Diaries

Since it was a slow (but happy) National Signing Day for Michigan fans, I thought I'd take on a related topic today regarding recruiting and our friends in SEC land. 

As Brian briefly touched on during his NSD piece, Bill Simmons’ latest column dealt with the subject of steroids and how the media avoids speculation about who might be juicing.  It is a really good piece that you should read.  The message is this – we all have a mental list of players who we want to see pee in a cup to prove their innocence…..why not openly talk about those lists? 

Many of us feel like NCAA corruption is a similar topic – taboo to the main stream media.  Much like how the baseball writers looked the other way when McGwire and Sosa were “saving the sport” we see college media look the other way as Saban hands out medical redshirts like candy, Reggie Bush lives in free housing, Oregon pays a pseudo agent, or OSU lets players trade equipment for benefits around town.  Why has there never been a “deep throat source” willing to blow up recruiting violations?  John Bacon even touches on the subject in “Three And Out” when interviewing the quarterbacks, but doesn’t dig deeper. 

In 2013 the obvious “pee in the cup” list for recruiting corruption starts with Ole Miss.  This is a team with a mediocre recent past if we’re being  generous.  They haven’t won the SEC since the 1960’s and haven’t been relevant nationally except for their #20 finish in 2009.  Yet this season they bring in a consensus top ten recruiting class and some of the nation’s best players.  What gives?

It is easy to speculate about potential corruption but aside from a picture on LaQuan Treadwell’s twitter account of him holding several hundred dollars, there’s no way for us to have any evidence.  So we could sit here and rant about it while sounding like Skip Bayliss debating the wonders of Tim Tebow, but then the message is lost.  Can we find statistical evidence that something is deviating from the norm with Ole Miss? 

I contend that there are several ways we can do this, and I’m going to start such a conversation.  However, I have neither the time nor the skill to finish this scavenger hunt so I wanted to post this primer and then let the power of the Michigan blog sphere potentially dig further if there’s interest.

Below is a table summarizing Mississippi’s recruiting classes from the past several years along with their final record and rank:

Without running any data through statistical analysis, here are some observations:

• There were several good recruits in the state of Mississippi this season and historically players from that state stay home to play football.  The Rebels deserve credit for signing those guys and that helps to tone down suspicion perhaps. 
• Coach Hugh Freeze was hired before last season and did enact somewhat of a turn-around with a 7-6 record that included a bowl win.  New coaches can sometimes lead to a bump in recruiting prowess.  However, prior to this season he had a total of ONE YEAR of college head coaching experience…..at Arkansas State. 
• But there’s still something out of the ordinary going on here:
  • Ole Miss has never had a class ranked higher than 15^th….but this year they are 7th.  It would also seem that their higher ranked classes from past years were based as much on quantity (37 recruits in 2009???) as quality. 
  • In the four previous seasons Ole Miss got a TOTAL of eight players ranked 4-star or higher to commit from out of state.  In 2013 they have seven. 
  • Only one five-star recruit in four seasons has attended from out of state….three are coming this year. 
  • From 2010-2012 the Rebels had a record of 13-24 and pulled in a total of one 5-star and fourteen 4-star recruits, all but one of whom were from the state of Mississippi.  This season they have signed twelve top recruits and just five are from the state.

It is very possible that Hugh Freeze is a great recruiter and has found a new method that is within the rules to attract this talent.  It is also possible that this recruiting class had somewhat of a snowball effect and talent attracted talent.  But there’s enough circumstantial evidence here for further investigation.  This is where I turn it over to the talent on this blog.  Here are some ideas for further analysis:

• Have other teams out-performed their historical trends by this much in the recent past?
• Based on the presumed correlation between record and recruiting success (probably 2-year record) has any other team out-performed their on-field success this abnormally before? 
• Can we quantify the typical recruiting improvement a coach sees after his first year and compare it to what Freeze is doing? 
• Has anyone on the blog been recruited and witnessed corruption first hand?
• Are there any theories on why this seemingly obvious corruption hasn't come out in the open at any school despite the large number of people involved and the fact that many of these people are teenage kids not being recruited for their ACT scores? 

Maybe I'm alone in my frustration on this topic, but when you hear ESPN go on and on about the SEC and even Ole Miss specifically on signing day I'd like to hear someone at least ask the question - how are they doing this? 

SIGNING DAY, 2013

(Click the Image to See Full Size Version)

Yeah, I'll post this now, even though I know everyone's reading the Live Blog before Coach Hoke's press conference begins. Good day, no surprises...

I also used to do a post on this day every year cautioning all of us to remember not to rain on any young man's dreams today, this is their moment to shine. etc.  But as far as I can see there's no rain on the forecast.  Great class, great day, Great To Be, etc.

Friday Fun will discuss this thing called basketball, and how exciting it was last night.

Some new formatting news for the New Year:

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Jalen Rose was tonight's emcee, Betsey Armstrong, Jeff and Tiffany Porter and a CS Mott patient were the judges.

For everyone who attended hopefully you had a great time supporting a great cause, if you didn't make it here are a few performances of note.

Hockey:

Joe Reynolds:

Football:

Baseball:

And your winner

The rest of the skits can be found here

As promised, here is where the recruiting rankings stand with two days until Signing Day 2013. Michigan still has command of the board, and a few of the Big Ten's best programs still languish in the bottom half of the rankings. Link to last rankings (too many changes to list).

Chart? Chart:

^The average of the average rankings of the four recruiting services (the previous four columns). The figure is calculated based on the raw numbers and then rounded, so the numbers above may not average out exactly.

*The product of number of Commits and Average Average

NOTE: Unranked recruits are counted as two-star players.

On to the full data after the jump.

I know I just wrote a diary yesterday....  I hope this one is appreciated!

Below is the remaining schedules for the top-6 BigTen teams:

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The top six teams all have 9 games left in conference- I showed all of those games.  Then I separated the BigTen into the top 6, the sub-500 teams who can surprise teams, and Nebraska and Penn State who should not surprise anyone no matter where the game is being played.  Now I will analyze the home-away breakdown for each sub-group of teams before analyzing each team separately.

INDIANA:

One game advantage will be critical since they have the hardest schedule left in my opinion.  While MSU and OSU both play one more game against a top-6 team, Indiana plays 4 on the road, including closing out against Michigan. They do have 3 home games against the bottom half, but the game at Illinois could be a trap after a tough fought Michigan game.  If they win the conference they will have really earned it, since almost half the remaining games are playing on the road at OSU, MSU, MINN, and UM.

MICHIGAN:

Average schedule amongst the top six.  Easier than Ohio State’s or Michigan State’s and Indiana’s most likely- which is very good for our chances of winning the conference.  Only Minnesota and Wisconsin play less amongst the top-six, but they are two games and one game behind us respectively.  Fortunately we have one more home game against the top-six than roadgames- a nice combo with also having less games against top teams.  Plus we play PSU twice and Illinois at home.  At Purdue is our sleeper game in my opinion.

MICHIGAN STATE:

At least 4 of the 6 games against the top-six are at home, other than that there is little to be too pleased about for the Spartans.  Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin at home are all tough and Ohio State and Michigan on the road will be tough to get.  Plus they play Purdue on the road also.  They do not play Penn State in the last 9 games, and even the “easy game” of Nebraska is away… poor Sparty.  A game behind Indiana and tied with Michigan and Ohio State it will be very hard for them to win the regular season conference crown.

Ohio State:

Like Michigan State they have more than half their games (six) against the top-six teams.  They play the top two teams (Michigan and Indiana) on the road as well as Wisconsin.  Their home top-six are another against Indiana, and then Minnesota and Michigan State.  They do not play either Nebraska or Penn State either for easy wins.  As is the case with Michigan State there is a lot working against Ohio State.  That could all change however if they beat Michigan next game.  If they lose to Michigan they will be two back of Indiana (assuming Indiana wins at Illinois) and one game behind us and Michigan State (if they beat Minnesota at home).  If they get the upset they can claw their way to a regular season championship, if not the odds get pretty long.

Wisconsin:

2 back of Indiana they have little hopes to start with.  Jumping 4 teams will be a monumental task.  Their style of play creates matchup issues but they lack the elite level of play of the teams above them in my opinion.  In their favor are only 4 games against the top-six.  Home against Michigan and Ohio State and away against Michigan State and Minnesota.  No more against Indiana, home against two 7-2 teams, and road against a 7-2 and 5-4 team.  They have the easiest schedule of the top-six teams- but not easy enough to be a serious threat to win the regular season in all likelihood.

Minnesota:

Should they even be in the top group?  Are they going to start off great every year and collapse in conference?  They have a lot of work to do if they want to win- and as was the case with Wisconsin they have an easier schedule remaining than the top-four teams.  At Michigan State and Ohio State and home against Wisconsin and Indiana.  If they don’t win all four their hopes fade away… but at least they exist… for now.

OVERALL:

Minnesota is too far gone to be a serious threat.  Wisconsin, despite an easier path, needs to much to fall in place in order to win it.  Michigan has an easier path than Michigan State or Ohio State, our fellow 7-2 conference mates, and Indiana plays 4 top teams on the road.  Too be honest all four have pretty similar odds looking at the schedule- so it will come down to who wins the bigger games- particularly on the road.  If Michigan takes care of business against Ohio State our chances rise.  If Michigan State loses to Minnesota at home as well after the next conference game it may be Michigan and Indiana fighting for the title with MSU and OSU dropping to long shots.  It also seems like there is a very good chance of a split again this year.

My current odds:

I think there is a 1/3 chance there is an outright champ and a 2/3 chance its split.  It could be split with two, three, or four teams, so my odds for a split are funky- and maybe mathematically impossible but they are rough estimates anyway.

Michigan and Indiana are so close- the fact Indiana closes at Michigan (that will be such a classic game if things shape up as they seem to be) and that they play more road games against top opponents leaves me thinking Michigan has a slightly better chance of a title in any capacity- and equally as likely to win outright.  MSU and OSU are half as likely given tougher schedules than Michigan and a game behind Indiana.  They are also less likely to get a split in my opinion, but both have good odds.  Wisconsin has almost no chance to win outright, only an easy schedule in comparison keeps some hope alive.  They seem possibly in the hunt for a split title- kind of like ours last year with everything needing to fall in place.  Minnesota is too far back now and can only hope the top teams beat up on each other enough so everyone gets dinged and they take care of a schedule that’s easier than the top 4 teams. 

HISTORIC TRENDS: 25 YEARS OF WOLVERINE BASKETBALL

This week’s diary is mainly designed to graph out some of the trends in box score statistics (and a few derived from the box score) that we have seen over the last 25 seasons of Michigan basketball. What I hoped to achieve here was merely to provide a visual for the increases and decreases in these statistics over time, but also to look at the averages in this period  to get some idea of how well the current team is performing compared to the last, well, several teams. It is important to note that all totals for the current team are to date – I didn’t want to do a projection of future totals simply because of the potential error that would be part of that projection.

TABLE 1 – COMPARISON OF CERTAIN AVERAGES

The charts below are admittedly exaggerated via some varied scaling in order to show clearly some of the cycles and trends in some of the statistics. I will apologize in advance for this, but it seemed like a good way to show this.

For example, you can see average rebounds per game on a trend of general decline for years, bottoming out over the last few seasons before a definite recovery in this season:

You can see with average assists per game several cycles of varied length, but another generally steady downward turn from the 90s through the last few seasons:

In average points per game, there was a very protracted trend of general decline (with noted spikes) that seemed to get reasonably flat at time wore on. Again, this year, the trend is reversing.

Looking at offensive and defensive efficiency, you will see that, most years, we hung out somewhere around 1.000 for offensive efficiency, but have had widely varied performance on defense. A similar tale can be told for offensive and defensive rebound %, but here, it is defensive rebounding % which is relatively stable in comparison to its counterpart. This is less obvious when looking at rebound totals for the season, of course.

On this chart, you’ll find field goal percentage, three-point percentage and free throw percentage trends so you can see the interplay between the three. Free throw shooting and field goals seemed to actually be relatively stable over time, with our three-point percentage being by far the most variable aspect of our shooting offense.

Here are the trends for turnovers, blocks, personal fouls and steals.

TL;DR CONCLUSION:

I am not sure there is a fixed conclusion here only because the current season is not yet finished, but no it is even clear in the numbers that, at least in a few important regards, Michigan basketball is coming back to levels of production and play that it has not seen in quite some time. We can see it on the court, but the statistics definitely do back up the so-called “eye test” comparisons we tend to make of this team.

OBLIGATORY: