Who have you played?

After the silence that was finals week, and Butler’s dramatic upset of Indiana (where Butler transfer Rotnei Clarke finally lived up to the preseason hype), Saturday night featured a nice little matchup between Top 10 teams Arizona and Florida. I’ve seen enough of Florida this season to believe the Gators are elite.

Watching Florida take on Georgetown on an aircraft carrier, I was impressed to see Will Yeguete emerging as Florida’s true physical inside presence.

Watching the Gators torch Wisconsin, I was impressed with Erik Murphy’s now diverse scoring game.

And watching the Gators absolutely shut-down Marquette and Florida St. defensively, I started to believe this might be a complete team this season. But for Arizona, Saturday night’s game was a real litmus test.

With six minutes to go in the first half, Arizona’s Mark Lyons crossed mid-court near the sideline and fell into a Florida trap. Stuck in the corner, Lyons was forced to make a desperation pass and his cross-court lob led to a turnover. Analyst Miles Simon pointed out that this is the kind of mistake an experienced point guard never makes. An experienced point guard knows to take the ball over mid-court near the center of the court to prevent the sideline from becoming an extra defender. But this is Lyons first season playing the pointg uard position, and a lack of awareness of some of these basic ball-control principles is one of the reason Lyons has a more turnovers than assists this season.

Flash forward to the end of the game. Lyons had the ball in his hands with the clock running down and his team down one. Lyons was aggressive with the basketball, penetrated the lane, and banked home the game-winning lay-up. Even though Lyons may not have experience at the point-guard position, in his time at Xavier he had plenty of experience making huge baskets at the end of the game. Teams would often force the ball out of Tu Holloway’s hands, and Lyons had plenty of experience attacking the basket in these situations. Lyons had been there before, and his shot gave Arizona a come from behind victory.

I haven’t quite made up my mind about Lyons this season. On the one hand, basketball is a game where positions are overrated. I don’t really care if he isn’t a true point guard. If he can make enough good plays, that can overcome some mistakes. Joe Jackson of Memphis showed that in spades with his stat-line on Saturday. Jackson had eight turnovers in his team’s loss. But because of his eight assists and excellent shooting (4-for-5 on twos, 3-for-4 on threes, 6-for-8 free throws) Jackson’s single game ORtg was still a respectable 113. You can be a valuable player and still turn the ball over.

And while Lyons turnovers are a concern for the Wildcats, that might not stop Arizona from winning the Pac-12. A good comparison might be Duke’s defensive rebounding. It is clearly a weakness, but if Ryan Kelly can continue to do other things well, his deficiency in that area might not be the end of the world for the Blue Devils.

And on Saturday, we saw that Arizona can do quite a few things well. They showed that even when their freshmen have a deer in the headlights look, (Kaleb Tarczewski fouled out and none of the other new players played particularly great), they still have two veterans who know quite a bit about winning. Solomon Hill carried the team early with some great slashing moves to the basket. And Nick Johnson knocked down some huge jump shots to lead the comeback. And in the end Arizona’s defense held Florida scoreless the last seven times they possessed the basketball. I don’t believe Arizona is better than Florida, and I condemn any poll voter that drops the Gators after that effort, but I finally had reason to endorse the Wildcats as a legitimate team.

Of course I want to see more before I anoint Arizona as the undisputed Pac-12 favorite. Oregon, with an eligible Arsalan Kazemi integrating into the starting lineup looks intriguing. You can never count out Mike Montgomery at California, even if the early returns aren’t good this season. And I’m not quite ready to count UCLA down-and-out permanently. UCLA super-frosh Shabazz Muhammad had another great stat-line this weekend. But I was glad to finally have a real game with which to judge the Wildcats.

The problem at this point in the season is that even though many teams are building gaudy looking records, that doesn’t always mean anything. Kansas St. was 7-1, and everyone was praising the job Bruce Weber had done in Manhattan, Kansas. But Kansas St.’s hadn’t beat a team in the Top 100 of Ken Pomeroy’s rankings. And after Saturday’s lackluster performance against Gonzaga, I’m left to ask what Kansas St. has really accomplished so far this season. In fact, the question is pretty simple:

Who has quality wins at this point?

Having developed a preseason ranking system, people often ask me why I don’t have regular season rankings. The answer is that margin-of-victory is clearly the most important predictor of in-season success, and the existing ranking systems do a fabulous job measuring this. Both Jeff Sagarin’s Predictor and Ken Pomeroy’s Rankings do a fantastic job of using margin-of-victory to rank teams.

But if I were to generate my own ranking system, I would choose to do one thing differently. I would discount games against low-level opponents.  Right now I hate the fact that Wisconsin’s elite ranking is generated because they crushed Southeast Louisiana, Cornell, and Presbyterian. All “cupcake” games seem to do is introduce bias into the ranking systems because coaches treat them so differently. Some coaches experiment with lineups, while others try to build chemistry with their starters.

Fair or not, when I evaluate teams, I really focus on games against elite competition.  And that is what today’s table is meant to show. In the next table, I took the top teams in Ken Pomeroy’s rankings, and re-evaluate them, only counting games against Top 100 competition. And when you only count games against quality competition, the rankings look significantly different.

The biggest punch-line in table is that a number of the elite teams haven’t really played anyone yet. What do some of those gaudy win-loss records really mean? Miami (FL) has played two games against the Top 100. Santa Clara has played one Top 100 team. And after Sunday night, Providence and Seton Hall had played zero teams in Ken Pomeroy’s Top 100. (LSU and Washington might sneak up into the Top 100 by the end of the year for Seton Hall, but they aren’t there now.) Sure the win-loss totals for these teams are decent. But do we have any sense whether these teams are any good?

On the other hand, some teams have truly established themselves as elite by playing great basketball while playing quality teams. Florida, Kansas, Duke, and Gonzaga, not only have strong performances against the Top 100, they’ve played a ton of quality games already this season. These are the type of teams that I am willing to endorse as elite teams at the early point of the season.

Meanwhile, a team like Wisconsin, which has mostly earned its high power rankings by crushing small conference teams has looked more like the 47th best team in the country in its 6 games against quality competition. Ken Pomeroy may have them 14th in the nation, but I’m not buying it.

Louisville and Minnesota are also each a little bit of a mystery. Both have picked up quality wins, but both teams have been much more impressive against small schools than against the Top 100 this season. Louisville is third in the Pomeroy rankings and Minnesota is 10th. But against the Top 100 these schools have looked more like the 16th and 25th best teams, respectively.

I don’t mean to say that games against teams ranked outside the Pomeroy Top 100 aren’t important.  We should be concerned that Miami (FL) lost to Florida Gulf Coast. We should be concerned that Illinois could only squeak by Gardner Webb and Hawaii. But in the end teams are judged by how they perform in big games. And the teams that have performed well in that environment may be different from what you expect.

(One final note, I was shocked that Butler wasn’t higher in these rankings. I thought the game against Indiana would weight more heavily in these rankings, but blowout losses to Top 100 foes Illinois and Xavier really hurt the Bulldogs.)

Performance By the Top 100 Against the Top 100

(Through Sunday’s Games using Pomeroy Top 100)

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The older I get, the more I see that one of the things I love most about sports is the variety of it, the diversity of it and the CHARACTERS. Men’s tennis is at its best in many years because, for the first time in a long time, the top three or four players all have wildly different styles. The Tim Tebow story was fun on so many levels, but one of those levels was that he was just SO DIFFERENT in how he played — I’d say we are entering a great time for quarterbacks, because Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers and Eli Manning and Drew Brees and Michael Vick and Cam Newton and Tebow and others are not really alike at all.

-- Joe Posnanski

As a basketball fan, I’ve never understood the division that exists between fans of the NBA and the NCAA. While the NBA has the best basketball players in the world, March Madness is compelling in its own right and as entertaining as anything that happens on the professional level.

In the NBA, the owners of the 30 franchises consider turning a profit and getting an equal shot at the top players a right, regardless of how well (or how poorly) they run their organization and the respective size of their fan-bases. Since every losing team is a few ping pong balls from the rights to a LeBron James, Kevin Durant or Dwight Howard, personnel determines scheme in the NBA.

In contrast, the vast majority of the 344 Division I programs in college basketball have little chance of ever receiving a commitment from a McDonald’s All-American. But instead of petulantly trying to sabotage the sport in a misguided effort to legislate fairness, schools try many creative ways of leveraging the talents of the players they can recruit. As a result, scheme determines personnel in the NCAA.

At Syracuse, Jim Boeheim has made a Hall of Fame career out of running a contrarian scheme, in his case an aggressive 2-3 zone. The Orange traditionally have rosters full of “1.5’s”, 6’3+ combo guards lacking the quickness to defend elite PG’s and the size to defend SG’s, and “3.5’s”, 6’8+ combo forwards lacking the quickness to defend elite SF’s and the size to defend PF’s. However, because Syracuse never plays man defense, the athletic deficiencies of their players are minimized.

So while nearly every NBA team runs a fairly similar system of isolations, pick-and-rolls and man defense, an incredibly diverse array of styles can be found in the college game. On one end of the spectrum, teams like Missouri play four guards and pressure the ball 94 feet for 48 minutes, on the other, teams like Wisconsin run a deliberate motion offense, trying to minimize the number of possessions and shoot at the very end of the shot-clock.

In the NBA, the players are too good for the “40 Minutes of Hell” system (which Mike Anderson has brought to Missouri and Arkansas in the last few years) to be successful. Like Mike Leach’s bizarre pass-happy offense in college football, Anderson’s system, which he learned as a member of Nolan Richardson’s staff in Arkansas in the 1990’s, has philosophical holes that professional athletes can exploit. Nevertheless, that doesn’t make them any less entertaining on the collegiate level.

And with 68 teams set to compete in the NCAA Tournament, there are a lot more surprises in the college game. Even programs ranked in the top-15 like Murray State have barely been on national TV this season.

We have a pretty good idea of how teams like the Pacers and the 76ers match up with the top of the Eastern Conference but not whether an undersized Murray State squad can handle the size of an elite team from a Power Six conference. It’s an open question how Isaiah Canaan’s speed and athleticism translates outside of the Ohio Valley Conference. Non-conference play in college basketball generally ends in late December, so it’s almost impossible to gauge how younger teams like Texas, Washington and Tennessee who have found their groove in the last two months will fare in March.

In the NBA, it’s hard to envision a scenario where Chicago, Miami and Oklahoma City aren’t three of the final four teams left in the playoffs. In the NCAA, as many as two dozen teams have a legitimate shot at making a run at the Final Four.

Of course, in terms of entertainment, none of this makes the NCAA necessarily better or worse than the NBA, just different. But, as Posnanski writes, there’s something to be said for the concept of “different” in the modern sports world. Basketball fans of all stripes should enjoy March Madness; the NBA will still be here in a few weeks.

Perhaps I have too many memories of Alex Legion, but I have always wondered if there is a “lemons” problem with transfers.  I.e., a player that is a bad fit in one environment, might be more likely to be a bad fit elsewhere. But in general, the data do not support that statement. Transfers are more productive than freshman, at least in the BCS leagues. Looking only at players to debut in a BCS league from 2003-2011:

96.7 is the average ORtg for 1758 freshmen
98.3 is the average ORtg for 267 JC transfers/walk-ons*
100.6 is the average ORtg for 186 D1 transfers** 

*This category includes players who begin to have data after their freshman year and have no data at any other D1 school. It includes junior college transfers as well as non-freshman walk-ons with over 25 possessions used on the season.

**I have 213 D1 transfers into BCS schools in my database, but 13% did not have enough possessions with the new team to calculate a reasonable ORtg.

If transfers are generally this valuable, we should be optimistic about Iowa St. The Cyclones bring in four highly publicized transfers in Michigan St.’s Chris Allen, Southern Illinois’ Anthony Booker, Penn St.’s Chris Babb, and Minnesota’s Royce White. But I have also shown in the past that coaches without D1 coaching experience are much more likely to be flops. In other words, there’s a pretty good chance this season is a total disaster for Iowa St. and Fred Hoiberg starts packing his bags. With a team relying on this many transfers, the window of opportunity is short. Win now, or move on.

Last year’s MWC standings

I sometimes like to point out when the margin-of-victory numbers suggest certain teams were better or worse than their record would indicate. But in the case of New Mexico, I don’t think anyone was fooled by last year’s 8-8 record. This was a very competitive team in a tough MWC that just happened to lose a number of close games last year. And with UCLA transfer Drew Gordon now eligible to play the entire season, New Mexico looks like one of the league favorites. (Yes Gordon was a transfer. As usual, I have made a not-so-subtle attempt to tie the conference previews into the opening topic.)

Boise St. had one of the rising teams in the WAC last season, but with virtually all the key players graduating this offseason, it will be hard for them to finish in the top half of the MWC.

Last year’s Big 12 standings

There is probably no conference where I more strongly disagree with other experts than the Big 12. Most polls seem to love Baylor, Texas A&M, and until recently Missouri. On some level, I understand the love for Texas A&M. They made the NCAA tournament last year, and return a number of key players. But Texas A&M is not a likely candidate to jump up and contend for the Big 12 crown. First, Texas A&M was extremely lucky to be a Top 25 team last year. When you look at their opponent adjusted margin-of-victory numbers, Texas A&M was very similar to Northwestern. But somehow, by winning a lot of close games, and beating the right opponents, A&M earned a solid seed in the NCAA tournament.

This year A&M returns fewer possessions than Northwestern. And unlike Northwestern, the players A&M returns are actually substantially less efficient. Dash Harris, he of the 17% three point percentage and 29% turnover rate last year, was one of the least efficient players in a major conference. The best case scenario is that last year was a fluke and that several Texas A&M players will bounce back. But in terms of average expectations, this looks like a borderline NCAA tournament team. The Sporting News left Texas A&M out of their preseason Top 25 and I agree wholeheartedly.

I also have a lot of concerns about Baylor. The problem for Baylor is that they were terrible offensively and defensively last season. On offense, they swap out LaceDarius Dunn for Top 10 recruit Quincy Miller. But the real key should be the addition of JC transfer Pierre Jackson at the point guard position. Assuming Jackson can solve Baylor’s extreme turnover problem from last season, the offense should be noticeably better. But I am less confident the defense will be better. Only when Ekpe Udoh was with the team has Scott Drew’s club ever been a dominant defensive squad. In most seasons his team’s defense has ranged from bad to worse. Quite honestly, I can tell you if Bill Self was coaching the Baylor Bears, I would gladly endorse them as a Top 10 team. But with Scott Drew, past history tells us we should be very concerned about their defense.

I was ready to endorse Missouri as a Top 25 team, and possible league favorite, but the injury to Laurence Bowers completely changes the Tigers outlook in my eyes. Bowers was simply an all-around stat-sheet stuffer, and there is no way his production will not be missed. It isn’t just his points and rebounds – he had the highest block rate and steal rate on the Tigers last year. That kind of production will be almost impossible to replace, and with a huge question mark in the paint now, I see Missouri as just inside the Top 40 instead of just inside the Top 25. Some people will probably claim that is too far to drop a team for just one player, but there are a lot of similar teams at this point in the rankings. And Bowers was not just another player, he was an unheralded star.

Of course that means I have a little extra love for Kansas, Kansas St., and Texas. In all three cases, the answer is recent history. In the tempo free era, Bill Self has been the best defensive coach in the nation. And while I wonder if Tyshawn Taylor can lead a team with relatively few McDonald’s All-Americans, as long as Bill Self is coaching elite defense, Kansas should be the favorite.

Kansas St. similarly gets no love, despite the fact that Frank Martin has never won less than 21 games as the Kansas St. head coach. Clearly, this looks like one of his weakest teams on paper, but other than Jacob Pullen, this team does not lose anyone they cannot replace. Curtis Kelly and Wally Judge were terrible last year, and neither will be severely missed. And the real reason the team turned around its season last year was because guards Rodney McGruder and Will Spradling began to emerge as stars. With those two knocking down shots in the back-court, and the nation’s best coach when it comes to teaching offensive rebounding, this still looks like one of the top teams in the Big 12. 

Finally, we come to the Texas Longhorns. Texas lost a ton of players to the NBA Draft. But remember what happened the last time Texas had a team this young? That was the 2006-07 season, otherwise known as the year Kevin Durant emerged. Rick Barnes realized he had a star, and rode Durant to a successful season. This year’s recruiting class is not quite as strong as 2006-07, but I love how this post from Rush-the-Court describes Texas’ recruiting class. It may not be all McDonald’s All-Americans, but there is a lot of talent here. And in the last nine years, Rick Barnes has never finished worse than 26^th in the Pomeroy Rankings. With Myck Kabongo and J’Covan Brown, history says Rick Barnes will be able to ride a couple of stars and win a lot of Big 12 games. 

So perhaps to make this season a little more interesting, I am throwing out my Big 12 bet. I am going to take Kansas, Kansas St., and Texas, and give the unnamed experts Baylor, Texas A&M, and Missouri. And if my group wins more conference games over the course of the season, I get bragging rights.

Final Notes: I sure hope Oklahoma St. prized recruit LeBryan Nash sticks around a couple of years, because the school's recruiting seems to be getting better, and I think this team is still a year away from being dominant. I think new head coach Lon Kruger could do wonders at Oklahoma by just improving the defense, but the offensive talent is still lacking.