Saturday, January 07, 2012

Georgetown And Missouri Go Down: Neither Is An Upset

West Virginia 74, #9 Georgetown 62
One of my pet peeves is mainstream media types not understanding the fact that a team beating an opponent rated higher in the human polls is not always an upset. There are two reasons for this. First of all, the human polls are terrible. Second, home teams get four points on point spreads (football teams get three points), so a team that is slightly better than an opponent will still often be an underdog on the road. This often manifests itself with sports analysts thumping their chests because they picked an "upset special" correctly, even though the team they picked was favored in Vegas. It can also drive a narrative. And the narrative this afternoon was "What a wild a crazy Saturday in conference play!" The two most cited "upsets": West Virginia over Georgetown and Kansas State over Missouri. The only problem is, neither was an upset. West Virginia was actually favored by three in Vegas. Missouri was a one-point underdog (more on that game in a few paragraphs). Why was West Virginia the favorite? First of all, Georgetown is slightly overrated - they're 4-1 in games decided by three points or less, so they've been a little lucky. Second, West Virginia is a good team that's played very well the past couple of weeks other than that one clunker at Seton Hall. And third, even though Georgetown was still seen as ever so slightly better, the four points for homecourt advantage swung the point spread in West Virginia's favor.

Honestly, homecourt advantage was probably worth more than four points here. Georgetown had team managers that were in foul trouble by the end of this game. Nate Lubick and Henry Sims both fouled out (Lubick only played 15 minutes, in fact), and Jason Clark was hobbled with four fouls. They couldn't get in front of Kevin Jones or Truck Bryant without fouling, and those two West Virginia stars took advantage by driving at the hoop whenever they got the ball. Truck Bryant earned 11 free throw attempts and finished with 25 points to lead all players. Hollis Thompson had another big game for Georgetown (20 points on 7-for-13 shooting), but it wasn't enough.

Georgetown falls to 3-1 with this loss, but they should be able to improve on that the next couple of weeks. Their upcoming schedule is remarkably soft (vs Cincinnati, at St. John's, at DePaul, vs Rutgers). Their next tough game might not be until they play at Pittsburgh on January 28th, and even that won't be that hard unless Pitt figures out what's been troubling them during this current four game losing streak. Of course, Georgetown's schedule will get a lot tougher in February, and their lone game against Syracuse this season will be at the Carrier Dome. But Georgetown is in a position, if they can pull an upset there, to make a run at the Big East title, even after this loss.

West Virginia moves to 3-1 with this win, heading into a road game at UConn on Monday. This is their best win of the season, though they also have wins over Kansas State, Villanova, Missouri State and Miami (Fl). They only have one bad loss (Kent State), and that could potentially end up an RPI Top 100 loss anyway. If they can win that rivalry game over Marshall in a couple of weeks and then go 9-9 in Big East play with another big scalp then they should be in good shape for an at-large bid. A 10-8 Big East record would almost lock them into the field.

#22 Kansas State 75, #6 Missouri 59
I talked in the Georgetown/West Virginia recap about over-hyped "upsets". Missouri was actually a one point favorite in Vegas, but this morning I said on twitter that I felt very confident Kansas State would come through, for a few reasons. First, Missouri was overdue for a loss. They were 14-0, but opponents have been gradually catching up to them. Two of their last three wins came down to the final minute. Missouri had only played one true road game heading into this game, and it was on the road at a mediocre Old Dominion team that took them down to the wire. Kansas State has a tremendous homecourt advantage, and was going to be fired up after that hideous loss to Kansas where the players basically gave up and gave a half-effort throughout the second half. I would have been very surprised if Missouri had won this game.

That said, the fact that Kansas State won this game in a romp was something of a surprise. The Wildcats led by 21 points in the first half, and got the lead up as high as 23 in the second half. This game was never competitive. Missouri was just really bothered by the pressure defense from Kansas State. They couldn't get an open shot, and they finished with only a 39.8 eFG%. To put that in perspective, Missouri hadn't had an eFG% below 50% in any other game this season. Obviously there's no reason to panic because of one game, but it shines a spotlight on Missouri's next road game, on Wednesday at Iowa State. The Tigers have yet to play well on a road game. Will they start on Wednesday?

Kansas State will have to keep this level of play up because Baylor comes to town next, on Tuesday. They're 1-1 in Big 12 play, and a 9-9 record should be sufficient for an at-large bid. The Baylor game should be fun since both teams are tremendous offensive rebounding teams, and horrid defensive rebounding teams. We might have more offensive rebounds than defensive rebounds in that game. Meanwhile, any coaches who like to focus on boxing out will spend the night cringing.

Wake Forest 58, Virginia Tech 55
The media wants to talk upsets? This game was an upset. Virginia Tech was favored by 6.5 points. But their small front line got exposed here. They were beaten on the boards (a 33.3 OR% for Wake, compared to a 23.5 OR% for Va Tech), and allowed Travis McKie to dominate (12 points on 6-for-14 shooting, along with 15 rebounds). For the Hokies, Dorian Finney-Smith somehow played 33 minutes and scored zero points with one rebound - I don't think I've ever seen such a physically talented player be so invisible on both sides of the court.

Virginia Tech came into this game having won six straight, but they now start ACC play with a horrible thud. Their non-conference resume is soft, despite the strong won-loss record (a win over Oklahoma State being the only real result of note). As weak as the ACC is, Virginia Tech will probably need to get to 9-7 in conference play to earn an at-large bid. They'll try to bounce back on Tuesday at home against Florida State.

This could end up being the best win Wake Forest has this season. They're a slowly improving program, but they don't have enough talent right now to be competitive on a daily basis in the ACC. That said, they have a winnable game on Wednesday at Maryland, so a 2-0 start isn't out of the question. Of course, a road game at Duke is looming on January 19th, and they'll probably be a 20-25 point underdog for that one, so their winning streak won't go on for too long.

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