Matt Booher

Shared by brownsvillan
Disappointed to see Friedel leaving to play second fiddle. Villa must have made it very clear he is not wanted.

On Premier League Survival Sunday, how many times during the 90 minutes do you think the league table will change near the bottom of the table? Depending on which teams score and when, the league table positions of the five teams battling to avoid...

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During March, though my heart and mind are largely invested in college basketball, I take frequent glances at the NHL standings to see how playoff race is shaping up.

Unfortunately the NHL standings, which are determined by points rather than winning percentage, don’t always tell us which teams are in the best position to earn a playoff spot.

The Problem

The NBA and Major League Baseball—the other pro leagues in which teams play a bunch of games—use winning percentage to rank teams. Winning percentage is a simple stat: number of wins divided by total number of games played. It says nothing about strength of schedule and makes no distinction between home games and road games.

But in sports, where winning a division or qualifying for the post-season depend entirely on how many games a team wins, it makes sense. And since at any point in the season teams will have played different numbers of games, winning percentage shows us which teams are best positioned to win their division or clinch a post-season berth.

If Team A is 25-13 and Team B is 26-17, winning percentage tells us to rank A (.657) ahead of B (.634), even though B has more wins.

Winning percentage doesn’t work in hockey because the NHL ranks teams according to points, not wins. The “PCT” we look for in baseball and basketball wouldn’t tell the whole story in hockey since teams also earn points for overtime losses. But during the season ranking teams according to points earned (2 for a win, 1 for an overtime loss) isn’t sufficient either. When some teams have played 74 games, while others have played 72, 73, 75, or 76, ranking teams by points gives a distorted picture of how the teams stack up.

Late last week (as I was thinking about this), the Kings and Predators each had 90 points; the Blackhawks had 88. The teams were ranked 5, 6, and 7, respectively, in the Western Conference standings. Here’s the problem: Nashville had played 75 games; L.A. had played 74; Chicago had played 73. While the Preds were two points ahead of the Blackhawks, they’d had two more opportunities to earn points.

How to Fix the NHL Standings

The NHL needs a better way to rank teams.

If you figured points per game (PPG) for the three teams above, the Kings (1.216) would be slightly ahead of the Blackhawks (1.205), who would be slightly ahead of the Preds (1.200). PPG is similar to winning percentage in that it gives an overall assessment of a team’s performance regardless of the number of games that team has played. But something doesn’t feel right about ranking hockey teams according to a number between 0 and 2. 1.216 and 1.205 look weird and unfamiliar.

That’s OK. We can derive two more comfortable statistics from PPG.

One is percentage of total points (PTP): points earned divided by the maximum number of points a team could have earned (2 times the number of games played). Another way to arrive at PTP is PPG/2. PTP gives us numbers between 0 and 1 that are similar to winning percentages in other sports. The PTPs for the Kings, Blackhawks, and Preds late last week were .608, .603, and .600 respectively.

The other statistic is Projected Points (PRO), the number of points a team would be expected to have at the end of the season if they were to maintain their present pace. PRO is PPG times 82, the number of games in a season. The PROs for last week’s Kings, Blackhawks, and Preds were 99.73, 98.85, and 98.40, respectively.

Either one of these simple statistics would give hockey fans a better idea of how their teams stack up, especially during March, when teams are jockeying for Playoff position.

Here is a look at the latest Western Conference standings, sorted by PTP and PRO. Notice that Los Angeles and Nashville jump Phoenix, and Chicago gains a slight edge over Anaheim:

**********

It is not easy to pull off upsets in the NCAA tournament. Despite claims that there is more parity in college basketball this season, the first two rounds of this season’s tournament did not provide any more upsets than last year. (The average seed of the remaining 16 teams is exactly the same as last year.) However, there was perhaps one less upset than there could have been because one coach turned down a terrific opportunity to tilt the playing field in his team’s favor.

After San Diego State’s Malcolm Thomas converted a three-point play with two minutes left in overtime, Temple had the basketball with the score tied 61-61. In any upset bid, a team needs some things to go its way, and the following sequence would be extremely beneficial to the Owls’ chances of winning. Temple would work the clock until a questionable foul was called on the Aztecs’ Kawhi Leonard with six seconds left on the shot clock and the Owls in no position to get off a decent shot.

Amazingly, the Owls were not yet in the bonus, and so the foul didn’t result in foul shots, but a shot-clock reset for Temple with 1:33 left. Again, Temple would work the clock, taking a shot with 1:08 left. The shot missed and two San Diego State players had the best opportunity to secure the rebound. Neither was aware of the other’s presence however, and the resulting effort caused the ball to go out of bounds. Temple would get yet another new shot clock.

In a game of blackjack, you can make money as a player, but you need some breaks. It helps if the dealer busts more than usual. It’s nice if you get a bunch of face cards. Fran Dunphy had been the player for 44 minutes against the dealer, second-seeded, undefeated-against-everybody-but-BYU San Diego State, and he had done pretty well. Anybody that can sit at a blackjack table for two hours and break even has been a bit fortunate. But now Dunphy had the opportunity to be the dealer. The shot clock is 35 seconds. There were 66 seconds remaining. If Temple could get a shot off in about 15 seconds, they would force San Diego State to take a shot with enough time left for Temple to get another possession with plenty of time left on the clock.

In fairness, the Aztecs could have rebounded their own missed shot and not given Temple the opportunity for a final possession, but the odds against that happening are significantly in Temple’s favor. Besides, it’s not like Temple would have had to operate outside its comfort zone to get a shot off in 15 seconds. The Owls’ average possession time on the season was 16 seconds. And this possession would have started in the frontcourt, so Temple could have run a called play immediately after the throw-in. Fran Dunphy could have called a timeout, drawn up a play and become the dealer. But he didn’t.

Not only did the Owls not attempt to score quickly, they milked the clock again. Ultimately, they would wait and begin to run a play with about ten seconds to shoot, limiting their chance to get a good shot. If they were planning to run a ten-second play, it clearly made more sense to do so at the beginning of the shot clock than at the end. Temple would miss a shot, and San Diego State would do the same, and so the game went to double overtime where the Aztecs pulled out the victory. It’s not that Dunphy’s decision cost Temple the game. We can’t say that any more than we can guarantee the dealer will win his next hand of blackjack. But those kinds of less-than-optimal decisions reduced the chance of an upset.

It was interesting that only a few minutes after the conclusion of this game that a similar opportunity would present itself to Brad Stevens, the head coach of Butler, who was trailing top-seeded Pitt by one point late in the game. Stevens is the patron saint of analytical coaches, so when Butler gained possession of the basketball with 1:03 remaining it was not surprising that Stevens accepted the opportunity to be the dealer.

After calling timeout, Stevens drew up a play for his team that would take only a few seconds. As in the Temple game, Butler and Pitt would trade empty possessions at this point. However, because Butler’s play used so little time, the Bulldogs got the ball back with nine seconds left after Pitt’s missed shot. It was the bonus possession that Temple should have had at the end of overtime. Butler converted their opportunity and would go onto win the game (but not before some unusual end-game drama you may have heard about).

Underdogs work all game for the opportunities that were presented to Temple and Butler on Saturday. One coach took advantage of the chance to be dealer, and the other didn’t. Just like at the blackjack table, the dealer usually wins. It’s a shame Temple’s players were not given an opportunity they, like Butler’s players, had worked all game to deserve.

If anyone doubted Colt McCoy’s leadership and passion for his craft, I’m sure their minds have been changed over the past two months. But you wouldn’t have, not if you watched him play for four years at the University of Texas.

One of our commenters – Du – pointed us in the direction of an interview McCoy gave coming off the field after last year’s National Championship loss to the Alabama. In that game, Colt was knocked out in the first quarter with a shoulder injury and was unable to return in the biggest game of his life.

The honesty and candor he gives are incredible. Just a straight up class act. How can you not love this kid? Watch and enjoy.

 Turner Sports has relaunched NCAA.com with plans to make it a year-round destination for college sports fans and provide coverage for all 88 NCAA championships.

The new NCAA.com will provide users with editorial coverage of all men’s and women’s NCAA sports during the regular season and championships, with school-specific content for more than 1,000 NCAA institutions. Exclusive live video streaming will be featured on the site from more than 60 NCAA championships as well as video highlights from all 88 championships

“We look forward to leveraging our experiences in managing some of the most popular sports sites on the Internet toward growing NCAA.com into the top digital college sports destination,” said Matthew Hong, senior vice president & general manager, sports operations at Turner Sports.

Additional features of NCAA.com include:

*Original content focused on student-athletes: The site will include weekly pieces that focus on the student-athletes off the field; video interviews with coaches, administrators and student-athletes.

*Facebook and Twitter: The site will offer social media functionality from Facebook and Twitter, including a collection of the best tweets of the week from student-athletes, coaches and fans and uploaded content from Facebook pages.

*Online merchandise, photo store and tickets: Fans can purchase their officially licensed team and championship merchandise from the official NCAA online store (NCAA.com/store ).

Knutsen, Naudascher find closure

There are several different ways to voice displeasure.  The freedom of protest allows Americans to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue and/or defend common interests. 

But rather than standing outside with a picket sign – it’s pretty cold out there, after all – one unhappy season-ticket holder has decided to voice his displeasure via the sponsorship block on the Cleveland Cavaliers page at Basketball-Reference.com.

Recently upped for one full year, this “ticked off” season ticket holder apparently opted to use his/her $20 and 255-character maximum to voice his disdain for team majority owner Dan Gilbert.

You have clicked on the Basketball-Reference.com page featuring the flotsam of the worst owner in professional sports, the Napoleonic carnival barker dwarf, Dan Gilbert. Compared to Dan Gilbert, Ted Stepien was a freakin’ genius.

Stepien, as you may recall, was touted as the owner of the “worst and most poorly-run franchise in all of basketball” back in 1982.  He had fired Joe Tait (now a Hall-of-Fame announcer), threatened to move the team to Toronto, and tore through five different head coaches in two years of ownership.

Stepien is also the man behind the “Ted Stepien Rule,” forbidding teams from trading away consecutive first-round draft selections, something that allowed the Cavaliers to lose an NBA record 24 straight games in front of a season average of 3,900 fans at the Richfield Coliseum. 

He did, however, introduce Cleveland to a dance team, likely evolving into what is now known as the Cavalier Girls – perhaps, the deciding factor in the season ticket holder’s mind to place him ahead of Gilbert amidst his list of best Cleveland franchise owners.

But that’s not all.

Also receiving a bit of shrapnel from who is likely the same season ticket holder was none other than JJ Hickson. 

Boom, roasted.

One of my biggest NFL pet peeves (and I have many) will be on display this weekend as each of the two prime-time games will include a team that played in a prime-time game last weekend.

The Dallas Cowboys and Indianapolis Colts were featured on Sunday and Monday nights in Week 2. In Week 3 they'll both stay in prime time but swap days, with the Colts heading to Arizona for Sunday Night Football and Dallas hosting its second straight prime-time game on Monday Night Football against Carolina.

This is annoying, repetitive and unnecessary. Figuring out the schedule isn't easy, given the interests of four networks and fairness and all that junk, but it's not that difficult to put different teams on NBC and ESPN every week.

It would be in the general interest of everyone (except the TV networks, which is precisely why this practice is employed). For casual fans, it's no fun to watch the same team on a national telecast two straight weeks. (It's bad enough I have to see the Ravens play every week because somebody decided D.C. and Baltimore are dual markets. Now I'm being force-fed close-ups of Jerry Jones in consecutive weeks?) For fans of the teams playing it's not much better. Prime-time games are fun, but in small doses. Few people want to stay up late two straight weeks while having to endure the misery of waiting through the afternoon games for your squad to play.

The good news is that the Colts/Cowboys double-up is the last we'll see until December. Unlike last year when back-to-backs cluttered much of the first two months of the season, there will be no more in '09 until after Thanksgiving. After that there are four planned, but because of the flexible SNF schedule none of those are set in stone.

Here's the full list of back-to-back prime-time games for 2009.

Dallas Cowboys -- Week 2/3 (Sunday night vs. New York Giants, Monday night vs. Carolina)

Indianapolis Colts -- Week 2/3 (Monday night at Miami, Sunday night at Arizona)

New England Patriots -- Week 12/13 (Monday night at New Orleans, Sunday night at Miami*)

New York Giants -- Week 14/15 (Sunday night vs. Philadelphia*, Monday night at Washington)

Washington Redskins -- Week 15/16 (Monday night vs. New York Giants, Sunday night vs. Dallas*)

Minnesota Vikings -- Week 15/16 (Sunday night vs. Carolina*, Monday night at Chicago)

* Game could be moved because of flex scheduling

Anyone turned off by the hype placed on the kids at the Little League World Series might find some solace in this live microphone catching a young hurler asking for permission to hit a batter. Yay, for all-access!

Baseball is supposed to teach youngsters the value of teamwork and fair play. But sometimes the game is just so damn frustrating that all you want to do is drill some kid in the back with a fastball. Mercer Island's Brandon Lawler certainly understood that after allowing the tying and go-ahead runs to score in the top of the sixth (and final) inning against Georgia—an inning that included three wild pitches and two passed balls. His coach came out to talk him down, but Lawler was not in the mood.

COACH: "Hey, we're going to come up again."
PITCHER: "Is it okay if I just hit this batter?"
COACH: "What? No. No. Are you kidding me? ... Let's get this guy. Come on. We're still in this game. One-run game. You wanna stay in?"
PITCHER: "No."
COACH: "You wanna come out right now?"
PITCHER: "Yes, I do. Can I sit out?"
COACH: "No, you're going to first base."

Now I know a lot of people are going to get down on this kid for pouting and quitting on his team, but you know what? I guarantee you that more than few big leaguers have acted even more childish and pissy than this when on the mound. And it's hard not to sympathize with a 12-year-old who just messed up the biggest moment of his life in front of a national TV audience. Sometimes sportsmanship can go take a fucking hike.

Little Leaguer shows sportsmanship, heart in defeat [Stupid Sports Blog]
Warner Robins Rallies in Sixth [Little League]

How Procter & Gamble is using design thinking to crack difficult business problems.