Of all the pictures they could've chosen...

Anyhoo... Um, yeah, Memphis was pretty crooked, methinks.

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Idea For Bulls Coach

Once again, it would be coaching search time for one of my teams (although I use the phrase my team fairly loosely this year, I just can't take bad NBA basketball). Grant it, Vinnie probably cares about this a little more than I do, but I just thought of an outside the box idea here (the retread names being thrown around do nothing for me). Why not take a chance with John Calipari? I think his time at Memphis, especially learning and perfecting the dribble drive motion offense, would benefit him in a second NBA go around. The culture at Memphis, dealing well with a large group of heralded players, should also prepare Cal for a second go round with NBA players. His relationship with William "World Wide Wes" Wesley, a respected and well known figure in basketball, aids Cal in having the credibility to deal with NBA egos. From what I have heard, Calipari has expressed interest in the Knicks job, so this would not be totally outlandish from his end.

While most people chalk up his first NBA tenure as horribly bad, it would not be as bad as most people think. In his second season with the Nets, they won 43 games and made the playoffs back when the East was not a joke. In his third season, injuries and the lockout marred what turned out to be his final coaching run in the NBA. With more maturity and a very positive experience at Memphis, I think Calipari could be that rare college coach who succeeds in the NBA. I think the idea has a lot more merit than people who would casually dismiss this out of hand, and frankly expect it to be better than whatever retread Paxson eventually settles on.

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More bogus stats: Was John Calipari full of shit?

Ok, so this is a couple days north of relevant, but a few nagging questions have been on my mind since Monday, namely:

1. What did I do with my Brewers floppy hat?
2. Do all of my friends secretly hate me?
3. Is the roach poison in my apartment slowly giving me cancer?
4. Who's that actor in that one movie, and where do I know him from?
5. Will I die alone?
...and most importantly,
6. Was Memphis actually able to hit their free throws "when they counted," as John Calipari claimed they would, or was it just random chance that they improved in the NCAA Tournament?

So far, I've concluded, 1. Check your "hat shelf," dumbass, 2. Probably, but I might be paranoid, 3. I won't live forever anyway, 4. bit part on Home Improvement!, 5. In a sense, we all do, and 6. Let's look at the numbers!

So I went to this sweet Z-Score for two proportions calculator and sought my answer.

Here's the problem: I'm not totally sure if this is the right statistical test for the situation because 11th-grade stats was a long time ago. But if it is the right test, here's what I found.

I plugged in the pre-tourney sample of 495 makes in 830 attempts (59.6%) and compared it to Memphis's free throw stats from their first five tourney games (113-161, good for 70.2%).

The result? A 1.5% chance that the improvement was a result of pure random chance and not some tangible factor, i.e. motivation.

But here's the hitch: In Game One against Doormat U., the Tigers shot a very un-Dana Barros-like 22-35 (62.85714%). And in Game Two--their closest game prior to the final--against Mississippi St., they shot a very Chris Dudley-like 15-32 (46.875%).

(And by the way, to reaffirm how awesome I am with numbers, those were mentally-generated percentages... Check me with a calculator if you dare.)

So... Giving Memphis the benefit of the doubt--i.e. that rounds one and two only require concentration from sucker teams, even when it's a close game--their games 3-5 total comes out to 76-94 (80.9%).

The result:

There's less than a 0.1% chance that the 21.3% difference between pre-tourney Memphis and games 3-5 Memphis was a fluke.

In conclusion: John Calipari was, at most 1.5% full of shit. And CDR is a worthless choker for costing me money in my office pool. And you don't care about any of this. And I still can't find my floppy hat. Where is my fucking floppy hat?

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