Dear NYC Buckets readers,
When I first started this website back in March 2011, it was a way to connect with a city and an area I was moving back to after a number of years away. It allowed me to keep doing something that I loved, covering college basketball, in a new city. It was a passion project. Continue reading “NYC Buckets Says Goodbye”
Inside this week: Penn is officially back (if it wasn’t already), one playoff race heats up, and another ends prematurely. Don’t miss our weekend coverage of Columbia’s big, whistle-filled victory over Brown, and Yale clinching a top-four finish (a scheduled post for every spring until the end of time). Continue reading “Ivy League Weekly Roundup: Down the Stretch”
On a cool late autumn, Monday evening in the Bronx, LIU Brooklyn and Fordham matched up in a battle of 0-1 teams looking for that first early season victory. LIU Brooklyn was coming off their high-scoring 102-96 loss to Tulane on Friday night while Fordham lost a one-point heartbreaker at home to Miami (OH) that same night.
It was a different story for both teams Monday night as Fordham got up ahead 14-4 to start the game and shot the ball extremely well while frustrating LIU on the offensive end and essentially cruised to an 81-68 wire-to-wire victory over the Blackbirds to go to 1-1 while dropping LIU to 0-2 on the young season. Continue reading “LIU Brooklyn 68, Fordham 81: Three Thoughts”
The release of our Seton Hall preview this morning concludes the 34 Teams in 34 Days preview series. We provided an in-depth look at the teams we’re planning on covering during the 2017-18 season. Continue reading “NYC Buckets Coverage Area Top 10”
Some time ago, my friend Martin Kessler came to me with what he called a “crazy theory”: Pickup games in New York City are notoriously rough, featuring physical drives and slick dribbling rather than outside shooting. (At certain courts, the three-point line is even disregarded, and scoring is kept with ones only.) What if, he wondered, that permanently affects basketball skills? Are NYC-born players more likely to be bad shooters, due to the style they grew up playing?
Martin works for WBUR’s Only A Game, and this weekend he aired his story about the Big Apple playing style. Along with anecdotes from Sundiata Gaines and pickup lifers, he asked me to run the numbers on how they play at higher levels. And I found that his crazy theory wasn’t so crazy: New Yorkers indeed shoot worse and take fewer threes, and they earn more free throws instead. The differences aren’t huge, but they are consistent across the NBA and NCAA. Continue reading “You Can Take The Players Out Of New York City, But…”
In his debut column for The Fieldhouse this month, Ken Pomeroy wrote:
Teams are protecting their home court less and less these days. In conference games last season, home teams won 59.0 percent of the time. That continues a trend that has existed for at least the last 15 seasons. And I can only say ‘at least’ because I am unaware of a detailed study that goes back further. However, it’s highly likely that last season was the worst year for home teams in the history of the game.
In many ways the NCAA is much more analogous to the European sports landscape than here in America: A group of leagues bound by a greater authority that ultimately governs them all. Continue reading “The College Basketball Champions League”
Wichita State to the American Conference. Any one of four teams to the Missouri Valley. Someone to replace them. Another round of realignment musical chairs has been kicked into full gear. Continue reading “Realignment Week Explainer”
The North Carolina Tar Heels are the 2016-17 national champions thanks to their hard fought 71-65 victory over Gonzaga in an incredibly sloppy final. Continue reading “Another Season In The Books”
The Final Four is set with Gonzaga vs. South Carolina and North Carolina vs. Oregon facing off in Phoenix on Saturday. During the NCAA Tournament I’ve been playing with network graphs showing player connections through assists. The networks for these four teams all show different patterns. Continue reading “Final Four Assist Networks”
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