The 2011 4 Quarters Bracket Entry, Southwest Region

(See previous posts for first two regions.)

My favorite team is in this region. So is a team that's burned me so many times that I'd almost be tempted to pick them to bomb in the first round, top seed be damned.

Luckily, I'm not that vindictive. Not quite, anyway.

First Round:
#1 Kansas v. #16 Boston University: Kansas has athletes. BU has mad bombers John Holland and Darryl Partin. Almost 40% of the Terriers' shots come from outside, and they're going to need to hit a lot of them to hang with KU. Of the four 1-16 games, this could be the closest one, and not merely because I'm dogging Kansas. Kansas by 6.

#8 UNLV v. #9 Illinois: Mike Davis and Mike Tisdale can own the paint if they're adequately motivated. UNLV can harass Demetri McCamey and Brandon Paul into turnovers and bad shots if they're motivated. Lon Kruger couldn't motivate his team against Northern Iowa last year, now can he do it against his old employer? I don't think so. Illinois by 9.

#5 Vanderbilt v. #12 Richmond: Vanderbilt's got the horses to make a very deep run in this tournament. Unfortunately, their offense has a disturbing tendency toward the boneheaded plays. They have shots blocked on 9.6% of their possessions and have the ball stolen on 10.1%, figures that both rank in the 200's nationally. The Spiders can defend the three, and if they slow down John Jenkins, Vandy will once again have a short stay in the dance. Purdue grad Kevin Stallings may start feeling some heat on his seat if he drops another one to a low seed. Richmond by 6.

#4 Louisville v. #13 Morehead State: Louisville has no one who can keep Kenneth Faried off the boards, so they'd be well-served to take him out of the game via foul trouble. That's easier said than done, though, when you're a team that jacks up 40.5% of its shots from beyond the arc. Preston Knowles and Kyle Kuric will have to be locked in early, and it helps the Cards that MSU can't defend the perimeter (opponents shoot about 37% from long range). Peyton Siva has to harass Demonte Harper into some turnovers, as well. When in doubt, though, who's the best player on the court? That would be Kenny Faried. Morehead by 3.

#6 Georgetown v. #11 VCU: Tempo doesn't seem to be as big a factor as we might think, as VCU's middle of the pack in pace. What they do well is force turnovers, and if it's someone other than Chris Wright running the point for the Hoyas, or if he's still feeling effects from his hand injury, that could make the game the kind of barn-burner the analysts are expecting. It does seem, though, that VCU's an all-or-nothing team on defense, ranking in the 230's against both the two-point shot and the three. Plus, they're 320th in America in opponents' offensive rebounding rate, which will make Julian Vaughn salivate. Georgetown by 13.

#3 Purdue v. #14 St. Peter's: St. Peter's is a weak shooting team (45.9% eFG, #297) that commits a lot of turnovers (23.4%, #321). Even without the suspended Kelsey Barlow's defensive harassment, the Peacocks will struggle to produce points. Purdue by 24.

#7 Texas A&M v. #10 Florida State: If Chris Singleton was healthy, I'd be marking this one down as academic. The 'Noles are top-15 in two-point defense, three-point defense, steal rate, and block rate. A&M's not the kind of dominant scoring team that can overcome that kind of efficiency. If Singleton can't go or is limited, though, FSU loses their dominant presence on both ends of the court. The Aggies have a good front line and have won in the first round five straight years. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and make it six. A&M by 5.

#2 Notre Dame v. #15 Akron: If Akron was a better scoring team, this might be interesting. Notre Dame has a solid defense, but it's not a disruptive defense (15.9% defensive turnover rate, 337th in America). Akron's decent at defending the three, but can they slow down Ben Hansbrough, Tim Abromaitis, Carleton Scott, AND Scott Martin? Doubt it. Notre Dame by 18.

Second Round:
#1 Kansas v. #9 Illinois: The Mikes or the Morrises? Tisdale and Davis have to be in the mood to play a great game. The Morrises are always in the mood. Kansas by 14.

#12 Richmond v. #13 Morehead State: Richmond's not a great rebounding team under the best of circumstances. Facing the NCAA's all-time rebounding leader is not the best of circumstances. Morehead by 6.

#6 Georgetown v. #3 Purdue: At times, it seems like Purdue gets waaaaaaaay too in love with the three-point shot. Ryne Smith, D.J. Byrd, E'Twaun Moore, even JaJuan Johnson will step out and try the long ball. But Georgetown fires away from distance on 36.6% of their shots, compared to Purdue's 33%. Georgetown's not great at forcing turnovers, and that may be enough to make Moore and Johnson's lives easier. Purdue by 8.

#7 Texas A&M v. #2 Notre Dame: A&M can defend the long shot and Notre Dame gets heavily reliant on it. The Irish don't force a lot of turnovers, and even if the Aggies miss the shots, they're still 13th in the country in offensive rebounding. It all adds up to... A&M by 8.

Sweet 16: 
#1 Kansas v. #13 Morehead State: You know, I was intent on Kansas bombing out about here, but I don't think I can, no matter how much I love me some Faried. Kansas by 17.

#3 Purdue v. #7 Texas A&M: The Aggies are prone to getting stuffed (shots blocked on 12% of their possessions), which will give JaJuan Johnson something to do all day. Purdue has to make sure to keep feeding Johnson inside and not struggling to jack up unnecessary threes, or else this game will look much like the Iowa and Michigan State games, which were both defeats. Hopefully, Matt Painter and the team learned something. Purdue by 4.

Final: 
#1 Kansas v. #3 Purdue: My lifelong team against the team that's burned me on too many brackets. Screw the numbers. Purdue by 1.

I so know I'm going to regret this region, but here goes.

4 Quarters Radio: October 28 1st Quarter

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The first-quarter curriculum for October 28:
--Scott and Logan interview Sporting News college basketball columnist Mike DeCourcy as the season draws ever closer.
--Of course, Scott has to start with Purdue and their prospects post-Hummel. Included is a stern judgment on the concept of having JaJuan Johnson explore playing further from the basket.
--DeCourcy discusses that cases like Kentucky's Enes Kanter are not without precedent. Kentucky's prospects if Kanter's found ineligible may be somewhat...un-Kentucky-like.
--Once Logan gets his mic turned on (sorry, Logan), he gets to ask Mike about the Bruce Pearl situation at Tennessee. DeCourcy's a little bit more optimistic than most, it seems.
--Mike gets heavily fired up when Scott turns the discussion toward the Sun Belt's new scheduling mandate. This is probably the most passionate you'll hear anyone about Sun Belt hoops all season, folks.
--MTSU's prospects get a cursory glance, as Mike wonders if they'll be able to beat the conference's "heavyweights."
--Mike ponders the commitment of Isiah Thomas at FIU as Scott wonders if Isiah's bosses should pull the want ads out of his morning paper.
--Scott throws out a Final Four of questions, some one-liners about UConn, Boston College, Memphis, and Florida before letting Mike roll.

Excised music: "Fuguefat" by The Octopus Project.

Breathe: What Boiler Nation Needs to Do As Johnson Declares

News of JaJuan Johnson declaring for the NBA Draft has reached the blogosphere, and the reaction is predictably hysterical.

Just when it seems that Purdue may have a realistic shot at a championship (at least Andy Katz seems to think so), along comes a story to make Boilermaker Nation cry in their, um, Boilermakers yet again.

Not to mention Gary Parrish coming along to twist the knife even further, but that's another story.

Before everyone indulges their "woe is us" impulse, however, let's examine JJ with a critical eye.

Why would the NBA take him?

He's 6'10" with an 18-foot jump shot. Long body, good shot-blocker, can make the finesse plays inside.  Sounds great, right?  So...

Why wouldn't the NBA take him?

On that 6'10" frame, there's only 215 pounds of flesh and bone. He's a fairly maligned rebounder, even in college. While he had 10 double-figure rebounding games this season, he had seven more with four boards or less, including a three-carom night against Texas A&M in the NCAA Tournament, so there's a tendency to disappear.

Part of that can be due to his own forays to the perimeter, as other players below Johnson on the list linked above have been known to stroke the three.

However, also partially due to JJ operating on the perimeter, his field goal percentage stood at a mediocre-for-a-center 50.4 percent this season.

The other part of that rebounding malaise stems from that 215-pound frame. If his jumpshot and ballhandling were more consistent, we could possibly project him as a small forward. They're not, though, so right now, he's an undersized power forward who would get hammered mercilessly in the Association.

Is he on the NBA's radar?

Considering several teams like to dazzle the establishment by scraping up some Euroleague guys who will never see an NBA contract, of course they know about a two-time All-Big Ten center. But what do they think of him? That's the million-dollar question.

No team will tell you, so we must consult the websites that rank players for such purposes.

NBADraft.net: They have a mock showing JJ as a high second-round pick...in 2011.  His profile? Bare. Hmmm.

DraftExpress.com: Same mock status as above.  At least he has a profile, even if it hasn't been updated in about 400 days or so.

RealGM.com: On their inaugural Top 100 list for this year's draft, we need to scroll all the way down to No. 78 before we get to Johnson's name.

Does any of this sound like the treatment of a highly touted 2010 prospect?

Not really. So, it begs the question:

WTF is JaJuan thinking?

He's likely thinking that he'll get a little feedback from actual, official NBA scouts rather than the armchair websites and bloggers. That way, he makes the most informed decision he possibly can.

If I was on Pardon the Interruption, playing a game of Odds Makers right now, and I was asked to give my odds on JJ staying in the draft, I'd come back with an answer in the neighborhood of five percent. If he's not a first-round pick, there's no guaranteed cash, so it's a gamble.

As more touted freshman and sophomore prospects declare, it pushes Johnson further down the big priority list for the scouts. He has until May 8 to decide officially, but I won't be surprised if he turns around and comes back sooner, once he gets the information he needs.

Only when JJ shows up to an early May press conference looking like Karl Malone will I become truly concerned. Something tells me that might be as likely as 50 Cent's next album being grounded in acoustic folk.

4 Quarters Radio Episode 10: 1st Half

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On the first half of the March 23 edition of 4QR, Scott, Joseph and Bobby talk the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, lamenting their battered brackets (thanks, Kansas) and all feeling pretty good about their supported teams making it to the Sweet 16. Unfortunately, we have no visual of Joseph modeling his pimp new NBA sleeve. Bobby makes new picks for the UFC PPV, Scott wonders why his co-hosts can't bring themselves to dig hockey, and a guy who's probably never done an athletic thing in his life gets a shout out in Whodaman. Excised music: "Song for Old People" by Let's Wrestle and "So On and So On" by PM Dawn.

Buried Zombie Boilers Rise From Dead, Eat Analysts' Brains

The Purdue Boilermakers have been like that girl we all knew in high school who was slightly pretty, but concentrated on her grades and dressed in dowdy clothes, so was largely ignored. 

Picture if that girl got into a disfiguring car accident that gave all the popular kids full excuse to abuse and ostracize her for the rest of her days.  Robbie Hummel's ACL tear = car accident in this metaphor.

Suddenly, Purdue's 27-5 record didn't happen. The share of the Big Ten title didn't happen.  That was some other team doing all that work, and this team that was left was worthless.

Now, the sexy upset pick, the Siena Saints, have been sent home 72-64 by the team who was supposed to be incapable of scoring against a group of over-40 church leaguers.

Like the undead in a George Romero movie, the Boilers were buried a little prematurely, and now they're hungry.  And angry.

E'Twaun Moore had a rough 5-15 shooting game, but the usually worthless Keaton Grant propped him up with three second-half bombs, helping the Boilers get an early-second-half 15-point lead and force Siena to dig their way out of a big hole.

Lewis Jackson put up some nice crooked numbers, recording eight points, six rebounds (impressive for a 5'7" waterbug), and seven assists, plus hitting two huge free throws in the last minute.

Of course, there's also JaJuan Johnson.  23 points, 15 rebounds, three blocks.  My 4 Quarters Radio guest this past week, Jameson Fleming, spent a good deal of time telling us how Ryan Rossiter could handle JJ.  Um...yeah, not so much.  Rossiter wasn't bad himself, recording 10 and 12, but JJ made himself at home.

Chris Kramer was doing all the grunt work that he's made his name on, from taking steals to the house for massive dunks to forcing jump balls to forcing terrible shots, and he added 10 points to boot.

Now, all the analysts have to backpedal and try to invent ways to spin this result as Purdue coming into some luck or catching Siena on an off day or some other garbage to avoid admitting one incontrovertible truth: They were wrong.

My last post actually generated an e-mail response from the titular Mike DeCourcy himself, which I enjoyed tremendously.  I have faith that he'll actually man up and let us know that he underestimated the Boilers, and possibly learned something that he didn't know before.

Not expecting similar candor from anyone affiliated with the Worldwide Leader, though.  Ted Miller may have just gotten himself canned with a halfway positive post.

Purdue lost an important body part when Hummel went down, but the heart is still beating a mile a minute.  The team's not dead, much as most might want them to be.  They may still just eat your brains on general principle, though.

4 Quarters Radio Episode 9: 1st Half

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On the first half of the March 16 edition of 4QR, the returning Joseph and Bobby join Scott in some dissection of the NCAA Tourney brackets before being joined by Bleacher Report College Basketball Community Leader Jameson Fleming, who provides a ton of handy tips for those looking for upsets in their office pools. Most of the hour is college hoop-driven, except for a brief stopover on Tiger Woods Watch, Whodaman, and a very late rendition of the Concert Calendar, with special emphasis on Car Wash. Listen and find out. Excised music: "Rumors" by Timex Social Club and "You Get What You Give" by New Radicals. (It's "One-Hit Wonder Tuesday," in honor of everyone picking Scott's Boilers and Joseph's Vols to be one-hit wonders in the Tournament.)

4 Quarters Radio, Episode 8: 2nd Half

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On the second half of the March 10 solo experiment, Scott is joined for the third quarter by Adam Biggers of the Flint (Mich.) Journal to talk Big Ten Tournament, whether or not Big Ten coaches are underrated, and why Talor Battle of Penn State should be checked for a hernia. In the fourth, Bobby finally calls in to chat about Nashville's potential MMA-hotbed status in April, and the Epic Fail this week involves a man who should not let multilingual blind people do his hair. Excised music: "Sex & Drugs & Rock 'n' Roll" by Ian Dury and "The High Road" by Broken Bells. As always, click the links to buy MP3's from Amazon, and all songs can be sampled for free at Grooveshark.

One Last Run For No. 1: Can Purdue Sneak Back Onto the Top Line?

While writers, bloggers, and ESPN analysts sprinted to grab the shovels and throw dirt on the instantly rotting corpse that is a Robbie Hummel-less Purdue Boilermaker basketball team, they were already handing over the Boilers' expected No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed to anyone they could find.

Duke, Kansas State, Ohio State, and now even Purdue's New Year's Day pimp-smack victims, West Virginia, are getting love as potential No. 1 seeds.  However, each of those teams is not without their flaws in their own right, and are their bodies of work that much superior to Purdue's?  Let's examine, starting with the Boilers as a point of comparison.

Purdue: 26-4, RPI No. 11, 51st-ranked Strength of Schedule, 6-3 v. RPI Top 50
The Boilers' three Top 50 losses were to Ohio State, Michigan State, and Wisconsin, all of which they had either already beaten or proceeded to avenge later.  Just saying.

Duke: 26-5, RPI No. 2, 7th-ranked SoS, 8-4 v. RPI Top 50
Duke just dropped a game last Wednesday to a Maryland team that was merely .500 (7-7) against the RPI's Top 100. The Terps are playing like their shoes are on fire right now, and that probably works in Duke's favor. Barring a huge collapse in the ACC Tournament, Duke's probably got the No. 1 locked up.

On examining their losses, though, all things are pretty equal between the Devils and the Boilers. They both have a weak loss, Purdue to Northwestern and Duke to N.C. State.  Duke's five losses came to teams that were a combined 41-41 against the RPI's Top 100.  Purdue's four losses came to teams who were 28-27 against the Top 100.  Duke's own RPI and SoS are large advantages, but if it's boiled down to who each team played, there's very little difference.

If Wake Forest or Virginia Tech can pull a shocker in the ACC semifinal on Saturday, Duke could very well get knocked out of the top seed discussion for good.  Except for when Dickie (Dookie?) V's involved.  Coach K's boys could lose to St. Catherine's School for the Blind, Crippled, and Crazy, and Vitale would still spend the day talking about how big a disadvantage the Devils were at with seeing-eye dogs allowed on the court.

Kansas State: 24-6, No. 6 RPI, 5th-ranked SoS, 6-4 v. RPI Top 50
A phoned-in loss like the one to Iowa State on Saturday is exactly the type that sends a team's hopes of a No. 1 seed swirling immediately. As well it should. Iowa State was 3-16 against the RPI's Top 150 coming into that game. Compare that to Northwestern's 8-8 mark and tell me which is the worse loss.

In total, KSU's losses were a combined 35-38 against the Top 100.  And before anyone jumps on how much Iowa State's 3-13 brought that record down, Kansas's 13-3 evens that right out.

If Purdue was to lose the top line to any of these teams, I think K-State would be the one with which I would have had the least problem, at least before last Saturday.  The Wildcats are a great team, period.  I'll have to see a hellish regional in front of them before I remove them from Final Four consideration.

They had back-to-back 15-point wins in December over Xavier and UNLV, and took Kansas to overtime in their first meeting.  I'm not disputing their talent.

However, for all the talk about resumes and body of work that dominates February and March in college basketball, there's not a ton that differentiates K-State from Purdue, at least not to the point that the 'Cats are still getting top-seed buzz and Purdue is said to be fighting for No. 2-seed table scraps.

K-State's already lost once to Oklahoma State (a chic tourney sleeper, by the way), and that appears to be the matchup we can expect in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament this Thursday.  OSU's going to come in motivated.  Will KSU?

Ohio State: 24-7, No. 29 RPI, 66th-ranked SoS, 8-6 v. RPI Top 100
This is where the RPI junkies run and hide.  If you subscribe to the RPI as the end-all-be-all of college basketball power rankings, and you're seriously trying to advocate the Buckeyes as a No. 1 seed, you're a hypocrite.

The Buckeyes have a No. 1-seed player in Evan Turner, who should be the favorite for National Player of the Year. (Sorry, John Wall apologists, but Turner does both Wall's job AND Patrick Patterson's.  Deal with it.)

However, if you did the blind taste test that ESPN's so fond of during their games, and put up Purdue's resume next to Ohio State's with no names or injuries attached, I doubt many would claim OSU's as superior.

The Buckeyes' losses were solid, with opponents going 55-49 against the RPI Top 100...but that's buoyed heavily by the last two, West Virginia's 15-6 and Purdue's 12-3.  Leave out those two losses, and the Bucks' ledger drops to 28-40.

Okay, in fairness, two of the losses came without Evan Turner.  The opponents who beat a full-strength Buckeye team went 43-33 against the Top 100.  Still good.  But there's still that loss to a very iffy Minnesota team (4-7 against the Top 100, if you're wondering...worse than Northwestern).

By the time the Buckeyes get started in the Big Ten Tournament on Friday, it will have been 10 days since they last played a game.  Luckily for them, it'll be either Michigan or Iowa across the court from them to provide a nice tuneup.  Either Wisconsin or Illinois awaits in the semis, and we could even see a possible head-to-head showdown with the Boilers in the final.

If Ohio State dominates the tournament, fine.  Hand them a No. 1.  But don't insult everyone's intelligence by crying RPI all season and then ignoring that very large discrepancy just to cut a depleted team's resume down to size.

West Virginia: 24-6, No. 5 RPI, 2nd-ranked SoS, 15-6 v. RPI Top 100
I'd love to just say that 77-62 doesn't lie.  Except, in this case, it does.

I'm not nearly Homer Fanboy enough to claim that that game goes down exactly the same without Robbie Hummel in the lineup.

WVU has a great resume, and they don't have a bad loss.  At this point, their worst loss was to UConn.  Their six losses came to teams that were a combined 74-37 against the RPI Top 100.

Really, it's hard to object to their claim on a No. 1 except on aesthetic grounds.  The Mountaineers can out-athlete anyone, but a tournament run often comes down to size and/or shooting, and WVU doesn't have a ton of either.  It's always possible that DaSean Butler can shoot them right out of a game (see combined 8-for-42 against Notre Dame, Villanova, and UConn).

It's hard to see them having a huge problem with Louisville, Cincinnati, or Rutgers in the Big East quarters, but the semis may hold Pitt or Notre Dame, with their combined 2-1 record against the 'Neers.  A loss there should end the talk about WVU on the top line.  A win over either of those two, however, would probably lock up the top line for Bob Huggins' team, and deservedly so.

Purdue still owned them on New Year's Day, though.

I understand that all of this is totally moot if Purdue doesn't win the Big Ten Tournament.  And, to be honest, they'll have to rack major style points in doing so.  If they beat, say, Indiana, Minnesota, and Illinois to win the thing, they'll get no credit for proving themselves against Ohio State or Michigan State or Wisconsin sans Hummel.

The sad part is, that's probably a fair judgment.  To be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, a team has to prove they can go out and beat anyone at any time on anyone's court.  As presently constituted, Purdue hasn't done that.  Wins over Indiana and Penn State just won't cut it.

Every Purdue fan has to need Purdue to prove themselves against the big boys all over again.  If they do, however, and all these other stars fall into alignment, a No. 1 seed shouldn't be out of reach...even if it probably already is.