Exempt Tourney Performance Under Marshall

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

As for your arguments, I'm tired of your obviously stabs st Ggg and how he builds our teams at the beginning of the year. He has us ready to play anyone I'm March, but your agenda bypasses those obvious facts.

My "agenda" against Gregg is soooo strong, I decided to post the following in the initial post of this thread.

Marshall has indeed been wildly successful at WSU the past 8 seasons.

Wildly successful = Miserable Failure, right? I guess the key to my agenda against him is my high praise of his overall results. lol

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Pick another team. You've got the filed logarithms. Shouldn't take more than a second to compare.

You didn't like Gonzaga? OK.

Butler, last 8 years of exempt tourneys
6-4 vs top 50
3-1 vs 51-100

This includes 2013-2014, when Butler was bad (finished 14-17 in 1st season without coach Stevens), and Butler went 0-2 in that year's exempt tourney. In years where Butler has been good (like WSU has been consistently for ALL of the years I'm evaluating), Butler has gone 9-3 vs the top 100.

[ShockerFever]

I guess Jamar's expectations of WSU is that they win every game.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

I guess Jamar's expectations of WSU is that they win every game.

Clearly, the only options are 4-10, or 14-0. There is no in between.

[RoyalShock]

I have a crazy suggestion. If you don't agree with JH4P's data-based conclusions, come up with some data relevant to the original context (not a tangential one) to refute it. If you don't like the discussion at all, ignore the topic and don't post.

I'm getting tired of all the longstanding interpersonal tension derailing legitimate discussion.

[Ashockalypse]

Royal what does your comment have to do with this discussion?😄😁

[ShockingButTrue]

Don't buy that argument one bit. You can make excuses for the UConn loss, or last year's injuries, but that still leaves plenty of disappointing results from really good teams with experienced upperclassman leading the way and the proven talent to have done much better.

This is my last comment towards this thread:

Disappointing? To who; Goat-lube? chicken fans? Why were they bad losses? Would it have been better, and proven our worthiness if it was Kentucky or Duke we had played?

[_kai_]

Assuming it's not a fluke, and assuming newcomers don't explain a lot of it, I'll put forth a theory: my inclination is that our teams have tended to perform worse in low recovery-time situations (back-to-back games in STL, exempt tourneys, and maybe even the odd games in the NCAA tournament like the round of 32). I don't think we really play a shorter bench than other teams, so I'm not exactly sure why that would be. Maybe our defensive focus seriously wears out our players even if we play more individuals than some other teams. It could be that our scouting and game-planning are better than just about any other team in the country. I've always felt more comfortable in games like the round of 64 or the sweet 16 because it gives us a full week to prepare, and we seem to benefit the most from that.

This seems like the most logical explanation.

I'd also say there could be a rabbit hole of exploration looking at the height of the post on the teams WSU has lost to in these exempt tournaments. At least in this most recent tournament, it felt like the length of the opposing teams forced the Shocker post to struggle.

I do think we can all agree that it would be nice to play some of these top-tier opponents in a non-tournament setting, and not thousands of miles away with little break between games. If we could have gotten Louisville or Michigan State, on the road, I'd feel better about the Shox chances than in the MTE setting. Which seems weird, but the team does well on the road under Marshall, which hadn't been a thing since Gene Smithson's days. I remember the seasons as a kid when if we won one or two games on the road it was good. Turgeon had issues on the road at WSU. Marshall is a road warrior.

[Rocky Mountain Shock]

I don't have any statistical analyses to offer, but I do know there is an intense amount of pressure year after year for our teams to perform well in the non-con, especially the exempt tourneys against the best teams we will face all year. Obviously, this is due to the increasing irrelevance of our conference. In these kinds of pressure situations, you either rise to the occasion or the pressure gets the better of you. Perhaps the pressure has gotten the better of us more times than not.

The counter argument is, of course, our NCAA tournament performances--which on the most part have been displays of our ability to rise to the occasion. Maybe that is due to the NCAA tournament being at the end of the season versus the beginning of the season when the team is still establishing an identify and guys are still figuring out their roles.

[im4wsu]

5* and 4* young players can simply out-athlete 2* and 3*, or even 3* and 4* units before the latter unites have time to fully understand and integrate the schemes into their play as a unit. Miles Bridges dripping threes is more natural athletically than Austin making a thread-the-needle pass to Landry for a semi-contested layup.

Louisville threw a very sophisticated zone against us and we weren't prepared for it -- even some of our previously more veteran teams have suffered against the zones thrown at us.

To me, there is ample evidence, though somewhat anecdotal, that it usually requires some time and experience playing together to operate the offensive/defensive schemes Marshall utilizes. This can result in some early season losses that do not sit well with the coaches, players or fans, but it is what it is and does happen.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

To me, there is ample evidence, though somewhat anecdotal, that it usually requires some time and experience playing together to operate the offensive/defensive schemes Marshall utilizes. This can result in some early season losses that do not sit well with the coaches, players or fans, but it is what it is and does happen.

4-10
18-5

The first record is WSU in exempt tournaments the past 8 years vs top 100.
The second record is WSU in all other non-con games the past 8 years vs the top 100.

WSU doesn't seem to have a problem winning against good competition in November and December, so long as those games aren't part of exempt tourneys.
#37 UNLV in fall of '11,
@#18 VCU in fall of '12,
@#35 St. Louis in fall of '13,
#33 Utah in fall of '15.

Those were all some very good wins. Also, note that 3 of the 5 non-con losses were to teams in the top 30. It's just really weird that there is such a difference in trends, but there is no denying that the difference exists.

[im4wsu]

4-10
18-5

The first record is WSU in exempt tournaments the past 8 years vs top 100.
The second record is WSU in all other non-con games the past 8 years vs the top 100.

WSU doesn't seem to have a problem winning against good competition in November and December, so long as those games aren't part of exempt tourneys. Very weird.

Interesting. Can you breakdown home vs away on the 18-5. Also, how many of those 1-5 come after the exempt tournaments have been played? Or in other words, how does the average number of games played prior to exempt record compare to the average number of games played prior to the other non-con record?

[WuDrWu]

Let's put an end to this.

It's WAY to small a sample size to be considered statistically relevant.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Let's put an end to this.

It's WAY to small a sample size to be considered statistically relevant.

By that standard, WSU's success (especially as an overachiever relative to seed) in March is statistically irrelevant too.

[Cdizzle]

By that standard, WSU's success (especially as an overachiever relative to seed) in March is statistically irrelevant too.

So, let's either agree to that premise, or see you start that thread as well.