Sweet Home Hello: Alabama St.

In honor of the only team from the state of Alabama to make it into the field of 65 and in the effort of wishing the Hornets the best of luck in tonight's play-in game--why Chattanooga is a regular 16 seed and double-champion ASU has to suffer the indignity of the play-in, I don't know--we're doing one last Sweet Home Hello for this season.



Let's just get this out of he way: Yes, Alabama St. has a 7-1 center named Chief Kickingstallionsims. Yes, it's funny. But he's the team's fifth-leading scorer and third-leading rebounder. It's more than a little sad that every single media outlet that's reported the Hornets' NCAA berth has taken time to have a chuckle at Chief and ignored point guard Brandon Brooks, the SWAC Player of the Year, or sharpshooter Andrew Hayles, last year's SWAC Player of the Year. Watching Brooks and Hayles and the best NCAA team the SWAC has produced in years treated as a cheap joke over the past few days has been ... well, I think unfair really is the right word to use here.

Last year: After flirting with upsets of Auburn and Miami, the '07-'08 Hornets rolled to the SWAC regular-season title with a 15-3 record, sewing up a postseason berth. They fell short of the NCAAs, though, losing to fourth-seeded Jackson St. in overtime in the SWAC semifinals.

Expectations: With both Hayles and Brooks returning to give ASU the clearcut best backcourt in the SWAC, plenty of size in Chief K., promising freshman Roland Fitch, and incoming transfer Wesley Jones, and much of the league experiencing off-court turbulence, the Hornets were expected to repeat despite the offseason loss of rising sophomore Deshean Porchea, who unexpectedly passed away during the offseason due to a heart ailment.

How it's worked out: As anyone who's printed out a bracket knows: just beautifully, thanks.

The Hornets never quite got over the hump during their guarantee-game marathon in November and December, but put serious scares into Auburn (77-72), Ole Miss (85-81), and Illinois St. (77-71). After those performances, it wasn't a surprise when the Hornets began rolling through the SWAC, frequently winning games by huge margins--87-43 over Alabama A&M and 89-52 in back-to-back games in mid-February--and eventually posting victories in 15 of their first 16 SWAC games. Thanks to Jackson St. keeping pace just a game behind ASU (and handing them their second SWAC defeat in Jackson March 5), the Hornets didn't clinch the outright title until the final day of the regular season, but the title of "SWAC's best team" was never in doubt.

So the only thing left was to finish the job at the SWAC tournament. The Hornets eased past Alabama A&M in the first round, held off traditional SWAC upset kings Arkansas-Pine Bluff in the semifinals, and after watching Jackson St. take an early lead in the final, pulled ahead of the Tigers by double digits midway through the second half and cruised to the finish line. Hello, dancing shoes.

What went right: Put simply, SWAC opponents didn't have an answer for a backcourt as consistent, dynamic, and experienced as Hayles and Brooks. The latter finished the season averaging 13.8 points and an eye-popping 6.8 assists a game, the former 13.7 points on 38 percent shooting from deep. Combine those two with Fitch, Jones, and Chief K. all averaging between 9 and 10 points game in the frontcourt and the best collective turnover rate in the SWAC, and you have what was easily the best offense in the SWAC.

Defensively, the Hornets don't do much gambling--they ranked 10th in turnovers forced in SWAC play--but in a development that's not entirely a surprise for a SWAC team that lists five players at 6-5, 6-7, 6-7, 6-7, 7-1 in its top six scorers, opponents had one hell of a time shooting over them. ASU finished with the conference's best 2-point FG percentage allowed, the best 3-point percentage allowed, the second-most blocks per game ... and in the end, the second-best defense in points-per-possession by a hair behind Pine Bluff.

So ... best offense by a mile, second-best defense by the smallest margin possible? Not much of a surprise they went 16-2.

What went wrong:: Not much. For a team with as much size by SWAC standards as ASU, finishing fifth in rebounding percentage is kind of a surprise.

What's next: Despite Bama St. posting a 20-9 overall record, winning their league title with a 16-2 record, winning their tourney on a neutral floor, and finishing only five spots behind Chattanooga in the RPI, the committee sent the Hornets to tonight's play-in game in Dayton instead of the 16-16, fourth-place, won-their-bid-on-their-own-home-court Mocs.

They'll take on Morehead St., who weirdly started their season 0-6 with a loss to SWAC doormat Grambling--Grambling!--before suddenly catching fire and beating UT-Martin, Murray St., and East Tennessee St. all in the month of December. From there the Eagles yo-yoed their way through the rest of the Ohio Valley season, losing their final four games in the regular season only to win three straight in Nashville to claim the OVC's auto-bid.

ASU's first job tonight is to keep Morehead's Kanneth Faried off the boards. It's easier said than done--he's the sixth-best offensive rebounder in the country according to Pomeroy--but Morehead's poor shooting combined with ASU's excellent FG defense (sixth in the country in eFG, some of that albeit in part to the light-shooting SWAC) means that offensive boards are going to be about the only way Morehead will have of putting the ball in the basket.

On the other end, it's not a great matchup for ASU--they shoot much better as a team from inside the arc, but thanks to Faried's high block rate, far and away the best way to attack Morehead is with the three.

That's what the game will come down to--Gayles and Brooks hitting enough outside shots to keep ASU moving offensively while keeping the Eagles at least a little away from the offensive glass. Even if the numbers don't suggest it, I think the Hornets will rise to the occasion and get it done--you don't by domination of any league, even the SWAC, easily. I think they'll prove to be the better team.

Sweet Home Hello: Samford

Last year: While it was far from a disaster, 2008 wasn't the happiest of send-offs for Jimmy Tillette's Bulldogs as they left the Ohio Valley for the more academically-comfortable and football-friendly confines of the SoCon in '08-'09. After winning 20 games and fighting their way to the OVC tourney final in 2006, Samford took a step backwards in 2007 and then another in '08, going .500 in OVC play, losing a triple-overtime thriller to Done Ruthless's UT-Martin squad, and finishing with their lowest RPI (262) in five years. The good news is that with the switch to the SoCon and the 2007-2008 move into the $32 million Pete Hanna Center--still has that new gym smell!--there really does seem to be nowhere for Samford to go but up in the future.

Expectations: With only one senior on the roster and Travis Petersen--the Bulldogs' 2008 leader in points, rebounds, and assists--having graduated and left the critical point-center "P" position in Tillette's Princeton offense to underclassmen, 2008-2009 was always expected to be a building-block kind of year for Samford. As long as the Bulldogs stayed off of the SoCon's bottom rungs, honed their instincts in Tillette's system, and learned their way around the conference, this season was going to be satisfactory.

How it's worked out: From here, I'd say pretty much exactly the way it was supposed to.

The Bulldogs haven't grabbed that single season-defining win--far and away the season's biggest moment has been coming within a missed three at the buzzer of taking Davidson into overtime, in front of a school record-crowd at home no less--but they're currently sitting at .500 over all at 13-13 and at 8-9 in league play sit a solid third in the SoCon North. Despite the loss of Petersen and the unfamiliar conference settings, the Bulldogs have actually improved their Kenpom standing, from an unsightly 297 in 2008 to 261 thus far this year. Samford hasn't won many games they weren't supposed to--the home win over Lipscomb and the road victory over McNeese St., decent-if-hardly-outstanding teams in the A-Sun and and Southland, respectively, are probably the two most "impressive" triumphs--but they've only very rarely dropped a game it "should" have won. The Bulldogs have put together a 6-2 record against SoCon teams with a lower Pomeroy rating than theirs, with both losses on the road.

What's gone right: Perhaps the best news for Samford is that the stage is set for a big step forward next year. Their top five scorers all return, including the "inside-outside" tandem of forward Bryan Friday and guard Trey Montgomery, both juniors and the only Bulldogs averaging double digits a game. (Note that because of Tillette's offense the traditional post/perimeter roles can get a little twisted; Friday's shot just as many threes as Montgomery has). Samford fans also have to be salivating at the potential of freshman 6-4 guard Josh Davis, already the team's third-leading scorer at 9.8 points a game. Thanks to some impressive accuracy inside the arc--he's only taken 40 such shots, but he's hit 27 of them--and a 40 percent clip outside it, he's got the nation's 35th-best eFG mark.

In fact, because of their insistence on only shooting inside the three-point line when they've backdoored their way into a layup, Samford shoots the nation's fourth-best percentage on 2's ...

What's gone wrong: ... which makes it too bad, then, that a whopping 49.1 percent of their shots are 3's. Only two teams in D-I shoot the 3 more often. Even a slight uptick next year in their 3-point percentage (currently a mediocre 34.1) would mean huge gains for an offense that's already above the league average. Friday, in particular, should probably jack up from outside less often; 62 attempts is too many for a 25.8 percent shooter from out there.

The Bulldogs will also have to do some major work on their rebounding; Princeton systems don't care about grabbing offensive boards, but Samford also gives up an offensive rebound on 38.9 percent of their opponent's shots, the 331st-best (or, rather, 12th-worst) mark in the country. The Bulldogs do a good job of forcing turnovers and not sending opponents to the line, but they don't force a ton of misses and all the extra attempts on the misses they do force leads to a defense ranked 267th in efficiency.

What's next: As for the rest of this year, three straight road games to end the season mean that the Bulldogs won't carry much momentum into the league tourney, and their rebounding and shooting woes mean there's not much chance they'll catch the kind of fire needed to win four-games-in-four-days for the auto-bid. Besides, assuming Curry's healthy, the chances of Davidson losing with a bid on the line seem virtually nil.

If the Bulldogs can wrap up the year by picking off a win or two in those road contests and grabbing an upset at the SoCon tourney, I have to think that'll be enough forward steps for Tillette to look back on this season as a success. Next year, however, the goals will be a little loftier.

Sweet Home Hello: South Alabama

Because I like and miss the fine state of Alabama, it won't surprise you to learn I root for the mid-major teams there. Jax State is my favorite Ohio Valley team. South Alabama and Troy are my favorite Sun Belt teams. Now that Samford's taken its Princeton of the South act to the SoCon, they're my favorite team in that conference. Etc. So over the last month-plus of the season I'm going to be profiling and occasionally updating the status of the Heart of Dixie's six mid-major representatives (the four mentioned above, plus the SWAC's Alabama St. and Alabama A&M), starting today with Team USA.



Last year: Under "first-year" head coach Ronnie Arrow--Arrow is in his second stint as the Jaguar head man, having coached South to their freaking awesome 1989 upset of Wimp Sanderson's Tide--the Jaguars had their best season since, well, Arrow's first tour of duty in Mobile. Led by their starting senior backcourt of Daon Merritt and Demetric Bennett, South upset future tourney team Mississippi St. and went 16-2 in Sun Belt play to wrap up the Sun Belt's first at-large bid since Chris Marcus was patrolling the paint for Western Kentucky. A home loss to Middle Tennessee in the Sun Belt semis and a bad match-up for the high-temp Jags against Butler in the NCAAs first-round (and subsequent 81-61 loss) took a little bit of the shine off, but the Jags had nonetheless proven that John Pelphrey's decision to take the Arkansas job wasn't going to be to do any lasting damage to the program.

Expectations: Without Merritt and Bennett, the Sun Belt's favorite baton was passed to Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky, and the Jags had a rocky offseason in which leading returning scoring guard Domonic Tilford was arrested on drug charges before being cleared to play. Nonetheless, with three seniors to rotate into the frontcourt, promising JUCO LaShun Watson stepping in at the 3, and Tilford--also a senior--around to put the ball in the basket, South had reasonable hopes of remaining in the Sun Belt's top tier, if not necessarily challenging for a title.

How it's worked out: It hasn't been a disaster, but it's safe to say the Jaguars also aren't satisfied with an 11-9 overall record, a 4-5 mark in league play, and fourth place in the Sun Belt East division. South took on a rough nonconference schedule and nearly took down Arkansas in Pelphrey's return to Mobile, falling 79-77. And while the Jags did very well against their peers--going 6-0 against non-BCS competition in the nonconference slate--they were also noncompetitive in several games, getting blown out by Louisville, Mississippi St., and Ole Miss.

Sun Belt play hasn't been much kinder, as South has proven it can hang with the league's better teams--but hasn't yet shown it can actually beat them. The Jags have fallen by three to Western Kentucky at home, by two to West leader Arkansas Little-Rock at home, by two on a three-point buzzer beater at Louisiana-Lafayette last Saturday. Then again, South has also proven it can get blown out by the league's better teams--they were waxed by 15 at home against MTSU and, in the season's low point to date, lost by 24 to Troy.

The Jags probably aren't quite as bad as the Sun Belt standings suggest--Pomeroy calls them the fourth-best team in the league, and their RPI is a not-awful 175--but with road trips to MTSU, WKU, and Troy all still to come, any hope of a surprise divisional title is gone. South will have to settle for playing spoiler.

What's gone right: Tilford, for starters. He's connected on 44 percent of his three-pointers, the best mark of anyone in the league playing more than 30 minutes a game, and averaged a team-high 18.6 points-per-game while dishing a team-high 3.3 assists per-game as well. Led by Tilford and with three other players shooting better than 35 percent from deep, South ranks second in the league in both 3-point percentage at 38.7 and offensive points-per-possession at 1.051.

The frontcourt's mostly held up its end of the bargain as well--seniors Brandon Davis and DeAndre Coleman combine for more than 24 points a game, top the 60 percent mark in true shooting percentage (Davis ranks 39th in the country), and along with Watson and third senior Ronald Douglas have held opoosing Sun Belt teams to the lowest 2-point shooting percentage in conference play. They're getting it done.

What's gone wrong: Just about everything else. Probably the biggest problem for South is that the youth in the backcourt has left their perimeter defense totally exposed: the Jaguars rank dead last in the Sun Belt in both 3-point percentage allowed and turnovers forced. The result is that even with the outstanding defense on the interior, the Jags give up so many open 3's and so many shots, period, that their defense has been outright bad: in conference play, South's points-per-possession allowed sits at an ugly 1.024, ninth in the league.

The backcourt inexperience hasn't helped on the offensive end, either, with South ranking eighth in the league in turnover rate and really, really struggling to finish plays at the basket: despite the efforts of Davis and Coleman, South shoots just 47.8 percent from inside the arc in league play, ranking seventh. They're not taking advantage at the line, either, where they shoot just 65.7 percent. The outside marksmanship means South remains an above-average Sun Belt team offensively despite the turnovers and inside shooting woes, but it's not enough to offset their defensive deficiencies. It's particularly true in Sun Belt play, where despite the easier schedule and increase in home contests, the Jags have regressed statistically virtually across the board.

What's next: Like any mid-major whose regular season title hopes have slipped away, the Jags will start focusing on this year's conference tournament, to be played in Hot Springs, Arkansas (assuming South survives the first round play-in games on campus). On the one hand, Tilford's explosiveness and the close calls against WKU and UALR suggest that if South could just ratchet up the defensive intensity just a little bit, they could be a very dangerous team come March. On the other, even with home-court advantage South couldn't get over the hump over the top half of the league; why should it be any different on a neutral court in Arkansas?

Which is why South will be very much worth watching down the stretch as they go to Murfreesboro and Bowling Green and Troy. Strong efforts in those inhospitable environments could show that the Jags have started to get it (particularly on defense) and will be capable of challenging the higher-ups in Hot Springs; blowouts will show that Arrow should maybe start going back to the drawing board for 2009-2010.