Summit Madness in College Basketball Prospectus 2012-13

For the second year, I contributed the Summit League portion to the annual College Basketball Prospects book. The book is put out by the folks who run BasketballProspectus.com and offers tempo-free analysis and previews of every Division I team. This year, the foreward was written by none other than John Calipari, who coached Kentucky to a national championship last season.

The chapter on the Summit League is succinct but packed with key information on each team in the league. The analysis is heavy on the tempo-free, just as this blog was last season. I also tried to incorporate some of the stats I kept by hand last season within the previews. If this interests you, the book is available as an electronic download for $9.94 by clicking here. It will be available in hard copy soon through Amazon.

I also want to use this post to thank those who followed along with this blog last season. It was a great year to chronicle the Summit League. Going forward, this blog will more or less go dormant as I shift to other things in life. Ultimately, I did not want to do the blog at "half-speed," which is the only way I could have done it this season. My Twitter account (@SummitMadness) will remain active, mostly so I can follow along all the great folks who provide coverage in the Summit League. I may Tweet a random tempo-free observation here and there as I will be following the league closely as always. Thanks again for your support. Here's to a great season in the Summit League.

NCAA Tournament Preview: (14) South Dakota State vs. (3) Baylor

At the turn of the calendar year, Baylor was one of just a few undefeated teams left in Division I basketball. While the Bears had run off an impressive number of wins, it seemed like the national media wasn't quite ready to consider them a national title contender alongside the likes of Kentucky or Syracuse. Mid-January losses to Kansas and Missouri appeared to confirm such thoughts. While Baylor suffered no true bad losses -- its six losses came to teams comfortably in the field of 64 -- its per-possession performance did begin to sag during the middle of Big 12 play (as the chart below shows).

By the time late February came around, though, the Bears started to regain their early-season form. They beat up on weaker Big 12 opponents and avenged earlier losses to Kansas State and Kansas in the conference tournament. Missouri got the best of Baylor in the league championship game to finish the year as the only Big 12 team not to lose at least once to BU. 

So what does this mean for South Dakota State? Well, for starters, the Bears are entering the NCAA tournament with some momentum. Had the tourney started a few weeks ago, that may not have been the case. Of course, SDSU enters with a ton of momentum as well, having just put together a superb final 30 days in Summit League play. The major difference here is the level of competition at which the teams generated said momentum.

Another lesson we can take from Baylor's late-season swing is that it was still unable to top Missouri. The Tigers utilize a four-guard line-up that on paper should have struggled mightily with the size and length of Baylor. Despite the match-up differences, Mizzou went 3-0 against the Bears this season. While SDSU doesn't possess the sheer athleticism of the Tigers' guards, the team does have solid guards and a point guard in Nate Wolters who has NBA potential. If the Jacks can get contributions across the roster on the glass, then  they could use their perceived size disadvantage as an advantage not unlike Missouri. 

While one could envision South Dakota State being able to score against Baylor, particularly if the team's various three-point threats are knocking down treys, the big question heading into the match-up is whether they can guard Baylor. The Bears are likely the strongest, most athletic team SDSU will have seen this season, especially in the frontcourt. To have faith in the Jacks, though, one must only look to their overwhelming upset of Washington in December. That team has at least two future NBA players on its roster in addition to several solid high-major guys, and the Jacks thumped them -- at their place. 

Fourteen seeds rarely upset three seeds, but no one is counting out the Jackrabbits in this one. Perhaps this is finally the year that a Summit League team breaks through the round of 64 to the round of 32. Whatever happens, South Dakota State enters the tournament as a worthy representative from a league that had one of its strongest seasons to date. Good luck, Jacks. 

Postseason Previews: NDSU, ORU, OU, and WIU

With more spots in postseason tournaments this season than in any other, several Summit League teams were attractive options for selection based on the strong campaign the collective put together in 2011-12. In all, five of the league's ten teams will be playing some kind of postseason basketball, and the league will be represented in each of the four postseason tournaments: the NCAA tournament, the NIT, the CBI, and the CIT. We'll preview the match-ups awaiting Summit teams in the latter three tournaments here. (Our preview of South Dakota State's game will go live on Wednesday). All times are Eastern. 

(6) Nevada at (4) Oral Roberts 

Wednesday, March 14 at 9:15 p.m. on ESPN3.com

2012 National Invitation Tournament (NIT) | Bracket - PDF 

Preview: Listed as one of the first four teams out of the NCAA tournament at-large pool by the Selection Committee, it's a bit surprising to see Oral Roberts as a No. 4 seed in this year's NIT. A case could be that the Golden Eagles should have been a No. 1 or No. 2 at worst. Alas, at the very least they'll be hosting their first round game. They'll meet up with a Nevada team that won the WAC regular season championship only to fall in the semifinals of the league's tournament. That's a storyline with which ORU is familiar. As it is, this should be a solid match-up between two teams that were on the verge of an NCAA tournament bid. These squads are near equals in pace of play, offensive rebounding, trips to the free throw line, and turnover rate. ORU is the more accurate shooting team, especially inside the arc, while Nevada had the stronger defensive profile this season. 

Match-up Watch: Nevada has a strong frontcourt led by seniors Olek Czyz and Dario Hunt. Hunt's the enforcer of the duo, posting outstanding rebounding rates and a solid block rate. He also gets fouled a lot, but rarely makes opponents pay that way as he's made just 48 percent of his free throws. Czyz is the more gifted offensive player as he makes about 60 percent of his frequent two-point attempts. Damen Bell-Holter and Steven Roundtree match-up well with this pair on paper, but in reality Bell-Holter didn't quite emerge as the low-post workhorse many envisioned he'd become this season. The postseason breathes new life into the season, and perhaps it can do the same for DBH going forward. 

Bowling Green at Oakland 

Wednesday, March 14 at 7:00 p.m. on CollegeInsider.com/Stream

2012 CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT) | Schedule - HTML

Preview: Now in its fourth year, the CollegeInsider.com Tournament is a 32-team event that selects teams from mid-major conferences with winning Division I records. Oakland was in the event in its inaugural year when 16 teams were invited. Since then, the field has doubled so the quality of the field has been watered down a bit, but the top entrants remain attractive. Oakland and Bowling Green had similar overall campaigns: the Grizzlies went 16-15 against Division I competition and the Falcons went 15-15. OU was the streakier of the pairing, winning or losing several in a row, while BGSU was mostly mired in inconsistency. On paper Oakland's offense should blow Bowling Green's away, but as we saw in the former's Summit League quarterfinal game against Southern Utah, even a below-average offense can score efficiently against this defense. This should be a telling test to see how the Summit League's third-best team would stack up with a fringe contender in the MAC. BGSU is also Coach Greg Kampe's alma mater. 

North Dakota State at Wyoming 

Wednesday, March 14 at 9:00 p.m.

2012 College Basketball Invitational (CBI) | Schedule - PDF

Preview: Though it finished conference play as the No. 6 seed with a 9-9 record, North Dakota State's strong non-conference performance was likely key in it earning a bid to the fifth annual CBI. Wyoming also had an impressive showing in November and December, going 14-2 before encountering a few more hurdles once Mountain West play began. These teams are near opposites of each other when it comes to experience. NDSU starts one of the youngest groups in the country while Wyoming utilizes a group of seasoned upperclassmen. The host team also plays at one of the slowest paces in the nation, which is a strategy that gave the Bison trouble in their last two games of the season versus Western Illinois. It'll be interesting to see if they take away any lessons from those losses in order to get a win in Laramie. 

Western Illinois at Oregon State 

Wednesday, March 14 at 10:00 p.m. on HDNet

2012 College Basketball Invitational (CBI) | Schedule - PDF

Preview: Western Illinois gets the toughest draw of any of the four Summit League teams discussed here by my estimation. The team has to travel the longest distance and must do so to face a major conference team. Oregon State hasn't exactly been a powerhouse these last few years -- after all, this is the team's third appearance in the CBI in the tournament's five-year existence -- but the Beavers will still be a tough test for the Leathernecks. They key for the Necks, per usual, will be whether they can dictate tempo. Craig Robinson's squad averages about 71 possessions per game, which counts as NASCAR-fast compared to WIU's 58 possessions per contest. I think Jim Molinari's club has the athletes to stay afloat in this one, but he'll need a strong defensive effort from Tommie Tyler and Obi Emegano to help contain OSU's stud wing Jared Cunningham. Also keep an eye out on the three-point arc as the Beavers were one of the worst teams defending the three in the nation while the Leathernecks were one of the most accurate teams from long-distance. 

2011-12 Tournament Champions: South Dakota State

South Dakota State: your 2011-12 Summit League tournament champions. The Jackrabbits will move on to represent the league in the 2012 NCAA tournament.

Three Points Recap: SDSU-SUU Semifinal

1. When Nate Wolters is launching over dudes for posterizing dunks, what more can one say? Deal with it, right? The junior point guard was sensational tonight: 31 points on 10-of-17 shooting, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, and just 2 turnovers. He didn't just fill his stat line, though. He made impressive play after impressive play. SUU coach Roger Reid compared him to John Stockton. The legend of Nate Wolters continues to grow.

2. While SDSU rightfully gets a lot of credit for its efficient offense, one of, if not the, biggest contributors to its success this season has been its defense. Tonight the Jackrabbits allowed the Thunderbirds to score just 0.84 points per possession. That would stand as the fourth-best defensive performance by the Jacks in a conference game this season. They do it in a different manner than Western Illinois, but South Dakota State gets after it on the defensive end, too. It's interesting to note that in a Summit League season where offense and top scorers reigned supreme, the league's top two per-possession defensive teams find themselves in the tournament championship.

3. A night after he lit up the Oakland defense for an efficient 27 points, Southern Utah's Jackson Stevenett went down with an ankle injury very early on against South Dakota State. The junior Second Team selection was unable to re-enter the game. Sans its leading scorer, SUU struggled to get things going offensively against a strong defensive team. One can always imagine what might have been had Stevenett not been injured, but at the end of the day the T-Birds' lack of depth reared its head after that play.

Senior Send-off
Ray Jones Jr., Matt Massey, and Ramell Taylor played their final game in a Southern Utah uniform this evening.

Three Points Recap: ORU-WIU Semifinal

1. The outcome of last night's Western Illinois-North Dakota State match came down to the final minute when the team's leader, Ceola Clark, made an improbable shot and the game-clinching defensive play. It was fitting that the Leathernecks won the game on a jump shot and a defensive stop -- after all, they'd lived by jumpers on offense and forcing misses and turnovers on defense all season. This same storyline played out in their upset of No. 1 Oral Roberts on Monday evening, but this time the plays were made by WIU's underappreciated big man Terell Parks. First, a fall-back jumper that proved to be the game-winning basket:

Second, a hustle play that denied ORU a chance to take the lead and put WIU back on the free throw line with 7.9 seconds remaining.

Third, a deflection that denied ORU a shot attempt on its final possession of the game.

Western Illinois plays a style that enables it to keep contests close down to the final minutes. And over the course of the last two nights its players have made huge plays on both ends of the court to give the team a chance to win. No one did that better than Terell Parks tonight.

2. When we talk about Western Illinois, we talk about defense -- and for good reason. Through two tournament games the Leathernecks have held opponents to 0.92 points per possession. ORU managed just 0.94 points per trip against this defense, which was the lowest output by the Golden Eagles in a league game this season. Remember, they had averaged 1.17 points per trip on offense over the course of 18 league games in 2011-12. In other words, WIU managed to stifle an incredibly efficient offense tonight. Tomorrow, in the championship game against SDSU, we'll see if the team can do it two nights in a row.

3. We may go a long time before we see another player with as solid a mid-range game as Dominique Morrison. The senior forward only missed one of his ten two-point attempts, hitting an array of tough off-balance jumpers all night long. Morrison's game will be missed.

Senior Send-off
While ORU will have a postseason, we saw a quartet of seniors for the last time in a Summit League game tonight: Robert Aery, Michael Craion, Dominique Morrison, and Rod Pearson.

Three Points Recap: OU-SUU Quarterfinal

1. Through 18 league games, Southern Utah had averaged 0.98 points per possession. The team had topped the 1.00 point per possession mark in just seven of those games. On Sunday night, the SUU offense finally exploded to the tune of 1.21 points per possession. That mark stands as their second-best outing against a league foe this season. The team made 59 percent of its twos and 56 percent of its threes. Jackson Stevenett was the centerpiece of the efficient scoring night, going 10-of-16 from the field himself. Stevenett utilized a series of crafty moves around the basket on his way to 26 points. The junior stud also chipped in nine rebounds in the SUU win over Oakland.

2. For the Thunderbirds to generate offense as efficiently as they did tonight, they needed their big guns to have strong nights -- as Stevenett and Damon Heuir did -- but they also needed some scoring from an unlikely source. Sophomore Wade Collie became that source on Sunday. The sophomore scored a career-high 14 points on perfect 5-of-5 shooting. He also calmly knocked down both of his three-point attempts. If the Thunderbirds can continue to get production from players like Collie, their offense can begin to fire at a level we rarely saw in the regular season.

3. Oakland's last-ranked defense (on a per-possession basis) had held Summit League opponents to below a point per possession just five times in the regular season. Two of those strong defensive outings came against Southern Utah. But on Sunday evening, the Thunderbirds did what most other teams did to the Golden Grizzlies this season -- score in bunches. The 1.21 points they allowed per possession to SUU was only the sixth-worst of their league games this season. While OU will never starve for points itself, it must improve its ability to get stops in the offseason.

Senior Send-off
Oakland says goodbye to a pair of seniors, Reggie Hamilton and Laval Lucas-Perry.