By the Numbers: A Comparison of 15-15 (6-11) ECU Teams

I don't spend a lot of time at the other place, but last night I checked the wrong Tulane thread and noticed a lot of chatter a few days ago. As always there was one guy there still standing on his Dooley hill, with this same pocket of excuses.

"Don't Look Back In Anger" man, he had 4 years and he's gone. His point that ECU was improving "Little By Little" misses the context of how bad ECU was under Dooley, and how little the program was actually improving. (worse NET,  year 3 to 4 BTW)  

   

The man coached 13 years of basketball and averaged 185th ranked teams I think we know what to expect.  Even if he could have come back and coached a little better team in year 5 vs this one, who cares. The worst thing ECU could have done is extend him multiple years at top 100 pay or be another year behind on a fresh start. It's so ridiculous at this point that's even the conversation over there but you can count on Dooley Hill to be summited weekly.

 The revisionist history and bucket-O excuses is played, but the conversation on this years 15-15 vs last year's 15-15 is relevant. So let's break it down.

Last Year

This Year

Overall it's kind of eerie how nearly identical these seasons are even though most of the key players are  different. Even the Offense and Defense are basically the same. The main difference in SOS comes in is that the AAC is a worse conference this season (66% win percentage vs 61% 7th vs 9th ranked). 

That and Schwartz has coached basically Dooley's bench players to this level. Dooley needed older more talented players IMO like Newton, Jackson, Tremont, Suggs, Miles etc, To even get to the same level 4 years in and with nearly all of them together 3 years. New system, last years back ups 1st year rookie coach, no prob, the same general level.

Other Models, I Respect

	KenPom	Torvik
Dooley	179	169
Schwartz	191	198

Luck Ranking	KenPom	Torvik
Dooley	41	77
Schwartz	98	75

Ken Pom is the more respected nationally. Both teams are lucky but Dooley was extremely lucky in KenPoms rankings. That's something that is never talked about.

All and all It basically equates to the same general level of the team with all models basically showing a marginal difference. That's without Newton who probably isn't here regardless of who is the coach, and with the leading scorer on this team Small missing much of AAC play. 

They can and I'm sure will keep making excuses about Suggs missing 5 games but ECU wasn't even close in those. They lost by an average of 18 points and only one was within 8 points. It's nowhere near the same as losing your PG for 12+ games in the AAC who was averaging 15.8ppg 5.6apg even if he was struggling in the AAC. 

That's still probably the most important position and it took games for Schwartz to figure out LaCount couldn't play.  As far as the other injuries excuses cited, Dooley signed Frink and Tabbs knowing their medical history. That's not even close to an excuse, and they weren't even good anyway after all the injuries or capable of playing starter minutes. 

ECU is in a far better situation even if the 15-15 this year is slightly less. Most of that isn't because Schwartz scheduled any worse. It's simply on the AAC for being worse.  There are also still at least 2 games to improve the numbers.