" title="Spartans Weblog">Spartans Weblog

14 seasons as head coach
14 .500-or-better Big Ten regular season finishes
12 NCAA Tournament appearances
12 first-team all-Big Ten player selections
10 20-win seasons
8 Sweet Sixteens
6 Elite Eights
5 Final Fours
5 Big Ten regular season championships
5 former assistants currently coaching Division 1 teams
4 Big Ten player-of-the-year selections
3 30-win seasons
2 Big Ten Tournament championships
2 national championship game appearances
1 national championship
.738 [...]

A couple months ago, KenPom added something called “defensive fingerprint” on each team page.  Mr. Pomeroy’s explanation:
Defensive Fingerprint attempts to objectively identify the style of a team’s defense. Inputs into the system are the departure from the D-1 norm of the following defensive characteristics…
- assist percentage (triple weight, higher means a more likely zone team)
- [...]

Don’t mess with the Big Ten:
If you’re a great defensive team, you aren’t going to score as many points just because you don’t have as many possessions, because it’s going to take– if you’re a great defensive team and a great offensive team, you still only get so many shots, you’re only going to score [...]

SpartanDan did the follow-up work.  Coaches who have made the Final Four with (at least) three different completely distinct rosters of active players:
- John Wooden (UCLA ‘62, ‘67, ‘71, ‘75)
- Dean Smith (UNC ‘67, ‘72, ‘77, ‘81, ‘91, ‘95)
- Mike Krzyzewski* (Duke ‘86, ‘90, ‘94, ‘99, ‘04)
- Denny Crum (Louisville ‘72, ‘80, ‘86)
- Adolph Rupp [...]

OK, it’s already “later tonight” and the all-Big Ten selections have been released.
Your Spartan awardees:

Kalin Lucas was selected as the conference Player of the Year–and a first-team all-conference pick–by both the coaches and the media.  Chalk up another rock-solid preseason prediction for the all-knowing, all-seeing Spartans Weblog.  (You’ll recall that Lucas didn’t even make the [...]

Rankings Update

AP: #8 (up from #9)
Coaches: #8 (up from #9)
Blogpoll: #8 (up from #9)
Sagarin: #6 (up from #7)
Kenpom: #12 (steady from last week)
RPI: #4 (up from #5)
Bracketology: #2 seed (up from #3 seed)
Crashing the Dance: #2 seed (steady from last week)

Question (that I do not know the answer to): Could we be placed in the [...]

Here are the top finishers from the poll, with the rough percentage of ballots each person appeared on:

Magic Johnson: 84%
Tom Izzo: 80%
Duffy Daugherty: 48%
Biggie Munn: 28%
Mateen Cleaves: 28%
Kirk Gibson: 20%
Ron Mason: 20%
Bubba Smith: 20%
John Hannah: 12%
Jud Heathcote: 12%

This was a fun, and informative, exercise. And I’m pleasantly surprised about the large number of people [...]