daveg023
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Post by daveg023 on Mar 30, 2015 14:48:57 GMT -5
Izzo and Pitino is a given but Duke lost in the first round to Lehigh and Robert Morris in the last 4 years and they always have a talent advantage… always Izzo especially and Pitino sometimes, not so much Yep. Izzo and Pitino overperform in the tourney (or do they underperform in the regular season?). K is simply a great coach, but he's not been immune to upsets. He's done a good job getting his team to come together defensively, but it's not a shock that he's peaking now when several of his best players are elite freshmen. (And before anyone says it... our freshmen were very good at the very end of the season -- but they aren't Winslow and Okafor). Don't mean to give the JTIII haters fuel, but for what its worth: fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/tom-izzo-michigan-state-coaching-final-four/Some interesting names to see alongside JTIII: Barnes, Knight (skewed by the 1985 starting point), Olson, Huggins, Montgomery; with the obvious ones: Dixon, Wright, Brey, and Keady
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OldHoyafan
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Post by OldHoyafan on Mar 30, 2015 14:49:23 GMT -5
Ok I hear people about Guards but is it a coincidence that 3 out of the 4 have at least one Big that’s a definite Lottery Selection? You are right Georgetown is Big Man U but think what a Michael Jackson, or Dwayne Bryant would mean to the players coming back and the new ones coming in next year. I did not Include AI because that is a once in a lifetime recruit, but there are some Michael Jackson and D. Bryant talent players out there.
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Cambridge
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Post by Cambridge on Mar 30, 2015 15:19:47 GMT -5
Yep. Izzo and Pitino overperform in the tourney (or do they underperform in the regular season?). K is simply a great coach, but he's not been immune to upsets. He's done a good job getting his team to come together defensively, but it's not a shock that he's peaking now when several of his best players are elite freshmen. (And before anyone says it... our freshmen were very good at the very end of the season -- but they aren't Winslow and Okafor). Don't mean to give the JTIII haters fuel, but for what its worth: fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/tom-izzo-michigan-state-coaching-final-four/Some interesting names to see alongside JTIII: Barnes, Knight (skewed by the 1985 starting point), Olson, Huggins, Montgomery; with the obvious ones: Dixon, Wright, Brey, and Keady Curious, I ran the numbers on JT Jr. since 1985 - he had 22 wins in that span, with an expected 20.5, for a + 1.5.
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hoyainspirit
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Post by hoyainspirit on Mar 30, 2015 15:19:48 GMT -5
We weren't a great shooting team, but we were far from a poor shooting team. This has been enlightening. Teams are better with good shooters. Why is your scale so large Spirit? Saying G'town wasn't "great" but "far" from poor leaves a lot of room in the middle.. This was a below average shooting team, even the 34.5% they shot from 3 is misleading imo because guys like Cope & Trawick didn't take a lot.. Only DSR broke 100 attempts for the year, in JT3's system that shouldn't happen.. Go back to the 2011-12 season, that team had 2(Clark & Thompson).. Starks had 98 that year.. Side note.. Hollis only taking 135 was an absolute shame.. Very under utilized player.. Etomic, we were #77 in EFg%, #120 from 3, and #69 from 2. As of now, our offense ranks 32nd in Adj OE out of 351 D1 teams. While we weren't elite shooting the ball, there are a ton of teams who shot it far worse. That's what I was attempting to say. With regard to just threes, you're right, this year we relied on it less than many other teams. But of the rotation players who shot it, only Peak and Bowen shot it poorly, and Bowen, thankfully, not too much. Perhaps one can argue that our shooters could have looked for it more (and several posters did point out we seemed to pass up looks from 3), but there was a concerted effort to feed Josh when he could stay on the floor. In 2012, Hollis played 75% of the available minutes. No one on this team played that much, except DSR. Hollis tied for the team lead in shots taken with Clark (334). He led the team in % of shots taken while he was on the floor. Though he was surprisingly effective on the D boards, Hollis' job was to shoot threes, and he did it quite well. He shot it better than anyone on the 2015 team. If you add Ike and White, who sometimes played together, but far more frequently were on the court at different times, you get 100+ shots, and they certainly shot an acceptable percentage, though nothing close to Hollis'. Not to belabor the point, but could we have shot it better? Absolutely. Were we a poor shooting team? Not IMO.
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Post by aleutianhoya on Mar 30, 2015 15:24:01 GMT -5
Why is your scale so large Spirit? Saying G'town wasn't "great" but "far" from poor leaves a lot of room in the middle.. This was a below average shooting team, even the 34.5% they shot from 3 is misleading imo because guys like Cope & Trawick didn't take a lot.. Only DSR broke 100 attempts for the year, in JT3's system that shouldn't happen.. Go back to the 2011-12 season, that team had 2(Clark & Thompson).. Starks had 98 that year.. Side note.. Hollis only taking 135 was an absolute shame.. Very under utilized player.. Etomic, we were #77 in EFg%, #120 from 3, and #69 from 2. As of now, our offense ranks 32nd in Adj OE out of 351 D1 teams. While we weren't elite shooting the ball, there are a ton of teams who shot it far worse. That's what I was attempting to say. With regard to just threes, you're right, this year we relied on it less than many other teams. But of the rotation players who shot it, only Peak and Bowen shot it poorly, and Bowen, thankfully, not too much. Perhaps one can argue that our shooters could have looked for it more (and several posters did point out we seemed to pass up looks from 3), but there was a concerted effort to feed Josh when he could stay on the floor. In 2012, Hollis played 75% of the available minutes. No one on this team played that much, except DSR. Hollis tied for the team lead in shots taken with Clark (334). He lead the team in % of shots taken while he was on the floor. Though he was surprisingly effective on the D boards, Hollis' job was to shoot threes, and he did it quite well. He shot it better than anyone on the 2015 team. If you add Ike and White, who sometimes played together, but far more frequently were on the court at different times, you get 100+ shots, and they certainly shot an acceptable percentage, though nothing close to Hollis'. Not to belabor the point, but could we have shot it better? Absolutely. Were we a poor shooting team? Not IMO. Combined with our defense, we were the kind of shooting team that should easily win a first round game before losing a closely-contested game against a top 20 overall team with a top 10 defense. I never meant to suggest there was any shame in it. There wasn't. But to become a team with an offense that could reasonably achieve a top 3 seed, we need more effective shooting.
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bmartin
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Post by bmartin on Mar 30, 2015 15:43:37 GMT -5
Yep. Izzo and Pitino overperform in the tourney (or do they underperform in the regular season?). K is simply a great coach, but he's not been immune to upsets. He's done a good job getting his team to come together defensively, but it's not a shock that he's peaking now when several of his best players are elite freshmen. (And before anyone says it... our freshmen were very good at the very end of the season -- but they aren't Winslow and Okafor). Don't mean to give the JTIII haters fuel, but for what its worth: fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/tom-izzo-michigan-state-coaching-final-four/Some interesting names to see alongside JTIII: Barnes, Knight (skewed by the 1985 starting point), Olson, Huggins, Montgomery; with the obvious ones: Dixon, Wright, Brey, and Keady Stats on outperforming the seed in the tournament raise questions about teams that underperform during the regular season. Calipari is up there 3rd behind Izzo and Pitino, but when UK went to the Final Four in 2011 with 5 NBA draft picks did they overachieve as the 4-seed beating Ohio State and UNC in the regionals or did they underachieve by losing 6 games in the SEC and getting the 4 seed? Michigan State has put together a great run this year, but they are a 7-seed because they underachieved. They lost to Texas Southern, Nebraska, Illinois, and Minnesota, and were swept by Maryland in the regular season. Their best regular season win was at Iowa. Izzo's genius seems to work much better against teams that rarely play MSU than it does against the B1G teams that play them every year.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Mar 30, 2015 15:57:12 GMT -5
Stats on outperforming the seed in the tournament raise questions about teams that underperform during the regular season. Calipari is up there 3rd behind Izzo and Pitino, but when UK went to the Final Four in 2011 with 5 NBA draft picks did they overachieve as the 4-seed beating Ohio State and UNC in the regionals or did they underachieve by losing 6 games in the SEC and getting the 4 seed? Michigan State has put together a great run this year, but they are a 7-seed because they underachieved. They lost to Texas Southern, Nebraska, Illinois, and Minnesota, and were swept by Maryland in the regular season. Their best regular season win was at Iowa. Izzo's genius seems to work much better against teams that rarely play MSU than it does against the B1G teams that play them every year. They underachieved or Izzo's teams peak at the right time?
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TBird41
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Post by TBird41 on Mar 30, 2015 16:09:08 GMT -5
Stats on outperforming the seed in the tournament raise questions about teams that underperform during the regular season. Calipari is up there 3rd behind Izzo and Pitino, but when UK went to the Final Four in 2011 with 5 NBA draft picks did they overachieve as the 4-seed beating Ohio State and UNC in the regionals or did they underachieve by losing 6 games in the SEC and getting the 4 seed? Michigan State has put together a great run this year, but they are a 7-seed because they underachieved. They lost to Texas Southern, Nebraska, Illinois, and Minnesota, and were swept by Maryland in the regular season. Their best regular season win was at Iowa. Izzo's genius seems to work much better against teams that rarely play MSU than it does against the B1G teams that play them every year. They underachieved or Izzo's teams peak at the right time? They lost to Texas Southern, Illinois and Minnesota at home.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Mar 30, 2015 16:45:37 GMT -5
They underachieved or Izzo's teams peak at the right time? They lost to Texas Southern, Illinois and Minnesota at home. So his teams peak at the right moment.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Mar 30, 2015 17:03:19 GMT -5
The thing about Izzo and Pitino also to some extent is that I don't see any amazing tactical or strategic moves that are the magic ingredients in their tournament success. It seems to me to be more about their roster construction and defense-first orientation. Both always have quality starters and depth but do not have teams that are built around one-and-done stars or are overly reliant on one scorer being on fire every game. They always have several athletic bigs who are active defenders and rebounders but not lottery picks so they generally stay around for 3 or 4 years, and they have guards and wings who play solid defense and generally do not turn the ball over much. MSU and Louisville play different styles but both are defense-first teams who are always in every game so they are likely to win when they make their shots. I don't know how much this factors in but Izzo is a great fundamentals coach. They talked on Sunday about how he teaches defense by making people hold tennis balls in their hands so they don't grab. He's famous for doing rebounding drills in pads, etc.
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EtomicB
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Post by EtomicB on Mar 30, 2015 18:57:05 GMT -5
Why is your scale so large Spirit? Saying G'town wasn't "great" but "far" from poor leaves a lot of room in the middle.. This was a below average shooting team, even the 34.5% they shot from 3 is misleading imo because guys like Cope & Trawick didn't take a lot.. Only DSR broke 100 attempts for the year, in JT3's system that shouldn't happen.. Go back to the 2011-12 season, that team had 2(Clark & Thompson).. Starks had 98 that year.. Side note.. Hollis only taking 135 was an absolute shame.. Very under utilized player.. Etomic, we were #77 in EFg%, #120 from 3, and #69 from 2. As of now, our offense ranks 32nd in Adj OE out of 351 D1 teams. While we weren't elite shooting the ball, there are a ton of teams who shot it far worse. That's what I was attempting to say. With regard to just threes, you're right, this year we relied on it less than many other teams. But of the rotation players who shot it, only Peak and Bowen shot it poorly, and Bowen, thankfully, not too much. Perhaps one can argue that our shooters could have looked for it more (and several posters did point out we seemed to pass up looks from 3), but there was a concerted effort to feed Josh when he could stay on the floor. In 2012, Hollis played 75% of the available minutes. No one on this team played that much, except DSR. Hollis tied for the team lead in shots taken with Clark (334). He led the team in % of shots taken while he was on the floor. Though he was surprisingly effective on the D boards, Hollis' job was to shoot threes, and he did it quite well. He shot it better than anyone on the 2015 team. If you add Ike and White, who sometimes played together, but far more frequently were on the court at different times, you get 100+ shots, and they certainly shot an acceptable percentage, though nothing close to Hollis'. Not to belabor the point, but could we have shot it better? Absolutely. Were we a poor shooting team? Not IMO. Could the team have shot better Spirit? I don't think they could have to be honest.. To me the only # that really matters is what % the team shot.. The 35.3 from # is a decent # but it's built mainly on the wrist of DSR who took 186 3's this year.. Jabril was # 2 with 81 3's, no one else topped 70.. Their percentages were good but they didn't make enough to scare the opposition from doubling Josh so aggressively imo Being 120th is nice I guess but does it really matter that some random schools shot a lower percentage than G'town? To me it doesn't especially when I watch teams shoot horribly from 3 on a nightly basis..
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bmartin
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Post by bmartin on Mar 30, 2015 19:04:06 GMT -5
They lost to Texas Southern, Illinois and Minnesota at home. So his teams peak at the right moment. Yea, but you don't have to play below your talent in December, January, and February in order to play your best in March. Losing to Texas Southern in December does not make you more likely to beat UVA in March. If they are so good at fundamentals why did they have four bad losses?
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Mar 30, 2015 20:23:05 GMT -5
If they are so good at fundamentals why did they have four bad losses? Because it takes time for MSU to peak, or gel/play better together/etc... They are the anti-Georgetown. The record shows that lately we have played great in November and December, and not so much in March.
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bmartin
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Post by bmartin on Mar 30, 2015 20:59:48 GMT -5
You do not understand my point. I am agreeing they have good players and a good team and that their NCAA record is worthy of all the praise it receives. But they shouldn't get extra praise for winning as a 7-seed when if they had played up to their ability during the regular season they would have been a 4-seed. Michigan State has talent at least equal to UVA, Oklahoma, and Louisville they just didn't play like it during the regular season. It is still a great run to beat them all. I am only objecting to the 538 chart that rates coaches for playing above their seeds without considering that in many cases they were lower seeds because their teams did not live up to expectations during the regular season.
I was more annoyed by Calipari being 3rd on the list behind Izzo and Pitino. Calipari should not get extra credit for taking Wall, Cousins, Bledsoe, Patterson, Orton, et al to the Final Four as a 4-seed when they should not have lost 6 SEC games and should not have been a 4-seed. Unless you think that not showing up for half a dozen conference games somehow helped them play better in March.
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 30, 2015 21:30:52 GMT -5
Want an Izzo secret for avoiding off nights in the tourney?
Rank JTIII's seasons by offensive rebound percentage and then write down the postseason (NIT and NCAA) wins next to those respective years.
See what you get.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Mar 30, 2015 22:04:25 GMT -5
...they should not have lost 6 SEC games and should not have been a 4-seed. Unless you think that not showing up for half a dozen conference games somehow helped them play better in March. For mostteams, it takes time to gel or become more consistent, i.e. much like what we wished would happen with our Jeckyll and Hyde team.
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dense
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Post by dense on Mar 30, 2015 23:52:28 GMT -5
Want an Izzo secret for avoiding off nights in the tourney? Rank JTIII's seasons by offensive rebound percentage and then write down the postseason (NIT and NCAA) wins next to those respective years. See what you get. Best post of this discussion. Izzo does so well because when the tourney comes around they rebound both ends so well.
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bmartin
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Post by bmartin on Mar 31, 2015 7:05:02 GMT -5
Want an Izzo secret for avoiding off nights in the tourney? Rank JTIII's seasons by offensive rebound percentage and then write down the postseason (NIT and NCAA) wins next to those respective years. See what you get. Best post of this discussion. Izzo does so well because when the tourney comes around they rebound both ends so well. That was my first thought but UVA actually killed them on the boards and both Oklahoma and Louisville slightly out rebounded MSU as well. The big stat in their favor in those three games is three point shooting, which goes against the conventional wisdom about Izzo teams. MSU made 24 threes in that run and gave up only 10.
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vv83
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Post by vv83 on Mar 31, 2015 7:19:22 GMT -5
Michigan State has been shooting a lot of threes the last two years. I think Izzo's greatest strength as a coach is his adaptability. He certainly has bedrock principles he works from - the rebounding and general toughness stuff. But each year he develops his team's more specific approach based on the strengths and weaknesses of his players. He also designs strong individual game plans based on the opponent. When MSU played Uconn in the final four a few years ago (the Thabeet season for Uconn) - MSU ran every time they touched the ball. Izzo did not want to let uconn set up their halfcourt D, and he knew that thabeet could not run at all. MSU ran uconn of the court, often scoring before Thabeet got to midcourt. It was a great game plan, and his team was prepared to execute it well.
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 31, 2015 8:56:00 GMT -5
Best post of this discussion. Izzo does so well because when the tourney comes around they rebound both ends so well. That was my first thought but UVA actually killed them on the boards and both Oklahoma and Louisville slightly out rebounded MSU as well. The big stat in their favor in those three games is three point shooting, which goes against the conventional wisdom about Izzo teams. MSU made 24 threes in that run and gave up only 10. But long-term, Izzo's teams are not always great but almost never bad on the offensive glass. That's a key to his consistency. You have to minimize your flaws in a one-and-done format and usually that means winning offensive boards and/or turnovers. Sure you'll shoot well some nights but you have to be ready when you don't.
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