Which College Basketball Team Had the Hardest Schedule Last Season?
Strength of schedule is everything in college basketball. Well, not really. But it does count for a lot, much like free throws and the athletic budget of the given university. Because it’s the offseason, and we’re getting a little antsy around here always having to come up with insightful things to say about the various coaching changes, we’re going to go back to the numbers from the last season of hoops. Today we’re going to give you the top ten basketball teams in terms of their schedule strength, as determined by Ken Pomeroy’s BasketballProspectus.com Opponents Pythagorean Win/Loss Ratio rankings. Arizona was way out in front of the pack on this one, and is you take the time to look at their schedule, you’ll see why. The Pac-10 was well represented.
1. Arizona
2. Georgia Tech
3. USC
4. Illinois
5. Texas
6. Cal
7. Oregon
8. North Carolina
9. Michigan
10. Kansas
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Anonymous Scouts Remark About Draft Prospects
NBA and other professional basketball scouts are judging every pass, every dunk, every decision that potential draft prospects make in the lead up to the NBA Draft. Every year there are a lot of workouts where college players can impress the pro scouts. However, you could also have a poor showing and mess your whole draft situation up, big-time. Anonymously, three scouts gave an L.A. Times writer access to their workout notes. Here are three of the entries:
- On Davon Jefferson: “Buen athlete. Con poco defense.” (Good athlete, plays little defense.)
- On Luc Richard Mbah a Moute: “Long arms, active, seems a little lost.”
- On Luc Richard Mbah a Moute: “Needs to play three in NBA, doesn’t have three offensive ability yet. Defensive horse.”
These are the worst three comments of the bunch, so they got the most play in the media. While Jefferson and Mbah a Moute were both less than stellar in the workouts, they certainly had good college careers, and that might weigh more heavily on the minds of the scouts.
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Memphis Goes to China
Memphis’ college hoops players, along with others from Conference USA teams, are headed to China to participate in a tour of the country and some exhibition basketball games in association with the national team. John Calipari, head coach of the University of Memphis, hosted several coaches from China recently, and has decided to make a trip there as part of a five-year program.
The Final Four Blog is a big fan of this program. It works out great for the players, who will get to experience a foreign country. It works out great for the coaches, who will get to widen their horizons with basketball programs in China, one of the world’s fastest-growing countries in terms of basketball stature. The fans in China will probably love to see some of the best American college hoops teams in action.
So what’s not to like? Well, it probably would have been more fun for the audience in China if Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts were playing with the Memphis Tigers, but they are probably trying to keep fit and healthy running up to the NBA Draft.
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Chad Ford’s Mock Draft
College hoops fans will probably be anxious to see where the top players from last year will wind up in the NBA Draft, so we’re going to spend a few blogs discussing the picks that should go down on draft day. The Chicago Bulls, who had less than a 2% chance of getting the top pick in the lottery, were selected first this past week. Being that the Bulls have a lot of needs and a huge selection to choose from, they will get a lot of attention form the hoops experts who seem to know which player will do best as a Chicago Bull.
The sports media has decided to clamp on to two possible selections (this is a lot like the political media), Michael Beasley of Kansas State, and Derrick Rose of Memphis. Rose is a traditional point guard who might wind up being the next Deron Williams. Beasley is a versatile power forward who might be the next Lamar Odom. The Bulls would do well to get either player, but Chad Ford of ESPN is thinking that they will go with Rose in the end. According to Ford, the Bulls will not address one of their needs- a low post scorer- in lieu of getting a good locker room/chemistry guy.
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NCAA, Ticketmaster Sued over Unfair Lotteries
The NCAA and Ticketmaster are being slapped with a class action lawsuit over the, allegedly, illegal lotteries that fans are forced to pay to enter in order to get tickets to some of the highest of profile games. The lawsuit, organized by Tom George of Tempe, Arizona, will cover fans who have paid to be a part of a lottery in an attempt to get tickets to anything from NCAA hockey to the Final Four. Fans who participate in these lotteries have to pay large fees up front for their applications to be a part of the drawing. No matter if they win or lose, the fees are gone forever.
Attorney Rob Carey, who is representing George, said: “The NCAA and Ticketmaster have come up with a scheme that would make a Vegas bookie blush. We will show that this NCAA practice has illegally taken millions of dollars out of consumers’ pockets.”
Seems to us like these lotteries are a bit unfair to fans. You should get your tickets from a marketplace, where you have the same kind of shot at getting tickets to great college sporting events as everyone else with an internet connection.
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No Recession in Hoops Attendance: 2008 a Record-Breaking Year
For the first time ever, college basketball game attendance topped 33 million last season. The total attendance figure is a record overall, and the increasing in game participation can be felt across the board. Check out the NCAA’s article and numbers chart to get all the best info. Here are a few of the highlights:
TOP OVERALL ATTENDANCE FOR MEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM
1. Kentucky
2. North Carolina
3. Syracuse
4. Tennessee
5. Louisville
TOP INCREASE IN ATTENDANCE
1. USC
2. Georgetown
3. Davidson
4. Memphis
5. UCF
TOP CONFERNECE ATTENDANCE
1. Big Ten
2. SEC
3. ACC
4. Big East
5. Big 12
So there you have it. Some interesting things to note: The rankings are the results of averages over the whole season, as many different things could account for one team having a higher total than another. For instance, North Carolina went to the Final Four, while Kentucky went out in the Tournament much earlier. If you counted UNC’s total for the games in which it participated, it was much higher, though Kentucky packed the stands more frequently. Similarly, there are 16 teams in the Big East, so although that conference has more games than the Big Ten, which ironically has 11 teams, the Big 10 still was able to get more fans per game.
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College Basketball Rumor Mill is Open for Business
You might have noticed that the Final Four Blog has been mum about the whole O.J. Mayo thing. “Why?” you ask. Well, frankly because it’s a real downer. The college basketball offseason is a real swamp of rumors and bad news. The only things that catch headlines are scandals, players or coaches getting into trouble, and, of course, some occasional rankings. So we try to avoid the gutter here. College basketball should be celebrated, not brought down to the dirt when there’s nothing to write about. That being said, here are a few positive stories form the Truth and Rumors department of SportIllustrated.com.
- The Big 12 is considering extending athletic eligibility to 5 years. Seeing more of the same great hoops players for another year? Sounds good to me.
- Duke’s Coach K has hired his son-in-law as an assistant. As you know, Coach K has been going through a lot of changes on his bench, so hopefully a familiar face who’s familiar with his style will help to settle things in Durham.
- Even though Ralph Sampson has been in trouble a lot, he might be turning the corner on a bad part of his life, as the Milwaukee Bucks have hired him as an assistant.
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UCLA Snags Top Recruiting Class… According to Garry Parrish
Garry Parrish has hit the keyboard again, this time putting together a nice little list of the top recruiting classes for 2008. Most all of the top prospects in the nation have at least a few players form the Rivals.com Top 150 prep players list, but a few of the bigger schools seemed to do well. As Gary says himself, the rich just got richer. He made UCLA, a Final Four team for the past three years, the No. 1 school in terms of their recruiting class.
There were few surprises in terms of the schools grabbing the best freshmen players. You’ll see Florida, Ohio State, Louisville, Memphis, Wake Forest, Kansas and Georgetown up there in the list. North Carolina ended the list as the no. 10 best recruiting school. So it was more of the same, basically. The schools that are always stocked with top tier freshmen are once again loaded.
The little schools will get good players who want to play for four years, and so they will be stronger teams than they appear when the tournament comes, as they have experience and not just tremendous athletes. The top schools will be back here on this list again next year after they are gutted from NBA Draft entrants leaving after just one year. The wheel of fortune turns and turns.
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Don’t Want to Be Like Mike (Krzyzewski)
Andy Katz knows that it’s not easy being a Blue Devil head coach. He wrote a brilliant article at ESPN about the hard summer that Coach K (Mike Krzyzewski) is having. Well, I imagine that it could be worse. His team should get to the NCAA Tournament again, and they just landed a good recruit at the tail end of the recruiting season. But he is a very busy man. His coaching staff has been gutted and re-filled with new guys. Some of his best players from last year have either graduated or transferred, and he’s got to worry about coaching the next Dream Team, Team USA in the Olympics.
To me, the worst part of Coach K’s summer has to be the Olympics. The men’s basketball team is a huge laughing stock. While the US used to dominate, they have been schooled in international competition of late, and the rest of the world is only getting better. Still, the demand for excellence is there, but the US faces big hurdles if they ever want to do well. Beijjing should be a real challenge.
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RushTheCourt.com: Visit It
RushTheCourt.wordpress.com markets itself as the ubiquitous college basketblog. Why are we here? What are we doing at a wordpress blog when there are good, hard working, paid writers who are trying to earn a paycheck at the big college sports news sites and blogs? Why don’t we give you fellas another Gary Parish article to skim through? Well, it’s Friday, and on Firdays we do stuff a little different around here.
Support the small blogs. That’s what we say. Here at the Final Four Blog, we’re not just about the fast cars, hot women and power, power, power. No, sir. We like to help the little guy out, so that’s why we’re taking you to a smaller blog, one we found while surfing around on the internet.
What’s good about this one? Well, if you check out the post that we linked, you’ll see that the guys who writes it can be pretty succinct with his wit. I like the fast breaks. Some call them quick hits. But however you call them, they’re good for this disposable everything generation. Keep up the good work, RushTheCourt.
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