This Minnesota vs. Stanford game recap can also be found on Minnesota's SB nation counterpart, Daily Gopher. Gopher Nation was kind enough to give me their space for a few days.

The Stanford Cardinal proved why they belong in Madison Square Garden's winner's circle.

Stanford defeated the Minnesota Golden Gophers in the NIT Championship, 75-51, on Tuesday in New York City. A game that was expected to be close and competitive quickly became a Big Apple romp.

A mid-first half 12-0 run, led by strong guard play from Stanford sophomore guard Aaron Bright, turned a Minnesota 4-point lead into an 8-point deficit. The Gophers did not convert a field goal in the final 8:57 of the first frame.

Bright, the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, scored 15 points on 4-7 shooting and dished four assists in the Cardinal's winning effort. Freshman Chasson Randle (15 points) and Anthony Brown (11 points) also scored in double figures for Johnny Dawkins' team.

Rodney Williams led the way for the Gophers with 12 points, but once again struggled with foul trouble before ultimately fouling out with 5:02 left. Austin Hollins and Joe Coleman each contributed 10 points.

More, below the fold.

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This Minnesota vs. Washington game recap can also be found on Minnesota's SB nation counterpart, Daily Gopher. Gopher Nation was kind enough to give me their space for a few hours. But don't worry, I'm back for good - the Midwest just didn't feel like home.

It took an extra frame, but the Minnesota Golden Gophers are moving on to the NIT finals.

Minnesota defeated the Washington Huskies, 68-67, in overtime on Tuesday in the second of two NIT semifinal games at Madison Square Garden. Washington threatened to stun Tubby Smith's Gophers with a late surge, but were ultimately unable to overcome a poor shooting performance.

A Joe Coleman turnover in the final seconds of regulation gave Washington's C.J. Wilcox an easy lay-in, which tied the game at 61. The lead that the Gophers had held onto all night vanished with the blink of an eye.

"Joe caught the ball and shoveled it to me, and it came a little fast," said Andre Hollins afterwards. "I should have caught it. We had to gut it out in overtime."

The Big Ten representative outscored the Pac-12's Huskies, 7-6, in the additional five minutes. They survive and advance into the championship game on Thursday.

Hollins (20 points) and Rodney Williams (18 points) paced the Gophers in their victorious effort. Washington forward Terrence Ross contributed 21 points as just one of three Huskies in double figures in the loss.

More, below the fold.

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A large contingent dressed in maroon came down from the Bay State to watch their Minutemen compete in its first NIT "Final Four" since 2008. They were excited when they entered the Garden, but not as upbeat upon departure.

The Stanford Cardinal defeated the UMass Minutemen, 74-64, in the NIT semifinals on Tuesday night at the World's Most Famous Arena The historic college basketball postseason tournament, celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, saw an entertaining, back-and-forth battle in the first of two games on Tuesday.

Forward Anthony Brown led Johnny Dawkins' Cardinal with 18 points (13 in second half) on 7-12 shooting. Brown was joined by three teammates - Josh Owens (15 points), Aaron Bright (13 points), and Chasson Randle (12 points) - in double figures.

Brooklyn native and former Hofstra guard Chaz Williams of UMass scored 19 points in a gutty, New York-tough performance. The Minutemen were able to utilize its Garden support to take a one-point lead with about 9 minutes left, but Stanford's constant answers and overwhelming talent proved to be too much.

More, below the fold.

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Madison Square Garden will host a Final Four on Tuesday, just maybe not the quartet everyone has been talking about.

The National Invitation Tournament (NIT) makes its annual stop in New York City tonight, as four teams will convene for a doubleheader. The UMass Minutemen will take on the Stanford Cardinal at 7, which will be followed by a clash between the Minnesota Golden Gophers and Washington Huskies.

The NIT, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2012, is a long-standing New York City college basketball tradition. Before the NCAA Tournament gained its name and prestige, the nation's best battled in the NIT to determine a champion.

It can often be difficult for coaches to convince their teams, especially those that just miss an NCAA Tournament bid, to put forth a serious effort in the NIT. Tuesday's semifinal participants, guided by four strong coaches, have taken advantage of the opportunity.

Tonight's match-ups will be televised on ESPN2 and will be broadcast by Mike Patrick, Fran Fraschila, and Bill Raftery.

More, below the fold.

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While getting ready to review the St. John's basketball season on the Rumble, I realized that I had never compiled any sort of explanation for the terminology. I realize some of the tempo-fee/ tempo-neutral stuff isn't necessarily familiar to all readers. But they're not magic, they're cobbled together from the box score.  Though I do spend a little time with Excel and Access to slap together some quantitative evidence for what I'm talking about.

Why use these different stats?

Because when you see a fast team putting up 80 or 90 points, a savvy watcher knows that said team isn't necessarily better than a team that scores 65 but scores every time they have the ball. Those differences in style make it hard to make judgments about the quality of scoring when simply looking at the final score; scoring is inflated or deflated by style.

North Carolina coach Dean Smith used per-possession stats to evaluate his team, as did his predecessor, Frank McGuire. Dean Oliver is credited with writing "the book" (Basketball on Paper - find it at your bookseller) on tempo-neutral statistics; his book is more NBA focused, but very, very useful. Ken Pomeroy, John Gasaway, and others have taken on analyzing college basketball.

If you want to know more of the rationale, Gasaway's post, "This is TFS: tempo-free stats" for Big Ten Wonk years ago is a great start. And if you want a whole lot of simply laid out tempo-neutral stats, go to kenpom.com, Ken Pomeroy's site, widely used by bloggers, national writers, and some coaches (Brad Stevens, being one; Mike Krzyzewski and Buzz Williams being others).

(I prefer the term "tempo-neutral," myself, since many of the statistics normalize basketball activity over 1 possession or 100 possessions. There is a tempo!)

A tutorial of the basic tempo-neutral terms, below the fold:

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In years past, this blog (when it was the East Coast Bias) covered coaching changes - both for knowledge of who got fired and out of fascination about how other programs go about making changes. It's a similar dance every year; and the post about how to evaluate college basketball coaching candidates still rings true.

In the offseason, I'll take some other looks into the coaching carousel from last year and how things went for teams that made the change. But for now, the list of 27 open jobs that I know of; Ron Hunter has moved on from IUPUI to Georgia State, so one job is filled already.

But there are high-major positions with Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia Tech, North Carolina State, and Oklahoma... along with high-major conference jobs open at Providence, Texas Tech, and Utah (moving to the Pac-10 Pac-12). And interesting jobs with Fresno State, Monmouth, Manhattan, Bradley, and Loyola-Chicago.

It's an exciting time for fans, and a frightening time for Athletic Directors; at lower-level schools, can they find a coach who will take pay less than many assistant positions in the major and mid-major conferences while still able to find players who can win? At the highest levels, the jobs are extremely difficult to succeed at, and the fan expectation is very high - even in places where teams haven't tasted consistent success.

And of course, recruits are wondering why they signed binding Letter of Intent paperwork only to find their coach gone.

The updated coaching changes chart, with win-loss records and years in Division 1 schools. For the three firings at schools that have been provisional D1 members, I left out their in-conference coaching records. If you see any glaring errors, let me know in the comments. Read on, below the fold.

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It's that season, where schools look upon others going to the postseason with green envy and make a move to try and revitalize their program, chopping off the public head. Here is our update on the coaches on the hot seat; many of these coaching changes were expected by us and by the coaches themselves.

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It's that time again - I can tell from the searches that are leading to this blog - to start talking about the college basketball coaches on the hot seat. Many of the coaches on this list were pretty much on the hot seat from the beginning of the year. And some who should be on the hot seat are no longer... because they've already been fired.

The number of midseason firings have seemed high. Even though all of the coaches were losing and losing handily, the schools are cutting bait quickly, handing the job over to some hungry coach who will tend to lose a lot of games and have no chance of getting the permanent job:

Jerry Wainwright, DePaul (Big East): fired after more losses, including to Florida Gulf Coast, 1.11.10

Dereck Whittingham, Fordham (A-10): fired after extreme losing record and spate of transfers, including star Jio Fontan who tried leaving earlier, 12.3.09

Benny Moss, UNC-Wilmington (CAA): fired, possibly under pressure by UNC-W boosters, 1.28.10

Terry Dunn, Dartmouth (Ivy): resigned after players threatened to not play another game for him, 1.8.10 (players deny allegations)

Glen Miller, U Pennsylvania (Ivy): fired after striking the wrong chord with alums (or not understanding Quaker basketball culture + scrutiny), 12.14.09

That's a lot of firing.

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