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I couldn’t remember the details on the “studying tendencies” and this was the only article that I could find. Does anyone remember anything else?
“Historically, even looking back to when Dean Smith coached, UNC has just been a team that doesn’t foul that much,’’ said John Clougherty, the ACC’s head of officials.
Years ago, we had a coach — and I won’t tell you which coach it was — say to a group of refs at an officials’ clinic that he believed that Carolina got a favorable whistle on all 50-50 plays,’’ Clougherty said. “In his mind, he justified getting the short end of the calls by saying Carolina was getting favorable treatment. But in the officials’ position, his players were slower to get to the spot, slower to get everywhere. … UNC had the better athletes, so it was easier for them to stay in front of their man, easier not to foul.”
Clougherty also said that his officials study teams’ and players’ tendencies, so they know what to look for when it comes to fouls. And that they don’t favor anybody.
http://espn.go.com/blog/north-carolina-basketball/post/_/id/4912/lack-of-fouls-key-for-unc
FSU plays some stupid basketball. They could have won this one, but played dumb.
Save that line to your hard disk. It often applies during FSU games.
Hamilton is not terrible, but I don’t consider him “good”.
He’s alot better than Lowe, better than Gillen, probably not as good as Sendek.
I’m not a big Leonard Hamilton fan. Not holding for the last shot of the half is just another reason.
This game won’t affect State’s RPI calculation tomorrow morning since State has played both teams once. (The ranking might change anyway because of a bunch of other games.) But if all you care about is RPI, then you want UNC to win because State plays them twice and only plays FSU once.
However having FSU move back in the Top 50 is way more important that whatever microscopic difference a UNC win would have on State’s final RPI… so we want FSU to win a bunch of games down the stretch. Besides, I see no reason to root against my 2nd favorite team (and I’m not talking about just FSU).
This is the type of article that I will have time to do as soon as that lottery ticket hits big:
http://thebiglead.com/2014/02/13/ncaa-tournament-bubble-5-spots-for-19-teams-with-one-month-to-go/
The key point is that the article actually illustrates something that I’ve been saying for years….there are a lot of teams fighting for the last few at-large bids. By this author’s count, there are 19 teams fighting for the last 5 spots. Remember this article the next time someone tries to inject head-to-head results into bubble discussions.
I looked up Pitt’s recent results and they are 2-4 over the last 3 weeks. But their losses are to Duke, UVA, Syracuse, and UNC. I’m not sure if that counts as struggling or just a really tough schedule.
State’s overall SOS jumped about 16 spots just by playing Syracuse. This SOS improvement was large enough that State’s RPI ranking went up, even with the loss. However, State still has to play BC (5-18) and VT (9-15) and both of those games will negatively impact the SOS and thus RPI. That last sentence doesn’t necessarily mean that State’s RPI will go down even with a win against VT/BC…but it could (especially the home game against BC).
Tenn lost on Sat, leaving State with no Top 50 wins. So I’m not sure that a win against SYR would have definitely been enough. But this hypothetical win would have been a HUGE step in the right direction.
Through Friday’s games, the Dance Card had State on the true bubble…last team in. We’ll see what the new calcs bring sometime Monday afternoon, but my takeaway is that State is close. A few losses (especially of the WTF variety) will sink all chances and a few key wins along with the all of the expected wins should get State in.
The Clemson game is a horrible one at a horrible time. A win proves little to the Selection Committee and a loss would suggest that the close game at SYR was just a fluke. I’ve seen State (and others) lay eggs at Little John so many times over the years that Clemson would have to be truly horrible for me to ever pencil in a win there.
Jiga, Do you know how to get your lead pic to show up on the front page?
On the “new post” or “edit” page down at the bottom right, there is a “featured image” block. Delete the pic from your text and insert it into that window. Then it will show up on the front page and above the twitter/facebook stuff on the article’s page.
Someone has been inserting pics at a bunch of my articles and I couldn’t figure out how to do it. Finally figured it out.
EDIT: Thanks, I obviously had no idea but now I know…and knowing is half the battle.
I’m still waiting on this “improvement” to show up so I don’t have to keep seeing all these facepalms.
I should have trademarked “waiting on improvement” back in the days of the Great Herb Debate.
I can’t decide which face-palm I like better….3 Stooges or Stalag 13.
until someone on the coaching staff realizes it’s killing us.
Please don’t hold your breath. I would miss your previews.
It’s dumb that FSU or Tenn. results have any effect on our ranking.
It’s called strength of schedule (SOS). SOS separates a 22-4 team from some mid-major that doesn’t play anyone worth a damn from the teams in major conferences.
State fans care more about FSU and Tenn because one of the things that the Selection Committee looks at for selecting at-large bids is who you have beaten. The basic philosophy is that good teams prove it by beating other good teams. You can dispute the specifics, but I think that the philosophy is sound.
FSU and Tenn are the best teams that State has beaten. So State fans want those two teams to look as good as possible.
The same can be said for other average teams.
And even bad teams. VT took Pitt to double OT. But I don’t think that anyone expects VT to suddenly make a bunch of noise the rest of the year.
Also, alot of people seem to overlook the last half of the entry where I spent alot of time proving that teams below the bubble can still make the NCAAT. State did it 3 times (including the one illustrated in the article) during the Herb years.
The “numbers” show what happened in the past. As anyone that bothers to look at the charts can see, today’s data point doesn’t necessarily predict what tomorrow’s will be. But rosy projections based on someone’s “eye test” aren’t convincing arguments that will lead me to ignore obvious deficiencies that repeatedly lead to blow-out losses.
As you point out, the team has gone through months of practice. But that fact was also true two weeks ago when they got blown out by UNC. It seems like other teams have had months of practice as well.
As BJD pointed out, they play the games for a reason. Just because I don’t expect State to win a particular game doesn’t mean that I don’t watch and pull for State. But I believe that honest conversation before/after a game should be…..well honest.
I’ll betcha a buck right now…. that by the end of the season… this year’s team will be 30-50% better than they are right now.
I see no reason to expect the defense, rebounding, or free-throw shooting to substantially improve. So if there was a way to quantify 30% better, then I would take your bet.
All of that doesn’t mean that I want to be right…it’s just what I see.
The 83 team had its leading scorer back and a win over UNC with Jordan and looked pretty good. In other words, absolutely no comparison with this year’s team.
Games last a lot longer than 3-5 minutes (or even 20 against Pitt). What I’ve seen is State get blown out by every good team that they’ve played. That doesn’t even include losing to Central and choking away a huge lead against Mizzu.
But, we have shown stretches of play this year that indicate that we at least have the raw talent to beat most any team we play.
I’m sorry that I missed those stretches.
This might be bogus, but was supposed to have come out of Blacksburg NWS today:
THE DEVELOPING WINTER STORM IS COMING TOGETHER IN CLASSIC FORM. MAPS…CHARTS…RULES OF THUMB…INDIAN LORE ALL POINT TO THE SAME CONCLUSION. THE RING AROUND THE MOON…THE RUSTLING OAK LEAVES…YOUR GRANDMAS ACHING KNEE IN ADDITION TO THE COMPUTER MODELS WHICH THE METEOROLOGISTS AND WEATHER FANATICS STARE ENDLESSLY…ALL SCREAM LOOK-OUT. IF YOU CHOOSE TO IGNORE THE SENSIBLE CLUES YOU ARE JUST NOT LISTENING. LOCAL FOLKS WILL TELL YOU THIS IS WHERE OUR TRUE WINTER STORMS COME FROM…WISDOM AT ITS BEST.
— End Changed Discussion —I wouldn’t normally bet on college sports, but according to the yahoo sports app, the line on the ND-CU game was ND-4. I would have had to put a bill down on Clemson if I was in LV
