Are you a college basketball fan, but also long to be a patron of the arts? Well, get yourself to a performance of Coach: The Untold Story of College Basketball Legend Al McGuire, a one-man  play written by none other than  the inestimable sportscaster Dick Enberg about the former Marquette coach. McGuire, who died of leukemia in 2001, was a good friend of Enberg’s as well as his former television broadcast partner. Enberg debuted the playat Marquette in 2005 and it’s been traveling the country since then, but we mention it now because two of its upcoming performances have special significance.

During its run, the play has garnered praise both for the personal and touching nature of Enberg’s tribute to his friend as well as the portrayal by actor Cotter Smith, an award-winning stage actor who you may remember most recently from the HBO movie about the life of Jack Kevorkian entitled You Don’t Know Jack.

The two upcoming performances we mentioned above are the ones taking place at Belmont Abbey College on October 9th and at Indiana University on October 23rd. As just about every college hoophead knows, McGuire led Marquette to the 1977 national championship in his final season as a head coach. Before he took the head coaching position at Marquette in 1964, though, he spent seven years at Belmont Abbey, the site of his first head coaching job. Enberg is an undergraduate alum of Central Michigan University, but holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Indiana in the field of health sciences. The two shows at those venues will be special, indeed. Mr. Enberg — who we should actually refer to as Dr. Enberg, though he’d probably be the first to quell that notion — is scheduled to appear at both of those performances.

McGuire debuted as a college basketball analyst for NBC in 1977 with Enberg and Billy Packer, and is seen as the first real “character” in the realm of basketball broadcasting. He was always insightful and interesting, but the guy could be downright zany, to put it mildly. Who could ever forget this:

Enberg is one of many sportscasters who sees McGuire as having paved the way for future commentators to have fun and show more of their true personalities (we’re lookin’ at you, Mr. Vitale) on the air. Understandable, then, is that tagline on the playbill — a quote from Enberg about his subject: “He’s the most unforgettable human being I’ve ever met, and there’s nobody in second place.”

Former Indiana/Texas Tech head coach and current ESPN curmudgeon Bob Knight was back in Indiana over the weekend (Hammond, in the NW corner of the state, to be specific) for a roast in his honor to raise money for Westchester Saint Joseph, the suburban Chicago-area high school that produced such IU notables as Isiah Thomas and Daryl Thomas (not to mention William Gates from Hoop Dreams fame).

"Hey, Knight" Wasn't Part of the Proceedings

These roasts of coaches done of and by other coaches are always a little awkward and very unintentionally funny, and from the videos we’ve seen so far, this roast was no different.  Nevertheless, we’d be doing our readers here a disservice if we didn’t at least mention it and show some clips.  So here are a few from the Bob Knight Roast & Toast on Friday night from the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana.  The level of hilarity increases the closer to fifty years old that you are.  (h/t Elliott Harris for the YouTube clips)

Knight tells a biblical parable here… sorta.

Knight commandeers the show from emcee Jay Bilas in his own inimitable way…

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Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Pac-10 and Mountain West Conferences and an occasional contributor.

The standoff between the Western Athletic Conference and the Mountain West Conference over Fresno State and Nevada has come to the next logical stopping point: a lawsuit, perhaps just the first in a string. WAC commissioner Karl Benson confirmed today in a conference call that last week the league filed suit against Fresno  and Nevada in an effort to prevent the schools from joining the MWC for the 2011-12 athletic seasons. Benson and the WAC contend that WAC bylaws require a school to give notice to the conference by July 1 if it plans to leave the conference in the next two years. Both schools accepted the MWC’s offer of membership on July 18 of this year. However, there is a discrepancy between the conference bylaws and the WAC Code Book which claims that the deadline to withdraw from the conference is instead September 1. The MWC is included in the suit in an attempt to prevent the conference from adding either school to its 2011-12 scheduling. All parties named in the suit have 30 days to respond after which the Jefferson County District Court in Colorado will likely issue a ruling within another month.

Fresno & Nevada Are Gone, But at What Cost?

According to Benson during today’s teleconference, “the WAC is simply seeking to protect its interests and insure that all member institutions are protected from a potential and threatened violation of the bylaws. Such inappropriate action would make it impossible for member institutions to schedule athletic events and thereby would adversely affect the WAC, the WAC member institutions and the student-athletes.” Benson specifically cites the difficulty the remaining WAC institutions would have in filling out its 2011 football schedule, the potential impact on the conference’s bowl agreements, the negative effect on its existing television contract and the impact on the WAC basketball tournament as areas that would be damaged by Fresno State and Nevada leaving after this coming season.

For Fresno State and Nevada’s part, they still seem determined to leave the conference after this season in order to play in the MWC in 2011-12. If they were to remain in the WAC for an additional year, they would forfeit their shares of any postseason money earned by the conference because of their lame duck status. They’ll lean heavily on the discrepancy between the conference bylaws and the WAC Code Book in an effort to bolster their claim that they are allowed to leave the conference without penalty after the 2010-11 season.  The MWC being included in the suit seems more of a scattershot inclusion, a hail mary attempt to prevent the conference from making any scheduling plans involving the two schools, although the likelihood of the MWC having to play by the WAC bylaws seems untenable at best.

A completely separate issue still remains: the possibility that Fresno State and Nevada will each owe a $5 million buyout fee for their decisions to leave the WAC. Both schools were given 60 days notice that payment was due and when that deadline expires on October 18, another lawsuit featuring liquidated damages is likely.  With actual games being played on the field and with college basketball practice just a month away, this courtroom drama rightly takes a backseat to more athletic competitions, but this should remain an interesting story throughout the fall as we learn the fate of the WAC, Fresno State and Nevada. In the end, this likely gets settled out of court between the three main parties with some compromise agreement likely allowing the two schools to head to the MWC in 2011-12 while paying somewhere south of the $5 million buyout.

This thing was floating around last week, but we never got around to posting it.  Originally, former WVU star and postseason tragic hero, Da’Sean Butler, delivered a series of tweets to tell a children’s story that could only be described as equal parts terrifying and genius.  After all, it’s not often that you read a story about a 22-year old “young boy” named Da’Sean who befriends a purple dinosaur named Barney, only have to it all come crashing down when Barney leaves a giant pile of scat on the kitchen table.

The entire bizarre story is reprinted below (h/t Sun-Sentinel via Deadspin), but the good people at Tauntr have done us one better.  They’ve come up with an animated version of Butler’s fairy tale.  We don’t have the video embedded, but if you click the image below it will take you to their site, where you can watch the entire two-minute production.  Strangely, when reading the story for the first time, this is almost exactly who we envisioned it in our heads.  Enjoy.

Click the Image to View the Video (credit: Tauntr)

”A SHORT STORY,” by Da’Sean Butler

Once upon a time there was a young boy named Da’Sean. Da’Sean was 22 years old and lived in Newark, NJ. While walking home from school one day, a Purple Dinosaur jumped out from behind a Brick Wall and tackled Da’Sean to the ground. But just when he was about to let out a scream for help, Da’Sean realized that the Purple Dinosaur was only licking his face, not trying to bite it off. At that moment, Da’Sean decided to keep the Purple Dinosaur as a pet. And on the way home he decided to name his pet Purple Dinosaur “Barney.”

When Da’Sean and his new pet finally got home, guess who was standing on the front porch? That’s right, it was Da’Sean’s mother, Koreena. And boy was she surprised to see a Purple Dinosaur following Da’Sean into the yard! “What in world is that?” shouted Koreena. “It’s a Purple Dinosaur,” answered Da’Sean. “Dah, I can see that, Da’Sean, but what on earth is it doing here?” said Koreena. “It’s my new pet!” answered Da’Sean. “Oh you think so do you?” remarked Koreena. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up. You know how your father hates Purple Dinosaurs. But, well, I suppose you can keep him until your father comes home.” And with that Da’Sean grabbed Barney by the scruff of the neck and led his new pet into the house–even though he knew his father was probably going to disapprove.

Once in the house, Da’Sean and Barney played and played, that is until Da’Sean’s favorite television show, “Family Guy,” started. At that point Da’Sean forgot all about Barney having an unsupervised run of the house. That is until half way through “Family Guy,” when Da’Sean was brought back to reality when he heard his father shout, “OMG!! Da’Sean! Get your whoopie cakes in the Kitchen…NOW!!” With that Da’Sean rushed into the Kitchen to see what all the fuss was about. When he entered the Kitchen, there stood his father, Da’Sean Butler, pointing toward the Table. “Will someone please explain that?” asked his father. Then, as Da’Sean followed his father’s finger to where it was pointing, he instantly knew what his father was so upset about. There, smack dab in the middle of the Table, the biggest pile of Dinosaur doo-doo he had ever seen! “I don’t EVEN want to know how that got there,” said Da’Sean Butler. “But you had better get it cleaned up now! And you had better get rid of whatever it is that could have done such a thing!”

Well, knowing his father as well as he did, Da’Sean knew there was no sense even asking his father if he could keep Barney for a pet. So without hesitation, Da’Sean set out to find where Barney was hiding. After a few minutes of looking, Da’Sean discovered Barney crouched beneath the table that Da’Sean did his Playing X-Box and reading books.

“Come on, Barney, it’s time to find you a new home. And hey, don’t look at me that way, I’m not the one who did the dirty deed on the Table!” scolded Da’Sean. “Thanks to you I’ll never get to have my own pet Dinosaur!! And with that Da’Sean led Barney out of the house and down to the local Game Stop. They had a pet section and Da’Sean knew the owner would find Barney a good home. Da’Sean cried a deep cry. he had lost his only friend in the world.

So after saying good-bye to Barney, and thanking the owner of Game Stop, Da’Sean walked backed home and attempted to drowned his sorrows by slamming down a half dozen Root Beers. But Da’Sean’s pity party came to an abrupt end when his father reminded him about the mess he had neglected to clean up. And low and behold, midway through the clean-up, Da’Sean suddenly became thankful that someone else was going to have to do it from now on.

The End.

Moral of the story: Sometimes you best friends can get your “whoopee cakes” in a lot of trouble be sure to listen to your parents they know what’s best.

Andrew Murawa is the RTC correspondent for the Mountain West and Pac-10 Conferences and an occasional contributor.

Hooray! Today is the official end of the Great Sports Desert – you know, that period of time between the first Monday in April and the first weekend of the college football season. Beginning tonight, there are actual meaningful sporting events that I am interested in. Let’s be clear, I love college football. Easily my second favorite sport. But, I’m a college hoops junkie first and foremost, and part of the reason I love the start of college football season is because that means that the start of college basketball is within shouting distance from here. And, while looking over the slate of college football games this weekend, I couldn’t help but imagine some of these matchups as college basketball games. So, here I have, in reverse order, the ten most intriguing matchups of the college football weekend, provided they are re-imagined as season openers in basketball season.  (ed. note: yes, he is sick, but we love him for it)

College Sports is Back on the Calendar!

First, a nod to a handful of games which, being a junkie and all, definitely appeal to me, but were just a bit off of my top-10 list:

• Pittsburgh @ Utah – on Thursday night, with only six other games on. If this was basketball season, and there were only six other games on, you could bet I’d watch some of this. Sure, Utah isn’t going to be very good, but it would be interesting to see Pitt go on the road early into a hostile environment.
• Murray State @ Kent State – a very good mid-major matchup between one of last season’s Cinderellas and one of the MAC’s always competitive teams.
• Connecticut @ Michigan – this game just sounds really good, but in reality, UConn is down and Michigan is, well, I would say Michigan is down, but its been awhile since they’ve been up.
• Richmond @ Virginia – a big intrastate matchup between the A-10 and the ACC. If Virginia was just a little bit better, this may have made the cut, because UR will be very good again, but a road trip into the John Paul Jones Arena would be a good early test for Kevin Anderson and company.
• Northwestern @ Vanderbilt – as enticing as this Wildcat/Commodore matchup would be between two talented teams with NCAA Tournament hopes, this just misses the cut.

And on to the top 10:

• #10 – Washington State @ Oklahoma State – Klay Thompson, Reggie Moore and DeAngelo Casto invade the Gallagher-Iba Arena to provide a good early season test for a young Cowboy squad minus last season’s two leading scorers. While the young Cowboy guards Ray Penn and Keiton Page keep this close throughout, too much Thompson eventually does them in.

Predicted Football Score: Oklahoma State 31 Washington State 10

Predicted Basketball Score: Washington State 72 Oklahoma State 66

• #9 – UCLA @ Kansas State – Kansas State is one of the teams on the short list of national title contenders. UCLA is, well, honestly, not very good at least judging by last season’s performance. But, they’re still UCLA. And their frontline of Reeves Nelson, Josh Smith and Tyler Honeycutt will test Curtis Kelly, Wally Judge and company, perhaps even to a draw. We’ll also get a first chance to see if the Bruins have even remotely solved their problems at the point, an area of concern that will eventually be the deciding factor in this matchup as Jacob Pullen eventually gets over on Malcolm Lee and the Wildcats pull away in the second half.

Pullen is Back With Another Strong Team

Predicted Football Score: UCLA 23 Kansas State 17

Predicted Basketball Score: Kansas State 70 UCLA 60

• #8 – Syracuse @ Akron – Jim Boeheim taking his Orange on the road early against a Midwest mid-major? Sure, that’ll happen. But, if it did, I’d be thrilled to see my first glimpse of Syracuse freshman center Fab Melo battling the Zips own young center, sophomore seven-footer Zeke Marshall. Sure, the Orange’s talent would probably win out in the end with Akron not having an answer for Kris Joseph, but I’m pretty sure that we’d get at least 30 minutes of pretty compelling basketball here.

Predicted Football Score: Syracuse 24, Akron 20

Predicted Basketball Score: Syracuse 67 Akron 55

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On the rare occasion our TV isn’t tuned to something sports-related, it’s probably on the Travel Channel, and not just because we’re looking for glimpses of that remote-droppingly cute Samantha Brown. If there’s one thing we love about as much as college basketball, it’s travel — and we love when those things come together (best BBQ at the Big 12 Tournament in KC last year? Oklahoma Joe’s, and it’s not close). Imagine our happiness when we saw that Jim Boeheim will appear on Man v. Food tonight, downing hot dogs at Heid’s of Liverpool with show host Adam Richman (can you imagine the lifetime Zantac consumption between those two guys?):

Now, Richman’s a graduate of both Emory and Yale, but we questioned his competence when he referred to the smiling, hot-dog carrying Coach Boeheim as “a handsome devil.”  Hey, we’re just kidding, coach!  To be honest, we were so impressed with your appearance in this one clip, we have to say — we smell a spin-off! It might only be one episode long, but they could call it…Man v. Zone. OK, fine, we’ll show ourselves out.

Those folks from the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective have been at it again, continuing what will apparently be a series of analyses of close basketball games. They’ve released two more sets of data, one that says the defense benefits from a time out being called before a team that trails by two points or less takes its last possession, and another that verifies this defensive advantage in situations where the score is tied. The benefit comes from the fact that a foul on the leading/defending team is less likely to be called because a coach has time to communicate with his players and set his defense. This is important because their data from last season also shows that offenses which draw fouls on the defense in these situations score almost twice as much (1.62 points per last possession) on the average than offenses that do not draw fouls (0.878 points).

As college basketball fans, we’re all familiar with the scenario. Close game, just a few seconds left. Team A is up on Team B by two points or less. A time out is called. The last possession then follows, and Team B wants to either score or draw a foul on Team A. The HSAC says that Team A benefits from a time out because if they can set their defense, they’re less likely to have a foul called on them (the actual numbers are below).

Murray State's Danero Thomas says the T.O. did not help Vandy. (MJ Sanchez/AP)

When we first read their write-up about situations where a team trails by two points or less, we wondered if the analysis had been based on the time out being called by the team about to play defense (Team A above). From their site:

Teams were much more likely to draw a foul if they did not call a timeout before that possession. Teams drew fouls on 13 percent of end-of-game possessions when they did not call a timeout. Teams that called a timeout only drew fouls on 8 percent of their possessions. This difference was strongly statistically significant (p=0.001).

We took that to mean that the defense had just called the time out, which would have been a problem, since that’s not usually how it happens, from our experience. If Team A scores late in a game and takes a one- or two-point lead, it’s almost always Team B, the team who just got scored on, who calls the time out. If the HSAC analysis would have only considered the scoring team having called the time out, to us it would have meant a lack of real-world generalizability. If the benefit is that the defense is able to set itself, it shouldn’t matter who calls the time out. We contacted the HSAC about this, who confirmed to us that the analysis was based on either team calling a time out, not just the leading team (Team A).

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We caught this clip during an encore presentation of a CNBC show called American Greed: Madoff Behind Bars over the weekend, and we just about fell off our couch laughing during it.  It turns out that the federal minimum-security prison located in Butner, North Carolina (nicknamed Camp Fluffy because of its pleasant amenities and surroundings for the inmates), utilizes a hilariously inappropriate labeling system of housing units that involves many of the original Atlantic Coast Conference schools.   Check it out:

As you heard in the video, Madoff is housed in Clemson as part of the general population (“gen pop”) grouping, along with the other two gen pop schools, Virginia and Georgia Tech.  Can there be any doubt that the contractor/designer/architect of this prison had a clever yet brilliantly deranged sense of humor?  Let’s quickly recap:

• NC State & Wake Forest – these two dorms house drug addicts
• Duke – houses mental health patients
• Maryland – houses sex offenders
• Clemson, Virginia & Georgia Tech – these dorms house all the other general population inmates
• UNC – notably absent

Isn’t it peculiar that North Carolina, the flagship state university located a mere 21 miles to the south of the prison, is notably absent from the Butner dorm system?  Consider the groupings.  Duke, UNC’s biggest rival by far, gets stuck with the crazy people.  You can almost read it in big bold letters between the lines — you’d have to be nuts to go to Duke.  Fellow Tar Heel state schools NC State and Wake Forest get all the druggies — you must be on drugs to end up at those places.  Among the original seven ACC teams, Maryland always had the reputation for being an outsider, a quasi-northern school filled with rude, obnoxious Yankees.  In Butner, the Terps are the worst of the worst — weirdos who can’t control themselves and their proclivities.  Clemson, Virginia and Georgia Tech were never really strong rivals of UNC, so they’re left with the average criminals — bad, but not at all like the others. 

This can’t all be pure coincidence, can it?  Of course not.  This prankish long-term thinking makes the Boston Red Sox jersey hidden in the bowels of Yankee Stadium a couple of years back look like child’s play.  Whether it was a local contractor or architect or whoever, we’re quite sure this person goes to sleep every night content that he has left a lasting legacy far beyond what he anticipated when he originally got that job.  Well played, Mr. Whoever You Are.  Well played.

(h/t – Dr. Saturday – we’re not first on this, but we were unaware of it until this weekend)

Celebrities of all types have always been associated with college basketball. Just in the past few years, we’ve seen the likes of President Obama playing pickup at North Carolina and taking in a game at Georgetown; Michael Jordan’s been known to practice with the Tar Heels every so often; Ashley Judd considers herself Kentucky Fan #1, and last season John Calipari had the likes of Magic Johnson, Ben Roethlisberger, Mike Tomlin, and Drake showing up at Rupp Arena. Calipari’s association with LeBron James specifically ticked some people off. There are certainly more examples, and whether they admit it or not, coaches with such connections like it when musicians, actors, or athletes bring a little celebrity juice to their programs.

LeBron will probably make a few appearances at Miami's Convocation Center.

That last one, though, may have now found a new crew with which to play. The AP reported earlier today that James joined in some “informal scrimmaging” with the Miami Hurricanes, some of whom hadn’t been notified that he was coming, let alone bringing along the likes of fellow Heat members Udonis Haslem, Mike Miller, and Patrick Beverley, and Chris Paul from the Hornets. According to the AP report (via ESPN.com), NBA players who live in Florida often work out with the team, but this was James’ first visit to “The U.” LeBron’s assessment via Twitter: “Just left ‘The U’ hooping with the team….Great runs! Needed that.”

Messrs. Williams, Thompson, and Calipari — it’s your move. Who’s got Clooney’s number?

One of the coolest sporting trends of the last decade in sports has been the increasing usage of statistical analysis to make determinations about the games that we love and follow.  While Bill James, Nate Silver and others have done yeoman’s work in popularizing the use of these metrics, they’ve mostly focused on the professional side of sports (and political polling, in Silver’s case).  One notable exception, Ken Pomeroy’s site of college basketball tempo-free statistics, has been invaluable in how we all understand and evaluate the game, helping to debunk common myths while also alerting us to teams and players under the radar of the national consciousness.  Another up-and-coming group that is showing it wants to enter the fray by analyzing some of the big questions in the game is the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective, who just two weeks ago presented us with the most unlikely finish of the 2009-10 season, a random game between Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Northridge.

Luckily the HSAC is a Little Better Than This (artist: B. Shabad)

Well, the HSAC is back, and today’s release is even better.  Addressing the widespread end-of-game question among announcers and pundits over whether a winning team should foul in late-game situations when up three points, the HSAC makes a rather curious finding.  It seems that over the past decade or so, there has been a slow but steady increase in the so-called conventional wisdom that fouling in those situations is the right play — the thinking being that the odds of the opponent making the first free throw, missing the second, and still securing the rebound and making another shot in a short period of time are very low.   That part is true.  The odds are low.  But what is equally low from a statistical standpoint are the odds of a strategy of simply playing defense and hoping you get the stop.  From the article:

In the 2009-2010 season, I found 443 instances where a team held the ball down three points during their last possession of a period (either the end of the 2nd half or an overtime period). In 391 of those cases, the team leading did not foul. In 52 cases, the team chose to foul. […]  Of the 52 teams that committed a foul, six lost the game for a winning percentage of 88.46%. Of the 391 teams that did not foul, 33 lost the game for a winning percentage of 91.56%.  Both a two sample t test of proportion and a Chi-squared test fail to reject the null hypothesis that there is a difference in winning percentage between the two strategies. In this sample, teams that did not foul won slightly more often.  For the less statistically inclined, this means that there is no significant difference between the two strategies. [emphasis added]

A few additional comments on this finding.

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