Category: College Basketball

Trying to peg down college basketball this season is nearly impossible.  Of course, since this is the case, we’ll try to do so now.

Here are a few thoughts on the NCAA Tournament and, more specifically, the teams in it.

Wichita State Still Deserves a Ticket to the Dance

Here’s something to think about: there are two teams, team X and team Y.  Team X, according to Ken Pomeroy, has a .903 Pythagorean rating, 10th in college basketball; team Y is right behind with a .897 rating.  Team X has the number one adjusted defensive rating in the country while neither of team Y’s offensive or defensive ratings is in the top 15.  Team X went on a run to the Sweet 16 in last year’s NCAA Tournament, as did Team Y.

Here’s the caveat, though: team X is on the tournament bubble while team Y still has a chance at a number one seed.  It’s time for the reveal.

Team X is the Wichita State Shockers.  Team Y is the Xavier Musketeers.

The previous exercise was not meant to take down Xavier.  I think they are one of the teams that have a serious chance to win it all this year and they might be my title pick if the season ended today.  That being said, it’s hard to deny Wichita State a tournament berth.  But why are the Shockers in this position in the first place?

For one, their loss yesterday to Northern Iowa certainly doesn’t help. When you consider that this is the second time the Shockers have lost to UNI this season, with neither loss coming at home, you can start to put together that their resume might not be the greatest in the world. And it isn’t; the only top-50 RPI (Rating Percentage Index) win Wichita State has on its schedule this season is a home victory over the Utah Utes, a team that could make a run to the Final Four this season.  The problem is that that win came on December 12th.  Even worse, that’s the team’s only win against a tournament-caliber team this season; they lost to USC, Alabama, Tulsa, Iowa, and Seton Hall in out-of-conference play.

This is why I’m willing to give the Shockers one more chance, though: they have experience.  Upperclassmen Evan Wessel, Fred VanVleet, and Ron Baker are back from last year’s Sweet 16 squad.  In addition, the team has the best defense in college basketball, both in adjusted rating and points per game.

While their resume doesn’t give them any hope to make the Tournament, they deserve to go because they can play with anybody. Unfortunately, as yesterday showed, they can lose to any team, too.

Appreciating Bill Self

After Roy Williams made the decision to leave Kansas after the 2002-03 season and jump ship to North Carolina, the program was in a brief state of flux.  Out went Williams, but who would come in to take his place?

That question was answered in the form of Bill Self, and all he has done in his 13 seasons in Lawrence is make the Jayhawks the most consistent team in the sport.  Not bad, huh?

And this year, he might have his best team in his Kansas tenure.  The Jayhawks, led by seniors Perry Ellis and Jamari Traylor, won its 12th straight (twelve!) regular season Big 12 Title.  Over this time, Kansas has lost exactly nine games at Allen Fieldhouse.  If you’re keeping score at home, that’s a 4:3 ratio of conference championships to home losses.  If that doesn’t make you think Self is one of the best coaches in college basketball, I have no idea what will.

This year’s team is ranked number one in the country and has run the Big 12 gauntlet basically unscathed.  They’ll probably be the team to beat when March Madness comes around in just over a week, and they’ve earned that distinction.  Their resume is unparalleled in college basketball, with wins over every good team in the Big 12 and a home win over Kentucky.  They’re virtually unbeatable right now, as the team, with a championship in the conference tournament, would be well on its way to a number one overall seed in the field of 68.

And even if they don’t win it all this season, one has to credit Bill Self for building his team to be this consistently incredible year after year. After year.  After year.

Sparty Yes: Why Michigan State Should Be a One Seed

The argument against Michigan State being a one seed can be found in a one-week stretch from January 14 to January 20.  In that stretch, the Spartans lost three games to Iowa, Wisconsin, and Nebraska, and in each game, Michigan State had most of its best players, including the previously-injured Denzel Valentine.

However, the team began their turnaround with a win against Maryland on January 23, and they’ve only lost once since then.  That being said, they haven’t received the respect they deserve for their recent, sustained success.

For example, in the latest iteration of Joe Lunardi’s bracketology, he has Michigan State (the second-ranked team in the country) as a two seed behind North Carolina, Virginia, Villanova, and Kansas.  While three of those teams belong there, one does not: the Tar Heels.  Here’s why.

While Sparty has one more bad loss (meaning: a loss to a team with an RPI of 50 or worse) than Carolina, it’s obvious that Michigan State is playing better than UNC right now.  For example, look at last night’s North Carolina-Duke game.  The Heels outrebounded Duke 64-29; Duke only used seven players in the contest.  Given this information, it’s safe to say Carolina should have won by a wide margin; in real life, they won by four.  While Duke-Carolina is a rivalry in which records, rankings, and point margins should be thrown out the window, the fact that North Carolina dominated the game but not the scoreboard is nothing short of concerning as we near tournament time.

Michigan State, on the other hand, has taken care of its last six opponents by at least 12 points in each game, with impressive home wins against Indiana and Wisconsin.  During this time, the Tar Heels have had a close call with Syracuse and losses to Duke and Virginia. While this really is splitting hairs and North Carolina is one of the best teams in the country, they probably don’t deserve a one seed.

The team that does is the Michigan State Spartans.

They’re not gonna keep ’em off the field tonight! – Rod Bramblett

The wild, wacky, impossible-to-figure college basketball season continued on Wednesday night with ninth-ranked Arizona’s loss to Colorado.  But we’re still talking about it two days later, and not for the right reasons.

You can watch the end of the game here, but this is the important part: Colorado’s students stormed the court and Sean Miller, Arizona’s head coach, complained about it.  A lot.

This is what he had to say:

I have no problem being a great sport, but eventually what’s going to happen in the Pac-12 is this: An Arizona player is going to punch a fan, and they are going to punch the fan out of self-defense. And only when it happens will everyone take a deep breath and say, ‘We have to do something to protect both teams.’

I don’t like whining in sports, but I particularly don’t like whining from coaches.  I don’t appreciate it because it often detracts attention from the game itself.  In this case, though, Miller absolutely has a point and his comments reflect a greater concern in college sports about player and fan safety during field and court stormings.

So what precedent does Miller have for his comments and frustration?

The public debate about rushing the court and field was, at least in part, brought about by legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.  After an upset loss at Virginia in 2013, this is what Coach K said about the fans’ rushing to the center to the floor; see if you can find the similarities between his comments and Miller’s:

Look, do you know how close you are to — just put yourself in the position of one of our players or coaches.  I’m not saying any fan did this, but the potential is there all the time for a fan to just go up to you and say, ‘Coach you’re a [expletive],’ or push you or hit you. And what do you do? What if you did something? That would be the story. We deserve that type of protection.

Both coaches were and are right here.  Player, coach, and fan safety is a huge issue when thousands of fans are rushing to the same place at once; it would still be an issue if only a hundred students rushed at the same time, so you can only imagine the risks involved in having this occur on such a frequent basis with so many people involved.  It’s almost like America’s equivalent of the Running of the Bulls.  The only caveat here, though, is that Pamplona is not just the location of the rush in our country; it’s a tradition, a way of college sports life, and a near-nightly occurrence.

However, since rushing the court is such a tradition, how can we still have it happen and also make it safer for all involved?  It’s not nearly as complicated as you think.

First of all, there should always (always) be more than a sufficient amount of security at these games.  The reason I say this is because I watched the video of the end of the Arizona-Colorado game about four times over, purely in an attempt to find security guards and/or an organized security force.  I found neither of these things, which, quite simply, is nothing short of horrifying.  Besides from the fact that security would’ve been really helpful in organizing the student rush, the point of having security guards is to answer to conflicts in the stands that invariably spring up over the course of a game.  Because of the lack of security presence, there was no control over anything going on the stands; what if something far, far worse had happened that night?  Thankfully, nothing else did.  But it could have.

Anyway, these security guards would be deployed to line the front of the student section to make sure the court storming is orderly and safe.  This would occur when it is clearly established that the upset could occur (well before the game is over).

The other thing that I noticed from the end of the Colorado game is that the rush of the court was nothing more than a moshpit in the stands, with students pushing and shoving one another to get down to the court.  With this, there is obviously the risk of people getting caught underneath the pile and suffering serious injury.  By using the rule of common sense (rocket science, right?), the students could use space in front of the student section, if it is available, to stand for the final minutes of the game.  That way, there won’t be any issues with students pushing from the back to get to the front.

The final piece of the puzzle that must occur before the storming is that all players, coaches, referees, and anyone else who could be at risk of injury must leave the floor.  Until this takes place, absolutely no student should be allowed to set foot on the floor or field.  This goes back to the gripes of Miller and Coach K: with this plan, players won’t need to punch fans out of self-defense; they won’t be able to.

After everyone leaves, the students can rush.  They must do so in a safe manner (obviously) but once the rush starts, it’ll basically be the same court/field storming we’ve come to know and love.  Yes, some of the spontaneity will be lost, but it is way more important to protect everyone than to have sports’ equivalent of the release of the latest iPhone on a nightly basis.

With all of these being said, when will we see any proposal like this actually be put into effect?  Miller voiced concern for the fact that the Pac-12 has done little to nothing to fix this problem, but it isn’t like the NCAA has done very much to rectify this, either.  Think about the NCAA as the national government of the United States and each conference as the states of the Union.  While states’ rights are a vital piece of the governing puzzle in this country, there are some matters in which the national government simply has to supersede the states. In this case, the NCAA has to flex its power over the conferences (especially the major ones) and create a policy that is fair and just to all parties involved.  If and when they do, college sports will be a better place.  But don’t hold your breath waiting for it; this is, after all, the NCAA we’re dealing with.

This is my proposal to help coaches, players, and fans stay safe in the event of a storming.  It isn’t perfect; nothing in sports is.  But it is a step to rectify the problem that is the Running of the Bulls storming of the field or court.  It would keep everyone safe and the students would still get the most out of this truly once-in-a-lifetime experience.

However, no matter what is wrong or right with this proposal, we can all agree that something needs to be done about this disaster. Because that’s what it is; an unabated disaster that could lead to far more serious problems in the future.

And until something is done about this unabated disaster, we’ll see more ugly scenes like the one we saw in Boulder on Wednesday night.