The data I found on last year’s hoops team was fascinating. Chandler Parsons was the most productive player not named Speights or Calathes? Who would have guessed?

Dr. Berri’s methodology opens a whole new insight into statistics and results. So I decided to continue my research into Florida basketball. Feel free to correct me if any figures are inaccurate.

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A few days ago, I found a fascinating basketblog called “The Wages of Wins”* At its core, it discusses how a team’s highest scorer may not help, and in fact may even hurt their teams’ win total. Berri is an economics professor, so he uses formulas to ascertain how many “Wins Produced” or “Wins Produced per 48 minutes” each player has.

Even though these formulas are designed for the NBA, they can be tweaked for the college game. Thus, I wondered what his research would say about last year’s Gator team. And so, at the risk of a collective tongue-lashing in the comments section of this post, I will delve into Florida hoops once more.

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One of the faces on Florida’s Mount Rushmore of College Basketball Success has wasted no time in making an NBA impact.

For nearly the entire season, Horford has had to take a backseat in press coverage to vets Joe Johnson and Josh Smith. At 6-10, he’s had to play as a somewhat undersized center while Smith has excelled at power forward. And then there was Bibby.

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Eloy Vargas and Kenny Kadji share more in common than they might realize. Both were snubbed for the McDonalds and Jordan All-America games. Both stand a lanky 6-10.

And both have moved down on the recruiting food chain. In the latest Rivals250 rankings, Vargas (American Heritage) slipped from 3rd to 9th in PF rankings. Kadji (Pendleton) went from 3rd to 5th. The worst part: both were demoted from five stars to four. But might this be a blessing in disguise?

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From Madison Square Garden to Beijing? Such may be path for Florida’s leading scorer and assist man.

According to the Independent Florida Alligator, Nick Calathes will try out for the Greek national team over the summer. If he makes the cut, he could potentially help Greece make the 2008 Olympic Games.

Nikos already has dual citizenship and will likely receive his Greek passport shortly. A medal probably isn’t in his future, as he’ll likely have to face Team U.S.A., Mike Krzyzewski, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and company if the team just happens to make the final rounds. But why not take a crack at it? This kind of thing only happens once every four years.

As one of only two college players who averaged 15 points, 5 rebounds, and 6 assists throughout the season (Maryland’s Greivis Vasquez being the other), Calathis certainly has a positive reputation.

Good luck, Nick.

Because I love Florida, I’ll wrap up legit reasons why Mo should stay.

Because my good friend Gatorpilot hates Duke, I’ll use J.J. Redick as a sacrificial lamb in this one.

Speights already has conditioning issues from college. And Mo, if you thought that was bad, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

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(This is the second of a three-part series.)

Florida’s Big Fella faces other problems than mere cash concerns. Even with a seven-figure salary likely in the bag, his problems don’t end there.

With the Gators, Mo plays as a center, plain and simple. At 6-10 and 245 pounds, He’s bigger and thicker than everyone else on the team, and even with Kenny Kadji coming along, Donovan won’t move Speights to power forward and tire both of his bigs too soon.

In the NBA, it gets a little more complicated. On virtually every NBA team, even without a franchise center, there is someone of comparable, if not superior, height and weight to Mo. For example, the Boston Celtics have Kevin Garnett (+ 1 in. , +8 lbs.) and Kendrick Perkins (+35 lbs.), the LA Lakers have Andrew Bynum (+2 in., +30 lbs.) and Pau Gasol (+2 in., +15 lbs.), and the Phoenix Suns boast Amare Stoudemire (comparable height and weight, but more experienced) and Shaquille O’Neal (+3 in., +80 lbs.)

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There has been much ado (at least by me) regarding the ratings drop for the NCAA Tournament this year. My curiosity on the subject caused me to dig a little deeper into the issue. There were initial attempts by some to declare the first week’s rating decline as simply a function of Easter Weekend (because of all the avid catholic roundball fans I guess). However when the trend continued into week two that seemed a bit of a stretch (a weeklong Easter Hangover?). But then in the face of those lukewarm first two weekends the 2008 NCAA Tournament revealed to us a dream Final Four . . . a compilation where all four number one seeds had reached the final weekend. But that was not all as it also included three of the most storied college basketball programs in UCLA, North Carolina and Kansas. I mean what could be better than that, right?

Well, I’ll tell you something that could have been better – CLOSE, WATCHABLE games. It’s true, I fell into the trap thinking that this compelling matchup of titans (which also included recent power Memphis who had held the #1 spot in the polls for most of the season) would make for some exciting and dynamic games. Unfortunately nothing could have been further from the truth. The results of last weekends contests between UCLA and Memphis and North Carolina and Kansas were two truly ANTI-CLIMATIC blowouts of 15 and 18 points respectively. Oooooh, what gripping television . . . is that going to boost ratings?

According to the overnight ratings - apparently not. Last weekend’s overnight showed that while the marquee evening matchup of Kansas and North Carolina approximated last years UCLA vs Florida late semifinal game (at least it probably will after the ratings are expanded in the next few days), the preceding game (UCLA vs Memphis) was down almost 14% from last years matchup of Ohio State and Georgetown. Okay so what gives? Why is it that this tournament could end up becoming the second lowest rated Tournament in the past 3 decades? Only the 2003 Tournament will have lower ratings than 2008 and that tournament has the excuse of being played at the beginning of the Iraqi War. (more…)

(This is the first of a three part series.)

For his own good, Mareese Speights needs to stay in school. And we’ll start with the stuff that makes college athletes leave school: money.

www.mynbadraft.com has Mo going 20th overall, so we’ll assume in case A that he darts and goes there.

For case B, pretend that he stays, leaves after one year, and goes up to No.10.

Finally, let’s have him stay for his senior year and go No.5 in C.

Here’s how the pay works after 4,3, and 2 years, respectively, using this year’s pay scales. In A and B, the team uses its option.

A: $1.06m + $1.14m + $1.22m + $1.89m = $5.31m
B: $1.75m + $1.88m + $2.01m = $5.64m
C: $2.64m + $2.83m = $5.47m

So Speights makes the most out of plan B by 2012, even with a one-year headstart in A. And by 2013, the sheer margin of C’s salary will have him positioned excellently should the team spend its option on him. And he’ll have a college degree.

Of course, this assumes that he’ll develop his talents and work on his weaknesses as he stays in school. This also assumes that he won’t get hurt in that timespan, but he hasn’t had anything serious yet at UF.

This is the complete opposite of Joakim Noah’s situation, where he was projected as a top-2 pick in 2006 and ended up sliding all the way down to No.9 a year later. Meanwhile, in between, Mo, let’s consider the real-life story of an anagulous superstar.

Tim Duncan was actually a competitive swimmer until he took up basketball as a high school freshman. When he went to Wake Forest, he made up for lost time, staying for all four years
despite being projected as the top pick at least once before.

Ultimately, he put his pro career on hold and was picked No.1 in 1997 anyway. But more importantly, he was a much more fundamentally sound player than he was in 1995 and 1996.

Two years later, he began building his legend by winning his first NBA ring and Finals MVP. Three more rings, two more Finals MVPs, and two regular-season MVP awards later, he is considered one of the best forward-centers in NBA history.

Amidst talk about Mo Speights leaving, Donovan having to shove someone out the door due to scholarship problems, and chatter on the message boards about the incoming Dynamic Duo at PF and C (Eloy Vargas and Kenny Kadji), let’s look at various situations.

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