Duke escapes Virginia

#6 Duke 61, #17 Virginia 58
I don't mean to pick on Seth Davis on my twitter account so often. He's not really any worse than most of the other television analysts. Like most of them, he doesn't understand tempo-free stats. As I like to say, if you tell your team to hold the ball for an extra ten seconds on every offensive possession then you're going to give up fewer points, but it doesn't mean your defense got better. Nobody argues that Pomeroy stats or any of the other tempo-free stats are the gospel, or that the team rated the #1 Pomeroy offense or defense is definitely the best offense/defense in the nation, but it's just sad how wrong some of the television analysts are. Seth Davis started out last week complaining about Duke's offense. When somebody on twitter pointed out to him that they were the #4 rated offense in Pomeroy, Davis responded: "You realize how little that means? Watch. Them. Play." Yeah, Seth Davis, I guess I have to watch Duke play to learn that the team that is #4 in the nation in eFG%, #4 in the nation in FTA/FGA, #7 in the nation in true shooting percentage, #6 in the nation in offensive block percentage, and tied for the ACC led in offensive turnover percentage sucks at offense.

Seth Davis was back at it during this Duke/Virginia game. He inexplicably said: "We think of Tony Bennett's deliberate offense but he's very underrated as defensive coach." Huh? Who thinks of Tony Bennett and the first thing that comes to mind is offense? As Ken Pomeroy joked: "The only people who don't know Bennett is a defensive genius are the uncontacted tribes of the Amazon." Of course, while most people recognize what a tremendous defensive coach Tony Bennett is (Pomeroy rates their offense 97th in the land, and rates their defense 9th), tempo-bias has impacted the national perception of Mike Scott. In this game Mike Scott scored 16 points in the first half alone, and so for the first time I noticed mainstream analysts start to give him some of the credit he is due. Obviously the Pomeroy ORtg is a flawed statistic, but it's worth noting that Mike Scott is currently rated 3rd in the nation in it, and leads all BCS conference players (Terrell Stoglin is second and Thomas Robinson is third). I'm not saying he should be the National Player of the Year, but Mike Scott definitely should be a serious contender for ACC Player of the Year and for some All-American love.

All that said, the problem for Virginia this season is that besides Mike Scott they don't have any real elite ACC-level talent. And that's why offensively they've got major problems. Mike Scott can't beat Duke by himself. Here, the Cavaliers really struggled with Duke's perimeter defense, and all of the players other than Scott combined for a 35.7 eFG%. Tony Bennett will eventually have an elite team if he can get some better talent, but this year's team is going to be limited in what they can achieve because of that offense.

Duke is off to a quick 2-0 start to ACC play with this win and wins over Kansas, Michigan State, Michigan and Belmont, and zero bad losses. Right now they're looking more than anything like a 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but a 1 seed is theirs for the taking if they can knock off North Carolina and win the ACC. They won't get their first shot at the Tar Heels until February, however. They'll play at Clemson tomorrow, and then will come home to play Wake Forest on Thursday.

Virginia is now 14-2 with wins over Michigan and Miami (Fl), along with a bad loss to TCU. Their soft non-conference schedule along with a down ACC means that they've probably got to reach 9 wins in ACC play to put themselves into the NCAA Tournament. I don't think they'll have too much trouble getting there, though. They're 1-1 now with a road game at Georgia Tech up next, on Thursday.

South Florida 56, Seton Hall 55
This was Seton Hall's first game since moving into the Top 25 in the AP Poll, and it wasn't a huge shock to see them go down to South Florida. Seton Hall isn't that much better (Pomeroy projected a four point win), and it's common for teams to struggle in their first game in the Top 25 in a long while (it's been approximately ten years for Seton Hall). The Top 25 brings a lot of pressure, and brings extra effort from opponents. USF just out-efforted Seton Hall here, winning nearly every 50-50 ball.

That said, foul shooting seemed to do in both teams in the final few seconds, during a bizarre finish. After Seton Hall had cut the deficit to one point with 23 seconds to go, they put Jawanza Poland to the line, where he missed the front end of a one-and-one to give Seton Hall a chance to win. Then, Anthony Collins inexplicably fouled Jordan Theodore with 3.8 seconds to go - it almost looked like he thought his team had a foul to give. Instead, Theodore had a 1-and-1... and he missed the front end, and USF managed to clear the rebound to secure the win.

This is a bad loss, and it cost Seton Hall a chance to move to 5-1 in Big East play. But even so, they still have a buffer between them and the bubble. They are still 15-3 overall with wins over UConn, West Virginia, Dayton, VCU and St. Joe's, and only this one bad loss. Their Sagarin ELO_CHESS is still 21st in the nation. A 9-9 Big East finish should be sufficient to get them into the NCAA Tournament. They'll play at Villanova on Wednesday, and then will have a week off before a home game against Notre Dame.

USF came into this game only 8-8 against Division I teams with decent wins over Villanova and Cleveland State more than drowned out by bad losses to Auburn, Old Dominion and Penn State. But that said, they're now 3-2 in Big East play and playing better. Their RPI is actually all the way up to 96th. I don't think that even their most diehard fans think they have a realistic path to an at-large bid, but they can plausibly make a run at a 9-9 Big East record, which would be a great achievement for a program that has only finished better than 4-14 a single time in six previous Big East seasons.

Cleveland State 76, Butler 69
Butler actually hit 10 of their 21 three-point attempts in this game, and they got a gift from the refs in the form of a 12 foul difference (28 to 16), a stat that would have been even worse if Butler hadn't been forced to commit five fouls in the final 80 seconds in a desperate attempt to overcome a late deficit. How did Cleveland State manage to overcome those two facts to win this game? They dominated the paint. They won the rebounding battle (a 33.3 OR% compared to a 21.4 OR% for Butler) and held the Bulldogs to only a 33.3 2P%. This is actually atypical from a Cleveland State team that was outrebounded in their previous five games and is 25th in the nation in 3P% against but only 197th in 2P% against.

Coming off a home loss to Detroit, Butler is now 3-3 in Horizon League play, a full two games back of Cleveland State having already lost their home match-up. Certainly Cleveland State is now the clear favorite to win the Horizon League regular season title. But does that make them the Horizon League tournament favorites? I'm hesitant to go there. Butler proved last season that they can struggle in December and January but turn things on when we hit tournament season. And I'm seeing improvement from this team. Brad Stevens is starting to take the ball out of the hands of Crishawn Hopkins, who's had a horrific season (he takes 29.9% of Butler's shots when he's on the floor, to the tune of a 39.2 eFG% - the worst on the team among regulars). They're starting to shoot better, and Khyle Marshall and Roosevelt Jones have the potential to be a dominant rebounding duo. I'm still not ready to give up on Butler.

Cleveland State will try to avoid a letdown game tomorrow at Valparaiso. Next weekend they'll come home to play the two Wisconsin teams. Butler will try to bounce back tomorrow against a feisty Youngstown State team. Next week they'll head on the road to play Loyola-Chicago and Illinois-Chicago.