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I'm replying to this knowing that I'm probably wasting my time, but I like talking basketball so here goes -

> I've never been impressed by his in game adjustments or x's and o's.

Twenty years ago he published his first book. It consisted of nothing but diagrams of the offense he was running. It's about as x-and-o oriented as a book can get. No Calspeak. Just diagrams and strategy. I have a copy. It's a very informative book, and I've seen a play or two in Wisconsin's "swing" offense that look very similar. Somewhat ironically, Ryan had used less and less of his traditional offensive sets in the 2014-15 season in order to accommodate one-and-done Dekker. Sort of like how Calipari has to reinvent his offensive scheme annually in order to best adapt to roster turnover each year.

> If he's going to win, he'll have to do it with younger players.

That's mostly what's been happening. Sometimes young teams never fully come together (like UK's 2013 team), but for the most part, Calipari is able to have his teams playing very well by the time March rolls around.

> UW's coaching staff has had absurd success in the past 16 years or so.

I don't think "absurd success" is the right descriptor when at least 20 other teams have a better record during that same timeframe. UConn alone has won 3 titles in that period, and 4 if you go back 17 years, which is just as arbitrary a timeframe as the 16 years you chose, I'm assuming in order to include Wisconsin's 2000 Final Four. I remember watching that game live. Like most other people who watched it, I wish I didn't.


> That's sort of irrelevant though, as Calipari's strategy is clearly just to load of up on talented players

Well, yes. Every coach wants to load up on talented players, and the best ones don't stay for long. But let's not pretend it's as simple as you are making it out to be. It takes a lot of work to get those guys to one school, and even more effort to make those guys play together. Each one of them would get more minutes playing for almost any other college team. Each one of them has to adjust from being the undisputed best player on the floor to an environment where they need to learn their role among equally talented guys. It takes a lot of talent for a coach to get 18-19 year olds to check their egos and work together.

> my point is just that it looks to me like his teams underperform relative to their talent

Just like how older teams, with lots of juniors and seniors, seem to overperform relative to their talent. Talent alone doesn't win games. It certainly helps, though. Just like experience and maturity. Calipari has been able to win either way. Pat Forde is a sportswriter that hates Calipari. But even he managed to write this: Calipari's greatest strength as a coach is his ability to create teams that play together. His 1992 Massachusetts team remains one of the most overachieving units The Minutes has ever seen, featuring a shooting guard with range so limited he made one 3-pointer all season (Jim McCoy), a 6-foot-3 power forward (Will Herndon), and a left-handed center who stood all of 6–7 (Harper Williams). Somehow, that collection of marginal talent went 30–5 and advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16.

> Last year's matchup was the perfect showcase of the way UW and UK run their programs, and we did, ya know, win

I'd love to hear you go into more detail here. How can one game, standing alone, symbolize much of anything? Other than lazy analogical reasoning, that is. When UK beat Wisconsin in 2014, what did that showcase? Or better yet, pick any of the team chaos victories from this season. All that a single game shows is how well a team performed relative to another team on that day.

Of the books I've read:

• A Season on the Brink - John Feinstein Feinstein's chronicling of Bob Knight the 1985-1986 Indiana Hoosiers. The book was very successful and Feinstein followed it up with a number of inside looks at college basketball. 10/10
  
• The Last Amateurs It's about the Patriot League which, at the time of publication, was one of two conferences that didn't award athletic scholarships (Ivy was the other). 7/10
  
• Basketball on Paper - Dean Oliver Oliver is the granddaddy of basketball analytics. His examples are primarily focused on the NBA, but it's an interesting read that might change your perspective on how you watch basketball. 8/10
  
• Don't Put Me In Coach - Mark Titus Maybe it's just because I was a big fan of Club Trillion back in the day, but I think it's a really funny and interesting read about what big time college basketball is like today. Like A Season on the Brink, it helps you realize that, regardless of the era, these guys are just college kids. 7/10
  
• Playing for Knight - Steve Alford There are some interesting Indiana stories in here. But whereas A Season the Brink is enjoyable and a must read for any college basketball fan, this one is probably just worth reading if you're an Indiana fan. 5/10
  
• Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four - John Feinstein Eh. Not as good as some of the other ones I've read by him. 4/10.
  
  On my bookshelf but I haven't read them yet:
  
  
• Underdawgs - David Woods The story of Butler's first trip to the Final Four. This is the one I'm most excited to pick up next.
  
• Rising from the Ashes - Terry Hutchins It's about Indiana's dumpster fire leading up through it's return to the Top 25 in 2011-2012. Honestly, I only bought it because Hutchins and Woods were selling them side by side at a Butler Indiana game and I felt weird buying just the Butler book while wearing Indiana gear. It's a story that I already know by heart because I lived through it so I might never get around to reading it.
  
• The Last Great Game - Gene Wojciechowski About 1992 Kentucky - Duke. Haven't read it yet. Although I certainly plan to.

John McLendon should be on there. He is not as well known to white America as the others who have been mentioned, but his impact on the game of basketball dwarfs that of almost all other contributors to the game.

McLendon was twice inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame. First as a "Contributor" in 1979 and agains as a "Coach" in 2016.

Dr. J. refered to Coach Mac as the father of black basketball.

Biography by Milton Katz is an excellent book.

The Forgotten Coach is an excellent documentary.

McLendon was the first African-American graduate of KU's physical education program, graduating in 1936 When he arrived a KU, James Naismith was in the final years of his tenure and the final years of his life. McLendon chose KU because Naismith was there. Naismith, in turn, befriended McLendon and often put his substantial weight behind McLendon.

Although McLendon did not play basketball at KU, he did learn the game from Dr. Naismith and Dr. Allen.

VIDEO: seven minute biography
VIDEO: McLendon talks about Naismith

McLendon is credited with perfecting the fast break, the full-court zone-press defense, and the four corners offense made famous by Dean Smith at UNC

McLendon co-founded the Colored Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA).
http://www.ciaatournament.org/about/ciaa-history

He coached North Carolina College for Negroes to 8 CIAA Chamipionships.

McLendon coached his North Carolina College team against the Duke Medical School team in the 1946 “Secret Game.”

McLendon was instrumental in integrating the NAIA (then known as the NAIB) tournament.

McLendon petitioned the NABC to consider recommending that black colleges be allowed to participate in their end-of-season tournaments. The NAIA welcomed them. The NCAA did not, causing McLendon to refer say that the letters stood for “No Colored Athletes Allowed.”

His coaching resume:
Won CIAA Tournament 8 times
Won NAIA Tournament 3 consecutive times
First African American to coach at a predominantly white university.
First African American to be hired as coach of a professional team in any sport.
First African American to coach an ABA team.

McLendon led an integrated All-Star team against the USSR squad, winning all 8 games played in the Soviet Union. McLendon warned the OS Olympic Committee against taking international competition too lightly.
McLendon was twice chosen as an assistant coach of the USA Olympic basketball team (1868 and 1972)
McLendon was hired as a basketball ambassador by Converse, serving many years in that capacity giving clinics worldwide on the game of basketball.

The entire school was near insolvency in the late '90s. And yours is the exact right answer here. But to add just a little to the perspective...

Like the primordial soup, lightning struck this program and made all the elements combine just the right way at just the right time, and brought it to life. That lightning was the Cinderella success in 1999, when the Zags beat both Minnesota and #3 Stanford in Seattle (I was in the stands). Then they beat Florida on a tip in, and eventually lost to the champion UConn, giving them the toughest game of their tournament. Mid majors rarely get past the second round, and an E8 appearance appealed to just about every fan in the country. Following that success, the donations began to pour in, and recruiting took on a whole new look. And as you said, both the AD and Coach Few really took off with it.

The success of the basketball program has translated hugely to the success of the university, where every department and sport has ridden it's coattails. New baseball complex, new buildings on campus, use of a private jet for the team, the success of the women's basketball program, higher academic ratings and stricter admission requirements. Even the GU Law School has seen a huge uptick in it's reputation.

Best case example of "success breeds success".

Fun read that spells it all out, and one that every Zag fan should read: Glory Hounds

Not entirely, one method I've read about is to wait until right before the first game (or if I really have to, wait until the Wed. night before, just to make sure I have time to get my brackets in properly). Anyway, what you're supposed to do is look at the percentages ESPN puts out of how often the teams get picked to advance to each round, and use that as your guideline.

Sure it'll be skewed a bit (perhaps QUITE a bit - we'll see after I try this), by 1) people who don't know anything about basketball and are just picking randomly, of which there are obviously numerous amounts, plus the fact that it's telling you what all the people who used ESPN did, not specifically the people I'm playing in my pool did. Nevertheless, it's still a PRETTY good way to judge IMHO. Then, you go and see what teams were projected to go to each round (via sites like fivethirtyeight.com or whomever else) and you choose your upsets out of the teams that are being "under-bet" on (in other words, if fivethirtyeight.com says - let's say Marshall, has a 30% chance of making the round of 32, but only 15% of people are picking them to do so, that's a good value upset to pick. Likewise, if people are picking Virginia to repeat as champions 24% of the time, but fivethirtyeight says they only have a 14% chance of doing so, they're being over-bet and aren't a good team to choose.

But then again, I also read that you NEVER want to pick a "front-runner" as your champion, because that means you're going up against a bunch of other people who also choose that top team, making your pick for champion essentially a "moot point" and then all your earlier picks play a much bigger part in whether or not you win, especially those early round picks, because there are so many of them (which I also read you shouldn't pick too many early round upsets, because each of them is only worth 1 point, and thus almost meaningless, whereas a mid-round upset is more risky, but wields much bigger rewards).

I'm only telling you all this because there's like a 99.9% likelihood that you aren't one of the people I compete against in the pool and thus you knowing all this can't directly hurt me and can only help you. Here's another piece of help you might want to invest ($10) in:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Your-NCAA-Tournament-Pool/dp/0998442305

I think Walton got his teepee from "Chief" Bromden after they flew over the cuckoo's nest together one time back in the 1960s. Somehow he got left out of that book but not Ghostbusters...

EDIT: I fucking knew it. I searched "ken kesey" "bill walton":

>"We have all come to the Knight Library to be blessed, to be blessed by the spirit, by the essence, and by the dreams and thought of one of our great and dear friends, Ken Kesey." --Bill Walton

YouTube video of Bill Walton's Tour of Ken Kesey Collection @ U of Oregon

YouTube video of Bill Walton on Ken Kesey's Bus

Ken Kesey had a self-published literary magazine and after his death a final issue was made in his tribute. Forward by Gus Van Sant. More pieces by Electronic Frontier Foundation founder John Perry Barlow, Ken Kesey himself, and, you guessed it, Bill Walton.

I'm probably low-balling it by saying there's a 30% chance Bill Walton was directly caused by Project MKUltra. Since Kesey was in MKUltra, Walton can only be one step removed.

> Ed Martin was not necessarily a wealthy man.

Oh?

>He gave the recruits hundred of thousands of dollars

Well then...

>and had previously been investigated by the FBI for running illegal gambling rings.

Right, like I said: made money doing shady shit on the side.

> Ed Martin was a booster with recruit contact long before Fisher was head coach at Michigan.

Yup.

>Do not watch the Fab Five 30 for 30 documentary. ESPN allowed it to be put together by Jalen Rose, who was one of the Fab Five and has an axe to grind with Chris Webber. It is biased in the extreme.

Jalen Rose's side of the story is a fairly accurate side of the story. The only axe to grind against Webber is that Webber wrote off the rest of his teammates and the University of Michigan after the Ed Martin incident. Webber threw Martin under the bus...

"This case is about a man who befriended kids like myself, preying on our naïveté, our innocence, claiming that he loved us and that he wanted to support us, but later wanting to cash in on that love and support that we thought was free," Webber said at the time.

...and turned his back on his teammates. He refused to sit with them at the Natty and refused to participate or comment on their history.

FWIW the Fab Five are the reason I got into college basketball. First games I remember watching as a kid with my dad, a Michigan man. When I moved to Ann Arbor as a teenager, the first gift I received from my new friends at school was a book "The Fab Five: Basketball, Trash Talk, the American Dream."

The funny part is I agree with the Maryland guy about UConn and agree that Gary Williams tried to stay above the muck that is much of the higher level AAU ball yet also acknowledge that his current coach is much more like Calhoun and less like Williams.

Diamond Stone's father is currently doing "consulting" for UnderArmour. Amazing how that came about after he signed there. (Its the regular Duke treatment and its been this way for 80 years in the NCAA.

I'm a Badger fan and there is a great book about the 1942 Badgers football team: 3rd down and a War to go.
http://www.amazon.com/Third-Down-War-All-American-Wisconsin/dp/0870203606

It openly spoke of players having "jobs" to walk the city streets after businesses closed up and check to make sure they are all locked.
My family knew Elroy Hirsch who played at Wisconsin and Michigan and then was Wisconsin's AD for 20 years. He'd tell stories about the gifts he received when he was recruited and his summer jobs. Its a cycle and always has been.

It's pretty well established that home teams and teams that are trailing receive the benefit of the doubt when it comes to foul calls. What I'm saying is it doesn't surprise me that there was a massive disparity based on Nova being the home team and the fact that they were trailing (along with each team's FTR tendencies on off and defense) . That doesn't mean I don't think Nova probably should have been called for some more fouls if the refs were being objective.

If games were always called evenly then HCA would basically not exist However, we know that homecourt advantage does exist based on historical point differentials for home/away teams. The vast majority of HCA can be explained by officials giving more foul calls in favor of the home team according to the book Scorecasting. So stop complaining about a phenomenon that has existed in sports forever.

Nice, thanks for doing the math.

I've seen at least one study (I think in Scorecasting) that showed that there wasn't any identifiable performance hit to individual players' FT% on the road, at least in the NBA.

There is a difference in what fouls are called, though. So I'm wondering now if that ties in with /u/JonShoes' point that who got fouled matters -- maybe the borderline calls that Virginia would be expected to get away with more frequently at home are more likely to come against guards, and the clear-cut fouls are against bigs.

Just occured to me, Duke players always look like the fuckwit fraternity from Animal House.

That being said, firmly believe coach K is a good guy. (see http://www.amazon.com/Hate-Like-This-Happy-Forever/dp/0060740248)

This book is a fun read

THANKS FOR MAKING ANOTHER TRASH TALK THREAD MOTHER FUCKER BECAUSE TO HATE LIKE THIS IS TO BE HAPPY FOREVER