Scoring at home

I was just reading something by Chuck Klosterman in which he writes that soccer fans are more about fandom than sports.This delightful look into the nascent "rivalry" between Major League Soccer's Seattle and Portland teams seems to support that argument. About halfway through I started to think I was reading The Onion.

Joe P (a Scoring at Home favorite) got frustrated with the TV coverage of March Madness last weekend, because all anyone wanted to talk about was the officiating. To paraphrase, shouldn't we be talking about the action between the whistles? It's not the five-second call, or the no-call at the buzzer that won or lost the game. It's the things the players on the court did.* And it might just be the job of the, you know, analysts, to discuss what the players and coaches are doing. 

*Because I lack free will when watching TV, and the announcers didn't discuss it, I didn't even think about the timeout during the game. But Joe P's totally right- it was the game-killer.

An island of reason in a sea of crazed ref haters this weekend? Charles Barkley, of course. On more than one occasion I saw him refuse to blame the refs and instead put the onus on the coaches and players for making boneheaded plays. Specifically, in the post-game chatter about UNC vs. Washington, the other commentators were blathering on about whether Washington should have had more than .5 seconds to take a final shot (blaming the refs for making a poor call), when Sir Charles stepped in to say that they were missing the point- UW gagged at the end of the game (including the premature half-court heave that led to the final play). Bravo, Chuckster. Keep calling 'em as you see 'em- we're listening. 

More bracketology goodness from Nate Silver. The bottom line is that #10 seeds (or lower) have a better chance for tournament success than #8 or #9 seeds. Two factors come into play: #1 and #2 seeds are substantially better than everybody else, and the teams from #5 to #12 are roughly equivalent (the difference between #1 and #2 is about the same as #5 to #12). The #8 and #9 seeds are at a disadvantage because they are basically guaranteed to have to play the #1 seed, something lower seeds can avoid. 

Out: 3-D Glasses.

In: Three goggles.

Coming to March Madness.

Developed by Bill James, in a bracketless bracket office pool you pick one team per seed (so one #1, one #2, etc.) and you get points for each game your teams win. Points per win go up as seed goes down (10 points per seed): wins by your #1 seed pick are worth 100 points, but wins by your #16 seed pick are worth 250 points.

The most frightening thing I've read all week regarding the Buckeyes' chances in the NCAA tournament. I'm terrified that they'll get tripped up by foul trouble more than anything else, and not fouling is a key part of their defensive strategy. Furthermore, OSU has a rare combination of low foul rate and high steal rate, and it wouldn't take many calls to go from "steal" (no foul) to "foul" to get the Buckeyes' short rotation in trouble. Ugh. 

From the WSJ. Pick your bracket on resume only- no names.

Step 1: Pick good teams that everybody hates.

Step 2: Profit.

Good thing nobody reads this blog, so I can use this info for my own advantage.

An interesting analysis by Nate Silver of regular-season overachievers (relative to their pre-season rankings) in the NCAA tournament. Bad news for Notre Dame: teams that rise from being unranked preseason to the top 10 by the end of the year often disappoint in the tournament.

I'm as fascinated by the accuracy of the preseason polls as anything else in the piece. In the tourney, the team with the better preseason ranking wins 72% of the time- the same predictive accuracy as using the tournament seeding (higher seed wins 72% of the time), and the tiniest bit more accurate than the RPI (71% win percentage for the team with the better RPI). That seems like some pretty crazy Wisdom of the Crowds stuff to me.