We're now two months removed from the 2015 NBA Draft. If this were the NFL, that would be enough time for Mel Kiper and Todd McShay to be on version 13 of their 2016 mocks by now, but since the college hoops off-season is much quieter than the NFL version, you have to hunt a little bit more for previews of the next draft. Luckily the always excellent Draft Express has a full mock posted already.
It's all still very early since we haven't seen a game in five months but because we're coming down the stretch of the sad months between Madness (March and Midnight), I started to look at their mock and think a little about who might be the biggest successes in the draft. As always I looked to the unparalleled kenpom, not just for advanced statistics for some of the top returning college players, but also his season similarity scores to help evaluate players' pro prospects. It's far from an exact science, especially with just the 5 most comparable players listed on each page, but it gives us some quality insight when we see players with lots of NBA comps and/or very few similar players.
The rules are simple - the higher the number, the closer the match. Better players will not only have better quality comps, but their top comps will have lower scores. Average players are a dime a dozen, but truly outstanding players are unique.
#30: Malik Pope, San Diego State [Similar: '15 Isaac Copeland (898), '15 Marvin Clark (896), '09 Lance Goulbourne (878), '14 Austin Nichols (878), '13 Sheldon Jeter (875)] - Pope is the rare 6-10 freshman with touch from the outside, canning 20 threes in his first season despite playing only 16 minutes a game in Mountain West play. Pope was considered a potential draft pick last year, but needs to improve his frame to rebound and score more effectively inside.
#29: Tim Quarterman, LSU [Similar: '15 Troy Caupain (923), '15 Scoochie Smith (912), '11 Anthony Marshall (907), '11 Brandyn Curry (906), '13 Royce O'Neale (901)] - Quarterman went from a bit player as a freshman to a focal point for an LSU team that featured two draft picks in Jarell Martin and Jordan Mickey. Quarterman's size and point guard skills have him on the radar, but his lack of shooting keeps him low on the board, and with middling comparables.
#28: Marcus Lee, Kentucky [Similar: '11 Wendell Lewis (841), '14 Matt Costello (839), '13 Gabriel Olaseni (834), '11 D.J. Stephens (829), '13 Jon Horford (827)] - Lee is all potential at this point after spending a couple years behind Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, and Julius Randle. The comparables aren't flattering, but that's to be expected with his lack of run as an underclassman. It seems unlikely that Lee will get drafted at this spot. If he puts that 7'3" wingspan to good use, he'll go much higher; otherwise, he'll spend a fourth year in Lexington.
#27: Taurean Prince, Baylor [Similar: '15 Dorian Finney-Smith (909), '10 Justin Harper (887), '13 Marshawn Powell (874), '13 Jamil Wilson (871), '13 Cleanthony Early (866)] - Prince has comparables to 2014 second round pick Early and fellow 2016 prospect Finney-Smith. Prince profiles well as the type of "3 and D" wing currently en vogue in the NBA. A long, 6-7 athlete, Prince defends well and improved to over 40% from three last year. Prince also shot a career low 64% from the charity stripe, much lower than would be expected for a sharpshooter, so it remains to be seen whether that shooting prowess will hold up.
#26: Chinanu Onuaku, Louisville [Similar: '11 Fab Melo (854), '12 Rakeem Christmas (842), '11 Baye Moussa Keita (836), '09 Frank Ben-Eze (832), '14 Kenneth Lowe (829)] - It's clear Onuaku should be at Syracuse. His brother Arinze starred there several years ago, and his top three comparables are all Orangemen. But of those three, only Melo wound up close to an NBA prospect, and he played only six games for the Celtics after being a first round pick. This Onuaku showed defensive presence, but is probably best described as the proverbial project. Some of those lottery tickets will hit, and Onuaku should at least beat out Mangok Mathiang at the 5 for Louisville, which will give him a chance to demonstrate what his payoff is likely to be at the next level.
#25: Kennedy Meeks, North Carolina [Similar: '13 Jerrell Wright (926), '11 Tim Williams (916), '14 Brice Johnson (909), '13 Alex Len (903), '15 Jalen Reynolds (902)] - Meeks had a fine second season. After dropping a significant amount of weight in the offseason, Meeks kept his efficiency numbers stable while playing six more minutes a game for a deep UNC frontcourt. Alex Len was a top five pick after his sophomore season, but at 7-0 Len is a different animal, as is Brice Johnson, though all three are high-quality players. UNC is a balanced team expected to contend nationally, so it remains to be seen if Meeks can distinguish himself this season.
#24: Jake Layman, Maryland [Similar: '12 E.J. Singler (915), '15 Michael Qualls (911), '11 Kris Joseph (909), '12 Christian Watford (907), '12 Hollis Thompson (906)] - Layman's combination of size, athleticism, and shooting can make scouts salivate. His comps include Thompson, a regular for the woeful 76ers the past two seasons, and Joseph, who had a cup of coffee after being drafted. Layman struggled in the last few weeks of the season, but showed an increased willingness and ability to drive to the basket and do more offensively than pick his spots to snipe from the outside. He also held his own on the boards against stronger interior players after moving down a spot to mostly play the four. His skills aren't in doubt, but refining them in his last season could make him a no-brainer first round selection.
#23: Justin Jackson, North Carolina [Similar: '11 Jeremy Lamb (899), '13 Sam Dekker (893), '13 Georges Niang (882), '09 Matt Gatens (878), '14 Zach LaVine (877)] - Jackson scored well as a freshman for the Tar Heels last year and improved his shooting late in the season, knocking down 11 of 23 threes in postseason play. Jackson's most similar players are an excellent list with three NBA players and Wooden Award contender Niang. Jackson has great size and length, and when coupled with his basketball instincts, he could shoot up the draft board. The goals for his second season will be to get his body more NBA-ready and show more consistency with his outside shooting.
#22: Domantas Sabonis, Gonzaga [Similar: '11 Kourtney Roberson (841), '15 Jakob Poeltl (837), '13 Brandon Ashley (835), '11 Dartaye Ruffin (834), '13 Perry Ellis (826)] - Sabonis is the son of the best NBA player who never was, Lithuanian legend Arvydas Sabonis. This Sabonis was a key reserve on one of the best front lines in the nation last year, scoring effectively inside and contending with the likes of Rico Gathers and Karl-Anthony Towns for the title of best two-way rebounder in college basketball. Sabonis' comps have lower scores than anyone else on the list, underscoring his uniqueness. Despite being 6-10 he was no rim protector at all, blocking only 11 shots in 38 games.
#21: Nigel Hayes, Wisconsin [Similar: '14 Perry Ellis (876), '15 Josh Hart (864), '10 Marcus Morris (860), '14 Sam Dekker (858), '14 Jerami Grant (852)] - Hayes was a somewhat forgotten third man at times on last year's excellent Badgers team, taking a back seat to Wooden Award winner Frank Kaminsky and JR NBA prospect Sam Dekker, but Hayes was crucial to their success. A versatile scorer, the 6-8 Hayes went from not attempting a three point his freshman season to taking 101 last year, making 40. Hayes needs to prove that he isn't an NBA tweener, too small to play the "4" and not athletic enough for the "3". Only just an average rebounder, and not a shot-blocking threat, Hayes has those areas to address if he wants to be able to slide inside in the NBA. His comparable list is eclectic, but strong, with the latter three were all drafted early out of college.
#20: Troy Williams, Indiana [Similar: '13 Seth Tuttle (904), '11 Elias Harris (897), '11 Ian Hummer (896), '15 Jarell Martin (888), '11 Julian Boyd (886)] - Troy Williams is a man who can dunk the ball. He will dunk it, and when he does, it will not rim out. Williams can get to the basket and score as well as any wing in the country and rebounds like a demon for a 6-7 player, but needs to expand his game to the outside and make more than six threes.
#19: Caris LeVert, Michigan [Similar: '12 Mark Lyons (884), '09 Matt Janning (884), '10 Marcus Relphorde (878), '14 Matt Carlino (877), '12 Eric Mosley (876)] - The athletic Canadian lost much of last year to an injury and his return to Ann Arbor was one of the bigger surprises of draft season. His relative lack of minutes last year make his comp list virtually worthless. LeVert scores, rebounds and makes plays as a versatile backcourt player. This is the same slot that another versatile senior guard, Jerami Grant, went last year. If LeVert has the same impact for Michigan that Grant had for Notre Dame, this projection will hit.
#17 Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, Kansas [Similar: '15 Robbie Berwick (907), '09 Deividas Dulkys (895), '15 Corey Henderson (888), '13 Josh Fortune (886), '12 T.J. Sapp (886)] - The 6-8 Ukrainian has a reputation as a fine athlete and a talented shooter, but he showed very little of that in his first year in Lawrence. That's fine considering Mykhailiuk turned 18 only two months ago so failing to crack a talented Kansas rotation last year shouldn't have been a surprise. He'll have plenty of chances to shine in the next eight months. A spot on the wing is his to grab this year with Kelly Oubre leaving for the NBA.
#16: Damian Jones, Vanderbilt [Similar: '10 Samardo Samuels (898), '12 C.J. Leslie (894), '10 Robert Sacre (890), '14 Przemek Karnowski (876), '09 A.J. Ogilvy (872)] - Leslie and Samuels are most well known as former top 10 recruits whose NBA careers were essentially dead from the start. Jones was a much more unheralded recruit and stayed under the radar playing for a mediocre Vandy team the past two years. Jones has a rep as a long, 6-10 player who will live on shot-blocking and rebounding at the next level, but his work on the glass has been just OK (24th in the SEC in defensive rebounding). On the surface he seems like a less interesting big man prospect than a guy like AJ Hammons, but having just turned 20 in June he's a "young" junior with time to grow his game.
#14: Demetrius Jackson, Notre Dame [ Similar: '13 Kevin Pangos (899), '09 Steven Gray (877), '15 Monte Morris (875), '09 Austin Freeman (874), '15 Steve Vasturia (867)] - Jackson took a back seat to Jerami Grant on last year's Fighting Irish both as a team leader and ballhandler. With Grant having graduated and moved onto the NBA, now is the time for Jackson to prove his mettle. A lottery spot feels a bit high for a 6-1 guard who hasn't quite made his mark as a passer yet (15.4 assist rate), and the comparable list leans much more heavily towards "quality college guard" than "NBA starter". On the other hand, a highlight reel naming him the "Next Russell Westbrook" is a good addition to the resume.
#10: Jakob Poeltl, Utah [Similar: '15 Cliff Alexander (862), '10 Derrick Favors (853), '13 Sim Bhullar (847), '13 Steven Adams (838), '15 Domantas Sabonis (837)] - The big Austrian is an early lottery favorite because of a great combination of size (7-0), rebounding, shot blocking, and offensive acumen (9.1 ppg on 68% shooting), and while none of those five feel quite right as a comparison - except perhaps the international flavor - it's a good sign that the list includes two current NBAers (Adams and Favors), a guy who got a cup of coffee last year as a rookie (Bhullar) and another potential 2016 or 2017 pick (Sabonis). He'll need to show an expanded offensive game away from the basket both for his draft stock and for Utah after losing Delon Wright to graduation.
#8: Kris Dunn, Providence [Similar: '13 Derrick Marks (851), '09 Nick Calathes (843), '11 Darius Morris (841), '14 Maurice Watson (834), '11 D.J. Cooper (832)] - Dunn doesn't have a very close comparable group which speaks to the unique mix (and level) of talents. Calathes and Morris were both stat sheet stuffers in college and have bounced around the NBA, but both were far from the lottery. Dunn is an athlete, a finisher, a ball-hawking defender and a tremendous passing point guard, leading the NCAA with a 50.0 assist rate. His shooting needs to improve, but he took the first step in last year's breakout campaign.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Terps Schedule Smart
Three years ago Maryland wound up in the NIT at 22-12. Much like everything else, it happened for a number of reasons (like an 8-10 ACC record), but the team was widely considered off the bubble by Selection Sunday after a strong ACC performance in large part due to a weak RPI driven down by a horrendous non-conference Strength of Schedule - 299th in the nation. That's often a death knell for a power conference bubble team and seed deflater to those in the field.
Ten guarantee games will crush a team's SOS, but Mark Turgeon and staff deserve a ton of credit for recognizing and addressing that over the past couple of years, putting together stronger schedules that ranked 113th and 82nd overall. The strategy looks to have been a blend of more premier opponents, mid-majors and stronger low-majors replacing games against the dregs of Division I, and some good scheduling fortune, like Ohio State and Virginia replacing Northwestern in the ACC-B1G challenge. The 2015 non-conference schedule was released earlier this week, and this looks like the best one yet.
The three premier games are @ North Carolina, UConn (Jimmy V Classic), and Georgetown. All three should be improved over last year with North Carolina a national contender and the other two possibly contending for top 20 rankings. The Cancun Challenge field isn't sexy, but all three of Illinois State, TCU, and Rhode Island all ranked in the kenpom top 75. All told, only a home game against Marshall (11-21) is against a team with a sub-.500 record last year:
Ten guarantee games will crush a team's SOS, but Mark Turgeon and staff deserve a ton of credit for recognizing and addressing that over the past couple of years, putting together stronger schedules that ranked 113th and 82nd overall. The strategy looks to have been a blend of more premier opponents, mid-majors and stronger low-majors replacing games against the dregs of Division I, and some good scheduling fortune, like Ohio State and Virginia replacing Northwestern in the ACC-B1G challenge. The 2015 non-conference schedule was released earlier this week, and this looks like the best one yet.
The three premier games are @ North Carolina, UConn (Jimmy V Classic), and Georgetown. All three should be improved over last year with North Carolina a national contender and the other two possibly contending for top 20 rankings. The Cancun Challenge field isn't sexy, but all three of Illinois State, TCU, and Rhode Island all ranked in the kenpom top 75. All told, only a home game against Marshall (11-21) is against a team with a sub-.500 record last year:
| Team | W | L |
| North Carolina | 26 | 12 |
| Georgetown | 22 | 11 |
| Uconn | 20 | 15 |
| Illinois State | 22 | 13 |
| TCU | 18 | 15 |
| UMES | 18 | 15 |
| Princeton | 16 | 14 |
| Marshall | 11 | 21 |
| St Francis (NY) | 23 | 12 |
| Mount St. Mary's | 15 | 15 |
| Cleveland State | 19 | 15 |
| Rider | 21 | 12 |
| 231 | 170 | |
| Overall SOS | 0.5760598504 |
That NC SOS would have been 16th in the country last year. Five of the twelve games being played away from home, including Princeton at Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, help as well. The Terps look like a national power on the court next year, and their schedule looks to set them up to be seeded as such even if they lose a game or two more than expected.
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Maryland's Got Talent
Things are falling into place. Melo Trimble and Jake Layman passed on the NBA Draft to come back. Robert Carter Jr. continues to lurk as an infusion of talent on the interior as soon as he's eligible next fall. Diamond Stone spurned his hometown Badgers to join the Terps. Rasheed Sulaimon is in, too. He brings some questions after his dismissal from Duke last year, but there's no question that he's talented.
Talent is a loaded word. Sometimes it means how many stars a recruit was coming into college, which is often a good proxy, but there are many counterexamples. Other times it applies to certain skills. A top shooter or scorer will get the nod as talented, but great defenders like Tony Allen or great rebounders like Dennis Rodman get called role players. Again, fair to some extent, but it doesn't tell the full story.
I only add that digression because I'm going to make a bold claim -- next year's roster may be the most talented in school history, either one through five or one through ten. To make that claim we need to look at the past contenders for that title. Many are obvious, but the metric I'm going to use is NBA games played. That means that for this exercise Steve Blake is "more talented" than Juan Dixon, which certainly wasn't the case here in the early 2000s, but nothing is perfect.
In broad strokes, the amount of NBA players on a college roster and the impact that they had at the pro level is a good view of the talent a team has. Villanova was correctly a #1 seed last year (early exit be damned) over Arizona, but there's not much doubt which roster close followers of college basketball would say was more talented. Ryan Arcidiacano might have shared the Big East Player of the Year award, but his NBA career arc is likely more Gerry McNamara than Kyle Lowry, as far as Big East point guards go.
So let's look at the ten most talented rosters in Maryland history, as judged by career NBA games played.
10) 1990 (1,596 games) - Gary Williams' first team wasn't lacking for talent. The three leading scorers were Walt Williams (7th pick in 1992), Jerrod Mustaf (17th pick in 1990), and longtime NBA journeyman Tony Massenburg. Evers Burns, another rotation player, would get a cup of coffee in the NBA. Despite that roster, the Terps finished just 6-8 in the ACC and played in the NIT, but that was a vast improvement over the previous year's team that went 1-13 in the ACC with a similar roster under Bob Wade.
T-8) 1979 and 1980 (1,841 games) - Only two players from this team made it to the NBA, but both had long careers. Albert King (10th overall) and Buck Williams (3rd overall) both went high in the draft in 1981. Williams has a strong case for best pro career by a Terp, averaging a career double-double, and snagging Rookie of the Year and several All-Defensive Team honors over his 17 year career with the Nets, Trailblazers and Knicks.
7) 1975 (2,027 games) - While Tom McMillen and Len Elmore had graduated, this was another strong team in the Golden Age of Lefty Driesell, posting a 24-5 record and making the Elite Eight behind a tremendous backcourt of John Lucas and Brad Davis. Both men would have long careers as NBA point guards, and hold the distinction of being the first four year stars for the Terps after the rule against freshman ineligibility was lifted in advance of Lucas' first season.
6) 2002 (2,038 games and counting) - The most famous team in school history, winners of its only basketball National Championship, checks in at just 6th on the list, though with Steve Blake still playing, this group will rise in the rankings. Juan Dixon and Lonny Baxter had modest NBA careers considering their stellar, four-year careers in College Park, but coming out of college, most realized that their physical gifts lagged behind their skills. Chris Wilcox did have those gifts, but his skills didn't catch up enough for him to be more than a useful NBA player over his eleven years in the league.
5) 1976 (2,040 games) - Lucas and Davis returned from the 1975 team, and the five leaders in minutes played all spent time in the NBA, including Steve Sheppard, Lawrence Boston and Mo Howard. The team itself was a disappointment, though. The 22-6 record wasn't as good as the year before, and despite spending eight consecutive weeks at #2 in the AP Poll, spent the postseason at home. While the tournament had expanded to 32 a year prior to include at-large selections, each conference was still limited to two selections. After 6th seeded Virginia surprisingly won the ACC Tournament, #8 North Carolina was selected as the league's at-large instead of #11 Maryland.
4) 1981 (2,075 games) - Two things emerge from this list - talented Lefty Driesell teams that disappointed on the court. This was the same King/Williams squad from earlier in the list, adding eventual NBA pick Charles Pittman inside, that grabbed a #2 seed in 1980. Despite a preseason #4 ranking in the AP Poll, the Terps sputtered to a 21-10 season before being crushed by Indiana in the second round of the NCAA Tournament as a #6 seed.
3) 2001 (2,177 games) - Add Terence Morris to the 2002 National Championship game and you've got the roster for this one. Morris had a disappointing pro career compared to predictions earlier in his college career, playing just parts of three seasons with the Rockets and Magic. Morris averaged over 15 per game his sophomore and junior seasons and was 1st-Team All ACC his sophomore year. He was also 6-9 with perimeter skills, a rarer combination 15 years ago. Despite that, Morris stayed four years, and had a down season statistically his senior year as the team made it's first Final Four. He would drop from a projected high first round pick to a second round guy and most of his best pro success came in Europe.
2) 1974 (2,347 games) - Tom McMillen, Len Elmore, John Lucas, The Greatest Game Ever Played (fittingly, a Terps loss). Finishing the year ranked in the top 5 in the country but at home for the postseason because only one team per conference could make the NCAA Tournament and the team declined an NIT bid, having won that tournament two years ago with the same group. Maryland fans are among the best at paying the What If? game, and while alternate worlds where Len Bias lives and Moses Malone makes it to campus are prominently featured, perhaps none is talked about more than the idea of at-large bids in the early 1970s. The 1972 and 1974 team went a combined 46-10 those two years, playing in the ACC, but never got the chance to play for a National Championship.
1) 1973 (2,403 games): This was the 1974 team plus Jim O'Brien, a Small Forward who played 58 games in the ABA. O'Brien was actually the second leading scorer for the team, ahead of Lucas and Elmore. This team was 20 minutes from a Final Four before eventually falling to Providence. Close but no cigar.
Talent is a loaded word. Sometimes it means how many stars a recruit was coming into college, which is often a good proxy, but there are many counterexamples. Other times it applies to certain skills. A top shooter or scorer will get the nod as talented, but great defenders like Tony Allen or great rebounders like Dennis Rodman get called role players. Again, fair to some extent, but it doesn't tell the full story.
I only add that digression because I'm going to make a bold claim -- next year's roster may be the most talented in school history, either one through five or one through ten. To make that claim we need to look at the past contenders for that title. Many are obvious, but the metric I'm going to use is NBA games played. That means that for this exercise Steve Blake is "more talented" than Juan Dixon, which certainly wasn't the case here in the early 2000s, but nothing is perfect.
In broad strokes, the amount of NBA players on a college roster and the impact that they had at the pro level is a good view of the talent a team has. Villanova was correctly a #1 seed last year (early exit be damned) over Arizona, but there's not much doubt which roster close followers of college basketball would say was more talented. Ryan Arcidiacano might have shared the Big East Player of the Year award, but his NBA career arc is likely more Gerry McNamara than Kyle Lowry, as far as Big East point guards go.
So let's look at the ten most talented rosters in Maryland history, as judged by career NBA games played.
10) 1990 (1,596 games) - Gary Williams' first team wasn't lacking for talent. The three leading scorers were Walt Williams (7th pick in 1992), Jerrod Mustaf (17th pick in 1990), and longtime NBA journeyman Tony Massenburg. Evers Burns, another rotation player, would get a cup of coffee in the NBA. Despite that roster, the Terps finished just 6-8 in the ACC and played in the NIT, but that was a vast improvement over the previous year's team that went 1-13 in the ACC with a similar roster under Bob Wade.
T-8) 1979 and 1980 (1,841 games) - Only two players from this team made it to the NBA, but both had long careers. Albert King (10th overall) and Buck Williams (3rd overall) both went high in the draft in 1981. Williams has a strong case for best pro career by a Terp, averaging a career double-double, and snagging Rookie of the Year and several All-Defensive Team honors over his 17 year career with the Nets, Trailblazers and Knicks.
7) 1975 (2,027 games) - While Tom McMillen and Len Elmore had graduated, this was another strong team in the Golden Age of Lefty Driesell, posting a 24-5 record and making the Elite Eight behind a tremendous backcourt of John Lucas and Brad Davis. Both men would have long careers as NBA point guards, and hold the distinction of being the first four year stars for the Terps after the rule against freshman ineligibility was lifted in advance of Lucas' first season.
6) 2002 (2,038 games and counting) - The most famous team in school history, winners of its only basketball National Championship, checks in at just 6th on the list, though with Steve Blake still playing, this group will rise in the rankings. Juan Dixon and Lonny Baxter had modest NBA careers considering their stellar, four-year careers in College Park, but coming out of college, most realized that their physical gifts lagged behind their skills. Chris Wilcox did have those gifts, but his skills didn't catch up enough for him to be more than a useful NBA player over his eleven years in the league.
5) 1976 (2,040 games) - Lucas and Davis returned from the 1975 team, and the five leaders in minutes played all spent time in the NBA, including Steve Sheppard, Lawrence Boston and Mo Howard. The team itself was a disappointment, though. The 22-6 record wasn't as good as the year before, and despite spending eight consecutive weeks at #2 in the AP Poll, spent the postseason at home. While the tournament had expanded to 32 a year prior to include at-large selections, each conference was still limited to two selections. After 6th seeded Virginia surprisingly won the ACC Tournament, #8 North Carolina was selected as the league's at-large instead of #11 Maryland.
4) 1981 (2,075 games) - Two things emerge from this list - talented Lefty Driesell teams that disappointed on the court. This was the same King/Williams squad from earlier in the list, adding eventual NBA pick Charles Pittman inside, that grabbed a #2 seed in 1980. Despite a preseason #4 ranking in the AP Poll, the Terps sputtered to a 21-10 season before being crushed by Indiana in the second round of the NCAA Tournament as a #6 seed.
3) 2001 (2,177 games) - Add Terence Morris to the 2002 National Championship game and you've got the roster for this one. Morris had a disappointing pro career compared to predictions earlier in his college career, playing just parts of three seasons with the Rockets and Magic. Morris averaged over 15 per game his sophomore and junior seasons and was 1st-Team All ACC his sophomore year. He was also 6-9 with perimeter skills, a rarer combination 15 years ago. Despite that, Morris stayed four years, and had a down season statistically his senior year as the team made it's first Final Four. He would drop from a projected high first round pick to a second round guy and most of his best pro success came in Europe.
2) 1974 (2,347 games) - Tom McMillen, Len Elmore, John Lucas, The Greatest Game Ever Played (fittingly, a Terps loss). Finishing the year ranked in the top 5 in the country but at home for the postseason because only one team per conference could make the NCAA Tournament and the team declined an NIT bid, having won that tournament two years ago with the same group. Maryland fans are among the best at paying the What If? game, and while alternate worlds where Len Bias lives and Moses Malone makes it to campus are prominently featured, perhaps none is talked about more than the idea of at-large bids in the early 1970s. The 1972 and 1974 team went a combined 46-10 those two years, playing in the ACC, but never got the chance to play for a National Championship.
1) 1973 (2,403 games): This was the 1974 team plus Jim O'Brien, a Small Forward who played 58 games in the ABA. O'Brien was actually the second leading scorer for the team, ahead of Lucas and Elmore. This team was 20 minutes from a Final Four before eventually falling to Providence. Close but no cigar.
Monday, May 18, 2015
To the Draft
The Coaching Carousel is still spinning with Billy Donovan moving from his longtime home at Florida to new challenges with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the transfer recruiting market continues on, but one facet of college basketball's hot stove league wrapped up at the end of last month as the deadline to declare for the NBA Draft passed.
The off season seemed to start with almost every key underclassmen declaring that they'd be going pro. Duke's three and Kentucky's seven led the way early, and upper lottery picks D'Angelo Russell and Stanley Johnson confirmed the obvious late in the cycle. The annual WTF entries were present, too. Former Maryland reserve Ashton Pankey got a degree and had a fine season for MAAC Champ Manhattan this year, his fifth in college, and decided to leave a year of eligibility on the table to pursue an NBA career. Pankey has no chance of being drafted, of course, but with former teammates Jordan Williams and Terrell Stoglin declaring early in the past few years, Gary Williams' last team somehow has the distinction of having three early entries on the roster. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
Anyway, 48 guys put their name on the list, the third highest total of the nine years we've had the One and Done rule.
Things look a little "worse" (for a college basketball fan) when you concentrate on only the major conference players. The mid-majors (and below) have some first round talent among this year's crop of early entrants like Cameron Payne of Murray State and Georgia State's RJ Hunter, who created this year's March Madness Moment, but the lion's share of NBA Draft talent is obviously in the Power 6. 36 power conference players declared early, tied for the most in the last nine years.
Who was hurt most? The SEC had a staggering 13 players declare early. We all know about Kentucky's 7 players, but Arkansas, LSU and even lowly Florida had a pair as well. Fringe prospects like Tyler Ulis and Dorian Finney-Smith are the best of the bunch returning to school next season.
The Big East didn't have a single player leave early. It was a senior laden conference last year, with only D'vauntes Smith-Rivera of Georgetown and Providence's Kris Dunn seriously considering throwing their names into the ring. There's a lot of talk about what the future holds for the newly configured Big East and so it will be interesting to see whether the lack of high end talent continues. The conference landed only two of the top 45 players in the 2015 recruiting class.
One trend emerges when you look at the entire nine years of data concerns the Big Ten. The conference has been struck by far fewer early entries than peer conferences at just 3 a year, while other power conferences average 5.5 a year. It might not sound like a huge difference, but imagine how different the perception of the B1G would be heading into next season if Melo Trimble and Caris LeVert decided to enter their names into the draft. Two players won't kill a league, but it can go a long way to dropping it in from first to third in the mythical league power rankings the following winter.
The off season seemed to start with almost every key underclassmen declaring that they'd be going pro. Duke's three and Kentucky's seven led the way early, and upper lottery picks D'Angelo Russell and Stanley Johnson confirmed the obvious late in the cycle. The annual WTF entries were present, too. Former Maryland reserve Ashton Pankey got a degree and had a fine season for MAAC Champ Manhattan this year, his fifth in college, and decided to leave a year of eligibility on the table to pursue an NBA career. Pankey has no chance of being drafted, of course, but with former teammates Jordan Williams and Terrell Stoglin declaring early in the past few years, Gary Williams' last team somehow has the distinction of having three early entries on the roster. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
Anyway, 48 guys put their name on the list, the third highest total of the nine years we've had the One and Done rule.
|
2007
|
2008
|
2009
|
2010
|
45 |
48 |
2013
|
2014
|
2015
|
|
32 |
38 |
39 |
50 |
44 |
49 |
46 |
45 |
48 |
Things look a little "worse" (for a college basketball fan) when you concentrate on only the major conference players. The mid-majors (and below) have some first round talent among this year's crop of early entrants like Cameron Payne of Murray State and Georgia State's RJ Hunter, who created this year's March Madness Moment, but the lion's share of NBA Draft talent is obviously in the Power 6. 36 power conference players declared early, tied for the most in the last nine years.
|
2007
|
2008
|
2009
|
2010
|
2011 |
2012 |
2013
|
2014
|
2015
|
|
23 |
26 |
26 |
32 |
33 |
36 |
30 |
36 |
36 |
Who was hurt most? The SEC had a staggering 13 players declare early. We all know about Kentucky's 7 players, but Arkansas, LSU and even lowly Florida had a pair as well. Fringe prospects like Tyler Ulis and Dorian Finney-Smith are the best of the bunch returning to school next season.
|
ACC
|
Pac-12
|
SEC
|
Big Ten
|
Big XII |
Big East |
|
11 |
5
|
13 |
4
|
3
|
0 |
The Big East didn't have a single player leave early. It was a senior laden conference last year, with only D'vauntes Smith-Rivera of Georgetown and Providence's Kris Dunn seriously considering throwing their names into the ring. There's a lot of talk about what the future holds for the newly configured Big East and so it will be interesting to see whether the lack of high end talent continues. The conference landed only two of the top 45 players in the 2015 recruiting class.
One trend emerges when you look at the entire nine years of data concerns the Big Ten. The conference has been struck by far fewer early entries than peer conferences at just 3 a year, while other power conferences average 5.5 a year. It might not sound like a huge difference, but imagine how different the perception of the B1G would be heading into next season if Melo Trimble and Caris LeVert decided to enter their names into the draft. Two players won't kill a league, but it can go a long way to dropping it in from first to third in the mythical league power rankings the following winter.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Grad Transfers
Transfers are ruining college basketball.
Alright, now that we've got the Coaches' Viewpoint out of the the way, let's talk about transfers. Player movement in college basketball is seemingly at an all-time high. That's been a theme for several seasons now, and it might best be exemplified by the relatively new, but still rapidly expanding, graduate transfer loophole, which allows any player with an undergraduate degree and eligibility left to transfer to a new school, free from the restraints of the "year in residence" the NCAA requires traditional transfers to sit out from competition.
The appeal is easy to see. Big-time programs can poach from lesser ones with somewhat proven commodities who can come in immediately and address needs, almost certainly faster than the lightly recruited high school players still floating around in the spring after the season ends. But one question remains - just how effective are these players when they move to their new schools.
Using Luke Winn's outstanding research as a starting point and filling some gaps with Jeff Goodman's exhaustive transfer list, I put together a list of players who used the graduate transfer exemption to transfer "up" over the last four seasons, where transferring up is defined (by Winn) as going from a mid or low-major to a power conference school, or transferring from a major program to a blue blood.
The graduate transfer exception has been used by major programs at every level. While Duke hasn't dipped their toes into the water just yet, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Kansas all have, and UCLA attempted to bring in Jon Octeus from Colorado State before he was denied admission and wound up at Purdue. 2012 National Champ Louisville will bring in its first graduate transfer in Cleveland State's Trey Lewis.
Oregon and Boston College have brought in the most grad transfers at four apiece, followed by Illinois, Purdue, Tennessee and Fred Hoiberg's transfer factory, Iowa State at three each. Auburn, Indiana, Maryland, UConn, USC and Wake Forest have all brought in multiple grad transfers. UConn just locked up its third in former Cornell Forward Shonn Miller, and Maryland is trailing Damion Lee, the star of this year's transfer menu.
By and large, these players are performing well when they move up a level. Taking out of the equation a few players like Jon Horford (Michigan to Florida) and Justin Knox (Alabama to North Carolina) who already had power conference experience, I looked at the year-to-year changes after players moved to the big-time, focusing on three categories: ORtg (to judge efficiency), Poss% (to judge how involved they were) and Mins% (to see if they were more than benchwarmers).
So that's promising. ORtg actually increases at the higher level in season 2, although that's offset by a drop in usage and playing time. You probably need to be a little careful in projecting this out going forward since we don't know what the increased pool of graduate transfers will do to the quality of that pool. If schools are currently drawing a random sample from, say, the top 5% of mid-major and low-major players, will they draw more players from that same pool or reach down further in the hopes of landing a one year band-aid. Tough to say, but I'd guess the latter happens a bit more frequently as the grad transfer continues to proliferate.
And here's the list for reference.
Alright, now that we've got the Coaches' Viewpoint out of the the way, let's talk about transfers. Player movement in college basketball is seemingly at an all-time high. That's been a theme for several seasons now, and it might best be exemplified by the relatively new, but still rapidly expanding, graduate transfer loophole, which allows any player with an undergraduate degree and eligibility left to transfer to a new school, free from the restraints of the "year in residence" the NCAA requires traditional transfers to sit out from competition.
The appeal is easy to see. Big-time programs can poach from lesser ones with somewhat proven commodities who can come in immediately and address needs, almost certainly faster than the lightly recruited high school players still floating around in the spring after the season ends. But one question remains - just how effective are these players when they move to their new schools.
Using Luke Winn's outstanding research as a starting point and filling some gaps with Jeff Goodman's exhaustive transfer list, I put together a list of players who used the graduate transfer exemption to transfer "up" over the last four seasons, where transferring up is defined (by Winn) as going from a mid or low-major to a power conference school, or transferring from a major program to a blue blood.
The graduate transfer exception has been used by major programs at every level. While Duke hasn't dipped their toes into the water just yet, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Kansas all have, and UCLA attempted to bring in Jon Octeus from Colorado State before he was denied admission and wound up at Purdue. 2012 National Champ Louisville will bring in its first graduate transfer in Cleveland State's Trey Lewis.
Oregon and Boston College have brought in the most grad transfers at four apiece, followed by Illinois, Purdue, Tennessee and Fred Hoiberg's transfer factory, Iowa State at three each. Auburn, Indiana, Maryland, UConn, USC and Wake Forest have all brought in multiple grad transfers. UConn just locked up its third in former Cornell Forward Shonn Miller, and Maryland is trailing Damion Lee, the star of this year's transfer menu.
By and large, these players are performing well when they move up a level. Taking out of the equation a few players like Jon Horford (Michigan to Florida) and Justin Knox (Alabama to North Carolina) who already had power conference experience, I looked at the year-to-year changes after players moved to the big-time, focusing on three categories: ORtg (to judge efficiency), Poss% (to judge how involved they were) and Mins% (to see if they were more than benchwarmers).
So that's promising. ORtg actually increases at the higher level in season 2, although that's offset by a drop in usage and playing time. You probably need to be a little careful in projecting this out going forward since we don't know what the increased pool of graduate transfers will do to the quality of that pool. If schools are currently drawing a random sample from, say, the top 5% of mid-major and low-major players, will they draw more players from that same pool or reach down further in the hopes of landing a one year band-aid. Tough to say, but I'd guess the latter happens a bit more frequently as the grad transfer continues to proliferate.
And here's the list for reference.
Monday, March 23, 2015
On Luck
Maryland does it again. For the school record 26th time this regular season they won a game, and for the tenth time in ten tries, the team won a game decided by one or two possessions. That leads to an interesting situation for a 26-5 Big Ten team ranked #8 in both polls and top 10 in the RPI -- the computers hate them. Ken Pomeroy's laptop continues to blatantly disrespect the team's skills, ranking them a paltry 32nd in the land, while Jeff Sagarin's iMac has the team at #25 and Basketball on Paper author (basketball is played on a court, guys) Dean Oliver's ESPN BPI splits the difference at #28.
Obviously I love the metrics, but there's a natural uproar from Maryland fans who feel disrespected by the computer rankings, offering a number of reasons why the Terps are so good in close games. Some of them boil down to little more than the typical "grit arguments", but some are a bit more intriguing. The one that gets mentioned most frequently is probably the Free Throw Postulate. It states, roughly, that Maryland isn't lucky because they have a such a big spread between their FT% (one of the best in the country) and their opponents' (one of the the worst). For the most part, the close wins this year were Maryland staving off a furious comeback by taking care of the ball and getting theirs at the foul line. To that end I looked at some data from teamrankings.com, comparing FT% and winning% in close games, where "close" is defined as final margin of < 5. Then I graphed it. Here's what that graph looked like for the 351 DI teams this year:
[caption id="attachment_335" align="alignnone" width="625"]
source: teamrankings.com[/caption]
So there's a slight positive relationship, not a strong correlation, but the trend line says that the worst foul shooting team wins 40% of its close games and the best foul shooting team wins 60%. That's one game above the 5-5 median for a team on the far right hand portion of the graph.
The common misconception is that the Terrapins are ranked low in the computers because they're being penalized for the luck of winning close games. That's not really true. When Maryland beat Michigan State 68-66 earlier this year in East Lansing, it was probably lucky to escape from the Breslin Center with a win, but the computers didn't really care. Their algorithms would say that regardless of whether you flipped that score, Maryland had played a good game and would be "rewarded" by the computers.
Conversely, it doesn't really matter that the Terps were on the right side of close games against Penn State or Northwestern. It's obviously better to have won those games for any number of reasons, but the computers downgraded Maryland because they played so many close games against inferior competition, even going back to the beginning of the season when they struggled with USC-Upstate and couldn't put away Monmouth. Top 10 or 15 teams might occasionally play down to their competition, but struggling every time out against the dregs of the conference means is a good sign a team's record is inflated.
Bottom line: The Terps are good, but there's good reason not to believe the record at face value.
Obviously I love the metrics, but there's a natural uproar from Maryland fans who feel disrespected by the computer rankings, offering a number of reasons why the Terps are so good in close games. Some of them boil down to little more than the typical "grit arguments", but some are a bit more intriguing. The one that gets mentioned most frequently is probably the Free Throw Postulate. It states, roughly, that Maryland isn't lucky because they have a such a big spread between their FT% (one of the best in the country) and their opponents' (one of the the worst). For the most part, the close wins this year were Maryland staving off a furious comeback by taking care of the ball and getting theirs at the foul line. To that end I looked at some data from teamrankings.com, comparing FT% and winning% in close games, where "close" is defined as final margin of < 5. Then I graphed it. Here's what that graph looked like for the 351 DI teams this year:
[caption id="attachment_335" align="alignnone" width="625"]
source: teamrankings.com[/caption]So there's a slight positive relationship, not a strong correlation, but the trend line says that the worst foul shooting team wins 40% of its close games and the best foul shooting team wins 60%. That's one game above the 5-5 median for a team on the far right hand portion of the graph.
The common misconception is that the Terrapins are ranked low in the computers because they're being penalized for the luck of winning close games. That's not really true. When Maryland beat Michigan State 68-66 earlier this year in East Lansing, it was probably lucky to escape from the Breslin Center with a win, but the computers didn't really care. Their algorithms would say that regardless of whether you flipped that score, Maryland had played a good game and would be "rewarded" by the computers.
Conversely, it doesn't really matter that the Terps were on the right side of close games against Penn State or Northwestern. It's obviously better to have won those games for any number of reasons, but the computers downgraded Maryland because they played so many close games against inferior competition, even going back to the beginning of the season when they struggled with USC-Upstate and couldn't put away Monmouth. Top 10 or 15 teams might occasionally play down to their competition, but struggling every time out against the dregs of the conference means is a good sign a team's record is inflated.
Bottom line: The Terps are good, but there's good reason not to believe the record at face value.
Saturday, March 7, 2015
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Conference Title Hunting
Yesterday every Terps fan (or maybe just some of us) was doing mental gymnastics to parse all the scenarios that would get Maryland a top four seed and double bye in the Big Ten tournament in two weeks. That was the big one, and it's not easy with a half dozen teams still fighting for three spots. We were also hoping that Maryland would at least be competitive against #5 Wisconsin at the Xfinity Center. It's not that a loss was a sure thing, but rather given the teams uneven performance in the last month, we might have settled for sweeping Michigan, Rutgers and Nebraska to finish the season.
But since the Terps decided to go ahead and set off a flash mob, pack the lower bowl with gold, storm the court, and oh yeah, win last night's game, a beautifully played 59-53 win over the heavily favored Badgers, we can at least peak at their prospects for nabbing a share of the conference regular season championship. However faint those hopes are, they increased markedly last night, and given that we've shared just one regular season title since 2002, it's worth investigating.
As usual, we'll use kenpom's projections for each team's final three games. The caveat is that you can make a very compelling argument that Pomeroy is too bearish on the Terps. Despite a 23-5 record and a half dozen or more wins over likely NCAA Tournament teams, Maryland ranks just 35th in those rankings behind Ole Miss and Xavier and seemingly a cast of thousands. His rankings are clearly an outlier among major computer rankings, but hey, no sense splitting hairs too much.
Anyway,KP give Maryland an overwhelming chance of beating Michigan (81%) and winning at Rutgers (80%), and puts them as a solid favorite in Lincoln (64%). Here's the breakdown:
Not bad. Two wins clinches the bye, and speaking purely by the numbers, it would be a shocker if the Terps didn't get there.
Wisconsin's schedule was heavily backloaded, and their final three are much tougher. They get Michigan State next for Senior Night, their only game against the Spartans, and then next week has two road trips, one to feisty rival Minnesota and the other to Ohio State, the only game between the preseason presumptive top two in the Big Ten. Wisconsin still looks like a healthy favorite in the first two (82% and 75%), but the Ohio State game is much closer to a coin flip (54%).
Two wins clinches an outright B1G title for Wiscy, so you can probably already tell that Maryland isn't at even odds. There are three scenarios that work for Maryland. If the Terps sweep, Wisconsin can win either one more or none (for an unlikely outright B1G title) or if the Terps drop one than Wisconsin has to lose all three. The realistic scenario is Maryland at 3-0 and Wisconsin at 1-2.
So yeah, put it all together and Maryland has a 9.25% chance to do it. Let's say it's 1 in 10 and call it day. Those certainly not great odds, but they also aren't zero, which is amazing to say on February 25. It's safe to say that the preseason prediction of 10th in the Big Ten was a little off base.
But since the Terps decided to go ahead and set off a flash mob, pack the lower bowl with gold, storm the court, and oh yeah, win last night's game, a beautifully played 59-53 win over the heavily favored Badgers, we can at least peak at their prospects for nabbing a share of the conference regular season championship. However faint those hopes are, they increased markedly last night, and given that we've shared just one regular season title since 2002, it's worth investigating.
As usual, we'll use kenpom's projections for each team's final three games. The caveat is that you can make a very compelling argument that Pomeroy is too bearish on the Terps. Despite a 23-5 record and a half dozen or more wins over likely NCAA Tournament teams, Maryland ranks just 35th in those rankings behind Ole Miss and Xavier and seemingly a cast of thousands. His rankings are clearly an outlier among major computer rankings, but hey, no sense splitting hairs too much.
Anyway,KP give Maryland an overwhelming chance of beating Michigan (81%) and winning at Rutgers (80%), and puts them as a solid favorite in Lincoln (64%). Here's the breakdown:
 |
| Maryland's Last Three games |
Not bad. Two wins clinches the bye, and speaking purely by the numbers, it would be a shocker if the Terps didn't get there.
Wisconsin's schedule was heavily backloaded, and their final three are much tougher. They get Michigan State next for Senior Night, their only game against the Spartans, and then next week has two road trips, one to feisty rival Minnesota and the other to Ohio State, the only game between the preseason presumptive top two in the Big Ten. Wisconsin still looks like a healthy favorite in the first two (82% and 75%), but the Ohio State game is much closer to a coin flip (54%).
 |
| Wisconsin's Last Three Games |
Two wins clinches an outright B1G title for Wiscy, so you can probably already tell that Maryland isn't at even odds. There are three scenarios that work for Maryland. If the Terps sweep, Wisconsin can win either one more or none (for an unlikely outright B1G title) or if the Terps drop one than Wisconsin has to lose all three. The realistic scenario is Maryland at 3-0 and Wisconsin at 1-2.
So yeah, put it all together and Maryland has a 9.25% chance to do it. Let's say it's 1 in 10 and call it day. Those certainly not great odds, but they also aren't zero, which is amazing to say on February 25. It's safe to say that the preseason prediction of 10th in the Big Ten was a little off base.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Historic Start?
In the rich history of Maryland basketball, only four teams have started better than this year's edition. The best start was the National Championship team at 24-3, which dropped its season opener before going on to win 26 of its next 28. Three teams won 23 games: the Steve Francis-led 1999 team which would eventually grab a #2 seed in the NCAA tournament, the third-ranked 1974 team that lost the Greatest Game Ever Played to NC State to miss the NCAA Tournament, and 1975 team that made it to the Elite Eight as the ACC's first-ever at-large participant in March Madness after the rule had been changed following the 1974 season.
The games have been closer than we'd probably like, and the team may still be a year away from being a true national contender, but there's no question it's been a fun ride.
1. 24-3, 2002
2. 23-4, 1999
2. 23-4, 1975
2. 23-4, 1974
5. 22-5, 2015
5. 22-5, 1995
5. 22-5, 1976
5 .22-5, 1973
10. 21-6, 1980
10. 21-6, 1958
10. 21-6, 1954
12. 20-7, 2010
12. 20-7, 2006
12. 20-7, 2000
12. 20-7, 1984
The games have been closer than we'd probably like, and the team may still be a year away from being a true national contender, but there's no question it's been a fun ride.
1. 24-3, 2002
2. 23-4, 1999
2. 23-4, 1975
2. 23-4, 1974
5. 22-5, 2015
5. 22-5, 1995
5. 22-5, 1976
5 .22-5, 1973
10. 21-6, 1980
10. 21-6, 1958
10. 21-6, 1954
12. 20-7, 2010
12. 20-7, 2006
12. 20-7, 2000
12. 20-7, 1984
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Entering the Final Five
*Five points separated Maryland from two wins and two overtime games last week, but once again, luck - and those five points - were on the Terps side as they escaped with a two point home win over Indiana and a three point win at Penn State. The performances continued to be uneven, but for resume, seeding, and conference standing purposes, it was an enormous week, no different than if the team had come out and ripped both teams. The soft second-half conference continues, with only a home date against Wisconsin left as far as potential NCAA tournaments.
Wisconsin currently reigns over the B1G at 11-1, but a tough closing stretch (trips to Maryland and Ohio State, Michigan State at the Kohl Center, and a home and home against feisty Minnesota) give some measure of hope for someone - likely Maryland or Michigan State - to snare a piece of the conference championship.
The Terps would almost certainly need to sweep the final five games which is unlikely. They'll be favored in four of those games, but are likely to be a healthy underdog to the Badgers, even at home. A look at the most likely scenarios (percentages derived from current kenpom ratings):
There are theoretically 32 combinations of wins and losses left, and the clean sweep is the third most likely at 1-in-10, but still slightly less likely than losing the Wiscy game and adding a loss at Nebraska to close the season. 12 wins seems like the magic number for a bye in the B1G tournament, and the efficiency metrics have Maryland at over 80% to get there, including about 43% to take four or more.
*An interesting battle is shaping up for all-conference honors. Frank Kaminsky and D'Angelo Russell are locks for the 1st Team, and I'd bet on D.J. Newbill despite Penn State finishing near the conference bottom. That leaves two spots up for grabs from the group of Melo Trimble, Yogi Ferrell, Terran Pettway, Aaron White, and perhaps James Blackmon.
After a tough stretch, I'll bet on Melo here. Trimble has 58 points in the past three games on outstanding shooting numbers: 17-30 from the floor, 5-9 from three, and 19-21 at the line. Trimble still leads major conference players in FTM this year, by a fair bit:
Wisconsin currently reigns over the B1G at 11-1, but a tough closing stretch (trips to Maryland and Ohio State, Michigan State at the Kohl Center, and a home and home against feisty Minnesota) give some measure of hope for someone - likely Maryland or Michigan State - to snare a piece of the conference championship.
The Terps would almost certainly need to sweep the final five games which is unlikely. They'll be favored in four of those games, but are likely to be a healthy underdog to the Badgers, even at home. A look at the most likely scenarios (percentages derived from current kenpom ratings):
There are theoretically 32 combinations of wins and losses left, and the clean sweep is the third most likely at 1-in-10, but still slightly less likely than losing the Wiscy game and adding a loss at Nebraska to close the season. 12 wins seems like the magic number for a bye in the B1G tournament, and the efficiency metrics have Maryland at over 80% to get there, including about 43% to take four or more.
*An interesting battle is shaping up for all-conference honors. Frank Kaminsky and D'Angelo Russell are locks for the 1st Team, and I'd bet on D.J. Newbill despite Penn State finishing near the conference bottom. That leaves two spots up for grabs from the group of Melo Trimble, Yogi Ferrell, Terran Pettway, Aaron White, and perhaps James Blackmon.
After a tough stretch, I'll bet on Melo here. Trimble has 58 points in the past three games on outstanding shooting numbers: 17-30 from the floor, 5-9 from three, and 19-21 at the line. Trimble still leads major conference players in FTM this year, by a fair bit:
- Melo Trimble, MD - 157
- Billy Garrett, Jr, DEP - 142
- Aaron White, IOWA - 140
- D'Angelo Harrison, SJU - 137
- Le'Bryan Nash, OKST - 135
Thursday, February 5, 2015
The Top Ten - #Coaching Hot Takes 2015
And finally, mercifully, we get to the top ten.
10. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke (4-21-6-13-8): Coach K may live forever and coach Duke to more championships just to spite all of his haters. It seems improbable, but K may not be of this species. If that isn't true though, Coach K turns 68 next week. Duke is consistently one of the best teams in the country, but rarely the best anymore. Duke won conference regular season and tournament titles plus the NCAA championship in 2010, but in the last eight years, those accomplishments mark Duke's only conference titles and only Final Four appearances, compared to the 18 times Duke grabbed one of those honors in the decade prior. The program has also famously lost to Mercer and Lehigh in the first round in March in the past three years. Recruits still flock to Duke, but at this point it's a brand that sells itself. Not to diminish K too far, but his own personal cache as a coach likely doesn't translate 100% at a new school. You can't imagine the guy ever dipping below 25-10, but that's where we're at on this list.
9. Shaka Smart, VCU (42-38-20-17-20): Shaka is probably the hottest commodity in coaching. He's pledged his loyalty to VCU the past couple off-seasons, but almost every power conference job that opens will either a) generate news reports linking Smart to the opening or b) generate message board speculation that Smart is interested. Smart made his name going to the Final Four and then solidified his standing with continued winning and his trademark Havoc defense. He's great. But (and you knew there would be), he's never or shared a conference regular season title and has one tournament championship in five years. He's the same age as Josh Pastner and has a career record that's percentage points different. That's a simplistic comparison, but then Smart is so much higher. His teams are terrific, but I want to see a conference championship and a run back to the tournament's second weekend.
8. Tony Bennett, Virginia (99-33-40-4-2): I don't like Bennett's style. Slow and conservative is a good style when you're the hunter, but maybe not so much as the hunted. There's no denying the success that UVA has had the past two years under Bennett, though. They haven't been relevant since Ralph Sampson was on campus, and these teams have no Ralph Sampson. With only one senior Bennett is well positioned for a third straight outstanding team next year. Up now: deep runs in the tournament. Snagging a top recruit would be a good look, too.
7. Tom Izzo, Michigan State (46-3-9-9-23): Izzo's consistency is remarkable. 17 straight seasons Michigan State has made the NCAA Tournament, and in all 19 of his seasons as a head coach the Spartans have been .500 or better in league games. Six final fours and a national championship. Recruiting has tailed off a bit recently for Izzo. He's always had the rep of a "more with less" guy, but his current roster probably has no NBA players on it. That's a huge problem when we're this high on the list.
6. Sean Miller, Arizona (23-52-13-2-3): Quickly becoming the guy with the "best never to make a Final Four" tag, if he's not there already. It's mostly meant as an insult but the reality is that it says something about how good of a coach you are, especially in Miller's case where he's been to three Regional Finals, losing the last two at Arizona in heartbreaking fashion. Miller is a top three or four recruiter in college basketball, and his coaching acumen has never really been questioned. It's his time to break out.
5. Rick Pitino, Louisville (12-14-1-1-10): What is going on with Pitino's look? The white suit and five o'clock shadow isn't a good one. Imagine if Pitino didn't have those two stints in the NBA. Just getting back the four years after he left Kentucky and was out of the college game puts him over 800 wins and in position to get to 1,000 himself. Currently working on his 8th top 5 finish in adjusted defensive efficiency. Complaints? Maybe that following Russ Smith with Chris Jones as your lead guard is a bit much to avoid seasickness, but that's a reach. Eligible for AARP so I can't put him any higher.
4. Thad Matta, Ohio State (1-2-7-20-17): Matta's been around for ages, but he's still only 47. He doesn't have a championship yet, but he's played for one and taken two completely different groups to the Final Four. His teams have six #1 or #2 seeds. Matta has done work recruiting his immediate area. He grabbed Greg Oden from Indianapolis and D'Angelo Russell from Louisville. Both are about three hours west, and Matta has mostly landed his top players from within that narrow window. He'll win a title.
3. Billy Donovan, Florida (16-11-2-3-37): Billy the Kid is still just shy of 50 and still has the two championship rings on his fingers. Donovan built Florida basketball. He's probably the only guy on this list who can say that. Before he came to Gainesville, Florida there was nothing. You can measure their program accomplishments B.D. (before Donovan) and A.D. (after Donovan). Before: 3 NCAA tournaments, 7 tournament wins, 6 NBA players. After: 14 NCAA tournaments, 35 tournament wins, 19 NBA players. Went 36-3 and to the Final Four last year with a roster led by four seniors, none of whom were drafted last spring. Underrated.
2. Bill Self, Kansas (2-4-8-12-11): It was supposed to be a little bit of a down year for Kansas this year. Embiid and Wiggins left for the draft and maybe Bill Self and co. would take a second to reload. Nope. After some rough patches early, KU is set to get its 11th straight conference regular season title, this one in the consensus best league in America. I love that Self loads up Kansas' schedule every year in November and December. Even with one of the youngest rosters in college basketball, Kansas played the toughest early season slate by far. The losses to Bucknell and Bradley are a distant memory, but Self needs a couple more Final Fours to truly cement his place as an all-timer. He's only got two, and a 2-5 record in the Elite Eight won't excite many people.
1. John Calipari, Kentucky (5-1-67-11-1): Who else? Love him, hate him, whatever, he's on a different level. Cal is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. He's that guy playing three games of speed chess at once. He won't always win, and a disappointing 2013 followed by a disappointing 2014 regular season looked like it would expose cracks in his style, but UK roared back in last year's tournament. His talent level at Kentucky is absolutely obscene. There's not much more to be said about Calipari. Barring a scandal, Kentucky is the top dog for the foreseeable future by a lot, and Calipari reigns supreme.
10. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke (4-21-6-13-8): Coach K may live forever and coach Duke to more championships just to spite all of his haters. It seems improbable, but K may not be of this species. If that isn't true though, Coach K turns 68 next week. Duke is consistently one of the best teams in the country, but rarely the best anymore. Duke won conference regular season and tournament titles plus the NCAA championship in 2010, but in the last eight years, those accomplishments mark Duke's only conference titles and only Final Four appearances, compared to the 18 times Duke grabbed one of those honors in the decade prior. The program has also famously lost to Mercer and Lehigh in the first round in March in the past three years. Recruits still flock to Duke, but at this point it's a brand that sells itself. Not to diminish K too far, but his own personal cache as a coach likely doesn't translate 100% at a new school. You can't imagine the guy ever dipping below 25-10, but that's where we're at on this list.
9. Shaka Smart, VCU (42-38-20-17-20): Shaka is probably the hottest commodity in coaching. He's pledged his loyalty to VCU the past couple off-seasons, but almost every power conference job that opens will either a) generate news reports linking Smart to the opening or b) generate message board speculation that Smart is interested. Smart made his name going to the Final Four and then solidified his standing with continued winning and his trademark Havoc defense. He's great. But (and you knew there would be), he's never or shared a conference regular season title and has one tournament championship in five years. He's the same age as Josh Pastner and has a career record that's percentage points different. That's a simplistic comparison, but then Smart is so much higher. His teams are terrific, but I want to see a conference championship and a run back to the tournament's second weekend.
8. Tony Bennett, Virginia (99-33-40-4-2): I don't like Bennett's style. Slow and conservative is a good style when you're the hunter, but maybe not so much as the hunted. There's no denying the success that UVA has had the past two years under Bennett, though. They haven't been relevant since Ralph Sampson was on campus, and these teams have no Ralph Sampson. With only one senior Bennett is well positioned for a third straight outstanding team next year. Up now: deep runs in the tournament. Snagging a top recruit would be a good look, too.
7. Tom Izzo, Michigan State (46-3-9-9-23): Izzo's consistency is remarkable. 17 straight seasons Michigan State has made the NCAA Tournament, and in all 19 of his seasons as a head coach the Spartans have been .500 or better in league games. Six final fours and a national championship. Recruiting has tailed off a bit recently for Izzo. He's always had the rep of a "more with less" guy, but his current roster probably has no NBA players on it. That's a huge problem when we're this high on the list.
6. Sean Miller, Arizona (23-52-13-2-3): Quickly becoming the guy with the "best never to make a Final Four" tag, if he's not there already. It's mostly meant as an insult but the reality is that it says something about how good of a coach you are, especially in Miller's case where he's been to three Regional Finals, losing the last two at Arizona in heartbreaking fashion. Miller is a top three or four recruiter in college basketball, and his coaching acumen has never really been questioned. It's his time to break out.
5. Rick Pitino, Louisville (12-14-1-1-10): What is going on with Pitino's look? The white suit and five o'clock shadow isn't a good one. Imagine if Pitino didn't have those two stints in the NBA. Just getting back the four years after he left Kentucky and was out of the college game puts him over 800 wins and in position to get to 1,000 himself. Currently working on his 8th top 5 finish in adjusted defensive efficiency. Complaints? Maybe that following Russ Smith with Chris Jones as your lead guard is a bit much to avoid seasickness, but that's a reach. Eligible for AARP so I can't put him any higher.
4. Thad Matta, Ohio State (1-2-7-20-17): Matta's been around for ages, but he's still only 47. He doesn't have a championship yet, but he's played for one and taken two completely different groups to the Final Four. His teams have six #1 or #2 seeds. Matta has done work recruiting his immediate area. He grabbed Greg Oden from Indianapolis and D'Angelo Russell from Louisville. Both are about three hours west, and Matta has mostly landed his top players from within that narrow window. He'll win a title.
3. Billy Donovan, Florida (16-11-2-3-37): Billy the Kid is still just shy of 50 and still has the two championship rings on his fingers. Donovan built Florida basketball. He's probably the only guy on this list who can say that. Before he came to Gainesville, Florida there was nothing. You can measure their program accomplishments B.D. (before Donovan) and A.D. (after Donovan). Before: 3 NCAA tournaments, 7 tournament wins, 6 NBA players. After: 14 NCAA tournaments, 35 tournament wins, 19 NBA players. Went 36-3 and to the Final Four last year with a roster led by four seniors, none of whom were drafted last spring. Underrated.
2. Bill Self, Kansas (2-4-8-12-11): It was supposed to be a little bit of a down year for Kansas this year. Embiid and Wiggins left for the draft and maybe Bill Self and co. would take a second to reload. Nope. After some rough patches early, KU is set to get its 11th straight conference regular season title, this one in the consensus best league in America. I love that Self loads up Kansas' schedule every year in November and December. Even with one of the youngest rosters in college basketball, Kansas played the toughest early season slate by far. The losses to Bucknell and Bradley are a distant memory, but Self needs a couple more Final Fours to truly cement his place as an all-timer. He's only got two, and a 2-5 record in the Elite Eight won't excite many people.
1. John Calipari, Kentucky (5-1-67-11-1): Who else? Love him, hate him, whatever, he's on a different level. Cal is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. He's that guy playing three games of speed chess at once. He won't always win, and a disappointing 2013 followed by a disappointing 2014 regular season looked like it would expose cracks in his style, but UK roared back in last year's tournament. His talent level at Kentucky is absolutely obscene. There's not much more to be said about Calipari. Barring a scandal, Kentucky is the top dog for the foreseeable future by a lot, and Calipari reigns supreme.
Monday, February 2, 2015
2015 Coaching Hot Takes - The Top 25
25. Buzz Williams, Virginia Tech (30-18-24-76-160): Buzz once did this, which was pretty incredible. I'm not sold on him though. He had a lot of success at Marquette, but his last team there wasn't very good at all. The roster he left behind wasn't, either. And the fact that he left them for Virginia Tech was an...interesting move. I could see not being sold on Marquette as a destination, but shouldn't a very top coach have a better option? Maybe that's just the negative view. Never finishing below .500 in the Big East in 6 years is a feat, and he's already started to accrue talent in Blacksburg.
24. Mark Turgeon, Maryland (49-128-48-40-32): There is no chance I would pick Mike Brey over Mark Turgeon, so that alone puts Turge here. I also can't put Turgeon anywhere near the elite until he makes more than zero NCAA Tournaments at Maryland. That will happen this year, but to move higher on the list Turgeon needs to show that he's building a program. The recruiting has been great on paper, but not so much on the results. He lost five transfers last offseason and has five of his own on the roster. Transfer happen in modern college basketball, but it's a worrying number for a major college program. The class of 2014 looks outstanding, but then so did the class of 2012 at this point in its first season. Time will tell, and next year's team could be special.
23. Rick Barnes, Texas (): Does Rick Barnes put "recruited Kevin Durant" on his resume if he's out looking for a job? That seems like it would inevitably lead to thorny questions like why they were 24th in adjusted efficiency rankings and why they got hammered in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament that year. That's the cynical view on Barnes that many take, ignoring that the Durant year was sandwiched between two 30+ win, Elite Eight campaigns. Barnes missed the tournament just once since 1996 and it almost got him fired, so maybe that's just his lot in life. He's another coach that's been beset by roster turnover in recent years, but there's still talent on the roster. He's also seemingly avoided even a whiff of sanctions or impropriety which shows either impressive adherence to the rules or impressive discretion given his long tenure. And I'm not sure that one is better than the other.
22. Bo Ryan, Wisconsin (8-7-13-6-5): Bo Ryan absolutely ranks first on the list of coaches who look most like their school's mascot. Put a red and white sweater on the guy and you can't tell the difference between him and Bucky the Badger. Ryan is a high floor coach (10 seasons of 24+ wins in 14 years in Madison) and the past couple years have shown that he can coach an elite team, if there was any doubt before. Ryan also isn't young at 67 and hasn't coached outside of Wisconsin since 1976. He's had few top recruits, and his offense, though deadly efficient, probably won't excite many recruits. Hire Ryan and go 23-11 in a bad season, but things probably have to break exactly right for him to put together a top five team. See: Kaminsky, Frank.
21. Ed Cooley, Providence (100-112-70-51-52): I like the guy. He's had success on the court and the recruiting trail in his time at Providence. It's easy to forget how much PC isn't a power. They were an original Big East team (thanks, Dave Gavitt), but only had six winning seasons in league play in the 32 years of the "old" Big East. Rick Barnes had one in six years before hopping to Clemson. Pete Gillen had one in four years before bolting to UVA. Rick Pitino went to the NBA after one good (great) season in Providence. All of which is to say that it's not easy to win at a private school in the country's smallest state. Cooley has done that so far and could be in line for bigger things soon.
20. Tom Crean, Indiana (81-10-3-67-50): Crean is fast becoming either the best bad coach or the worst good coach in the country. Four months ago you could read an article or message board post about Crean and probably see the phrase "losing control of the program". Ouch. Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo, the guys that rebuilt Indiana, left campus with only a Sweet 16 and Noah Vonleh, the next top recruit left with far less. Crean has two NCAA appearances in 6 years at Indiana, and no guarantee for a third yet this year. Crean walked into a program with a bare roster, but at some point he's living off of a Final Four run with Dwyane Wade from 12 years ago.
19. Bruce Pearl, Auburn (13-38-26-63-150): Ten years as a DI head coach at Milwaukee and Tennessee. Eight NCAA tournament appearances, a .725 conference winning percentage, and one show cause penalty. If you believe that "it's not the crime, it's the coverup", that probably applies to Pearl. The violations on their own were innocuous by the standards of the Wild West of college sports recruiting, but Pearl lied and spent a couple years in purgatory (Bristol, CT) before landing back at Auburn. Pearl didn't waste much time pulling whatever talent he could to Auburn, grabbing Trayvon Reed weeks after being kicked out of Maryland, plus KC Ross-Miller, who fought some fans last year. He'll win games, but caveat emptor.
18. John Thompson III, Georgetown (36-16-12-65-21): John, at some point you need to stop embarrassing yourself in March. A lot of people criticize the Princeton offense for being slow and boring to watch, but to me, the reason it's never made sense for a team like Georgetown is that they recruit so well and almost always have at least as much skill as the other team. Slowing the game down and playing like, well, Princeton probably keeps some lesser teams in the game. Back at the end of the last decade, Hoya Paranoia looked like it was back in full force with a Final Four and a seemingly endless supply of top recruits, many of them from talent-rich DC. Georgetown is still in fine shape, but the local recruiting has tapered off a bit and the March losses have turned the narrative around. JT III stays high on the list at least in part because of who his father is and which shoe company that man has deep connections with.
17. Jay Wright, Villanova (34-84-46-14-8): Jay Wright is so close to being elite, but there's something missing. He recruits at a high level. He's had good offensive and good defensive teams, often in the same year. He's broken through to the Final Four once already. He still young at 53. I don't know that it's fair to say that he hasn't done enough with his talent, but here's some food for thought. By my count, using the RSCI composite rankings, Wright has coached 5 top 25 recruits and 12 top 50 recruits, but only 5 guys who played in the NBA. I should probably look into the numbers a little more, but that doesn't feel like a lot. Seems fitting for a coach is just right there, but not quite over the hump.
16. John Beilein, Michigan (26-23-4-10-76): Michigan's 2013 NCAA runner-up had more NBA players (six, assuming Caris Levert makes it) than the Fab Five teams. Beilein has a rep as someone who does more with less, but at Michigan he's started to do more with more. Or, at least this year, less with more. But the point is that Beilein actually does a pretty good of bringing high quality players to campus. He's also shed the March choker label, which is such a weird thing for a guy who famously took a less talented team on paper at West Virginia to the cusp of the Final Four.
15. Gregg Marshall, Wichita State (25-13-17-5-14): Alright, it's time to move on, Gregg. Marshall is now on his fourth or fifth excellent team in a row at Wichita State. 2013 was the Final Four team and who knows where last year's 35-1 team would have ended up if not for running into Kentucky's House of Flying Daggers tournament run last year. Last year's team, as excellent as it was, only beat two NCAA tournament teams all season before March Madness tipped off. In a lot of ways putting together this run at Wichita is more impressive than doing it at a higher level, but I want to see Marshall mix it up on the court and the recruiting trail with the real heavyweights. No disrespect to Northern Iowa, but that's not a worthy. Where does Marshall want to go? Does he want to be the next Mark Few? Maybe we find out after Rob Baker and Fred Van Vleet graduate next year.
14. Roy Williams, North Carolina (14-6-32-27-12): Never been a fan of Roy Williams. He's won at phenomenal levels but he's done it at Kansas and North Carolina, two of the most storied programs in country. He's shed any questions about his tournament bona fides by winning two titles in Chapel Hill. But I look at his roster and see no shooters for the second straight year. This is at UNC, where he should (and can) get any recruit in the country to listen. First six years at Carolina, average offensive rating: 5th. Second six years at Carolina, average offensive rating: 42. He's always relied on an up and down offensive style with traditional bigs, eschewing the three point shot, and you wonder if maybe we're too the point that it isn't a recipe for a great offensive team. Plus there are those nasty rumors of massive academic fraud.
13. Fred Hoiberg, Iowa State (84-24-27-21-23): The Mayor. Transfer U. Relying on a new crop of transfers every year has to be like walking a tightrope. After Hoiberg took Deandre Kane from a disgruntled guy that basically got run off the team at Marshall to an All-American at Iowa State in the span of an offseason nothing seemed impossible. I personally love that Hoiberg plays uptempo and always seems to find itself in some of the most entertaining games of the week. Since he's locked in for eight years in our hypothetical #hottakes rankings, that puts to rest the constant talk that Hoiberg will find his way back to the NBA as a head coach there. He's a rising star, super young and working on a fourth straight NCAA tournament, but I want to see one good defensive team and a couple great high school recruits before he rises further.
12. Scott Drew, Baylor (87-15-29-25-13): Drew took over Baylor when they were not only terrible on the court but also dealing with the immediate aftermath of the Dave Bliss fiasco. The NCAA doesn't give the death penalty anymore so knocking out Baylor's entire non conference season is as close as a team will get. Drew once got a lot of support from his "peers" as one of the sport's biggest cheaters, and two years later the program found itself in hot water for text messages, phone calls - the standard violations. He's also had a weird trend of only making the tournament in even years, but that will end this season. A pair of Elite Eights and three trips to the second weekend in the times he's made it are good accomplishments for a 44 year old.
11. Mark Few, Gonzaga (35-20-5-22-4): Ah, Mark. You coach at a small Catholic school in Spokane, Washington and people call you overrated when you only win one tournament game every. single. year. He's coached nine pros and has at least a couple more on the roster now. And seriously, he's 12-3 in the first round of the NCAA tournament and has yet to miss one. Few gets dinged points for being at Gonzaga since 1989. Maybe it's just the perfect storm for him that wouldn't translate if he had to build a program somewhere else.
24. Mark Turgeon, Maryland (49-128-48-40-32): There is no chance I would pick Mike Brey over Mark Turgeon, so that alone puts Turge here. I also can't put Turgeon anywhere near the elite until he makes more than zero NCAA Tournaments at Maryland. That will happen this year, but to move higher on the list Turgeon needs to show that he's building a program. The recruiting has been great on paper, but not so much on the results. He lost five transfers last offseason and has five of his own on the roster. Transfer happen in modern college basketball, but it's a worrying number for a major college program. The class of 2014 looks outstanding, but then so did the class of 2012 at this point in its first season. Time will tell, and next year's team could be special.
23. Rick Barnes, Texas (): Does Rick Barnes put "recruited Kevin Durant" on his resume if he's out looking for a job? That seems like it would inevitably lead to thorny questions like why they were 24th in adjusted efficiency rankings and why they got hammered in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament that year. That's the cynical view on Barnes that many take, ignoring that the Durant year was sandwiched between two 30+ win, Elite Eight campaigns. Barnes missed the tournament just once since 1996 and it almost got him fired, so maybe that's just his lot in life. He's another coach that's been beset by roster turnover in recent years, but there's still talent on the roster. He's also seemingly avoided even a whiff of sanctions or impropriety which shows either impressive adherence to the rules or impressive discretion given his long tenure. And I'm not sure that one is better than the other.
22. Bo Ryan, Wisconsin (8-7-13-6-5): Bo Ryan absolutely ranks first on the list of coaches who look most like their school's mascot. Put a red and white sweater on the guy and you can't tell the difference between him and Bucky the Badger. Ryan is a high floor coach (10 seasons of 24+ wins in 14 years in Madison) and the past couple years have shown that he can coach an elite team, if there was any doubt before. Ryan also isn't young at 67 and hasn't coached outside of Wisconsin since 1976. He's had few top recruits, and his offense, though deadly efficient, probably won't excite many recruits. Hire Ryan and go 23-11 in a bad season, but things probably have to break exactly right for him to put together a top five team. See: Kaminsky, Frank.
21. Ed Cooley, Providence (100-112-70-51-52): I like the guy. He's had success on the court and the recruiting trail in his time at Providence. It's easy to forget how much PC isn't a power. They were an original Big East team (thanks, Dave Gavitt), but only had six winning seasons in league play in the 32 years of the "old" Big East. Rick Barnes had one in six years before hopping to Clemson. Pete Gillen had one in four years before bolting to UVA. Rick Pitino went to the NBA after one good (great) season in Providence. All of which is to say that it's not easy to win at a private school in the country's smallest state. Cooley has done that so far and could be in line for bigger things soon.
20. Tom Crean, Indiana (81-10-3-67-50): Crean is fast becoming either the best bad coach or the worst good coach in the country. Four months ago you could read an article or message board post about Crean and probably see the phrase "losing control of the program". Ouch. Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo, the guys that rebuilt Indiana, left campus with only a Sweet 16 and Noah Vonleh, the next top recruit left with far less. Crean has two NCAA appearances in 6 years at Indiana, and no guarantee for a third yet this year. Crean walked into a program with a bare roster, but at some point he's living off of a Final Four run with Dwyane Wade from 12 years ago.
19. Bruce Pearl, Auburn (13-38-26-63-150): Ten years as a DI head coach at Milwaukee and Tennessee. Eight NCAA tournament appearances, a .725 conference winning percentage, and one show cause penalty. If you believe that "it's not the crime, it's the coverup", that probably applies to Pearl. The violations on their own were innocuous by the standards of the Wild West of college sports recruiting, but Pearl lied and spent a couple years in purgatory (Bristol, CT) before landing back at Auburn. Pearl didn't waste much time pulling whatever talent he could to Auburn, grabbing Trayvon Reed weeks after being kicked out of Maryland, plus KC Ross-Miller, who fought some fans last year. He'll win games, but caveat emptor.
18. John Thompson III, Georgetown (36-16-12-65-21): John, at some point you need to stop embarrassing yourself in March. A lot of people criticize the Princeton offense for being slow and boring to watch, but to me, the reason it's never made sense for a team like Georgetown is that they recruit so well and almost always have at least as much skill as the other team. Slowing the game down and playing like, well, Princeton probably keeps some lesser teams in the game. Back at the end of the last decade, Hoya Paranoia looked like it was back in full force with a Final Four and a seemingly endless supply of top recruits, many of them from talent-rich DC. Georgetown is still in fine shape, but the local recruiting has tapered off a bit and the March losses have turned the narrative around. JT III stays high on the list at least in part because of who his father is and which shoe company that man has deep connections with.
17. Jay Wright, Villanova (34-84-46-14-8): Jay Wright is so close to being elite, but there's something missing. He recruits at a high level. He's had good offensive and good defensive teams, often in the same year. He's broken through to the Final Four once already. He still young at 53. I don't know that it's fair to say that he hasn't done enough with his talent, but here's some food for thought. By my count, using the RSCI composite rankings, Wright has coached 5 top 25 recruits and 12 top 50 recruits, but only 5 guys who played in the NBA. I should probably look into the numbers a little more, but that doesn't feel like a lot. Seems fitting for a coach is just right there, but not quite over the hump.
16. John Beilein, Michigan (26-23-4-10-76): Michigan's 2013 NCAA runner-up had more NBA players (six, assuming Caris Levert makes it) than the Fab Five teams. Beilein has a rep as someone who does more with less, but at Michigan he's started to do more with more. Or, at least this year, less with more. But the point is that Beilein actually does a pretty good of bringing high quality players to campus. He's also shed the March choker label, which is such a weird thing for a guy who famously took a less talented team on paper at West Virginia to the cusp of the Final Four.
15. Gregg Marshall, Wichita State (25-13-17-5-14): Alright, it's time to move on, Gregg. Marshall is now on his fourth or fifth excellent team in a row at Wichita State. 2013 was the Final Four team and who knows where last year's 35-1 team would have ended up if not for running into Kentucky's House of Flying Daggers tournament run last year. Last year's team, as excellent as it was, only beat two NCAA tournament teams all season before March Madness tipped off. In a lot of ways putting together this run at Wichita is more impressive than doing it at a higher level, but I want to see Marshall mix it up on the court and the recruiting trail with the real heavyweights. No disrespect to Northern Iowa, but that's not a worthy. Where does Marshall want to go? Does he want to be the next Mark Few? Maybe we find out after Rob Baker and Fred Van Vleet graduate next year.
14. Roy Williams, North Carolina (14-6-32-27-12): Never been a fan of Roy Williams. He's won at phenomenal levels but he's done it at Kansas and North Carolina, two of the most storied programs in country. He's shed any questions about his tournament bona fides by winning two titles in Chapel Hill. But I look at his roster and see no shooters for the second straight year. This is at UNC, where he should (and can) get any recruit in the country to listen. First six years at Carolina, average offensive rating: 5th. Second six years at Carolina, average offensive rating: 42. He's always relied on an up and down offensive style with traditional bigs, eschewing the three point shot, and you wonder if maybe we're too the point that it isn't a recipe for a great offensive team. Plus there are those nasty rumors of massive academic fraud.
13. Fred Hoiberg, Iowa State (84-24-27-21-23): The Mayor. Transfer U. Relying on a new crop of transfers every year has to be like walking a tightrope. After Hoiberg took Deandre Kane from a disgruntled guy that basically got run off the team at Marshall to an All-American at Iowa State in the span of an offseason nothing seemed impossible. I personally love that Hoiberg plays uptempo and always seems to find itself in some of the most entertaining games of the week. Since he's locked in for eight years in our hypothetical #hottakes rankings, that puts to rest the constant talk that Hoiberg will find his way back to the NBA as a head coach there. He's a rising star, super young and working on a fourth straight NCAA tournament, but I want to see one good defensive team and a couple great high school recruits before he rises further.
12. Scott Drew, Baylor (87-15-29-25-13): Drew took over Baylor when they were not only terrible on the court but also dealing with the immediate aftermath of the Dave Bliss fiasco. The NCAA doesn't give the death penalty anymore so knocking out Baylor's entire non conference season is as close as a team will get. Drew once got a lot of support from his "peers" as one of the sport's biggest cheaters, and two years later the program found itself in hot water for text messages, phone calls - the standard violations. He's also had a weird trend of only making the tournament in even years, but that will end this season. A pair of Elite Eights and three trips to the second weekend in the times he's made it are good accomplishments for a 44 year old.
11. Mark Few, Gonzaga (35-20-5-22-4): Ah, Mark. You coach at a small Catholic school in Spokane, Washington and people call you overrated when you only win one tournament game every. single. year. He's coached nine pros and has at least a couple more on the roster now. And seriously, he's 12-3 in the first round of the NCAA tournament and has yet to miss one. Few gets dinged points for being at Gonzaga since 1989. Maybe it's just the perfect storm for him that wouldn't translate if he had to build a program somewhere else.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
2015 Coaching #HotTakes - Part 5
38. Tad Boyle, Colorado (51-77-43-77-77): Before Boyle came to Boulder, the Buffs had just two NCAA tournament appearances in forty years. Four years later they've gone to three straight tournaments. You have to wonder whether Boyle was lucky to pluck Andre Roberson and Spencer Dinwiddie out of high school or if it was the other way around. Does Boyle have the ability to consistently mold less heralded high school recruits into winning teams? It's a tough job. You can't put Boyle much lower just because of the number of wins, but this type of coach needs to prove more before I can fully buy in.
37. Tim Miles, Nebraska (78-95-130-44-104): Miles has spent a long career going from place to place - five stops in 20 years as a head coach ranging from the NAIA up to Nebraska. He's got a lively social media presence on twitter, and in just two plus years in Lincoln he's done a lot to bring #nebrasketball into the lexicon of college hoops junkies. He's never won an NCAA tournament game, but his teams have shown continued improvement everywhere he's coached.
36. Jim Boeheim, Syracuse (15-5-10-16-70): There's no one in college basketball, not even his holiness down in Durham, who grates as much as Boeheim. It's amazing that if you google "Jim Boeheim whine", you get over twenty year's worth of links right on the first page or two. He's 70, so you might think that would have worn off by now, but nah uh. If you hire Boeheim, you're getting a "legend", but not a Coach K/Dean Smith type of legend. Boeheim is a winner, but he's still just a basketball coach.
35. Jim Larranaga, Miami (24-50-14-69-63): Everyone remembers the magical run nine years ago when Larranaga led George Mason to the final four, beating heavyweights and marking the first time in over 25 years that a "mid-major" team made it to the season's last weekend. What's more impressive to me is how consistently his teams at Mason won. In fourteen seasons as the program's head coach, only his first saw them finish under .500 in the conference. Then in 2013, in his second year at Miami, the Hurricanes swept the ACC regular season and tournament championships. And that's at a program where "also-ran" would be generous. After losing everyone from that team, he's already rebuilt Miami into a tournament contender again. The one negative is that he's 65. That's really too old for consideration near the top except for the giants of the game.
34. Andy Enfield, USC (170-93-163-155): Enfield's claim to fame is two wins in March, a pretty wife and a lot of dunks. That's sizzle. His next move is to show some substance. It's a win now world so Enfield becomes something of a forgotten man. We look at USC still loitering at the bottom of the Pac-12 and think "he hasn't done anything there yet", only to be reminded that this is year two and sometimes rebuilding doesn't happen overnight, regardless of how good you are. There's little question that Enfield was a good hire for USC precisely because that's a program that needs the sizzle, but at the highest levels, you'd have to wait and see, right?
33. Chris Mack, Xavier (39-48-77-59-22): I get the sense that Mack's star has probably fallen a little bit. Four years ago his team had won back to back A-10 regular season titles, three NCAA tournament games in two years and fifty games overall. The past two years the Musketeers had a tournament miss and then a trip to Dayton for the First Four (where they lost). Xavier is in the Big East now and has a sizeable fanbase. It's a program that expects to win. Mack has generally done a fine job of that, but not to the level where he's probably seen as a rising star in the coaching ranks anymore.
32. Bob Huggins, West Virginia (18-49-125-68-15): Ah, Huggy Bear. After a couple of mediocre seasons, Huggins has reinvented West Virginia with a pressure defensive style that's completely unlike what he's done in the past. It's worked, and West Virginia is back in the top 25. Maybe this is the start of a new era for Huggins, or maybe it's a one year aberration. More important is the reputation that he carries. You can argue about how much that's deserved, but it doesn't change its existence.
31. Johnny Jones, LSU (180-165-100-58-38): If you had a coach who could land the #1 high school recruit in the country, that would be a plus, right? Especially one who isn't local and especially when you're still rebuilding your program. Jones did just that by landing Ben Simmons of Australia (by way of Monteverde Academy) in next year's class. After 11 years at North Texas (and one prior at Memphis), Jones is not a rookie. He comes with a reputation as a recruiter, dating back to his time as an assistant on Dale Brown's staff at Memphis when the team had Shaq and Chris Jackson. It's not like LSU hasn't recruited well even in recent years, but Jones has a great chance to build his program in a wide-open-after-Kentucky SEC.
30. Jamie Dixon, Pitt (): Dixon's teams are usually efficiency and regular season darlings without much success in the NCAA tournament. Pitt won over two-thirds of their Big East games under Dixon, but have played into the tournament's second weekend just three times in a dozen seasons, and not once this decade. 2011 seemed like the last best hope for Pitt to break through under Dixon, and now four years removed from that, Pitt hasn't contended since. My impression is that we're a few years away from Dixon hopping somewhere else. There's only so long you can be good but not great.
29. Kevin Ollie, UConn (47-8-58): Ollie won a National Championship. No coach with one of those will rank nearly as low on this list because none are as much a coaching novice as Ollie. He had two years on the bench with UConn before Jim Calhoun's retirement and now two and a half years running the program. Banners hang forever unless then NCAA makes you take them down, so Ollie deserves a ton of credit for what the Huskies did last spring, but without that run (and without Calhoun recruit Shabazz Napier), Ollie is nowhere near the top. Six games are still six games.
28. Larry Krystkowiak, Utah (297-108-42-7): Look at the kenpom trend! Oh my. The New Coach K has been around the world, playing in the NBA and overseas, serving as a DI and NBA assistant, and then as head coach for Montana and the Bucks before coming to Salt Lake City. He also joins The Old Coach K in the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame. Uncanny! Anyway, this is about as high on the list as you can go with only one NCAA tournament win (in 2006 at Montana). His recruiting looks suspect, too, but I'm ready to push All In if Utah has another good year next year without Delon Wright.
27. Josh Pastner, Memphis (90-9-33-37-90): Pastner famously had an 0-13 record against top 25 teams at one point in his career early last year, which of course meant that Pastner couldn't coach. Only then he won five of those games last season and Memphis themselves stayed in the top 25 wire-to-wire which must have meant that those coaches were all even worse (hint: no). But while the criticism is probably too strident, he's had plenty of talent in his six years without yet having much to show for it. Some of those guys have been headaches (Kuran Iverson, Jelan Kendrick) and some wasn't quite as good as the advanced hype (Will Barton, Joe Jackson). Pastner's lack of experience keeps him low. Five years from now he could be #1 on the list.
26. Mike Brey, Notre Dame (11-37-37-99-14): Never trust a basketball coach in a turtle neck. It's my longstanding impression that if you can't by yourself a decent suit and make yourself look presentable, you're not a great coach. Call this the Brey test. Not to be confused by the Enfield test, where the attractiveness of your wife serves as a proxy for your recruiting ability. Any head basketball coach that can't outkick his coverage belongs in the mid-majors. Uh, anyway, Brey made a Sweet 16 once, way back in 2003. He's a terrific offensive coach. 2015 is his 7th team in 14 years to be in top 11 of adjusted efficiency. His defenses are terrible, never having rim protectors or rebounders and never applying much pressure to the opposition. That's a ceiling.
37. Tim Miles, Nebraska (78-95-130-44-104): Miles has spent a long career going from place to place - five stops in 20 years as a head coach ranging from the NAIA up to Nebraska. He's got a lively social media presence on twitter, and in just two plus years in Lincoln he's done a lot to bring #nebrasketball into the lexicon of college hoops junkies. He's never won an NCAA tournament game, but his teams have shown continued improvement everywhere he's coached.
36. Jim Boeheim, Syracuse (15-5-10-16-70): There's no one in college basketball, not even his holiness down in Durham, who grates as much as Boeheim. It's amazing that if you google "Jim Boeheim whine", you get over twenty year's worth of links right on the first page or two. He's 70, so you might think that would have worn off by now, but nah uh. If you hire Boeheim, you're getting a "legend", but not a Coach K/Dean Smith type of legend. Boeheim is a winner, but he's still just a basketball coach.
35. Jim Larranaga, Miami (24-50-14-69-63): Everyone remembers the magical run nine years ago when Larranaga led George Mason to the final four, beating heavyweights and marking the first time in over 25 years that a "mid-major" team made it to the season's last weekend. What's more impressive to me is how consistently his teams at Mason won. In fourteen seasons as the program's head coach, only his first saw them finish under .500 in the conference. Then in 2013, in his second year at Miami, the Hurricanes swept the ACC regular season and tournament championships. And that's at a program where "also-ran" would be generous. After losing everyone from that team, he's already rebuilt Miami into a tournament contender again. The one negative is that he's 65. That's really too old for consideration near the top except for the giants of the game.
34. Andy Enfield, USC (170-93-163-155): Enfield's claim to fame is two wins in March, a pretty wife and a lot of dunks. That's sizzle. His next move is to show some substance. It's a win now world so Enfield becomes something of a forgotten man. We look at USC still loitering at the bottom of the Pac-12 and think "he hasn't done anything there yet", only to be reminded that this is year two and sometimes rebuilding doesn't happen overnight, regardless of how good you are. There's little question that Enfield was a good hire for USC precisely because that's a program that needs the sizzle, but at the highest levels, you'd have to wait and see, right?
33. Chris Mack, Xavier (39-48-77-59-22): I get the sense that Mack's star has probably fallen a little bit. Four years ago his team had won back to back A-10 regular season titles, three NCAA tournament games in two years and fifty games overall. The past two years the Musketeers had a tournament miss and then a trip to Dayton for the First Four (where they lost). Xavier is in the Big East now and has a sizeable fanbase. It's a program that expects to win. Mack has generally done a fine job of that, but not to the level where he's probably seen as a rising star in the coaching ranks anymore.
32. Bob Huggins, West Virginia (18-49-125-68-15): Ah, Huggy Bear. After a couple of mediocre seasons, Huggins has reinvented West Virginia with a pressure defensive style that's completely unlike what he's done in the past. It's worked, and West Virginia is back in the top 25. Maybe this is the start of a new era for Huggins, or maybe it's a one year aberration. More important is the reputation that he carries. You can argue about how much that's deserved, but it doesn't change its existence.
31. Johnny Jones, LSU (180-165-100-58-38): If you had a coach who could land the #1 high school recruit in the country, that would be a plus, right? Especially one who isn't local and especially when you're still rebuilding your program. Jones did just that by landing Ben Simmons of Australia (by way of Monteverde Academy) in next year's class. After 11 years at North Texas (and one prior at Memphis), Jones is not a rookie. He comes with a reputation as a recruiter, dating back to his time as an assistant on Dale Brown's staff at Memphis when the team had Shaq and Chris Jackson. It's not like LSU hasn't recruited well even in recent years, but Jones has a great chance to build his program in a wide-open-after-Kentucky SEC.
30. Jamie Dixon, Pitt (): Dixon's teams are usually efficiency and regular season darlings without much success in the NCAA tournament. Pitt won over two-thirds of their Big East games under Dixon, but have played into the tournament's second weekend just three times in a dozen seasons, and not once this decade. 2011 seemed like the last best hope for Pitt to break through under Dixon, and now four years removed from that, Pitt hasn't contended since. My impression is that we're a few years away from Dixon hopping somewhere else. There's only so long you can be good but not great.
29. Kevin Ollie, UConn (47-8-58): Ollie won a National Championship. No coach with one of those will rank nearly as low on this list because none are as much a coaching novice as Ollie. He had two years on the bench with UConn before Jim Calhoun's retirement and now two and a half years running the program. Banners hang forever unless then NCAA makes you take them down, so Ollie deserves a ton of credit for what the Huskies did last spring, but without that run (and without Calhoun recruit Shabazz Napier), Ollie is nowhere near the top. Six games are still six games.
28. Larry Krystkowiak, Utah (297-108-42-7): Look at the kenpom trend! Oh my. The New Coach K has been around the world, playing in the NBA and overseas, serving as a DI and NBA assistant, and then as head coach for Montana and the Bucks before coming to Salt Lake City. He also joins The Old Coach K in the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame. Uncanny! Anyway, this is about as high on the list as you can go with only one NCAA tournament win (in 2006 at Montana). His recruiting looks suspect, too, but I'm ready to push All In if Utah has another good year next year without Delon Wright.
27. Josh Pastner, Memphis (90-9-33-37-90): Pastner famously had an 0-13 record against top 25 teams at one point in his career early last year, which of course meant that Pastner couldn't coach. Only then he won five of those games last season and Memphis themselves stayed in the top 25 wire-to-wire which must have meant that those coaches were all even worse (hint: no). But while the criticism is probably too strident, he's had plenty of talent in his six years without yet having much to show for it. Some of those guys have been headaches (Kuran Iverson, Jelan Kendrick) and some wasn't quite as good as the advanced hype (Will Barton, Joe Jackson). Pastner's lack of experience keeps him low. Five years from now he could be #1 on the list.
26. Mike Brey, Notre Dame (11-37-37-99-14): Never trust a basketball coach in a turtle neck. It's my longstanding impression that if you can't by yourself a decent suit and make yourself look presentable, you're not a great coach. Call this the Brey test. Not to be confused by the Enfield test, where the attractiveness of your wife serves as a proxy for your recruiting ability. Any head basketball coach that can't outkick his coverage belongs in the mid-majors. Uh, anyway, Brey made a Sweet 16 once, way back in 2003. He's a terrific offensive coach. 2015 is his 7th team in 14 years to be in top 11 of adjusted efficiency. His defenses are terrible, never having rim protectors or rebounders and never applying much pressure to the opposition. That's a ceiling.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Coaching Hot Takes, Part IV
51. Kevin Willard, Seton Hall (52-59-122-98-49): Hard to believe that Willard is in his fifth year at Seton Hall but only just shy of forty years old. The results haven't been there, but SHU has historically been a tough place to win. The Pirates have shown improvement on the court this year, and more importantly, Willard nailed a strong 2014 class led by highly sought after NY recruits Isaiah Whitehead and Angel Delgado. If you can recruit NY at Seton Hall, you're on to something. If not, you will continue to be Seton Hall.
50. Cuonzo Martin, California (72-58-74-7-170): Martin went a respectable 32-20 in SEC games in three seasons at Tennessee and made a run to the Sweet Sixteen there last year. Then he jumped to California last offseason, at least in part because the Tennessee fanbase was behind him with pitchforks and torches ready to run him out of town for the high crime of not being Bruce Pearl. His players at UT continued to show support after he left which probably says more about him than winning 10 games in a lousy SEC.
49. Steve Alford, UCLA (44-19-19-15-81) - Steve Alford is 50 years old. I'm not sure whether I'm shocked he's that old now or that he's not older given that he's been coaching at national programs for 15+ years. Alford had a famously mediocre run at Iowa, wound up at New Mexico, won a bunch, lost to #14 seed Harvard, and wound up at UCLA in what was considered a surprising hire at the time. His success at UCLA last year was in no small part due to inheriting a strong roster with five guys now in the NBA. He did win four regular season and two tournament titles in six years in Albuquerque, but opinions of the Mountain West will vary. There's something inadequate about Alford.
48. Wayne Tinkle, Oregon State (115-105-136-223-60): Tinkle inherited a dead program with a roster that needed a complete overhaul and somehow has OSU in line for its first winning conference record since 1990. His only prior experience in the college game was at Montana, first as a player in the 80s then as an assistant and head coach for the past 14 years. Unless Oregon State completely falls apart next month, Tinkle is going to get major consideration for national COY awards which has to make him an intriguing candidate for future openings, but you wonder how much you learn about major conference coaching spending your whole life in Missoula, MT.
47. Steve Wojciechowski, Marquette (91): The second unknown Coach K protege on the list, Wojo ranks higher than Chris Collins due to the recruiting class he assembled in his first year including a McDonald's All-Americans and four top-100 players. It's a hell of a way to start. Given his pedigree and the even footing Marquette finds itself on in the Big East, Wojo could be one of the hottest coaches in the game in two years.
46. Steve Fisher, San Diego State (7-65-35-18-28): At this point it's cliche for an announcer to say something along the lines of "...And what about the job Steve Fisher has done with this San Diego State program", but that doesn't make it any less true. Fisher has consistently put together smothering defensive teams and SDSU is well on its way to a sixth straight tournament bid and sixth 25 win season in 7 years. And he does have a national championship ring. Unfortunately as good as he is, he turns 70 in a couple months. That's old.
45. Richard Pitino, Minnesota (188-48-53): He's Rick Pitino's kid. He runs an uptempo, pressing style like Rick Pitino. These are good indicators. That's about all you've got, other than an NIT championship in year one at Minnesota. He admittedly probably belongs lower on this list, but there's a reason people buy Powerball tickets rather than the Pick 4.
44. Danny Manning, Wake Forest (178-73-112): Not many college coaches have an extensive pro career, especially ones who played 15 years in the NBA. Maybe that means you just missed out on years of climbing the ranks learning at places like Wright State and UC-Irvine, but being a player is not without its learning opportunities, and Manning's NBA experience gives him some name recognition. He served 8 seasons on Bill Self's bench at Kansas and quickly turned around Tulsa so he's hardly some coaching neophyte either.
43. Johnny Dawkins, Stanford (98-36-44-36-30): Do Stanford fans like Dawkins or did they groan when the Cardinal eked into the tournament last year with a dozen losses and a double digit seed? He's been there seven years, and while Stanford might be the third best team in the Pac-12 this year, that's a hollow prize. It's clear that Dawkins isn't a bad coach, but it's fast becoming clear that you're not getting a national contender with him, and maybe not even a conference contender.
42. Steve Lavin, St John's (37-153-107-61-39): Lavin won a lot of games at UCLA, getting canned after one season. Seriously, the guy was almost a lock to get to the second weekend of the tournament. Now he's turned around St John's, and while there haven't been a ton of tournament appearances, it's a program that's been pretty dead for at least 20 years. And yet, if a major program hired Lavin, the response would be tepid at best.
41. Mick Cronin, Cincinnati (21-26-42-23-33): Watching Cincinnati is like watching paint dry, and hiring Mick Cronin to be your coach is like going to the deli and ordering a ham on white bread. Won't kill you, but completely uninspiring. Cronin has steadily guided Cincinnati back to perennial NCAA bids and despite his boring style he's been a truly outstanding defensive coach.
40. Archie Miller, Dayton (71-65-38-38): Miller had a chance to be one of the annual Stan Heath Memorial March Madness hires, guys who move onto a bigger job after one good run in the tournament. That's not to say that those guys never work out, but I'd venture that ADs looking to make a splash get a little over-exuberant in some cases. Miller returned to Dayton for a fourth season this year and so far, so good. There's little doubt that Miller will be a hot property until he decides to jump ship.
39. Larry Brown, SMU (186-30-26): Larry Brown is older than dirt and has been almost everywhere in the world. He's coached ten NBA/ABA teams, two college bluebloods (UCLA and Kansas), played at another in college (UNC), coached an Olympic Team, and now finally wound up in Dallas at SMU where the Mustangs landed (kind of...) the top guard prospect in high school basketball last year despite 25 years since their last NCAA tournament. I don't know what it would be like to have Larry Brown coach your team at age 82, but I'd be willing to bet it would entertain.
38. Lon Kruger, Oklahoma (32-115-49-33-13): Kruger has a habit of winning games, going from Kansas State to Florida to Illinois to UNLV (by way of the Atlanta Hawks) and finally to Oklahoma, winning at every stop, 550 times and counting. He's also got something of a lackluster tournament history, to say the least, coaching 24 seasons at those schools and making the second weekend of the tournament just three times. And he's one just won conference regular season title and one division title.
50. Cuonzo Martin, California (72-58-74-7-170): Martin went a respectable 32-20 in SEC games in three seasons at Tennessee and made a run to the Sweet Sixteen there last year. Then he jumped to California last offseason, at least in part because the Tennessee fanbase was behind him with pitchforks and torches ready to run him out of town for the high crime of not being Bruce Pearl. His players at UT continued to show support after he left which probably says more about him than winning 10 games in a lousy SEC.
49. Steve Alford, UCLA (44-19-19-15-81) - Steve Alford is 50 years old. I'm not sure whether I'm shocked he's that old now or that he's not older given that he's been coaching at national programs for 15+ years. Alford had a famously mediocre run at Iowa, wound up at New Mexico, won a bunch, lost to #14 seed Harvard, and wound up at UCLA in what was considered a surprising hire at the time. His success at UCLA last year was in no small part due to inheriting a strong roster with five guys now in the NBA. He did win four regular season and two tournament titles in six years in Albuquerque, but opinions of the Mountain West will vary. There's something inadequate about Alford.
48. Wayne Tinkle, Oregon State (115-105-136-223-60): Tinkle inherited a dead program with a roster that needed a complete overhaul and somehow has OSU in line for its first winning conference record since 1990. His only prior experience in the college game was at Montana, first as a player in the 80s then as an assistant and head coach for the past 14 years. Unless Oregon State completely falls apart next month, Tinkle is going to get major consideration for national COY awards which has to make him an intriguing candidate for future openings, but you wonder how much you learn about major conference coaching spending your whole life in Missoula, MT.
47. Steve Wojciechowski, Marquette (91): The second unknown Coach K protege on the list, Wojo ranks higher than Chris Collins due to the recruiting class he assembled in his first year including a McDonald's All-Americans and four top-100 players. It's a hell of a way to start. Given his pedigree and the even footing Marquette finds itself on in the Big East, Wojo could be one of the hottest coaches in the game in two years.
46. Steve Fisher, San Diego State (7-65-35-18-28): At this point it's cliche for an announcer to say something along the lines of "...And what about the job Steve Fisher has done with this San Diego State program", but that doesn't make it any less true. Fisher has consistently put together smothering defensive teams and SDSU is well on its way to a sixth straight tournament bid and sixth 25 win season in 7 years. And he does have a national championship ring. Unfortunately as good as he is, he turns 70 in a couple months. That's old.
45. Richard Pitino, Minnesota (188-48-53): He's Rick Pitino's kid. He runs an uptempo, pressing style like Rick Pitino. These are good indicators. That's about all you've got, other than an NIT championship in year one at Minnesota. He admittedly probably belongs lower on this list, but there's a reason people buy Powerball tickets rather than the Pick 4.
44. Danny Manning, Wake Forest (178-73-112): Not many college coaches have an extensive pro career, especially ones who played 15 years in the NBA. Maybe that means you just missed out on years of climbing the ranks learning at places like Wright State and UC-Irvine, but being a player is not without its learning opportunities, and Manning's NBA experience gives him some name recognition. He served 8 seasons on Bill Self's bench at Kansas and quickly turned around Tulsa so he's hardly some coaching neophyte either.
43. Johnny Dawkins, Stanford (98-36-44-36-30): Do Stanford fans like Dawkins or did they groan when the Cardinal eked into the tournament last year with a dozen losses and a double digit seed? He's been there seven years, and while Stanford might be the third best team in the Pac-12 this year, that's a hollow prize. It's clear that Dawkins isn't a bad coach, but it's fast becoming clear that you're not getting a national contender with him, and maybe not even a conference contender.
42. Steve Lavin, St John's (37-153-107-61-39): Lavin won a lot of games at UCLA, getting canned after one season. Seriously, the guy was almost a lock to get to the second weekend of the tournament. Now he's turned around St John's, and while there haven't been a ton of tournament appearances, it's a program that's been pretty dead for at least 20 years. And yet, if a major program hired Lavin, the response would be tepid at best.
41. Mick Cronin, Cincinnati (21-26-42-23-33): Watching Cincinnati is like watching paint dry, and hiring Mick Cronin to be your coach is like going to the deli and ordering a ham on white bread. Won't kill you, but completely uninspiring. Cronin has steadily guided Cincinnati back to perennial NCAA bids and despite his boring style he's been a truly outstanding defensive coach.
40. Archie Miller, Dayton (71-65-38-38): Miller had a chance to be one of the annual Stan Heath Memorial March Madness hires, guys who move onto a bigger job after one good run in the tournament. That's not to say that those guys never work out, but I'd venture that ADs looking to make a splash get a little over-exuberant in some cases. Miller returned to Dayton for a fourth season this year and so far, so good. There's little doubt that Miller will be a hot property until he decides to jump ship.
39. Larry Brown, SMU (186-30-26): Larry Brown is older than dirt and has been almost everywhere in the world. He's coached ten NBA/ABA teams, two college bluebloods (UCLA and Kansas), played at another in college (UNC), coached an Olympic Team, and now finally wound up in Dallas at SMU where the Mustangs landed (kind of...) the top guard prospect in high school basketball last year despite 25 years since their last NCAA tournament. I don't know what it would be like to have Larry Brown coach your team at age 82, but I'd be willing to bet it would entertain.
38. Lon Kruger, Oklahoma (32-115-49-33-13): Kruger has a habit of winning games, going from Kansas State to Florida to Illinois to UNLV (by way of the Atlanta Hawks) and finally to Oklahoma, winning at every stop, 550 times and counting. He's also got something of a lackluster tournament history, to say the least, coaching 24 seasons at those schools and making the second weekend of the tournament just three times. And he's one just won conference regular season title and one division title.
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