Only the big boys go to the big dance.
* Most of my content is available at the St. John’s blog Rumble in the Garden on SB Nation, but I wanted to make a quick note on this topic.
I share this not because it has much relevance for St. John’s, but because it’s JUST NOT TRUE. Contained in an otherwise sharp and insightful article about new Miami head coach Jim Larranaga – who came from George Mason University, that surprise NCAA Final Four team back in 2006 – is this bit of mythmaking about where a coach/ program needs to be positioned for a real shot at NCAA’s Final Four, the holy grail of the sport, from Andy Katz:
The theory that a coach has to move to a power-six job to compete for a national title seems to have less clout. Larranaga, in large part, helped start the trend that has since been followed by Butler’s Brad Stevens and VCU’s Shaka Smart.
Last year’s results were simply improbable:
Multiplying the probabilities together, we find that the 2006 Final Four had a 0.00213% chance of happening based on seeds, the 2000 Final Four had a 0.00092% chance of happening, and the 2011 Final Four had a staggering 0.00008% chance (about 1 in 1,229,650) of happening.
Even Connecticut’s entry was a bit of surprise, as a #3 seed in the tournament; and their regular season Big East record had them in the middle of the league. Still, in earlier years, the Final Four is almost always represented by power conference teams who earn high seeds in the tournament… by beating other power conference teams.
If a coach wants a real chance to get to the Final Four, not just a once-in-a-lifetime luck shot, and that coach isn’t named Brad Stevens, he has to be in a major/ power/ big six conference. Point blank.
From last night’s Mets / Brewers game (with photos)
Enjoyed a nice trip up to Milwaukee last night, where we saw a few Mets fans, a nice park, a whole bunch of grilling out in the parking lot. Thanks to the Mets for actually winning when I go to see them, 2-1 over the Brew Crew.
And we got to see a Jose Reyes triple that knocked in the go-ahead runs, a comeback against the Brewers’ bullpen, a fairly clean save by Francisco Rodriguez with help from Jason Isringhausen. A good road trip for sure.
Three photos from Miller Park below the fold.
Recently in St. John’s basketball news: Amir Garrett, Mark Jackson
We’ve been working hard at the Rumble in the Garden blog, the St. John’s blog that’s covering St. John’s basketball and St. John’s baseball with great regularity. The current hot topics:
Amir Garrett, one of the new recruits to the basketball team, may just get drafted to a baseball team today; Garrett’s an outstanding pitching prospect with a powerful fastball. What will that mean for the basketball team, down one more recruit from the banner recruiting class that Steve Lavin has brought in? Garrett’s got a lot of skills.
Also: Mark Jackson has been hired by the Golden State Warriors. There’s a lot of chatter about Jackson’s inexperience in coaching on any level, and the pick comes with some risk. But we congratulate him anyway; Mark Jackson was a great point guard at St. John’s under Lou Carnesecca and a great point guard in the pros, despite his lack of quickness; he was very smart about the game. Some of that should translate to his job with the Warriors.
Brian Gregory is the new Georgia Tech basketball coach… a dissection
* I have let this space go fallow while I write on St. John’s basketball (over at SB Nation’s Rumble in the Garden), but I can’t really justify writing on Brian Gregory on a St. John’s blog.
Brian Gregory’s star has fallen. And rightfully so. A few years ago, programs were getting a little excited about possibly hiring Gregory; so much so that he earned a lucrative extension from the Dayton Flyers program in 2009. I always wondered why. The former Tom Izzo assistant has always earned some accolades for his ability to compete, but he took over a program that was already competing under Oliver Purnell after Purnell left to coach at Clemson. More stats, on his teams’ late-season swoons, and a look to the future, after the jump. Read more…
The East Coast Bias Is Moving/ On Hiatus
The St. John’s portion of The East Coast Bias is moving to a new home:
Check it out, comment, link, tweet about it. Spread the word! The East Coast Bias will take a short break, but will be back in some form in the near future – as in May/ June.
The Week That Was: Jan 4th Edition
It’s been a good week. It started with the conference schedule preview and the player review of the pre-conference season. And St. John’s has taken their first three games. 3-0 in the Big East, with 2 road wins and a home win over a ranked squad? It’s been a good week. Here’s how it happened:
* So, you might have heard that the Red Storm beat #13 ranked Georgetown at Madison Square Garden. A good deal of the city is waking up to the idea that there is college basketball in New York, and it is good. The Johnnies will try to keep up the momentum; but they have a few days off of game action after the stretch of 3 games in 6 days. We did a Q and A with Georgetown blog Casual Hoya, who is keeping his hand off of the panic button.
* Before that, St. John’s squeezed out a close win against the Providence Friars on New Year’s Day, with some clutch late plays by Paris Horne.
* In the other surprise of the week, St. John’s beat West Virginia fairly handily on December 29th. The difference in score was only 10 points, but on the road in Morgantown, the Red Storm seemed to be in control of the whole game. They Johnnies dew fouls, ran their offense, got deep position… it was a tough, solid win.
Transplanted New Yorker and now Midwesterner Peter a/k/a Pico writes for Johnny Jungle, doing the Calm Before the Storm posts and also for the Church of Bracketology. Pico is also on Twitter, @ECoastBias. Add the East Coast Bias to your 
.rss feeds; or follow by 
email.
It’s hard out here for a Conference USA coach
Ah, Conference USA. A conference that, for some reason, held its basketball media day in New York City. I suppose it’s for the media exposure. But why not in Dallas? Or Orlando? Oh, the media exposure thing again. Those schools are nowhere near New York (map courtesy of Thunder Treats). It’s 371 miles to East Carolina from New York City, give or take a few miles. And 475 miles to Huntington, WV, where Marshall University is.
Come on now. “Look at me! I’m a big time basketball conference too! Look at me!”
Like the league itself, some of the coaches are peddling for respect (from ESPN):
From March 2006 to January 2010, the Tigers played and beat 64 straight opponents from C-USA. It is tied for the longest Division I conference win streak of all-time. So whether it was fair or not, the national attitude about Conference USA was that Memphis steamrolled through an inferior conference….
UAB‘s [Mike] Davis, who has been on the cusp of getting an at-large bid the last few seasons, said Memphis’ dominance under [John] Calipari completely overshadowed the league. Having the conference tournament in Memphis also curtailed getting a second bid for the league. But a year ago, the tournament was in Tulsa and the league was nearly left with just one again after Houston upset UTEP in the championship game.
“Does this league have the opportunity to be better than the WCC, when it had three teams in with Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s and San Diego? My guess is certainly yes, when you see the history of this league with the coaches and the players,” [Tim] Floyd said. “This league has to do what the Mountain West did last year and get four teams in and win.”
The Memphis Commercial-Appeal’s Dan Wolken responds:
Reality: Tulsa, UAB and Houston have underachieved since ’05 split relative to program expectations/history. Has nothing to do w/Memphis.
True words. Conference USA is where major-conference coaches go to lick their wounds.
It’s the witness protection program of college basketball coaching.
From Larry Eustachy‘s “Party Down” days, to Tim Floyd’s dances around legality, to Mike Davis’ sensitivity, and Matt Doherty‘s unproven ability to coach basketball, it isn’t a place for second chances, or some of those coaches would have been fired once more. If it were a place of actual second chances, the coaches would go back to the money, prestige, and NCAA Tournament-worthiness of high major conferences. Or the Atlantic 10.
In the past 5 years, Conference USA hasn’t ranked higher than 8th in adjusted average rating of conference teams by Ken Pomeroy’s system. And that was with a dominant Memphis team. Before last year – and after the poaching of Conference USA teams by the Big East – the only other team worth a hot damn was Mike Anderson‘s UAB (Alabama-Birmingham) squad in 2006.
One would think that with all of these big coaching names, they’d be able to get enough non-conference quality wins to get another team into the NCAA Tournament, wouldn’t you? The selection committee would happily take another C-USA team… if the numbers didn’t match the perception – mediocre.
Transplanted New Yorker and now Midwesterner Peter a/k/a Pico writes for Johnny Jungle, doing the Calm Before the Storm posts and also for the Church of Bracketology. Pico is also on Twitter, @ECoastBias. Add the East Coast Bias to your .rss feeds; or follow by email.
Welcome, College Football Season!
I don’t know why Minnesota is opening on the road, but here are some pictures taken from the outside of TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis a few weeks ago. Click any picture to embiggen.
Transplanted New Yorker and now Midwesterner Peter a/k/a Pico writes for Johnny Jungle, doing the Calm Before the Storm posts and also for the Church of Bracketology. Pico is also on Twitter, @ECoastBias. Add the East Coast Bias to your .rss feeds; or follow by email.
Anthony DiLoreto sighting
Anthony DiLoreto once was the getaway driver for a bank robbery. Being 7 feet tall, he still had a chance to play college basketball. But he was kicked off his eventual team at Utah State University following a citation for marijuana possession.
Anthony DiLoreto resurfaces in the JUCO Showcase in Las Vegas over the weekend (full roster here). He is apparently looking for a Junior College team, as his team was listed as TBD.
Transplanted New Yorker and now Midwesterner Peter a/k/a Pico writes for Johnny Jungle, doing the Calm Before the Storm posts and also for the Church of Bracketology. Pico is also on Twitter, @ECoastBias. Add the East Coast Bias to your .rss feeds; or follow by email.
Drexel ballers arrested after a (poorly plotted) robbery
I fully understand that teenagers and early-20 year old young men can be stupid. I understand that sometimes they feel their oats and want to fight. And I know there are some bad seeds working off of impulse and the desire to steal things that they want. But it still saddens me when Division I basketball players go out and find new and dumber ways of trying to rob people.
And part of that is I’m not sure how a player who robs people in a small town (like Anthony DiLoreto last summer) while having a distinctive look (7-feet tall, sunken eyes; to his “credit”, DiLoreto was the getaway driver). And I’m not sure how a player (Robert “Stix” Mitchell) robs 8 fellow students with another former star (Kelly Whitney), tying them up along the way, especially when both are unnaturally tall (6’6″ and 6’8″). And now these dumb f**ks from Drexel try to rob a college student, brandishing guns and expecting money.
From a college student? Who lives in the same complex as them? Even the rich kids in college aren’t flush in cash. Only the pot and cocaine dealers in college have money. Come on, son. Don’t you know anything? At least these guys are guards… they could, theoretically look like someone else (unlike the 6’6″ baller).
Assuming this story is all true, the players are Jamie Harris (starting guard) and Kevin Phillip (backup forward). Both are from New York and have surrendered to the police.
With hundreds of college teams, there are bound to be some kids who commit crimes. And I’m not going to be the kind of scold who pretends that all of these kids have a good sense of where their college degree is going to take them if they’re not much of an academic student. And truth is, a lot of kids are in college ball for the basketball, not for the opportunity for education.
But by any standard, for fairly high-profile guys, that’s pretty damned stupid.
Next summer, let’s all spread the word – the summer of no robberies. Let’s stick to fights like Kansas does.
Transplanted New Yorker and now Midwesterner Peter a/k/a Pico writes for Johnny Jungle, doing the Calm Before the Storm posts and also for the Church of Bracketology. Pico is also on Twitter, @ECoastBias. Add the East Coast Bias to your .rss feeds; or follow by email.
