Diaries

Soulfire21, went over Debunking the Bye Week Myth earlier this week, showing that in general, teams coming off of a bye week usually lose. From 2000 to 2010, teams coming off of a bye week have a winning percentage of .480, a shade less than .500. However, Big Ten teams are noticeably worse when coming off of a bye week; Big Ten teams have a winning percentage of .350 when coming off of a bye week. Big Ten teams are below the national average by .150. By default, nationally, teams playing teams coming off of a bye week have a winning percentage of .520 and teams playing Big Ten teams coming off of a bye week have a winning percentage of .650.

Although the average team performs worse when coming off of a bye week, I wondered if there was an exception. Some coaches have their teams perform better than average after bye weeks and some coaches have their teams perform worse than average, right? This also means that some coaches have to be better than average when playing against a team coming off of a bye week and some coaches have to be worse than average when playing against a team coming off of a bye week.

Before I started writing this diary, I predicted that Mark Dantonio would have a below average record playing after a bye week and that Brady Hoke would have an above average record playing against teams who were coming off of bye weeks. I had no rational reason for these predictions. I just don’t like Dantonio and I like Brady Hoke.

My method for checking my predictions was quite simple, just look at the W/L record of Mark Dantonio (as a Head Coach) coming off of a Bye Week and then look at the record of Brady Hoke (as a head coach) playing against teams who are coming off of a bye week.

Mark Dantonio Coming Off of Bye Weeks

*10 day bye week instead of a full 14 day bye week

Interesting Notes

-Mark Dantonio, as a head coach, is 3-4 when coming off of a bye week. That is good for a winning percentage of 0.428. That puts Dantonio below the national average by .052 but above the Big Ten average by .078.

-As MSU’s head coach, Dantonio is 1-1 coming off of a bye week. That’s a winning percentage of .500, .020 above the national average and .150 above the Big Ten average.

-Biggest loss: 31 points in 2008. MSU vs. PSU

-Smallest loss: 15 points in 2005. Cincinnati vs. USF

-Average loss margin: 23 points

-Biggest win: 39 points in 2004. Cincinnati vs. Memphis

-Smallest win: 4 points in 2010. MSU vs. Purdue

-Average win margin:  21.7 points

-Dantonio is 2-0 against teams with losing records. That is a winning percentage of 1.000, .520 above the national average and .650 above the Big Ten average.

-Dantonio is 1-4 against teams who are .500 or better. That is a winning percentage of .200, .280 below the national average and .150 below the Big Ten average.

Brady Hoke Playing Against Teams Who Are Coming Off of a Bye Week

*10 day bye-week

Interesting Notes

-Brady Hoke is 9-1 (!) when playing against teams who are coming off of a bye week. That’s a winning percentage of .900 (!). He’s outperforming the national average by .380 and the Big Ten average by .250.

- Biggest/Smallest/Average/Only loss:  4 points in 2009. SDSU vs. UNLV

-Biggest win: 34 points in 2010. SDSU vs. UNLV

-Smallest win: 10 points in 2010. SDSU vs. New Mexico

-Average win margin:  23.3 points

-Brady Hoke is 6-1 against teams with losing records. That is a winning percentage of .857, .337 above the national average and .207 above the Big Ten average.

-Brady Hoke is 3-0 against teams who are .500 or better. That is a winning percentage of 1.000, .480 above the national average and .350 above the Big Ten average.

Upon taking a closer look, Dantonio outperforming the Big Ten is not very impressive for 3 reasons. Reason #1: Saying you’re doing better than the worst is inherently not impressive. You’re still doing worse than the best. Reason #2:  2 of his wins came in 2004 at Cincinnati, his first year as a head coach. After 2004, Dantonio lost every single game coming off of a bye week after until last year against Purdue. Even in that game, MSU barely managed to pull out the victory against a bad, 4-8 Purdue team. He clearly struggles in the games after bye weeks. Reason #3: Dantonio is very, very bad after bye weeks when he playing against teams with a winning record (1-4).

For the good guys, Brady Hoke is great when playing against teams coming off of a bye week. His only loss against a team coming off of a bye week was by 4 points. Although most of his wins came against teams who ended their seasons with losing records, he is undefeated against teams with winning records (3-0).  He easily outperforms both the national and Big Ten averages.

Bye weeks are of no advantage to MSU, and actually might hurt MSU’s chance of victory. MSU coming off of a bye week is more of an advantage to Michigan than to anyone else.  Mark Dantonio’s ineptness playing after a bye week coupled with Brady Hoke’s adeptness playing against teams coming off of a bye week point only to good things for Michigan.

P.S. This is my first Diary, so let me know if there is anything I should change, not change, do, or not do in the future. I’ll probably write something similar to this for the Purdue game, looking at how Brady Hoke fares when playing after bye weeks. 

as always, comments are appreciated

http://www.scribd.com/doc/68651497/msu-miniprogram

msu miniprogram

Human beings to do not like being rebuked. I’m not talking about sitting around, blabbering on and on about matters of opinion. If you and your friends are arguing about who was supposed to win the game this weekend, then rebuke, no matter how wrong you think your friend, roommate, or barstool neighbor is, should not enter into the equation. However, sometimes a human being or an organization does something wrong; flat out, unanimously guilty, infinitely, inescapably, wrong.

Over the course of the summer, beginning with mumbled rumors in spring, we got to see an arch-rival, the hated Ohio State Buckeyes implode on a most incredibly entertaining level. Now, my point in this diary is not to discuss what the NCAA will do, or not do, not to shed light on Gee and Smith, not even to debate whether what they did was wrong. All of this has been covered. I’d like to look at the Ohio fan base response and ask, why?

We all have several stories of buckeye pals (if you’re willing to put them at “pal” status) who have responded to their beloved team’s recent moral short comings in outstandingly irrational ways. Hands down, the most frustrating conversation I’ve ever gotten into over the matter, which inspired this little written piece, occurred last Friday, at a local sports bar.

I was choking down buffalo wing after buffalo wing, chasing them with tall Coors originals, when I got into a conversation with the gentleman sitting next to me. You know how this goes:

Me: Yeah, I’ve been a Michigan fan since I was born.

My Neighbor: Oh, well that sucks.

(ENGAGE BATTLE MODE)

It turns out that the dude in the Tap-Out hat, with the beard that was longer at the goatee portion than his cheeks, with the gigantic metal bulb earrings was an Ohio State fan. I immediately went for the jugular, (rude, I know) and asked him if the Bucks were going to make a bowl game this year. As I’m sure you already know, things turned ugly…fast. What the conversation boiled down to was a debate of the violations that had been reported against that school down south. After I listed off only half of them (I hadn’t made it to the Pryor fiasco, yet) he stopped me and said, “You know, the way I see it, is that everybody does that stuff.” All I could hear in my mind were the words “You know, everybody murders people”, but I kept smiling and nodding. I asked him why hadn’t everybody been caught, or at least been the subject of a major scandal that snagged more ESPN headlines than the New York Yankees post-season departure. His response?

“That stuff doesn’t matter.”

I’ll make this clear, if any of you and I are ever in a conversation in which you tell me that not only the law, court decisions and well-backed investigative journalism, let alone pure founded logic “doesn’t matter”, our chat will probably end there, too.

I finished my wings, drank my beer, and spent the rest of the weekend wondering.

In reality, friends, human beings will do everything within their power to simply, not be wrong. Most Ohio fans didn’t even attend the school, or play for the team, but they still hold fast, denying any wrong doing, or referencing other unfounded cases of corruption in (not just) college sports. As a living being in a human body, we can force ourselves to accept our circumstances: being lied to, losing our job, being accused of a crime…but not being wrong.

And this is why, until the day I die, until the day my future children’s children die, the Ohio administration and fan base will always respond to accusations of corruption during that ten year stretch of domination thanks to Clarett, Smith and Pryor, with the following statement:

“You know it happens everywhere.”

When clearly, it doesn’t. 

As you may have heard, the licensing agent of Big Ten video (who deleted mgoblog's YouTube account) is in my base deleting my videoz and sending letters to Michigan Stadium. Someone on our board posted:

Knew this day was coming as soon as I saw this site linked from Mlive. We fly under the radar no more.

For now, I'm hosting every snap directly from mgovideo and still trying to find the sweet spot of video quality/playability. These are 480p:

http://mgovideo.com/2011-michigan-defense-vs-northwestern-every-snap

http://mgovideo.com/2011-michigan-offense-vs-northwestern-every-snap

We ain't goin' out like that.

Michigan basketball team preview: Backcourt

With only 30 days left until the season starts against ferris state, it's time to preview the 2011 team. Also since some positions haven't been decided yet, this will be previewed by the position the player was at last season.

The Departed

Darius morris Point guard: 2010 stats

The only key player to not return this season. Simply put darius was the offense, when he was not in the game we did not score. The progression made in jump shooting, passing, and execution of the offense helped create breakout seasons for jordan morgan and tim hardaway JR. With darius this team was a favorite to be dancing well into march, without him it's a mystery until we see them play.

Returning

Stu douglass SR Guard

2010 stats:

2010 was an interesting season for stu. Statistically he posted the best season of his career, but at times during B1G play he fell into slumps that took him games to get out of. Some of this can be attributed to splitting time at point guard when darius was on the bench and he is not a point guard, and at this moment stu is the starting point guard. Without the skills to create a shot or the ability to penetrate the development of trey burke is even more important.

Tim Hardaway JR, Sophomore Wing Guard

2010 stats:

The perfect player for JB's three guard system, THJ scored ten points or more in twenty five games last season and fourteen in a row to finish the regular season. Last season tim benefited from the play making ability of darius morris (like everyone else did) and would have been B1G freshman of the year if not for that one guy who we won't talk about. This year tim will be relied on to carry the load on offense and he needs to improve on creating his own shots. It is safe to say that at this point the team will go as far as he takes them, and from the sound of things he is up to the challenge.

Matt Vogrich JR Wing Guard 2010 stats:

As pure shooter of a shooter as you will ever find, vogrich was looked at as the perfect wing for a JB offense until THJ came along and took all the minutes. Coming off the bench he did everything he was supposed to do but his role is up in the air this season. As of right now it's hard to say where he will be because it all depends on where everyone else is. (Novak being a guard or forward, stu playing PG or SG, freshman development)

Corey Person SR Point Guard 2010 stats:

Made me look like a fool last season. After listening to players rave about corey's ability in practice I predicted he would split minutes with darius and have a decent role on the team, he appeared in four early games and did not make a shot. Any way you look at it his role this season will be the same barring a catastrophic injury to everyone on scholarship who can dribble and call the plays.

Eso Akunne JR Guard 2010 stats:

Walk on guard who didn't get to much time on the floor. He did contribute in a positive way during the iowa meldown by coming off the bench for two minutes, making the easiest layup possible and sitting back down, at which point THJ saved the day and we can laugh about the Ugliest Box Score Ever

Josh Bartlestein JR Guard 2010 stats:

Also a walk on and just like the other walk ons his production looks to remain the same, writes a great in-season blog appropriately named The Bartlestein Blog. Check it out when the season starts.

Incoming

Trey Burke FR Point guard:

For those who don't regularly follow Michigan basketball or recruiting, trey is a big deal. I could list all of his high school accomplishments but that would take up half of the page so I will just name a few. Three year starter for Satch Sullingers' Northland vikings he compiled a record of 97-5 (57-0 in conference), state champion in 09, runner up in 2011. Named to the All-State team, and the winner of the Ohio Mr. Basketball award. To put it into perspective the kind of player we are getting, notable winners of ohios' Mr. Basketball since 2001 are Lebron (01, 02, 03), OJ mayo (05,06), Jon diebler (07), William buford (08), and jared sullinger (09,10), so it's kind of a big deal.

Trey will be the most important part of the team this season because he is the only true point guard on the roster. Without a true point guard running the offense last season it was ugly, the kind of ugly that let the opponent get back into the game because they could not score. Fortunately for him he has a team that has enough experience to win without him scoring, as long as he can set up the offense and execute the pick and roll everything should be fine. Also you can Follow His Journey To Ann Arbor Here

Carlton Brundidge FR Shooting guard:

Sometimes in recruiting strange things happen that people don't understand and this is one of those things. For all the hype and accolades trey burke received, carlton brundidge is the higher ranked recruit. He is also the one who most people haven't heard of and the player that fans should be most excited about. Brundidge brings a dimension to the offense that we have been waiting for as a big, physical guard who can make perimeter shots but has the ability to go to the rim.

(Frontcourt tomarrow)

(Previously on The Michael Schofield Trilogy - http://mgoblog.com/content/picture-pages-denard-tacopants-int, http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/moving-picture-pages-denard-tacopants-int)

Here's Part II of the trilogy.  This time Schofield sees the blitzer and saves the day, which I wasn't expecting to see until the third movie.  The second movie is where it looks like the bad guy is going to win, isn't it?

Setup: Michigan has the ball fourth-and-one at their own 42 shortly after stopping Northwestern on their own fourth-and-one attempt.  Michigan lines up in the shotgun with a slot and WR left and two TEs right.  Smith is the RB.  Northwestern plays 4-3 even with a linebacker (loosely) over the slot receiver, the CB on the line against the two TEs, and one safety rolled into the box.

Wha'hoppon: Schofield pulls on the QB Power to the right.  The two TEs double the playside DE, and the RT and RG double the playside DT.  The SLB comes hard for the gap between them, but this time Schofield sees him and stands him up so he can't blow up the play.  Smith kicks out the CB, and the safety can't come up in time as Denard easily converts the fourth down.  Michigan would go on to score a TD on this drive.

Original Picture Pages at http://mgoblog.com/content/picture-pages-fourth-and-fun

Full YouTube link at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXgNZxFOpbc