Tuesday March 1, 2004 sports.michigandaily. com sports@michigandaily.com Urbe 1Midiiutn Daid P;IORTS 9 No time to pout: 'M' hosts Mizzou Stats-ketball? Secret to success lies in formula By Dan Rosen Daily Sports Editor The Michigan basketball team doesn't have time to dwell on "what if's." The Wolverines can't stress too long about what more they could In Missouri (10-8 Big 12, 16-13 overall), the Wolverines will be fac- ing a team that was ranked No. 5 in this year's preseason AP poll. The Tigers sport a dynamic inside-out- side combination of seniors Arthur have done to get them- selves into the NCAA bracket. The folks sched- uling the NIT made sure of that. The Missouri Tigers stride into Crisler Arena tonight for the first round of the 40-team postseason NIT. It'll be Michigan's first postsea- son appearance since the 1999-00 season, when it lost to Notre Dame in the first round of the same event. "I think there was nat- ::... .:. Tjh ?: 'p T h ket i : + 2: : ::: Johnson and Rickey Paulding. Johnson uses his 6- foot-9, 268-pound frame to score many points around the rim. He had 37 points and eight boards in the Tigers' two-point loss to Kansas on March 7. The senior finished sixth in the Big 12 in scoring with 16 points per game. "He's a big body," Petway said. "But the Big Ten is one of the more physical confer- so I'm used to playing NAWEED SIKORA Blowin' smoke urally some disappointment," said Amaker of his team's reaction to not making the Big Dance. "But right away we talked about the opportuni- ty that we had in front of us." The Wolverines (9-9 Big Ten, 18- 11 overall) gathered on campus on Sunday night to watch the NCAA selection show together. But even before CBS's Greg Gumbel started calling out the names of other teams, most of the players seemed to have sensed that the team's chances were, as Amaker described it, "a long shot." Nevertheless, there was some dis- appointment when the Wolverines went unmentioned. Freshman Brent Petway said that he was expecting the committee to take at least four teams from the Big Ten, since it had never taken fewer than five. He was surprised when the brackets revealed just three. Amaker didn't want to dismiss the team's feeling right away. "I said, 'It's good to be disappoint- ed,' " Amaker said. " 'It's not all bad to have that feeling, because you've worked hard for something.' " ences, too, physical." Paulding is a threat, as well. He's an athletic 6-foot-5 guard who can rain jump shots when he's on. The senior's 15.3 points per game was good for 12th in his conference. Both players played high school ball in Detroit before heading to Missouri. Freshman Dion Harris even played against them before they left for school. Tomorrow's matchup will be partic- ularly interesting because of the coaches. Amaker and Missouri's Quin Snyder played together and later coached together at Duke, and have remained good friends. The two talk often during the season, but they haven't had a chance to speak to each other since Sunday night when they learned about tonight's matchup. "Probably the first time that I'll talk to him is when they come here for their shootaround (Tuesday), and I'll be here to see him," Amaker said. The two will have more to talk about than they may have liked. Sny- der's program has been dealing with its share of off-court issues, something ince the NCAA Tournament went to the 64-team format in 1985, thousands of fans have spent hours in front of computer spreadsheets attempting to break down the secret to success in "The Big Dance." Most of these people have failed. What seems like a good statis- tic in one tournament might turn out to be meaningless the following year. So what is the best predictor for deter- mining how far a team will go in any given year? My girlfriend says it's all in the team name, and is picking Gonzaga to go all the way. I'd like to think it's a little more scientific than that, but, then again, she could be right. Currently, I'm in the middle of reading Money- ball, a book about the Oakland Athlet- ics' general manager Billy Beane and how he has used a system known as Sabremetrics to draft the right players and keep the A's competitive, while also keeping payroll down. Sabremetrics is a system of statisti- cal analysis that place emphasis on a player's stats - particularly on-base percentage - rather than on a scout's gut feeling or the future. Beane feels that on-base percentage is the best indicator for how well a player will perform offensively in the league, and will not hesitate to pass on the physi- cally-gifted players if they carry low on-base percentages. The system has worked like a charm for the A's, a team that consistently finds itself in the playoffs even though it has one of the lowest payrolls in the league. So what is the NCAA Tournament's equivalent of on-base percentage? Is there one statistic that Final Four teams have in common year after year, or is success in the tournament purely decided by immeasurable principles like heart and determination? Picking based on rankings or seed- ing is nice, but this method probably won't win you that big pool. It might be worthy to take a more statistical approach to picking your winners. In this college basketball ver- sion of Sabremetrics, I have broken down a few statistics to determine what tournament champions have done consistently well throughout the years. Although there are always a few aberrations, numbers don't usually lie. I looked at 10 season-averaged sta- tistics: field goal percentage, free throw percentage, opponent field goal percentage, opponent points per game, rebounds, assist-to-turnover ratio, blocks and steals. I strongly believe that a good defense will overcome a good offense in the tournament, and I personally place more weight on defensive statistics than offensive numbers. But I couldn't ignore the fact that the champions have an average free throw percentage of 71.23 percent. Success at the line is crucial in crunch time, so if your team isn't producing from the line, you might want to take that into account. But, like I said earlier, offense isn't everything. Arizona won the tourna- ment in 1997 shooting just 66 per- cent from the line. The key was that it held its opponents' field goal per- centage to 43. As these next few statistics should point out, defense is a pretty good indi- cator of who wins championships. No champion since 1985 has ever been out-rebounded on average throughout its championship season. Only one team (the 1997 Arizona Wildcats) fin- ished with fewer blocks than its oppo- nents, and only two teams (the 1986 Louisville Cardinals and the 1989 Wolverines) finished with fewer steals than their opponents. Champions have held their opponents to just under 70 points per game on average, and held their opponents to 42.22 percent shoot- ing from the field. See SIKORA, Page 10 TONY DING/Daily Senior Bernard Robinson hopes to prolong his career for at least one more game. Amaker can relate to after his team's dealings with NCAA sanctions. Former Missouri guard Ricky Clemons, who was dismissed in July 2003 after being sentenced to 60 days in jail for domestic assault, accused a number of his former teammates of taking money from coaches. The NCAA is still investigating the charge. "A lot has happened and I think that he's guided that program incredi- bly well through a lot of turbulent times this season," Amaker said. "I admire what he's done. We can kind of talk about things in similar tones about program distractions. We've had conversations about that. But cer- tainly he's done an outstanding job." See TIGERS, Page 10 In the sk. To fly is one thing. To fly with the Marine Corps is some- thing else. They'll show you the meaning of wings. From the wings of the F-18 Hornet to the wings you wear as Marine aviator, this is flying at its best. And your ticket to fly is your college diploma. If you'd like to be up there, contact your local Marine Officer Selection Officer. SEE YOli U MAR~I IE CRP S OFFIE ELET I 6 ON TEAM