Tuesday links: Waiting for the schedule
Posted by kj on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
We’re still waiting for the release of the full Michigan State basketball schedule. Reportedly, the Big Ten is mandating that all 11 schools wait until all the BTN schedule details are in place. UMHoops has a source who says it’s going to be a while before that happens (although the Columbus Dispatch says Ohio State will release their schedule tomorrow). Meanwhile, some posters at the RCMB have pieced together all (or nearly all) of the nonconference games. In addition to the major nonconference games we already knew about, we’re slated to play Idaho, Bradley, Alcorn State, and Citadel at home–plus Oakland at the Palace.
Illinois is taking a page from MSU and U-M’s “Cold War” and holding their opening basketball practice in their football stadium. This brings to mind Gene Keady’s quip that he had a pretty good outside shooting team . . . but unfortunately all their games were played inside.
Penn State has wrapped up an undefeated four-game preseason tour against Canadian teams in the Toronto area.
Indiana is #6 on Beyond the Arc’s list of all-time greatest college basketball programs.
Dion Sims’ recruitment should be an interesting one to watch. The Detroit News reports he’s received offers from all the major college football powers, but has his heart set on playing basketball (only) in college at this point. His only basketball offers to date are from Iowa and Penn State. Sims is a 6′6″, 230-pound senior from Orchard Lake St. Mary’s. (In looking for more information on Sims, I see that Scout.com is reporting he’s injured and may miss most/all of the football season. I’m not a subscriber, so that’s all I know.)
Discussion question: Is MSU the most overrated basketball program in the country, as the data would seem to indicate?
« « MSU-Cal Discussion Thread | The wait is over » »
Filed in links8 responses so far
8 Responses to “Tuesday links: Waiting for the schedule”
GBBoundon 03 Sep 2008 at 12:58 pm 1Well, the Big Ten Schedule has been released:
http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/sc.....hedule.pdf
GBBoundon 03 Sep 2008 at 12:59 pm 23 of 1st 4, 5 of 1st 8 on the road.
Northwestern 2 of the first 6 games
Ohio State 2 of the first 7 games
No game at Wisconsin
No Michigan at home.
DP99on 03 Sep 2008 at 2:02 pm 3Well I will say that the media love themselves some Tom Izzo. Absolutely no question. That ranking may be overstated because of the couple of years where MSU really “underachived” compared to the preseason rank. In 05 and 07 MSU started off really high, and a couple of the Paul Davis years too. I don’t have any numbers on me, but I’ll theorize if you start off top-10 and end up in the 20s that’s still affecting that average diff a lot.
kjon 03 Sep 2008 at 2:49 pm 4Before I forget amidst the release of the schedule, my take on the “overrated” data:
1) Looking through the names on the lists–especially the “Since 2000″ list–this is not a bad list to be on. All the elite programs–who of course have higher expectations going into most seasons–are there.
2) MSU’s #1 position on the 2000 list (and 1990 list since the post-2000 years dominate the average on the 1990 list) reflects the inability to maintain the program at the level the 1999-2001 teams reached. Part of the blame goes to early defections that weren’t necessarily predictable (Randolph after just one year; Taylor after two years; Lorbek after one year; Brandon Cotton after like two games) and may not have been fully accounted for when the pollsters voted in the following preseason. Some of it is simply underachieving by some pretty talented teams.
3) As noted on the Statsheet site, using the post-tournament coaches’ poll results would probably help MSU a bit as they have put together some decent tournament runs in years when they underperformed in the regular season.
Mark in DCon 03 Sep 2008 at 2:51 pm 5I’d think that any ratings system that does not include tournament performance is pretty suspect. We’ve definitely underachieved in the regular season in some of the past few years, but have had a few strong tournament runs in that time. I’d take making it to the second weekend or beyond in the tournament over a high end of season AP ranking and tounament flameout any day. The only reason to care about the AP ranking at all is that it is somewhat reflective of our inability to claim at least a share of the Big 10 title for quite some time. Conference championships are the only pre-NCAA tournament ranking I really care about.
SpartanDanon 03 Sep 2008 at 10:29 pm 6I don’t care where we end the regular season in the polls. Tournament performance matters more, and the “overrated” list doesn’t take that into account.
Besides, it’s hard to be underrated when everyone always thinks you’re good early on. I’d rather have the high expectations than not be ranked early.
Nickon 04 Sep 2008 at 4:36 pm 7Of course “overrated” is a relation and not a property–there are further relevant questions such as “Overrated by whom?” and “Overrated at what time?”
This looks like decent evidence for the claim that MSU is typically overrated by the media at the start of the season. But I seem to recall some numbers that show MSU has outperformed its seeding in the NCAA tournament pretty dramatically in the Izzo era. (I think you linked to this some time ago, kj) So there is decent evidence to suggest that MSU is typically significantly underrated by the tournament selection committee in March.
Again–”overrated” and “underrated” are relations, not properties.
kjon 04 Sep 2008 at 4:42 pm 8Good point, Nick. I guess the other way to phrase this is “Does MSU tend to underperform relative to its talent?”
Here’s the link you reference:
http://yetanotherbasketblog.bl.....ament.html
MSU has seven more wins in the NCAA Tournament over the last decade than they’d be expected to based on their seeds each year.
So, like so much about being an MSU fan over the last half decade, it all boils down to how much you value the tournament vs. the regular season.