By Kate Fagan

For years, I carried in my wallet a winning ticket from the Saratoga Race Course.

The ticket was folded like a receipt, frayed at the corners, and tucked away with old business cards I’d never looked at. Every few months, I’d pull it out, open it and read the printed words:

Race 9 $2 WIN 4.

For many people, that’s mere jargon. But for me, that ticket conjured a scene:

The sun rises over Saratoga’s backstretch; a dark bay colt, nostrils flared, muscles like pipes, roars down the stretch and then gradually eases to a gallop beneath the reins of his famous jockey.

There was an honesty to watching a powerful, majestic animal rip through dawn at 40 miles per hour. Little seems impossible if a two-ton beast, running on ankles that appear the thickness of chopsticks, can reach highway speeds with a man clinging to his back.

I have a love-ambivalence relationship with horse racing. And every year around this time, as the country starts talking about the Kentucky Derby, I’m reminded why. I remember the moments I’ve stood, rooted to the ground, mesmerized by a horse’s grace and beauty. But I also remember the moments I’ve been disgusted by the sticky floor of the grandstand; by the desperation of men rustling in their pockets for one final, crumpled buck to put on the longshot; by the ostentatiousness of horse owners, climbing the stairs to luxury boxes above it all. Nowhere else in America does the seediness created by gambling collide so directly with the beauty created by sport.

I grew up a half hour from Saratoga Springs. During the winter, the town is covered in snow, hibernating in upstate gloom. During the summer, it feels like someone turned a spotlight on the place; the town glows. When I was a kid, my family packed a cooler and found a bench near the top of the stretch. It was then that my love, and my ambivalence, for horse racing took root.

Nearly everyone else in my family developed an affinity for the sport: dad, sister, uncles, cousins. Their passion was driven by a skill for handicapping and the thrill of the final turn for home. The only part that ever grabbed my heart was being near the horses. So while my family was hunched over their programs, pens circling crucial information — weight, previous distances, all-time results — I would walk down to the paddock and watch the horses amble from the barn toward the starting gate. Trainers delivered final words of advice to jockeys before boosting them into the saddle. Inevitably, in those few minutes, I’d fall in love with one of the horses.

But the one I loved most was Street Sense. In my mid-20s, I moved back home to work at a small newspaper. I lived in downtown Saratoga Springs, in a walk-up apartment above Caroline Street, the town’s famous party block. Saratoga’s motto is “The August Place To Be,” and for those four weeks, the street floods with people as if a dam has broken; no car even attempts to pass. Everyone is high from a day at the races, winding down over jack and cokes and wine and stories of the horse that made good.

I loved racing that summer. Saratoga will make you love it: the charming, historic, tree-lined downtown; the Victorian homes stacked high like wedding cakes; the sweat-slicked horses, their chests still heaving, crossing the street from oval to barn. I once walked through the turnstile with legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who was carrying a cooler, the day’s program tucked under his arm. Somehow, he looked like everyone else — just coming to watch the horses run.

Part of my job at the newspaper was covering the races, which meant waking early to watch the morning runs. Street Sense had been a Triple Crown hopeful, but he had lost the second leg, the Preakness, by a bob of the head. His owners and trainers then set their sights on the Travers, which at the time carried a purse of $1 million, along with a lot of prestige.

Trainers are often coy about when a horse runs. There are tales of old-time trainers switching tracks at the last minute or leading look-alike horses from the barn as decoys. In the 1930s, Seabiscuit worked out in the middle of the night to avoid the chaos and scrutiny of a public showing. The morning of Street Sense’s scheduled workout, I awoke in the dark, stopped at Stewart’s for a coffee and parked my car in the grass near Saratoga’s training oval, known as the Oklahoma Track. Finding Street Sense was like a wild goose chase. Was he in his assigned barn? Would he run on the Oklahoma, or had they switched him to the main track? Would he run at all? Maybe they snuck him out in the middle of the night? I wandered through the maze of barns, the sounds of baying horses and the smell of manure strong, until I felt I had gathered accurate intel. Then I pinned myself to what I believed was the correct rail. And I waited.

That morning, a fog had settled over the track. The sun was a line of gold on the horizon, and everyone was yawning, sipping coffee and convincing each other they hadn’t missed anything. And then Street Sense burst through the fog, his ears flicked back, his hooves kicking up dirt. Jockey Calvin Borel, the famous southern boy with the Louisiana drawl, was aboard, casual in jeans and cowboy boots, urging his horse along with something akin to camaraderie. The pair pulled up after the assigned distance, and a few minutes later, Borel turned Street Sense around to talk shop with someone along the rail. Horse and jockey idled a few feet away from me, no distinguishing colors or numbers on their backs. Just a man on a horse. A very fast horse.

Street Sense made quick work of my ambivalence. He was easy to love. And a few days later, I joined 40,000 other spectators on a blisteringly hot Sunday afternoon. I didn’t, and still don’t, bet the horses much. I’m just no good at it. My sister and dad make reads on multiple races at once, so sure is their understanding of the numbers. But that day in 2007, I knew Street Sense would win — as did much of the betting public — and I wanted to watch him do it. I placed my bet at the window and then stood somewhere near the rail, on tiptoes to see over the throng, as the dark bay colt held off an upstart named Grasshopper. I walked away, content, the moment after he crossed the wire.

I have never found falling in love with horse racing hard. But staying in love with it is. My dad and sister are getting together this weekend to watch (and bet) the Derby — as they do each year. I’m invited, but the invitation is an afterthought, a courtesy so I don’t feel excluded. Which of course I do. Horse racing appears to them in Technicolor, each race fireworks, each bet an opportunity. But I’m now far removed from the intimacy offered by Saratoga’s rail, from the honesty present during an early morning workout.

Street Sense retired a few years ago. At some point, I must have tossed out his winning ticket. I don’t remember doing it.

This post is not going to be an on-court breakdown of the team’s X’s and O’s. Why not? Because what I keep hearing from fans, on Twitter and on e-mail, is one question, phrased a number of ways: What’s going on with the Sixers? A playoff team doesn’t just lose to the Toronto Raptors, at home, by 20 points, does it? No, of course not. And the answer has nothing to do with Evan Turner’s playing time or Spencer Hawes’ injury (although that certainly did not help). It has to do with what’s happening inside the locker room, what’s happening behind the scenes.

Realistically, this team was never as good as its hot start. Anyone who thought the team would keep pace with its impressive early-season record was kidding himself (or herself). The Sixers might pick up a few more wins than predicted here (Why 34 Wins Is Much More Likely Than 40), but some of the same issues remain with this team: there is no superstar and Elton Brand isn’t playing up to the level of his contract. As it says in that post, if Brand finishes with averages around 12 points and 7 rebounds and 28 minutes a night, the Sixers will slip in the standings (and they have). But this is all just clearing my throat for the more important issues. Like …

1. History is, as they say, repeating itself. Since around early March, guys on the team have struggled with Doug Collins’ coaching style. Look, we all knew at the beginning of last year, when Collins took over this young team, that he had a history of turning around young squads. And we also knew that he had (sometimes as early as the second season) a history of over-coaching, at which point his players tend to become frustrated and tune him out. The Sixers have been struggling with this for at least a month, if not longer. This has led to heated interactions, sometimes even in the middle of games. On more than one occasion, players have let Collins know — during a game — that they’re sick of the relentless nitpicking. This incessant nagging (or even the perception of it) leads to fractured relationships. The Sixers have reached the point where, at least some of them, have addressed this issue with Collins. Has it reached the point of tuning him out? At times. Collins has made an effort to try to step back, but he’s only occasionally successful. It’s been day to day. One day, Collins will release control and give his guys the reins; the next day, he’s all over every play, every cut, every missed screen. Frustration exists on both sides. Collins wants to figure out an answer, fix every problem. Many of the guys wish he would stop being so anxious and nervous — because it’s not helping.

The lockout-shortened season is contributing to the problem, because it’s game after game after game. There is no time to get in the gym and practice. By all accounts from within the Sixers, this season has not been fun — it’s been a struggle. A long, frustrating struggle. You’re seeing poor play because of this behind-the-scenes struggle. Obviously, Collins’ coaching style is a huge issue within the locker room. As players become frustrated and annoyed with the micromanaging, it becomes more difficult to make the necessary in-game changes. It’s the basketball version of crying wolf. If you’re always correcting something out of nervousness and habit, players are less likely to respond when the correction is important.

Is the relationship broken beyond repair? That’s an impossible question to answer. Collins has actively tried to give his guys some space, but old habits die hard. Some of this can be chalked up to a brutal schedule, but not all of it. We won’t know how truly frayed certain relationships are until the off-season. Nobody is going to say it’s broken with the playoffs right around the corner.

2. Saying that the Sixers lack a go-to scorer doesn’t acknowledge the nuance of the struggle within the team. Because it’s not just about who is going to have the ball at the end of games; it’s about the culture of the franchise. As in, what is the culture? And, more importantly, which guys are determining the culture? There is an issue with roles on this team. Not everyone knows their role. Who is the go-to guy? Who is the face of the franchise? The Sixers have five or six players (Jrue Holiday, Lou Williams, Andre Iguodala, Evan Turner, Thaddeus Young and Elton Brand) who hold a certain amount of claim to the title of “go-to guy.” You could look at this as an asset — yes, the Sixers have depth! — but the reality is there is way to much traffic at the top. (But even with all of that traffic, there still isn’t a superstar.)

If we dive in even deeper, you’ll see that a culture clash exists.

To overlook what happened in the off season would be a mistake. When the new ownership took over, they made it clear that Jrue Holiday (and to some extent Evan Turner and Thaddeus Young) was the new face of the franchise. Where did that leave Iguodala and Brand? It left them knowing the franchise was heading in the other direction, but still they remained the two highest-paid players on the team. That’s a tough spot in which to be. Other NBA franchises have made the decision to trade expensive veteran players, turning the team over to the young guys (looking at the Cleveland Cavaliers here), but the Sixers made the decision to keep those veterans around. The franchise hoped these guys could lead the younger players and provide wisdom and experience during the transition. You can agree with that decision or you can disagree, but you can’t ignore the issues that it creates within the locker room. The big-money veterans know the franchise is going in a different direction, so they’re in a bad spot. And the young guys need to be patient and listen, qualities not abundant in young guys (or in NBA players). So that leaves the Sixers often pulling in opposite directions.

And a difficult stretch in the schedule exacerbates everything. The Sixers took some losses, things became strained, and now you’re seeing the effects of all of that behind-the-scenes turmoil. It’s manifesting itself in 20 point losses to bad teams. So that’s the “why” of this last month. The “what comes next” is still up in the air.

–Kate

By Kate Fagan

WACO, Texas — Three ushers are chitchatting beneath Section 115 of the Ferrell Center, moments before the arena doors will open for the Baylor Lady Bears’ Feb. 18 tilt with Texas Tech. One of the ushers, a middle-aged woman, is relaying a disturbing news item: “Fat Man Dies Eating Six-Pound Burger.” Her two male counterparts, aging sentries perched atop metal folding chairs, shake their heads in wonder.

As the ushers discuss the physics of biting into a cat-sized burger, a smartly dressed woman approaches. Diane Jee, Baylor’s assistant athletic director for operations, is wearing a headset and gestures for the group to gather.

“We have extra security because of that thing that happened a couple of years ago,” Jee says cryptically, as if discussing that thing in specific terms is taboo. And it might be.

“Ohhhhh,” one usher nods at another, like dominoes falling.

“I think everyone is mature enough to handle this,” Jee continues. “Last year when we went to Lubbock, it got kind of ugly. But they had extra security, too.”

“What number is she?” one usher asks.

“I think she’s No. 14 … Jordan Barncastle.”

The ushers have gathered just a bounce pass from Texas Tech’s bench. For the next three hours, they’ll stand facing the sellout crowd, ensuring no one gets too nasty with Barncastle, who two seasons ago absorbed a clothesline punch from the balled-up fist of Baylor’s beloved superstar, Brittney Griner. Fans of the Lady Bears say Barncastle provoked Griner; Red Raiders supporters believe Griner snapped.

Video of “that thing that happened” has 1.5 million views on YouTube.

“When she walks on the court,” one usher says, “Jordan sure is gonna hear it.”

“Gonna keep hearing it, too,” says another, “until the day Brittney leaves.”

Mmmhmm.

***

Welcome to Waco, current mecca of Big 12 women’s basketball — a place where, while driving the few miles of backroads from airport to hotel, the cabbie makes sure your hotel room is pre-booked, because “there ain’t no rooms available.”

And why are there no rooms available? Because the Lady Bears are playing. Because the surrounding communities have spilled into Waco to watch No. 1 Baylor take on its in-state rival.

When Title IX became law 40 years ago, it created a new world of opportunity for female athletes. It guaranteed that on a Friday night in February, Baylor University could host a women’s basketball game. But Title IX never guaranteed that anyone would watch. That part has always been the challenge of each program.

And no conference is better at putting fans in the stands than the teams of the Big 12.

In 2009-10, the average attendance for a Division I women’s game was 1,584. That same year, the Big 12 drew 5,247 fans per contest. As Big 12 associate commissioner Dru Hanock puts it, the conference hasn’t just led the country in attendance, “We’ve smoked the country.” The Big Ten and the SEC flip-flop between second and third place, drawing roughly 720,000 to 740,000 fans per season.

When it comes to women’s hoops, the Big 12 is the ultimate Title IX success story, largely because it has discovered a working formula for driving attendance.

Ambassador + Community + Product = Fans.

Lots of fans.

The Ambassador

You won’t pack an arena without the Ambassador. Don’t even try. Women’s basketball fan bases are built by charismatic leaders. While players leave town after four years, the Ambassador cultivates the community’s connection with each class, tearfully waving goodbye to the graduating point guard while introducing her next-big-thing replacement. A significant segment of the team’s supporters attend games to watch the Ambassador, not the players. That’s a good thing, because she (or he) doesn’t have an NCAA-mandated expiration date.

Inside the Ferrell Center, it’s 10:15 at night. Baylor’s victory is an hour old. Coach Kim Mulkey is back on the court, surrounded by hundreds of lingering fans. Her tailored white jacket is ripped at the base of the neck, as if she morphed into the Hulk midway through the game, which is not far from the truth. But the victory high has faded, and so too has Mulkey’s enthusiasm. She admits fatigue, pointing toward her heels.

Who can blame her? She’s been shaking hands and taking pictures for a decade. Though Mulkey would never admit it, this part of her job is arguably more important than her actual coaching. She drives Baylor’s attendance, which in turn wows blue-chip recruits — and blue-chip recruits win games.

Mulkey dutifully signs every request, turns for every picture, makes small talk. Fans leave her orbit grinning. Some pump their fists. One mom whispers, “Yesssss,” while snapping a photo of her two kids with Mulkey.

POPULATION ZONE

In the Big 12, long-tenured coaches are celebrities within their small-market communities. Kansas State’s Deb Patterson routinely rejects local appearance requests — because there are just too many. Iowa State’s Bill Fennelly could probably win his state’s gubernatorial seat. Texas A&M coach Gary Blair has charmed thousands of folks into Reed Arena. And Sherri Coale wouldn’t dare walk around Norman, Okla., without a smile and kind word at the ready.

“It’s never-ending, and it’s exhausting,” says Patterson, whose Wildcats average, in a good year, more than 9,000 fans a game. “It is 10-fold what I believe is required of your male counterpart.”

Everyone does the PR circuit and speaking engagements, male and female coaches alike. But Patterson is talking about something different: the daily effort required to connect, face-to-face, with people in the community. Patterson has days that include a 6 a.m. appearance at a local club and two different events, sometimes across the state from one another, after practice.

“If you’re just an X’s and O’s person, you better have a damn good team, because you’re not going to put butts in the seats,” Blair says. “And then eventually, you’re going to be let go.”

Why?

Because unlike men’s basketball fans, those who attend women’s games aren’t necessarily fans of women’s basketball. They’re fans of their team. More specifically, they attend because they feel a connection to the Ambassador and the Ambassador’s players. They’re one big family, heading out to support Kim and the girls.

When USA Basketball’s national team tours, boasting 12 of the world’s best players, it can’t draw a crowd unless it plays the local team. When the NCAA women’s tournament lands in a neutral site, or when the host team fails to make the bracket, the TV broadcast shows a near-empty arena.

“We’ll play Texas Tech in Lubbock, and the fans come because it’s Texas Tech we’re playing,” says Carol Callan, director of the women’s national team. “They follow who they know. Women’s basketball fans are very loyal to their team, not necessarily to the sport.”

So a program must make the locals feel as if they’re supporting a granddaughter, niece or sister. That means making personal phone calls to season ticket holders, spending a Saturday morning running a free basketball clinic for kids or Sunday giving testimony at church. And sometimes it means doing all three.

“There is not one thing that the NCAA can do to increase attendance on individual campuses,” says Jody Conradt, who coached at Texas for 31 years. “It has to be happening in that community, and it has to be done by the coach and the players.”

The Big 12, throughout its history, has had the country’s longest-tenured and highest-paid coaches. Mulkey and Texas coach Gail Goestenkors (who recently stepped down) earned more than $1 million this past season, and the conference’s average salary is upwards of $600,000 a year. The league featured four of the seven highest-paid women’s basketball coaches this season. Other conferences — such as the Big East, SEC and ACC — have one or two marquee, richly rewarded coaches, but no league has the Big 12′s depth.

In 2006-07, the year before Goestenkors left Duke to succeed Conradt at Texas, her Blue Devils played in Austin. Men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes showed Goestenkors around the Frank Erwin Center, where the Longhorns play. Texas had poured millions into locker room renovations that included handcrafted wooden lockers equipped with flat-screen TVs.

“I was blown away,” says Goestenkors. “It was clear the Big 12 went out and made a statement that they wanted successful women’s basketball programs. When I was in the ACC, we wanted to emulate the Big 12, because it was so impressive. And it wasn’t just one successful school. It was top to bottom.”

Yes, other conferences — specifically the SEC and Big Ten — feature programs with many parts of this working formula. Other conferences have money to spend and eye-popping facilities. But what those conferences don’t have is the state of Texas, circa 1995. Women’s basketball was big in Texas much earlier than it mattered elsewhere. When the Big Eight welcomed those Southwest Conference teams in 1996, it was gaining two programs, Texas and Texas Tech, already drawing more than 8,000 fans a game.

This merger put Big 12 women’s basketball ahead of the national curve, for a number of reasons. Conradt explains that at the time of the merger, the programs in the Southwest Conference “felt very strongly that we had a working model, and that we had to maintain that model.” The Texas teams engaged in a “heated debate” with the Big Eight, demanding that the newly formed Big 12 adopt a Wednesday-Saturday scheduling format, which would include one home game and one away game for each team, rather than a Friday-Sunday model that provides back-to-back home games. The latter saves travel money, but hurts attendance.

“We knew you were more likely to get a crowd one time a week rather than being dependent on playing two home games that close together and hoping people would donate their entire weekend to women’s basketball,” Conradt says.

The Big 12 employed the Wednesday-Saturday format, bucking conventional wisdom. The league also received two more gifts from the merger. One of those sweeteners was the large pool of recruiting talent in Texas, which has fueled a national championship for all four Texas teams in the league. The second gift was something much more difficult to quantify — a raising of the bar.

“Everyone wanted to get to where we were,” Conradt says. “And we showed them how it was done: reaching out to the community, making women’s basketball accessible, all of those lessons. We set the standard, and the rest of the teams copied us.”

Blair, who left Arkansas seven years ago for Texas A&M, says no coach voluntarily bolts the Big 12 for a job in another conference. “It’s because of the attendance base and the recruiting base,” he says. “And because the athletic departments pay their coaches.”

A Big 12 boss can sell the entire league to recruits. Each coach can promise a high school player that on most nights, she’ll be playing in front of a full arena. When Goestenkors was at Duke, she’d highlight the support the women’s basketball team received inside Cameron, but she could do little about the dozen games her team played at arenas with only a few hundred people. By contrast, Iowa State’s rabid fan base isn’t just a tool for Fennelly to lure players; it also attracts recruits to, say, Oklahoma State and Kansas, because they’re assured of big crowds on the road.

But there’s always someone else ready to step up. Blair and his Aggies are defecting to the SEC next season, as is Missouri, a year after losing Colorado to the Pac-12 and Nebraska to the Big Ten. Those moves were driven by football and the conference realignment craze, but none of it has slowed turnstile traffic. Entering March, the Big 12 was once again on pace to break the million-fan mark this season. Rivalries do not drive women’s basketball fans into the arena; the Ambassadors, and the culture they have developed around their programs, do.

Inside the Ferrell Center on Feb. 18, only the Baylor band concerns itself with Barncastle, yelling clever variations of her name whenever she takes the ball out along the baseline. But the ushers charged with preventing mayhem see none: The fans aren’t here for Texas Tech.

Usher Dan Meinecke is stationed at Section 120 when the arena doors open. He’s watching the seats fill with fans, which can sometimes be a drawn-out process because many are senior citizens or families with young kids. Meinecke remembers what Baylor women’s basketball games were like before Mulkey’s arrival. You could hear popcorn crunching and Diet Coke being sipped through straws. Asked if Mulkey is responsible for the sellouts, Meinecke responds, “Who else?”

“I’m not being facetious,” he says a second later. “But who else do you think made this happen?”

Community

Harvey and Barbara Wilson sit in Seats 5 and 6, Row 7, Section 116 of the Ferrell Center. They’ve been married for 56 years. For the past 15, they’ve attended Baylor women’s basketball games, driving 45 miles from Itasca, Texas. When Mulkey took over as coach in 2001, the Wilsons were tired of the bland atmosphere and perennial losing.

“When Coach Kim came, I was about to give up my tickets,” Harvey says. He and his wife arrive for the Texas Tech game as the doors open; they enjoy watching the hour-long warm-ups. Harvey tosses his thumb at Barbara and says, “She talked me into it, said we should give Coach Kim at least one year. Now, we’ll never stop coming.”

Barbara chimes in: “There’s nothing fake about that woman. She tells it like it is. Folks ’round here appreciate that.”

Harvey nods his head, “I wouldn’t go across the street to watch the men play, but I’ll drive an hour to watch Kim and the girls.”

He has no time for what he believes is a bastardized version of the game, despite the fact that Baylor’s men were ranked in the Top 10 for most of the season and reached the Elite Eight. Harvey prefers the fundamentals — footwork, screens, movement — readily present in women’s basketball. And he likes what he sees off the court, too, that Kim’s girls reach out to the community while their male counterparts come off as aloof.

In this case, bigger is not better. Bigger is much, much worse.

Deb Patterson refers to this phenomenon as “the tipping point.” Once the population reaches a certain level, a women’s basketball program won’t be able to piggyback off a close-knit sense of family and connectedness within the community. It’s no coincidence that the five programs with the highest attendance in the Big 12 — Iowa State (9,730 fans per game), Baylor (7,933), Texas Tech (7,043), Texas A&M (6,104), and Oklahoma (5,490) — have hit a home run on the first two parts of the formula. Each of these programs possesses a dynamic leader. In the case of Texas Tech, head coach Kristy Curry has done wonders maintaining support after coach Marsha Sharp’s 23-year tenure. And each of these Ambassadors operates in a town with a population between 58,965 (Ames, Iowa) and 229,000 (Lubbock, Texas).

On a game night, approximately one out of every six residents of Ames is inside the Hilton Coliseum. Bill Fennelly has coached the Cyclones for 15 years, and the man can’t grab a gallon of milk at the grocery store without stopping to chat about his girls. “It’s one thing to show up to a game,” Fennelly says. “It’s another thing to show up and be invested. It’s the environment. It’s not just the fans; it’s the way people work hard to make this a special place for the kids.”

The Product

No matter how vibrant the coach walking the sidelines, no matter how tightknit a community, few people will consistently come to watch bad — or even mediocre — basketball.

Conradt consistently fielded top teams at Texas during the 1980s and ’90s. She “tediously” (her word) grew a loyal fan base, running pregame clinics for kids, introducing her players as role models at community events and generally displaying her charming personality to the people of Austin.

She was rewarded with an average attendance of 7,390 during the 1996-97 season. Conradt’s community efforts, plus her team’s success, helped Texas resonate in a city with a population nearly seven times the Big 12 average. Since her retirement in 2007, UT’s per-game attendance has dipped to 4,710. Why? Because the Longhorns haven’t finished a season ranked higher than 16th. When Conradt was on the sideline, they were often a top-five team.

Every Big 12 program has its base. These people attend pregame activities in the arena, where the Ambassador often speaks. They show up at preseason scrimmages and the year-end banquet. No matter how bad the product, the Loyalist is there. But there aren’t enough Loyalists to fill the stands. (Weaker programs might have about 500 of these diehard fans; a team like Baylor might have 4,000.)

The Product drives attendance from solid to spectacular. And in 14 seasons since its formation, the Big 12 has averaged 6.6 nationally ranked teams per year.

Each part of the equation increases attendance. Nailing the trifecta packs the house. Fennelly can charm the folks of Ames, but the Hilton Coliseum sells out because Iowa State has executed all parts of the formula. If Mulkey were shaking hands and running clinics in downtown Miami, her persistence would win over only a handful of locals. But it’s the community of Waco, which responds to her tell-it-like-it-is approach, that uniquely embraces her. And if Patterson continued burning the midnight oil in Manhattan, but never put a winning team on the floor, the purple seats of Bramlage Coliseum would remain mostly empty.

***

Mulkey signs her last autograph. Dozens of fans are lingering on the Ferrell Center court. She has already given everyone what they came for — a Lady Bears victory, a picture, a smile, a hug — and now they’re just absorbing her presence. She waves a quick goodbye, then scoots through the tunnel and into the empty space just before her team’s locker room.

She pauses for a second. Releases one long, deep breath. The Ambassador is ready to close up Baylor’s heartland hoops embassy for the night.

It opens again first thing in the morning.

By Kate Fagan

Baylor star Brittney Griner is not just a star player, she is a defensive nightmare the likes of which women’s college basketball has never seen.

She does not just force opposing teams to alter their game plans; she forces coaching staffs to develop entirely new game plans, some never seen before.

The Baylor Lady Bears enter the 2012 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament needing six victories to become the first team, men or women, to compile a 40-0 record. Their dominance is no mystery.

From Saturday’s opening tip-off through the first weekend in April, coaching staffs charged with defending Baylor will pour over game tape. Each will spend hours in the film room, explaining to their teams how they will defend Griner, the 6-foot-7 junior center who spends warm-ups throwing down two-handed dunks. Each will spend hours on the court, walking players through those game plans, which will be unlike any other defense they’ve attempted. They will be looking to put their own team in an end-of-game position where somehow they have the ball and a chance for victory.

It will be nearly impossible. Not completely impossible, but nearly.

The double-team plan

On Feb. 18, the Texas Tech Lady Raiders somehow had possession of the basketball and a chance to tie the score with just a few seconds remaining.

Somehow, without a legitimate center and despite scoring only six second-half field goals, the unranked Lady Raiders needed only one 3-pointer to push Baylor, the nation’s No. 1 team and everyone’s penciled-in national champion, into overtime.

Tech missed the shot, Griner grabbed the rebound and, a few seconds (and two Griner free throws) later, the game was over. Baylor’s undefeated season had been tested, but was ultimately preserved with a 56-51 win. The Lady Bears came closer to losing that night than any other night this season. (On average, Baylor has defeated opponents by 27.2 points per game.)

As each tournament opponent downloads Baylor game film, like UC-Santa Barbara in the first round, the one from Feb. 18 should be first in the queue.

That night in Waco, Texas, the Lady Raiders used a junk-zone defense. Texas Tech started in a 2-3 zone, which looked more like a 1-1-3 because the top two guards staggered one behind another. The top guard immediately picked up the ball, with the second guard responsible for the first pass. The bottom three players packed into the paint. The two players on Griner’s side sandwiched her, while the third stayed nimble, prepared to defend either the diving high post or the weak-side shooter.

Texas Tech decided that if it was going down, it wouldn’t be by Griner’s hand. The Lady Raiders immediately double-teamed Griner, sometimes even allowing a third player to dig down into the mix. Throwing players at Griner is not, by itself, a solution. Griner is capable of turning and shooting over any defender, so the double-team must be strategic in its timing and placement, otherwise it’s as pointless as pelting a statue with marshmallows. Too early, and Griner will just immediately release the ball and send the defense into a premature scramble; too late, and she’ll have already faced the hoop, absorbing all of her options.

Griner prefers turning over her left shoulder, toward her dominant right hand. Although her versatility has improved since her freshman season, she is still most effective when allowed to turn left and face the basket. So, Texas Tech didn’t let her. The Lady Raiders bodied her from one side of the floor to the other. If Griner did catch on or near the block, the double team came just as she was turning to see her options, before she could see if her teammate — the one diving from the high post — was open. Texas Tech was gambling that its double team of Griner would keep her from seeing the choicest opening (the little dish pass to the cutter for a layup). Instead, Griner would be forced to kick the ball out to the perimeter for an outside shot.

The Lady Raiders understood this opened the rest of the floor to Baylor’s supporting cast of forward Destiny Williams and guards Kimetria Hayden and Jordan Madden. (Baylor point guard Odyssey Sims was still a defensive focal point, but Tech appeared willing to guard the leftover three players with two defenders.) Tech’s scrambling defenders closed out under control; forcing Baylor into an outside shot — hopefully contested, but not always — was the entire point of the defense.

Tech was leaving a window wide open, but the advantage was that it was the window of their choosing. In the first half, Baylor was 0-for-6 from beyond the arc.

The “junk” plan

A team occasionally will use the defensive “Make Griner Beat Us” philosophy, but Griner always beats them. In mid-December, top-seeded Connecticut employed this plan on Griner and Sims and the pair combined for 48 of Baylor’s 66 points and 12 of the team’s final 15. Few teams have the resources, and talent, possessed by UConn. Most teams — and almost certainly any opponent before the Final Four — will adopt Tech’s philosophy. In some ways, the philosophy sounds simple: give ‘em outside shots and hope they miss.

But it’s not simple.

College head coaches have a defensive philosophy, and a team will spend its preseason drilling key components of that philosophy: force penetration toward the baseline, play behind the post player, deny the ball when one pass away. Every coach hopes that, after enough of these drills, their players execute these basic defensive principles without thinking. A good defense jumps into place instinctively, allowing each player to focus on what might come next instead of reacting to what’s happening.

When playing a junk defense, you often throw these drilled principles out the window. Tailoring a game plan to a specific player is one thing, but Griner forces teams to adopt entirely different defensive principles. A team might be trained to play behind the post, but playing against Baylor likely requires someone to front the post. The mental effort required to execute this altered plan possession after possession is akin to driving somewhere without directions. You’re constantly looking at the map; the chances of missing an exit are multiplied.

A junk defense can work (for a while), but don’t underestimate the energy it can drain from a team.

The junk defense will likely get at least one or two of Baylor’s NCAA opponents into the second half with a chance to win, but it isn’t a 40-minute solution. Any team that thinks it is (without a few other wild cards in the back pocket) will be watching as the Lady Bears eventually break down the defense and build a double-digit, second-half lead. The 1-1-3 zone, or the triangle-and-two, or the collapsing, switching man-to-man, are all defenses designed to throw Baylor off rhythm and kill a chunk of game time. That’s it.

Against Texas Tech, Baylor started the game 0-for-9 from beyond the arc. When Baylor reserve guard Terran Condrey hit the team’s first 3-pointer with 15:38 left in the second half, it cut the Lady Raiders’ lead to 39-35. When she hit her second with 10:55 remaining, giving Baylor a 45-44 lead, it signaled to Texas Tech that the gambit was up. Baylor found a rhythm within the junk defense; it found the gaps and was ready to drive away.

It was time for Texas Tech to pull out its wild cards and shift to the kitchen-sink approach. Tech spent the rest of the game switching between defenses — a full-court zone press, a few possessions of man-to-man, a standard 2-3 zone — to keep Baylor from settling into a rhythm, to force Baylor to continue thinking as much as Texas Tech was being forced to think. In watching those final minutes, it was clear Texas Tech had used far too much energy to get itself to those final possessions. There was nothing left in the tank.

Six games stand between Baylor and its second national championship. If Baylor keeps advancing, that’s six different opponents, six carefully crafted game plans aimed at toppling Griner & Co. Six teams looking to somehow get themselves to that final possession with a chance to win.

Good luck.

By Kate Fagan

Our team crowded around the TV, awaiting the release of the NCAA bracket.

Wearing our black-and-gold University of Colorado travel sweats, leaning forward in our seats, we were the mirror image of dozens of other college basketball “watch parties” around the country: a streak of school colors and angst. We wondered aloud where we might play. We discussed what other teams might be in our bracket. And we prayed silently, as I’m sure most college teams still do, that the name “Connecticut” wouldn’t appear opposite ours.

I was fortunate to watch the NCAA selection show with my teammates four times while at Colorado. And I can tell you, that hour of television was one of the most emotional of the season. It’s part celebration, part consternation. We would dust off our palms and boldly say, “We did everything we could; it’s out of our hands.” Then we’d whisper into one another’s ear, “That was such a bad early-season loss to Lower Middle Bumbleton State. How did that happen?”

Our team was being judged — graded, ranked and bracketed — by a faceless committee who spent the previous weekend barricaded inside NCAA headquarters in downtown Indianapolis. We tried not to picture the committee. But when we did, we pictured its members wearing all black, speaking in monotone and pushing buttons as if they were working the factory floor at IBM.

On Thursday, I walked into those same NCAA headquarters. To steal a phrase from Greg Christopher, chair of the NCAA Division I women’s basketball committee, I was there to “see how the sausage was made.” I would be a part of the committee picking a mock 2012 NCAA bracket.

I possessed a handful of misconceptions about the selection process. One by one, the committee would debunk these myths.

Myth No. 1: Someone on the selection committee has a beef!
My senior year at CU, we spent the season ranked in the top 15. We finished the regular season 22-6. We had impressive wins over half a dozen ranked teams. We thought we were really good. That March, as we crowded around the TV to see the bracket revealed, we figured we were a top-four seed for sure. We were in lean-back-and-relax mode.

When our name popped up as a No. 6 seed, it was like a gust of wind had blown through the room, as heads whipped toward one another.

“A six? Traveling to play on someone else’s home floor?” We looked at our head coach. Who had she upset? Someone on the selection committee had to be anti-Buffaloes!

But this week, as I went through the selection process, I was forced to release my internalized anger. The year we were given a No. 6 seed, we were nothing more than a victim of the NCAA’s “Policies and Procedures.”

The selection process includes a rule that conference teams cannot meet before the regional final, because the NCAA does not want conference tournament rematches. Also, once the 64 teams are selected, each team is placed in the closest geographic region — so long as that placement does not interfere with the aforementioned rule. The system red flags teams who are sent multiple time zones away in consecutive years, or teams who’ve played consecutive years on another team’s home floor.

There are rules in place, and the only way around them is flexibility in seeding. This week, as our mock committee picked the 2012 bracket, we had Iowa State as the final team in. The Cyclones were technically the lowest No. 10 seed on the board. But when it came time to slot them in a bracket as the No. 10 seed they’d earned, their placement was red-flagged. At that spot, Iowa State was destined for an early-round matchup with another Big 12 team. Unacceptable. The committee bumped the Cyclones up to a No. 9 seed, where they would avoid a Big 12 foe.

What? Bumped them up?

I know, I know. I thought a team’s seed was sacred, too … bonded in blood, et cetera, et cetera. Not so. The selection committee can bump a team one seed higher, or one seed lower, to accommodate its extensive “Policies and Procedures.”

(Now excuse me while I text all of my former teammates to let them know we probably weren’t a No. 6 seed that year, but rather the highest No. 5 seed. We were simply collateral damage of the NCAA system!)

Myth No. 2: The committee humors itself by creating storylines
Remember how people tried to tell you that Disney animators humored themselves by including lurid pictures and phrases in obscure corners of the picture frames of movies such as Aladdin and The Little Mermaid? Well, that might actually have been true. But the selection committee having the ability to build compelling storylines into the NCAA bracket? That’s a myth. They just don’t have the range of motion to concern themselves with anything but seeding fairness and optimal geographical location. Or, as Michelle Perry, director of the Division I NCAA women’s basketball championship, explains it, “Putting butts into the seats — we have to care about how our games look on TV.”

On Thursday, we dropped the top two seeds into each region of our mock bracket. Connecticut was a No. 1 seed in the East Regional; Tennessee was the No. 2.

“Ooooh,” came the gasp from the room. All of us are aware of the “ongoing fued” between the two powerhouse programs. How would it look if we set them up for a date in the regional final? Had we done such a thing on purpose? Pat and Geno squaring off!

No. We hadn’t. Not even a little bit. That’s where the two teams fit in the bracket. End of story. We had to move forward because most of the pieces — due to conference overlap, home site conflict, previous extensive travel in previous seasons — weren’t fitting as easily.

The committee absolutely concerns itself with selling tickets, but only within the set parameters. They will move a team from a No. 6 seed to a No. 7 if it means they can move Duke to play in Chapel Hill instead of Spokane, Wash. The system stretches, but only so far. And that stretch does not include sending UConn coach Geno Auriemma back home to play in Philly — as adorable as that storyline would be for the local papers.

Myth No. 3: Lower Middle Bumbleton State doesn’t get a fair shake!
This might have been true 15 years ago, before each conference streamed its games over the internet and on iPhones. Now, each committee member must log into an NCAA system and chart which teams it has seen. Perry estimates that among the 10 committee members, they’d watch 1,500 games each season.

On Wednesday night, committee member Kathy Meehan spent half an hour connecting her home DirecTV account to a newly-downloaded iPhone app so she could stream Penn State vs. Purdue. She was still considering Purdue as a bubble team. The other committee members possessed as much information on St. Mary’s (Ca.) and Middle Tennessee State as they did on West Virginia.

(This reminds me of one of my favorite exchanges during this mock selection. When West Virginia came up for discussion, one of the high points on WVU’s resume was, “They lost to UConn by less than 20.” Apparently this is the new standard of excellence. The Mountaineers made the field.)

Myth No. 4: The process is riddled with human error
I walked into the room looking for flaws in the system. I wanted to find places where personal bias could be exacted. But it’s as tempered as it can be. And that cuts both ways.

On one hand, no single committee member can lobby for a specific team. If they’re affiliated with a team or conference, they are forbidden from voting and are forced to leave the room when discussion turns to those teams. The process is so calculated and streamlined you move teams along in groups of four, not singularly, so no team is voted on individually.

On the other hand, the process is so rigid and numbers-focused that there’s little room for the human element. No matter how compelling and heart-wrenching a team’s story might be — this year, the clear example is Oklahoma State, which lost its head coach and an assistant in a plane crash – it can’t get itself into consideration with anything but its “body of work” on the court.

“We have to stand up with credibility and explain why each team made the tournament,” Christopher says. “It’s their resume of what they’ve done throughout the season. That’s it.”

But, I persisted, if all things are equal, if Oklahoma State’s resume is on par with a handful of other teams, each of them fighting for the tournament’s final spot … what then?

“There are 10 people in the room,” Perry says. “We are all human. I think it depends on the person as to what button they would click given that choice.”

I used to run on a treadmill next to Gary Barnett.

It was spring 2003. I was on the University of Colorado women’s basketball team, he was the head coach of our football program, and the treadmills faced the glass windows of CU’s vast weight room. The view was of the interior bowl of Folsom Field, framed majestically by the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Barnett would run his couple of miles, then grab his towel and wish me well, always smiling and using my first name.

When people ask how appalled I was by the CU recruiting sex scandal, which engulfed our school in 2004, I don’t know exactly how to explain my insufficient disgust. When I’m out to dinner and the conversation turns to the Penn State scandal — and others are baffled by the overwhelming inaction of the authority figures on that campus — I don’t know how to convey the unthinkable: that I understand how such a thing could happen.

Those moments on the treadmill were only a few out of thousands. Each one was like a brick that helped build the house in which we, the student-athletes, lived: dining together at the training table, collecting our stipend checks, studying together in the lounge, collecting our gear from the back room, receiving our blank invoices for books from the student union, even worshipping together at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. We were fed, clothed, housed and nurtured. If you spend enough time inside this culture, you begin thinking the arena roof is the sky: No higher power exists outside.

And so for years I found myself defending the football team’s actions — I actually used the phrase, “I don’t think we’re being fairly portrayed” — to anyone who would listen. I placed our collective embarrassment and the reputation of our institution over the pain of the alleged victims. There were even times when we, the student-athletes, wondered aloud why the issue wasn’t handled quietly, internally.

Isn’t that how all families handle things? Quietly, internally? If you saw an uncle harming a cousin, you’d tell your father. It’s frightening, but if you step back to think about it, this was the alleged sequence of events at PSU.

It wasn’t until the news broke about Penn State that I questioned my stance as a CU apologist. Before, I could allow my memories of Boulder to cloud the reality of what happened. I could make any number of excuses to cast blame onto CU’s alleged victims (there was alcohol at the recruiting parties, Barnett’s quotes were taken out of context). But this insider subtext, which I employed to avoid assessing blame on the school I love, is much more elusive when considering the accusations in Happy Valley. For, on the surface, nothing could be more black and white than a grown man harming an innocent child. And although the alleged crimes at each institution are vastly different, they are connected by the same thread: a remarkable abuse of power inside a high-powered NCAA institution.

Before I joined espnW, I wrote a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer about life inside the bubble of big-time athletics. Those words were written three months ago, when the pressing question was still, “How did this happen?” Today, as we mourn the passing of former Penn State coach Joe Paterno (whose final months were tragic whether you choose to remember his successes as a coach or question his alleged failure as a leader), the pressing question is different: “What needs to change?”

Although it likely isn’t the legacy he would have preferred, perhaps Paterno can spark student-athletes, and the staffs charged with leading them, to think differently, to step outside of the bubble, to establish roots outside of the athletic department. It’s a small step, but every big-time student-athlete can make a change I wish I had made: create a life outside of the athletic department. When I think back on my years in Boulder, I see only a kid in black-and-gold sweats, a kid who very easily could have made the same mistake Penn State graduate assistant coach Mike McQueary allegedly made: staying in-house, doing too little and inherently trusting the chain of command.

We used to call CU’s students, those who didn’t play sports, “Normies,” our slang for “Normal.” At the time, I thought we were clever. It’s only now — and it’s only because of the Penn State scandal — that I can recognize how dangerous that language, and idea, was. We would see students lounging on the grass while we walked to practice, and we’d comment about the easy life of a “Normie.” We had clearly drawn a line, and it was noticeable in our dress, our thoughts, even in our words. So, in retrospect, it strikes me as understandable that when someone from the outside world threatened our culture, we fought ignorantly to protect it, as if it was us versus them, as if we were separate.

Student-athletes must challenge the bubble in which they live. It’s no easy task, because the cocoon is self-sustaining, but it will be the ideas and viewpoints gained outside of those walls that will pop open the arena top and reveal a view of the sky. And that will be the first step toward ensuring a tragedy like the one in Happy Valley never happens again.

School pride is commendable, but we can’t allow it to morph into blind allegiance.

Kate Fagan is a columnist for espnW. You can follow her on Twitter @katefagan3.

The Sixers’ record may show them to be one of the NBA’s best teams, but the fans who’ve followed this franchise for years seem to be waiting for the bottom to fall out. They’re hoping it doesn’t. But they’re also worried it might.

(To quickly address the end-of-game decisions against the Nuggets: Meeks was in for Turner to spread the floor. If Iguodala makes both free throws, Sixers win. So the burden isn’t on Collins on that play. At the end of overtime, Lou Williams was in for Turner. And Williams had a wide-open look in the left corner that would have, essentially, won the game. The burden exists on Collins for that decision because, to that point, Williams was shooting terribly. There’s also room for discussion as to why Turner, who in the fourth quarter was the go-to scorer, wasn’t on the floor for the crucial possessions. But both plays delivered scoring opportunities. Also, it really seemed like no matter what the Sixers did, Denver point guard Andre Miller was going to trump them. He really wanted a win on his former home floor.)

Entering Friday night’s game against the Atlanta Hawks, Sixers fans seemed to be worried that a poor showing would legitimize their concerns that the Sixers weren’t … actually … good. And that was a valid concern. They didn’t look very good in the first or second quarters against the Hawks. But then the third quarter happened.

This morning — it’s snowing, so there’s not much else to do — I watched the third quarter again. Even though the opening minutes of the third were sub-par (for both teams), it might have been the best quarter I’ve seen the Sixers play. There were times I thought my feed was on fast-forward, that’s how quickly the Sixers turned a steal into a transition dunk. Although most of these breaks were impressive, they aren’t even the reason this quarter proved something different about the Sixers. One takeaway from the Sixers’ transition game is that Andre Iguodala is picking up easy points on the break. And not just when he starts the break or gets a steal going the other way. In past years, when he filled the lane, it was rare that a teammate created a transition bucket for him. Now, in addition to the ones he creates on his own, you’re seeing a chemistry develop between Iguodala and Jrue Holiday (as evidenced in the alley-op pass that Iguodala threw down over the not un-athletic Josh Smith).

We could talk endlessly, too, about the improvements to the offense, about the quick-hit sets the Sixers appear to be running instinctually. If you look at the basket that jumpstarted the third quarter, it was a double-high screen option with Elton Brand and Nikola Vucevic. Holiday chose which way he wanted to attack, and he used Vucevic’s screen. Nothing came of it. So Vucevic rolled and Brand popped out and set a follow-up screen. Holiday used it, penetrated to the right, drew Jodie Meeks’ defender, and kicked it to Meeks. This was the basket that sparked the run. The great thing about this play is that it’s not a brain-killer. It’s fluid. It makes natural basketball sense: run a pick, doesn’t work, wait for another, space the floor. Everything the Sixers are doing fits in this mold.

Another of these types of offensive looks took place with the score 58-52. The Sixers grabbed a rebound and pushed it up court. It wasn’t a fast-break, but the Hawks didn’t have time to set their defense. Holiday passed up the left wing to Iguodala and then Holiday cut right off of Iguodala for a handoff at the left wing, attacking to the rim. Iguodala (seeing that Holiday’s defender was a step behind) flipped it right back to Holiday, who then dished it for a quick score to Vucevic. Again, this is a fluid read. It doesn’t make your brain churn. Iguodala catches and evaluates if Holiday has an advantage. If Holiday didn’t, Iguodala would have squared to the basket and reversed the ball. And the Sixers would have gotten into a different set.

Each of these looks adds a level of depth to the Sixers attack. Each of these wrinkles makes it that much less likely that, come end of season and playoff time, an opponent is going to be able to easily box in the Sixers offense.

Still, for all of that offensive goodness, it was the Sixers defense in the third quarter that mattered most. The Sixers have always been able to create steals with their quickness, but they’ve always left themselves vulnerable at the rim. Former center Samuel Dalembert could make up for some of that with his shot-blocking ability, but the Sixers rarely rotated early enough, and were too often contesting shots in the air rather than stopping penetration outside of the lane. Slow rotational help erodes a defense because, with each failed or slow rotation, the player charged with aggressively denying his player (leaving himself open to a backdoor or, once his player has the ball, penetration) is going to stop relying on his teammates; he’s going to make the change himself. He’s going to quit denying. He’s going to give a step on the ball. He’s not going to frantically pressure on the wing. The same principle exists in life: if there’s supposed to be a net to catch you, but the net doesn’t show up, then very quickly you’re going to stop jumping.

The Sixers have the net up. And that’s exactly the reason why they’ll rarely (if ever) be blown out this season.

So, Sixers fans, the words you’ve been waiting for: Your team is … actually … good.

Tonight’s game against the Miami Heat will test just how good.

–Kate

The Sixers had made a habit of running into the wall, time and again, and never figuring out a way to scale it. At least a half dozen times last season, the Sixers lost games after holding a double-digit lead. As the game entered the middle minutes of the fourth quarter, and as the opposing team sharpened its execution and focus, the Sixers often responded poorly. They often gave back points, turned a lead into a deficit, and left the court having lost a game they should have won.

This season, the Sixers aren’t losing games they should win. They’re beating — no, they’re destroying — inferior teams. As of Monday’s games, the Sixers had played the league’s weakest schedule. You can say this proves the Sixers might not be as good as their 10-3 record. Agreed, the Sixers aren’t as good as their 10-3 record. Beginning with Wednesday night’s game against the Denver Nuggets, the Sixers will play a stretch of games that will test their status as the NBA’s surprise up-and-coming team. And while that 10-3 record is built, mostly, on puff victories, there have been moments in each game that prove, absolutely, that a difference exists between last year’s team and this year’s.

There was one such moment during Monday afternoon’s win over Milwaukee.

With 7 minutes left in the game, the Bucks hit a bucket and cut the lead to 80-71. A few seconds later, guard Lou Williams had the ball on the left wing and he seemed to crossover and drive to the hoop. The whistle blew; the ref called Williams for palming. Turnover, ball back to the Bucks, a chance for Milwaukee to cut deeper into the lead.

Immediately after the call, Sixers coach Doug Collins jumped off of the bench and swirled his hands around one another, the international gesture for time to go (and also the international gesture for traveling). Collins also shouted to his guys, “Let’s go!” Collins pinpointed the moment as crucial, and he wanted his guys to recognize it as well. Having seen a hundred of these moments in the previous three seasons, and having seen (far too frequently) the Sixers crumple under the weight of one brick and then topple as more start to fall, I watched with interest to see how this season’s team would respond.

Here’s what happened (and most of you who watched the game know this already): backup center Tony Battie forced a turnover in the corner, Lou missed a shot, center Spencer Hawes grabbed a big rebound, Lou missed a shot, forward Thaddeus Young came up with a great offensive rebound in front of Milwaukee’s bench, and then Lou drained a three just right of center to give the Sixers a lead of 83-71.

The Sixers kept the lead around 10 to 13 points as the clock drained from 7 minutes. In past seasons, that turnover by Lou would have sparked a dip in performance. Like clockwork, the Bucks would have hit another basket, gotten a stop, and cut the lead to 4 or 5 points. Collins would have been forced to take a timeout and doubt would have already crept in. Instead, the Sixers remained disciplined in their defense, waited out a few misses, and kept the lead in double digits.

That’s a different story than the one we’ve seen the past few seasons.

Watching today’s defense, and watching forward Andre Iguodala, reminded me of something Iguodala said after the team spent a weekend together in Los Angeles during the lockout. Iguodala said that when the Sixers were playing pick-up against other teams (made up mostly of NBA players and college players), the Sixers were communicating as if playing an NBA game. They were calling help-side rotations, talking on pick-and-roll defense, and blocking out. These aren’t qualities normally in abundance during pick-up basketball. Iguodala said players on the opposing teams were noticing (and maybe chiding) the Sixers for their intense communication, as these games were being played during the off-season.

It’s going to be this defensive commitment, and the growing sense of confidence in who they are and who they’re becoming, that will keep the Sixers relevant this season. Losses are coming, and they’re coming soon, but watch for pivotal moments during which the Sixers reveal their maturity.

–Kate

OK, yes, I do.

The Sixers walked off the Madison Square Garden court last night with their first loss in seven games. They dropped to 7-3, but their next two games appear to be gift-wrapped victories (back-to-back against the Washington Wizards) so in a few days, if all goes according to plan, the Sixers will boast that record to 9-3.

Still, on Wednesday the Sixers scored only 79 points, and didn’t look nearly as potent as their No. 1 efficiency rating would suggest.

Time to panic? Was the win streak filled with hollow victories over easy opponents? There is some truth to the “hollow victories” theory. No, I don’t believe the Sixers are a 7-2 kind of team (that would put them on pace to finish like 51-15 … or something very close to that). The Sixers just happened to be 7-2 going into the Knicks game because of a very friendly stretch of games.
The Sixers are very good, and they’re only going to get better once they hit a stretch of challenging games against challenging opponents. As fun as it is to watch 25-point victories, it does very little to test a team that desperately needs testing in crucial situations.

Here’s a quick-hit synopsis of what happened against the Knicks, what the coaching staff will take away from the loss.

*Spencer Hawes’ passing is crucial to the offense’s flow. The first thing Doug Collins and his coaching staff said on the ride home from New York? We need Hawes on the floor; we need his passing to open up the rest of the options. For a more detailed breakdown of why Hawes is so important, there’s this post: Plenty of Good Wrapped in a Loss.

Basically, when you take a distributor off of the floor, especially when he’s in such a unique position as center (meaning he truly does occupy the middle of the floor, as opposed to the point guard, who mostly distributes from the top of the floor), you force the rest of your players to attack too much via dribble. Hawes’ passing doesn’t just create assists for himself; it creates assists for everybody. When Hawes drops a pass to a cutting Holiday, sometimes Holiday takes the shot, and sometimes Holiday catches on the run and dishes underneath to Elton Brand.

It’s really the same principle you see everywhere: a good pass leads to more good passing, good energy usually leads to more good energy. Take away the good passer, and other players want to make up for it by creating off the dribble.

Which leads us to the next point ….

*Way too much dribbling. Just because the Sixers have players that are great off of the pick-and-roll (and they do have that), doesn’t mean they should be dribbling and dribbling and dribbling. When they’re at their best, they score off of a pick-and-roll with less than two dribbles (Thaddeus Young slips the screen and dives to the rim; Lou Williams splits the defenders and drops a floater). No team is going to be good when they’re dribbling around the arc, no matter how great they might be with the ball.

*Lou’s inefficiency (1 for 6 from floor, -16 for the game) doomed the Sixers. Without Hawes, and with an offense handicapped by removing a crucial chemistry piece, the Sixers needed to win this game with exceptional play off-the-bench, specifically from Williams. That’s his job.

*The Sixers closed quarters poorly. In a 6-point loss, failure at the end of quarters is a big deal. If you don’t execute in these final two to three possessions, you could be looking at a 10-plus point swing over the course of the game. Also, when the Sixers are busy blowing out an inferior team, they really need to treat the possessions at the end of quarters as tests. Because these select possessions will eventually become the difference between a 33-win season and a 41-win season.

*The Sixers can’t keep starting slowly. For a more in-depth look at that, there’s this blog post: Starting Strong.

There are two very good things coming away from that Knicks game: 1. Elton Brand’s efficiency is increasing. According to @tmoorepburbs, Brand is shooting 55.6 percent in the previous four games, after shooting only 40.7 percent in the first six. 2. Iguodala’s leadership in the locker room after the game was on point: positive, encouraging. No matter how much Philly fans want to disparage his leadership, it’s crucial (both when it’s positive and when it’s negative) to the success of this team.

–Kate