Efficiency Update

I updated efficiencies through last Saturday which is now just a smidgen past the halfway point for most teams.  For some reason I didn't publish it and decided to add a little bit more today.  Since its official that the AMCC is now part of the Great Lakes Region I've included the full conference for the first time.

Top 5 Offensive Teams:

1	Calvin	117.52
2	St. Vincent	116.09
3	Wittenberg	113.85
4	Mt. Union	112.37
5	Marietta	112.31

I wouldn't anticipate Calvin coming down much, they're playing in a league with 3 or 4 teams that are allowing their opponents to score at a high rate and a league without a real strong defensive team.  Behind Marietta is about 4 or 5 other schools within just 1 point.  Overall efficiencies are up across most of college basketball.  MIAA fans will be interested to know Adrian has climbed two spots off the bottom with a couple shrewd signings in the transfer window.(soccer reference)

Top 5 Defensive Teams:  

1	PSU-Behrend	89.25
2	Bethany	89.43
3	Wooster	90.02
4	Hilbert	92.69
5	DePauw	92.81

Three of these 5 have played really soft schedules and reminds me I really need to start weighting these to schedule strength.  The good news is its still possible to play good defense under the new foul guidelines but this scale has moved up, a 'good' number is now probably between 93-98.

more ratings at the click



Overall Rating--Raw no strength of schedule 

1	St. Vincent	23.23
2	PSU-Behrend	22.42
3	Wooster	21.47
4	Calvin	17.04
5	Bethany	16.96
6	Wittenberg	15.99
7	DePauw	12.05
8	Marietta	11.94
9	Hilbert	11.83
10	Albion	11.76

The number to the right is the difference between the offensive and defensive efficiency, a sort of margin between you and your opponents.  Regardless of what you or I think of the PAC or AMCC, St. Vincent and PSU-Behrend are dominating their schedules.  But, this illustrates why I really like to have a strength of schedule figured in somewhere because I really do not believe St. Vincent or Behrend are the two best teams in the Great Lakes Region.

 Overall Rating--strength of schedule about 5% 

1	Wooster	237.79
2	Wittenberg	231.23
3	PSU-Behrend	229.92
4	Marietta	228.02
5	Calvin	227.48
6	Bethany	227.44
7	St. Vincent	227.19
8	DePauw	212.05
9	Wilmington	210.30
10	Ohio Wesleyan	210.73

MIAA:  Albion 13,  Hope 18,  Trine 19,  Kalamazoo 30,  Olivet 41,  Alma 42,  Adrian 43

I included the number on the right for context, so you can see just how much of a gap lies between teams.  Its just your offensive eff + 200 - your defensive eff with the addition of schedule weight.  That weight will average out to about 5% for the 49 teams, but the better your schedule the higher your weighting.  Its pretty tightly packed down to about #16.   

Overall Rating--strength of schedule about 10% 

1	Wooster	272.47
2	Wittenberg	263.62
3	Marietta	262.19
4	Wilmington	261.42
5	DePauw	258.43
6	Ohio Wesleyan	257.85
7	Baldwin Wallace	256.08
8	John Carroll	255.30
9	Mt. Union	254.74
10	Ohio Northern	252.99

MIAA:  Hope 11,  Calvin 13,  Albion 15,  Kalamazoo 26,  Alma 27,  Trine 33,  Adrian  41

Same calculation, just a higher strength of schedule factor.  I'm not sure the OAC is quite as good as this rating indicates, I think masseyratings.com over weights Wilmington's win over Miami, Ohio and that's distorting the whole OAC.  But on the other hand it has been the most exciting race thus far with some pretty good parity among the top 6 or 7 teams.   11 of the last 12 using this method are PAC and AMCC teams.

5 lowest rated teams using 10% SOS 

45	Wash & Jeff	211.28
46	Geneva	205.56
47	PSU-Altoona	203.76
48	Franciscan	200.11
49	D'Youville	187.72

Franciscan has probably been the lowest rated team in this region for a couple years now but they have improved quite a bit over last year where they produced a 176 rating.  This year they have company with D'Youville.   Adrian was rock bottom the last time I did this around Christmas, they've successfully climbed up to 41.  I think they're safe from my ridicule.

How I would rate them:
1.  Wooster
2.  Mt. Union
3.  Wittenberg
4.  Wilmington
5.  Calvin
6.  Ohio Wesleyan
7.  DePauw

We get to rank 7 in the Great Lakes now so I've added a spot.  I've watched Mt. Union a couple times, they certainly look the part of one of the best teams in the region.  I'm just not sure what to do with Calvin, probably the best team in the MIAA but not very convincing right now.  Hope and/or Albion need to string a few more wins together before I'd consider them.

(Capital has since beaten Mt. Union, I'd slot them Witt, Calvin, Mt. Union, Wilmington after Wooster right now.)

MIAA Efficiencies

These are calculations based on all games

Offense:

Calvin	117.52
Albion	109.58
Trine	107.36
Kalamazoo	106.96
Hope	103.76
Alma	101.40
Olivet	99.96
Adrian	92.99

Calvin's advantage over everyone in the MIAA is their offensive efficiency, being substantially taller than everyone else shows up here.  I've mentioned a couple times Hope's looked a little rough on offense and here it is, this would be their lowest offensive efficiency in several years.  Part of it is certainly their difficult schedule, but by now the other half of the schedule is mostly teams that aren't as good as them and they just aren't performing on offense at the level you would expect.   Adrian is probably playing at about a 95 right now, they've improved since picking up a couple players but its still a struggle for them almost every night.

Defense:

Trine	96.32
Albion	97.83
Calvin	100.48
Adrian	103.66
Hope	104.21
Olivet	111.29
Kalamazoo	112.48
Alma	117.52

Quite a contrast from the league of a few years ago where you were almost assured of a tough defensive game every night.  More uptempo games, more points, less ability to stop each other.  I'm seeing a lot of one-on-one action off the dribble this year, more so than in years past.

Pace of Play or Avg Possessions:

Olivet	78.39
Kalamazoo	75.11
Alma	71.71
Hope	69.20
Calvin	68.41
Albion	66.13
Trine	63.90
Adrian	62.23

We're about 1 possession more per team, per game than a year ago.  So not much difference.  You can really see just how much Olivet has pushed the pace this year compared to the other teams.  Adrian, still trying to grind out wins.