Our championship game pits fourth seeded Connor Pelton up against the fifth seeded, two-headed monster in Mark Sandritter and Jeff Nusser (CougCenter). Below are the rosters, followed by commentary from the respective owner:

Connor Pelton

• Head Coach – Slats Gill, Oregon State

• Guard – Reggie Miller, UCLA
• Guard – Isaiah Thomas, Washington
• Guard – Chauncey Billups, Colorado
• Guard – Baron Davis, UCLA

• Forward – Kiki Vandeweghe, UCLA
• Forward – Klay Thompson, Washington State
• Forward – Richard Jefferson, Arizona
• Forward – Jon Brockman, Washington

• Center – Steve Johnson, Oregon State
• Center – Robin Lopez, Stanford

Connor’s Take:

Obviously, CougCenter’s team is loaded with talent. Behind my own, of course, it’s my favorite in the field. But you can’t tell me that Darren Collison and Eddie House would even compete with Reggie Miller or Chauncey Billups in a game of two-on-two, or that David Greenwood is better than fellow Bruin Kiki Vandeweghe. Let’s take a look at the stats, shall we: My group of guards (Miller, Billups, Isaiah Thomas, and Baron Davis) averaged a total of 16.4 PPG throughout their college careers. Team CougCenter’s? A cute average of 13.2. At the forward position, the numbers are a bit closer, but my 15.0 PPG still prevails.

My side boasts a Basketball Hall of Famer, a five-time NBA All-Star, and three, two-time All-Pac-10 First Teamers. Miller and Billups are some of the clutchest players of all time, meaning they’ll pull out a Championship for me in this tight battle.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ever since Utah announced that it was moving to the Pac-10 it has seemed like their basketball coach Jim Boylen has been espousing the benefits of the move (please try to get by Gary Parrish’s incredibly lame headline). While we agree that the move will open more recruiting in-roads for Utah, there is one catch for Boylen. He might not be invited along for the ride. According to local media, the move to the Pac-10 also affords the school the perfect point from which to sever ties from Boylen.  Boylen has had a long track record as a successful assistant both at the college level — at Michigan State under both Jud Heathcoate and Tom Izzo — and also in the NBA — with the Houston Rockets where he won two NBA titles, the Golden State Warriors, and the Milwaukee Bucks. Utah, however, is the first head coaching position he has had at any level. Following a successful 2008-09 season that saw Boylen lead the Utes to a 24-10 record, the MWC regular season and conference tournament titles, and a NCAA appearance, Boylen was awarded a new contract that raised his annual salary to $850,000 as the Utah administration believed it had found its coach for years to come.

One of my favorite Twitter avatars

Then last season things came unraveled and the Utes finished 14-17, the team’s worst record in the past 25 years, which predates the Rick Majerus era. On top of that, Boylen struggled with the local media with the most notable example following the Utes loss to BYU, and after the season he lost several key players including highly touted guard Marshall Henderson. Since that time, Boylen has turned towards junior college players to fill the void, and, while they may have the talent, the question is how quickly will they learn to play together. For Boylen’s sake, hopefully the answer is in time to get the Utes back to the NCAA Tournament or the team may be making the jump to the Pac-10 without him.

Over the course of the next month until the NBA Draft on June 24, RTC will be rolling out comprehensive profiles of the 30-35 collegians we feel have the best chance to hear their names called by David Stern in the first round that night.  There won’t be any particular order to the list, but you can scroll back through all the finished profiles by clicking here.

Player Name: Hassan Whiteside

School: Marshall

Height/Weight: 7’0/227

NBA Position: Center

Projected Draft Range: Mid First Round

Overview: Hassan Whiteside surprised a lot of people when he spurned several SEC schools to play his college basketball at Marshall University, but his attendance at a comparatively small school didn’t mean the NBA scouts wouldn’t find him.  They didn’t need to search very hard. Whiteside’s impact on the Conference USA landscape was immediate, posting a 14 point/17 rebound/9 block performance against eventual NCAA second-rounders Ohio University early in the season.  He’d end up with three triple-doubles on the year — the first three ever for Marshall — all with blocks as the third statistic.  His 12 other double-doubles helped propel the Thundering Herd to an overall 24-10 record and 11-5 in a very competitive CUSA.  His 182 blocked shots was tops in the nation, averaging out to an amazing 5.4 BPG.  And even though he was only there for the one year, he ended up as the all-time leader in blocked shots at Marshall.  Mind you, we don’t mean for a freshman — that’s for a career.

Defensively, he's ready. And it's funner to learn offense. (C. Jackson/Herald-Disptach)

Will Translate to the NBA: Obviously his shot-swatting prowess is his biggest asset, and will be the primary reason for any early minutes he gets in the league, but he’s no single-note player.  He’s not just a tall, thin, awkward shot-blocking specialist. He’s good at using his size to get in position for grabbing boards, and shows a knack for peeling off more than his share of offensive rebounds.  He has better hops than most players his size, and he gets off the floor quickly.  Hassan is one of those players who, when you see him play, you can tell how much fun he’s having and that will endear him to teammates and fans.  And he knows what it takes to be a professional athlete; his father played five seasons of professional football in the NFL and CFL.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to everyone who took a few moments to look at our post from yesterday – NBA Draft Picks by School (1949-2006). There was an overwhelming response, and we appreciate all the commentary and advice, which is how we learn how to manage this thing a little better day-to-day.

First, let’s address a couple of the points we heard from you via email, msg boards and commentary.

• The “modern draft” refers to the era in which the NBA began using a round-by-round system. Even though there was an NBA Draft in 1947 and 1948, the round system did not begin until 1949, which is why we decided to start there.
• Following up on that point, we also chose to only review the first two rounds of the NBA Draft during this period. The current version (two rounds) began in 1989, and after a cursory review of the “extra” rounds – which totaled as many as twelve over this era, we realized very quickly that the vast majority of the players drafted in rounds 3+ never saw action in the NBA. For that reason, we decided to focus solely on the first two rounds.

Now, on with the data. We promised a breakdown by round and by decade, and we’ll deliver on half of that promise today. We also have sliced the first round into a “Top 10” and “Top 5” pick column, just for kicks. See Table B below.

Table B. NBA Draft Picks by School & Round Taken (1949-2006)

Notes: this table is sorted by the 1st Rd column, and is limited to schools with six first round picks since 1949. The yellow shading refers to the highest value in that column.

Observations:

Super Six. Remember what we were saying about the so-called Super Six yesterday? Well, these six schools – UNC, Duke, UCLA, Kentucky, Indiana and UCLA – take a larger piece of the action the higher up the draft board we go. They collectively comprise 13.4% (149 of 1115) of the all-time first-rounders, 14.8% of the top 10 picks (86 of 580), and 17.6% of the top 5 picks (51 of 290). In other words, more than a sixth of the top 5 picks in history came from one of the above six schools.

With Studs Like These, How do They Ever Lose?

Blue Heaven. The school with by far the most first-round picks, the most top 10 picks, and the most top 5 picks clearly resides in Chapel Hill. Let’s put this in perspective. UNC has had more top 5 picks than all but ten schools have had first round picks. It accounts for 6.2% of the top 5 picks in history all by itself, and dominates each of the above categories. That’s unbelievable. Nobody can ever say that Carolina hasn’t had a surplus of talent. Maybe that criticism of Dean Smith “only” winning two national titles at UNC has some legs after all.

Who doesn’t belong? Notre Dame, and again, Minnesota, seem to be the extreme outliers here. Was Digger Phelps really so bad of a coach that the Irish can produce twenty first-rounders (fifth on our list) and five top 5 picks but ND has only been to one F4 in its history? Guess so. We still can’t figure out Minnesota either. The Gophers are behind only UNC, Duke, UCLA and Kentucky in all-time top 10 picks. All we can guess is that Whitey Skoog, Ed Kalafat and Dick Garmaker must have been tremendous players back in the day. Also, a tip of the hat to Alabama and Missouri for producing a combined 27 first-rounders with nary a F4 to show for it. Nice work, gents.

Digger Must Have Been Even Worse as a Coach

We have a lot of good, but not great, players. The second round is always a fascinating hodgepodge of players who may have been fine collegians but were undersized, overslow or otherwise fraught with concerns about their transition to the League. Nothing says slow like Indiana, who coincidentally leads the way with 22 second round picks. Of course, Arizona follows up with 20 and UCLA with 19 second-rounders, so maybe that theory is a little half-baked. Nevertheless, it was cool to see the schools that consistently produce top talent vs. mediocre NBA talent (in the eyes of the GMs, at least). For UNC, it’s first round or bust, mostly (81% of its draftees went in the first round); for a school like LSU, either you’re drafted in the top 5 (8 of its 12 first-rounders) or you’re likely to end up in the second round (11 of the remaining 15 picks). One other neat example is Utah, where 9 of its 10 first-rounders went in the top 10 picks – maybe praying to Joe Smith (not the former Terp) or whatever it is that they do out there for a high NBA pick only works if you’re taller than 6’9 (e.g., Andrew Bogut, Keith Van Horn, Tom Chambers, Bill McGill).

Evidence that Penn St. Basketball Exists

Who is missing? Several schools with some solid history, including Marquette (5 first-rounders and 14 (!!) second-rounders), Pittsburgh (4/4), Xavier (4/6), Gonzaga (3/3) and UTEP (3/8), didn’t make our cut. Just for fun, the BCS schools with the least successful draft histories belong to… South Florida (only one second-rounder) and Penn State (two second-rounders). USF we understand – they’re new to the Big East and all – but Penn State? – that school has been in the Big 10 for almost fifteen years. That’s pathetic.

Coming Next: the final installment will take a look at draft picks by decade, so we can see how things have trended over the years. Which schools have consistently supplied talent to the NBA and which have long since passed or are rising fast? View Part III here.