playoffs

[Patrick Barron]

From time to time you'll see an assertion that the NCAA basketball tournament is a bad way to determine a champion, because it's single elimination, not particularly fair, and doesn't really prove who the best team is. The Ken Pomeroy:

I feel like the best argument would be, "makes bracket contests more difficult", which isn't a case the NCAA can make. I feel like the second-best argument is, "this is an insane way to determine a champion anyway, so why bother making it more fair?"

— Ken Pomeroy (@kenpomeroy) March 22, 2018

He's in the middle of arguing for a re-seed after the first weekend, FWIW.

I bring it up because I think the tournament actually does a good job. The point of playoffs is to spit out a worthy champion, and college basketball almost always does. My favorite method to judge championship-worthy teams is a score-blind strength of record ranking. SOR is an attempt to calculate which team accomplished the most over the course of the season, and that seems like the best way to pick a champion. ESPN's version of that stat goes back to 2008. Final Fours since:

YEAR	#1	#2	semi	semi
2017	#1 UNC	#3 Gonzaga	#24 South Carolina	#9 Oregon
2016	#3 Nova	#2 UNC	#5 Oklahoma	#30 Syracuse
2015	#3 Duke	#2 Wisconsin	#1 Kentucky	#13 MSU
2014	#8 UConn	#10 Kentucky	#1 Florida	#3 Wisconsin
2013	#1 Louisville	#2 Michigan	#9 Syracuse	#17 Wichita State
2012	#1 Kentucky	#3 Kansas	#9 Louisville	#4 OSU
2011	#3 UConn	#30 Butler	#7 Kentucky	#46 VCU
2010	#1 Duke	#7 Butler	#4 WVU	#12 MSU
2009	#1 UNC	#4 MSU	#2 UConn	#7 Nova
2008	#2 Kansas	#3 Memphis	#1 UNC	#4 UCLA

Only one champion in ten years finished the season ranked worse than #3, and surely there's enough wobble in any stat to declare that good enough. Only four times has a team ranked outside the top 4 even reached the title game, and the lone winner from the depths still finished 8th.

Unless Loyola pulls an upset on Saturday, this will continue: Villanova, Kansas, and Michigan are 2, 3, and 4, respectively. Loyola is 21st.

This situation does not hold for college hockey, by the way. Despite having far fewer competitive programs—about 40—KRACH ranked 2015 champion Providence 16th, 2013 champion Yale 13th, 2011 champ Minnesota-Duluth 7th, 2008 champ BC 10th, and 2007 champ MSU 12th. It's little better than a coin flip between a team that can claim to legitimately have had the best season and some rando that just squeezed in. That's why this space rails against that single-elimination tourney while being sanguine about basketball's.

This should make the Internet fun for a minute pic.twitter.com/YmCdTMnQm5

— Chase Parham (@RivalsChase) December 5, 2017

Shea Patterson and friends watch. It's happening? I mean. Can't throw a rock without hitting someone who says SOURCES are telling him that Shea Patterson is a lock for Michigan and possibly as soon as this weekend. Sam Webb's put in a crystal ball, which he hastens to say is not a Gut Feeling, and here's the Blade's Michigan beat writer:

Sources: Michigan is the front-runner to land Shea Patterson, and the Ole Miss QB expects to be eligible to play immediately.

— Kyle Rowland (@KyleRowland) December 6, 2017

It's happening.

Probably also happening: Van Jefferson and Deontay Anderson. Both guys are coming up this weekend. Highlights of Patterson throwing to Jefferson in 2016, when Jefferson was a redshirt freshman:

Enjoy @VanJefferson12's freshman highlights from last year. Love the way this guy plays. #12Days pic.twitter.com/FVWhGCK6vO

— Ole Miss Ink (@OleMissInk) August 21, 2017

He had 49 catches for 543 yards and was on pace to best that as a sophomore when he dislocated his elbow before the Texas A&M game.

That is likely it despite some overheated reports that up to seven Ole Miss players are interested in Michigan. Taking the three guys above already stretches Michigan's scholarships pretty thin. Anyone who doesn't play tackle is in tough for playing time, and per Rashan Gary's mom Greg Little isn't interested. Gary and Little became friends over the course of their recruitment so that's as good a source as any.

The other guys mentioned haven't set visits and it's unclear that Michigan would be interested in them.

Why wasn't it Cracker Barrel though? For some reason, Harbaugh flying down to see guys he might have on his football team caused the internet to blow up. Harbaugh claps back at Mark Dantonio? Go crazy, guys. Harbaugh does a thing literally all football coaches do dozens of times a year with high school players? Maybe let that one slide.

What do you say, internet?

Actually, it's very cool and good that Ole Miss got in trouble for loaner cars but a multi-millionaire can fly a private jet into Oxford to recruit players away from the team. Very cool. Very good. https://t.co/YS4mD9r79b

— Red Cup Cooperation (@RedCupRebellion) December 5, 2017

Ah, still internet I see.

A fairly good defense. Michigan lands four guys in the PFF All Big Ten defense, and three of them return:

The 2017 PFF All-B1G First Team Defense pic.twitter.com/L4XCrJ11TY

— PFF College Football (@PFF_College) December 5, 2017

Two more guys couldn't have been far off that list given this stat:

Lowest passer rating when targeted among B1G CBs?

How about Michigan's duo? pic.twitter.com/kBJsmwXOIN

— PFF College Football (@PFF_College) November 30, 2017

Personally, I'd take the CBs who whooped up on Simmie Cobbs over the one who got whooped until he got a safety bracket, but Michigan's guys were probably hurt by a lack of volume.

Add in Rashan Gary to the five returning guys in the above tweets and you've got quite a platform to build on.

Missed tackles: nah. Josh Liskiewitz, one of PFF's Big Ten evaluators, was grilled by Iowa fans because Josey Jewell was omitted from the team above. This spawned an interesting twitter thread in which Liskiewitz defended himself with various stats he'd compiled. The most interesting from a Michigan fan's perspective:

[he == Jewell, FWIW]

This is true to an extent, but among #B1G LBs he ranked 38th in tackling efficiency, which takes into account misses per attempt. By comparison, #Boilermakers LB Ja'Whuan Bentley had more total tackles than Jewell and half the MTs. Devin Bush missed just 3 total.

— Josh Liskiewitz (@PFF_Josh) December 6, 2017

Jewell had an 86 grade—which would have made him first team All-SEC or All-Pac12, but finished 9th(!) in the Big Ten. We assume that Tegray Scales, Jason Cabinda, and Ryan Connelly are three of the five guys in front of Jewell, FWIW.

Peters cleared; Black a maybe. Brandon Peters is good to go for bowl practices and the game, per Harbaugh. I assert that he will start. Yes, I assert that. Here's a randomly depressing stat!

Prior to the injury, Peters was 37 of 64 for 486 yards passing in five games, including three starts. He's thrown a team-high four touchdowns, and no interceptions.

Sweet fancy Moses.

In other bowl injury news, Tarik Black is back in practice and could play in the bowl game. Harbaugh says he's "leaning towards not doing it," and, I mean... don't. Michigan's in a good spot in the bowl game without him and a potential fifth year is far more valuable than whatever marginal bonus chance at a bowl win he provides.

Good luck, whoever you are. South Carolina has axed their offensive coordinator. Er, their co-offensive coordinator Kurt Roper. The other guy, Bryan McClendon, is at least temporarily the only cook in the Gamecock kitchen. He is 33 years old and facing down Don Brown with one of the worst offenses in the country. Good luck with that, sir.

FALSE. I love Harbaugh but this is a bad take he should feel bad about:

"My reaction is that there should be more than four teams in the playoffs," Harbaugh told reporters. "Again, I want to reiterate: 8 teams, 12 teams, 16 teams. Sixteen would be ideal in the playoffs."

For one, a team that reached the finals is playing 17 games. For two, the urgency of the regular season is obliterated if last year's Michigan team finishes their season they way they did and still gets in.

Add one fan. ESPN's Sarah Spain has been on a journey across college football to find a team to root for, and she stopped by the MGoTailgate before the OSU game last week:

Saturday morning I headed out to meet one of my hosts for the day, Gordie Fall (named in honor of Gordie Howe), at the famous MGoBus. The tailgate featured craft beer from Wolverine State Brewing Company, loads of breakfast food and, of course, the maize and blue MGoBus owned by Matt and Sara Demorest. While I was there, I learned more about life on campus and the UM scene with Brian Cook and Seth Fisher, of popular Michigan sports site MGoBlog.com. I also met former Wolverines running back Vincent Smith (you may remember him from this), who's now running community gardens in Flint, Michigan, and his hometown of Pahokee, Florida, to increase access to healthy foods, reduce juvenile crime and use gardening-based intervention to curtail violence. Very cool.

Adam was also there! Adam doesn't talk much. Thanks to everyone else's contributions but certainly not ours, Michigan was the pick. Welcome, Sarah. Prepare to be called a Walmart Wolverine despite going to Cornell.

Etc.: More on Dave Brandon The Program's first press conference with chief gobbledygook purveyor Herm Edwards. A timeline of Jimbo Fisher's unprecedented move. John Beilein gets shots up. Chris Collins tells a bald-faced lie in a postgame press conference. It remains impressive how many NU internet people openly loathe the guy who got them their first NCAA tourney bid.

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Nick’s Question:

What do you guys think of Bama getting in ahead of OSU? Do you still trust they’ll get it right in the future? I know Brian has a six-team playoff, but do you guys all agree on that or have other ideas?

…that we broke into three parts.

Q1: Did the committee get it right this year?

David: I think they got it fine. Clemson, Oklahoma, and Georgia are the Top 3 and probably should be. Maybe bump the Sooners to 1? This is fine, though.

As far as Bama/OSU goes...whatever, I think its pretty 50/50. Bama's schedule wasn't great, and OSU had an extra loss. It was a coin-toss.

Nobody’s arguing Ohio State looked like a playoff team; the problem is Alabama didn’t either. [photo: Patrick Barron]

Brian: I don't think there was a way to get it right, really. You're choosing between a team that has its most notable win over Mississippi State and one that lost to Oklahoma and Iowa uncompetitively. (Remember that OU-OSU game should have been worse than 15-point loss; OU spent the first half driving the field and then shooting itself in the foot.) And USC, which also got blown out embarrassingly by Notre Dame. This isn't a year when there's a clear choice, or even a vaguely clear choice. It's a coin flip.

But it's one the committee got wrong, for the same reason they got it wrong last year. It's a coin flip as far as resume and team quality goes. So make the season count, dammit. If a conference championship isn't going to be a tiebreaker why even bother? Penn State last year and Ohio State this year both went through an extra game against a tough opponent to win a supposedly important thing only to get passed over for a team that sat at home and watched. That's garbage.

[Hit THE JUMP for ripping on the SEC, and how teal were the 90s? So teal]