Saturday, February 17th, 2007,
by Fred (,
basketball, homosexuality, John Amaechi, reggie miller, scottie pippen
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Tyler Cowen points to this bit from Slate on John Amaechi:
He [Amaechi] writes that the pros play the game for a lot of reasons—money, fame, groupies, self-esteem—but that very few NBA players love basketball. “The fan sitting at home … wants us to love the game like he does,” he writes. “If he knew why we really play the game, for the most part, he might not love the game. He might not even watch it.” The average fan, gay or straight, will probably find that contention more troubling than a former player’s homosexuality.
Does any fan actually think NBA players love basketball? I sure don’t. Some players do, for sure. Reggie Miller always struck me as one. Scottie Pippen must love the game to try to come back now, since he certainly doesn’t need money or fame. Love of the game is one reason March Madness is better than the NBA Finals.
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Thursday, April 6th, 2006,
by Fred (,
basketball, NCAA
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I agree with Deacon, who gave props to the Women’s NCAA championship game between Duke and Maryland
Basketball is a great game when it’s played above the rim (witness Florida’s awesome display on Monday). But it’s just as great when played at a lower altitude, as we saw tonight (contrast this with women’s soccer, where the inabililty of women to kick the ball as far as men and to run as fast makes the sport a pale imitation of the men’s game). To me, the “final four” now means a four-day festival consisting of the two alternating, contrasting and complementary spectacles.
The Duke-Maryland showdown was just great basketball, regardless of the gender of the players. It was more fun to watch than the Gators-Bruins game on Monday, which was over by the opening tip. Some of the cliches are more or less true: the womens’ game is a team game, with less one-on-one NBA-style play than the mens’ game. It relies more on jump shots and defensive fundamentals and less on slam dunks and vertical leaps. It’s been vastly improved over the last few years by improved shooting percentages. During the Connecticut juggernaut years, it could be painful - a brick’s a brick, even if it is set up by beautifully-design offensive fundamentals.
It’s also nice to see schools that don’t excel on the men’s side, like Louisiana Tech and Vanderbilt. Plus, Duke lost, which is always a good thing.
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Monday, March 27th, 2006,
by Fred (,
basketball, George Mason, NCAA
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From Dan Caesar’s Media Views column Saturday:
But reality set in at the Sweet 16 level, as Bradley and Wichita State of the MVC suffered losses in games that didn’t come down to the wire. That supports Packer’s contention that while mid-major teams can pull early round upsets, they usually have little chance of being legitimate Final Four contenders.
It bears repeating:
- # 1 seeds in the Final Four: 0
- #11 seeds in the Final Four: 1
- ACC, Big Ten, Big East, Big 12 representatives: 0 of 22
- Colonial Athletic Association: 1 of 2
Greatest upset in NCAA history? Probably so, better than the 1985 NC State Jimmy V game or the “Phi Slamma Jamma” Houston team. But anyone arguing (like Vitale did this morning) that this tops the 1980 Miracle on Ice is an idiot.
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Monday, March 20th, 2006,
by Fred (,
basketball, Bernie Miklasz, Billy Packer, Bradley, MVC, NCAA, Wichita State
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From Bernie Miklasz’s column today:
If Packer had any honor, he’d apologize for going off half-cocked … or at least he should acknowledge that he underrated the MVC’s strength this season.”I don’t expect any apologies, and it isn’t necessary,” [MVC Commissioner Doug] Elgin said before flying home to St. Louis. “It’s not about apologies. It’s about better preparation by network broadcasters. These guys need to look at tape. They need to do their homework about our teams before they criticize us. These commentators need to be as prepared as the selection committee, and I don’t think they are.”
Let’s revisit what Billy Packer said, shall we?
During the interview, Packer said he disagreed with the committee’s decision to give at-large invitations to Wichita State, Bradley, Northern Iowa and George Mason. He cited statistics that indicated teams from the MVC and CAA had won only one game during the last three NCAA tournaments, while teams from the ACC had won 25 games.
Wichita State, Bradley and George Mason are in the Sweet 16, while ACC powers North Carolina and NC State are sitting at home. I’d say someone needs to shut Packer up, but Patrick O’Bryant and Lamar Butler seem to be doing that just fine on their own.
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Friday, March 17th, 2006,
by Fred (,
ACC, basketball, Billy Packer, MVC, NCAA
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I don’t know why I feel personally invested in the success or failure of the Valley. I went to a Big 12 school, a MAC school and a Colonial school. But I do - ACC-jonesing blowhards like Billy Packer can do that to anyone. Lest we forget, last weekend talking heads Packer and buddy Jim Nantz criticized the NCAA selection committee for putting in four Missouri Valley Conference teams, the same as their beloved ACC, thus leaving out ACC tourney wanna-bes Maryland and Florida State. Better to have bottom-bracket backbenchers from the “power” conferences than the number 3 and 4 teams from a mid-major conference with high RPI. The Valley has six teams in the RPI top 35. The ACC has three.
So how did the Valley fare on the first day of the first round?
MVC: 1-0
ACC: 2-0
Big East: 0-3
Big 10: 2-0
Big 12: 1-1
PAC-10: 2-0
SEC: 4-0
The real test, of course, is today, when the three teams that the committee encumbered with unnecessarily bad seeds take the court. If NC State loses to Cal and Southern Illinois and Northern Iowa beat West Virginia and Georgetown, respectively, does that mean that the Valley is as good as the ACC? Or better than the Big East, which would then be no better than 3-5?
Of course it doesn’t. The committee selects and seeds teams based on their performance this season, not on whether the conference has won games in past tournaments.
UPDATE: So things didn’t go so well for the Valley this afternoon, with Northern Iowa falling to Georgetown and Southern Illinois losing to West Virginia. The smaller conferences acquitted themselves admirably, however, with 14 seed Northwestern State of the Southland Conference taking out Big 10 foe (and 3 seed ) Iowa, and 9 seed Bucknell of the Patriot League upsetting 8 seed Arkansas (from the SEC).
This doesn’t address a larger point about seeding, however. Northern Iowa was a 10 seed with an RPI of 25. They faced a 7 seed with an RPI of 36. The other 10 seeds had RPIs of 51 (NC State), 56 (Alabama) and 58 (Seton Hall). Southern Illinois was an 11 seed with an RPI of 29. They faced 6 seed West Virginia, which had an RPI of 38. The other 11 seeds had RPIs of 26 (George Mason), 52 (Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and 55 (San Diego State). if the committee is going to continue to seed mid-major conference champions and high-RPI runners up in the double-digits, it will continue to be an uphill battle.
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Thursday, March 16th, 2006,
by Fred (,
basketball, Bernie Miklasz, Billy Packer, jim nantz, MVC, NCAA
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Bernie Miklasz states the obvious about the boneheaded comments by Billy Packer and Jim Nantz last Sunday:
Packer and his pal Nantz only told half of the story. By dwelling on the number of invitations and bringing up recent NCAA Tournament results to justify the rant, the CBS crew left out one key point of discussion: the seeding in the NCAA Tournament.No one of sound mind will declare that the Missouri Valley Conference is equal to the Atlantic Coast Conference. The number of tournament slots is only one way to measure. And just because the selection committee awarded each league four spots in the tournament, the decision wasn’t a statement on parity.
The selection committee rightfully acknowledged the ACC’s superior status through seeding designations. Duke is a No. 1 seed, North Carolina is a No. 3, Boston College is a No. 4, and N.C. State is a No. 10. The best the Valley got this time around was a No. 7 seed for Wichita State. Northern Iowa is a No. 10, Southern Illinois is a No. 11, and Bradley is a No. 13.
Seeding is, of course, the key. Duke, North Carolina and Georgia Tech have never been seeded worse than a #8. Bernie points out that even the power conferences don’t do as well when they get bad seeds:
From 1994-2005, none of the teams from power conferences had a winning record when seeded No. 6 or worse. Here’s the rundown: ACC (16-18); Big 10 (29-32); Big Eight/12 (21-28); Big East (21-22); Pac 10 (18-19); SEC (10-18).
I drilled down the numbers a bit, and it’s even worse than that. The ACC’s record is skewed by NC State’s upset championship in 1983, when they went 6-0 as a 6 seed. Take that away, and the ACC is only 10-18 (0.357) when seeded 6 or worse. And what about the seeds the Valley actually got this year? The ACC is 13-14 as a 7 seed, 4-2 as a 10 seed, and 0-1 as an 11 seed. No ACC team has ever been a 13 seed. As 1-4 seeds, the ACC is 191-71. As 5 or higher, it drops to 62-53.
Overall, the Valley’s not doing that badly. Double-digit seeds shouldn’t be expected to win, and usually they don’t. Since 1979, teams seeded 10 or higher are 201-653 (.235).
It’s not that the committee gives too much respect to the mid-major conferences like the Valley. It’s that they don’t give enough. Unless you start seeding the conference champion like a true champion, the conference will never get a chance to prove itself. Even Wichita State is going to have to play a 2 seed in the second round. Better yet, the power conferences could start scheduling home-and-home series with the Wichita States of the world, but that’s never going to happen.
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Wednesday, March 15th, 2006,
by Fred (,
basketball, NCAA, pranks
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Messing with a basketball player’s head
Also during the game, we heard the Bench chanting “Victoria” whenever Gabe Pruitt of U$C took the free throw line or had the ball. We also saw Rally Comm hold up some phone number of (323) xxx-xxxx. We didn’t know what this meant…but I later found out the story. I have to say…I wish we did this when I was on the Bench.Turns out some students posed as a UCLA co-ed named Victoria. Chatted on IM with him and basically “seduced” him with some fake pictures and made him promise that he’d show up at UCLA after they got back from the Bay Area for a “date”. But of course to work this out, they needed his phone number. BAM. They kept chatting just to keep it going over the next few days. And when Gabe Pruitt took the line for his first free throws, the Bench began “Victoria, Victoria…” Apparently he turned, and gave the Bench the most embarrassed look anyone could give. He also then missed his free throws. The crowd was on him all game…and it was a bad one for him.
For those not from Cal, Wikipedia says that The Bench is a reference to the courtside student section at Haas Pavilion.
Harassing opposing players is one of the best traditions in college basketball. Glad to see creativity not from Dookies.
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Monday, March 13th, 2006,
by Fred (,
ACC, basketball, Billy Packer, CBS, Jim Natz, MVC, NCAA
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More on the NCAA tourney bracket later, but more important is the disgusting spectacle that was Jim Nantz’s and Billy Packer’s commentary following the announcement of the bracket. Everyone with half a brain can recognize the love affair CBS has with the ACC, but for these two bozos to go off on the committee and the MVC because there are as many Missouri Valley teams in the final 65 as ACC teams was beyond the pale.
Maryland and Florida State have no one to blame but themselves. Fair or not, if you are the number 5 or 6 team from the ACC, you have a non-conference schedule hurdle to clear. After 10 games, FSU was 9-1, but had beaten Jacksonville, Alcorn State, Louisiana Monroe, Texas Southern, Bowling Green, Stetson and Campbell in that run. They played one tournament team (Florida), to whom they lost by 18.
Maryland started the season 11-2, including wins against Fairleigh Dickinson, Chaminade, Nicholls State, Western Carolina, American, Delaware State, VMI and Texas A&M - Corpus Christi. Maryland actually played four games against tourney teams, beating #8 seed Arkansas 75-62 and #4 Boston College 73-71, but losing to #3 Gonzaga 88-76 and #8 George Washington 78-70. Following the cupcake start, Maryland was 8-10.
The #5 team from the Big East (Georgetown), on the other hand, played at home against Vanderbilt, went to Oregon, went to Illinois, and scheduled Duke out of conference. That made up for the cupcakes they scheduled.
Is this a double standard? Perhaps, but the committee has been telling the power conferences for years that they need to schedule games against the mid-majors and stop gorging on cupcakes. I think it’s great that Bradley made it in over Maryland and FSU. And the solution for Gary Williams and Billy Packer is easy - next time, schedule a game against Wichita State or Missouri State instead of Nicholls State.
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