How did that work out for bama and purdue in the tourney last year?
1 Like
I do think there might be some correlation between the ability to make tough shots, or at the very least the shots given to you and success in March, even if thatās more of a subjective stat to measure. Thatās where Bama and Purdue failed IMO, their philosophy is so heavily weighted towards analytics that when things got flipped on their head and teams were able to make the mid range jumpers they give up with consistency while also forcing both of them to be almost entirely perimeter oriented, they fell apart.
I donāt think thereās anything inherently wrong with their philosophies and hope we lean towards the same general goal of taking less mid range jumpers while trying to force more on defense. It is a good rule of thumb for modern college basketball. But when in March you gotta be adaptable, and have the ability to make shots from all three levels of half court when your gameplan starts to unravel.
2 Likes
Tommy John is a UCL (elbow ligament) repair.
Jay Huff suffered a torn labrum in practice right before we played UMBC.
On the UVA baseball side, Brandon Neeck came to UVA and was diagnosed with one. Itās a brutal injury for pitchers as itās got a long recovery time for them. Scott Silverstein was another one at UVA. And it was one of the injuries that derailed Danny Hultzenās professional career when he suffered the injury in the minors.
2 Likes
Yeah. Honestly, torn labrum is probably up there with a rotator cuff tear as the absolute worst injury for a pitcher. Justā¦ no one ever really comes back from it. With surgery and rehab you can pitch again, eventually, but youāll never be close to where you were before.
Tommy John surgery is interesting in that John himself pitched for 13-14 more seasons after the surgery. But today it feels like pitchers come back faster (iirc John was out for at least 18 months), throw harder than before and with comparable control, but after like 5 seasons their elbows explode and theyāre done.
4 Likes
https://twitter.com/StadiumAndGale/status/1710057305801208256
Iām surprised there isnāt more of this with super seniors. Then again Iām still surprised so many of them want to keep playing an extra year. I suspect a lot of them are halfhearted, just going through the motions especially transfers on teams that arenāt living up to what they hoped.
7 Likes
Good thing we didnāt go after him and got Minor instead. Also like you said not living up to what they hoped. I didnāt see him as a projected starter for Florida/was probably just a nice practice body.
3 Likes
Also if you have a Yale degreeā¦ the Swamp may not be so enticing
3 Likes
This is kind of big news for our game. Pullin will be out already and Jarvis was another potential starter, if not at least solid rotation guy. Thatās two bodies they canāt replace quickly. Also puts a lot of pressure on Handlogten and Samuel who will need to gel quickly and stay out of foul trouble, and even if they do, we will still probably see plenty of Haugh who will have nightmares of getting his sh*t sent** during Perk practice.
** that reminds me, @AdventiveQuasar , I didnāt have time to respond yesterday but I thought higher of Catilin Cooper ā good analyst, blah blah blabbity blah. And sheās anti-block? Cmon, now.
2 Likes
I think more āblocks are a very imperfect indicator of defensive ability.ā I think the team-level correlation between blocks and defensive efficiency is reasonably strong, but perhaps blocks are an indicator for something else that more directly relates to a good defense.
1 Like
Yeah, itās an interesting debate. Blocks could be a proxy for corrected sloppiness, but I think thatās not necessarily true in all or most instances. The other thing that blocks do, again depending on context, is to change what is a good shot. I think that phenomenon explains a lot of RDās defensive prowess. Thereās that natural cycle of him (as a frosh, there will be a new pattern this year) getting tested, succeeding pretty well, and then guys not really trying as much. We shall see how that plays out this year. Slawson really tested him and didnāt do great, but he did okay. He did get a couple fouls drawn. And it was almost always by backing him down.
4 Likes
So the Big Ten studio show gets Jordan Cornette and Josh Pastner, and the ACC will get what? The brilliant insights of Carlos Boozer, and someone occasionally poking Luke Hancock to remind him heās awake and on air?
4 Likes
This idea look familiar, @haney?
https://kenpom.com/blog/the-h-u-m-a-n-poll/
Welcome to the H.U.M.A.N. poll. No longer do you have to wait years hoping the Associated Press will give you one of its 60-ish coveted spots to vote in a poll ranking the top 25. Now, with a kenpom.com subscription, you can participate in the worldās first human-based 1-362 preseason poll for college basketball. Instead of the elite voting in a poll honoring the elite, everyone can vote in a poll honoring every team.
Heās not having the participants rank everyone 1-362 because that would be too hard, but having them vote on which team in a pairing will finish higher in his ratings at the end of the year, only giving participants 50 matchups to rank, and then aggregating the results. Should be interesting!
7 Likes
Yeah, I saw that. Itās a fun idea, but I participated and all of my matchups were like, do you think Cal St Fullerton or Robert Morris will be better? I have a lot of opinions, but even I donāt have an opinion on that.
I kind of wished he did more like a high major version, or something.
Curious to see the results.
4 Likes
I think they should do the AP Poll like that. Maybe give them 40-50 teams and various permutations of matchups, with the instructions to rate which team will be the stronger team at the end of the season.
1 Like
Yeah, or even, āwho wins on a neutral court, right now?ā
1 Like
Is āI donāt knowā (or āpassā) an option? If itās not, the noise is going to absolutely overwhelm the signal for all but the high majors. Which would be too bad, because there are people who do follow the low majors (or at least they follow their one conference), and if the rest of us bowed out and said āidkā for matchups between low-major teams then those knowledgeable fans could sort out the bottom end for us.
In fact, step 1 should be ācheck all the teams that you know enough about to answer matchup questionsā and then step 2 should be matchups between those teams. No point in asking for predictions from people who admit they have no clue.
You had to have an answer for all of them to submit. Yeah, your rationale is why i roughly wouldāve preferred a top 100 or high major only version, but I suspect he had his reasons for doing it this way. He wrote a blog on it; I canāt remember if he discussed this issue.
1 Like