24-7

Cincinnati finished up the regular season by pounding Georgetown (for the second time this season) 69-47 on Saturday. The win brought Cincinnati’s record to 24-7, and 11-7 in the Big East (tied for sixth with West Virginia). Cincinnati is currently ranked 17th by Ken Pomeroy, fifth highest in the BE.

While the Bearcats non-conference schedule was very weak, their overall SOS was 64th (again, according to KenPom). Going 24-7 against the 64th ranked schedule in the country is certainly reason to be optimistic about where this team is right now, and where this program might be going in the future. Not a bad year.

Unlike the last couple of seasons, Cincinnati won’t have to sweat out selection Sunday, as they should be comfortably positioned regardless of the Big East tournament. As a little tribute to a tremendous season, here are Cincy’s best wins:

Opponent	KenPom Rank	Score
Seton Hall	56	70-53
Xavier	36	66-46
@St. Johns	31	53-51
Louisville	13	63-54
@Georgetown	28	58-46
@Marquette	34	67-60
Georgetown	28	69-47

I’m looking forward to post-season play!

Big win at St. Johns

Probably like you, I’ve been cautiously optimistic in following the Cincinnati Bearcats this year. Yes, they are 17-3, but their schedule hasn’t been great and, in past years, fast starts have culminated in ugly late-season performance. I do feel a little bit different about this team, though.

I mean, no, they aren’t a top ten team. They’ve shown so far that they aren’t quite good enough to beat the Syracuse’s, the Villanova’s, even the Notre Dame’s on the road. With that said, this Bearcats team has shown that they’re good enough to beat everyone they’re expected to beat (including the likes of Xavier, @St. Johns, Seton Hall, Dayton, @Oklahoma), which is no small feat.

St. Johns isn’t an elite team either, but winning in their building is still a quality road victory. The Red Storm have already beat Northwestern, Georgetown, and Notre Dame at home, not to mention West Virginia and Providence on the road.

Cincinnati seems to have some issues opening games (as well as after the halftime break), falling behind St. Johns early but taking a six point lead to the half, only to give it right back in the second half. It took a clutch three-point play from Yancy Gates to put the finishing touches on a narrow win.

The Cats won the game because they, like usual, played good, solid defense and outrebounded St. Johns. They got help on the line as well, as St. Johns shot a pathetic 12-26 on free throws. Outside of Gates, who had a nice second half after a non-existent first, Justin Jackson provided some quality play, scoring eight and grabbing six boards in 29 minutes.

Backup big man Anthony McClain also did good work (four points, six rebounds), though inexplicably (at least to me) got only eight minutes of court time. The Senior center has developed into a pretty solid player, and I think he deserves more minutes. He has good hands and passing ability underneath, and he plays solid defense and is a presence on the glass.

If anything, this is a very deep team. There are no superstars, no go-to guys (besides maybe Gates, at times), but on any night there are a number of players that can really contribute, and if guys like Jackson and McClain can pitch in solid minutes, that’s all the better.

Think about it, Cincinnati got little production from Dion Dixon, Ibrahima Thomas, and Sean Kilpatrick, all regular contributors, and Cashmere Wright had a season-high eight turnovers while Rashad Bishop went 2-11 from the floor, and they still got a nice road win. It’s fun to think about the possibilities if everyone is hitting on high cylinders.

Cash money

Cashmere Wright scored a career-high 24 points (on 9-11 shooting) to spark Cincinnati to a 92-88 win over Providence on Saturday night. Wright also recorded five assists, no turnovers, three steals, and four rebounds.

Cincinnati's offense, in general, was tremendous all night, scoring 92 points in 79 possessions. They shot 57% from the field, and 44% (8-18) from three-point range. They did, however, struggle at the line again, with an embarrassing 20-41 performance that allowed Providence to make a game of it late.

Rashad Bishop went 3-3 from deep, scoring 16 points on nine shots. He also added six rebounds. Lance Stephenson quietly had a solid game with 12 points and a team-high nine rebounds. Deonta Vaughn scored just 12 points on eight shots, and went 5-10 at the line (where he had been shooting nearly 90% all year).

The Providence defense is 15th in the Big East, according to Pomeroy's ratings, so it is not surprising that Cincy had a great night offensively (though it's still very encouraging). Conversely, their offense is very talented, ranking 27th in the country. After making their first six three pointers, though, they went just 7-28 from beyond the arc the rest of the night.

What we saw on Saturday night was not a familiar sight : a fast-paced, high scoring game that Cincinnati clearly took control of. The defense was not up to par, but offensively they showed that they can win a shootout.

Can ya say offense?

Cincinnati rolled over South Florida earlier tonight, 78-70. Sure, they only won by eight points, but for the most part they controlled the game, maintaining a ~ten point advantage throughout the second half.

The offense finally came to life, as Cincy shot 56% overall and 36% from beyond the arc. They were led by the sharp shooting of Deonta Vaughn (20 points on 10 field goals), Rashad Bishop (15 pts/11 fgs), and Jaquon Parker (15 pts/8fgs). Those three also combined for 12 rebounds, 12 assists, and only 2 turnovers.

Yancy Gates played only 10 minutes due to foul trouble, but did score 8 points and grab 2 bounds. Lance Stephenson did not play because of a sore ankle.

The offensive efficiency is promising because South Florida is a pretty solid defense, 50th in the nation in Pomeroy’s adjusted efficiency. Cincinnati shot the three ball relatively well in the first half, hitting 4 of 11 from long range, but what you have to like is that, despite that, they went inside in the second half. They shot 14-21 on two point point field goals in the second half, and only attempted 3 threes. They also got to the line 14 times (though only converted on 6 of those attempts).

Overall, it was nice to see some solid offensive play, mixing the occasional three point attempt with some easy buckets down low. The defense was not quite up to par, but tonight, for once, the offense picked up the slack.

From the Big Win Department

In a tie game, Deonta Vaughn lobbed a pass to Yancy Gates in the final moments; Gates missed his first attempt, but followed successfully with just over two seconds to play. Notre Dame’s desperation shot hit the net, and UC got a well earned, much needed victory, 60-58.

Cincinnati improves to 12-6 (3-3 BE) on the year, while the Irish fall to 14-4 (3-2). Coming into the game Notre Dame was ranked 71st in the country by Pomeroy, and the Bearcats 55th. The game featured a big contrast in strengths, with ND’s high powered offense (4th, by Pomeroy) squaring off against Cincy’s strong defense (32nd).

The Bearcats held the Irish to 46% from two point range, and 29% from three. On the year, they were shooting 53% on twos and 43% on threes. The Cats forced Luke Harangody into eating up way too many ND possessions, as he shot 20 times (plus 2-6 on free throws), and turned it over 4 times, while managing to score just 14 points. UC also controlled the glass 50-31, led by 13 rebounds from Yancy Gates.

The only negative from this game, and it’s a pretty big one, is the offense. Against a terrible defense, ranked 237th in the country, Cincy shot just 32% in the game, and 24% from deep. That’s just ugly. The free-throw shooting was improved (13-18) and they only turned it over eight times, but they have to find a way to generate some offense.

Overall, though, this is a very big win obviously. South Florida, up next.

Sheehan’s bubble

Joe Sheehan takes a look at who’s on the bubble at Basketball Prospectus. The guy obviously knows his stuff, but I’m not sure if I agree with his Big East bubble teams.

His BE locks are (with KenPom ratings in parenthesis): UCONN (3), Louisville (8), Pitt (4), Villanova (20), Marquette (23), Syracuse (21), and West Virginia (9).

Bubble: Georgetown (24), Providence (76), and Notre Dame (36).

I don’t have a problem with Georgetown and Notre Dame, but why Providence and not Cincy? Providence’s rating is 76 and UC’s is 82 (Seton Hall is also right there are 78).

I think it’s safe to say that the selection committee probably relies more on RPI, but 1) KenPom ratings are probably better and 2) I don’t believe there’s any way I can access RPI online for free. Anyway, let’s do a little comparison, Providence vs. Cincy, using KenPom’s great data:

Teams	Cincinnati	Providence
Record	18-13	18-12
BE record	8-10	10-8
SOS	29	46
vs. KenPom top 50	5-9	3-7
vs. KenPom top100	7-12	6-11
Offensive rating	64 (ncaa rank)	43
Defensive rating	106	129

It looks to me like the two teams are pretty equal. The advantages for the Friars is their slightly better overall and BE record and their two wins against the Bearcats. The advantages for UC is a slightly better SOS and (again, slightly) better performance against top teams.

The point is not that one team is better than the other; just that, if one of them is considered a bubble team, they both should be.

Collapse, 2009 edition

Over the last three years, Cincinnati has collapsed, in some way or another, down the home stretch of the season. Sure, part of it is switching from a much easier non-conference schedule to Big East play, but part of it is also, well, ugly basketball.

In 2007 (the 06-07 season), UC started out 9-3 and had quality wins against teams like Xavier and NC State. They looked like a decent team. After that start, however, they went 2-16 the rest of the way and lost 11 of their last 12 games.

Last year’s team was sitting at 13-12, coming off a nice three game winning streak. They did not win again, and finished the year 13-19.

This year’s collapse, if you wish to call it that, was much more of a quick, punch in the gut, than a long, drawn out string of poor performance. Again, after a three game winning streak, the wins coming against Notre Dame, Georgetown, and St. Johns, the Bearcats sat at 17-8 (7-5 in the BE) and were in prime position to make the NCAA tournament. They lost back to back tough games against Pitt and Louisville, but came back to get a big win against Bobby Huggins’ West Virginia team. Then UC lost the final three against Syracuse, South Florida, and Seton Hall, making an at large bid extremely unlikely. Losing five out of the final six just isn’t going to cut it.

The good news is that we’ve still got the Big East tourney left this year. The 2007 and 2008 seasons are over : ) UC will face the #16 seed DePaul, who went winless in conference play, on Tuesday. Assuming a win there, a solid Providence team is up next. Then it’s number one seed Louisville. To really reestablish a possibility of an at-large bid, I think Cincy has to win those first three games, and that is no easy task. Heck, if we get that far, we may as well just win the final two games and get the automatic berth.

The other good news is that we should be happy that we’re disappointed with an 18-13 season. Cincinnati was expected to play much worse than they did this year, and I think progress is being made. If you look at Pomeroy’s ratings over the last three years, you can see it:

2007: 113
2008: 98
2009: 81

It may be slow, but it’s progress. If you trust Pomeroy’s ratings, this team picked up a lot of good wins: UNLV (57), UAB (38), Georgetown twice (24), Notre Dame (36), and West Virginia (9).

Anyway, while I’m upset with the regular season finish, we can salvage things -- to a degree anyway -- with a good tournament performance. I’m looking forward to that.

Well, that's that

I think the loss to Pittsburgh is a pretty good example of what happens when you have one, and only one, real scoring threat. Vaughn is awesome, but if he's the only guy that's going to score, the defense is going to play him tighter and tighter. And I think that's what happened, especially late. Sure, he got on fire there, and that was pretty special. But then the d tightened up even more and then you've got trouble ... and that led to an ugly overall shooting night for Deonta (8-25 from the floor), despite some late magic. If someone could have buried a couple of 3's there or they could have got something going inside, then Vaughn gets freed up a little bit and maybe shoots better down the stretch. As it was, Pitt was all over him and he struggled getting off solid shots. It's a lot of game theory, really, I think. They need more weapons next year and I hope they'll have them.

As for the season in general, it was a disappointing finish, but -- as I've said before -- I think they outperformed expectations by a good bit. I understand there are already two factions in the Cincy online world (and as I follow more teams via the net, I find that is more often than not the case). I am not really on either side of the hate/love Mick Cronin debate. Frankly, I don't follow things closely enough, or know enough about basketball, to be really entrenched on one side or the other. Hopefully I can fall somewhere in between and try to offer a somewhat "objective" take, although I try to be an optimistic person in general.

And that takes me to this final note: the future of this blog. It isn't going anywhere (well, I might change the domain name in the future, but we'll see), as there's no reason for that. I'd certainly like to update it more next season and even in this offseason. Currently, I'm writing for a couple of baseball blogs and I maintain another, smaller web site. I have made a 88 cents overall in close to a year of blogging on the net (although making money is certainly not a priority, or even a goal at this point), I go to college, and I try to do some non-internet related things every once in a while. You'd be surprised at how much time I have left over, but a lot of it goes to baseball, a sport I know a bit better. Either way, I'm going to update this blog occasionally over the next few weeks with my thoughts on the tournaments, college sports in general, and possibly a few UC offseason things. I'm not particularly impressed with my first go around with this blog, and I bet you're not either. Hopefully, if I keep things up for a while, I'll improve and we'll create a nice little community here.

It's go time!

Well, I don't know about you (all one of you : ), but I am excited about the game tonight vs. Pitt at MSG. The way I look at, who cares about the last 5 games? Who cares about the loss to UCONN, or for that matter, every other game this season? It all comes down to one game ... and then, of course, one game tomorrow ... and one game until we win this Big East tourney. Of course, that's easy for me to say. I'm not on the team and I haven't played a competitive sport in years. Can you just wipe out a 45 point loss and a disappointing 5 game losing streak? I'm not sure, but why not? If the final goal of a National Championship -- and I'll assume that's the ultimate goal -- is still in reach, then why not give it all you've got and see what happens? Sure, a championship of National or Big East variety is a stretch to say the least, but there's really no reason to not go all out for it, despite the odds.

Anyway, it has been a nice run. Yeah, I've caught up on some of the online reaction on the finish -- as much as I can stomach, which is not much. What did everyone expect? I mean, while I say the "final goal" is an NCAA championship that is more of a dream than anything. For the most part, this team outperformed expectations, perhaps even destroyed them. It's human nature, I suppose, to allow the recent games to put the season into a negative light ... but there's time to right that ship and turn things around, if you if think this was somehow a disappointing season.

Pomeroy (for some reason, can't hyperlink: http://www.kenpom.com/conf.php?y=2008&c=BE&t=p) has Pittsburgh as the 30th best team in the country and UC at 100. But let's not forget we beat this club back in January and we only lost by six in Pitt. With no real home court advantage, the oddsmakers have Pitt as a 9 point favorite. Seems a bit high to me -- did I mention anything about weighting recent performance too much?

Anyway, there would be no better way to finish off the season than with an exciting run in New York. Let's get this thing started tonight. With nothing to lose myself, I'll make some "bold" predictions.

Cincy -- 83
Pitt -- 81

Vaughn buries two late threes and racks up, let's say ... 41 on the night.

Rough loss

Hey, I'm still here. As you can see, I haven't posted much of late. I'm not sure that will change, but we'll see.

Anyway, this loss to Depaul was a frustrating one. I listed to the last 10 minutes or so on the internet radio feed after tracking the score on espn. Seems like they simply didn't shoot well down the stretch and made too many big turnovers. Still, I thought they had a real chance down 2 with Depaul still being in the one and one. I just can't see how you foul Burns there and then foul him again after he missed the free throw. Make him give the ball up. The announcers were saying he was the only good free throw shooter on the court for Depaul. In his career, he's hit 78% of his free throws. I'm not sure who exactly was on the court, but Green and Walker are just slightly over 70% for their careers and the rest of the team is worse. Sure, it's only percentage points, but it may have made a difference.

Of course, if they rebounded Burns' first miss, it may not have mattered.

UC takes on West Virginia, Huggins

Cincinnati looks solid early here -- West Virginia looks awful, at least offensively. Anyway, it's 29-21 with 2:32 to go in the first half. Really, it's frustrating to just have an 8 point lead as WV has shot just 24% and UC has hit 50% of their shots. It's the fouls -- some ticky take ones -- that are keeping WV in the game. The shots are going to start falling most likely, so Cincinnati has to keep it coming here ... but what an impressive start. I'll update this a few times ... if you happen to stop by, make a comment n the game if you'd like (it will appear instantly ; ).

UPDATE: 43-29 UC with 11:42 to play. Just unbelievable here. They were 13.5 point underdogs. We've just caught West Virginia on an off night shooting-wise (with some great defense) and played really well. Still, this is a critical point in the game. Don't want to get tentative and let them creep back in it. Go for the knockout right here.

UPDATE: Well, yeah, that's what I'm talking about! 7-0 run since I last posted like a minute ago.

UPDATE: Well, folks, that's a great win. But you don't need me to tell you that. I don't know how often a 13-14 point underdog beats a team by 23, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's pretty rare. I think it's getting pretty clear that this team is dangerous ... Marquette should be fun on Saturday.

Downing Pitt

I'm late with the recap for this one. Since I didn't see or hear it, I don't have much to add anyway. Glancing through the box score, it looks like UC made a conscious effort to dial in the 3's a little bit. They only shot 8 and saw their field foal percentage rise to almost 47% because of it. They shot a little better than Pittsburgh, they got to the line more (and converted at a higher rate), and they held their own on the glass. Basically, they played a little better game and ended up on top by 3. Another fantastic win over a very good team.

UCONN coming up next as it doesn't get any easier.

Taking on the Irish

Let's start with the obvious: this is a difficult game. Notre Dame has a .786 winning percentage under Mike Brey at home. They haven't lost as home since February 6, 2006. Pomeroy's model predicts a 77-60 ND win and only a 6% chance of a UC victory. He has Notre Dame as the 23 best team in the country and Cincinnati at 115.

Here's the scouting report on ND.

69 possessions per 40 minutes puts them at 134th in the country. They play slightly faster than average, but nothing too extreme. However, they're 26th in (adjusted) offensive efficiency and 37th on the defensive side. They're deadly from downtown with a 41% shooting percentage, but they don't take too many 3's. They're defense is, on the other hand, great at defending 2 point field goals (40% -- 9th in the nation), but much more susceptible from long range (35%). We'll see if Cincinnati looks to get up a lot of 3 pointers, as they have been recently.

Anyway, Harangody's the big threat inside (and he takes 35% of their shots). Ayers and McAlarney are the 3 point specialists. Kurz can also score it and Jackson, the point guard, has the 61st best assist rate in the country.

They're a tough team and we'll have our hands full ... but, with this team, you never know. Vaughn and Gentry need to be dialed in from deep. Let's go Cincinnati!

(as a side note, I'm not sure if this one's on espn2 or espnu yet ... hopefully it's on the deuce).

Cincinnati 69, Villanova 66

Creative title, ey?

Another fantastic win. I don't have espnu, so I listened to this one on the radio (via the internet).

Vaughn was great again (more on that in another post soon). Williamson had a solid game, as usual. Bishop buried the huge 3 with 22 seconds to go. How about that recap ...

Couple of random things. I was watching the highlights on espn's Cincinnati site. I believe it was just a clip from the espnu post game show, but somehow they managed not to show the Bishop 3. I mean, if you're going to show anything, show Bishop's 3.

Also, let me try to understand what the analyst half of the announcing team was trying to say while I was listening on the radio(believe it or not, I don't even know his name). I think (but I could be wrong) that he said that he'd foul if Williamson made both free throws to make it a 4 point Cincy lead with 5.6 seconds to play. I haven't done or seen a comprehensive analysis, but that has to be the wrong play. Just let them dribble up the court and fire a 3 with no time remaining .... game over, even if it goes in. If you foul, you give them the slight chance of making the first, missing the second, and burying a 3 to tie. Maybe I heard him wrong.

Anyway, what a great win.

Strength of schedule

Bill Koch mentioned the Bearcats' tough schedule in a post today. He actually mentions how Mick talks about the non-conference schedule a lot. Let's go to Pomeroy's ratings.

He has Cincinnati's non-conference strength of schedule (NCSOS) at 55. Believe it or not, that's third in the Big East behind Syracuse (shocker, ey? ... they're at 25) and Depaul (35). The 55th hardest SOS may or may not initially be impressive, but when you compare it to the rest of the Big East teams, you see that a lot of them go with a really easy non-conference slate. West Virginia, Seton Hall, Rutgers, Villanova, and Notre Dame are all over 200 in NCSOS.

So, Mick is pretty spot on talking about his team's tough out of conference schedule. I mean, I know some people don't give a crap about strength of schedule and all of these different ratings, but I don't see how you can't at least acknowledge it in someway, especially if you accept the ratings.

Anyway, Cincinnati's overall SOS sits at 16 right now, and I'm guessing it's not going to go down much form here. This could be a big factor when selection day comes around ... of course, we've got a long way to go before really becoming a major player there.

Great win

It sounds like I've been saying this quite a bit of late ... but that had to be Cincinnati's best game of the year. At least it was right there with the Louisville win and maybe a couple of others. I was interested in how the pace of this one would go. If we use the formula for estimating possessions in a game we can figure that out.

Poss. = FGA-OR+TO+0.475xFTA

Cincy ...55-17+16+(.475*29) = 67.8

Cuse ... 54-11+13+(.475*24) = 67.4

So let's say 68 possessions. As I noted yesterday, Syracuse and Cincinnati were quite different in teams in terms of pace. Before tonight, Syracuse averaged about 75 possessions a game and Cincy 66. It looks like Cincinnati won the battle here, as the game was probably much slower than Syracuse wanted. This was probably largely due to the Bearcats getting that big lead and then being able to sit on the ball late.

Vaughn was the star again, scoring 29 points on 16 shots from the field. He also chipped in with 5 assists and 3 rebounds. Jamual Warren had a nice line: 5 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists. Won't get headlines, but that's a nice game (he also had 3 steals, a block, and just 2 turnovers). McClain had 7 points and 7 rebounds in just 23 minutes. I'm going to guess his minutes will keep going up.

Anyway, it was a great win all around. The real difference was Cincinnati's rebounding. They beat Syracuse on both sides of the ball:

offense
Cincy: 17
Cuse: 11

defense
Cincy: 21
Cuse: 18

Of course, there are still things to improve on. They had 16 turnovers, which is a bit high. 7-26 from 3 isn't going to get it done on most nights. A good Villanova team comes in on Saturday and Cincinnati looks for a 3-1 Big East start.

Shades of Steve Logan

Deonta Vaughn has 20 points on 10 1st half shots.

Cincinnati is dominating the glass with 22 rebounds (including 10 on the offensive side) to Syracuse's 10. The Bearcats have shot as ridiculous amount of 3's against the zone (6 for 18). Anyway, things couldn't be much better right now. I'll check back in when this one is over. Let's keep this up!

Cincy-Syracuse

The odds makers have Syracuse as a 3 point favorite for tonight's game. Of course, with the game being in Cincinnati, that means the Orangemen are pretty clear favorites. Anyway, if you look at something like Ken Pomeroy's site, 3 points may be a little light. He has Syracuse ranked as the 33rd best team in the country. The Bearcats come in at 136. If you look at the link there, his model predicts a 81-71 'Cuse win and just an 18% chance of a UC victory. In fact, he only has Cincinnati winning 3 more times all year ... all in tight games. Obviously the Bearcats early performance is not one that is going to get a lot of support in a model that is based on early performance. That being said, it's still .... um ... early. Statistics are fun to look at, at least for me, but they're certainly not the end-all-be-all (especially at this point).

Anyway, take a look at the "scouting report" on Syracuse. I didn't even realize all of this stuff existed on Pomeroy's site (perhaps I shouldn't even update any stats -- they are all right there). The Orange are a fast based team, as they play at about 75 possessions per 40 minutes (12th in the country). If you look at the report, you can see that their offense has been borderline elite, while the defense is much more middle of the pack.

They basically start 5 guys and play them a whole bunch of minutes (all 5 over 30). I'm not sure about their depth, so maybe the key for Cincy will be to get them into foul trouble. It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out. Syracuse is a high paced, high scoring team. Cincinnati is a much slower paced team (66 poss. per game). We'll see if the Bearcats try to slow things down or if they try to keep up with Greene and company. Needless to say, this is a big game.

Cincy stuns Louisville

I'm not surprised by close Bearcat games anymore. It seems like every game -- whether it's Western Carolina at home or Louisville on the road -- is going to be close. They've done a fine job, if you want to call it that, of playing to the level of the competition so far.

So I'm not sure if I was really stunned by this outcome, but they were getting about 14 points. Pomeroy's ratings had Louisville at 27 and Cincinnati at 140. Add in the fact that the game was on the road, and I think it was quite a shocker.

Anyway, I got to see this one on espn and what a win it was. This definitely had to be one of their best performances of the year. Cincinnati held the Cardinals to 36% shooting from the field (including 3-23 from three point range). The Bearcats shot 47% and made 8 of 14 from shots from downtown. Vaughn is really having a nice year. He just doesn't seem to be forcing shots like I think he was at times last year. Here's how his scoring numbers compare to last year's:

07-08
2 point: 47%
3 point: 43%
Shots/game: 11.2
Points/game: 15.3

06-07
2 point: 47%
3 point: 29%
Shots/game: 13.6
Points/game: 14.5

The main difference is of course the huge improvement on three's. You can see that he's taking less shots and scoring more points per game this season. Of course, last season's numbers count a full slate of Big East games, while this year's are mostly non-conference. We'll have to see if Vaughn keeps up the improved play.

I don't know too much about either McClain or Hrycaniuk, but I feel a lot more comfortable with McClain out on the floor. He's much more of a presence on the defensive side of the ball and at least he can finish with a dunk offensively.

(checking the numbers) ... To my surprise, Adam H. has actually been pretty good offensively. I guess it just scares the hell out of me when the guy touches the ball.

Anyway ... great win. The team played good on both sides of the ball and beat a tough team on the road. What a way to start Big East play!

How bad was Cincinnati last year: Pythagoras weighs in

A while back, baseball researcher Bill James developed a simple formula to estimate winning percentage for a team (called pythagorean record or expectation). The formula is still around today (although there have been some minor improvements) and is right here:

(runs scored^2)/(runs scored^2)+(runs allowed^2)= winning percentage

Quite simply, then, the relationship between runs scored and runs allowed is a very good indicator of what a team's record should be. Generally, large variations off this are considered to have a large degree of luck involved. For example, when a baseball team scores, say, 800 runs and allows 800 in a year, you'd figure they'd be around a .500 team. If they go 90-72 it's safe to say that some of their success was indeed luck (mostly as in performing well in close games .. which inherently involves more luck and randomness).

This concept can be applied to other sports as well. In college basketball, the only thing that changes is the exponent -- it appears it needs to be changed to 10 instead of 2. Also, because of the imbalance in competition, most analysts only calculate pythagorean record with conference games only. With only 16 in conference games (in the Big East) that doesn't leave us with a very large sample from which to test. However, it can shed some light on which teams underperformed and which ones over performed.

Here's a spreadsheet I made with BE pythagorean records from 06-07.

From left to right, we've got points for, points against, point differential, wins (just plain old in-conference wins), pythagorean winning percentage, pythagorean wins, regular wins minus pythag wins.

The three "luckiest" teams were:
St. Johns: + 2 wins
Marquette: +1
Depaul: +.6

Unlucky
Cincinnati: -1.5
Uconn: -1.1
Seton Hall: -1

You can see there isn't a large difference between pythagorean wins and regular wins, overall. It does it's job. Also, the varitation within 16 games is certainly more limited (than in baseball, or the nba, or so on) because of the shortage of games.

Nonetheless, it's good news that UC was unlucky, I suppose. They "should" have won 3.5 games instead of the measly 2 that they picked up. That's still of course not good, but it's a better starting point than 2 is for next year.

We can also see how the BE kind of split into four sections last year. You had the top four clearly defined with GU, Louisville, Pitt, and ND. The good but not great pack ranging from Syracuse to Marquette. The bad but not horrible guys -- Uconn, St Johns, Seton Hall. Depaul was pretty much average. And then the trailers with UC, Rutgers, and South Florida.

With the large turnover in rosters, this is limited of course in future projections. However, it gives us a place to build on that is probably more reliable than basic wins and losses. Now, Cincinnati has to improve 4-5 games to get into the .500 range instead of 6. Of course, there are things that can be further explored like "clutch shooting", playing well late in games, etc. that could essentially allow a team to beat pythagoras and use skill, rather than luck to win more (or less games) then expected. My expectation is that these things don't really exist, or aren't real transferable skills. However, I haven't seen research in basketball on those topics. Then again, I've admittedly not followed basketball research closely over the last few years. Well get into that stuff.