Big 12 coaches

A lot of links for your Tuesday …

• Journal-World news reporter Shaun Hittle posed an interesting question to me earlier in the week: Which Big 12 coach produces the best value when comparing his salary to his wins?

If you remember, USA Today did a similar study a few months ago with college football showing KU had the highest cost-per-win ratio in the nation ($2.5 million/win).

With help from Hittle and the Des Moines Register, which pulled each Big 12 coach’s salary for a piece it did last week, here’s a look at the Big 12 coaches and their wins compared to their salaries.

Big 12 coaches

Note: We previously had 30 wins for KU, which was one too many. It should be fixed now with 29.

Though KU coach Bill Self is easily the highest-paid coach in the Big 12, he ranks seventh in cost per win because of the Jayhawks’ success. Obviously, West Virginia and Texas can’t be happy with the results they received from their well-paid coaches this season.

• While we’re on the topic of money, a study by Forbes Magazine finds Kansas has the second-most valuable basketball team at $32.9 million, trailing only Louisville ($38.5 million).

KU was third last year on the Forbes list but passed North Carolina, which checked in right behind KU at $32.8 million.

• This is one of the best blogs I’ve seen all year: Barstoolsports put together the top 14 GIFs of the college basketball season. (Warning: There’s some language in the link above that might not be appropriate for the workplace.)

KU makes three separate appearances on the list, with KU guard Ben McLemore’s locker room dance earning the No. 3 spot.

Seriously, though, it’ll be tough to have a bad day if you take a few minutes to watch all of these (and especially No. 1, which is mesmerizing).

• Here’s a video showing the top 26 buzzer-beaters of the college basketball season. CBS’s Gregg Doyel described the video well on Twitter, saying, “My goosebumps have goosebumps.”

• New York Times’ statistician Nate Silver gives his analysis of the NCAA brackets in this column, and he also does a good job of explaining why statistical models like the third-seeded Florida Gators so much.

The answer boils down to margin of
victory. Florida’s losses came by
margins of 1, 3, 3, 4, 6, 6 and 11
points. By contrast, its wins came in
blowouts; the Gators didn’t win a
single game by fewer than 10 points.

As much as the conventional wisdom
might chide Florida for having
performed poorly in the clutch, there
is an abundance of statistical
evidence that a team’s record in close
games is mostly a matter of luck, and
that this luck turns around often
enough. Had Florida split its
single-digit games, for instance, it
would have gone 29-4 this year, which
may be a better indication of its
strength.

• Facebook has released some color-coded maps based on people “liking” the teams in the NCAA Tournament. KU seems to be well-represented in the Midwest, especially when compared to the other No. 1 seeds. The final map also compared KU basketball fans to Kansas State basketball fans … and the result isn’t surprising.

• KU Athletics released its highlight video following the Jayhawks’ 70-54 Big 12 championship victory over Kansas State. And for those fans of the “McLemore” dance, you’ll want to be sure to make it to the 2:05 mark.

• Want to look at some unconventional brackets? Ecollegefinder.org took a look at how the current bracket would end up if teams won each game based on enrollment, tuition, student/faculty ratio and acceptance rate.

• And finally, in case you haven’t heard, the Kansas women’s basketball team made the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year, earning a No. 12 seed. The Jayhawks will take on fifth-seeded Colorado at 5:30 p.m. Saturday on ESPN2.

I love this photo from Journal-World photographer John Young of the players’ reactions once they saw “Kansas” on the TV screen. The best facial expression is from KU guard CeCe Harper right in the middle of the front row.

photo by: John Young

Members of the Kansas women's basketball team celebrate as they learn their fate in the 2013 NCAA Women's Tournament Monday evening at Allen Fieldhouse. The Jayhawks earned the 12th seed in the Norfolk region and will play fifth seeded Colorado at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Also, here’s some video of the scene from KU Athletics. Be sure to pay attention to Carolyn Davis (back row, far left), who couldn’t play in last year’s NCAA run to the Sweet 16 because of a torn ACL. She gets the most congratulations, and at the end, she also wipes away a tear.