Making Sense in an Unbalanced World

Tipoff

There are no shortage of arguments about how things used to be better “back in the old days.” That is generally not how I see things because I recognize that things are often better than they used to be. We have mini computers in our pockets that allow us to have video calls with our family and friends, after all. That being said, there is one thing that we have lost that I fear will never come back, the balanced conference schedule.

Before conference expansion, the ACC, Big 10 (you know, when there were actually 10 teams in it), and others would have each of their teams play a home and road game against all the other teams in the conference. Now that conferences are swelling to 15 or more teams, though, this is impossible during a 31-game regular season. Instead, we have the unbalanced schedule. Teams sometimes play the other top teams in their conference. Sometimes, they don’t. College basketball fans check the standings each morning, but what does it really mean if one team did not have to travel to play the other top teams?

Things are never going back to the way they were. What we have to remember, though, is that not all conference records are the same. When it comes time to fill out your brackets this March, remember to take a peek behind the record at the opponents that were played. With more than 350 teams, comparing records is never going to be apples to oranges. Conference expansion has made it more like comparing apples to okra.

The Mixtape 

The Field of 68 team puts out lots of great content each week. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights.

• Tuesday was a big night in men’s college basketball and the Field of 68: After Dark! crew was there to break down the action. Tennessee took down Kentucky. Memphis suddenly looked like a tournament team. Collin Gillespie was clutch against Providence. Wake Forest almost had the shot of the season in a close game at Duke. Rob Dauster, Randolph Childress, and Jim Root were there to discuss the action and implications. There is no other show that breaks down the nightly action like this.

• Let’s talk about trust. When you fill out your brackets, can you trust Purdue? What about Arizona? On the Dauster, T.O., & Fanta podcast, Rob, Terrence, and John talked about trust issues with the leading contenders for the National Title. That Memphis take didn’t last very long, but that’s another matter.

• On the Seat 14 podcast, Tod Lanter met with former Wildcat and two-time National Champion Cameron Mills. Tod and Cameron covered a lot of ground, including the strengths of John Calipari as a head coach. That attribute may be surprising to you. For more thoughts from Tod on Kentucky, see Four Point Play below.

Four Point Play

Every week, we’ll check in with one of our podcast hosts and see what they’re up to besides producing compelling content for us at The Field of 68.

This week, we checked in with Tod Lanter, former Kentucky walk-on and host of the Seat 14 podcast (available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you access podcasts).

1. For better or worse, Kentucky head coach John Calipari has gained a reputation of recruiting the best talent and then rolling the ball out, allowing his future NBA stars to out-talent the opposition. On the other hand, no one has been to more Sweet 16s or Final Fours since he was named head coach in Lexington. He obviously is doing something on the bench. This year, though, he has a team of veterans and transfers. As someone familiar with Coach Cal, how would you rate the job he's done this year relative to previous years and is it as simple as having more experience?

• I have heard for years, even before he arrived at Kentucky, that he has the talent coming in like John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins, that he is just rolling the ball out there. It appears that way, with the dribble drive action, that it looks like that at times. His job, though, is a lot more than basketball. He has to manage egos. He runs his team like an NBA team because that is what most of these guys want to do as a career. The learning curve is really high due to the turnover. This year is a little unique with the transfer rules changing. Having guys like Sahvir Wheeler and Oscar Tshiebwe makes things a little easier. What that does for the team is that we aren’t dealing with just a bunch of freshmen. There are guys like Keion Brooks and Davion Mintz that have played for Cal for a couple of years. They can set an example for TyTy Washington and the freshmen. It’s much more than X’s and O’s, which is why he is able to get some of the talent he does.

1. Last year was, how can we put this, not the best for Kentucky. The last time Kentucky missed the NCAA men's basketball tournament, they lost to Robert Morris University in the NIT but bounced back all the way to the National Title Game the following season. How far is Kentucky going this March (or April)?

• Last year, we sucked. Nothing to hide there. I was actually on that team that lost to Robert Morris in the NIT as well as the team that lost to UConn in the National Title Game the following year. I was part of the lowest of the low and the highest moments, including those 4 game winners from Aaron Harrison. One of the things I will note about those two years is that we had the same number of losses each year. That goes to the weight the NCAA puts on the strength of the schedule your team has. As far as this team goes, I think we are trending in the right direction. That 2014 team, they were trending in the right direction all year. This season, we are learning every game. Obviously, we don’t want to lose, but we learn from every game. There is nothing good that can come from a loss unless you learn from it. I think Coach Cal has got this team to buy into what the team is after. If everything goes well, it benefits everyone, including those guys that want to make a professional career out of basketball.

1. Let's imagine you are creating the perfect post player in a video game. You can pick one skillset from a Kentucky big man. You can pick between Oscar Tshiebwe's rebounding, Anthony Davis's rim protection, or Karl Anthony-Towns's shooting. Whose elite skills are you picking and why?

• I think you take Oscar off this team, and Kentucky is an NIT team at best. People give a lot of credit to him for the rebounding because it’s a big number. He is averaging 15 rebounds a game, which is 15 more chances to score the basketball, 15 less chances for the opponent to score. If you average that out over the 40 minutes of a game and you can see the impact of that. His value is immense for this team. With that said, I have played with Karl. People say Cal holds people back. That is not what he does. His role was to get to scoring over his shoulder and operating out of the short corner. He was elite at it, but we are seeing more of his complete scoring set. That being said, Anthony Davis was an absolute menace, and much more than just his rim protection. Cal was able to coach those teams in 2012 with Anthony Davis, I don’t know how to describe it. We used to drive shooters off of the line and into the paint because there was nothing they could do. Anthony Davis, even if he wasn’t blocking the shot, he was changing everything. The value of that, it was more impactful than the other two, [Towns and Tshiebwe]. My answer is Anthony Davis.

And one!

1. You were a walk-on for the University of Kentucky. Part of the job of being a walk-on is to have an elite celebration when a teammate has a big play, such as a poster dunk or clutch 3-point shot. What was your favorite bench celebration?

• I used to do things for 3-pointers. Doron Lamb in 2012, he started doing the “3 goggles.” A couple of years later when Devin Booker, I would hold the 3 down and hold it down like I was reloading a gun. I would do that in practice to sort of hype them up. “Book” did it to me one time in a game and it kind of caught fire and took off. The goofy inter-squad gestures we would do to each other was a bonding thing.

Stay tuned for upcoming episodes of the Seat 14 podcast with Tod Lanter. Upcoming guests include Sahvir Wheeler and former Kentucky player Trey Lyles of the Detroit Pistons.

Thursday Superlatives

Each week, we will shine a light on a team and an individual player that has captured the hearts of the world of college basketball.

• Team of the Week: Rutgers

  • For the longest time, the Scarlet Knights men’s basketball program was best known for Jim Valvano’s famous speech, recounting the first time he attempted to inspire the team as a young head coach. Lately, it has inspired fear in the hearts of the Big Ten. It began with a 2-point win over Ohio State in New Brunswick last Wednesday. They then went on the road and beat Wisconsin in Madison. This past Wednesday night, another upset, this time over Illinois at the RAC by a score of 70-59. Steve Pikiel is making a late push for B1G Coach of the Year if he keeps this up. Rutgers has now won 4 consecutive games against ranked teams, which is 3 more than any other team in the nation in February.

• Player of the Week: E.J. Liddell, Ohio State

  • The Buckeye big man had yet another 28-point performance, his third of the season, on Saturday in Ann Arbor, Michigan, against the Wolverines. Liddell hit all 11 of his free throw attempts as Ohio State deflated rival Michigan. While Johnny Davis and a group of centers may have received most of the attention in the Big Ten this year, Liddell has had an outstanding season in his own right, worthy of consideration for conference player of the year. He has added improved shooting to his scoring repertoire this year while continuing to terrorize opponents with his rebounding and blocked shots.

Box Score

Basketball can be told through the numbers. We take a look at some of the numbers from the last week of college hoops.

• 1,118. On Saturday, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski earned his 1,118th victory as head coach of the Blue Devils. All other head coaches at Duke have combined for 1,117 wins. (ACC Network)

• 38. Gonzaga climbed back to #1 in the AP Poll on Monday, the 38th time the Bulldogs have reached the top of the polls in men’s college basketball. The only teams that have been ranked #1 more often than Gonzaga - Cincinnati, Duke, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and UCLA - have each won multiple National Titles. (Jared Berson, ESPN Stats & Info)

• 38. In what may be the best research project of all time, Reddit user /u/RecordReviewer discovered that there are currently 38 Division 1 basketball programs that have separate names for their men’s and women’s basketball teams. Of that group, 30 have just added the word “lady” in front of the mascot. Central Arkansas, however, calls its men’s team the Bears and the women’s team the Sugar Bears. (Reddit)

• 31. On Saturday, Portland’s Tyler Robertson scored 31 points in a triple-double performance, collecting 11 rebounds and dishing out 11 assists in the win over Loyola Marymount. He also made all 5 of his 3-point field goal attempts and all 10 of his free throws. No player in the last 25 years of Division 1 men’s basketball has achieved these feats in their career. Robertson did it all in a single game. (Stats by STATS)

• 24.8. The South Florida Bulls are the worst-shooting team from 3-point range in the nation, currently hitting just 24.8% of their field goal attempts. Falling below the one-in-four mark would put USF in rare territory, joining a group of just 5 other schools to be so inaccurate from beyond the arc. Coincidently, USF has made at least one 3-point field goal in every game this year. (Collin Sherwin)

Around the Rim

This section highlights some of the best writing on college basketball to hit the web. Consider these your extra credit assignments for spring semester.

• Sports Illustrated | Merl Code Peels Back the Curtain on College Basketball’s Bribery Scandal

• Heat Check MBB | College basketball conference tournament schedule 2022: Brackets, TV info, tickets punched, more

• Stadium | College Basketball Transfer Portal Winners and Losers for 2022