Hoos Going to Finish First?

After my earlier post about UVA spring sports, I felt it was a good opportunity to catch up on the winning teams headed into their NCAA championship stretches. Let’s all hope that these teams do not meet the same fates as my favorite professional spring teams and my playoff beards.

The #1 Cavaliers lacrosse team is 15-1 and is already in the second round of the NCAA playoffs. Their only loss was to Duke a month ago, which they avenged a week later in route to an ACC title. The Hoos take on Stony Brook this Sunday at 2:30 on ESPNU. Even if they get past #8 Stony Brook (for some reason the game was chosen to be in Stony Brook, NY before the season started), Virginia will have to face either #5 Duke for the third time this year or #4 UNC for the second time. #2 seeded Syracuse already fell to Army leaving the door open for #3 Maryland and a possible third matchup against the Terrapins in the title game; as if a possible three ACC team final four on Memorial Day wasn’t enough.

Meanwhile #1 UVA baseball is cruising along at 43-9, with a 14 game winning streak and three straight ACC series sweeps. Who even needs Ryan Zimmerman or Mark Reynolds? The Hoos head south to face Miami this weekend to wrap up the regular season before the ACC tournament begins during Memorial Day weekend on FoxSports/Comcast. They will most certainly host a regional June 4^th- 7^th and hopefully a super regional June 11^th-14^thon ESPN/ESPNU.

The red headed step child of the group is the #1 tennis team, which is 37-1 and has not lost since February 6^th, 33 straight games ago. They already dispatched Navy and Wake Forest in the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament to make the round of 16 this weekend. In fact, the entire rest of the tournament is played between Friday and next Tuesday and UVa starts off by facing Duke for the third time this year. The finals will be on ESPNU on Tuesday.

Hopefully, if the Caps and Cleveland Cavs have taught me anything, it is to not get my hopes up for the top team in the league come playoff time, and maybe I’ll keep it to a playoff goatee this time around. At least UVA’s football team didn’t lose the spring game.

Building a New “Wall” in Washington

“Mr. Prokhorov, you can’t tear down this wall”

There is a new era in Washington as the Wizards won the draft lottery for only the second time in franchise history in DC. Even though they had the sixth best chance of earning the top spot, they lucked out over several teams to draft first overall in June 24ths’s draft. The New Jersey Nets had the best chance, who, with new Russian billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov at the helm, were trying to entice Lebron James to come to Brooklyn with the #1 pick and Jay-Z.

The consensus best player in the draft is Kentucky freshman point guard John Wall, followed by Ohio State’s Evan Turner. Luckily this gives the Wizards the perfect opportunity to part ways with Gilbert Arenas and usher in a new era for the franchise. After jettisoning Jamison, Butler and Haywood, Washington can now ship out the gun-toting Arenas and the rest of his $100 million contract to make room for Wall.

Another part of the new era of the franchise is the arrival of new owner Ted Leonsis, taking over for the late Abe Pollin. Hopefully he follows his model with the Capitals, which includes drafting Ovechkin, Backstrom, Green, Semin and Varlamov, and not the Wizards’ formula. The Wizards either draft well, but trade the players before they reach their potential, like Devin Harris, Steve Blake, Richard Hamilton, and Rasheed Wallace, or makes a colossal bust. At least Jordan isn’t around anymore to work out the players before hand and botch the only other time they had a #1 overall pick with Kwame Brown.

This will be the fourth #1 overall pick since 2004 for DC area sports teams, which isn’t surprising for the city with the longest 4-team title drought. While Strasburg has yet to pitch a game, and the Nats have not even drafted their #1 pick this year yet, the Wizards can only hope that Wall will pan out as well as Ovechkin has for the Caps. They could easily trade down and draft more players to fit their many needs, but the Wizards desperately need a new face of the franchise.

Cavs and Caps Epic Playoff Fail

Well that was a disastrous spring. My sweet playoff beard for the Caps and Cavs lasted all of two rounds, barely a month. They both had the best records in the league, Presidents Cup, MVP, all for nothing. Now the future of both teams are cloudy. Obviously Lebron can leave after July 1, but the Cavs need to retool to keep him here. Shaq is too old and slow, Jamison is too soft, Mo Williams is too inconsistent, but there are many promising free agents to be Lebron’s Pippen if he wants to stay. Meanwhile, the Caps need to resign Backstrom, who is the key to the offense, as well as find a shutdown defenseman who is not looking to score first, like Green. At least the Nats are going on a World Series run and have their own savior.

Win the Trophies that Matter

Now that Lebron has won his second MVP trophy, the Cavaliers are now seeking a more important one, a NBA title. However, setting records and getting multiple shiny trophies is obviously secondary to team success. My favorite NBA, NHL, and NFL players are now the two-time reigning MVP’s but have had no team success to show for it at the end of those seasons, with only this year’s Cavs left. After winning his third and forth MVP the past two seasons, Peyton Manning’s Colts failed to claim the Lombardi Trophy. Alex Ovechkin’s MVP seasons ended in first and second round defeats for the Caps. This year even though OV is a finalist for another Hart Trophy, Washington was bounced early from the playoffs yet again. Last year, after winning Cleveland sports’ first MVP since Brian Sipe 30 years ago, the Cavs fell to the Magic before reaching the Finals to meet Kobe and his Lakers. In fact, when Peyton did win his only Super Bowl in 2006, Tomlinson was the MVP. While the most valuable player not winning the title is nothing new, the stats are interesting.

If Lebron doesn’t deliver Cleveland a championship, he’ll be the seventh straight MVP in the NBA to fail to bring home the Larry O’Brien trophy. Tim Duncan was the last to accomplish both, in 2002-03, part of a 37% correlation since 1956. However, of the 20 instances out of 54, 8 were just two players, Jordan and Russell.

In the NFL, only 26% of MVP’s won the title, with Kurt Warner in 1999 being the most recent. Strangely enough, between 1993 and 1999 seasons 5 of 7 MVP’s accomplished the feat as well as 4 straight in from 1959-1962.

Even though the Hart Trophy has been around in the NHL for 82 years, only 15 or 18% of those winners took home the Stanley Cup. Even when the Great One rattled off eight straight MVPs, the Oilers only won three championships. The last instance was Martin St. Louis and the Lightning in 2003-04.

The MLB is a little different since there are two MVP’s and less teams in the playoffs. The correlation that one of the MVP’s wins the World Series is higher than the other sports at 47%. From 1939 to 1948, all ten champion teams had the MVP on their roster. However, only one MVP has won the Commissioners Trophy in the past 25 seasons, and that was Kirk Gibson…on one leg.

When looking at one of the most prestigious individual awards in team sports, the Heisman, there is a small correlation as well at 14%. Even though the Heisman sometimes is just the best player on the best team that season, like this year with Alabama’s Ingram, the numbers for the BCS trophy are still low.

While winning the MVP is by no means a curse, like Madden cover or Sports Illustrated cover, it is no guarantee of team success as well. Here is the sporcle with the full list of MVP and Title winners.

Note: I used the AP Poll for the NCAA Football title, and I’m well aware that my favorite NFL player should be a Cleveland Brown. But come on, how could any of these QB’s, RB’s, or WR’s be a fan favorite? Hopefully Josh Cribbs does not have a letdown after his contract year last year.