Error on the official scorer

Posted on May 13, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

On May 8, Howie Kendrick hit a home run off Gil Meche in a 4-1 Angels victory over the Royals — only, he really didn’t hit a homer.  Rather, he circled the bases on a poor fielding play by Kansas City right fielder Jose Guillen, a play that should have been ruled a four-base error.  You can see the play here.  (The Royals have appealed the ruling.)

This is just another example of the long trend in official scoring (at seemingly all levels) to avoid giving errors whenever possible.  It’s most noticeable at the major league level, but you see it in the minors and in college games as well.  A couple of weeks ago I was watching a game between Davidson and The Citadel.  Davidson’s shortstop failed to make two plays that should have been ruled errors, but both were ruled hits by the scorer.  Those were two of the seven hits the Bulldogs had.  There are a number of good hitters in The Citadel’s lineup, but it’s certainly easier to maintain high batting averages when the home scorer is overly generous.

It wasn’t always like this.  Years ago scorers seemingly didn’t hesitate to give errors.  Rabbit Maranville was the best defensive shortstop of his day; it’s one of the main reasons he’s in the Hall of Fame.  Maranville also committed 711 errors in his career (the most by a player whose entire career was played in the 20th century; Bill Dahlen, another outstanding defender, had 1080).

Of course, conditions have improved over time for defenders, which naturally has reduced errors.  Players in Maranville’s day didn’t have the modern gloves of today, and also played on less-than-perfect playing fields.  The original Comiskey Park, for example, was built on a city garbage dump.   Pieces of garbage would regularly rise to the surface.  Luke Appling once tripped over a piece of protruding metal near second base; the grounds crew came out and dug up the rest of a copper tea kettle.

You don’t have to worry about things like that when you play on artificial turf, and/or in domes.  When the Twins moved to Minnesota, they played home games outdoors at Metropolitan Stadium, and in those years never had a team season fielding percentage higher than .980 — but since moving to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, the team has never had a fielding percentage lower than .980 over a season.

As a result, great defensive players have committed fewer and fewer errors as time has gone by, with or without the help of friendly scoring decisions.  Luis Aparicio (who played from 1956 to 1973) had 366 errors in his career.  Ozzie Smith (1978-1996) committed 281 errors as a major leaguer.  Omar Vizquel has been in the majors since 1989.  In 100+ more games than Smith, he has only committed 183 errors.

The amount of money now in the game at the major league level has certainly had an impact on scoring decisions; I suspect that a lot of official scorers would deny that, but there is an importance to statistics in this era of baseball that wasn’t there 50 years ago.  I think it’s a key reason errors aren’t given more often.  Along those lines, another consideration for a scorer is to trying to offend the fewest number of players.

For instance, on the Howie Kendrick “homer” not giving an error is great for Kendrick, and probably doesn’t hurt Guillen’s feelings (even if he later said he should have been charged with an error).  The only player negatively affected from a statistical perspective is Meche.  Two happy players versus one not-so-happy player.  It’s an easy call for a scorer, especially when the batter is on the home team.

Of course, there are other things that come into play…

Many years ago I was scoring a minor league game.  During the game there was a pickoff at first base; the runner completely fell asleep, as he wasn’t even trying to steal a base.  He made no move to second (or first, for that matter) until the ball was in the first baseman’s glove.  The first baseman and shortstop (who was covering second base) completely botched the rundown, though, and the baserunner wound up at second.  It’s the kind of play you aren’t surprised to see in the low minors, to be honest.

Now, I didn’t believe in making things too difficult for myself, but I had no option but to rule a pickoff and then an error allowing the runner to take second base (given to the shortstop, in this case).  If the runner had been on the move to second, I could have awarded him a stolen base; heck, if he had been leaning that way I may have done so.  That’s not the easiest play in the scorebook to illustrate.  I wrote a short note in the margin for the folks at Howe Sportsdata, outlining what had happened.

After the game I was about to fax the scoresheet to Howe when the telephone rang.  It was the manager of the club for which I was scoring.  He had noticed the “E” flash up on the board and wanted to know what the ruling was (the runner was one of his players).  I explained it to him, and he then argued with me for about five minutes.  He wasn’t nasty about it, but he was very assertive.  I told him I would consider his argument (he wanted the player credited with a steal).

After I hung up, the assistant GM came over to me and told me that the front office had a pre-existing agreement with the manager that any “questionable” scoring decisions were his call, and to change it to what he wanted…

The player got a steal.  Perhaps that steal was noted from above by the powers-that-be (“hey, this kid’s aggressive”) and eventually led to a promotion.  Somehow, I doubt it.  Of course, the shortstop was presumably happy not to be charged with an error.  The pitcher and catcher were charged with allowing a steal, which was ludicrous, of course, but you can’t fight city hall.

I think about that night almost every time I see a error that is scored a hit.  It’s just another reason why basing a player’s defensive value on fielding percentage is myopic.

—

Postscript:   On Thursday, Major League Baseball reversed the official scorer’s ruling on the Kendrick-Guillen play, taking the homer away from Kendrick and charging Guillen with a four-base error.  This was an excellent decision by the MLB panel making the call (and apparently a fairly easy one; all five members of the panel voted to overturn the original ruling).

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Botany Bay, springtime edition

Posted on May 12, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

Back during the winter holiday season, I visited Botany Bay Plantation, on Edisto Island, South Carolina, for the first time.  I wrote a short post about that trip.  Last weekend, I went back to take another (relatively quick) look.

First I have to mention that when you turn off the main road on Edisto Island (SC Highway 174) to get to Botany Bay, you then have to drive about two miles down a dirt road to get to the main entrance to the site.  While driving this stretch of road you will notice two things.  One, the road is essentially covered by a canopy of large oak and pine trees, with Spanish moss hanging off trees in almost a stereotypical fashion.  The other thing you will notice (at least, your spine will notice) is that the road is quite rutted.  My 1999 Saturn SL2 managed fairly well, all things considered.  I’m not so sure about my back.

Once you reach the entrance gate you will be greeted by a genial DNR volunteer, who will sign you in (speaking of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, here is a link to its BBP webpage; you can also find all kinds of information about the plantation and other areas of Edisto Island at this site).  After entering, you will drive for another mile or so (passing a ranch-style house with a fenced-in field; there were two beautiful horses grazing there when I passed by the other day).  You can turn left after a mile and continue on a “tour” of the site, or go right and park in a clearing next to some marshland, where you can then walk (about a half-mile) to the beach.

In other words, there is no valet parking.  (There are also no facilities, if you know what I mean.)

The reward for making the trek to the beach is a view of undeveloped coastline that you don’t see every day.  This particular area is south of Kiawah Island and Seabrook Island and just north of Edisto Beach.

I also wandered around the “tour” area, which includes some farmland, lakes, woodlands, marshland, and ruins from a 19th-century plantation.  It’s interesting stuff.  I was hoping to see more birds this time out, but I think that would entail a little more hiking than I wanted to do; the fall season may prove more conducive to that.  After reading the comments of a couple of local birdwatchers in various newspaper articles about the place, though, I was disappointed not to have an ivory-billed woodpecker land on my shoulder while I was there.

At any rate, here are some more pictures.  As always, keep in mind the mediocre picture-taking ability of the photographer and the limitations of his camera:

Road to BBDon't shootOnly kids get shellsLow tide along the marshMore marshCoastlineBeach to woodsBeach treesBefore high tideLooking out to the oceanShells on treesWoodlandsFind the crabsFarmin'Under a big oak treeFishin'Another viewSleeping oystersGladsLakeviewCatch and releaseOn the tourAnother view of the lakeBBP

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Counting pitches

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

On Friday night, Wes Wrenn started a key Southern Conference baseball game for The Citadel, at home against Georgia Southern.  Getting off to a good start in a conference series is important, and Wrenn delivered for the Bulldogs, hurling 8 innings of 2-run ball.  The Citadel won the game 6-2 and went on to win the series, two games to one.

In those eight innings, Wes Wrenn threw 143 pitches.

That is a lot of pitches, so many that a longtime poster on a message board for devotees of Bulldogs sports took notice.  I didn’t watch the game, so I have no real idea what kind of stuff Wes Wrenn had late, whether he was tiring, or showed signs of tiring (apparently not).  Sometimes a pitcher has had enough after about 70 pitches, and sometimes a pitcher is in a groove and can go a lot longer without significant risk.

I will say that the tone of the game story published by the school seemed to me to be a touch defensive when reporting the subject:

“Wrenn, who was strong from start to finish, threw 143 pitches in the game as he fanned the last two batters he faced.”

Somebody wanted to make a point of getting ahead of the argument, didn’t they?

It’s the second time this season a Bulldog pitcher has thrown more than 130 pitches in a game.  T.J. Clarkson threw 134 at South Carolina.  I was at that game.  He looked better late than he did early (at the time I wondered if he had trouble getting loose for that game; after the fifth inning he looked really good).  I still thought it was a lot to ask of a freshman with little starting experience (at least in college).  As it turns out, it was a very unusual performance.  Clarkson threw more pitches in a midweek in-season game for The Citadel than any pitcher has since at least 2002.  Other pitchers have thrown more pitches in a game, but all those games came in Southern Conference regular season or tournament play, or in an NCAA regional.

I don’t pretend to know it all when it comes to this subject.  I was never a pitcher on any level, and I’m not a doctor or a physical therapist.  I’m not a pitching coach or a scout.  I just watch games like everybody else.  What I do know, though, is there is a lot of evidence that overuse of pitchers usually leads to injuries in the long run.  Of course, it’s also true that pitchers get hurt all the time no matter how they are used (or abused).

One thing I am hesitant to do, honestly, is compare college hurlers’ workloads to those of major leaguers, if only because college pitchers get seven days off between starts (usually) as opposed to the four or five days off a major league pitcher gets.  This might make a difference.  (Another potential difference is the variance in competition.)  The starts that always worry me are the 120+ pitching performances on short rest during tournaments/regionals, not to mention the “drag the starter from two days ago/yesterday into the game in relief in an elimination game” situation.

I can’t be an expert on the subject from a medical or “baseball man” point of view, but what I can do is look at numbers.  What I decided to do was take a look back as far as I could at the recent history of pitcher usage at The Citadel and see where Wrenn’s outing on Friday night compared.

First, here is a list of game-by-game pitch counts for The Citadel’s starting pitchers this season…

Wes Wrenn — 99, 99, 95, 80, 107, 110, 103, 123, 129, 143
Asher Wojciechowski –103, 31, 125, 124,  115, 91, 121, 98, 111, 124
Matt Crim — 95, 97, 99, 81, 48, 116, 106, 102, 85, 107
Matt Talley — 110,66, 63*, 112,  69, 93, 66
T.J. Clarkson — 67, 90,94, 134
Matt Reifsnider — 98

[I put a “*” by Matt Talley’s start against Charleston Southern on March 25 (in which he pitched well), because I wanted to note that he also appeared in relief three days before, on March 22, against Western Carolina, throwing 59 pitches in 2 2/3 innings.  I believe this is the only “short rest” start for a Bulldog pitcher this season.  He followed up his victory over CSU with a solid effort against South Carolina six days later, also getting the win in that game.]

After compiling that list, I then went to Boyd Nation‘s invaluable site to check out his PAP logs over the past few seasons.  PAP stands for “Pitcher Abuse Points” and is a system Nation uses to see how overworked certain pitchers/staffs are.  A few years ago Nation got into a bit of a controversy with Ray Tanner that spilled onto local Columbia, S.C. radio and a few other media outlets (here is a reprint of an article originally published in The State, the local newspaper in Columbia).  It’s a delicate subject.  Tanner appears to have adjusted his thinking on pitch counts, after issues arose over his handling of pitcher Arik Hempy (as noted in an article reprinted here).

What is interesting (and perhaps reassuring) is that over the past three seasons, The Citadel has less PAP than about 90% of the schools in Division I baseball.  It’s a very good record over the 2006-2008 time period.  Only six times in those three years did a Bulldog pitcher throw 121 or more pitches in a game, and in none of those games did a pitcher throw more than 132 pitches.  Last season only one pitcher threw 120+ pitches in a game for The Citadel.

However, in 2004 and 2005 there were more sizable pitch-count starts.  In 2005, there were five starts in the 121-132 pitch range, and two over 132.  In 2004 there was only one start in the 121-132 pitch range, but six over 132.

If you go back a little further, though (as far back as online statistics are available), the trend is reversed again.  Only one Bulldog pitcher threw more than 121 pitches in 2002 and 2003 combined.

I was a bit puzzled at first when I looked at the PAP stats.  What was the deal in 2004 and 2005?  I looked at the box scores for every game over those two seasons.  I came to the conclusion that the numbers in 2005 were a little bit of an outlier.  2004 is a completely different story, and I’m going to get to that.  The 2005 games of 120+ pitches were as follows:

3/11 Ryan Owens 135 pitches (lost 2-1 to UNCG; complete game)
4/2  Ryan Owens 120 pitches (7 innings in 21-5 victory over Wofford) [estimated pitch count]
4/3  Ken Egleton 127 pitches (complete game victory over Wofford)
4/23 Justin Smith 133 pitches (7 1/3 innings in 10-6 victory over Charleston Southern)
4/29 Ryan Owens 122 pitches (6 innings in a 9-7 loss to Davidson)
4/30 Justin Smith 126 pitches (7 innings in a 4-3 victory over Davidson)
5/13 Ryan Owens 120 pitches (7 2/3 innings in a 9-3 victory over Furman) [estimated pitch count]

[The boxscores of most games these days list the number of pitches thrown by each pitcher, but sometimes that information is left out, and for whatever reason it happened more often in 2005 than in any other year since 2002.  For games lacking pitch counts, a “pitch count calculator” is used.]

All seven of those games were started by veteran pitchers.  The 4/3 game would mark the only time in Ken Egleton’s career at The Citadel where he would throw more than 121 pitches in a game.  This surprised me, because Egleton pitched a lot of innings while a Bulldog, but as it happens he regularly threw 100-120 pitches per game while never exceeding that general pitch count (with the exception of that Wofford game).

Owens and Smith were dependable workhorses for the most part (Smith in particular was noted for having a “rubber arm”, I seem to recall).  Owens’ 135-pitch effort against UNCG was a dominant performance in a loss; he pitched well the following week in a six-inning performance against Elon in which he threw 100 pitches.  After his 133-pitch outing against CSU, Smith took the hill a week later and pitched very well against Davidson, getting a no-decision (the Bulldogs would win the game with a run in the ninth).  After that two-game stretch, Smith would have an indifferent 6-inning effort against East Tennessee State and a decent 5-inning start versus Furman.

2004?  Well, 2004 was all about Jonathan Ellis.

Ellis threw 136 1/3 innings that season, by some distance the most innings ever pitched in one season by a Bulldog pitcher.  He threw nine complete games in eighteen starts.  As mentioned above, there were six 133+ pitching performances that season by Bulldog starters.  Five of those were by Ellis (Chip Cannon had the other).  Look at those five games:

4/9 142 pitches (complete game victory over the College of Charleston)
5/20 136 pitches (complete game victory over UNC-Greensboro)
5/26 134 pitches (complete game victory over East Tennessee State)
5/29 136 pitches (complete game victory over Western Carolina)
6/5 153 pitches (complete game victory over Coastal Carolina)

That’s right.  On five days rest after a 136-pitch effort against UNCG, Ellis threw 134 pitches in The Citadel’s opening-round game in the Southern Conference tournament.  The Bulldogs would later have to fight through the loser’s bracket of the tournament, and eventually faced Western Carolina, needing two wins over the Catamounts.  Fred Jordan started Ellis on just two days’ rest, and Ellis responded with an outstanding 136-pitch effort, with The Citadel winning the game.  (Justin Smith would start and win the next day’s game, as the Bulldogs won the tournament; Ellis would be the tourney MVP.)

Then Ellis would pitch one week later in yet another elimination game, in the NCAA regional, against Coastal Carolina.  I sat in the stands that day in Columbia (and let me tell you, it was hot) and watched him throw 153 pitches to send the Chanticleers home.  It would be the last game of Ellis’ college career.

So in terms of “pitcher abuse” over the last eight seasons at The Citadel, Jonathan Ellis would stand to be the poster boy.  Yet, he is now in AAA ball in the San Diego Padres’ organization, with what seems like a reasonable chance at making the major leagues, and his pro career seems mostly unaffected by his large workload in college.

Incidentally, I think you can make a good argument that Ellis’ 2004 season was the most valuable pitching performance in the history of Bulldog baseball.  Not the most dominant, necessarily, or the “greatest”, but the most valuable.  He pitched a ton of quality innings, obviously, and also won the had-to-win game in the SoCon tourney, as well as the regional eliminator against Coastal Carolina.

What does it all mean?  I don’t know, other than I hope Wes Wrenn can beat Samford on Friday night without having to increase his pitch count total for a fifth consecutive game.  You wonder at what point Wrenn might run out of gas (disregarding injury potential for a moment).  However, two years ago Wrenn threw 104 2/3 innings (he threw 87 last season).  He is probably capable of handling that workload.

Asher Wojciechowski needs to avoid those innings where he loses control and starts walking people.  If he does that, he won’t have to throw 125 pitches per outing.

Most importantly, the guys in the bullpen need to demonstrate to Fred Jordan that he can count on them in big games, and doesn’t have to leave the starters in as long as possible to secure a victory.  I think that’s the real  issue for this year’s team.  The high pitch totals by the starters, in my opinion, can be attributed in part to the problems in middle relief.  Not committing errors that prolong innings is also a factor.

We’ll be watching (and, I suppose, counting).

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Undefeated in Carolina Stadium

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

The Bulldog baseball team enjoyed its first visit to the brand-new Carolina Stadium, winning 5-3 in 11 occasionally dramatic innings, and cementing a season sweep of the Gamecocks.  Admittedly, it’s only two games, but this is the first time The Citadel has beaten South Carolina on the diamond twice in one season since 1961, although it should be pointed out that the two schools didn’t meet twice annually during most of the 1960s, and for a few years in the 1970s.

(The Citadel also won its first basketball game against the College of Charleston at Carolina First Arena, so these debuts at “Carolina ______”  stadia are going rather well.)

At the end of this post you can see some pictures of the new park I took during the game, from a bunch of different angles, somehow forgetting to take photos of the concourse and the concession areas until the batteries in my camera died.  I’m also not the most skilled of photographers, so they aren’t the best pictures in history.  It’s a nice stadium, definitely SEC-caliber.  Some observations about the park, and the game:

  • There was a sign noting that, in an effort to be eco-friendly, one half of the scoreboard was lit using a hydrogen fuel cell.  Why only half, I have no idea.
  • Speaking of the board, I noticed that the “Carolina Stadium” lettering was not lit.  I assume that either it wasn’t working, or more likely that the folks at USC are still looking to sell naming rights to the stadium, and didn’t want to pay for custom-designed lighting that will only be temporarily used.
  • There is a grass area down the first base line near the right field wall called the “Bi-Lo Berm”.  I have to wonder how long Bi-Lo will continue to sponsor the berm, given that the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month.
  • The field itself looked fantastic, which was very impressive, particularly given the weather over the past few days.  I give the groundskeeper an A.
  • The parking situation is abysmal.  I’m just waiting for the first pedestrian fatality (it will probably happen after a game, after darkness).   If anything, it’s worse than it was at Sarge Frye Field, which is really saying something.  For someone like me, who would be inclined to go to USC games every now and then just to watch good baseball, it’s a reason not to go.
  • The stadium holds 9,000.  The announced crowd last night was 6,923, which is a nice crowd for a weekday game, although to be honest I didn’t think the park was at 75% capacity.  I thought it was more like 60%-65%.  The Citadel brought a fair amount of people, which wasn’t that big a surprise.
  • Having a true freshman throw 134 pitches in a game is normally asking a lot, but I can’t really fault Fred Jordan in this case, given the actual performance by T.J. Clarkson.  Clarkson didn’t exactly run out of gas, either, as he retired the last nine batters he faced.  I wondered if he had a little trouble getting loose in the early going, but he ended the game on a roll.
  • Drew Mahaffey pitched in both games this season against South Carolina.  In those two games, he faced 12 batters, retiring all 12, with 8 strikeouts (6 swinging), a foul out, a tapper back to the pitcher, and two routine fly outs.  In the first game, he entered the contest with runners on second and third and no outs.  Neither scored.
  • In two games this season against the Gamecocks, Bryan Altman had an OBP of .818, with seven hits (including a homer) , two walks, two runs batted in, and four runs scored.
  • This is a pretty good USC team, but it’s not as good as some more recent editions.  I think part of this is due to its lineup not having a true scares-you-every-time-he’s-at-bat kind of player.  Past Gamecock teams have usually had a couple of those guys.

I haven’t posted much about the baseball team.  One reason for that is I’ve been a little busy.  The other is that I was going to wait a little into the season so I could get a handle on this year’s club.  The thing is, though, that the Bulldogs have played 35 games and I still don’t have a real good handle on the team.  They have a .600 winning percentage in league play, and a .600 winning percentage out of conference  — and yet I really can’t say the Bulldogs are a consistent outfit.  Here are some of my thoughts on the team (some of which could be wildly off the mark, to be sure):

  • The lineup, from 1-6, is excellent.  Those six guys can all hit, and with some pop.  The two freshmen have both acquitted themselves very well.  I worry a little about two lefties at the 4-5 spots, where a late-game LOOGY could come into play, but that’s a minor quibble.  William Ladd is currently batting .351 (824 OPS), and looks to have locked down the seventh spot in the lineup (nice outfield assist in last night’s game, too).  That leaves the designated hitter (for games Richard Jones catches) and shortstop as question marks in the batting order.  The DH spot will likely be something of a revolving door, based on matchups, which is fine (although Sid Fallaw has received the majority of the opportunities so far).  Shortstop is another matter.
  • The Bulldogs have been erratic defensively, which makes it all the more important to have an everyday shortstop.  That would have been Kyle Jordan, of course, but you just can’t have a player with a 367 OPS as a regular.  His terrible season-long slump has been a major problem.  I’m not sold on Altman as a regular shortstop.  Johnny Dangerfield hasn’t been bad, but his bat isn’t quite big enough to make up for the defensive deficiencies in the middle infield when Altman moves over.
  • The pitching has been mediocre, even though The Citadel does lead the Southern Conference in ERA, thanks to A)  its home park, and B) the incredible lack of quality pitching in the league this year (SoCon ERA, as a conference:  6.35).  Mahaffey has been outstanding in the closer role.  The starting pitching hasn’t been that good, but it generally hasn’t been terrible, either.  The midweek starters haven’t been bad at all.  What the Bulldogs don’t have is an ace.  The middle relief/setup men have been poor.

The Citadel, right now, strikes me as a team you wouldn’t want to face in the Southern Conference tournament, but a team probably not consistent enough to win the entire tournament.  However, I can see that changing for the better.  If Raymond Copenhaver (and/or someone else) can shore things up in the 7th-8th innings, and get the game to Mahaffey, the Bulldogs have plenty of starting pitchers capable of a solid 6-inning effort.  In post-season play, having four (or five) of those kinds of pitchers will work to The Citadel’s advantage; that’s the type of depth you need to win a conference tourney.

First, though, The Citadel has to make sure it qualifies for the SoCon tournament, which means it has to finish as one of the top eight teams in the league.  The Bulldogs are well on their way to making it, but there are still 15 conference games left, starting Friday at UNC-Greensboro.  UNCG is currently 2-11 in the league, in last place, and will be desperate to win the series and climb out of the cellar.

It would be ironic if the Spartans ultimately do not qualify for the conference tournament, since UNCG coach Mike Gaski campaigned for many years to move the league tourney out of Charleston, claiming it was an unfair advantage to the two Charleston schools.  The conference brass finally buckled under his criticism (among that of others), and moved the tournament for this season to Greenville.  Now there is a decent chance the Spartans won’t even make the field.

Pictures from last night:

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The hold: a useless stat 20 years ago, and still useless today

Posted on April 9, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

On Thursday, the Reds beat the Mets 8-6.   Cincinnati’s pitching line looked like this:

Cincinnati IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Arroyo (W, 1-0) 6.0 8 5 5 2 4 0 7.50
Burton (H, 1) 0.1 2 1 1 0 0 0 6.75
Rhodes (H, 1) 1.0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0.00
Weathers (H, 1) 0.2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.00
Cordero (S, 1) 1.0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0.00

Yes, Jared Burton got a “hold” despite retiring only one of three batters he faced, giving up two hits and allowing a run (which scored after he left the game on a sacrifice fly).  The score was 8-5 Reds when Burton entered the contest.  When he left, it was still 8-5, but runners were on first and third and there was only one out.  Fortunately for the Reds, Arthur Rhodes, David Weathers, and Francisco Cordero all pitched effectively, and Cincinnati hung on for the victory.

However, Burton got that hold, just like Rhodes and Weathers (Cordero was credited with the save).  That’s because pitching effectively is not a requirement for a hold.  All you have to do is enter a game in a save situation, record at least one out, and leave the game without having given up the lead.  That’s the STATS Inc. standard, anyway; according to SportsTicker, you don’t even need to record an out.

The hold statistic was invented by John Dewan in 1986, the same year Dewan became a partner in STATS.  In 1989 the hold would be featured in an article in Sports Illustrated, which doesn’t seem to be available online.  In response to the article, a long-suffering Cubs fan named Mike Hoffman would write the following letter (published in November 1989), pointing out the absurdity in the stat:

While I agree that the middle reliever is the most overlooked player in baseball, I question the qualifications suggested for awarding a “hold” (INSIDE BASEBALL, July 24). The July 25 Cubs-Cardinals game illustrates my point.

With Chicago ahead 3-1 going into the last of the seventh, Calvin Schiraldi was summoned to protect the lead—a perfect hold opportunity if ever there was one. Schiraldi walked the first batter; the second man up sent Cub right-fielder Andre Dawson to the wall for a fly ball; Schiraldi walked the next batter. Chicago manager Don Zimmer brought in Les Lancaster. He faced one hitter, who flied out. Zimmer called in Steve Wilson, who got a strikeout to end that inning but gave up a single in the eighth. Zimmer next brought in Mitch Williams, who finished and got the save.

Schiraldi, Lancaster and Wilson all met your criteria for a hold—they did not win, lose or save the game, nor did they blow the save. But surely Schiraldi’s performance was not worthy of a hold. Give the hold a clearer definition by adding some requirement of effective performance, and you’ll have a statistic that truly recognizes the middle reliever.

That was almost 20 years ago, and it detailed a situation rather similar to the one that came up in the Mets-Reds game, and yet in those 20 years the definition of a hold has remained the same.  It’s still just as ludicrous.

In case you were wondering how I knew about that letter to the editor…

In October of 1989 I was working with Hoffman, who in addition to his Cub fandom was an ardent Miami Hurricanes apologist.  One day while Mike was out of the office, presumably sticking needles in his Lou Holtz voodoo doll, a secretary informed me that my assistance was needed.  For what, I asked?  “There’s a telephone call for Mike,” she said.

I suggested she take a message, but she told me that it was someone from Sports Illustrated, and that it had something to do with a letter.  I remembered Mike talking about writing the letter (he hated Calvin Schiraldi), and thinking it was a waste of time, but here was Sports Illustrated on the phone.  Apparently if they couldn’t get his express permission to run the letter (SI needed his permission because the letter had to be edited for length), it wasn’t going to be in the magazine.  Now, I knew that Hoffman would love to have his letter printed in the mag, so I did what any upstanding citizen would do.

I impersonated him over the telephone.

It worked out great.  The caller from SI never questioned that I was Hoffman, and I assured them that any changes they made to the letter (other than basic content) would be fine.  Mike enjoyed the story when he got back, but enjoyed seeing his name in the magazine even more.  I know that may sound a bit strange, but back then Sports Illustrated was still relevant.  (He would get another letter printed in the magazine 12 years later, when he criticized SI choosing Chris Rock as its cover subject for a “tribute to fans” issue.)

Back to the stat.  The hold still isn’t an official statistic, thankfully, but you see it everywhere, including in the box scores for MLB.com.  I’m not sure why.  Personally, I think it should go the way of the game-winning RBI, but there are some people who still value the hold as a statistic.

I’m not one of them.

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Port and Jordan

Posted on March 25, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

In the last four baseball seasons, The Citadel’s conference record by year is as follows:  14-16, 15-12, 12-15, 12-15.  That is not exactly what Bulldog fans have come to expect from the baseball program, which has historically been the school’s strongest varsity sport.  On the other hand, what should be expected?  I decided to check some numbers in an attempt to answer that question.  I concentrated on the team’s play since 1965, Chal Port’s first year as head coach.

One thing I want to make clear is that this discussion has nothing to do with the current Bulldog squad, which as of this writing is 9-9 overall, 5-4 in the Southern Conference.  This is more about the program’s history, and the current edition of the baseball Bulldogs is just beginning to make its own mark in the historical record.

One of the difficult things in trying to compare and contrast baseball teams of the past is that there have been a lot of variables over the years — in the scheduling, in the makeup of the Southern Conference, in how the conference determines its champion, even in the equipment used.  I made some decisions on how best to make comparisons.  The biggest decision I made was to concentrate solely on league play.

Nowadays the Bulldogs play a lot more games than they did 30 years ago.  In 1975, for example, Chal Port won his second conference title with an 11-3 league record.  His overall record that season was 21-9.  Twenty years later, in 1995, Fred Jordan won his first regular season SoCon title with a conference mark of 19-5, 39-21 overall.  The Bulldogs played exactly twice as many games in 1995 as they did in 1975, and almost twice as many league contests.

Comparing by league record is hard enough, what with more games and more/different schools in the league, but it’s almost impossible to make observations based on the non-conference slate, not only because of the number of games but because of the level of the competition.  Since 1994 The Citadel has played only three games against non-Division I opponents — a game against North Florida in 1995 (in a tournament hosted by UNF), and two games against Presbyterian in 1998 (scheduled after The Citadel won the league tournament in order to prevent an 18-day layoff prior to regional play).

The lack of non-Division I games is due to a SoCon edict handed out following the 1993 season.  For the 1994 season, the conference found itself in a situation in which it didn’t want to be, namely as a “play-in” conference.  The NCAA tournament was a 48-team affair at the time, and in 1994 there were 30 automatic bids.  However, the NCAA mandated that 24 berths for the tournament were to be at-large, which meant there were 6 auto bids too many.  As a result, the 12 lowest-rated conferences from the 1993 season each had to qualify for a regional by winning a best-of-three series against one of the other low-rated leagues.

If that sounds like the NCAA basketball tournament’s “play-in” game, it’s because that’s exactly what it was, times six.  The Southern Conference was one of the 12 leagues that had to play an extra round just to get in the main tournament, and the champion was drawn to face the winner of the Ohio Valley Conference.  The Citadel won the league tournament that year and beat Middle Tennessee State, 2 games to 1, in Charleston to advance to the regional held at Clemson.

To prevent this from happening again, the league determined that its schools should play a Division I-only schedule to improve the league’s power rating.  This was a marginally risky short-term strategy (what if the league had lost an overwhelming number of those extra D-1 games?)  but proved a benefit to the conference in the long run.  However, it meant that the days of The Citadel playing the likes of Hiram or Gannon were over.

As mentioned earlier, comparing eras by conference play is no picnic either.  In 1965, league schools included West Virginia, George Washington, William & Mary, Richmond, VMI, and Virginia Tech.  None of those schools are still in the SoCon.  You also have schools like East Carolina, East Tennessee State, and Marshall, which have come and gone, Davidson (which left and then came back), and schools making their debuts in the league in the 1970s (Western Carolina and Appalachian State), 1990s (Georgia Southern, UNC-Greensboro, and the College of Charleston), and 2000s (Elon and Samford, the latter beginning conference play this season).  UT-Chattanooga competed in the sport for six league seasons before the school dropped baseball following the 1982 campaign.  The conference has had as few as seven and as many as eleven baseball schools over the past 45 years.

Let’s look at Chal Port’s career SoCon record.   Port coached for 27 years and finished with an overall league mark of 253-156-1 (.618).  Port won seven conference titles and one tournament title (it should be noted that the conference did not have a tournament until 1984; five of Port’s league titles came prior to that season).  Port had a stretch of 10 consecutive winning conference records, with that run preceded by three winning records and a 7-7 season, so he actually had 14 straight non-losing seasons in SoCon action.  Overall, Chal Port had 18 winning SoCon seasons, 7 losing seasons, and 2 at .500 in the league.  Port had a winning record in conference play in exactly two-thirds of his seasons as head coach.

Incidentally, Port’s record in the conference after his first seventeen seasons was 143-98-1 (.593), with 12 winning seasons, four losing seasons, and one at .500 in SoCon play, with three league championships.  I mention this because Fred Jordan completed his seventeenth season as head coach last year.  Jordan entered this season with a record of 285-166 (.632)  in league play, with 13 winning seasons and four losing campaigns, and with four regular season titles and six tournament championships.

Jordan, like Port, also had a stretch of 10 consecutive winning seasons in conference play (from 1995 through 2004).  The problem, from the perspective of the program’s current status, is that since 2005, he has had just one winning league season, in 2006 (when the team was 15-12).  In the last four years Jordan’s conference record is only 53-58 (48%).  Did Chal Port ever have a stretch like that?

Well, yes.  After Port’s earlier-mentioned 10-year run of success, which lasted from 1975 through 1984, he had five conference seasons that went like this:  8-10, 9-9, 6-12, 12-6, 8-9.  Overall record during that five-year period:  43-47 (48%).  You may see a pattern developing.  You would be right…

Both Port and Jordan won four regular season titles during their respective 10-year winning streaks.  During those runs, Port won 73% of his league games.  Jordan won 72% of his.

The similarities in the two coaches’ records are striking.  Of course, it’s not that simple.  After those five relatively mediocre seasons noted above, Port finished his career with a run of 29 wins in 32 league games, with two regular season titles, a tournament crown, and a completely unfathomable trip to Omaha.  It’s that finish that people understandably tend to remember, even more so than the terrific teams he fielded during a good chunk of the 1970s and early 1980s.

It’s difficult for Jordan to compete with those memories, particularly since the conference has in recent years seen an influx of schools that take their baseball seriously (Georgia Southern, College of Charleston, UNC-Greensboro, and Elon).  The competition within the league is arguably tougher than it was two decades ago.

That’s not to take away anything from Port’s record, which is lauded with good reason, and in fact is probably even more impressive than a lot of people realize.  Port had to make numerous on-field adjustments during his tenure, including the change from wooden to aluminum bats, and the conference moving to divisional play (and then dropping the divisions), among other things.  Then there were the off-field adjustments, which included integration, and the fact that going to a military school wasn’t exactly the cool thing to do in the early-to-mid-1970s (not that it’s ever been the really cool thing to do).   Consider what the baseball program accomplished, especially when compared to The Citadel’s football and hoops programs of that decade:

From 1971-1979, the football team was coached by Red Parker, Bobby Ross, and Art Baker.  Ross in particular is known as having been an outstanding coach, with major success at multiple levels of the sport.  The football team had four winning seasons overall in those nine years, with no league titles and a conference mark of 26-29 (47.2%).  SoCon finishes:  3rd, 4th, 7th, 5th, 4th, 6th, 3rd, 5th, 3rd.

Tangent alert:  Ross was really good at putting together a coaching staff.  For example, his 1973 coaching staff included Frank Beamer, Ralph Friedgen, Jimmye Laycock, Cal McCombs, Charlie Rizzo, and Rusty Hamilton, along with none other than Chal Port (who doubled as an assistant football coach during his first decade at The Citadel; Port had been a fine football and baseball player for North Carolina in the early 1950s).  The team itself also had some future coaches, like David Sollazzo and Ellis Johnson.  Despite all that coaching talent, in 1973 The Citadel was 3-8 overall, 1-6 in the conference.

The basketball team was coached from 1971-79 by Dick Campbell, George Hill, and Les Robinson.  Robinson would later prove his worth as a coach with an oustanding rebuilding job at East Tennessee State, but during this period the hoops program had just two winning seasons, bookends on seven straight losing campaigns, and had an overall conference record of 43-69 (38.4%).  Conference finishes:  4th, 5th, 4th, 6th, 7th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 3rd.

Meanwhile, from 1971-1979 Port went 85-43 (66.4%) in conference play, with three championships, nine winning seasons overall, and eight winning seasons in the league (and the other was a .500 season).  His SoCon finishes during that time:  1st, 4th, 3rd, 4th, 1st, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 1st.  He finished in the upper half of the league all nine years.

He wasn’t done yet, either.  He had his best teams up to that time in 1982 and 1983, with the ’82 squad finishing 40-8.  At that point another power arose in the Southern Conference, as Western Carolina hired Jack Leggett to upgrade its already promising program.  The Catamounts would win five straight league titles, a stretch dovetailing almost exactly with a gradual decline in The Citadel’s fortunes on the diamond.

Port outlasted WCU’s run and (even more impressively) Hurricane Hugo, however, and orchestrated a season that won’t soon be forgotten, plus a very nice coda (the ’91 campaign).  That’s quite a legacy, one augmented by Port’s well-deserved reputation as a jokemeister and storyteller.

Jordan should be credited with maintaining the high standard of the program throughout much of his time as head coach, as the numbers rather clearly demonstrate that he has done so.  What he needs now is a “second wind”.  Port got his after a real-life gust of wind, Hurricane Hugo, blew through Charleston.  Then, rather amusingly (and appropriately), he capped a season for the ages by beating a team called the Hurricanes to reach the College World Series, giving a then up-and-coming Miami sportswriter named Dan Le Batard enough material for several columns in the process.

Jordan doesn’t need another hurricane (let’s hope not, anyway) to re-establish momentum.  He doesn’t even need to start making appearances on Le Batard’s radio show.  He just needs better pitching and defense (don’t sleep on the need for better defense).  He’s had championship-caliber pitching and defense in the past, and I see no reason to believe he can’t get the program to that championship level again.

I certainly hope so, anyway.  I would like to make another regional trip, preferably sooner rather than later…

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C-I-T…wait, you mean this isn’t about the chant?

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

For the first time in this or any other century, The Citadel’s basketball team will be playing at least one game beyond the conference tournament.  It’s not the NCAA tournament, or the NIT, or even the CBI (although it may be more respectable than the CBI, quite honestly), but the CIT.  The CIT?

That’s right, the CIT.  It’s the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament, to be precise.  It’s been around for quite a while…since January!

The teams participating all hail from non-power conferences, which isn’t a bad thing, in the sense that for most of them, this tournament will be seen as worthwhile.  Also, unlike the CBI, every team in the field has a winning record (Oregon State got a bid to the CBI with a 13-17 record).

As you might imagine, the CIT has been rather hastily put together, as demonstrated by the scheduling of The Citadel’s opening-round game, against Old Dominion.  ODU is hosting the game, which was originally slated for Wednesday night.  Then it was apparently discovered that another commitment precluded the use of ODU’s arena on that day, so the game was quickly moved to Tuesday, but that posed a series of problems for The Citadel (mostly revolving around travel issues, from what I understand).  It is now going to be played on Thursday night, at 7 pm.  Luckily, there isn’t any other sporting event of national interest taking place on that day and night…

Old Dominion is one of three schools to have played in the NCAA, NIT, CBI, and CIT tournaments (along with Rider and Bradley).  The Monarchs have played in the NCAA tournament nine times since joining Division I in 1976, winning twice.  The second of those two victories was a memorable triple-overtime upset of 3-seed Villanova in 1995.  ODU played in the NCAAs as recently as two seasons ago, losing to Butler in the first round.

In other words, this is a school with a recent tradition of success in hoops, including four 20-win seasons in the last five years.  This season the Monarchs were 21-10 while playing in the rugged Colonial Athletic Association.  It finished 12-6 in conference action before losing to conference champ Virginia Commonwealth in the CAA tourney semifinals.  That was the third time the two teams had met during the season, with the home team winning the first two games.  The Rams are the only common opponent for ODU and The Citadel, which lost at VCU 82-59 early in the season.

Old Dominion and The Citadel play at a similar pace (the Monarchs actually average fewer possessions per game than the Bulldogs), so this is not likely to be a track meet.  ODU features 6’10” center Gerald Lee, a first-team All-CAA selection who averages 15.7 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.  Lee was born and raised in Finland (his father is an American who moved to Finland to play pro basketball, explaining his American-sounding name).  I look forward to listening to Darren Goldwater as he attempts to pronounce Lee’s hometown.  Lee will be a difficult matchup for The Citadel.  ODU has a lot of size in general.  Eight different players average 16 minutes or more for the Monarchs.

ODU has solid stats across the board, including an excellent turnover rate, and generally good defensive numbers.  The Monarchs do not shoot the ball particularly well from outside, and are a poor free throw shooting team (63.8%).

This is going to be a tough game for The Citadel.  It will be interesting to see how motivated each team will be for the game.  If the Bulldogs can contain Lee and shoot the ball well from three-point land, they have a shot.  It will be a tall order, though.

Still, just the opportunity to have a tall order to fill is something to enjoy.

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Bubbling Basketball, 3/14

Posted on March 14, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

There is a lot more uncertainty than usual on the Saturday morning before Selection Sunday.  Part of that is due to several surprise conference tournament finalists, and part of it is due to a more-mediocre-than-normal bubble.  Combine that with the traditional difficulty of evaluating mid-majors against middle-of-the-road majors and you have a bit of a mess.

Locks by conference:

ACC (6):  North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest, Florida State, Clemson, Boston College
Pac-10 (4):  Washington, UCLA, Arizona State, California
Big East (7):  Pittsburgh, Louisville, Connecticut, Villanova, Syracuse, Marquette, West Virginia
SEC (2):  LSU, Tennessee
Big 10 (4):  Michigan State, Purdue, Illinois, Ohio State
Big XII (5)  Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma State
Mountain West (2):  Utah, Brigham Young
Other conferences (3):  Memphis, Xavier, Butler

How things shape up going into Saturday’s action…

  • The Atlantic-10 is likely a three-bid league, with today’s Temple-Duquesne winner joining Xavier and (probably) Dayton in the field.  Dayton is not quite a lock, but a lot of things would have to happen for the Flyers not to make the NCAAs.  Temple does not have enough to get an at-large bid, despite last night’s win over Xavier.  It’s a win-and-you’re-in situation for the Owls and Dukes.
  • Utah State survived New Mexico State last night and now must beat Nevada in Reno to grab the WAC’s automatic bid.  I don’t think an at-large will be available for the Aggies, although it would be tough for the committee to leave out a team with 29 wins.
  • Tulsa must beat Memphis and garner the automatic bid for C-USA if it hopes to make the NCAAs.  An at-large bid is not a realistic option for the Golden Hurricane.
  • Likewise, Baylor must beat Missouri in the Big XII final to grab a spot and steal a bid from an at-large contender.
  • Southern California will have a shot at an at-large bid if it loses the Pac-10 final to Arizona State, but I think the Trojans have to win that game.  The run to the final has probably moved Southern Cal ahead of Arizona on the committee’s S-curve, but that isn’t going to be enough.  The Pac-10 may wind up with just four bids.
  • San Diego State can guarantee a bid by winning the Mountain West tourney today, but the Aztecs are in fairly good shape now even if they don’t beat Utah.  SDSU’s chances of making the field absent a victory on Saturday are probably in the 80% range.  New Mexico tied for the MWC regular-season title but has nothing else to offer to the committee, and I don’t see four teams getting bids in the MWC.  UNLV is out after wasting a solid non-conference effort by going only 9-7 in the league and losing at home in the first round of the conference tournament to SDSU, which beat the Rebels three times this season.
  • I still think the SEC will get three bids no matter what, but the worst-case scenario for the league has unfolded.  Auburn can get that third bid with a win today over Tennessee, but a loss to the Vols leaves the Tigers in a precarious position, with several other bubble teams having better resumes.  I suppose it’s possible the SEC will just be a two-bid league, but I find it hard to believe.  Florida is almost certainly out, and so if Auburn loses the choice for a potential third SEC team in the field comes down to Auburn and South Carolina.
  • Maryland’s victory over Wake Forest in the ACC quarterfinals gives it three wins this season over teams ranked in the top 10 of the RPI, with two of those on neutral sites, plus a handy win over Michigan.  The Terps still don’t have a true road win over a top 100 team, but no other bubble team has as many high-end victories.  Barring another embarrassing loss to Duke in the ACC semis, Maryland looks to be in good shape for an at-large bid.  Beating Duke would make a trip to the dance a lock, of course.
  • The Big 10 is still hoping to get eight bids, but I think it’s going to be seven, with Penn State being left out after getting blown out by Purdue in the conference quarterfinals.  Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan all have better resumes, and none of them are locks, either.

How I see the bubble as of Saturday morning:

Texas A&M
Dayton
Minnesota
San Diego State
Wisconsin
Maryland
Michigan
Auburn
Creighton
—-
St. Mary’s
Southern California
Penn State
Arizona
South Carolina
New Mexico
Providence
Tulsa
Florida

Utah State, if it were to lose tonight, would probably be slotted behind St. Mary’s but ahead of Southern Cal (assuming the Trojans don’t beat Arizona State on Saturday).  Temple would be in the New Mexico-Providence range with a loss.  Baylor is a pure bid thief, Southern Cal could be a bid thief, and Tulsa is a de facto bid thief as well.

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A tradition that needs to stop

Posted on March 10, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

This season, The Citadel’s basketball team successfully broke a long cycle of losing, and did so in spectacular fashion, with an unprecedented number of league victories, the longest winning streak in over 80 years, and a record-tying 20 victories.  The team broke long road losing streaks at Appalachian State, Davidson, and the College of Charleston.  It got over the hump in every conceivable way except one.  Oh, but that one…

The conference tournament bugaboo struck again.

Samford became the 21st different team to beat The Citadel in the SoCon tourney (I think it’s safe to assume that’s a record), a little more than a month after The Citadel beat the Birmingham bulldogs by 25 points in a game at Samford.  It was, to say the least, a frustrating performance.  The Citadel’s defense was atrocious, as Samford scored 76 points on only 55 possessions.  The Citadel also got outrebounded by Samford, which is both terrible and amazing, given that Samford is one of the nation’s worst rebounding teams.  It was just a miserable night.

I don’t know why, no matter how good or bad the Bulldogs are in any season (and they’ve usually been bad), The Citadel comes up all thumbs every single time when the SoCon tournament gets underway.  You would think that in all those years that on occasion even one of the Bulldogs’ lesser teams would have done something to win a couple of games, even if it were just by accident.  Nope.  The Citadel is now 10-56 in the Southern Conference tournament.

Ed Conroy did a lot of things right this season, but I suspect he’s going to take a hard look at the performance of the team on Saturday night and try to figure out how to change the mindset of the squad entering tourney play.  The team has to play with purpose while remaining loose, something that never seems to happen, regardless of the year.

I don’t know if The Citadel has finished playing basketball this season.  It is possible that the Bulldogs will be invited to a post-season event, as college basketball appears to be going the way of college football, and eventually all 343 Division I teams will get to play in a post-season tournament.   Well, maybe not NJIT.  We’ll see what develops on that front.

If it does turn out to be the end of the season, I feel badly for the players that it ended so rudely, particularly the two seniors.  However, Demetrius Nelson and Jon Brick will depart knowing that in their senior year, they played on a basketball team at The Citadel that won 20 games.  That makes them members of a very, very small club.  Also, if the Bulldogs are able to maintain the positive momentum built up during this season, and parlay it into even more success, Nelson and Brick will know that they were major contributors to the building of that foundation. 

—

I’ve been asked by friends about two recent articles concerning The Citadel, a long and evocative piece in ESPN The Magazine (and ESPN.com) by the talented Wright Thompson, and a shorter feature in The New York Times, the latter of which could have used some editing.  However, as I have pointed out to people who have brought it up, the truth is that other than Ed Conroy, the basketball team didn’t get much publicity from either article, as both were about Pat Conroy.  The two pieces combined were over 5700 words in length, but despite all that verbiage no member of the current edition of the Bulldog basketball team was mentioned, not even once.

I was disappointed in that, because I’ve heard the Pat Conroy tale before.  While I mean no disrespect, I felt the focus should be on the current players and what they had accomplished, not just Nelson and Brick, but Zach Urbanus, Bryan Streeter, and Austin Dahn.  I wanted to read more about the terror of Beverly Hills, Cosmo Morabbi.  I was hoping someone would come up with a nickname for John Brown (besides just “JB”).

Instead, the national media turned to Pat Conroy as the story.  It’s always about Pat.

(Actually, contained within the Pat-and-Ed storyline was something that I thought was potentially much more interesting, the relationship between Ed and Don “The Great Santini” Conroy.  However, that angle would only have tangentially involved Pat Conroy, and the elder Conroy is dead, so it was just used as a way for the preferred narrative to connect Pat and Ed.  Oh well.)

Perhaps it’s just as well none of the players were mentioned, at least in the Times article.  Since that story referred to General Grinalds as the former commandant of the school, it’s possible that Urbanus would have been described as a 6’10” post player…

—

Finally, you have to hand it to the Southern Conference brass.  After taking the guaranteed money from Chattanooga to move the tournament to UTC’s home court, the conference leadership got exactly what it deserved.  The Mocs had the fifth-best record in the SoCon this season, but despite 20 conference games the league continued with its two-division format.  With the four best teams all in the South division, this enabled UT-Chattanooga (playing in the North division) to garner a bye in the first round while two other teams with better records had to play on Friday night. 

Then everything fell into place for the Mocs.  Not only did they survive a one-point victory over Elon in the quarterfinals (you think the home court was probably worth a few points there?), they only had to beat one of the four teams that finished ahead of UTC in the standings — and that was the third-place team, which had to play an extra game just to get to the final.

There is a good chance (better than 50%, at least) that Chattanooga becomes the first SoCon school to land in the dreaded play-in game, just one year after Davidson reached the Elite Eight.  That will do wonders for the league’s image.  However, it should have come as no surprise to anyone that Chattanooga won the tournament on its home court, since that’s exactly what happened in 2005, the last time the tournament was held at McKenzie Arena.

When the tournament was awarded to Chattanooga, SoCon commissioner John Iamarino noted that the arena would provide plenty of seating.  That’s great, except much of it wasn’t used, as even in the final, with its home team playing and a bid to the NCAA tournament on the line, the official attendance was only 5,042 (and who knows what the actual attendance was).   

It’s not surprising that a lot of the fans from other schools in the league didn’t show up, since Chattanooga isn’t a geographically ideal location to have the tournament (unless you root for UTC or Samford).  It doesn’t say much for the promotion of the event, though, when even the home team can’t put people in the stands.

Naturally, the tournament will return to Chattanooga next season…

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Bubble Watch, 3/9/09

Posted on March 8, 2009 by Sandlapper Spike

I’m posting this prior to the Portland-St. Mary’s game, for the record…

This is my first projection to include seeding and placement, and it’s possible there is an error or two mixed in, because the first go-round is always the toughest.  At any rate, here is how I see the NCAA tournament as of right now (projected automatic bids in all-caps):

South (Memphis, IN)

Greensboro sub-regional
1 North Carolina
16 Radford
8 West Virginia
9 Dayton
Boise sub-regional
4 Missouri
13 AMERICAN
5 Gonzaga
12 Michigan
Minneapolis sub-regional
2 Michigan State
15 ROBERT MORRIS
7 California
10 Oklahoma State
Philadelphia sub-regional
3 Villanova
14 BUFFALO
6 Tennessee
11 UTAH STATE

West (Glendale, AZ)

Kansas City sub-regional
1 Oklahoma
16 CAL STATE-NORTHRIDGE
8 Brigham Young
9 Wisconsin
Miami sub-regional
4 Louisiana State
13 WESTERN KENTUCKY
5 Florida State
12 Providence
Dayton sub-regional
2 Louisville
15 East Tennessee State
7 Purdue
10 St. Mary’s
Portland sub-regional
3 Washington
14 WEBER STATE
6 Butler
11 SIENA

East (Boston, MA)

Philadelphia sub-regional
1 Connecticut
16 MORGAN STATE
8 Texas
9 Ohio State
Portland sub-regional
4 Xavier
13 Northern Iowa
5 Clemson
12 VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH
Kansas City sub-regional
2 Memphis
15 Cornell
7 Arizona State
10 Minnesota
Miami sub-regional
3 Wake Forest
14 NORTH DAKOTA STATE
6 Marquette
11 New Mexico

Midwest (Indianapolis, IN)

Dayton sub-regional
1 Pittsburgh
16 Morehead State/ALABAMA STATE (play-in game; also in Dayton)
8 Boston College
9 Texas A&M
Boise sub-regional
4 Ucla
13 STEPHEN F. AUSTIN
5 Utah
12 Penn State
Greensboro sub-regional
2 Duke
15 UT-CHATTANOOGA
7 Syracuse
10 Arizona
Minneapolis sub-regional
3 Kansas
14 BINGHAMTON
6 Illinois
11 South Carolina

—

Notes:

  • As of now, North Carolina has the top overall seed in my projection, based on finishing first in the ACC, while none of the other three #1 seeds won their respective conference titles.  Louisville will be probably be battling Pitt and UConn for two available #1 seeds in the Big East tournament.  I think Memphis has a shot at a #1 if it wins the C-USA tournament and Oklahoma bows out early in the Big XII tourney.
  • The brackets are set up as follows:  South vs. West, East vs. Midwest
  • I had a lot of trouble deciding how the committee would place teams.  I think they are going to want to have at least one “draw” in the Portland and Boise sub-regionals, so putting Washington/UCLA in those sites seemed logical, and Gonzaga will probably be in one of them as well.  It’s a bit of a tough draw for Missouri in particular, but after the first round nobody is protected.  I don’t like putting Villanova in Philly — that struck me as not being in the spirit of things — but if the Wildcats get a 3 seed or better I can see it happening.
  • Every team on seed lines 8 and up is safe for the tournament, and the 9 seeds are all in decent shape.  The bubble action starts on line 10 and goes through line 12, with some automatic bids interspersed here and there.
  • Last six in:  South Carolina (last in), Penn State, Providence, New Mexico, Michigan, St. Mary’s
  • Last six out:  UNLV (last out), Creighton, Florida, Miami (FL), Maryland, Auburn
  • Also considered:  San Diego State, Virginia Tech, Davidson, Rhode Island, Kansas State, Southern California

South Carolina, to be perfectly honest, is a bit of a placeholder; I have the Gamecocks in the field based on my belief that at least three SEC teams will be in the tournament, no matter what happens.  As of right now, I give South Carolina the edge over Florida and Auburn for the third bid from that decidedly mediocre league.  It is possible for the SEC to get four bids, depending on how things shake out in that league’s tourney, as well as tournaments across the country.

At this point Siena and Utah State would be advised to win their respective conference tournaments.  I don’t see either grabbing an at-large bid if it needs one.

St. Mary’s is the toughest call in terms of evaluation/figuring out what the committee will do.  If the Gaels lose to Gonzaga in the WCC final, then I think they will get an at-large bid. Otherwise, I don’t see it happening.

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