The Madness Hasn't Been Kind to the Regular Season Champ

Coastal Carolina Winning 2014 Big South Championship

One thing has become permanently clear in these two weeks coming up to Selection Sunday this season.  If you're the regular season conference champion, chances are you haven't likely fared too well in your conference tournament.    With Louisiana Tech losing to Tulsa last night in the Conference USA championship, that means now twelve mid major level conference regular season champions will have now have an automatic NIT bid because they lost in their conference tournament; Louisiana Tech, Florida Gulf Coast, Boston University, Vermont, Belmont, Robert Morris, UC Irvine, Iona, Green Bay, Utah Valley, High Point and Davidson.  If Georgia State loses in the Sun Belt Conference championship today, it will make it an even Baker's Dozen.

Robert-Morris-LIU 2011 NEC Championship

But it's not been just the mid major conference tournaments where the number #1 seed has gone down.  Villanova and St Louis, both #1 seeds, went down in the quarterfinals in the Big East and A-10 tournaments respectively.  Kansas lost in the semis to Iowa State in the Big 12.  Cincinnati lost in the AAC semifinals to UConn.   Yesterday, San Diego State lost to New Mexico in the Mountain West finals.  Arizona jeopardized a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament by losing to UCLA in the Pac12 finals.

Now for all those regular season championship non mid major level teams that I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the conference tournament didn't mean too much to them, since they were all guaranteed a bid to the NCAA Tournament.  Still, it likely affected several team's seedings in the NCAA Tournament, especially St Louis.

2012 CAA Tournament - George Mason v. VCU

As of this morning, only eight regular season championship teams won their conference tournament and got the automatic NCAA bid; Wichita State (Missouri Valley), Gonzaga (WCC), NC Central (MEAC), Weber State (Big Sky), Southern (SWAC), North Dakota State (Summit), Delaware (CAA) and Western Michigan (MAC).  A ninth team that won the regular season championship, Harvard in the Ivy League, got an automatic bid since the Ivy doesn't have a post conference tournament.

So why has it been so difficult for regular season champions across the board to win their postseason conference tournaments?   Well, there are several reasons.

1. Complacency on the Non Mid Major Level - Let's be honest, it's hard for some Power Conference teams that have a guaranteed spot in the NCAA Tournament to maintain their focus and level of play.   It's also difficult for those teams when playing similarly talented teams on that level.  Case in point, Villanova and St Louis.   Both teams played decent opponents in the quarterfinal rounds of their tournament;Seton Hall and St. Bonaventure. Both the Pirates and the Bonnies needed to run the table to win, so they went all out and caught the Wildcats and Billikens napping.  It happens.
2. Quality of Opponent - On the power conference level, you have ranked teams playing each other in the semifinals, even sometimes in the quarterfinals in the conference tournament.  So there certainly is very little difference between Kansas and Iowa State, Cincinnati and UConn, San Diego State and New Mexico, and Arizona and UCLA.   Cincinnati only received the #1 seed, because they won a coin flip vs. Louisville, who ended up winning the AAC.
   
   This has also been true for some of the smaller conference tournaments.  Florida Gulf Coast, the #1 seed, lost the Atlantic Sun championship game on its home court to Mercer, the #2 seed.   The Bears were returning the favor from a year ago when the Eagles won on Mercer's home court in the A-Sun championship.  Boston U, the #1 seed, lost the Patriot Conference Championship on their home court to the #2 seed, American.  Finally, Iona lost to the #2 seed Manhattan in the MAAC Conference Tournament final, a team they split with during the regular season.
3. "Neutral Site" Tournaments - This is where many of the mid major regular season champions got tripped up.  There are a good number of mid major level tournaments that are hosted on "neutral" sites for likely monetary reasons.   In one case in particular, the America East, the first two rounds conference tournament has been held on one of the conference member sites (the championship has been held on the higher seed's home court).  In this season and last season, it was hosted by Albany.  And in the last two seasons, Albany has knocked off the #1 seed in the semifinals (2013 - Stony Brook, 2014 - Vermont).  The Great Danes have used this momentum in both seasons to win the conference tournament, knocking off Vermont and Stony Brook on those school's respective home courts.
   
   The Big South also has a "neutral site" conference tournament that's hosted by one of its schools, Coastal Carolina, with a little help from the Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce.  High Point lost on a buzzer beater in the quarterfinals to Winthrop, which opened the door for the host Chanticleers to win the Big South Tournament.
   
   Once conference that used to be held in Albany and was moved to a true neutral site, due to concerns about Siena's home court advantage, is the MAAC.  The MAAC Tournament has been held in Springfield, "MAAChusetts" the last couple of seasons, which is where Iona lost to Manhattan in the championship this year.  However, attendance has been so bad in Springfield, the MAAC is considering other sites, including bring the tournament back to Albany.
   
   Other conference tournaments also use true neutral sites.  Asheville hosted the Southern Conference Tournament, where Davidson got knocked off by Western Carolina in the semifinals.  The WAC hosted their tournament at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, which is where Utah Valley lost to Idaho in the conference semifinals.   Finally the Big West was held in Anaheim, California, where Cal Poly used the momentum from knocking off #1 seed UC Irvine to beat CS Northridge in the Big West Championship.
   
   Many people, including myself, don't think neutral site championships are fair on the mid major level. It's one thing where Power Six conferences or next level conferences like the Mountain West and A-10 can hold neutral site tournaments based on crowd attendance (it even works with the Missouri Valley to a lesser extent).  But at the Southern, WAC or Big West levels, a neutral site doesn't really draw a large crowd to justify a neutral site.  And in the case of the skewered America East host school "neutral site" tournament, it certainly doesn't justify that.
   
   To me and others, it doesn't reward all the work that regular season championship teams have done to finish in first and it also often doesn't put the best conference team in the tournament.   That's why I think the Ivy League has no post season tournament.  The regular season champion that was consistently best all season earns the automatic bid.
   
   It's my opinion that mid major conferences either go to an Atlantic Sun/NEC based tournament, where the higher seeds host the conference games throughout the various levels of the tournament or move to a Horizon League Tournament, where the #1 seed hosts the first two rounds of the tournament and the championship is held on the highest remaining seed's court.  Thus teams will be rewarding for a regular season accomplishment.  But...
    
4. Even With Home Court Advantage, Some Schools Can't Stand Prosperity - Even with the home court advantage, four regular season champions fell by the wayside in their conference tournament.  Green Bay, the Horizon League Regular Season Champion, again lost to Milwaukee on its home court in the conference semifinals.  The Phoenix lost at home to the Panthers earlier in the season.   As noted, Florida Gulf Coast lost at home to Mercer in the A-Sun finals.  Finally, Robert Morris lost at home in the NEC finals to Mount St Mary's.

2011 CAA Tournament - VCU v. George Mason

It's been the craziest conference tournament season I can ever remember.  And as a result, a lot of NIT hopefuls will be now scrambling for bids to the CIT and CBI, Defiantly Dutch's favorite tournament.  This season has shown, now more than ever, with rare exceptions, the regular season doesn't mean a thing.

I love conference tournaments, especially considering all the years I have been to the CAA Tournament, let alone NEC and Big South championship games.  Some of my favorite memories have come from sitting in a usually cold Richmond Coliseum, especially the 2011 and 2012 #CAAHoops semifinals.  There's nothing better than a sold out, raucous crowd during a conference tournament.  I will always remember fondly sitting in the Blackbirds' student section during LIU's overtime win over Robert Morris in the 2011 NEC Tournament final.

But sometimes, on the fairness level of conference tournaments and regular season champions, I think the Ivy League knows best.

When Bad Beats Worse (Recap of Wagner vs. Hofstra)

I have seen my share of ugly basketball games over the years, on TV and in person.  In December of 2009, I witnessed in person Hofstra defeat Manhattan 44-39.   It was two hours of my life that I wouldn't get back and I noted various painful statistics from that game in my recap of the game.  It was one of those nights when bad beat worse.

Tonight was another one of those nights, though this was going to be a game I would be watching online 750 miles away in Columbia, South Carolina.  It was clear early on that things were not going to go well.  First, the Hofstra video feed was having issues.  The video was working fine.  The problem was no audio.   After several minutes, which included losing the picture, the feed came back with audio.  The problem was the audio was the WRHU feed, not the play by play feed which was on 1190 AM in New York.  So instead of play by play, you heard actors playing out a scene from a play.  After a few seconds, I had to mute the feed.  Eventually that was fixed.

Unfortunately, the Hofstra AV crew couldn't fix the play of Wagner and Hofstra the first twenty minutes.  There were long stretches of play where no points were scored. At the under sixteen minute media timeout, the score was 2-2.  At the under twelve minute media timeout, the score was 8-6 Seahawks.  With 3:23 left, the two teams combined for fifty four possessions and thirty four combined total points.   Hofstra entered halftime up 24-19.

(Warning, the faint of heart should not read the next paragraph due to the gratuitous violent nature of bad first half stats).

Wagner was 8 of 27 from the field in the first half, including 1 of 7 from beyond the arc. The Seahawks also had ten turnovers compared to just two assists.  Hofstra was 2 of 9 from the foul line. Taran Buie had an ugly first half trifecta - 1 of 7 from the field, 0 for 2 from beyond the arc and 0 for 3 from the foul line. Steve Mejia didn't do much better - 1 of 6 from the field, 0 for 2 from beyond the arc and 2 for 5 from the foul line.

The two teams didn't fare any better at the start of the second half.  It took three minutes for Hofstra to hit their first field goal.  At the under sixteen minute media timeout, the Pride were still up on the Seahawks at 26-23.

But Wagner was in the middle of a 12-2 run to go up 31-26 with 13:15 left.  The Seahawks press was starting to bother the Pride as the Seahawks forced nine second half turnovers.  Steve Mejia struggled to hold onto the ball on the night.  He had seven assists but also six turnovers.

Wagner was still up five, 34-29 with about eleven and a half minutes left.  The Seahawks then couldn't score for the next two minutes.  The problem was neither could the Pride. After Eric Fanning made two free throws to give Wagner their largest lead of the game at that time, Buie scored the next six points to cut the Seahawks lead to one, 36-35.

However Hofstra never could tie the game or take the lead the rest of the way.  This was due in large part to shooting eight of nineteen from the foul line.  Mejia had an awful night.  To go with his six turnovers, Mejia shot 1 of 11 from the field and 3 of 7 from the line.

Buie had a much better second half for the Pride, scoring fourteen points in the last twenty minutes.  The problem was the rest of his teammates only scored six points in the second half.  Hofstra shot 6 of 21 from the field in the second half with Buie making four of those shots.

Wagner didn't exactly the light the world on fire from the field in the second half, shooting 9 of 26 in the second half.  But the Seahawks lit up the foul line, shooting 15 of 18 from the charity stripe in the second half.  Wagner would go onto win 52-44.

Kenny Ortiz led Wagner with 15 points and Mario Moody added 12.points.  The Seahawks had fourteen offensive rebounds which helped give them a 13-4 margin in second chance points.  Wagner won despite missing their best player, Latif Rivers, who likely won't be back until January.

Buie led all scorers with 16 points, but no other Pride player was in double figures.  Walk-on Matt Grogan had another nice night with seven points and Stephen Nwaukoni had eleven rebounds.

Hofstra has now lost four straight games after their three game sweep in the 2K Classic Subregional and will now play another NEC team, LIU on their home court in Brooklyn,   Wagner has a home game against Coppin State.

Both teams had a chance to win tonight, but in the future they will need to play a lot better.  You can win ugly, but not that often.

The Paul Westhead Invitational

Yesterday was an exasperating day.  I can't get into details, but I was agitated when I got home.  Thankfully, salvation was only ninety minutes away, for I had this game between LIU and Iona circled on my calendar.  I knew I was going to see a game that "The Guru of Go" would truly love.

Westhead is the creator of "The System".  It's based on simple math - More Possessions + More Shot Attempts = More Points.  And there are no two better examples of  "The System" than LIU and Iona, led by their proponents, Blackbirds' coach Jim Ferry and Gaels' coach Tim Cluess.. Last season, LIU was fourth in the nation in scoring at 82.7 points per game and fifth in the country in possessions per game at 70.6.  Meanwhile, Iona is currently first in the country averaging 94 points per game and second in assists at 21.3.  

"The System" has worked for both teams.  LIU made the NCAA Tournament after winning the NEC championship.  Meanwhile Iona made the MAAC Conference Tournament finals, then the CIT finals and are the heavy favorites to win the MAAC this season.  This was going to be the basketball version of the Penn Relays (Google it).  I had the over/under for points scored for last night's game at 180.

I was hoping to bring my basketball buddy, my older son Matthew to the game last night, knowing he would love this fast pace, high scoring game.  But he had homework to do, so daddy went off by himself to New Rochelle.  As I got there, there was another good crowd on hand at the Hynes Center.  Not as good as the game vs. St Joseph's last Wednesday, but the one side of bleachers was basically full.

As expected, the game got off to a rip roaring, albeit sloppy start.  The Gaels went out to an 11-2 lead.  But the Blackbirds came back and cut the deficit to four, 23-19.  By this time, both teams had a combined nine turnovers, but of course forty two points.  After Jermel Jenkins hit a three pointer to make it 26-19, the Gaels had eight possessions where they used 10 seconds or less of the shot clock.

The game was still close, 33-29 with a little less than six minutes left when Iona when on a 21-9 run to end the half.  It was led by their two best players, Michael Glover and Scott Machado, who combined for twelve of the twenty one half ending points.  The Gaels were up 54-38 at the half.

The halftime entertainment consisted of two of my favorite things.  One, a local catholic school boys team played at the half.  And they emulated the two college teams by playing end to end action.  The other was hearing the always terrific Iona Pep Band playing songs like "Peg", "Brickhouse" and some Stevie Wonder and KC and the Sunshine Band tunes.   While all this was going on, I honestly thought I might see more points scored in the second twenty minutes than the first twenty minutes.

And at the start of the second half, Iona came out with the intention of doing exactly that. Within barely the first eight minutes, the Gaels outscored the Blackbirds 33-17.  During this time, Iona forced eight LIU turnovers.  Meanwhile, Glover was terrorizing the Blackbirds, scoring at will inside while Jermel Jenkins scored at will from the outside with three point bombs.  With twelve minutes left, Iona was up 87-55.  The  game for all intensive purposes was over and the question was, when would the Gaels score one hundred points?

Someone though forgot to tell the Blackbirds the game was over.  LIU outscored Iona 19-3 over the next nearly eight minutes.  The Gaels actually went scoreless for about four and a half minutes during that stretch. The score was 90-74.  But a layup by who else, Glover, made sure the score didn't get any closer.

Iona finally scored one hundred points on a layup by Machado 2:19 left. At that point, the crowd started to file out.  The Gaels would not score again, but they already had done enough damage.  LIU managed to score their season average from last season, eighty two, but lose by eighteen, 100-82.   Had Iona not had that scoring drought in the second half, the teams would have easily eclipsed the point total for the first half.  But ninety points in the second half certainly wasn't bad.

Glover had another double double with twenty eight points and fourteen rebounds. Machado had another double double as well with fourteen points and ten assists.  Jamal Olasewere led LIU with twenty points.  The two teams combined for forty two assists and forty turnovers.  Iona now heads out on the road for the entire month of December. Meanwhile, LIU already has to start defending its NEC conference championship on Thursday against an improved Wagner team.  No rest for the weary.

As I left the Hynes Center and headed to my car, I thought of one thing.  Someone should send Paul Westhead a plane ticket to New York.  He should catch a couple of Iona and LIU games.  He would be so proud.

LIU vs Hofstra Preview - Things to Watch For Tonight

There is no better way to spend your early Friday morning (and when I mean early Friday morning, I mean 2:15 AM) then dividing up your Hofstra season tickets into three neat piles.  One for my friend Tony, one for my friend Mal, and two for my older son Matthew and me.  As much as I talked about the Queens - Hofstra exhibition game starting the season, tonight is the first home game of the season that actually counts.

This promises to be a very good game. LIU won the NEC championship on its home court in Brooklyn in March.  Then the Blackbirds proceeded to give North Carolina fits for a good fifteen minutes in their first round NCAA Tournament game (game was tied at 33 with five minutes left in the first half) before losing by only fifteen 102-87.  

Meanwhile, Hofstra is playing it's first regular season game in the post Charles Jenkins era.  It's the return of Nat Lester after missing a year due to a quad injury.  The Pride are coming off a fine 2010-11 season themselves, going 14-4 in the CAA, 21-12 overall and finishing third in a conference that had three teams make the NCAA Tournament (George Mason, ODU and of course VCU).  Second leading scorer Mike Moore returns with Lester as well to give Hofstra a good one-two scoring punch.

LIU is picked to finish first again in the NEC.  Meanwhile, Hofstra has been picked to finish somewhere in the middle of the CAA.   Then again, the Pride were picked around the same spot a season ago, and we all know what happened.

So now that I hopefully have drawn you all in for tonight's action, here are some things to look for in the game.

• Contrast of Styles? - LIU was fourth in the nation last season in points per game at 82.  They were also fifth in the country last season in possessions per game, 70.6.  The Blackbirds averaged 1.07 points per possession.  It's high octane basketball at its finest.  The Pride need to slow the pace down somewhat and keep the game in the 60s - low 70s.  If they try to run with LIU, it could be a long night for Hofstra.
• Old Dominion, Drexel, LIU.  What do they have in common?  Rebounding.  Amazingly, the Blackbirds were third in the nation in rebounds, 41.8.  Julian Boyd averaged 8.9 rebounds per game last season, while Jamal Olasewere averaged 6.8.   Rebounding was a weakness of Hofstra's last season. With the additions of Moussa Kone and Bryant Crowder, along with the returning David Imes, the Pride will need to keep the Blackbirds off the glass.
• Ball Possession - Very few teams were better at it than the Pride last season.  Hofstra was first in the CAA in assists to turnover ratio and third in the CAA in turnover margin.  It will be critical for the Pride to maintain ball possession against one of the best teams in the country in points per possession in the Blackbirds.
• Free Throw Shooting - It could come down to the little things.  Hofstra was first in the CAA in free throw shooting last season while LIU was 10th in the NEC.  Advantage Pride.
• Experience - LIU returns six of its eight top players from last season.  Hofstra only returns two starters, Moore and Imes.  However Lester was a starter/sixth man for the Pride over his first three seasons, while point guard Steve Mejia has two years experience playing for Rhode Island.   As Nick Bakay would say, "Push".
• Are you a Joey Rodriguez fan?  Do you miss him?  Well, Hofstra fans don't do a double take when you see Jason Brickman tonight.  He looks a lot like Rodriguez and he plays like Rodriguez.  Brickman averaged 5.5 assists per game last season.  Brickman vs. Mejia, who had one of the best assists to turnover ratio in the A-10 in the 2009-10 season,  should be an entertaining matchup

This promises to be an entertaining game tonight.  It's also Fanfest, so bring the kiddies early and let them romp around.  Pack the Mack and celebrate 11-11-11!