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Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - winflop - 03-30-2015

Maybe that's right, maybe that's wrong, but the previous four coaches wouldn't even appear on the list because they never made the NCAAs at Stanford.

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - Papa John - 03-30-2015

Well, Montgomery is right below Bob Knight (3 championships) and two places ahead of Lute Olson (1 championship).

I don't doubt the veracity of the data or analysis, but I, too, am not sure about the conclusions to be drawn. It's aworth noting that Montgomery went the NCAAs four times with C.al, went 2-4 and never made the Sweet Sixteen. He had an upset loss (#7 lost to a #10), a loss in the first four in Dayton, OH and only one upset win (#12 beat a #5). So I'm guessing that his C.al tenure is a drag on his overall ranking.

As for Monty's Stanford-only stats? Well, he did go to the NCAA tournament 10 years in a row from 1994-2003, and his teams went 16-10 with no first-round losses during that stretch. The bad losses--turn away if it's too much to bear:
The 1999 loss to #10 seeded Gonzaga as a #2; Gonzaga made the Elite Eight that year.
The 2000 loss to #8 UNC as a #1; UNC made the Final Four that year.
The 2003 loss to #8 Alabama as a #1; the only time in my life that I have had a sports-induced migraine on my birthday. Alabama made the Elite Eight that year.

On the other hand, Monty's teams made one Final Four, another Elite Eight and yet another Sweet Sixteen.

That resume--which admittedly omits 1st-round exits in 1989 and 1992--doesn't read like the 500th or whatever "best" coach in the NCAA tournament since 1985 to me.

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - FarmBoy - 03-30-2015

I'm surprised he's that low, but I'm not surprised he was in the bottom quartile. The knock on MM was always that if you give him a season to prepare against the schedule, he'll have his team well positioned to win, but ask him to put together a quick gameplan against new opponents, and his team doesn't do as well. Every year at tourney time, ESPN or some other group would publish a list of teams that underpeform their seeding, and Stanford was always high on that list.

When MM moved on, I comforted myself that the sliver lining might be that we can recruit a coach who can exceed their seeding. Unfortunately, I'd underestimated the reality that we would not HAVE a seeding against which to underperform.

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - CTcard - 03-30-2015

(03-30-2015, 12:06 PM)Papa John link Wrote:Well, Montgomery is right below Bob Knight (3 championships) and two places ahead of Lute Olson (1 championship).

I don't doubt the veracity of the data or analysis, but I, too, am not sure about the conclusions to be drawn. ...

Not being sure about the conclusions is way to mild.

I don't doubt he plugged the numbers into his computer correctly, but I doubt that rubric is particularly closely related to being a good tournament coach.

Of course it is not unrelated. You cannot do well on it without winning a lot of tournament games.

On the other hand, if you coach your team well in the regular season, always enter the tournament with a #1 seed, then it is inherently impossible to have a positive number on this rubric - even if you then win every single tournament. It's not quite clear where a zero puts you - but probably below 100th.

Another way to be at the top of the list is to have a team with tons of talent that you coach poorly so that they have a lower seed each year than they ought to have. Then you win games over expectation. It doesn't really make you a good coach in any meaningful way - beyond being able to recruit that talent.

One thing seems true, the actual good coaches probably dominate the outer tails of the distribution. Since you can't be at the top of the list without winning a lot of tournament games, those guys are probably pretty good. Since you cannot be at the bottom of the list without consistently having a very high seeding, those guys are probably pretty good. Most of the guys who always come in with 8-12 seeds are probably near the middle and a zero "wins over expectation".

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - FarmBoy - 03-30-2015

True, it's hard to out perform your seeding if you're always a #1 or #2. Any time you're a #1 seed and don't make the Final Four, you should be disappointed. At least, I have always been disappointed when Stanford didn't make it when they were a #1 seed. But I would be okay if my team lost to the #2 or #4 seed in its region, but it was a brobdingnagian disappointment to not even make it to the 2nd weekend those years we were #1/2s.

I don't know how dated this web site is (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/conf_tourn_prevu_09/seedschart.html), but according to it, the #1 seed historically makes it to the S16 ~88% of the time and the #2 seed should make it ~62% of the time. Montgomery was able to achieve those seeds four times at Stanford but only made it to the S16 one of those years. (http://apps.washingtonpost.com/sports/apps/live-updating-mens-ncaa-basketball-bracket/schools/stanford/)

Of course, I'd rather have a top seeded team that disappoints than a team that doesn't make the tournament, but it's fairly easy to see why MM would be in the bottom quartile of a list measuring coaches' postseason success relative to their expectations (you could always argue that we were over-seeded because winning in the Pac12 gets more respect than it deserves, but I'll leave that aside.)

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - Papa John - 03-30-2015

(03-30-2015, 12:33 PM)FarmBoy link Wrote:I'm surprised he's that low, but I'm not surprised he was in the bottom quartile. The knock on MM was always that if you give him a season to prepare against the schedule, he'll have his team well positioned to win, but ask him to put together a quick gameplan against new opponents, and his team doesn't do as well. Every year at tourney time, ESPN or some other group would publish a list of teams that underpeform their seeding, and Stanford was always high on that list.

I never really bought into that meme, because it takes a sledgehammer approach. A more-nuanced approach would take into account how a poorer-seeded team that defeats Stanford fares in the next round(s):

1989: Stanford #3 loses to #14 Siena. Siena loses to #11 Minnesota in the next round. Analyis: underperformed
1992: Stanford #12 loses to #5 Alabama. Analysis: met expectations
1995: Stanford #10 defeats #7 Charlotte. Stanford loses to #2 UMass. Analysis: slightly overperformed
1996: Stanford #9 defeats #8 Bradley. Stanford loses to #1 UMass. Analysis: met expectations
1997: Stanford #6 defeats #11 Oklahoma. Stanford defeats #3 Wake Forest (with Tim Duncan). Stanford loses to #2 Utah. Analysis: overperformed
1998: Stanford #3 defeats #14 Charleston. Stanford defeats #11 Western Michigan. Stanford defeats #2 Purdue. Stanford defeats #8 URI. Stanford loses to #2 Kentucky. Analysis: overperformed
1999: Stanford #2 defeats #15 Alcorn State. Stanford loses to #10 Gonzaga. Gonzaga eventually loses to #1 UConn in the Elite Eight. Analysis: slightly underperformed
2000: Stanford #1 defeats #16 South Carolina St. Stanford loses to #8 UNC. UNC eventually loses to Florida in the Final Four. Analysis: slightly underperformed
2001: Stanford #1 defeats #16 UNC-Greensboro. Stanford defeats #9 St. Joseph's. Stanford defeats #5 Cincinnati. Stanford loses to #3 Maryland. Maryland loses to #1 Duke in the Final Four. Analysis: slightly underperformed
2002: Stanford #8 defeats #9 Western Kentucky. Stanford loses to #1 Kansas. Analysis: met expectations
2003: Stanford #4 defeats #13 San Diego. Stanford loses to #5 UConn. UConn loses to #1 Texas in the Sweet Sixteen. Analysis: met expectations
2004: Stanford #1 defeats #16 UT San Antonio. Stanford loses to #8 Alabama. Alabama loses to UConn in the Elite Eight. Analysis: underperformed

So by my count, Monty's teams underperformed 2X, slightly underperformed 3X, met expectations 4X, slightly overperformed 1X and overperformed 2X. Definitely doesn't look the resume for the so-called fourth-worst NCAA tournament coach in the past 30 years.


Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - BostonCard - 03-30-2015

Ctcard, it is entirely possible for a 1 seed to exceed expected wins.  For one thing, there are four one seeds, while you might say they are expected to make the final four, only one of them can win 6 games.  Secondly, and more importantly, the expected number of wins is not a whole number, and is not based on the better seed always expected to beat a lower seed; it is probabilistic.  Thus 8 and 9 seeds, which historically have been even in the first round, and occasionally beat a 1 seed in the second, have an expected number of wins of just over 0.5.  One seeds, which often get upset on the road to the final four, aren't necessarily expected to win 4 games.  So, a 1 seed that makes it to the final four can still outperform the expected number of wins.

Here are the expected number of wins

[Image: paine-datalab-izzo-table1.png?w=1030&h=1144]

In case you are wondering about SRS:

Quote:SRS
Simple Rating System; a rating that takes into account average point differential and strength of schedule. The rating is denominated in points above/below average, where zero is average. Non-Division I games are excluded from the ratings. My colleague Doug Drinen of Pro-Football-Reference.com has written a great explanation of this method.

BC

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - StanfordMatt - 03-30-2015

I don't want this to come across as me bashing Monty, but losing to an #8 seed is not "slightly underperforming" or "underperforming" - it's a massive choke job. Including Villanova this year, it's only happened five times since 2001. The fact that we did it twice in five years is mind blowing.

Also, I cannot buy that losing to a #12 as a #5 is "meeting expectations" or that losing to a #10 as a #2 is "slightly underperforming."

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - Papa John - 03-30-2015

Sorry StanfordMatt, but I think that you have to take context into account.

In 1999, #10 Gonzaga beat #2 Stanford, but then went on to beat #6 Florida before losing in the Elite Eight. Gonzaga, considering they also beat a #6 and a #7, was way undervalued at #10.

In 2000, #8 UNC beat #1 Stanford, but then went on to beat #4 Tennessee and #7 Tulsa before losing to Florida in the Final Four. UNC, considering they also beat a #4 and a #7, was way undervalued at #8.

In 2003, #8 Alabama beat #1 Stanford, but then went on to beat #5 Syracuse before losing in the Elite Eight. Alabama was undervalued at #8 (maybe not as much as UNC).

In 1992, Stanford was the #12, not the #5 seed. Thanks for catching that, and I've made the correction.

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - StanfordMatt - 03-30-2015

Agree to disagree, Papa John? Gonzaga, UNC and Alabama may all have been undervalued, but those losses were still big upsets and still would have been even if each opponent's seed was bumped a few slots higher. UNC was 18-13 in 1999-00, Alabama was 17-12 in 2003-04. The fact that each team went on to win one or two more games after beating Stanford does little to change that. Going back through those brackets, none of those three slayed any more giants after beating Stanford. They were simply the beneficiaries of wide open brackets. Wide open brackets and upsets happen - it's the nature of March Madness. We just happened to be on the wrong end of far too many upsets during Monty's tenure.

Monty's legacy at Stanford is undeniable. I'm not disputing that. I just think that it can do without overly flattering rationalizations.

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - BostonCard - 03-30-2015

Be that as it may, I would rather a coach that gets us to the tournament regularly and underperforms a good seeding than one who gets us there once in seven years, with a borderline seed, but overperforms it.

I will worry about how our coach does in the tourney when he gets there regularly.

BC

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - Papa John - 03-30-2015

(03-30-2015, 03:26 PM)StanfordMatt link Wrote:Agree to disagree, Papa John?

Yep, agree to disagree. Although I think our disagreement is based more on magnitude than direction, as I have already stated my opinion that Monty's teams underperformed in the tourney games against Gonzaga, UNC and Alabama.

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - CTcard - 03-30-2015

(03-30-2015, 02:21 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:Ctcard, it is entirely possible for a 1 seed to exceed expected wins.  ... the expected number of wins is not a whole number, and is not based on the better seed always expected to beat a lower seed; it is probabilistic.

Yeah ... at the time I was moving quickly and I didn't dig through the links to find what he had actually done to decide what was expected.

Still think it's a pretty silly rubric, largely because "expectations" are an odd thing to compare to - after all a coaches' success itself is what sets those expectations.
And it's going to have a tendency to put the better coaches at the top and at the bottom - as well as those that stick around a while (it's a career total - not normalized per tournament or anything else). Just look at the bottom 5 out of 511; they have 120 tournament wins and 4 championships. It doesn't really look like a pitiful group.


Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - winflop - 03-30-2015

(03-30-2015, 03:34 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:Be that as it may, I would rather a coach that gets us to the tournament regularly and underperforms a good seeding than one who gets us there once in seven years, with a borderline seed, but overperforms it.

I will worry about how our coach does in the tourney when he gets there regularly.

BC


Agree 100%.  I'll worry about how a coach is doing in the tournament when he's good enough to get there on a regular basis, but I'll take him any day over a coach who can't even get there.

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - fullmetal - 03-31-2015

So...Rick Barnes is no longer coaching at Texas...

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - Class_of_75 - 03-31-2015

Barnes is the new head coach at Tennessee! That didn't take very long.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/12591855/tennessee-volunteers-hire-rick-barnes-former-texas-longhorns-coach

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - fullmetal - 03-31-2015

Holy smokes.  What a get for Tenn.  Let's see if he can recruit there...and develop players in the way the other UT wishes he would have in recent years.

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - teejers1 - 04-01-2015

The only "significantly underperforms" in Monty's NCAA resume is Alabama.

But in the Gonzaga loss, Stanford was without one of the Collins twins, the game was at Seattle, and Gonzaga turned out to bet the second best team in the tourney that year - they just had the misfortune of playing UConn (eventual winner) in Elite 8, and they played them far tougher than did anyone else that year.

UNC hurt, but it was not that unexpected, frankly.  I was at that game in Birmingham and indeed, spoke to assistant coaches after UNC won its first round game to set up matchup with Stanford.  Their reaction real time:  worst possible matchup for Stanford.  t was the classic "Montgomery prepares his teams well and they perform up to potential early and thus get a high NCAA seed" vs. "massively talented and underperforming UNC team putting it together in NCAA tourney."  It also helped that Peppers was playing football out there for UNC (refs let him) while Stanford was playing basketball.

Alabama - no rationalization/explanation for that one.  It hurt.  Plain and simple.  I'm not sure I'll ever recover from FT differential in that one, or the fact that Stanford should have won that game and then smoked Boeheim's Syracuse team.

P.S.  I also disagree with aforementioned "rap" being Monty couldn't prepare his team for an opponent on shortened time in a Tourney.  I just think that's a crock.  Monty had his shortcomings (see blind eye on a certain guard over Julius Barnes), but game prep was most definitely NOT one of them.

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - Bruce Wang - 04-01-2015

(04-01-2015, 05:34 PM)teejers1 link Wrote:P.S.  I also disagree with aforementioned "rap" being Monty couldn't prepare his team for an opponent on shortened time in a Tourney.  I just think that's a crock. 

There's a reason Monty gets this "rap".  In the NCAA tournament his teams were 12-4 on the games with longer preparation time, and 4-8 on shortened time.  In a way, this shows his strength as a coach.  He could overcome relative disadvantages in athletic talent with superior preparation.

Re: Today in opponent attrition, coaching edition: ASU - CowboyIndian - 04-01-2015

(04-01-2015, 05:34 PM)teejers1 link Wrote:The only "significantly underperforms" in Monty's NCAA resume is Alabama.

cough - Siena - cough