Bubble News: Super Bowl Saturday Edition

February 3, 2012
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Will the Super Bowl ever move to Saturday? It should. If people are going to start considering it as a holiday and party event, lets move it so we’re not all ass dragging into work Monday morning. But, with the Big Game still on Sunday, however, we’ll have an unobstructed view of a full college basketball schedule. And, we’re getting into the most important time of the year. March is less than four weeks away. Selection Sunday is in 38 days. It’s a little bit of a paradox. There is both plenty of time to build a resume, yet with the days running out, the urgency is prime to take care of a resume win when its staring you down. Tomorrow there is action everywhere that will impact the current Bubble standing. I’ve highlighted seven games that most likely will cause a shuffle during the next bracketologist straw poll. It includes three head to head games between some of the final at large teams seeded on the current Bracket Matrix. As for picks, well lines arent out yet for any games tomorrow. But, hey, we bagged wins on Georgetown and Valparaiso the last two nights. As you know, we dont allow winnings to sit around doing nothing. We’ll have picks tomorrow.

Seton Hall at UConn, noon, ESPN 3/ESPN Full Court……Its the Freefall Invitational. Both these Big East clubs are in a tailspin, on losing streaks threatening to put their seemingly safe NCAA bid on ice. The Huskies come in on a 4-game skid, while the Pirates have done them one worse on their own 5-game slide. According to the Bracket Matrix, this is a battle of the consensus 8th seed Huskies vs 10th seed Pirates. The loser might not be pushed out completely, but there’s precious room left to fall down the pecking order without landing in NIT Projections. So the winner steadies themselves a bit, but the loser is going to be a world of hurt. Neither schedule eases up immediately after. The Huskies, for example, play at Louisville and at Syracuse in their next two games. A loss to the Pirates could just be another wrung on what could be as much as a 7-game losing streak. Can the defending champs be facing a must win game on the first Saturday of February? I think so. Regardless, they’re going back to the drawing board in hopes to save their season.

Xavier-Memphis, 1:00, Fox Sports Ohio……Like the game above, this contest pits a pair of the final at large teams on the Bracket Matrix when the 10-seed Memphis Tigers host 12-seed Xavier. Memphis is trying to rebound after losing to Southern Miss earlier in the week in a showdown for first place in Conference USA. I caught that game and was impressed enough with both squads that I cant believe we’ll find 38 better at large candidates in a month’s time. But this league is goofy. Its not deep enough to get more than those two bids, but its competitive enough top to bottom that going on the road is as dangerous as any major league. Two years ago, Memphis went 13-3 in the league, but lost in the first round of the CUSA sectional and was relegated to the NIT. A year ago, they were just 10-6 in league play, but streaked to the tournament championship to net the automatic NCAA bid. This year, they appear to be in between those two clubs. They cant afford to many more losses, however, they have a chance for a nice bubble win in this February non-conference game with Xavier. The Musketeers have the talent and game to be safe in the field, but have been slumping for nearly two months since that brawl against Cincinnati. The loser of this game likely falls out of most mock brackets during the next update and will be scrambling to impress the rest of the way.

Maquette-Notre Dame, 1:00, CBS………Notre Dame has put together quite a little run here in the middle of winter. They’ve beaten Syracuse and won at Seton Hall and UConn on this three game inning streak that have them in the top-4 of the Big East standings. They have a chance to puncuate this streak with another big win when they host Marquette. That 6-3 Big East record is sparkly and its hard to imagine a conference club losing out on a bid with a winning mark in this league. I think Notre Dame is a safe bet to make the NCAAs right now. This, despite only being a consensus 12 seed on the Bracket Matrix and only 13 of 61 total voters placing them on the 10-line or better. They’re walking right on the edge, but they have a manageable enough slate where they could overcome a home loss to Marquette, a projected 3-seed. If they can notch this win, the Irish will have a ton of breathing room. I’d expect them to be a sinlge digit seed on most everybody’s next bracket. From there, only a total collapse with a series of bad losses would knock them out.

Arkansas at LSU, 1:45, ESPN 3/ESPN Full Court.…..Ladies and Gents, meet the final team to make the consensus Bracket Matrix, the Arkansas Razorbacks. The Hogs are listed on 25 of 61 brackets, the smallest amount of any at large in the consensus. They sit on the 12-seed line. The simple road map to an at large bid when you’re trying to charge from the back of the bubble rail has not changed: Win your marquee home games, add in enough winnable road games, then profit in the NCAAs. Arkansas filled the first half of that equation with an 8-point home win over Vanderbilt earlier in the week. Now, its bag a winnable road game time. A loss to the Tigers wouldnt be a death knell of any kind, but it would keep the Hogs running in place at best with the mock bracketology crowd. Thats not the best position to be in when you’re barely on a third of the mock brackets to begin with. Read more »

Sixers on the Rise

February 2, 2012
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Not everyone appreciates Andre Igoudala's defense

At the end of the 2010 season, Eddie Jordan was fired as the 76er head coach for taking a team prominently featuring Andre Igoudala, Elton Brand, Thaddeus Young, Jrue Holliday, and Louis Williams to a record of 27-55. Jordan, a disciple of the “Princeton Offense”, had famously bragged to a beat reported, when asked who the point guard is “that everyone on the floor is a point guard in this offense”. Never mind that players like Brand and Samuel Dalembert were odd picks for an offense that prized shooting and passing at every position, it leaned on Igoudala, an athletic wing known for his defense, to become the team’s dominant scorer. For those familiar with his work in Washington, the flip-side wasn’t much of a surprise: Philadelphia was the 8th worst defensive team in the league, allow three more points per 100 possessions than the average club.

Without any significant personnel changes, newly minted head coach Doug Collins was able to shave five points off that mark in his first season, landing the Sixers in the top ten in the NBA. In this season to date, the Sixers have shaved an whopping ten points per 100 possessions from last year – allowing eight points fewer than the average, and four less than the second-best Chicago Bulls. At their current pace, the Sixers would have the best defense since advanced stats have been kept (eight years), by a mind-shattering six points per possession over the next follower. Even adjusted for the overall decrease in offense this year, the Sixers allow 9% fewer points than an average team – the next best mark in the eight year span is 7%.

The change hasn’t come in personnel – all six of this season’s most frequently used players played on Jordan’s team, and five of them (all but Jodie Meeks) were on that team’s top six leading minute-getters. The Sixers are pretty average on the glass and forcing turnovers – where they’ve made their mark is opponents shooting percentage, where they lead the league.

It seems odd, as this seems, in many ways, to be a deficient team in terms of defensive talent. Elton Brand has never carried the reputation of being a stout defender, and an early injury to center Spencer Hawes has left them frequently deploying a front-court pairing of Brand and fellow defensive liability Thaddeus Young. Each standing 6’9″, it’s a grossly under-sized pairing that shouldn’t be able to stand up to better interior offenses.

Watching the team provides some clues – the Sixers are perhaps the best perimeter defense in the league (the fact that teams shoot under 30% from beyond the arc, best in the league is a hint), and excellent help defenders. The ball is nearly constantly pressured, and offenses frequently need to work in order to get into their offensive sets, often with half the shot clock expiring before they get into their set. Point-guard Jrue Holliday, built like a 6’4″ spider can prevent most opposing point guards from getting where they want to go (when properly motivated, he has a tendency to play down to his competition), and the next time Andre Igoudala gets taken to the basket will probably be the first. Read more »