College Basketball Math

College basketball polls in December are as meaningful as September baseball in Pittsburgh. On a good day.

But when the AP poll can tell you exactly which team will cut down the nets in April, it might as well be Grays Sports Almanac from Back to the Future II. Here's the latest AP poll, released every Monday:

1) Syracuse
2) Ohio State
3) Kentucky
4) Louisville
5) North Carolina
6) Baylor
7) Duke
8) Xavier
9) Connecticut
10) Missouri
11) Marquette

I only have the top 11 because excluding Syracuse in 2003, (Carmelo Anthony ain't walking through that door) every championship team of the last 15 years has been in the top 11 in the AP poll in week 6. The last 15 champions have also been from BCS conferences, so say goodbye to Xavier.

Syracuse
Ohio State
Kentucky
Louisville
North Carolina
Baylor
Duke
Connecticut
Missouri
Marquette

Fourteen of the last 15 winners had also been to a Final Four within the last seven seasons. That takes care of Marquette, Missouri, Baylor and Syracuse. We're left with:

Ohio State
Kentucky
Louisville
North Carolina
Duke
Connecticut

National title winners also have great guard play. Some are lottery picks and solid NBA players like Richard Hamilton and Shane Battier. Some never sniff NBA playing time like Duke's Jon Scheyer and Florida's Lee Humphrey. But they were all great in college. Humphrey never really missed from beyond the arc.

Ohio State has Aaron Craft. I got a chance to watch him play last Saturday, and he's the best guard I've seen this year. He's smooth on offense and a pest on defense. He's grabbed at least 3 steals in 6 games this season and is averaging 9 points and 5 assists.

Kentucky has 3 perimeter guys -Michael Gilchrist, Marquis Teague and Doron Lamb- who will be in the NBA sooner rather than later. Any one of the trio can take over a game, but Lamb is the only experienced Wildcat. And he's only a sophomore. Kentucky has enough talent to win it all but when they don't, a lack of experience will be the reason.

Many experts, including the guys at Rivals.com, have North Carolina guard Kendall Marshall as one of the nation's best point guards.

Duke has Austin Rivers, who's cockiness might only be matched by his ability to make defenders look really, really bad.

Shabazz Napier of Connecticut has stepped out of former 1st team All-American Kemba Walker's shadow and is quietly getting 15 points and 6 assists a game.

Louisville's Peyton Siva is good, but not quite on the same level as the players above.

That leaves us with:

Ohio State
Kentucky
North Carolina
Duke
Connecticut

Repeating as champs -even with the same roster- is a tall order. Losing a unanimous 1st team All-American will make Uconn's hopes futile.

Ohio State
Kentucky
North Carolina
Duke

For John Calipari and Kentucky, winning a title with as many freshman as he plays every year will be tough as well. And Calipari is quietly gaining a reputation as a terrible late-game coach. In the 2008 championship game against Kansas, he was up 3 with 10 seconds left. He said he wanted to foul to avoid Kansas attempting a 3. Didn't happen.

On Saturday against Indiana, Calipari and No. 1 Kentucky were up 2 with 5 seconds left. He said he wanted to foul to avoid Indiana attempting a 3 (not sure why you foul up 2, but he's the pro, not me). Didn't happen.

I'm not betting on Calipari and a group of freshman to win it all, ever. Moving on..

Ohio State
North Carolina
Duke

North Carolina and Duke have a 4:1 edge in titles over the entire Big 10 the last 15 years. Advantage: ACC

North Carolina
Duke

The average ranking of the eventual champion in the AP's week 6 poll the last 15 years? 5th.

The 5th ranked team this week?

Big 12 Predictions

I wrote this column today for the paper. I figured I would elaborate more on here where I'm safe from word counts, editors, and anyone who wouldn't let me reference Anthony Davis' unibrow.

The Big 12 is down this year, no doubt about it. Kansas doesn't look like Kansas, Baylor is still looking for a point guard and nearly everyone else would be happy with just an NCAA tournament appearance. Here's how the teams will finish:

Baylor: The Bears are loaded in the frontcourt, led by 6-foot-11 sophomore forward Perry Jones III, who shocked experts when he bypassed the NBA draft and returned for a second season in Waco. Senior forward Quincy Acy averaged 12.4 points per game last year and five-star recruit Quincy Miller joins both players down low. Good point guard play could take the Bears to New Orleans and the Final Four, and that looks to be coming from two newcomers. Highly-touted JUCO transfer Pierre Jackson will get his shot, but how many JUCO transfers make immediate impacts at the high division I level? I can't think of any. Four-star recruit Deuce Bello should also be good, and one of those guys will have to be consistently productive if the Bears want to upend Kansas. Whatever happens, Baylor will have the most athletic team on the court every single game this year. Some of the most athletic guys I've seen in a long time.

Kansas: The seven-year run of Big 12 regular season titles has to end eventually. With a thin frontcourt and only one seasoned veteran guard in the backcourt with senior Tyshawn Taylor, the Jayhawks will struggle with scoring at times. There’s still talent there, though. And last time I checked, Bill Self is still the coach and they still play in Allen Fieldhouse. Another conference title wouldn’t shock many people. The thing with Kansas is, if you switched their roster and coach with Baylor's, the Bears would be overwhelming favorites to win the conference this year. Say what you will about Bill Self's March upsets, the guy knows how to win the Big 12. And he doesn't lose in Lawrence, either. He's coached 8 seasons at Kansas and has 7 home losses. A lot of that home-court advantage begins before the game even starts. ESPN's Jason King calls it the best pregame ritual in college hoops, and I tend to agree.

Texas A&M: The Aggies return six of their eight leading scorers and junior forward Khris Middleton will vie for All-Big 12 honors this season. Returning senior point guard Dash Harris will also be huge for the Aggies, who look to make their 7th consecutive NCAA tournament appearance. 

Texas: They’re young, no doubt. But junior guard J’Covan Brown is the real deal and with the departure of Dogus Balbay, who seemed to always have the ball in his hands, Brown will get plenty of chances to score. High school All-American Myck Kabongo joins the Longhorns, creating quite the duo with Brown on the perimeter. Unfortunately, Texas fans won't see how this team comes together this season because Texas fans don't know they have a basketball team. Home games in Austin look like an early June day game between the Marlins and Nationals.

Oklahoma State: Upperclassmen guards Keiton Paige and Jean-Paul Olukemi both average double figures in career scoring. High school All-American LeBryan Nash is a scoring machine on the wing and will be great when he adjusts to the college level. But back to Keiton Page. I'm still trying to figure out how he plays basketball in the Big 12. He's 5-foot-6 on a good day.

Iowa State: The Cyclones are the toughest team to predict here because head coach Fred Hoiberg welcomes in a slew of transfers. Chemistry will be an issue but talent is there, including former Michigan State guard Chris Allen and former Minnesota forward Royce White. Look for the Cyclones to be gelling by January. Hoiberg grew up in Ames and played four seasons at Iowa State in the early 1990's. He was nicknamed "The Mayor" after receiving a handful of votes in the 1993 Ames mayoral election, and it's the best nickname in college sports.

Missouri: If head coach Mike Anderson hadn’t left and senior forward Laurence Bowers hadn’t suffered an injury that ended the season for him, the Tigers would be a top-three contender this year. But that’s not the case. With a new system and without its best interior defender, Missouri will struggle to guard anyone down low this season. 

For some reason, I always enjoy when players call out their fans. It removes the invisible wall sometimes placed between fans and coaches, and it's nice to know they know the fans are there. Or aren't there, in Missouri's case. Senior guard Kim English voiced his displeasure on twitter after Missouri's recent win over Mercer: "Love the 5,769 people who were at the game to DEATH!! Thank YOU guys so much. 53-3 at home in our careers and empty seats?" 

It reminds of a time last season when I sat behind two Kansas football players on a bus who used plenty of four-letter words to voice their displeasure of the football beat writer who picked them to lose by 40 every week in the paper. If they didn't run about 6-foot-3, 290 pounds I would have introduced myself.

Kansas State: The loss of Jacob Pullen will really hurt Frank Martin’s club this year. Junior guard Rodney McGruder and senior forward Jamar Samuels will lead the Wildcats, who will have the talent advantage in Big 12 games exactly four times this season: each pair of games against the two following teams. 

Oklahoma: Lon Kruger is a great coach, but this Oklahoma roster is pretty bad. It will take a year or two before Kruger will have any success down in Norman. 

Texas Tech: Red Raider coach Billy Gillispie is in the same position as Kruger; a good coach who inherited a really bad roster. Both coaches will need time to recruit.

That's it for now.

In My Words

* If Oklahoma State and Stanford lose, we have to see an LSU/Alabama rematch for the BCS title. If LSU remained the only unbeaten team, who would have a better loss than to the No. 1 team by a field goal? No one.

*Kansas fans need to stop acting like they don't want to play Missouri anymore, because they do. They just don't want to admit it.

*Missouri fans need to stop acting like they'll ever finish better than 4th in the SEC. They won't, they just don't want to admit it.

*Michigan State and North Carolina are playing on a boat Friday night.

*Once again, Kentucky has the most NBA-ready talent in the country. Will that bring a championship to Lexington? Probably not.

*Is the NBA still locked out? Huh.

*If you ever get on twitter, please follow Jay Bilas. Just do it, you can thank me later.

*The matchup between Kansas' Thomas Robinson and Ohio State's Jared Sullinger on Dec. 10 in Lawrence might be the best 1-on-1 matchip we see all season. According to CBS, it's the No. 1 (Sullinger) and No. 6 (Robinson) players in the country.

*Kansas head coach Bill Self has more seasons at Kansas (8) than he does home losses (7).

*Back to football, maybe Alabama being left out in the cold will push us closer to a playoff. Boise State has as much pull as St. Cloud State Volleyball. A pissed off Alabama could get things changed, though. I think.

*Will the Packers go undefeated? Of course not, but their quarterback does make some good commercials.

Will they repeat, though? I say yes.

*Is this hit really worth $40,000? I say no way. But then again I think players with helmets should be allowed to hit each other. Crazy, I know.

*It's never too early to predict NCAA tournament brackets.

*Or bowl games.  How great does that Cincinnati/Clemson Orange Bowl matchup look? Game of the century, right there.

*Here's what it's like to be a Cleveland Browns fan. Factory of sadness, indeed.

The Money Myth

Why do stupid people in baseball get a free pass? Actually, I should say, why do stupid poor people in baseball get a free pass?

No matter the sport, there's always stupid people making stupid decisions for bad teams. The NBA has the Clippers and the Knicks. The NFL has the Browns and the Bengals. Major League Baseball has the Cubs, Pirates, and Royals. It's just the way it is.

In the salary cap sports, bad decision makers are called out and it makes perfect sense. In baseball, if you're in the top half of the payroll chart and make bad decisions annually, you're usually called out as well. (See: Cubs, Chicago. Mets, New York)

But when poor teams make as many -or more- bad decisions than most, you hear a different tune. You hear about how unfair it is that the Yankees spend half a billion dollars and they can't afford it and how a salary cap would fix their problems and they don't have enough money to win and if it wasn't for the Yankees or Red Sox they wouldn't have stubbed their toe earlier in the day.

So how much money are World Series winners spending? The last 10 seasons, the average World Series winner has been No. 10 on the payroll list. Barely in the top 1/3 of spending. The Yankees have been No. 1 in payroll every year in that span and have as many title as the Marlins (25th the year they won) and one less title than the Cardinals (11th both years they won).


It's easy to say money doesn't automatically equal wins and be met with a "yeah, but it sure does help a ton" argument. And that's true. Teams with more money can make terrible trades or free-agent signings and not be sunk when it's a face-plant. Poor teams have to be more careful. That hasn't stopped the Tampa Bay Rays (28th avg payroll last 10 yrs) from competing in the game's toughest division for the last 4 seasons.

It's safe to say that once you're in the playoffs, it's any one's trophy to win. Three Wild Card teams have won the World Series the last 10 years while 4 others have played in the World Series.

The last 10 seasons, 22 different teams have made the playoffs out of 30 possible teams, about 73% of the teams. In the NFL, 30/32 have made postseason play,  about 93%. But they also have four more playoff teams every year, 12 instead of just 8. So the numbers are much closer. And what about winning championships?

The last 10 years, baseball has had 8 different World Series winners and another 5 teams who made the Series. The NFL, who is supposedly the bastion of fair play and the everyone-has-an-equal-shot league, has had 7 different winners.

When the Raiders draft Robert Gallery over Larry Fitzgerald, or when the Cardinals take Levi Brown over Adrian Peterson, they're just dumb decisions. And when the Yankees give Carl Pavano $40 million it was just a terrible idea, and rightly so. But when the Pirates trade Aramis Ramirez for some guy named Matt Brubeck, it's suddenly the Yankees' fault.

Sometimes you don't need $200 million to win. Sometimes people just aren't smart.