Saturday, February 04, 2012

Missouri Wins, But Kansas Is Still The Favorite

#4 Missouri 74, #8 Kansas 71
Missouri entered this game the higher ranked team and won the game, so the consensus in the mainstream media is going to be that Missouri is now the favorite in the Big 12. I disagree. First of all, there were a slew of bad referee calls down the stretch that all went against Kansas (home court advantage), and Elijah Johnson still had a three pointer to tie just before the buzzer. And any similarities between the Top 25 human polls and team quality are merely coincidental - Kansas came into this game the highest rated team in the Big 12 in both Sagarin and Pomeroy. I came into this game thinking Kansas was the best team in the Big 12, and still feel that way. A three point home win with biased reffing in your favor down the stretch isn't definitive proof of team superiority by any means.

Missouri is now 4-0 in games this season decided by four points or less. Mainstream announcers and analysts use stats like that to argue that Missouri is a great clutch team that just "knows how to win", but the reality is that in all major team sports that have been studied with advanced stats it's been found that there simply is no correlation between past and future success in very close games. It's luck. Missouri has pulled into a tie with Kansas atop the Big 12 standings, but they'll be pretty big underdogs in the return game in Lawrence. Kansas is still the favorite in the Big 12.

This is the fifth loss for Kansas (they've been a bit unlucky in close games), and their Sagarin ELO_CHESS was down to 10th even before this loss. So the question is: even if Kansas sweeps the Big 12 regular season and tournament titles, will they be a 1 seed? The answer is: maybe. Certainly, an Ohio State, Kentucky or Syracuse team that sweeps their conference titles will be ahead of Kansas. But North Carolina or Duke? Maybe. And I don't think that any team outside the five elite conference this season has a chance at a 1 seed. Of course, Kansas has a harder path to sweeping those titles than North Carolina and Duke anyway. With Missouri, Baylor and Texas to deal with, in addition to teams like Iowa State and Kansas State, they'll likely have two very tough opponents to get past to win the Big 12 tournament title.

#20 Indiana 78, Purdue 61
As I said on twitter, you can make a good argument that this is the most important win for the Indiana program in the Tom Crean era. Yes, they beat Kentucky and Ohio State earlier this season, but both wins came at home and were upsets. They had a great crowd, played at their best, and squeaked out upsets against superior teams. What they had failed to do this season was to "take care of business" against inferior foes, particularly on the road. They came into this game 2-31 in Big Ten road games under Crean, with both of those wins coming against bottom-feeder Penn State. But to come into Mackey Arena to face a Purdue team that desperately wanted a win over their rivals and to beat them soundly by 17? That's just a huge win.

Purdue actually played well in this game. They were diving all over the place and earned 13 offensive rebounds and 8 blocks, with only 3 turnovers (in fact, Purdue had zero turnovers in the game until 5:17 left in the second half). But Indiana's tight defense gave them trouble and they ended up with only a 33.1 eFG%. Victor Oladipo was the best player for Indiana, playing great defense and throwing in 23 points and 8 rebounds as well.

This win, besides the reasons already listed, was huge for Indiana because it avoids a 5-7 Big Ten record, which would have started the dreaded "bubble" conversations. They are now 6-6 in the Big Ten and also 6-6 against the RPI Top 100 with those two huge wins and a Sagarin ELO_CHESS that is safely inside the Top 20. With those big wins and the strong computer numbers, Indiana just has to avoid a really bad conference record. A 9-9 Big Ten record will clinch an at-large bid. Their next game will be on Thursday against Illinois.

Purdue needed this win not just for state bragging rights, but also for their at-large resume. They are now only 15-8 overall and 5-5 in Big Ten play, with wins over Illinois, Temple, Minnesota and Northwestern, along with bad losses to Butler and Penn State. They are 6-6 against the RPI Top 100 with a Sagarin ELO_CHESS that is going to be close to 45th after this loss. If the season ended now they'd be an at-large team, but only narrowly. If they can't get to 10-8 in conference play then they're going to enter the Big Ten tournament with work left to do. Their toughest test remaining will be Tuesday at Ohio State. Their next game after that will be at home against Northwestern.

Northern Iowa 65, #12 Creighton 62
This game had a wild, fun ending. Northern Iowa hit a three to go up by five with under 25 seconds to go, but were matched by a Jahenns Manigat three. UNI's Anthony James then hit one-for-two at the free throw line, giving Creighton one last chance with 8.6 seconds to go. Greg McDermott called time out and set up a nice play, and Antoine Young hit a three to tie the game up. But just like the Florida State/Duke game earlier this year, Northern Iowa quickly took the ball out of bounds and sprinted up the court, kicking the ball out for a three at the buzzer, which Anthony James hit to commence the court storming.

This upset loss actually doesn't impact Creighton too much. It drops them into a tie with Wichita State atop the Missouri Valley, but they've already won at Wichita State and should be favored for the return visit in Omaha next Saturday. And their resume is still very strong. They are 21-3, with wins over San Diego State, Northwestern and Wichita State, and no awful losses. They are 6-3 against the RPI Top 100 with a Sagarin ELO_CHESS that should still be inside the Top 15. Yes, they'll drop from #12 in the polls, but I think they were a little overrated there anyway. They were rated 25th in Pomeroy and 20th in the Sagarin PREDICTOR coming into this game. I still think that they're most likely going to be a 6 or 7 seed on Selection Sunday, with a chance to move up to a 5 or 4 seed if they can finish strong. They will play at Evansville on Tuesday before getting that big game against Wichita State.

Northern Iowa was a bubble team for a while this season, but a horrid 4-8 stretch has severely damaged their at-large chances, even after this win. They are 6-7 in the Missouri Valley with this being their only quality win, and they have bad losses to Bradley, Indiana State, Evansville, Ohio and Illinois State. Their RPI is 49th, but their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is going to be around 60th when the new numbers come out tomorrow. They will get a chance on Bracketbusters weekend at VCU, but unless they win there they'll probably need to go 4-1 in their remaining Missouri Valley games to be close to the bubble heading into Arch Madness. Their next game will be Wednesday at Wichita State.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know what I hear from this post?

WAAAAAAAAAAAA.

If you watched that Mizzou/ku game tonight, you know that Mizzou has the better team, and that is a fact. Robinson and Taylor may even be the best two players on the court at a given time, but Mizzou's team is better. That was explicit during crunch time. And any talk of biased refereeing is laughable. Give me one call that you think is bad, and I'd like you to re-watch it on DVR. Both charges down the stretch (Robinson and Taylor) were clear and well-called.

Spin it all you want, Mizzou won that game on their own accord. You can chalk it up to home court or whatever...the game is still a W for the Tigers. And you shouldn't be surprised when the road game is closer than what you think.

But keep on underselling Mizzou. Let's see how that works out for you, Super Swami of the Texas Oversell.

Anonymous said...

Well coached and well prepared teams make their own luck.

DMoore said...

As a relatively unbiased observer (I like both Kansas and Missou but don't have a rooting interest in either team), I would agree that there was a huge amount of luck in Missouri's comeback. As good a player as Marcus Denmon is, the odds of hitting that many shots in that short a period of time is pretty darn low. However, I don't agree at all that there was a problem with the reffing. Missouri's defenders did a GREAT job of getting, and holding, position before the Kansas players drove into them, despite Dick Vitale's hyperbolic comments.

I do think that Kansas still has a problem of "Bad Tyshawn" trying to be the go to guy on the team, instead of getting the ball to the best player in the country.

Anonymous said...

That's an incredibly fair assessment, DMoore. Mizzou had a bit of luck in their comeback; Denmon was insane down the stretch, hitting contested shots. But the referees were quite fair.

Jeff said...

The two offensive fouls called on Kansas late were both horrible calls, to begin with. I think that's the general consensus of non-Missouri fans.

Of course, people who come in saying it's a "fact" that Missouri proved that they're better than Kansas is not going to be somebody willing to listen to reason.


I understand the belief most people have that teams "make their own luck", etc. But the facts are the facts - every time performances in close games have been studied in basketball, football or baseball, the stats have shown absolutely zero correlation between past success and future success in very close games.

If you have 100 people standing next to each other and ask them each to flip a quarter 10 times, some of them will end up with a bunch of heads in a row and some of them will end up with a bunch of tails in a row. It doesn't mean that those specific people "willed" their side to come up, or that the tails flippers are any more likely to get a tails on their next flip than any of the heads flippers. It's statistical noise.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jeff said...

Alright, guys. Enough. I know that people on Missouri message boards are riling each other up with hatred towards me, so you guys are coming to this website already hating me. But please don't make the attacks personal.

Anonymous said...

Never made it personal, Mr. Sensitive. Now I know you're an egomaniac, though. That didn't say anything other than the fact that you don't know basketball. Sorry if that's too much for you.

Anonymous said...

Seriously, re-watch the two offensive fouls down the stretch. If you disagree with them, consult with the rule book. That will eliminate your entirely convenient "home-cooking" hypothesis. But continue to delete posts that differ in opinion with yours.

Jeff said...

There's no point in arguing with you, so I won't.

Phil said...

I wish I could send this to you in an email, so you wouldn't think I'm trolling or trying to draw attention.

I really don't understand your issue with Missouri. I'll agree that they were fairly lucky down the stretch in this game. I would also say they were UNlucky at various times throughout other parts of the game - particularly at least two ridiculous phantom foul calls against Ratliffe.

My bigger issue is that you seem to be completely obsessed with the "luck" metric when it comes to MU. Of all the things you could have discussed about last night's fantastic game, the ONLY thing you did was spend two paragraphs talking about how Missouri is lucky and overrated, and claiming this was not that great of a win and Kansas is really the better team (scoreboard notwithstanding), and then analyzing "could Kansas still get a #1 seed." Very much like Monday night, when your post about Mizzou's win at Texas was all about "brutal loss for Texas, poor unlucky Texas, etc. etc."

Why not focus on the fact that Mizzou is are #1 in the country in offensive efficiency (KenPom)? Or the fact that they played fantastic defense down the stretch? Or the fact that Kansas refused to get the ball to their best player in the final minute (maybe because he was WELL DEFENDED)?

Frankly, several the Missouri-related posts you've made in the last year have been negative - repeatedly referencing Haith as a downgrade in coach (are you sure about that now?), mocking their pursuit of Painter, etc. I can deal with that. Most people agreed with you.

But when you bust out a "biased reffing" reference (as opposed to merely "the refs got it wrong") ... you have veered from fair analysis into something less.

And by the way, the idea that Big 12 refs would be biased AGAINST Kansas, in favor of headed-to-the-SEC Missouri, is beyond comical. Watch a couple of Allen Fieldhouse games and see what you think of "biased reffing."

So if the Mizzou wingnuts came out last night, respectfully, I think you earned it. I love your website and I enjoy your analysis, but I think you need to take a step back from this particular team and maybe give yourself a little time to think before you post.

The bottom line is, Missouri is 21-2, and "luck" has been at most a minor factor in getting them to 21-2. Maybe Kansas will prove to be the better team in the end and win the Big 12. But last night, they were NOT the better team, period.

Jeff said...

On each of those two charges late on Kansas, my entire twitter feed was full of people unanimously feeling those calls were terrible. I understand that passionate fans of teams will never admit that a ref call went in their favor, but it's not my job here to be a Mizzou homer.

The reason why I talk about luck so much is because it's the key to projecting future performances. It's why my brackets in the middle of the season are so much more accurate than anything you'll get out of Joe Lunardi or the Bracket Matrix. I got a ton of grief from Mississippi State fans early in the season for talking about how lucky they were and how they're actually a bubble team, but now they leave me along because I was right. I didn't overrate Memphis to start the season, I didn't overreact to Florida State's early season losses, etc. And I didn't make a fool of myself yesterday (like Lunardi) acting like Ole Miss and South Florida have a real chance to earn an at-large bid.

Every year several fan bases accuse me of being "obsessed" with "hating" their team or whatever, and I really couldn't care less. My regular readers understand the advanced stats I'm using and they know what I've written the past few years.


Listen, right now I have Missouri as a 3 seed. The only way they're getting a 1 seed is if they win the Big 12 tournament, which everybody can agree is a <50% proposition. So if you're saying Missouri should be a 2 seed and I'm giving them a 3, is that really so bad?

Jeff said...

By the way, I have no doubt that reffing will be biased in favor of Kansas when Missouri plays there.

What, do Missouri fans think I'm alleging that the nation's refs are all biased in favor of their team?

Refs almost always bias in favor of the home team. Study after study has shown that home court advantage (which is worth approximately 4 points in college basketball) is almost entirely due to referee bias.

Phil said...

I don't have an issue with seeding in your bracket predictions - I think Mizzou will be a 2, but not much difference. Too early for any of that to really matter anyway.

My issue is that your post last night was entirely negative toward Missouri after a huge win, and frankly didn't contain any analysis at all beyond "they were lucky and Kansas will win the Big 12." Which is pretty much the same as your post re: Texas/Mizzou: "they were lucky and Texas is better than their record." You almost seem upset that Missouri has won several close games.

Why not give some consideration to WHY Missouri has won the close games? Just because the final score is close doesn't mean the winning team won because of luck.

And as for last night, saying "the refs were biased" strikes me as just sort of lazy. I don't care what Twitter said. Watch the plays again. Robinson into Moore was a pretty tough call, agreed. Taylor into Dixon I thought was a good call. But there's a recency bias at play here. Go back and look at some of the earlier calls (or non-calls) with Ratliffe getting hacked consistenly on the offensive end, English "fouling" Robinson as Robinson fell backward into him, Ratliffe called twice for being in Robinson's general vicinity ... Why aren't those biased calls? Why aren't they "bad luck" for MU? These things tend to even out in most games.

Anyway, I appreciate your responses, I just wish you'd step back and give Mizzou a little credit for what they did last night.

Jeff said...

I'm not writing Associated Press recaps here. I spend recaps talking about what I find interesting. For example, Central Florida had their win of the season over Memphis last week, and I spent the entire first two paragraphs talking about how Memphis has been unlucky and is underrated. Does this mean I'm disparaging UCF? And if you think Missouri fans are mad at me now, you should have seen how Memphis fans felt about me a few years ago.

And by the way, if you thought I was negative about Missouri after their huge win, did you see what I said about San Diego State after their huge win over UNLV? I called it possibly the most one-sided reffing I've seen in a game all season long and said that despite UNLV losing, I came out of the game even more confident that they were the best team in the conference. And while the rest of the media immediately picked SDSU as the conference favorite, I didn't. Same thing.


I understand that I'm not going to convince Missouri fans that those calls went in their favor, even though I can't find anybody that's not a Missouri fan that thinks those calls were right, but you guys just need to realize that I don't have some vendetta out for Missouri. I'm not treating them differently than any other team in their situation.

DJ said...

I'm unbiased when it comes to Mizzou and Kansas. I'm an IU fan. I did watch the end of the game and here is my take. It felt that the Robinson charge was only called because at the time it was an 8 point game. It almost felt like the refs were wanting to give Mizzou somewhat of a chance and add a little more drama. Bottom line, without that call Kansas probably wins. The Taylor charge I thought could have gone either way. The home team in that spot normally gets the call. But listen, Denmon made some great shots, Taylor missed a couple of free throws that likely would have iced it.

Jeff said...

I agree, DJ.

The point with luck is that you still have to get yourself in a close game. Get blown out and all the luck in the world won't deliver you a win. Missouri has had a great season, no doubt.