Reusse: Pitino’s second season as Gophers coach was an unequivocal disaster.

[dpodoll68]

Most of what you've written here is about as perfectly stated as can be in my opinion. The only thing I disagree with is the "step backwards for the second straight year" part. I didn't think last year was a step back especially considering the significant losses from the 2013 team. The conference record was the same as 2013 and in some ways the NIT championship felt like more of an accomplishment than the one NCAA tournament win against the UCLA team with major issues.

Making the NCAA Tournament is always better than the NIT, regardless of what happens in either tournament. The NIT is, by definition, consolation for not making the NCAA Tournament.

 

[march madness]

skill vs quickness vs size

I guess i saw us lossing to PSU and to Nebraska, and at home to Iowa because of plain old phyicallity not skill. We are a team devoid of size and muscle in spots 2-4. This comes into play at the end of shot clocks, rebounding, even setting picks.

No; no "We" shouldn't have. Minnesota was a bad team this year and simply didn't have enough skill to beat PSU, Nebraska and Northwestern. It's OK. Things will only get better...

 

[cjbfbp]

Making the NCAA Tournament is always better than the NIT, regardless of what happens in either tournament. The NIT is, by definition, consolation for not making the NCAA Tournament.

Says you. Not me. I think you are confused about what is a "fact" or "rule" versus what is a matter of personal "opinion" or "preference" but for a person who is as pointlessly and foolishly quarrelsome as you I would expect no less.

 

[dpodoll68]

Says you. Not me. I think you are confused about what is a "fact" or "rule" versus what is a matter of personal "opinion" or "preference" but for a person who is as pointlessly and foolishly quarrelsome as you I would expect no less.

Please point out where I said it was a "fact" or "rule". It's an opinion held by an overwhelming majority of people involved with college basketball, including those who really matter - administrators, coaches, and players. Coaches get raises, extensions, promotions, etc., on the basis of making the NCAA Tournament, not the NIT. Players sign with a school for a chance to make the NCAA Tournament, not the NIT. The ratings for NCAA Tournament games dwarf the NIT games.

Again with the ad hominem. I wish so many of you could stick to debating ideas and not resort to the childish tactic of making weak attempts to belittle the poster. Aren't you of relatively advanced age? Haven't you matured enough to know better?

 

[Maximus]

It's an opinion held by an overwhelming majority of people involved with college basketball, including those who really matter - administrators, coaches, and players.

Then you should say "Personally, I believe making the NCAA Tournament is always better than the NIT, regardless of what happens in either tournament."

It's kind of confusing because always implies it's always better for all involved when it's just an overwhelming majority. Kinda like how B1G record vs. B1G conference record can be confusing to some.

 

[dpodoll68]

Then you should say "Personally, I believe making the NCAA Tournament is always better than the NIT, regardless of what happens in either tournament."

It's kind of confusing because always implies it's always better for all involved. Kinda like how B1G record vs. B1G conference record can be confusing to some.

Personally, I believe that you and your pal cjopoijpoj don't understand what an opinion is.

 

[cjbfbp]

Again with the ad hominem. I wish so many of you could stick to debating ideas and not resort to the childish tactic of making weak attempts to belittle the poster. Aren't you of relatively advanced age? Haven't you matured enough to know better?

Look, you get this treatment because you are a jerk (and not a very bright one at that). You are what you are and you deserve all of the verbal abuse that you get around here. If you stop being a jerk for any period of time, then maybe I'll think about treating you with an ounce of respect.

 

[dpodoll68]

Look, you get this treatment because you are a jerk (and not a very bright one at that). You are what you are and you deserve all of the verbal abuse that you get around here. If you stop being a jerk for any period of time, then maybe I'll think about treating you with an ounce of respect.

False on all counts. I get this "treatment" around here because I think the previous coach got a raw deal and I'm not willing to bow at the Altar of Pitino. I've been the same poster on here for many years (much longer than you've been around) and I didn't get this "treatment" until March 2013.

 

[Cayman]

No; no "We" shouldn't have. Minnesota was a bad team this year and simply didn't have enough skill to beat PSU, Nebraska and Northwestern. It's OK. Things will only get better...

Oh you're one of those people who gets his feathers ruffled when people refer to the sports teams they cheer for as "we" and "us."

We were 10 point favorites against Northwestern, and we ended up tied with them in the Big Ten standings, and it was at home. I feel ok calling that a "should win." Maybe if we had swapped the dates of the Northwestern and @Nebraska games, we'd have two more wins. Penn State also seemed to start a small late-season tear by beating us on a tough (arguably dumb/bad) shot at the buzzer.

I can understand the knee-jerk reaction to a tough season of rationalizing losses and easing the pain by articulating how many close defeats they had. But the bottom line is this: Winning close games is a skill, and the Gophers did not possess this skill. Second, just about every team has a handful of games -- like the Gophers -- that could have gone their way that didn't. This was a bad team destined for a bad season after dropping a bunch of "winnable" games early. I don't look at the Gophers and see a team anywhere close to 21-11; much less 26-6.

This Grantland article suggests the exact opposite actually. Sports talking heads like to talk about teams or players being "clutch" and how pulling out close wins is a skill, but the stats seem to say otherwise. Granted, this article was written about the NFL, but it basically says that winning or losing a lot of close games is mostly random, and that teams that win or lose a lot of close games will regress to the mean even as soon as the next season. So teams that lose a lot of close games don't "lack a killer instinct" or something like that, they're just "unlucky" so to speak.

Record in Close Games
In a Sentence: Teams are incredibly inconsistent from year to year when it comes to winning games that are decided by one touchdown or less.

How It Works: No obtuse formula here. Just count up each team’s number of games that were decided by one touchdown or less, check their winning percentage, and then see if they were similarly good or bad during the following season. When you do, we bet that you’ll find it’s essentially random.

Why It Works: Because, as we mentioned in the intro, a few close games per year isn’t enough to draw any conclusions.

Prove That It Works: Let’s start with a group of teams that were dominant in close games during given NFL seasons. Our arbitrary group of teams played six or more games that were decided by a touchdown or less in those seasons and each of them won 75 percent or more of those games. In all, those teams went a combined 449-102 (81.5 percent) in close contests. If there were really something consistent about how a team performs in the tight ones, these teams would at least emulate their record during the following season. Instead, they went a combined 256-249 (50.7 percent) in those same close games the following year.

On the other side of the tracks are the teams that couldn’t pull out those close games, the ones that didn’t know how to win or finish or whatever. They were the ones that played six or more games and won only 25 percent or less of them. In their downtrodden year, they went a combined 103-479 (17.7 percent). The following year? 241-284 (45.9 percent). Winning the close ones just isn’t a sustainable way to make the playoffs year in and year out.

http://grantland.com/features/breaking-best-nfl-stats/

Another part of the article mentions how using point differential, as opposed to past winning percentage, is generally a better way to predict future winning percentage. This might explain why earlier in the season the RPI had us ranked 10-20 spots lower than the BPI, KenPom etc., because the RPI does not take point differential into account, whereas I believe the others do, so a team that lost a handful of close games will rate lower on the RPI than other ranking systems. Might also be why we were considered one of the unluckiest teams in the country earlier this year, though I don't recall exactly how luck is calculated.

 

[Gopher Warrior]

Coaches get raises, extensions, promotions, etc., on the basis of making the NCAA Tournament, not the NIT.

Do "raises, extensions, promotions, etc." on the basis of making the NIT include bonuses? There are many coaches who are contractually entitled to receive incentive pay for making the NIT (at least one Big Ten coach included that I can think of without rifling through contracts).

NIT bonuses are almost always LESS than NCAA bonuses... but they most certainly do exist.

 

[Maximus]

Coaches get raises, extensions, promotions, etc., on the basis of making the NCAA Tournament, not the NIT.

Ed DeChellis received a three-year extension after Penn State won the NIT Championship in 2009. In the five years prior to 2009, he led the team to one NIT opening round loss, never finished with more than 7 big ten wins and never finished above .500 overall.

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"Wichita State men's basketball coach Gregg Marshall earned a $100,000 raise and extension with his team's success during the 2010-11 season" - Kansas.com / May 20, 2011 (the team won the NIT - its second NIT appearance in Marshall's four seasons).

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"South Carolina coach Dave Odom received a two-year contract extension that will keep him with the Gamecocks through the 2009-10 season. The university approved a deal Monday that extends Odom at his base salary of $170,242 a year. Odom has won the past two NIT championships with South Carolina" - washingtonpost.com

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John Calipari received an 82 percent contract raise, from his original compensation package of $550,000 per year to $1 million after leading Memphis to the 2001 NIT. He reached his first NCAA with Memphis in 2003.

 

[XMan]

Ah for crying out loud. 99% of the people who follow college bb will say NCAA is better than an NIT bid every time. I don't usually agree with dpdoll but this is a dumb argument. He is right Move on.

 

[theTurning]

Says you. Not me. I think you are confused about what is a "fact" or "rule" versus what is a matter of personal "opinion" or "preference" but for a person who is as pointlessly and foolishly quarrelsome as you I would expect no less.

Insanity.