Floydwatch: Payin' the Bills Edition

We here at Offers have a special place in our heart for Tim Floyd, the person who coined the phrase that is our namesake.

We loved it when he was caught in the middle of a huge catfight in a low-class casino in Vegas.

But apparently playing quarter slots at Morongo for 8 straight months and spending time on your land takes a toll on your savings. So now Tim Floyd has to pay some bills.

ESPN's Marc Stein is reporting that Floyd will be the new top assistant for the New Orleans Hornets, a team he helped coach to impressive mediocrity in the 2003-2004 season, posting a 41-41 record.

Marc Stein: "Our own @ricbucher reports that the Hornets are adding head coach to GM Jeff Bower's duties and bringing in Tim Floyd to be top assistant"

On the plus side, he can give out envelopes stuffed with cash to his heart's content at his new position. Sounds like a good fit to us.

Surprise!

Looks like voters have a lot of faith in the basketball team's quest to defend their Pac-10 title. USC received 22 votes in the Coaches Poll, placing them firmly at 36th in the nation. I don't see why not! The AP poll, inexplicably, had no USC voters. Their loss!

Insane tiebreak scenarios, part two.

This is something I dreamed up while attending class today. If you must know, the class was "Basic Zone Read Defense." USC doesn't offer more advanced classes discussing the defense of the zone read, for obvious reasons.

There is a rather real possibility that six teams tie for first. Impossible, you say? Hah, you doubting Thomas. But be warned, this is best suited for a graduate Tiebreak Analysis course.

Oregon (5-1) - Loses to Arizona, Loses to Oregon State, Beats Arizona State

Arizona (4-1) - loses to Cal, loses to USC, beats Arizona State, beats Oregon

Stanford (5-2) - loses to Cal, beats USC

USC (4-2) - Loses to Stanford, beats Arizona, beats UCLA

Oregon State (4-2) - Beats Oregon, Beats Washington State, loses to Washington

Cal (3-3) - beats Arizona, beats Stanford, beats Washington

Here we have accounted for the current top six teams and each of their conference games throughout the rest of the year. If all these games go as predicted, each team with have a conference record of 6-3, causing an unprecedented 6-way logjam in first place. And this in a year in which the SEC had the contestants in its Championship Game decided before people had thrown out their Halloween decorations.

Now, how do we break this tie? Well, we know that record against all other first-place teams is the first tiebreak. And in that case, three teams will be 3-2 and three teams will be 2-3 against the other five teams in the first place tie.

3-2: Arizona, USC, Oregon State.

2-3: Oregon, Stanford, Cal

Thus, Oregon, Stanford, and Cal are eliminated. And since USC has beaten both Oregon State and Arizona, the Trojans head to the Rose Bowl.

For laughs, we can create the entire top 6 in this situation:

1. USC

2. Arizona (holds head-to-head tiebreak against Oregon State)

3. Oregon State

4. Stanford (Oregon and Stanford both beat top-ranked USC, eliminating Cal; Stanford holds head-to-head tiebreak against Oregon)

5. Oregon

6. Cal

Note that all of these teams would be bowl eligible and would likely be favored to win each of their games. Congrats - if you understood this post, you've completed the requisite coursework to receive your M.S. in Tiebreak Analysis. Contact the USC Registrar and say that O.J. sent you.

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Insane tiebreak scenarios, part one.

Let’s say that Oregon loses its upcoming trip to Arizona and Arizona loses its trip to USC, and USC, Oregon, and Arizona win all other games. This isn’t a particularly surprising outcome, given that these are the best three teams in the Pac-10 and and that the home team is dominating big games so far this year.

Arizona, USC, and Oregon will all top the standings with 2 wins. Off to the tiebreak rules!

If I’m reading them right (and I should be, considering I’m taking a class at USC right now called “Advanced Football Tiebreak Scenarios”), it appears that you first consider the teams’ record against each other. Since each team is 1-1 against the other 2 teams, we go on to the next tiebreak:

If more than two teams are still tied after the process above is completed, each remaining tied team's record against the team occupying the highest position in the final regular season standings shall be compared, with the procedure continuing down through the standings until one team gains an advantage.

Since these three teams are at the top of the standings, we have to go down throughout the rest of the standings. To simplify the process, we can simply look at the losses of the top three teams - each of them has lost to each other, but they all have one other loss. Arizona and USC have lost to Washington (interestingly, both on the road, and both by three points). But Oregon lost to Stanford. Stanford, currently at 5-2, will almost certainly have a better record at the end of the year than Washington, currently at 2-4.

Since Oregon has a worse record against better teams, it is eliminated, and we have a two-way tie between USC and Arizona. At that point, USC holds the tiebreaking win and goes to the Rose Bowl.

Whew! Glad that’s over.

But wait! What if Stanford loses its next two games, USC and Cal, to slip to 5-4? And what if Washington wins its last three - Oregon State, Cal, and Washington State? At this point, there is no available conference tiebreak, so the team with the highest ranking in the final BCS standings will go to the Rose Bowl. In this scenario, that team would presumably be USC because both Arizona and Oregon have three losses (Arizona lost to Iowa and Oregon lost to Boise State). And then USC would go to the Rose Bowl.

Now you’re ready to ace the final for “Advanced Football Tiebreak Scenarios.”

Floydwatch: The Aftermath

Jim Rome tracks down Tim Floyd (what?) to get a comment on the whole, you know...thing. TF has his say, but I think the most telling is this quote:

All I can say is that it was more physical than anything I'd seen in the Pac-10.

Yes. Absolutely. A fight between some women in a casino food court is more physical than a college basketball league. There is no way to dispute this.

Floydwatch: Casino Edition

Okay guys. Sometimes life gets you down. Sometimes, you win a Pac-10 title, only to get ousted by the school that brought you there. Maybe you had some envelopes which you did or didn't hand to some friends of recruits. Doesn't matter; nobody's keeping score. And maybe, after all of this, you just want to go hang out in the casino, which is probably close to your land, and have a nice afternoon at the envelope-stuffing tables (those are things, right?). And yet, every time you do this, someone has to go RUIN it? Story of your life, right? I know. So yeah, I think we can all sympathize with Tim Floyd. Leave Tim Floyd alone. Stop fighting when he's around, because you know he'll break it up. Stop trying to break a chair over his back.

In which Matthias discusses breakfast

He might be a true freshman quarterback, but that doesn't mean he can cook:

"I can do cereal with milk. But I've discovered the greatest blessing on earth — Sunday sorority brunches!"

Not your typical Frosh.