Point Blank – January 23
The Weekend Edition – Time to be perfectly Frank, about the Tulsa coaching staff (or “What Haith hath wrought”)…Save your football bankroll for the Super Bowl…Damian Lillard looks tired…The Hoosiers went off (and what it means)…Will the Rockets get red glare from the Suns…
I have never been a big Frank Haith fan. In seven years at Miami he led the Hurricanes to one NCAA tournament win. He inherited a terrific team from Mike Anderson at Missouri leading in to the 2011-12 season, yet could not get them out of the first round of the Big Dance (his AP “Coach of the year” award for that campaign was among the more dubious awards anyone has been handed in sports in this millennium), and the Tiger program has gone steadily downhill since. Exactly why he left Missouri to step down to Tulsa may never fully be known. Through the years, there just has not been anything special about watching a Haith team play.
Until now. Although there were the usual coaching transition issues in the non-conference schedule, the Golden Hurricanes have opened 6-0 SU and 5-1 ATS in the AAC, beating the market expectations by 49 points across those games. They have held all six of those opponents to 58 points or fewer, and are showing a collective buy-in on the defensive end of the court. So does that mean that we change opinions of Haith? Perhaps not. For while a genuine case can be made that Tulsa looks like one of the better-coached teams in the nation right now, it does not necessary flow from the top down. Consider this cast of assistants –
Dave Leitao was the HC at Northeastern, DePaul and Virginia, taking DePaul to the Big Dance, and winning an ACC Championship with the Cavaliers in 2007, while also earning a National Championship ring as an assistant at Connecticut. Dennis Felton was the HC at Western Kentucky and Georgia, taking those programs to four NCAA tourneys. Tom Abatemarco was the HC at Lamar, Drake and Sacramento State, while having stints as an assistant under the likes of Lefty Driesell, Lou Carnesecca, Rick Majerus and Jim Valvano (he won a ring in the 1983 NCAA Championship run with N. C. State).
That is a tremendous amount of basketball savvy to have teaching the team each day, one of the most unique groups of assistants ever put together, and indeed Haith may not even be the best coach on the Tulsa sidelines. It means that instead of merely defining the early surge in conference play as being a surprise, for a group that does not have a senior in the rotation, it is instead the kind of progress that veteran coaching can bring out of a team. With a trio of league road wins already under their belts (although the Temple victory was aided by that injury to Will Cummings), they can be trusted to play with some confidence and poise as they head to East Carolina for Saturday’s early tipoff, and pay particular attention to how these teams have defended through their first set of AAC games:
Team PP100/Conference Rank
Tulsa 85.7 (#1)
East Carolina 109.5 (#10)
That comparison is something to ponder rather seriously, when the Saturday board gets posted.
About the Senior Bowl…
Last Friday there was a strong lean indicated to the Under in the East-West Shrine game, largely because of the lack of depth in this year’s QB class. That might lead one to believe that the Senior Bowl could offer similar value, and in terms of the QBs you would not be far off – this has been another practice week at which the NFL scouts have to end the day disappointed. None of the group has shown much upside, and in particular East Carolina’s Shane Carden and Alabama’s Blake Sims have been disappointments. But this time around the value meter does not add up the same, because the RBs and WRs on hand do show some potential. There still are not many teammate combinations to fear (only Baylor’s Bryce Petty throwing to Antawn Goodley, and Carden to Justin Hardy), but this is a game for entertainment only. And speaking of that…
About the Pro Bowl…
No. Just no.
About Last Night, NBA (start paying close attention to Damian Lillard)
For the Trail Blazers to come out a little flat against Boston should not have been a shock – they may have known when they woke up Thursday morning that they would again be without LaMarcus Aldridge, but it was the news later in the day that he will be out 6-8 weeks that had to send some shockwaves. Enough to enable the Celtics to break through on that late triple by Evan Turner, ending a streak of 24 consecutive road losses to Western Conference opponents.
This may be a difficult stretch ahead for a Portland squad that had terrific chemistry, but not much depth. And part of the problem is that the guy that will need to pick up most of the slack, Damian Lillard, is already at 1,595 minutes played this season, with only Chicago’s Jimmy Butler having more court time. This is on the heels of Lillard rating #7 in that category LY, before averaging 42.4 minutes per game across 11 playoff outings. There simply may be no way to ask for more from him - in losing the last two nights he shot just 14-45, while logging 75:52. What you will need to do in the days ahead is to not just highlight the overall Portland performances without Aldridge, but to specifically check Lillard’s efficiency levels. He has a tough matchup against John Wall coming up on Saturday night, before embarking on a four-game/six-night Eastern swing that will really tax the energy levels.
About Last Night, NCAA (Indiana is not easy to prepare for, but…)
Maryland had been playing terrific defense prior to Thursday, but those numbers will take a big hit after Indiana exploded for 1.35 PP100 in that 89-70 rout. But it may not have been all that disastrous in reality – with their small and quick lineup the Hoosiers create a difficult tactical challenge on the first look, and they simply shot brilliantly, knocking down 15-22 from 3-point range, including 7-8 from Yogi Ferrell. The handicapping key is to understand the context of that game not only in terms of not penalizing the Terrapin defense too much, but also in the immediate aftermath for the Hoosiers.
Indiana is back on the court on Saturday at Ohio State, and note how different the matchup is – the Buckeyes will be getting their second look at Tom Crean’s motion offense, after doing an excellent job against them in an earlier 69-66 loss in Bloomington. The Hoosiers made only 4-18 beyond the arc in that win, turning the ball over 14 times while only dishing nine assists, but survived because Ohio State shot even worse, 23-67 from the field and 3-21 on triples. You should not read anything more than Thursday’s Indiana win being brilliant shooting against a defense that was not tactically ready to check them on the perimeter. On Sunday it becomes an entirely different setting.
In the Sights, NBA (A little more Houston/Golden State post-mortem)…
Both the Wednesday and Thursday columns this week (links at the bottom of the page) dealt with the issues that Houston had heading in to Wednesday’s perhaps too-important meeting with the Warriors. You should not trust the moxie of this team to figure things out, especially off of the realization that there is a significant gap between where they are and the NBA’s true elite, and if anything they could go into a funk off of that loss. Or perhaps they are already in that funk – their three highest point allowances of the season have come over the last five games.
On Wednesday there was a quote posted from Kevin McHale noting his frustration with his team’s inconsistency, and this follow-up after the loss at Golden State continues the theme - “We gave up a ton of points in many different ways. Our offense is going to be our offense. What we’ve been doing lately against some of the top teams is our offense has been fueling them with turnovers. That’s got to stop. It’s hard enough to win against the top teams without you fueling them. The loose balls are out there and they’re bouncing around. Someone is going to get them. It has to be you if you want to win these type of games.”
That sets a rather ominous stage as they take on #818 Phoenix tonight. One of the glaring Houston weaknesses is easy to see - #29 in turnovers, and #29 in the number of steals allowed. Now put that matchup in context against a surging Suns team that is #3 in both steals and turnovers forced, and you see the headache for McHale. It gets worse because of the current confidence levels of the teams. For Phoenix this is #5 of an eight-game home stand, and the Suns have averaged 112.5 ppg in winning the first four. That dynamic troika of PGs Eric Bledose (33 points, 10 rebounds and six assists against Portland on Wednesday), Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas are exerting exactly the kind of ball pressure that is anathema to Houston right now.
It is not just about this home stretch for the Suns – they have not played a bad game since the middle of December – in a 14-4 overall run two of the defeats were on the road against the Thunder and Grizzlies in overtime, and the other two by just five at San Antonio and four at New Orleans. Yet they were available at some low-vigorish -2’s in the morning trading, which is extremely fair value for this setting.
This Week at Point Blank
Monday – What a “Bettor Better Know” – Weekend Starting Five
Tuesday – What a “Bettor Better Know” – NFL Conference Championships…Steve Kerr’s bench Warriors…Be careful with Florida assumptions…
Wednesday – A character test for Houston…LaMarcus Aldridge stays home (and don’t be fooled by a misleading measurement)…Wisconsin did not have a turnover (*) vs. Iowa…On Pistons and Pendulums…
Thursday – What next, for Southern Miss…What tonight, at Fordham…What the rest of the way, for the Rockets…Winning ugly, in Corvallis…