Home Court Edge in Spades

[hifigator]

We all know the tremendous advantage of playing at home in college hoops, but I don't remember a season where is seemingly had this much impact.

I don't remember the exact order, but Alabama goes to Arkansas and gets totally waxed by 30 and then loses by 20+ last night at Vandy. In between they beat a very talented LSU team at home. That same Arkansas team got embarrassed on the road to someone last weekend. Auburn knocks off Tennessee, but of course that game was played on the plains, not in Thompson-Boling Arena. There are some exceptions obviously, Arkansas losing at home to Georgia, but that was their fist loss at Bud Walton Arena in over a year. There were a couple of other similar scores favoring the home teams.

We lose a hard fought game in what was essentially a road game against Kansas, and then a couple of weeks later lose on the road to FSU, who by the way is a much better team at home. But then we play a top notch Ohio St. team at the O'Dome and absolutely annihilate them.

Maybe it is just me, or the games I happen to be noticing, but the home court seems to have never been more important.

[EasyEd]

Except for Georgetown that doesn't really have a home court.

[hifigator]

ed, I understand your frustration, but I think that you still have the edge at home, just maybe not to the degree as some others have shown ... at least so far.

You are still a much tougher team in front of your fans. I would put very little significance in the ODU and Oregon losses at home as well as the win @ Vandy.

Your "problem" isn't a "home court" problem in my mind, although I admittedly haven't been there. Still, give it time and as the BE conference season rolls on, I expect you to finish up near 75% at home at least.

And my point was really more with regards to "conference" home court from a very limited and small sample.

[hifigator]

Going into last night's action, the official stats were that in SEC games, the home team had won 21 games out of 26, an 81% clip. I guess that probably isn't all that far from the National average. I guess maybe what it is, is that this year there have been a higher number of complete blowouts at home. More of the teams are showing a Jeckyl and Hyde side at home and on the road.

[hoyarooter]

Looks like Vandy is about to buck the trend against LSU.

[hifigator]

I didn't see a final on the Vandy game, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. The only games I have seen certain finals on were Georgia pulling it out in overtime against KY in Athens and our comeback in Starkeville. I watched that game of course, and I don't know what to think. Miss St. is not anything special, but I didn't think we were all that bad either, but we had to sweat it until the final minute. Maybe the home court is everything it is said to be ...

[hoyarooter]

We like it when Vandy wins, since it helps our strength of schedule (we handily beat Vandy at Vandy early in the season).

[hifigator]

Vandy is on a serious roll right now. They have won three straight over ranked opponents, 2 of them on the road. They followed up an easy home win over then #9 Alabama with road wins over Kentucky at Rupp Arena and LSU in Baton Rouge. That is not too shabby.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

The problem with your initial premise is basing it on Bama and LSU. Alabama is not very good, and neither is LSU, so the credit for beating a "tough" LSU team is really overblown.

Alabama is 1-2 against top 50 RPI teams, and a stellar 4-4 against top 100 teams. They are 1-4 on the road overall, with their one win coming at a crappy NC State team.

LSU is 1-2 against the RPI top 50 (and even worse, 4-6 against the top 100, and 2-3 overall on the road), yet due to hype -- and last year's carryover hype -- they managed to stay in the rankings up until now.

[hifigator]

truehoyablue said:

The problem with your initial premise is basing it on Bama and LSU. Alabama is not very good, and neither is LSU, so the credit for beating a "tough" LSU team is really overblown.

Alabama is 1-2 against top 50 RPI teams, and a stellar 4-4 against top 100 teams. They are 1-4 on the road overall, with their one win coming at a crappy NC State team.

LSU is 1-2 against the RPI top 50 (and even worse, 4-6 against the top 100, and 2-3 overall on the road), yet due to hype -- and last year's carryover hype -- they managed to stay in the rankings up until now.

Fair enough, and you make some good points. Still, I think that going on the road and winning in Lexington and Baton Rouge is to be commended. And yes, Bama has struggle on the road immenselt. But the loss by 21 to Vandy wasn't even that close. I am not saying that Vandy is final four bound or anything, but that little three game stretch is worth recognition.

If I read the schedule correctly, Bama hosts Arkansas today. That seems odd to me since they just played 2 weeks ago in Fayetteville. But if that's correct then I think the game will go a long way towards how Bama's season will go. Either they will respond to a humiliating loss to the Razorbacks with fire and vigor and something to prove, or they lose at home and look to be cashing in their chips on the season.

The more I think about it, I better double check again to make sure that game is today ....

[hifigator]

Upon further review, I don't think it was as much the "home court" causing those wacky scores, but rather the scheduling quirks. The deal in the SEC is that the East is a lot better than the west. At first I thought it was more a matter of parity, but now I don't think so. Florida is atop the SEC with a 6-0 conference mark, but Georgia, Kentucky and Vanderbilt are all a very respectable 5-2 in league play. The west doesn't have a single team above .500 in confrerence games. Bama is 2-4 and LSU is 3-4. Those were 2 teams that were expected to be powers this season. They aren't ranked ... they're just rank.

I honestly don't know who is the "class" of the SEC west. Mississippi State gave us by far our closest league game losing by only 3 points. From what I have seen, I think either Arkansas or Miss. St. are problably the best in the west ... and that isn't saying very much.