Sweet 16 on Deck
By Bruce Marshall
A couple of years ago, we were lamenting the absence of party-crashers at the Sweet Sixteen. Schools from "major" conferences dominated the field at this stage as recently as 2009. But the college hoops tectonic plates have shifted lately; a year ago, four acknowledged mid-major entries made it into the Sweet Sixteen. And memories of recent Final Four runs by George Mason (in 2006) and Butler (last year) still resonate, indicating that there is room indeed at the head table for mid-major entries, a few more of which have elbowed their way into this week’s Sweet Sixteen.
As for this year’s George Mason or Butler? How about starting with Butler again? Along with a rampant Virginia Commonwealth side and Richmond (which, as an A-10 member, might chafe at being regarded in such company), there are a few more livewire mid-major entries that appear quite capable of crashing the Final Four party once more. (Feel free to also count San Diego State and BYU in that group if you like, although both resided in the top ten for much of the campaign, and their Mountain West Conference was ranked fourth strongest this season. That qualifies the Mountain West as a "major" loop, at least for the moment, although both are fresh faces at this stage of the competition, with the Aztecs reaching this stage for the first time ever, and the Cougars not this far since "the first Jimmer Fredette," Danny Ainge, was in uniform 30 years ago).
First, a quick review of last week’s sub-regional action...
Pointspread dynamics. There seemed to be a handful of mini-trends that might be gaining traction last week, though none really endured through the weekend. Underdogs had slightly the better of it thru Friday action (including the pair of "First Four" games), standing 18-13 against the line (three no-decisions, either from pick’em games or pointspread pushes, such as UNC-Asheville and UA-Little Rock). The chalk made a recovery in Saturday’s Third Round games, covering 6 of 8 (although San Diego State, over Temple in double OT, and Wisconsin, in a last-second thriller vs. Kansas State, cut it about as close as possible to get their respective covers), before the underdogs recovered to take 6 of 8 spread decisions on Sunday.
Big East, or Big Least? There can be no other way to interpret last week’s results by Big East entries other than to say it was a disappointing showing. With eleven entrants into the Dance, many figured that more than half were good bets to make it into the Sweet Sixteen. As it is, the only survivors beyond the weekend happened to beat other Big East entries to advance (UConn over Cincinnati and Marquette over Syracuse). Among the biggest letdowns were St. John’s and Georgetown, each humiliated in their opening-game losses, while Louisville was Thursday’s biggest upset victim when it fell to plucky Morehead State. Then, Southeast top seed Pitt was beaten over the weekend by Butler (in what might have been the strangest last 2 seconds we have ever witnessed in a game), and Southwest 2 seed Notre Dame never even had a look in its decisive Sunday loss to Florida State.
This happens to be the second consecutive year that the Big East has underwhelmed in the Dance, which should cause the architects of the much-debated RPI (Ratings Percentage Index) to consider some sort of adjustment in the mechanics of the system. The "Big East brainwashing" of the college hoops fan base by ESPN and other media outlets has distorted the perception of the conference to the point that even inanimate objects like the RPI are impacted; after all, the RPI exists on information fed into its data base from humans. And if that data is flawed from the outset due to non-impartial sources, the end result will be misleading. Perhaps it’s time to stop penciling every Big East team with 20 wins into the NCAA field ostensibly because of the RPI numbers, which can be inherently flawed.
The ACC is back! It never went away, really, but Florida State’s impressive romp past Notre Dame reminded a Big East and Big Ten-infatuated hoops audience that there is still some pretty good basketball being played in the ACC at places other than Duke and North Caroline. Which, by the way, both also advanced, giving the ACC (in a supposed down year for the loop) more entries into the Sweet Sixteen than any other league.
Player of the weekend. Not that he needs any more accolades, but BYU G Jimmer Fredette stepped up when the spotlight was on, canning 32 points against Wofford and 34 against Gonzaga as the Cougs march into the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1981, when an earlier version of Jimmer, Danny Ainge, scored one of the Big Dance’s most-memorable baskets when weaving upcourt for a driving lay-in with 3 seconds to play to knock Digger Phelps’ Notre Dame from the tournament. Honorable mention to Butler’s indomitable Matt Howard, the bruising senior forward and heart of the Bulldog team whose last-second put-back effort knocked Old Dominion from the tourney last Thursday, and whose free throw with 0:00.8 remaining beat regional top seed Pitt on Saturday. Time and space permit us from re-creating the wild final couple of seconds from that classic in D.C., of which we’re sure you’re familiar by now.
Disappearing act of the weekend. Xavier’s Tu Holloway (20.2 ppg) was the best player in the A-10 this season and seemed to have the Musketeers poised for their fifth sojourn into the Sweet 16 since 2004. Instead, Holloway’s shot went as cold as the hometown Reds’ bats in last year’s NLDS vs. the Phillies, making only 1 of 8 from the floor for a grand total of five points, as the Musketeers put up little fight in their Friday night 66-55 loss vs. Marquette.
Team of the weekend. We suppose there are sixteen we could nominate, but our vote goes to Virginia Commonwealth, which not only dispatched Southern Cal (in the First Four last Wednesday), Georgetown, and Purdue, but did so in increasingly impressive fashion, dominating all. The Rams, with a legit frontline presence in 6'9 Jamie Skeen, an athletic and lengthy group of wings paced by Bradford Burgess, a savvy dagger-thrower in sr. PG Joey Rodriguez, and a serviceable bench, are now the team nobody wants to face. An unlikely Sweet 16 matchup vs. Florida State (how many were projecting that one before Selection Sunday?) in San Antonio awaits on Friday.
Team to watch for next year. Michigan, without a senior on its roster and not likely to lose anyone early to the NBA, had progressed enough by the end of the season that it routed Tennessee in the Second Round of the Dance before almost toppling defending national champ and East top seed Duke on Sunday. Guards Darius Morris, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Stu Douglass all return and could comprise the nation’s best backcourt next season. It will be plenty of fun to see what the shrewd John Beilein can do with this core of talent (which also includes emerging F Jordan Morgan) next season.
City of the weekend. The new hoops capital of the country, at least for a few days, is none other than Richmond, Virginia, with two entries (Richmond and VCU) into the Sweet Sixteen. Considering that the Spiders and Rams are the only Division I schools in the city, that’s not a bad batting average.
Pointspread thriller of the weekend. No shortage of candidates here, from San Diego State’s cover and "over" in its double overtime vs. Temple, to the improbable events of the last seconds in several other games (Kansas State-Wisconsin and North Carolina-Washington two that immediately come to mind). But we doubt we’ll see a better backdoor cover than 8½-point dog Wofford nailing a triple by Terry Martin with 0:00.4 to play to squeeze inside the number by a hook against BYU last Thursday night in Denver. The Terriers had been down as much as 14 points a few moments before, and with Jimmer Fredette and the BYU starters still in the game appeared unlikely to clear the pointspread hurdle (Fredette even tried a 3-pointer with 8 seconds left and the Cougs up by 11). But Wofford kept battling, although for a split second it looked as if G Cameron Rundles would take a uncontested layup in the final seconds instead of selflessly bypassing the shot as he ran under the hoop in the last seconds and finding Martin in the corner. In the sports books here in Las Vegas, it was ecstasy for Terrier backers, agony for those of the Cougs in what was the "pointspread moment" of the tourney so far.
Last thought. Rewind a few months to the end of the college football campaign, and the overblown bowl season, and ask yourself if the way college hoops determines its champion is better than the way football does it. Any doubt about what a sham the bowl season is can be confirmed by simply picking up a copy of Dan Wetzel & Co.’s excellent book Death to the BCS, which we reviewed on these pages a few months ago. Copies are still available on bookshelves across the country. And now might be a good time to give it a look, and contemplate what a letdown college basketball would become if it conducted its postseason the way it is done in football. From that perspective, we’re not sure any college sports fan in the country wouldn’t rather see a football playoff as laid out by Wetzel & Co. (as well as on these pages) in the past.
As for the upcoming hoop action, in most seasons, getting to the Sweet Sixteen is an accomplishment worth celebrating for any team, especially dreamers among the mid-majors, although those sorts often begin to lose sleep the further they progress in March. But what George Mason and Butler have done in the past few years is confirm that the playing field (er, court) has been leveled somewhat between the big, BCS conferences and the rest. Unlike college football, which with rare exception (such as recent gate-crashers Boise State and TCU) continues to feature the same powerhouse teams year after year, college hoops is beginning to more resemble itself from long ago, when entries such as LaSalle, San Francisco, Seattle U, New York U, Loyola-Chicago, Wichita State, Dayton, Drake, and Jacksonville made it all the way to the Final Four. The schools from the big, BCS conferences might not agree, but we think it’s swell that the "non-aristocrats" of the college hoops world are starting to find their way onto the VIP list.
SWEET 16 & ELITE 8 ON DECK!
We’d love to keep talking about last week’s games, but it’s time to review recent Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight history. And there have been a few trends worth noting.
In the Sweet Sixteen, favorites have been in control the past three years, covering 17 of 24 chances, (including 6 of 8 each of the past two seasons. Although the trends have been see-sawing for most of the last decade; the dogs held the advantage the preceding three years (15-8-1 vs. line between 2005-07), while favorites fared better in the previous 4-season span between 2001-04, with the chalk 19-12-1 against the number in those years. The rare double-digit dogs are 9-5 vs. the line in the Sweet 16 since 1999, but like a year ago there don’t appear to be any in 2011. Among conference pointspread trends, we were expecting to test the mighty Big East’s shortcomings in this round (just 12-21-2 since 1998), but with only 2 of 11 from the loop advancing through sub-regional weekend, it looks like just another league as the Sweet Sixteen tips off.
More illuminating trends appear in the Elite 8, where underdogs have recorded a notable 31-19 spread mark since ‘98 (with two pick’ems). Last year, three of the four underdogs covered in this round. Conference-wise, note that Big Ten teams (two of which are still alive heading into this weekend) stand 11-5 vs. the line in the Elite 8 since ‘98, while the Big XII reps are only 4-14 in this round against the number over the same span, losing and failing to cover three times he past two seasons. Shorter-priced Elite 8 chalk (laying 3½ or fewer) is just 4-12 vs. the line in that 13-season span.
Following are the specific breakdowns (not including pick’ems or result "pushes") by pointspread category and conferences for the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 since 1998; 2010 spread records appear in ( ).
SWEET SIXTEEN FAVORITES
Spread category W-L
1-3 points..........17-13 (1-0)
3½-6½...............16-17 (3-2)
7-9½................14-9 (2-0)
10 or more points...5-9 (0-0)
Total...............52-48 (6-2)
Spread record by conference: ACC 13-12-1 (1-0), Atlantic 10-7-2 )-1), Big East 12-21 (1-1), Big Ten 16-12 (2-1), Big XII 16-10 (2-0), CAA 1-0, C-USA 5-3, Horizon 2-2 (1-0), MAC 1-1, Mid-Continent 1-0, MVC 1-4, Mountain West 0-2, Pac-10 9-15 (0-1), SEC 12-11 (1-1), SoCon 1-0, Sun Belt 1-0, WAC 2-1, West Coast 2-4 (0-1).
ELITE EIGHT FAVORITES
Spread category W-L
1-3 points..........4-12 (0-1)
3½-6½...............11-10 (1-2)
7-9½................3-6 (0-0)
10 or more points...1-3 (0-0)
Total..............19-31 (1-3)
Spread record by conference since 1998: ACC 8-6 (1-0), Atlantic 10 3-2, Big East 8-8 (1-0), Big Ten 11-4 (1-0), Big XII 4-14 (0-2), CAA 1-0, C-USA 2-3, Horizon 1-0 (1-0), Pac-10 6-6, SEC 7-4 (2-0), SoCon 1-0, WAC 1-1, West Coast 1-0.