by 2001Eagle on Thu Feb 10, 2011 10:21 am
Don't worry guys. Pat Forde says that we are "clutch."
How clutch is your team?
The Minutes watched games from noon to midnight Saturday and suspected something funny was going on -- a ton of them went down to the last minute.
After consultation with ESPN's exceptional Stats & Information crew, that suspicion proved correct: Saturday was the closest collection of games in at least two years. Of the 149 Division I games played, 72 of them were decided by six or fewer points (two possessions) or went into overtime -- a whopping 48 percent.
The second-most suspenseful day with 100 or more games in the past two seasons was Feb. 20, 2010, when 61 games (42 percent) were decided by six or fewer or in OT. Of the past 20 dates with 100 or more games, those are the only two with more than 40 percent close games.
What does it mean? It's a reflection of conference play, when the games always are more competitive than in November and December and the teams know each other intimately. But why was Saturday so much closer than other January and February days in 2010 and '11?
It could be a blip, an anomaly. Or it could be a reflection of increasing national parity, when the difference between, say, the nation's 10th-best team and the 100th-best team is a matter of a few possessions and home-court advantage. Or it could be a case of slower games with fewer possessions that naturally lend themselves to being close.
[+] EnlargeAP Photo/George Nikitin
Close games and overtime were the norm this weekend, including Arizona's triple-overtime win over Cal.
Or some combination of all the above.
"Competitive balance in close games, I believe, is a function of the players' talent and the ability of coaches to get the most out of that talent," ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla told The Minutes. "There are less impact newcomers this season than in recent years, so the reliance on talented, highly recruited players is negated by more experienced, less talented teams. This is nothing new, and it's why we've seen bracket-buster upsets in the NCAA tournament yearly."
Added ESPN analyst Dino Gaudio: "I think there is tremendous parity because of kids at the high-major schools departing early for the NBA and … the number of kids who transfer seeking more playing time has escalated."
If close games are going to become the increasing norm this season, The Minutes figured it's time to examine who has excelled at winning the close ones and who has not.
As part of that, The Minutes also has included Ken Pomeroy's Experience Ratings* for each team, under the premise that experienced teams should function better under duress than inexperienced teams. You'll see a mixed bag of data from that standpoint -- some supports the premise, some refutes it.
(* Pomeroy describes his experience formula as follows in an e-mail to The Minutes: "The experience rating is based on how much time each player is on the floor. Freshmen are assumed to have zero years experience and seniors are assumed to have three years experience. It's an average of all the lineups a coach uses during the season. More simply, it's just 'minutes-weighted' experience. So bench-warmers are not a factor in the calculation, while starters have a lot of impact.")
Whether experience is paramount or not, Gaudio and Fraschilla both believe coaching is a vital component to endgame success.
"In the same way that talent impacts games, coaching ability impacts the outcome of close games, as well," Fraschilla said. "Quantifying a coach's ability cannot be done in just wins and losses but, rather, if a coach is giving his team a chance to win those games."
Said Gaudio: "Coaches are judged by how their teams perform under two minutes. I really believe that."
The difficult part is deciding which coaches are just good enough to get an under-talented team into a close game, and which coaches let under-talented teams hang around. And how much comes down to bounces, breaks and maybe a single flick of the wrist.
"In a lot of those games, they really could have gone either way," said Florida coach Billy Donovan, whose team has played a ton of close games (12) and won most of them (nine), including a big one Saturday over Kentucky. "We could very, very easily have lost all those games. Our record would look totally different if we dropped all those games. You realize how fragile it all is."
[+] EnlargeKim Klement/US Presswire
Florida has won a number of close games, including Saturday's win over Kentucky.
It's a fragile season. These are the close-game results from the seven best leagues, through Sunday:
ACC
Best in the clutch: Boston College (12). Record: 7-2, .778 winning percentage. Overall winning percentage: 15-8, .652. Pomeroy Experience Rating: 32nd out of 345 teams.
North Carolina (13). Record: 6-2, .750 winning percentage. Overall winning percentage: 17-5, .773. Pomeroy Experience Rating: 311th.
Wake Forest (14). Record: 3-1, .750. Overall winning percentage: 8-15, .348. Pomeroy Experience Rating: 328th.
Worst in the clutch: Georgia Tech (15). Record: 0-5. Overall winning percentage: 10-12, .455. Pomeroy Experience Rating: 322nd.
The rest:
Duke: 2-1. Overall: 21-2. Experience: 211th.
NC State: 2-1. Overall: 12-11. Experience: 324th.
Florida State: 3-3. Overall: 16-7. Experience: 179th.
Miami: 5-6. Overall: 14-9. Experience: 262nd.
Virginia Tech: 3-4. Overall: 15-7. Experience: 34th.
Maryland: 2-3. Overall: 15-8. Experience: 180th.
Virginia: 3-5. Overall: 12-11. Experience: 278th.
Clemson: 1-5. Overall: 16-7. Experience: 85th.
Coach hard. Love hard.