Doggydaddy's Den: Doggy's Doghouse 12/28/19

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Image result for not pretty has to be gritty

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"I am the Great Cornholio!

(Bevis and Butthead refference if you didn't know)

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UConn's out of conference schedule just got harder. No. 6 Baylor welcomes back preseason All-American 6'4" Lauren Cox back to the lineup and she will have a couple of games to work out the kinks before they play UConn.

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What do Howard, Northwestern State, CSU Bakersville, Little Rock, UT Martin and Texas A&M-CC have in common?

They all get to have their butts kicked by ranked teams on Sunday.

I just don't get scheduling these kinds of games. Now, the Howard/Tennessee game might be close for a while. Tennessee is just a tough team to figure out. Howard is rated 178, so not horrible.

However, there are some horrific and unnecessary matchups.

RPI 344 Northwestern State is taking on No. 25 Texas.

RPI 224 Little Rock is playing No. 15 Mississippi State. MSU just loves their cupcakes!

RPI 134 UT Martin is playing No. 20 Arkansas. This could be a close one as well. UT Martin has played a tough schedule and has lost to Louisville and Gonzaga in close-ish games.

RPI 250 Texas A&M Corpus Christi is playing Texas A&M. I get the sister University thing but still. How many shots will Carter put up in this one? The over/under is 25.

RPI 94 CSU Bakersfield is playing No. 4 Oregon State. That 94 is not terrible, however, their conference mates are 226, 263 and the rest over 300. I think playing RPI 7 Gonzaga helped their RPI. Oh, they lost that game 93-48. Maybe this game will propel Oregon State into the No. 1 Spot?

Speaking of Oregon State and No. 1..........

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From Phil

Yesterday I wrote about the Graham Hays article about Oregon State deserving to be No. 1 over UConn. It was a little tongue in cheek, but also based on reality. My friend Phil sent me his take on that article. If you knew Phil you would know it would be full of detail and Massey rankings. It's long, but I thought worth reading. Enjoy!!!

Let me start by saying that I consider Graham Hays one of the finest writers of women’s basketball subjects. That’s not just because I often agree with him (although that all too often sways one’s views of a writer), it is a combination of insightful comments coupled with a wonderful style of prose. He’s fun to read and educational as well. Even when I disagree with him (as I’m about to) it’s usually a close call as opposed to thinking he’s out and out off-base.

He recently weighed in on the question of the current number one team in the country:

www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/28375089/why-oregon-state-not-uconn-no-1-women-college-basketball-team

He recognized the challenge of the selection this year as compared to other years, and ended up picking Oregon State. Interestingly, his gut tells him that Oregon is the best overall team, but when he looks at a variety of metrics, he feels that Oregon State edges out both UConn and Oregon.

I’m not going to pretend I don’t have a bias in favor of UConn, but I’m going to try to explain why I think Connecticut has a better resume than Oregon State.

I know I’m supposed to start out with my strongest argument, but I’m going to flip that on its head, and start with a weaker argument. The argument is weaker, not because it’s a close call, but because I think it deserves less weight. There are a number of factors to consider when choosing the number one overall team, and while results compiled against weaker teams can be considered, it is ultimately far less important than results against stronger teams.

If you look at the relative strengths of schedule so far, UConn’s is far more impressive than Oregon State’s. This is not really something for UConn fans to crow about or Oregon State’s fans to be concerned about, it is simply reflective of the fact that UConn’s conference, which will make up the bulk of the remaining games, is far weaker than Oregon State’s conference. If UConn wants to have a respectable strength of schedule over the course of the season, they need to schedule relatively strong teams early in the season. Oregon State is in the toughest conference in the country by far, so can justify a relatively weaker preconference schedule. That said, Oregon State does sprinkle in a few decent teams in the early part of the schedule, as contrasted to some teams which will not be named who seem to think that feasting on cupcakes as long as possible is acceptable.

However, the disparity was a little larger than I originally guessed. Using Massey rankings, only one opponent of UConn tips the triple digits scales, and that one example, Dayton, just barely does so at number 102. In contrast, eight of Oregon States 11 opponents have triple digit rankings weaker than Dayton, with two of them ranked in the 200s. It is true that Oregon State has three quality opponents in their 11 games, but that’s just about it — beyond those three, there’s not much of a challenge. I note that UConn beat its weakest opponent by 38 points. In Oregon State’s eight games against even weaker opponents, all but one were closer, with only the 40 point win over number 185 Southern Utah as a larger margin of victory. I think that’s interesting, but I don’t want to make too much of it, as it may be an artifact of an unusual single-game by Connecticut against Dayton.

Let’s move on to games against stronger opponents, which in my opinion a much more relevant to the overall question. Hays states:

And while the Beavers don't yet have a signature win, the cumulative value of wins against DePaul, Miami (on the road) and Missouri State outweighs UConn, which has only its win at DePaul to rely on.
I would like to include Oklahoma in a list of quality opponents, but reluctantly I don’t think I can put too much weight on them. I will note that Charlie Crème has Oklahoma in the tournament, but as a big fan of Massey ratings, Oklahoma’s rating of 77 doesn’t quite cut it as a quality win. It may be worth noting that even using Massey ratings, Oklahoma is higher ranked than any of Oregon State’s opponents other than the top three identified by Hays.

My main objection is that Hays is willing to count a road game against Miami as a quality win, while not mentioning UConn’s road game against Ohio State. Miami has a Massey ranking of 47, while Ohio State’s Massey ranking is 42. Both games were on the road. How can you count Miami as a quality win, and ignore Ohio State who is arguably a stronger team?

Hayes counts DePaul as a quality win. I agree. UConn also beat DePaul, so one could argue that’s a push. Hayes might point out that the Oregon State victory over DePaul was more convincing and I couldn’t disagree with that observation, but that’s a small point.

Hayes also fails to mention UConn’s win over California. They are ranked 48 by Massey, so not quite the same quality as Oregon State’s win over Missouri State, but how can you count Miami, at number 47 as a quality win, and failed to mention California at number 48? To be fair, the California game was at home, but I think it’s slicing things very finely to count a win over Miami and not even mention the California game.

In summary, while I won’t argue for a second that Oregon state is not worthy of serious consideration for number one, the apparent main argument by Hays that Oregon State has three quality wins versus UConn’s single quality win is an oversimplification.

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By David in Naples!!!!!

Some UConn fans are unimpressed that Megan Walker leads the Huskies in points, rebounds, assists, made threes and made free throws. If it is no big deal, why doesn’t Sabrina Ionescu from Oregon lead her team in those stats?
In fact, Ionescu is NOT the leader in scoring, rebounds or made threes. And she is not the leader in made free throws. She is the leader in assists and minutes played. So is Megan.

The player with the most rebounds is not normally the 3 point leader. And the top scoring threat usually doesn’t lead in assists as well. Through 10 games, Megan leads in all those stats on a team with loads of talent. I guess I’m the only one impressed.

Go Huskies..!!

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