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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 893295, member: 289"] With Gomez: Gomez recently finished second in a comedy competition at the Funny Bone in destiny USA. He won $50 but lost to an 18 year old from Rochester. Jim congratulated him for winning the money but commiserated with him for losing to an 18 year old from Rochester. They discussed Bruce Springsteen’s new album that has gotten mixed reviews. Gomez wondered if it would still be on JB’s new I-Pad. “I like him. But I don’t listen to music much. I like it but I don’t think about it.” Jim likes the I-pad because it’s easier to read on an airplane and you can get basketball games on it, too. Matt was still working on the team stats without Hawaii. He about had it done but it printed out “across the room”. Gomez said that some of the stats they use these days “sound like they were made up” and cited something he read that Tyler Ennis was leading the country in “Win Shares”. Neither he nor JB knew what that meant. If you look up “Win Shares” on Wikipedia: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Win_shares[/url] you will find this sentence: “The formula for calculating win shares is complicated; it takes up pages 16–100 in the book.” That’s about all I need to know about it. We aren’t trying to put a man on the Moon here, just to figure out what happened in a basketball game. Coach said he looks at rebounding, turnovers, shooting percentage, etc. The simple stuff. That’s been good enough for 937 wins to date, so I guess it’s enough. Matt finally gave us a few percentages and the differences. I decided to do some statisticizing myself: Overall, we are averaging 72.8 points to 58.4 for our opponents. The NCAA rankings are only updated weekly and the current ones don’t include the BC game but by last week’s numbers, we would rank 165th in scoring and our scoring defense would rank #8. (Remember when we used to be thought of as a run and gun offensive team?). In Hawaii we averaged 80.3 and our opposition 71.7, which would change those rankings to 33rd and 211th. If you take Hawaii out of the sample, we are averaging 71.1 (209th) and giving up 55.6 (3rd). On overall field goal percentage we are shooting .459 (105th) and giving up .414, (97th). In Hawaii we shot .491 (14th) to .503 (340th). Without Hawaii our numbers are .451 (143rd) vs. .394 (37th). The NCAA doesn’t separate out 2 point field goal percentage, (as they should: it’s the most important stat in the game) but here they are: Overall: .501-.482. Hawaii .515-.582 (ouch!). Non-Hawaii: .498-.332. I think we were so focused on covering the shooters in Hawaii that we didn’t both to stop anything inside. Our opponents took 62 three pointers in three games vs. 91 two-pointers, (40.5%). We were 39/134, (22.5%). Overall we have hit 35.1% of our treys (127th) to .332 (140th). In Hawaii: .410 (12th) vs. .387 (325th). Non-Hawaii: .341 (170th) vs. .320 (94th). We have hit 69.6% of our free throws (168th). Our opposition had hit .670. There’s not such thing as “free throw defense” but that would ranked the opponent #252 as a free throw shooting team. In Hawaii we hit a ridiculous .887, 55 for 62 which would be #1 in the country by 90 percentage points. Our opponents hit .740 (39th). Non-Hawaii: .661 (272nd) vs. .655 (289th). Hawaii’s rims sure helped but we did shoot pretty well on our own, especially from the line and we gave up a lot defending the threes. Gomez complains that our RPI differs depending on who is figuring it out. JB said that it depended on what information they feed in to it. You would think that would be standard. I called in my second question after first discussing Win Shares, per above and suggesting that Matt compute our Win Shares in Hawaii. (He declined.) I also thought the smart guys at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could come up with a better system than RPI. JB: “The official scorer, as a courtesy is supposed to ask the coaches for their starting line-ups 10 minutes before the game. They never did and he put in the starters we had had before- he thought. It would have been a technical foul if we hadn’t started what he put down. I’ve never had that happen in 38 years. There’s a first time for everything.” Gomez asked what would have happened if DaJuan Coleman had had to play. “He’s sore. He hasn’t responded to treatments. He’s got to be able to practice hard with no swelling. He gives us another weapon inside. This provides Tyler Roberson with an opportunity off the bench.” Gomez described Pittsburgh as “Old School- two former Big East teams getting together.” JB: “They are still good- one of the best teams in the country. They discussed the number of transfers playing for various teams across the country. JB: “It’s close to 500 just in D-1. Kids aren’t happy and want more and more and they don’t do any better wherever they go. But their people think they are better than what they are. Trevor Cooney could have transferred and be sitting out this year.” How does a player transfer in? “He must first get a release from the school he is attending. Then other schools can talk to him. Usually the player picks a school. Rarely, he might talk to 2-3 schools, looking for the exact right place.” JB seems to have a higher opinion of the players who transferred in, (Leo Rautins, Ryan Blackwell, Wes Johnson) than of the ones who transferred out. Gomez brought up the Chane Behannan situation. He’s not “auditioning” for Colorado State. JB: “It was not a contentious relationship with the coach. it was an issue with the university. Coach Pitino gave him numerous chances- 2-3 suspension- to get the problem resolved. “ Gomez asked if he’d rather have a marginal player that gave him no problems or a great player who was a “maintenance guy”. JB: “When you are dealing with 18-22 year old players you are going to have issues. You have to work through them. Most guys know the deal here. You choose it. There are 8-10 players out of 3500, (I assume he means at Division 1 schools) who cause problems. We brand kids by a couple or a few. 90%+ go to class and play basketball. You don’t read about them. It’s not a story. 50-60 guys get into fights on Marshall Street over a weekend. But only athletes make the papers. Behannan’s loss will hurt them. They also lost Dieng from last year’s team. Their two big men. But they are still very good.” Mark wanted to know how JB reacted to Trevor Cooney blowing a wide-open lay-up, calling it “a freak of nature”. JB: “He got up and was off-balance and did focus as much as he should have. You just move on and kid him about it later. When something very good or very bad happens, it’s best to just move on.” Unless… “It’s a bad pass or a bad shot, not working hard enough or being out of position on defense. It’s no good to correct it later.” Rickie in Syracuse predicted that we will win the national championship and said that this time reminds him of our 2003 team, full of weapons with great chemistry, etc. JB: “I’ll go along with that.” Gomez noted that we are now down to three unbeaten teams- Arizona, Syracuse and Wichita State. JB There’s a long way to go. You’ve just started when the conference schedule begins.” Gomez also noted that a couple of teams we faced with possibly having to forfeit games because they didn’t realize that their opponent had not yet re-classified as Division 2 despite joining Division 1 conferences: [url]http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/92437/ncaa-rules-force-schools-into-forfeits[/url] JB said the proper decision was not to apply the rules too harshly and he thinks the NCAA did the right thing in not demanding the forfeits. Mike wanted to know if Carmelo Anthony was “a Baltimore guy or a New York guy”. JB: “He’s spent most of this time in Baltimore. He was in New York when he was younger. He has a good feeling for New York.” Did he have a favorite NBA team when he played at SU? “I don’t know. But he always wanted to play in New York. He’ll be a free agent. I don’t know what he’ll do.” Taylor called in on a garbled cell-phone. Gomez credited him with “a keen observation”. Taylor tried again. Apparently he was asking “Does anybody ever come you to you and tell you that you stink?” or something like that. JB: “I try not to think about that.” Gomez thanked Taylor for his call and they moved on. Tim said that Tyler Ennis and Trevor Cooney “didn’t do much vs. North Carolina. If they shoot the lights out, we are unbeatable.” JB: “Nobody ever plays good all the time. You hope when one guy’s down others will pick you up. And if the shots aren’t falling, players have to find other ways to contribute.” They talked about the NBA. Miami has lost three in a row and were down by 32 to the Wizards at one point. “If the Heat are healthy they will be the team to beat.” Greg Oden got into a game. “Bad knees on big guys don’t just get better.” LeBron expressed “jealousy” about how many shots Kevin Durrant is allowed to take. “If he wanted to he’d take more shots. He’s LeBron. He has the ball all the time. Don’t worry about LeBron James. He’s very happy.” Anthony Bennett may have go to the “D” league. “He’s not a ‘bust’ in his first year. He’s still an 18-19 year old kid.” Actually, he’s 20: [url]http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/2991473/anthony-bennett[/url] The NBA is trying to crack down on flopping. “They are trying to get it out of the game with fines and punishments. They are watching ti more closely this year.” How about simply not calling it a foul? Mark Cuban said he wants to draw one more fine before David Stern retires. They remembered when Cuban had to work at a Dairy Queen for saying that Ed Rush, the NBA’s director of officiating “couldn’t manage a Dairy Queen”. John wanted to know if the Big East has lost its “automatic qualifier” for the BCS and can they sue about it? “The decision is made by a committee they are one so they can’t sue. People were moving out because of fear that they’d lose their automatic qualifier.” Of course, if they didn’t move out, they wouldn’t have.” Maryland has its own law suit to try to get out of paying $50 million to the ACC. “You can’t blame them. The lawyers will be the big winners.” Pat wondered how the new emphasis in the rules was affecting “defensive philosophies”. JB: “They are now calling things they weren’t calling. Conference play is usually more physical. They are trying not to have that happen. It’s too early to tell. We’ll see. Whatever they do or don’t call you have to play the game and not let it affect your play.” Nathan in Nedrow wondered if Jim liked coaching a deep team like the Onuaku team, (I assume he means 2009-10) or one like this year’s team with more of a set line-up. “We have 7-8 guys. You can play 7 or 9. We’d like to have one more guy playing, (Coleman).” Instant replay in baseball? “Get it right. That’s what’s important.” Clayton Kershaw’s new contract? “He’s good and they have a lot of money.” JB said that his daughter is a fan of both the Yankees and the Red Sox. “She obviously doesn’t know a lot about baseball.” Kevin in Syracuse was a young fan. He said he liked the coach and that he was a great coach. So was his father, who could be heard in the background feeding Kevin his lines. JB: “Thanks. I need all the fans I can get.” [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?