The college basketball regular season begins in just three weeks and Wednesday marks the unofficial tipoff for four conferences holding their annual media day.
Our reporters are in place and ready to bring you the latest, so keep this page open throughout the day as we bring you tweets, quotes, pictures and more from Charlotte (ACC), Memphis (American), New York (Big East) and Hoover, Ala. (SEC).
Our reporters are in place and ready to bring you the latest, so keep this page open throughout the day as we bring you tweets, quotes, pictures and more from Charlotte (ACC), Memphis (American), New York (Big East) and Hoover, Ala. (SEC).
MEDIA DAYS LIVE (OCT. 16)
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Live Updating
- 5:25 PM
Brett Edgerton
Coverage of media days will be on ESPNU from 1 to 4:30 ET and can be viewed on WatchESPN by clicking here.
- 9:54 AM
Nicole Auerbach
- 9:52 AMIt's #ACC media day here in Charlotte!
Watch @Espnu 1-4pm today http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BWseatzIcAA77Bn.jpg - 9:52 AM#ACCMediayDay with coach K. Interesting thoughts on NCAA:http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BWs_RH0CMAAlS9l.jpg
- 9:52 AMCoach Boeheim ready for the @Cuse basketball closeup at #ACCMediaDayhttp://pbs.twimg.com/media/BWs_M-cCIAE4J7c.jpg
- 9:52 AMMcKie on last year's freshmen: This year they've grown as athletes and students. Have more confidence in themselves. #ACCMediaDay
- 9:51 AMAckerman is like a boxing promoter right now. Big East clearly wants to be recognized in Year 1. #BigEastMBB
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You Gotta See This: The American
October, 16, 2013
OCT 16
9:00
AM ET
Joe Robbins/Getty ImagesRick Pitino's Cardinals should be The American's best team in 2013-14.
It's college basketball preview season, and you know what that means: tons of preseason info to get you primed for 2013-14. But what do you really need to know? Each day for the next month, we'll highlight the most important, interesting or just plain amusing thing each conference has to offer this season -- from great teams to thrilling players to wild fans and anything in between. Up next: What The American really means.
The conference realignment wave that hit these past few years left a lot of detritus in its wake. It turned athletic directors and universities into pimply high school kids approaching their would-be prom dates. It proved that football is an unstoppable entertainment force. It cemented the skyrocketing status of live sports in the current marketplace. It left hundreds of schools scrambling to find shelter. It terraformed the college basketball landscape in profound ways. But its crowning achievement -- the one result that says just about everything you need to know about just how fungible these silly collegiate athletics really are -- is the American Athletic Conference.
The American, as it's abbreviated, is not to be confused with that middling George Clooney movie from a few years back (even if Google disagrees). It is instead the conference -- or "conference-like" substance -- derived equally from Big East leftovers.
No one seems particularly happy about it. "Cincinnati and Connecticut, I know, aren't leaving, but they tried like hell to leave just like us," Louisville coach Rick Pitino told ESPN.com's Dana O'Neil Tuesday, and he's right: Bearcats' and Huskies' brass are saying all the right things now, but they wanted out of the American long before that name was focus-grouped. Memphis and Temple eagerly signed up for admission into something like the old Big East, where the "Catholic 7" -- the schools that broke off to form their own basketball-centric league with Butler, Creighton and Xavier -- would have still made the league a truly formidable basketball entity. Louisville isleaving. Rutgers, too.
Which would make it easy to poke fun at the American -- if the sight of a once-proud league split and stripped to the bone wasn't so sad.
And yet, for a league hastily constructed to ward off the impending doom of a football status downgrade, the American provides plenty of basketball interest, at least this season. Louisville is a national title contender. Memphis and UConn are both immensely talented, veteran teams led by good young coaches. Temple is Temple, which is to say it's a consistently strong program under Fran Dunphy; the same goes for Cincinnati under Mick Cronin. The Cincinnati-Memphis-Louisville triumvirate carries over some fun regional rivalry familiarity from the golden days of Conference USA, and the rest of the league around it -- up-and-comers at Houston and SMU, a marquee UConn program, etc. -- is a step up from the C-USA in nearly every way. It's not hard to conceive of a world in which the American was a long-standing, viable basketball league. It certainly will be this season. Why not?
Because Louisville doesn't see it that way. Neither do many of its current members, public pledges of allegiance excepted. These are huge questions about the future viability of the league, and what happens next.
The only certainty -- and it should make UConn fans feel a lot better -- is that in 2013, conference affiliation is barely half the battle. You don't have to be from the ACC or Big Ten to get to the tournament every season. Ask West Coast Conference member Gonzaga. Ask Xavier. Ask Wichita State. Ask Memphis! For as much as we debate which league is strongest every year, conference identity is still a secondary concern in college hoops. There may be more movement ahead; I have no idea what the American will look like in five years' time. That doesn't change how many top-50 wins Memphis needs to get to the tournament this season. There's solace in there somewhere.
From Sept. 30 through Oct. 25, Insider will be rolling out its college basketball preview, including breakdowns on every Division I team, projected order of finish for every conference and essays from Insider’s hoops experts.
Here are previews for each team in the Ivy League:
Harvard Crimson
Yale Bulldogs
Pennsylvania Quakers
Princeton Tigers
Brown Bears (FREE)
Cornell Big Red
Dartmouth Big Green
Columbia Lions
Here are previews for each team in the Ivy League:
Harvard Crimson
Yale Bulldogs
Pennsylvania Quakers
Princeton Tigers
Brown Bears (FREE)
Cornell Big Red
Dartmouth Big Green
Columbia Lions
From Sept. 30 through Oct. 25, Insider will be rolling out its college basketball preview, including breakdowns on every Division I team, projected order of finish for every conference and essays from Insider’s hoops experts.
Here are previews for each team in the Big West:
Long Beach State 49ers
UC Irvine Anteaters
Cal Poly Mustangs
UC Davis Aggies
Cal State Northridge Matadors
UC Santa Barbara Gauchos (FREE)
Hawaii Warriors
Cal State Fullerton Titans
UC Riverside Highlanders
Here are previews for each team in the Big West:
Long Beach State 49ers
UC Irvine Anteaters
Cal Poly Mustangs
UC Davis Aggies
Cal State Northridge Matadors
UC Santa Barbara Gauchos (FREE)
Hawaii Warriors
Cal State Fullerton Titans
UC Riverside Highlanders
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You Gotta See This: Ivy League
October, 15, 2013
OCT 15
11:30
AM ET
Harry How/Getty ImagesHarvard coach Tommy Amaker has a team that's built on depth, experience and talent.Let's take a moment to consider the past two seasons of Harvard Crimson men's basketball. In 2011-12, after a couple of seasons spent knocking on the door and a few more than that spent getting the Crimson to ever-so-slightly nudge their still-brutal academic restrictions in the direction of player accessibility, Tommy Amaker's work in Boston paid off. Harvard won the Ivy League and visited its first NCAA tournament since 1946.
Not a bad starting point, but arguably not even as crazy as what came next: In late August 2012, Harvard revealed one of the largest academic scandals in school history, which, considering Harvard was founded in 1636, is saying something. Over 100 students were accused of academic dishonesty, and dozens of them were forced to endure a year's suspension before they could return to their degrees.
Unfortunately for Amaker, not only did two of his players end up involved, it was his two senior captains for 2012-13: guard Brandyn Curry and forward Kyle Casey. They, too, were forced to serve a one-year academic suspension. It is a testament to the depth Amaker has built that most people accurately assumed Harvard would win the Ivy League last season (despite a 20-10 overall record). No one expected what happened in March, when the Crimson toppled No. 3 seed New Mexico, their first modern-format NCAA tournament win. "Bonus" doesn't really begin to describe it.
Now Curry and Casey are back. They'll join a team that worked hard in their absence last season: Rising junior Wesley Saunders and sophomore guard Siyani Chambers both played more than 92 percent of their team's available minutes last season and were in the top 10 in that category nationally. Senior wingman Laurent Rivard shot 40.2 percent from 3 in 2012-13 (and played 87.4 percent of his available minutes). Steve Moundou-Missi was a beast on the glass. And while it's still in a different galaxy from the Kentuckys and North Carolinas of the world, Amaker is nonetheless a lock to add to his team every summer in a way Harvard never has before.
The end result is a team that is deep, young, talented and now, strangely enough, experienced -- a team that has every reason to be just as good as the Crimson were in 2012, when they broke that 60-year-old Ivy League streak for the first time. Frankly, they should be better. Now Harvard has a different sort of streak going. Not bad for a couple years work, eh?
Andy Katz explains why LSU, Baylor and Memphis are each feeling good as the season approaches.
You Gotta See This: Big West
October, 15, 2013
OCT 15
9:30
AM ET
Nate Shron/Getty ImagesDan Monson cuts no corners when building Long Beach State's schedule -- and tourney resume.The first time Long Beach State made real national noise under Dan Monson, it was in the lead-up to the 2011-12 season. The prospectus on LBSU was bullish, and for good reason: The 49ers returned four seniors, all of them starters, two of them (Casper Ware and Larry Anderson) out-and-out stars.
But back in the fall of 2011, what really caught the eye about Dan Monson's team was its schedule. Fearing that the Big West would be a significant drag on his team's RPI (and chances at an at-large bid), and seeking to avoid the thin conference tournament margin for error that punishes so many otherwise deserving mid-majors every season, Monson scheduled like a madman. At Pitt, at San Diego State, at Louisville, at Kansas, at North Carolina, vs. Kansas State and Xavier in Hawaii, at Creighton for the BracketBusters. It was crazier before the season started (and Pitt and Xavier disappointed), sure, but the end result was nonetheless the top nonconference schedule in the country, perhaps the most oft-cited selection committee criterion of the past five seasons. It ended up not mattering: LBSU won the Big West tourney anyway.
The 49ers' hard-earned trip to the 2012 NCAA tournament ended after just one game with a loss to fifth-seeded New Mexico, and Ware and his three senior counterparts called an end to their era, too. But even with a whole new set of young, inexperienced starters stepping in, Monson kept his schedule strategy constant. That resulted in the 49ers playing at USC, at Arizona, vs. North Carolina, at Syracuse, at Ohio State and at UCLA. Long Beach finished strong in league play, and even won the outright title at Pacific (which took the at-large bid a week later) on the road in the final game of the regular season.
There is yet more turnover to account for this season, only this time it wasn't planned: In May, Monson dismissed Tony Freeland and Keala King, both transfers from high-major outfits (DePaul and Arizona State, respectively). The good news? UCLA transfer Tyler Lamb becomes eligible at the end of the fall semester and can contribute immediately, and rising junior guard Mike Caffeyand senior forward Dan Jennings are both still in the mix.
And, of course, the schedule is still crazy: at Arizona, at Kansas State, vs. Michigan (in the first round of Puerto Rico Tip-Off, which also includes potential games against VCU and Georgetown), at Washington, vs. Creighton, at NC State, vs. USC, at Nevada, at Missouri. You get the feeling Monson is going to keep scheduling like this forever: It's good for the RPI, and it's great for recruiting. (How many mid-majors can tell recruits they can play at that many marquee college hoops venues?) But that's the lofty, fuzzy stuff. On the court and in those airplanes, Long Beach State's nonconference schedule is a brutal grind. Fortunately for us, watching Monson's latest bunch take one road upset shot after another has become perhaps the Big West's most noteworthy attraction. All it takes is one.
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West Coast Conference team previews
October, 14, 2013
OCT 14
5:00
PM ET
By ESPN.com staff | ESPN.com
From Sept. 30 through Oct. 25, Insider will be rolling out its college basketball preview, including breakdowns on every Division I team, projected order of finish for every conference and essays from Insider’s hoops experts.
Here are previews for each team in the West Coast Conference:
BYU Cougars
Gonzaga Bulldogs
Loyola Marymount Lions (Free)
Pacific Tigers
Pepperdine Waves
Portland Pilots
Saint Mary’s Gaels
San Diego Toreros
San Francisco Dons
Santa Clara Broncos
Here are previews for each team in the West Coast Conference:
BYU Cougars
Gonzaga Bulldogs
Loyola Marymount Lions (Free)
Pacific Tigers
Pepperdine Waves
Portland Pilots
Saint Mary’s Gaels
San Diego Toreros
San Francisco Dons
Santa Clara Broncos
From Sept. 30 through Oct. 25, Insider will be rolling out its college basketball preview, including breakdowns on every Division I team, projected order of finish for every conference and essays from Insider’s hoops experts.
Here are previews for each team in the Summit League:
Denver Pioneers
IPFW Mastodons
IUPUI Jaguars (Free)
Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks
North Dakota State Bison
South Dakota Coyotes
South Dakota State Jackrabbits
Western Illinois Leathernecks
Here are previews for each team in the Summit League:
Denver Pioneers
IPFW Mastodons
IUPUI Jaguars (Free)
Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks
North Dakota State Bison
South Dakota Coyotes
South Dakota State Jackrabbits
Western Illinois Leathernecks
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Eustachy right and wrong on contact rules
October, 14, 2013
OCT 14
1:55
PM ET
College basketball was not at its aesthetic best in 2012-13. You might have heard something about this; it was the unifying theme of the season. The pace of the sport, on a downward trajectory since the mid-1990s, slowed even further, with teams trading speed for a slight uptick in efficiency. Scoring stayed way down. Things got pretty ugly.
When Michigan and Louisville played a thrilling, offensive, up-and-down national title game, it stood out — not only because it was a good game in and of itself but because it ran counter to so much that came before it. It was, frankly, a surprise.
As Louisville coach Rick Pitino basked in the afterglow, he was asked about the state of the game, about what college basketball needed to change to rid itself of slow, physical play — or whether it even needed to in the first place. Pitino was happy to share his thoughts:
A few months later, the NCAA made Pitino's recommendations real. In addition to clarifying the requirements for a defensive player to earn a charge call, the Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved new emphases of current rules outlawing hand-checking and arm contact both on and away from the ball. Most of the sport greeted these new rules with approval. Do not count Colorado State coach Larry Eustachy among that number. Last week, at Mountain West media day, Eustachy pleaded that the new rules would cause players to foul out even more (hat tip:CBS):
You guessed it: Eustachy is both right and wrong at the same time.
In the short term? Sure. Assuming officials truly apply the new hand-checking emphases, there probably will be more foul-outs this season, particularly early in the year. Whole teams who've grown used to lots of contact — who have been coached to create it and use it to their defensive advantage — are in for a major stylistic adjustment. I would argue that Colton Iverson should learn to, oh, I don't know, play defense without fouling, but I see Eustachy's point. The officials have to find their balance, too. The learning curve could be steep.
But this isn't about the short-term. (Nor is this about tag being "outlawed on playgrounds" and living in a "depressingly soft world," as Coloradan columnist Matt L. Stephens wrote Sunday.) Nor is it about ridding the game of defense altogether, or about fast offensive basketball being inherently better than slow defensive hoops, or about some nascent desire to make the college game more like the NBA. I've had plenty of people write and shout at me about this: I like 55-53 games because I like defense, and the NBA doesn't play any defense and the players are all overpaid and spoiled and why don't you just go watch the NBA if you like it so much! Loud noises!
That all totally misses the point. The NBA is just the most obvious, applicable test case. (And anyway, sorry, I love college basketball more than anyone should, but if you don't think the NBA has the best pure basketball product on a nightly basis, you're wrong.) This is about correcting college basketball's slide into overly physical drudgery, about restoring balance to the Force. It's about redefining what defense is in the first place.
Good defense is not equivalent to strength. It is not a measure of how much you can get away with shoving and slapping and grabbing your opponent, or how much you can steer and prevent offensive movement through contact. No one learns to defend that way as a kid. At the college level, coaches have been given every incentive to teach it. But the basics are still the basics: sliding your feet, breaking down on close-outs, talking screens, reading help-side angles, challenging shots vertically, et al. There's no reason why these things can't be applied in the modern college game. I mean, they're already rules! They just aren't being enforced! Constant defensive contact is a crutch.
So, yes, the near-term effects will be ugly and unpopular. No one wants to watch officials make mechanically dramatic off-the-ball contact calls; no one wants to watch free throws; no one likes foul-outs. That, by the way, is the next rule we should change.
But once coaches and players adjust, whether it's after 10 games or 35, the sport stands to benefit from the same stylistic trends have improved the NBA's product by eons over the past 10 years. It could be a tough few weeks in November and December, but the benefits should be more than worth that cost.
When Michigan and Louisville played a thrilling, offensive, up-and-down national title game, it stood out — not only because it was a good game in and of itself but because it ran counter to so much that came before it. It was, frankly, a surprise.
As Louisville coach Rick Pitino basked in the afterglow, he was asked about the state of the game, about what college basketball needed to change to rid itself of slow, physical play — or whether it even needed to in the first place. Pitino was happy to share his thoughts:
"What happened in the NBA now is they stopped all the arm bars, all the standing up of screens, all the coming across and chopping the guy," Pitino said in April. "They stopped all that. Now there's freedom of movement in the NBA and you see great offense. …. I always liked to watch the old films of Clyde Frazier and, you don't see defense touch anybody at all. Everybody cuts and passes, freedom of movement. That's what we got to get back to. The only way to do it is the first 10 games of the season, the games have to be ugly and the players will adjust, then you will see great offense again."
A few months later, the NCAA made Pitino's recommendations real. In addition to clarifying the requirements for a defensive player to earn a charge call, the Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved new emphases of current rules outlawing hand-checking and arm contact both on and away from the ball. Most of the sport greeted these new rules with approval. Do not count Colorado State coach Larry Eustachy among that number. Last week, at Mountain West media day, Eustachy pleaded that the new rules would cause players to foul out even more (hat tip:CBS):
“What are we thinking trying to put players in situations where they can be eliminated even more? We all witnessed it with Colton Iverson last year. It was a tragedy what the officiating did to him,” Eustachy said. “If you pay to go see Celine Dion, she’s not going to be fouled out at intermission. You pay to see Colton Iverson; you may only see four minutes of him. He may get two quick fouls and he has to sit the whole half.
“Louisville isn’t going to have a team if we stick to this because they’re going to all foul out in the first half, and I love the way they play,” Eustachy said. “If you’re going to call touch fouls, it’ll be over in the first 10 minutes. (Rick) Pitino will have to play. It really is crazy.”
You guessed it: Eustachy is both right and wrong at the same time.
[+] Enlarge
AP Photo/James CrispColorado State coach Larry Eustachy is concerned about foul-outs because of new rules about hand-checking.
But this isn't about the short-term. (Nor is this about tag being "outlawed on playgrounds" and living in a "depressingly soft world," as Coloradan columnist Matt L. Stephens wrote Sunday.) Nor is it about ridding the game of defense altogether, or about fast offensive basketball being inherently better than slow defensive hoops, or about some nascent desire to make the college game more like the NBA. I've had plenty of people write and shout at me about this: I like 55-53 games because I like defense, and the NBA doesn't play any defense and the players are all overpaid and spoiled and why don't you just go watch the NBA if you like it so much! Loud noises!
That all totally misses the point. The NBA is just the most obvious, applicable test case. (And anyway, sorry, I love college basketball more than anyone should, but if you don't think the NBA has the best pure basketball product on a nightly basis, you're wrong.) This is about correcting college basketball's slide into overly physical drudgery, about restoring balance to the Force. It's about redefining what defense is in the first place.
Good defense is not equivalent to strength. It is not a measure of how much you can get away with shoving and slapping and grabbing your opponent, or how much you can steer and prevent offensive movement through contact. No one learns to defend that way as a kid. At the college level, coaches have been given every incentive to teach it. But the basics are still the basics: sliding your feet, breaking down on close-outs, talking screens, reading help-side angles, challenging shots vertically, et al. There's no reason why these things can't be applied in the modern college game. I mean, they're already rules! They just aren't being enforced! Constant defensive contact is a crutch.
So, yes, the near-term effects will be ugly and unpopular. No one wants to watch officials make mechanically dramatic off-the-ball contact calls; no one wants to watch free throws; no one likes foul-outs. That, by the way, is the next rule we should change.
But once coaches and players adjust, whether it's after 10 games or 35, the sport stands to benefit from the same stylistic trends have improved the NBA's product by eons over the past 10 years. It could be a tough few weeks in November and December, but the benefits should be more than worth that cost.
Andy Katz discusses a focus for referees, Ohio State's scoring needs and the eligibility status of UConn's Kentan Facey.
You Gotta See This: WCC
October, 14, 2013
OCT 14
10:00
AM ET
AP Photo/Rogelio V. SolisTyler Haws is a smooth and versatile scorer for the BYU Cougars.
It's college basketball preview season, and you know what that means: tons of preseason info to get you primed for 2013-14. But what do you really need to know? Each day for the next month, we'll highlight the most important, interesting or just plain amusing thing each conference has to offer this season -- from great teams to thrilling players to wild fans and anything in between. Up next: Get to know Tyler Haws.
You can hardly blame folks for overshadowing the play. I mean, look at what came after it. When BYU fell to Saint Mary's on Matthew Dellavedova's last-second desperation runner, the Cougars were victimized by what might have been the shot of 2012-13 season. Even worse? The play before it -- a face-meltingly beautiful wrong-footed floater by BYU guard Tyler Haws -- should have given the Cougars the win. It was an incredible shot and, nine times out of 10, the winning one. I doubt many people remember it.
There are few more fitting anecdotes to apply to Haws' 2012-13 season. Haws, a prized recruit out of high school and a solid freshman performer in 2010, returned from his two-year Mormon mission to a college basketball landscape that had largely forgotten his existence. He didn't go entirely unnoticed all season, but relative to Gonzaga's No. 1-seed storm, the emergence of Kelly Olynyk and Dellavedova's heroics at Saint Mary's, BYU's lack of nonconference wins and second-tier WCC run kept it from engaging a wider audience. Frankly, the Cougars weren't good enough.
So Haws did his work away from the spotlight, and what work it was: Haws averaged 21.7 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.3 steals. He set several BYU records for sophomores, including most total points (780), best scoring average (21.7) and most games with 20 or more points (25), records made doubly impressive by the fact that this guy had played there just two years ago. He shot 51 percent from the field, 38 percent from 3 and 87.7 percent from the free throw line. He drew fouls at a high rate, kept his turnovers low and finished with a 115.7 offensive rating despite taking 30.7 percent of his team's shots. Haws not only did a lot; he did a lot well.
Whether Haws can do more is up for debate, as is a more important question: Does he need to? Saint Mary's lost Dellavedova to graduation this past spring, while Gonzaga waved farewell to Olynyk and seniors Elias Harris and Mike Hart, the former an excellent frontcourt scorer, the latter the best glue guy in the country. Gonzaga will be just fine; coach Mark Few still has his probing backcourt (Kevin Pangos, Gary Bell) and a pair of potential NBA bigs (Sam Dower,Przemek Karnowski). But if the Cougars can tighten things up defensively, Haws and fellow captains Matt Carlino (a former UCLA transfer) and Kyle Collinsworth (back from his own two-year church mission) will put points on the board at a more than workable rate.
That's probably the best-case scenario. The defense is no guarantee. But even the worst case -- really great spread up-tempo offense, with Haws leading the way -- will absolutely be worth watching this season. Haws, at a minimum, is one of the game's great attractions -- a smooth, versatile, lights-out scorer. Don't make the same mistake twice.
You Gotta See This: Summit League
October, 14, 2013
OCT 14
9:00
AM ET
Andrew B. Fielding/USA TODAY SportsChris Udofia is a key reason why Denver has become one of the nation's top mid-major programs.
It's college basketball preview season, and you know what that means: tons of preseason info to get you primed for 2013-14. But what do you really need to know? Each day for the next month, we'll highlight the most important, interesting or just plain amusing thing each conference has to offer this season -- from great teams to thrilling players to wild fans and anything in between. Up next: Denver finds a home in the Summit.
If you've been keeping up with You Gotta See This or are particularly attuned to the business of college sports in general, you already know the story of the Western Athletic Conference -- a long-standing, proud mid-major league decimated by recent conference realignment. We spent most of our time these past two years chronicling the quixotic travails of high-major programs (and leagues) trying to keep their heads above the football-cash-clogged water. But no one got it worse than the WAC.
You can imagine the anxiety this caused in Denver. After all, it was just three years ago that the Pioneers eagerly accepted, and joyfully celebrated, their new Western Athletic Conference membership. Denver had wriggled free from its geographically senseless Sun Belt membership, and it was thrilled, trumpeting the storied old mid-major conference and its legacy of success in the Rockies.
Two years later, DU athletic director Peg Bradley-Doppes was telling local reporters, "it became an issue where we were fortunate the Summit wanted DU." What changed? Losing seven members and football will do that to a league.
Is the Summit a better fit for Denver? Maybe. Insofar as the Summit makes sense on a map -- it comprises two teams from Indiana, one from Illinois, one from Nebraska and three from the Dakotas -- it makes sense for Denver. From a long-term basketball perspective, where recruiting is so key, well, who knows? The only thing that seems clear right now is this: Denver is the immediate favorite to win the Summit in 2013-14, and that's a baseline expectation.
Because while the Pioneers' brass was frantically dealing with a disintegrating new conference, the players and coaches, led by top man Joe Scott, have been quietly building one of the best mid-majors in all of college hoops. Star wingman Chris Udofia & Co. finished ranked No. 44 in Ken Pomeroy's adjusted efficiency rankings last season; only two teams, Creighton and Belmont, shot the ball more accurately.
There are precisely two losses to deal with: Senior guard Chase Hallam graduated, while sophomore Royce O'Neale transferred to Baylor. But everyone else, including Udofia, is back. With Oral Roberts now gone, no team in the current Summit League configuration comes close to matching that kind of talent.
What does the future hold for Denver? More realignment could change things at any time. If the basketball program's success continues, it could receive any number of membership offers in the years to come. But whether 2013-14 is the start of a long, productive relationship with the Summit League or a mere layover before something else, the Pioneers on the court right nowshould more than command your attention.
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The SportVU revolution is upon us
October, 11, 2013
OCT 11
3:45
PM ET
If you're an NBA fan — and especially if you're the type of person fascinated by the development and use of advanced analytics in the professional game — you already know all about SportVU.
If you're not this kind of person, you might be in the dark. Let's catch you up. Essentially, SportVU is a camera system developed by STATS LLC that uses high-speed, wide-angle camera lenses to track everything that happens on a basketball court several times a second. The data possibilities are endless; for the first time ever, teams can track, record and analyze everything a player does while he's on the court.
It didn't take long for NBA teams to catch on. Soon after STATS debuted the system, a handful of progressive NBA front offices shelled out to have it installed. In the years since, the MIT Sloan Sports Conference has runneth over with really smart using spatial data to come to new, interesting conclusions about the most efficient way to play the game; ESPN.com sister site Grantland frequently features SportVU-driven spatial analysis by Harvard visiting scholar and geography Ph.D. Kirk Goldsberry. By last season, 15 teams were on board, and in early September, the NBA announced that it would partner with STATS to furnish every NBA arena with cameras. By the time the NBA season opens in a few weeks, every NBA front office will have access to SportVU.
Watching all of this happen from a college perspective has been somewhat disorienting. College hoops has its fair share of wonks, a bustling advanced analytics community powered by the work of ESPN's Dean Oliver, Ken Pomeroy, John Gasaway, and Synergy Sports scouting data, which you see in this space frequently. The smartest coaches in the game absorb this data and impart it on their players. But college basketball is not the NBA. The games are different and so are the market imperatives. So it wasn't unfair to ask whether college basketball would ever totally get on board. SportVU isn't cheap, and college basketball is almost impossible to standardize. The NBA has no such issue. What if the revolution ended at a price point?
Now it seems inevitable. According to Ben Cohen of the Wall Street Journal, the Duke Blue Devils will become the first team to employ SportVU in their arena, Cameron Indoor Stadium, this season. The Blue Devils will also put the cameras to work in practices, adding a large sample of player motion and movement data to track and analyze. That is not a minor decision: Stats senior vice president Brian Kopp told the WSJ that no NBA team had done the same. But it makes sense for a college team whose data windows are limited to just 17 home games. Sample size is everything.
The Blue Devils might be the first independent purveyor of the Stats tech, and certainly the most high-profile. But they aren't the only one. Because Marquette shares the Bradley Center with the Milwaukee Bucks, the Golden Eagles will share the SportVU system for their 16 home games this season, too.
No surprise there. Few coaches in the country have so openly embraced advanced analytics as Marquette coach Buzz Williams; only Butler's Brad Stevens scouted and prepared his teams with more impressive game-to-game precision over the past five years. Now Williams will get a chance to look over the next data horizon. Who cares if it's just 16 games? If I was one of Marquette's new conference members, I would be slightly afraid.
Which is where we get back to the sport at large. Opposing coaches don't like disadvantages. They don't like having substandard facilities. They don't like when they can't charter a plane to see four recruiting targets in 10 hours. They don't like it when they can't budget for top assistants. We can go ahead and posit, then, that these coaches are not going to like it when just one or two schools in their conference are outfitted with uber-precise cameras and an operations staffer plunging into vast amounts of data that they in turn don't have access to. Even if Mike Krzyzewski never once looks at SportVU (you know Williams already has his Howard Hughes-esque screening room set up), other coaches in his conference will hate the idea that he has access to a piece of information they can't obtain. I mean, they will hate it. These are desperately competitive men. It will keep them up nights.
That's precisely the same force that got us all these glimmering, booster-funded practice facilities in the first place. You can't fall behind. You have to keep pace. Now, keeping pace means adding expensive cameras and hiring quants to analyze the number of potential hockey assists your power forward could have had were he more aware that the defense was only doubling him after his first half-pivot. And the NBA would love nothing more than for its would-be lottery picks to arrive with eight months' worth of spatial data attached. That's the other force at work here: the desire to record and measure everything. Basketball is hardly immune.
SportVU might not achieve widespread collegiate adoption right away. But is there any doubt it one day will? Already, we know eons more about what makes basketball work than at any time in the sport's history. In reality, we're just getting started. How exciting is that?
If you're not this kind of person, you might be in the dark. Let's catch you up. Essentially, SportVU is a camera system developed by STATS LLC that uses high-speed, wide-angle camera lenses to track everything that happens on a basketball court several times a second. The data possibilities are endless; for the first time ever, teams can track, record and analyze everything a player does while he's on the court.
[+] Enlarge
Courtesy of SportVUSportVU is installed in every NBA arena. And at least two college programs are buying in as well.
Watching all of this happen from a college perspective has been somewhat disorienting. College hoops has its fair share of wonks, a bustling advanced analytics community powered by the work of ESPN's Dean Oliver, Ken Pomeroy, John Gasaway, and Synergy Sports scouting data, which you see in this space frequently. The smartest coaches in the game absorb this data and impart it on their players. But college basketball is not the NBA. The games are different and so are the market imperatives. So it wasn't unfair to ask whether college basketball would ever totally get on board. SportVU isn't cheap, and college basketball is almost impossible to standardize. The NBA has no such issue. What if the revolution ended at a price point?
Now it seems inevitable. According to Ben Cohen of the Wall Street Journal, the Duke Blue Devils will become the first team to employ SportVU in their arena, Cameron Indoor Stadium, this season. The Blue Devils will also put the cameras to work in practices, adding a large sample of player motion and movement data to track and analyze. That is not a minor decision: Stats senior vice president Brian Kopp told the WSJ that no NBA team had done the same. But it makes sense for a college team whose data windows are limited to just 17 home games. Sample size is everything.
The Blue Devils might be the first independent purveyor of the Stats tech, and certainly the most high-profile. But they aren't the only one. Because Marquette shares the Bradley Center with the Milwaukee Bucks, the Golden Eagles will share the SportVU system for their 16 home games this season, too.
"Knowing our coach, two minutes into [Stats'] presentation, we knew it was something he'd want to pursue," said Marquette deputy athletic director Mike Broeker.
No surprise there. Few coaches in the country have so openly embraced advanced analytics as Marquette coach Buzz Williams; only Butler's Brad Stevens scouted and prepared his teams with more impressive game-to-game precision over the past five years. Now Williams will get a chance to look over the next data horizon. Who cares if it's just 16 games? If I was one of Marquette's new conference members, I would be slightly afraid.
Which is where we get back to the sport at large. Opposing coaches don't like disadvantages. They don't like having substandard facilities. They don't like when they can't charter a plane to see four recruiting targets in 10 hours. They don't like it when they can't budget for top assistants. We can go ahead and posit, then, that these coaches are not going to like it when just one or two schools in their conference are outfitted with uber-precise cameras and an operations staffer plunging into vast amounts of data that they in turn don't have access to. Even if Mike Krzyzewski never once looks at SportVU (you know Williams already has his Howard Hughes-esque screening room set up), other coaches in his conference will hate the idea that he has access to a piece of information they can't obtain. I mean, they will hate it. These are desperately competitive men. It will keep them up nights.
That's precisely the same force that got us all these glimmering, booster-funded practice facilities in the first place. You can't fall behind. You have to keep pace. Now, keeping pace means adding expensive cameras and hiring quants to analyze the number of potential hockey assists your power forward could have had were he more aware that the defense was only doubling him after his first half-pivot. And the NBA would love nothing more than for its would-be lottery picks to arrive with eight months' worth of spatial data attached. That's the other force at work here: the desire to record and measure everything. Basketball is hardly immune.
SportVU might not achieve widespread collegiate adoption right away. But is there any doubt it one day will? Already, we know eons more about what makes basketball work than at any time in the sport's history. In reality, we're just getting started. How exciting is that?
NCAA tournament is the bar for Iowa
October, 11, 2013
OCT 11
1:45
PM ET
The Iowa men’s basketball program hasn’t reached the NCAA tournament since 2006. That seven-year drought followed back-to-back appearances in the Big Dance in 2005 and 2006.
Fran McCaffery’s arrival in 2010 reignited a sense of hope for the program’s supporters. Last year, the Hawkeyes earned 25 victories, the second-highest win tally in the school’s history. They finished 9-9 in the Big Ten. They were 44th in adjusted offensive efficiency and 22nd in adjusted deficiency, per Ken Pomeroy.
But that wasn’t sufficient for the Hawkeyes to earn a slot in the Big Dance.
The latter is the most significant aspiration for the program in 2013-14.
Iowa returns its key players from last season. Roy Devyn Marble (15.0 PPG) is the star of a talented roster that should make strides this season.
In comments he made during the team’s media day on Wednesday, McCaffery acknowledged that the bar is higher for this year’s team.
From the Quad City Times’ Don Doxsie:
A Big Ten title is certainly an ambitious goal.
Iowa is among the league’s sleepers. But Michigan State, Michigan and Ohio State comprise a formidable triumvirate that will be difficult to surpass.
It would be a disappointment, however, if the Hawkeyes missed the NCAA tournament this season.
The NIT won’t suffice.
Not this year.
This is McCaffery’s fourth season. The program has a renovated Carver-Hawkeye Arena that features a new practice facility. He has brought nationally ranked recruits to Iowa City. And he’s retained key veterans who will lead this season.
This is the season when it all has to come together for Iowa.
It’s NCAA tournament or bust for a program that has its best roster in nearly a decade.
McCaffery could run from the expectations. But he’s embracing them, albeit with a somewhat subtle approach. It’s just a matter of time to see if his squad has the same attitude.
Fran McCaffery’s arrival in 2010 reignited a sense of hope for the program’s supporters. Last year, the Hawkeyes earned 25 victories, the second-highest win tally in the school’s history. They finished 9-9 in the Big Ten. They were 44th in adjusted offensive efficiency and 22nd in adjusted deficiency, per Ken Pomeroy.
But that wasn’t sufficient for the Hawkeyes to earn a slot in the Big Dance. The latter is the most significant aspiration for the program in 2013-14.
Iowa returns its key players from last season. Roy Devyn Marble (15.0 PPG) is the star of a talented roster that should make strides this season.
In comments he made during the team’s media day on Wednesday, McCaffery acknowledged that the bar is higher for this year’s team.
From the Quad City Times’ Don Doxsie:
He and his predecessors often have had to sit in front of reporters at preseason media day and try to whip up enthusiasm for the team they were going to put on the court that season. McCaffery now finds himself trying -- at least a little -- to temper the enthusiasm that surrounds the Hawkeyes.
He’s not very good at it. The truth seeps through. McCaffery, like almost everyone else, thinks he has a pretty good basketball team.
“I don't think there's any doubt that we are excited that people think enough of our team to rank us in the top 25 and project us to be in the NCAA tournament,’’ McCaffery said Wednesday at the Hawkeyes’ media day. “That's exciting. It's an accomplishment for some of the guys who have been here and haven't had that before. But the reality is now we have to go out and do it.’’
McCaffery talked about not believing what all the experts are saying and having the maturity to cope with higher expectations.
“I just want to get better,’’ he added later while chatting with a few reporters. “Obviously, we’d like to win a Big Ten championship. Are we capable of doing it? Absolutely. A number of other teams feel the same way ... But it’s a reasonable goal.’’
A Big Ten title is certainly an ambitious goal.
Iowa is among the league’s sleepers. But Michigan State, Michigan and Ohio State comprise a formidable triumvirate that will be difficult to surpass.
It would be a disappointment, however, if the Hawkeyes missed the NCAA tournament this season.
The NIT won’t suffice.
Not this year.
This is McCaffery’s fourth season. The program has a renovated Carver-Hawkeye Arena that features a new practice facility. He has brought nationally ranked recruits to Iowa City. And he’s retained key veterans who will lead this season.
This is the season when it all has to come together for Iowa.
It’s NCAA tournament or bust for a program that has its best roster in nearly a decade.
McCaffery could run from the expectations. But he’s embracing them, albeit with a somewhat subtle approach. It’s just a matter of time to see if his squad has the same attitude.
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Eamonn Brennan
Brennan joined ESPN.com in 2009 after several years of blogging at Yahoo! and other places around the Internet. The Iowa native lives in Chicago with his roommates, his dog, and a crippling addiction to caffeine.
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