The Good News: Big road win.
The Bad News: By beating Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt fell from (away) Quad 1 and the remaining schedule is very tough.
USC Current Ranking: 98 (up 14 spots from last ranking) - this shows how the SEC schedule will really increase the ranking based on games played alone. Still a long way to go.
Quality Wins: None (#42 UAB and at #81 Vanderbilt closest to Quad 1)
Quality Loses: Two (at #55 Clemson, v. #6 Auburn)
Bad Loses: Two (v. #115 Princeton, at #150 Coastal Carolina). Both teams went down in the rankings. Princeton needs top 100 (they've been in and out of the top 100) and Coastal needs to crack the top 135 to move off of the list.
Remaining:
Quad 1 (8): at #11 Tennessee, at #65 Texas A&M, at #45 Mississippi State, v. #11 Tennessee, v. #16 Kentucky, v. #3 LSU, at #22 Alabama, at #6 Auburn
Quad 2 (4): v. #50 Florida, at #93 Arkansas, at #111 Mississippi, v. #45 Mississippi State
Quad 3 (2): v. #81 Vanderbilt; at #227 Georgia
Quad 4 (2): v. #227 Georgia, v. #199 Missouri
As you can see, the schedule is brutal. South Carolina will have to win four of the twelve Quad 1 or Quad 2 games (and win the 4 other games) to even sniff the NCAA Tournament.
Questions and observations. Trying not to make this too much of Frank complaint-fest after a win.
1. Win showed the times South Carolina's efficiency can allow them to beat anyone. This game also showed how turnovers may kill the team in the end. Offensive/Defensive Efficiency is a metric that is part of NET rankings and, normally, because of the high amount of possessions, isn't as predictive of movement as wins, SOS and win value. However, we have so many turnovers that cleaning this up could lead to both additional wins and efficiency. This has to be the #1 focus moving forward and can mean the difference between making the tournament and not.
2. End of Game Lineup
a. Analytics (I know it's only two SEC games): I know Frank hates analytics but he really needs to start paying attention to it. I hate to call players out but his last 6:00 minute lineups was one of the most analytically inefficient lineups he could have on the court. In terms of Win Share per 40 Minutes (Basketball version of baseball's WAR), the top 5 players (best to worst) are Wilson, Leveque, Stevenson, Cousinard and Reese. The worst five are Gray, Bryant, Martin, D. Carter and Minott (in fairness Minott only has 3 minutes). Add into that turnover percentage (Wilson #2 and Bryant #6; Reese #1 and Devin Carter #10). The line for these players for last 6:00 - 3 points, 1-3 FG, 1-2 FT, 3 fouls, 1 TO). A.J. Wilson only played the last 11 seconds. It's also not on FT% - Bryant (52.4 FT%, Gray 53.3%); AJ Wilson (66.7%).
b. In the post-game, Frank said Bryant and Cousinard are trying to find their way with this new lineup and he, Frank, has to help them. Well, if they're lost, why are they playing at the end of the game? Cousinard was 0-3 with a steal and a rebound in the last 6 minutes. Chemistry is the most important thing at the end of the game and Frank knew these guys are not fully in the mix, why are they on the court at the end of the game? SEC play on the road, in a nail-bitter isn't the place to be doing this.
3. Refs. Glad USC won so I can freely complain. The refereeing in the Auburn game was dreadful (flops that became charges, mystery fouls, a guy getting fouled on a rebound and it becoming a shooting foul, not knowing who knocked the ball out-of-bounds) but at least it seemed fair -- more calls in Auburn's favor as the more aggressive team and Auburn setting very clean picks. This game was both awful and one-sided. Pippen is very over-rated and from what I've consistently seen, his scoring is based on moving screens, pushing off and bail out phantom calls on prayer shots. I loved the shocked look on Pippen's face when plowed over Stevenson and was surprised he didn't get the free call -- so at least we got a couple when he was out-of-control. Our guards were not getting the same love (Wright is called for a push off all of the time -- but both Auburn and Vandy used stiff arms constantly on him for two games) and Stevenson was held for much of the game. It was embarrassing. As David Cloninger tweeted:
"As for today's officiating ...
Same as usual. Pretty clear by now the pool of officials the league draws from doesn't have any uniform set of rules. It's a tossup to what you get game-to-game, with "terrible" being the most common result."
Luckily, Pippen's unearned "Pippen Rules" status mainly plays out at home and we may be spared a lot of it when he's in Columbia. However, I would love for Frank to get some explanation for these things instead of blaming our guys in his post-game.
The Bad News: By beating Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt fell from (away) Quad 1 and the remaining schedule is very tough.
USC Current Ranking: 98 (up 14 spots from last ranking) - this shows how the SEC schedule will really increase the ranking based on games played alone. Still a long way to go.
Quality Wins: None (#42 UAB and at #81 Vanderbilt closest to Quad 1)
Quality Loses: Two (at #55 Clemson, v. #6 Auburn)
Bad Loses: Two (v. #115 Princeton, at #150 Coastal Carolina). Both teams went down in the rankings. Princeton needs top 100 (they've been in and out of the top 100) and Coastal needs to crack the top 135 to move off of the list.
Remaining:
Quad 1 (8): at #11 Tennessee, at #65 Texas A&M, at #45 Mississippi State, v. #11 Tennessee, v. #16 Kentucky, v. #3 LSU, at #22 Alabama, at #6 Auburn
Quad 2 (4): v. #50 Florida, at #93 Arkansas, at #111 Mississippi, v. #45 Mississippi State
Quad 3 (2): v. #81 Vanderbilt; at #227 Georgia
Quad 4 (2): v. #227 Georgia, v. #199 Missouri
As you can see, the schedule is brutal. South Carolina will have to win four of the twelve Quad 1 or Quad 2 games (and win the 4 other games) to even sniff the NCAA Tournament.
Questions and observations. Trying not to make this too much of Frank complaint-fest after a win.
1. Win showed the times South Carolina's efficiency can allow them to beat anyone. This game also showed how turnovers may kill the team in the end. Offensive/Defensive Efficiency is a metric that is part of NET rankings and, normally, because of the high amount of possessions, isn't as predictive of movement as wins, SOS and win value. However, we have so many turnovers that cleaning this up could lead to both additional wins and efficiency. This has to be the #1 focus moving forward and can mean the difference between making the tournament and not.
2. End of Game Lineup
a. Analytics (I know it's only two SEC games): I know Frank hates analytics but he really needs to start paying attention to it. I hate to call players out but his last 6:00 minute lineups was one of the most analytically inefficient lineups he could have on the court. In terms of Win Share per 40 Minutes (Basketball version of baseball's WAR), the top 5 players (best to worst) are Wilson, Leveque, Stevenson, Cousinard and Reese. The worst five are Gray, Bryant, Martin, D. Carter and Minott (in fairness Minott only has 3 minutes). Add into that turnover percentage (Wilson #2 and Bryant #6; Reese #1 and Devin Carter #10). The line for these players for last 6:00 - 3 points, 1-3 FG, 1-2 FT, 3 fouls, 1 TO). A.J. Wilson only played the last 11 seconds. It's also not on FT% - Bryant (52.4 FT%, Gray 53.3%); AJ Wilson (66.7%).
b. In the post-game, Frank said Bryant and Cousinard are trying to find their way with this new lineup and he, Frank, has to help them. Well, if they're lost, why are they playing at the end of the game? Cousinard was 0-3 with a steal and a rebound in the last 6 minutes. Chemistry is the most important thing at the end of the game and Frank knew these guys are not fully in the mix, why are they on the court at the end of the game? SEC play on the road, in a nail-bitter isn't the place to be doing this.
3. Refs. Glad USC won so I can freely complain. The refereeing in the Auburn game was dreadful (flops that became charges, mystery fouls, a guy getting fouled on a rebound and it becoming a shooting foul, not knowing who knocked the ball out-of-bounds) but at least it seemed fair -- more calls in Auburn's favor as the more aggressive team and Auburn setting very clean picks. This game was both awful and one-sided. Pippen is very over-rated and from what I've consistently seen, his scoring is based on moving screens, pushing off and bail out phantom calls on prayer shots. I loved the shocked look on Pippen's face when plowed over Stevenson and was surprised he didn't get the free call -- so at least we got a couple when he was out-of-control. Our guards were not getting the same love (Wright is called for a push off all of the time -- but both Auburn and Vandy used stiff arms constantly on him for two games) and Stevenson was held for much of the game. It was embarrassing. As David Cloninger tweeted:
"As for today's officiating ...
Same as usual. Pretty clear by now the pool of officials the league draws from doesn't have any uniform set of rules. It's a tossup to what you get game-to-game, with "terrible" being the most common result."
Luckily, Pippen's unearned "Pippen Rules" status mainly plays out at home and we may be spared a lot of it when he's in Columbia. However, I would love for Frank to get some explanation for these things instead of blaming our guys in his post-game.
