The Time Line, Part 3: A Macro-Analysis of the Tournament

This is the 3rd part in my series chronicling the Modern-Era (1985-present) NCAA Tournament via a macro-perspective of the game, a perspective often ignored -- accidentally and intentionally -- in most tournament analysis. It is my belief that these macro-factors have played a role in the outcomes of modern-era tournaments, especially the surprises. If you haven't read Part 1 of this series, it details many of the macro-factors in a year-by-year style that will be discussed in this article. My goal for this article is to explain the patterns of trend in the NCAA tournament from 1985 to 1992. (NOTE: 1993 and 1994 could also be included in this analysis since they share many similarities with these years. However, they are probably best viewed as transitory years between this era and the Straight-Outta-High-School (SOHS) Era, which is why I grouped them with 1995 and 1996 in Part 2.)

To start things off, let's look at the Elite 8 Aggregation Model for the years in question. As stated in Part 2 of The Time Line series, the 1985-1992 era of the tournament was mostly calm, as most Elite 8s featured an Aggregate Value between 20 and 25. There were two outlier years in 1986 and 1990 with Aggregate Values (AVs) of 37 and 40, respectively.



It was postulated in Part 2 that "experienced talent" was a recipe for tournament stability (low AVs). If talented college players (players that could potentially play at the next level) stayed multiple years, the experience (understanding of the game and how to play it effectively) gained on top of the talent would lead to predictable results, such as top-seed advancement. So, how well did this era fit the "experienced talent" hypothesis? The results of the NBA draft (first two rounds) during those years are in the table to the right, with sophomores (2AD - 2 and Done), freshman (OAD - 1 and Done) and high school seniors (SOHS) drafted in each of their respective columns. For the most part, underclassman stayed until they were seniors and juniors, even if they demonstrated the capacity to succeed at the next level, and the college basketball environment fit the "experienced talent" label. As a result, the NCAA tournament was rather predictable, with the exceptions of 1986 and 1990. Looking back on those years, is it possible to dispel the unpredictability of these tournaments if we view them in terms of the macro-factors?

1985-1992: Unmasked

1985: The real stand-out of this tournament is #8 Villanova, as the rest of the year's Elite 8 held to form with 1s, 2s and 3s. So, what happened? The macro-factor at play here seems to be the lack of a shot-clock. This year was the last year of the stall era, where teams like Dean Smith's North Carolina could drain minutes off of the clock with stall strategies like the Four Corners Offense. Villanova's run to the title may have influenced the implementation of the shot clock. Throughout the course of the regular season (which included two conference games against runner-up Georgetown), Villanova played all but four of these games with scores 60 or higher (the two regular season games against Georgetown were among these four). In their shocking run to the title, their first five games never saw a score higher than 59. Even more shocking, their title bout with Georgetown ended 66-64, even though their regular season match-ups ended in losing scores of 50-52 and 50-57. Villanova's title run, which featured stall strategies and unconventional defensive schemes*, exploited the lack of a shot-clock in the game.

1986: This year features several anomalies in #6 NC State, #7 Navy, #8 Auburn, and #11 LSU. The first notable anomaly is #7 Navy, who was led by their center David Robinson. Knowing the Hall of Fame career he had at the NBA level, this run to the Elite 8 seems less of a surprise and more of an under-seed by the Committee. The second anomaly was #11 LSU, who made it to the Final Four. Many consider this feat to be a result of a rule allowing teams to play first- and second-round games on their own home floor (a rule that was changed a few years later). Seeing that LSU needed double-overtime to defeat #6 Purdue and a 2-point win to defeat #3 Memphis, I can understand the complaints of higher seeded teams having to travel while an 11-seed and their fans get to walk to their games. Unfortunately in this same tournament, #2 Syracuse played their first- and second-round games on this floor, losing their second-round game to #7 Navy. #8 Auburn featured senior Chuck Persons and sophomore Chris Morris, both of whom would be 4th overall picks in the NBA draft following their respective senior seasons. Persons was a skilled perimeter shooter, yet his run to the Elite 8 happened in the last year of tournaments without the 3-point arc. #6 NC State featured a star-studded line-up of senior PG Nate McMillan and sophomores Vinny Del Negro and Chris Washburn (center). While the first two went on to successful NBA careers, Washburn's off-court issues hampered his development (mental and physical), even though he was definitely worthy of his 3rd overall pick as a sophomore in the 1986 NBA draft. Even though this Elite 8 group featured many pro-potential players at young ages, looking back on the quality of the players taken in the 1985 draft, it should be surprise that 1986 would be upset-prone. To further this point, this tournament also featured two 14-seeds to knock-off two 3-seeds, so it was an all-around crazy year.

1987: The two stand-outs this year are #6 Providence and #10 LSU. #6 Providence featured second-year head coach and future Hall of Famer Rick Pitino and point guard Billy Donovan. In the first year of the three-point arc in college basketball, it is no surprise now that a Pitino-coached, Donovan-ran Providence team would make a Final Four run seeing how both of these men built offensive and defensive schemes around exploiting/denying the three-point shot. #10 LSU is more of a quagmire. A year after losing four of their top five contributors from the previous year's Final Four team, this team comes within two points of knocking off eventual champion Indiana for its second straight Final Four appearance. I have no explanation for this run, nor could I find three-point shooting data for this team to see if that may have been the reason. One final point on this tournament is the four teams that played first- and second-round games on their home court. Contrary to 1986's results, #2 Syracuse and #3 Depaul won their home-court games while #10 Arizona and #11 UAB lost their opening games.

1988: The two teams of interest in this year are #6 Kansas and #6 Villanova. As for Villanova, they featured two players (West and Plansky) that shot 42.6% and 48.7% from the three-point line on the season. For those that do not think this matters, you have to shoot 63.9% and 73.1% from inside the arc in order to match this quality of shooting on a point-for-point basis. As for Kansas, they have the nickname Danny and the Miracles for a reason. Though they struggled through the regular season, eventual 1st-overall pick Danny Manning coached by Hall of Famer Larry Brown turned it on at the right time to win it all. Coming into the tournament with 11 losses, the final three games of their title run paired them against teams whom they went 1-5 against during pre-NCAA tournament games.

From this point forward, no macro-changes to the game of college basketball happen until 1994 tournament, which was the first to feature a 35-second shot-clock.

1989: In this year, nobody lower than a 5-seed makes the Elite 8, but in a strange twist, two 3-seeds face-off in the title game after knocking-off a 1-seed and 2-seed respectively. The eventual champion Michigan featured future NBA star Glen Rice. As for the 4- and 5-seed that made the Elite 8, #4 UNLV featured all of the pro-potential pieces from the following year's team that would win the championship and #5 Virginia was led by NBA-talent big-man Bryant Stitt that lost to eventual champion Michigan.

1990: The second of two crazy years, this year featured a 6-, 10- and 11-seed in the Elite 8, as well as two 4-seeds in the Final Four. The 4-seed Georgia Tech featured a guard-trio of Kenny Anderson, Dennis Scott and Brian Oliver, collectively known at the time as "Lethal Weapon 3." The 6-seed Minnesota team ran to the Elite 8 after making a Sweet 16 run as an 11-seed in the year before. Their first two games in this run was against an 11- and 14-seed, but they took down #2 Syracuse before coming within one basket of the Final Four against #4 Georgia Tech. The 10-seed Texas also featured a high-scoring guard trio of Lance Blanks, Travis Mays, and Joey Wright, collectively known as B.M.W. (for the initials of their last names). They were also led by head-coach Tom Penders, who built the Texas program from nothing, implementing an up-tempo offense and scheduling ranked opponents in the non-conference to accelerate the growth curve for his team (all of the losses from these games are why his team was given a 10-seed). Saving the most inspiring for last, the 11-seed Loyola-Marymount team was the epitome of team basketball, as they played selflessly for one another in remembrance of their lost teammate Hank Gathers. Gathers collapsed on-court during the West Coast Conference Tournament from a heart condition and died later in a nearby hospital.

1991: The prettiest Cinderella out of many in this tournament was John Chaney led #10 Temple. After defeating #7 Purdue, they faced-off against #15 Richmond who upset Syracuse. After this game, they needed overtime to defeat #3 Oklahoma State before falling to the East Regional 1-seed North Carolina. This run was clearly due to match-ups, and there could have been more as #11 Connecticut (in the Midwest Regional) and #12-seed Eastern Michigan (also in the East Regional) pulled an upset in the first-round and faced a lower-seeded team in the second-round.

1992: This tournament, though won by seniors, would be the first tournament to feature the successes of Freshman. Both of the surprise teams in this year's Elite 8 are no surprises when you see their identities. #6 Memphis was led to the Elite 8 by future NBA 10,000-point scorer Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway before falling to Great Midwest Conference rival #4 Cincinnati. #6 Michigan needs no introduction except for two words: FAB FIVE. Though starting the season off slowly as coaching and school boosters resisted the idea of five freshman starters, all were starters and showing their potential by tournament time. Talent and motive led this team past bitter Big Ten rival 1-seed Ohio State, but they could not match the experience of #1 Duke in the championship game, losing by 20 points in much the same fashion as Duke in the previous year could not match the "experienced talent" of UNLV in the 1991 championship game.

Reflections

The overall trend of the 1985-1992 period in college basketball is the prevalence of "experienced talent." While it did not reach levels of pure stability (AGG values of 12-16), it consistently maintained levels of predictable stability. In all this, deviations from pure stability (all years but 1986 and 1990) and deviations from predictable stability (1986 and 1990) followed two patterns.

1. Inexperienced talent was the dominant cause. Whether it be David Robinson's 7-seed Navy, Danny Manning's 6-seed Kansas, or the Fab Five's 6-seed Michigan, inexperienced talent can pull-off some shockers. Hindsight is always 20/20, but our goal is to learn from this hindsight and use it as foresight for 2016. There is a lot of inexperienced talent in the 2016 field and none of them seem to be worthy of a 1-, 2- or 3-seed. Two teams that come to mind are Kentucky and California. Both teams have multiple freshman being projected as lottery picks (Murray and Labissiere for UK and Brown and Rabb for CAL). What's even more fitting is that both teams have tournament projections in the range of 4- to 6-seeds. But don't stop looking at talented freshman only. There are many teams with talented sophomores and juniors that come to mind. One team that fits this mold that comes to mind is Vanderbilt. They feature Junior center Damian Jones and Sophomore point guard Wade Baldwin, both of whom are projected as 1st rounders in the 2016 NBA Draft. The lesson from this time period is pretty straight-forward: Talent is Talent and it should not be underestimated. Period! One advantage that we have in 2016 that bracket pickers in the 1985-1992 period did not have is access to talent-identifying information. In that time, you only received this information via game broadcasters and color analysts. Today, we have multiple websites and organizations in an arms race to predict the NBA draft, so we have a pretty good idea who could be the next Robinson, Manning, Rice, Hardaway, or Fab Five. Use the information and use it wisely.
2. The influence of macro-factors was a secondary cause, though not as dominant since the last change happened in the 1988 tournament. Nonetheless, the macro-factors contributed to some of the outliers in this period: 1985 Villanova and the shot-clock-less tournament, 1986 and the LSU home-court advantage, 1987 Providence and the three-point shot, 1988 Villanova and the three-point shot, and 1990 teams featuring guard-trios. These macro-factors are notable because several of them happened this year. For instance, the shot-clock was reduced from 35 to 30 seconds. In effect, a 14% reduction in time per possession should theoretically result in a 14% increase in number of possessions. With more possessions, there should be more scoring (and there is), even though efficiency per possession is worse than last year. Look for teams that take advantage of this new shot-clock rule. One in particular is Oregon. Their defensive scheme, especially after made baskets, presses their opponent full-court until the ball crosses half-court. They do this to eat 6-9 seconds into the 30-second shot clock, leaving the offense 21-24 seconds. Once the ball crosses half-court, they fall back into a packed zone defense, where they force you to run 20-23 seconds of high-quality offense in order to score before a shot-clock violation. Very few teams run efficient offense possession-by-possession on a consistent basis, which makes this a unique exploitation of a macro-factor. Another macro-factor (one which I personally hate with all my being) is the emphasis on freedom of movement. If you've read my previous articles, you will know that freedom of movement favors dribble-drive teams over passing-motion teams (and rules should never be constructed to give one play-style an advantage over another).

I hope this article and the Time Line series has opened a new perspective to the game and the tournament. I hope to have an update to the PPB Watch List up some time on Fri Mar 4 and the Champ Week Pulse Check up on Sun Mar 6. It's going to be a busy ten days, but it all leads to the best time of the year.

Sources
*For an in-depth read on the 1985 Villanova title-run, read The Perfect Game by Frank Fitzpatrick.