Earlier this spring I presented my “way-too-early” projections for seven major conferences. Due to time and space constraints, I never published my projections for the A10 and CUSA. But with the announcement that VCU will be joining the A10 for the 2012-13 season, I thought it would be a good time to share my projections for that league.

These projections remove all graduating seniors, announced transfers, and early entrants from rosters. My transfer information comes from Jeff Goodman’s list as of May 14th. In these projections, I use the tempo free player statistics to predict how the margin-of-victory numbers will change between seasons. Then I use that information to predict the 2013 conference standings. For now I assume the A10 sticks with a 16-game schedule next season.

PW = Predicted Conference Wins

PL = Predicted Conference Losses

P% = Percentage of Possessions Returning – (Possessions are a more powerful predictor of future offense than minutes, although the model includes returning minutes as well.)

The remaining column headings were described in a previous post, but for a refresher, scroll to the bottom of this page.

VCU brings every key player back except Bradford Burgess. I don’t want to understate how important Burgess was to the Rams. He led the team in minutes, shots when on the floor, and he was one of the two most efficient players on the team. He will clearly be missed. But the four A10 teams that made the NCAA tournament also lost key players. Xavier lost Kenny Frease and Tu Holloway to graduation and Mark Lyons to transfer; St. Bonaventure lost Andrew Nicholson; Temple lost Ramon Moore, Michael Eric, and Juan Fernandez; and St. Louis lost Brian Conklin. None of those players will be easy to replace. I’d feel much more confident if VCU was bringing in a strong recruiting class, but Jordan Burgess was not a consensus Top 100 recruit.

Quite frankly this projection isn’t as much about elite talent as it is about Shaka Smart’s ability to bring his players together the last few years. His team had the top steal rate in the nation last season and as long as he is teaching a unique brand of full court basketball, he can win in the A10. His margin of victory numbers would have been second in the A10 last season, and his team returns 82% of its possessions. That’s a recipe for success. The model likes VCU to finish 3^rd in the A10 next year.

I’m not making a projection for Butler here, because they won’t be in the league until 2013-14, but if they were in the A10 next season, my model would have them at 10-6, right in the middle of the pack. Butler had a disappointing year by their new lofty standards because they simply couldn’t score. But the addition of one of the best three point shooters in the country (transfer Rotnei Clarke) as well as Kellen Dunham, a consensus Top 100 recruit, should help turn the offense around.

I’m looking forward to an annual battle between VCU and Butler where they re-air the highlights of the 2011 NCAA tournament, but the A10 absolutely must improve its television deal. The last few years this league has had a ton of great players who simply haven’t gotten the publicity they deserve nationally because they haven’t been on TV. St. Joseph’s Carl Jones and Massachusetts Chaz Williams are incredibly exciting players to watch, but I rarely saw their highlights on ESPN last year. The good news for those two players is that both St. Joseph’s and Massachusetts bring back their primary rotation and both teams should be in the hunt for the NCAA tournament next season.

I’m a little surprised Richmond isn’t picked higher by the model. Last year’s seniors all had very inefficient seasons and the 1.039 mark in the relative value column says Richmond is bringing back the exact right offensive players. But the Spiders had serious problems on defense last year and it is hard to predict a big turnaround. It isn’t that Chris Mooney doesn’t know what he is doing, but this really appears to be a “size” issue more than an effort issue. Most people remember the guard play during Richmond’s stellar Sweet Sixteen run from a few years ago, including Kevin Anderson’s amazing clutch shot against Vanderbilt. But that team was anchored in the middle by 6’10” Justin Harper, and so far Mooney hasn’t quite been able to find the right replacement in the middle.

Here is why my model likes St. Louis to win the league. Despite finishing second in the standings, St. Louis had far and away the best margin-of-victory numbers in the conference last year. Their defense was Top 10 caliber, and while Conklin will be missed, the biggest factor was having Rick Majerus on the sideline. Majerus reportedly spoke to SMU about their coaching vacancy this spring, but the fact that he stayed at St. Louis should mean the Billikens will have an elite defense once again. And in an A10 without any dominant teams, that should be the difference.

The model currently projects Xavier to go 10-6 in the A10 next season which would be the same conference record as this year. The model isn’t saying that this year’s team is as good as last year’s team on paper. What I am saying is that the Musketeers significantly under-achieved in 2012 and still have a lot of talent. Dezmine Wells should be back, and at times he looked like Xavier’s best player last year. Transfer Isaiah Philmore is a fabulous scorer. And elite PG recruit Semaj Christon should help lessen the blow of losing Tu Holloway.

Of course Memphis is the league favorite because they have the most talent. As I noted last fall, no non-BCS team recruits like Memphis and they will finally be playing in a BCS league in 2013-14. Until then, anything short of another league title will be a disappointment.

Point guard AJ Rompza graduates, but Central Florida hopes that one of two transfers will fill the void. The team adds Calvin Newell from Oklahoma and CJ Reed from Bethune Cookman. Newell might be the more familiar name, but Reed’s statistics at Bethune Cookman were fantastic and he might be the better player. Regardless of who wins the job, they will have three prolific scorers to feed as Isaiah Sykes, Keith Clanton, and Marcus Jordan all return.

If you are looking for a sleeper pick, consider UTEP. The Miners lose two starters but the team gave a lot of minutes to freshmen last year (particularly Cedrick Lang and Julian Washburn) and if those young players make a big “sophomore leap” in production, UTEP could be a surprise.

SMU is tough to project. The problem is that I don’t have any college data for Larry Brown and so it is hard to give him credit for what he can do on the sidelines. Normally when a veteran coach takes over a bad team, he will focus on improving the defense first. But SMU was actually a defensive-minded team last year; it was that the offense that was dreadful. And the offense isn’t going to get substantially better until the talent level of the team is upgraded. Larry Brown’s staff has been hard at work adding transfers to fill that gap, but the goal seems to be to build towards the first year in the Big East, not this season. Sure Illinois transfer Crandall Head might be eligible mid-semester, but will Larry Brown even waste a year of eligibility by playing him in the spring? I won’t be surprised if SMU does a little better than 4-12, but on paper this looks like an offensively challenged team.

Having said all that, a large reason SMU’s offense was dreadful was because SMU’s offensive rebounding was off-the-charts terrible. Perhaps by focusing on those types of skills, Larry Brown can improve SMU’s offense. London Giles was a pretty solid shooter and Jalen Jones has some skills, so the team isn’t completely devoid of hope. But if they do manage to get to .500 in CUSA, Larry Brown deserves credit. It shouldn’t be the expectation with this team.

Overall, Houston and SMU should be thankful they won’t play their first Big East game for 19 months, because neither team is ready. On the other hand, Memphis, Temple, and UCF would be competitive in the Big East this season. UCF might not have a winning record in the Big East, but they wouldn’t be a laughingstock with this year’s lineup.

Column Headings:

PW = Predicted Conference Wins

PL = Predicted Conference Losses

FrP% = Percentage of Freshmen Possessions

T10Fr = Consensus Top 10 Freshmen Recruits

N100 = New Recruits Ranked 11-100 on the Roster – (This includes transfers and redshirt freshmen.)

Total = Total RSCI Top 100 high school recruits on the roster

NC = New Coach

RV = Relative Value = Offensive Rating of Returning Players, Incoming Transfers, and Players Returning from Injury (like UNC’s Leslie McDonald) divided by the Offensive Rating of Last Year’s Roster

MOV12 = Opponent Adjusted Margin-of-Victory in 2012 (see Pythag. rating on Kenpom.com)

Before I talk about Day 1 of the NCAA tournament, I have one preview item for Day 2. As a detailed reader of Monday’s column may have noted, Purdue is the most improved offensive team in the country in the last 10 games. The reason most people haven’t noticed is because Purdue’s defense went in the tank over the same time period. But in the next table I focus on the individual offensive numbers to see whose offense has changed the most:

One popular theory is that the removal of Kelsey Barlow has improved the offense. Barlow was kicked off the team and his minutes have now dropped to zero. But Barlow was not a black-hole offensively, and it isn’t clear that his removal should make that much of a difference.

Instead it looks like there are two contributing factors. First, Purdue has tightened a 9 player rotation down to 7 players. All are receiving substantially more playing time than early in the year. I would argue that Anthony Johnson should actually be receiving less time and that perhaps it should be a 6 player rotation. But obviously Matt Painter sees something in the defense and effort of the freshman Johnson. Overall this core group of 7 is building more chemistry.

Second, five of these players have seen their efficiency improve from the start of the year. That’s fairly impressive when you consider that the Big Ten schedule should be tougher than the non-conference schedule. Hummel is getting to the line a little more often, and as for the rest of the rotation, they are simply making more shots. Turnovers are also down.

Of course with this shorter rotation, players have been more hesitant to foul, the team is forcing fewer turnovers, and teams seem to be getting easier shots against Purdue. It is hard to play pressure defense with a short rotation, and unless Purdue gets a little more defensive effort against St. Mary’s, they will be done in the first round. Offensive improvement is great, but not if you cannot get stops.

Game Notes

Even on a day that lacks historic drama, there are always plenty of storylines in the NCAA tournament.

-There are the stories about player homecomings. Louisville’s Peyton Siva is from the Seattle area and the chance to play in Portland meant many of his family could drive to Thursday’s game. And while his playing time was limited due to foul trouble, Siva made the most of his time on the court scoring 17 points in 25 minutes. For much of the game, Davidson simply could not keep Siva out of the lane.

-There are the stories of high school teammates re-united. Southern Miss guard Neil Watson and Kansas St. guard Will Spradling played AAU ball together and had been friends since 8^th grade. They often guarded each other during Thursday’s game and while Watson got the upper hand with 16 points and 3 assists, Spradling’s Kansas St. team won the game.

-There are the stories of heartbreak. Long Beach St. senior Larry Anderson tried to return from a knee injury, but he was ineffective in limited minutes, and LBSU came up a few points short of upsetting New Mexico.

-There are the stories of redemption. Iowa St. has a team of players that didn’t fit in well elsewhere. Chris Allen was a problem at Michigan St., Royce White had off-the-court troubles at Minnesota, and even Scott Christopherson (the home-grown Cyclone on this team) once played for Marquette. All three were spectacular in the Cyclones win over defending champion UConn. Allen had 20 points, White had a double-double with 15 points and 13 boards, and Christopherson chipped in 15 points too. And when this group of cast-offs built a 36-14 first half lead on the defending champs, they were playing beautiful basketball.

-There are even the moments of glory for losing teams. Colorado St. may have lost to Murray St. to open the day, but millions of people across the country saw the 6’4” Pierce Hornung diving on the floor and grabbing 10 first half rebounds as the Rams led at halftime. South Dakota St., making the first NCAA tournament appearance in school history, gave Baylor an early scare with a 19-7 lead. And even UNLV gave its fans one last moment to cheer by trimming a 20 point deficit to 2 points in the final minutes against Colorado. Those teams may not have won, but at least there were a few highlights.

There were just two seeding upsets on Thursday (with VCU and Colorado winning). VCU’s upset was the most dramatic. VCU’s Bradford Burgess hit a three pointer late, VCU’s Darius Theus hit a runner in the lane, and then Wichita St.’s Garrett Stutz missed a game tying three at the buzzer. But it hardly felt surprising after VCU’s tournament run last year.

That meant the only real drama of the day came when top seeded Syracuse struggled to defeat UNC-Asheville. The game featured at least three controversial calls, the missed goaltend against Syracuse, the bizarre lane violation (that later proved to be the correct call), and the inbounds pass that bounced off a Syracuse player but was ruled Syracuse ball. Charles Barkley called the officiating a “travesty”, and for those hoping to see a 16-seed beat a 1-seed for the first time in NCAA history, it certainly felt that way. For most of the game, every time Syracuse went on a run, it seemed like UNC-Asheville had an answer. Near the 15 minute mark of the second half, Syracuse turned a pair of steals into the lead, only to see the Bulldogs take the lead back. Near the 9 minute mark, James Southerland hit a three pointer and Rakeem Christmas got a foul and one, but again UNC-Asheville answered. And it felt like the only reason UNC-Asheville could not answer at the end was because of those controversial calls.

Perhaps there was a little drama when Harvard pulled within 5 points against Vanderbilt. After losing in the first round in recent years, Commodore fans had at least one moment of panic. But the truth is, the real beauty of a day like Thursday isn’t the basketball games, it is the future match-ups. Because most of the top seeds advanced, that means we have an outstanding slate of games on Saturday.

Random Thoughts

-Bad Pun of the Day: Regarding the aforementioned Neil Watson, Len Elmore said “It’s elementary, Watson is getting it done.”

-West Virginia’s loss was tough, but not entirely unexpected. This team just relied too much on Truck Bryant and Kevin Jones, and when Bryant struggled this year, as he did on Thursday, WVU simply had no chance to win.

-For Indiana, more than Cody Zeller and Jordan Hulls’ points, I was extremely impressed with their active hands. They combined for nine steals and the two that Hulls got before half-time seemed critical to me. Those steals prevented New Mexico St. from entering the locker room with real momentum.

Expected Wins in the Field of 64

It is time to introduce a table that I will be showing on a nearly daily basis during the tournament. The table shows the expected wins for various teams (based on the Pomeroy rankings) and why these have changed each day. Expectations primarily change because a team wins or loses. See “Own”. But expectations can also change because a team’s potential future opponents change. See “Other”. Finally, expectations can change because of margin within the tournament. See “Marg”. Here are some examples. VCU beat Wichita St. which substantially improved their “Own” expected number of wins. But Indiana also advanced (instead of New Mexico St.) and that “Other” game hurt VCU’s expected wins. Meanwhile Syracuse struggled to beat UNC-Asheville while Wisconsin crushed Montana so the Badgers see their “Marg” improve.

-If you study this table (and the next table) carefully, the first thing you might notice is that Pomeroy’s expected champ at the start of Monday was Kentucky, but at the start of Thursday, it was Ohio St. Because the SEC struggled in the NIT and the Big Ten did well in the NIT, Ohio St. actually passed Kentucky for first place in Pomeroy’s rankings during the week.

-The second thing you should note is that VCU picked up the most impressive victory. Beating Wichita St. not only gave them a win, it also gave them some option value for future wins in the tournament. In the table below, Kentucky’s win was mostly expected. After beating Western Kentucky, Kentucky’s expected number of wins in the tournament barely changed.

-In the “Other” column, Indiana got the biggest benefit from Wichita St. going down, but Kentucky also got a slight benefit as well.

-The Big Ten (Ohio St., Indiana, Wisconsin) all won by impressive margins and that makes Michigan St. look better without even playing.  See “Marg”.

-Wichita St. and UNLV lost and gave away plenty of value to the rest of the field. See “Own.”

-Syracuse saw both Wisconsin and Vanderbilt advance meaning the Orange are guaranteed to face a strong team in the Sweet Sixteen. See “Other.”

-Syracuse had a disappointing margin of victory against UNC-Asheville, but Kentucky had a disappointing margin against Western Kentucky too. See “Marg.”

This first table recreates the Pomeroy rankings using only games against NCAA tournament teams:

- No one has performed better against NCAA tournament teams than Michigan St. While their winning percentage isn’t the best, when accounting for opponent, venue, and margin-of-victory, the Spartans have been the most dominant.

- While Syracuse has an impressive 12-2 record against tournament teams, the reality is that they haven’t been completely dominant in those games. They’ve escaped with close wins against Georgetown, Connecticut, West Virginia, and others.

- I’m not sure I would trust these numbers for teams with very few games. Sure VCU has great numbers, but they played Western Kentucky twice and crushed them, and they beat South Florida handily while the Bulls were missing multiple starters. Similarly, Murray St.’s impressive stats are driven by one blowout win over St. Mary’s.

- But for teams with numerous games against tournament teams, the stats are more revealing. Duke has played 15 games against NCAA teams and while they’ve gone 10-5, they haven’t exactly been blowing teams out.

- Ken Pomeroy has rightfully argued that Southern Miss is over-seeded. But the reason that happened is because the Golden Eagles have been at their best against quality competition.

- No one has played more games against tournament teams than Louisville. And while the Cardinal haven’t always been dominant, they have been tested.

- Baylor may be a No. 3 seed, but they’ve struggled against NCAA tournament teams.

- Texas has been close in a lot of games, but the 4-11 record indicates that they’ve rarely earned the win against quality competition.

- South Florida hasn’t performed well against tournament teams, but play-in game opponent California has been even worse.

- Memphis has also earned its keep by crushing non-tournament teams. Against the tournament field they have been merely average.

- Amazingly, South Dakota St. did not play a single NCAA tournament team during the regular season.

Last 10 Games Splits

But how have these teams done in the last 10 games?

- Now Memphis becomes an even bigger dilemma. They’ve been playing like one of the top teams in the country lately, but when they played tournament teams, they weren’t nearly as good. Which team will show up on Friday?

- Belmont is currently clicking on all cylinders which makes them a trendy pick to upset Georgetown.

- And don’t sleep on South Florida. They were a much better team at the end of the season, even if they can’t score to save their life.

- Louisville really is the perfect analogy to last year’s UConn team. They limped to the finish in the regular season before winning the Big East tournament. Overall in the last 10, they haven’t been that great, but over the last 4 games they were special.

- Duke was simply not dominant over the teams last 10 games.

- As much as I love Texas based on all their close losses to quality teams, they sort of limped to the finish. They may have defeated Iowa St. in the Big 12 tournament, but before that they were struggling to beat teams like Texas Tech.

- Murray St. also struggled down the stretch in the OVC. They were winning games, but not by a margin that would suggest a deep NCAA tournament run.