End of an Era

Sad but exciting news today for chickenhoops.  Kyle, co-founder of the site and the main contributor here over the course of the last year, is leaving us for greener pastures.  While we will certainly miss having the Nate Silver (with a little Tyler Cowen) of Gamecock sports on the blog here, he will be joining the SB Nation USC affiliate, Garnet and Black Attack.  You can find them at www.garnetandblackattack.com

For fans on twitter, Kyle will continue to run the chickenhoops twitter, @chickenhoops (https://twitter.com/chickenhoops).

This is bittersweet for chickenhoops.  Kyle made the site everything I hoped it could be when we founded it and it is a shame for that to come to an end.  However, as a Gamecock fan who enjoys great coverage of the team, this is a huge development and a serious move by GABA to add some great content.  I expect big things from them. (Not the least of which will be continuing to troll David Cloninger)

So make www.garnetandblackattack.com part of your regular rotation.  I’m highly confident they’ll have the best analytic coverage of the Gamecocks anywhere on the web.

As to the future of the blog here at chickenhoops.com, that is up in the air.  We may try to carry on, but the blog may take a sabbatical for a while.  Stay tuned.

Bunting is normally a bad idea

On Tuesday afternoon, I watched along with some of you in horror as Chad Holbrook bunted Joey Pankake in the first inning after Carolina put the first two runners on.  Holbrook stated ““I wanted to score first today and I told myself that if we get the first two guys on, we’re bunting.”

For many reasons, this was a terrible idea, and bad process led to calamitous results for the Gamecocks.  Pankake bunted right back to the pitcher, who whipped the ball to third and recorded the first out of the inning.  The Gamecocks would exit the inning 0-0, and though they ultimately scored the first run that Holbrook found so important in the top of the second, it (shockingly) was no more relevant than any of the other runs scored in the game.  The missed opportunity in the first, where Carolina went scoreless, wasn’t important because it meant the Gamecocks would be on the board first.  It was important because Carolina needed runs to win the game, and the first inning was an opportunity to score those runs.  Bad coaching and bad execution cost the Gamecocks, and in a one-run game, could have cost them Omaha.

The purpose of this post is to set a standard for when it’s a good or bad idea to bunt.  As Twitter (at least, my account) exploded in anger at the coaching decision, I found myself perturbed that few people were articulating exactly why it was a bad idea.  Many thought it made sense to win or lose with your best players, but I wanted to put together a post that we can use as a reference point in the future to understand when bunting is a good or bad decision.  So let’s look through the data and then analyze the three bunt calls that Holbrook made yesterday, to see how they hold up based on that understanding.

Gamecocks hire Perry Clark

Frank Martin announced the hiring of Perry Clark this [time of day], bringing to the end a coaching search that began over a month ago with the departure of Brad Underwood to Stephen F. Austin.

The 62-year-old Clark comes to Columbia after two years away from the game.  He’s been a head coach three times.  Most recently, he coached Texas A&M – Corpus Christi for four years before being unceremoniously fired following a 10-21 campaign (to be fair, I may be being harsh – it’s possible there was a ceremony).  Before that, Clark was also the head coach at Miami (FL) for four years.  In the middle, he was a television announcer.

He landed the Miami (FL) job on the back of an 11-year stint at Tulane, where he went 236-183 (56.3%) and led the Green Wave to their only three NCAA tournament appearances in the history of the program.  After putting together two winning seasons at Miami, Clark followed up in 2003 and 2004 with two straight losing seasons, and was fired.

Let’s look at his time as a head coach a bit more in-depth to see how his personality might mesh (or need to change) to adapt to the Carolina way of doing things under Frank Martin.

Gamecock Football: 2013 Odds

Today, we saw odds listed for both the SEC East and the BCS Championship for 2013.  Below the fold, we’ll adjust those odds for you and provide some brief commentary.

The Departed

South Carolina lost four players to attrition this week, as Damien Leonard, Brian Richardson, Eric Smith, and R.J. Slawson departed for opportunities elsewhere.  The college game is a dirty business in many ways, and I won’t preach or defend the choices made here – the rules were followed, and when we hired Frank Martin, we knew attrition would be part of the package (at Kansas State, he lost 12 players from January 2008 until his departure in April of 2012).  So here we are.

That said, it seems to me that to make sense of what will happen in the season to come, we should look back at the players we will lose.  Our brief retrospective on Lakeem Jackson can be found buried in the post previewing his final game at the Colonial Life Arena, a win over Mississippi State.

So let’s take a moment to reflect on the careers of these four players, without whom the task of re-building the Gamecock program will be made all the more difficult in the near-term, as it leaves South Carolina without a point guard for large parts of the first semester, and as one of the youngest teams in the NCAA in 2013-14.

Briefly

Hey folks, just to let everyone know what’s going on with the blog – right now, there’s not much we have to add about Gamecock basketball. The fine folks at the pay sites are posting insider information that we frankly aren’t allowed to (and wouldn’t want to, since it’s those guys hard work that gets the information) re-share. So, until the roster for next year is finalized, we’re not really going to comment, because this isn’t a recruiting blog, and we don’t have anything interesting to add that you can’t get elsewhere.

So hang tight and enjoy the break from our thoughts, to the extent you needed one. We surely needed one from sharing them. Once Martin inks the new class and the guys who are leaving are announced, we’ll be back with some more post mortem thoughts on the 2012-13 season, the signing class, the departed Gamecocks, and other things that have us thinking.

What I’m reading

College Football: The Best Passing Quarterbacks since 2005, by Chase Stuart.  Quick – who do you think wins here for USC (he’s #151)?  Who was better last year – Shaw or Thompson?  Click the link, use the filter, and find out how one metric answers these questions.

One Way to Cheer Up: Cheer Harder, by Bill Morris.  Watch sports, be healthier.  Well, if you say so, New York Times.  

The Professor, the Bikini Model, and the Suitcase Full of Trouble, by Maxine Swann.  I asked a friend I trust on these sorts of things whether he believed the protagonist’s story.  We differed on our answers.  It’s that kind of read.

Paralysis by Analysis: A Weekend at Sloan, and the Pluses and Minuses of Advanced Analytics, by Andrew Sharp.  How can we know when our process is right and the results are flukish, or when the results simply show our process was wrong?  Obviously, a question important to what’s done by this blog.  We can’t know everything, so is what we do know enough to improve the analysis?

Why Nations Fail, A Review, by Bill Gates.  What causes success and failure?

“Lucrative Work-for-Free Opportunity,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  “I was ecstatic any time anyone took my ideas seriously enough to offer them a platform. Most people never get that.”

The 2012-13 season has concluded. What now?

The Gamecocks’ season ended last Wednesday night in Nashville with a disappointing loss to Mississippi State, 70-59.  State jumped out to an 11-point lead over the last 10 minutes of the first half and Carolina never really threatened from there on out.  There’s not much to be said about the game because, frankly, everyone associated with it moved on almost immediately.  The season is over.  Now what comes next?

Around the internet

You can find us on the Half Cocked Show podcast here.

We also voted in the end-of-regular season SEC power poll here.

Ken Pomeroy calculated the odds of victory for each team during each step of the SEC tournament.  Our odds are not good.  Also, the all-SEC team (as determined by a mathematical formula) is hilarious.

Better Know Mississippi State (yet again)

For the third time this season, the Mississippi State Bulldogs and the South Carolina Gamecocks will square off on the hardwood.  The teams split their regular season meetings, with State winning by two in Starkville back in January and the Gamecocks returning the favor with a seven-point victory in Columbia just last week.

The rubber game comes on neutral ground in Nashville, Tennessee, and the stakes are like those in all good rubber games – the winner moves on, the loser goes home.

Team

Four Factors	USC O	MSU D		MSU O	USC D		NCAA
eFG	46.7 (256)	50.0 (236)		44.6 (315)	50.4 (245)		48.6
TO%	22.7 (305)	22.1 (62)		25.0 (342)	21.0 (121)		20.0
Oreb%	38.5 (16)	36.1 (322)		30.2 (221)	33.1 (231)		31.8
FTR	36.1 (166)	26.7 (15)		40.9 (51)	45.5 (329)		35.9
Pace	66.3 (156)			68.1 (77)			65.9
Shooting	USC O	MSU D		MSU O	USC D		NCAA
FT%	68.8 (197)			65.9 (277)			69.3
2P%	45.5 (258)	49.3 (235)		45.7 (246)	50.5 (277)		47.5
3P%	32.8 (222)			28.1 (336)			33.9
3PA%	32.6 (182)	36.0 (286)		32.1 (202)	31.6 (120)		33.0

We covered much of this ground last week, but let’s re-hash briefly the strengths and weaknesses of these two teams.

The Gamecocks and State are both bad basketball teams, but where the Bulldogs really fall off is offensively (which makes it all the more confounding and disappointing that the Gamecocks conceded over a point per possession to them in the match-up last Wednesday).  The Bulldogs can’t hit shots from anywhere on the court, and their only offensive strength is getting to the free throw line (where they also miss shots).  They’re a slightly below-average team when it comes to offensive rebounding, which counts as a strength given their issues with shooting and turnovers.

Turnovers are what led the Gamecocks to victory the other evening, as State coughed the ball up on 29 percent of their possessions.  That stopped them from being even more efficient, as they shot very well from the floor against the Gamecocks (58.5 percent on eFG%).  However, their shooting struggles caught up with them at the foul line, where a 61 percent percentage cost them a few points in a close game.

For the Gamecocks, a surprising aspect of the game last Wednesday was that they simply couldn’t hit the offensive glass, something that given Mississippi State’s defensive rebounding issues was incredibly surprising.  This likely stemmed from Martin’s insistence of playing Brian Steele, who in his 15 minutes only grabbed one offensive rebound (though Carrera also posted what, for him, was a low one offensive rebound, thanks to foul trouble).  This is an advantage the Gamecocks should be able to press better than they did last week.

Carolina did do a decent job of scoring from every part of the floor (posting a 41 percent rate from 3P, a 50 percent rate from 2P, and an 80 percent rate from the line).  When you’re shooting that well from 3, it serves you well to take a lot of them, and the Gamecocks’ took 48 percent of their shots from beyond the arc.  And Carolina also did a fine job of getting to the line, taking 35 shots from the charity stripe.

That was surprising, as the Bulldogs do a very good job of avoiding fouls by and large, but weren’t able to do so against the Gamecocks, compiling 28 between their eight main rotation players, which led to three disqualifications.  The Bulldogs will be even more pressed to stay out of foul trouble since forward Jalen Steele won’t be playing after suffering a season-ending knee injury against the Gamecocks.

Individual

Mississippi State
Name	%Min	%Poss	eFG%	OR%	DR%	ARate	TORate	FTM-FTA	2PM-2PA	3PM-3PA
Craig Sword	65.5	29.7	42.8	3	9.5	22.9	29.6	79-142	96-207	13-63
Fred Thomas	70.4	20.5	38.7	1.1	13	11.2	15.1	55-70	57-130	37-161
Colin Borchert	60.1	20.7	47.7	5.2	15.5	11.9	24.6	27-41	60-129	30-91
Roquez Johnson	55.5	23.1	45.1	9.4	10.4	3.7	24.5	79-134	70-155	5-17
Jalen Steele**	39.6	22.4	42	2.9	9.8	10	18	36-39	31-89	28-85
Trivante Bloodman	71.3	16.8	38.2	4.1	8.3	17.9	33.6	78-104	35-92	10-39
Gavin Ware	64.2	17.7	54.6	9.7	18.5	2.7	16.6	45-83	106-194	0-0
Wendell Lewis**	13.9	19.3	56.8	9.5	17	9.7	21.6	15-16	25-44	0-0
Tyson Cunningham	51.7	9	51.6	4.6	8.6	13	32.3	8-11	6-20	18-44
South Carolina
Name	%Min	%Poss	eFG%	OR%	DR%	ARate	TORate	FTM-FTA	2PM-2PA	3PM-3PA
Michael Carrera	43.8	27.1	45.9	15.8	25.4	7.4	20.2	82-111	78-176	7-17
Bruce Ellington	56.7	22	37.7	2.4	7.5	18.3	24.2	45-71	53-147	21-77
Brenton Williams	49.4	23	56.4	1.7	8.6	15.1	14.8	80-95	55-110	48-115
Brian Richardson	44.6	20.9	50.5	4.3	10.2	12.5	16	30-41	39-93	42-109
Laimonas Chatkevicius	22.2	22.9	45.4	10.7	19	8.7	30.2	21-34	30-68	3-8
Lakeem Jackson	71.1	16.6	56	9.4	15.5	14.1	23.5	21-62	105-188	2-5
Eric Smith	68	16.7	36.9	1.5	6.1	22.1	27.8	39-58	42-115	17-68
RJ Slawson	39.3	17.1	47	12.1	13.3	6.3	23.6	38-56	43-85	3-16
Damien Leonard	31.7	18.3	38.8	5.5	10.5	7.8	23.1	13-17	15-47	21-73
Mindaugas Kacinas	47.7	15.7	54.1	9.6	13.4	7.3	28.8	34-50	53-89	4-20

**Will not play

I typically take these charts from Ken Pomeroy’s outstanding website, which doesn’t include Brian Steele because he hasn’t played 10 percent of our minutes this season.  If we play Tennessee, I’ll go back and add him, but for right now he’s a guy who doesn’t use many of our possessions (by either shooting or turning the ball over), which means when he’s on the court, other guys have to pick up the slack by taking more shots.

If he can stay on the court this time, the Gamecocks should be able to dramatically improve their offensive rebounding simply by Carrera seeing more than the 14 minutes he played last week.  Coupled with the efforts of Lakeem Jackson and whoever Martin decides to rotate at the 5 (of course, this assumes Steele isn’t playing major minutes, which makes Carrera interchangeable with Lakeem at the 4), the Gamecocks can hopefully dominate the offensive glass and get extra possessions.

You would think some of the shots he rebounds will be coming from the hands of Brenton Williams, who once again should have the opportunity to have a great game against State’s 1-3-1 zone.  It’ll be interesting to see if the Gamecocks can get to the foul line as often as they did last time out given that the Bulldogs will play zone most of the game (especially with Steele’s injury limiting them to seven rotation players), but if they don’t, open 3s should be on the offer, and it’ll be up to Carolina to take and make those shots.  Williams is well placed to play that role, hitting just shy of 42 percent on the season.

Mindaugas Kacinas has seen more minutes the last few outings, and may continue to do so given the merry-go-round nature of Martin’s allocation of playing time.  He didn’t play very well agains State last time out and didn’t make much of an impact against Vanderbilt either, so it’ll be interesting to see if he keeps seeing playing time.

For the Bulldogs, the names and faces haven’t changed, though there’s one less as we noted above with Jalen Steele out.  The loss of the junior guard puts even more weight on the shoulders of freshman guard Craig Sword and sophomore Trivante Bloodman to stay out of foul trouble and be productive on offense.

Neither guy has done a terrific job at either of those roles this season, and it can’t be a good thing for State that they’ll be called upon so heavily Wednesday evening, though Sword put up very respectable numbers against Auburn in scoring 19 points on 17 shots in the Bulldogs’ overtime win in Starkville last Saturday night.  One thing you can expect from Bloodman is to try to do more to get to the line – he’s spent most of his season finding his way to the foul line by posting an incredible 79.4 percent FTR, though the Gamecocks limited him to only two free throw opportunities the last time out.

However, as it’s been all season, the Gamecocks should be most concerned with the interior play of Gavin Ware and Colin Borchert when sizing up their chances.  Ware is the more efficient scorer but the less-frequent shooter, and frankly, neither should strike any particular fear into the hearts of normal basketball teams.  But the Gamecocks’ interior defense is anything but normal, and if they start putting State on the line with regularity, the game could get away from Carolina.

Predictions

Pomeroy: 68-63 W (66%)

Vegas: Gamecocks by 5.5

Despite the fact that Mississippi State went out on its home floor and got an overtime win over Auburn without him, the loss of Jalen Steele for me pushes this game from “advantage Carolina” to “likely Carolina.”  There are of course exposures – can the Gamecocks find their offensive rebounding form?  Can they avoid the turnovers that plagued them in the last 10 minutes of their game in Columbia?  Can they replicate their ability to get to the foul line against a Mississippi State team that doesn’t often foul, and can they rein in their own fouling tendencies against that same State team that shoots a lot of free throws?

All ways that I could see the game on Wednesday evening going wrong.  But, for me, the advantages outweigh the weaknesses, and I think it more likely the game will play out much as it did in Columbia, with the Gamecocks offsetting a slightly weaker performance from the free throw stripe through extra possessions garnered by offensive rebounding.  It won’t be automatic (few things are automatic with this bunch), but I expect to see Carolina back out on the court in Nashville against the Tennessee Volunteers on Thursday.