Have you always wondered what makes a coach tick? How his scheme translates into tempo-free numbers? Well, now you can figure it out with one click of the mouse. Ken Pomeroy’s coaching resumes are the hot new thing in tempo-free college basketball.
Click on a profile and learn a lot about a coach. (Well at least the past 10 seasons of their career when they were a head coach.) Observations about each school’s head men coming up.
Since the 2010-11 season is over it’s time to start focusing on two of college basketball’s offseason past times, recruiting and scheduling. Both are harder at the mid-major level, but there are some loopholes. For instance, often multi-team events and early season exempt tournaments offer a chance to score a big victory. A few New York City teams already are scheduled to get that chance, but what about a few others that might still be looking.
Well thanks to Chris Dobbertean over at Blogging the Bracket you don’t have to wait. He’s compiled all the early season events into one handy little page.
It’s April and the NCAA Tournament is over. Thus everyone is scrambling to put together some ridiculous bracket so that they can grab the attention of fans still craving simple one-and-done eliminations.
At CollegeInsider.com they’re capitalizing on it by putting out the Runway to the Fashion 4 bracket. It’s even got a blog where Virginia Tech’s Seth Greenberg can be found spouting some insider knowledge. (At least his team made this bracket!)
Continue reading “Maybe a 16 over 1 in the Fashion Brackets?”
Stats guru Ken Pomeroy started his own statistical award in an attempt to sort out all the noise surrounding the national Player of the Year debate. His new award is the kPOY and it was given to Jared Sullinger this morning. Two New York City players were honored as well. Iona’s Michael Glover won the conference kPOY award in the MAAC and Long Island’s Jamal Olasewere captured the NEC version.
I was a little surprised that Hofstra’s Charles Jenkins was unable to capture the award in the CAA. My guess is that the Pride’s lower standings in the team rankings hurt Jenkins enough that his advantage in Offensive Rating (123.5 vs. 114.0) and Usage Rate (28.4% vs. 23.7%) were offset by the fact that George Mason finished 28th and Hofstra finished 135th.
The final Mid-Major Top 25 poll from CollegeInsider.com is out and there appears to be one team missing. Despite reaching the finals of the CIT, Iona isn’t in the Top 25. (They’re actually 26th, four points behind Wofford.)
Santa Clara, the team that won the CIT on the Gaels’ home court, is ranked 22nd. Butler was an obvious choice for the #1 spot in the poll and VCU, after the Rams’ Final Four run, deserved to be #2, but beyond that it probably was pretty difficult for the selectors to rank the teams. Wichita State, which won the NIT, got boosted all the way up to #5, but St. Mary’s, which lost in the first round of the NIT to Kent State, only fell to #11.
This seems to be a case of poll momentum keeping teams from cracking the list. Congratulations to Long Island. The Blackbirds finished 17th in the poll. Also, Hofstra was in the others receiving votes category, but the CAA showed it’s strength with three teams in the Top 5. The three CAA teams in the poll also tied the West Coast Conference (which along with Santa Clara and St. Mary’s had #7 Gonzaga) for the most teams in the poll.
Continue reading “Iona robbed in final Mid-Major Top 25 and the sad state of Fordham basketball”
Iona lost tonight to Santa Clara and if you saw the Broncos celebrating on the court afterwards you know that this title meant something to them. Both teams played hard, but it was the battle-tested Santa Clara squad that pulled out the 76-69 victory to take the title. The margin might seem small, but this was a pretty convincing victory as Santa Clara was able to go inside and dominate the paint.
It wasn’t that the Broncos shot better, because they didn’t. It was they got more shots up. Santa Clara had 18 offensive rebounds on 39 missed shots, which works out to an offensive rebounding percentage of 43.6%. Iona came into the game allowing teams to grab 29.5% of their misses, while Santa Clara came in pulling down 35.8% of their misses. Neither of those percentages suggested this would happen.
But it did and the Broncos, even after committing six more turnovers, ended up with three extra shots – approximately the difference in the game. Take a look at the Four Factors below.
Continue reading “Iona falls to Santa Clara in CIT Championship”
The Iona Gaels are one of eight teams still playing basketball and tonight their season will either end in a championship or defeat. Iona is being given strong odds to pull out the CollegeInsider.com Tournament championship and, considering Santa Clara had to fly across the country to play in the game, even that might be too low. Ken Pomeroy gives the Gaels an 85% chance of winning tonight’s game. Accuscore is a little more conservative, but still has it as almost a 3:1 chances and Vegas has Iona -9.5.
I guess this probably means that the pressure is also on Iona to take home the win, but the fact is the Gaels are just a better team anyways. One of the best offenses in the country gets to show the country – on Fox Sports Network – what it can do tonight. In fact, a run like VCU’s to the Final Four might make Gaels fans think, “Why couldn’t that have been us?”
Continue reading “Iona goes for the CIT championship tonight”
Iona defeated East Tennessee State 83-80 this afternoon on the road to advance to the CIT Championship game. The Gaels will now play Santa Clara in New Rochelle on Wednesday night for the tournament title. Iona was carried by Mike Glover. He scored 33 points and grabbed 10 boards. Glover also shot 13-19 from the field.
Glover’s shooting was reminiscent of the entire Iona squad, which managed to shoot 52.9% from the field in the game. The Gaels had a 60.2% effective field goal percentage. That’s even better than the 54.5% the Gaels came in averaging on the season. Considering that it was on the road that’s even more impressive. Sean Armand scored 20 points for Iona on 6-11 three-point shooting.
Iona heads to Johnson City, Tennessee to take on East Tennessee State in the semifinals of the CollegeInsider.com Tournament on Saturday afternoon in a game that pits two talented mid-major teams from the MAAC and Atlantic Sun. The Gaels were probably the best team besides Maryland to not receive an NIT invitation and they’ve done nothing to discredit that reputation since postseason play began. Iona went on the road to Valparaiso and came away with a convincing victory and then took out Buffalo at home on Tuesday.
That’s why Iona is actually favored in this game by Ken Pomeroy’s rankings by exactly one point, 72-71 (57%), even on the road. Of course ETSU has some strengths as well. The Buccaneers recorded two convincing victories over Furman and Ohio on their way to semifinals, but neither of those teams is even close to the same level as Iona. That said, the Basketball State rankings on BBState, have Iona 67th and ETSU 60th. So this seems to be a game between two pretty evenly matched squads.
Continue reading “Postseason Preview: Iona vs. East Tennessee State”
Mike Glover and Scott Machado of Iona were both named to the 2011 Lou Henson All-America teams today. The team is composed entirely of Mid-Major players as defined by CollegeInsider.com, the people running the CollegeInsider.com Tournament in which the Gaels are currently doing so well. Most of the players on the team are juniors and seniors, but one sophomore, Ohio’s D.J. Cooper, made the team as well.
Glover has averaged 17.9 points per game and 10.1 rebounds per game this season. Machado is averaging 13.4 points per game and 7.5 assists per game. Glover’s effective field goal percentage ranks 38th in the nation this season at 60.8% and Machado’s assists rate is 39.2, 11th in the nation. Iona continues play in the CIT on Saturday afternoon at East Tennessee State. The Pirates’ Mike Smith, who averages 17.3 points per game and 6.9 rebounds per game, was also named to the team.
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