The Halfway Mark Assessment

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RyderDA
Posts:323
Joined:Wed Dec 31, 2008 5:55 pm
The Halfway Mark Assessment

Post by RyderDA » Tue Dec 12, 2017 8:28 pm

We come into the season with hopes and expectations for all our teams. We're basically at the halfway point, so it's time to ask: how is the season panning out versus your expectations?

I'll start: Some surprises for me in CanadaWest. Schedule could be playing a factor in some of this, but:
  • Lethbridge is far stronger this season than they have been for years. Whomever posted in the original CanWest Poll that Lethbridge should be under consideration was prescient. I did not see it coming.
    UBC is impressive, but Connor Morgan is such a key element that the team is much weaker without him
    The Bears are back stronger than I expected they would be
    My Dinos are much better than I had expected. I though we would be hobbled by a lack of depth in the "bigs" but the huge depth in the guards more than makes up for it.
    All I can say about Saskatchewan is "how the once-mighty have fallen"

bleachers
Posts:1558
Joined:Thu Jan 15, 2009 12:49 pm

Post by bleachers » Tue Dec 12, 2017 8:58 pm

Not sure who the Pronghorns upset (paid:) when the schedule was made up but they have certainly ended up with the best saved for last. They finish their schedule by starting with two on the road against Manitoba (should be overjoyed with a split) and then finish with three, two game sets against the Can West top 10 teams.

I agree that the most surprising team is the Dinos who look very comfortable slotted in at #2 in the coaches poll.

Right behind Calgary, in terms of surprising play, are the Cougars who, I believe, have a very good chance at catching and surpassing Lethbridge in terms of wins and losses. They looked pretty good taking UBC to OT in Vancouver.

bleachers
Posts:1558
Joined:Thu Jan 15, 2009 12:49 pm

Post by bleachers » Wed Dec 13, 2017 7:51 am

I should have added that a good place to start, if you want to look at who is performing much better than expected, is Martin Timmerman's Winning Percentage Improvement. Even though the table may incorrectly reference Women's basketball:), the records indicate the data is accurate for Men's basketball.

It is Laurentian and Acadia who top this list of most improved teams. I must admit that I personally really missed the mark with the Axemen. With the loss to graduation of Arseneault and Simmonds, I had last year's 13-18 team struggling just to reach the playoffs yet, here they are at the halfway mark, virtually tied for the lead in the AUS and probably should be the AUS team in the Top 10 rankings.
Last edited by bleachers on Wed Dec 13, 2017 3:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

MartinTimmerman
Posts:681
Joined:Thu Nov 27, 2003 12:32 am

Post by MartinTimmerman » Wed Dec 13, 2017 3:23 pm

bleachers wrote:I should have added that a good place to start, if you want to look at who is performing much better than expected, is Martin Timmerman's Winning Percentage Improvement. Even though the table may incorrectly reference Women's basketball:), the records indicate the data is accurately for Men's basketball.
Thanks for the heads up - fixed now.

CoachBeausoleil
Posts:168
Joined:Mon Mar 30, 2015 2:26 pm

Re: The Halfway Mark Assessment

Post by CoachBeausoleil » Fri Dec 15, 2017 10:34 pm

RyderDA wrote:We come into the season with hopes and expectations for all our teams. We're basically at the halfway point, so it's time to ask: how is the season panning out versus your expectations?

I'll start: Some surprises for me in CanadaWest. Schedule could be playing a factor in some of this, but:
  • Lethbridge is far stronger this season than they have been for years. Whomever posted in the original CanWest Poll that Lethbridge should be under consideration was prescient. I did not see it coming.
    UBC is impressive, but Connor Morgan is such a key element that the team is much weaker without him
    The Bears are back stronger than I expected they would be
    My Dinos are much better than I had expected. I though we would be hobbled by a lack of depth in the "bigs" but the huge depth in the guards more than makes up for it.
    All I can say about Saskatchewan is "how the once-mighty have fallen"
I've got a bit of free time so I ran a few more PPP calculations. Comparing PPP from this season to last season:
Lethbridge is indeed a good team this year and they have improved quite well since last year, their improvement is almost entire on the offensive end.
UBC is actually worse than last year all around but they are still such a good team that they can still look so impressive.
I have Alberta as the 2nd best team in terms of PPP but they are also the 2nd most improved team from last season. If you like how good Alberta is, you should consider the similar improvements from Laurentian and Cape Breton, who combined make up the 3 most improved teams from last year.
Calgary is similar to UBC, they're a good team but they are about the same as they were last year because although their defense has improved their offense is actually worse.
Sask is awful no matter how you look at it. They had the 2nd worst drop from last season.

Here are some visuals. Page 1 is the changes in offense and defense from last year. Page 2 looks at how good each team is last year with respect to their improvement from last year. Page 3 is the 2017-2018 PPP from December 4th.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14Zv ... vbF50/edit

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