Last week VCU joined the A10 which provided the perfect opportunity to present my “way-too-early” projections for the A10 and CUSA. But what should be the lead for a column on the MVC and WCC?

I thought about writing about how the Missouri Valley Conference keeps missing out. VCU stole Wichita St.’s thunder in the NCAA tournament and the A10 added Butler before the MVC even contemplated expansion. I thought about writing about how the West Coast Conference has been strictly boring this off-season. There have been zero coaching changes, and no team shuffling (Pacific won’t join until next year). And as great as he looked in his debut, BYU’s Matt Carlino is no Jimmer Fredette. Still nothing inspired me.

Then I ran into Luke Winn’s Tuesday column on conference realignment. The first thing that struck me is how the WCC is now a Top 10 conference. The eight teams in the WCC in 2010-2011 had a 10-year Pythagorean Winning Percentage (PWP) of 0.5346. The conference added BYU with a 10-year PWP of 0.8266 and Pacific with a 10-year PWP of 0.5704. Combined the new 10 team 10-year PWP will be 0.5674 which would put the league behind the A10 but firmly in the Top 10 of college conferences. And the MVC was already in the top 10. If you care about college basketball, there is no question you should care about these two leagues.

For an explanation of the column headings, click here. Roster information is updated through May 14^th.

BYU returns a respectable 69% of its possessions from last year, but the Relative Value (RV) column shows that BYU’s returning roster is made up of the least efficient offensive players on the team. Goodbye Noah Hartsock. It was a nice run Charles Abouo. Some people will miss the memories from their Sweet Sixteen run in 2011, but what BYU will really miss is their offensive efficiency. So why does the model still pick BYU for 2^nd in the league? First, Dave Rose gets some lingering credit. Rose has now made the NCAA tournament six straight years and my model accounts for coaching ability.  And BYU also gave a lot of possessions to freshmen last year.

San Diego is my ultimate sleeper team. Fully 47% of the Toreros possessions last season went to freshmen and while that led to some growing pains for Bill Grier’s team, Johnny Dee and Christopher Anderson have the potential to be special players. Dee made 79 threes last season and Anderson got to the free throw line at an elite rate. Combine their perimeter play with the efficient play of Dennis Kramer inside and you have the building blocks for a surprise team. San Diego struggled on the full season last year posting a 13-18 record and posting miserable Margin-of-Victory numbers (MOV). But by the time the WCC season rolled around San Diego was already playing better basketball. The Toreros finished 7-9 in league play and the growth potential for this team remains significant.

Rex Walters seemed like he might be building something at San Francisco, but the team has seen a number of players transfer. Perris Blackwell, Avery Johnson, Khalil Murphy, Justin Raffington, Charles Standifer, and Michael Williams all departed putting the Dons squarely in rebuilding mode. Luckily UCLA transfer De’End Parker should be eligible due to a family medical hardship waiver.

How is Gregg Marshall still at Wichita St.? After taking Winthrop to three straight NCAA tournaments and earning the rare NCAA victory at the Big South school, all he did was turn Wichita St. into a top 10 margin-of-victory team. I am more than a little skeptical that Wichita St. can finish 12-6 in a year in which the team loses 5 key seniors. But Carl Hall and Demetric Williams are back, and the model gives Marshall a ton of credit for building teams. The last three years the Shockers have finished 12-6, 14-4, and 16-2 in the MVC, and that is the track record of an elite coach. But 7 footers like Garrett Stutz don’t grow on trees, and I’m nervous that his defensive presence will be impossible to replace.

The model is very pleased to see Barry Hinson check in at Southern Illinois. It might take some time to rebuild the Salukis, but the former Missouri St. coach has won in this league before and he will win again. It is hard to believe a Saluki team that once dominated the league hasn’t won 7 conference games since 2009. By focusing on defense, Hinson will have Southern Illinois more competitive in his first year.

Speaking of elite coaches, Ben Jacobson is only two years away from his Farokhmanesh moment, and he brings back every rotation player except Johnny Moran this off-season. Northern Iowa will clearly be a factor. But Doug McDermott is back and that is pretty much all you need to know to be excited about Creighton. The Blue Jays will be the favorite even if last year’s defense was a little suspect.

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.

Last week was quiet due to finals, but the weekend was the complete opposite. Ohio St.’s Jared Sullinger suffered a minor foot injury.  Kentucky’s Terrence Jones suffered a pinky contusion. Cincinnati crushed Radford despite the suspension of several players after last weekend’s brawl. But Xavier wasn’t as fortunate, losing to Oral Roberts without Tu Holloway and company. 

And there were plenty of dramatic games. Butler came back to beat Purdue on a last second put back by Andrew Smith. Georgia came back to beat USC thanks to a huge game from freshmen Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Meanwhile, top-ranked Syracuse left the state of New York for the first time and looked dominant in their first true road test. And these headlines are only the beginning:

Game of the Weekend: Baylor defeats BYU 

Coming to you courtesy of the newest channel to air college sports, BYU TV, the sixth ranked Baylor Bears traveled to BYU to take on the Cougars. Usually when a heavily favored team goes on the road in college, the underdog will take a conservative approach. They will try to shorten the game, and take perfect shots, and hope that over a shortened game they might outscore their opponent. But when an underdog starts out super-aggressive, you know the game is going to be special.

And from the beginning BYU was the more aggressive team. They were the team diving for loose balls and causing steals. They were the team relentlessly taking the ball to the basket and callously shooting open jumpers early in the shot-clock. If you thought Dave Rose would slow things down with Jimmer Fredette having graduated, think again.

And so the game had several acts.  Act one was dominated on the boards. BYU grabbed the first 14 rebounds of the game. Shooting percentages always have something to do with rebounding, but there isn’t a scenarios where that isn’t an impressive stat. 

And Brandon Davies was leading the way.  Early on, Davies caught the ball off the post, and began what looked like a classic hook-shot move. But instead of taking a hook shot, he angled to the basket, and dunked over the Baylor defense. BYU was not afraid, and as the team built a 13 point lead, the home-team BYU announcers called it the best game of Brandon Davies’ career. 

But then Davies picked up his second foul. And Baylor immediately went on a run. Baylor cut the lead to four points at halftime, but more than cutting into the lead, the fear of foul trouble seemed to reduce Davies’ aggressiveness the rest of the game. And that’s when BYU turned to its second option, Matt Carlino. Carlino was an Indiana kid who looked headed to the Hoosiers, but then went to UCLA, and then transferred after playing one exhibition game. Carlino was finally eligible for this game at the semester break, and he made the most of his BYU debut. Carlino started playing and shooting like he was the Jimmer, (complete with the ridiculous three point attempts from 8 feet beyond the arc.) And even though a lot of Carlino’s shots made you shake your head, quite a few of his crazy shots were going in.  And 4 minutes into the second half, BYU had a nine-point lead again.

And that’s when the game entered its final act.  Perry Jones III received a lot of accolades as a high school player. But with Baylor struggling to a disappointing season last year, and PJ3 often deferring in critical situations, there were questions about whether he could really become a star at the college level. Those questions were answered on Saturday. Jones decided to take over the game and there was nothing BYU could do to stop him. Whether Jones wanted to take a perimeter jumper, drive and pull-up in the lane, or post-up and finish inside, there was no one on BYU that could stop his game.

And just when you weren’t impressed enough with Jones leading the comeback, he had his hero moment. With two minutes left in the game Jones went down with a knee injury. It looked ugly and fears or an ACL or MCL tear seemed realistic. But after sitting on the bench for a few moments, Jones re-entered the game, found a spot in the lane, and sent home a Baylor miss to give his team a three point lead. His offensive rebound and finish was the final dagger.

The 5’10” Pierre Jackson ended the game with a great visual, blocking the 6’9” Brandon Davies three point attempt at the buzzer.  But Davies was not a great three point shooter, and that was academic. The moment belonged to Perry Jones III.

I still have my questions about this Baylor team. People complain that Jones defers to much to his teammates. Fran Fraschilla says that Jones is too nice a player. But I think the problem is that Baylor plays like Texas prior to this season. They have so many scorers and playmakers, that everyone feels like they need to shoot when they get a chance.  No one feels like they need to get Jones a touch on every possession. But by putting his team on his back on Saturday, his teammates may have learned a valuable lesson.  With Jones leading the way, there is no team Baylor can’t beat.

Hidden Game of the Weekend:  Miami (FL) defeats Florida Atlantic in double overtime. 

This game had absurd imagery. I would love to have a photo of 5’6” 145 lb Florida Atlantic guard Raymond Taylor grabbing 6’10” 295 lb Miami FL forward Reggie Johnson’s jersey from behind to stop a breakout opportunity. (He was called for an intentional foul on the play, but the idea that Taylor could ever stop Johnson’s momentum was rather preposterous.)

This game had teeth rattling plays. Raymond Taylor had some crazy lay-ups in this game, and one of his drives nearly knocked Kenny Kadji’s teeth out.

This game had buzzer beating shots.  With 1.8 seconds left before halftime, Miami used a double screen to get a tip-in lay-up.  Then at the end of regulation, Florida Atlatic’s Omari Grier hit a three pointer to send the game into OT.

This game had buzzer beating misses.  Miami tried to run a simple hand-off three at the end of the first overtime, and Malcolm Grant did such a poor job setting a screen, that Durant Scott barely got off a shot. Then at the end of the second OT, after making 15 threes, Florida Atlantic missed a deep but clean look, and fell 93-90. On paper, this game looked boring, but in execution this was basketball at its best.

I started watching this game to see how Reggie Johnson would perform in his return.  As already noted, the Hurricane forward is a mammoth player, and since he was coming back from knee surgery, there were significant questions about how he would look.  Would he be mobile enough to dominate the game?  Would he have the conditioning to play to the final whistle?  And this should matter a lot to ACC fans.  Johnson was Miami’s best interior player last season, and without him in the lineup Miami had struggled to a 5-4 start this year.  Their losses at Purdue, vs Memphis, at West Virginia, and at Ole Miss in OT are not horrible.  But you have to believe with a healthy Johnson, Miami will be much more dangerous.

For the most part Johnson looked great in his return to action.  He seemed to get up and down the court very easily for a player of his size.  He still had the lift to get five blocks.  He even drew a couple of charges.  Offensively, he looked strong making four of five baskets and drawing a number of fouls.  His passing was sharp both in and out of the post. And Johnson had plenty of stamina, hitting a critical lay-up in OT and playing 36 minutes in the game.

Johnson’s return was important to other Miami players too. He attracted a double team on multiple occasions, and his presence in the paint seemed to lead to more wide-open shots for the Hurricanes guards. And the biggest beneficiary might have been Miami Forward Kenny Kadji.  Because of his size at 6’11”, Kadji has had to play a lot in the paint with Johnson out. But with Reggie Johnson positioned for rebounds in the paint, Kadji was free to hang out on the perimeter, and Kadji made 3 of 3 three pointers in the game. Also, because of his quickness, Kadji was wasted defensively when he was forced to guard immobile post players on the opposing team. But with Johnson in the game, Kadji provided a nice lanky defender on some of the Florida Atlantic’s guards. This led to at least one critical steal. 

With all these positive signs, you might wonder why Miami needed double overtime to beat a 4-7 Florida Atlantic team playing without its most prolific scorer, Greg Gannt. But if Jim Larranaga was playing with a near full-set of playing cards for the first time this season, he finally got to see what was critically flawed about this Miami team last year. As great as Miami’s guards can be offensively, they tend to be terrible at defending the three point shot.  Last year Miami was 224th in the nation in three point FG defense, and time after time last year the team lost close games when the other team hit key perimeter shots late.

On Saturday, one sequence said it all. Leading 43-40, Durant Scott failed to get around a Florida Atlantic screen and FAU knocked down a three to tie the game.  But not only did Scott fail to get around the screen, he and Kenny Kadji did not communicate.  And Scott and Kaji ended up fouling the FAU screener while the shot was in the air.  That meant FAU got the ball back.  Before the possessions was over FAU had hit another three to take the lead 46-43.  Only the Hurricanes could find a way to give up a six point possession. Miami’s guards are fantastic, and as a team they hit 14 threes on Saturday.  But Miami allowed FAU to make 15 threes. Now that Jim Larranaga finally has enough defensive options in the interior, the goal should be clear.  Clean up the perimeter defense and turn Miami into an NCAA tournament team.

Other Notes 

- The comedy moment of the weekend may have come when Indiana’s Cody Zeller appeared to be called for fouling Indiana’s Victor Oladipo. Comedy aside, because Zeller was pushed into Oladipo by Notre Dame, it appeared to be the right call.

- Illinois shot 25% against UNLV and one key sequence summed it up.  First, Brandon Paul missed a wide-open three, then Meyers Leonard missed a put-back, then after another offensive rebound Tyler Griffey had his shot blocked.

- There is no worse feeling than when your team blows a double-digit lead in college basketball.  It isn’t just the loss.  It is the fact that every time your team has a 10-point lead the rest of the year, it will never feel safe.  And now Purdue has blown double digit leads twice, to Xavier and now to Butler. It wasn’t that Purdue didn’t make any plays down the stretch.  I thought for a moment that Ryne Smith’s steal of Ronald Nored on a late fast-break in the final two minutes might stop the momentum.  But when it comes to making plays in crunch time, Purdue is really struggling right now.

- Arizona St. is not very good, but they’ve had two exciting non-conference games in a row. A week ago ASU’s Carrick Felix hit a buzzer beating three to beat North Dakota St. Then this weekend, Northern Arizona’s Stallon Salvidar hit a three with one second left to beat ASU.

- St. Joe’s has produced some highlight reel baskets this season.  And in the few moments I watched of their game against Villanova, CJ Aiken added a killer dunk while Langston Galloway hit a ridiculous “throw it up on the rim and pray” shot.  You expect Villanova junior Mouphtaou Yarou to be blocking those shots at this point, but his block rate has become rather average. Why has that part of his game receded since his freshmen year?

- If returning players were supposed to spark their teams, it didn’t happen this weekend.  Khris Middleton is back for Texas A&M but the Aggies were blown out by Florida.  The Gators led the Aggies 50-25 at half-time.  And Festus Ezili’s return did not stop Vanderbilt from losing its third home game of the season, to Indiana St.

- Indiana St.’s Jake Odum was one of the best freshman point guards in the country last year, but he has struggled a bit with shooting this year. And down in Orlando, I saw possibly the worst five minutes of his career when Indiana St. blew a late lead to Minnesota. But against Vanderbilt, Odum owned the last 5 minutes of the game.  With the game on the line he (1) Drove into the lane and kicked to a wide open teammate who hit a three. (2) Drove into the lane and dished to a teammate for a lay-up. (3) Hit a jumper in the lane to give his team a 4 point lead and effectively seal the game.  It turns out you cannot keep a great player down.

- After Detroit’s Ray McCallum drove to the basket to tie the game at 75, who would you expect to try to take the game-winning shot for Mississippi St?  Would it be the ultra-talented PG Dee Bost, the enigma Renardo Sidney, ultra-rebounder Arnett Moultrie, or even guard Brian Bryant who had 17 points on Saturday.  No, it was Rodney Hood who took and made the game-winning basket. Basketball is like that.

By the way, don’t read too much into Renardo Sidney’s big day.  He did most if his damage in the first half when Eli Holman and LaMarcus Lowe were in foul trouble. (The 6’5” Doug Anderson didn’t stand a chance guarding him.) I still cannot believe how often Sidney walks up the court.  You keep thinking at some point he will get in shape but in never happens. 

At one point Detroit was expected to challenge for the Horizon league title, but even though Eli Holman finally returning to the team, remember that Nick Minnerath is still injured.  The 6’8” gunner was almost as prolific and efficient as Holman last year, and his absence is still a giant hole for Detroit.