FanPulse CBB: Are we done for a while? I honestly don’t know

Note: these are the results of last week’s vote, not for the email vote that went out this morning.

I’m beginning to enjoy sitting on these results and giving them to you on Monday. We typically get them late on Thursday, but when our Fridays have been our busiest da,y it just makes sense to hold off on FanPulse until a new week. Then the new votes get submitted tomorrow and we do it all over again!

At least from a Mizzou fan confidence standpoint, we’re happy Missouri isn’t awful anymore!

FAN CONFIDENCE GRAPHICS

Here are the last five weeks of numbers:

• 42%
• 60%
• 76%
• 75%
• 78%

We bottomed out six weeks ago at 35% after starting 1-5 in league play Mizzou figured out something and went 6-6 the rest of the way. Considering this team’s inability to make jump shots, a .500 record in league play is a lot better than the alternative. Plus, while going 5-4 in their last 9, the Tigers only had one loss by double digits and that was a 10 point loss to Arkansas in a game that was close until late.

So has the tide turned? I guess we’ll find out. They’re heading into the SEC Tournament as a 10 seed and a Thursday night start against Texas A&M. The Aggies are actually considered underdogs on a neutral court because of how awful they were at the beginning of the year. Get a win in the SEC Tournament (and maybe two) and suddenly we’re feeling a lot better about next year.

Moving on to the National question...

Who should be the Coach of the Year?

This is a really good question and one in which I think there are a few, very clear, candidates, but first the results:

• Anthony Grant, Dayton 20%
• Other 18%
• Scott Drew, Baylor 17%
• Brian Dutcher, SDSU 15%
• Leonard Hamilton, FSU 13%
• Tony Bennett, Virginia 4%
• Brad Underwood, Illinois 4%
• Mark Turgeon, Maryland 3%
• Greg McDermott, Creighton 3%
• Bill Self, Kansas 2%

First of all, I don’t think you give the coach of the year to a guy who had a good team which was expected to be good and they were good... so bye, Bill Self and Mark Turgeon. Only kU and Maryland fans are gonna vote for those guys. I also don’t think Brad Underwood should get credit for having Ayo Dosunmu on the roster because Ayo saves Brad’s bacon on a regular basis.

Other is tempting but I actually think there are good candidates here. I think you can’t have a coach of the year who wasn’t coach of the year in his own conference. So I’d take Leonard Hamilton over Tony Bennett. Virginia was a pre-season top 25 team and finished 44th in KenPom thanks to an absolutely atrocious offense. Meanwhile Leonard Hamilton won the ACC without any preseason expectations.

Baylor was expected to be pretty good and turned out to be great. So points for Scott Drew. And Creighton has been good late but they’ve tied in the Big East lead and lost by 30 to San Diego State. So really good but not great.

Meanwhile, San Diego State was just a hair inside the Kenpom top 100 to start the season and went 30-2 and 6th in KenPom! Dayton was a top 60 team and are 29-2 and 4th in KenPom.

So I’d give the award to either Dutcher or Grant. I’m going to give the edge to Grant on the basis he’s only lost to Kansas and Colorado (32 in KP) on neutral courts and went undefeated in a slightly better league. But only by the thinnest of margins.

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