Covering University of Colorado sports, mostly basketball, since 2010

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

The All-Time Pac-12 Team

The Pac-12.  The league of bright lights and no truck stops.  The only league that ever mattered.

I loved this league.  It was perfect in the most deeply flawed ways. Others, closer to coasts with more television sets and media execs, with schedules friendlier to those unwilling to stay up late, drew the headlines, but it was the Pac that came with the narratives.  I would compare the more successful conferences out east to a paint-by-numbers prime-time network drama with a nearly unlimited budget, and the Pac-12 to the web-only series run on a shoestring, but which told a much better story.  There were hubris-ridden coaches with outsized egos and outrageous personalities; heroes and villains could be found at every turn on the court, with many players eager to lean into the pantomime; the worst officiating in the country kept all the plates spinning, adding comedic value to every game; an entire program was built on the back of nepotism for the better part of a decade, and no one seemed to find that strange; every 'name' program loved to find ways to trip over themselves when competing for titles; hell, the FBI even showed up at one point for a Keystone Cops-eque cameo.  Night in, night out, the league delivered, even if it was just Bill Walton bellowing to no one about how close he's been to an active volcano.  At least we'll always have the 2021 Tournament...

With the 13th, and final, season of league play about to start next week, I thought it appropriate to give the Pac-12 a sendoff.  Herein, I'll name and honor those who warmed the gyms of the West, celebrating a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Team of all-time greats (10 each, presented in alphabetical order, with a coach).  Afterward, I'll dump my list, throwing out the remaining Honorable Mentions, before concluding with a team... less deserving of acclaim.  

Consider these the final Rumblin' Awards (as always, a strictly black-tie affair). 

I'm sure others will do this in the coming months.  However, my methodology will probably not mirror theirs - only years in the Pac-12 are considered, and I *mean* the Pac-12.  Anything prior to the 2011-2012 season doesn't count, and won't be considered (keep this in mind, particularly for all-time stat discussions and "years played" notations).  Further, I weigh longevity and consistency heavily.  A single, great season (like from, say, Deandre Ayton), without additional context, means less to me than a guy who bossed the league for multiple years.  This is about guys who *impacted* the league, and who spring to mind when I think back on the conference that was, not just the guys with the most talent.

Without further adieu, click below for the list...

Monday, August 7, 2023

An Attempt at Stage 3

In previous months, I told myself the death of the Pac-12 couldn't happen (Stage One).  Later, I raged against that death and (my perception of) its implications for the Colorado Men's Basketball program (Stage Two). I guess what's left now is to move on to Stage Three and start bargaining my way through this, so...

Last weekend, I stated that Colorado stepping into the 2024 iteration of the BigXII will be dead on arrival. But, is it? What if I'm dead wrong? What if the long-term prospects of the program lean more towards thriving, instead of suffocating? What exactly would that look like? What kind of effort would it take to survive and advance in this new reality?

To start, let's add some context about where the Buffs will slot into this new conference. Remember, it's not just about wins and losses that first season. My overall point in my previous article was regarding Colorado as a long-term prospect, rather than just how successful the individual 2024-25 squad will be. So, to better understand, I performed an extremely basic review of the final KenPom rankings for each of the 16 programs, over both the whole Tad Boyle era (now up to 13 seasons of results) and the last five campaigns. The hope here is to get a broader sense of the long-term strength of each of the programs. I'll grant that the underlying methodology is flawed, not least because we're talking about schools that are coming together from different conferences and with several layers of coaching dynamics (for example, the Huggins fiasco in Morgantown) that belie such a basic review of past success. However, it's what I've got, and at least gives us a way to start the discussion.


Off the top, Colorado doesn't fare too poorly -- 9th-best in recent years, 10th overall, and just below the top-half cut (FWIW, 4th and 5th, respectively, in the old Pac-12). As currently constituted, this level of consistent performance would be considered on the competitive fringe in a league where finishing 7th or 8th in a given year should still (most likely) guarantee you an invite into the NCAA Tournament. 

A quick glance also reveals some basic narratives about the power dynamics of this new-ish league.  Of course, Kansas, both on the hardwood and in the meeting rooms, will be the heavy hitter. But what quickly emerges is that there are only three programs -- KU, Baylor, and Arizona -- who have averaged a top-25 KP finish over the last 13 years. That is an indelible indicator of those programs' continued success over a long stretch, one that clearly sets them apart as the upper echelon of the league. But, and this may surprise some people, in recent years it has been Houston that has been the healthiest of all the programs, even beating out Kansas with an astonishing average of a 7th-place finish since 2019. Caveats for the weaker American Athletic Conference aside, the Cougars have been a monster, and deserve similar consideration to the other three declared powers. That leaves the BigXII with a clear top-four of perennial powers; those expected to succeed, who have entrenched fan bases and donor structures to support continued growth (and exploitation of NIL opportunities), and who should be expected to continue to enjoy similar success for years to come. Regardless of how the next few years go, I would expect those four programs to lead the league's narrative, barring something really weird... or some litigation. 

Extreme optimism aside, I think it would be hard to foresee a set of circumstances that would have Colorado finding a way into that top tier. So, what would a reasonable target be?  Well, it's not too far off. As noted, a top-half finish, year-in year-out, would probably be enough for the Dance. More to the point, just like in the Pac-12, routinely finishing in the top half of the league, maybe even snagging a top-four finish every four-ish years, gives you a base to build on. That would allow the program to maintain its current competitive, prideful status, and continue to justify wider fanbase interest. Say, top-50 in KenPom, which is, more or less, where CU has been in recent years. If Colorado can keep to that floor, they should consistently finish in the top-8 of the league.

The impediment here is obvious: the conference's depth. As I found in the experiment discussed above, an average BigXII team, over the last five years, was 30 slots better than an average Pac-12 team. In the former Conference of Champions, we had come to count on programs like WSU, Ore St, and Cal fielding teams that were simply not competitive. Schools you could, year after year, hope to beat both in Boulder and on the road.  In the BigXII, there are few such cupcakes, and everyone has ambition. Texas Tech, WVU, KSU, ISU, TCU, and BYU have each finished inside the KenPom top-25 at least once within the last five years -- hell, I only left Tech off the power list 'cause I'm not 100% sold that the transition from the Chris Beard era is on solid footing, but they were an overtime away from a national title in 2019. Tweeners Ok St and Cincinnati may not have been quite at that level in recent years, but they've been consistent enough to pay attention to and will project to be tough outs in league play. Even the "lower-rung" programs have the potential to be strong. We already know how annoying ASU and Utah can be, and I would expect them to try and splash some cash to find traction. That just leaves little thought of UCF -- at the very least, that 3.5 hour plane flight will be a giant pain in the ass.  Regardless of how you look at it, it'll be hard to bank wins against this group, year-in, year-out. 

So, what does Colorado need to do to maintain their place amongst this viper's nest, stay with the Texas Techs and West Virginias of the league, and forestall my earlier predictions of doom and a slide into the basement with ASU and Utah?  Well, it comes down to the basics: coaching, recruiting, and resources. 

First, coaching. It should come as no surprise, as rumors have been swirling, but many insiders have indicated that the Tad Boyle era could be coming to a close in the next few years, with the winningest coach in program history looking to retire. To be fair, the man has earned the rest, but, the transition to 'what comes next' will be critical.  

I referenced the quality of the 'job' in my previous article; that the national perception of Colorado as a potential coaching landing place, compared to its peers, places the Buffs solidly in the lower quarter of the league. To that end, even with what Tad has built in Boulder, I have doubts about how truly attractive this spot would be to a coach outside the immediate area. The quality and depth of in-state recruiting are still... *ahem* inconsistent, and resources afforded by the Athletic Department will always be a problem (I saw them on commercial flights last year, don't pretend). However, coaches will want to be in this newly evolved league; stay in this league. The combination of the desirability of coaching in the #1 basketball conference in the country and the ability to build on what Tad has constructed should be enough to overcome the ingrained challenges and still attract some quality candidates. It'll probably cost, though; the Athletic Department needs to plan on significant investment into the next staff if they want the program to stay competitive.

Now, I'm not going to start tossing out names (not even the one in Rhode Island), 'cause that wouldn't be fair and this industry changes quickly, but the candidates will most likely fall into three categories:

  • Ones with institutional ties that can make for an "easy" transition.
  • A few young up-and-comer types from a mid-major with a recent Tournament run.
  • Veteran/Power Conference 'name' candidates that will garner national headlines.

I'm not really ready to make an argument one way or the other, but, for Colorado to survive in the BigXII, long-term, the final choice has to work. A miss-step here would be fatal, but that's not an argument to go with what is 'safe' (look at where that got Cal).  CU will need to splash some cash, bring in a coach ready to roll, and support them.

Because, of course, what happens with the coaching search will flow directly into recruiting. Tad and Co. have seen some major gains on this front in recent years, averaging a top-40 class in the last four cycles, including two in the top-25 (according to 247).  CU will need to maintain this pace, if not improve, to be a top-half player in the BigXII.  Basketball recruiting is weird, with transfers and international signees often being more important than incoming freshmen, so YoY swings don't necessarily mean as much as they would in, say, football. But, the overall picture needs to remain strong, which leads me to my final point...

Resources. Colorado needs to renew its investment in the program. Whether it be the hiring of a new coaching staff when Tad retires, increasing the in-season Operations budget to compete with their new peers (like, ensuring 100% chartered flights), encouraging and leveraging NIL opportunities, or supporting the program with new capital investments and upgraded facilities, the Athletic Department and the donor base will need to step up to the challenge. No excuses.

I always tend to look for inefficiencies. I'm particularly focused on ways the program can get better at leveraging NIL opportunities to maintain its recent recruiting success. Small things like including guaranteed NIL fund contributions in MLE tournament contracts are a nice start, but more needs to be done. I've been assured that Tad has grown more open to the prospects in this sphere, and that the program as a whole is beginning to take this aspect seriously, with major contributions to the B4L fund starting to trickle in, but this needs to be a priority in the years to come.

We also need to talk about facilities. Specifically, the practice facility is almost as old as the Tad Boyle era itself. That capital investment was supplemented in the intervening years with additional upgrades to the locker, sports medicine, and meeting rooms -- all very well done, btw -- but it's time for another push for significant upgrades. I understand the costly gamble being undertaken over at Folsom, and the strain that puts on the overall bottom line, but basketball facility upgrades have never come with the exhaustive price tags of their gridiron counterparts. Honestly, I'd start by looking at the arena itself.  Not a *new* arena, just upgrades. The floor was recently replaced, and the CUEC is already far better than it was in 2010, but more can be done to make it a place that players want to play in. If we're serious about competing in the BigXII, we'll need to *look* like we're serious.

At least we know that Colorado should be able to hit the ground running -- the Buffs are returning to the BigXII with a higher talent floor, better facilities, and greater stability than when they left. If I had to place a bet now, I would put it on at least the first season going well, with Colorado finishing in that coveted top-half grouping.  Where it goes from there will come down to the care and investment in continuing to grow the Colorado Basketball brand.  

If, and I mean if, Colorado can nail all three aspects -- the coaching change, staying strong in recruiting, and increasing resources into the program -- there is an opportunity here to stake a claim in the strongest basketball conference in the land. All of the non-Kansas programs will be scrambling for relevancy and have their own institutional burdens to try and work around. If CU can forge a consistent spot in the top half in that scramble, it could lead to a permanent paradigm shift in the quality of the program. Keep up the pace for the first five years or so, and you're in. There's still all to play for.

--

That's Stage Three dispatched.  I'll keep Stage Four between me and my bartender.  Once Stage Five hits, I'll let you know if anything publishable comes from it.

Saturday, August 5, 2023

To the Death of Fun

So. Back to the Big XII. 


You may be taken aback -- Isn't moving to the BigXII a good thing?  Isn't jumping off the plummeting Pac-12 jet a good thing?  Why am I so butt-hurt about this? 

I look at it in two separate calculations. First, bailing on the Pac-12. I could talk about path to the College Football Playoff and the future potential of streaming over linear, but I'm not here to re-litigate that. The financials are undeniable, and the writing was on the wall. However, I would dispute that CU's situation would've dramatically changed having actually *waited* to see the final media rights proposal from Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff. Then, Colorado could've acted in concert with additional members of the current Pac-12, potentially leveraging bargaining power and building some options beyond, "Well, let's just go on back to our Ex."  Ultimately, Colorado held a lot of good cards in this situation; in my opinion, they just rushed to play them favoring a sure thing over the best long-term result. We threw away our conference loyalty 12 years ago, why not just do it again?

Second, why am I so damn disgusted by the prospect of heading back to the old stomping grounds? 'Cause the BigXII is what was. This move is, by definition, a step backward in history, prestige, and, in a number of ways, the level of competition (except on the men's hardwood... more on that in a second).  It takes us away from our largest out-of-state Alumni base and probably dooms us to a 2nd-tier football league in an era where only the 1st-tier will matter.  

What's more, we're heading back to a league where we will be, just as we were in the Pac-12, rival-less and set off to the side. This isn't the BigXII of 2010. No Nebraska, no Oklahoma, no Mizzou, no Texas, and no A&M. Now that the dust has settled, the resulting conference with BYU/Utah, 'Zona/ASU, KU/KSU, Cincy/WVU, and four Texas schools, who have their own thing going, leaves the remaining four randos (Colorado included) twiddling their thumbs. If you didn't like it in the Pac-12, why would a forced rivalry with, I don't know, Ok State (?) suddenly get your fancy?

But, what *really* gets my goat is the situation with the men's basketball program.  Everything Tad has built -- all the good, competitive vibes constructed over the last decade-plus -- is about to wither and die on the vine.

In case you have no idea, the BigXII, for some time, has been the deepest basketball conference in the country. It is, by leaps and bounds, stronger than the version Colorado left in 2011. Up through last season, 9 of the 10 programs could boast a deep and rich basketball tradition, Baylor and Kansas had claimed frickin' national titles in recent years, and the league had finished 1st or 2nd in KenPom each of the last 10 seasons (Over that same span, the Pac-12 averaged a 5th-place finish, sometimes finishing behind mid-major leagues). Even taking Oklahoma and Texas out of the equation, the league is replacing them with Houston (a historic regional basketball power) and Cincinnati (same).  Sure, UCF is more-or-less a dud, but BYU has been a nasty mid-major with a high upside for decades and will fit in well. Add Arizona and Utah to that mix, and this is the basketball conference of basketball conferences. A goddamn monster. Even with UCLA and USC joining the B1G, the new BigXII would stand apart, in my opinion.

Colorado, stepping into that viper's nest, is D.O.A.

Looking back on 2010-11, the combination of a good new coach and a solid veteran core helped propel Colorado on a relatively successful final BigXII campaign. From there, the Pac-12's lack of true basketball depth helped Colorado surge over the past decade, forging solid footing to become a competitive program that could hold its head high amongst rivals. Reliably upper-middle of the pack, capable of punching above their weight and making the postseason almost every year. While maybe not a 'power,' it was a program worth following for the broader fanbase. Often entertaining, it boasted good players of high character, engaged in narrative-rich fights with rival programs, and occasionally blipped onto the national spotlight. 

That level of consistent relevancy is something that hadn't been achieved over Colorado's previous four decades of play in the old Big 8/BigXII. In this newly re-designed BigXII, it'll only be worse. The second the paperwork was signed, CU immediately became the 10th-best job (depending on your view of BYU and TCU) in the conference, really only clearly more desirable than UCF.  Arizona and Utah joining the league would drop that rating down further. 12th or 13th in a 16-team jumble. Irrelevant.

Yes, I know Tad has had some nice and optimistic things to say. The KU grad may even be able to bottle up some 2010-11 magic and score some knockouts against the midwestern behemoths in his final years. Sure, maybe we'll find a way to shock the world and finish 8th for a few years, or something.  Maybe beat Arizona at home, like we've been doing.

But then, Tad will retire. Then, an Athletic Department which has never really cared about the program will be tasked with finding and supporting a replacement. Very quickly, and I mean *quickly*, this program will return to what it once was: a dusty doormat in a league where everyone else takes the sport seriously.  The funding dries up, the facilities fade, and the recruits go elsewhere. Endgame.

Now, I am a basketball fan. More than that, I am a Colorado Basketball fan. This matters to me, even if it doesn't to you. This informs my decision-making, the same as the football part may inform yours.  The death of Colorado Basketball as a competitive concern is a mortal strike against my soul.

That is why I'm pissed about this bullshit. Pissed at Mike Bohn and USC. Pissed at UCLA for going along with it. Pissed at FOX and the B1G for orchestrating it. Pissed at Colorado for jumping at the "opportunity." Pissed at everyone for smiling and patting each other on the back for turning a plate of bird shit into a plate of dog shit.

You may not care, but I'll still be there, with a handful of diehards, watching the program I love be put to the torch by Kansas, Baylor, and Arizona. And what we enjoyed over the last decade-plus will be resigned to a forgotten footnote while everyone panics over who the next football coach will be -- as it ever was.

Damn this all.

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Doubt and Faith

On a cold and clear Saturday night, just a tic over two months after firing their 27th head coach, Colorado Football hired their 28th. But unlike #27, or any of the other 26 that proceeded him, the news of #28 hit BuffsNation with the positive force of an avalanche tumbling down off the high Rockies.

Deion Sanders is coming to Boulder.

Yes, *that* Deion Sanders. Prime Time, Neon Deion, Leon Sandcastle, Coach Prime. NFL Hall of Famer, football immortal, high stepper of high steppers. The man who can stand on the same commercial stage as Nick Saban and not feel out of place. The man who can pull 5-stars to Jackson State and build a conference-championship-winning juggernaut seemingly overnight. All of that. He's coming *here*.

Immediately, his arrival promises good things to come. In the era of NIL and the transfer portal, the pipeline sucking talent out and away from Folsom Field will suddenly back up with 4- and 5-star recruits and transfers. There will be national media attention, splashy documentaries, and a sudden uptick in attendance and support for the program. And, above all else, there will be winning football. In the span of a week, the Colorado Football Program has gone from dead at the line with a blown transmission to 185 mph and back in the race.

We're in for a wild ride.

It's easy to doubt. I certainly did. I doubted Rick George. I doubted the University of Colorado's financial capabilities (hell, just look at the previous post on this blog). I doubted the school's administration and its commitment to supporting athletics through transfer rule changes. I doubted the lingering attractiveness of the football program. I doubted that Coach Prime would even be interested.

I doubted.

I doubted, among other things, because of 70-3. Because of Dan Hawkins and his 2008 recruiting class. Because of Jon Embree and Eric Bieniemy running a QB sneak on 1st down in 2012; the utter collapse of the Rise into smoke and mirrors; Mel Tucker's late-night bolt to East Lansing; and Milquetoast Karl Dorrell's euthanasia-cum-football program. The list goes on and on. If "you are what your record says you are," then Colorado is a 1-11 program, 61-117 over the last 15 years with just 2 winning seasons to show for it (and I'm being kind in counting 2020). I had reasons, but I doubted.

Faith? Well, that's a lot harder. Like a muscle, you have to work on faith to build it. And it's easy to lose the strength gained if you let it lie fallow. I want to have faith again. I want to believe it will work, if only for the sake of the Boulder Community.

See, the last few years have been difficult for Boulder. I'm not saying it's been easy elsewhere -- certainly, Coach Prime would be quick to point out that Jackson, MS, where he's coming from, can barely supply clean water to the town -- but Boulder's been through some stuff. COVID lockdowns, the horror of the 2021 Table Mesa shooting, and last December's Marshall Fire. The community's been hurting. I trust in faith that this hope, this energy we're all feeling at this moment can help salve some of those emotional wounds.

Coach Prime certainly has faith, and I'm not just talking about religion. He took this job, by all accounts, sight unseen. There was no "food cart" moment of him sneaking in to try the coat on for size. He came in Saturday night to see Folsom Field and the Champions Center for the first time having already accepted the job. Sanders was eager for the opportunity to take the step to Power 5 football, leverage his advantages, and succeed. Rick George and his team sold Sanders on the vision, on the opportunity, and Prime took it on faith that Colorado could help him deliver. He has faith in his ability to perform, and he is committed.

I should take a lesson from that. Whether it's "shoot your shot," "believe in yourself," or whatever mantra you want to use, it's a powerful statement in self-belief.

I will admit, doubt still lingers inside, like a coiled snake ready to pounce. Is this too much juice too fast? Will the foundation support the weight of expectations being placed upon it? What happens two years from now, be it success or failure, if it's time to move on? Boulder has shown to struggle with the national spotlight before, is this town ready for all that's to come in the next few years?

But doubt is easy. I'm ready for the hard work of learning to have faith in Folsom Saturdays again. 

I'm ready to have faith in Coach Prime.

Monday, September 19, 2022

Considering Karl Dorrell's Termination Clause

So, the football program is in rough shape.  I mean really rough shape.  0-3 to start the year, outscored 128-30 (52-7 over the three 2nd halves), outgained by an average of 173 yards per game kind of rough shape.  The kind of rough shape where you can make the statistical argument that this is *the worst* iteration of Colorado Football across more than 120 years of competition.  

Indeed, Sports-Reference has the 2022 Buffs as an adjusted -18.21 points below average. That's the worst in program history by some margin, with the 2012 Buffs their closest comparison at -12.66.  Before that, you have to go back to the late 1910s to find comparatively worse squads.  Even the worst Chuck Fairbanks team, a man who is famous for having lost to Drake... twice, is considered to be a relative 11 points per game better than this bunch.

Oh, and Pac-12 play hasn't even started yet.

This all comes on the heels of a pretty lousy 2021 season, where the Buffs stumbled to a 4-8 finish.  Overall, I think it's plain to say that the fortunes of the program have very clearly been declining since the day head coach Karl Dorrell was hired in February of 2020.

Naturally, with all that in mind, you might be inclined to consider a change at the head coaching spot to be the cure, as any normal fan would.  Hell, Nebraska and Arizona State did, and they aren't nearly as bad on the field as the Buffs are.

Well... as in all cases, the money is the thing.  It costs cold, hard cash to fire a football coach.  So, exactly how much money are we talking about? Well, for that answer, we can turn to the contact.  As Colorado is a public institution, it is a publicly-available document, which you can find here or here.

In reading for the final number, the assumption is that Dorrell would be fired "without cause." i.e., that he would be fired for on-field football performance reasons, rather than something involving a criminal offense, insubordinate conduct, fraud, severe NCAA violations, violation of campus laws, gambling, endangering student-athlete health, or any of the other reasons covered under Paragraph 12.  As such, his termination would fall under paragraph 13 of the contract, which I have re-produced below.


Now, I am not a lawyer.  If you feel the need, please do reach out to one for advice in reading this document.  However, as a layman, I think the salient parts for this discussion are a (iii), b, d, and e.
  • a (iii) -- The damages that Dorrell can seek for termination without cause are limited to the full-dollar value of his contract.  For example, if he was fired after 12/31/2021, but before 12/31/22, he's owed a maximum of $11.4 million, less whatever he's earned up to that point in 2022.  The Daily Camera's Brian Howell estimated that means the real-dollar buyout is about $8.7 million, as of 9/17.  That number decreases with every paycheck that is sent his way.
  • b -- After termination, Dorrell would be expected to actively seek other football-related employment, including assistant coaching positions or work in media commentary.  The salary value of that employment would be used to offset the overall value of the buyout.
  • d -- After termination, Dorrell would need to file a claim for the value of this buyout.  Then, there would be a 60-day mediation window for the university and Dorrell to come to an agreement on the final terms.  This would allow the university to potentially negotiate and mitigate the full impact of what is owed. Otherwise, Dorrell would need to pursue legal remedies.
  • e -- Whatever the mediated/adjudicated final amount, Dorrell would be paid out in monthly installments between the settlement/judgment date and the original end date of the contract, 12/31/24.
So, CU would need to come up with a maximum of ~$8.7 million to fire Coach Dorrell today.  There would be offsets, there would be potential limitations through mediation, and the final amount would be paid out over the next two-plus years.  However, regardless of the final total, it would be multiple millions of dollars per year out of a budget that is already bleeding red ink.

Indeed, it's an amount of money that, at least as far as I can tell, the Athletic Department does not have. In 2021, the department reported a nearly $17.5 million deficit, helped along by over $48 million in revenue loss YoY from 2020, almost entirely due to COVID impacts. Sure, plenty of programs across the country are recovering from similar-sized holes in their ledgers, but Colorado has rarely, if ever, shown the donor liquidity typically needed to plug such gaps.

This leads to Atheltic Director Rick George's statement from 9/18/22.  In the text, a tight three paragraphs of media relations jargon, George acknowledges that the on-field results have been disappointing and that the fanbase deserves better results.  That he "hears" the cries from the fanbase for action, and confirms that the program is not meeting expectations. However, he concludes with a request for support for the student-athletes.  The word "support" is even duplicated in that final sentence.

Assuredly, "support" in this context is not singing the fight song.  No, this is a plea for two things.  1) please don't boo the kids on game days or continue to harangue the interns covering the social media accounts. 2) CU is in desperate need of financial "support" as a predicate to take action.  

Point 1 is fair enough.  The displeasure is clear and understood, shaming the kids on the field or in the SID office further won't help things.  Point 2, however, is less so.  

Colorado's contract offer of February 2020 made Dorrell the 3rd-highest paid coach in the Pac-12 at the time.  That move seemed to come as a direct response to whispers that the program didn't have the money or institutional financial support to compete at a high level.  But it didn't seem destined to actually improve the football program.  Dorrell was not an in-demand coaching name, having floated around various position coaching roles since being blasted out of the UCLA head job in 2007 for going 35-27 over five seasons. No one was fighting Colorado for this hire, least of all his then-employer, the Miami Dolphins. 

CU, as the world was slipping into a pandemic and related recession, had gone out and over-paid for a coach with a relatively unimpressive NFL-adjacent resume to silence rumors that they were too poor to compete.  Oh, and they threw in a strong buyout clause for good measure, too, as a frenzied reaction to the way their previous coach, Mel Tucker, had bolted in the middle of the night. (I should note, that clause was specifically lauded by at least one regent when the contract was approved, which makes me think it could've been an institutional ask, rather than just George flailing on the rebound).

It was a contract offer that was a mistake before the ink dried.  

With that in mind, will CU donors really be willing to foot another multi-million dollar bill, one stemming from a hire that was laughably out-of-touch with reality and value when it was made? Handing yet another swing to an AD who has failed on now two hires at the only sport he's really held to account over?  Would the Regents?

I doubt it.

And, if it isn't coming from donors and isn't coming from the Regents, just where would this $8.7 million over ~27 months come from?

Until an answer to that question can be found, Karl Dorrell has the safest job in the country.

Monday, August 15, 2022

On the 2022 non-conference schedule

OK, so I went and did something today that I typically try to avoid -- I posed a speculative statistical opinion about Colorado Basketball without actually doing the research.

My tweet:

"[...] Tennessee aside (#9 in KP last year), this may be the softest non-con schedule Tad has put together while at CU. No judgment, it's hard to build a schedule, and a 20-game P12 slate leads you in this direction, but yo. Utah-esque."

Normally, I'd have actually looked at some records and some stats before positing something like that.  Today? No, not so much. That's my bad.

So, to make up for my error, I've cracked open the KenPom files and done some digging to try and actually understand this year's non-conference schedule, insofar as it compares to the rest of the Tad Boyle era.


The Context

CU released its 2022-23 non-conference basketball schedule at the start of the month; you can find it here. Just today, the Pac-12 released their conference weekly pairings, giving us fans a near-complete picture of the schedule. 

There are, to be completely straight, a dearth of "headline" programs in the non-conference portion.  This season, Colorado will be playing UC Riverside, @ Grambling, @ Tennessee (Neutral), Yale, CSU, North Alabama, Northern Colorado, and Southern Utah in their non-con.  This is in addition to three teams in their MTE, one of which will be UMass. 

To be fair, three of those teams (Tennessee, Yale, and CSU) made the NCAA Tournament last March, with two others (Northern Colorado and Southern Utah) making lesser non-conference postseason appearances (CBI and CIT, respectively).  Additionally, in the MTE, Colorado could see teams like Texas A&M and Boise St if the bracket falls the right way, who each were postseason entrants in March of 2022.

Still, at first blush, it's a soft schedule. Uninspiring, certainly.  A group of directional detritus that I would otherwise needle a conference opponent for drawing up.

But, is it really the softest that Tad and his staff have drawn up while at Colorado?

Wait, what is an MTE?

MTEs, or Multi-Team-Events, allow coaches to add in a non-conference tournament or similar to supplement their schedules. Often taking place in far-flung exotic locales (like Hawai'i, Puerto Rico, or the Bahamas), they're exceedingly common place, and rare is the major program's schedule that doesn't include one (Colorado's last season without an MTE was 2013-14).

Normally, NCAA rules limit a college schedule to 29 regular season games (plus exhibitions, either public or private).  However, by including a three-game MTE in your schedule, you can cram in a maximum of 31 games.  It comes at a cost, though: you're at the mercy of the MTE for your opponents, the bracket, etc.  

This year's example for Colorado is the Myrtle Beach Invitational (tickets on sale now!), which I will be attending in mid-November.


The Methodology

I thought the quickest and fairest way to quantify the difficulty of a given year's schedule was to average the *previous* year's final KenPom ranking of each team on the slate.  i.e., if I was looking at the 2013-14 season's schedule, I would compare it against the final KP rankings from 2012-13. 

Why did I do it that way?  Why not look at pre-season rankings or final rankings from the year in question? Why not something more complicated with weighting and such?

Well, first, KP doesn't keep his old pre-season rankings in a handy format that I can find. I imagine that's because his pre-season rankings are the result of as much statistical guesswork and calculus as hard data, but I digress.

As to eschewing final rankings from the actual year of the schedule? Well, I'll concede it's a flawed method, particularly in a sport where many programs can turn over dramatically year-to-year. However, I feel it's the most reliable way to understand the context behind the schedule heading into each season, rather than trying to justify against the results.  My purpose, after all, is to understand how this year's schedule can be viewed, not how it will. The *actual* difficulty of the current schedule is unknown, and won't be known until the end of December. I can't then compare that unknown against a known quantity, so I am trying and contextualize the 2022 numbers against something similar.

See, in any given season, there are breakout teams and disappointments that can have a dramatic effect on the final value of a schedule. Take last year's meeting with Milwaukee, for example. The Panthers, coming into the season, were viewed a dark horse candidate for an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament. They were highly thought of, boasting some veteran components and an anticipated NBA lottery pick in Patrick Baldwin, Jr.  Baldwin, however, never showed that presumed promise under his father's (Head Coach Pat Baldwin) tutelage, struggling with injuries (only played 11 games for Milwaukee) and poor performances throughout the year. Without expected returns from their star, the Panthers, 120th in the preseason KenPom ratings, finished a dreadful 335th nationally.  In retrospect, that's a black hole on the schedule, a game that is a NET anchor.  However, headed into last season, it was a game that was rightfully looked at as a potential NET booster.

This kind of goes back to why I disregard the notion that you can use March results to justify the regular season narrative -- you can't let the ends justify the means.  Just because a schedule *turned out* to be difficult, doesn't mean that difficulty would've been appreciated in October.  So, to filter out that noise, I looked back at the final results of the previous seasons -- that's the context under which the coaching staff would've built the calendar, so that's how I will judge it.  

In the end, I decided to ignore home vs road or other weighting options.  I could've added in a modifier, similar to how the RPI and the NET have accounted for home/road splits in the past, but... *sigh* I've got a day job, OK?

Next, I needed to consider the impact of the MTE.  Going into the year, some of the games are fixed (CU knows they'll face UMass this season, for example), whereas others are the result of games played outside of CU's control.  So, how to account for that?  Well, I averaged out the entirety of the MTE, cognisant of any fixed games, but otherwise accounting for all teams that CU *could've* played.  That gave me a KP "value" for the MTE.  I then factored that into the rest of the schedule, slotting in that "value" by the maximum # of games that were to be played.

Finally: exclusions. I excluded the 2020-21 season, which was scheduled amidst the chaos of COVID, for obvious reasons.  I also excluded any exhibitions or other non-D1 games played (New Orleans in 2011 is an example here). And, I also excluded Tad's first year, 2010, from the list because I didn't think it fair, given that he signed on in April, and, I would assume, many of the games had already been scheduled.

If, after all of that, you have problems with the methodology... OK?  Hey, it's a free country, prove me wrong and do it yourself.

The Results

Well, long story short, I should've looked at the data, first, before saying something stupid -- let that be a lesson to all of you! While the 2022 non-conference schedule doesn't shape up to be the strongest of the Tad Boyle era, it certainly isn't the worst.  See below:


Woof, 2018 was awful.  That was a year bereft of any high-major teams in the non-conference slate.  Other than CSU, the home headliner that year was... I guess Drake?  Even the MTE that year was a bust, with CU going 1-2 against a middling group of Indiana State, Hawai'i, and Charlotte.  The less said of that the better.

2013, on the other hand, was interestingly the only year that CU didn't schedule a full MTE. Tad made up for that with a pair of high-profile neutral site one-off games -- Against Baylor in Dallas and Oklahoma State in Las Vegas -- which combined nicely with the home tilt against Kansas (Ski for 3) to beef up the numbers.

Ultimately, 2022 is pretty much middle-of-the-road.  Lacking a home marquee event, sure, but otherwise on par with what we've seen, historically.  It's also solidly *stronger* than last season's, thanks to a potentially hefty MTE which boasts a field deeper than any CU has played in since 2011.

So, to Tad and staff, I apologize and take back my complaint from earlier today.

A screencap of my full sheet can be found below, for those interested:



OK, but why?

Why did I do this?  Well, to answer that itch in my brain that was telling me I hadn't shown my work.  
Also, I wanted to better understand this year's schedule in context.


No, why is scheduling like this?

It's important to understand that, as opposed to football where the AD negotiates the schedule (often a decade-plus in advance of kickoff), the basketball schedule is largely set by the coaching staff within a calendar year of the game to be played. That makes it not only complicated and personal to the staff that's running the program -- it can make or break a season before it even gets started -- but a competitive rush against other like-minded programs to get games on the schedule.

In the end, a *lot* of behind-the-scenes work goes into putting together the games we get to watch each fall, work that is ultimately a thankless task.  Too easy a schedule: the fans complain (*waves*) and ticket sales suffer.  Too hard a schedule: the team takes its knocks and you end up with a worse record than you "should."  You have to schedule for your roster, after all.

Then, there's other context to consider.  First, there's a finals week in the middle of December; probably shouldn't be playing a high-leverage NET game that week, let alone traveling.  Oh, and don't forget that the Pac-12 moved to a 20-game conference schedule a few years back.  That means two conference games taking up space in your early-season calendar; games that you *really* should be winning.  That means less incentive to schedule marquee dates that could coincide with a difficult road trip to, say, Washington (December 4th, btw).

What's more, there's an undeclared factor here: no teams worth a damn want to come to the CEC for a game. Unless Colorado gives up more than just a return trip (i.e., a 2-for-1, or a home-and-home plus a semi-road neutral, like with Tennessee), Top-40 programs won't answer the phone call.  Hell, even smart programs in the 41-100 range wouldn't willingly come to the Foot of the Flatirons if they can avoid it.  Why play at the 5th-toughest venue in the country if you don't have to?  There are other places you can go to boost your NET where you might actually win.

That leaves the UC Riversides and North Alabamas of the world; those just looking for a "buy game", aka a paycheck (queue Rothstein and the epitome of brutality...).  And so that's who ends up on the schedule.  Throw in a few games dictated by existing contracts (CSU, @ Grambling, Tennessee), a few regional foes (Northern Colorado, Southern Utah), juggle the Pac-12 games and finals week and *poof*, there you go.

Friday, June 17, 2022

On the 20th Anniversary of 60-59

This coming basketball season marks an important milestone in Colorado Basketball history -- the 20th anniversary of the 2002-03 team. As such, it's time to open old wounds and dig into some Big 8/XII scar tissue. 

Kansas, once, was the measuring stick by which CU men's hoops were routinely found to be inadequate. KU was, and still is, a national power, one of the true blue-bloods of the sport; comparatively, the Buffs have never been either. Their meetings reinforced that dichotomic status quo of haves and the have-nots: Kansas had, Colorado had not.

Yet, in spite of the disparity in pedigree and prestige, from Colorado's joining of the Big 8 in 1947 until their exit from the Big XII in 2011, the two played regularly. Each year, the Buffs would get two or three shots against the Jayhawks, and, most years, they'd get that measuring stick upside the back of their heads for their efforts. It became a sticking point; a hump that CU could never seem to get over. In a recent conversation, Neill Woelk (formerly of the Daily Camera, now with CUBuffs.com) even referred to them as Colorado's "white whale." [1]

You see, the history of Colorado v Kansas on the hardwood is not really a rivalry, in the traditional sense. More a Sisyphean reflection of the BasketBuffs' decades-long struggle with relevance, one that has only gotten more extreme with time. Let me put it this way: in his four years as a player at Kansas in the early 80s, Tad Boyle suffered more losses to Colorado (3) than the Jayhawks have experienced, all-told, from 1992 to the present (2). KU's slips against their former Big 8/XII "rivals" were already rare by the time the 90s rolled into town (they lead the overall series 124-40), but since February of 1991, the 'Squawks have gone 47-2 against the Buffs with an average margin of victory of over 18 points.

Hammer, meet nail.[2]

The annual tilt in Boulder was, typically, the most painful, as Colorado would put up a wilful fight before succumbing in the end. What's more, a full 30-50% of the arena would be clad in red and blue, and all Buffalo faithful would have to suffer that damn chant. In the late-aughts, I myself witnessed more than a few of the season ticket holders around me swapping colors -- one week loosely cheering for CU, the next noisily rooting for the neighbor to the east. It was not uncommon for Kansas fans, including, as I found out in our conversation, Woelk's father, to hold CU season tickets simply for that one night a year when KU would come to Boulder: 

"My dad was from Kansas, moved to Colorado. He grew up a Kansas basketball fan.  Every year, I would get him tickets to the Colorado/Kansas game.  And I finally ended up buying him season tickets to CU basketball just so my dad could come to one game a year. I just remember telling him how much I hated that KU chant… he would get a huge kick out of that.”

An unfortunate reality: the Buffs weren't even the headliner in their own building.

By that measure, there are some parallels to Colorado's great rivalry on the gridiron -- their annual fracas with former national power Nebraska. As was reinforced in 2019, a lot of red suddenly appears in Folsom anytime the Huskers come to town. It's what made those games so tense -- as a Buff fan, you desperately wanted to win just to see those invaders sitting next to you look so glum. Hell, that yearning for schadenfreude is why this remains such an indelible image in the CU/NU rivalry to this day. 

With the Nubs and football, at least, Colorado has enjoyed some recent success. A breakthrough win against the Corn in 1986 helped propel the Buffs to a national title a few years later, and, since 2001, the Buffs have beaten back the red tide as many times as they've been flummoxed, going 6-6. In basketball, against frickin' Kansas, however, CU has not been nearly as successful.

So, for a school that has 62-36 metaphorically etched into the keystone of Norlin Library, it stands to reason that those two out of 49 against Kansas are worth mentioning if you care in the slightest about Colorado Basketball. 

Now, any modern CU fan worth their salt is keenly aware of the latter of the two, the Ski-for-Three madness of December 7th, 2013.[3] What, then, of the former? What, then, of January 22nd, 2003?

If you're already familiar, it's probably because you were there. Comparatively, Askia's Miracle is easily accessible for those new to Black and Gold religion. Pac-12 Network has it on their decaying platform about a dozen times per season if you're interested in re-living that one. But, the win in '03? I dare you to try and find all but the barest of hints online. Believe me, I had looked. Unless you were willing to pay for access to the Daily Camera and Denver Post print archives (like I was), the best you could do was a few AP articles linked on the CU website and the mirrored articles on ESPN. Certainly, there were no highlights to be found online; YouTube has nothing that I could find. Even pictures from the game are difficult to come across.

How? How could one of the biggest victories in modern Colorado Basketball history get so lost in the internet shuffle?

Well, not anymore. Approaching the 20th anniversary of its birth, I lay 60-59 to rest with a full In Memoriam.  I'll cover Colorado's program history in the preceding years and the 2002-03 season's outlook; I'll review both teams' performance that year and how they stood coming into the night of January 22nd, 2003; I'll even touch on the series beef each team brought with them into the game that night; of course, I'll break down the game itself (with the help of some archival footage); and, finally, I'll wrap-up with a discussion of the aftermath. There are even endnotes and a full sources list!

So, strap in. It's a long and winding ride. Best consumed with a beer in hand...

Let's go!