I haven't included pace of play or avg. possessions in the past for no good reason that I can think of so I thought I'd include it this time. It is interesting to see who's playing the fastest and slowest.
Fast Pace
| 1 | John Carroll | 82.25 |
| 2 | D'Youville | 79.63 |
| 3 | Heidelberg | 77.77 |
| 4 | Pitt-Greensburg | 77.75 |
| 5 | Westminster | 76.55 |
John Carroll probably leads this every year in this region. Grinnell's system ball usually rates over 90 possessions, these are fast but not really outrageous. Almost all of these teams have high turnover rates on both ends of the court as well.
Slow Pace
| 1 | Earlham | 55.25 |
| 2 | Kalamazoo | 57.26 |
| 3 | Geneva | 60.65 |
| 4 | Defiance | 61.03 |
| 5 | Trine | 61.26 |
The median for this region is 68 possessions, these are the teams really grinding out games and using the full shot clock. You might notice 2 MIAA teams here which is interesting because one of them isn't Adrian a traditionally slow team and 5 of the MIAA's 8 teams fall at or below the median. Its early but this is signalling the MIAA is going to be a real grind it out kind of league this year.
more after the break
Top 5 Offensive Teams
| 1 | Mt St. Joseph | 118.79 |
| 2 | Carnegie-Mell. | 118.08 |
| 3 | Defiance | 116.57 |
| 4 | Ohio Wesleyan | 116.07 |
| 5 | John Carroll | 115.29 |
MIAA: 7. Trine, 14. Calvin, 16. Hope, 24. Albion, 27. Kzoo, 42. Adrian, 44. Alma, 56. Olivet.
Carnegie-Mellon is the question here because they've played a pretty soft schedule so far, the UAA will probably bring that number down quite a bit and they won't be here later in the year. These others are more believable.
Top 5 Defensive Teams
| 1 | Wabash | 84.81 |
| 2 | Carnegie-Mell. | 85.92 |
| 3 | Albion | 85.19 |
| 4 | PSU-Behrend | 85.51 |
| 5 | Bald-Wallace | 89.48 |
MIAA: 3. Albion, 9. Trine, 14. Adrian, 26. Kzoo, 32. Hope, 34. Calvin, 44. Olivet, 56. Alma
Pay no attention to one and two, those won't last both have played very soft schedules. Number three should make you sit up in your chair and stroke your beard a little. The Britons eff includes games with top 5 Augustana, D2 Ferris State and a pretty good Elmhurst team. This is a pretty real number even for this early in the year and should make you take notice.
Overall Rankings--RAW
| 1 | Carnegie-Mell. | 233.06 |
| 2 | Wabash | 226.74 |
| 3 | PSU-Behrend | 223.58 |
| 4 | Marietta | 223.32 |
| 5 | Albion | 218.81 |
| 6 | Trine | 218.36 |
| 7 | John Carroll | 216.78 |
| 8 | Mt. Union | 215.59 |
| 9 | DePauw | 215.05 |
| 10 | Bald-Wallace | 213.92 |
MIAA: 5. Albion, 6. Trine, 20. Hope, 23. Calvin, 26. Kzoo, 30. Adrian, 51. Alma, 56. Olivet
This one should always be taken with the largest grains of salt. This really shows which teams have performed the best against the schedules they've faced. Carnegie is 7-0 but they've really played no one who will be competing for a conference championship. Outside of their most recent game with Wooster, neither has Wabash or least we need more convincing results. The rest of these teams are probably players in their respective conferences until they aren't anymore.
Overall Rankings 5% Schedule Strength
| 1 | Albion | 234.33 |
| 2 | Carnegie-Mell. | 234.06 |
| 3 | Marietta | 231.12 |
| 4 | Mt. Union | 231.11 |
| 5 | John Carroll | 230.70 |
| 6 | Wabash | 229.34 |
| 7 | Ohio Wesleyan | 228.97 |
| 8 | Defiance | 227.85 |
| 9 | Wooster | 227.35 |
| 10 | PSU-Behrend | 224.86 |
MIAA: 1. Albion, 14. Hope, 17. Calvin, 18. Trine, 30. Adrian, 32. Kzoo, 43. Alma, 54. Olivet
I like this one later in the year but it already shows some of the teams you should pay attention too.
Overall Rankings 10% Schedule Strength
| 1 | Albion | 267.31 |
| 2 | Mt. Union | 264.09 |
| 3 | Ohio Wesleyan | 262.29 |
| 4 | Wooster | 261.43 |
| 5 | John Carroll | 260.28 |
| 6 | Defiance | 259.47 |
| 7 | Hope | 257.72 |
| 8 | Mt. St. Joseph | 253.93 |
| 9 | Calvin | 253.47 |
| 10 | Hanover | 250.25 |
MIAA: 1. Albion, 7. Hope, 9. Calvin, 22. Alma, 33. Trine, 37. Adrian, 45. Kzoo, 47. Olivet
Early in the year this usually gives a pretty good indication of the strong teams. Hope is probably a good example, they've played the toughest schedule according to masseyratings.com and are probably a pretty good team despite the 3-3 record. So this ranking shows them at #7, you might remember it took almost the entire season last year before Hope finally showed up on this same list. If you're from the MIAA #1 should petrify you, the Britons are good.
5 lowest rated --10% schedule
| 55 | PSU-Altoona | 200.24 |
| 56 | LaRoche | 198.03 |
| 57 | Earlham | 196.86 |
| 58 | Franciscan | 188.08 |
| 59 | D'Youville | 185.7 |
Using raw numbers Earlham is hands down the worst team in the region so far with a total eff of just 160 and the gap to the next team is 17 points. I think that would be an historic low for a team from this region. Because they play in a decent conference its unlikely any rating that uses schedule strength like this one is going to rank them below D'Youville. Four of these teams are from the AMCC.
Conference Ratings
With 6 full conferences in the region I thought I'd try something new. This is combining all the statistical data used for efficiency from each team in a conference to come up with a conference efficiency. I'm not sure how useful it will be but it might be interesting.
Raw, no schedule strength
| NCAC | 206.69 |
| OAC | 202.67 |
| MIAA | 201.91 |
| AMCC | 196.18 |
| HCAC | 195.14 |
| PAC | 192.7 |
10% Schedule Strength
| OAC | 240.12 |
| NCAC | 236.57 |
| MIAA | 235.45 |
| HCAC | 230.8 |
| PAC | 224.31 |
| AMCC | 204.18 |
I think the AMCC ends up playing more USCAA schools and those don't rate very highly on masseyratings. I'm not quite sure why the OAC rates so much higher using schedule strength, they really haven't played schedules that much different. I think everyone would agree though the NCAC has played the best basketball so far as the RAW data shows.
MIAA Ratings
Most people who read this probably follow the MIAA so here's the MIAA data.
Pace
| Olivet | 71.33 |
| Calvin | 70.87 |
| Alma | 70.51 |
| Adrian | 68.02 |
| Hope | 66.42 |
| Albion | 63.65 |
| Trine | 61.26 |
| Kalamazoo | 57.26 |
Compared to last year, overall a little slower with Kalamazoo well down from last year. Adrian is playing faster, it will be interesting to see if they maintain that through league play. That would go against most of Mark White's previous teams.
Offense
| Trine | 112.63 |
| Calvin | 108.65 |
| Hope | 107.90 |
| Albion | 104.01 |
| Kalamazoo | 103.39 |
| Adrian | 96.54 |
| Alma | 95.97 |
| Olivet | 85.80 |
The Comets are struggling to score albeit against a mostly difficult schedule. I would expect Hope and Alma to rise as they get away from their kind of ridiculous difficult schedules. Adrian continues the offensive struggle though not as bad as last year so far.
Defense
| Albion | 85.19 |
| Trine | 94.27 |
| Adrian | 95.67 |
| Kalamazoo | 100.16 |
| Hope | 101.55 |
| Calvin | 103.05 |
| Olivet | 106.39 |
| Alma | 110.95 |
Albion's number is terrifying if they can maintain that kind of defensive performance. Overall the league seems a bit more defensive than last year.
This is probably a week or so earlier than I would usually try to do this, it will fluctuate a little between now January. For now I think I'd put the teams to pay attention to in the conferences as....
NCAC: Ohio Wesleyan, Wooster then a little gap down to Denison and DePauw. I'm not convinced Wabash will stay a factor much into January.
OAC: Mt. Union, John Carroll, Marietta and a small gap to Ohio Northern and Capital. Not sure the bottom half of the OAC will pull many upsets this year.
MIAA: Albion, Hope and Calvin with Trine in the mix.
HCAC: Defiance, Hanover and Mt. Joseph with a pretty decent drop to the next set of teams and the bottom of the conference is pretty woeful.
PAC: St. Vincent then Thomas More, Thiel and I'm really not convinced TM and Thiel will stay close. Overall it seems like the PAC is down some from the last couple years.
AMCC: PSU-Behrend's to lose with Medaille and Hilbert giving chase.
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