SportsRatings: College Basketball

Brandon Miller is playing well, Alabama is not

Several days ago came the startling revelation that Brandon Miller brought the murder weapon to the crime scene in January's murder in Tuscaloosa, at the request of one of the accused killers. Since then Alabama's played three games and Miller has played in all three; Alabama's coach has said Miller was in the "wrong place at the wrong time" and wouldn't be held out, and indeed the police said there was "nothing they could charge him with." 

Still, observers wondered how Miller would respond to the pressure of playing after the announcement. Would he be tentative, nervous, a bit shook, perhaps? The answer was clearly "no" at South Carolina as Miller scored a career-hight 41 points in the overtime win. He shot 6 of 13 from the 3-point line, 8 of 12 from 2-point range, and 7 of 8 from the charity stripe. 

Before the next game Miller was "patted-down" by a teammate before the game, in a ritual the players had done before but one that prompted an apology from coach Nate Oats, saying it was in bad taste and wouldn't happen again. Apparently it was meant as a "TSA style" patdown and signified that Miller was "ready for takeoff."

Again Miller had a good game at home vs. Arkansas. Though not a career-best like last time, Miller had 24 points. He was only 1 for 6 in 3s but his 7 of 9 2s and all 7 free throws. Alabama escaped with an 86-83 win over the Razorbacks.

Coach Oats says that Miller has cooperated with the investigation in every way, but a few things might not add up in Miller's testimony. The police clearly imply that the accused killer texted Miller asking him to bring his gun to him. But Miller's attorney says Miller never saw it because it was under a pile of clothes, and didn't know it was in his car. The two facts don't jibe, and the logical conclusion is that Miller put the gun under the clothes when he brought it downtown to the accused killer, which is what one would do when transporting a gun: hide it. But no one seems eager to push the matter in any way, and one wonders if a normal person would be subjected to more scrutiny. Miller's lawyers have claimed the accused killer left the gun in Miller's car without Miller's knowledge, hidden under the clothes, which is a bit odd to say the least. Miller's car was also blocking the car of the victim when he parked it, though police say they don't know if that was intentional or not.

In any case, Miller obviously didn't participate in the violence itself, and that seems good enough for Alabama officials. In his third game since the controversy, Miller had 17 points in an overtime win vs. rival Auburn. He again hit only 1 of 6 3s and this time only 2 of 6 2s, but he hit 10 of 11 free throws, clearly not the hallmark of someone who has a burden on his mind over anything. Either Miller is an extremely cool customer, or he's confident he did nothing wrong. Perhaps both. 

But while Miller has performed at least as well as he has all season, Alabama as a team has been shaky to say the least. Beating South Carolina in overtime is an extremely weak performance, and while beating Arkansas and Auburn is tough for any team, Alabama was lucky to get out of both of them with a win when normally they should win comfortably.

To put it in terms of the Strength power rating, Alabama is overall the #2 team in the country, but for the last three games they've played like the #82 team. Here's how it looks on their full-season-to-date chart:

The drop-off to game #28 (South Carolina) is immense, and it was their lowest-rated game they didn't lose. The Arkansas win was about equal to the Tennessee loss, and the Auburn win was a bit worse (they were down by 17 at one point). The last two games weren't awful and ultimately, they got the win all three times, but all three were well below their full-season average performance (the green bar in game "0"). In Ken Pomeroy's ratings the team has fallen from #14 to #19 on offense and from #3 to #6 on defense, a significant drop for just three games.

So it would seem that while Brandon Miller isn't concerned with the current events—or at least doesn't show it on the court—his teammates are not thriving under the scrutiny nearly as well. 

The situation is fluid and facts are being introduced every day, and different sources have different takes, so it's hard to know what to make of Miller's actions and whether he has anything to answer for. The police say no, so that will probably be the final word. Maybe he should have done something differently, but most likely, he couldn't possibly have known at all what was about to happen. 

Yet although it seems he has shaken off any pressure added by the events, his team is not performing to its usual level for whatever reason, and it's too much of a coincidence to say the revelations have nothing to do with it. When player Darius Miles was charged with the murders back in January and dismissed from the team, the other players didn't really miss a step in performance. 

But something about the Miller revelation was different. Maybe they're worried about the pressure on him, and in doing so, took the pressure on themselves?  Hard to say what is going on. It's also possible that a 3-game sample is too small to draw conclusions. But it's a pretty sharp drop-off at the exact same time. Bama player Jaden Bradley was also at the scene of the murder (in his own car), and he's made only 3 of 17 attempts since then. Two Bama players were ejected from the Auburn game for a verbal altercation. It's not uncommon to see two players—one from each team—ejected, but two players from the same team? When playing at home?

Will Alabama recover their national-title-level gameplay in time for the NCAA tournament? We'll see. So far they've kept winning and look like they'll be a 1-seed. But if this drop-off in performance continues, they'll be hard-pressed to make a deep tournament run later on in March.

Illinois beats Iowa, putting Baylor ahead of Gonzaga

The college basketball season is finally getting interesting enough to write an article about. Here are some of the more offbeat things happening in our power ratings:

• Baylor finally passes Gonzaga at #1, and they can thank Illinois

#   Team                     record   Rating
1.  Baylor                    16-0     62.91
2.  Gonzaga                   17-0     62.37

Gonzaga and Baylor are clearly the best teams in the country, and are really the only two teams deserving of first-place votes. In our power ratings Gonzaga has held the edge at #1 for a long time. The teams have been nearly equal in Strength (winning-margin based power rating) but the Zags have been far ahead in Success (accomplishment-based rating).

When the rankings are combined, the Zags have been #1, Baylor #2. That's because Gonzaga's pre-conference schedule was tough as nails, and they hold wins over Kansas, Auburn, West Virginia, Iowa, and Virginia, all on neutral courts (home court counts a lot in Success). Baylor's lone non-conference skin was beating Illinois.

Lately though the tide has been turning; Gonzaga's West Coast Conference slate offers little advancement in Success, while Baylor has beaten Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Kansas, and Oklahoma State. They also beat Auburn in the Big 12-SEC challenge, giving them wins over two of Gonzaga's victims.

The game that gave Baylor the top spot this week was played on Friday, January 29, when Illinois beat Iowa 80-75. That diminished Iowa's value as a Gonzaga win, and elevated Baylor's win over Illinois. It was just enough to put Baylor on top. Had Iowa prevailed, Gonzaga would still be #1.

That's how close the two teams are: they're dependent on their opponents to decide the issue for them. If both teams remain undefeated, however, it's pretty clear that Baylor will start to pull ahead as their schedule going forward is a lot harder: Ken Pomeroy gives Gonzaga a 70% chance to win out while Baylor's odds are just 1 in 6.

• Drake tumbles in Markov Chain

The other undefeated team in the country is Drake. For those of you who don't know—probably the majority—the Bulldogs are located in the middle of the state of Iowa. Drake has ranked respectably in Strength, generally in the top 40 this year. The Bulldogs were winning games by an average of over 20 points per game against a weak schedule, and both aspects are taken into consideration.

But in our Markov Chain rankings, Drake was consistently in the top five. The Markov Chain formula is meant to cover both aspects, too: the "ball" moves from team to team based on win probability, and the better teams you beat, the more likely you are to "get the ball." In Drake's case, however, their weaker schedule should have prevented the ball from going to them. But their overpowering wins—as of January 4, they won every game but one by double digits—meant that once they got the ball, they pretty much never gave it up.

  #  Team                    Record   Rating
  1. Gonzaga                  15-0    145.70
  2. Baylor                   14-0    123.95
  3. Houston                  13-1     51.42
  4. Michigan                 13-1     44.91
  5. Drake                    11-0     37.88

That changed on Sunday when they needed overtime to beat Illinois State. Suddenly there was a near 50/50 game on their schedule, so instead of being a black hole from which the Markov ball would rarely emerge, there was an out. Drake plunged from #5 to #19, still a respectable ranking but making it look far less likely that the Bulldogs are a stealth Final Four team.

In fact, Drake's last three winning margins have all been under 10 points. What changed? Well, the Bulldogs are coming back from a lengthy Covid layoff. After beating Southern Illinois 86-55 on January 4 they didn't play until the 26th. They beat Missouri State twice, by 7 points and 5 points, before the 2-point win at home vs. Illinois State.

Pomeroy gives Drake just a 2% chance of winning out, mainly because they face Loyola of Chicago twice. Loyola's Strength is a few points better than Drake's, and they also rank in the top 25 in the Markov Chain rankings.

• Winthrop loses and plummets in Success

The only other undefeated team for most of January was Winthrop, who started out 16-0 before losing to NC Asheville on the 29th. Unlike Drake, the Eagles didn't rank very well in the Markov rankings, floating somewhere in the 60s range. That's because while the Eagles won every game, they had a lot of close calls. This kept them pretty low on the Strength totem pole too, outside the top 100.

But in Success, where win margin doesn't matter? The Eagles were flying high at #7 before their fall, neck and neck with Drake who shared their undefeated record and poor strength of schedule, but beat teams much more convincingly.

#   Team                    record    rating
1.  Gonzaga                   16-0     36.38
2.  Baylor                    15-0     29.65
3.  Michigan                  13-1     23.09
4.  Houston                   14-1     19.55
5.  Villanova                 10-1     12.36
6.  Drake                     15-0     12.07
7.  Winthrop                  16-0     10.93

After Winthrop's loss the bottom fell out of their high ranking and they plunged to #45. Why so far for one loss? Success takes into account who you lose to and where, and losing to 10-9 Asheville at home was a damaging hit.

• Colgate holds on in top ten of Strength

In addition to Drake, another team surprisingly high in some of our power ratings is Colgate, who at one point was #1 in Strength (though they had only played 4 games so they weren't included at the time). Colgate was #5 last week but falls this week to #10 after an overtime win at Holy Cross hurt their average.

#   Team                     record    Rating
1.  Baylor                    16-0     28.54
2.  Gonzaga                   17-0     28.09
3.  Illinois                  11-5     25.61
4.  Iowa                      12-4     25.02
5.  Michigan                  13-1     23.71
6.  Houston                   15-1     23.31
7.  Alabama                   14-4     21.91
8.  Villanova                 11-1     21.46
9.  Tennessee                 12-3     21.18
10. Colgate                    7-1     20.99

Still, Colgate in the top ten? How did we get here? First off, our Strength rating uses no priors, meaning nothing from the last season or any pre-season "projections" affects the ratings. That means a small sample size makes a big difference. Normally these things go away by January, but this year is different, and Colgate had played only six games through mid-January, against three different opponents. They beat Army 101-57, then lost to Army by 2 points. They beat Boston U by 7 on the road, then won by 44 the next day. After beating Holy Cross by 40, and then 9, they ranked in the top five.

All of this incestuous scheduling was necessitated by Covid, and it meant that the Patriot League's ranking among the larger basketball conference was dependent on very few games: only Army and Navy played out of conference and they went 6-2 against Division I. One game that made a lot of difference was Army's 7 point loss to Florida (#19 Strength); Navy also beat Georgetown. This put the Patriot League in a better position than they normally are, and Colgate's three 40+ point wins inflated their rating.

The overtime win deflated their balloon a bit but their 8-game sample is still bloated. Or maybe Colgate's just that good? If so, they're pretty hot and cold, winning by 40+ one game, then losing to the same team the next day? Using standard deviation to rank team Strength by stability, the Raiders fall to #57, which is probably more of what they deserve. Our Median Strength ratings accomplish the same thing, pushing them down to #55 as all three of their huge wins are factored out, and their two "middle" performances are averaged to get the median performance.

The question for most people is, if they make the NCAA tournament, can they get a first-round upset? The answer is: if the team that wins by 40+ shows up, of course.

• All but five D-I teams present and accounted for

Most years we screen out non-division I teams by formula (number of games played being less than average). This year, many true D-I teams haven't played close to the average, while many non-D-I teams have played more. Also, there are 10 teams that aren't playing at all (the entire Ivy League, plus Maryland Eastern Shore and Bethune Cookman).

So we're having to make up the requirement as we go, trying to insure a reasonable number of games played while still letting in the vast majority of D-I teams. Currently the requirement is 6 games, which means out of 347 teams, 342 are listed. Right now American, Alabama A&M, NC Central, Loyola MD, and Howard are not ranked; that should change in about a week, Covid permitting.

It also means that there are currently 8 non-D-I teams counting as D-I. They are:

• Flagler (2-4)
• Our Lady of the Lake (1-6)
• Florida National (0-6)
• Columbia International (0-6)
• Saint Katherine (0-10)
• Champion Christian (0-7)
• Bethesda (0-11)
• Carver (0-20)

Interestingly most of these teams list their D-I games as "pre-season exhibitions" even if they were played in January. That's fair, since losses to D-I teams shouldn't really count on their record. The D-I winners aren't putting an asterisk by their wins though. So can a game be half exhibition, half real? Looks that way: the winners count their wins, the losers call them exhibitions.

What about when the non-D-I team gets an upset? Looks like Our Lady of the Lake's official record is 1-3, calling 3 losses exhibitions but their win over D-I Texas State is official. Flagler counts one of two losses to FIU official, while their wins over Central Michigan and North Florida both count, but not losses to Furman and South Alabama. Not surprisingly FIU counts both wins, but credit Central Michigan and North Florida for owning their losses. Flagler is the only non-D-I team that doesn't rank in the bottom 10 in Strength; in fact at #230 they're not in the bottom 100.

Assuming we are able to increase our requirement to 7 games, then 8, that means we will get rid of five of these interlopers. But we might be stuck with Saint Katherine and Bethesda. And Carver should be considered a D-I team this year anyway; if you play 20 D-I teams, you're D-I, even if you're losing by an average of over 50 points per game.

Note to NCAA: Monmouth beat Canisius

If you check out the NCAA's official RPI, you might be surprised to discover that Canisius is 17-13 and Monmouth is 17-15, when everyone else seems to think the Golden Griffiths (yes I had to look that up) are 16-14 and the Hawks were 18-14 through Saturday.

Monmouth beat Canisius 60-54 on Saturday in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament, but the NCAA seems to think the result was the opposite; hence, the entire RPI is subtly messed up until they correct the error.

This is the biggest mistake I've seen since the NCAA started posting their RPI; before they've always had the game results correct, but they are sometimes a bit confused when it comes to designating home court. The home court errors get fixed randomly throughout the year—or sometimes not, perhaps leaving UNLV with neutral court games in Las Vegas, for example. Let's not even talk about the Palestra.

With the importance placed on the RPI and the fervor that fans have regarding March Madness, one would think that the NCAA would use the utmost care in ensuring that their "official" RPI is correct. This is part of their bread and butter, after all! And we're watching closely...

Halftime score: Utah 41, Arizona State 9

There have been a lot of crazy blowouts this year, but what's weird is the Sun Devils aren't really that bad of a team. They're #50 in Strength, #53 in Pomeroy (who had them a 12 point underdog).

ASU was also coming off three straight wins and still had an outside chance at the NCAA tournament—they were 7-7 in conference, which isn't bad, and were 15-12 overall, which doesn't rule them out. A strong finish and a good Pac-12 tournament run and they could have been a bubble team. So it's not like they gave up.

Maybe Utah was mad about the Oregon loss and took it out on ASU. Maybe ASU couldn't handle the 4,000+ feet of altitude. Either way, this shouldn't be an intra-conference halftime score. It's more like a halftime score of a ranked team playing Chaminade.

RPInsanity: Kansas is still ahead of Kentucky

I realize that criticizing the RPI is like beating a dead horse. Well, not exactly since the RPI is still very alive. But the problems with the RPI are pretty widely acknowledged and clearly documented.

That doesn't mean that we can't be redundant and vent a little bit, too.

Lately Kansas has been #1 in the RPI. That in itself isn't unusual; it seems that Kansas is always #1 in the RPI. The Jayhawks are usually one of the best teams and, more importantly, they tend to play the toughest schedule of any of the top teams. Hence, due to the RPI formula which rewards schedule strength above all else, we often find Kansas at #1 in the RPI. Often it's very justifiable.

This year though, the juxtaposition of Kansas at #1 and Kentucky behind them at #2 is too ludicrous to ignore. There should never be a system that has Kansas ahead of Kentucky at this point in the season, especially not one that's so important come Selection Sunday.

Kansas is 20-4, and that's great. Kentucky is 24-0, and that doesn't automatically mean they should be ahead of a 20-4 Kansas. Schedule strength, and more specifically, which teams you've beaten and which you've lost to, will obviously affect a rating system. Last year's Wichita State team was also 24-0 after 24 games, but you could argue for Kansas ranking ahead of the Shockers based on schedule strength. But not Kentucky. Let's take a look (RPI through games of 2/10/15):

 RPI                       Div I        SOS  vs.   51-   101-      Record
 Rnk Team                  record  RPI  rnk  t50   100   200  Road  Neut  Home
  1. Kansas                 20-4  .6965   1  8-4   4-0   8-0   5-3   3-1  12-0
  2. Kentucky               24-0  .6960  10  9-0   5-0   8-0   7-0   2-0  15-0

You'll notice Kansas is #1 in SOS, but that Kentucky is #10. Should that override the fact that Kentucky is 24-0 and Kansas is 20-4? In a system where SOS is 3/4 of the formula, it does. Here are the SOS breakdowns:

RPI                        Div I        [.25   .50   .25 ]          
rnk  Team                  record  RPI= [AWP + OPW + OOWP] SOS [rnk]
  1. Kansas                 20-4  .6965 .8600 .6785 .5691 .6420[  1]
  2. Kentucky               24-0  .6960 1.000 .6078 .5685 .5947[ 10]

Kansas has an OPW of .6785 to Kentucky's .6078—that's the Opponents' Win Percentage. The OOPW's (Opponents' opponents win percentage) are about even. The OPW is 50% of the RPI formula, while the AWP (the team's own Adjusted Win Percentage) counts for just 25%.

Bottom line, Kansas' OWP overwhelms Kentucky's AWP and ranks the Jayhawks in front, .6965 to .6960.

In any case, the balance of the formula, while one of its problems, is not the main issue. Adjusting the weights might make the RPI a bit better, but its real shortcoming is that the formula loses all knowledge of which teams a given team has defeated or lost to.

This is why various pundits and bracketologists—and the selection committee—are forced to rely on "top 50 wins" and "quality road wins" to see if a team is actually worthy of a bid. If the RPI was good enough on its own, we wouldn't have to do this. But we know that the RPI can't see the forest for the trees, for example, let's go back to Kansas and Kentucky:

 RPI                         vs.   51-   101-      Record
 Rnk Team                    t50   100   200  Road  Neut  Home
  1. Kansas                  8-4   4-0   8-0   5-3   3-1  12-0
  2. Kentucky                9-0   5-0   8-0   7-0   2-0  15-0

Look at top 50 wins. Kentucky is 9-0 and Kansas is 8-4. Not only does Kentucky have a better percentage (100% to 66.7%) against the top 50, they actually have more top 50 wins. It's not like Kentucky is 2-0 and Kansas 8-4. Kentucky is 9-0. They also have more wins against the second 50, and have a better road record (7-0 to 5-3). The RPI includes a bonus for road wins (that's the "adjusted" part of the APW) but it doesn't know which teams you beat on the road; the bonus is the same.

We're also choosing to ignore the real elephant in the room—that is, Kentucky's 72-40 neutral court win over the Jayhawks. Mainly because it's too easy. Any 5-year-old would rank Kentucky ahead of Kansas based on that. And it's a bit unfair, too, since the RPI is explicitly designed to ignore victory margin. For all the RPI knows, the game went into triple overtime so there really isn't much difference between the teams.

However, the RPI is supposed boost a team that plays and beats good opponents. The problem is that it quickly forgets that Kentucky beat Kansas. That information is lost once Kentucky's AWP adds 1.0 to the win total. The OWP adds Kansas' record, and the OOPW adds Kansas' opponents' records into the mix. For Kansas, the RPI knows they lost 4 games, but not that one of those losses was to Kentucky. It knows they played the Wildcats and lost to 4 teams total.

Kansas shows up as one of the 9 top 50 wins Kentucky has, but only if you do some post-processing and tease this information out. It doesn't affect Kentucky's rating, and any bad teams Kentucky plays dilute their schedule strength so that playing Kansas might not matter. In fact, just playing Kansas is almost as good as beating Kansas—and for Kansas, that's true of playing Kentucky, too.

So what's the upshot? When listing a team's NCAA résumé, many sportswriters cite the RPI then also list other information that is needed to account for the RPI's shortcomings. Sometimes it's top 50 wins, or road record, but often they also list the SOS. That, I think, is a mistake. It implies that the RPI doesn't tell us enough about the team's SOS, when in fact it tells us too much if anything. It's adding redundant information, and suggests that a good SOS somehow "validates" a team's RPI, when in reality the SOS is guiding the RPI from the start. An example is ESPN's Bubble Watch, which typically lists teams résumés like this:

SMU [19-5 (10-2), RPI: 22, SOS: 57]

Here we get some relevant information: overall record, conference record, RPI, and SOS. Our point being that the last bit of information is not informative: the RPI alone should tell you that SMU has a decent enough schedule, after looking at their overall record. An SOS of 57, being worse than their RPI, looks like a flaw, but remember that all sorts of teams can have a good SOS, whether they're good or not. So most top teams teams are not going to have an SOS that matches or exceeds their RPI.

In fact, of the top 25 in the RPI, only 5 teams have an SOS better than their RPI. 18 have an SOS ranking worse than their RPI, and two teams match. This is normal and expected, since the RPI is a mixture of winning percentage and SOS. Therefore, listing a team's SOS after the RPI is usually going to look like a criticism. SOS is such a huge part of RPI, it would be better to just list a team's record and then their SOS, since those are completely unrelated stats that come together to form the RPI.

A better idea would be to list their record vs. Top 50 RPI teams, since that is something that the RPI doesn't really reflect. Look how it changes Notre Dame's line:

Notre Dame [21-4 (9-3), RPI: 28, SOS: 113]

Notre Dame [21-4 (9-3), RPI: 28, Top 50: 4-3]

What do we learn from seeing the Irish have a 113 SOS? Nothing that their RPI—low at 28 given their 21-4 record—didn't already tell us. But seeing that they have a winning record against the top teams should tell us that they're a good team that has played its share of other good teams.

SMU's listing would be:

SMU [19-5 (10-2), RPI: 22, Top 50: 2-5]

and that actually tells us something new about the Mustangs. It tells us how many of the best teams they've played as well as how many they beat. It gives us information about the team's schedule strength, but in a different way than the RPI's SOS does, by including only the top teams played (who really cares if the cupcakes they beat were ranked 175 on average rather than 250?). And it immediately tells us that all of their losses were to top 50 teams—they didn't lose to any cupcakes or even below-the-bubble level competition.

Just like Kansas. Hey, maybe SMU should be the RPI #1 ?

 

Michigan? Villanova? We took Virginia in the end, after all

Whew. What a run-up to the Selection Sunday show, with the final #1 seed in doubt all along. We projected that our Dance Chance would take Michigan if the Wolverines won the Big Ten tournament, and keep Villanova if they didn't.

Michigan lost, leaving Villanova at the 4th rung...but Virginia threw a curve ball at us by passing the Wildcats with their win over Duke, something we hadn't foreseen. But we went with our formula, right or wrong. There's good justification for Virginia, given that they won both the regular-season ACC and the ACC tournament, but that doesn't mean the selection committee will go that direction.

And, as a result of Villanova dropping to a 2-seed, we decided to waffle again on our Big East designation, which means that Providence falls to a 12-seed and Xavier is out. Everyone else has Xavier in, so this is probably adding an error, but our top brackets look better for having Iowa State a 3-seed. We'll use the committee's picks to determine how to classify the Big East in the future.

We'd rather go our own way than to try to follow the "crowd" on the Bracket Matrix; it's the aggregation of true individual opinions that make something like that work. Weeks ago, most people had 5 or 6 Big East teams in the seedings when we had just two. Then that number fell to 3 or 4, and until Providence clinched a berth it looked like just 3 would be in the consensus.

If the committee views the Big East as a power conference, Providence will receive a much higher seed than the 12 we gave them, and Xavier will be in. Villanova will probably take the final top seed in that scenario.

Hopefully no huge conferences split in two next year, so we have an adequate history to use for our formula! And hopefully next year we'll have time to further hone the formula, too.

Don't listen to Forbes and Wall Street Journal basketball advice—Opponent RPI is a pointless "statistic"

Having brought us such wonderful financial and political advice for so long, both Forbes and the Wall Street Journal are simultaneously touting the "Opponent RPI" as the key to great bracket predictions this March.

There are so many reasons to ignore this proclamation that it's hard to know where to start. But the basic problem is that anything associated with the RPI is bound to be pointless in terms of prediction. The RPI, or Ratings Percentage Index, is a mess. As we break down further on our RPI page, the formula consists of 25% of a team's record, 50% of the team's opponents' total record, and 25% of their opponents' opponent's record.

When that is all added up you have the RPI. The lower 3/4 of that determines the SOS, or Strength of Schedule, which therefore consists of 2/3 opponent's record, 1/3 opponents' opponents' record. But the RPI SOS isn't what Forbes and the WSJ are talking about; they're citing the Opponent RPI, or the average RPI of each of a team's opponents.

In essense, with the Opponent RPI you are getting a calcuation that contains your opponents' records, your opponents' opponents' records, and your opponents' opponents' opponents' records. It's really just the RPI SOS taken to the next level down.

But according to Forbes it's "The Key To Winning Your NCAA Tournament Office Pool" and "the most compelling statistic...I can think of." After saying that "statistics don't play the games," Roger Groves cites a few cherry-picked statistics about the Opponent RPI and concludes "I have not come up with a single factor with as much statistical consistency."

The Wall Street Journal cites the same stats, such as

• four of the last five champions had a top-17 Opponent RPI
• only 7 of 40 top-8 seeds with a below-60 Opponent RPI made the Sweet Sixteen
• Gonzaga had an Opponent RPI of 96, and they lost early

to argue that you shouldn't have Wichita State or Louisville advance far in your bracket this year.

Why cite a top 17 Opponent RPI? I'm guessing that using the top 15 might have accounted for only 2 of the last 5 winners, and that wasn't impressive.

Also, seeds 5 through 8 aren't supposed to make the Sweet Sixteen; if they'd limited the 2nd point to top 4 seeds it would make a better argument...unless of course, using only the top four seeds didn't help their cause.

And yes, 1-seed Gonzaga lost before the Sweet Sixteen, but what was overall #1-seed Kansas' Opponent RPI when they lost to Northern Iowa in 2010? Probably it was pretty good, since their RPI SOS was #5.

I'm not saying that using a strength of schedule marker can't be helpful, just that it shouldn't be one based on the woeful RPI.

Use Ken Pomeroy's SOS, or Jeff Sagarin's SOS. Use the SOS from anyone other than the RPI, which doesn't use game results—either in terms of who you beat, or in terms of the final score—to calculate its formula. Remember, everything about the RPI is an aggregate. There's no bonus for beating teams or losing to them, it just herds your entire record together, and those of other teams. So it neither knows or cares who you beat nor who you lost to, just that you had a certain record against a certain schedule.

And of course margin of victory can't be factored in when you don't even know who won a particular game.

Strength of schedule is important, and it should be used as part of—not all of—a bracket strategy. Even the Forbes author backtracks a bit, saying "of course there are other factors; injuries, unfriendly arenas, match ups with each opponent, referee foul philosophy, and luck." Also, he states he will not bet against Tom Izzo.

The WSJ notes that Wichita State is the first team to enter the tournament undefeated since UNLV, but says they might exit prematurely due to their poor Opponent RPI. Interestingly, the undefeated UNLV team that made the Final Four probably had an Opponent RPI around 100, since they played 20 teams with an RPI from 101-200. And Indiana State's RPI SOS was about 104 according to my calculations (even though the RPI wasn't used until 1981) and they did well enough, finishing 2nd to Michigan State.

Wichita State and Louisville were both above 100 in Opponent RPI as of March 9th. But with Wichita State undefeated—and undefeated teams make the Final Four at a 75% clip (or 67% clip if you remove UCLA)—and Louisville probably playing the best basketball in the country right now, I'd really hesitate to have either removed before my Sweet Sixteen just due to a weaker schedule. Both teams made the Final Four last year, with Louisville winning a very close game, and teams that do well one tournament tend to do well in the next one. I could cherry-pick some stats to prove that, too.

Ultimately, the confluence of Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and the RPI combine to make such a disgusting three-headed monster that I can't help but feel that this "statistic" should be bet against, making another Wichita State-Louisville clash in the Final Four a near-certainty despite their admittedly lax schedules.

Nebraska Omaha jumps to #1 in RPI--or #0, or # nothing--according to Yahoo-Rivals

Fans of the Nebraska Omaha Mavericks finally have something to brag about this season—they're number one in the RPI. At least, according to Yahoo/Rivals. And they're really number 0, or number "blank". But still, that's pretty good for an 11-16 team! What happened?

Just a few weeks ago we noticed that some RPIs around the web mistakenly include Nebraska Omaha in their calculations. Since Nebraska Omaha isn't considered a full-fledged Division I team—a school can play only 4 non-Division I teams to qualify per the NCAA's rules—including them in the calculation was causing some discrepancies in the RPI figures for other teams. Any site with an RPI that lists 345 teams is no doubt making this mistake, as there should be only 344 teams on the list.

It looks like Rivals got the message, or figured it out on their own, but they seem to be having trouble extricating the Mavericks from their list; they now show up on top of the heap.

When viewed on Yahoo/Rivals' rankings page, it looks like Nebraska Omaha is #1. When viewed in full, Nebraska Omaha is not at #1, per se, but at #0, or # "nothing." Their computer program has some kind of glitch and doesn't quite know what to do with the Mavericks—it doesn't count them, but still lists them. Where do you list a team that doesn't count? At the top, apparently.

Here are a couple of amusing screen shots from Monday's RPI listing at Yahoo Sports:

Above: Yahoo/Rivals' RPI listing on morning of Monday, February 20

Above: Yahoo/Rivals' RPI expanded listing on morning of Monday, February 20

Rivals' RPI calculations, however, have been fixed, since Colorado State's numbers—and those of other Nebraska Omaha opponents—seem to be correct now. The process of culling Nebraska Omaha from the cohort just ended up listing them at the top as a fluke, causing a great deal of confusion among those who rely on Rivals' RPI numbers. In trying to fix their mistake, they've made things even worse. Not people noticed or cared about the error when Nebraska Omaha was listed around #300, but putting them at the top raised eyebrows!

Note that in Rivals' expanded listing Nebraska Omaha has no RPI value and no Strength of Schedule rank, so they aren't being included in the calculation. But the computer is going ahead and figuring out their performance against the top 50, top 100, etc. Since Yahoo/Rivals tracks them in the conference standings, they are probably on the Yahoo Sports' master list of Division I basketball teams, so they're being made a special case when it comes to the RPI. So far they aren't handling that special case very well.

It's surprising that it took Yahoo most of the basketball season to realize their mistake. Nebraska-Omaha's inclusion in their RPI was one of the things that prompted us to start calculating the RPI ourselves instead of wondering who is getting it right or wrong.

We assume they'll fix it pretty soon. For now, though, enjoy the amusing screen shots.

Marquette vs. Missouri State, or: How the RPI is Used to Fix the RPI

The general consensus around the NCAA bracket-projecting world is that Marquette is in, and Missouri State is out. In the Bracket Matrix Marquette is a 10-seed, and that's before last night's win over Providence. Missouri State is one of the first four out in brackets across the country. With no games left and potential conference tournament upsets shrinking the "bubble," the Bears will be relegated to the NIT again if the committee reaches the same conclusions as the majority of prognosticators.

Comparing Marquette to Missouri State can give us an idea of what people believe the committee is looking for in a tournament team. The first statistics most people see are win-loss record, and conference record. Here Missouri State's 25-8 and 15-3 numbers far outclass Marquette's 19-13 and 9-9, but of course the Golden Eagles play in the nation's toughest conference while the Missouri Valley is a mid-major that is having an off-year. In fact, the MVC seems to be considered a minor conference this season, or else even Wichita State would be in serious discussion for an at-large.

For the sake of simplifying the argument let's consider the teams' records to be equal given the disparity of their conferences; it's also consistent with the oft-repeated idea that the committee doesn't look at conference record or conference position (Missouri State finished 1st in their conference, Marquette tied for 9th in theirs).

The next thing basketball fans look at is the team's RPI, or ratings percentage index. Why? Because whether they know anything about it, fans know it's what the committee looks at, in some way, shape, or form. The RPI considers a team's winning percentage, its opponents' winning percentage, and its opponents' opponents' winning percentage. This means it goes three "levels" deep in determining what constitutes a "good" team. In the most recent RPI, Missouri State is #42, Marquette #63.

If RPI is all you knew about a team, then #42 should give a team an 11 seed while #63 would keep a team out of the tournament. But as the committee watchers say, RPI isn't the end-all of what is considered. The RPI is used more, it is said, to evaluate a team's competition, in order to derive Strength of Schedule (SOS) and track the number of Top 100 RPI wins a team has. These two metrics become very important.

Obviously Missouri State fans know that a good RPI isn't enough. In 2006 the Bears had an RPI of #21—a 5-6 seed level—and weren't selected as an at-large. That same year the Missouri Valley had a record four teams in the tournament. Was that a factor? The committee says no. But was it in their minds, despite what they claim? If so, Marquette may encounter some resistance as the 11th Big East team, when the previous selection record for a conference is 8 teams. But we digress.

In order to encapsulate a team's season of wins and be able to compare those wins in significance among all teams, SportsRatings uses the RealWins algorithm. It basically takes the total number of Division I wins and redistributes them to teams that had more significant wins. It doesn't even bother with losses; those are unimportant to it. It just looks at who you beat, and who they beat, and who those teams beat.

Like the RPI, it goes three levels deep, since it's designed to reflect what the selection committee considers. A better algorithm would go "infinite" levels deep to refine the numbers maximally, but three levels is not surprisingly what matches up best with NCAA selections. Last year the RealWins algorithm lined up with nearly all at-large selections, missing just two teams; giving it leeway and using just the top 34 teams (the number of at-large selections available until this year) it is almost 100% accurate.

Missouri State is #27 in the current RealWins rankings, a level which should indicate an extremely high probability of selection. Marquette, on the other hand, is just #59, which should mean they are unlikely to be selected. Remember, this is an unbiased look at the aggregate significance of a team's collection of wins. But as we can see, humans hate composites; they want to see small numbers that have a definitive meaning, such as wins over top 50 teams, and strength of schedule ranking.

The Bears have no games remaining, and therefore their RealWins ranking can only go down. It's true that if they teams they beat win more games, their score can increase, but the majority of their opponents are no longer garnering additional wins. Teams currently behind them can pass them, and they might fall into the low 30s. Teams at that level are still almost always selected, though in 2009 a team at #26 was passed up; that team was Creighton, also in the Missouri Valley.

Conference biases aside, though, what would make the committee take Marquette over Missouri State? As mentioned before, Top 100 RPI wins and Strength of Schedule are what is killing the Bears, and what is saving Marquette. The teams both have 3 wins over teams in the 51-100 range, but Missouri State has no Top 50 wins while the Golden Eagles have 4. In SOS, Missouri State ranks just 123rd. Marquette is #34.

It's these numbers that everyone is looking at, and taking into heavier consideration than the team's RPI. Missouri State's numbers are poor, and Marquette's are at least reasonable for a selected team. So if Marquette is taken and Missouri State isn't, we can conclude a few things:

1. Who you play is as important as who you beat.
    
   Strength of schedule, in and of itself, is important, while win-loss record, in and of itself, is not. This doesn't make a lot of sense. The two have to be used in conjunction with each other. The RPI is supposed to provide this balance, but apparently no one even believes the notion that it does.
   
   
2. After weighting a team's wins, you should then really give weight to wins over top teams.
    
   In focusing on wins over Top 25, Top 50, and Top 100 teams, the committee is making up for a huge deficiency of the RPI, namely that it doesn't know whether you won or lost an individual game. That's why these have to be factored in. More than anything, it seems that the bracketologists penalize teams without these big wins, and reward the bubble teams that have at least a few of them.
             
   
3. The RPI doesn't do its job—yet is used in the corrections that make up for its shortcomings.
    
   The RPI works best as a strength of schedule indicator. When a team plays a tough team, its RPI can increase whether they win or lose; likewise playing poor teams drags one's RPI down. In the end it gives a general balance between how well a team has done and how tough their schedule is.
    
   But the RPI's conclusions aren't trusted. Teams with very good RPI rankings still might have very easy schedules. In those cases the RPI rating is essentially disregarded—because of SOS, which is measured by using the RPI rankings of opponents.
    
   The RPI also doesn't give any indication of how well a team did against the good teams it faced, so again this is corrected—by using the RPI as a judge of how good those teams are. We look at top 25, top 50, and top 100 RPI opponents—all after judging the RPI to be an inadequate composite of a team's performance.

The irony is that if Marquette beat Missouri State, they'd rack up another Top 50 RPI win. But if the Bears won, they'd still have a zero there; when evaluating the teams, Marquette would win that measure 4-0.

The RPI has been attacked enough over the years that you'd think the NCAA would decide to use something better. It's not impossible to make a formula that would balance the things the committee wants to see more appropriately. One shouldn't have to use additional measures to re-evaluate teams because your formula has produced results you don't like for certain teams. And to use the same, flawed formula when deriving your new statistics?

Currently our Dance Chance algorithm has Missouri State an 11-seed. This is due to their overall record and conference record—while taking into account the conference in which they play—as well as their RPI and RealWins rating. We also give a bonus/penalty for SOS and a Top 100 wins composite. All of this hasn't been enough to put Marquette into our brackets; they're still in the first four out. In other words, we have things the opposite of what almost everyone else is saying.

If, and where, these two teams get seeded will tell us a lot about the priorities of the selection committee; we can already see that the bracket pundits are emphasizing SOS and top 100 wins over RPI and other overall performance indicators. It will be an interesting test for the balance of all these forces.

And of course, we can't discount bias. Missouri State has been a major recipient of ignoring a solid RPI number many times. In the 2006 case, the Bears' RealWins ranking was just #52. Compared to that year, Missouri State is actually in better shape if you add up their RPI and RealWins rankings; their total this season is 69, compared to 73 in the year they weren't selected. And that year there were only 34 at-large slots available compared to 37 this season, so there still may be hope for the Bears.

The bottom line, as always: if you aren't in a power conference, don't dare lose in your tournament. Lower-conference teams can never count on getting the benefit of the doubt, even from an allegedly "unbiased" system.

Wisconsin Hands Ohio State First Loss, Final Score: 71-67

#15 Wisconsin beat #1 Ohio State 71-67, handing the Buckeyes their first loss of the year. There are now no undefeated teams in Division I college basketball. The last team to go undefeated is still Indiana from 1976; the last team to enter the NCAA tournament undefeated is still UNLV from 1991; and the last team to go through the regular season (pre-conference-tournament) undefeated is St. Joseph's in 2004.

Jordan Taylor hit 8 of 13 shots for the Badgers, who improved to 19-5 and 9-3 in the Big Ten. Ohio State fell to 24-1 and 11-1.

Commentary: Ohio State never seemed like an "undefeated" team to me, just one that hadn't lost yet. They didn't have the air on invincibility that other undefeated teams (like Illinois from 2005) seemed to have, where it was conceivable that they could go through the year without a loss. The Buckeyes are certainly one of the best teams, maybe the best, this season, but had the "feel" of a typical Kansas-type team more than a team for the ages.

Plus, as seen from recent decades, there's not much of a chance of a team going lossless through the full year any more; it would take a very special team to do that, and with Ohio State's obvious weakness (no true point guard) it just seemed a matter of time before someone beat them. As it turned out, a team with one of the nation's best point guards, playing at home, was the one to do the job.

Louisville beats Syracuse; Vanderbilt tops Kentucky

The #13 Cardinals beat the #11 Orange 73-69 in the latest minor Big East upset. Louisville was playing at home so it might not really be considered an upset at all. Plus, the Cardinals were already ahead in conference play.

Now, Louisville stands at 19-6 and 8-4, while Syracuse falls to 20-6 and 7-6. The Orange have lost six of their last eight games after starting 18-0. Louisville hasn't lost two games in a row this season, but they also haven't won more than two in a row since December. Both these are consequences of playing in the Big East in 2010-2011.

#17 Vanderbilt also won at home, beating #12 Kentucky 81-77 (the four-point win looks like a theme today). The Commodores and Wildcats came into the contest with identical overall and league records, 17-6 and 5-4 each, part of a 4-way tie for 2nd place in the SEC East.

68-team NCAA tournament should have bubble team play-in games

The NCAA averted disaster by choosing to expand to 68 teams rather than 96. The 96-team format would have had the following effects:

• Watered down the tournament with no increase in fan interest
• Absorbed the NIT, depriving schools with a mediocre season a chance to win a legit championship
• Destroyed the time-honored tradition of picking brackets, probably the biggest reason that people who aren't big basketball fans pay attention once a year, and
• Crammed way too much basketball into too little time, and created a 'break' at the Round of 32 rather than the Sweet Sixteen, which would be terrible

Going from 64 to 65 teams was one of the stupidest mistakes the NCAA ever made. It created a worthless game that no one cares about (see how many brackets give points for picking that game?) and screws one legitimate qualifier out of being in the real tournament. Why should two teams who have automatically qualified by the rules have to fight it out to see who really gets in? And no, no one ever believed this was anything other than a play-in game. It was not the "first round."

But expanding to 68 at least makes things parallel in all brackets. The question is, who will be the play-in teams? One would expect that the NCAA would simply match up the 8 lowest-seeded teams (essentially the 16 and 17 seeds) and the winners would play the 1-seeds. But supposedly they are considering having at-large teams in the play-in games, which would be a better solution.

Like I said, the conference winners have earned it, regardless of their conference's quality. The 16-seeds are still going to have to face 1-seeds. So they're not getting a break if the play-in games are between the final bubble teams. They're just getting to play in the tournament like they should be able to.

The bubble teams are a different matter. It makes all the sense in the world to have them "play-in" to the tournament, even if they're playing for a 12 or 13 seed. No rules dictate that they have to be in the tournament in the first place. It's like the NCAA saying "we couldn't decide between these 8 teams, who should be in or not, so we'll have them play their way in."

This makes the selection process easier. And the expansion to 68 gives even more teams a chance. By adding three teams, and making the bubble teams the play-in teams, it would be more fair to both the automatic qualifiers AND the bubble teams.

Make it so, NCAA.

The "Ivan Brothers" ads are annoying and stupid

Taking a break from reviewing upcoming games to complain about the ads that assault you every second if you watch on March Madness On Demand (tip: switch games just before you let a game go to commercial, so you don't get stuck until the ads are over).

My least-favorite ad of this March Madness season is the "Ivan Brothers." Really, I don't see the appeal of the two big 'roided-out white guys playing basketball. So they're vikings. This is what passes for funny now? Maybe I'm the only one who hates it. Then again, it could be because the commercials are featured 20 times during every game. Maybe the Ivan Brothers are hilarious in small doses.

Here they are again in case you haven't seen them.

Ironically the longer-form video is a lot more amusing than the shorter ads, and has a bizarre ending where we find out the Ivan Brothers have disappeared never to return, or perhaps never existed in the first place. What?

I don't get it, why do that? Just to copy Lost by having freaky time-changey things happen? Of course what this has to do with Capital One I'll never know. No wonder all the banks are in trouble.

New Mexico's Alford not handling success well?

Watch this YouTube video, assuming it stays around, showing New Mexico coach Steve Alford in a "heated exchange" with BYU player Jonathan Tavernari after Alford's Lobo's beat the Cougars in Provo, 84-82. The word "asshole" can be heard coming from Alford's mouth.

Alford reportedly was congratulating Tavernari for his career at BYU, but Tavernari was not happy after the loss and didn't accept Alford's overture. At least, that's what Alford says. But Tavernari, who has a history of trash talking, apologized for the incident profusely afterwards, so there's little doubt that he started the exchange.

But Alford is supposed to be a coach, and be in control. A player can be excused for being hot-headed after a game, but a coach has no business calling an opposing player an asshole. Back off, let it go, be a man (like Mike Gundy). Don't escalate it, which is what Alford did. He looked like he wanted the kid to take a swing, something we might have expected from Alford's mentor, Bobby Knight.

Alford's season at New Mexico has been a great success, with the Lobos now 27-3 and winning the regular season in a strong Mountain West conference. But his actions are what you might expect more from the coach of a struggling team. Earlier in the season he displayed the prominent chip on his shoulder by asserting that New Mexico gave Texas A&M a "Christmas gift" by spotting them a 2-0 lead. That was after a win, too.

The Lobos are riding high and hoping for a very good seed in the NCAA tournament. If Alford is this out of control (some would say "emotional") after big wins, what will he be like if New Mexico goes on a deep tournament run? It could get interesting.

Alford was reprimanded by the league for the incident. Interestingly, Alford said that the reprimand "wasn't required" because it was just something that happened in the heat of the moment. Being cool under pressure is something that every coach should aspire to, and Alford certainly failed on that score. All the same, being hotheaded didn't prevent quite a few coaches from having great success.

These days, however, antics like Alford's are less tolerated than ever before. Ask Mike Leach how forgiving the current environment is! Though presently riding high, should Alford ever be on the "outs" with his school he might be wise to tone it down a bit.

Congratulations to Alcorn State and Bryant, both no longer winless

Several weeks ago the last undefeated Division I basketball team—Kentucky—lost for the first time. But it was just in the last few days the two remaining winless teams both got a victory.

The inverted counterparts to 25-1 Kansas and Kentucky, Alcorn State and Bryant were 0-24 and 0-25 before last Saturday. That's when Alcorn State took on in-state rival and SWAC brethren Mississippi Valley State at home in Lorman.

The Braves were ranked dead last at the time in the SportsRatings College Basketball Power Rating, both overall and in the individual Strength and Success rankings. The Delta Devils weren't rated much higher, though: at 6-19, they were 342nd in Strength, 332nd in Success, and 342nd overall.

But Alcorn State's Strength rating was so low—five points worse than Bryant's, even—that Mississippi Valley State was projected as a nearly a six point favorite by the system, with a 64% chance to win. That spread looked about right at halftime as the Devils took a 30-25 lead, but the Braves fought back, taking a 7 point lead late before barely holding on for a 55-54 win.

The win briefly took Alcorn State out of the national cellar as only Bryant was left winless. But just five days later the Bulldogs wiped the "0" off their slate. Going in 0-26 against Wagner (4-34, ranked #326 in Strength), it didn't appear to be a great opportunity as they were playing on the road. But only one of Wagner's four wins came at home, and the Bulldogs took a 28-23 halftime lead and like Alcorn State, survived a wild finish to win 53-51.

The wins didn't change much; the teams are still last (Alcorn State) and second-to-last (Bryant) in the SportsRatings power ratings, just like they were last week. Impressively, though, both wins were against other Division I teams, albeit very weak ones. And the teams have to feel 100% better about their seasons than they did just a few short days ago.

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.