Week 8 Lines

Oakland
Baltimore -7

San Diego -3
New Orleans

Kansas City
New York Jets -13.5

Buffalo -1.5
Miami

Tampa
Dallas -2.5

Atlanta
Philadelphia -9

St Louis
NE -7

Arizona
Carolina -4

Washington -7.5
Detroit

Cleveland
Jacksonville -7

New York Giants
Pittsburgh -3

Seattle
SF -5

Cincy
Houston -9.5

Indy
Tennessee -4

Taking the Temperature of Wisconsin

Not sure if you've read this yet. Basically it seems to be the wrapping up of a strange story decidedly not dominating the sports news cycle (thanks, ESPN), about Brett Favre talking to Lions staff about preparing for playing the Packers in week 2. Brett initially denied the story, ESPN refused to run it because they heard it was bogus (and they have a huge man-crush on Brett Farve, not to mention an interest in not seeing his image tarnished). My main question for Cason is what does it feel like in Packer-town? I don't know any huge Packer fans, but I can't think of a player more automatically linked to a team over the past 15+ years than Favre is to the Packers, so its hard for me to find an equivalent breech of sports ethics (if only for the magnitude of Favre/Packers) than this. Is everyone up in arms, or is it all quiet on the western front (of Lake Michigan)?

UNC-Texas?

Just saw this on Fanhouse and thought I'd pass it along. Apparently UNC officials are in talks with Jerry Jones' people to schedule a college basketball game for the 2009-2010 season in the new Cowboys stadium. While this does symbolize moving more and more towards stupid non-basketball arenas hosting college basketball games, placing money making ahead of fan experience, something I'm obviously not happy about, it also shows that we might be going to play Texas in a semi-away game next year, and a harder schedule is something I'm always excited about.

Edit: I have since read that a deal has been struck, UNC will go to the new Texas Stadium Jerry Jones Coliseum to play Texas, with Texas returning the favor for a semi-away game in Greensboro for 2010-2011.

NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Brandon Tate is out for the year with a torn ACL and MCL. Hopefully he will recover from this week's upcoming surgery in time for NFL draft evaluations. This is a bad break for the Heels now that we are finding ourselves on national TV more often.

I know Hakeem Nicks (Brad Nessler, please note that it's 'Nicks' and not 'Hicks') can pick up the slack, but Brooks Foster needs to be ready to hold onto the ball. You too, Cooter. I have not received any information about our TE, Zach Pinalto, who was injured Saturday.

Link: http://tarheelblue.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/101308aad.html

LIVE BLOG!

liveblog?

What do Rashad McCants and Reggie Bush have in common?

So, here it is, the days between the Thursday night opening game and the rest of the NFL's smorgasbord of Sunday games. Its sorta like the brief interlude of breakfast on Christmas morning, right after you've already gone through your stocking, but before you settle in to open your wrapped presents and visit the relatives. Anyways, I'm going to use this brief interlude to introduce our new NFL game here at tfsb. So, here are the rules (I think, at least, assuming Cason and John buy in).

• Every week we'll each pick 1 RB, 1 WR, and 1 QB

• For each player that gain or throw for more than 100/300 yards, we'll earn a point

• The first 3 weeks we'll rotate the picking order

• From there we'll award the spots in inverse order of standings (Or maybe rotate through even turns with a sympathy "last place" week thrown in?)
  

• Each person can only pick any given player twice (thrice?) during the season

Alright, let's now wait for input from John and Cason, and see where we stand. Ideally, this will work, and we'll "draft" our 3 man teams before Sunday.

Now, onto the actual title of the post, The Big Lead is reporting some news about our old friend Rashad McCants is appearing at public events with one of the Kardashian sisters (Khloe, in case you're keeping track). Maybe he should be focused on upholding the UNC legacy in the pros or working hard to make sure he gets the best of his first post-rookie FA deal. Nah, shouldn't be an issue, you can just come back here and hang out with Reyshawn (saw him at Target last weekend).

Heels' 08-09 Schedule Announced

Looks like I'll be in the Windy City on Dec 20th. Unfortunately, Detroit is too far to drive for the MSU game, but hopefully we'll play two more games there this coming season....

2008-2009 Mens's Basketball Schedule:
http://northcarolina.scout.com/3/bbschedule.html

Hello? Is this thing on?

Wow, how loyal of google/blogspot to keep the blog up and running while John and I were slumbering through the dog days of August and the booooring second half of the baseball season. The sports scene is picking up again, and its time to put the blog back in its regular rotation. The return of NFL action and college basketball being just around the corner should have John and I posting at near '06 levels (ah, the blog honeymoon years). Keeping up the analogy, John and I have decided to add a new "partner" to the mix, we welcome one time guest poster and long time friend Cason Dwyer to the fold. Cason will help us nail down the inside scoop on how the Packers look without Brett Favre for the first time since Bush was in office I was in Kindergarten. We also need to make a decision about what NFL contest we'd like to pursue this year. Pick 'em is so 2 years ago, I'm thinking we'll mix it up with one of those "pick the 100 yd rusher/reciever" games like they play on the Sunday NFL pregame shows (but a good showing for Pick 'em in the comments would go a long way to granting it a stay of execution for the season).

Ok, enough blabbering, the real motive for my posting (other than to kickoff the blog season) is to link to the great AA piece:

"grab onto those giant condor-like wings arms and ride....RIDE....young Michael Phelps to ratings gold, NBC!"

NBC has decided to do just that, hoping to glean what ratings they can from the greatest Olympian of all time they've picked up several swimming world and US championships. Will these events be even half as popular as the Olympics? My money's on no, but only time will tell, you never know how many "Phelps Phans" there are out there.

On another note, if you enjoy long conversations about the arbitrary rules and negotiations that surround MLB's mid-June draft, be sure to read this interview with Nationals' GM Jim Bowden about the attempted signing of #9 overall pick Aaron Crow (SP Missouri).

Edit: As of today's date (August 21st) all Tar Heel early entrants to the NBA Draft have elected to return to school. The Heels only underclassman loss is Alex Stepheson who is transferring to USC to be closer to his family and ailing father. We regret the error and the lack of immediate updated coverage and hope none of our loyal readers were confused (or miffed).

Reassessing the Heels

Alright, a lot has happened since we last spoke, and we mainly have Tywon Lawson to thank for that, though to be fair Danny Green hasn't operated completely within his character either. So, to take a look at the situations of the 3 draft declared Heels right at the cusp of the June 16th deadline.

Ty Lawson - Gone, see you later, it was nice knowing you, kiss him goodbye. Ty's stock, as always, was the highest of the three, and it looks as if he has the top 20 spot he said he'd stay in the draft for. On top of that, even if he slips, the teams rumored to be targeting him are New Orleans and San Antonio, which both make for a pretty good gig.

Wayne Ellington - Wayne's stock is, reportedly, borderline first round. However, he doesn't appear to be picked anywhere in the draft at either nbadraft.net or draftexpress.com. I have to assume they're thinking Wayne knows he isn't guaranteed a first round choice (thus a contract), and will be headed back to school. That is what I fully expect Wayne to do, especially given his financial situation.

Danny Green - Danny is the wild card of the bunch. He's got Wayne's draft stock (or worse) but seems to have Ty's mentality for getting out of school ASAP. This creates a problem, as if he stays in the draft he'll likely end up floating around the NBDL or Europe. Not that there is anything wrong with that, many productive college players end up in one of those two venues, however, given the shot he'd have at another Final Four run, I don't know why he'd pass that up, other than the financial need of his family. I really can't say here, I could see him staying in the draft, but it would seem to be better for all parties if he stayed all four years.

Now, lets take a moment to look at the 08-09 Heels:

PG Frasor
SG Ellington
SF Ginyard
PF Hansbrough
C Thompson

Bench: G Larry Drew, G Will Graves, F Danny Green, F Tyler Zeller, F Ed Davis, F Alex Stepheson

Not quite the prohibitive title favorites everyone was crowning after the Final Four, but definitely a deep, talented, experienced squad who is well-poised to defend their ACC title. The interesting bit is, would potentially returning Danny Green see the starting lineup?

Wow

The seemingly least likely scenario has come true, Ellington and Lawson will test the waters, Tyler is here to stay.

http://northcarolina.scout.com/2/749667.html

Projected UNC Lineup:

PG Frasor
SG Ginyard
SF Green
PF Hansbrough
C Thompson

Bench: G Larry Drew, G Will Graves, F Alex Stepheson, F Tyler Zeller, F Ed Davis

Obviously Lawson/Ellington would resume their posts at the guard spots were they to return. Looks like Will Graves is going to have to step it up if not, as the Heels' backcourt depth is suddenly nonexistent.

Rumor Mongering

I don't know how many people actually read the blog this time of year, what with the NFL off-season and NCAA quieting down, but this is from AOL Fanhouse:

Tyler Hansbrough to enter NBA Draft

He's apparently not going to hire an agent, so he could come back, but just wants to go to the camps and see if he can help his draft stock any. I'd say now (per DraftExpress and NBADraft.net) that he's in the mid-20's. I'd guess that if he plays his way into the lottery, he'd stay, but anything short of that he'll return as he could just go pro as a senior with the same results. This is easily the smart move, since you can "test the waters" once and come back, and he isn't testing the waters next year, its for real. Also, apparently Lawson is coming back as well. He's got a similar draft position to Tyler's, around 20, and has a myriad of PGs ahead of him. If he doesn't play any better next year he'll improve his stock just by the lack of PG's in the draft.

Projected UNC Lineup:
PG Lawson
SG Ellington
SF Ginyard
PF Stepheson (Hansbrough?)
C Thompson

Bench: G Bobby Frasor, G Larry Drew, G Will Graves, F Danny Green, F Tyler Zeller, F Ed Davis

Reliving Georgetown...

..but this time in reverse. There are some eery similarities between the two games, namely scoring droughts. In the Kansas game, the UNC offense finished the first half on an awful scoring drought, whereas in the Georgetown game the drought took place to finish the game and carried into overtime. There were a number of reasons for the overall offensive inefficiency. The Jayhawks didn't miss many shots (at least outside of their 2nd half drought) and played excellent transition defense, eliminating the Heels #1 and #2 options, the primary and secondary breaks. Then there was the smothering Kansas defense in the halfcourt which forced 18 turnovers (23.1%) and recorded 9 blocks (another 20.9%). Finally the Heels only got 29.5% of their own misses, down for their average 42%, and which is made all the more important by the fact that a poor eFG% (39.5%) and thus about 6 or 8 extra OR opportunities. Speaking of Effective Field Goal Percentage, in the past two years, 77 games, the Heels have shot under 40% eFG twice, against Georgetown in 2007 and against Kansas in 2008. Not that the Kansas defense doesn't deserve all the praise in the world for giving the Heels tough looks, but the Heels missed both dumb contested shots and a few shots I've seen them make all season.

Pouring out the Deon Thompson Haterade

Alright, in light of the recent work of Ken Pomeroy, its time to revisit some of our past work here at TFSB. In this article, Ken points out how wrong he was doubting Deon Thompson. Now, earlier in the season I looked at the main two big men filling the pterodactyl-sized hole at the 4-spot in the Heels' lineup. Also, as many of you who have taken in a game with me know, I wasn't Deon's biggest fan then. But, as you will see below, Deon Thompson has really stepped it up this year, despite the claims of idiot columnists over at SI. Ok, well, idiot is a strong word, but if KenPom has put that same prior thought in with his top 5 blunders of the year perhaps is time we stopped lamenting the loss of Brandan Wright and begun celebrating a great 4-year big man who would be getting way more props if not for this kid.





Wow, what a difference a year makes. Let's get the main complaints out of the way first: yes, Deon doesn't shoot 65% eFG (well, essentially FG% since they're big men) and his offensive rating isn't 119, but honestly, whose is? The offense isn't the issue since Tyler, Ty and Wayne have improved drastically in that category (they're all +5, from 115/116/120 to 121/124/126). Deon's ORtg has improved in its own right, from 93 to 100, mostly thanks to dropping the TORate to near Wright-ian levels (the mid teens), almost doubling his free throw rate (14 to 25), and improving his FT% (20 to 58). That's right, Deon now shoots free throws better than even Brandan Wright!! Now for the impressive part: his rebounding numbers have stayed constant, even through tougher competition, his assist rate has slightly improved, and his block rate has shot up to Brandan Wright-like levels. Ladies and gentlemen, for all intents and purposes, the Heels have replaced Brandan Wright, and it only took Deon a year to catch on. To revisit the Alex situation, he has improved very similarly to Deon, raising his ORtg a similar 7 points, dropping the TORate about 5 as well. The only problem is he's now eerily similar to the December version of Deon Thompson, while Deon is a whole new player.

Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble

San Diego, George Mason, & Western Kentucky

um, so yeah. This was going to be a post about lost bubble spots. Teams like VA Tech, Ohio St and Kentucky should be sweating it out now that three leagues that have no business crashing the big dance are likely getting multiple bids. Now, what I'm actually going to do is follow suit and give my best guess as to who will be on the ACC All-Freshman team, especially since the actual version will be released soon.

Kyle Singler, Duke
JJ Hickson, NC State
Terrance Oglesby, Clemson
Jeff Teague, Wake Forest
Jeff Allen, Virginia Tech

That's also my best guess as to the order of votes received, I think a couple of players will be getting the shaft here, both James Johnson and Malcolm Delaney have had noteworthy years but will likely be sad victims of vote splitting among teammates. IF either of them get the nod it would likely be Johnson over Oglesby or Allen.

First Team All-ACC

Just doing a little spring cleaning around here - I was putting some things away, brushed the dust off a few magazines, and something caught my eye underneath some chips on the coffee table...it was a blog! Our blog! So I cleaned it off and decided to give it a shiny new post before the ACC and NCAA Tournaments get underway. Today I'll give my First Team All-ACC and later I'll give some awards like I did last year (best pure shooter, best blocker, etc.).

Tyler Hansbrough
Sean Singletary
Tyrese Rice
Wayne Ellington
DeMarcus Nelson

These guys all played out of control this year, with Rice and Singletary playing on sub-par teams and as a consequence playing more minutes than the other three, boosting their value. Rice earned some well-deserved national attention when he dropped 34 points on UNC at the beginning of March...in the first half of the game. Hansbrough and Ellington are the key weapons on a balanced UNC squad this year, and DeMarcus Nelson is the best all-around player on a dangerous Duke team. Hansbrough was awarded ACC Player of the Year earlier this week, and if you've not heard yet, he'll have his jersey number (50) retired after he finishes up as a result of being named The Sporting News Player of the Year.

What about Ty?

So, with the impending (we all hope) return of the Heels' starting PG Ty Lawson, many of us are left to wonder: what wonderful offensive progress will said return bring? To dig deeper and answer (or attempt to answer) this question, I compared the tempo-free performance of Carolina's ACC games with and without Lawson. For statistical equivalence I left the Duke game off, since the other 12 games are against opponents that can be considered roughly equal. In addition, UNC has played a couple of teams both with and without Lawson (Clemson and NC State), helping to balance out the statistics.

There are 5 measurements that differ between the Lawson-led Heels and the Quentin Thomas-led Heels, and they fall into 3 categories:

1) Have Nothing to do with who is playing point guard (or if they do I have no idea how):
Defensive Efficiency has gotten much better for the Heels. Not too much stock can be placed in this stat since the teams UNC has faced aren't normalized in any way. Also, it doesn't make much sense other than the fact that the lineup has gotten taller. I don't think anyone would try to tell you that Thomas is a better defender than Lawson, even considering his 3 or 4 extra inches. I'd like to think that the team has collectively picked up its defense since Lawson's offensive impact is missing.

2) Have Something to do with who is playing point guard:
Effective FG% and Free Throw Rate have both seen marked jumps in the time since Lawson left the lineup. This isn't due to either Lawson or Thomas but the fact that the offense now runs more through Tyler Hansbrough, who makes a higher percentage of shots and gets to the free throw line more than pretty much anyone, period.

3) Have Everything to do with who is playing point guard:
These are the important things; the team's change over the past weeks in Turnover Rate, Pace, and Offensive Efficiency are all due to Ty Lawson's bum ankle. Without Lawson in the lineup a less effective ballhandler is always toting the rock (be it Thomas for Lawson or Ginyard for Thomas). Also, there are far fewer possessions that the Raycom cameraman misses by zooming in on someone popping their jersey or pounding their chest, which means we've been playing slower. Also, since the Heels aren't getting those easy layups in transition their overall Offensive Efficiency is down.

So, to overstate the obvious, the Heels miss Ty Lawson, and should benefit from an added 6 to 8 non-empty possessions per game upon his return. Let's just hope they don't forget to feed the machine down low.

All of the specific stats can be found here. (Don't you just love Google Docs?)

Diamond Heels sweep FAU to begin 2008 season

UNC played Florida Atlantic this weekend in baseball, sweeping the series and starting off the 2008 season 3-0. This from TarHeelBlue:

"Carolina clubbed 11 home runs and added six doubles for a .675 slugging percentage in the series sweep at Florida Atlantic, which marked just the eighth sweep on the road for UNC in the last eight seasons. Left fielder Dustin Ackley and center fielder Seth Williams each hit three home runs, and second baseman Kyle Seager added two."

"National player of the year candidate Dustin Ackley had at least three hits in each game this weekend and finished with a .714 average (10-14), three home runs, seven RBI and five runs scored. He belted a pair of solo shots Friday and added a three-run blast in Sunday's series finale for six home runs in his last seven games dating to last year's College World Series. The Walnut Cove, N.C., native was 4-for-4 Friday for his sixth career four-hit game and followed with back-to-back three-hit games to close the series. Ackley finished with a 1.429 slugging percentage on the weekend." Ackley has a .706 OBP to go along with his 1.429 slugging percentage to begin the season.

The Duke Dilemma

Just as an FYI (to those of you who read this site regularly but don't follow college basketball) Duke appears to have found a bit of a sour patch en route to replicating its ACC perfection of 1999. Now, many people seem to know why this happens to Duke, however, I'm personally more interested in why it happened to Duke this time and if it has revealed a chink in the Blue Devils' armor. So, to try and find what went wrong (statistically) within the Devils last two games, I decided to compare (using the appropriately named statsheet.com) their first 10 ACC games (10-0, average margin of victory +14 pts) with their last two (0-2, -7 points).

Individually, these games differed greatly from each other. The points per possessions stat tells the story with Wake Forest able to limit the Duke offense (88 ppp versus and average of 116) while Miami's offense dominated the Duke "D" (113 ppp compared to 97). This is echoed in the eFG%, Duke shot 46.8% against Wake (54.5 ACC average) while Miami shot 63.1% against Duke (49.8% opponents average), while Duke held Wake exactly to their defensive average and shot exactly their offensive average against Miami. So, 2 ACC loses that Duke can blame on entirely different ends of the floor.

However, there are 2 statistical abberations that both games have in common. The first is the overall pace. Duke plays a fairly high pace game, 2nd in the ACC only to UNC. Both Miami and Wake average 70 possessions a game or fewer (Duke is at 74.5 in ACC play), so you'd think that neither would want to push the pace against a Duke team at home when the tempo reaches the 80's. In both losses, the games were the fastest Duke has played in the ACC (83 and 85 possessions), tied only by their game against fellow roadrunner UNC. The reason for the high pace was that Duke turned the ball over on 10% more of their possessions than average, in both games. Duke averages a turnover on 16% of possessions, but in these games they were forced to 26.5% and 27%. Their only other ACC game above 18% was when Duke hosted FSU. So, what's the formula for beating the Devils? Apparently "get the freaking ball". This should come to no shock, as Duke is not known for their rebounding, if a team can force them into empty possessions and limit their overall chances, you may very well have Duke on the ropes. However, this is easier said than done when playing a team that starts 4 guards.

To view the Duke vs ACC opponents spreadsheet (with thanks to statsheet.com) click here.

Bubblicious

Alright everyone, just going to put up a predictive post about the NCAA Tournament field. Using ESPN's bubble watch, I picked out the "Work Left To Do" teams and looked at both their KP rating, consistency, and predicted records via RPI Forecast (which is essentially KP's predictor). So, I took these components and weighted them to give each team a score that represents how they should finish the season.



The yellow highlights the teams that should make the tournament, given that all those in the "Should Be In" category make the cut, and taking 2 at-large bids for mid-majors (South Alabama anyone?), and 1 more for the occasional conference tournament upset I'm not confident that both Drake and Butler will win their conference tournaments. As a side note, VA Tech (just making it as of yesterday) lost last night to NC State, so knock them down a rung and promote the next middling ACC team.