The 24-year-old had not reached base in his short major league career, a total of six plate appearances, but he made his first hit memorable—a three-run homer off Philadelphia Phillies closer Jonathan Papelbon. Just 18.47 seconds after connecting with the pitch, Valdespin touched home plate. Contrast that with the 29 seconds it took Atlanta’s Chipper Jones to round the bases after he beat the Phillies with a homer last week and Valdespin’s jog seems like an all-out sprint. The average trot time for a home run in 2010 was 22.02 seconds.

These numbers come from Larry Granillo, founder of Tater Tot Tracker, which charts the time it takes a batters to round the bases after a home run. Using video posted online by Major League Baseball, Granillo has timed nearly every home run trot since 2010.

Valdespin’s time puts him just outside the top 10 fastest for this season, but was still more than 3.5 seconds faster than average.* Considering other factors—there were two men on base and the ball cleared the fence with plenty of room to spare—Valdespin’s pace was even more noteworthy. According to Granillo’s data, extra baserunners and home runs that easily clear the wall usually slow down the home run hitter.

*I timed Valdespin’s race around the bases at 18.1 seconds, which would give him the 10th fastest time of the year, but without being able to clearly see his foot touch home, there is room for discrepancy. Granillo told me the camera angles provided for the plate touch can cause problems.

According to Granillo, the fastest home run trot so far this year belongs to Milwaukee Brewers speedster Carlos Gomez, who raced all the way to third before realizing his hit had been ruled a home run. He touched home plate just 16.46 seconds after making contact with the pitch. The slowest of the season is the aforementioned crawl by Jones, who has a bad knee. The second slowest time belongs to David Ortiz of the Red Sox, the league’s slowest home run trotter. He accounted for several of the slowest times last year and 7 of the 10 slowest times in 2010 (the only two slower trips involved the hitters getting hurt during the at-bat or while rounding the bases). Ortiz routinely clocks in around 29 seconds. By that time, Valdespin was in the dugout being mobbed by his teammates.

Heading into Saturday’s game against the Seattle Mariners, Humber had 11 career wins and had made just 29 starts. Below is a chart showing the 21 perfect games in major league history, and the number of career wins, starts, and innings pitched each pitcher had heading into that game. Only Charlie Robertson, also of the White Sox, had fewer career wins before his perfect game than Humber.

                                                Source: Baseball-Reference.com
*Stats according to Elias Sports Bureau
**Individual game logs not available; career stats through season prior to perfect game

Humber, drafted third overall by the New York Mets in the 2004 draft (one spot after Verlander), is the seventh former Met to throw a no-hitter. He joins Hideo Nomo, David Cone, Doc Gooden, Mike Scott, Tom Seaver, and Nolan Ryan (who threw seven no-hitters after leaving New York). Meanwhile, the Mets, now in their 51st season, have never had a no-hitter.

From your seat on the couch (or in the stands) you have access to almost all of the same information as your favorite team’s skipper, meaning you can have an opinion on when the starting pitcher should come out of the game, who should replace him, whether to call for a sacrifice bunt or a hit-and-run or to shade the left fielder toward center. You have no effect on any of these things, of course, but it is a fun way to engage with the game.

You simply can’t do this in other sports. You have to be a coach (or a devoted student of the game) to fully grasp what is happening on each play on the football field, and even then you don’t know which players might be banged up, whether a play was called simply to set up a different play later in the game, or if a linebacker was instructed to do one thing but didn’t react properly. In basketball and hockey, the majority of coaching takes place in practice. The plays teams run don’t matter nearly as much as execution.

In the 1994 movie Little Big League,* Billy Heywood is the 12-year-old owner of the Minnesota Twins. After firing the Twins’ manager, Billy’s friend suggests that Billy replace him. “You know how hard it is to manage?” Billy asks. “It’s the American League,” his friend reminds him. “They’ve got the D.H. How hard could it be?”

*Call me crazy, but I enjoy Little Big League more than Rookie of the Year, which came out the year before. While both premises are preposterous—a 12-year-old becoming owner and then manager versus a 12-year-old who breaks his arm and can suddenly throw 100 mph—LBL is more realistic. After all, the Chicago Cubs win the World Series in ROY. LBL has better acting (the main character is certainly less annoying) and better big league cameos (ROY has brief appearances by Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla, but LBL has Ken Griffey, Jr., Randy Johnson, Rafael Palmeiro, Pudge Rodriguez, and Sandy Alomar, Jr., among others). Even if you prefer ROY, hopefully we can agree that both films are better than Angels in the Outfield.

Never mind that these were characters in a movie, and they were 12 years old. They were right. I’ve always thought managing a baseball team was not too difficult, and the offseason hiring of Robin Ventura by the Chicago White Sox only solidified my opinion. Why? Because Ventura had no experience coaching or managing at any level. He had been out of baseball since he retired in 2004. But given that he was a major leaguer, he obviously knows the game, and, anyway, the majority of his job will be motivating his players.

Mike Matheny won’t have the aid of the designated hitter, but that didn’t deter the St. Louis Cardinals from naming him their manager despite his lack of experience. Like Ventura, he had no coaching or managing experience, though he did spend a couple of years as an instructor in the Cards’ minor league system. Matheny inherited the defending World Series champions and so far hasn’t screwed it up, as St. Louis is in first in the Central division.

I’m perfectly OK with the White Sox and Cardinals going outside of the box with their managerial hires. The teams probably saved some money they could use on more important things, like players. It just says something that two guys with no coaching experience would get their first crack at it at the highest level.

Ventura and Matheny get to play manager this year. You can, too, and it makes watching baseball a lot of fun.

The Mets opened the 2009 season in Cincinnati against the Reds. The theme of the previous offseason was the bullpen—the Mets signed Sean Green, J.J. Putz, and Francisco Rodriguez to pitch the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings. On that day in Cincinnati, Johan Santana pitched 5.2 innings before handing it to Green, who gave way to Putz, who gave way to K-Rod. The Reds didn’t score against the relievers and the Mets won 2-1. It had gone exactly as planned, and all the post-game talk was about the Mets’ rebuilt bullpen. Of course, not all of the remaining 161 followed that script, and the Mets finished 70-92.

The theme of this past offseason was, well, financial problems, but as far as player acquisitions it was once again the bullpen. The Mets traded for Giants reliever Ramon Ramirez and signed free agents Jon Rauch and Frank Francisco, both with Toronto last year. Yesterday, on Opening Day at Citi Field against the Atlanta Braves, Santana pitched five scoreless innings. Ramirez relieved him, Rauch and Francisco each threw a scoreless frame, and (with the aid of two big outs from Tim Byrdak) the Mets bullpen preserved the 1-0 win. (As a bonus, the only starting position player acquired this offseason, Andres Torres, scored the game’s lone run.)

I was at Citi yesterday and the chatter was similar to 2009, as fans joked about the Mets going 162-0. They talked about how the Marlins looked bad in their opener the night before. How the Phillies could be punchless at the plate without Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. How the Nationals were still the Nationals. And you know what? They should.

It’s only one game, of course, but doesn’t Opening Day always count a little extra? OK, not in the standings, but for a team that has dealt with so much negativity since last summer, it was especially important to get out to a good start. A good start as in a good April, a good first few series’, and yes, a good Opening Day.

No, Daniel Murphy isn’t going to hit .500, the team ERA won’t remain at 0.00, and Jason Bay won’t go 0-for-the season (you’ll just have to trust me on that last one). We know baseball is a long season and yesterday gave us a sample size of one (1). The win doesn’t validate management’s offseason strategy just as a loss wouldn’t have condemned it. But sometimes that’s how it feels. Opening Day elicits overreaction like A-Rod inspires boos.

Baseball was being played under a bright sun, and that alone is enough to breed optimism. Sitting with my dad and his friend, we took in the new lower, shorter, bluer outfield wall and even got to argue a terrible “in the neighborhood” call at second base. Santana was sharp, Wright got two hits, and the Mets are in first place. What could be better? So don’t tell me or any other Mets fan it’s just one game. We don’t know where this team will be in September, or even July, so there’s no harm in enjoying it now.

Now if the remaining 161 go like that…

It’s been a few years since I felt good about the New York Mets heading into the season and even longer since I felt good about them once the season was over. Expectations are especially low heading into tomorrow’s season opener. If you’ve read anything about the Mets in the past 12 months, you’re aware that the team’s owners lost a fortune as a result of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. Ticket sales plummeted as the Mets finished 77-85 last season, fourth in the National League East, only adding to their financial woes.

As a result, the Mets orchestrated the biggest payroll slash in MLB history, going from $142 million to $91 million. They traded two of their stars last July and didn’t offer a contract to free agent Jose Reyes, who signed a nine-figure deal with the rival Miami Marlins in December. New York made no major acquisitions. ESPN the Magazine predicts the Mets’ best-case scenario is not losing 90 games.

In talking with other Mets fans, particularly the optimistic ones (yes, I found a few), it is not impossible to start thinking this team could compete for a wild card spot. Though no big names were added through free agency, Opening Day starter Johan Santana returns after missing all of last season with an injury. First baseman Ike Davis didn’t play after May 10^th. David Wright and Daniel Murphy each missed two months. Remember, the Mets scored more runs than the mighty Phillies last year despite all those injuries.

If I keep talking I’ll remind myself that the Citi Field dimensions were changed to be more hitter-friendly, which should give Wright his confidence back and help him return to All-Star form. Davis and Lucas Duda could combine for 50 home runs. There’s a fair amount of young talent: Davis, Duda, Murphy, Ruben Tejada, and Jon Niese, to name a few. Forget what the payroll was last year or the year before. A $91-million roster projects to be middle of the pack. The Texas Rangers went to the World Series last season with that payroll.

I walk away from this discussion feeling good. Ya gotta believe, I tell myself. If Santana looks like his old self…If Murphy can play a decent second base…If Jason Bay can just get close to his career averages… If Mike Pelfrey can figure it out…

Teams with that many “ifs” typically don’t make the playoffs. There’s a reason most predictions have the Mets finishing last in the division. The Phillies, Marlins, Braves, and even the Nationals appear stronger.

There has been a cloud of negativity surrounding the franchise for a few years now, and much of it in the past year has dealt with the financial problems. That’s fair, considering a team can’t have much success if its owners can’t pay the bills, but it hasn’t been much fun for fans.

There’s an old baseball saying: Everyone’s in first on Opening Day. So why does it feel like the Mets are already eight games back?

It’s not entirely fair, but that’s the world we live in. November tournaments in Maui and New York are fun; regular season games are intense; conference tournaments are meaningful. But college basketball seasons come down to three weeks in March. This is a credit to the design of the Tournament and how great it is, though many worry it highlights the dwindling importance of the rest of the season.

College football is in this weird place where the regular season is more meaningful than most bowl games. Getting to a bowl is great, but wins against rivals seem to hold more weight. Don’t get me wrong: In all sports the championship is going to be the most important thing—the Super Bowl, the World Series, the BCS National Championship. But in college basketball, performance in the NCAA Tournament is so much more important than anything else. Guys like Shaka Smart and Brad Stevens became highly sought-after coaches because of their success in March.

For Kentucky, 36-2 heading into Saturday’s Final Four showdown with Louisville, it’s national championship or bust. But the Tourney’s significance extends to less ambitious schools as well. Look at Michigan. The Wolverines had no realistic shot at a national title, but given their seed and matchups they were expected to reach the Sweet 16. Instead, they were bounced by 13 seed Ohio in the first round. Does that take away from Michigan’s share of the Big Ten regular season title or its wins against Michigan State and Ohio State? No, but many fans won’t view this season as a success. That’s just the nature of the Tournament.

The flip side is that mid-majors, and major conference teams that underperformed during the season, stand to gain a lot from the Big Dance. North Carolina State and Florida didn’t do as well as they would have liked in the regular season, but reached the Sweet 16 and Elite 8, respectively. After upsetting Michigan, Ohio beat South Florida and then took top seed North Carolina to overtime before losing. Sure enough, Ohio’s head coach, John Groce, just accepted the same position at Illinois.

There is growing concern over college basketball becoming a one-month sport, and I certainly know people who only pay attention in March. I’m all for efforts to increase the popularity of the regular season, but even if that happens the NCAA Tournament will still be king. Coaches will still be fired for not making the field or, at the top programs, for not advancing far enough. Players who excel in March will become household names and increase their NBA potential. Seasons will be judged by the results of a single-elimination Tournament played over the course of three long weekends.

And that’s absolutely fine by me.

Hill, a 1959 Iona graduate, was in New Rochelle last Friday night to accept the inaugural Trailblazer Award, named after him. At halftime of the Feb. 24 Iona-Fairfield game, he spoke about The Game That Never Was and why Iona was a special place.

Here’s the story: Iona travelled to Owensboro, Kentucky, for a holiday tournament. On January 1, 1957, the Gaels lost to tournament host Kentucky Wesleyan. The next day, Hill, Iona’s lone black player, and his teammates were prohibited from entering a pool hall because of Hill’s skin color. It was a sign of what would come later that night, when the University of Mississippi forfeited rather than compete against a black player (Iona was credited with a 2-0 victory). The order to sit out came directly from the Mississippi governor and was administered by the Ole Miss coach. “We had no idea that was going to happen on the court,” Hill said. “We went out there ready to play.”

Hill contrasted his experience that day to the environment at Iona. “Iona College has always had a tradition of greatness. When I came here in 1955, Coach (Jim) McDermott accepted me, President (William) Barnes accepted me, and my teammates were great. I saw what kind of people they were here at Iona. They taught you values. They cared about you.”

Iona honored Hill for his “instrumental role in helping to bring civil liberties and social awareness to the forefront of American culture,” praising his “exemplary valor in the face of adversity.”

“It’s a great honor,” Hill said of the award. “I feel very humble about it. It’s a team effort. We stuck together down in Kentucky. We didn’t waver. Coach McDermott was great; he kept us together. Even after the terrible racial act by the Governor, we went back to our room and the Mississippi players came to apologize. It meant a lot.”

Mr. Stanley Hill being interviewed at the Iona game. (Credit: ICGaels.com)

In 2001, when Iona was matched-up with Mississippi in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, stories about the 1957 incident appeared in a few newspapers. As a result, the Governor of Mississippi and the Chancellor of Ole Miss learned about the dark hour in the school’s history. The two men, hoping to at least partially right the wrong of their predecessors, invited Hill and his wife, as guests of the state of Mississippi, to attend the game in Kansas City.

“It was a great honor to be invited out there,” Hill said. “I was proud of the accomplishment that was made by Mississippi. There was progress being made. Even though we [Iona] lost by one-point, it was a great experience. The Chancellor was a very decent man. My wife and I still send him Christmas cards.”

Sports have often been a vehicle for change in society, and Hill’s story is yet another example. For decades, Hill served as the director of the largest labor union in New York City, fighting for equal rights. “I always kept it in my mind,” Hill says of the ’57 incident. “In my field of labor, I always remembered to respect everybody.” While it took 44 years, at least two Mississippians did their best to do the same.

Springfield, MA—Iona led Fairfield by six midway through the second half of Sunday’s MAAC Tournament semifinal when the Gaels’ Scott Machado attempted a three-pointer. Iona had just forced a turnover and Machado was open on the wing. He missed, just barely, and Fairfield’s three-pointer on the ensuing possession started a 16-1 run that propelled the Stags to an 85-75 victory. A basketball game—and a chance at the NCAA Tournament—can change that quickly.

By losing in its conference tournament and therefore failing to secure an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, this is Iona’s predicament. But it’s also Drexel’s. It’s Middle Tennessee’s. It could be Long Beach State’s. If college football is split between the Haves and Have-Nots, college basketball gives us the Haves and the Have They Done Enough?

Outside of the power conferences and fringe-majors like the Atlantic 10 and Mountain West are 20 or so conferences where teams win their league tournament or watch the Big Dance on television. They’ve been playing basketball in Iona’s league, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, for 30 years and only once has the league been awarded an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament (Manhattan in 1995).

Iona is hoping that this Sunday, when the Tournament bracket is released, it will join Loyola (MD)—the winner of the league’s automatic bid by virtue of its conference tournament title on Monday night—in the field of 68.

Good wins, bad losses, and the Eye Test

It’s a debate as synonymous with Selection Sunday as a Dick Vitale rant: Should the final spots be given to middle-tier teams from power conferences or mid-majors that won more games but don’t have as many quality wins?

Iona’s résumé looks familiar among mid-majors on the bubble over the years: 25-7 record and a regular season title; 21 road or neutral site games compared to 11 at home; 9-3 nonconference record with wins over potential Tournament teams Nevada and St. Joseph’s (in addition to a win over Loyola in the MAAC). Some of Iona’s other wins sound better than they really are, though it wasn’t the Gaels’ fault: Maryland and Richmond, for example, had disappointing seasons.

“I don’t think that because you get knocked off in your playoff game that everything you did all season long should be thrown out the window,” Iona head coach Tim Cluess said after his team was bounced by Fairfield. “We had a very good RPI [currently 43]. To me, if that’s not going to get you an at-large bid, then what’s the sense of having a schedule like that? I’m hopeful that the NCAA looks at that and rewards us for it.”

Cluess continued when pressed on the subject: “If [an at-large bid] is not realistic then it’s never happening. What do you need your RPI to be? We should definitely be in the discussion. If you’re going to pick eight or nine teams out of the Big East, I think that’s nonsense. Those teams aren’t as good as we are. The top teams, yeah, but not the 7th-, 8th-, 9th-place teams there or in any other league—not this year.”

Loyola head coach Jimmy Patsos lobbied for Iona before, during, and after the MAAC Tournament. But he knew the Gaels’ failure to reach the conference title game didn’t help their cause. “I think they deserve an at-large bid but I’m not naïve. Joe Lunardi is busy right now and it’s not with the [the MAAC].” Manhattan head coach Steve Masiello made his case for the Gaels in a conference call with media before the MAAC Tournament, citing Iona’s difficult schedule and its talented roster. “You put those kids on a big stage in a tournament setting and they can beat anyone,” Masiello said.

It’s not just the MAAC coaches bragging about one of their own. When Iona beat Nevada, the top team in the Western Athletic Conference, in a BracketBuster game on Feb. 18, Wolf Pack head coach David Carter said the Gaels definitely deserved an at-large should they not get the automatic bid.

The Gaels hung 90 on Nevada that day, not uncommon for them: they lead the country in scoring at 83.3 points per game. But other than two conference losses in which they blew huge leads, all of Iona’s defeats came when the opponent scored at least 82 points. The Gaels much prefer to be racing up the court with the ball; on defense, they often seem to be day-dreaming about their next offensive possession.

They are in the top 20 in the nation in three-point accuracy (39.3 percent) but have trouble on the boards, partly because they are undersized. Cluess says they look like a high school team even compared to other MAAC squads. The biggest player in Iona’s rotation is Mike Glover, listed at 6’7” but, according to Cluess, is 6’6” with shoes and two extra pairs of socks.

Scott Machado, left, and Mike Glover are two reasons why Iona could pull off an NCAA Tourney upset. (Credit: ICGaels.com)

The Gaels do a lot of the pretty things to win games—score in bunches, share the ball (they lead the country in assists), force steals with their press—but not always the little things, like dive for loose balls and get defensive stops in critical moments.

In other words, like all teams, Iona has strengths and weaknesses. Unlike many fans, the committee members will look only at how those strengths and weaknesses translated into wins and losses. They won’t care that Iona has three potential pros on its roster or plays an exciting style of basketball. That’s probably for the best—the selection process should be a meritocracy, not a beauty pageant—but it’s tantalizing to think about an unfamiliar opponent trying to deal with Iona’s fast-paced attack.

Life on the bubble

Remember, just because a team is good, deserving, and capable of winning a game or two in the Tournament doesn’t mean it will get in. Teams can not be evaluated in a vacuum; there are so many factors that must be considered.

Nobody is better analyzing these factors and projecting the Tournament field than Joe Lunardi of ESPN and Jerry Palm of CBS Sports. These two survey the entire country and use past committee selections to guide their predictions. They have turned NCAA Tournament field projections into a science: bracketology. They don’t care about who deserves a bid, per se, only which teams will be selected.

Lunardi’s latest bracket (updated March 6) has Iona as the sixth team “out,” meaning he thinks there are 42 teams ahead of Iona for the 37 available at-large spots. Could some of those teams stumble in their conference tournaments and weaken their candidacy? Yes, but it is just as likely that some of those spots will be “stolen” by teams that impress the committee over this final week or unexpectedly win their conference tournament.

Palm doesn’t have Iona in his field or in his “last four out.” He wrote on Twitter that Iona has “no real case” for an at-large bid. Yet when asked for dark horse teams he thought would make a surprising run in the NCAA Tournament, Palm wrote, “Iona and Middle Tennessee State. Oh, wait…” Palm likes the Gaels as a team, but doesn’t think the committee will view them favorably.

Of course, the committee has been known to deviate from its usual selection criteria and surprise even the experts. Palm wrote in an email that Southern California, which made the field last year, “wasn’t even on my board of teams to consider.” USC is from a power conference (jokes about the Pac-12 aside), but Virginia Commonwealth is another example from last season of a school considered to be a long-shot that received an invite.

The Ivy Model

Not all conferences operate like the MAAC, which played its tournament at a neutral site and—other than the obvious No. 1 seed—gave no real advantage to its top team. Other leagues play on the home court of the higher seeds or give the top teams byes to the semifinals. The Ivy League forgoes a tournament altogether, instead awarding its automatic bid to the regular season champ.

Fairfield’s first-year head coach Sydney Johnson, who coached at Princeton the four seasons prior, was asked during the pre-tournament conference call whether he was in favor of a conference tournament. “I liked the regular season champ going to the NCAA Tournament. I like that idea because you’re guaranteed to have your best team go. Iona has played really good basketball, so they’d be worthy.”

Many fans of mid-major schools feel the same way, and regard the conference tournament as a single-elimination maze the best team must navigate to earn the league’s automatic bid. A great season can result in an NIT bid with one poor performance (regular season champions that fail to win the league tournament are guaranteed a spot in the NIT).

But Johnson sees the value of postseason play. “The experience of the conference tournament is awesome. I coached at Georgetown and the Big East tournament was the most amazing thing I’ve ever been a part of. The MAAC Tournament elevates the league. It’s covered by ESPN every single game. I think that’s a little bit better experience for the student athletes to add that conference tournament and I’m excited about it. It’s pretty special.”

There’s no denying the conference tournaments bring added attention to the league and offer great experiences for the athletes, who often get lost in the shuffle of big-time college sports. Tournament sites that host both the men and the women over the same weekend, as the MAAC’s does, provide the female student-athletes with a great environment they might not get anywhere else.

After schools play about 30 games in four months, making one win three games in three days to get the all-important Tournament bid can seem cruel. But that’s part of the madness of March.

It’s why the Iona players didn’t celebrate on the night of February 24, after they had defeated Fairfield to clinch its first regular season MAAC men’s basketball title since 2001. The seniors said it was important, but expected, and they had sights on a bigger goal: earning a spot in the NCAA Tournament. But when Iona couldn’t beat the Stags for a third time this season, the likelihood of achieving that goal shrunk significantly.

Such is life as a mid-major. This isn’t the Big East Tournament, where a half dozen teams are ranked in the Top 25. This isn’t the ACC, where three wins gets you a banner but not a satisfied fan base. This isn’t the Big Ten, where the top teams are playing for a better seed in the bigger tournament.

This is a conference, like so many others, where most teams don’t bother with the selection show—and those that do are often disappointed.

Vanderbilt’s John Jenkins, the nation’s most prolific three-point shooter, has made more treys (109) than six schools. This is particularly embarrassing for Fairleigh Dickinson, since their shooters have attempted 147 more threes than Jenkins and still haven’t made as many.

The men are not alone in achieving such feats. Baylor’s Brittney Griner, 6’8” and extremely athletic, is on pace to become the all-time Division I leader in blocked shots. Her 155 rejections this season are more than all but 14 teams.

Sometimes a player’s hyper-production is harmful. Take Eastern Washington’s starting forward Laron Griffin. The 6’8” 220-pound senior has fouled out of 13 of his team’s 28 games this season. According to StatSheet.com, there are 187 schools that have not had 13 foul-outs. Griffin started the season with three straight disqualifications and, after hitting a midseason wall, fouled out of six straight contests in February.

Anthony Davis (23) averages 4.8 blocks per game. (Credit: UK Athletics)

It’s a safe bet that Griner and Davis will out-block most college teams for the rest of the season. The more interesting race is between Davis and the NBA’s Detroit Pistons. Through the All Star break, Davis had more blocks than Detroit despite the Pistons having played more games (35 to Kentucky’s 29) and sporting a roster composed entirely of, you know, NBA players.

Detroit had an eight-block outburst last night to push its total to 145. Kentucky plays Georgia tonight. The ball is in your court, Mr. Davis. Feel free to swat it.

Machado takes it to the hoop. (Credit: ICGaels.com)

To appreciate Scott Machado as a basketball player is to appreciate the simple: the bounce pass to a cutting forward; the chest pass to an open shooter; the awareness to seek the ball after a turnover. Sure, you’ll see lob passes for dunks and crossover dribbles and deep three-pointers. But if that is all you see, you’re missing a lot.

Manhattan coach Steve Masiello calls the Iona College senior “the best point guard in the country, bar none.” Others around the game think, at the very least, Machado belongs in the discussion: he is a finalist for the Bob Cousy Collegiate Point Guard of the Year Award. Scouts from more than a dozen NBA teams have visited New Rochelle’s Hynes Athletics Center to watch Machado, the nation’s leader in assists at 10.1 per game.

“If he played at the high level and had three lottery picks around him he’d have 20 assists a game,” Masiello said after Machado put up 18 points and nine assists against the Jaspers on Feb. 4. “Imagine if he was throwing alley-oops to Harrison Barnes and guys like that. He’s a pass-first guy that makes everyone around him better.”

That wasn’t exactly Machado’s role for two years under Kevin Willard, who spent three seasons at Iona before moving to Seton Hall. Willard inherited an Iona team that had won two games the previous year and ranked 326 out of 336 Division I teams in scoring. Knowing his team didn’t have enough weapons to let its point guard solely distribute, Willard gave most everyone the green light to shoot. As underdogs, he felt his team couldn’t be passive, especially from three-point range. It was a philosophy Willard shared with Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character in Along Came Polly, a man fond of chucking shots at the playground: “Let it rain!” the actor, and Willard, would often say.

Machado proved he could score, leading the team with 12.5 points per game as a sophomore. He averaged less than four assists per game, though, a decline from his MAAC Rookie of the Year season.

Enter Tim Cluess. When he was hired following the 2010 season, he brought an aggressive offensive style that relies on a point guard willing to get everyone involved. Having coached Machado as a freshman at St. Mary’s High School (Long Island), Cluess thought Machado could fill that role.

Early on, the numbers suggested it was a perfect match: Machado averaged 14 points and eight assists through December of last season. But Cluess wasn’t satisfied, and he challenged his point guard to work harder. A summer spent playing with the Brazilian National Team (both of Machado’s parents are from Brazil) gave Machado a sense of what it takes to become a professional basketball player. He came back this season as a stronger, quicker, more dedicated player, and has led Iona to a 22-6 record and first place in the MAAC.

Professional basketball, at the highest level, now seems like a strong possibility for Machado. Most draft experts project the 6’1, 180-pounder as a second-round pick. The Director of Scouting for the NBA, Ryan Blake, said this about Machado: “The thing that is great about this kid that might not jump out at people is that he excels when he’s surrounded by players. He makes everyone better. That’s important.”

“With Scott, you can’t put too much importance on individual workouts. Your evaluation should come from his in-game performance. He makes people better, he’s disciplined, and he’s an effort player on both ends of the court.”

ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas also thinks Machado has the tools for an NBA career, citing his “terrific passing instincts.” “He has really improved his body and is in great condition,” Bilas wrote in an email. “He is not jet quick, but he is strong and changes speeds. He is a good spot-up shooter and is a very good decision maker. He is not dynamic off of ball screens, but does a good job keeping his dribble and making a play. I think he’s a good prospect, and is right with North Carolina’s Kendall Marshall as the nation’s best passer.”

After Machado shredded Nevada for 15 assists last Saturday to become the MAAC’s all-time leader in that category, Wolf Pack point guard Deonte Burton and coach David Carter cited Machado’s court awareness as his greatest asset—they marveled at how he always seems to know where his teammates are and how to set them up for easy baskets. Machado’s teammate, junior Kyle Smyth, says Machado is always looking for assists and that’s why he’s fun to play with.

Coaches, teammates, opponents, fans, and journalists have all seen what Machado can do. They see the smart pass. They see the accurate shooting. They see the leadership. It seems the only one who hasn’t fully seen his abilities is Machado: After experiencing headaches earlier this season, he discovered he was nearsighted and recently started wearing contacts. Now, a MAAC title and an NCAA Tournament appearance are in his sights—and the vision has never looked clearer.

Machado and the Gaels play Fairfield tomorrow night at 9:00 EST on ESPNU.