The Sports Arsenal

Before I get to the three specific topics I am discussing in this post, some links of interest:

My preview of The Citadel’s 2012-13 basketball season

Chuck Driesell talks Bulldog hoops with Danny Reed (video)

More hoops talk with Chuck Driesell and Danny Reed (video)

Jeff Hartsell was there to Meet the Bulldogs, and was impressed with two freshmen

Mike Groselle is one of the candidates for the Senior CLASS award

Groselle is ready for the season to start (video)

Preview from The Post and Courier

Quick note: In that first Chuck Driesell interview, the coach mentions having had a bunch of his father’s old game reels converted to DVD. I bet a significant number of people (mostly Maryland fans) wouldn’t mind paying for copies of those.

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Recently the Southern Conference released its annual preseason polls, both from the media and the coaches. The Citadel received the fewest votes in either poll, but that’s not what I’m writing about. My concern has to do with the way the polls were conducted.

I don’t have a major issue with the media poll, although I would like to know how the conference came up with a total of 30 voters. There are twelve schools in the league, so how were the votes apportioned?

Obviously it’s only a preseason poll and thus not a big deal, but I do have serious reservations about a media vote that did matter, namely last season’s all-conference team selections. I’ll get to that later.

However, first I want to take a look at the coaches’ poll, because it is a puzzler. All twelve coaches voted, but coaches could not vote for their own team. They also could not vote for their own players in the voting for the preseason all-conference team. I’m more interested in the breakdown for the team polling, however.

Total number of points for the teams in the North division: 246

Total number of points for the teams in the South division: 241

That makes no sense; both divisions should add up to the same number of points. Each division should have 246 points allocated to its six teams in some fashion. That is the case for the North, but the South somehow got shortchanged five points.

Because Davidson received all eleven possible first-place votes (Bob McKillop not being allowed to vote for his own team), the Wildcats should have received the maximum number of possible points, 66. Instead, Davidson got 65 points, so one of those five “missing” points belongs to Jake Cohen and company.

Conversely, the fewest possible number of points a team could get in this particular voting setup is 16. That would happen if a team were the last choice in a division by all the other coaches. The Citadel was the preseason last-place selection in the South division, and got, uh, 15 points.

The Citadel actually got fewer points in the SoCon preseason coaches’ poll than was technically possible. If that isn’t bulletin board material, I don’t know what is.

It’s only a preseason poll, though, so why should anyone care? I’ll tell you why. It is just part of a pattern of questionable polling/selection practices administered by the conference. Exhibit A in that respect is last season’s All-SoCon teams.

Last season there were four obvious choices for first-team honors in the Southern Conference: Jake Cohen, De’Mon Brooks, Mike Groselle, and Eric Ferguson. They were, by any legitimate measure, the league’s top four players. Cohen, Brooks, and Ferguson did make the first team, but Groselle was relegated to the second team in favor of Wofford’s Brad Loesing and UNCG’s Trevis Simpson.

Am I biased? Yes. However, check out this statistical comparison:

Player A is Mike Groselle. Player B is Trevis Simpson.

I’m not trying to knock Simpson, who is a good player, and one of the league’s better performers last season. I think you could make a decent case for him over Loesing, actually. I just find it hard to imagine how someone could vote for both of those players over Groselle.

Groselle was the league’s leading rebounder and finished second in scoring to Simpson, who took 151 more shots over the course of the season (which is reflected in his eFG%). I know that UNCG won the North division, and I suppose Simpson could get extra credit for that, but if the Spartans had been in the South they wouldn’t have finished in the top half of that division. They did lose 19 games last season, after all (The Citadel lost 24).

I can’t tell you how close the voting was, because the league didn’t provide voting totals for its all-conference teams, at least not publicly; it also didn’t release how many people voted for them. This stands in stark contrast to a conference like the ACC, which publishes that information.

I don’t really understand why the league releases point totals for the preseason polls (which are meaningless) but not for its all-conference teams (which are not meaningless). Maybe it is afraid someone will compare the number of voters to the point totals and discover a discrepancy. I don’t know.

I haven’t even discussed the qualifications of the voters. I can’t, since I don’t know who they are. I don’t know if they are actual media members or merely affiliated with one of the schools. I also don’t know if the voters are evenly distributed by region.

It would be nice to know these things.

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If you have a statistical bent when it comes to college hoops, then you probably know who Ken Pomeroy is, and you may know who Dan Hanner is. Both are affiliated with Basketball Prospectus, although Pomeroy has his own site, which is very popular with the tempo-free stats crowd (Hanner writes for RealGM.com).

Anyway, both have released their preseason ratings. It is no surprise that The Citadel is not rated highly.  The Bulldogs are 297th out of 347 Division I teams in Pomeroy’s preseason ratings, and 292nd out of 345 in Hanner’s rankings (Hanner does not rank Northern Kentucky and New Orleans, which are transitioning to D-1).

The Citadel is the lowest-rated SoCon team in Pomeroy’s ratings, but is ahead of two league schools in Hanner’s rankings. Samford and Appalachian State are below the Bulldogs in the latter system.

While Hanner’s rankings are part of the just-published 2012-13 College Basketball Prospectus guide, The Citadel is still predicted to finish last in the league in the SoCon section of the annual. The writer for the SoCon section is Joey Berlin, a freelance writer from Kansas City.

In discussing last year’s Bulldogs, Berlin wrote that “Despite the school’s name, the only impenetrable fortress at Citadel games was the opposing team’s basket.”

Pomeroy rates the SoCon 20th overall among conferences, and the new-look CAA 16th. I’m not sure that will provide much comfort to the College of Charleston’s administration as that school prepares to change leagues (assuming it does eventually do so).

Another ratings system was recently released by David Hess, who is affiliated with TeamRankings.com. In Hess’ ratings, The Citadel is 314th out of 347 teams. The Bulldogs are projected to have a record of 9-18 (5-13 SoCon), with a 0.2% chance of winning 20 games and a 0.1% chance of finishing with the best record in the league.

When I looked at his list of The Citadel’s toughest and easiest games, I was mildly surprised to see that the Bulldogs’ toughest game (at least prior to the start of the season) is projected to be the game at St. Bonaventure, as opposed to the games against Georgia Tech, Clemson, or Davidson.

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During the 2011-12 campaign, The Citadel averaged 1,840 fans per game over a 14-game home season. For conference games, the number was 1,813. When the Bulldogs played on the road in the Southern Conference, the average opposition attendance was 2,546.

The Citadel only outdrew two other league teams for SoCon home games, Elon and Samford. The Citadel’s numbers were very similar to those of Furman and Wofford.

That’s not a big surprise, as the Bulldogs went 6-24. However, The Citadel obviously needs to improve on that average. For one thing, I believe increased attendance can occasionally affect the results on the court, not only in terms of inspiring the team or intimidating the opponents, but in influencing SoCon officials (especially for weekend games). The Bulldogs need all the help they can get.

There is a built-in group of potential basketball attendees, though, who could really boost the totals and exponentially increase the support/intimidation factor. That would be the corps of cadets.

I have been at McAlister Field House on more than one occasion when a rowdy group of cadets managed to discombobulate the opposition. It doesn’t take a lot of them to have an impact, either.

(Incidentally, from personal experience during my cadet years, I can attest that natives of New York and New Jersey seem to be particularly good at annoying opponents.)

There are those in the corps who come to every game to support the team. Quite a few of them are athletes themselves, including members of the football and baseball teams. Then there is the pep band, which is traditionally outstanding.

The pep band and the “regulars” are great fans, and deserve credit for providing most of the atmosphere McAlister Field House has on game days.

I just wish that the basketball team got support in the same manner that the football team does for home games. Of course, attendance by the corps at football games is mandatory — which leads me to make a couple of suggestions.

I don’t know what The Citadel can do about league games played on Saturdays. I’m not about to advocate that members of the corps should be required to go to Saturday night basketball games (although of course they do attend football games on Saturday).

For Saturday games, I think it is important to make it really worthwhile for cadets to show up. Perhaps free overnights can be considered. At the very least, provide free food. That usually works.

Also, there are cadets who are stuck on campus over the weekend, serving tours or confinements. I would like to see those cadets in the stands cheering on their team, instead of walking on the quad while toting a rifle.

For weeknight contests, I advocate a rotation. The Citadel plays five league home games this season on weeknights. The “hardcore” plan would feature mandatory attendance at three of those five games (hey, it’s only a couple of hours). The “okay, we won’t bother you more than once” plan would have cadets attending at least one game.

For the one-game only plan, each battalion would attend one game. For example, on January 10th, the legendary 1st Battalion would go watch the Bulldogs battle Chattanooga. For the CofC game, 2nd Battalion would get the call. You get the idea.

I would set up the “hardcore” plan like this:

January 10 (Thursday) — Chattanooga — 3rd and 4th Battalions

January 14 (Monday) — College of Charleston — the entire Corps of Cadets

January 31 (Thursday) — Wofford — 1st and 5th Battalions

February 14 (Thursday) — Georgia Southern — 2nd Battalion

February 28 (Thursday) — Furman — the entire Corps of Cadets

Of course, any cadet who wanted to go to a game could go, even if his battalion wasn’t scheduled to attend. I think regulars would get to sit in specific sections for these games.

This setup would be worth at least two wins for The Citadel, in my opinion. I also believe it might increase attendance among the “non-cadet” crowd.

One other suggestion: I think it’s important to indoctrinate the freshmen cadets as quickly as possible. I understand that most of the freshmen were in attendance for “Meet the Bulldogs”, which was an excellent move. I would also make the November 14th contest against Montreat (a Wednesday night game) an “all knobs attend” affair.

I know I’m asking a lot here of the cadets. However, I think it’s important to help out the hoopsters, and jazz things up a bit. I also believe that the basketball program has a great deal of potential if The Citadel could ever turn the corner. The current average attendance is only about 30% of the capacity of McAlister Field House. Even doubling that (in terms of paying customers) would really do wonders for the bottom line.

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The season is about to start. Saturday’s game on the hardwood against VMI will be here before you know it.

Filed under: Basketball, The Citadel | Tagged: Basketball Prospectus, Chuck Driesell, Dan Hanner, David Hess, Joey Berlin, Ken Pomeroy, McAlister Field House, Mike Groselle, SoCon, TeamRankings.com, The Citadel | Leave a comment »