Mailbag: Big Ten Tourney Tiredness, Athlete Twitter, NBA Draft Changes, Doge
About the Big Ten Tournament making you tired.
Got into a discussion with a friend over the importance of the B1G tournament, he thought it was a useful "spring board", I did not. Did some gopher work on the results that might be interesting to you.
4 – Exceeds expectations, only 2009 Purdue wasn’t a #1 seed.
5 – played to seed
7 – Did not meet expectations. Although 3 of these are Sweet 16 losses, which aren’t absolutely terrible.
Year Champion B1G Tourney Seed NCAA Tournament Result 4
#3, lost in 2nd round. Later Ed Martin’d
1
#1, Lost in Final Four
2
#1, Won it all
6
#7, played to seed
2
#4, lost to #12 Mizzou in second round
2
#4, lost to #5 ND
2
#6, played to seed
1
#1, Lost in NCG
2
#3, Lost in first round
1
#1, Lost in NCG
1
#3, Played to seed, but lost to #10 Davidson
3
#5, played slightly above seed, lost to #1 Uconn in Sweet 16
Side note, doesn’t it seem like decades ago since Purdue was good at basketball?
1
#2, Lost to Tennessee in Sweet 16. In a cruel twist of fate, Bruce Pearl gets canned for lying about hosting Aaron Craft at his house
1
#1, lost to Kentucky in Sweet 16, [fart noise]. Is that big white guy from Kentucky still in the NBA?
1
#1, lost Louisville in Sweet 16
2
#2, got Shocked in Elite 8. All the debates about charges…..
Thanks,
Kent, a.k.a. Baloo_dance
That doesn't look like anything resembling a real effect, especially since only 1998 Michigan, 2002 OSU, and 2006 Iowa had anything resembling first-weekend surprise exits. OSU and MSU going out in the Sweet 16 after a two-week period in which they played two games can't be chalked up to fatigue unless you're Tom Izzo.
Also worth noting that teams that "play to seed" generally exceed the average tourney wins per seed line:
So a one seed that reaches the final four is about seven tenths of a win to the good. Big Ten Tourney champs have acquired 38 wins in the tournament since the BTT's inception; based on seedings they were expected to get 36.42. At the very least we can say there's no evidence that winning the Big Ten has any effect on your tournament hopes. Given the seed line graph above and the fact that winning games moves you up lines, it is undoubtedly a net positive.
Resolved: in favor of winning Big Ten Tournament.
On Michigan twitter.
Brian,
In your opinion, is Delonte' Hollowell the most interesting M athlete to ever grace Twitter? I think so, but that's just, like, my opinion, man. At the bare minimum he has to be the greatest all-caps philosopher of all time.
Adam
If Twitter has proven anything it's that plebes are suckers for athletes who tweet in all caps, and I am in their midst.
Most athletes use twitter like high school kids with ten followers—like weird semi-public email, and that puts a damper on things. You can tell whenever a dude breaks up with a girl because he starts making tweets that sound like Gin Blossoms lyrics; a lot of the time you're just getting "hey @other_athlete, what's good". The rest of the time it is "rise and grind #blessed." This is fine and all but not particularly interesting to people other than @other_athlete.
Hollowell, on the other hand, spends large chunks of his time with ALL CAPS EXHORTIONS to be something or do something else that are meant to be twitter. He rises and grinds without informing the world of this fact, and he does not tweet #blessed. He seems perpetually irritated by everything. He is the best.
Other current Wolverines worth following:
- Henry Poggi's feed is mostly about the Big Lebowski, which means you may not want to follow it but I do.
- Andrew Dakich, obviously.
- Jordan Morgan trolls MSU fans, and keeps trolling.
- Graham Glasgow takes shots at his brother by deploying Snorlax. Frequently tweets about being sleepy or in bed.
- Desmond Morgan sarcastically deploys #blessed.
Big day today. Got #mcm'd by an 11 year old girl on instagram. #blessed
— Desmond Morgan (@D_Morgan48) March 10, 2014
#mcm == "Man Crush Mondays."
Ondre Pipkins would have been on the list, but he nuked his twitter last year.
On NBA Draft changes.
Brian -
This question is undoubtedly way too soon. I normally don't like to engage in the "who are we losing" questions while still able to enjoy the product on the floor. However, I was reading about potential NBA draft changes and Adam Silver's emphasis on extending the age-limit prohibiting players from entering the NBA until they are done with their sophomore year.
Several articles mentioned NBA front-offices fearing a insanely weak 2015 draft if any changes were implemented. What do you think this potential, if any, has on a player like Nik Stauskas when evaluating an NBA departure?
Justin
No. Stauskas is projected in the top 15 of this loaded draft and there's hardly any difference between going 15th and 5th. That would not impact his decision.
However, it might impact McGary and Robinson. They would go from guys who might play themselves into the first round next year into holy first round locks. That would shift the equation significantly enough that it would suddenly be a very bad idea to enter.
However, despite the immediate salutary benefits for Michigan that is a step in the wrong direction. The right direction is draft and follow: everyone's eligible before their freshman year, five round draft, anyone who gets signed occupies a roster spot for remaining NCAA eligibility + 1 years no matter where they are.
SO WOW
after a loss michigan is 7-0 with an average margin of victory of 24 points. thats insane, no?
Robert
YES
MUCH ZING
Be sure to note that Michigan notched its 7th road win of the season yesterday. Folks sometime forget how tough it is to win on the road in the B1G; how tough it is to win in East Lansing, or in Madison, or in Columbus -- much less in all three places in the same friggin' year. It's really an eye-popping achievement, and a testament to the job Coach B has done of getting them ready to compete in very hostile environments.
Cheers.
Doug
HOW WOW
March 12th, 2014 at 12:40 PM ^
You're gonna drop love about Hollowell's twitter, and then not even hook us up with a link?
#messed
I'll bet this guys tweets in all caps too
The Yellow King.
Omg. 2 minutes in, in a 2-2 ball game. Classic.
March 12th, 2014 at 12:40 PM ^
Very mailbag
Such blogging
Wow.
March 12th, 2014 at 12:46 PM ^
Not sure how we can be 7-0 after a loss. Perhaps 7-2 was intended? Also--I believe avg. margin of victory is a little off. More like 8.3 only counting the victories on the road.
March 12th, 2014 at 12:47 PM ^
We haven't lost two in a row this season.
After losses this season we have wins over Long Beach State, Houston Baptist, Coppin State, Stanford, Nebraska, Ohio State and Michigan State.
Thank you. That makes more sense. Not sure the value of that metric, but obviously I was missing something (neurons firing).
is that this team doesn't show the tendency some other teams have shown (like Iowa and Wisconsin) to let a loss turn into a slide.
Granted, a few of those rebound wins were over cupcakes, but four were against legit opponents.
A lot of letting a loss "turn into a slide" can be related, I think, to injuries, folks figuring out strategies against you before you can come up with a counter, and other factors. In other words, a lot of it, I think, is probably more luck than a mental aspect of being resilient. Not sure how I'd test a hypothesis either way.
That may be but we are the only team in the conference not to go on an extended slump. MSU has lost 5 of its last 8 (and 7 of 12). Wisconsin, Ohio, Nebraska, and Iowa all lost 5 of 6 at one point. The rest of the teams have had similar slides.
Meanwhile, the worst stretch we had was 2-3 in the middle of the season, and that was preceded by an 8-0 start and followed by a 5-0 finish.
We lost in some pretty tough buildings in the B1G this year.
@ Assembly Hall (YTAH)
@ WHATEVER THE FUCK IOWA'S IS CALLED*
@ Crisler - oops, home loss :(
*Probably Yellow Barn or something
I believe it's the Corn Palace
I thought it was the Corn Crib (or is that Nebraska).
Could be. Or was it The Corn Corn?
Children of the Corn??
That's the starting lineup for Iowa, I believe.
That big white guy on Kentucky in 2011 is Josh Harrellson. He is on the Pistons this year.
Such analysis. Much appreciate.
+/u/dogetipbot 200 doge verify
Brian, did you get a secretary or something? Your formatting and spelling brought a tear to my eye.
Delonte Hollowell looks like a buff version of Earl Sweatshirt.
Wait, 2004 Wisconsin won the BTT, finished second place in the conference, had an overall 24-6 record at the end of the season, and got a SIX seed??? Man the B1G really stunk that year. Only sent 3 teams to the tourney (but were the home of the NIT champs!)
I know he's not a Michigan player but De'Anthony Thomas has one of the best all-caps twitter games of all time:
http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2013/1/22/3904092/deanthony-th…
Thank you for that. Thank you so much.
"Be" - Tweet at 11:22 pm
"SOMEBODY HACKED MY ACCOUNT!" - Tweet at 11:25 pm
Marques Slocum. And there wasn't even Twitter when he was around the program. Just the concept of a Marques Slocum daily tweet is enough to put him at the top of the list.
Holy hell that was funny stuff. He should be on Twitter now. Why isn't he on Twitter now? IS HE ON TWITTER NOW?!
He might be able to make money off of being on Twitter.
God, I hope Desmond Morgan wasn't mcm'd by my daughter. Note to self: check her instagram account.
Why is moving the draft rules from one to two years out of HS a step in the wrong direction? It might not be perfect, but the perfect is the enemy of the good. If it pans out that they can work with the NCAA to let them set it up so that high-schoolers can declare but keep their eligibility if not drafted - as they've been making some noise about doing - so much the better. Yes, there are more ideal situations, but that shouldn't mean coming out against ones that are improvements over the current setup.
Moreover, that's a lot more realistic than the "draft and follow" proposal outlined in the OP. Owners are not interested in drafting a guy only to wait for him to play a full college career.
Dakich seems like he clearly is a reader of this site: retweets of Ace and the Blockhams and what might be a reference to Jordan Morgan being one thousand years old.
"We haven't won an outright Big Ten championship since 1986. I think @JustJMo was a junior in high school back then."
While the analysis of the conference tournament champions is valuable, teams that lose in the Big Ten tournament final should also be examined for any tiredness effect. They play just as many games (or more) over the course of the tournament as the champion.
For a bigger sample size which would provide more significant results, the analysis could also be expanded to include ACC, SEC, Big East, Big 12 and Pac 10 tourney champs and runners up. Presumably, any tiredness effect would apply or not apply to those conference championship participants as well.
the only catch with that would be some conferences end their tourney on Saturday. If you win your conference tourney on Saturday and don't have to play until Friday, that's a good amount of rest.
There's so many factors that can go into with the Big Ten. Do the teams that play on Sunday tend to perform better if they get Fri/Sun draw? How much does a team that plays on Sunday have to travel? Are they getting shipped out of the region for the first weekend and looking at a 3 hour plus plane ride?
I think Desmond Morgan's best work was this pair of tweets from a few weeks ago:
My sister is having twins. I told her the only way I'm coming to her baby events is if I get to name a child. That's acceptable right?
I mean she is having two of them... Don't be selfish about this
If fraturnal twins, how about Desmond and Molly Jones <Insert Last Name Here>?
At least they would have a theme song.
(It's a Beatles reference for all you MGoKids)
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