Facing My Mark Jackson Fears

I’m getting way ahead of myself today. Considering that there is no guarantee there will be an NBA season this year, writing about the new Golden State Warriors head coach seems like a futile exercise. The man has barely had a chance to meet his players let alone get the chance to start implementing plays or strategy for the team. However, since the NBA regular season was supposed to start this week, I’m getting a little antsy, and his lunch with the local Bay Area media has already received a lot of attention.

A little background before I dive into his quotes. I have been anti-Mark Jackson from day one. I was upset he was even considered a candidate to become the new Warriors head coach. When he was hired, I was more than a little upset. This had nothing to do with the fact that I thought he was annoying TV personality. It was the idea that he had always wanted to become a head coach but instead of actually, you know, going into coaching he chose the cushy life of an NBA TV color man. No disrespect intended for anyone who works in TV, but I’d assume if you work in TV it’s a career that you actually intended on doing. Pretty safe to say most successful NBA coaches who were former players actually decided to hone their coaching skills by taking some sort of assistant job rather than taking a gig as a TV personality.

The great Matt Steinmetz of CSN Bay Area provided all these quotes and blurbs from Coach Jackson. One of the major points Jackson was trying to emphasize was that he wasn’t a fan of “false hustle.” Basically he was saying that working long hours just to do it, or having extra long practices just to say you practiced isn’t worth it and he’d rather focus on the efficiency and quality of the work that he, the coaches and the team puts in.

SDSU Defeats Air Force and Why You Should Care

Note: I am an SDSU alum and blind supporter of the team. Everything I say in here should be taken with an appropriate grain of salt.

Coming off of back to back losses and a very slow start tonight, San Diego State pulled through over Air Force to win 41-27. The Aztecs, who were 7 point underdogs, scored on the opening possession of the game, but only saw the ball twice more in the first half, as the Falcons triple-option offense was very effective in controlling the ball and picking up first downs on key short yardage plays, including a touchdown on a fake field goal in the 2nd quarter. SDSU responded by taking the following kick off back for a TD, but Air Force held the ball for the rest of the half and kicked a field goal as time expired to tie the score 17-17 at halftime.

The 2nd half started with more of the same for Air Force as they opened the half with a 5:30 drive that resulted in a FG and a 20-17 lead. After a 3 and out for SDSU that actually lost 30 yards, all the momentum seemed to be in Air Force’s favor. However, they got sloppy with the ball, turning the ball over on consecutive possessions that led to 10 quick points for SDSU. After a Falcons 3 and out, Ronnie Hillman took over. With 2 long TD runs in the 4th quarter, Hillman finished the game with 172 yards on 28 carries, his 5th 100+ yard game this season.

Needless to say I was very excited about this victory. Admittedly I am and have always been more of an Aztecs hoops fan over the football team (Fisher’s Fanatics!!). But the football program has been on the up and up since they hired Brady Hoke 3 seasons ago. Hoke took over a team that went 2-10 in 2008 and the only real positive thing you could say about them was that freshmen QB Ryan Lindley looked like he COULD be decent one day. In Hoke’s first season, SDSU went 4-8 in what looked and felt like every other Aztecs season of the past 10 years.

OBP and the Ideals of Moneyball

Since there are still baseball fans and writers out there who do not see the value of using statistics for evaluating teams and players, I wanted to do a quick post about on base percentage (OBP). Here are this season’s American League team leaders in OBP:

		OBP	Wins	Runs
	Boston	0.349	90	875 (1)
	New York	0.343	97	867(2)
	Detroit	0.340	95	787(4)
	Texas	0.340	96	855(3)
	Kansas City	0.323	71	730(6)
	Tampa Bay	0.322	91	707(8)

The number in parentheses next to the total runs scored is where the team ranked in the AL in runs. As you can see, all 4 playoff teams from the AL are in the top 6 in the league in OBP, and 5 of the top 6 won at least 90 games. Not surprisingly, all these teams minus Tampa Bay were in the top half of the American League in runs scored too. Now here are the National League team leaders: