Quick Clemson NCAA Post-Mortem

There's an old adage that teams that like to press don't like to be pressed. Yesterday afternoon we observed a more fundamental truism: teams that turn the ball over too much don't like to be pressed. It was pretty obvious to anyone paying attention that Clemson was almost certain to lose to Missouri. Both teams rely primarily on their defensive ability to force turnovers to drive their offensive output, and the Mizzou Tigers simply don't turn the ball over. Yeah, there was a chance our press might cause them problems, but you aren't a top five team at avoiding turnovers for nothing. The advantage was all Missouri going in and they burned us time and time again as we made stupid decisions with the ball. We kept it close with ridiculous, unsustainable 3-point shooting in the first half but when we regressed to the mean in the second half the game was as good as done (felt like the second Maryland game in that respect). Also, if you don't understand the concept of regression to the mean, read this. Its related to baseball but the idea is the same--if the team has a certain "true" level of performance, then given enough time the team will revert to that level regardless of how well they perform over smaller stretches of time. We went 8-11 from 3-point land in the first half, there was no way we were going 16-22 for the game.

I know everyone is down on the players for not playing hard the last ten minutes of the game, but I think there's a reason. Seems to me they new their margin for error was small--they had to keep things even for 40 minutes to try and pull it out at the end because they wouldn't be able to force turnovers or get enough stops in the halfcourt to spark a run (to say nothing of our complete lack of a four-minute offense). Once they were in a hole, they knew they were beaten. Sure, it's not a good reason for not playing hard and it reflects extremely poorly on the coaching staff for their inability to motivate/prepare the team mentally, but there it is.

I've been yelling it as loud as I can from this tiny blog pulpit: turnovers are killing us. This is the worst year for Clemson at turning the ball over since the first season Purnell took over, and it's not even close. There's been a ton of talk around the blogosphere about the lack of an offensive plan for the Tigers and their inability to even execute simple fundamentals. This is undoubtedly true; I won't argue this point. Purnell and his (newly-hired?) assistants need to take a long look at the tapes this offseason to figure out how to improve the halfcourt set. But I would argue that we have an even more fundamental problem: empty possessions from turnover after turnover. Often, we don't even get a chance to setup the halfcourt 'cause Stitt is dribbling the ball off his leg. This is also a more fundamental problem because it isn't going away next season with Stitt as our de facto team leader and ball-handler.

Next season has all of the makings of a bad year for the Tigers, outlined by ClemBen in the post below. We've got a turnover prone "senior leader" point guard blocking and taking playing time from a better player one year his junior (don't even get me started--the last few games of the season should have sealed in everyone's mind that Young is the better player than Stitt now), a lack of an strong inside presence capable of creating a shot, and a guy starting at the two position that would be fighting for playing time at the back end of the bench for a middling SEC team (how many times was Tanner Smith burned off the ball on the perimeter leading to easy points? I give him credit for decent defensive fundamentals, but when he's matched against someone quick and fluid, he's toast). Most of our problems are related to the most fundamental aspects of the game; for example, perimeter players gotta be stronger with the ball and make crisper passes to right part of the player receiving the ball while inside guys need to improve footwork in the post. It's easy to tell Clemson to go out and make up a few nice offensive sets and practice them 1000 times, but we won't get to .500 in the ACC next season without first improving the fundamentals on offense and bringing our turnover count down to a reasonable range.

Gauging Clemson's NCAA Odds on Paper

Every year, I run a simulation of the NCAA tournament based on Kenpom.com's offensive and defensive effeciency ratings. I went over the methodology in some detail last year, so I won't cover it again. I'm no professional when it comes to these things, it's just something I do every year for fun. Like last year, I'll share what the simulation says regarding Clemson's chances of advancing into each round, alongside the 2008 and 2009 tournaments. Each number represents the percentage of times that Clemson reached a given round out of a million simulations. Keep in mind, this method is based only on the stats--only a part of the story in basketball. It doesn't take into account, for example, how teams match up in terms of strengths and weaknesses. As a result, Clemson ends up with a much better chance of advancing past Missouri based on statistics alone than I think is actually warranted when looking at the actual matchups, which I touched on briefly in the last post.



Clemson's odds of reaching the last two rounds ends up closely mirroring last year, but reaching the Sweet 16 or Elite 8 is a considerably more difficult task as we are up against a much stronger slate of teams. And how about those odds in 2008? Pretty painful to ponder what could of been, given that gift of a second-round potential matchup with Vanderbilt. I haven't seen odds anywhere close to that good for a 5 seed in the last three years...

Initial Thoughts on NCAA Selection/Tourney

In an effort to pack the first round with as many unnecessary subplots as possible, the selection committee is pitting Clemson against Missouri in the "Buffalo Battle of the Full-court Presses (TM)". I think Clemson as a seven seed is a bit of a stretch, they probably fit slightly better as an 8/9 seed while Missouri is probably feeling a bit puzzled they were selected as a 10 seed, I had them pegged as closer to a 7/8 seed. In that light, Clemson vs. Missouri probably makes the most sense when viewed as the fifth 8 vs. 9 game, with West Virginia as the fifth #1 seed.

It's interesting to get a second potential shot at playing WVU. I was pretty excited at the beginning of the season about the possibility of playing them in the second round of the 76 Classic, before Texas A&M handled us pretty easily in the opener. Despite the fact that WVU doesn't turn the ball over much, I don't think that would be a terrible matchup for us. Unfortunately, though, I don't share ClemBen's optimism below about the Missouri game. Without looking too deeply at the stats or tape, my initial impressions give us about a 15% chance at winning. As everyone in TigerTown knows by now, Mike Anderson's Mizzou Tigers play the entire length of the court just like Oliver Purnell. But don't get caught up in the "two teams playing the same style of basketball" talk. While they have a lot of similarities, it ain't hard to find differences, either. The most important difference: Missouri is reasonably good at holding on to the ball whereas Clemson is reasonably bad at holding on to the ball. In a matchup of two defenses that specialize in producing turnovers, which one do you think has the upper hand? This also explains why they ended up #13 on my "Matchups of Doom" list last week. In fact, I'd take it a step further and say this matchup is actually one of the worst possible for Clemson (outside of the Richmond Spiders), because almost all of the teams above Missouri are in the 1-5 range and we weren't going to play them in the first round anyway.

Now I'll bring up a personal anecdote to try and support why I have a lot of doubts about our chances against Missouri. I try to avoid these 'cause personal anecdotes are too often used as blunt instruments to try and bludgeon someone into believing your point-of-view ("but I was there, I saw what it was like...", etc.), but I think the stats back me up strongly in this case. Back in 2004, I happened to be vacationing in Hawaii and got hooked up with some tickets to watch Clemson play UAB in the first round of the Rainbow Classic (speaking of which, you were there ClemBen--I can't believe you've forgotten...hahaha). Clemson was in its second year with Oliver Purnell at the helm, and UAB in its third season under Mike Anderson, fresh off a surprise NCAA sweet sixteen run. It was a fun first half to watch, lots of fast play with both teams really hitting each other with the press, getting turnovers and occasionally run-outs. The second half, however, UAB came out strong and didn't let up--completely burying Clemson. I came away from the game with one impression: UAB won because ultimately they took better care of the basketball. Looking over the stats from the past eight years, I don't see anything that dissuades me from this initial impression. Mike Anderson's teams are traditionally strong in two areas: forcing turnovers and not yielding any turnovers. For whatever reason, to the increasingly maddening perspective of the Clemson fanbase, Oliver Purnell hasn't been as concerned with the latter. Its reached unbelievable heights this season, which is by far the worst season in terms of giving away the ball since the first year Purnell took over.

So unless we suddenly decide to stop giving away our possessions for no good reason, in all likelihood Oliver Purnell and the Tigers are looking at another first round exit. There are a few other wrinkles to the matchup (most of them favoring Missouri) and I'll try to go more into detail later in the week. But right now, some other quick, initial thoughts on the Tourney:

1) The selection committee didn't do a good job selecting the seeds, at least not as good as last year's effort. Not impressed at all.
2) No Elizabeth, you are not getting any hints from the website about which teams to pick (or not pick) this year. Your "victory" from last year is still under review by the rules committee, by the way...
3) While I don't agree some of the selection committee's seeds, I really don't have any problems with the Virginia Tech decision. Let's not forget that in addition to having a crazy weak out-of-conference schedule, they also had an incredibly weak in-conference schedule. The only downside to the decision is we have to listen to Seth Greenberg's annual ESPN whine-fest. I will personally send a $25 dollar check to any reporter who poses this simple question to Seth Greenberg: given VT's recent NCAA snubs and the consistent criticism accompanying these snubs regarding a weak out-of-conference schedule, why was Temple the only non-conference team you scheduled that could reasonably be considered a preseason favorite to get into the NCAA tournament? That's the only question needed to make the whining go away.
4) From Greenberg's Twitter feed, just before the selections were announced:

"Still holding out hope! Sad day for the ACC if a 10-6 third place team doesn't
get a bid".

First of all, it says a lot about your own mindset if you have to "hold out hope" after winning 10 conference games. Second, don't cry for the ACC--we got six teams into the Tournament, including the team that finished 7-9 in conference play. This doesn't look bad for the ACC, it reflects poorly on your program and its utter inability to construct a halfway decent tournament resume.

Clemson versus Missouri

So the brackets just came out and Clemson scores a 7 seed in the East versus none other than fellow pressing team Missouri. That is a tough match-up for us although Mizzou faded towards the end of the year. Now I don't have too much of a problem with Missouri but getting West Virginia as the 2 seed is really bad news. They are easily the top second seed after winning the Big East Champs. Wish we could have drawn Villanova for some pay back. I am happy we play the 19th, Buffalo is kinda far and cold so I won't be there, which is unfortunate.

I will be happy with this season if we can win the first game. Do that and hopefully we can move on and Booker can find his rhythm. At least with Missouri we can play up tempo and not get stuck in our crummy half court but we have struggled against the press ourselves this year. I don't think we handle the press well and we certainly have turned it over way too much all season, especially in our last two games. It certainly could have been worse--I am glad to not be in an 8/9 match-up. Come on Tigers, give OP at least one NCAA tourney win...

One last thing I have been meaning to post about--How is that 'Seed of Doubt' now Ron Morris?? What a hack reporter, again nothing to back up his opinions but I would say a 7 seed is a pretty ringing endorsement of the season despite an early tourney loss. We weren't even close to being on the bubble even with Houston and Washington winning conference tournaments and UTEP and Utah State losing. Why is that you may ask Ron? Its because of RPI and SOS--statistics you should look into.

Although Virginia Tech did have the worst OOC schedule in recent memory 10-6 in the ACC is a stinging rejection. Another tough rejection for Seth Greenberg.

NCAA Matchups of Doom: 2010 Edition

Thought I would do this again this year: it's just a slightly-better-than-arbitrary way to try and pick out the teams that would be among the most difficult matchups for Clemson in the first round. I described the "methodology" last year, but basically I pick a couple of statistical areas that I think gave us match-up problems over the course of the season and apply a weighted ranking of teams that are strong in those areas. This year I chose the ability of a team to avoid the turnover and their ability to limit a team's effective FG%. The reasoning: the former takes away our primary strength on defense which has essentially driven our relatively high defensive ranking and the latter renders an already weak offense completely punchless. I weighted the former twice as much as the latter. Here's the list of teams I'm hoping won't align opposite Clemson on Selection Sunday:

Some names of teams that we struggled against are up there: Duke, Maryland, Virginia Tech. Also some interesting names that I've seen bandied about as potential 7-10 seeds (the seed we'll likey be facing): Missouri, UTEP, Utah State, Richmond, St. Mary's, UNLV, Northern Iowa. Based on this, I'd say Richmond would be the worst/most plausible matchup of doom for 2010.