2015 Arch Madness seeding probabilities

[rlh04d]

Similarly it is dumb to penalize a coach because he has more experienced players on his roster. Especially when the experienced players on the other coaches roster have been to a Final Four and are All-Americans coming into the year.

My only point was to rlh who was saying Jacobson wasn't doing as good a coaching job as Marshall because his team was more experienced. Both are great, and I actually think Marshall is a better coach, but devaluing what Jacobson has done due to experienced players is dumb.

I somewhat devalue every NCAA coach that suddenly looks better when he has experience working to his advantage.

You and I will have to agree to disagree, because I think it is entirely common sense to adjust a coach's performance relative to the amount of experience he's putting on the court, and I think it is BEYOND ignorant to penalize a coach for consistent strong performance or reward a coach for past poor performance.

I could show detailed numbers for the NCAA tournament in general in regards to the tendency for non-major programs to succeed at a far greater clip with upper-classmen heavy rosters, but look at Jacobson's performance specifically:

2015: 25-2 (5 seniors, 5 juniors)
2014: 16-15 (2 seniors, 6 juniors)
2013: 21-15 (4 seniors, 3 juniors)
2012: 20-14 (1 senior, 4 juniors)
2011: 20-14 (1 senior, 1 junior)
2010: 30-5 (5 seniors, 3 juniors)
2009: 23-11 (2 seniors, 5 juniors)

This year is the most heavily weighted season towards upper-classmen in his entire career on UNI (I didn't look at his first two rather average seasons, as I try not to judge a coach on his performance before he get a chance to get his players in the program). The only year close to this one in regards to veteran leadership is 2010, Jacobson's best coaching performance prior to this.

So yes, you weight his performance relative to the experience he's putting on the court. Jacobson has a clear level of coaching performance that increases and decreases relative to the number of seniors he puts on the court, and his four best seasons have come in the five seasons he's had 6+ upperclassmen on the roster. He's a good coach consistently able to put out 20-21 win seasons, but he's only able to win more than that when he loads his team with upperclassmen. I am somewhat less impressed with his coaching performance because of that.

Not UNimpressed. Just slightly less impressed.

Put it this way: would you be more impressed with UNI right now if they were 25-2 with 12 freshmen on the roster? If anyone says no to that, they're insane. If you're not recruiting one-and-done players, coaching performance should always be judged relative to the experience he puts on the court. If you take 12 true freshmen who were lightly regarded in national recruiting and you win 30 games, that is a phenomenal coaching performance; if you take those same 12 players and win 30 games with them as redshirt seniors, that is a far less impressive performance, and you sacrificed the consistency of your program to win that year -- and usually in college basketball, sacrificing the consistency of the program to win in one single year is due to a desire to leave the program, leaving a flaming dumpster behind you. (Obviously not the case with Jacobson, before anyone decides to latch onto that as an insult at UNI somehow.)

I'm not even arguing loading up on upperclassmen is a bad thing at all. Marshall's done it for years by heavily recruiting the JUCO ranks. But if Marshall finished second to a team with less upper-classmen, no way in hell would I argue he should be getting COY over the coach of that team, who would have clearly done a superior job that year.

My point is, Jacobson and Marshall are both excellent coaches and they should both be graded on their team's achievements. Each man is entirely, 100% responsible for the on-court production of their team, this year AND in previous years, and you shouldn't grade them on anything but their ability to win the conference. Neither guy needs to be graded on a curve over any extenuating circumstances. Win the conference and win COY. Anything less than that is refusing to treat Jacobson like Marshall's peer, and is insulting to a coach of his ability.

[rlh04d]

I get the feeling ISUr and UE both have the personnel to be really good next year if they each had a different coach. Unfortunately, that isn't in the cards for either. Seems unlikely either group will ever play to their ceiling under Simmons or Muller.

Life in the Valley.

I think next year will be telling from a progress standpoint for some coaches, but it's two years from now that I'm actually excited about. ISUr and Drake could both be very good teams that season. When you figure that Jacobson and Lansing are good enough coaches that UNI and ISUb will always be steadily decent-to-very-good, Doyle will be a senior for Loyola and carrying that team on its back, and Simmons is competent enough not to field a terrible team at Evansville, that could be a loaded year 1-7.

Doyle will be a junior next year for the Ramblers because of the transfer rule.

I know he's a junior next year. That's why I said I'm excited about two years from now. ISUr will be loaded with seniors, Drake will have Envold as a senior/Timmer as junior, Loyola will have Doyle as a senior, etc.

[uniftw]

The "fun part" about looking at 2010/11-2013/14 is the massive impact losing McDermott to CU had.

Every UNI fan would/will admit he would not have put those kinds of offensive numbers up at UNI but impact it had on setting UNI recruiting back, especially with post player depth/development, is quite startling. It's no shock to anyone that understands how cyclical recruiting really can be if you have just 1 or 2 misses that 4 years after McD bailed on UNI that we finally have post depth and play again.

Once McDermott gave his verbal to UNI they essentially stopped recruiting bigs for that class. The 10/11 season would have seen O'Rear as a SR, Jake Koch as a rSo, Austin Pehl as a r So, Doug McDermott as a fr and Chip Rank as a fr. When Doug bailed that left us without being able to redshirt 6'6 Chip Rank (Who really needed a redshirt and it showed by the end of his career). It meant that Austin Pehl was forced to play significant minutes, which wasn't good for anyone involved.

Now, that 10/11 season was actually booking along pretty damn nicely. UNI hosted, and beat, Illinois State on Feb 2nd. That win moved UNI to 18-6 (9-2). With that win UNI had won 8 in a row and 9 of it's last 10. In fact, they were just .5 game out of first place after that night with only 2 of the remaining 7 games against top half MVC teams. It's not unreasonable to think UNI could have grabbed a third straight regular season title.

Here's where things started to unravel with the McDermott situation.

During that Illinois State game, about 10 minutes into the second half, Lucas O'Rear went up for a rebound and came down awkwardly. It looked like he had rolled his ankle but as it turns out he broke it and missed the rest of the season. Thanks to how late everything with the McDermott family happened UNI was forced to play a post rotation of Jake Koch, Austin Pehl and Chip Ranks - 2 Sophs and a true Freshman. UNI lost 6 of it's last 7 in conference play by spreads of 3, 8, 6, 2, 8, and 3 in the conference tournament. The other was a blowout loss to a surging WSU team.

Go to 11/12 and UNI's post relied on Jake Koch (who was a very, very, good player for UNI) and then 6'6 Chip Rank who stopped seeing the floor by the end of his career because he was passed over) 6'10 Austin Pehl (who really was a D3 player, and true freshman Seth Tuttle. Obviously Tuttle worked out pretty well for us long run. The Spring of 2011 coach Jake took a flier on a prep school kid out of Chicago - 6'8 Chris Olivier (to the point that Austin Pehl voluntarily gave up his scholarship for Olivier). Well his work ethic and sense of entitlement caused all kinds of issues, a red-shirt seasons and a semester later he was gone. The issue there is he stuck around for the redshirt season, giving the impression he would contribute in 12/13. Well, that also meant there wasn't any scholarships to go out and recruit post players, yet again, and so when he bailed in 12/13 that left UNI with only Tutttle, Pehl, Koch and then guys like Singleton (who also coud have used a redshirt) and Rank to eat post minutes. Buss wasn't half the player he is now, and I think that's the year he broke his arm and missed the season anyway.

Fast forward to last season and all of a sudden scholarhips start clearing up for post players and 3 guys over 6'7 show up on campus and redshirt (Ted Friedman, who's redshirting this year after a failed true freshman campaign, Bennett Koch and Klint Carlson who could be a very nice player by the time he's a JR ...doesn't help our post depth last season). This coming recruiting class has a 6'10 rivals 3* (22 ppg 12.2 rebounds (4 orb) 5.5 blocks 1.3 assist 1.3 steals), 6'10 24/7 2*. I don't know his stats but he's had probably 7 or 8 20/20 games this season. He's probably averaging about 22-25 points 13-16 rebounds and 5-7 blocks.

Again, Doug wouldn't have been what he was at Creighton in terms of scoring, but the depth and reaches that had to be made to make up for his leaving was extremely hurtful. Going forward I expect UNI to be a consistent 23+ win team as long as Jake is around.

[Khan4Cats]

rlh, I get what you're trying to say on experience but your numbers are off or misleading

True, we have 5 seniors this year, but to say 5 juniors is misleading as only 3 play and the other two are juco WALK-ONS that are not playing. And one of the seniors is walk-on who did play minutes in the past but is reduced to bit time now.

We also had 10 upperclassmen rostered last year. 2 seniors and 8 juniors (including Jesperson who had to sit out and 2 juco walk-ons.

I agree, experience matters, especially with Jacobson's system, which is so team oriented.

And as for a doing a bad job last year. Even Jake has admitted to such, as he tried to go away from what he had always done and spent more time focusing on offense to try and push it. He realized that just wasn't right for our team or his own in-game mentality and switched back this year.

[UNIFanSince1983]

WSU does have a little less experience playing the bulk of minutes.

UNI has 9 players that average double digit minutes.
- 4 Seniors
- 3 Juniors
- 1 Sophomore
- 1 Freshman

WSU has 8 players that average double digit minutes.
- 2 Seniors
- 3 Juniors
- 3 Freshmen

WSU has 3 players averaging over 30 minutes a game all of which are Seniors or Juniors. UNI has no one who averages over 30 minutes a game although Tuttle is close at 29.7.

I really don't know what to make of that. Just thought I would throw out some statistics on who is actually getting the bulk of the minutes for both teams.

Either way I think it will probably be a winner take all for COY in WSU because the winner will also be Regular Season League Champions. I really think that is the way it should be this year as well.

[rlh04d]

rlh, I get what you're trying to say on experience but your numbers are off or misleading

You're right. To be honest I just didn't want to go to the effort to look at all of the numbers to make a fair comparison there. A simple look at the roster classes is the easiest way to look at it, although it obviously doesn't provide a fair look at contributors.

However, I'd also have to eliminate two of the juniors on WSU's roster (Bush and Glass), who really can't be considered contributors to this WSU team. Which puts WSU at two seniors and three juniors.

The "fun part" about looking at 2010/11-2013/14 is the massive impact losing McDermott to CU had.

I'm sorry, I understand McDermott ended up being a terrific offensive player, but I can't take an argument for how his flip threw off the recruiting balance for multiple years seriously. Every program has to deal with misses. I understand that can have a big impact on wins, but from a recruiting perspective, you adjust the next year and deal with it.

WSU had its second best recruit in the 2013 class, who would have been at least a contributor this year, nearly die in practice and never play a game for the team. We've had players we expected to qualify not qualify -- we've got one of our better recruits of the last few years playing against us at Illinois State now. You deal with it and move on. Marshall's won an average of 29 games a year since the 2009-10 season -- and well on track to pass that again to raise the average to 30 a year -- despite the misses.

I do understand and can agree with some of your full explanation. Personally, that's why I'm very pro-recruiting JUCO bigs the way Marshall has, and it's one of the few flaws I think Jacobson has. Not recruiting JUCO bigs to make up for prior recruiting misses is a mistake, although it's interesting to see he's been recruiting JUCO guards lately. IMO, establishing a track record with JUCO players, even if you don't need to rely on them year to year, gives you a strong cushion for when you DO need them, because you have a good chance to go after them.

Also, what happened to UNI's 2012 recruiting? They didn't bring anyone in that year?

WSU does have a little less experience playing the bulk of minutes.

Either way I think it will probably be a winner take all for COY in WSU because the winner will also be Regular Season League Champions. I really think that is the way it should be this year as well.

For the first part, swapping two seniors and a sophomore for two freshmen is a bit more than a "little less experience," not to mention drawing the line at 10 minutes benefits UNI -- UNI doesn't have another player outside of 10 mpg until Koch at 4.8 (and just slightly over 3 in conference), while WSU checks in two more freshmen above 9, and five first-year players between 5-10 mpg in general. I would draw that line at 7 mpg, as Nurger/Holland/Henderson have all had to be relied on somewhat heavily this year. But I understand your point.

As for the second part, completely agreed. That's the way it should be.

[LanceShock]

If Marshall keeps up the success he's had lately, they might start awarding COY to someone else to spread it around, but it won't be to Jacobson. Both coaches achievements tower over the rest of the Valley coaches.

UNI has improved a lot from last year to this year, but WSU had also improved from a play in team in Arch Madness in 2008-2009 to challenging UNI for first place in 2009-2010 with Jacobsen winning coach of the year. My point is that if you were adjusting for how the team did the year before in voting for COY, Marshall should have won then, even with the year UNI had. At this point, I don't see how COY can go to anyone other than the winner between the two of them.

[BCPanther]

It's not a coincidence that UNI is having a great year now that 4 years of the dead McDermott scholarship are over.

Year 1- Too late in the spring, went unused.
Year 2- Olivier Redshirt Year
Year 3- Olivier quits in December
Year 4- Jesperson transfer year

It literally took a scholarship for 4 years and put us in a situation where Rank and Singleton couldn't use the redshirt years they both needed.

[Wufan]

It's not a coincidence that UNI is having a great year now that 4 years of the dead McDermott scholarship are over.

Year 1- Too late in the spring, went unused.
Year 2- Olivier Redshirt Year
Year 3- Olivier quits in December
Year 4- Jesperson transfer year

It literally took a scholarship for 4 years and put us in a situation where Rank and Singleton couldn't use the redshirt years they both needed.

Or Jacobson could have recruited a big man that could play in year 2 or 3. The Olivier miss had nothing to do with McDermott. I don't buy Jespersen as a transfer for missing on a big for a 4th consecutive year. In fact, one could argue that if Doug McD had gone to UNI then Jespersen wouldn't have been able to transfer in at all.

After Tuttle, Singleton and Buss (assuming he's done) leave, what will be your excuse for not having any big man depth next year?

[UNIFanSince1983]

It's not a coincidence that UNI is having a great year now that 4 years of the dead McDermott scholarship are over.

Year 1- Too late in the spring, went unused.
Year 2- Olivier Redshirt Year
Year 3- Olivier quits in December
Year 4- Jesperson transfer year

It literally took a scholarship for 4 years and put us in a situation where Rank and Singleton couldn't use the redshirt years they both needed.

Or Jacobson could have recruited a big man that could play in year 2 or 3. The Olivier miss had nothing to do with McDermott. I don't buy Jespersen as a transfer for missing on a big for a 4th consecutive year. In fact, one could argue that if Doug McD had gone to UNI then Jespersen wouldn't have been able to transfer in at all.

After Tuttle, Singleton and Buss (assuming he's done) leave, what will be your excuse for not having any big man depth next year?

I have no idea what they are talking about. Losing McDermott sucked, but I don't think it caused struggles fro the last 4 years. Here is one thing I do know. We should have "some" depth at the post position next year. I am not sure how quality the depth will be. We have two big men coming in. One is a 6'10" from Minnesota and another one is 6'9" from Dubuque. I don't know much about the kid from Minnesota, but the kid from Dubuque should be pretty good. I am not sure they make an immediate impact next year or not. Then we will have Koch, Carlson, and Friedman returning. Koch needs to make a few improvements, but he should be pretty good. Carlson will be another undersized hustle big man. I will be interested to see what Friedman looks like after redshirting this year. He was pretty raw and not good last year, but he has a big body so hopefully with a year redshirting he has made some big strides. Of course all of these guys will be either Freshmen or Sophomores so who knows what they really would be.