Measuring Statistics: Near and Far

Stats can be deceiving, or that's what they say. 

I have a few thoughts on SDSU's men's players and how they play at home and away. 

For example, I figured Chad White is a better player at home than on the road, while all-world Nate Wolters plays better on the road. Where is Jordan Dykstra a better player?

So, let's go to the stats. I selected SDSU's home, away and neutral location games, along with games where SDSU won or lost. Players with significant playing time are listed here.

All information is from the always reliable sports-reference.com. Go visit their sites. Sorry about the small print. 

3 Wolters, Nate 

Split            Value  G  MP  FG FGA  FG% 3P 3PA  3P%  FT FTA   FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Place             Home 12 438  78 164 .476 22  57 .386  71  90  .789  11  54  65  66  27   2  31 16 249
                  Road 12 466 104 206 .505 32  71 .451  69  81  .852  18  54  72  59  16   2  27 22 309
               Neutral  2  64  12  25 .480  2   6 .333   8  11  .727   2   7   9  16   3   0   1  3  34

Split            Value  G  MP  FG FGA  FG% 3P 3PA  3P%  FT FTA   FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Result             Win 20 734 140 290 .483 41 102 .402 115 144  .799  21  88 109 117  40   4  46 27 436
                  Loss  6 234  54 105 .514 15  32 .469  33  38  .868  10  27  37  24   6   0  13 14 156 

5 Prince, Taevaunn 

Split            Value  G  MP FG FGA   FG% 3P 3PA  3P% FT FTA   FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Place             Home 11 144 13  35  .371  0   4 .000 21  28  .750  11  12  23   3   4   0   6 10  47
                  Road  9 127 10  33  .303  2   9 .222 11  18  .611   8   8  16   5   3   0  11 22  33
               Neutral  2  60  7  19  .368  1   4 .250  5   9  .556   4   7  11   3   1   0   2  5  20 

12 Carlson, Brayden

Split            Value  G  MP FG FGA  FG% 3P 3PA  3P% FT FTA   FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Place             Home 13 422 28  83 .337 14  47 .298 30  39  .769   5  42  47  31  13   4   9 20 100
                  Road 13 466 42 103 .408 20  60 .333 15  22  .682   6  41  47  30  10   4  17 24 119
               Neutral  2  62  9  19 .474  6  11 .545  5   6  .833   0   6   6   7   1   0   1  4  29
Split            Value  G  MP FG FGA  FG% 3P 3PA  3P% FT FTA   FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Result             Win 21 694 55 137 .401 29  78 .372 39  51  .765   8  72  80  53  19   5  17 35 178
                  Loss  7 256 24  68 .353 11  40 .275 11  16  .688   3  17  20  15   5   3  10 13  70  

25 White, Chad 

Split            Value  G  MP FG FGA  FG% 3P 3PA  3P% FT FTA   FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Place             Home 10 310 35  71 .493 22  47 .468 10  14  .714   8  26  34  16   8   3  13 20 102
                  Road 11 340 28  81 .346 18  59 .305  9  13  .692   8  32  40  10   5   6  14 24  83
               Neutral  2  46  8  15 .533  4   7 .571  2   2 1.000   3   3   6   4   1   1   1  2  22
Split            Value  G  MP FG FGA  FG% 3P 3PA  3P% FT FTA   FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Result             Win 17 514 60 127 .472 36  80 .450 18  23  .783  15  47  62  26  12   6  21 30 174
                  Loss  6 182 11  40 .275  8  33 .242  3   6  .500   4  14  18   4   2   4   7 16  33 

32 Heemstra, Marcus 

Split            Value  G  MP FG FGA   FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA   FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Place             Home 13 154 19  37  .514  0   0     11  14  .786  14  23  37  12   4   6   9 24  49
                  Road 13 148 14  28  .500  0   0     11  12  .917  13  20  33  11   3   5  10 20  39
               Neutral  2  31  9  11  .818  0   0      2   3  .667   7   4  11   2   2   2   0  2  20

34 Fiegen, Tony 

Split            Value  G  MP  FG FGA   FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA   FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Place             Home 13 396  67 109  .615  0   0     20  32  .625  35  45  80  20   6   3  16 23 154
                  Road 13 431  48 103  .466  0   0     16  23  .696  22  44  66  17   6   4  16 23 112
               Neutral  2  34   6   8  .750  0   0      0   0         1   9  10   3   0   0   4  4  12
Split            Value  G  MP  FG FGA   FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA   FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Result             Win 21 626  96 164  .585  0   0     30  45  .667  47  80 127  35   9   4  25 38 222
                  Loss  7 235  25  56  .446  0   0      6  10  .600  11  18  29   5   3   3  11 12  56 

42 Dykstra, Jordan

Split            Value  G  MP  FG FGA  FG% 3P 3PA  3P% FT FTA   FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Place             Home 13 417  67 142 .472 24  45 .533 39  52  .750  28  88 116  23   6   9  26 32 197
                  Road 13 415  49 119 .412 20  53 .377 18  22  .818  26  60  86  14  10   9  28 36 136
               Neutral  2  52   6  14 .429  2   5 .400  1   2  .500   1  10  11   4   0   0   0  4  15
Split            Value  G  MP  FG FGA  FG% 3P 3PA  3P% FT FTA   FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Result             Win 21 657 100 211 .474 38  78 .487 46  63  .730  35 131 166  35  11  12  41 56 284
                  Loss  7 227  22  64 .344  8  25 .320 12  13  .923  20  27  47   6   5   6  13 16  64

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The takeaways: 

• Look at the difference in the performances from Dykstra and White in losses. 

• Granted, SDSU lost those games for reasons that go beyond those two but it shows how 

   important those two are to the operation.

• Fiegen is a much better shooter at home, converting 15 percent more shots in home games. 

• Heemstra is scary consistent in his game. This is a good sign going forward for SDSU. 

• Carlson has better numbers in road games and even better in the two neutral games this year. He has

  14 games this year where he's scored 10 or more points and five of those have come in Brookings. 

• Wolters' numbers are pretty nuts in both losses and on the road, shooting 29 percent better away from Frost. 

Sometimes your hunch can lead to something after all. 

--
High frequency of basketball posts because there's lots to talk about. If you have an idea, drop me a line in the various mediums to reach a 21-year old college kid. 

Crowdsourcing with students

Eat crow, Traxler.

I might have to do that with regards to my previous comments about the student section relocation at Frost Arena. In a crucial conference game at Frost Saturday against Western Illinois, the students made a difference. That was the word when students were moved from their better (I don't think anyone can argue this) to behind the baskets on each end.

WIU, who normally shoot 65 percent at the free throw stripe as a team, went 3-of-11 from the line against the Jacks.

"That’s one of our weaknesses," Leatherneck head coach Jim Molinari said. "We shoot a good percentage as a team but we’re not a great shooting team. That's something we need to be better at."

I feel this was mainly because of the students, who would either all jump forward as the player was shooting the free throws or sit down at the same time. It worked. Either that or the Leathernecks suck at free throws. Both are theories.

This much I know: No team has shot that poorly against SDSU over the last 12 seasons and that's all the farther the records go.

But how much of a difference have the students made on the free throws this year? Let's go to the grid.

There's the last two seasons worth of home games at Frost Arena and the free throw shooting of SDSU's opponents. The 2012-13 shooting is a blip better than than last year and while the end of the season (when the students got more involved with the free throw distractions) are low, the numbers don't show a ton of difference. SDSU allowed far less free throw attempts in 2012-13, however.

Hats off, students. You did what college kids should do. I'll be impressed if it happens next season as well and more importantly, what kind of student turnout is in Sioux Falls. It's not over Spring Break this year, so I'm expecting a lot. 

I think the move has worked out fine and students have responded positively but I HATED the way it was done. Basically, the administration said, "We're moving you. If you don't like it, too bad."

The point I brought up on The Sports Lounge show Monday(which can be listened to on demand here) is that SDSU might want to consider moving its "renovate Frost Arena" plans up in the grand scheme. Honestly, maybe ahead of Coughlin-Alumni Stadium.

There's no doubt that CAS needs to be rebuilt but if the Jackrabbits want to reach the next level as a mid-major, they need the budget and the facilities to do it. Frost may not need more seats but they certainly need more good seats, as many of the wood bleachers are at tough viewing angles.

A lot of elements added up to get three sellouts in Brookings this season, mainly No. 3 at point guard. But the program is only going to grow and, if nothing else, both facilities should be worked on at the same time.

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It's hard not to think about the Summit League tournament, especially when there's a local media ad for the four-day dance airing every three minutes. In advance, I wrote this for the Sports Lounge blog earlier today about what sort of tourney is shaping up. 

For much of the season, the race to become the Summit League’s top dog has been cloudy. However, I have looked at the crystal ball and the future is becoming clearer.

SDSU’s men’s basketball team is the team to beat when the conference converges on Sioux Falls in March for the Summit League tournament.

There’s a lot of candidates — and honestly, who would have thought there would be four legitimate teams challenging for the conference title when the season started — but the Jackrabbits have emerged as the odds-on favorite.

Sure, there have been a fair amount bumps along the way. Those ugly performances the Jacks had in December seem so far away and even in last weekend’s loss to Oakland at the O’rena, SDSU looked like a team that could be in the field of 68 again.

But as Brett Favre famously said during the Vikings’ 2009 season, “the pieces are in place.”

Their defense (more on this later) has been quite good, the Jacks are a strong three-point shooting team (especially at home) and SDSU has the best player in Nate Wolters, who is taking over games once again.

Of course, one of the biggest parts of the Jacks chances’ is having a decidedly home court advantage in Sioux Falls. In each of their games (regardless of opponent), there will be at least 5,000 people screaming in their favor and riding each up and down. To me, this is the biggest part for the Jacks. Western Illinois has seen this atmosphere twice now — last season’s conference title game and Saturday at Frost Arena.

“You can’t win a game in this atmosphere unless you play perfect basketball,” Molinari said after the Leathernecks’ loss at Frost Arena.

Molinari said something almost exactly like this after his team lost in the championship game last year. It stuck out like a sore thumb because I believe the quotes were so similar.

“This was a road game,” WIU head coach Jim Molinari said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making excuses. But I think you have to be 10 points better to win here and we weren’t tonight. I knew because of the crowd that they would never let the game get away from them.”

Ah, yes. There it is.

Western Illinois is just a good team, said SDSU head coach Scott Nagy. He’s right. Summit Leaguers like to stress WIU’s defense but they are good on offense and have pretty talented players like Ceola Clark III and Terrell Parks underneath the hoop.

Nagy said he stressed that the Feb. 16 game wasn’t the conference championship but I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘Necks and Jacks play for the title March 12 in Sioux Falls. That’s my pick for now.
We are two weeks away from knowing the seeds but it’s hard not to look ahead. So, as for the rest of the tournament …

North Dakota State is a confusing bunch right now. They posted 36 points against Western in a loss but have effectively defeated everyone else they’ve needed to beat and convincingly. They have a defensive style that is similar to WIU and can effectively stop teams. I can’t get away from the fact that they have been an early out from the tournament in the last three seasons. The X-factor remains to be Marshall Bjorklund, who still leads the country in field goal percentage but the Jackrabbits and Leathernecks have effectively shut him down in the two most recents meetings. He had four points on five shots against Western and four points against SDSU in late January. Since scoring 23 points against USD Jan. 3 (a game where he shot 11/13 from the field), he’s had nearly as many games in single-digits scoring (5) as he has in double digits (7). Maybe Taylor Braun is the difference but Drue and I agree that the problems seem to go further than the return of Braun.

Oakland is certainly capable of winning the tournament but there’s a few things standing in their way: 1. They don’t exactly play great defense. That’s not new. 2. They are far too reliant on Travis Bader and their three-point shooting.

This is actually the big one. Oakland has good players, including Corey Petros underneath the basket but I don’t feel like they have been utilized as much as possible. Considering Drew Valentine’s profile two seasons ago in the Summit League, he has been as quiet as anyone as a junior or senior. As Bader goes, so go the Grizz.

Depending on crowd turnout, USD could be a semifinal candidate and for sheer interest and atmosphere’s-sake, I hope they are in the final four. Say what you will about the Coyotes (and as a student at the Brookings school, I hear plenty of people say bad things about them), it would be great to have them win a game at the tournament. That would increase interest in the 2014 tournament, in my opinion and show the red fans what the event is really about.

I would also laugh if Kansas City makes a run for the finals, considering they are leaving the league for a trash heap and it would show that they can win in the conference. They’ll be out right away, though. It’s a bad year for Omaha to be out. They would be in the 4/5 game if they were eligible.

Defense

Our friend Travis Kriens always digs up the stats. He says the Jacks have been giving up 65.1 points per game, the lowest average since 1984-85, when the Jackrabbits allowed 64.4 PPG. Over the last 58 seasons of SDSU basketball, it is the second-lowest PPG allowed season average.
He says the defense story hasn’t received the coverage it should, so here’s some coverage, Travis.

The cash cow is going dry

The days of Jackrabbits sacking Nebraska quarterbacks could be numbered.

If you have been closely watching the tea leaves of college football, I guess you could figure this day was coming.

On Tuesday, Wisconsin athletic director and Rose Bowl football coach moonlighter Barry Alvarez said the Big Ten Conference has decided to stop scheduling FCS football games. Closer to home, North Dakota State athletic director Gene Taylor said he knows not every athletic director in the Big Ten is fully aboard.

A lot of teams have a bunch of FCS games scheduled out for the next five seasons or so. You can check out the Missouri Valley's list on the right side of this page or click here.

With the addition of Maryland and Rutgers and the near inevitability of the conference to go to nine or 10 games of Big Ten play, we should not be surprised by this move.

The games are somewhat beneficial for Big Ten teams because they provide an extra home game and a 98 percent chance of winning. What more do you want, Purdue?

But the reality is that outside of die-hard fans of the Wolverines and Hawkeyes and the fans of the FCS schools playing in the game, nobody cares about these games. Everyone is always complaining about how every SEC team plays an inept SWAC team in early November and it's not because people don't like Alabama State, another great institution of higher education in America. It's because Alabama State sucks. (Tavaris Jackson too.)

At the same time, there is a good reason why the games are played from the FCS end. These games are often times a serious way for schools to fund their athletic programs. Savannah State made $860,000 last year to get its proverbial butts kicked at Florida State and Oklahoma State. That can be worth it, if it pays for tennis, soccer and softball. Missouri State has been known to come out well financially from these games and perennial power Northern Iowa played at Iowa and Wisconsin last year to help the bottomline.

If you win, even better. We all know about Appalachian State because of their ability to knock off Michigan in the Big House to open the 2007 season. North Dakota State has regularly won these games but that's not the norm. SDSU's 13-10 loss at Minnesota in 2009 and 17-3 loss at Nebraska in 2010 represents the good in the recent "money games." They don't celebrate the 55-0 rear kicking at Illinois in 2011 and for good reason.

Plus, the games provide some much needed visibility for recruiting and otherwise. South Dakota has played at Central Florida, Air Force and Northwestern in recent years and those three states -- Florida, Colorado and Illinois -- have high school talent that the Coyotes would love to have. The same can be said for when Montana opened the season at Tennessee in 2011. That's tremendous visibility, both nationally and for local recruits to connect the team on the field with the colorful stationary that pops up in their mailboxes every day.

This post at footballscoop.com raises some pretty good points in favor of FCS but I think there's a chance the lower-level schools benefit some from this. Because there will be no incentive to pay D-II or NAIA schools to come play, it could force teams to play other FCS teams, which can only help for competition and selections come playoff time. For SDSU, it might open up more teams that could come up to Brookings for a September game, much like UC Davis last year.

Speaking of the Jackrabbits, they could get some money out of Minnesota if the Gophers and the Big Ten have to buy out their scheduled opponents past 2016, which is believed to be the start date of this new policy. I would rather see the two teams on the field but I guess that can't be the case.

What I do know is this: The large schools usually get what they want and the SEC has some pull. I could see those teams playing FCS opponents going forward because their conference is so good. The Big Ten doesn't always have that particular luxury. They're going to need better non-conference scheduling to make the new playoff system. In that instance, they can't afford to play the Indiana Teachers Colleges of the world.

If the Big Ten is out, that's bad news for the Missouri Valley Football Conference and more importantly, its school's budgets.

Hockey Talk

I won't fool you and tell you that I'm some sort of die-hard hockey fan. I'm somewhere between casual and enthusiastic, if I could place it.

While the Wild have been around since 2000, I never have been to a game. I went to a bunch of Division III Gustavus hockey games in high school, mainly for something to do because eventually you run out of things to do in a little town. I'm follower of two college hockey teams: Minnesota State-Mankato and Minnesota.
I do have some stories, however.

I've been to three Mavericks games, including one against the Sioux where I learned two things: 1. My high school business/computers teacher went to UND and is a big hockey fan. Didn't know that until I saw him there and 2. College kids will always have one go-to cheer. In this case it was "F--- The Sioux," and we basically heard that relentlessly for three periods. St. Cloud's is explained below.

In what was probably the best college sporting event I've ever been to, I was a witness to the Gophers topping the Mavericks in the first round of the 2008 WCHA playoffs in Game 3, a 3-2 double-overtime win for Minnesota. I was more-or-less amazed with the basic plot of the game and how it unfolded. MSU was No. 11 in the country and finished fourth in the conference, good for a home best-of-three series prior to the Final Five in St. Paul. Of all the teams to host, they got the Gophers. I don't remember a lot of the specifics other than that each game went to overtime (Games 1 and 3 went to 2OT) and that Alex Kangas was the Gophers goalie. (It feels like between Kangas and Kent Patterson they were goalies for 10 years combined.)

I come from a part of the state that has high school hockey and there are some ardent followers but none of the teams are really that good. The team my school is associated with has nine letters in its acronym. Nine. I don't know of many backyard rinks in Le Sueur County. It's mostly basketball and wrestling country because hockey is expensive and there are fewer indoor rinks.

However, it's hard not to catch some of the college hockey action for many reasons. The state hockey tournament is on television for four days and has each round covered, so all of the good players are covered well from 10th grade on. There's five D-I schools in Minnesota and all of them pick away at the leftover talent that the Gophers don't want/need. Almost every Gopher game is on TV. The Final Five is a lot of fun.

In the last post, I mentioned that I would wax poetic about the Western Collegiate Hockey Conference and its final year as we know it and that time has finally come. The conference is probably as competitive as ever, with the two aforementioned teams, North Dakota and Nebraska-Omaha within striking distance of the regular season title. Even Mankato has a good chance of finishing in the top half and having a home playoff series. Now is a bad time for the conference to call it quits.

It's going away because of conference realignment in college hockey and amazingly, it's not tied to football. Instead, it's the other main culprits: television and Jim Delany, Big Ten commissioner.

With the Big Ten Network needing programming on Friday and Saturday nights and Penn State getting Mr. Moneybags to donate nine figures to start men's and women's hockey for Nittany Nation, the Big Ten had the resources to get going with a hockey league. They feel there's a lot of money there. I'm not that sure. (Playing as an independent, PSU hasn't been bad this year. There's some promise there.) Minnesota, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Ohio State and Wisconsin makes for a conference steep in tradition and enough for an annual automatic bid.

The rest of the WCHA is being shaken up as well. Let's go to the chart. The above is 2012-13, the bottom is 2013-14.

Top to bottom, the NCHC will have the best teams. The Big Ten has the potential to be a multi-bid league and they should get two each year but it's not impossible to see it being a one-bid league if a bunch of teams struggle. That's one man's thought.

The new WCHA will be sort of cobbled together but I think it could allow Bemidji and Mankato to rise to the top. If the NCHC ever expanded and the Beavers and Mavericks can create some space, they could be candidates to move up and the Minnesota outstate teams would be connected again. That's a dream scenario and the Mavericks have to improve their arena. That's a must.

--

As for the actual series I went to, I found it to be quite fun. The National Hockey Center is a good facility and it's in the process of being renovated, which will widen the concourses, add seats and suites and justify their conference move because at first, the NCHC didn't want St. Cloud. In fact, the seats we occupied on Saturday night won't exist next year; they will be swollowed up by added suite space at the top of the arena.

The atmosphere was roughly split 70/30 between Husky and Gopher fans. One guy behind me told me to sit down after I was cheering a Gopher goal in the Saturday game; I ignored him. As my friend David said, "St. Cloud's fans act like they know what they're talking about but they usually never do." Exhibit A occurred during the Gophers' 4-2 Friday win. There was one man behind me who was cheering for Minnesota and then a couple other guys who sounded like they had gotten their fill before the game. When it came to rooting for St. Cloud, they would yell at the players, mainly because they had a lot of shots that missed the net, asking "YOU'VE GOT TO HIT THE NET! HOW HARD IS IT TO HIT THE NET?!?" Mind you, they're not asking for goals. Just to put it on the net.

FYI, Hockey nets are six feet by four feet.

Some other thoughts:

• St. Cloud's students relentlessly cheered "Sieve" at the Gophers' Adam Wilcox but they did it even before he allowed a goal. To me, you shouldn't be able to use the cheer until you score on the guy.
• I don't know enough about hockey penalties, so I didn't do much complaining about calls. I did not see Ted Valentine at the series.
• I laugh every time a person does the "Chuck-a-puck" and fails to throw it over the glass. Bonus points if it hits someone in the crowd. 
• After the first St. Cloud goal against Minnesota Friday, the fans threw very small gophers onto the ice. That's not just a Coyote-Jackrabbit thing, then. They did check the jackets and bags both nights upon entering.

Good times, I say. 

Naters Gonna Nate, Part 542

I thought everything had basically been accomplished by SDSU point guard Nate Wolters.

I was wrong. Very wrong.

After a career-high, school-record and NCAA season-high 53 points Thursday against Fort Wayne in a 80-74 win, he's basically proved that the rest of the season is his for the taking.

I'll let the SDSU game recap take some of the details here:

Wolters scored 38 of his points in the second half, one more than the entire IPFW team, finishing the night 17-of-28 shooting overall, 9-of-14 from 3-point range and 10-of-11 from the free throw line.

"They were sagging off of me and my felt pretty good tonight, I was able to knock a couple down and just got into a little bit of a rhythm," Wolters said. "It's a good accomplishment, but it's a big win for us, we had to have it. We knew that they were gonna come out and play hard, they played tough, but we were able to put together a big second half and pull away."

The 53 points not only tops his previous career-high of 36, but breaks the SDSU single-game mark of 44 points, set by Dave Thomas against Coe College on March 10, 1973. His nine 3-pointers tops his previous high of five, set in the season-opener at Alabama, and breaks the SDSU mark of eight, a mark set by Jason Sempsrott on Jan. 12, 1996 vs. North Dakota State, and by Randy Suarez against Augustana on Feb. 7, 1987.

Of course, he's good but the ability to just take over is a skill that few players have. Fort Wayne is one of those places where the building is pretty dead and he made his performance count on a night when the Jacks needed it badly. I'll be curious to see what happens at Oakland Saturday in a must-win ballgame. But as Wolters put it, every game has been a must-win since about mid-December. The Jacks share 1st place with Western Illinois after a three-point loss for NDSU against the Golden Grizzlies tonight.

Earlier this year, I said that I didn't think he would score in bunches at home on a Collegian postgame video. I was wrong because he went for 29 the next game but tonight validates the claim some because I did say that he would have his big games on the road. This will qualify there. At the end of the day, the Jacks need him more on the road because they play much better as a unit at home. 

Wolters is one of two reasons SDSU is the favorite to get back to the NCAA Tournament, along with having the Summit League tournament in Sioux Falls. I would have to say that he gives the Jackrabbits a great chance of getting a win in the Big Dance. He's that good but I'm not telling you anything you didn't already know.

Some of the media from tonight. Check it out as well:

Nate Wolters erupts for 53 points, most by any Division I player this season (Yahoo).

South Dakota State's Nate Wolters scores 53, highest total this season  (ESPN)

Night Court: Nate Wolters gives CBB most points in a game since '09 (CBSSports.com)

Goodbye, 'Roos.

I was going to lead with this but Nate Wolters did his thing, so the Kansas City to the Western Athletic Conference gets bumped. The Kangaroos will be out of the Summit after this year. There's a lot of facets to this, so we'll get to this in bulletpoints.

• At best, this is a lateral move. There's only one way to buy this and that's if the Kangaroos were the third or fourth best basketball team in the conference and were consistently on the cusp of making it to the NCAA Tournament. That's just not the case because their men's basketball program, which should be marquee program for a non-football school, is awful and poorly-managed. 
• Obviously, UMKC has a tough time reading the tea leaves here. Of the nine current members in the conference, SEVEN are leaving the WAC by July 1, 2014. There's a reason everyone else is leaving and they clearly don't see it the same way everyone else does. Denver just left the conference. Was nobody in Kansas City paying attention?
• What's left is not Murderer's Row: California State University, Bakersfield; Chicago State University; Grand Canyon University; New Mexico State University; Seattle University, The University of Texas-Pan American and Utah Valley University.
• The WAC is not anymore of an airplane league than the Summit. Let me know if you find any cheap flights to Las Cruces, N.M.
• They are centrally-located in the Summit. The Kangaroos will be the second-most eastern school in the WAC now. More proof geography doesn't matter anymore in conference realignment.
• How does UMKC not address the media with a press conference today. They really don't know what they're doing, do they?
• People need to get over this idea that the Summit is just garbage as a basketball league. It's not spectacular but it's not like it's high Division II either. See the Wolters notes above. Frank Gaines, Travis Bader, Ceola Clark III, Marshall Bjorklund are all great players. I know that Denver is decent this year (Ha, they're coming to the Summit, New Mexico State made The Dance last year and Utah State is usually good.) Two of those teams are leaving and NMSU will try to get out at any moment. Perception is everything and people will likely see that the WAC is a fraud, far from where it was years ago.
• I would be surprised if the Summit disintegrates, which is what is posed here by Kansas City Star writer Blair Kerkhoff. Certainly, Oakland to the Horizon is a real possibility. As it stands, it doesn't make sense for Omaha to leave the Summit right now because they are in the I-29 pact with the Dakota schools. Also, I don't buy that the WAC is looking at SIU-Edwardsville either. 
• Also thrown out there is SDSU and NDSU looking at the Missouri Valley. That is probably a dream scenario for NDSU for sure but SDSU has a lot going for them in the Summit. The conference tourney is in their backyard and they are having great success. The Valley is a basketball league for sure. However, if the offer is there (it's clearly a step up), how do you turn it down? This would only happen with moves by Creighton and Evansville to the Catholic 7 and the Horizon, respectively.

Lots to chew on there. 

One last time

I'll be heading to St. Cloud Friday for the final WCHA regular season series between St. Cloud State and Minnesota for the weekend showdown, which should be a great series. The Huskies are No. 1 in the conference and the Gophers are No. 3 but it's the Maroon and Gold are No. 1 in the Pairwise rankings (which basically decide who gets into the NCAA Tournament) in what is the final season for college hockey's best league as we know it. I'll miss it and I will probably wax poetic about the WCHA on Monday. 

Did I watch the Super Bowl last night?

I did see Jacoby Jones run for 108 and a score last night though. 

Late last week, I wrote for another blog I like to contribute to that I was tuning out the pregame coverage of the Super Bowl. I did until Sunday, when I had CBS' Super Bowl coverage on to serve as background noise. Pass out all of the pizza you want, Boomer Esiason, I don't care.

As I watched, I felt the same feelings I feel after every Super Bowl, no matter the teams, the location, the broadcasting network or the champion.

It's over already?

And even more than in a regular year: What the hell did I just watch?

The Game, as it likes to be called, always feels fragmented. Maybe it's just me but I can't process the Super Bowl like I can Lions vs. Vikings in Week 6 or even Patriots vs. Ravens in the AFC title game. It is the longest game of the year but each possession feels disconnected. There's a reason why the the 32 minutes felt so different from the final 28 minutes and that wasn't just because of a freak power outage. We've seen it before where the game's pace changes at any moment. (Super Bowl XXXVIII comes to mind.)

Watching the game, you focus on the action and the television much more differently than you do for any other game or sporting event in the year. I'm watching the commercials a lot closer than I would for a regular game because they're supposed to be funny or heartfelt and there were a few of both in Super Bowl XLVII. At the same time, there's people at the party to talk to, snacks to munch on, beer to drink. Everyone is making jokes on Twitter and I'll be damned if I'm not going to keep pace. Plus, Beyonce. How am I supposed to keep enough attention on the game?

The answer is you can't. The Super Bowl is about distracted football.

I would consider myself as a avid follower of football and an average fan. Unless my favorite team is playing in the championship (in which case I would be an absolute train wreck to be around), I'm not going to catch every play and most of them don't matter. If you see the touchdowns, that's good enough.

The Super Bowl feels different because it is different. Alicia Keys doesn't do a three-minute rendition of the National Anthem for a regular season game between the Bengals and Raiders. A massive party  doesn't gather for every single Sunday Night Football game unless you're a big Al Michaels fan. I would be foolish to think that the Super Bowl would be watched in the same way as the regular season.

It's Super Sunday, remember?

Now, it's not like the game is now gone forever. The highlights are playing on a 24-hour loop on numerous networks and the coverage is breathless. If I missed the commercial of the night, I can go to one of the many online platforms that has them all waiting.

I didn't really have a rooting interest in the game. Ravens, Niners ... either way, I would have lived with the outcome (And I have because I'm writing this post, see?). But, we can all basically agree that the game itself is a spectacle and one that draws all sorts of football followers, fanatical or not.

While I may have missed some of the game, I didn't miss the Super Bowl.