College Sports (Basketball)

#31      
The ACL injury recovery journey is drastically different from the one I took in the early ‘80’s. I suffered a partial tear of my L ACL in April of 1982, and tore it completely in June that same year. After an 18 month rehab (yes, I took advantage of the rehab Center), I went from a 38” vertical to a 22” vertical. Today, rehab is less than a year, and the athlete’s recovery is closer to 90-100% than the roughly 60% I enjoyed. Items a serious athletic injury.
You lost 16 inches on your vertical!?! So my 19" high school vertical would have gone to 3"? Take comfort in knowing your worst was better than my best :)
 
#36      
That is impressive Dr. Bowman. I cant believe he went to Univ Michigan for his MD
To be totally fair, once you get to grad school bets are off. Particularly if you’re getting a MD.

I got my MBA from Indiana. Still have never worn a piece of IU apparel and don’t come close to actively supporting them in anything sports related.
 
#38      

They can field two different starting 5s that could be top 10 teams in college basketball. That depth will be useful in a 40-game season.

May as well enjoy college basketball while the Illini are competitive. Weekend 1 of college football showed us the eventual reality of the NIL era. We’re headed for a world like club soccer where 4-5 teams basically rotate winning chips.
 
#39      

They can field two different starting 5s that could be top 10 teams in college basketball. That depth will be useful in a 40-game season.

May as well enjoy college basketball while the Illini are competitive. Weekend 1 of college football showed us the eventual reality of the NIL era. We’re headed for a world like club soccer where 4-5 teams basically rotate winning chips.
Football is naturally going to lead to less parity than basketball. It's the nature of having 22 starters And 30-40 guys that actually play.

You can only play 5 guys at a time in basketball and they play both ways which will naturally spread the talent round a lot more than football.

I do think parity is suffering but more that the good mid major teams just won't really exist because their best players that would be 3-4 year players at one school will get poached before they can build something.

We have seen 2 out of the last 3 national championship runs be pretty non-competitive but I think that might even out as the NIL period and 5 in 5 becomes more normal.
 
#40      
Football is naturally going to lead to less parity than basketball. It's the nature of having 22 starters And 30-40 guys that actually play.

You can only play 5 guys at a time in basketball and they play both ways which will naturally spread the talent round a lot more than football.

I do think parity is suffering but more that the good mid major teams just won't really exist because their best players that would be 3-4 year players at one school will get poached before they can build something.

We have seen 2 out of the last 3 national championship runs be pretty non-competitive but I think that might even out as the NIL period and 5 in 5 becomes more normal.
The one thing to keep in mind is that transfers go both ways. High major kids without enough playing time transfer to mid majors and can excel (see Podz).

The NCAAT has had less mid major upsets, sure, but I just checked Torvik and in 2016, there were 10 mid major teams in the top 50. Last year, 10 years later, there were 8. So I don’t think they're necessarily in danger of not existing.
 
#44      
More in depth story. Apparently he said he was returning to Cincinnati from Charlotte and the team said “uh… no.”

 
#45      
Football is naturally going to lead to less parity than basketball. It's the nature of having 22 starters And 30-40 guys that actually play.

My sense is the other way round. Large rosters in football make it more difficult to capture the same % of talent as basketball. I think both suffer from a small number of well funded programs building superteams. Freshman seem to make a bigger difference in basketball too, so perhaps more variance for teams that correctly identify talent. Would be interesting to see someone try to do the analysis comparing the two sports.
 
#46      
My sense is the other way round. Large rosters in football make it more difficult to capture the same % of talent as basketball. I think both suffer from a small number of well funded programs building superteams. Freshman seem to make a bigger difference in basketball too, so perhaps more variance for teams that correctly identify talent. Would be interesting to see someone try to do the analysis comparing the two sports.
According to Torvik, college basketball projects 8 non-P4 teams in the top 50 of college basketball. SP+ currently has 0 non-P4 teams in the top 50 of college football.
 
#47      
According to Torvik, college basketball projects 8 non-P4 teams in the top 50 of college basketball. SP+ currently has 0 non-P4 teams in the top 50 of college football.

There's a lot of differences between the two sports. Way more bball programs outside the P4 for example, much larger post-season tournament, and much lower cost to get in the door. I suppose you'd need to define a measure of parity to compare the two.
 
#48      
My sense is the other way round. Large rosters in football make it more difficult to capture the same % of talent as basketball. I think both suffer from a small number of well funded programs building superteams. Freshman seem to make a bigger difference in basketball too, so perhaps more variance for teams that correctly identify talent. Would be interesting to see someone try to do the analysis comparing the two sports.
The issue is that football entire rosters matter more just to the nature of the game. It's especially apparent on both lines but there simply isn't that many great offensive or defensive lineman and teams without that will struggle when facing the opposite even if they have blue chip guys elsewhere.

Both these examples will be small schools but off the top of my head, Ashton Jeanty went 6th overall but could not run on Penn State because he was constantly getting hit in the backfield. Colt Brennan was a great college QB but his line got absolutely destroyed by Georgia and they couldnt move the ball.

Whereas in basketball, teams had way more talent but couldn't stop Steph Curry at Davidson. Or Duke lost to Lehigh with way more talent but CJ Mccollum was the best player on the floor.

Even if you have a super team, another team can always get hot and shoot 50% from 3 for a game and beat you. I know Michigan just came off a dominant run but I would argue that SLU actually played them as tough as anyone and had a chance to win that game had some more open looks fallen early(I'm aware the rails fell off and they lost by 23 but that a was a 7 point game with 12 minutes left).
 
#49      
The issue is that football entire rosters matter more just to the nature of the game. It's especially apparent on both lines but there simply isn't that many great offensive or defensive lineman and teams without that will struggle when facing the opposite even if they have blue chip guys elsewhere.

Both these examples will be small schools but off the top of my head, Ashton Jeanty went 6th overall but could not run on Penn State because he was constantly getting hit in the backfield. Colt Brennan was a great college QB but his line got absolutely destroyed by Georgia and they couldnt move the ball.

Whereas in basketball, teams had way more talent but couldn't stop Steph Curry at Davidson. Or Duke lost to Lehigh with way more talent but CJ Mccollum was the best player on the floor.

Even if you have a super team, another team can always get hot and shoot 50% from 3 for a game and beat you. I know Michigan just came off a dominant run but I would argue that SLU actually played them as tough as anyone and had a chance to win that game had some more open looks fallen early(I'm aware the rails fell off and they lost by 23 but that a was a 7 point game with 12 minutes left).

When I think of parity, I'm personally not thinking of all 360+ bball teams or all 120+ fball teams. I think of parity towards the upper end where teams compete for conference or national championships. I'm not even sure where I would draw the line in either sport, or which sees bigger upsets. Do 20 point dawgs win in both, absolutely, but even there I don't think you can go strictly off points sport to sport.
I think you'd have to define what you're measuring to get any traction on which has more, but YMMV
 
Back