We Don’t Know Anything

With the NFL season coming to a close, many fans will turn their attention to college basketball. This should be the time when college basketball analysts tell you what to expect in the next two months. But the truth is that we don’t know much of anything.

-I thought Kansas was establishing itself as one of the best teams in the nation. Lottery picks Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid were hitting their stride, Kansas was 7-0 in the Big 12, and Texas was a team that had over-achieved to date. So of course Kansas shot 26 percent in the first half at Texas, Andrew Wiggins shot 2-of-12 from the floor and fouled out, and Kansas was blown out on Saturday.

-I thought that Pitt’s great margin-of-victory numbers were evidence that the Panthers were an elite team, even if they lacked a signature victory. But after back-to-back home losses to Duke and Virginia, it is getting harder and harder to make that argument.

-I thought that Duke had turned a corner with a deeper lineup and an improved emphasis on rebounds in recent games. I thought that Duke might be well positioned to give Syracuse their first loss of the year. And Duke seemingly got exactly what they wanted on Saturday. With the exception of one play in the first half (which caused Mike Krzyzewski to call a timeout), the Blue Devils kept Trevor Cooney from coming around on curl cuts for open threes and held Syracuse to just 4 three point attempts in the entire game. Duke made an impressive 15 three pointers against the zone, avoided turnovers, and crashed the offensive glass. The Blue Devils hit a game-tying three at the end of regulation. And yet, Duke had no answer for CJ Fair throughout the game, or Rakeem Christmas in OT. And even if Duke is playing better, the Blue Devils sit three games back in the loss column in the ACC standings.

-I thought Michigan St. had proven that it could win and thrive even with injuries, and that without Joshua Smith, Georgetown’s season was in the tank. The Hoyas had lost six of seven, with the only victory coming in OT against the Big East’s last place team. But the Spartans lack of paint depth is proving significant as Georgetown had its best offensive rebounding performance since December in knocking off the Spartans.

-I thought UNLV head coach Dave Rice was looking to get fired and that his team was on its way to a disappointing sixth home loss of the season. But down by 11 to Boise St. near the four minute mark in the second half, the Running Rebels went on an amazing 12-0 run, including a huge bucket, steal, and bucket by Deville Smith near the 90 second mark. Somehow, UNLV escaped with a victory.

-I thought that Wisconsin head coach Bo Ryan never lost at home and that the starting five for the Badgers was one of the most explosive in the nation. But after Wisconsin shot a miserable 26 percent in the home loss to Northwestern, the Badger starters shot a miserable 31 percent from the floor against Ohio St. And Wisconsin lost three home games in a row for the first time since 1998.

-I thought Northwestern was the only truly terrible team in the Big Ten after they started the season 7-9, and had lost the opening three games in Big Ten play by 27, 23 and 26 points. But after Minnesota missed a number of point-blank shots in the final four minutes, Northwestern hung on for the win, and improved to 5-5 in the Big Ten. The Wildcats have won three straight Big Ten road games for the first time since 1960.

-I thought Baylor’s season was over. At 1-6 in the Big 12, with starting PG Kenny Chery ruled out before the game, a trip to Oklahoma St. seemed like the worst case scenario. Scott Drew’s teams have spiraled to dreadful Big 12 finishes before, and when Oklahoma St. went on a second half run to eliminate a nine point deficit, this seemed like more of the same. But of course that is when Baylor’s Gary Franklin, who had made all of four three-pointers in his last six games, made back-to-back triples. The Bears picked up the key road win, and thanks to their non-conference schedule, they remain on the bubble.

-And finally, I thought Arizona was the best team in the country. They have a tight, defense-oriented rotation that has been dominating the Pac-12. They have a great combination of talented post-players and a veteran perimeter scorer in Nick Johnson. And yet, all it took was a rough outside shooting night, and even though Arizona won every other statistical category (rebounds, turnovers, 16 of 16 free throw shooting), the Wildcats were knocked off. Worse yet, Brandon Ashley went down with a foot injury and could be out for an extended period of time. Given Arizona’s lack of rotation depth generally, his injury could be more crippling than the overall loss.

Sure Syracuse is undefeated. Sure, a 2 point loss does nothing to obscure Arizona’s dominant seasonal. But this weekend’s games revealed the truth about college basketball this year. This season is wide open.

Adjusting to the New Rules?

Last week I wrote about coaches who were sending opponents to the free throw line at an unprecedented rate relative to their career numbers. Certainly the new defensive freedom of movement rules contributed somewhat to those numbers.

Nationally, the turnover numbers are also down. The next table shows the major conference coaches with the highest career steal rate (prior to this year) and their steal rate this season. Even if turnovers are down generally, this table suggests that an active zone defense or a full court pressure defense can still be effective at generating turnovers:

I should be a little careful in presenting this table. While Louisville’s steal rate is higher than it has been for most of the last decade, Louisville’s steals are down from last season. The new rules could be contributing to the dropoff from 2013 to 2014. But I am skeptical that we can blame the entire decrease on the rule changes. Last year was Rick Pitino’s best ball-swiping team ever, and at least part of the decrease in steals should be attributed to the loss of the team leader in steals, Peyton Siva. Also, Louisville has not been able to gamble as much this year because Gorgui Dieng has not been available to bail the defense out when it makes a mistake.

In general, it certainly seems like aggressive defensive strategies can still be effective at forcing turnovers, even with the officials calling more hand-checking violations.

Of course, even if all coaches are not abandoning aggressive defensive strategies, some coaches have made changes this year. I find the numbers for Clemson head coach Brad Brownell to be particularly fascinating. Whether because of the new foul rules, or other reasons, his defense looks substantially different this year.

Despite the fact that FTs are up nationally, Brad Brownell’s team is actually sending opponents to the FT line at a career low rate. Meanwhile, his team is also forcing turnovers at a career low rate. And yet his team’s eFG% against is a career best:

Essentially, Brownell has evolved his coaching style to take less chances. Clemson is gambling for fewer steals and committing fewer fouls. But by staying home and preventing easy looks, they are still winning games with defense.

Now, I don’t mean to say that Clemson has suddenly evolved into an elite team. They still got blown out at North Carolina as they do every year. But they are sitting at fifth place in the ACC, and they out-defensed Florida St. in an impressive road win on Saturday. One possession before the four-minute mark at the end of the game summed it up perfectly. Florida St. drove inside and there were three Clemson defenders under the basket with their hands straight up. FSU got two looks, but neither shot went in, and Clemson went right back down the court and scored. Florida St. is a team that historically turns the ball over a lot. But even without forcing turnovers, Clemson found a way to shut FSU down. Brad Brownell is showing that a coach can evolve his approach, and still win.

What the President Missed

Last Tuesday, the President apparently wanted to watch Michigan St. at Iowa instead of watching folks file into the capital building on CSPAN. If you were curious about the game he wanted to see, here’s the run-down:

This was one of those sneaky compelling games. Both teams were playing with a “nobody believes in us” chip on their shoulder. For Iowa, despite the fact that this is clearly Fran McCaffery’s best team ever, Iowa has consistently come up short in big games. And to a certain segment of observers, until the Hawkeyes beat the other elite teams, they are not legitimate. Iowa supposedly earned their breakthrough win at Ohio St. a few weeks ago, but with the Buckeyes falling apart since that game, the skeptics remain. Meanwhile Michigan St. was without Branden Dawson and Adreian Payne, and after the home loss to the Michigan Wolverines, the Spartans had to prove they were still a legitimate contender for the Big Ten title. The game delivered:

-In the halftime interview, a visibly shaken Tom Izzo said he had “weird guys” on the floor in the first half. Mike Tirico tried to make it sound a little better by saying Izzo had “weird lineup combinations, not weird guys,” but the comment was both funny and accurate. With Michigan St.’s limited frontcourt depth, Iowa killed the Spartans by throwing lob passes to its big men in the paint. Aaron White and Adam Woodbury combined had as many FT attempts as the Spartans, and Iowa more than doubled up on FT opportunities in the game.

-Meanwhile, we got some flawless basketball to start the second half. The under 16 minute TV timeout was not called until 11:25. Basketball without whistles is beautiful.

-We saw Roy Devyn Marble do his thing as he and his father are now the ninth highest scoring father-son duo in NCAA history. Both are also 1000 point scorers.

-We saw Michigan St.’s Denzel Valentine both make me cringe and smile at the same time. Valentine is not a great three point shooter. But despite a few questionable threes (2-for-7 on the night), at one point he had a brilliant pump-fake on a three and his drive for a dunk was back-breaking.

-We got to see brilliant half-court defense. There’s a certain feeling in a college basketball game when the home team has played lock-down defense for 30 seconds. The road team desperately passes it around the perimeter and starts to realize that no one can even get a clean look at the basket. The crowd becomes more frenetic as the seconds tick down and finally exhales when the shot-clock expires. At 6:30 left in the second half, Iowa executed this to perfection.

-And this even continued into OT. Iowa played brilliant lock-down defense for the first 3 minutes of OT. Michigan St. seemingly couldn’t even get a clean look. And yet MSU’s Keith Appling still got free and nailed a dagger three pointer at the end of one shot-clock. Appling remains one of college baskeball’s best closers. That isn’t to say his is a perfect clutch player. Appling did miss a pair of free throws that would have sealed the game in OT. But whether he is abusing an opponent’s tired legs at the end of regulation, or knocking down a dagger three, Appling know how to win in a hostile environment.

It wasn’t Duke-Syracuse. It wasn’t the game-of-the-year. But it was compelling basketball. At least when it comes to college basketball games, the president has good taste.

Final Comment: I don’t think enough people have been discussing Fran McCaffery technical with Iowa leading 32-30 in the second half. First, I think we have to all acknowledge that McCaffery was correct. Michigan St.’s Keith Appling clearly took three steps in transition and he should have been called for a travelling violation. Sometimes on breakaways, refs will just let that stuff go, but the travel was particularly egregious because if Appling didn’t take three steps, he probably would not have been able to get around the Iowa defender so easily. But even if McCaffery was right to question the call, this marks the second time this year that his technical may have cost his team the game. Michigan St. made both free throws, and in a game that was tied at the end of regulation, and won by two points in OT, those two points seemed particularly important.

Bonus final comment: I can’t believe that Mike Tirico and Jay Bilas were still making the joke about how the Big Ten has 12 teams and Big 12 has 10 teams. First, can we all acknowledge that this is about branding? The Big Ten brand has been around for 100 years, and if they didn’t give it up when they went to 11 teams, they aren’t going to give it up when they go to 14 teams. Brands matter even if they are not factually accurate. I imagine most people aren’t bothered when their local 7-11 store is open until 2am. But more importantly, the joke has been played out. It might have been cute once in 2011, but in 2014 announcers need to let it rest.

Bullets

-Last week Nebraska trailed Indiana by 13, but outscored the Hoosiers by 18 in the second half en route to the victory. I’m paraphrasing here, but after the game, Tim Miles was asked what he said in the locker-room at half-time. “You know I can’t answer that. My mom is watching.”

-Rick Pitino seemed angrier than normal after Louisville’s home loss to Cincinnati, but I think the anger had more to do with the team’s lack of focus than the team’s play. A coach can live with poor physical performance, but Louisville clearly screwed up the execution of the trap/fouling strategy in the final 20 seconds and that type of mental error is not something any coach will accept.

-Speaking of mental errors, leading by one point at Notre Dame, Boston College’s Olivier Hanlan inexplicably hacked ND’s Eric Atkins across the arms with 0.7 seconds left in the game. Atkins hit one of two free throws to send the game to an extra session, and then hit a three point buzzer beater to win in the extra session. Boston College seemingly can never get defensive stops this year, but fouling with less than a second left when the opposing player is 10 feet from the basket is particularly egregious.

-St. Louis remains undefeated in the Atlantic 10 and they owe a huge thanks to 6’11” forward Rob Loe. Loe hit the game-tying three at the end of regulation and another pair of threes in OT, in the narrow win over George Mason.

-The Memphis frontline has really developed this season. But they absolutely did not have an answer for SMU’s Markus Kennedy who was 10 for 10 from the floor with 15 rebounds on Saturday.

-I have an unhealthy love for all-around stat-sheet stuffers like UCLA’s Kyle Anderson, but you have to love a player who can help his team win even when he shoots 1-for-8 from the floor. Anderson dished out 10 assists in Thursday’s win at Oregon, and had the game-sealing block in the final seconds.

Harvard Watch: The news that center Kenyatta Smith would not be playing again this season after breaking his foot is not completely devastating. Although Smith had two of his best games of the year last year against Penn and Princeton, Harvard won against both teams this weekend, even without Smith. Still, against a bigger power conference school in the NCAA tournament, his size would have been a nice option.