Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Ending The Road Woes: Kansas St Beats Missouri

Kansas State 78, #3 Missouri 68
Kansas State has been known for some time as a squad that is far better at home than on the road. Last season they finished 7-1 at home in Big 12 play and only 3-5 on the road. And at one point this season they were 2-4 in road games, with the only two wins coming against conference bottom-feeders Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. But now? They've won consecutive road games at Baylor and Missouri. A tremendous week that not only puts to bed the worries about Kansas State away from home, but that also pulls them off the NCAA Tournament bubble and safely into the Field of 68.

More than anything, the Missouri defense just broke down here. Kansas State's perimeter players were able to attack the rim at will. They took 43 of their 52 shots inside the arc, hitting 51% of them. Missouri's defense isn't great (it's their spectacularly efficient offense that has carried them this season), but this might be the worst defense I've seen them play all year.

This loss means that Missouri's only real chance of a Big 12 regular season title is to leave Phog Allen with a win on Saturday. It's a tall task, but a 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament is still possible without that win. If they lose to Kansas but win every other game, including the Big 12 tournament title, I think that will still be enough for a 1 seed.

Kansas State is now 8-7 in Big 12 play with wins over Missouri (twice), Baylor, Texas and Alabama, with only a couple of bad losses to Oklahoma. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS will move up close to 25th after this win. They will play Iowa State on Saturday, and then at Texas A&M next Tuesday. Wins in both of those games should be enough to lock Kansas State into the NCAA Tournament.

Seton Hall 73, #8 Georgetown 55
It's been a big night for bubble teams, and perhaps none had a bigger night than Seton Hall. This has been a bad offensive team, entering this game 13th in the Big East in eFG% and 15th with 0.94 PPP. But this was just one of those days where they couldn't miss a shot. Seton Hall finished with a 70.7 eFG% and 1.35 PPP. It's even more amazing when you consider that Georgetown came into this game leading the Big East in eFG% and PPP against in conference play. It's a statistical fluke, but that won't matter on Selection Sunday.

Seton Hall was reeling a couple of weeks ago with six straight losses, but I never dropped them out of my bracket because not a single one of those losses was a "bad" loss. They took advantage when their schedule eased up, and now they have have a big road victory over Georgetown. They are 8-8 in Big East play with a 4-7 record against the RPI Top 50 and a Sagarin ELO_CHESS that will move into the Top 40. If the season ended now they'd be an at-large team for sure. Their final two conference games are at home against Rutgers and on the road at DePaul. Wins in both games should earn them an NCAA Tournament bid.

This loss puts Georgetown at risk of not getting the double-bye in the Big East tournament (the top four teams will earn double byes). For the time being they are in 5th place, one loss behind South Florida. I expect USF to struggle down the stretch with their schedule, but now Georgetown has Louisville and Cincinnati breathing down their throat as well. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS will also drop outside the Top 15, so there is a risk of them falling into the 5-7 seed range if they stumble down the stretch.

Maryland 75, Miami (Fl) 70
Miami entered this game in a precarious spot. They were, in my opinion, one of the last few teams in the NCAA Tournament. It's a bad spot to be because there will always be several teams that reach up and grab Tournament spots in the final week of the season. There will be auto bids stolen, and there will be teams that win a few games in a row to earn at-large bids. And on a day where several bubble teams had huge wins, Miami doubled the pain for themselves with this bad loss. The difference in this game, honestly, was free throw shooting. Maryland hit 86% as a team, including 9 straight in the final 45 seconds of the game.

This loss drops Miami to 7-6 in ACC play. They have that big win over Duke, but it's their only against the RPI Top 75. They are only 3-10 against the RPI Top 100, and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS will fall into the 55-60 range. One win alone won't put a team in the NCAA Tournament, even a win Duke. If the season ended now they'd be NIT-bound. They will need to win at least two of their final three games to still be on the bubble heading into the ACC tournament. Their next game will be Sunday against Florida State.

Maryland is, surprisingly, in 7th place in the ACC at 6-7. It's been a solid first season under Mark Turgeon, and they should be fine once he gets a couple of full recruiting classes under his belt. Their next game will be Saturday at Georgia Tech.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

If Texas loses in Lubbock on Saturday, who beat them? Texas Tech or Luck?

Jeff said...

All results are a combination of both. Depends what the score is. The larger the margin of victory, the less the impact of luck.

Do you believe there is no luck in basketball?

Anonymous said...

I believe there is luck in basketball. However, I don't believe that the 7 losses that Texas has had in close games this year are more attributable to luck than to Rick Barnes' coaching. I think Mizzou's loss yesterday had somewhat to do with luck (ran into an unusually hot team combined with unusually poor home shooting). But, I believe the loss was more attributable to Frank Martin's ability to coach his players and to set up offenses and defenses that highlight Mizzou's weaknesses (Obviously, Martin has a great team to take advantage of Mizzou's weaknesses).

Jeff said...

You are free to believe whatever you want. You're also free to believe that the MVP in baseball should be whoever gets the most RBIs. But you're not going to find any agreement from anybody that has looked at advanced stats.

If any basketball team played 10,000 games, the odds of them winning 25% or fewer of their games decided by six points or less are effectively non-existent. It's virtually statistically impossible.

Jeff said...

By the way, to give a baseball example again, not only has it long been known by statisticians that results of one-run games are mostly ruled by random luck, but for more than a decade now it's been believed that pitchers have almost no control on balls in play. It's why luck/fielding independent pitching has become the standard in advanced stats. And even though you won't find anybody on ESPN who believes it, it's well accepted in the statistical community.

The same goes for basketball. Not only are the results of very close games random, but many other things are random luck. Ken Pomeroy has been writing a lot lately about the randomness of defensive 3P%. His argument, and his stats are fairly overwhelming, is that the 3P% that a team gives up is almost completely out of their control. What teams can control with defense, he argues, is 2P% defense, 3PA/FGA, forced turnovers, and defensive rebounds. It's wildly counter-intuitive, and even I didn't believe it when Pomeroy first argued it, but the statistical evidence is overwhelming.

Anonymous said...

In all seriousness, you don't think Rick Barnes' coaching has anything at all to do with Texas' close game woes?

Anonymous said...

I read fangraphs regularly. Stop using baseball examples. I already know everything you are saying about baseball. AND I AGREE WITH YOU.

The only thing I don't agree with is your importance of luck in Texas' close basketball games.

Jeff said...

I do think Rick Barnes is a bad in-game coach, which is why I'd believe any winning percentage in close games as low as 45%. Anything beyond that is luck. Since their winning percentage in close games is 11%, that means that only around 90% of their failure in close games is luck, with the other 10% being bad coaching. But I'm pretty down on Rick Barnes, and I'm sure others would argue that luck plays a bigger factor.

Anonymous said...

Are you able to find Barnes' record in close games spanning his entire Texas career? That's the stat I'm interested in but woefully unprepared to find myself.

Anonymous said...

Nevermind. Found it. He's .495 in close games.

Jeff said...

Did you calculate that number by going through all the seasons yourself? How did you define "close games"?

Anonymous said...

http://statsheet.com/mcb/coaches/rick-barnes/career_record?chart_record=4#record-chart

Close games are defined as games decided by 6 points or less. This includes his entire career, not just Texas.

He's underperformed his average for 4 straight years.

Anonymous said...

My final thought before I go. I just don't see Texas playing competitive ball come March. Maybe their "bad luck" will evaporate come tourney time and they will win all their close games. On the other hand, I think it's much more likely that they finish behind at least kU, MU, and at least 1 of KSU, IS, or Baylor in the Big 12 toruney. Thus, I envision them ending up with the 4th (possibly 5th) best seed that the Big 12 gets. I don't imagine that seed will give them an easy path to the Final Four. Combine that with my belief that Rick Barnes isn't the best coach and I don't see Texas performing too well.

DMoore said...

"His argument, and his stats are fairly overwhelming, is that the 3P% that a team gives up is almost completely out of their control."

Wow. Not only does Duke get all the calls, but they are the LUCKIEST team in the NCAA!

3P% Natl Rank Year
--- --------- ----
31.3 53 2011-2012
32.4 60 2010-2011
28.2 2 2009-2010
33.8 151 2008-2009
32.9 60 2007-2008
31.5 27 2006-2007
30.4 18 2005-2006
30.6 14 2004-2005
32.4 75 2003-2004
33.8 130 2002-2003
30.3 16 2001-2002
34.4 163 2000-2001

"the statistical evidence is overwhelming"

I think that's why they call them Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.

Jeff said...

Actually, DMoore, Pomeroy used Duke in a blog post today as the very example of one team that seems to always have a 3P% defense better than average as argument that 3P% defense isn't totally luck.

But the stats for all of the Division I teams on top of each other give pretty strong evidence that whatever impact defense can have on 3P% is pretty small.