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Morris: Context adds to USC's .500 feat

Breaking even might not sound remarkable, but the numbers back it up

usc vs miss

University of South Carolina Nos. 52 Jasper Brinkley, 40 Eric Norwood and 49 Blake Baxley celebrate the Gamecocks' 31-24 win over Ole Miss, one of USC's four conference wins last season.

Erik Campos/ecampos@thestate.com

Posted on 06.16.09
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Ron Morris

Columnist

rmorris@thestate.com
(803) 771-8432

WITH STATISTICAL ANALYSIS available on just about everything in sports today, most numbers thrown out for consumption need some context.

Let me give you an example. During any Major League Baseball game on TV, some graphics flunky will show how a team’s record is 83-7 when leading after seven innings.

While those numbers might look impressive, they lack context. As far as I know, there might be 10 to 15 teams that are unbeaten when leading after seven innings. Numbers alone often do not tell the story.

That brings me to South Carolina’s recent revelation that its football, men’s basketball and baseball teams were all break-even or better in 2008-09 league play for the first time since joining the SEC in 1992-93.

The USC football team split its eight conference games, the men’s basketball team went 10-6 and claimed a share of the SEC East title, and the baseball team was 17-13 in the league.

At first glance, that does not seem like much of an accomplishment. My initial thinking, without any context to the revelation, was that it took USC 17 years to establish some modicum of success within the SEC. Surely, the Floridas, Georgias, Tennessees and Alabamas of the league must be laughing at such “success.”

With a little historical context, though, it appears that finishing an athletic year at, or above, .500 in all three major sports is a significant accomplishment.

USC has done it once. Kentucky and Vanderbilt have not done it since USC joined the league. Using that same time frame, USC’s .500-or-better success matches that of Auburn, Mississippi, Mississippi State and Tennessee, who have done it one time apiece. Georgia has done it twice since 1992-93.

“That’s amazing, absolutely amazing,” said Eric Hyman, USC’s athletics director, when told of how his teams’ accomplishment stacks up against the rest of the league.

Florida is the lone SEC school to have consistent success across the three major sports, having reached .500 or better nine times since the 1992-93 school year. Next best is Alabama with four, followed by Arkansas and LSU with three apiece. Arkansas joined the SEC along with USC in 1992.

Despite what appears to be a significant milestone for the USC athletic program, Hyman was not ready to pat himself on the back.

“From a historical perspective, we made progress,” Hyman said. “But it’s not at all where we want to be. This is just progress. We sometimes are so critical of ourselves. It was a chance to say progress is being made.”

Just for fun, let’s add a little more context to USC’s success by including Clemson in the mix. Of course, Clemson competes in a different conference. But playing men’s basketball in the ACC presents the same kind of challenge that USC faces in SEC football.

Just as SEC football has kept USC from achieving across-the-board success most seasons, ACC men’s basketball has done the same to Clemson. Since the 1992-93 seasons, Clemson’s teams in the three major sports have all been .500 or better twice. It happened in 1996-97, when the football team went 6-2, men’s basketball team was 9-7 and baseball finished 13-10. Then, Clemson matched USC this past year by going 4-4, 9-7 and 19-11.

Before USC fans get too high and mighty, it is worth noting that when both schools competed in the ACC from 1953-54 through 1970-71, Clemson had all three teams at or above .500 for a year eight times.

USC’s only trip to that promised land during its ACC days was 1970-71, when the football team went 3-2-1, the men’s basketball team finished 10-4 before winning the ACC tournament and the baseball team washed out at 7-7.

But let’s get back to the original premise that USC’s achievement was worth recognizing. All totaled, SEC schools have reached .500 or better in the three major sports 26 times since 1992-93 — a 12.7 percent success rate.

If you want to make the achievement more remarkable, eliminate all times when one of the teams finished with a break-even record at any school. By changing the criteria to include only winning conference records, USC, Auburn, Mississippi and Tennessee would join Kentucky and Vanderbilt as schools never to have reached that milestone.

So, while USC should rightfully brag about its recent accomplishment, it also should shoot for what truly would be an astonishing feat of having all three teams post winning records in the same season. If you want context for that, consider that it has happened only 6.8 percent of the time in the SEC since 1992-93.

Listen to Morris Tuesdays from 4-5 p.m. on ESPN Radio 93.1 FM.

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