.  Losing Andre Walker and some non-rotation seniors is not a concern. But for teams that return less than 90% of their previous lineup, it is interesting to ask whether the team returns the “right” or the “wrong” players. On Monday, I defined the term Relative Value and I showed the teams that returned the least efficient or the “wrong” players. Today, I show teams that return the most efficient or the “right” players.

Editorial Note:  I had written this about Missouri: “Missouri loses a freshman, Ricky Kreklow, who never really fit in, and a senior, Justin Safford, who peaked two years ago, and saw his ORtg fall to 96.6 as a senior. Laurence Bowers and Ricardo Ratliffe were better post players than Safford last season, and this is definitely a case of a team returning the right players for the offense.” But Bowers tore his ACL this week, and now Missouri has some serious questions in the middle.  You can lower them significantly in the above list. But even if the statement is no longer accurate about Missouri, several other teams still return the right players this year:

Gonzaga loses Demtri Goodsen, but returns players like Robert Sacre and Elias Harris who were extremely efficient last season. Given Goodsen’s struggles with turnovers, the team should be able to overcome his departure.

Oral Roberts loses three inefficient players from the back of the rotation, but with the five most efficient players returning, Oral Roberts looks like one of the nation’s top small conference teams.

Of course ORtg is not the only factor that matters. On paper, the loss of Chris Wright (93.0 ORtg) and Juwan Staten (90.3 ORtg) is a clear improvement for a Dayton offense that returns a number of efficient players and is led by Chris Johnson. But Wright’s low ORtg was at least partly a function of the fact that he had become such a high usage player. With Dayton’s offense built around getting Wright the ball, his loss is not an automatic improvement for the Flyers. Relative Value is a useful concept, but it certainly is not the only factor to consider.

Last year’s CAA Standings

Another team high on the Relative Value list is Drexel. After a rough couple of years, Bruiser Flint turned Drexel into a winner last season, and the vast majority of the key players are back. The team loses Gerald Colds from the rotation, but the truth is that Colds will not really be missed. Colds was not a great passer, and not a great three point shooter, and subtracting his 88.5 ORtg seems like a clear improvement for an otherwise strong offense.

There is reason to think Drexel is the CAA favorite, but there is no guarantee that Drexel will finish ahead of the traditional favorites (VCU, George Mason, and Old Dominion). Because of the unbalanced schedule, and strength throughout the league, often the best team does not finish in first in the CAA. VCU won five NCAA tournament games, but finished 4^th in the CAA last season.

One team I expect to drop back is Hofstra. Hofstra was very fortunate to finish in 3^rd place last season. Their margin-of-victory numbers suggested they were closer to the 6^th best team in the league. But PG Charles Jenkins was an all-around stat-sheet stuffer, and he willed his team to victory in close games. Without Jenkins, Hofstra should take a significant step back.

Not only was Towson winless in league play last year, but things got even worse this off-season when star sophomore Isaiah Philmore transferred to Xavier. It may be hard to duplicate a 4-win season, but with Philmore and senior Josh Brown leaving, Towson has almost no chance of avoiding the CAA cellar once again.

Last year’s SEC Standings

Vanderbilt returns so many players that expectations should be high. But last year’s rotation finished 88^th in the nation in defense, and I have a hard time believing that the same group of players will be dramatically better. And without a significant improvement on that end of the court, Vanderbilt will have a tough time living up to its lofty expectations. The good news for Vanderbilt is that defensive performances are fairly unpredictable. Not only are our measures of defense rather poor (blocks, steals and defensive rebounds do not tell the whole story), but team defense can jump up or down between seasons with no clear explanation. Still, I fear Vanderbilt will have what I like to call a “Mike Brey” type season, where they pick up some big wins, but their defensive holes cause them to lose in the first round of the NCAA tournament. John Jenkins, Festus Ezeli, and Jeffry Taylor are a joy to watch, and I hope they prove me wrong.

I am much more bullish on Alabama. For the last few year’s Anthony Grant has gotten by with tenacious defense, but inadequate offense.  But as noted above, Alabama returns the “right” players this year. Alabama loses Chris Hines and Senario Hillman, two players with sub-95 ORtgs last year. Meanwhile, the returning group includes Tony Mitchell, JaMychal Green, and Trevor Releford who were all efficient offensive players last year. The days of watching Alabama struggle to score may finally be coming to an end.

As for the rest of the SEC, I am looking forward to several random events: 

I want to see John Calipari groom Anthony Davis from an athletic shot-blocking freshman, into a polished All-American.

I want to see how many times the bottom of the SEC loses to “cupcakes” this season.  I honestly think this league has upgraded its coaching, but there are still a lot of decimated rosters at the back of the standings.

I want to see how Billy Donovan handles former McDonald’s All-American Mike Rosario’s ego when he finds himself sitting on the bench behind Bradley Beal, Erving Walker, and Kenny Boynton in crunch time.  (And if Beal is on the bench in crunch time, I will be screaming at my TV.)

I want to see Mike Anderson take a team full of bench players and freshmen and surprise us once again by playing competitive basketball.

And finally, I want to see how long it takes Mississippi St. to find another bad headline. Last year, it was the suspensions and in-team fighting. This summer, Renardo Sidney did not accompany his team on its international tour. And this fall, it was prized recruit DJ Gardner who was kicked off the team in part because of inappropriate tweets. With this team, a quiet month is a good month.