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Early Tournament Previews March 1, 2013 It's time to get acquainted with some new teams! While we have made reference to the much-publicized "Selection Sunday" looming on the horizon (Mar. 17) for the fast-approaching NCAA Tournament, that's also the day the other postseason tourneys announce their fields as well. And, as we know, all of the surviving "off" conference teams suddenly become "on the board" teams in those various events. A handful of these leagues have had numbers posted this season in the "added games" at most Las Vegas sports books, so a decent number of teams are already somewhat familiar. Still, some leagues will be making their debuts on the "big board" in the next few weeks, and it makes sense to familiarize ourselves with the best of this lower-echelon lot, which will be getting more exposure in coming days. Last year, the likes of Mercer, Fairfield, Oakland, and a few others provided multiple wagering opportunities as they progressed in the various postseason competitions. The rather recent introduction of two new events (the CollegeInsider.com Tourney, or CIT, and the College Basketball Invitational, or CBI) has provided more non-Big Dance opportunities for entries from the low-major conferences. Many of these loops are now sending multiple entries to the postseason, so it behooves handicappers to begin paying attention to these sides before they enter either the Big Dance, NIT, CBI, or CIT. We've already gotten a look at several of these teams in last weekend's BracketBusters, and many of the upcoming conference tournaments will be televised (the introduction of ESPN-3, which streams on computers, has added countless more college hoops viewing opportunities and will be providing added coverage for many of the lower-rung D-I conference tourneys). Many Las Vegas sports books will also be offering prices on these lower-echelon conference tourney matchups, and will most assuredly be posting prices whenever teams from those leagues are involved in NIT, CBI, or CIT action. We've listed below, by conference alphabetical order, upcoming tournament specifics for those lower-profile Division I leagues. Also included are any teams that enjoy homecourt tourney edges; the top contenders in each loop, noted by italics, with any clear-cut favorite or co-favorite accompanied by an *; a quick preview of the tourneys; and last season's conference results in the NCAA, NIT, CBI, and CIT. Before Selection Sunday, we'll also review how these leagues have fared in recent Big Dance action. March Mayhem has arrived! AMERICA EAST...First round, quarterfinals, and semis March 7, 9-10 at SEFCU Arena, Albany, NY (home court of Albany); final March 12 at home of highest remaining seed. Top contenders--Stony Brook, Boston U, Vermont. Steve Pikiell's Stony Brook Seawolves have assumed command of the league race in recent weeks and will almost assuredly enter the conference tourney as the top seed. Though down three starters from last year's NIT qualifier, Pikiell nonetheless added the AE's Newcomer of the Year, battering ram 6-8 frosh PF Jameel Warney, who leads all Seawolves scorers at 12.1 ppg while hitting better than 62% of his FG attempts (mostly from short range). In a league without many quality bigs, the 255-lb. Warney has become the loop's most feared interior scoring threat. Over the last five games, Warney is hitting an even more eye-opening 73.1% from the floor. The backcourt has an upperclassmen look to it with jr. Gs Dave Coley (top-notch defender) and Anthony Jackson, while 6-5 sr. F Tommy Brenton was the AE's Defender of the Year last season. Keep an eye, however, on the Boston U Terriers, who entered Thursday's showdown with Stony Brook having won six in a row, with frosh G Maurice Watson, Jr. posting some big numbers in recent games. We also wouldn't sleep on Vermont, which beat CAA leader Northeastern and Ivy leader Harvard in pre-league play and just dispatched dangerous Canisius in the BracketBusters. Four starters returned for the Catamounts from last year's conference tourney winner and NCAA qualifier, joined by Illinois State transfer G Trey Blue, who broke into the starting lineup in early February and has scored in double digits in four of his last five games. Last year...NCAA-Vermont lost vs. North Carolina, 77-58; NIT-Stony Brook lost vs. Seton Hall, 63-61; CIT-Albany lost vs. Manhattan, 89-79. ATLANTIC SUN...Tourney March 6-9 at University Center, Macon, GA (home court of Mercer). Top contenders-Mercer, Florida Gulf Coast, Stetson. By winning eight straight prior to a showdown on Thursday vs. FGCU, Mercer has guaranteed itself the top seed in next week's conference tourney, contested on its own home floor. Better yet for the Bears, there's no Belmont to worry about in this year's A-Sun, with the Bruins having moved their act to the Ohio Valley. Remember, Mercer ran the table to a surprise win in the CIT last year and returns much of that team for HC Bob Hoffman, including Gs Langston Hall (a lanky 6-4 and a good defensive stopper as well) and Travis Smith, both scoring in double digits. Fort Myers-based FGCU made some headlines way back in November when upsetting Miami-Florida, and the Eagles were not embarrassed in other non-league games at Duke and Iowa State. Sherwood Brown, a powerful 6-4 sr. G, has emerged as a compelling force (scoring 15.8 ppg) for the Eagles, who appear to have the best chance vs. Mercer. Last year...NCAA-Belmont lost vs. Georgetown, 74-59; CIT-Mercer won vs. Tennessee State, 68-60; won vs. Georgia State, 64-59; won at Old Dominion, 79-73; won at Fairfield, 64-59; won at Utah State in title game, 70-67; USC-Upstate won vs. Kent State, 73-58; lost at Old Dominion, 65-56. BIG SKY...Tourney March 14-16 at home of regular-season champion (Montana or Weber State). Top contenders-Montana, Weber State. They've been anticipating another Big Sky Tourney showdown between the Grizzlies and Wildcats since prior to Thanksgiving. The teams split their two regular-season meetings, the home side winning each, which could mean advantage Montana in the tourney as the Grizzlies hold a one-game lead over Weber in the conference table entering the weekend. The Grizzlies really hit stride in mid-December when leading returning scorer G Will Cherry overcame an early-season foot injury; Montana quickly embarked upon a 14-game SU win streak when Cherry (13.2 ppg) returned to the starting lineup. There could be problems, however; Cherry re-injured his foot in the BracketBusters OT loss at Davidson, and sr. F Mathias Ward (leading scorer this season at 14.8 ppg) looks to be out for a longer duration with his own foot injury suffered last week. Weber State is now the in-form side with seven wins on the trot (including an 87-63 romp at Ogden vs. Montana on Valentine's Day night) entering Thursday's game vs. Sac State. Vet HC Randy Rahe has an athletic squad bolstered by Cal State Monterey Bay Sea Otter transfer Davion Berry, an explosive 6-4 G scoring 15 ppg and shooting 50% from the floor. Note that this tourney has changed its format slightly from last season, with the entire event scheduled at the regular-season winner, even if it isn't involved in the title game. Last year...NCAA-Montana lost vs. Wisconsin, 73-49; CIT-Weber State won vs. Utah Valley State, 72-69; lost in OT at Loyola-Marymount, 84-78. BIG SOUTH...Tourney March 5, 7, 9-10 at HTC Center, Conway, SC (home court of Coastal Carolina); Top contenders-High Point, Charleston Southern, Gardner-Webb. Regional sources are alerting to the recent uptick from Gardner-Webb, the only Big South contender to win its BracketBuster last week (vs. College of Charleston) and carrying a six-game SU win streak into Saturday's reg.-season finale vs. the Presbyterian Blue Hose. The Runnin' Bulldogs from Boiling Springs, NC also just knocked off contender Charleston Southern at midweek, though high scorer and former Mississippi Valley State transfer G, explosive Tashan Newsome (14.1 ppg), has been in a recent shooting slump (just 11 of 45 FGs and 8 ppg last four). Newsome had previously posted four straight 20+-point efforts. High Point, coached by former North Carolina player and George Mason (during the Final Four year) assistant Scott Cherry, might be flattening out a bit with two straight losses following a 7-game win streak. But Panther 6-7 frosh F G John Brown (17 ppg) has clearly been the league's top newcomer. As for Charleston Southern, note that the Buccaneers were competitive vs. a variety of high-profile foes (Charlotte, Arizona, Alabama, Wichita State) in pre-league play. Last year...NCAA-UNC-Asheville lost vs. Syracuse, 72-65; CIT-Coastal Carolina lost at Old Dominion, 68-66. METRO ATLANTIC...Tourney March 7-11 at MassMutual Center, Springfield, MA. First round pits seeds 7 vs. 10 and 8 vs. 9; winners advance to quarterfinals, and so forth. Top contenders-Niagara, Iona, Loyola-Maryland, Canisius, Rider, Fairfield. Absolutely wide-open conference tourney in Springfield, where more than half of the loop believes it has a legit shot to win the event. Several star performers in league, mostly guards, led by Niagara soph G Antoine Mason (18.9 ppg; 23.3 ppg last three), Iona's dynamite backcourt due of Momo Jones (23 ppg) and Sean Armand (17.4 ppg), Loyola-Maryland's Dylan Cormier (17.1 ppg), and Canisius' Billy Baron (formerly Virginia & Rhode Island and son of HC Jim Baron; 16.9 ppg), Harold "The Mayor" Washington (13.4 ppg), and another transfer, ex-UCF G Issac Sosa (12.1 ppg). Well-regarded coaches as well, including Loyola's entertaining Jimmy Patsos (he of the wild sideline gyrations) and the aforementioned Jim Baron, a longtime Digger Phelps aide at Notre Dame and an accomplished mentor at St. Bonaventure and Rhode Island before landing the Canisius gig. Last year...NCAA-Loyola-Maryland lost vs. Ohio State, 78-59; CIT-Fairfield won vs. Yale, 68-56; won vs. Manhattan, 69-57; won vs. Robert Morris, 67-61; lost vs. Mercer, 64-59; Manhattan won at Albany, 89-79; lost vs. Fairfield, 67-57; Rider lost at Northern Iowa, 84-50. MEAC...Tourney March 11-16 at the Scope, Norfolk, VA (not the home court of Norfolk State, which plays its games at Echols Hall); First round pits seed 4 vs. 13, 5 vs. 12, 6 vs. 11, 7 vs. 10, and 8 vs. 9; winners advance to quarterfinals, and so forth, Top contenders-Norfolk State, NC-Central, Savannah State. Fans of the old ABA might recall the venue for this year's MEAC Tourney, the Norfolk Scope, then a rather new facility when one of the "regional" homes (along with the nearby Hampton-Roads Coliseum in the Tidewater area, the Roanoke Civic Center, and the Richmond Coliseum) in the early 1970s for the old Virginia Squires, Julius Erving's first pro team. Norfolk State, which stunned Missouri in last year's Big Dance, no longer can count upon frontliner Kyle O'Quinn (now with the NBA Orlando Magic), but the Spartans are unbeaten in league play entering this weekend. A truly top-heavy league, with Norfolk, NC-Central, and Savannah State head and shoulders above the rest of the loop (and the only teams above .500 for the season in the alliance). Last year...NCAA-Norfolk State won vs. Missouri, 86-84; lost vs. Florida, 84-50; NIT-Savannah State lost vs. Tennessee, 65-51. NORTHEAST...Quarterfinals March 6, semis March 9, final March 12, all at home of highest seed. Top contenders-Robert Morris, Bryant, Wagner, Long Island, Quinnipiac. Another wide-open-looking conference tourney, although Robert Morris, the home team of the Pittsburgh Airport, has moved to the lead in the conference race with wins in six of its last seven games. A well-balanced squad featuring four DD scorers (including all-name F Lucky Jones), the Colonials advanced the quarterfinals of the CIT last season and opened some eyes with a couple of impressive pre-league efforts, including a home upset of Ohio U, another home win over Cleveland State when the Vikings were healthy and had F Anton Grady in the lineup, and a near-miss at Arkansas. Bryant, led by Columbia transfer F Dyami Starks (17.9 ppg), has been one of the nation's best storylines after winning just twice last season. Bob Beckel's alma mater Wagner is the deepest team in the league (bench goes 10 deep) and features rugged PF Jonathon Williams (15 ppg). Last year...NCAA-Long Island lost vs. Michigan State, 89-67; CIT-Robert Morris won at Indiana State, 67-60; won at Toledo, 69-51; lost at Fairfield, 67-61; CBI-Quinnipiac lost at Penn, 74-63. OHIO VALLEY...Tourney March 6-9 at Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, TN (not the home court of Nashville-based Tennessee State, which plays its games at the Gentry Complex, or Nashville-based Belmont, which plays its games at the Mike Curb Events Center). Top contenders-Belmont, Murray State, Eastern Kentucky. Belmont's move from the Atlantic Sun has strengthened the OVC, and the Bruins' recent whip job of Ohio in the BracketBusters suggests that Rick Byrd's team also has a decent Big Dance at-large argument (especially with its RPI in the low 20s) should it lose in this event. And having the tourney conducted across town from campus at the old Nashville Municipal Auditorium should be a plus. Star G Ian Clark (18.4 ppg) could be a breakout performer in March. Keep an eye, however, on defending loop champ Murray State and star G Isaiah Canaan (21.2 ppg), familiar to many for his exploits a year ago when the Racers won a game in the Big Dance before pushing Marquette in the Round of 32. Murray also won the only regular-season matchup (79-74) vs. Belmont. Last Year...NCAA-Murray State won vs. Colorado State, 58-41; lost vs. Marquette, 62-53; CIT-Tennessee Tech lost at Georgia State, 74-43; Tennessee State lost at Mercer, 68-60. PATRIOT...Quarterfinals March 6, semifinals March 9, final March 13, all at home of higher seed. Top contenders-Bucknell, Lehigh, Lafayette. With eight wins in its last nine games prior to the regular-season finale vs. Navy, Bucknell has taken command of the race in the past few weeks and will have homecourt edge in the conference tourney. Interestingly, the road team won both regular-season meetings involving the Bison and top contender Lehigh, which is hopeful that star G C.J. McCollum (23.9 ppg, but out since early January with a foot injury) might return in time for the conference tourney. The Mountain Hawks (last year's surprise package, which upset Duke in the NCAA sub-regionals) could use McCollum, too, as they had lost three of their last four entering Saturday's game vs. Army. Last Year...NCAA-Lehigh won vs. Duke, 75-70; lost vs. Xavier, 70-58; NIT-Bucknell won at Arizona, 65-54; lost at Nevada, 75-67; CIT-American U. lost vs. Buffalo, 78-61. SOUTHERN...Tourney March 8-11 at ExploreAsheville.com Arena, Asheville, NC. Top contenders-Davidson*, Elon, College of Charleston. Regional observers are suggesting the SoCon isn't quite as deep this season, as only Davidson, Elon, and Charleston have above-.500 SU records entering March. Still, Davidson has all of its starters back from last year's SoCon championship side that pushed Louisville to the limit in the NCAA sub-regional at Portland. The Wildcats boast of one of the nation's unique weapons, 6-10 F Jake Cohen, a Euro-style performer who likes to float to the perimeter and shoot 3s and is hitting 50% of his FG tries. Also, do not fall behind the Wildcats and expect them to give away their game at the FT line; Davidson leads the country at a staggering 81.8% FTs. We'd be surprised if Bob McKillop's side doesn't make a return trip to the NCAAs. Last year...NCAA-Davidson lost vs. Louisville, 69-62; CBI-Wofford lost at Pittsburgh, 81-63. SOUTHLAND...Tourney March 13-16 at Merrell Center, Katy, TX. Top contenders-Stephen F. Austin, Northwestern State, Oral Roberts. SFA will be the favorite in the conference tourney for good reason, as some believe the Lumberjacks might have an NCAA at-large case if they lose in Katy, thanks in part to an RPI that was ranked in the top 20 before league play commenced and notable road wins at Oklahoma and in the BracketBuster at Long Beach State. Disciplined and well-balanced for mustachioed HC Danny Kaspar, with only one DD scorer, F Taylor Smith (15.7 ppg), shooting an astounding 70% from the floor. The Jacks just don't take many bad shots and are snarling on the stop end, leading the nation in scoring defense (50.1 ppg). But Northwestern State, with four DD scorers and a winner over WAC leader La Tech in pre-Southland play as well as a conqueror of SFA on Jan. 26, and Oral Roberts, which moved to the Southland this season from the Summit and features sr. G Warren Niles (18.9 ppg), don't figure to roll over for the Lumberjacks. Last Year...NCAA-Lamar lost play-in game vs. Vermont, 71-59; NIT-UT-Arlington lost at Washington, 82-72; CIT-McNeese State lost at Toledo, 76-63. SWAC...Tourney March 8-11 at Garland Special Events Center, Garland, TX. Top contenders-Southern U, Texas Southern, Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Southern U was the only league rep not below .500 in pre-league play (the Jags were 6-6), which included a 53-51 win at Texas A&M. The backcourt combo of instant-offense G Malcolm Miller (16.3 ppg and 47% beyond the arc, where he takes more than half of his shots, all from off the bench as the league's best sixth man, if not top player overall) and Derick Beltran (16.1 ppg) paces Southern. Houston-based Texas Southern, however, had won nine in a row SU prior to Thursday's showdown vs. the Jags, while Bowling Green transfer PF DaVon Hayes (12 ppg) has added some frontline presence to pesky UA-Pine Bluff, as the Golden Lions had won 7 of their last 8 (including a 55-52 home win over Southern) prior to their regular-season finale vs. Jerry Rice's alma mater, the Delta Devils of Mississippi Valley State. Last year...NCAA-Mississippi Valley State lost play-in game vs. Western Kentucky, 59-58. SUMMIT...Tourney March 9-12 at Sioux Falls Arena, Sioux Falls, SD (not the home court of nearby, Brookings-based South Dakota State, which plays its home games at Frost Arena, or nearby, Vermillion-based South Dakota, which plays its home games at the Dakota Dome). The Summit League was formerly known as Mid-Continent Conference. Top contenders-South Dakota State, North Dakota State, Western Illinois. Although the top contenders all lost their BracketBusters games last weekend, the league still intrigues with its varied styles and well-coached outfits. Both SDSU and NDSU have made Big Dance appearances recently; the SDSU Jackrabbits have much the same look as they did a year ago when advancing to the Dance, led by G Nate Wolters, who scored 53 points in one game this year and spearheaded a rousing upset win at New Mexico in another game in December. As for the NDSU Bison, the good news is that star 6-7 jr. G Taylor Braun (on NBA radar screens) has returned from a six-week absence due to a foot injury, although he was a bit rusty (0 for 4 from the floor in 18 minutes of court time) in his first game back on Wednesday vs. Utah Valley State. Needless to say, NDSU's chances increase in the conference tourney if Braun can get back to near 100%. Keep an eye, too, on rugged and functional Western Illinois, where Lou Saban once coached the football team that spawned some other old AFL names such as Larry Garron and Booker Edgerson. Coached by ex-Bradley mentor Jim Molinari, the Leathernecks play nasty defense (allow mere 52.5 ppg, 2nd in nation behind only SFA), have a post game with 6-8, 250-lb. C Terell Parks (14 ppg & 57% from floor), and a savvy sixth-year sr. PG in Ceola Clark. Last year...NCAA-South Dakota State lost vs. Baylor, 68-60; CBI-North Dakota State lost at Wyoming, 76-75; CIT-Oakland won vs. Bowling Green, 86-69; won vs. Buffalo, 84-76; won vs. Rice, 77-70; lost at Utah State, 105-81.
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System Plays - Home at Last February 28, 2013 College Basketball's Last Home Games With the Ides of March now upon us, and within the blink of an eye, the 2013 NCAA Basketball Tournament will begin its annual pulse-pounding extravaganza. In all likelihood hearts will be broken, a new champion crowned, and memories of upsets and game-winning shots will leave the court in assured dramatic fashion when the 'Big Dance' takes center stage in all of its glory on Thursday, March 21st. Before we take in all the excitement 'Big Dance' has to offer there remains the final portion of the regular season as teams jockey for position prior to conference seeding tournament action. As you know, the higher the finish in the regular season standings the better the slotting a team gains in conference tourney play. And with it comes my favorite time of the regular season, namely College Basketball's Last Home Games. Last Home Game efforts often times finds a team putting its best foot forward. This happens primarily because teams choose to honor outgoing seniors in their final home game. It is 'their day', a game played in recognition of the sweat and toil laid on the line by seniors on the squad in their four years at the university. These games also carry added significance from other emotional angles as well. Most teams look to leave a favorable impression in their final home game of the season. Adding fuel to the fire, revenge is a great performance enhancer in Last Home Game scenarios. Playing off a loss (or a string of defeats) tends to bring out the best in these finales. So, too, does playing in the role of an underdog, especially when it involves winning teams. In fact, a search of my database shows double digit (+10 or more points) conference underdogs in their final home game of the season are a rather nifty 74-55-3 ATS since 1990 heading into this season. Bring these guys in off either a double-digit spread win or a double-digit spread loss and they zoom to 17-5-1 ATS and 20-6-1 ATS respectively. Think about that. As bad as they are, even double-digit home underdogs get up for their Last Home Game of the season, beating the spread over 57% of the time on the blind. From this theory I have developed the most powerful Last Home Game Super System in College Basketball handicapping – bar none. These plays produced a documented overall winning percentage of 70% ATS overall since 1980! Best of all you can get in on these fully Qualified Last Home Game Super System plays right here on VegasInsider.com from now until the end of the season. Be sure to check in daily for word on any and all qualifying plays as they happen. As the final stretch run of the 2012-13 college basketball regular season is suddenly upon us, let me leave you with this list of 100% PERFECT ATS performers in Last Home Games. A minimum of five years of results was necessary to qualify... COLORADO 6-0 PITTSBURGH 6-0 RICHMOND 5-0-1 ST. BONAVENTURE 5-0 SYRACUSE 6-0 TOWSON ST 5-0 WISCONSIN 5-0 ARKANSAS 0-4-1 BALL ST 0-7 RICE 0-7 RUTGERS 0-5 FYI: Ohio University leads all teams long-term in Last Home Games, going 14-1 ATS. On the flip side, the biggest long-term loser is currently Duquesne at 1-11-1 ATS. There you have it, my take on teams to watch in their Last Home Games of the season this year. By 'Playing On' and 'Playing Against' each of the perfect performers on this list I'm certain you'll put yourself into position for the best time of the year, the upcoming NCAA Tournament. And by utilizing my famous Last Home Game Super System plays I guarantee you will! Enjoy the games...
Armadillo: Friday's six-pack -- Joakim Noah had 23 points, 21 rebounds, 11 blocks at the Bulls beat up on Philly; triple-doubles like that include blocks are very rare. -- Virginia 73, Duke 68-- Blue Devils are 0-4 in true road games against top 100 teams this season. -- Gonzaga 70, BYU 65-- Zags are looking like a #1 seed in NCAAs. -- Tenn-Martin 69, Murray 68-- Skyhawks were a 20-point underdog!!! -- Louisiana Tech 84, Utah State 61-- Bulldogs are 15-0 in the WAC, might still have to win conference tourney to make NCAAs. -- Oregon 85, Oregon State 75-- Ducks were down seven at half. ***** Armadillo: Friday's List of 13: Things I'm looking for in March........ March is one of the best months of the year; tons of college basketball, spring training, the weather around here usually gets better, lot of good stuff going on. We're approaching this March with as sense of optimism….here are some things I'm looking for this month. 13) Just the sound of ball meeting bat means winter is almost over; so what if #98 is pitching to #87, in a matchup of two prospects destined to spend the summer in the California Penal League? Its baseball, and its always good when spring training starts up. 12) College basketball is our favorite sport, which makes March one of our favorite months; Championship Week is almost as much fun as the NCAA tournament itself, since for some teams, just getting in is the main thing. Love to see teams celebrate when they win their conference tournaments. 11) Teams that will be very, very nervous until they win their conference tournament: Northeastern-Louisiana Tech-Belmont-Long Beach. These teams won their regular season in their leagues, but won't be going to the NCAAs unless they win the league tournament, too. Tech is unbeaten in the WAC; would be a shame if they got upset out west. 10) VCU's old league, the CAA, will only have seven teams in its conference tournament, as four of its 11 schools are ineligible for the tourney this year. Northeastern gets the #1 seed and a bye, so they'll have to win two pressure-packed games to make the NCAAs. 9) With the NCAA field expanded to 68 teams, no one who is excluded has that much of a gripe, but whomever #69/#70 are will whimper for a while, then limp off to the NIT. Question is, can any of the First Four teams make a run through the brackets, the way VCU did two years ago? VCU's run was a God-send for the NCAA, silencing any complaints about those first four games in Dayton. Can it happen again? 8) No #1 seed has ever lost to a #16 seed; is this the year? Who will those four #1 seeds be? This season, #1 teams have been getting bounced left and right, so it figures that this could be a year where a #16 seed pulls a shocker, but the talent different between those teams is so big, a lot of things will have to fall into place for the big upset to happen. 7) This time of year, I don't want to see the name of any the guys on my fantasy baseball team in the news; its almost always bad news. No injuries this year, please? I'm looking at you, Carl Crawford. 6) They're selling hats from World Baseball Classic teams for $35 a pop; not good. Do people watch the WBC? I'm not sure if I'll watch it or not, I guess I will if its on when basketball isn't. Just hope Jose Reyes doesn't pop a hammy running out a grounder. 5) Speaking of which, Dodgers can't be real happy that Hanley Ramirez is playing 3B at the WBC so Reyes can play short; LA needs Ramirez to gets used to playing a solid shortstop. Tom Gordon killed them with sloppy defense at short LY. 4) Pac-12 tourney is in Las Vegas for first time, at MGM Arena; with Bill Walton calling games on ESPN, this could replace Big East as the premiere conference tournament on TV. Walton is capable of saying anything at any time; he really is fun to listen to, especially if it's a good game- conference tournaments produce good games. 3) First major league baseball game that counts is March 31, Astros-Rangers, Houston's first game as an AL team. Opening Day is the next day. Interleague play will be every day now, with 15 teams in each league for the first time. 2) For every winner there is a loser, and in big-time college sports, losers get fired. The coaching carousel will start spinning faster in March; right now USC is the #1 job that could be open, but Old Dominion has a strong history too and that job is already open. By the time the Final Four rolls around, a lot more jobs will be open. 1) Common wisdom I've heard on TV is that around 20 teams have a legit chance to make the Final Four; that's a lot. People's brackets are going to have some diversity to them this year. Enjoy your March and good luck with your brackets!!!
NCAAB Dunkel Yale at Columbia The Bulldogs look to build on their 8-0 ATS record in their last 8 games against Columbia. Yale is the pick (+4) according to Dunkel, which has the Bulldogs favored by 3 1/2. Dunkel Pick: Yale (+4). Here are all of today's games. FRIDAY, MARCH 1 Game 825-826: Dartmouth at Pennsylvania (7:00 p.m. EST) Dunkel Ratings: Dartmouth 43.157; Pennsylvania 55.827 Dunkel Line: Pennsylvania by 12 1/2 Vegas Line: Pennsylvania by 7 Dunkel Pick: Pennsylvania (-7) Game 827-828: Brown at Cornell (7:00 p.m. EST) Dunkel Ratings: Brown 45.750; Cornell 56.575 Dunkel Line: Cornell by 11 Vegas Line: Cornell by 5 Dunkel Pick: Cornell (-5) Game 829-830: Yale at Columbia (7:00 p.m. EST) Dunkel Ratings: Yale 53.613; Columbia 50.048 Dunkel Line: Yale by 3 1/2 Vegas Line: Columbia by 4 Dunkel Pick: Yale (+4) Game 831-832: Harvard at Princeton (7:00 p.m. EST) Dunkel Ratings: Harvard 58.695; Princeton 59.899 Dunkel Line: Princeton by 1 1/2; 129 Vegas Line: Princeton by 6; 124 1/2 Dunkel Pick: Harvard (+6); Over Game 833-834: Marist at Siena (7:00 p.m. EST) Dunkel Ratings: Marist 47.566; Siena 47.472 Dunkel Line: Even Vegas Line: Marist by 2 1/2 Dunkel Pick: Siena (+2 1/2) Game 835-836: Fairfield at Manhattan (9:00 p.m. EST) Dunkel Ratings: Fairfield 53.836; Manhattan 60.470 Dunkel Line: Manhattan by 6 1/2; 110 Vegas Line: Fairfield by 1; 114 Dunkel Pick: Manhattan (+1); Under Game 837-838: Loyola-MD at Iona (7:00 p.m. EST) Dunkel Ratings: Loyola-MD 53.860; Iona 60.627 Dunkel Line: Iona by 7 Vegas Line: Iona by 5 Dunkel Pick: Iona (-5)
NCAAB Long Sheet Friday, March 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DARTMOUTH (6 - 18) at PENNSYLVANIA (7 - 19) - 3/1/2013, 7:00 PM Top Trends for this game. PENNSYLVANIA is 72-102 ATS (-40.2 Units) in all home games since 1997. PENNSYLVANIA is 72-102 ATS (-40.2 Units) in home lined games since 1997. PENNSYLVANIA is 30-52 ATS (-27.2 Units) in home games when playing against a team with a losing record since 1997. PENNSYLVANIA is 20-40 ATS (-24.0 Units) in home games when playing against a team with a losing record after 15 or more games since 1997. PENNSYLVANIA is 15-29 ATS (-16.9 Units) in home games versus poor offensive teams - scoring <=64 points/game after 15+ games since 1997. PENNSYLVANIA is 20-35 ATS (-18.5 Units) in home games versus poor offensive teams - scoring <=64 points/game since 1997. Head-to-Head Series History PENNSYLVANIA is 3-2 against the spread versus DARTMOUTH over the last 3 seasons PENNSYLVANIA is 5-0 straight up against DARTMOUTH over the last 3 seasons 3 of 4 games in this series have gone UNDER THE TOTAL over the last 3 seasons -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BROWN (10 - 14) at CORNELL (13 - 14) - 3/1/2013, 7:00 PM Top Trends for this game. CORNELL is 61-31 ATS (+26.9 Units) after scoring 60 points or less since 1997. Head-to-Head Series History CORNELL is 4-1 against the spread versus BROWN over the last 3 seasons CORNELL is 5-0 straight up against BROWN over the last 3 seasons 2 of 4 games in this series have gone OVER THE TOTAL over the last 3 seasons -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- YALE (11 - 16) at COLUMBIA (11 - 13) - 3/1/2013, 7:00 PM Top Trends for this game. YALE is 37-20 ATS (+15.0 Units) in road games on Friday nights since 1997. YALE is 36-20 ATS (+14.0 Units) in road games when playing with 5 or 6 days rest since 1997. Head-to-Head Series History YALE is 5-0 against the spread versus COLUMBIA over the last 3 seasons YALE is 5-0 straight up against COLUMBIA over the last 3 seasons 3 of 4 games in this series have gone OVER THE TOTAL over the last 3 seasons -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HARVARD (17 - 7) at PRINCETON (14 - 9) - 3/1/2013, 7:00 PM Top Trends for this game. HARVARD is 9-23 ATS (-16.3 Units) in March games since 1997. HARVARD is 84-114 ATS (-41.4 Units) after a conference game since 1997. PRINCETON is 29-18 ATS (+9.2 Units) in all games over the last 2 seasons. PRINCETON is 29-18 ATS (+9.2 Units) in all lined games over the last 2 seasons. PRINCETON is 16-4 ATS (+11.6 Units) on Friday nights over the last 3 seasons. PRINCETON is 15-6 ATS (+8.4 Units) after a conference game over the last 2 seasons. PRINCETON is 91-63 ATS (+21.7 Units) when playing against a team with a winning record since 1997. Head-to-Head Series History PRINCETON is 4-2 against the spread versus HARVARD over the last 3 seasons PRINCETON is 3-3 straight up against HARVARD over the last 3 seasons 3 of 6 games in this series have gone OVER THE TOTAL over the last 3 seasons -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MARIST (8 - 20) at SIENA (7 - 21) - 3/1/2013, 7:00 PM Top Trends for this game. MARIST is 8-1 ATS (+6.9 Units) as a favorite over the last 2 seasons. MARIST is 26-13 ATS (+11.7 Units) in road games after scoring 80 points or more since 1997. SIENA is 20-35 ATS (-18.5 Units) against conference opponents over the last 3 seasons. Head-to-Head Series History MARIST is 3-2 against the spread versus SIENA over the last 3 seasons SIENA is 4-1 straight up against MARIST over the last 3 seasons 3 of 4 games in this series have gone UNDER THE TOTAL over the last 3 seasons -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FAIRFIELD (17 - 12) at MANHATTAN (11 - 16) - 3/1/2013, 9:00 PM Top Trends for this game. MANHATTAN is 34-23 ATS (+8.7 Units) in all games over the last 2 seasons. MANHATTAN is 34-23 ATS (+8.7 Units) in all lined games over the last 2 seasons. FAIRFIELD is 77-54 ATS (+17.6 Units) in road games against conference opponents since 1997. Head-to-Head Series History MANHATTAN is 4-2 against the spread versus FAIRFIELD over the last 3 seasons FAIRFIELD is 4-2 straight up against MANHATTAN over the last 3 seasons 4 of 5 games in this series have gone UNDER THE TOTAL over the last 3 seasons -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LOYOLA-MD (20 - 9) at IONA (15 - 13) - 3/1/2013, 7:00 PM Top Trends for this game. LOYOLA-MD is 24-5 ATS (+18.5 Units) as a road underdog of 3.5 to 6 points since 1997. LOYOLA-MD is 104-55 ATS (+43.5 Units) in road games since 1997. LOYOLA-MD is 104-55 ATS (+43.5 Units) in road lined games since 1997. LOYOLA-MD is 88-43 ATS (+40.7 Units) in road games against conference opponents since 1997. LOYOLA-MD is 35-17 ATS (+16.3 Units) in road games revenging a home loss vs opponent since 1997. LOYOLA-MD is 55-36 ATS (+15.4 Units) in road games when playing against a team with a winning record since 1997. LOYOLA-MD is 34-18 ATS (+14.2 Units) in road games when playing against a team with a winning record after 15 or more games since 1997. IONA is 45-67 ATS (-28.7 Units) in home games against conference opponents since 1997. Head-to-Head Series History IONA is 3-2 against the spread versus LOYOLA-MD over the last 3 seasons IONA is 3-2 straight up against LOYOLA-MD over the last 3 seasons 3 of 4 games in this series have gone OVER THE TOTAL over the last 3 seasons
NCAAB Armadillo's Write-Up Friday, March 1 -- Dartmouth lost its last five games, all by 9+ points; they lost 67-57 at home to Penn Feb 16, after leading by 12 at half. Big Green shot 35.6% for game; Quakers shot 64% inside arc. Ivy league home favorites of 7+ points are 7-8 vs spread. Penn split its four Ivy home games, winning by 4-23 points; they're 3-2 in last five games overall. Dartmouth is 1-4 on Ivy road, losing by 5-23-9-11 points. -- Brown lost five of last seven games, losing last three road games, by 7-17-23 points; they turned ball over 16 times (-7) in 69-66 home loss to Cornell Jan 16, when both sides were 8-20 from arc. Bruins are 1-4 on Ivy road, losing by 12-7-17-23 points, with two of those losses in OT. Ivy League home favorites of 5 or less points are 4-5 vs spread. Cornell is 1-4 at home in Ivy, with only win by 23 over Dartmouth. -- Yale won four of last six games, winning at Princeton/Penn in last two on road; Bulldogs shot 70% (28-40) inside arc in 75-56 home win over Columbia Jan 16, game Yale led 43-21 at half. Ivy League home favorites of 5 or less points are 4-5 vs spread. Lions lost seven of last nine games, but they upset first-place Harvard here; five of Columbia's seven losses in conference play are by six or less points. -- Harvard won eight of last nine games; they lead Princeton by game in Ivy standings; since there is no tournament in Ivy, Harvard win here will pretty much put them in NCAAs. Crimson beat Princeton 69-57 Jan 16 at home, game they led by 4 at half. Ivy League home favorites of 7 or less points are 5-7 vs spread. Harvard's only Ivy loss was at Columbia by 15. Princeton is 4-1 at home in Ivy, with only loss to Yale. -- Siena won 79-75 at Marist Jan 27, after trailing by 13 in first 9:00 of game; Saints lost five of last six games, with five losses by 10+ points. Six of seven Siena wins this season were by 4 or less points, or in OT. Seven of last eight Marist games were decided by 6 or less points; they are 1-7 on MAAC road, with only win in double OT at Iona. MAAC home underdogs of 3 or less points are 5-3 against the spread. -- Fairfield won seven of its last nine games, winning last two on road, by 7-10 points, but one of losses was awful 62-40 loss to Manhattan at home, when Stags shot 25.4% from floor, 7-18 from foul line. MAAC home teams are 9-6 if spread is 3 or less points. Jaspers won five of last six games after starting season 6-15; they've won three of last four home games, with only loss in that span to Niagara by four. -- Loyola won five of last six games, with three of five wins by 4 or less points; Greyhounds were outscored 20-8 on line in 79-71 home loss to Iona Jan 27, when Gaels shot 58% inside arc. Snakebit Iona lost six of its last seven games, with three losses in OT, and other three all by 3 or less points, including one loss where team hit 65-footer at buzzer to force an OT. MAAC home favorites of 6 or less points are 8-15 vs spread.
NCAAB Friday, March 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Trend Report ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7:00 PM MARIST vs. SIENA The total has gone UNDER in 5 of Marist's last 7 games on the road Marist is 1-11 SU in its last 12 games on the road Siena is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games when playing at home against Marist Siena is 3-10 ATS in its last 13 games when playing at home against Marist 7:00 PM YALE vs. COLUMBIA Yale is 5-15 SU in its last 20 games on the road Yale is 6-2 SU in its last 8 games when playing on the road against Columbia The total has gone OVER in 4 of Columbia's last 5 games when playing Yale Columbia is 0-5 SU in its last 5 games when playing Yale 7:00 PM DARTMOUTH vs. PENNSYLVANIA The total has gone UNDER in 6 of Dartmouth's last 8 games when playing on the road against Pennsylvania Dartmouth is 1-14 SU in its last 15 games when playing on the road against Pennsylvania Pennsylvania is 3-8 SU in its last 11 games at home The total has gone UNDER in 12 of Pennsylvania's last 17 games when playing Dartmouth 7:00 PM LOYOLA vs. IONA The total has gone OVER in 5 of Loyola's last 5 games on the road Loyola is 5-2 SU in its last 7 games on the road The total has gone OVER in 4 of Iona's last 5 games when playing at home against Loyola Iona is 18-2 SU in its last 20 games when playing at home against Loyola 7:00 PM BROWN vs. CORNELL Brown is 0-5 SU in its last 5 games when playing on the road against Cornell Brown is 2-4 ATS in its last 6 games on the road The total has gone OVER in 6 of Cornell's last 9 games Cornell is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games when playing at home against Brown 7:00 PM HARVARD vs. PRINCETON Harvard is 7-2-1 ATS in its last 10 games on the road Harvard is 4-2 SU in its last 6 games on the road Princeton is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games when playing at home against Harvard The total has gone UNDER in 5 of Princeton's last 6 games when playing at home against Harvard 9:00 PM FAIRFIELD vs. MANHATTAN The total has gone UNDER in 6 of Fairfield's last 7 games when playing on the road against Manhattan Fairfield is 4-2 SU in its last 6 games when playing on the road against Manhattan Manhattan is 4-2 SU in its last 6 games at home Manhattan is 2-8 SU in its last 10 games when playing Fairfield
NCAAB Friday, March 1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Are dog-dominated conferences primed for postseason upsets? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Heading into Thursday's college basketball schedule, underdogs have gone 1573-1533-55 against the spread (50.64 percent) this season, which sits par for the course as far as oddsmakers are concerned. Some conferences have followed suit, like the Mountain West, which enters Thursday's slate with a 28-28-2 ATS record for underdogs in conference play. But other leagues, like the Pac-12, have – for lack of a better term – gone to the dogs. As of Thursday, Pac-12 underdogs have produced a 54-31-2 ATS record – covering the spread at a profitable 63 percent. While pups have posted just a 32-55 SU mark in those games, the ATS numbers show just how volatile the Pac-12 can be. Southern California's 89-78 win over No. 11 Arizona as a 7.5-point home underdog Wednesday is a prime example. Knowing which conferences have been bountiful to underdog bettors is not only useful in the final weeks of the schedule but shines light on which leagues have the most upset potential come conference tournament time. Here are the best conferences for underdog bettors and how their tournaments are shaping up: Pac-12 – 63 percent (Underdogs are 54-31-2 ATS, 32-55 SU) Four teams are fighting it out for the top seed in the Pac-12 tournament – Oregon, UCLA, Arizona, Cal – but as Wednesday's schedule proved (all three underdogs covered, two won SU), no team is safe no matter where they sit in the standings. Betting the Pac-12 postseason could be as easy as blindly siding with the underdogs each game. Southern Conference – 59 percent (Underdogs are 57-39-2 ATS, 31-67 SU) Davidson is the class of the Southern once again at 16-1 SU in conference play. However, the Wildcats are just 8-9 ATS and have been favorites in each of those conference clashes. Finding value in the Southern tournament will come from those teams below Davidson, like Samford, which is 9-7 SU but 13-3 ATS in conference play - nine of those paydays coming as an underdog. Missouri Valley Conference – 58 percent (Underdogs are 47-33-3 ATS, 30-53 SU) The MVC is one of the best little conferences in the land and the postseason race is hot and heavy with Wichita State and Creighton tied atop the standings heading into a showdown this Saturday. Both of those programs are in the conversation for an at-large NCAA bid but have also fallen at the hands of lesser MVC foes. Evansville could be the wildcard in the bunch, with two wins over WSU and six of their nine ATS conference wins coming as an underdog. Colonial Athletic Association – 57 percent (Underdogs are 52-39-0 ATs, 37-54 SU) Northeastern has already clinched the CAA regular season title, with one game remaining on the schedule, and there is a nice battle for second in the conference between Delaware and Towson. George Mason, Georgia State and James Madison all finished with double-digit conference wins. The Panthers took one win over Northeastern this season and nearly knocked off the Huskies in overtime Wednesday. The CAA tournament could very well pop a NCAA bubble for one of the major-conference program if there's an upset winner. Summit League – 55 percent (Underdogs are 36-29-0 ATS, 21-44 SU) Heading into the final string of schedule, just two games separate No. 1 South Dakota State and No. 4 Oakland in the Summit standings. The Jackrabbits have the makings of a Cinderella team come March Madness but the league tournament could snuff out that shocker before Selection Sunday, especially if star Nate Wolters is slowed by a back injury. The fourth-place Golden Grizzlies have wins over South Dakota State and Western Illinois this year and could be a dog to watch in the postseason.
Friday, March 1 Game Score Status Pick Amount Marist - 7:00 PM ET Marist -2.5 500 Siena - Harvard - 7:00 PM ET Harvard +5.5 500 Princeton - Over 123 500 Brown - 7:00 PM ET Brown +4.5 500 Cornell - Dartmouth - 7:00 PM ET Pennsylvania -7.5 500 Pennsylvania - Yale - 7:00 PM ET Yale +4 500 POD Columbia - Loyola-Maryland - 7:00 PM ET Iona -4.5 500 Iona - Fairfield - 9:00 PM ET Fairfield -1 500 POD Manhattan - Over 113 500
Saturday's Slate March 1, 2013 **Miami at Duke** --The Cameron Crazies will undoubtedly be in rare form Saturday night when Duke (24-4 straight up, 15-13 against the spread) seeks to avenge an embarrassing loss at Miami from earlier this season. The Blue Devils will also be in bounce-back mode after going down Thursday night in Charlottesville. --Virginia stayed perfect at home by beating Duke 73-68 as a one-point home favorite. In defeat, Seth Curry and Quinn Cook both drained four 3-pointers apiece and finished with 28 and 22 points, respectively. --When these schools met in Coral Gables on Jan. 23, Miami ran Duke out of the gym early and often en route to a 90-63 win as a 2.5-point home underdog. The 153 combined points soared 'over' the 133.5-point total. Duran Scott was sensational with 25 points, six rebounds, four assists and two steals, while Kenny Kadji finished with 22 points on 9-of-11 shooting from the floor. Mason Plumlee had 15 points and 11 boards in the losing effort. --Miami (23-4 SU, 16-7-1 ATS) has already locked up a share of its first ACC regular-season title and can clinch the outright championship with a win in this spot. The Hurricanes, who are 14-1 against ACC foes, are coming off Wednesday's 76-58 win over Va. Tech as 16-point home 'chalk.' Shane Larkin enjoyed another stellar performance, scoring 22 points while dishing out six assists compared to only one turnover. Larking made 8-of-12 shots from the field, including 3-of-5 from deep. Kadji finished with 20 points, six rebounds and two blocked shots. --Larkin is on his way to earning first-team All-ACC honors. The sophomore guard, who is the son of MLB great Barry Larkin, is averaging 13.4 points per game and has a 117/59 assists-to-turnovers ratio. Scott and Kadji are averaging 13.1 and 13.0 PPG, respectively, for UM's balanced offensive attack. --Duke is undefeated in 14 home games with a 7-7 spread record. The Blue Devils have been single-digit home favorite just once, failing to cover the number in a 73-68 win over Ohio St. as 5.5-point favorites back on Nov. 28. --Duke is No. 1 in the RPI Rankings thanks to a 4-1 record against the RPI Top 25, an 8-2 ledger against the RPI Top 50 and a 12-4 mark against the RPI Top 100. The Blue Devils' profile includes wins over the likes of Minnesota, Louisville, VCU, Kentucky and Temple. --Miami is third in the RPI Rankings, going 4-1 against the RPI Top 25, 6-1 versus RPI Top 50 opponents and 13-2 against RPI Top 100 foes. --Miami has been a road underdog twice, winning outright at North Carolina (68-59) and at UMass (75-62). In four underdog situations, the 'Canes are 3-1 both SU and ATS with their loss coming to Arizona on a neutral court. --Most books opened Duke as a 6.5-point home favorite. --The 'over' has cashed at an incredibly lucrative 11-1 clip in the last 12 head-to-head meetings between these ACC adversaries. In the last nine Miami-Duke encounters, the 'Canes own a 6-1-2 spread record. --The 'under' is 14-7-1 overall for UM, 7-4 in its 11 road assignments. --The 'over' is 15-12 overall for Duke, but the 'under' is 7-6 in its home games with a total. Regardless of venue, the 'over' is on a 9-4 run in the Blue Devils' last 13 games. --ESPN will have the telecast at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. **Arizona at UCLA** --SportsBetting.com opened this game as a pick 'em. --Arizona (23-5 SU, 12-14 ATS) saw its three-game winning streak halted in Wednesday's 89-78 loss at Southern Cal as a 7.5-point road favorite. The Wildcats got beaten 33-24 on the boards and shot just 40.0 percent from the field. They got a team-high 21 points, six assists and five steals from Solomon Hill. --UCLA (21-7 SU, 11-16 ATS) has won 14 of its 17 home games while posting a 7-9 spread record. --Ben Howland's club has won three in a row and five of its last six, including Wednesday's 79-74 win over Arizona St. in overtime. However, the Bruins failed to cover the spread as 7.5-point home 'chalk.' Kyle Anderson was the catalyst in the victory, tallying 21 points, 15 rebounds and four blocked shots. Jordan Adams had a team-high 22 points and Shabazz Muhammad finished with 21 points. --Muhammad, the Las Vegas product who most recruitniks dubbed as the nation's No. 1 prep player, has averaged a team-high 18.3 PPG for the Bruins. Larry Drew II, the point guard who transferred to Westwood from North Carolina, is fourth in the nation in assists with 7.8 APG. Drew has a 218/63 assists-to-turnovers ratio. --Mark Lyons, the transfer guard from Xavier, leads the Wildcats in scoring with a 15.2 PPG average. --When these Pac-12 rivals squared off in Tucson on Jan. 24, UCLA went into the McKale Center and won an 84-73 decision as an 8.5-point underdog. Muhammad scored a game-high 23 points, while David Wear had 15 points and eight rebounds. Drew dished out nine assists. For Arizona, Nick Johnson scored 23 points before fouling out. Lyons had 16 points but made only 6-of-17 from the field and had zero assists and five turnovers. --UCLA is No. 39 in the RPI Rankings, compiling a 4-4 record against the RPI Top 50 and a 10-6 mark against the RPI Top 100. --Sean Miller's squad is 14th in the RPI Rankings, going 5-4 against RPI Top 50 opponents and 11-5 versus Top 100 foes. --The 'under' is 14-8 for Arizona, 6-4 in its 10 true road assignments. --The 'under' is 11-10 overall for UCLA, 5-5 in its home outings. --The 'under' is 4-1 in the last five head-to-head meetings between UCLA and Arizona. --Tip-off is scheduled for 9:00 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. **B.E.'s Bonus Nuggets** --Georgia is 9-1 ATS in its last 10 games going into Saturday's home game vs. Tennessee at Stegeman Coliseum. The Volunteers have won six in a row both SU and ATS. Most books opened Tennessee as a 1.5-point road favorite. --With the Gators back at full strength for just the eighth game this season, most spots opened them as 17-point favorites Saturday vs. Alabama. ESPN will have television coverage at noon Eastern. --Florida 2013 signee Chris Walker led Holmes County High School (in FL.) to a win over West Gadsden County in Wednesday's state title game. Walker, a six-foot-10-inch center, averaged 25 points, 14 rebounds and 10 blocked shots in the state semifinals in Lakeland. The future Gator beat up on a former Gator's team, as West Gadsden is coached by Andrew Moten, who led UF to its first NCAA Tournament bid (and the Sweet 16 before losing to eventual runner-up Syracuse in the Meadowlands) in 1987. --St. John's has suspended D'Angelo Harrison for the rest of the season. Harrison was third in the Big East in scoring, averaging 17.8 points and 4.3 rebounds per game. --Auburn head coach Tony Barbee is a goner.


text:
Joel Klein's Misleading Autobiography
This is a story about a story, of how a fiction about impoverished children and public schools corrupts our education policy.
The fiction is the autobiography of Joel Klein, the former chancellor of the New York City Department of Education. Appointed in 2002 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Klein transformed the city's public-school system by promoting privately managed charter schools to replace regular public schools, by increasing the consequences for principals and teachers of standardized tests, and by attacking union-sponsored due process and seniority provisions for teachers. From his perch as head of the nation's largest school district, Klein wielded outsize influence, campaigning to persuade districts and states across the nation to adopt the testing and accountability policies he had established in New York. Deputies he trained when he was chancellor now lead school systems not only in New York but also in Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, Newark, and elsewhere.
Klein resigned in 2010 to develop a new division at Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to sell tablet-based curriculum to public schools. His prominence in national education policy, though, has not diminished. He is chair of the Broad Center, which is funded by Los Angeles billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad to train and place school superintendents who've been recruited not only from the education sector but also from leadership positions in government, the military, and corporations. The center's graduates have included the Obama administration's assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, state school superintendents in New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Delaware, and district superintendents in Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Seattle, and dozens of other cities. Earlier this year, Klein co-chaired, with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a Council on Foreign Relations commission that concluded that the country's public schools are in such crisis that they threaten national security. Klein has also become a contributor to The Atlantic; his latest piece, in August, denounced "ideological foes of business' contribution to the public good" who resist efforts of private firms to sell innovative products to public schools.
Klein and his allies hold teachers primarily responsible for the achievement gap between disadvantaged and middle-class children. In a 2010 "manifesto," Klein and one of his protégés, Michelle Rhee, the former schools chancellor of Washington, D.C., summed up their campaign like this: "The single most important factor determining whether students succeed in school is not the color of their skin or their ZIP code or even their parents' income—it is the quality of their teacher."
As proof, Klein—and others for him—cites his life story in what has become a stump speech for his brand of school reform. Again and again, Klein recounts his own deprived childhood and how it was a public-school teacher who plucked him from a path to mediocrity or worse. He offers his autobiography as evidence that poverty is no bar to success and that today's disadvantaged children fail only because they are not rescued by inspiring teachers like those from whom Klein himself had benefitted.
This has become conventional wisdom in national education policy. As Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has declared, "Klein knows, as I do, that great teachers can transform a child's life chances—and that poverty is not destiny. It's a belief deeply rooted in his childhood, as a kid growing up in public housing. … Joel Klein never lost that sense of urgency about education as the great equalizer. He understands that education is the civil-rights issue of our generation, the force that lifts children from public-housing projects to first-generation college students. … In place of a culture of excuses, Klein sought [as chancellor] to build a culture of performance and accountability."
Here is Klein's autobiographical account in his own words, faithful to original context, culled from numerous speeches and interviews that Klein has given and continues to give:
I grew up in public housing in Queens and grew up in the streets of New York. I always like to think of myself as a kid from the streets, and education changed my life. … I stood on the shoulders of teachers to see a world that I couldn't have seen growing up in the family that I grew up in.
My father had dropped out of high school in the tenth grade during the Great Depression. My mother graduated from high school and never went to college. No one in my family had attended college … or knew about college. I had no appreciation of reading or cultural activities. …
By most people's lights, we were certainly working-class, poor. … I grew up in a pretty unhappy household. …
Teachers set expectations for me that were not commensurate with my background or my family's income. …
Nobody in [my] school said to me, 'Well, you grew up in public housing, your parents don't read, you've never been to a museum, so we shouldn't expect too much from you!' … I wanted to play ball, I had a girlfriend at the time. I thought school was OK, a little overrated but I thought it was OK. … Mr. Harris, my physics teacher at William Cullen Bryant High School, saw something that I hadn't seen in myself. … I realized, through him, that the potential of students in inner-city schools is too often untapped. We can fix that. Demography need not be destiny.
From the day I took the job as chancellor of the New York Public Schools, friends told me that I would never fix education in America until you fix the poverty in our society. … I'm convinced now more than ever that those people have it exactly backwards—because you'll never fix poverty in America until you fix education.
I reject categorically the principle that poverty is an insurmountable impediment, because I see that we have surmounted it time and again.
I never forget and never will forget who I am, where I came from, and what public education did for me. I am still the old kid from Queens.
The lesson Klein, Duncan, and others draw from this autobiography is that poor children today fail because their teachers, unlike the 1950s Mr. Harris, are overprotected by union contracts, have low expectations for poor students, and so barely try to teach them. To correct this, Klein and others who call themselves "school reformers" hope to identify ineffective teachers and replace them with new ones who rest their security not on union rules but on an ability to rescue children from material and intellectual deprivation.
Unlike a politician's biography, which gets vetted by the press, Klein's account has never been questioned. That's too bad, because in nearly every detail the story he tells is misleading or untrue. The misrepresentations call into question the reforms he and his acolytes promote.
As a policy analyst, I have often criticized those who dismiss the powerful influence of poverty on academic achievement and the belief that better teachers can systematically overcome that influence. In making this critique, autobiography influences me as well, because as it turns out, Klein and I grew up in similar circumstances—third-generation, educationally ambitious, Queens, New York, Jewish households, with parents who had nearly identical jobs and incomes. I'm just a few years older than Klein. We attended neighboring schools; I even had the same physics teacher, Mr. Sidney Harris, whom Klein credits with his rescue. We both attended Ivy League colleges (he went to Columbia, I to Harvard), but unlike Klein, I have always considered myself lucky to have come from an academically motivated family and would never dare suggest that I had material or intellectual hardships that were in any way comparable to those faced by poor minority children from housing projects today. Some of my teachers were superb, some not so, but with backgrounds like ours, Klein and I would probably have succeeded no matter what shortcomings our schools might have had.
Klein is right that "demography need not be destiny." Human nature and environments are variable, children are complex, and so although disadvantaged children on average perform more poorly than typical middle-class children, some disadvantaged children do better and some do even worse than their circumstances would seem to predict. A few respond exceptionally well to teachers and schools. Some poor parents are literate, take education unusually seriously, seek the best out-of-school enrichment, and read to their children at home. These are the few low-income minority children whom some high-profile charter schools serve. It's when poverty combines with chaos at home, adult illiteracy, neglect, unaddressed health issues, constant dislocation, and a neighborhood pervaded by addiction and crime that most children in these environments become, in sociologist William Julius Wilson's phrase, "truly disadvantaged." It's these children whose academic performance we must help to improve and who are the target of most self-described school reformers.
For Klein's life story to serve his argument, he can't merely have grown up in a housing project but in a home that failed to support middle-class values of academic ambition and striving. To support his program, he's had to suggest he had an "inner city" upbringing on "the streets" and was raised in a dysfunctional home we typically associate with the truly disadvantaged. This is where his misrepresentations and distortions come in. The discrepancies matter because they go to the heart of what's wrong with his reform agenda.
Educational values were not absent from Klein's family. His father, Charles Klein, like many of his generation, left high school during the Depression, but the notion that his parents couldn't read or didn't know about college is misleading. His mother, Claire Klein, was a bookkeeper. With fierce competition for scarce jobs, Charles did well enough on a civil-service exam to land work at the post office, remaining for 25 years in a secure job he hated to ensure he could send his children to college. This was not the commitment of semi-literate parents with little knowledge of higher education.
Indeed, while serving as assistant attorney general in the Clinton Justice Department, and before becoming schools chancellor, Klein recalled how he was inspired to become a lawyer: He sometimes skipped school, he told an interviewer, so his father could "take me to the federal courthouse in Manhattan, and we'd just watch cases." This is not the typical father-son activity of public-housing residents with "no appreciation of reading or cultural activities."
Klein graduated high school at 16, because, like me, he was placed in a New York City program that compressed three years of junior high school into two. These "special progress" classes, at Klein's Junior High School 10 and my nearby Junior High School 74, were not for would-be truants and gang members but for academically advanced students with ambitious parents who were impatient with the regular curricular pace. Special-progress classes were even more racially and academically segregated from other students than their contemporary version, "gifted and talented" programs that retain middle-class parents in the public-school system by separating their children from most low-income and minority-group peers. Klein may recall that he was not academically engaged until inspired by his high-school physics teacher. But in the 1950s, you weren't assigned to seventh-grade special-progress classes unless you were already performing well above grade level.
Klein excelled academically in high school before encountering Mr. Harris. The Bryant High School yearbook for the class of 1963 tells a very different story from the one Klein recounts. It describes him as a member of the National Honor Society in his junior as well as senior year. He was also a member of the math team, served as an editor of the school newspaper, and was elected student-government president. To top it all, the "Senior Celebrities" page of the yearbook named him class scholar.
Klein's family was also not poor by any reasonable criteria. Charles Klein's annual post-office salary in the 1950s was about equal to the national median household income. The median national salary for full-time female clerical workers was about three-fourths of the national median household income. Thus, so long as Claire Klein worked, the Klein family income would have been substantially in excess of the national median. Indeed, Charles Klein was well-off enough to take his family on an annual summer vacation to the Catskills. In 1971, Charles Klein saw his son Joel graduate from law school and obtain a prestigious clerkship at a federal appeals court. Charles then retired with a defined-benefit federal pension to a Florida apartment near the beach—an option unlikely for public-housing residents as we now know them.
The conventional definition of disadvantaged students today is eligibility for free lunch, because their household income (for a family of four) is about half the national median. These are the children about whose achievement we worry and by this definition, Klein was not poor. Even if his mother earned nothing, the family was not economically oppressed. Klein didn't overcome demographic odds; he fulfilled them. He was a student who then, like now, enjoyed family resources and values that predict academic success.
Klein's most egregious autobiographical distortion is that he grew up in public housing. That's because, as Klein must know, the words "public housing" evoke an image of minority unemployment, welfare dependence, unwed motherhood, truancy, gangs, drug dealing, addiction, and violence. Klein, though, grew up in racial privilege, dramatically different from the segregated world of most youngsters in public housing today. (Click here to read Richard Rothstein's related piece on the role of public housing in racially segregating communities.)
Klein did live in public housing after his family moved to Queens in 1955 when he was nine years old. But he fails to say—perhaps because he truly doesn't realize—that some public housing in New York in the 1940s and 1950s, including the Woodside Houses project where his family resided, was built for white, middle-class families. The poor and the problems poverty causes were unwelcome. This distinction is critical to understanding Klein's history and why it undermines his current policy prescriptions.
Returning World War II veterans like Klein's father confronted a housing shortage. To address it, New York erected projects like Woodside Houses, an attractive six-story development with trees, grassy areas, and park benches. Residents were not on the dole but paid rent that covered their housing costs; apartments were not subsidized and were not part of the national low-income housing program.
Rather, for prospective tenants in Woodside Houses and its sister projects, the New York City Housing Authority enforced 21 disqualifying factors. Excluded were single-parent families and those with irregular employment history, out-of-wedlock births, criminal records, narcotics addiction, or mental illness—in other words, any family with the qualities we now associate with public housing. Couples had to show marriage licenses to apply. To filter out undesirables, inspectors visited applicants' previous homes to verify good housekeeping habits, sufficient furniture, and well-behaved children. Neighborhood public schools serving complexes like Woodside Houses thus didn't have to contend with unruly adolescents; they had already been weeded out by the Housing Authority.
New York City claimed it did not segregate its projects, but Woodside and similar complexes in white neighborhoods accepted only a token few black tenants because Housing Authority policy was to respect "existing community patterns." So when the Kleins moved to Woodside Houses in its predominantly white neighborhood, 87 percent of their fellow tenants were white. The few nonwhites were also middle-class, owing to the rigorous screening they endured. By contrast, South Jamaica Houses in a black Queens neighborhood was only 12 percent white, and its low-income tenants were subsidized.
So Klein's entire autobiography is a sleight of hand.
He was not a child of the streets. He was not an academically unmotivated student. He did not come from a deprived family background. He did not grow up in public housing as we understand it today.
I sent Klein a detailed set of questions that focused on the discrepancies between the public record and the life story he has told. He responded by e-mail: "I appreciate the time and effort put into trying to reinterpret and recharacterize my family's history and to construe the conditions of public housing, public education, and public-sector employment 50 years ago. I happened to be there, however, and it was as I've described it over the years—a humble, challenging environment, positively influenced by parents who set great examples through hard work and by many teachers including one who truly inspired me and changed my life. I do not compare my family's situation to anyone or anything, nor do I view socioeconomic need as a downward contest for credibility in addressing the challenges in education today."
In misrepresenting his childhood, Klein has distorted the world of both our fathers. Mine, already out of high school and at City College of New York when the Great Depression hit, was also fortunate to land a job in the post office, working second jobs at night. Permanently traumatized by the insecurity of the Depression, he remained unhappily in the federal civil service so he, like Charles Klein, could see his children through college, after which he was rewarded, also like the elder Klein, with a secure federal pension. My mother, like Klein's, was a bookkeeper.
I never lived in public housing, but my parents' small single-family home in a white Queens neighborhood not far from Woodside had monthly mortgage payments about the same as the rent Charles and Claire Klein paid to the Housing Authority. Our family income was similar to the Kleins'; both families were middle-class.
At Bayside High School, I also had Sidney Harris for physics. (After I graduated, he transferred to Bryant.) I don't doubt that he was an excellent teacher and inspired Klein, but he did nothing similar for me. I was instead motivated by my Latin and journalism teachers. Like the 1963 yearbook at Bryant High School, my 1959 Bayside yearbook has few black faces. Klein and I both attended almost entirely segregated, white schools.
My family was not wealthy. But my parents supplied me with plenty of picture books to play with in my crib. My father didn't take me to watch court cases, but one night we went to Brooklyn to retrieve a set of encyclopedias from a second cousin who was about to discard them. My mother and father took me to the Museum of Natural History and the Planetarium, and at the dinner table, my father frequently posed a counterfactual to explore the day's events. "Let's assume …" was his favorite phrase. Such unintended exercises in reasoning and critical thinking, and other similar activities, play an essential role in preparing students for success when they get to school.
My public-school education in the 1950s was OK but not as good as that received by many of my college peers who came from more affluent communities. What made my education complete was the academic support I received at home—support that Klein now takes for granted, discounting the enormous contribution his parents made to his cognitive strengths. Parents who have similarly sacrificed, keeping jobs they hated to ensure their children could attend college, might conclude that Klein's parents raised an ingrate. Certainly it seems absurd for him to claim that his parents had less influence on his eventual academic success than Mr. Harris, who first encountered him only late in high school. Yet this is the position of Klein, Rhee, Duncan, and their allies: Teachers alone determine whether children succeed, and home environment is merely an obstacle for teachers to overcome. Maybe there's a case for this approach, but Klein's biography doesn't prove it.
My high school initially refused to process my application to Harvard. When my father took a day off to make a holy fuss, the Bayside principal, Dr. Samuel Moskowitz, said that he wouldn't waste his staff's time, because "boys from here don't go to Harvard." So much for the high expectations of this supposedly golden, pre–teachers' union era. Today, tenacious parenting still predicts success for students from middle-class or, less frequently, from impoverished households.
Children like Klein and me were privileged, not perhaps in money but in what sociologists term "social capital." Nobody I know of from my special-progress class dropped out of school; my fellow students typically went on to become college professors, doctors, business executives, accountants, writers, and lawyers. Sure, we loved to play street stickball, but we were not "kids from the streets," as Klein would have it. We were surrounded by peers with middle-class ambitions and goals.
It would be obscene for me to claim I overcame severe hardship and was rescued from deprivation by schoolteachers. It is more obscene for Klein to do so, because his claim supports attacks on contemporary teachers and a refusal to acknowledge impediments teachers face because of their students' social and economic deprivation. It's a deprivation that he never suffered but that many children from public housing do today.
A few superhuman teachers may lift a handful of children who come to school from barely literate homes, hungry, in poor health, and otherwise unprepared for academic instruction. But even the best teachers face impossible tasks when confronted with classrooms filled with truly disadvantaged students who are not in tracked special-progress classes and don't arrive each morning from families as academically supportive as mine. Instead, they may come from segregated communities where concentrated and entrenched poverty, unemployment, and social alienation over many generations have been ravaging.
When Klein was appointed chancellor he did seek advice, not only from his friends as he reports in his autobiographical accounts but from analysts like me. I was one of those who told him, as he puts it, that we "would never fix education in America until we fix the poverty in our society." I suggested that he might win more lasting achievement gains by establishing school clinics to ensure that all children had good health care and by directing resources to early-childhood literacy programs and after-school enrichment. I urged him to use his influence to protest government-created residential segregation that concentrates the most disadvantaged children in schools without middle-class peers and where the accumulation of impediments to learning is overwhelming.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that First Amendment free-speech rights protect a politician's false claims to have earned military medals. Klein, too, has a constitutional right to fabricate a life story. But it is up to the rest of us to consider what light the fact of his misrepresentation sheds on the merits of policies he advocates.
Klein is not the sole author of current school-reform policies; many others share responsibility.
But his less-than-honest autobiography has been accepted unquestioningly by allies like Arne Duncan who use it, as he does, to support needless test obsession for millions of schoolchildren, on the theory that more accountability for teachers will cure our social ills. Klein's story has contributed to the demoralization of tens of thousands of teachers who are now blamed for their low-income students' poor test scores. Klein and Duncan's conclusion that public schools must be failing because they don't perform the miracles they allegedly performed in the past has helped justify a rapid expansion of charter schools. Most charter schools have done no better for disadvantaged children than the schools from which they came, while stripping regular schools of their most motivated students. Contemporary reforms have produced much turmoil in public education but little or no meaningful improvement. Meanwhile, social inequality has grown and with it, challenges to educators hoping to narrow the achievement gap.
Klein and Rhee have recently founded an organization called StudentsFirstNY to raise millions of dollars from New York City's wealthiest. It will support candidates in the city's upcoming mayoral race who adopt an agenda that puts "the interests of children" over "special interests" (read: teacher unions) and commits to expanding charter schools, eliminating teacher tenure, and using student test scores to evaluate teachers. The group's mission statement incorporates the fanciful Klein autobiographical tale, saying that "while there are many factors that influence a student's opportunity to learn, a great teacher can help any student overcome those barriers and realize their full potential."
Klein's actual biography tells an important story, just not the one he imagines: It's more evidence that student achievement mostly reflects the social and economic environment in which children are raised and that the best way to improve academic achievement is to address these conditions directly.
The author thanks the following for invaluable assistance in preparing this article: housing scholars Vicki Been, Nicholas Bloom, and Peter Hales; Douglas DiCarlo, archivist at the New York City Housing Authority archives at LaGuardia Community College; various classmates of Joel Klein, identified through Classmates.com; Jim Sauber, chief of staff, National Association of Letter Carriers; Liz Ryan Murray, policy director, National People's Action; Jeffrey Guyton, Co-President, Community District Education Council 30 (Queens, NY); Keri Klein and Edna Lewis, research librarians at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law; Zodet Negron, public information specialist at the New York City Housing Authority; American Prospect research editor Susan O'Brian; and undergraduate research assistant Candice Raynor. Errors of fact or interpretation are those of the author alone.
Excellent read! Thanks for the time and effort and for exposing this man's hypocrisy. As a former NYC middle school science teacher I've witnessed first hand the degradation of the profession. I wish your article would be picked up by the mainstream media, but of course this is unlikely.
I agree! Klein has constructed a fairy tale about his tough beginnings. In his cohort, I know a Ph.D. Anthropology professor and a NYC radio host whose fathers (both African-American by the way) worked for the Post Office. It was a stable working -class unionized job. The idea that one inspiring teacher lights the spark for an unengaged student is pure Hollywood myth; we need a strong supportive home environment , and development of non cognitive skills (persistence, tolerance for failure, ability to concentrate , postpone gratification ) as well as exposure vocabulary ; these are keys to school success. I'm a working class kid (parents factory workers, HS grads) who used the public schools and colleges for their children . We've all got Ph.ds or MAs. But came from a stable working class environment , with health insurance and regular salaries--no tutoring or summer bungalows, but no hunger or homelessness either.
Great piece. Thanks for exposing Klein and others like him who (disingenuously) downplay the impact of poverty on educational performance. Just recently, one of my fourth grade ESL students asked to be excused to go to the nurse because she had a stomach ache. When I asked her what she'd eaten for breakfast, she replied, "Nothing." When I asked what she'd had for dinner the night before, she said, "We didn't have no dinner either. We got home late last night, so my parents gave me some coffee and sent me to my bed." For Klein to suggest that his own childhood was somehow akin to the struggles my students face daily is insulting in the extreme. Thanks again for exposing Klein for the charlatan he is.
The unions are using the "root causes" argument as a convenient excuse that always lets them off the hook. No matter how bad the educational results are it is never their fault.
All they want is to suck on the taxpayers teat and never be held accountable for anything.
Klein's biography is truly irrelevant to the issue of school reform.
In truth, excellent teachers and excellent principals make a big difference in the educational progress of poor and socially deprived children. Year after year some teachers advance their classes a year and half in one year while other teachers advance their class about half that. Yet both the excellent and under performing teachers get the same seniority based pay.
Teachers unions have fought tooth and nail against any kind of accountability.
The New York City "Rubber Room" where under performing teachers are paid for many months or years while there case is given "undue process" is clear proof of how nearly impossible it is to get rid of the minority of teachers that do so much to ruin the lives of at risk children.
Thank you for this. What annoys me is that Klein has gotten ridiculously wealthy off his so-called leadership. He may believe the myth that he's spun, but it's just that. Working Mayor Bloomberg and now for Rupert Murdoch has paid off handsomely, and now he's heading a start-up in Brooklyn that manufactures "evaluation" materials that they can sell to schools to further their mission.
Urban education has become big business, but let's be clear that it's far more expensive than "reformers" let on.
Rothstein has wasted a huge amount of time and hair-splitting on the wrong topic.
Common wisdom is that we should judge individuals by their actions, their imprint on society. In this light, the shades of grey in Klein's personal history are irrelevant. What is relevant? Klein stepped up to a challenge few of us would have undertaken. He served for eight years as the Chancellor of the NYC Public Schools (the largest school system in America, with more than one million students). He was, in fact, the longest serving Chancellor of the modern era. Day-in and day-out he faced the gargantuan task of turning around this behemoth school district. He did not have the luxury of time nor hypothetical arguments; he had the reality of running a failing school system. And how did he do? He had successes and failures, but overall he made a very REAL difference in the lives of NYC's public school students and – by example – in the lives of students across the country.
Concretely, Klein opened 470 new schools and raised graduation rates by 20 percent. To cite a rigorously researched-example: A key piece of the Bloomberg-Klein reform agenda was the closing of large, historically failing high schools (often called dropout factories) to be replaced by new, small, non-selective schools serving the same population. MDRC, the evaluation research firm, conducted an extensive analysis of 105 of these schools, concluding: "based on an unusually large and rigorous study that takes advantage of lottery-like features in New York City's high school admissions process and includes data on 21,000 students from four cohorts who entered ninth grade between fall 2005 and fall 2008. That report demonstrated that SSCs are markedly improving academic progress and graduation prospects, particularly for disadvantaged students." (Source: http://www.mdrc.org/publications/614/overview.html)
Rothstein is an accomplished scholar, author, and public intellectual. Bravo, we need all of these things and I place enormous personal value of them as the daughter of two academics and myself a trained policy analyst. But does Rothstein have the sheer grit and courage to actually do something? To run a school district? To come to a city and combat the impacts of poverty (that Klein, of course, acknowledges) on so many students? To move from theory to action? To work within the confines of the system to make change?
The answer is sadly, no.
I'm not sure we can reduce a massive, well funded and dishonest reform campaign to "hair splitting". At every opportunity, the lack of qualifications, experience, and connection of "reformers" to the people intimately involved with public education (the ACTUAL doers, not tellers, managers) is ignored. The duck taped mouths, the TFA pipeline to ed-royalty, the smut-media/GOP PR "news" connection to policy...are we really to believe that the path these "privatizers" are dragging us down is the right one? Is the PUBLIC better served if its institutions are dismantled and served up to privately held publishing/testing/data-mining industries who will then be instrumental in school management decisions that will then free up more of that public institution to include in their private accounts? Why are we not modeling our policies after more successful ed practices from more successful systems around the world? With the crafty insider-formula data style that served up our economy to 1% of the country and devastated the rest, why would we think our schools and children will be well served by the shrouded VAM data style for learning, with investors drooling on the sidelines for a piece of that action? When those who stand to continue profiting the most are allowed to falsely define the issue and themselves, that needs to be pointed out. It's not hair-splitting.
Having spent a bit of time last month supporting the Chicago Teachers Union (to which I belonged for a couple of years 40 year ago!) in its successful strike, I've become convinced the corporate "education reform" movement really IS "all about the money" and not even remotely "all about the kids"!
Thank you for explaining just how distorted Joel Klein's "autobiography" really is! I graduated from a Catholic high school the same year he graduated from an NYC school, and it constantly astonishes me how my contemporaries can ignore the HUGE differences between life in the U.S. in 1962 and life in the U.S. in 2012. It truly WAS a different world, and pretending that a predominantly middle-class and white housing project in 1962 is the same as a predominantly poor housing project full of people of color in 2012 is just an extreme example of the "reform" movement's blindness! Thanks for make THAT crystal clear!
This is a great article. You also forgot however, a big piece of Joel Klein's reform into the NYC Public School System. When Mr. Klein came in, he had Diana Lam in charge of curriculum, the two flushed out every reading program and math program that was in the public schools and replaced them with Teacher's College Reading and Writing Workshop and EveryDay Math, both curriculum's were doomed to fail from the start because they are based the constructivism (learn as you go), our students needed good solid curriculum especially those who come from poverty stricken homes where little to no academic preparation reigns. I teach in NYC and use Sing, Spell, Read & Write a proven method that ALWAYS gets my students reading, writing and spelling BUT I have gotten in trouble for using it more often than not, I have repeatedly questioned on it's use. SSRW has a 40 year track record of children scoring from poverty homes in the 90th percentile, good curriculum that is multi-sensory works with our slowest kids. I continue to fight to this day, but I only save a small few, sadly Teacher's MUST use the chosen curriculum or be punished severely sometimes even fired. Teacher's today are not the culprit's they are just trying to do what they are told, the CURRICULUM DIRECTORS and JOEL KLEIN who brought in this JUNK curriculum has caused SO much unnecessary failure that sometimes one wonders if they actually WANT this to happen so they can open charter schools.
Whether Joel grew up poor or very poor is completely irrelevant to his track record on education. It is very sad to me that with all the problems facing schools that American Prospect thought this was a worthy article to publish. We should be focusing our attention on the solutions needed to break the cycles of poverty and not bashing someone who has committed his life to helping underprivileged kids, regardless if you agree or disagree with his approach.
I also grew up in the Woodside projects. In fact, I believe the same Joel Klein lived in the same "court" as I did. We played together, went to scouts together, and both went to PS 151 and JHS 10 (where I was also in SP class and skipped 8th grade). He was a year ahead of me. My grandfather died while I was in 9th grade, and my mother came into a small inheritance. My parents used the extra money to move to Rego Park, where I graduated from Forest Hills HS, a much more highly ranked school than Bryant.
While much of your account of life in the projects is true, I think more of the difference with students from the "projects" today has to do with the times than particular privilege associated with middle-income projects.
My own father died in 1977 and had retired a few years earlier. Going through his papers, my mother reported he had held 55 different jobs during the 30 years they had been married. He graduated high school and a few years later was accepted to college, to study medicine at BU. But his parents wrote to him, asking him to send them money (during the Depression). The lack of funds, and being jilted by a girlfriend, caused him to drop out. He then went into the army, and after the war wanted to go back to school on the GI Bill. But my mother (who was full-time homemaker) and he started a family, so he supported us by working as clerk (not a pharmacist) in drugstores, where he was able to use his scant knowledge of medicine.
As far as I could tell, this was not atypical of life in the projects. Many other kids had fathers who worked two jobs and stay-at-home mothers. Some, but not most, had mothers who worked outside the home.
You're absolutely right about the hubris calling this, "growing up on the streets." True, we did occasionally walk down to the railroad yards in Long Island City and steal flares and "boom booms" (small packets of explosives used for signaling), but more serious crime and drugs were virtually unknown. The closest we ever came to gangs was massive snowball fights between "courts" or whole sections of the projects, and in the spring these would become fights with water balloons or carpet guns (rough-fashioned wood guns using rubberbands to fire small pieces of linoleum).
From sixth grade on, groups of kids would frequently go by ourselves and ride the subway to go to ballgames (the Yankees were the only team in town at that point), department stores (we'd hang out in the toy section of Macy's until we were thrown out), 42nd St. (Ripley's Believe It Or Not was a favorite), or, yes, museums (especially Natural History and the Planetarium).
The projects were mixed racially, and the neighborhood was mixed ethnically even more. I grew up playing with black and Puerto Rican kids, and the white kids in the neighborhood were mainly Irish, Italian, or Jewish, although most of my Irish friends went to Catholic school.
Like Joel, I was accepted at Columbia, but unlike him, I choose to go to Cornell. There, thanks to scholarships from New York State and my father's union (SEIU 1199), my tuition was covered for all four years. Try doing that today.
Joel's characterization of himself as having grown up "on the streets of New York" is true, as it must have been for most kids growing up in New York at that time. Who didn't play stickball on the street, roller hockey and soccer on large asphalt surfaces, or ride their bicycle on the sidewalk? For softball we'd walk down to Bryant and play there, and the projects had playgrounds with basketball hoops, and health centers. (Remember this was a New Deal program.) But the implication that Joel overcame insurmountable odds (or even seriously perverse odds) because of this is absurd.
For one thing, the 1950s were what C. Wright Mills called "The Great American Celebration" and Stephen Marglin and Juliet Schoor called "The Golden Age of Capitalism." This was an unprecedented period of stability and growth. Upward mobility was "in the air," and this culture certainly permeated the Woodside Projects. At least inter-generationally, the opportunities were there, and expectations adjusted to the reality.
The other point is that the Woodside Projects, and the larger Woodside-Astoria neighborhood, was segregated by class. It was a middle-income neighborhood inhabited by upwardly mobile, middle-income families. We hardly ever saw single-parent families, adults hanging around on the street, or any of the other manifestations of abject poverty that W.J. Wilson writes about.
Then came the 1970s and the end of the Golden Age. As a moderate, former Southern governor, Carter did not tackle the deep-seated structural problems. Reagan did, but he did so by attacking unions and instituting neoliberalism. These policies opened up "free trade" and globalization, but government's ability to address deep structural problems is limited anyway. Richard Freeman, for example, points to the "Great Doubling" -- an increase in the global supply of labor that roughly doubled the size of the global labor force.
The result is that while some unusual and anecdotal intergenerational mobility remains, intergenerational mobility has declined, while inequality has grown. Wages have stagnated for almost four decades.
The world has changed from the one Joel Klein and I grew up in. To use a romantic nostalgia of a past portrayed as though it was more bleak than it actually was, and the protagonists (whether teachers or students) more heroic than they actually were, is a dishonesty that reinforces the dominant neoliberal ideology and diverts us from the real problem. Even more pernicious than the fable that Joel Klein overcame severe adversity thanks to a heroic teacher unshackled by a union, is the fable that education-based technology will save us in a global economy marked by over-accumulation of capital, a gigantic reserve army of labor, severe environmental constraints, and an economic system out of control.
"It's more evidence that student achievement mostly reflects the social and economic environment in which children are raised and that the best way to improve academic achievement is to address these conditions directly." Great summary: you provided essentially no scientific evidence of your conclusion, and gave literally no evidence of any kind to support your contention that "addressing these conditions directly" would have the desired results.
You have to give Joel Klein credit for creating a mythic account of his humble origins. It wasn't easy. Being found floating in a basket by Pharaoh's daughter was taken; the manger-in-Bethlehem birth was well-celebrated; and the log cabin story was just too corny.
So, the tale of a precarious upbringing in public housing was invented and shaded in every way possible to disguise an average white kid's middle class childhood. This enabled our hero to become a champion of minorities in education--the "civil rights" issue of this generation. Joel would turn out to be so cool, he made it a point to recite the words to the R&B classic. "The Glory of Love", when speaking of his negotiating prowess. At least he didn't do a comb-over.
You have to wonder about a guy so desperate to build a persona and career on such fundamental dishonesty. Once you lie about self, you lie about everything else.
Is it just disingenuous or an outright and malicious lie?
This is a person who created an entire persona with a coordinated back story, so that he could further an agenda. An agenda by the way, that has not or ever will work. Joel Klein did nothing innovative in his 'transformation' (NOTE: You could not say that it was an IMPROVEMENT, just a transformation.) of the NYC school district. His closing of under performing and under used schools, promotion of privately managed charter schools, and all out assault on teachers (Granted, including the principals was something of a new wrinkle.) should be identified, codified and filed as the 'reformers commandments' or the 'reformer's playbook'. Frankly speaking, I would have thought that given the vast number of times that these tactics have been employed, and the lack of any measurable improvement, would have the public at large on alert when making public education decisions.
I was raised in Woodside, in the house in which my father was born. My mother's parents lived on the next block. I, too, considered myself a "street kid" and most of the other kids in my immediate neighborhood did not go on to college, but both of my parents were college educated professionals. My sister is a Bryant High School grad who went on to graduate from the University of Wisconsin. She, like Klein and Rothstein, skipped a year in Junior High via the "two year SP" program. I commuted to a "special high school" in Manhattan, starting in the 7th grade, the first from PS 12 in ten years to be accepted at that school, from which my mother had graduated in 1929. Had I continued on to a neighborhood Junior High School, I would have skipped 8th grade via the "two year SP," as did several of my elementary school classmates.
My family moved from Woodside to Jackson Heights the summer after I graduated from elementary school at the end of 6th grade. At my new school, I had a classmate, who is now an M.D. in Massachusetts, whose mother taught at Bryant High School. Her father drove a taxi. They lived in Astoria, in an apartment that I had always thought was a "housing project," although a few years ago I learned that it was actually a coop, probably build as "public housing" after WW2. I graduated from one of the four State University of New York "university centers" and went on to law school.
My entire family (which includes several NYC public school teachers, two of whom became administrators at some point in their careers,) was appalled by Joel Klein's performance as Schools Chancellor, as were all the other NYC public school teachers and administrators I happen to know. None of us was fooled by either his package of policies or his ersatz "back story." Thank you for exposing him for what he was, and is.
Physics is not offered in many NYC small schools created by Bloomberg and Klein. Small schools means small choices. If I attended a small school I probably would not have had physics, chemistry, calculus, or AP classes. Guess Joel Klein is lucky to have attended a large school.
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