Introducing UNC's newest cheerleader: Landree Allen
(Pardon me while I take a moment to gush over my daughter.) Just like her daddy, Landree Allen (5 months old) came out of the womb a Tar Heel fan. This will be her first basketball season and she’ll be rooting for UNC with me every game! You can see from the picture she’s as excited about the upcoming season as I am. Here she is starting a U-N-C cheer by making a letter U (she hasn't figured out the other letters yet, but give her a couple of weeks). 
Is the ACC the best basketball conference?
That's not an easy question to answer because there is no standard for how to measure and compare conferences. When you compare conferences, you are comparing the sum total of the teams in the conferences. Just because one team in a conference was really good doesn't mean the conference is good. Likewise, having one or two bad teams doesn't necessarily mean a conference is also bad (although it does hurt). By peering into the stats over at StatSheet.com, we can draw some fairly objective conclusions about which conferences are better than others. Let's start by looking at the 2006-2007 season. If you check out the Conference Summary Stats for 2006-2007, many relevant stats are available in the sortable table. The ACC was ranked first in RPI, had the highest non-conference winning pct (ie, ACC teams playing non-ACC teams), the most teams to make the NCAA Tourney, and the most draft picks in the 2007 NBA Draft. That's pretty compelling! The only blemish on the ACC's record for last season was performance in the NCAA Tourney where ACC teams went 7-7. Other than that, I think you can make a strong case for the ACC being the best last year. Let's widen our view a bit and consider the last several years. Is there another conference that stacks up with the ACC? Absolutely. Using the StatSheet.com Conference Comparison feature, we can compare stats for up to five conferences at a time. Currently you can't select the time period, it defaults to as far back as they have data. After a little more analysis I came up with the ACC, SEC, Big East, Big Ten and Big 12 as the top 5 conferences. Here you can compare them. Interestingly enough, the SEC is neck-in-neck with the ACC in terms of RPI data since 1998. The ACC has an edge with non-Conference winning percentage going back to 1980. And while other conferences beat the ACC in terms of total NCAA tournament teams since 1980, the ACC is comfortably in front as far as the number of Sweet 16, Final Four, and NCAA Championship teams. Lastly, the ACC is also way in front with total NBA draft picks since 1980. Now if we want to just look over the last few years, we can use the "Chart It" links on the comparison page to view a chart of season-by-season stats. Here is a chart (using the Chartlet feature) of the Conference RPI rankings since 1998: Conference RPI is the average RPI across the teams in the conference and is perhaps the best single metric we have to judge the strength of a conference. As you can see from the chart, one conference doesn't really stand above the rest. The ACC and SEC have the highest rankings over that period of time, which explains why they were so close in the overall average shown in the comparison table. However, all the conferences tend to jump back and forth from year to year. I've looked at several charts now and many exhibit the same characteristics. Much as individual teams fluctuate in terms of performance, so do their conferences. A clear 'best' conference can be determined every year without too much debate, but extending that out over a longer period leads to more subjective analysis.
(Not so) Late Nite with Roy
There is nothing that gets my Carolina Blue blood racing like the annual Late Nite with Roy event. This past Friday was no different. Now that I've attended Late Nite several times, the skits aren't quite as entertaining. The guys did a lot of dancing which always generates laughter (especially seeing Tyler), but my main objective was to see the scrimmage. I try to watch every minute of Carolina basketball during the year and it all starts with this first scrimmage. Before I get to the scrimmage, a few noteworthy points: - This year each player made his way to the court via the stands, not from the tunnel. When it came time for Hansbrough to come out, he was obviously pumped. He almost knocked over two other players when he got to the court and started doing chest bumps with anyone in sight. - Kenny Mann and Liquid Pleasure performed live (sporting Carolina blue sequin jackets). At one point Coach Williams put on one of the jackets. What a sight! (pictures available here) - Bobby Frasor took over for Wes Miller in the annual Coach Williams spoof. This time Bobby had a pre-recorded spoof on Coach's oft-played Coke commercial. He did ok, but it was a little too long. Now for the scrimmage... There isn't a lot that you can really tell from the first scrimmage of the year, but it was interesting to see who played well and who didn't. All the usual suspects looked good. Deon has lost a lot of weight. Ty was very fast. Tyler was a beast. It looked like the same team from last year mostly (except for Brandan and Reyshawn of course). William Graves is the lone addition to the team after he redshirted last year. He also lost some weight and looked really good. William has a lot of potential and could be a big star at UNC by the time he graduates. And to prove my point, he did very well in the scimmage. He scored 11. Marcus Ginyard led all scorers with 12. Danny Green looked really good, nailing a couple of early outside shots. Hansbrough made a long 17 footer and had a monster dunk. The one downspot for him was his free throws surprisingly enough! He missed several. I'm sure he'll get that fixed before the season starts. Typically these kind of scrimmages aren't very competitive, but this one was. It was all tied up at 37 with 2.9 seconds to go. The game ended in a tie and Coach Williams waved off the refs. I would have liked to have seen more, but I'll have to wait about a month! For more details on Late Nite with Roy, check out the official UNC website.
Midnight Madness is almost here!
This is my favorite time of year. The weather is changing (well not really, it is still hot as crap here in NC), the leaves are turning color, and basketball is in the air. Midnight Madness is this Friday which ushers in the new season. I can't wait. UNC is going to be good, really good, this year. Expectations will be high (like 2004-2005). Are you going to Late Nite with Roy? I'll be there. This will be my fourth trip in the last five years (I couldn't attend in 2005 because I was in Boston at the time). Stuart Scott will be the MC again. Frankly, I'm not a big fan of all the skits. They are pretty much the same every year. The main reason I go is for the blue/white scrimmage. It is well worth it! Over at StatSheet.com we've been maintaining a list of all the known midnight madness events. There are quite a few schools that aren't hosting an event this year on Oct 12th. Some big names too like Florida and Ohio State. And they wonder why they don't have rabid fans like UNC and Kentucky!
A new website for College Basketball Fans and Bloggers
Normally I don't blog very much during the offseason, but I've been especially lax this summer. However, I have a good reason! I've been devoting my time to developing a new website specifically for college basketball fans called StatSheet.com. A team of us have been working to create the best online college basketball experience found anywhere on the net. Our version of beta is what I'm calling the "Preseason Edition". That means the site is NOT fully done yet, but there is enough there to start collecting feedback. Some pages might not work quite right yet, but should soon. What's in it for Bloggers?Since I'm a blogger, we intend to develop features specifically for folks that want to add some college basketball bling to their site. The first big feature we're releasing is Chartlets. Any graphical chart you see on the site can be embedded in your website with just a few lines of javascript. Expect to see other widgets in the coming months! What's in it for Fans?Comparisons, charts, sortable stat tables, and historical analysis is just a small list of the types of things you'll find on StatSheet.com. Most of our detailed data goes back to the 1996-1997 season and game scores back to 1980-1981. We'll be adding more data over time to become the most comprehensive college basketball stats site on the net. Before the season starts we intend to add some social networking features. Stay tuned as I'm going to show off different aspects of the site in this blog. We are always interested in feedback, so please let us know what you think.
| 
