According to Ken Pomeroy’s latest RPI ratings, they are.

They’re ranked #6. KU, after last night’s battering of the Wolfpack, moved up to number one.

KU is also the new number one in Jeff Sagarin’s latest ratings (11.30.2005), with a Pure Points rating of 99.09, nearly 6 points better than the second ranked PP team, which happens to be the Texas Longhorns.

Several minutes worth:

Robinson looked great again. I’ll put in in print: I think he’ll be an All-American his Junior year. He’s going to get a lot of minutes this year, even more next year and with the attention he’ll naturally get playing for Kansas, he has a great shot at the honor.

Miles was really good too. 10 assist, 0 turnovers. Wow.

This team looks so much better than they did against Vermont. Their defense is getting better and better and they’re moving the ball a lot better on offense.

They’re still missing a lot of rebounds on long shots and with the exception of Wayne “Golden Boy” Simien, free throw shooting is nothing more than excremental.

Rather unexpectedly, as of Sunday, Sagarin’s web site was claiming that
all the teams are now connected, and that his ratings and schedule
strengths are based solely on the results from the current season. Of,
course, theoretically it’s possible for all the teams to become connected
after just two games. In past seasons, however, at least as long as I’ve
been following Sagarin’s ratings, it’s taken more like seven or eight
games before the teams are connected. (By “connected”, it means it is
possible to compare any two teams by some number of games already played
between other pairs of teams. Perhaps someone with too much time on their
hands can discover how Kansas is connected to Nevada.) I’m surprised the
teams are connected already, considering the number of teams that have
played only one game so far, like VMI, Eastern Kentucky, Northern Iowa,
Mercer, and UAB. But the ratings have more meaning now, though you can
expect them to be rather volatile until teams are more connected. Right
now, we’re dealing with the statistics of small numbers, that is, in most
cases just single connections.

The Nevada game is interesting, because the reason for it no longer exists.
It was a recruiting tool that Roy Williams used, namely to schedule a road
game near the hometown of a recruit. In the case of Nevada, that recruit
was, of course, David Padgett, who fled the Jayhawk nest for a Cardinal
nest (well, at least he’s still a bird). It was pretty high price to pay
to lure Padgett to Kansas, considering that last year’s trip to Reno
resulted in a loss. It’s payback time. Big time.

Sagarin’s Monday ratings (complete through games of Sunday) give Kansas a
14-point edge in the rematch and a 90 percent chance of winning the game.
Kansas is playing 9 points above its Sagarin Pure Points rating, all on
the strength of the Saint Joseph’s blowout. Vermont has acquitted itself
nicely so far this season, and amazingly enough, the latest Sagarin ratings
actually predict a 7-point victory by Kansas over Vermont, which matches
reality perfectly. I’ll ignore the 18.6 points per game improvement that
Kansas experienced between its Vermont and Saint Joseph’s games. I’ll
also ignore the 6.5 points per game downward trend that Nevada had between
its Georgia State and Georgia games, given that both are fitting a straight
line to just two points, which yields a perfect fit. But it’s only fair to
mention that Nevada is playing 6 points above its Sagarin Pure Points rating.
The Wolfpack absolutely destroyed the Division II Colorado Springs Mountain
Lions, but Sagarin includes only Division I games. Like Saint Joseph’s,
however, Nevada lost a starter to the NBA, so it won’t be the same Nevada
team playing in Allen Field House tonight.

I’m a little perplexed at what Massey is doing. His web site is still
showing his ratings as of the end of last season. However, if you
click on the individual teams, you’ll get their schedule and results
for last season, along with a link for 2005. Click on that link, and
you can see his rankings for offense, defense, overall, and schedule
along with the results for the current season. So he’s obviously doing
the computations. Why he hasn’t displayed the ratings, I have no idea.
So I’m still in no position to compute any predictions based on Massey’s
ratings, though I can tabulate his rankings, and it’s worth noting that
Massey rates Nevada’s defense more highly than Kansas’ defense. Another
low-scoring affair?

The RPI rankings are still from last season.

               ======================== Sagarin =======================
               Rate    SoS    Elo     PP   Perf   Inc.       Trend
               —-   —-   —-   —-   —-   —-   ————–
Kansas         # 13   # 90   # 43   #  9   +9.3   13.2   18.62 +/- 0.00
Nevada         # 23   #107   # 19   # 53   +6.1    4.6   -6.46 +/- 0.00 

               ============ Massey ============     === RPI ===     ====
               Rate    SoS    Pow    Off    Def     Rate    SOS     Rec.
               —-   —-   —-   —-   —-     —-   —-     —-
Kansas         # 11   # 28   #      # 13   # 40     # 15   # 10      2-0
Nevada         # 15   # 97   #      # 29   # 27     # 29   # 44      3-0

Here is Kansas’ season:

SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
—-   —————————–   ——-   ——    —–    —–
HOME   # 19 Vermont                     68  61    +7.00    +0.00
HOME   #124 Saint Joseph’s              91  51   +21.38   +18.62
HOME   # 53 Nevada                               +13.99             0.898
HOME   # 64 Pacific                              +15.05             0.914
HOME   # 18 TCU                                   +6.74             0.730
HOME   #234 Louisiana-Lafayette                  +29.29             0.996
HOME   #105 South Carolina                       +19.74             0.964
HOME   # 55 Wis.-Milwaukee                       +14.07             0.900
HOME   # 65 Georgia Tech                         +15.12             0.915
HOME   # 98 Texas A&M                            +18.60             0.955
AWAY   # 30 Kentucky                              +1.90             0.569
AWAY   #235 Iowa State                           +21.48             0.975
AWAY   #132 Colorado                             +13.96             0.898
HOME   #  4 Nebraska                              +2.75             0.599
AWAY   # 21 Villanova                             -0.36             0.487
AWAY   #180 Baylor                               +17.40             0.943
HOME   #  1 Texas                                 -0.65             0.476
HOME   #249 Missouri                             +30.31             0.997
AWAY   #  4 Nebraska                              -5.23             0.317
AWAY   #123 Kansas State                         +13.33             0.887
HOME   #132 Colorado                             +21.94             0.977
AWAY   #  2 Texas Tech                            -7.04             0.261
HOME   #235 Iowa State                           +29.46             0.996
AWAY   # 62 Oklahoma                              +6.88             0.734
HOME   # 66 Oklahoma State                       +15.12             0.915
HOME   #123 Kansas State                         +21.31             0.974
AWAY   #249 Missouri                             +22.33             0.979

The projected season record for Kansas is now 22-5.

Here is Nevada’s season to date:

SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
—-   —————————–   ——-   ——    —–    —–
Div2        Colorado Springs            88  33
HOME   #129 Georgia State               76  55   +11.70    +9.30
AWAY   #190 Georgia                     58  47    +8.16    +2.84
AWAY   #  9 Kansas                               -13.99             0.102

Led by Pre-season Wooden Award Candidate Wayne Simien, and a stunning performance off the bench from Jeff Hawkins, Kansas avenged last year’s loss to the Wolfpack with an 89-77 victory at Allen Fieldhouse. Simien dropped in 23 points to match the number on his jersey, and with Aaron miles on the bench nursing a sprained wrist, Hawkins rattled off 20. The game was close until a 16-2 run midway through the second half allowed Kansas to pull away.

Notable Statistics:

Simien 23pts
Giddens 15 pts
Hawkins 20 pts
Langford 5 pts

Next Simulation: vs Pacific, Saturday, Dec. 4th

email me at ryno@phogblog.com

A Phog Blog commenter wondered if Rodrick Stewart is being brought in to replace JR, and, if not, is Alex Galindo meant to wear JR’s shoes? I’m not sure its as simple as Rodrick or Alex (assuming JR becomes a professional). It seems to me that Self is recruiting multi-positional players. My post Littles and Bigs details this a little more, but Self has articulated at various times that he prefers only to distinguish between ‘littles’ and ‘bigs’, and not to require that his teams have a 1,2,3,4, and 5 in the purest sense.

His reasoning for doing so seems to be predicated on having more in-game flexibility with regard to lineups and matchups, and having multiple ball-handlers to make the transition game easier to run (having Kirk and Aaron made us the best transition team of the last several years…).

I think Stewart is a possible ‘replacement’ for J.R. Giddens if he goes pro in as much as he will play, sometimes, where Giddens did (assuming he can take care of his academic business). But I think he’ll be replacing JR only part of the time. He seems to be more Keith-like in his game. His high school coach (and that of CJ Giles), had this to say:

He’s 6-4, cat-quick, possesses about a 38-inch vertical and the one thing about Rodrick is that he just plays so hard and he has a will to win…that is the thing that is going to really thrill the fans more than anything — the fact of how hard he plays. [snip] Coach Bibby down at USC…kind of categorized him as the second-coming of Jason Kidd. That’s how highly Coach Bibby thought of him. I think he’ll carve his niche out being the defensive stopper. He’ll control the game defensively as well as offensively. That’s the type of impact he’ll have on the game.

He struggled last year shooting the ball (about 30% from the three point line), but he shot 50% his senior year of high school. He seems to be a do-everything kind of player who is a worse shooter, but a better rebounder and defender than JR at this point. Of course, I’ve never seen him play, even on television, so take my word as far as you can throw it.

Anyone who’s seen him play care to chime in?

According to ESPN, he will be paying the price for the sins of those who came before him:

St. John’s imposed two years of penalties on its men’s basketball team Friday after an investigation revealed a former player was given cash by an athletic department employee. The penalties, which include a postseason ban for 2004-05 and the loss of a scholarship this season and next, were imposed after an investigation into the charges earlier this year by former player Abe Keita.

Read the rest of the article by clicking (more…)

Much heralded going into college as a top 25 recruit, Rodrick Stewart failed to put up impressive numbers during his freshman season at USC last year. It now appears that this young man is coming to Kansas, ostensibly to play basketball for the Kansas Jayhawks under Bill Self.

The decision to play at Kansas was made late Wednesday night after Stewart’s flight to Seattle, where he is spending this weekend with his family. He discussed the situation with his father, Bull, after also discussing the matter with the KU staff Wednesday morning before leaving Lawrence.

“All I can say is I’m committing,” Stewart said. “I don’t want to go anywhere else. I think that’s the place for me.”

Yet there was no official word from Kansas.

We can safely assume that young Stewart was given some sort of guarantee for a scholarship, but I would be surprised if that guarantee didn’t have strings attached to it. You see, Rodrick Stewart is not balling for USC right now because he’s academically ineligible this semester. Since he has taken the semester off, he will be eligible to play for KU, assuming he does get a scholarship, in the second semester of next year, or rather in January of next year. Next semester, he’s paying his own way though.

Having nightmares about Lester Earl?

To some Phog Blog readers, Stewart might seem like another troubled transfer. Do we really want another lauded recruit like Earl or Axtell gumming up the works? Playing, not playing, injuring a knee, injuring a back, injuring the back of his knee? After all, his stats at USC weren’t exactly spectacular, and USC wasn’t even that good last year.

My answer to these questions begins with my implicit trust of the Self administration at KU. Thus far, in just 19 months or so, Self has pulled two excellent last minute recruits, a hobbled elite-eight team, and the number one recruiting class out of his magical hat, and I suspect that there is more in there we haven’t seen yet.

Perhaps Stewart won’t be as troublesome as Earl and / or Axtell. Unlike Axtell, who had to appeal to the conference or Earl, who took out a storied LSU coach, Stewart has a clean bill of release from USC - he’s already in position to transfer without appeal. Of his academic troubles, we’ll know only what is released, but Stewart seems to be taking responsibility for whatever happened:

“Things were shaky last semester (academically), but I’ve got things together this semester,”

Furthermore, he needs to have his academic house in order if he is to successfully transfer to KU.

One can never really escape injuries, but Rodrick Stewart hasn’t been plagued by any chronic injuries thus far. His injury risk is probably the same as any other recruits, transfer or otherwise.

Regarding his stats, they weren’t that good: 4.4 points, 2.2 rebounds and 2.0 assists One can be pleased with the ratio of rebounds and assists to points, but for a highly touted recruit such as Smith, playing for a mediocre Pac-10 team, it’s natural to expect more. If you’re having a bit of a tryptophan hangover this morning, do remember that Rodrick is an incredible athlete who, in theory will be an excellent college player, especially if he keeps his head screwed on.

He’ll have to behave and do well in school if he’s going to play, and he’ll have to do so for the next 13 months, all while not playing. That, combined with the fact that he seems to have learned from whatever mishaps he had while at USC, is enough to make me feel pretty comfortable with him as an acquisition.

So Jayhawk fans, stop your worrying. Enjoy the holiday and celebrate another addition to the Jayhawk family. And, if after reading this quote, you don’t like this kid more, you need to eat more turkey:

“It was just like a different experience being at Kansas,” Rodrick said. “People there worship basketball.”

In lieu of a post-game recap, as I am without power and Phogging from Panera (support them for their wisdom to offer free wireless), I offer you this:

Oh, and you can read these postgame quotes if you would like:

Kansas Head Coach Bill Self
On the game:“The first half was good, we ran and defended well. We really just did everything well, but we had too many turnovers. The second half was sloppy. We played a lot of young guys and it got really sloppy late in the game. We lost a little interest to start the second half, there is no doubt about that. Keith (Langford) never got involved offensively, we tried to, but never really got him involved. We still scored 50 points the first half. I thought our young guys did some good things. Our starters only scored 44 points and we won by 40. I wouldn’t have expected that before the game started. Looking at our schedule, I didn’t know if there was going to be a game where we could get the young guys some minutes. There were a lot of good things that happened for us tonight. I think how we shared the ball, how we had energy and how fast we ran from defense to offense was what pleased me tonight. We needed to play well tonight so we could get our swagger back. Our fans were great tonight and we jumped on their young guards early.”

On Kansas’ defense against Saint Joseph’s:
“They missed a lot of shots. We did some good things against them defensively. We could have guarded them a little better in the first half and we didn’t play very well defensively the second half at all. (Saint Joseph’s) is playing short-handed. That wasn’t the same team as last year for them. They lost two great players and (Pat) Carrol wasn’t there. They will get a lot better pretty fast. He (Phil Martelli) is a terrific coach.”

On the upcoming game against Nevada:
“We can talk about their run in the NCAA Tournament, but what we remember is getting waxed in Reno. They had us down 20 at the half and they ended up winning by about ten points. It was a pitiful performance by us and at that time we didn’t know how good of a team they were. They were obviously really good. They basically have their whole front line back. It will be a good game. I hope our fans are juiced for that game because we definitely owe (Nevada) one.”

Freshman Guard Russell Robinson
On sharing the basketball:
“The more touches you get, the more buckets will open up for everybody. We tried to play to our advantages and passing is one of our advantages.”

On Wayne Simien:
“He brings his game all the time. Our job is to make sure he gets touches. We did that today and we have to continue to do that every game. As long as we get him touches, he is going to continue playing hard.”

On the freshmen contribution:
“We played great. It was a good time for us to get out there and play in front of a crowd. C.J. (Giles), Darnell (Jackson), Sasha (Kaun) and the rest of us can only continue to get better.”

Senior Forward Wayne Simien
On the game:
“We came out early, made shots and got stops on defense. They are kind of in a rebuilding mode, losing two first-round picks. Carrol didn’t play tonight so they were without one of their best players. We were on fortunately and we were able to capitalize.”

On the improvement from the first game:
“I think we were more in-sync on defense. We came out and got stops. They came at us with a full court press for almost the entire game, especially in the first half and I think we handled the pressure very well which led to a lot of easy buckets.”

(more…)

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Local radio and TV stations are reporting that the Laurie family have relinquished their contractual naming rights to the much maligned Paige Sports Arena. While initial rumors suggested that there was a price associated with this gesture, the most recent information indicates that the Wal-Mart heirs have simply given Missouri the legal right to rename the arena.

A statement is expected soon.

I know there are a lot of people who don’t like Wal-Mart, but I have to say that this is a really classy move on the part of the Lauries. They’re accepting responsibility for the actions of their daughter by essentially saying that she isn’t worthy of having her name on an arena. They took the high road here, in my opinion, and, as much as it pains me to say it, the University of Missouri has something to smile about this chilly Tuesday eve.

UPDATE: It’s official, or almost official…the Paige will now simply be another strange asterisk in that great mystery that is Missouri basketball. Like Ricky Clemons from a media guide picture, the Paige will be removed from the Sports Arena, according to the Kansas City Star. My favorite line from the article:

Alden, reached by telephone Tuesday as he drove to Kansas City for tipoff of the Tigers’ game in the Guardians Classic basketball tournament, would not confirm the sequence of events that led to the Paige being the Paige for one of the shortest periods in building-naming history. Nor would Alden say at that point that the name change was a done deal.

Read the whole thing.

Let’s pretend for a moment that you are Jeff Sagarin. Your starting
ratings predicted a 24-point blowout by Kansas over Vermont, but
instead, the Jayhawks escaped with a mere 7-point victory, and at
home, no less. How do you adjust your ratings? Is Kansas overrated,
or is Vermont underrated? [Karl Malden mode] What would you do?
What WOULD you do? [/Karl Malden mode]

Well, in the absence of additional information, it makes sense to
assume that it’s both and split the difference. And so it appears
that the subsequent Sagarin ratings reflected such an adjustment,
until today, that is. After a brief stint at #85 in Saturday’s
ratings, Kansas was back at #36 in Sunday’s ratings as other teams
had their ratings adjusted following Saturday’s play. Then on
Monday, Kansas plummeted to #94, based on the inclusion of the
results from Sunday’s games. Now here it is on Tuesday, and Kansas
is back at #3.

It’s been kind of fun to see how volatile the ratings are this early
in the season. Duke started in the top spot, then surrendered it to
Memphis, which went on to lose to Syracuse, leaving the door open
for the undefeated Orangemen to jump into the top spot. But then on
Monday, North Carolina State leapfrogged Syracuse. Now here it is
Tuesday, and Duke is back on top. Indeed, today’s ratings look
suspiciously similar (though not identical) to the starting ratings.
I would say that Sagarin either made a deliberate change in his
computation method over the weekend, or fixed a bug. Those first
few sets of ratings, not including the starting ratings, looked like
they had none of the preseason bias included in them, but today’s
ratings look like they are once again dominated by the preseason
bias.

Kansas gets to play another season opener on Tuesday (the season
opener for Saint Joseph’s, of course). So the Hawks have no track
record from this season on which to base a prediction. They return
three starters, but it is unlikely that star Pat Carroll will play
due to a dislocated shoulder. The home advantage gives Kansas a
6.6-point edge. Yesterday’s ratings predicted a loss for the
Jayhawks.

Looking at the Big XII, Kansas started the season against a decent
team, but only good enough for second place in strength of schedule
(as of Monday’s Sagarin ratings). Colorado’s recent game against
#9 Michigan gives the Buffaloes strength of schedule honors for the
moment. Kansas State’s 9-point win over Division II North Dakota State
was enough to keep them from taking honors for easiest schedule, which
instead went to Texas A&M for playing 0-4 North Carolina A&T. At least
the Aggies won big, earning them #188 in the Sagarin ratings (and #91
in the Pure Points ratings), whereas the Kitties are mired at #293 (and
#300 in Pure Points, and that’s out of 332 teams). Of course, all that
changed on Tuesday when Sagarin presumably bumped up the amount of bias
that goes into his early season ratings.

Massey still hasn’t released any ratings for the current season. Based
on last season’s ratings, Saint Joseph’s would have a 0.3-point edge in
today’s game.

               ======================== Sagarin =======================
               Rate    SoS    Elo     PP   Perf   Inc.       Trend
               —-   —-   —-   —-   —-   —-   ————–
Kansas         #  3   #214   #  4   #  4
St. Joseph’s   #  8   #      #  8   # 11                                

               ============ Massey ============     === RPI ===     ====
               Rate    SoS    Pow    Off    Def     Rate    SOS     Rec.
               —-   —-   —-   —-   —-     —-   —-     —-
Kansas         # 17   # 11   # 15   # 22   # 59     # 15   # 10     24-9
St. Joseph’s   #  3   # 32   #  4   # 18   # 16     #  3   # 46     30-2

The RPI and records are still from last season. The Hawks had a fabulous
season, and there was the Billy Packer controversy as well, which had to
do with whether they deserved a #1 seed or not. Based on record alone,
the answer should have been yes, but the controversy was based on strength
of schedule. The Hawks went respectably deep enough into the tournament.

Here is Kansas’ season, based on Tuesday’s revised Sagarin ratings:

SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
—-   —————————–   ——-   ——    —–    —–
HOME   #160 Vermont                     68  61   +22.76   -15.76
HOME   # 11 Saint Joseph’s                        +6.64             0.727
HOME   # 47 Nevada                               +13.32             0.887
HOME   #104 Pacific                              +18.55             0.954
HOME   #140 TCU                                  +21.51             0.975
HOME   # 78 Louisiana-Lafayette                  +16.74             0.936
HOME   # 43 South Carolina                       +12.96             0.881
HOME   # 70 Wis.-Milwaukee                       +15.91             0.926
HOME   # 15 Georgia Tech                          +7.73             0.759
HOME   #169 Texas A&M                            +23.43             0.983
AWAY   #  3 Kentucky                              -4.27             0.349
AWAY   # 53 Iowa State                            +5.33             0.686
AWAY   # 52 Colorado                              +5.28             0.684
HOME   # 75 Nebraska                             +16.37             0.932
AWAY   # 50 Villanova                             +5.22             0.682
AWAY   #157 Baylor                               +14.25             0.902
HOME   #  7 Texas                                 +5.70             0.698
HOME   # 31 Missouri                             +11.26             0.847
AWAY   # 75 Nebraska                              +7.93             0.765
AWAY   # 84 Kansas State                          +8.68             0.785
HOME   # 52 Colorado                             +13.72             0.894
AWAY   # 28 Texas Tech                            +1.78             0.564
HOME   # 53 Iowa State                           +13.77             0.895
AWAY   # 23 Oklahoma                              +0.64             0.523
HOME   #  5 Oklahoma State                        +4.96             0.674
HOME   # 84 Kansas State                         +17.12             0.940
AWAY   # 31 Missouri                              +2.82             0.601

Of the Jayhawks he says, “Their shooting is a little off.”

Well folks, Kansas was put to the test today by the very physical St. Joseph’s Hawks. Kansas just couldn’t get anything going in the paint, and suffered a 9 point defeat at Allen Fieldhouse. However, The Jayhawks didn’t go down without a fight. Trailing 15 with 4 minutes left, J.R Giddens rattled off 8 straight points, followed by a three pointer from Kieth Langford to cut the lead to 4. Unfortunately time ran out on their comeback and after adding a few points from the charity stripe, St. Joe’s went on to win 80-71. Let’s hope the programmers at EA Sports have overestimated the strength of the St. Joe’s team, and that Kansas comes out on top of tonight’s matchup.

Notable Statistics:

Giddens- 15 pts, 3 rb
Simien- 6 pts, 5 rb
Jackson- 6pts, 1 rb
Langford- 5 pts, 2 assts
Miles- 6 pts, 5 assts

Next Game: Nov. 29 vs. Nevada