- The people over at Basketball Prospectus do some interesting statistical analysis and the latest project by Drew Cannon appears to be no different. Cannon is borrowing on the work of several others most notably the Marquette blog Cracked Sidewalks to build on a Value Add statistic for college basketball players. Cannon explains the basic statistical analysis in his post yesterday. Some people may get scared away by the use of variables and equations, but it is a rather simple analysis (the regressions involved in calculating the constants are a bit more complex). Cannon promises to release his Value Add rankings, which are only for offensive production, later in the day so be on the look out for it and we will be sure to link to it tomorrow with our thoughts on the results.
- It is Tuesday so you know that means another edition of Hoop Thoughts from Seth Davis. Technically it comes out on Monday afternoon, but that’s too late to make our Monday M5. This week Seth takes a look at 10 bubble teams who helped themselves and 10 bubble teams who hurt themselves with their non-conference schedules. If you are a neutral observer and have been following closely the 20 teams he selected should not be a surprise, but if you are a fan of a bubble team and maybe be a little delusional (and all fans are to some extent) it could be a sobering reminder that your team has quite a bit of work cut out for them.
- In an attempt to prevent another massive Nevin Shapiro-like scandal from occurring Miami has announced that its boosters would no longer be allowed to entertain student-athletes. For those of you who weren’t highly recruited athletes coming out of college, the NCAA allows “an occasional meal from a representative of athletics interests on infrequent and special occasions”, but this goes much further. As you would expect some current Miami boosters are not thrilled by the decision and expect it to have a negative influence on donations. For a program that already suffers from an apathetic fan base, this decision could further hinder any hopes of rebuilding the program into an athletic powerhouse.
- Last week during a blowout loss at Michigan State, Iowa coach Fran McCaffery picked up a technical and responded by slamming a chair down on the court. Afterwards, the Big Ten was critical of McCaffery’s actions, but did not punish him and did not ask him to apologize. Instead, they simply hoped that he would not do something similar in the future. Yesterday, the athletic director at Iowa said that McCaffery’s actions had crossed a line, but again declined to punish McCaffery or seek any form of apology. For his part, McCaffery does not seem to be the least bit remorseful so don’t be surprised if we see this sort of juvenile behavior from him in the future.
- Just when you thought the drama surrounding North Carolina‘s retreat from the court on Saturday was over, Roy Williams dropped this little gem during a local radio show: he meant to take his entire team off the court for the final 14.2 seconds of its 33-point loss at Florida State. Roy apologized to the five players who remained on the court saying his intent was to get everybody off the floor. While it is noble of Roy to defend the group, which included three walk-ons who so bravely risked their lives for the honor of their school, it does raise the question as to whether he intended to forfeit the game, which is what he would have been doing if he had taken everybody off the court.