Why do coaches sit players who are in foul trouble?

Last night the Wisconsin Badgers had a five point lead early in the first half when Jared Berggren, their most productive big man, picked up his second foul.  Coach Bo Ryan replaced him with his much less experienced substitute.  Coach Ryan did the same when Wisconsin’s other productive big man, Mike Bruesewitz likewise picked up his second foul.  Neither played for the rest of the first half, and Syracuse was able to open up a ten point bulge and maintain a six point halftime lead.  Both players finished the game with additional fouls available to them.  Berggren picked up only one more foul in the rest of his action.  The Badgers rallied to take the lead in the second half, but ultimately lost the game by one point.

My question is why on Earth didn’t Coach Ryan leave his best players on the floor?  By removing them for the greater part of the first half, he may have cost Wisconsin the game (Berggren is one of Wisconsin’s top MWS win producers).

I realize Coach Ryan was simply following conventional wisdom, but why is that strategy considered accepted wisdom?  It doesn’t make any sense to me.  There is no necessary reason to disqualify one of your best players from long stretches of a game when the rules do not require you to do so.  What you are doing is effectively taking out one of your more productive players and artificially limiting his minutes without good cause.

So why do coaches follow this practice so blindly?  Let’s examine and debunk the most oft-heard rationale:

1. We must have him available “for later”

Often coaches will justify removing a player who is in foul trouble on the grounds that doing insured that the player would be available to play the latter minutes of a game.  This rationale rests on the faulty premise that certain minutes in a game (the last ones) are more important than any other minutes.  They are not!  I can make a strong argument that Wisconsin would have won easily and would not have needed a last second heave by Jordan Taylor had Berggren remained in the game in the first half.  In order to “be in the game” late, you must put yourself in position.  No minute, and no possession, is more important than any other.

Besides which, coaches cannot predict when a player will foul again.  How does the coach know that the player won’t commit another foul for forty minutes?  The problem is one of perception.  When a player commits fouls more rapidly than usual, the coach’s perception becomes skewed.   Suddenly the player appears “foul-proned” and the coach, believing this, will miscalculate the likelihood of the player committing another foul.

2.  “They’ll attack him for easy baskets”

This rationale is also based on a faulty premise — that a player cannot play aggressive defense without fouling, or alternatively, that a team can induce fouls on a player by “going at him”.  If the first premise were true, teams ought to shoot much higher percentages, and/or we ought to be seeing more players foul out.  If the second premise were true, why don’t teams simply target the other team’s star players immediately?  If fouls are so easy to induce, why not try to induce them?  Because, its not that easy, that’s why.

The simple fact is, the “2 foul rule” is another example of conventional wisdom that is not wise at all.  Its one of those unwritten rules that coaches are afraid to break for fear of looking “foolish” (like when Packers coach Mike Sherman cost the team a playoff game because he didn’t have the stones to go for it on 4th and a millimeter).  Following the “foul trouble” removal practice is actually foolish and detrimental to the teams whose coaches follow it.  Like the Badgers last night.  (Can you tell I’m bitter… read the preceding post).

FOOTNOTE — There’s one scenario I will accept for removing a player early in the game because of foul difficulty.  If the player in question is a primary ballhandler who is also one of the team’s best foul shooters, then I will accept the excuse that he was removed early because “we need him at the end”.  The reason I create this exception is because I recognize that there is one legitimate difference between the ending minutes of a game and every other minute in a game.

In the ending minutes of a close game, the trailing opponent will often deliberately foul members of the leading team in an attempt to regain possession of the basketball in a timely manner.  Rarely will teams employ such a strategy at any other point in the game.  So that’s a tangible difference.  That I will accept.  And I will also accept that if such a strategy were employed, then yes, you would want to insure that your best ballhandling foulshooter were eligible to play those minutes.  That was not the case last night with either Berggren or Bruesewitz.

The LeBron Edict killed the Wisconsin Badgers last night

With 13 seconds left and the Wisconsin Badgers down by one point, I and every member of the Syracuse Orangemen knew that Wisconsin’s Jordan Taylor would take the last shot, no matter what.  Knowing this, Syracuse ran two men at him and he nevertheless hoisted a 40 foot fadeaway three pointer that had next to no chance of splashing home.

Now remember, I said the possession started with 13 seconds on the clock and the Badgers down by one single point.  The Badgers, an outstanding foul shooting team who happened to be in the bonus, should have been in the driver’s seat.  The Badgers should have forced the issue, and at least made the Syracuse zone bend before taking a shot.

But, as Steve Martin used to say back when he was funny… “Nooooooooooo”.  Jordan Taylor, Wisconsin’s reputed (but not actual) best player, felt the burden was “upon him” to take the last second shot (I’m assuming this because he made no effort to involve his teammates).

Why did he think this?  Well, if he has basic cable, and if he watches ESPN at all, that’s all they ever talk about.  “Great players make great plays at big moments…” what’s that stupid ass canard they always spout?  It has no meaning, but it is meant to challenge the manhood of any player who doesn’t have the balls to throw up the last second shot.  Every time Lebron doesn’t take the last shot with the game on the line, no matter whether he is quadrupled teamed, the ESPN talking heads question whether he has the stones to take last second shots.  Never mind that one of his teammates might have a higher percentage shot than him.  If he passes off, he is deemed to be gutless.

And as a result of this, players who believe themselves to be the best player on their particular team, as Jordan Taylor must have felt last night, believe a special burden lies upon them to “win or lose” the game, to “put the game in their hands”.

NO!!  The object is to search for and take the best shot possible.  Not to damn the torpedoes and launch whatever you can get.  Last night it cost the Badgers.

NFL Draft: Russell Wilson outperformed Andrew Luck in every way

Yesterday Mel Kiper Jr. of ESPN said on his radio program that he had awarded Stanford QB Andrew Luck the highest grade he had awarded to any prospect since John Elway.  Kiper did not detail, or even mention, any of the criteria he uses for his grading system, but one suspects that on-field production was not heavily weighted.

If it were, then it is certain that Luck would not be the highest graded draft prospect since Elway.  In fact, he would not be the highest rated quarterback prospect in this year’s draft alone, because he is far from the most productive college quarterback available to be drafted.  That would be Robert Griffin III of Baylor.

But everyone knows about, and is talking incessantly about, the tremendous pro potential of Robert Griffin.  Today I want to focus on a quarterback who was also more productive than Andrew Luck, but a quarterback whom no one mentions in the same breadth as Andrew Luck.

Russell Wilson, quarterback from the University of Wisconsin, may not have the size or intangibles that Stanford QB Andrew Luck has, but last season he outperformed Luck both in overall adjusted performance, and performance against common opponents.

Ranking the QB prospects by adjusted college QBER

On this blog, I judge Quarterback performance using a formula I call Quarterback Efficiency Rating (“QBER”).  Quarterback efficiency rating calculates the number of net forward yards produced by the quarterback for every “non-productive” play (sack or incompletion).  Last season in the National Football League only one team (Baltimore Ravens) made the playoffs without having a quarterback whose QBER was above the NFL average.  So efficient quarterback play meshes with winning, especially in this era of the forward pass.

Below I provide a ranking of the top college quarterback prospects (as listed on NFLdraftcountdown).  My ranking does not involve intangibles or physical measurements.  It only involves college production according to Quarterback Efficiency Rating (“QBER”), adjusted for opponent.  (QBER= Yards Rushing + Yards Passing – 30xTurnovers – Yards Sacked / Incompletions + Sacks).  So, the chart below has the rankings in column one, the “run support” received by each Quarterback in column two, the Quarterback’s 2011 QBER, the collective QBER allowed last season by the Quarterbacks opponents, and the Quarterback’s adjusted QBER, which is simply QBER – Opponent.

The Top NFL QB Prospects ranked by Adjusted QBER

Prospects	Run Supp	QBER	Opp	Adj QBER
R Griffin III	5.32	33.12	13.72	19.39
R Wilson	5.43	29.58	11.69	17.88
K Moore	4.54	28.23	13.63	14.59
A Luck	5.29	25.91	14.33	11.57
B Weeden	5.39	24.59	14.26	10.33
N Foles	3.43	19.22	13.59	5.63
K Cousins	3.42	16.99	12.85	4.13
B Osweiler	3.97	16.39	13.26	3.12
R Tannehill	5.11	16.77	13.79	2.97

RGII is tops, but Wilson a close second

As you can see, the top prospect measured by efficient college production is Robert Griffin III.  Griffin’s production numbers are eerily similar to the numbers put up the previous season by former Auburn QB Cameron Newton (Newton posted a 33.43, adjusted to 20.11).  Newton, of course, went on to have an outstanding rookie campaign.  Griffin, with his accurate passing and olympic speed, should be hell on NFL defenses.  The only question mark with him is durability.  He does not have the same fullback size possessed by Newton.  Nevertheless, if I were an NFL general manager, I would be hard pressed to pass on Griffin.

But we knew about Griffin.  The quarterback whose outstanding numbers are being completely overlooked is the Badger’s Russell Wilson.  Wilson threw against the toughest overall defenses that any of the top prospects had to face, and he put up the second best overall QBER.  That is outstanding.  Yes, Wilson had great run support.  However, if you look at the first column on the above chart, I list the average yards gained on the ground for each QB’s team.  As you can see, Wilson’s run support was only slightly better than the run support afforded Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III.  So it is a bit of a myth to say that Wilson was throwing against a lighter deck.

But as good as Wilson looks in the chart above, he looks even better when one compares his performance to the performance of the other prospects against common opponents.

Wilson vs. the Field vs. the Common Opponents

There are common opponents between Wilson and five of the other QB prospects.  Two opponents common to 4 of the prospects (Wilson, Luck, Nick Foles of Arizona, and Brock Osweiler of Arizona State) are Oregon and Oregon State.  One opponent common to both Wilson and Boise State QB Kellen Moore was UNLV.  And, of course, Wilson and Michigan State’s QB Kirk Cousins shared four common opponents in the expanded Big Ten.   As you can see below, in each scenario, Wilson wayyyyy outperforms every one of his rivals.

QBER:  Wilson vs. Andrew Luck, Nick Foles, and Brock Osweiler (common: Oregon and Oregon State)

1. Russell Wilson…..31.01

2. Nick Foles…..14.85

3. Andrew Luck…..14.51

4. Brock Osweiler….9.16

QBER:  Wilson v. Kellen Moore (common opponent: UNLV)

1. Russell Wilson….61.81

2. Kellen Moore, Boise St…..16.07

QBER:  Wilson v. Kirk Cousins (common opponents: Nebraska, Indiana, Ohio State, and Minnesota)

1. Russell Wilson…..24.86

2. Kirk Cousins…..15.31

Wilson way out front against all common opponents

As you can see, Russell Wilson outdid all of against common opponents, and most of the numbers are not even close.  Most impressively in my mind, Wilson well outdid Luck and the other Pac 12 draft prospects against the mighty Oregon Ducks, an opponent that had over a month to view tape on Wilson and prepare itself to stymie Wilson’s attack in the 2012 Rose Bowl.  Yet he excelled in that game.  The Ducks never laid a glove on him all day long. Wilson and Monte Ball combined to keep Wisconsin in the game on a day when the Wisconsin defense was giving up long touchdown plays left, right, and center (literally).

In the Rose Bowl game, Wilson put on a performance that will never be forgotten by Badger football fans.  With the bright lights shining on him, Wilson was simply brilliant.  He posted a QBER of 30.44, which was +19.81 better than the Ducks extremely aggressive pass defense had been allowing to that point. Wilson made one mistake all day, an interception, and it probably cost Wisconsin the game.  But somehow, even with that mistake, Wilson nearly succeeded.  Wilson, in pure Roger Staubach fashion, almost pulled off a miraculous 70 yard, 18 second drive that would have led the Badgers to the winning score, and would have made him immortal.  But Coach Bret Bielema’s idiotic game management cost him the precious two seconds he needed to completely work his magic.  Thus, the clock ran out as he tried to spike the ball to give himself one last shot at the end zone, a play that many in Badger Nation, myself included, are almost certain would have ended with a touchdown.

By contrast, Andrew Luck had one of his worst games against Oregon.  The unlucky Luck posted a pretty feeble 9.53, in a Stanford loss that basically crippled Stanford’s shot at a national championship.  Luck’s performance was below the Oregon passing defense’s average, so the best prospect since Elway did not distinguish himself in that game.  The second best performance against the Ducks defense was posted by Arizona’s Nick Foles with a QBER of 11.07.  Still, that was nowhere near what Wilson did.  Wilson basically lapped the Pac 12 field twice.

Wilson did the same to Kellen Moore, the Boise State quarterback, versus their common opponent, UNLV.  Yes, UNLV sucked, but Wilson abused them to a degree that was much worse than any abuse Moore was able to inflict against the same defense.

Finally, in the Big Ten matchups, Wilson outdid his counterpart Cousins.  In fact, Wilson outdid every one of his fellow prospects in EVERY ONE of the games played against common opponents except one.  Against the Indiana Hoosiers, Kirk Cousins posted a QBER of 29.61, whereas Wilson, in a blowout, posted “only” a 19.45.

Should the Packers look at drafting Russell Wilson?

With backup QB Matt Flynn set to leave for free agency, the Packers might want to look to Russell Wilson.  Wilson will almost certainly be available late in the draft, so they would not have to pay very much for a very productive prospect.  Yes, Wilson is very short, but other short quarterbacks (Doug Flutie, Fran Tarkenton, Sonny Jurgenson, Drew Brees) have made impacts in the NFL, and Wilson had no trouble finding throwing lanes at Wisconsin, despite standing behind NFL sized linemen.  And given what Packers coach Mike McCarthy has been able to do with the likes of Flynn and Aaron Rodgers, Wilson’s future could certainly take off in Green Bay.

Predictions for tonight’s most consequential college basketball games

I’m test driving a prediction system I may use for the upcoming NCAA men’s basketball tournament, depending on how successful it proves to be.  For tonight’s two “impactful” games, I predict the following scores, with each team’s win probabilities next to them:

Predictions	16-Feb
Wisconsin	58	21%
Mich St	63	79%
NC State	72	27%
Duke	83	73%

System Explained

To make my prediction for each game, I assumed two scenarios for the particular game.  First I assumed that the home team in the given contest would do to the opponent team’s overall statistical averages what it has done to the rest of its home opponents statistical averages.  I then calculated the score produced under that scenario.  Next I assumed the opposite, namely, that the opponent would do to the Home team’s home statistical averages what it has done to the rest of its opponent’s averages.  I then calculated the score produced under that scenario.   Then for each scenario I used Win Score to estimate each team’s probability of victory under each scenario.

So for instance in the Duke-NC State game, if Duke does to NC State’s averages what it has done to the averages of the rest of the teams that have visited Cameron Indoor Stadium this season, then NC State will get killed, 86-70.  NC State would finish the game with a box score that would produce a WS of 27.0 and a DWS of 48.5.  Under such conditions, NC State would have a probability of winning only 13.7% of the time.  If, however, NC State does to Duke‘s home averages what it normally does to other opponent’s overall averages, then Duke should still prevail, 80-74.  Under that scenario, Duke would finish with a box score that would equate into a WS of 37.5 and a DWS of 32.0.  Under those conditions, Duke would win 59.6% of the time.  Thus, the average score I produced was: Duke 83 NC State 72.  Under the first scenario, Duke’s win probability would be 86.3% and under the second scenario Duke’s win probability would be 59.6%, for a combined rough win probability average of 73%.

For those who gamble, the line on the Badger-Spartan game closed at Spartans -6.0 (the opening line was -5.5), which is right about where I’m at, and the final line on the Duke game was Duke -10.5 (the opening line was -10), which is, again, right where I’m at.

Let’s see how this works.  I hope I am way off on the first prediction.

How Bucky got screwed: Where was the “indisputable” evidence?

In their loss on Saturday night to the Michigan State Spartans, the Badgers spent the better part of two halves beating themselves with horrible special teams play (the three Badger amateur bullfighters who formed the punt team wall should have their scholarships pulled ala Robby Benson in the movie One on One) and a brain fart in the opponent end zone by Russell Wilson.

Nevertheless, the team staged an epic comeback for the ages against a brilliant Michigan State defense and it should have had an overtime period to try to pull the game and their National Championship dreams out of the East Lansing fire.  They never got it.

They were denied overtime by a review official who did not follow the letter, nor the spirit, of NCAA video review law.  The official overturned a call on the field without the necessary evidence for such action.

On the final “Hail Mary” play of the game, where Nichols of Michigan State corralled the deflected pass and then attempted to surge the football into the end zone, the referees on the field judged that he failed. They marked the Spartan receiver down on the one foot line, following his struggle with Badger linebacker Mike Taylor.  And it must be noted that the referee who made the initial marking had a perfect visual triangle of (a) the football; (b) the goal line; and (c) the vertical plane. 

Of course, the mark was reviewed, as it should have been.  I have no beef with that.  My beef is with the misapplication of video review rules.

Here is the precise statutory language by which NCAA review officials are governed (with my emphasis):

Philosophy

ARTICLE 2.  The instant replay process operates under the fundamental assumption that the ruling on the field is correct.  The replay official may reverse a ruling if and only if the video evidence convinces him beyond all doubt that the ruling was incorrect.  Without such indisputable video evidence, the replay official must allow the ruling to stand

The ruling on the field is presumed to be correct absent indisputable visual evidence to the contrary.  Any doubt as to that evidence must be resolved in favor of the field ruling. 

That is not how the rule was applied on Saturday night.  ABC showed every available angle.  Yet there was no replay evidence AT ALL showing that the leather of the football crossed the invisible plane of the goal line.  The best case for a crossing of the plane was made after the game when ESPN College Gameday superimposed their own vertical line and then enlarged the hands of the Michigan State player to show that the area where the head of the football probably rested in the Spartans hands (the football’s exact position was covered by Nichols’ and Taylor’s combined arms) appeared to barely cross ESPN’s artificial vertical line.

But, in order to overturn the existing call on the field, namely that Nichols was stopped short of the goal line. the video officials needed conclusive visual evidence that the football crossed the goal line.  I do not believe they had such evidence.  Even with ESPN’s video enhancement, one still had to presume where the football was in relation to the goal line. That means there was doubt as to whether Nichols broke the plane with the football.  The rule is clear.  Where any doubt exists, the ruling on the field stands.  Thus the video officials should have deferred to the call made on the field. For some reason, they did not.

Now, I have to presume that the video officials in East Lansing knew the NCAA video replay rule cited above. I can only conclude that they were confused as to the meaning of the adjective “indisputable” as it is used in those rules to modify the noun “evidence”.  For their future reference, I provide below the Webster definition of indisputable and then I use it in a sentence: 

Indisputable: established beyond doubt or question; definitely known; impossible to doubt or dispute

Used in sentence form: 

“The contention that the Wisconsin Badgers got homered by the officials who sat up in the video review booth on Saturday night is completely INDISPUTABLE“.