Big East Opener Features #6 Howard vs. #8 Ponds, But Turnovers Key

While a tough call on what should have been a game-winning steal for St. John’s at Seton Hall Saturday prevents a Top 25 match-up of ranked Big East teams, the New Year’s Day opener still features two of the top 8 most valuable basketball players in the country according to the new www.valueaddbasketball.com ratings.

Instead of a chance to beat their fourth ranked opponent this season, Marquette unfortunately faces a St. John’s team coming off its first loss of the season and Shamorie Ponds, the 8^th most valuable player, coming off his only bad game of the season on 2 of 13 shooting and five turnovers against Seton Hall. Markus Howard slipped past Ponds as the most valuable Big East player and 6^th overall after hitting more three-pointers in a 29 minutes stretch than Ponds hit in December.

Nat'l	Big East Player	Team	Value	Class	3 pts, Game Played
6	Markus Howard	Marquette	10.90	3 Jr	49 3-pts in 13 Gms
8	Shamorie Ponds	St. John's	10.27	3 Jr	22 3-pts in 13 Gms
20	Myles Powell	Seton Hall	8.97	3 Jr	41 3-pts in 13 Gms
39	Sam Hauser	Marquette	8.16	3 Jr	34 3-pts in 13 Gms
50	Jessie Govan	Georgetown	7.72	4 Sr	17 3-pts in 13 Gms
59	Alpha Diallo	Providence	7.41	3 Jr	21 3-pts in 13 Gms
100	Phil Booth	Villanova	6.85	4 Sr	32 3-pts in 13 Gms
105	LJ Figueroa	St. John's	6.76	2 So	22 3-pts in 13 Gms
109	Ty-Shon Alexander	Creighton	6.68	2 So	40 3-pts in 12 Gms
113	Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree	Villanova	6.64	2 So	0 3-pts in 13 Gms
180	Collin Gillespie	Villanova	5.87	2 So	20 3-pts in 12 Gms
181	Tyrique Jones	Xavier	5.86	3 Jr	0 3-pts in 13 Gms
186	Eric Paschall	Villanova	5.77	4 Sr	23 3-pts in 13 Gms
191	Josh LeBlanc	Georgetown	5.73	1 Fr	0 3-pts in 13 Gms
199	Max Strus	DePaul	5.68	4 Sr	35 3-pts in 11 Gms
229	Paul Jorgensen	Butler	5.44	4 Sr	35 3-pts in 13 Gms
231	Sandro Mamukelashvili	Seton Hall	5.41	2 So	11 3-pts in 13 Gms
235	Isaiah Jackson	Providence	5.38	4 Sr	19 3-pts in 13 Gms
240	Mitch Ballock	Creighton	5.36	2 So	34 3-pts in 12 Gms
273	Damien Jefferson	Creighton	5.11	2 So	12 3-pts in 12 Gms
281	Zach Hankins	Xavier	5.00	4 Sr	0 3-pts in 14 Gms
285	Joey Brunk	Butler	4.96	2 So	0 3-pts in 13 Gms
325	Marcus Zegarowski	Creighton	4.70	1 Fr	18 3-pts in 12 Gms
346	Kamar Baldwin	Butler	4.62	3 Jr	15 3-pts in 13 Gms
363	Joey Hauser	Marquette	4.54	1 Fr	15 3-pts in 13 Gms

Starting with a 16:16 left and Marquette trailing #14 Buffalo, the next 29 minutes of Marquette basketball bridging into the Southern game featured Markus Howard scoring 62 points on 13 of 15 three-points shooting which was one more than the 12 Ponds hit in December and moved Howard into a distant second behind Detroit’s Antoine Davis’ unbelievable 67 three-pointers.

Marquette faces a team coming off what should have been a dramatic win at Seton Hall, which stunned Kentucky earlier this year, when officials made a mistake on a game-winning steal of an inbound pass – giving the Pirates another chance that they cashed in on for a buzzer beating game-winner. In addition to facing a team looking for revenge for that set-back, Marquette must overcome the team best positioned to take advantage of Marquette’s one glaring weakness, protecting the basketball.

St. John’s joins only Duke, Auburn, LSU and Syracuse from the six major conferences in stealing the ball more than one out of 8 opponent possessions, including an incredible 12 steals in just 76 Seton Hall possessions despite what should have been the 13^th note counting – which would have made it better than one in 6 possessions Saturday night.

If St. John’s can steal the ball that often against Seton Hall, the 20^th best team at protecting the ball and preventing turnovers, it could spell complete havoc against a Marquette team that ranks only 238^th as one of only eight major conference teams who turns the ball over more than one in five possessions.

Joe Hauser not only rounds out the top 25, but his 4.54 Value Add ranks him third among Big East freshman behind only Georgetown’s Josh LeBlanc (5.73) and Creighton’s Marcus Zegarowski (4.70).

The good news is Marquette can play defense as well for the first time in years Jae Crowder compiled the best defensive Value Add (-4.89 AdjD indicates he erased almost 5 points a per 100 trips in 2012), but in the previous four seasons only Henry Ellenson (2016) and JuJuan Johnson (2017) erased more than a point a game until this year when FIVE Marquette players are doing (Jamal Cain, Joseph Chartouny, Theo John, Sam Hauser and Ed Morrow).

Click here for the explanation of the Value Add basketball and how it calculates how much worse a teams average score would be if the player were replaced by a bench player on a mediocre team. Our new piece on the top 20 national players and other stories on Value Add Basketball and Statis-Pro baseball projections for the Brewers and others are at http://www.pudnersports.com/.

Non-conference is over and it's time for New Year's and the Big East

Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and took a little break, we sure did but now we're back. The Buffalo game feels like it was years ago, so we touch on it but more importantly we spend time talking about Markus Howard going god-mode in the last two games and whether or not that is sustainable with the start of conference season. We then talk about the start of conference season itself, with the game against St John's on the road and Xavier at home. We analyze whether MU is prepared for St John's or if they'll struggle as they have in the past. We transition from there and re-examine our predictions on the conference season as a whole in light of what we learned about #MUBB in the non-conference season. Lastly, we discuss the recent "poll attack" discussions taking place in the twittersphere and in certain CBS sports podcasts and evaluate whether MU is over, under, or properly rated. Hope everyone has a fun and safe New Year's Eve and is ready for the start of conference season. Enjoy! https://scrambledeggs.podbean.com/mf/play/t2agz5/scrambledeggs_editted_123018.mp3

Attacking the Poll Attacker

When Gary Parrish of CBS Sports put Marquette at 26 in his most recent Top 25 And 1 column, my first thought was "yeah, that's wrong." After listening to his comments on the CBS Sports Eye on College Basketball podcast, I decided I needed to explain why. First of all, I do generally really enjoy Parrish's work. I listen to the pod all year long, I read both the Top 25 And 1 & Poll Attacks, & follow him on Twitter. I think Parrish does a good job & is entertaining to follow on various platforms.

But in the most recent CBS Sports Eye on College Basketball podcast, Parrish defended his placement of Marquette using what could only be described as pretzel logic. So in the spirit of Poll Attacks, I decided to break down his defense. Here's the bulk of what Parrish had to say:

"This is the most common thing I hear from Marquette fans: How can you have us so low when we've got three top-15 wins? No you don't. You have one, over Wisconsin, at home, in overtime. You beat Kansas State when they were in the top-15 of the AP poll but they're unranked now, 28th at Kenpom. You beat Buffalo when they were in the top-15 of the AP poll but they're 21st now & 31st at Kenpom. My point being, you've got to stop it. You can't keep claiming you've got three top-15 wins...if you want to say I've got Marquette too low & give some reasons why you think I do, that's fine...They're 30th at Kenpom. It's not like they're 11th at Kenpom & I've got them 25th or 26th or whatever...In other words, think of it this way, on Selection Sunday, the Committee is going to base everything off of where teams are on Selection Sunday. You beat somebody in November or December when that school was ranked in the top-15, now they're no longer in the top-40, it won't register like a top-15 win."

Parrish is right about top-15 wins, but he's wrong about resume quality, which is what I talked about when I made my own comments on Twitter. In the Indiana capsule at #25, Parrish talks about how the Hoosiers have 5 top-50 wins at Kenpom. Let's use that as a guide. Let's look at top-50 wins both in terms of quantity & quality, & all losses. This image will be our guide. The darker green the win, the better it is. The darker red the loss, the worse it is. If a loss is listed in black, it means it's a sub-50 loss, so really bad.

Also, the defense of "look at their Pomeroy ranking", which Parrish used above when he referenced Marquette being ranked 30th at Kenpom, is not a valid defense when you have Kenpom #14 Nebraska at 24 & #44 Kenpom Arizona State 8 spots higher at 16. Also, head-to-head will not be a tiebreaker. It is effectively using the transitive property of basketball. Because not everyone plays each other, we simply have to compare resumes using ranks. So when comparing Wisconsin & Marquette, it's a loss at #30 and a win against #12.

Here's the spreadsheet showing top-50 wins and all losses:

So here we go. Marquette will only be used as a reference point. Let's compare resumes by breaking resumes into three categories.

Clearly Inferior to Marquette (14)

24. Nebraska: They have great computer numbers, but Marquette has 3 wins better than the Huskers' best win & they have a glaring loss to Minnesota.
23. Cincinnati: Zero top-50 wins. Their loss column looks good, but how about actually beating somebody, anybody, before you get ahead of a Marquette team with 4 wins in the top-40?
21. Houston: Undefeated is great, but they haven't beat a single team as good as Marquette's fourth-best win. I'll take 4-2 against the top-40 over 0-0 every single day.
19. North Carolina: The win over Gonzaga is great, but they've done nothing else of consequence. They've only played 4 top-50 games & lost 3 of them. One game does not a resume make.
18. Kentucky: If North Carolina doesn't quality, the Wildcats' case is even weaker. Win over UNC, sure, but only 2 top-50 games & a loss outside the top-50 should disqualify them from the rankings altogether. They're only ranked because Parrish had them #1 preseason. That's it.
17. Mississippi State: 3 top-50 wins to Marquette's 4, each win they have is of lesser quality, & a worse loss than any that Marquette has taken.
16. Arizona State: Their two best wins are better than Marquette's two best, but MU wins in terms of quantity & that loss at Vanderbilt is really glaring. It's amazing that everyone was ready to drop ASU like a bad habit after Vandy, then suddenly everyone forgets that when they beat Kansas. That was a really bad loss to take. It is the single worst loss of any team in the Top 25 And 1.
15. Auburn: No team in the nation right now says "confirmation bias" like Auburn. Zero top-50 wins. Zero. Sure, their losses are good losses, but like Cincinnati, beat somebody, anybody, please.
14. NC State: What has NC State done to deserve this spot? Beat Auburn, who doesn't belong here in the first place. Ignoring that fact, NC State has padded their resume with cupcakes & has half Marquette's top-50 wins & of lesser quality.
12. Ohio State: Only 2 top-50 wins, wins are of inferior quality, & a loss worse than any loss Marquette has suffered.
11. Virginia Tech: They are being propped up by a win over Purdue that loses luster by the minute, have a worse loss than any Marquette has, & nothing else of substance. Another case of confirmation bias with zero substance to back it up.
9. Texas Tech: We already deconstructed Nebraska, which is the only top-50 win on TTU's resume. Are they really in the top-10 because of 1 decent win & 9 against sub-90 Kenpom opponents? Or is it because they played Duke tough for 35 minutes? Sorry, but if results matter, this ranking is a joke.I think Chris Beard is a great coach, but their eFG% is propped up against the #337 ranked schedule in the country. If TTU belongs here, why isn't St. John's right next to them?
8. Michigan State: I know, it seems like sacrilege to mention Sparty. The computers love them. But they don't own a single top-25 win. Their worst loss is worse than Marquette's worst loss. Maybe if they played the same schedule MU wouldn't be as good, but based on the schedule each team has played, Marquette owns the better resume.
3. Nevada: Houston, we have a problem. It's that Houston has two wins better than Nevada's only top-50 win & is ranked 18 spots behind them. And if Marquette should clearly be ahead of Houston, they should also clearly be ahead of Nevada. Nevada might be great, might be deep, might have won all their games, but Marquette is 4-2 against the top-40 & Nevada is 0-0.  Get back to me when you actually play someone. So March 21, 2019.

Comparable to Marquette (6)

25. Indiana: The Hoosiers don't quite have the quality of Marquette's wins, but they edge them in quantity & have a road win. The loss to Arkansas is bad, but since the 5 top-50 Kenpom wins is the root of the discussion, I'll consider them on par with us.
22. Oklahoma: Matt Norlander likes to talk about their Quadrant 1&2 wins, but Parrish used Kenpom top-50, so that's the measuring stick. Marquette wins in terms of quantity & quality of wins, the Sooners win in quantity & quality of losses, we'll call it a wash.
20. Iowa: Marquette wins in terms of quantity & quality of wins, Iowa wins quality of losses. Iowa having half the total top-50 wins is a problem, but no losses outside the top-12 is really impressive.
13. Wisconsin: Best win goes to Marquette, second best win goes to Wisconsin, best loss goes to Wisconsin, second best loss goes to Marquette. Flip the coin between these two.
10. Florida State: Marquette has the better win, FSU the better loss (and one less loss). These teams should be close together.
7. Gonzaga: Yes, I'm going there. The Duke win is awesome. Really impressive. But what else have they done? The Creighton win is nice, but Marquette has four wins between Duke & Creighton. The Zags have two losses as well. Better losses than Marquette, but 4 wins better than Gonzaga's second best win is a lot to overcome. I'm not saying Marquette should be ahead of Gonzaga. I wouldn't rank them there. But in terms of resume, Marquette's is right there next to Gonzaga.

Clearly Better Than Marquette (5)

6. Kansas, 5. Michigan, 4. Virginia, 2. Duke, 1. Tennessee: These are the ones I'm not going to go into. Though that Arizona State loss is ugly for Kansas, Marquette simply doesn't match the quality of victories these teams have & every other loss is better than our best loss.

So what does this all mean? If you're going to cite resumes as the reason for your ranking using Kenpom top-50 as the basis, Marquette should be no worse than 12th. And if you are going to make part of your profession attacking other people's work, be willing to accept the criticism when someone justifiably attacks your own, especially when you invite them to do so on your podcast.

It also means that Marquette isn't the only team that has reason to gripe. Gonzaga, Florida State, Wisconsin, Iowa, Oklahoma, & Indiana should all be moving way up.

Christmas S-Curve

The season is coming up on two months old, so I decided to do a first S-Curve. To start, I established the conference champions primarily using the NET Rankings. When there was a significant difference between the kenpom and NET rankings (such as Old Dominion and North Texas in C-USA) I made a judgment call. At the moment, the bubble is pretty soft. Here's what I came up with:

1-Seeds: 1-MICHIGAN 2-DUKE 3-Virginia 4-TENNESSEE
2-Seeds: 8-Texas Tech 7-NEVADA 6-GONZAGA 5-KANSAS
3-Seeds: 9-MARQUETTE 10-Wisconsin 11-NC State 12-Oklahoma
4-Seeds: 16-Indiana 15-HOUSTON 14-Michigan State 13-North Carolina
5-Seeds: 17-Mississippi State 18-ARIZONA STATE 19-Auburn 20-Kentucky
6-Seeds: 24-Ohio State 23-Nebraska 22-BUFFALO 21-Virginia Tech
7-Seeds: 25-Louisville 26-Florida State 27-Cincinnati 28-Iowa
8-Seeds: 32-Minnesota 31-Florida 30-TCU 29-Seton Hall
9-Seeds: 33-Villanova 34-LSU 35-Butler 36-Utah State
10-Seeds: 40-St. John's 39-Kansas State 38-Purdue 37-Creighton
11-Seeds: 41-Mississippi 42-Iowa State 43-VCU 44-FURMAN
12-Seeds: 50-LIPSCOMB 49-UC-IRVINE 48-St. Louis/47-Texas 46-Arizona/45-San Francisco
13-Seeds: 51-BELMONT 52-PENN 53-CHARLESTON 54-OLD DOMINION
14-Seeds: 58-SOUTH DAKOTA STATE 57-MONTANA 56-VERMONT 55-NEW MEXICO STATE
15-Seeds: 59-RADFORD 60-DRAKE 61-TEXAS STATE 62-WRIGHT STATE
16-Seeds: 68-NORTH CAROLINA A&T/67-TEXAS SOUTHERN 66-CENTRAL CONNECTICUT STATE/65-RIDER 64-LEHIGH 63-ABILENE CHRISTIAN

Last Four In: San Francisco, Arizona, Texas, St. Louis
Last Four Byes: Kansas State, St. John's, Mississippi, Iowa State

First Four Out: Maryland, Syracuse, Oregon, Clemson
Next Four Out: Providence, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Vanderbilt

Also Considered: UCF, Penn State, Washington, Fresno State, Murray State, St. Mary's, West Virginia, Miami, Alabama, Arkansas, UCLA, Baylor, Colorado

Marquette came up higher than I expected. That could be a personal bias, but they are one of only three teams in the nation with four top-50 Pomeroy wins (actually all top-40) and zero sub-25 losses. The other two are Michigan and Duke. When you are comparing top-100 games and the actual wins and losses in those games, MU's resume is really tough.

There were three teams that stood out that I was higher on than most others. I have NC State on the 3-line, higher than anyone at Bracket Matrix, despite their soft schedule. They are 3-1 in top-100 kenpom games with the only loss on the road at Wisconsin. Seton Hall is another team I'm higher on. All of their losses are to teams in the field while they boast three top-50 kenpom wins away from home. The last is St. Louis, who most don't have in the field. They are my last team in despite their low kenpom ranking because of their wins over Seton Hall and Butler while sporting a respectable 3-3 top-100 record and only one loss outside the top-100.

I also noticed three teams I'm lower on. Michigan State is on my 4-line because while the computers like them, they don't have any top-25 kenpom wins while having a loss outside the top-25. The teams ahead of them have either better wins, more acceptable losses, or both. Florida State is another one I'm not as high on. I'm not sold on either the Florida or Purdue wins being as good as they looked in the preseason. The last one is UCF, who are one of the last four in on Bracket Matrix but not even in my next four out. Their entire resume is a win over Alabama that is offset by an ugly home loss to Florida Atlantic. They will need to pick up a couple big wins in conference play if they want to make the field. Beating Houston and/or Cincinnati at least twice feels like a must.

Finally, some thoughts on the Big East. After Marquette, no one's resume has really separated itself from the rest. Seton Hall's wins over Kentucky and Maryland have helped immensely. Everyone else seems to have highs and lows, with the exception of St. John's who's results are all highs but opponents are all lows. Six bids for this league feels like a lot, but I just don't see a case for any of the teams on the outside ahead of Creighton or St. John's (the last two Big East teams). Neither of those two teams has any losses outside the top-25 and they've come away with wins in every game they would be expected to win.

MU's NCAA Path: Charleston, Lville, Mich, Texas Tech, UVA, Duke

If the Selection Committee went exactly from the new Net Ratings (that replaced RPI this year) then I have Marquette as the 4-seed in the East. Their path if higher seeds won all other games would be:

13-seed College of Charleston
5-seed Louisville in a rematch of the overtime win
1-seed Michigan
2-seed Texas Tech
East 1-seed Virginia
Overall 1-seed (South) Duke

I did not run a true S-Curve (where the 1 overall necessarily faces the 8 overall) but rather took each four set of the next seed and let the top one go in their closest region, with the worst of the four with that seed getting last dibs on whichever region was left. Still, this would be pretty close. The number to the left of each team is their seed - while the number to their right after the conference is their Net rating.

The Big East gets only four invites going exactly by the current Net Rating, but with great hope in light of recent big wins for 69th ranked Providence (won at 74th ranked Texas who most consider higher), 78th ranked Seton Hall (beat 22nd ranked Kentucky) and 53rd ranked Creighton (ranked 39th at www.kenpom.com and beat Ken Pom's 37th ranked team Clemson on a neutral court). I should say Nate Silver trashed the new Net System, but overall I do believe it is a big improvement over RPI because you get credit for margin of victory up to 10 points (so the K-State and Buffalo wins shot MU way up to 13th) which also gives credit for keeping a tough opponent close.

We soaked up all the Badger Victory we could, now it's time to get back to basketball

10 days off from #MUBB basketball is a very long time, even if we have a victory over the red menace from the west to keep us occupied. Fear not, dear listener, we are back and ready to tackle the rest of the non-conference season. First, we kick off the pod with a little #instatrakka where we noticed in some MU instragram stories that Greg Elliot appeared to be a full go at practice. So we begin rampant speculation of whether Greg will be back against North Dakota or Southern and what his return means for minutes. We then talk Tuesday's opponent in North Dakota before transitioning to the most important remaining game in the non-conference...Buffalo. We talk about concerns and possibilities against Buffalo and how we see the game turning out. That conversation turns into a therapy session dealing with the fact that Marquette might be the favorite in the Big East. We close out the pod with some talk about a recent story in the local paper that MU looked at creating an on-campus arena instead of going to the Fiserv Forum....spoiler alert, we both think it would have been a dumb idea. Enjoy! https://scrambledeggs.podbean.com/mf/play/2bvb72/scrambledeggs_editted_121718.mp3

Victory Edition of Scrambled Eggs - Badgers Suck

Well, it is a very happy podcast this well, as your Marquette Warriors took down the rodent menace from the west in a tight game. We could talk about the UTEP game, but we won't because we want to jump right into reliving a great victory for Marquette. We discuss how MU pulled off the win, what we saw that concerned us, and debate the game Markus Howard had. We had to spend some time on the dumbest play we've seen in quite some time, Flopper Davidson's nut punch of Joey Hauser, and have a little fun at his expense. MU now has 10 days off and is roughly where we thought/hoped they'd be so we step back and look at how we got here and what that means for the rest of the season for Marquette. Needless to say, we're forecasting some sun days ahead going into Big East season. Hope you enjoyed the very joyous #BadgerHateWeek and please enjoy the finals break. https://scrambledeggs.podbean.com/mf/play/42y8xa/scrambledeggs_editted_120918.mp3

Marquette 74, #12 Wisconsin 69 (OT). Davison with 0 pts, but 1 DP

Marquette beat UW-madison 74-69 in OT at the Fiserv Forum today.  MU remains undefeated ALL-TIME in the building.  Marquette trailed at the half by two points and in the second half the teams traded leads ten times in the final ten minutes.  Marquette had a chance to win with seconds left, but a short jump shot by Markus Howard did not fall.  In the OT session MU never trailed.  Perhaps the key play in OT, MU was up 65-63 when Brad Davison was called for a flagrant foul by punching Joey Hauser in the manhood.  Davison fouled out with zero points, including 0-3 from the line and one punch to the privates for a stat line.  After collecting himself from the assault, Joey drilled both free throws.

In the final minute, MU missed 6 straight free throws, but Wisconsin could not capitalize.

Davison to the family jewels

Marquette has beaten Wisconsin three of the last four games.

A solid program victory and #BadgerHateWeek, it's gonna be a happy pod

It's happy pod time, as Marquette got a convincing (albeit a painful to watch) win over a quality opponent in Kansas State. We talk about the win, Marcus Howard, and just how painful that officiating was. We also spend a minute or two talking about Jamal Cain and whether his playing time is of concern. We then transition right past UTEP for the most part and on to everyone's favorite week, #BadgerHateWeek. We breakdown the ins and the outs of the game, discuss Brad Davidson's ab workout that enables him to launch himself, and what Marquette has to do to win the game. We close out with predictions and a solicitation for your best Badger rivalry jokes. Enjoy! https://scrambledeggs.podbean.com/mf/play/xy9sxu/scrambledeggs_editted_120218.mp3

This week's Marquette Men's Basketball Rankings

The latest and greatest, including the now defunct RPI.  The NCAA NET scores, the replacement to the RPI, hopefully will become closer to the mean of the others soon.

As of 12/1/18

ELO #17

ESPN BPI #21

RPI   #20  

Sagarin #25

Kenpom  #29

NCAA NET  #84  (through Nov 29th)