SportsRatings: College Basketball

2009 NBA Playoff Projection #1: Full Season

We're minutes away from the start of the 2009 NBA Playoffs; here are the most basic projections, based on my Strength power rating and pair-comparison system. I use a playoff-series calculator to get the final odds for a given series based on the game-by-game odds.

Lakers 78%__
            |_Lakers 66%__
Utah 22%____|             |
                          |_Lakers 74%__
Portland 58%_             |             |
            |_Port 34%____|             |
Houston 42%_|                           |
                                        |__Lakers 37%__
Spurs 59%___                            |              |
            |_Spurs 45%___              |              |
Dallas 41%__|             |             |              |
                          |_Denver 26%__|              |
Denver 64%__              |                            |
            |_Denver 55%__|                            |
Hornets 46%_|                                          |
                                                       |___Cleveland
Cleve 92%___                                           |
            |_Cleve 87%___                             |
Detroit 8%__|             |                            |
                          |_Cleve 63%___               |
Atlanta 63%_              |             |              |
            |_Atlanta 13%_|             |              |
Miami 37%___|                           |              |
                                        |__Cleve 63%___|
Orlando 83%_                            |
            |_Orlando 44%_              |
76ers 17%___|             |             |
                          |_Boston 37%__|
Boston 85%__              |
            |_Boston 56%__|
Bulls 15%___|

Pretty straightforward results, in fact, no upsets whatsoever in terms of seeding. This is the power of home court advantage in the playoffs. It's also due to considering the entire season in the power rating, which doesn't factor in trades and injuries. Here are the results of the Strength power rating for the 2009 season:

num Team                     record    rating   seed
1.  Cleveland                 66-16     8.70     1E
2.  Boston                    62-20     7.30     2E
3.  LA Lakers                 65-17     7.14     1W
4.  Orlando                   59-23     6.41     3E
5.  Portland                  54-28     5.23     4W
6.  Houston                   53-29     3.64     5W
7.  San Antonio               54-28     3.14     3W
8.  Denver                    54-28     2.96     2W
9.  Utah                      48-34     2.36     8W
10. Phoenix                   46-36     1.72    
11. Atlanta                   47-35     1.71     4E
12. Dallas                    50-32     1.62     6W
13. New Orleans               49-33     1.46     7W
14. Miami                     43-39     0.27     5E
15. Chicago                   41-41     0.07     6E
16. Philadephia               41-41     0.00     7E
17. Detroit                   39-43    -0.18     8E
18. Indiana                   36-46    -0.56
19. Milwaukee                 34-48    -0.90
20. Charlotte                 35-47    -1.38
21. NewYork                   32-50    -2.24
22. NewJersey                 34-48    -2.47
23. Toronto                   33-49    -2.50
24. Golden St                 29-53    -3.72
25. Minnesota                 24-58    -4.77
26. Memphis                   24-58    -4.90
27. Oklahoma                  23-59    -6.16
28. Washington                19-63    -6.90
29. Sacramento                17-65    -8.51
30. LA Clippers               19-63    -8.55

Once again we see the relative overall strength of the West dominating the East, but the top teams of the East stronger than the top West teams. Phoenix didn't make the playoffs but rates better than five of the eight East teams that did, as well as two of the eight West teams.

No Surprises: Blake Griffin is MVP; Big Men + Curry make up All-American first team

Blake Griffin was the runaway winner of the 2009 SportsRatings MVP Award for college basketball. Griffin outdistanced fellow big men DeJuan Blair of Pittsburgh and Hasheem Thabeet of UConn to win the award by a wide margin.

Griffin, who just announced his decision to go pro, averaged 22.7 points and an nation-leading 14.4 rebounds per game while shooting 65% percent from the field. This gave him the top ranking in both Per-Game and Total points in our Total Performance Ratings. Coupled with Oklahoma's excellent 30-6 season where the Sooners reached the Elite Eight, Griffin was over 150 points ahead of his nearest competitor. He was an MVP in the truest sense of the word, too; without him, Oklahoma would have been roughly equivalent to Oklahoma State this year.

	Player	Team	Per Game	Total	MVP Rating
1	Blake Griffin	Oklahoma	27.7	969.5	807.6
2	DeJuan Blair	Pittsburgh	21.6	756.0	650.9
3	Hasheem Thabeet	Connecticut	20.2	727.2	626.1
4	Stephen Curry	Davidson	23.4	795.6	613.4
5	Tyler Hansbrough	North Carolina	19.7	669.8	599.5

Joining Griffin on the first team were DeJuan Blair of Pitt, who averaged an amazing 5.6 offensive rebounds per game for the Elite Eight Panthers; Hasheem Thabeet, who helped UConn to the Final Four with a second-in-the-nation 4.5 blocked shots per game; Davidson's Stephen Curry, the nation's leading scorer at 28.6 points per game; and finally senior Tyler Hansbrough, last year's SportsRatings MVP and leader of the national champion North Carolina Tar Heels.

There were several memorable matchups between the five player this season. Blair and Thabeet met twice, with the much shorter but equally massive Blair getting the best of the 7-3 center in game one, with 22 points and 23 rebounds Thabeet's 5 and 4 in a Pitt win at UConn. Thabeet improved in game two, with 14 points and 13 rebounds, but Pitt again won, Blair adding 8 points and rebounds. Hansbrough and Griffin met in the NCAA tournament Elite Eight, with Griffin scoring his usual 23 points and 16 rebounds but unable to lift his teammates against the Tar Heels. Hansbrough had an off game but there wasn't much need for him to shine. Griffin's Sooners also faced Curry's team in an early season contest where the Davidson guard scored 44 points in a losing effort. Griffin had 25 points and 20 rebounds and insured the Sooners would get the 82-78 home win.

Hansbrough finished just a hair better than teammate Ty Lawson, and since the above team is a bit crowded under the bucket if we were to pick a more traditional, position-by-position first team, we could substitute Lawson for Hansbrough resulting in the following lineup:

Blake Griffin     SF    6-10  250   Sophomore
DeJuan Blair      PF    6-7   265   Sophomore
Hasheem Thabeet    C    7-3   265   Junior
Stephen Curry     SG    6-3   185   Junior
Ty Lawson         PG    5-11  195   Junior

This makes a pretty intimidating team. With both Thabeet (the obvious center when on defense) and Blair (who is huge and plays taller) underneath, Griffin could play a hybrid forward position on offense and has the athletic ability to guard small forwards. Blair gets the offensive rebounds, Griffin the defensive rebounds, Thabeet whatever's left. Curry played point this year but is a natural shooting guard, leaving Lawson to be the point.

Already Griffin and Blair have announced they will go pro, and Hansbrough is a senior. That leaves the three junior to decide, but it seems likely that all three will go pro as well.

The official second team includes Lawson; Cole Aldrich of Kansas (15 points, 11 rebounds); Terrence Williams of Louisville (over 5 assists per game); DeMarre Carroll of Missouri (led the Elite Eight Tigers in points and rebounds), and Lester Hudson of Tennessee-Martin.

	Player	Team	Per Game	Total	MVP Rating
6	Ty Lawson	North Carolina	19.0	665.0	595.2
7	Cole Aldrich	Kansas	21.4	749.0	577.5
8	Terrence Williams	Louisville	17.8	658.6	551.9
9	DeMarre Carroll	Missouri	17.7	672.6	548.8
10	Lester Hudson	Tenn-Martin	23.9	764.8	526.2

Hudson is the least well-known of the second five, especially since Tennessee Martin failed to make the NCAA tournament where he would have received a lot of attention in the first round. A senior similar in size to Curry, he can also play both guard spots and finished 2nd to the Davidson star in scoring with 27.5 points per game. He's not quite as deadly from long range but rebounds well for a small guard. He lit up Auburn for 33 in a losing NIT effort.

The third team has a few more lesser-known players. The two from national powers are Wayne Ellington, who made a huge move up the rankings just during the NCAA tournament due to his seemingly endless supply of 3-pointers and the Tar Heels' success; and Jeff Adrien of Connecticut who averaged just 0.1 rebounds shy of a double-double.

	Player	Team	Per Game	Total	MVP Rating
11	Ben Woodside	N Dakota St.	20.2	666.6	525.3
12	Gary Wilkinson	Utah St.	17.4	609.0	521.9
13	Wayne Ellington	North Carolina	14.9	566.2	506.7
14	Chavis Holmes	Virginia Military	21.7	672.7	504.5
15	Jeff Adrien	Connecticut	16.0	576.0	495.9

Ben Woodside of North Dakota State made his presence known in the first round of the NCAA tournament against Kansas, helping his Bison stick close to the Jayhawks all game. The 5-11 senior scored 37 points on 13-of-23 shooting that day, and averaged over 23 points and 6 assists all year. Center-forward Gary Wilkinson is the main reason for Utah State's 30-win season this year; the 26-year-old senior (he went on an LDS mission, natch) averaged 17 points per game. And Chavis Holmes of VMI averaged 23 points per game, three more than twin brother Travis, who finished at #51 in the MVP rankings.

Comparison to AP All-American teams

Four of the five SportsRatings first-team selections were also on the AP first team: Griffin, Blair, Hansbrough, and Curry, while Thabeet was an AP 2nd team choice. The AP's other first-teamer, James Harden of Arizona State, was #40 in the SportsRatings MVP ratings, the equivalent of an honorable mention. 

Of the second team, only Ty Lawson made the AP second team while Williams was a third-team choice. Aldrich, Carroll, and Hudson were all AP honorable mentions. The AP choices were Luke Harangody of Notre Dame, Jodie Meeks of Kentucky, and Jerel McNeal of Marquette. Harangody was #4 in Total Performance points but only #30 in MVP due to the Irish's struggle this season; Meeks was 83rd in the MVP ratings, actually behind teammate Patrick Patterson; and McNeal ranked 70th.

Of the third team, only Woodside, Wilkinson, and Adrien were AP honorable mention. Note that Wilkinson was helped a lot in the MVP rankings by Utah State's weak schedule which allowed them to rack up a very high winning percentage, while Holmes benefitted from VMI's fast-paced offense, which ranks first in the nation before adjusting for tempo. And Ellington's rating from before the NCAA tournament—when the AP voted—wasn't nearly as good. AP third-teamer Williams was a SportsRatings 2nd teamer while Sam Young of Pittsburgh missed the SportsRatings 3rd team by one spot, finishing 16th on the MVP list. The other AP third-teamers, with corresponding MVP rankings were: Gerald Henderson, Duke (#42); Toney Douglas, Florida State (#54); and Sherron Collins, Kansas (#84).

2009 NCAA Tournament Championship Game Results - Final Score: North Carolina 89, Michigan State 72

North Carolina started strong and maintained a commanding lead over Michigan State to win the 2009 NCAA national championship. Not far into the contest memories of the 35-point wipeout last December 3rd were being evoked, but North Carolina's lead never grew beyond 24 points and the Spartans kept the score respectable with some mini-runs in the 2nd half.

There were several standouts for North Carolina. As he has all tournament Wayne Ellington scored on open three-pointers but also had sweet inside moves and a nice dunk to lead first half scoring with 17; Ellington was rightly named the tournament Most Outstanding Player. Tyler Hansbrough added 18 for the game, finishing as one of the all-time top 5 in NCAA tournament history. Deon Thompson and Ed Davis fought hard inside for points and rebounds. And Ty Lawson set the NCAA title game record with his 8th steal and had 21 points himself to lead all scorers.

The Spartans had few bright spots. Korie Lucious hit twin three-pointers from the same spot on the top of the key in the first half, but like the Tar Heels' last few opponents, the Spartans were poor from outside the 3-point line, hitting only 7 of 24. Kalin Lucas had 14, Durrell Summer 13, and Goran Suton 17 points and 11 rebounds, but overall the Spartans' offense couldn't get on track and their defense was overwhelmed by the Tar Heels' attack. Adding injury to insult, Raymar Morgan was hit in the face underneath in the first half and stayed on the floor for minutes, but he recovered to re-enter the game. He had only four points in contrast with his great 18 point effort against Connecticut.

The Tar Heels won their 2nd national title in the last five years and their fourth in the last three decades. Overall North Carolina has won five national titles, tying them with Indiana for 3rd place behind UCLA (11) and Kentucky (7).

2009 NCAA Tournament Championship Game Preview, Odds, & Predictions: (1) North Carolina vs. (2) Michigan State

Game Time: Monday, April 6, 9:21pm EDT in Detroit, MI

Team: North Carolina Tar Heels

Seed: 1
Record: 33-4
Conference: ACC

SportsRatings Power Ratings

Strength:  #1   Injury Correction: #1 (-Lawson #3)
Success:   #1
Combined:  #1

Tempo-Free Ratings

Strength:  #1   Injury Correction: #1 (-Lawson #16)
Offense:   #1
Defense:   #18

Recent play

2nd half of season:    #1  tempo-free: #3
NCAA Tournament games: #1  tempo-free: #1

01 W Pennsylvania    86-71  13 W@Nevada          84-61  25 W@Miami FL        69-65
02 W Kentucky        77-58  14 L Boston College  85-78  26 W N.C. State      89-80
03 W@UCSB            84-67  15 W Charleston     108-70  27 L@Maryland     OT 88-85
04 W@Chaminade      115-70  16 L@Wake Forest     92-89  28 W Georgia Tech   104-74
05 W=Oregon          98-69  17 W@Virginia        83-61  29 W@Virginia Tech   86-78
06 W=Notre Dame     102-87  18 W Miami FL        82-65  30 W Duke            79-71
07 W UNC Asheville  116-48  19 W Clemson         94-70  31 W=Virginia Tech   79-76
08 W@Michigan State  98-63  20 W@Florida State   80-77  32 L=Florida State   73-70
09 W Oral Roberts   100-84  21 W@N.C. State      93-76  33 W=Radford        101-58
10 W Evansville      91-73  22 W Maryland       108-91  34 W=Louisiana State 84-70
11 W=Valparaiso      85-63  23 W Virginia        76-61  35 W=Gonzaga         98-77
12 W Rutgers         97-75  24 W@Duke           101-87  36 W=Oklahoma        72-60
                                                        37 W=Villanova       83-69

• Wins vs. tournament teams(11): @Michigan State+35, =Oklahoma+12, @Duke+14, Duke+8, =Villanova+14, =Gonzaga+21, @Florida State+3, Clemson+24, LSU+14, Maryland+17, =Radford+43
  
• Wins vs. Round of 32 teams(8): @Michigan State+35, =Oklahoma+12, @Duke+14, Duke+8, =Villanova+14, =Gonzaga+21, LSU+14, Maryland+17
• Wins vs. Sweet 16 teams(6): @Michigan State+35, =Oklahoma+12, @Duke+14, Duke+8, =Villanova+14,=Gonzaga+21
• Wins vs. Elite 8 teams(3): @Michigan State+35, =Oklahoma+12, =Villanova+14
• Wins vs. Final Four teams(2): @Michigan State+35, =Villanova+14
• Losses to tournament teams(4): Boston College-7,@Wake Forest-3, @Maryland OT, =Florida State-3
• Other losses(0): none
  

Key Info: Charting North Carolina's season tempo-free alters the look of their season quite a bit. Now the game against Asheville doesn't match the subsequent blowout over Michigan State. It also makes their chart look a lot closer to Michigan State's, as the Spartans play a slow tempo (66 possession average) and the Tar Heels play super-fast (76 possessions).

   ***********************************************************************************

Team: Michigan State Spartans

Seed: 2
Record: 31-6
Conference: Big Ten

SportsRatings Power Ratings

Strength:  #13   Injury Correction: #7 (-Morgan #14, -Suton #47)
Success:   #3
Combined:  #4

Tempo-Free Ratings

Strength:  #11   Injury Correction: #5 (-Morgan #11, -Suton #56)
Offense:   #21
Defense:   #11

Recent Play

2nd half of season:    #11   tempo-free: #8
NCAA Tournament games: #6    tempo-free: #5

01 W Idaho          100-62  13 W@Northwestern    77-66  25 L@Purdue          72-54
02 W@IUPU Ft. Wayne  70-59  14 W Ohio State      67-58  26 W Wisconsin       61-50
03 L=Maryland        80-62  15 W Kansas          75-62  27 W Iowa            62-54
04 W=Oklahoma St.    94-79  16 W@Penn State      78-73  28 W@Illinois        74-66
05 W=Wichita St.     65-57  17 W Illinois        63-57  29 W@Indiana         64-59
06 L North Carolina  98-63  18 L Northwestern    70-63  30 W Purdue          62-51
07 W Bradley         75-59  19 W@Ohio State      78-67  31 W=Minnesota       64-56
08 W Alcorn St.     118-60  20 W@Iowa            71-56  32 L=Ohio State      82-70
09 W The Citadel     79-65  21 L Penn State      72-68  33 W=Robert Morris   77-62
10 W@Texas           67-63  22 W Minnesota       76-47  34 W=USC             74-69
11 W=Oakland         82-66  23 W Indiana         75-47  35 W=Kansas          67-62
12 W@Minnesota       70-58  24 W@Michigan        54-42  36 W=Louisville      64-52
                                                        37 W Connecticut     82-73

• Wins vs. tournament teams(18): Connecticut 82-73, =Louisville+12, =Kansas+5, Kansas+13, Purdue+11, @Illinois+8, Illinois+6, @Texas+4, =OKlahoma State+15, @Ohio State+11, Ohio State+9, =USC+5, @Minnesota+12, =Minnesota+8, Minnesota+12, @Michigan+12, Wisconsin+11,=Robert Morris+15
• Wins vs. Round of 32 teams(10): Connecticut 82-73, =Louisville+12, =Kansas+5, Kansas+13, Purdue+11, @Texas+4, =Oklahoma State+15, =USC+5, @Michigan+12, Wisconsin+11
• Wins vs. Sweet 16 teams(5): Connecticut 82-73, =Louisville+12, =Kansas+5, Kansas+13, Purdue+11
• Wins vs. Elite 8 teams(2): Connecticut 82-73, =Louisville+12
• Wins vs. Final Four teams(1): Connecticut 82-73
• Losses to tournament teams(4): =Maryland-18, North Carolina-35, @Purdue-18, =Ohio State-12
• Other losses(2): Northwestern-7, Penn State-4
  

Key Info: Suddenly the Spartans are a tough home court team! Not only that, but Raymar Morgan looks like he's really back to form. The 35-point loss to North Carolina was in the same arena but without Goran Suton. Lots of variables in play here.

   ***********************************************************************************

Game Analysis: Below are the team's charts side by side:

Should we assume we can throw away game #8 for North Carolina, and game #6 for Michigan State? That was the 98-63 stomping the Tar Heels layed on the Spartans early in the season. Significantly, it was played at Ford Field; also significantly, Goran Suton didn't play for MSU. Is he worth 35 points? If we consider that result as a precedent for the matchup there's not much to look at: UNC should win the game handily, not by 35 but maybe by 15 or 20. So we'll ignore the early-season game and the matchups that might be affected by Suton's presence and MSU's development over the year, etc., and just look at the numbers.

The numbers are pretty confounding, as tempo, injuries, home court, and season portion all make for varying results. These four factors combine for 16 sets of predictions. Let's run through them.

Full Season

In all cases, analyzing tempo-free helps the Spartans, as does adding home court advantage (naturally). The other variables (season portion and injuries) change depending on each other. Starting with the whole season, however, gives these possibilities from the Strength power rating:

Analysis                   Projection (% chance to win)
Standard                   UNC by 7.7 (66% chance to win)
Standard + home court      UNC by 4.3 (57%)
Tempo-free                 UNC by 4.9 (66%)
Tempo-free + home court    UNC by 1.3 (Michigan State, 50.3%)

Note that in the tempo-free, home court case the Spartans win the majority of games (just barely) even as, on average, UNC is still favored by a point.

2nd half of Season

For the most part, using only the 2nd half of the season helps the Spartans. Of course it removes from the calculations the 35-point loss to UNC, and includes the tournament games that are some of their best.

Analysis (2nd half of season)   Projection
Standard                        UNC by 6.7
Standard + home court           UNC by 3.3
Tempo-free                      UNC by 3.8
Tempo-free + home court         UNC by 0.4

For each comparison the Spartans are roughly a point better in the more recent game sample. Michigan State would claim the majority of game-by-game comparisons in the bottom case (tempo-free, home court) as it did in the corresponding case for the entire season, but by a wider margin.

Injury corrected

Factoring out the games Goran Suton missed, as well as those where Raymar Morgan was slowed by pneumonia gives a better indication of where the Spartans are right now. It also factors out the 35-point blowout. To be fair, we also factor out the games UNC played without Ty Lawson (the four early games without Hansbrough don't change things).

Analysis (full season)     Projection (% chance to win)
Standard                   UNC by 6.0 (66%)
Standard + home court      UNC by 2.6 (56%)
Tempo-free                 UNC by 2.6 (57%)
Tempo-free + home court    Michigan State by 1.0 (MSU 55%)

Now the numbers are even more in favor of Michigan State, even giving them their first outright spread advantage in the form of a 1-point victory when Injury correction is combined with tempo-free analysis and a home court advantage. Since before, counting only the 2nd half of the season helped the Spartans, too, then doing so for this projection should be their most favorable analysis, right?

Analysis (2nd half of season)     Projection
Standard                          UNC by 6.9
Standard + home court             UNC by 3.5
Tempo-free                        UNC by 4.0
Tempo-free + home court           UNC by 0.6

Well, not quite. While Michigan State is helped by counting only 2nd-half-of-season games, North Carolina isn't hurt by it when corrected for injuries. That's because two of their games without Ty Lawson—all in the 2nd half of the season—were among their worst. Remove these games and the latter part of their year is still quite good.

Bottom line: So which set of all these projections is the most robust? They all have pros and cons. Tempo-free makes sense unless one team can control the tempo; in this case, these teams have such varying tempos that correcting for it seems appropriate. Injuries are important for both teams, and they should be judged at full strength. Then, whether we count the full season or not hardly matters; it comes down to home court advantage: Without it, North Carolina wins narrowly; with it, it's an extremely close game that Michigan State has a chance to win.

But we've seen Michigan State play North Carolina in this arena before, and it wasn't pretty. Give them 10 points for having Suton back; give them another 10 for playing better than last time and take 10 away from the Tar Heels for likely not playing as well this time, and still, North Carolina wins by five points. Note that the Vegas line is higher than almost all of the above projections:

Vegas line: North Carolina by 7 1/2

North Carolina was my pre-season #1 and takes the top spot in all my power ratings; I picked them before the tournament to win it all, and I'm sticking with them. This one will be slower-paced and closer than the last game, I believe, with a surprisingly low score, maybe 71-65. Though the Spartans have Suton back and Morgan is playing great along with Durrell Summers and Kalin Lucas, so too are Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington, Danny Green, and Tyler Hansbrough. North Carolina should win the 2009 national championship at Ford Field.

2009 NCAA Tournament Conference Performance (+ NIT, CBI, & CIT)

With just one game left, the Big East is king of all conferences despite not putting a team in the championship game. With five teams in the Sweet Sixteen and half of the Elite Eight and Final Four, they're far and away the top conference in the NCAA tournament and in the All-tournament combined results.

There's a close battle for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. The Big Ten will finish 2nd with a Michigan State win and fourth with a North Carolina win. The Big Ten would win the tiebreaker with the Big 12 in the first case and lose the tiebreaker with the ACC in the latter.

In the all-tournament standings, the order is set. Baylor reached the NIT final to ensure the Big 12's 2nd place slot, while Penn State's NIT championship keeps them just ahead of the ACC in the event of a UNC win.

Each conference gets a point for each team that reaches each round (including the first round, so just being in the field gives the conference a point). Tiebreaker goes to conference with the most teams in the current round; the team that has gone the farthest; or has the highest seeded team.

Here are the standings, color-coded in ROY G. BIV fashion, with teams remaining in parens:

Teams in tourney  Round of 32  Sweet 16  Elite 8  Final Four  Title Game  Champion

Big East             7                 6               5             4         2    
Big 12             6                   6          3      2   
Big Ten              7              4         2   1  1  1      (MSU) 
ACC                  7             3       2   1  1  1         (UNC)
Pac 10             6                 5      1            
Atl 10        3       2   1                              
SEC           3     1                            
C-USA     *1* 1  1                                       
WCC       *1* 1  1                                        
Horizon      2   1                               
Metro Atl *1* 1                                  
Sun Belt  *1* 1                                  
Mtn West     2    

The lesser conferences can be ranked better by including results from the  NIT ,  CBI , and  CIT . The NIT is counted 1/2 as much as the  NCAA , and the other two half as much as the NIT:

Big East                                                         109 points
Big 12                                               84
Big Ten                                           78
ACC                                             68
Pac 10                                      58
SEC                           36         
Atl 10                       33
C-USA                   23
Mtn West                23
WCC                   19
MVC                  18
Colonial            16
Horizon            13
Metro Atl         11
Southern          11
Sun Belt          9
MAC               8
Atl Sun          8
WAC              8
Ohio Vall       7.5
Big West        7
Amer East       6
Big Sky         6
Big South       6
Summit          6
Northeast       5
Ivy            4
Mid-East       4
Patriot        4
Southland      4
SWAC           4

This year instead of a "Big Six" there was really a "Big Five plus Two" with the SEC and Atlantic 10 in a 2nd tier below the elite conferences. Conference USA and the Mountain West Conference might be included in that 2nd tier as well. The SEC and MWC had a much more democratic mix of teams scoring points than the Atlantic 10 and Conference USA, which relied mainly on marquee programs Xavier and Memphis.

2009 NCAA Tournament Final Four Results & Video - Final Score: North Carolina 83, Villanova 69

North Carolina built a solid lead and held off Villanova all night to reach the NCAA tournament final.

(1) North Carolina   83 
(3) Villanova        69 

The Tar Heels were led by Ty Lawson with 22 points and Wayne Ellington added 20 on 5 of 7 3-point shooting. North Carolina had the three available all night, hitting 11 of 22 while the Wildcats were just 5 of 17, the second team in a row to shoot terribly from outside the line against UNC.

North Carolina, recalling their slow start against Kansas last year, started strong as expected but it was more business as usual than emotional play which helped them build a 17-point first half lead. As they did against Oklahoma, they seemed to let up a bit and Villanova closed the gap to 9 at the half, 49-40.

In the second half the Wildcats quickly closed the gap to five points, and with Tyler Hansbrough picking up three fouls in five minutes, Villanova looked to have an opportunity. But Danny Green hit two three pointers and the margin was pushed back to 13 points quickly. Green finished with 12.

Scotty Reynolds was great as usual for the Wildcats, scoring 17 points and hitting 3 of Villanova's 5 three pointers. But mostly Villanova went inside to try to score, and the second half settled into a familiar pattern: Villanova dumps the ball inside; a shot around the bucket rims out; North Carolina gets the rebound. This played out time and time again; it seemed like the Tar Heels must have had 25 rebounds under the basket in the 2nd half. Villanova was stuck, unable to score inside and unable to hit a three-pointer, and unable to stop the Tar Heel offense, and soon the game was out of reach.

2009 NCAA Tournament Final Four Results & Video - Final Score: Michigan State 82, Connecticut 73

Raymar Morgan made a dramatic return to form and Durrell Summers had two fantastic plays to lead Michigan State to an upset victory over top-seed Connecticut.

(1) Connecticut     82
(2) Michigan St.    73

Morgan, who shows potential to be one of the nation's elite players last year, was hampered for over a month with respiratory problems and never seemed to have made a full recovery. But on Saturday he was sharp from the beginning and finished with 18 points and 9 rebounds. Without him playing to his potential the Spartans wouldn't have gotten it done.

UConn took the lead back after an early Spartan run and held it for most of the half. As usual Hasheem Thabeet was an intimidating force inside, and Stanley Robinson added to the inside game that worked well for the Huskies; they finished with 15 and 17 points. Near the end of the first half a fight almost broke out but the melee consisted completely of players trying to stop other players from fighting. Michigan State battled back to take a slim halftime lead.

The second half was a lot like the Louisville game. Michigan State built a small lead that became bigger, and pretty soon it looked like UConn was in trouble. Instead of hitting 3's—or even trying them—they kept going inside, which didn't help them catch up. They attempted only six three pointers the entire game.

Late in the 2nd half Summers had two of the best Final Four plays ever. On the first he took a fast break pass from Morgan and somehow managed a dunk over Robinson. Robinson blocked the dunk but Summers spun the ball to the side and into the basket. The highlights below capture the moment.

With 2:15 to go and MSU up 71-60, Delvin Roe got an offensive rebound and Travis Walton immediately attempted a shot instead of using up more of the clock. This was a big mistake, giving the Huskies enough time to go on a final run. UConn got a number of steals and Goran Suton undercut Thabeet which led to two UConn free throws; Robinson's dunk with just a minute to go left the Spartans holding just a 3 point margin.

Summers 2nd great play was a fantastic reverse layup; he was fouled for a three-point play, a play even more important than his dunk but not on as many highlight reels. With Thabeet out of the game due to  back problems resulting from Suton's foul, UConn lost all momentum and the Spartans hung on to reach the final.

Bill Self should not have been Coach of the Year

Bill Self of Kansas was named AP's 2009 Coach of the Year after leading Kansas to the Big Twelve title a year after losing all five starters from last year's national championship team.

It's clear to me that Self should not have won the award, and here's why.

• Self had the best recruiting class in the country this year. In an era where recruiting is everything, I don't see how it was his coaching that led to their success. While it's true that freshman need to be well-coached and he did a fine job certainly, there are many coaches who did more with less.
• Kansas was ranked in the pre-season and performed roughly to expectations. I ranked Kansas #14 in my pre-season Top 25, while the AP had them #24. Unless they were expected to be a middle-of-the-pack Big 12 team their performance wasn't unbelievable.
• Giving the award to an established coach and program that has just won the national title and is clearly a basketball dynasty shortchanges the hard work that other coaches have to go through to have success. Almost anyone could have success at Kansas.

I believe Coach of the Year should be given to a coach who achieved a lot with very little, rather than a Rich Get Richer story (or in this case, the Rich Stay Rich). Perhaps their should be two different awards, one for recruiting and one for coaching. Certainly it was Self's recruiting that saved the season this year, though even that becomes a lot easier when you're at Kansas. So his success had three components: 1) the Kansas name, which makes recruiting easier, 2) his recruiting success, which is a credit to him and his staff (assuming he's playing by the rules of course), and 3) his actual coaching ability, which took a few veterans and a slew of freshman and had them playing great basketball this season.

What I'd like to see are elements #1 and #2 separated from #3. Look at what a team has going for it, and try to compare coaching jobs based on how much they have to work with. Given that, here are some coaches that I think are more deserving, in no particular order:

1. Mike Anderson of Missouri: If you're looking at the Big 12, why not Mike Anderson? His team didn't receive a single vote in the pre-season AP top 25 (I listed them at #28), yet they came close to winning the conference and made it farther in the NCAA tournament than Self's team.
2. Frank Martin, Kansas State: Another Big 12 possibility. After losing not only Michael Beasley but also Bill Walker, the cupboard was pretty bare for 2008-2009. But the team had a winning Big 12 record and a 22-12 overall record after making the NIT.
3. Bruce Weber, Illinois: Not much was expected of the Illini, who also got no votes pre-season. But they competed for the Big Ten title until a late downturn, and made the NCAA tournament.
4. Ed DeChellis, Penn State: Recent NIT champions, the Nittany Lions also were unheralded this season, and don't have nearly the recruiting power that their football team does.
5. John Beilein, Michigan: Yet another candidate from the Big Ten, which was probably the most-improved conference this season. The Wolverines under Beilein won their first NCAA tournament game in a decade.

Other potential winners include Butler's Brad Stevens, who has carried on Todd Lichlighter's success in the program, and Florida State's Leonard Hamilton, who brought the Seminoles back to the NCAA tournament. While the latter had recruiting success like Self (to a lesser degree), his team also didn't get a single pre-season vote. I had them #10 (!) to start the season so while I wouldn't give the award to Hamilton, he should be considered by the AP because by their standards the team greatly outperformed expectations. And there are many others who could have received the award.

Self did a good job with his team, I won't deny. But I'd rather see coaches who had a tough job going into the season be rewarded rather than those whose situation gives them an advantage. Of all those mentioned above, Anderson fared the best, finishing 5th, while Hamilton received 2 votes and Stevens 1 vote. Choices #2 through #4 in the AP vote were just as uninspired: Jamie Dixon of Pitt, John Calipari of Memphis, and Rick Pitino of Louisville, all of whose teams were highly touted at the start of the season.

Results of quantum mechanical analysis of 2009 NCAA Final Four

There have been great advances in analysis with regards to sports recently, and basketball is no exception. With so much more data available via the internet and other sources, standard analysis of game score and winning/losing games has become almost archaic.

Initially, coaches like Dean Smith and Lute Olsen used rating systems to go beyond Points Per Game and show a player's "total performance"; later, player data was analyzed in per-minute terms. Nowadays player valuation can now be expressed by the estimated number of extra wins they provide, and Shane Battier's intangible contributions can be concretized by algorithm. 

For each advance in the statistical arena, more data is required. Recently teams have been evaluated on a tempo-free basis, requiring more data than just the final score. For more complex comparison of player performance, one must know when that player was on the court, and who he was on the court with. Some available data contains all of this and a complete, possession-by-possession rundown for every game.

Here at SportsRatings we wanted to go further. The next logical step required building a game data file that included information on each step a player took during the game, with X and Y coordinates on the court grid, and that tracked the basketball on an X-Y-Z grid for each moment of play down to the 10th of a second. With this data we are able to objectively evaluate a player's footwork, defensive positioning, passing ability, fatigue ratio, and potential for success on Dancing With the Stars.

But we figured, why stop there? Rather than take baby steps, why not take basketball data analysis immediately to its logical conclusion? In other words, take it as far as it can possibly go. And we did. We have painstakingly built/acquired a data file containing the superposition, speed, and spin of each elementary atomic particle of every game locality for the 2008-2009 college basketball season. 

Now for the first time, every possible outcome can be simulated according to the quantum probabilities inherent in every atom extant in the players, coaches, and referees in a game system. The amount of predictive ability based on this data has increased more than a trillion trillion fold over what was available before.

The amount of data necessary to simulate a game system is rather staggering. Each player contains approximately 10²⁸ atoms, and when modelled on the (simplified) atomic level, an additional 20 bits per atom are required to simulate atomic motion. The inter-atomic processes add another layer of complexity, of course, with electrons, quarks, leptons, etc. all containing vast amounts of "qubits" of information that must be dealt with. Note that neutrinos of any type are normally ignored, though they nevertheless pass through the system by the trillions during 40 minutes of game play. While it is generally accepted that for basketball systems/simulations most leptons can be disregarded, for football all six must be taken into consideration.

Multiply those factors by the number of players on each team, the coaches, and referees, and a complete model of the backboard, rims, and court structure, and you can imagine the huge amount of data and processing power that were needed to complete the simulation. As the game simulation proceeds, entropy increases and along with it the amount of information in the system. The probabalistic field generated for each game takes into account every conceivable outcome, then as the wave functions collapse it "prunes" those results to weed out the practical duplicates and the outrageous. By the quantum model assumed by the algorithm any outcome is possible, such as a flock of wild ewes appearing suddenly on the court necessitating cancellation of the game. Odds of this happening are rather low, perhaps 1 in 100 trillion trillion trillion (though strangely the odds for ewes is much greater than that for yaks), so these and other perplexing results can be safely ignored.

So here are the results of our quantum analysis of this year's Final Four. We will spare you the tens of trillions of details and simply present the results in the form of a percentage likelihood for each team to win the national championship:

Team         National title odds
North Carolina    35.86%
Connecticut       26.99%
Michigan State    22.88%
Villanova         14.27%
Memphis          1x10^-97%
Other            1x10^-63%

The Tar Heels are the quantum favorite. But remember this is just a probability; since we can't simulaneously know the speed, spin, angle, and position of each subatomic particle we can't simply "fast-forward" from a given configuration to see what will happen. So we are left with a probability, God's roll of the dice as Einstein would say, that each team will prevail. Also note that the Large Hadron Collider recently picked the Connecticut Huskies in its brackets this year, so not all subatomic analysts concur.

Memphis shows up as the most likely to win of teams that are not in the Final Four. The Tigers failed to reach the Elite Eight; however, in any number of extremely unlikely scenarios where a replacement team is needed, or when the winning teams instantaneously and completely transforms into another team, it seems that Memphis is the most likely beneficiary of this rare phenomenon. The "other" category contains innumerable other teams (and a few extra-dimensional entities) with extremely limited odds. Needless to say, at this point we can safely assume that one of the teams actually in the Final Four will win the championship.

No analysis is perfect. The algorithm used makes the following assumptions:

1. We, in fact, live in a universe. However the model is extremely lenient as to what type of universe: expanding, contracting, imaginary, and hologram-based universes all qualify.
2. At least 10 dimensions exist, but "strings" are optional.
3. Time, per se, does not exist. Events and changes happen in sequence but there is no separate "tracking" or timeline. This has a huge effect on how the shot clock is handled.
4. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is self-accurate. This does not mean that the many worlds must exist, just that our model relies on counting the results and outcomes generated, whether they in fact are created separately from the experimental realm.
5. As per Penrose, the spin in massless particles can be accounted for by modeling light cones as Hopf fibrations of the three-sphere.

We'll be using the quantum model when possible from now on. There are some drawbacks: the simulation takes a long time to complete, and needless to say it's a memory and CPU hog. Results are sometimes difficult to understand and uncertainty and indeterminacy confound the starting states. There is also a small, but statistically significant, chance that running the simulation will create a black hole that will suck the earth and most of our solar system into it. So we will probably save this method for only the most important sporting events such as the Final Four, the college football national championship, Brazilian supermodel oil wrestling, and the Super Bowl.