Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Morning News: Dion Wiley, Dylan Ennis And Alex Murphy Hurt, Plus Much More

Augustana stunned Iowa at the buzzer
How Many Close Games Should A Team Win? If you missed it, I did a statistical analysis of results of close games last season. Whether you think the better team wills itself to win close games or that close games are all coin-tosses, my guess is that you might be a little surprised by the results.

Dion Wiley Out Indefinitely Maryland has a very deep roster this season, but Dion Wiley was expected to be a significant contributor, perhaps as a starter. He was inconsistent as a freshman this past season but showed a scoring flare off the bench (4.1 points per game).  Maryland has a ton of options at shooting guard, most notably Rasheed Sulaimon, but if Wiley has to miss a significant chunk of the season (and he might be out well past the start of the conference season) then this will have a significant impact on Marland's depth.

Dylan Ennis Out For A Month This is a potentially serious injury for an Oregon team that enters the season as a potential contender in the Pac-12. Ennis averaged 9.9 points and 3.5 assists per game last season for Villanova, and without him Oregon will be left with a talented but very inexperienced backcourt. If Ennis can come back fully healthy after a month, however, I wouldn't expect this to have too much of an impact on their eventual tourney seed.

Alex Murphy Out 4-6 Weeks Murphy averaged 5.1 points per game for Florida last season. He's not a superstar, but Florida doesn't have a huge margin for error this season. They expect to be in the vicinity of the Tournament bubble, and if Murphy's absence costs Florida a key non-conference game, it's not implausible that it will be difference between the NIT and the NCAAs.

Southern Miss Self Imposes Another Year Of Postseason Ban Just like this past season, this news doesn't really impact anything. Southern Miss wasn't going to get anywhere close to the NCAA Tournament anyway. This just makes it a little bit harder for Doc Sadler to get his new program off the ground.

Preseason All-America Teams Announced Preseason lists are always pretty terrible, and this list is no exception. Wayne Selden getting more votes than Jakob Poeltl is just stupid. But hey, if you care about the preseason All-America team, it's out. 

Iowa Loses An Exhibition This is a non-story. As I've explained before, results in exhibitions mean nothing. Nobody coaches or manages an exhibition like they do a regular season game, and plenty of teams have lost exhibitions and gone on to have great seasons. And unlike St. John's, this was not an embarrassing performance by Iowa. Augustana is the preseason #1 ranked Division II team in the nation, and this game was decided on a buzzer beater. So Iowa can just move on and forget about this. It doesn't matter.

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