For Doug Gottlieb haters

[MadaboutWu]

I'm not trying to "prove Doug right". He is wrong to say that WSU didn't deserve a #1 seed. As is usual for him, he takes a legitimate viewpoint or concern and takes it too far. I was emphasizing that his general concern about size for '14 WSU and '16 Nova is reasonable. Reasonable concern does not equal definitive "they aren't worthy of a #1". That last step is where Doug goes too far.

I appreciate this framing of your point. I think, however, you have built your case that size is a concern on the very small sample size of 1 game decided by 3 points, (you are bringing up sample sizes in the other thread). IMO you would be better served to look at advanced metrics for rebounding for the whole season to argue about WSU size.

I don't know if those bear out Gottlieb's position but I expect they do not. The other more general advanced metrics of offense and defense for the year clearly show we were an excellent team whatever the size, which really undermines Gottlieb's point of taking one attribute in an abstract way as an argument for proper seeding.

His argument is based on a cherry-picked data point (the single three-point loss) and we shouldn't give it any credence. Indeed for many commentators losing by 3 to a peaking UK team that went deep demonstrated that we were seeded correctly and UK was not.

[im4wsu]

UK had 26 rebounds to our 23. Their bigs had 34 to our three-headed monster having only 3. But our smaller guards, Baker & Ron, had 9 compared to the Harrison twins' 2. So to say that "size" was the difference on the rebounding is somewhat selective -- picking and choosing the position rather than size at all positions.

The rebounding strategy is partially dependent on the makeup of the team size-wise, but also depends greatly on the coaching philosophy and structure. Our guards typically rebound a lot, partially due to not having the huge glass cleaner available, but it also allows us to begin the transition with theball in the guards' hands who can run full speed ahead and not have to hesitate to await an outlet pass.

Add it all up, their bigs out rebounded/outscored ours, their oversized guards outscored our guys, but o we out rebounded theirs and then Cleanthony destroyed Young scoring and held his own on the boards. Net, we lost by 3, but is due to their height, weight, teamwork, basketball IQ -- only JH4P knows, I guess.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

UK had 26 rebounds to our 23.

I think you have your stats wrong. The rebounding margin favored Kentucky 32-23. I agree +3 is a small difference. +9, not so much.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=400548706

[im4wsu]

I think you have your stats wrong. The rebounding margin favored Kentucky 32-23. I agree +3 is a small difference. +9, not so much.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=400548706

My source is SportsReference. The difference seems to be 6 team rebounds credited to Kentucky rather than to individuals.

	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats	Basic Box Score Stats
Starters	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	2P	2PA	2P%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Cleanthony Early	39	12	17	0.706	8	11	0.727	4	6	0.667	3	3	1	2	5	7	0	1	1	0	3	31
Ron Baker	36	7	12	0.583	3	6	0.5	4	6	0.667	2	2	1	1	4	5	2	0	0	2	2	20
Fred Van Vleet	35	1	6	0.167	1	2	0.5	0	4	0	2	2	1	0	4	4	6	2	0	1	4	4
Tekele Cotton	31	1	4	0.25	0	1	0	1	3	0.333	2	2	1	1	2	3	5	1	0	0	3	5
Kadeem Coleby	7	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0		0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
Reserves	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	2P	2PA	2P%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Chadrack Lufile	17	3	4	0.75	3	4	0.75	0	0		0	1	0	0	2	2	0	0	1	4	2	6
Darius Carter	17	2	3	0.667	2	3	0.667	0	0		1	2	0.5	0	1	1	0	0	1	1	3	5
Nick Wiggins	15	1	2	0.5	0	0		1	2	0.5	2	4	0.5	0	1	1	1	2	0	0	1	5
Evan Wessel	3	0	0		0	0		0	0		0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0
School Totals	200	27	49	0.551	17	28	0.607	10	21	0.476	12	18	0.667	4	19	23	14	6	3	8	21	76
Starters	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	2P	2PA	2P%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Aaron Harrison	39	6	13	0.462	2	6	0.333	4	7	0.571	3	4	0.75	1	0	1	1	2	0	3	2	19
James Young	37	5	9	0.556	2	4	0.5	3	5	0.6	0	0		0	8	8	0	0	0	1	2	13
Andrew Harrison	34	6	9	0.667	5	6	0.833	1	3	0.333	7	9	0.778	0	1	1	3	0	0	6	3	20
Julius Randle	30	4	9	0.444	4	8	0.5	0	1	0	5	6	0.833	5	5	10	6	1	1	1	1	13
Dakari Johnson	20	1	2	0.5	1	2	0.5	0	0		1	2	0.5	0	2	2	0	1	0	0	1	3
Reserves	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	2P	2PA	2P%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Willie Cauley-Stein	23	2	3	0.667	2	3	0.667	0	0		0	1	0	0	2	2	0	2	1	0	3	4
Alex Poythress	15	3	4	0.75	3	3	1	0	1	0	0	0		1	1	2	0	0	1	0	2	6
Jarrod Polson	2	0	1	0	0	0		0	1	0	0	0		0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	0
School Totals	200	27	50	0.54	19	32	0.594	8	18	0.444	16	22	0.727	7	19	26	11	6	3	11	15	78

[Shockeriffic]

This whole argument is really dumb. Kenpom has Villanova's average height at 77.3". Just in the last 5 years, there have been 3 national champions with similar heights. Both UConn teams and Duke in 2015 had an average height of 77.5".

[Dan]

Illinois state just outrebounded us by 11. Does that make them bigger and more athletic? It was one game, these things happen. Sometimes it's just getting outhustled.

[ripemupshocks]

By that rationale, you could pick any #1 seed that got beat before the Sweet 16 and say they didn't have the athletes and didn't deserve to be #1. Our loss to UK was hardly the shining example, it's happened many many times before. I don't see why he has to single WSU out, you can tell he's still bothered by us.

Even just that tournament, that season; Kentucky also beat 4 seed Louisville by five, 2 seed Michigan by three, and 2 seed Wisconsin by one. I wonder if GoatLube thought any of those teams were not worthy of their seeds?

[ripemupshocks]

I think JH4P should only post under a thread entitled "Mindnumbing, Pointless, Sidetracking, Statistical Nerd Arguments." Then I wouldn't have to read through page after page of ridiculous diatribes trying to prove how smart he is. Exhausting.

JH4P is to ShockerNet what Cliff Clavin was to Cheers,,,,,,,, just without the beer,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and the humor. :)

[1972Shocker]

JH4P is to ShockerNet what Cliff Clavin was to Cheers,,,,,,,, just without the beer,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and the humor. :)

Okay, but I get to be Coach Pantusso!

[Dan]

My favorite Cliff Claven line is the one about relating drinking beer to the culling of the buffalo heard. Drinking beer is just killing the slowest brain cells, leaving behind the faster cells, thus making your brain faster and more efficient.

[Keyser Soze]

It is highly likely that the 2014 WSU team will have zero 1st round draft picks and entirely possible that it won't have a guy score 500 points in the NBA. We certainly hope that's not the case, but many objective analysts would say possible.

You could say the above about very few #1 teams in history. That's the point Doug makes from time to time...not that WSU wasn't an incredibly well coached, very good college basketball team...just that it wasn't the best team in the country due to talent limitations.

I tend to believe that team was a little more talented than he gives it credit for, but I'm also a die hard WSU fan. His position from an objective media analyst isn't even remotely unreasonable.

[proshox]

It is highly likely that the 2014 WSU team will have zero 1st round draft picks and entirely possible that it won't have a guy score 500 points in the NBA. We certainly hope that's not the case, but many objective analysts would say possible.

You could say the above about very few #1 teams in history. That's the point Doug makes from time to time...not that WSU wasn't an incredibly well coached, very good college basketball team...just that it wasn't the best team in the country due to talent limitations.

I tend to believe that team was a little more talented than he gives it credit for, but I'm also a die hard WSU fan. His position from an objective media analyst isn't even remotely unreasonable.

Shut your mouth. Doug doesn't know how to shoot the ball. Never mind evaluate the athletic ability of a team.


With that part finished - JH4P has this one right. There were a signicant number of plays made that just came down to their guy being bigger than our guy. Height is only one way to measure the size of a basketball player. I truly think WSU was the better basketball team that got beat by a combination of hot shooting, favorable whistles, and size.

[shockmonster]

It is highly likely that the 2014 WSU team will have zero 1st round draft picks and entirely possible that it won't have a guy score 500 points in the NBA. We certainly hope that's not the case, but many objective analysts would say possible.

You could say the above about very few #1 teams in history. That's the point Doug makes from time to time...not that WSU wasn't an incredibly well coached, very good college basketball team...just that it wasn't the best team in the country due to talent limitations.

I tend to believe that team was a little more talented than he gives it credit for, but I'm also a die hard WSU fan. His position from an objective media analyst isn't even remotely unreasonable.

You can call him a reasonable objective media analyst. I'll continue to call him an elitist. If he gauges talent by 1st Round draft picks (most don't pan out) and ignore that many of them are over rated Freshmen, who don't score 500 points in the NBA, you aren't a great evaluator of talent. In addition, Early just missed the first round by 2-3 picks and you don't consider him a great college talent. With all due respect, your defense of him doesn't hold water either.

[jdmee]

This is an interesting feeling. I'm all alone arguing how good that 2014 WSU team was while shockernet is telling me that they weren't as good as I think.

JH4P: WSU was better than Kentucky at A, B, C, D, E, and F. Kentucky was better at G. WSU wins easily if not for G.
Shockernet: Nope.

I just think your argument about G being the reason for the loss is stupid. I think more factors than just G led to the loss. And how did you come up with G being 15 point margin? A POYA number or some sort of sabermetric calculation where height difference * 2√3.725 - the difference in the number of letters in the players name / the jersey number + 2.376589765* age?


Maybe how the refs called the game impacted the game also? Maybe if Marshall had the player implement the UNI flop defense would have changed the game, therefor coaching was the difference. Maybe ....


If ifs and buts where candy and nuts ...

[ShockerEngineer]

I just think your argument about G being the reason for the loss is stupid. I think more factors than just G led to the loss. And how did you come up with G being 15 point margin? A POYA number or some sort of sabermetric calculation where height difference * 2√3.725 - the difference in the number of letters in the players name / the jersey number + 2.376589765* age?

Be sure to check the jersey number input or Chadrack will cause a floating point exception.