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Expectations for Men's Basketball - Papa John - 02-04-2014

If my math is correct, Johnny Dawkins has coached Stanford to 108 wins during his 5+ seasons. This places him in a tie with John W. Bunn for fourth place behind Mike Montgomery (393), Howard Dallmar (256) and Everett S. Dean (167). In terms of winning percentage (57.1%), however, Dawkins is in eighth place out of 17 Stanford coaches. In fact his winning percentage is, within a tenth of a percent, equal to the overall winning percentage of the program. This is just further evidence of what we already know: While Dawkins' win total is impressive by Stanford standards, it is the result of a mediocre performance over a (too) long tenure.

So my question, on the eve of a big game with our rivals across the Bay, is: What constitutes acceptable expectations for the men's basketball team? Annual trips to the NCAA tournament are a given for me, but is that enough? Mike Montgomery's teams made three Sweet Sixteens over 18 seasons, and, yeah, I remember hearing folks complain. So would a Sweet Sixteen every four years be satisfactory?

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - 2 for 2028 - 02-04-2014

(02-04-2014, 05:08 PM)Papa John link Wrote:So my question, on the eve of a big game with our rivals across the Bay, is: What constitutes acceptable expectations for the men's basketball team? Annual trips to the NCAA tournament are a given for me, but is that enough? Monty the Traitor's teams made three Sweet Sixteens over 18 seasons, and, yeah, I remember hearing folks complain. So would a Sweet Sixteen every four years be satisfactory?

All I care about right now is that we Beat C.al tomorrow night, but yes a Sweet Sixteen every four years would be satisfactory to me. 

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - BostonCard - 02-04-2014

(02-04-2014, 05:08 PM)Papa John link Wrote:If my math is correct, Johnny Dawkins has coached Stanford to 108 wins during his 5+ seasons. This places him in a tie with John W. Bunn for fourth place behind Monty the Traitor (393), Howard Dallmar (256) and Everett S. Dean (167). In terms of winning percentage (57.1%), however, Dawkins is in eighth place out of 17 Stanford coaches. In fact his winning percentage is, within a tenth of a percent, equal to the overall winning percentage of the program. This is just further evidence of what we already know: While Dawkins' win total is impressive by Stanford standards, it is the result of a mediocre performance over a (too) long tenure.

So my question, on the eve of a big game with our rivals across the Bay, is: What constitutes acceptable expectations for the men's basketball team? Annual trips to the NCAA tournament are a given for me, but is that enough? Monty the Traitor's teams made three Sweet Sixteens over 18 seasons, and, yeah, I remember hearing folks complain. So would a Sweet Sixteen every four years be satisfactory?


Right now I would settle for a team capable of playing to the best of its abilities.

BC

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - jacketree - 02-04-2014

That would be satisfactory, until they do it, and then it won't.  That is the way of the sports fan world.

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - BostonCard - 02-05-2014

(02-05-2014, 09:22 AM)garvin link Wrote:A better indication of Johnny Dawkins' performance at Stanford is his conference record, which right now stands at 44-55. I don't think he has risen to the level of mediocrity.

And it is not even like the conference has been a juggernaut during his tenure.  The pac-10/12 has been down Over the last few years.  Wasn't it two Years ago that only two or three teams went to the dance?

BC

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - rastaman85 - 02-05-2014

My expectations were set in the best years of Monty the Traitor.

I'd like to see NCAA tournament bids 4 of 5 years, sweet sixteens 2 of every five seasons, and a Final Four every decade...or less.

There's no reason this program can't be a national power again. There is institutional support for revenue sports, and we are well aware of the recruiting advantages that Stanford has. There is men's basketball tradition, though I doubt that few of today's HS athletes are aware of that beyond the Lopi. A change in leadership is called for, but I hope that Stanford can return to the glory days of the 90's--and I'll be rather disappointed if that doesn't happen.

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - washingtonismoney - 02-05-2014

(02-05-2014, 10:41 AM)rastaman85 link Wrote:There's no reason this program can't be a national power again. There is institutional support for revenue sports, and we are well aware of the recruiting advantages that Stanford has. There is men's basketball tradition, though I doubt that few of today's HS athletes are aware of that beyond the Lopi.

The incredible thing is even with negligible brand awareness among basketball players, Dawkins has done a very good job recruiting players. To me, that adds an extra charge to jettison him.

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - Spiny_Norman - 02-05-2014

Two areas where Monty's really good teams were noteworthy (or maybe this is just my selective memory) - winning close games and being competitive against all opponents.  I decided to look at Dawkins' record in these categories.

Record in games decided by 6 points or less or decided in OT:
2009 - 2-5
2010 - 4-7
2011 - 2-5
2012 - 6-4
2013 - 4-6
2014 (to date) - 4-2

total - 22-29 (43%)

Double digit losses
2009 - 6
2010 - 8
2011 - 9
2012 - 6
2013 - 3
2014 - 2

So we see a bit of improvement in each area.  Still, Stanford should achieve a level of success and competitiveness where I don't feel the need to spend time parsing the coach's record so finely.  The only reason to do this type of analysis is because of a lack of success in more visible areas - winning games, winning the conference, doing well in the NCAA tournament.

"What constitutes acceptable expectations for the men's basketball team?"  Win games, win the conference, do well in the NCAA tournament and get the fans excited about Stanford basketball.  In other words, the same expectations for Stanford women's basketball (which they often meet and exceed).

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - washingtonismoney - 02-05-2014

(02-05-2014, 12:36 PM)Spiny_Norman link Wrote:Two areas where Monty's really good teams were noteworthy (or maybe this is just my selective memory) - winning close games and being competitive against all opponents.  I decided to look at Dawkins' record in these categories.

Record in games decided by 6 points or less or decided in OT:
2009 - 2-5
2010 - 4-7
2011 - 2-5
2012 - 6-4
2013 - 4-6
2014 (to date) - 4-2

total - 22-29 (43%)

Double digit losses
2009 - 6
2010 - 8
2011 - 9
2012 - 6
2013 - 3
2014 - 2

So we see a bit of improvement in each area. 

I don't really think winning close games is something under the coach's purview. While better teams will generally do better than worse ones in such situations (because, duh, better), they're basically anchored to .500, more-or-less. The 72-10 Bulls went .500 in such games.

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - BostonCard - 02-05-2014

From a statistical perspective, you cannot argue that a 22-29 (which is what we have) is all that different from a coin flip.  Yeah, we've lost more close games than would be expected, but if you flipped a coin 51 times, you'd wind up with 22 or fewer heads about 20% of the time (per the binomial distribution).  It is hard to argue that this reflects a systematic problem with Dawkins.  I'm not defending him; I think his overall performance over a large enough sample size has been deficient enough to warrant a new coach, but I wouldn't use the "close game metric" as an indictment of his coaching.

BC

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - Spiny_Norman - 02-05-2014

(02-05-2014, 01:12 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:From a statistical perspective, you cannot argue that a 22-29 (which is what we have) is all that different from a coin flip.  Yeah, we've lost more close games than would be expected, but if you flipped a coin 51 times, you'd wind up with 22 or fewer heads about 20% of the time (per the binomial distribution).  It is hard to argue that this reflects a systematic problem with Dawkins.  I'm not defending him; I think his overall performance over a large enough sample size has been deficient enough to warrant a new coach, but I wouldn't use the "close game metric" as an indictment of his coaching.

BC

Perhaps this is a pet peeve of mine.  It annoys me no end when I see failed late game execution that squanders a chance to win a game.  But even if Dawkins record is within the acceptable range for average performance, I still expect better.  I expect better than average.

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - CornFed - 02-05-2014

As I ponder this thread's topic, I am recalling Jim Harbaugh's entrance as he assumed the head coaching position.  He announced, without compunction, that his focus was on a Pac-10 (12) championship, a Rose Bowl, and a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!!!!!!  My first reaction was empathy.  He had not yet experienced the challenges that confront and frustrate those ambitions for a football program at Stanford.  My fellow Stanford alums with whom I discussed Harbaugh's lofty ambitions expressed a range of feelings regarding the realism of his statements.  Was he nuts?  Was he just a blind, rabid fool?  Was he a well-intended dupe?  Was he a marketing genius?  One thing for sure - none of us felt that he had a legitimate chance to attain the loftiest of those goals.  History has shown us to be badly mistaken.  Not only that, but he didn't need a "five-year building program".  Two of these target objectives were attained within a very brief period.

Someone tell me why we are less likely to find someone who can affect MBB in the same way.  Keeping in mind that someone like Harbaugh was a very rare outcome, should that not be the quality and outcome we are seeking?  I, for one, would think that Stanford can attract the same quality of athlete/students in MBB as we have learned to attract to our football program.  I would like to consistently welcome 3- and 4-star athletes and an occasional 5-star.  Is Duke really that different?  Mike Montgomery did it, albeit over a long, steady development period.  What makes the viability of that prospect any less attainable.

Thank you for helping me understand this better, as you all almost always do.  I'll take my answer off the air.    ;D

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - stupac2 - 02-05-2014

(02-05-2014, 02:30 PM)Spiny_Norman link Wrote:Perhaps this is a pet peeve of mine.  It annoys me no end when I see failed late game execution that squanders a chance to win a game.  But even if Dawkins record is within the acceptable range for average performance, I still expect better.  I expect better than average.

I'm more familiar with football, but my guess is that the argument is similar in basketball. The point isn't that 0.500 is the "average" (that's trivially true since one team loses and the other team wins), the point is that 0.500 is everyone's average. There's generally no such thing as a team that consistently wins close games, and doing so is typically just fluky luck. This argument is backed up using historical data, and I believe is considered very strong in some sports, like baseball.

As I said I have no idea if this is considered true in basketball, but the logic seems to me to carry over just as well from other sports.

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - StanFan88 - 02-06-2014

(02-05-2014, 12:42 PM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:I don't really think winning close games is something under the coach's purview.

You're kidding right?  Close games is where coaching shows itself the most: substitution patterns, X's and O's/playcalls (O and D) especially when timeouts are called, choosing when to call timeouts.

I'm surprised to see it climb above 40%.  The metric I've seen and calculated myself was that going into this season Dawkins was below 35% in games decided by 5pts or fewer (including all OT games).  Regardless, anything below 50% is a strong indication of poor coaching especially when taken across so many years because one player or recruiting class can't bias it too much.

Better this year, but Dawkins has a lot of baggage hanging on him and a lot of skeptics.  He needs to show that it's different now over more than a couple games.

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - BostonCard - 02-06-2014

A couple points on "close games".  First off, I think you are looking at the wrong metric.  What we really want is "close games heading into the final X minutes".  The final score is more or less irrelevant.

Consider the following two scenarios:

1) Stanford is trailing by 12 points heading into the final media time out (4 min).  Though the game is effectively over, Stanford hits a couple shots, gets a couple stops, but ultimately doesn't do quite enough to win.  We are losing 76 - 69 with after our opponent misses the front end of a one-and-one with 5 seconds left, and launch a meaningless desperation three that makes the final score 76 - 72.  Stanford loses another "close game".

2) Stanford is trailing by 2 at the exact same point.  The game is close, but our opponent makes a couple shots, we can't hit the broadside of a barn, and the lead balloons to 6 points with about a minute left.  We foul their guys, who convert, and miss some desperation threes.  Final score 82-70.  Fortunately, this doesn't count in the "close game" metric.

[You can do the same sort of thing with Stanford leading into the final stretch... a four point lead that Stanford stretches out to a comfortable win doesn't count, but a comfortable lead that the opponent whittles down to a couple points at the end counts as a "close win", even though I would prefer taking a close game and blowing it open by the final score than taking a game that should be at hand and stressing over the final minutes].

BC

Re: Expectations for Men's Basketball - Spiny_Norman - 02-06-2014

(02-06-2014, 01:51 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:A couple points on "close games".  First off, I think you are looking at the wrong metric.  What we really want is "close games heading into the final X minutes".  The final score is more or less irrelevant.

Consider the following two scenarios:

1) Stanford is trailing by 12 points heading into the final media time out (4 min).  Though the game is effectively over, Stanford hits a couple shots, gets a couple stops, but ultimately doesn't do quite enough to win.  We are losing 76 - 69 with after our opponent misses the front end of a one-and-one with 5 seconds left, and launch a meaningless desperation three that makes the final score 76 - 72.  Stanford loses another "close game".

2) Stanford is trailing by 2 at the exact same point.  The game is close, but our opponent makes a couple shots, we can't hit the broadside of a barn, and the lead balloons to 6 points with about a minute left.  We foul their guys, who convert, and miss some desperation threes.  Final score 82-70.  Fortunately, this doesn't count in the "close game" metric.

[You can do the same sort of thing with Stanford leading into the final stretch... a four point lead that Stanford stretches out to a comfortable win doesn't count, but a comfortable lead that the opponent whittles down to a couple points at the end counts as a "close win", even though I would prefer taking a close game and blowing it open by the final score than taking a game that should be at hand and stressing over the final minutes].

BC

BC, you are absolutely right.  However since I was not keen on reviewing the box scores of 150+ games to identify which ones were "close" with 2 minutes to play or 5 minutes to play or whatever criteria you want to set to measure late game results, I used "final score" as a surrogate data point.