FanPost

Steve Alford: Should He Stay or Should He Go?

It was just a little over a year ago that the Trojans clobbered the Bruins 95-71 in the first round of the Pac-12 tournament to bring the Bruins' 2015-16 season to a fitting conclusion. UCLA had stumbled across the regular season finish line with four consecutive losses on the way to compiling a 6-12 conference mark. It was UCLA's worst conference record since Steve Lavin drove the program into the ditch in the 2002-03 season.

To his credit, Steve Alford took responsibility for UCLA's dismal season:

The fact remains that no matter how much time passes, the way we finished this past season will eat at me for a long, long time. Our record speaks for itself and is simply unacceptable. There's nothing that I can say or write that will change that fact. This happened under my watch, it begins and it ends with me. The buck stops here.

After spending "countless hours dissecting our program, evaluating our staff, meeting with our young men and breaking down game film" in the 10 days following UCLA's elimination from the Pac-12 tourney, Alford claimed to have discovered the problem and identified a solution:

Over the course of my career, teams that I've led have owned, on average, a defensive rank in the top 50. This year we ranked outside the top 100. This can never happen again. We must return to the basics and instill defensive fundamentals in our young men from day one of permissible workouts.

With the Bruins' 2016-17 season in the rearview mirror after another predictable Sweet 16 exit, it's a good time to look back at the season to see if Steve Alford kept his promise to the UCLA community, and most importantly, to his players.

From Day One

Let's start with an eye test. Is there good evidence that Alford "return[ed] to the basics and instill[ed] defensive fundamentals... from day one?"

It sure didn't look like it to me, and based on the consensus of Bruins Nation readers, it didn't look like it to most of you. The most telling indication that Alford failed in his pledge to instill defensive fundamentals from day one was discussed in detail in an excellent news roundup by DC Bruins after UCLA defeated last-place Oregon State. Ironically, it was Bryce Alford who undercut his father's position:

We had a team meeting after the SC loss, that was strictly the players. I kind of led that meeting and we just kind of talked it out and hashed it out and said if we want to do what we want to do and reach the goals that we want to reach, then we've got to play defense.

"We've got to play defense" should have been the mantra "from day one of permissible workouts." It should have been on a sign posted on the locker room wall. It should have been repeated at the start of every practice. If Steve Alford was sincere about returning to the basics and instilling defensive fundamentals from day one, then it wouldn't have fallen on Bryce to try to address the problem halfway through the season.

In spite of the fact that Steve Alford's mea culpa included the claim that "no matter how much time passes, the way we finished this past season will eat at me for a long, long time," the snippiness of his postgame comments showed that he'd already forgotten about his team's defensive shortcomings from the previous season:

"We are just more efficient defensively. We are in the right spots more, more active, getting in a stance more. There's obviously a lot of talk about our defense and doing this for almost 26 years [it] is almost comical to be honest with you. Other teams aren't critiqued like our team is. We are 23-3 and I can find you teams all across the country that have our record or less than our record that people want to talk about their defense.

What's comical is Alford's bafflement at being questioned about UCLA's defense. At the time, UCLA's defensive efficiency ranking was over 150, and even Ken Pomeroy's "adjusted" defensive efficiency ranking for the Bruins was over 100. How can that be consistent with Alford's pledge to "return to the basics and instill defensive fundamentals in our young men from day one of permissible workouts?"

Top 100 or Bust

There's a second element in Steve Alford's promise to UCLA fans that needs to be reviewed. As part of his plea last year, Alford gave the following assurance:

Over the course of my career, teams that I've led have owned, on average, a defensive rank in the top 50. This year we ranked outside the top 100. This can never happen again.

Last year Bruinette88 examined the first part of Alford's claim and determined that Steve Alford had almost surely misrepresented his coaching record. She found that even relative to the most generous metric, the 2015-16 Bruins were not an outlier for Alford in coaching a team with a defensive efficiency ranking outside the top 100:

In other words, even though Steve Alford insists that having a team that ranks outside the top-100 defensively "can never happen again," it has happened again.

Bruinette88's statistical analysis of Steve Alford's assertion was hindered by a conundrum that she readily acknowledged: Steve Alford hadn't specified which metric he was referring to when he made the claim about his defensive record. Did it include his stint at Division III Manchester University? Did it apply to all Division I colleges or was he referring to a subset that excludes mid-majors? Did it refer to defensive efficiency, points per game allowed, or opponent shooting percentage? It was an ambiguous statement, to say the least.

I confess that I'm finicky when it comes to citing statistics. If a politician talks about the rate of growth of the economy, I want to know if he's talking about nominal GDP, real GDP, GDP per capita, GNI, or something else. I'm not a fan of weasel words either. The meaning of a guarantee should be clear so that accountability can be determined.

I'm going to assume that Steve Alford meant what he said and said what he meant. He didn't use the word "adjusted" in his letter, so I'm going to apply the universally accepted metric of defensive efficiency to evaluate his promise.

According to the defensive efficiency rankings at TeamRankings, the 2016-17 Bruins are 143rd in defensive efficiency. That's an improvement on the performance of the 2015-16 Bruins that finished 227th in defensive efficiency, but it's well above Steve Alford's stated acceptability threshold.

What About KenPom?

Supporters of Steve Alford are bound to grumble about my choice of defensive efficiency as the metric used to judge Alford's guarantee. Defensive efficiency doesn't account for the opposition's offensive efficiency, thereby making it a less accurate gauge. They will contend that Ken Pomeroy's adjusted defensive efficiency (AdjD) is a better metric.

There are three large, intractable complications with using AdjD. The first is that KenPom's AdjD has only been calculated from the 2001-02 season forward. Since Steve Alford's Division 1 coaching career began in 1995-96, he couldn't have based his claim about his career defensive rank on AdjD.

The second problem is that Ken Pomeroy has made adjustments to his adjustments since Steve Alford returned his extension. Pomeroy's new methodology has been applied retroactively to his AdjD calculations from previous seasons, which means that there is no clearcut way to reconcile assertions based on the old methodology with numbers based on the new methodology.

The third complication is that Pomeroy's adjustments are based on not much more than a subjective hunch:

Previously, the adjusted efficiencies on offense and defense were computed using principles borrowed from Dean Oliver. Essentially, the expected offensive efficiency for a team was the product of its season-long offensive efficiency and its opponent's season-long defensive efficiency. If Team A's offensive rating is 110% of the national average and Team B's defensive rating is 110% of the national average, then Team A's offense when playing Team B would be expected to be 110 x 110 or 121% of the national average.

In the new system, the effects of the two competing teams are considered to be additive rather than multiplicative. If Team A's offensive efficiency is 10% higher than the national average and Team B's defensive efficiency is 10% higher than the national average, then Team A's offense when playing Team B would be expected to be 20% higher than the national average.

I'm not sure how basketball really works, but my hunch is that it's probably closer to additive than multiplicative.

In some cases, the differences between the old AdjD rank and new AdjD rank are substantial. For example, Bruinette88 reported an AdjD rank of 139 for last season's team, but the new methodology AdjD rank for that season is 119. That's a big enough difference in rank to make it unsatisfactory to use current AdjD rankings to evaluate Alford's declarations based on old AdjD rankings. As a result, the only good option is to use Dean Oliver's defensive efficiency.

Should He Stay or Should He Go?

I doubt that Steve Alford expected the UCLA community to hold him accountable for the assurances he gave in his promise-to-do-better letter. I don't believe he took seriously the pledges he made, and nothing that has happened between then and now makes me believe that he ever meant for those commitments to be tethered to consequences. It may be that in his mind and in the minds of his supporters, his statements are more like goals than promises, and his insistence that "this can never happen again" may have been intended to carry the weight of a finger-wagging reprimand given to a puppy that has urinated on the carpet.

I have a different perspective. Steve Alford's position was in jeopardy after a shockingly poor job performance last year. Alford's letter and the gesture of returning his one-year contract extension represents a mercy plea. In return for leniency, Alford guaranteed specific results.

Those promised results have not been realized.

  • UCLA's defensive performances through the first three months of the season were not consistent with Alford's pledge to "return to the basics and instill defensive fundamentals in our young men from day one of permissible workouts."
  • The Bruins' defensive results this season did not meet Alford's acceptability threshold. UCLA ranked 143rd in defensive efficiency in 2016-17. The ranking that Steve Alford said "can never happen again" has happened again.

As I wrote at the outset, Steve Alford deserves credit for taking responsibility for his basketball program's shortcomings:

This happened under my watch, it begins and it ends with me. The buck stops here.

There are two facets to accountability: acknowledging responsibility and accepting consequences. In this case, Steve Alford needs to acknowledge his failure to meet the commitment he made to the UCLA community, and as a consequence, he should offer his resignation.

Realistically it won't happen. The man who claimed to have done "everything that I was supposed to do at the University of Iowa" even though he knew it wasn't true isn't going to step up and take responsibility for a pledge he made while pleading for his job. Alford's first statements as UCLA's basketball coach demonstrate that he isn't burdened by remorse or a sense of responsibility. Unless he senses that his job is on the line, he won't own up to his mistakes.

Steve Alford's mea culpa last year was driven by the same survival instinct that was behind the apology he was forced to issue after his introductory press conference in 2013. Both were acts of self-preservation laced with insincerity. Both were forgotten as soon as his job status was secure.

I don't expect Dan Guerrero to do anything either. Hiring another basketball coach would make it look like he doesn't know what he's doing, and Guerrero won't be eager to confirm the obvious. Attendance is up and the Bruins have again reached the heights of a Sweet 16 appearance. As far as Guerrero is concerned, goals for UCLA basketball have been achieved.

Should he stay or should he go? Alford should resign. If he doesn't, Guerrero should fire him. Neither will happen, and following Indiana's decision to hire Archie Miller, there's no chance that a greater fool will take him off our hands. The best we can hope for is that Dan Guerrero will control his Sweet 16 giddiness, pocket any contract extension that happens to be sitting on his desk, and adopt a policy of primum non nocere.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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