See also: #11-15, #16-20, #21-25, #26-31

With the 2010-11 season warming up, let's finish up our ranking of the 31 best NCAA teams from 1980-2010:

10. Louisville Cardinals (+14.76 SRS)

Record: 709-329 (.683)
Prominent Coaches: Denny Crum, Rick Pitino
Best NCAA Finish: Won NCAA Championship (1980, 1986)

Louisville has somewhat quietly amassed a dominant resume over the past 3 decades. With 2 national titles and 4 Final Fours, the Cardinals were probably the best program of the 1980s, while their "down" years of the 1990s consisted of 8 NCAA berths & 208 wins. And in the 2000s, Rick Pitino took them to a Final Four in 2005, seamlessly transitioning from the Crum era with 220 victories of his own. Pick any year since 1980, and chances are The Ville was one of the better college basketball teams in the country.

9. Syracuse Orange (+15.41 SRS)

Record: 755-279 (.730)
Prominent Coaches: Jim Boeheim
Best NCAA Finish: Won NCAA Championship (2003)

Under Jim Boeheim, the Orangemen won more games than all but four schools since 1980. He took a solid program and turned it into a perennial contender, produced a number of NBA prospects, won 14 Big East regular-season or tournament titles, and finally filled the gap in his resume when Carmelo Anthony carried 'Cuse to their elusive NCAA crown in 2003. Simply put, no Big East team has been better over the past 30 years.

Read the rest of this entry »

From ESPN.com's Stats and Information crew, an interesting note about last night's Knicks-Nuggets game:

"The New York Knicks did everything in their statistical power to beat the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday night.

They made more field goals. They made more 3-pointers. They had more rebounds. They had more assists. They had fewer turnovers. And they had more blocked shots.

The Elias Sports Bureau told us that the last 266 times a team outperformed its opponent in all of those statistical categories, that team won the game.

Except the Knicks didn't win. They lost again, 120-118, their sixth straight defeat, this one starting a tough West Coast road trip. "

Of course, raw stats can deceive. Looking at our boxscore, we see that while New York did control the turnover battle and the boards, they were also beaten somewhat handily in eFG% and FT/FGA. That's bad, because eFG% in particular is far and away the most important of the Four Factors, the key statistical indicators of team success.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Miami Heat have been under fire recently for dominating weak foes and losing close games against good teams. The conventional wisdom is that this reveals a major gap in Miami's armor -- they just can't close the deal against stronger opponents.

Is this really true, though? And does it even matter?

Read the rest of this entry »

After five straight improbable comeback victories, I thought now would be a good time to post some Win Probability graphs from the Utah Jazz's recent winning streak. For those curious, the method for WP comes from an old Ed Küpfer post at APBRmetrics, and the play-by-play records come from ESPN.com (or FoxSports.com, in the case of Jazz-Heat and Jazz-Bobcats). All WP is from the perspective of Utah, and the numbers at the bottom of the WP graphs represent the minutes remaining in the game.

Read the rest of this entry »

Which players are playing better or worse than we would have expected so far this season? Well, let's look at each player's actual Statistical Plus/Minus (SPM) in 2011 vs. what the simple projection system would have predicted their SPM to be. The overachievers:

Read the rest of this entry »

Not sure if I want to make this the new BBR Rankings method or return to maximum likelihood, but these are your team schedule-adjusted offensive & defensive ratings so far in 2011 (negative = good for defenses):

Read the rest of this entry »

I was watching a little of the Hawks-Grizzlies game last night before the World Series, and it sunk in just how much we've all written off the Hawks after last season's embarrassing sweep at the hands of the Magic. The prevailing logic is that Atlanta will still win their 45-50 games this year, finish with a decent seed in the East, and maybe even win another 1st-round series, but the sweep meant that they cannot truly contend with the conference's big guns.

Is one playoff sweep really that telling, though?

Here's the historical progression of all teams who were swept 4-0 from 1959-2007 (mouse over column headers for descriptions):

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to our 2010-11 NBA Blogosphere Previews, in which we contact the finest team bloggers on the web and ask them to contribute their thoughts on the squad they cover. What follows is their take, along with the team's depth chart (courtesy of ESPN.com), projected 2011 stats via our Simple Projection System, and polls where you get to have your say. Enjoy!

Washington Wizards

Coach: Flip Saunders

2010 Summary:
Record: 26-56, Finished 5th in NBA Southeast Division
SRS: -4.72 (26th of 30) ▪ Pace: 91.6 (21st of 30)
Off Rtg: 104.2 (25th of 30) ▪ Def Rtg: 109.4 (18th of 30)
Expected W-L: 28-54 (26th of 30)

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to our 2010-11 NBA Blogosphere Previews, in which we contact the finest team bloggers on the web and ask them to contribute their thoughts on the squad they cover. What follows is their take, along with the team's depth chart (courtesy of ESPN.com), projected 2011 stats via our Simple Projection System, and polls where you get to have your say. Enjoy!

Orlando Magic

Coach: Stan Van Gundy

2010 Summary:
Record: 59-23, Finished 1st in NBA Southeast Division
SRS: 7.12 (1st of 30) ▪ Pace: 92.0 (18th of 30)
Off Rtg: 111.4 (4th of 30) ▪ Def Rtg: 103.3 (3rd of 30)
Expected W-L: 61-21 (1st of 30)

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to our 2010-11 NBA Blogosphere Previews, in which we contact the finest team bloggers on the web and ask them to contribute their thoughts on the squad they cover. What follows is their take, along with the team's depth chart (courtesy of ESPN.com), projected 2011 stats via our Simple Projection System, and polls where you get to have your say. Enjoy!

Denver Nuggets

Coach: George Karl

2010 Summary:
Record: 53-29, Finished 1st in NBA Northwest Division
SRS: 4.15 (8th of 30) ▪ Pace: 94.8 (5th of 30)
Off Rtg: 111.8 (3rd of 30) ▪ Def Rtg: 107.5 (16th of 30)
Expected W-L: 52-30 (8th of 30)

Read the rest of this entry »