Brad Brownell by the numbers

Mar 7, 2019, 3:00 PM

I did some serious number crunching for a thread earlier this week. It got buried and I think it deserves a look.

I was primarily refuting the notion that the ACC schedule Brownell faces is as tough or tougher than most of the preceeding coaches. This is, of course, hoakum. As evidence that the ACC is tougher than ever it was pointed out that the ACC has - GULP! - 3 teams in the top 5! When, if ever has that happened before?!?!. Well, it's happened before. But a week by week analysis of poll date over the last 50 years won't prove much and is too tedious and time consuming. I looked at, over the course of an ACC regular season how many top 25, top 10, and top 5 opponents have coaches Foster through Brownell faced. The numbers aren't pretty and way worse than I would have hypothesized.

In his ten years as coach, Brownell faces an average of 5 top 25 teams a year in the ACC schedule. Of those only 2 a year will be top 10. On average, he faces 1 top 5 program a season. If it weren't for the 3 he faced this year (the only reason we're still in discussion for the NCAA tourney) he's averages .7 top 5 ACC teams per year. Btw - he is 0-10 in those games. A miserable 2-19 against top 10 ACC foes. And a modest 10-41 against the ACC top 25.

So, how does the competitiveness of the ACC schedule stack up to his predecessors.

% schedule against ACC top 25
Foster 47%
Ellis 43%
Barnes 49%
Shyatt 46%
Purnell 30%
Brownell 29%

% schedule against ACC top 10
Foster 28%
Ellis 25%
Barnes 27%
Shyatt 28%
Purnell 16%
Brownell 12%

% schedule against ACC top 5
Foster 18%
Ellis 17%
Barnes 13%
Shyatt 18%
Purnell 13%
Brownell 6%

Foster, Ellis and Shyatt were 3 times more likely to be playing a top 5 opponent than Brownell. Essentially every 5th game. Everyone but Purnell was more than twice as likely to be playing a top 10 opponent. Eliis, Barnes, and Shyatt essentially played every other game against a ranked opponent. Brownell faces a ranked opponent less than 1/3 of the time. There is no comparison between the difficulty of schedule since the last expansion.

So, how does everyone do against this talent. First, time to recognize Bill Foster's incredible 33% win margin against the top 5. Amazing. Here are the numbers

Coach Win % Top 25 Win % Top 10 Win % Top 5
Foster 33% 27% 33%
Ellis 24% 16% 12%
Barnes 32% 18% 0%
Shyatt 14% 9% 7%
Purnell 17% 7% 8%
Brownell 20% 10% 0%

Unfortunately, it simply paints the sad history of Clemson basketball. But now we're spending more of our time playing really crap ACC teams rather than playing great ACC teams pulling for the upset (which I certainly found more exciting than the current state of affairs). Brad isn't a dramatic outlier, but he has more in common with Shyatt and Purnell than Foster or Ellis. He certainly is no great new standard bearer not being given his due. Frankly, as much as people like to kick Shyatt around here there is little reason to believe the last 10 years would have been much different with him around.

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Here is the problem with that analysis... schedule bias and context

The landscape is fundamentally different between the elite "basketball" schools and others in conference.

By using the % ranked of the schedule, you are going to skew towards Foster because we were playing 12 ACC teams during his tenure and only 24-25 total "regular season' games. Thus just playing NC State/UNC during the round robin format is going make a huge impact in a 12 conference game schedule. Foster's best year he tied for 2nd in the ACC withan 8-4 record. Yup. 12 conference games. Otherwise, he struggled to finish better than 5th out of 8. Hummm. I think Brad has gone 8-4 before in at least one 12 game span. Still, if UNC/NC State is ranked high, then you would see them for 1/4 of your games. That is just two teams. Now consider when you have 15 teams. Even the non-round-robin format can make the competition tougher despite being a lower top-10 percentage. Heck, from a coaching standpoint, you have to adjust to facing more coaches and schemes, thus more opportunities on both sides of hitting a scheme-related opponent -example FSU.

The "conference" being stronger is not just that we have UVA, DUKE and CHEAT flexing in the top 5, but we also have more robust programs in the upper third. Louisville, Cuse, etc turn that top third into a 3 spot to a 6 spot very easily. Then take a good team - FSU and Hamilton have proven to be very good. And the rando - VT. Suddenly folks are .500. Whichever way you split it, the pie is smaller and we spend a LOT less than most of the other .500+ programs.

Next, context. Competition for recruiting talent with "mid majors" programs is very different. During the Barnes days, WE were the mid-majors. You did not have Gonzaga, Wichita, VCU making a splash. You had the "Big East" and they are still here so the non-elite talent pool is thinned.

Re: Brad Brownell by the numbers

Brad Brownell by the numbers

What could have been if Barnes hadn’t elevated his game***

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Re: Brad Brownell by the numbers

Re: Brad Brownell by the numbers

Thank you for number crunching but

Re: Thank you for number crunching but

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Re: Brad Brownell by the numbers

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