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.

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.

We got in early for batting practice.

Mets fans waiting for autographs. Love the dude rocking the Tobi Stoner #40 jersey. That’s deep.

The dapper men’s room signs at Miller Park:
Awesome to see Jason from Chicago, the other Met fans who came out, especially the parents who are raising their kids – the couple with the kid whose first game was one of the debacles at Wrigley and proudly wears a small pink Mets shirt, and the other five year old or so girl with the #1 foam finger and the quiet Let’s Go Mets chants. That’s how I want to raise my little ones.

And I loved the guy who told me coming out of the bathroom, “I don’t know how you guys beat us with that lineup.”

For St. John’s fans – make sure to see Rumble in the Garden, the new home for St. John’s basketball and other St. John’s news.

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’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.

Gregory’s won-loss records – taken from the Wikipedia page:

Eight years is long enough to run through two recruiting cycles, to have a coach’s inevitable bad year out of the system, to cycle through knuckleheads and character issues, to solidify a coach’s style, to build something strong.

Now, the Atlantic-10 has a strong reputation, so that 70-58 in-conference record (54.7% win percentage) could be excused. It’s not comparable to Sean Miller’s record in his five years at Xavier, where he won 71% of his games. It’s better than the 10 years of Jim Baron, who is 79-81 at the University of Rhode Island. And it’s comparable to Chris Mooney’s 56.3% win percentage in conference at Richmond. Let’s start with Mooney, who would have gotten an offer from someone to be their head coach in the offseason.

Compared to Chris Mooney

Mooney doesn’t run the sexiest system at Richmond. The Princeton offense is seen as too skilled, too slow, too loose, a bad way to profile high-level athletes for the professional ranks. Gregory’s system is wide open, and he’s had quick athletes, high-energy play, and transition scoring – enough to entice some very solid players to come to Dayton.

But Mooney has grown those Spiders in the right direction, losing less than 10 games for the past 2 seasons and earning NCAA berths both years. The under-10 loss plateau for a non-major conference coach isn’t a be-all end-all comparison. But given 30 games, with a couple of major-conference opponents, and familiarity in league play, winning more than 20 games a few times is a sign that a coach can at least handle his level.

Gregory has lost 10 or more games 6 of his 8 seasons.

Gregory’s certainly not the worst coach. But he might be consistently mediocre. He’s brought in what seems to be decent talent – and I won’t dig into the talent question much. But Mooney has been said to have inherited an untalented roster from Jerry Wainwright at Richmond, and has (mostly) steadily increased the team’s win total every year to 29.

Brian Gregory inherited a 16-2 Dayton Flyers team that lost 1 senior from the starting lineup in 2002-2003 and went a solid 12-4, reaching the first round of the NCAAs.

That was his best season. He’s had two second place finishes since, often finishing around the middle of the 14-team Atlantic-10. The A-10 has some consistently talented teams – Dayton nemesis Xavier, for one, and Temple for another – but St. Louis has scuffled, St. Joseph’s hasn’t returned to the heights of their Final Four season, Duquesne has been on-and-off terrible, Massachusetts has struggled, George Washington has been mediocre, St. Bonaventure, Fordham, and La Salle have struggled to get wins. Good conference. But a coach who wants to move up should be consistently in the top half of the 14 team A-10.

Late-Season Swoons

This season, the Flyers lost on the road to a George Washington team that was coming on, but nothing special (they did go 10-6 in the Atlantic-10 this year, 17-14 overall). The loss to the 12-18 St. Louis Billikens at home was an eyebrow raiser. Those losses ruined a season with solid wins against Seton Hall, George Mason and Ole Miss. Just a bad stretch?

No. Consider that 2010′s Flyers beat Georgia tech, Xavier, and Old Dominion, but lost twice to St. Louis, to Duquesne, and to Richmond, leaving them in the NIT (which they won).

The previous season saw the Flyers beat Xavier, Marquette, and Auburn, only to lose to weaker Charlotte, Rhode Island, and St. Louis (sensing a theme here). That year, they made the NCAAs (beating West Virginia in the first round).

2008? They beat Louisville… and promptly went 8-8 in conference, with losses to LaSalle and George Washington.

So on, and so forth. Since 2006, every Dayton season has featured a fairly promising “we’re gonna be a PROBLEM” Flyers win, with later season swoons. Brian Gregory’s record by month:

Sometimes, these won-loss splits by month are a result of the schedule. But after 8 years, maybe it has something to do with the coach and his style. Pressing, trapping, high-energy basketball that features great offensive runs, and stunning offensive droughts. here’s a regular occurrence: Dayton gets a double-digit lead on some team. Dayton allows that team to get within 1 in the space of 4 clock minutes.

Rinse, repeat.

Season-long decency, not excellence

I honestly thought that running tempo-neutral numbers (i.e., per possession statistics – for more, read this tempo-neutral primer then come on back!) on Brian Gregory would show just how poor the Flyers shoot in conference. Instead, the numbers show some good things:

• the Flyers try to get inside to score instead of taking three-pointers.
• Gregory’s teams are slower than I remember them being as they helter-skelter their way up the court, though they have had a high of 71 possessions per game in-conference in Gregory’s 8 years – last year.
• The Flyers rebound the defensive end very well, grabbing over 70% of available rebounds.

But then, there’s the mediocrity:

• The Flyers turn the ball over more (20.7% of their possessions, on average) than they force turnovers (19.1%).
• They also allow teams to get to the line more than they get to the line; the Flyers attempt free throws on a middling 34.4% of their field goal attempts.
• The team is outshot inside the arc, 46.3% to 47.7%. One wants to see 50% or more on 2-point shots – that means that the offense is scoring once every other possession.
• Speaking of efficiency, the Flyers only score 2.3 points per 100 possessions more than they allow. That’s mediocrity.

The table, compiled from Statsheet.com data. There is the average for the offense, the defense, and the average of the Flyers’ finishes/ ranking from 2003-2011. I computed 2-point field goal percentage and three-pointers as a percentage of all shots, and did not compile those numbers for all conference teams, hence no average rank:

Maybe it’s because I only see 4-5 Dayton games on television (though I do follow the team out of curiosity), but I’m never sure quite what they are doing on offense in the half court. There is little post presence; the closest thing the team has to a big man is wing Chris Wright, who didn’t develop much in his four years as a Flyer. The Flyers have had big men, but none were back-to-the basket creators who can stop a run or be a consistent focal point; and between the mediocre turnover rates and the focus on shooting 2-pointers – that miss more than 50% of the time – it’s easy to see how the Flyers struggle to score for stretches.

Many of the Flyer fans are eager for a fresh start, maybe a chance to challenge for the top of the Atlantic-1o, rather than be mired in competitive mediocrity.

Still, the future isn’t necessarily bleak. He’s obviously not a horrible coach, exactly. But his inability to get over the middle of the Atlantic-10 is troubling. Does he need more talent? Better talent? Does he need athletes with more endurance? Better shooters?

Teams often experience a new-coach jump, so the Yellowjackets will be more competitive next year. But what does the future look like? Not the sunniest future, but maybe some stability is better than Paul Hewitt’s consistent dalliances with overall losing records. Gregory, at the very least, can win in November and December.

Rumble in the Garden.

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.

* 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.

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.

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 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.

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.