Was taking a look at Ken Pomeroy's terrific basketball rating page (www.kenpom.com) to see where the Yellow Jackets stand (currently 83rd) and noted that Tech ranks 298/345 in the "Luck" category. This rang a bell for me, as I recalled seeing the Jackets' Luck rating also near the bottom in previous years. So I went back and checked where Tech ended up in the Luck factor since 2002-3 season. Here's the data, with overall rating in parentheses.

2002-3: 314/324 (46th overall)

2003-4: 146/326 (7)

2004-5: 256/330 (19)

2005-6: 320/334 (96)

2006-7: 306/336 (17)

2007-8: 327/341 (49)

2008-9: 340/344 (93)

2009-10: 264/347 (27)

2010-11: 298/345 (83)

The Luck factor is described in more detail in Ken's Help section, but essentially attempts to quantify whether a team is winning games it should win based on its typical offense/defense points distribution. More math behind the factor can be found here: http://www.rawbw.com/~deano/articles/BellCurve.html.

The Luck factor ranges from negative to positive so if, on average, you are winning the number of games expected your Luck factor would be zero and you would place in the middle of the number of teams in Div 1A. In the Final Four year Tech's Luck factor was +0.001 and it ranked 146th. Duke's Luck factor last year was +0.003 and it ranked 124th, so you don't have to be overachieving to go deep in the tourney, just taking care of business.

It's striking that other than the 2003-4 season Tech is consistently in the bottom echelon by this measure. As the Bell Curve site explains, a negative Luck rating can come from losing close games - not being able to finish, missing a last second shot or having an opponent hit a game-winner.

Hewitt apologists may say, "Paul's right. We are snakebit. We just can't catch a break and get those shots to fall when we need them." Hewitt detractors may say, "See, Hewitt can't coach a team to finish off games. Poor inbounding, lack of timeouts, etc. at the end of games keep us from winning games we should be expected to win."

So what say you - Is Tech under CPH unlucky or underachieving?