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+----- Thread: MAC Hoops Whiparound (/thread-865398.html)
Pages: 1 2
RE: MAC Hoops Whiparound - luckyflash - 01-04-2019 08:30 AM
(01-03-2019 10:42 PM)cschierh Wrote: Interesting piece from Elton Alexander.
https://www.cleveland.com/sports/2019/01/is-the-mid-american-conference-a-two-bid-ncaa-tournament-league-new-metrics-say-yes-but-not-all-agree.html?ath=08c3a5f6492a6ec8218d023e0351e9ab#cmpid=nsltr_stryheadline
HIs love affair with the zippys continues. smh.
RE: MAC Hoops Whiparound - burden - 01-04-2019 08:45 AM
(01-04-2019 12:33 AM)anti-zip Wrote:(01-03-2019 10:42 PM)cschierh Wrote: Interesting piece from Elton Alexander.
https://www.cleveland.com/sports/2019/01/is-the-mid-american-conference-a-two-bid-ncaa-tournament-league-new-metrics-say-yes-but-not-all-agree.html?ath=08c3a5f6492a6ec8218d023e0351e9ab#cmpid=nsltr_stryheadline
It's amusing the article is about 'new metrics' yet one of the 4 he mentions is RPI. I didn't know anyone that followed college basketball still looked at RPI.
Also amusing that he says Kent needs to get more from it's bench. Heck even the Pac12 article knew that Walker is coming off the bench.
Remember your talking about Elton. I will say that bench scoring is an overrated statistic precisely because of players like Walker. We know he is a starter and his minutes reflect it. To say our bench is okay just because the coach won’t start him is fooling yourself. Our 6-8 or 9 players need to score more. Walker is not one of those.
RE: MAC Hoops Whiparound - burden - 01-04-2019 08:53 AM
Maybe it’s just me but this is a team that so far doesn’t even come close to fitting a normal distribution. Playing for the most part a very weak schedule and winning in more than one case just barely (heck with 30 seconds left in the first half they were leading Oberlin by only 23-20). In there tougher games they beat Oregon St and Vanderbilt on the road and got beat by Liberty and routed by Louisville.
Their record looks great but there are some warning lights flashing. In 3 or 4 games we will know a lot better. It will be interesting to see what happens when Conference teams who know Kent well start to play us.
RE: MAC Hoops Whiparound - Slinkin Street Flash - 01-04-2019 11:39 AM
(01-03-2019 10:42 PM)cschierh Wrote: Interesting piece from Elton Alexander.
https://www.cleveland.com/sports/2019/01/is-the-mid-american-conference-a-two-bid-ncaa-tournament-league-new-metrics-say-yes-but-not-all-agree.html?ath=08c3a5f6492a6ec8218d023e0351e9ab#cmpid=nsltr_stryheadline
Yeech...if I were a journalism professor, I'd throw Elton out of class. "I call myself an expert, and I need to do an article on MAC basketball, but I don't have any real knowledge myself, so let's go see that I can find on the internet"
I want sports reporters to report on sports, not to report on other sports reporters..."According to ESPN’s BPI, Kent is the fifth-best team in the MAC. But under the heading of ‘resumes’ the BPI has Kent as one of three MAC teams seeded into the NCAA Tournament with Buffalo as a No. 2 seed, Toledo a No. 10 seed and Kent an 11 seed. However, ESPN’s Bracketology again has the MAC as a one-bid league." - that confuses Elton... "So go figure. ESPN envisions three MAC NCAA Tournament teams, or one."
Why would Kent State's 'worst loss' be against #24 Louisville, when they also lost to #47 Liberty. I had thought that the Liberty loss was pretty bad, but now I see they're up to 113th in Sagarin, so it wasn't so bad. If 'The Net' has Kent at 97th, and Liberty at 47th, why would that be a bad loss at all?
RE: MAC Hoops Whiparound - Muskrat - 01-04-2019 04:06 PM
The way the traditional news media (TV, radio, newspapers), including sports, have been cutting staffing and cutting coverage for years now, I'm actually surprised the Plain Dealer still covers the MAC at all. Alexander has always been tougher on Kent State than Akron, but I have no idea why.
The "6th man" is more of a role than an indication that a player is part of the "bench". Red Auerbach popularized that role with the Celtics back in the 1950's, but I don't know if he was the first to use that concept. More important is what five players get the most minutes and what five are on the court at the end of a close game. Don't forget that until the MAC tournament of his second season Trevor Huffman came off the bench, but he was always in the game at crunch time. Myself, I don't consider Walker a bench player. He's second only to Avery in average minutes per game.
RE: MAC Hoops Whiparound - anti-zip - 01-04-2019 06:16 PM
(01-04-2019 08:45 AM)burden Wrote:(01-04-2019 12:33 AM)anti-zip Wrote:(01-03-2019 10:42 PM)cschierh Wrote: Interesting piece from Elton Alexander.
https://www.cleveland.com/sports/2019/01/is-the-mid-american-conference-a-two-bid-ncaa-tournament-league-new-metrics-say-yes-but-not-all-agree.html?ath=08c3a5f6492a6ec8218d023e0351e9ab#cmpid=nsltr_stryheadline
It's amusing the article is about 'new metrics' yet one of the 4 he mentions is RPI. I didn't know anyone that followed college basketball still looked at RPI.
Also amusing that he says Kent needs to get more from it's bench. Heck even the Pac12 article knew that Walker is coming off the bench.
Remember your talking about Elton. I will say that bench scoring is an overrated statistic precisely because of players like Walker. We know he is a starter and his minutes reflect it. To say our bench is okay just because the coach won’t start him is fooling yourself. Our 6-8 or 9 players need to score more. Walker is not one of those.
Ok, so because Walker plays starter minutes you don't view him as a bench player, that's fine. But then that means you have to include one of the starters in what you consider the bench. Thanks to his foul addiction Whittington is playing the fewest minutes of the top 6, so by that logic we get to include him in our bench? Instead of getting into who is a starter and who isn't let's look at it this way, our rotation is 9 deep right now. That's a pretty standard rotation. So what are our #6-9 players giving us?
Here's the points per game on our #6-9 players (in MPG) over the last 3 years.
- 2018/19 - 21.9 ppg
- 2017/18 - 15 ppg
- 2016/17 - 15.7
You might say, well Walker missing the start of the season means some of those guys numbers are inflated because there were more minutes to go around while he was out... that's fair. So let's look at our #6-9 players points per 40 minutes.
-2018/19 - 55.5 points per 40 minutes
-2017/18 - 40.6 points per 40 minutes
-2016/17 - 41.8 points per 40 minutes
So our "bench" is giving us more scoring right now than it did the previous two seasons even if you don't think of Walker as a bench player.
RE: MAC Hoops Whiparound - Muskrat - 01-04-2019 07:55 PM
I think the rotation is pretty good. I would like to see a player or two step up a little more though, like Duling. Or Peterson scoring more.
RE: MAC Hoops Whiparound - burden - 01-04-2019 09:20 PM
(01-04-2019 06:16 PM)anti-zip Wrote:Good data. My only point was criticizing Elton for not including Walker as a bench player wasn’t right (I can’t believe I’m defending Elton).(01-04-2019 08:45 AM)burden Wrote:(01-04-2019 12:33 AM)anti-zip Wrote:(01-03-2019 10:42 PM)cschierh Wrote: Interesting piece from Elton Alexander.
https://www.cleveland.com/sports/2019/01/is-the-mid-american-conference-a-two-bid-ncaa-tournament-league-new-metrics-say-yes-but-not-all-agree.html?ath=08c3a5f6492a6ec8218d023e0351e9ab#cmpid=nsltr_stryheadline
It's amusing the article is about 'new metrics' yet one of the 4 he mentions is RPI. I didn't know anyone that followed college basketball still looked at RPI.
Also amusing that he says Kent needs to get more from it's bench. Heck even the Pac12 article knew that Walker is coming off the bench.
Remember your talking about Elton. I will say that bench scoring is an overrated statistic precisely because of players like Walker. We know he is a starter and his minutes reflect it. To say our bench is okay just because the coach won’t start him is fooling yourself. Our 6-8 or 9 players need to score more. Walker is not one of those.
Ok, so because Walker plays starter minutes you don't view him as a bench player, that's fine. But then that means you have to include one of the starters in what you consider the bench. Thanks to his foul addiction Whittington is playing the fewest minutes of the top 6, so by that logic we get to include him in our bench? Instead of getting into who is a starter and who isn't let's look at it this way, our rotation is 9 deep right now. That's a pretty standard rotation. So what are our #6-9 players giving us?
Here's the points per game on our #6-9 players (in MPG) over the last 3 years.
- 2018/19 - 21.9 ppg
- 2017/18 - 15 ppg
- 2016/17 - 15.7
You might say, well Walker missing the start of the season means some of those guys numbers are inflated because there were more minutes to go around while he was out... that's fair. So let's look at our #6-9 players points per 40 minutes.
-2018/19 - 55.5 points per 40 minutes
-2017/18 - 40.6 points per 40 minutes
-2016/17 - 41.8 points per 40 minutes
So our "bench" is giving us more scoring right now than it did the previous two seasons even if you don't think of Walker as a bench player.
RE: MAC Hoops Whiparound - burden - 01-04-2019 09:27 PM
(01-04-2019 04:06 PM)Muskrat Wrote: The way the traditional news media (TV, radio, newspapers), including sports, have been cutting staffing and cutting coverage for years now, I'm actually surprised the Plain Dealer still covers the MAC at all. Alexander has always been tougher on Kent State than Akron, but I have no idea why.
The "6th man" is more of a role than an indication that a player is part of the "bench". Red Auerbach popularized that role with the Celtics back in the 1950's, but I don't know if he was the first to use that concept. More important is what five players get the most minutes and what five are on the court at the end of a close game. Don't forget that until the MAC tournament of his second season Trevor Huffman came off the bench, but he was always in the game at crunch time. Myself, I don't consider Walker a bench player. He's second only to Avery in average minutes per game.
I think Elton’s bias against Kent goes back to him being forced to cover the Kent women in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. It was a PD effort to cover women’s sports and he did a poor job. In fact that’s where my anti Elton bias came from as half of his articles were flat out wrong. At times he didn’t even know who the point guard was. Also as you might imagine he and Lindsay weren’t exactly buddies. Just speculation but his body language was terrible at those games. You can be sure he doesn’t consider it the pinnacle of his career.
RE: MAC Hoops Whiparound - anti-zip - 01-04-2019 10:28 PM
Woa. Ball St opens MAC play with a 15 point win at Toledo.
RE: MAC Hoops Whiparound - JimJoyce - 01-04-2019 10:31 PM
I know it’s one game but I have thought UT was smoke and mirrors all year.
RE: MAC Hoops Whiparound - flash77 - 01-04-2019 10:55 PM
(01-04-2019 10:31 PM)JimJoyce Wrote: I know it’s one game but I have thought UT was smoke and mirrors all year.
I think the term that comes to mind is "UT played soft." Going against UB next is going to be very difficult. 0-2 to start MAC play will put them in a big hole.
RE: MAC Hoops Whiparound - dannyb73 - 01-05-2019 10:27 AM
(01-04-2019 08:53 AM)burden Wrote: Maybe it’s just me but this is a team that so far doesn’t even come close to fitting a normal distribution. Playing for the most part a very weak schedule and winning in more than one case just barely (heck with 30 seconds left in the first half they were leading Oberlin by only 23-20). In there tougher games they beat Oregon St and Vanderbilt on the road and got beat by Liberty and routed by Louisville.
Their record looks great but there are some warning lights flashing. In 3 or 4 games we will know a lot better. It will be interesting to see what happens when Conference teams who know Kent well start to play us.
While your post is correct, what it tells me is how tough this team is. Tough teams find a way to win. Scratch, claw, and fight. We will see.