#MUBB Happy Hour

So we did a thing, we organized a Zoom happy hour with notable Marquette social media "personalities" and we recorded it. Big thanks to Tim Blair, Ben Snider, Sam Newberry, Alan Bykowski, and Patrick Leary for joining the chat and raising the overall quality of the podcast considerably. I'd go through all the stuff we talked about but it was all over the map and you'll just have to listen.....what else you have to do? Enjoy!

https://scrambledeggs.podbean.com/mf/play/vuh6ca/MUBB_Happy_Hour_pod.mp3

Final Revised Cards for Value Add Basketball Game (topped 30,000 clicks this weekend)

We managed to update the cards for the Value Add Basketball Game so click just this pdf to print out player cards for the 100 teams projected to make the 2020 NIT or NCAA, plus other great teams from the 1943 Wyoming Cowboys to the 2019 Virginia Cavaliers. The following are the three teams I feature on the update instructions for the free game, which was clicked on for the 30,000th time this weekend. No team was allowed to have more than one great team in the game from each century, so the Marquette 1977 and 2003 teams are also included, but Bill Walton's 1972 UCLA and the team they beat in my all-time tournament, Michael Jordan's 1982 UNC Tar Heels, are the only UCLA or UNC team from the 20th century.

Scrambled Eggs is still in quarantine but that doesn't mean we can't pod

The season ended really weird and we really haven't had the chance to talk about it. We get together and first discuss the end of what was shaping up to be a disappointing season for #mubb. We then talk about the Markus Howard era, what we'll remember and what Markus' legacy will be in the coming years. That conversation leads to yet another discussion of Wojo the coach, and what options Marquette really had given the financial state of affairs given the impact Covid-19 is having of society. We also talk the departure of Stan Johnson and the return of Justin Gainey. We close out the pod with a quick examination of the recruiting trail for Wojo, the players in the transfer market and what MU needs/wants right now. Generally, we keep it light so let's hope you enjoy!

https://scrambledeggs.podbean.com/mf/play/mx8xsc/scrambledeggs_edit_041220.mp3

Marquette Player Cards for 2020 Season - Jayce 6th Best Rebounder

Denied the chance to celebrate or mourn Marquette's NCAA opener, I spent a lot of time calculating and working up player cards for all 100 teams projected to make the NCAA or NIT tournament. Here is a copy of each player's card followed by an explanation of what each line means. I refer to Markus' card in the explanations just to make it easier to follow, but also note things like Theo John having one of the best shot blocking cards, and Jayce Johnson having the 6th best rebounding card of all 100 teams. After finishing the cards, I played my first Value Add Basketball Game of the tournament today, and NC State rallied to beat Richmond in the closing minute, 71-67, in a play-in game to advance to play 6-seed Penn State in the first round of the East Region.

Here is a description of what each line on the card means:

• Markus Howard #0 - The top line is just the players name and jersey number.
• Marquette BE, Rank: #5 - The team and conference follow (and a note if they won the conference) followed by the players Value Add ranking at www.valueaddbasketball.com - in Markus case he is rated as the 5th best player in the game.
• Play time: PG 41-1 - The player card suggests Markus Howard plays the final 41 of 44 possessions of the game (the game starts with a 20-20 tie so we are playing the final 44 possessions of each game). The top right card is for Symir Torrence, suggesting he plays the first three possessions (44th, 43rd and 42nd). This is calculated based on assuming all players already played some of the first 22 possessions accounting for the 20-20 tie when the game actually starts. (it is easier to have the reserves play first, then finish the game with starters for as long as they can go.)
• Gets ball on: 1(PG) 6 7 - the 8-sided die determines which player gets the ball each possession, so when Marquette has the ball, it goes to Markus on a roll of 1, 6 or 7.
• 5'11" Start,Bench,Out: 29,0,1 - Markus is listed at 5-foot-11, and during the season he started 29 games, did not come off the bench in any of the games, and missed the one game due to injury.
• 11-66 roll and three lines under it - on the 11-66 roll of two dice when when Markus is on defense and the opposing point guard gets the ball, he steals the ball on a roll of 11-13 (of the 11-16 possible steals), never blocks an opponent's shot (21-20 indicates not even the 21 is a block), and he only fouls on rolls of 35-36 (the players who foul a lot foul on 33-36). If he has the ball we look at the right side and he turns it over only only two of the six possible turnover numbers (a 41 or 42) which is very few for a point guard who needs to handle the ball so much. All Marquette players dunk (or in Markus case hits a scoop shot haha) on a 51-56, which is actually a calibrated adjustment for level of competition played over the course of the season. In other words, a player in the American East who had the same stats as Markus would have a much lower dunk range (perhaps even 51-50 or none) to adjust for how each player would play against average competition. On the flip side all Marquette players have a 0 on their defensive figure which adjusts the opponent's dunk range - an average defense but mediocre for a power conference team. On blocked shots note that Theo is one of the few players in the country who blocks shots on all possible block numbers, an 11-16 and then no matter who on the court has the ball he blocks it on a roll of 32.
• 20-sided die result - if Markus has the ball and nothing happens on the 11-66 roll, then you refer to the 20-sided die and he scores a 3-pointer on a roll of 1-4, makes a 2-pointer on a roll of 5-7, draws a foul and gets two shots on 8-11, misses a 3-pointer on 12-16 and misses a 2-pointer on a 17-20.
• 1 to 17 = free throw good Stamina 41 - if he is fouled the 20-sided die is rolled twice, and he makes the free throw on a 1-17 and misses it on a 18-20, making him an 85% free throw shooter. The Stamina number tells you how many possessions a player can play before being tired. In his case his Stamina of 41 means he will get tired if he plays more than 41 possessions (thus the suggested play possession 42-1 above) every roll of every dice is adjusted one against him (an 11 on the 20-sided die would be change to a 12 and he would miss instead of being fouled, a 34 would be a foul because it would be increased to a 35, etc,). Note that Symir has great ratios, but since his Stamina is only 3 if you play him more than 3 possessions his card gets much worse.
• Offensive Rebound if 1 to 1, Defensive Rebound if 1-3 - Half of all rebounds go to the defense automatically, however on the other possessions the dice roll determines which player has a chance to get the rebound on a 1-6 roll. If Markus has a chance for an offensive rebound her rarely gets it (just 1 on the six-sided die) while if he has to beat an opposing offensive player to the offensive rebounder for the ball he gets it half the time (1-3). However, here is where we have a headliner. While most players just get rebounds in the 1-6 range there are some rolls in the game where the "highest on the court" gets the rebound, and if Marquette misses a shot in the game and Jayce Johnson is on the court for a potential miss then he grabs the offensive rebound as one of nine players with a higher offensive rebound number than any player's defensive rebound number with a 1-11. In fact, Jayce's 1-8 defensive rebound number means on the flip side he almost always wins the "highest on court" meaning overall he is tied as the sixth best rebounder on any of the 100 teams in the game. 
• 
  

Rebounder	Off Reb	Def Reb	Total	Row2.1
Kevin Morris #3	16	5	21	South Alabama
Oscar Tshiebwe #34	13	8	21	West Virginia
Austin Wiley #50	12	9	21	Auburn
Blake Preston #32	13	7	20	Liberty
Sam Freeman #32	15	5	20	Minnesota
Jayce Johnson #34	11	8	19	Marquette
Tyrique Jones #4	11	8	19	Xavier
Scottie James #31	11	8	19	Liberty
Trevion Williams #50	12	7	19	Purdue

• 
  
• The team card for Marquette indicates if you simulated thousands of games using these cards against the strongest non-tournament teams, Marquette would average winning by 9 points 73-64. It also reflects that www.kenpom.com calculates Marquette is the 31st best team in the country, the 14th best offense, the 73rd best defense and played against the 20th toughest schedule in the country.  Going by Bracket Matrix, we note that Marquette would be the 9-seed in the Midwest (we ignored the rules against having teams face another team from their own conference and the s-curve and just placed each group of 4 teams with the same seed roughly based on their actual geography. We also provided seeding for 32 NIT teams and on the bottom of each card seeded them in an overall combined NIT/NCAA tournament with 25- to 1- seeds.  

To Print Out Your Teams

If you want to print out any other teams, click here and you should a list of all 300 team files like this. Each image file is numbered, so to find your team just look down the alphabetical list of teams and corresponding page numbers. Once you know the page numbers, scroll to them to print out the three pages you need and print - you will need to cut each page into four sections to have the 12 player cards for each team you plan to play.

Team	Pages
Akron	Pages 1 to 3
Alabama	Pages 4 to 6
Arizona	Pages 7 to 9
Arizona St.	Pages 10 to 12
Arkansas	Pages 13 to 15
Auburn	Pages 16 to 18
Baylor	Pages 19 to 21
Belmont	Pages 22 to 24
Boston University	Pages 25 to 27
Bradley	Pages 28 to 30
Butler	Pages 31 to 33
BYU	Pages 34 to 36
Cincinnati	Pages 37 to 39
Colgate	Pages 40 to 42
Colorado	Pages 43 to 45
Connecticut	Pages 46 to 48
Creighton	Pages 49 to 51
Dayton	Pages 52 to 54
Duke	Pages 55 to 57
East Tennessee St.	Pages 58 to 60
Eastern Washington	Pages 61 to 63
Florida	Pages 64 to 66
Florida St.	Pages 67 to 69
Furman	Pages 70 to 72
Georgetown	Pages 73 to 75
Gonzaga	Pages 76 to 78
Hofstra	Pages 79 to 81
Houston	Pages 82 to 84
Illinois	Pages 85 to 87
Indiana	Pages 88 to 90
Iowa	Pages 91 to 93
Kansas	Pages 94 to 96
Kentucky	Pages 97 to 99
Liberty	Pages 100 to 102
Little Rock	Pages 103 to 105
Louisiana Tech	Pages 106 to 108
Louisville	Pages 109 to 111
LSU	Pages 112 to 114
Marquette	Pages 115 to 117
Maryland	Pages 118 to 120
Memphis	Pages 121 to 123
Merrimack	Pages 124 to 126
Michigan	Pages 127 to 129
Michigan St.	Pages 130 to 132
Minnesota	Pages 133 to 135
Mississippi St.	Pages 136 to 138
Murray St.	Pages 139 to 141
N.C. State	Pages 142 to 144
New Mexico St.	Pages 145 to 147
North Carolina Central	Pages 148 to 150
North Dakota St.	Pages 151 to 153
North Florida	Pages 154 to 156
North Texas	Pages 157 to 159
Northern Iowa	Pages 160 to 162
Northern Kentucky	Pages 163 to 165
Notre Dame	Pages 166 to 168
Ohio St.	Pages 169 to 171
Oklahoma	Pages 172 to 174
Oklahoma St.	Pages 175 to 177
Oregon	Pages 178 to 180
Penn St.	Pages 181 to 183
Prairie View A&M	Pages 184 to 186
Providence	Pages 187 to 189
Purdue	Pages 190 to 192
Radford	Pages 193 to 195
Rhode Island	Pages 196 to 198
Richmond	Pages 199 to 201
Robert Morris	Pages 202 to 204
Rutgers	Pages 205 to 207
Saint Louis	Pages 208 to 210
Saint Mary's	Pages 211 to 213
San Diego St.	Pages 214 to 216
Seton Hall	Pages 217 to 219
Siena	Pages 220 to 222
South Alabama	Pages 223 to 225
South Carolina	Pages 226 to 228
South Dakota St.	Pages 229 to 231
St. John's	Pages 232 to 234
Stanford	Pages 235 to 237
Stephen F. Austin	Pages 238 to 240
Syracuse	Pages 241 to 243
Tennessee	Pages 244 to 246
Texas	Pages 247 to 249
Texas Tech	Pages 250 to 252
Tulsa	Pages 253 to 255
UC Irvine	Pages 256 to 258
UCLA	Pages 259 to 261
USC	Pages 262 to 264
Utah St.	Pages 265 to 267
VCU	Pages 268 to 270
Vermont	Pages 271 to 273
Villanova	Pages 274 to 276
Virginia	Pages 277 to 279
West Virginia	Pages 280 to 282
Wichita St.	Pages 283 to 285
Winthrop	Pages 286 to 288
Wisconsin	Pages 289 to 291
Wright St.	Pages 292 to 294
Xavier	Pages 295 to 297
Yale	Pages 298 to 300

Simulation Sunday

Today was supposed to be Selection Sunday. For those of us that put brackets together, this is the day we look forward to all season long, to see how we did, what we got right, what we got wrong, and most important, where our team is going. Since we don't get the Selection Show, I'm going to do my Simulation Show here. I'll go region by region with the full S-Curve down at the bottom. Let's dive in:

We begin in the Midwest with the #1 overall seed, the Kansas Jayhawks, who are headed to Omaha. They will take on the winner of the First Four game in Dayton between 16-seeds UNC Central and Robert Morris. Also in Omaha it's the 8-seed Arizona Wildcats taking on the 9-seed Rutgers Scarlet Knights, making their first tournament since 1991. Moving down to St. Louis, the 5-seed BYU Cougars take on Anthony Lamb and 12th seeded Vermont, representing the America East. Also in St. Louis, the 4th seeded Louisville Cardinals out of the ACC will meet the 13-seed Liberty Flames, who earned their first ever NCAA win a year ago.

The bottom half of the bracket begins in Cleveland, where 6-seed West Virginia opens their NCAA campaign against our first representative from the Atlantic 10, the 11-seed Richmond Spiders. The winner of that game will face the winner of the game between Tom Izzo's 3-seed Michigan State Spartans and the 14-seed Eastern Washington Eagles out of the Big Sky. In St. Louis, the 7th seeded Houston Cougars will take on Mike White and the 10th seeded Florida Gators. We also have our first representative from the Big East as the 2-seed Creighton Blue Jays face off with Summit League champion and 15-seed North Dakota State Bison.

Staying on the right side of the bracket, the top seed will be the Baylor Bears, who head to Omaha to take on the 16-seed Northern Kentucky Norse. The winner there will meet the winner of 8-seed St. Mary's Gaels and your 9-seed Marquette Golden Eagles. In Greensboro, the 5-seed Ohio State Buckeyes open up against a popular giant-killer, the 12-seed Stephen F Austin Lumberjacks. Also in Greensboro, it's John Calipari and his 4th seeded Kentucky Wildcats facing off with Brian Wardle's 13-seed Bradley Braves, returning to the tournament for a second straight year.

In the bottom half of the south, we start with the 6-seed Colorado Buffalos, who will meet up with the 11-seed Indiana Hoosiers in Albany. Staying in Albany, Big East Player of the Year Myles Powell, who undeservingly looted the award for the 3-seed Seton Hall Pirates will meet up with the 14-seed Hofstra Pride and Eli Pemberton. In Tampa, it's National Player of the Year contender Luka Garza and the 7-seed Iowa Hawkeyes facing off with Bobby Hurley's 10th seeded Arizona State Wildcats. We wrap up the South also in Tampa, as the 2-seed ACC-but-not-yet-national-champions Florida State Seminoles will meet the 15-seed Little Rock Trojans who won the Sun Belt.

Let's head to the East, where we begin in Cleveland. National Player of the Year candidate Obadiah Toppin leads the #1-seed Dayton Flyers in their opening game against first-year coach Carm Marciarello and the 16-seed Siena Saints. Also in Cleveland, the 8th seeded LSU Tigers will face off with the 9th seeded Oklahoma Sooners. Moving to Tampa, it's Kamar Baldwin and the 5-seed Butler Bulldogs facing off against the 12-seed Utah State Aggies, champions of the Mountain West. Staying in Tampa, the Maryland Terrapins are the 4-seed and hoping to make their first Final Four since 2001 as they open play against the 13-seed New Mexico State Aggies, led by coach Chris Jans.

The bottom of the bracket opens in Greensboro, where the 6-seed Michigan Wolverines will take on the winner of the First Four game from Dayton between the 11th seeded Northern Iowa Panthers, who may surprise some with their inclusion, and the Cincinnati Bearcats, returning to the tournament in Coach John Brannen's first year there. Also in Greensboro, it's Coach K and the 3-seed Duke Blue Devils squaring off with another first-year coach, Casey Alexander and his 14th seeded Belmont Bruins. Moving to Albany, Pat Chambers and the 7-seed Penn State Nittany Lions both return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011, but also the first time together. They take on Steve Forbes and the East Tennessee State Buccaners, champions of the Southern Conference. The winner of that game will square off with the winner of another game in Albany as the 2-seed Villanova Wildcats take on the 15-seed UC Irvine Anteaters.

The last region, and last hope for teams on the bubble, will come in the West. We begin with Mark Few and his top seeded Gonzaga Bulldogs, who head to Spokane to meet the First Four 16-seed winner as the Prairie View A&M Panthers will meet the Boston University Terriers. The winner of that game will face off with two teams that know each other well, as this will be the third time in five years that Ed Cooley and his 8-seed Providence Friars will open NCAA play against the USC Trojans, who are the 9-seed. In Sacramento, the Auburn Tigers will try to reach a second straight Final Four as a 5-seed; they begin play against the 12-seed Yale Bulldogs. Also in Sacramento, the 4-seed Wisconsin Badgers will take on the 13-seed Akron Zips out of the MAC.

Back to Spokane, the defending champions and 6-seed Virginia Cavaliers will open play with the winners of the 11-seed First Four game between the Xavier Musketeers and the 2019 runners-up, the Texas Tech Red Raiders. This pod also includes the 3-seed Oregon Ducks, who face off against the 14-seed North Texas Mean Green from Conference-USA. Our last pod will be in Sacramento, where the 7-seed Illinois Fightin' Illini will meet the 10-seed Wichita State Shockers. And the last game we have is the 2-seed San Diego State Aztecs, who were the last undefeated team in the nation this year, meeting the 15-seed Winthrop Eagles.

Here is the full 2020 NCAA bracket:

Comments from Selection Committee Chair: "This was a year where the 1-seeds were all clear. There was complete agreement on both those teams and the regions they went to. The closest team to the top line was San Diego State, who could've got there had they won their conference tournament, but were clearly off the top line after that loss.

"There was quite a bit of discussion about the bubble. The last two teams in were Northern Iowa and Cincinnati. Both of those teams had some tough losses, but their winning records against teams in the top two quadrants and generally stronger computer numbers were what propelled them into the field over the teams that will headline the NIT."

Here is the complete seed list, as well as the top two seed lines for the NIT:

1-Seeds: 1-KANSAS 2-GONZAGA 3-Baylor 4-DAYTON
2-Seeds: 8-Villanova 7-FLORIDA STATE 6-CREIGHTON 5-San Diego State
3-Seeds: 9-Duke 10-Michigan State 11-OREGON 12-Seton Hall
4-Seeds: 16-WISCONSIN 15-Maryland 14-Louisville 13-KENTUCKY
5-Seeds: 17-Butler 18-Ohio State 19-Auburn 20-Byu
6-Seeds: 24-Colorado 23-Virginia 22-Michigan 21-West Virginia
7-Seeds: 25-HOUSTON 26-Penn State 27-Iowa 28-Illinois
8-Seeds: 32-Arizona 31-St. Mary's 30-Providence 29-Lsu
9-Seeds: 33-Marquette 34-Rutgers 35-Usc 36-Oklahoma
10-Seeds: 40-EAST TENNESSEE STATE 39-Wichita State 38-Arizona State 37-Florida
11-Seeds: 41-Richmond 42-Indiana 43-Xavier/44-Texas Tech 45-Northern Iowa/46-Cincinnati
12-Seeds: 50-VERMONT 49-STEPHEN F AUSTIN 48-YALE 47-UTAH STATE
13-Seeds: 51-LIBERTY 52-AKRON 53-BRADLEY 54-NEW MEXICO STATE
14-Seeds: 58-EASTERN WASHINGTON 57-HOFSTRA 56-NORTH TEXAS 55-BELMONT
15-Seeds: 59-UC IRVINE 60-NORTH DAKOTA STATE 61-LITTLE ROCK 62-WINTHROP
16-Seeds: 68-NC CENTRAL/67-ROBERT MORRIS 66-PVAMU/65-BOSTON UNIVERSITY 64-SIENA 63-NORTHERN KENTUCKY

NIT 1-Seeds: NC State, UCLA, Texas, Stanford
NIT 2-Seeds: Arkansas, St. Louis, Mississippi State, Rhode Island

Last Four Byes: Arizona State, Wichita State, Richmond, Indiana
Last Four In: Xavier, Texas Tech, Northern Iowa, Cincinnati


Multibid Leagues
Big 10: 10
Big East: 7
Pac 12: 5
Big 12: 5
ACC: 4
SEC: 4
WCC: 3
American: 3
Atlantic 10: 2
Missouri Valley: 2
Mountain West: 2

Soon Releasing Player Cards for Top 100 Teams for Simulated March Madness

While insignificant in the the whirl of world events, I decided to go ahead and produce player cards for 68 teams who theoretically would have been in this year's NCAA and another 32 that would have theoretically made the NIT tournament. I may just play them off in one 100-team tournament once I've made them available (for free as always) here.

While the player cards will take at least a couple of days to calculate and produce, the quick math on Markus Howard is that he is one of 34 players in all of college basketball who will have possession of the ball on three of the 8-sided die rolls (he had the ball 37.4% of the time, and any player with at least 31.3 percent of their team's possessions gets the ball on three rolls).

If he gets the ball and the defender doesn't stop him or he doesn't get a free basket based on a level of competition factor that helps MU's cards due to the tough defense and offenses faced then the result of the 20-sided die determines if he gets a shot off or is fouled.

On a 20-side roll Markus Howard:

1. Makes a 3-pointer on a roll of 1-4
2. Makes a 2-pointer on a roll of 5-7
3. Gets fouled and 2 free throws on a roll of 8-11
4. Misses a 3-pointer on a roll of 12-16
5. Misses a 2-pointer on a roll of 17-20

If he is fouled he makes each free throw on a roll of 1-17 and misses on an 18-20. I won't go through all the rolls for turnovers, rebounds, steals, blocked shots etc., but that's the basic.

The way the seeding sets up I would play Marquette as the 8-seed in the West against Colorado in the opening round. However, if I go with the 25-team regions in one big tournament, then Marquette would need to first defeat 25-seed Prairie View A&M and Colorado would need to beat 24-seed Radford, shipped out West because there was no western team among the four 24-seeds.

Just Concluded All-Time Great Tournament

The two All-Time great teams did not do well in my all-time tournament as Dwyane Wade's Final Four team was upset by a West Virginia team they could not keep off the offensive glass, and the National Champs defeated Rick Majerus' Utah Final Four team before losing by a point to the historic 1966 West Texas team, which then went all the way to the Elite 8.

Wade's team was explosive but had one of the worst few defensive teams of the 96 all-time greats, while the 1977 National Champs had one of the best few defensive teams.

We just finished playing off this All-Time March Madness tournament (with Bill Walton's UCLA beating Michael Jordan's UNC in the final) when the 2020 March Madness was cancelled. We plan to make playing cards for the 100 teams that would have made March Madness based on the following criteria:

1) Conference Champions to NCAA: If a team had already won their conference tournament ("Tourn"), or was the team still alive in their tournament with the highest www.kenpom.com rating ("Top") they were considered the automatic qualifier to the NCAA from their conference.

2) Regular Season Champ Gets at Least NIT: If a different team from the conference won the regular season or even was tied for the conference title (unless the third or three tied teams based on the www.kenpom.com rating), then they are guaranteed of at least an NIT bid.

3) We then seeded the teams within each tournament based on their www.kenpom.com rating. We broke up the regions based on the basic direction of the four teams with that seed, giving preference to keeping the better rating closer to home if two were in the same region. However, as far as actually playing off the tournament I may just combine the NCAA and NIT into a 100-team tournament with the 1- through 7-seeds getting a first round bye and the 8-seeds vs. 25-seeds playing in the opening round etc.

Note: I actually decided to choose my seeds by going with the composite NCAA Bracket at the Bracket Matrix, and then I basically followed the Barking Crow NIT Bracketology, though I had to make a few adjustments for teams they had listed that made the final NCAA Bracket and vice versa. I made cards for those 100 teams - made on of the tournaments by one of those methods - and keep in mind some teams won their regular season title but were eliminated from their conference tournament prior to everything being cancelled - and those teams are guaranteed at least an NIT bid.

Player Cards Will Be Produced for These Teams

Here is how the teams rank and the regions in which I'd set them up.

Team	W-L	Conf/Champ?	KenPom	Off	Def	tourney	Seed	Region
Kansas	28-3	Top B12	1	8	2	NCAA	1	Midwest
Gonzaga	31-2	Tourn WCC	2	1	43	NCAA	1	West
Baylor	26-4	B12	3	17	4	NCAA	1	South
Dayton	29-2	Top A10	4	2	38	NCAA	1	East
Duke	25-6	ACC	5	9	12	NCAA	2	East
San Diego St.	30-2	Reg MWC	6	11	10	NCAA	2	West
Michigan St.	22-9	Top B10	7	10	13	NCAA	2	South
Ohio St.	21-10	B10	8	13	19	NCAA	2	Midwest
Louisville	24-7	ACC	9	12	30	NCAA	3	Midwest
West Virginia	21-10	B12	10	67	3	NCAA	3	East
Maryland	24-7	Tri-B10	11	18	22	NCAA	3	South
Creighton	24-7	Top BE	12	3	78	NCAA	3	West
BYU	24-8	WCC	13	7	60	NCAA	4	West
Houston	23-8	Top Amer	14	22	21	NCAA	4	South
Florida St.	26-5	Top ACC	15	32	15	NCAA	4	East
Michigan	19-12	B10	16	20	28	NCAA	4	Midwest
Oregon	24-7	Top P12	17	6	76	NCAA	5	West
Villanova	24-7	Tri-BE	18	15	36	NCAA	5	East
Arizona	21-11	P12	19	35	14	NCAA	5	Midwest
Seton Hall	21-9	Tri-BE	20	29	25	NCAA	5	South
Texas Tech	18-13	B12	21	47	9	NCAA	6	South
Wisconsin	21-10	Tri-B10	22	40	17	NCAA	6	Midwest
Iowa	20-11	B10	23	5	97	NCAA	6	West
Purdue	16-15	B10	24	50	11	NCAA	6	East
Butler	22-9	BE	25	25	42	NCAA	7	Midwest
Penn St.	21-10	B10	26	43	23	NCAA	7	East
Minnesota	15-16	B10	27	30	41	NCAA	7	West
Rutgers	20-11	B10	28	72	6	NCAA	7	South
Kentucky	25-6	Top SEC	29	24	52	NCAA	8	East
Illinois	21-10	B10	30	38	35	NCAA	8	Midwest
Marquette	18-12	BE	31	14	73	NCAA	8	West
Florida	19-12	SEC	32	27	61	NCAA	8	South
Auburn	25-6	SEC	33	33	55	NCAA	9	South
Indiana	20-12	B10	34	65	26	NCAA	9	East
Colorado	21-11	P12	35	54	32	NCAA	9	West
Oklahoma	19-12	B12	36	58	29	NCAA	9	Midwest
LSU	21-10	SEC	37	4	179	NCAA	10	South
Saint Mary's	26-8	WCC	38	16	96	NCAA	10	West
Wichita St.	23-8	Amer	39	117	8	NCAA	10	Midwest
Providence	19-12	BE	40	75	27	NCAA	10	East
Utah St.	26-8	Tourn MWC	41	49	48	NCAA	11	West
Virginia	23-7	ACC	42	234	1	NCAA	11.5	East
Stanford	20-12	P12	43	143	7	NCAA	11.5	South
Cincinnati	20-10	Tri-Amer	44	59	51	NCAA	11	Midwest
Xavier	19-13	BE	45	103	20	NCAA	11.5	South (MW if 25)
Richmond	24-7	A10	46	53	54	NCAA	11.5	East
Arkansas	20-12	SEC	47	55	57	NIT	1	West
Mississippi St.	20-11	SEC	48	19	119	NIT	1	South
Northern Iowa	25-6	Reg MVC	49	23	108	NIT	1	Midwest (West if 25)
N.C. State	20-12	ACC	50	42	79	NIT	1	East (South if 25)
Syracuse	18-14	ACC	51	21	116	NIT	2	Midwest
Connecticut	19-12	Amer	52	64	59	NIT	2	East
Oklahoma St.	18-14	B12	53	84	46	NIT	2	South
Washington	15-17	P12	54	112	31	NIT	2	West
USC	22-9	P12	55	145	18	NIT	3	West
East Tennessee St.	30-4	Tourn SC	56	69	65	NCAA	12	South
Notre Dame	20-12	ACC	57	41	100	NIT	3	East
Yale	23-7	Tourn Ivy	58	73	67	NCAA	12	East
Memphis	21-10	Amer	59	210	5	NIT	3	Midwest
Alabama	16-15	SEC	60	37	114	NIT	3	South
Texas	19-12	B12	61	153	24	NIT	4	South
Saint Louis	23-8	A10	62	111	44	NIT	4	Midwest
Arizona St.	20-11	P12	63	108	49	NIT	4	West
Georgia Tech	17-14	ACC	64	171	16	NIT	4	South
Rhode Island	21-9	A10	65	126	39	NIT	5	East
St. John's	17-15	BE	66	104	53	NIT	5	Midwest
Georgetown	15-17	BE	67	36	125	NIT	5	South
Tennessee	17-14	SEC	68	96	62	NIT	5	West
South Carolina	18-13	SEC	69	122	50	NIT	6	South
Davidson	16-14	A10	70	26	163	NIT	6	East
Louisiana Tech	22-8	CUSA	71	60	90	NIT	6	West
Clemson	16-15	ACC	72	155	33	NIT	6	Midwest
VCU	18-13	A10	73	138	45	NIT	7	South
Vermont	26-7	Top AE	76	98	68	NCAA	12	Midwest
North Texas	20-11	Top CUSA	77	34	146	NCAA	12	West
Liberty	30-4	Tourn ASun	79	107	69	NCAA	13	East
Akron	24-7	Top MAC	82	66	103	NCAA	13	Midwest
New Mexico St.	25-6	Top WAC	91	80	113	NCAA	13	West
Stephen F. Austin	28-3	Tourn Slnd	100	152	75	NCAA	13	South
UC Irvine	21-11	Top BW	106	121	109	NCAA	14	West
Bradley	23-11	Tourn MVC	107	92	134	NCAA	14	Midwest
Hofstra	26-8	Tourn CAA	108	62	187	NCAA	14	East
Belmont	26-7	Tourn OVC	109	97	132	NCAA	14	South
North Dakota St.	25-8	Tourn Sum	112	91	148	NCAA	15	Midwest (W if 25)
Colgate	25-9	Reg Pat	118	86	182	NIT	7	East
South Dakota St.	22-10	Co-Sum	119	46	241	NIT	7	West (MW if 25)
Eastern Washington	23-8	Top BSky	124	120	142	NCAA	15	West
Little Rock	21-10	Top SB	129	99	184	NCAA	15	South
Wright St.	25-7	Reg Horz	133	132	157	NIT	7	Midwest
Murray St.	23-9	Co-OVC	136	178	110	NIT	8	West
Winthrop	24-10	Tourn BSth	140	136	169	NCAA	15	East
Northern Kentucky	23-9	Tourn Horz	144	191	120	NCAA	16	South
Siena	20-10	Top MAAC	145	87	236	NCAA	16	East
Boston University	21-13	Tourn Pat	159	166	186	NCAA	16.5	Midwest
North Florida	21-12	Co-ASun	166	31	324	NIT	8	South
Radford	21-11	Co-BSth	186	118	272	NIT	8	East (West if 25)
Robert Morris	20-14	Tourn NEC	207	212	205	NCAA	16.5	West (East if 25)
Prairie View A&M	19-13	Top SWAC	213	282	131	NCAA	16.5	West
Merrimack	20-11	Reg NEC	227	325	101	NIT	8	Midwest
North Carolina Central	18-13	Top MEAC	272	319	193	NCAA	16.5	Midwest (South  25)

Bracket in the Time of Corona

Obviously this is all overshadowed by the looming specter of COVID-19, so we will see what happens with games going forward, if there even are any more.

This update is addressing the auto-bid awarded last night, which dropped Colgate out, put Boston University into Dayton, and moved Eastern Washington and Winthrop up a seed line.

There was a lot of chaos on the bubble, with Xavier and Stanford both losing and NC State winning. I haven't done a deep dive this morning, but am moving Xavier down to the First Four, dropping Stanford from the field, and putting Cincinnati into Dayton as the last at-large bid. I will be doing a full rescrub of the bracket in the next day or two. As always, I don't put a lot of stock in Championship Week results, but results on Wednesday are early enough to matter.

Here's the full S-Curve:

1-Seeds: 1-KANSAS 2-GONZAGA 3-Baylor 4-DAYTON
2-Seeds: 8-Villanova 7-FLORIDA STATE 6-CREIGHTON 5-San Diego State
3-Seeds: 9-Duke 10-Michigan State 11-OREGON 12-KENTUCKY
4-Seeds: 16-WISCONSIN 15-Maryland 14-Louisville 13-Seton Hall
5-Seeds: 17-Butler 18-Ohio State 19-Auburn 20-Byu
6-Seeds: 24-Colorado 23-Virginia 22-Michigan 21-West Virginia
7-Seeds: 25-HOUSTON 26-Penn State 27-Iowa 28-Illinois
8-Seeds: 32-Arizona 31-St. Mary's 30-Providence 29-Lsu
9-Seeds: 33-Marquette 34-Rutgers 35-Usc 36-Oklahoma
10-Seeds: 40-EAST TENNESSEE STATE 39-Wichita State 38-Arizona State 37-Florida
11-Seeds: 41-Richmond 42-Indiana 43-Xavier/44-Texas Tech 45-Northern Iowa/46-Cincinnati
12-Seeds: 50-VERMONT 49-STEPHEN F AUSTIN 48-YALE 47-UTAH STATE
13-Seeds: 51-LIBERTY 52-AKRON 53-BRADLEY 54-NEW MEXICO STATE
14-Seeds: 58-EASTERN WASHINGTON 57-HOFSTRA 56-NORTH TEXAS 55-BELMONT
15-Seeds: 59-UC IRVINE 60-NORTH DAKOTA STATE 61-LITTLE ROCK 62-WINTHROP
16-Seeds: 68-NC CENTRAL/67-ROBERT MORRIS 66-PVAMU/65-BOSTON UNIVERSITY 64-SIENA 63-NORTHERN KENTUCKY

NIT 1-Seeds: UCLA, Texas, NC State, Stanford
NIT 2-Seeds: Arkansas, St. Louis, Mississippi State, Rhode Island

Last Four Byes: Arizona State, Wichita State, Richmond, Indiana
Last Four In: Xavier, Texas Tech, Northern Iowa, Cincinnati

Multibid Leagues
Big 10: 10
Big East: 7
Pac 12: 5
Big 12: 5
ACC: 4
SEC: 4
WCC: 3
American: 3
Atlantic 10: 2
Missouri Valley: 2
Mountain West: 2

Wee Morning Hours Update

Not  much changes with the exception of some teams punching their tickets. Everyone we had projected in yesterday won in their conference tournaments. Marquette did effectively add two wins over tournament teams as non-con opponents North Dakota State and Robert Morris won the automatic bids from the Summit League and Northeast Conference, respectively.

Here's the full S-Curve:

1-Seeds: 1-KANSAS 2-GONZAGA 3-Baylor 4-DAYTON
2-Seeds: 8-Villanova 7-FLORIDA STATE 6-CREIGHTON 5-San Diego State
3-Seeds: 9-Duke 10-Michigan State 11-OREGON 12-KENTUCKY
4-Seeds: 16-WISCONSIN 15-Maryland 14-Louisville 13-Seton Hall
5-Seeds: 17-Butler 18-Ohio State 19-Auburn 20-Byu
6-Seeds: 24-Virginia 23-Colorado 22-Michigan 21-West Virginia
7-Seeds: 25-HOUSTON 26-Penn State 27-Iowa 28-Illinois
8-Seeds: 32-Arizona 31-St. Mary's 30-Providence 29-Lsu
9-Seeds: 33-Marquette 34-Rutgers 35-Usc 36-Oklahoma
10-Seeds: 40-Xavier 39-Wichita State 38-Arizona State 37-Florida
11-Seeds: 41-EAST TENNESSEE STATE 42-Stanford 43-Richmond/44-Indiana 45-Texas Tech/46-Northern Iowa
12-Seeds: 50-VERMONT 49-STEPHEN F AUSTIN 48-YALE 47-UTAH STATE
13-Seeds: 51-LIBERTY 52-AKRON 53-BRADLEY 54-NEW MEXICO STATE
14-Seeds: 58-HOFSTRA 57-COLGATE 56-NORTH TEXAS 55-BELMONT
15-Seeds: 59-EASTERN WASHINGTON 60-UC IRVINE 63-NORTH DAKOTA STATE 64-LITTLE ROCK
16-Seeds: 68-NC CENTRAL/67-ROBERT MORRIS 66-PVAMU/65-SIENA 64-WINTHROP 63-NORTHERN KENTUCKY

NIT 1-Seeds: Cincinnati, UCLA, Texas, NC State
NIT 2-Seeds: Arkansas, St. Louis, Mississippi State, Rhode Island

Last Four Byes: Arizona State, Wichita State, Xavier, Stanford
Last Four In: Richmond, Indiana, Texas Tech, Northern Iowa

Multibid Leagues
Big 10: 10
Big East: 7
Pac 12: 6
Big 12: 5
ACC: 4
SEC: 4
WCC: 3
American: 2
Atlantic 10: 2
Missouri Valley: 2
Mountain West: 2

Back to the Bracket

After a vacation week to start March, it's time to get back into the bracket. While there's been some movement at the top of the field, all the talk right now is about bid thieves and bubble teams. Let's start with bid thieves.

With ETSU and Gonzaga winning last night, it guaranteed no bid thieves out of the SoCon or WCC. Utah State already stole a bid, based on our current S-Curve, they took it from Cincinnati, who many still have in as the American auto-bid but I have out as I slotted Houston in there. There are now a maximum of 8 possible bids that can be stolen. Based on this Curve, Marquette is guaranteed safety as there are 12 teams between them and the NIT. Even a loss to Seton Hall on a neutral (Q1A loss) wouldn't significantly change that.

So where could we see bid thieves? There could still be bid thieves in the American (44.8% chance of a thief per Ken Pomeroy), A-10 (30.2%), ACC (9.7%), Big East (4.2%), Big 10 (7.3%), Big 12 (2.7%), Pac 12 (12.6%), and SEC (28.2%). Every other league remaining is either a one-bid league or their winner is guaranteed to be a team that will be in the field regardless. As spoilers drop out, this number will be reduced.

Finally, let's talk about the actual bubble. Right now, we have 11 total teams on the bubble: Wichita State, Xavier, Stanford, Richmond, Indiana, Texas Tech, Northern Iowa, Cincinnati, UCLA, Texas, and NC State. I don't believe anyone above Arizona State is in any danger (barring every bid possible being stolen) nor is anyone below NC State worth considering for an at-large bid. Here are a few thoughts on those teams:

Wichita State: (23-8, NET 41, NCSOS 139, 2-5 Q1, 7-3 Q2) Nothing terrible on the resume, but nothing eye-popping. Their biggest pros are solid computer numbers, but the downside is their two Q1 wins are at the very back end of the quadrant.

Xavier: (19-12, NET 44, NCSOS 65, 3-11 Q1, 7-1 Q2) The Musketeers should be safe, though that Q1 record is ugly. They only have one loss outside the top-40, however, and beating Seton Hall on the road is huge. I don't put a lot of stock in Championship Week results barring title games, but for the sake of blood pressures in Cincinnati, DLTD.

Stanford: (20-11, NET 30, NCSOS 219, 4-7 Q1, 3-3 Q2) The Q1 record is solid but their sub-200 NCSOS is the worst of teams on the bubble. The Selection Committee has punished teams like that before. I think the NET is good enough for inclusion, but I'm not certain.

Richmond: (24-7, NET 37, NCSOS 85, 3-4 Q1, 3-2 Q2) The Spiders greatest asset and biggest deficiency are neutral court results: a win over Wisconsin and loss to Radford. There's really nothing terrible on the resume but they are clearly the best chance for the A-10 to be a two-bid league beyond a bid thief.

Indiana: (19-12, NET 60, NCSOS 71, 4-10 Q1, 5-2 Q2) Archie Miller is clinging to Strength of Record, which is the only metric that has the Hoosiers in the top-30, like Ernie clings to his Rubber Duckie on Sesame Street. Their 2 Q1A wins stand out and are what warrants inclusion. They compare favorably to poor NET high-major teams like St. John's and Arizona State that played in Dayton last year.

Texas Tech: (18-13, NET 22, NCSOS 182, 3-10 Q1, 4-3 Q2) Teams that have a losing Q1+2+3 record don't usually fare well on the bubble, and the Red Raiders are 10-13 in that category. They benefit a ton from the computer numbers, but the poor NCSOS and low quantity of wins given a ton of opportunities could cost them. I'm not nearly as sold as others on their chances. Like Xavier, I don't put much stock in this week's results, but they really don't want to take a loss to Texas this week.

Northern Iowa: (23-6, NET 48, NCSOS 114, 1-1 Q1, 3-2 Q2) Northern Iowa has a resume that's nearly identical to Belmont from last year, which was good enough to get into Dayton. The difference is UNI's best win is better than anything Belmont had and they have far fewer Q4 games than the Bruins did. I am in the minority in having them in and they really need to cheer for the favorites this week to have any chance of staying here.

Cincinnati: (20-10, NET 51, NCSOS 27, 2-6 Q1, 7-0 Q2) The Bearcats could benefit from a tough NCSOS, but carrying 4 losses in Q3 with no Q1A wins is quite the anchor on their resume. A lot of others have them in as the American champ, I went with Houston in that slot. It will be interesting to see how they are handled considering how average the American is this year.

UCLA: (18-12, NET 76, NCSOS 202, 6-7 Q1, 3-3 Q2) The Bruins are everyone's darling right now, but I would caution everyone to remember recent play is not a metric. The 3 Q1A wins are great, but their NET, NCSOS, and computer numbers are all really bad. I still think they need the autobid, despite the great work Cronin did to turn things around.

Texas: (19-12, NET 69, NCSOS 120, 5-8 Q1, 2-4 Q2) The Longhorns have some nice wins at the top of the resume, but there's very little meat after that and their 7-12 record in the top two quadrants is pretty bad. While the resume compares nicely in many ways with Texas Tech, who we have in, that 47 spot difference in the NET is pretty stark when you consider that is the NCAA's own sorting tool.

NC State (19-12, NET 54, NCSOS 90, 4-5 Q1, 4-5 Q2) The Wolfpack have the win over Duke, but other than that, not much to hang their hat on. Losing records in each of the first two quadrants with mediocre computer numbers doesn't scream at-large team to me, especially with two Q3 losses. Not impossible, but unlikely.

Here's the full S-Curve:

1-Seeds: 1-KANSAS 2-GONZAGA 3-Baylor 4-DAYTON
2-Seeds: 8-Villanova 7-FLORIDA STATE 6-CREIGHTON 5-San Diego State
3-Seeds: 9-Duke 10-Michigan State 11-OREGON 12-KENTUCKY
4-Seeds: 16-WISCONSIN 15-Maryland 14-Louisville 13-Seton Hall
5-Seeds: 17-Butler 18-Ohio State 19-Auburn 20-Byu
6-Seeds: 24-Virginia 23-Colorado 22-Michigan 21-West Virginia
7-Seeds: 25-HOUSTON 26-Penn State 27-Iowa 28-Illinois
8-Seeds: 32-Arizona 31-St. Mary's 30-Providence 29-Lsu
9-Seeds: 33-Marquette 34-Rutgers 35-Usc 36-Oklahoma
10-Seeds: 40-Xavier 39-Wichita State 38-Arizona State 37-Florida
11-Seeds: 41-EAST TENNESSEE STATE 42-Stanford 43-Richmond/44-Indiana 45-Texas Tech/46-Northern Iowa
12-Seeds: 50-VERMONT 49-STEPHEN F AUSTIN 48-YALE 47-UTAH STATE
13-Seeds: 51-LIBERTY 52-AKRON 53-BRADLEY 54-NEW MEXICO STATE
14-Seeds: 58-HOFSTRA 57-COLGATE 56-NORTH TEXAS 55-BELMONT
15-Seeds: 59-EASTERN WASHINGTON 60-UC IRVINE 63-NORTH DAKOTA STATE 64-LITTLE ROCK
16-Seeds: 68-NC CENTRAL/67-ROBERT MORRIS 66-PVAMU/65-SIENA 64-WINTHROP 63-NORTHERN KENTUCKY

NIT 1-Seeds: Cincinnati, UCLA, Texas, NC State
NIT 2-Seeds: Arkansas, St. Louis, Mississippi State, Rhode Island

Last Four Byes: Arizona State, Wichita State, Xavier, Stanford
Last Four In: Richmond, Indiana, Texas Tech, Northern Iowa

Multibid Leagues
Big 10: 10
Big East: 7
Pac 12: 6
Big 12: 5
ACC: 4
SEC: 4
WCC: 3
American: 2
Atlantic 10: 2
Missouri Valley: 2
Mountain West: 2

Yeah it's bad, real bad.

We're back, but we kind of wish we weren't given how terrible #mubb played this week. We don't really dive into the nuts and bolts of the games but instead focus on what is wrong with the team and why nothing seems to change. We talk about how unplayable Koby is right now and why. We also talk about how Wojo seems to treat each game as if this is the game everything hes been trying with finally click(it never does). We then close out with some post season talk and wonder out loud if someone will take Wojo off our hands. Enjoy!

https://scrambledeggs.podbean.com/mf/play/ma3qgm/scrambledeggs_edit_030820.mp3

Settle in, we're going to talk this out

It was an up and down week, though in the emotions of senior day and we need to spend some time talking about it. We kick the podcast off with a discussion of the game against Seton Hall especially trying to breakdown what went wrong. We also talk about the senior day festivities a little but we aren't going to spend any time right not eulogizing Howard's #mubb career just yet. We then turn to what seems to be the hot topic, Wojo. We play a game of Point-CounterPoint that gives us a framework to really work through the Wojo discussions all fans are seeming to have. We then talk the week ahead and how worried we are about finishing out the season on a mini-slump. It's a process, try to enjoy. https://scrambledeggs.podbean.com/mf/play/9cq5rq/scrambledeggs_edit_030120.mp3

We're in Lenten Season, Patience is the Order of the Day.

I'm BAAAACCCCCKKKKKK

Don't panic, this blog post shouldn't be as long as the previous one. It'll be ramble-ly to be sure but I think we can get to the point more rapidly. First, the feedback and commentary from the first post was tremendous and I truly appreciate the support because this isn't really my thing. Second, I'd like to highlight a tweet I got from someone on Twitter.

A bit of a side commentary(oh boy, I've really got a case of the rambles), Rubie Q is my favorite Wojo hater on Twitter. He is thoughtful, informed, very snarky, and not a dick. The lesson, push back all you want but don't be a dick.

Any whosie, this tweet hit home because I had this concern when I was doing my analysis. I was leaving out any analysis of whether other not Wojo-led teams are competitive in the general sense not just in the close game sense. Rubie is spot on, one of the "yeah, buts" of the Wojo era has been that he gets blown out in games and I didn't address it. So now I've got to go back to the ole' hypothesis drawing board. The good news, I think the work previously done is still valid but I have an additional hypothesis to test. So what is that hypothesis?

Hypothesis: Wojo-led teams have more non-competitive games lost than the average coach.

OK, big breath.....how the hell do I figure out THAT data set?? Paint Touches rode in with a suggestion (and a very good one) to use the T-Rank website (wonderful website I suggest you visit, it's like KenPom with a two drink minimum and free) which has a +/- metric which basically breaks down as the average margin for each game that the team had. So a -10 in the +/- metric means the team in question was losing on average by 10 through out the game, and when you combine that with a win in that game it would tell you that was a furious come-back win versus something like a +2 result with a win which might tell you it was a dog fight through out. The only flaw in this approach is that the T-Rank data does not cover the full extent of my control group because it doesn't go back that far, plus it would enable/force a different classification system than I originally started out with. I think this approach has a lot of merit going forward but seems like it's an analysis with a slightly different hypothesis to test(definitely something I'll consider as a future article if they don't take the keys to this website away from me). So back to the drawing board, I guess. Now, it's important to remember I'm lazy so I thought about the data I already had and it struck me, if I had every game for the teams I am analyzing I already have the hard analysis done....I know what games were competitive! Ergo, by definition any games that weren't in the list were non-competitive (ie a blow out win or loss). To that end, with a little more information collection I was able to grab the full season results for the Wojo-seasons plus the control group and classify each game in one of four categories: Non-competitive loss, Competitive loss, Competitive win, and Non-competitive win. So with that, we arrive at our first visual.

Lot of numbers, rows and lines....not much to take away from this view alone though it is interesting to note that the control group average for non-competitive losses a season is 3.5. Considering the control group has some very well regarded coaches and a couple of national championship winning teams it seemed a little high to me. So let's look at that information with with some context, I want my loses to be low in number(especially non-competitive) and my wins to be high in number(especially non-competitive) so let's apply some conditional formatting and voila:

As we already knew from the previous article I bored you with, Wojo has been getting steadily better in competitive games but it also appears that he is getting better about not having non-competitive losses. He is certainly not at an elite level in that regard (knock me over with a feather) but he isn't the garbage results he was in the first couple of years at Marquette. We should also acknowledge that he is not good at blowing other teams out so Wojo is generally going to win but not that convincingly. This years team has at least 6 games left to play, I'd expect MU to win the majority left but to do so in a non-blow out fashion, that's a good thing (maybe we aren't collapsing, who knows). However, I wanted to apply another bit of analysis to this....it's easy to not get blown out when you are playing "easy" teams, so let's apply the KenPom rankings to this

The analysis is simple here, Wojo's Achilles heal is that if he doesn't beat an elite team he gets blown out by them....but that's true of most of the coaches. Put another way, it seems like Wojo is probably a good coach(or above average considering the control group) but hasn't yet figured out how to beat the elite teams consistently and/or be really competitive in those games. However.....here's where I use that pesky trend term again.....Wojo's results have been trending upwards with each season. Wojo is getting more competitive against sterner competition as he has gone on. He's definitely not where we want him to be, but if the trend holds, he'll get there in the next couple of seasons. OK, but wait there's more! I then took all this data I now have and wanted to look at it in a weighted quad fashion (which does a good job of reflecting game location and team rank) to see if there was anything that stood out there. Long story short, each category type got a rating of 1 through 4 (1 being non-competitive loss and 4 being non-competitive win) and I multiplied the number of games in each category based on the weight then categorized them by the quad type and this is the visual you get.

Some housekeeping, the brown toned bars are the control group while the blue toned ones are the MU teams under Wojo. The red bars represent the average value of the control group metric in each quad. One really important thing to keep in mind when looking at this chart.....this years team has at least 6 more games to play this season and they are all going to be Quad 1 or 2 games so the darkest blue bar in the Quad 1 and 2 graph is going to get higher no matter what. Two major take-aways by looking at the data this way: Wojo's team this year is performing about where the non-national championship coaches of the control group performed in their seasons and that pesky trend is aiming positively again.

The conclusion from all of this is, once again, I think Wojo is victim of some narrative forming early in his career at MU that he simply hasn't been able to eliminate and as a consequence the "bad losses" result in more of the "here we go again" response as opposed to being able to reflect on those types of games becoming fewer. In other words, it feels like Wojo is performing as bad as ever, but he's actually getting better. I don't think he is where we want him to be, but this review gives me hope that he can get to where we want him to be. Will he? Very tough to say, but I don't have any evidence that he can't at this point which I will take and run with.

One more piece of context I want to provide as part of this analysis is a bit of commentary on expectations. In a very lucky happenstance, Alan Bykowski (he's the one that does all the good work on Cracked Sidewalks and the lead acolyte in the Howard for NPOY campaign), collected data on all of the coaches that have been to a Final Four in the last 20 years (41 coaches in total). He has data on how long it took the coach to first achieve an NCAA bid, how many seasons it took to reach both a Final Four and(if relevant) a National Championship, as well as how many coaching jobs before they achieved those goals. Below is the list of 41 coaches and the cells colored green are those coaches that have achieve one of the goals faster than Wojo has to date, ie. if a coach got to a Final Four in 5 years or less the cell is green because Wojo definitely hasn't done that (otherwise I wouldn't have to write an article like this)

Puts it in a little perspective, for me any ways. Yes, we are leaving out that Wojo hasn't won an NCAA game nor reached something more achievable like a Sweet Sixteen berth(which are totally reasonable expectations) but there are also a lot of coaches that went on to make a Final Four who didn't even appear in an NCAA game in their third season. Further, the average length in role to make a Final Four is just over 11 years! I'd also like to look at this list in one more way, what does the list look like if we apply these filters: coaches who made an NCAA bid in 3 years or less, made a Final Four, and did all of that in their first head coaching gig:

That's it, that's the list. Three of the five guys on the list (of the last 20 years) went to the Final Four on the backs of other coaches players and never found success anywhere else again. A fourth is struggling in his second gig (#DoneDeal) and the fifth is Brad Stevens who left for the NBA where he is clearly proving to be a very, very good coach. I don't offer this up as some sort of full-throated rebuttle to the concerns over Wojo....it is definitely concerning that he hasn't won an NCAA tournament game and that he hasn't yet found a way to beat elite teams. We also might be in the midst of another late season collapse which would be a huge red flag. What I do offer this up as is food for thought....do we need to be reactionary here or do we play the long game and see where it plays out? I think the expectation should be to win an NCAA tournament this year and earn a Sweet Sixteen berth within three years, and if he doesn't meet those expectations we gotta think about moving on. In the interim, the data tells me #mubb has a coach who is improving and showing little to no signs of having hit his ceiling yet. That's good enough for me anyway.