Seven inches of powdery white stuff has fallen from the sky this morning, which means it's a perfect time to stay home and analyze basketball statistics. From a tempo-free standpoint, today's game between Duke and Georgetown is an elite matchup. The Hoyas are ranked 15th in the nation by Pomeroy, but have an adjusted offense (19th) and an adjusted defense (32nd) ranking below their overall level. The reason for this is that most teams around their level in the Pomeroy rankings have one excellent score and one mediocre score (e.g. Villanova: 3rd on offense, 71st on defense).
Georgetown's strength of schedule also boosts their Pomeroy ranking. The Hoyas are coming off a blow out loss at Syracuse (3rd Pomeroy), and overall they rate as the 4th toughest schedule in the nation, and have played against the second toughest slate of defenses of all the division 1 teams. While this means that G-Town is battle tested, it also means that their raw offensive and defensive scores are much lower: they have averaged 108.7 points/100 possessions (58th) while giving up 93.1 points/100 possessions (46th). Part of the low offensive output has come while on the road against good teams-- they failed to crack the 1.0 points/possession mark at both Syracaue and Villanova.
Duke, meanwhile, is a well-kept tempo free secret this year. For whatever reason, Duke always seems to be near the top of the Pomeroy rankings in January and February, and this season is no different. Duke currently sits behind only top-ranked Kansas overall, and the Blue Devils continue to have the best adjusted offense in the country. In fact, it has only been in the past week (since the loss at NC State) that Duke has not also had the highest raw offensive efficiency as well (and are still in the top five). Clearly those numbers were going to come down with ACC play, but like Gerogetown, Duke is playing against some pretty tough defenses (6th toughest defense against).
It's hard to put a finger on what exactly is making Duke's offense so good. Pomeroy lists the "four factors" he believes are most critical to consistent play, regardless of the game's pace. Duke is a top 20 team in two of these factors: turnover rate (16.8% of possessions, 14th) and offensive rebounding percentage (40.1% of missed shots rebounded, 15th). Less impressive is the effective field goal percentage (52.9%, 41st) and FTA/FGA (36.4%, 202nd). Clearly the Duke alums have not been paying the refs off enough this year, because they are not getting to the free throw line very often at all. On the bright side, Duke's 77.0% FT% is fourth in the nation.
This is a game that will be won underneath the baskets. The first issue is Duke's shooting ability: while Duke has their characteristic 3-point shooting ability, they have struggled at times shooting from close range, and rank 79th with just 50.6% from inside the arc. Georgetown, meanwhile, struggles to keep opponents' percentages down. Because this game is being played at the Verizon Center, Duke can be expected to miss their fair share of shots. This shifts the focus to a battle between an elite offensive rebounding unit (Duke) and an elite defensive rebounding unit (Georgetown). For Duke's big men, the goal should be to grab that rebound and then go up strong through the usually foul-conscious Greg Monroe. But if the Hoya sophomore can handle Zoubek and the Plumlees, it could be a long afternoon for Duke.
In the rare event that Duke has a lights-out shooting performance on the road, the final tally could get quite high-scoring. One of the things Georgetown does do well is shoot the ball, with a 55.4% eFG% (12th). However, they are not very skilled at the other four factors (offensive rebounding, limiting turnovers, and getting to the free throw line). It's a strange game to predict because if the game were played at Cameron, one could see Duke making their shots and limiting their opponent's strength on the defensive glass, while the Blue Devils dominate their own defensive glass after limiting Georgetown's shooting ability.
But the game is being played in DC's downtown Chinatown, which adds expectation to Georgetown's shooting ability and detracts from Duke's. That's bad news as Georgetown has four players (Freeman, Vaughn, Wright and Clark) who put up eFG% north of 55. A cold shooting night from Duke and road defense as dismal as shown at NC State, and Duke looks to fall in a big way. However, more recent games have shown Duke's defense to be back on solid ground, and so if Georgetown's shooters are cooled, then look for a fight to the finish.
Prediction: Mason Plumlee and Brian Zoubek, combined, have about as much playing time (86.7% minutes played combined) as Greg Monroe (84.7%). Whoever has the most rebounds (MP2 + Zoo vs Monroe) will be on the victorious team.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Worst Duke Defensive Performances
It's been a while since we've done college basketball here, and I have a few things planned for the coming months, including a systematic re-do of last year's tournament simulation. In the meantime, I want to nip any "Matt's a Duke fanboy" criticism in the proverbial bud by doing a negative post about Duke.
The tempo-free era of college basketball began with the 2003-2004 season as Ken Pomeroy started putting posting his rankings based on offensive and defensive efficiency. Duke, for whatever reason, has always done pretty well during the regular season in Pomeroy's adjusted (for opponent offensive and defensive strength) rankings:
Year/Offensive Efficiency/ Defensive Efficiency
2010/1/18
2009/10/20
2008/11/9
2007/40/5
2006/5/13
2005/15/1
2004/2/4
Nevertheless, Duke has put up some hard-to-believe individual games on both sides of the ball. Defense, however, is so intricately tied to Coach K's philosophy that it is the better choice for a comprehensive breakdown. Defensive ability puts players on the floor for Coach K, and can limit the minutes of potentially explosive offensive perimeter players, if they cannot grasp Duke's defensive philosophy (c.f. Taylor King, Elliot Williams, Andre Dawkins). Usually, the result is a solid defensive gameplan that has consistently been in the top 20 the past six and a half seasons.
There have been great defensive efforts, and not always against inferior competition. In fact, the best defensive performance of the 228 games recorded on kenpom.com is this one, played December 19, 2009 against Gonzaga in Madison Square Garden. Duke held the Zags to an efficiency of 57.1, which is absolutely stellar when you consider that Gonzaga's 2009-2010 average is 111.3! But it has not been all good news for Duke this year, and it is an historic defensive lapse that is the reason for this post. Here are the top 10 worst defensive performances since 2003-2004:
#10 (118.4): January 14 2006 at Clemson (Duke W 87-77). We start with a surprising performance in that not only is it a Duke win, but also a win on the road. Although the 2005-2006 Duke team was frequently spotlighted for it's excellent defense, led by Shelden Williams' shotblocking ability, on this night at Littlejohn, things did not go well. Giving up more than a point per possession to a Clemson team that did not make the NCAA tournament and finished 94th in the nation in adjusted defense was simply not acceptable. Duke had some other defensive clunkers along the way, but eventually fell in the NCAA tournament due to their worst offensive performance in the tempo-free era. (But as Alton Brown might say, that's another post...)
#9 (119.0) November 16 2008 vs Rhode Island (Duke W 82-79). This was the night that RIU's Jimmy Barron almost got a permanent middle name from Duke fans. Barron hit seven straight three-pointers before Dave McClure came off the bench to get a hand in Barron's face, causing him to heave an air-ball with 1:24 remaining and Duke down by 2 (ESPN's play-by-play calls the shot a 2-pointer, but I was at the game and remember differently). This was by far the loudest I've heard Cameron in a non-conference game. I also had the pleasure of high-fiving Jimmy Barron as he ran off the court, and I have not washed that hand since.
#8 (119.1) March 8 2009 at North Carolina (Duke L 79-71). This was the closer of the two Duke-UNC games last year, and both teams were had worse efficiencies than the earlier matchup. The pace was 13 possessions slower as well. The biggest standout is that the Tar Heels rebounded over 40% of their missed shots, while Duke's offensive rebounding percentage was a dismal 18.8%. Eww.
#6t (121.3) February 18 2004 at Wake Forest (Duke L 90-84). Duke's best team during the Tempo-Free era only lost six games all season, and every time they did, they allowed more than a point per possession. It was Duke's second loss in a week (they lost at NC State earlier) and is perhaps the best lesson for Chicken-Little Duke fans and Duke haters alike, concerning this year's Duke team. Despite the efforts of the media and the common fan, "consistency" just doesn't mean anything. Especially in ACC road games. A team can put up clunkers in consecutive games in January and still get within an Okafor of the national championship game.
#6t (121.3) January 21 2006 at Georgetown (Duke L 87-84). From the second paragraph of that ESPN recap: "That's my child," the elder Thompson said. "I love my child. After all he's had to go through, he deserves this." Duke never led in a classic execution of the Princeton offense, and JJ Redick scored 41 points, and with Duke almost matching the Hoyas' offensive efficiency with a 117.3 rating. Free throws were the difference, as Georgetown got to the line more often than Duke. It is unclear what the elder Thompson said of Duke's destruction of Georgetown in 2009.
#5 (124.5) February 22 2009 vs Wake Forest (Duke W 101-91). Last year was Duke's worst from a defensive standpoint, and it shows in this top ten list. This game was the polar opposite of the game a few weeks earlier in Winston-Salem, a two point loss for Duke in which neither team topped 95 in efficiency. The rematch in Cameron however had a similar number of possessions and basically no defense.
#4 (125.8) February 20 2005 vs Wake Forest (Duke W 102-92). An eerily similar game to the one above, although this rematch played out exactly like the preceding game at Wake Forest (see below); the only difference was the result for Duke. Interesting point about the 2004-2005 Duke team; if you check here, you can see all the factors that were correlated to Duke's defensive performance that year. Interestingly, nearly all the factors are in bold, indicating a significant (at the 95% confidence level) correlation. Duke's defensive performance that year was strongly tied to their opponents' shooting, rebounding ability, turnover rate, and ability to get to the free throw line. Defense was also significantly correlated to Duke's own offensive ability that night, especially on Duke's offensive glass. It should come as no surprise, then, that Duke was knocked off in the Sweet 16 in a game to a Michigan State team that was among the best in offensive rebounding, among other things.
#3 (127.0) January 19, 2010 at NC State (Duke L 88-74). Ah, the inspiration for this post. Duke was outplayed on their defensive end in a big way, and NC State was helped by a healthy 62.7 effective field goal percentage. They also protected the ball, turning it over on just 13% of their possessions, and turnover rate seems to be a relative strength of this year's Wolfpack team. Offensive efficiency, however, has not exactly been consistent for NC State, and while they put up similar numbers against Georgia Southern and UNC-G, an effort like this against a top-20 defense was completely unexpected. I see no reason to see the game as anything other than a fluke for Duke, and while winning at Littlejohn tomorrow will be a tough task, if Duke loses it will not be due to another defensive calamity. For this, in K, I trust.
#2 (127.6) February 11 2009 vs North Carolina (Duke L 102-87). Easily the worst Duke game I have ever attended, as Duke was never really in this game. Unlike some of the other games, this was not a defensive lapse against an otherwise mediocre offense. This was a lashing at the hands of the eventual champs who could not stop two All-Americans from doing whatever they want on the court. Yes, I'm a little bitter that I slept outside in a tent to watch this game. Next.
#1 (131.6) February 2 2005 at Wake Forest (Duke L 92-89). So many surprising things about this list, including the number of home games (4) and the number of Duke wins (4) and the number of appearances by the Demon Deacons (4). There is quite a wide gap between #2 and this game, and Duke almost pulled off the win! This was a collision of elite squads, as Duke finished the 04-05 season with the best defense in the nation, while Chris Paul's team was the #2 offense. Wake's inability to stop anyone came back to bite them in March, as they couldn't shoot their way out of early exits in both the ACC and NCAA tournaments.
To be fair, Wake Forest dominated the the middle 36 minutes of the game and it was only the 3-point abilities of the talented Mr. Redick that brought the game close at the end: JJ hit three from beyond the arc and Sean Dockery made it 90-89 with two seconds left. Taron Downey hit both of his free throws and Redick missed a running three to end the game. Notably, Duke's offensive efficiency in this game was 127.3, and so one must conclude that it was indeed Duke's defense that prevented the win. As the rematch (see #4) showed, home court has a lot to do with the outcome of games like these.
The biggest absence from this top 10 list: games in March. For all of the hate heaped upon Duke for its struggles in the month of March, not once did they make an NCAA tournament exit due to a sudden lack of defense. In fact, the worst NCAA tournament performance is (predictably) the 2007 first-round loss to VCU, which is 27th on the list at 112.0, followed by last year's win over Texas (36th at 109.3). But those games are miles from the ones above, and allowing around 110 points/100 possessions is probably to be expected from some of the elite offenses in the nation. Coach K gets his teams prepared on the defensive end for March, combined with playing non-ACC teams unfamiliar with Duke's defensive style. There are relatively more games in ACC tournament on the list.
I have compiled the stats from kenpom.com from all years into one spreadsheet, which can be found here for your sorting pleasure. Tempo-free stats can tell us a lot about a team that we weren't expecting to hear. This would be not-so-subtle foreshadowing of a future post about Duke. For a further hint, see this and this.
The tempo-free era of college basketball began with the 2003-2004 season as Ken Pomeroy started putting posting his rankings based on offensive and defensive efficiency. Duke, for whatever reason, has always done pretty well during the regular season in Pomeroy's adjusted (for opponent offensive and defensive strength) rankings:
Year/Offensive Efficiency/ Defensive Efficiency
2010/1/18
2009/10/20
2008/11/9
2007/40/5
2006/5/13
2005/15/1
2004/2/4
Nevertheless, Duke has put up some hard-to-believe individual games on both sides of the ball. Defense, however, is so intricately tied to Coach K's philosophy that it is the better choice for a comprehensive breakdown. Defensive ability puts players on the floor for Coach K, and can limit the minutes of potentially explosive offensive perimeter players, if they cannot grasp Duke's defensive philosophy (c.f. Taylor King, Elliot Williams, Andre Dawkins). Usually, the result is a solid defensive gameplan that has consistently been in the top 20 the past six and a half seasons.
There have been great defensive efforts, and not always against inferior competition. In fact, the best defensive performance of the 228 games recorded on kenpom.com is this one, played December 19, 2009 against Gonzaga in Madison Square Garden. Duke held the Zags to an efficiency of 57.1, which is absolutely stellar when you consider that Gonzaga's 2009-2010 average is 111.3! But it has not been all good news for Duke this year, and it is an historic defensive lapse that is the reason for this post. Here are the top 10 worst defensive performances since 2003-2004:
#10 (118.4): January 14 2006 at Clemson (Duke W 87-77). We start with a surprising performance in that not only is it a Duke win, but also a win on the road. Although the 2005-2006 Duke team was frequently spotlighted for it's excellent defense, led by Shelden Williams' shotblocking ability, on this night at Littlejohn, things did not go well. Giving up more than a point per possession to a Clemson team that did not make the NCAA tournament and finished 94th in the nation in adjusted defense was simply not acceptable. Duke had some other defensive clunkers along the way, but eventually fell in the NCAA tournament due to their worst offensive performance in the tempo-free era. (But as Alton Brown might say, that's another post...)
#9 (119.0) November 16 2008 vs Rhode Island (Duke W 82-79). This was the night that RIU's Jimmy Barron almost got a permanent middle name from Duke fans. Barron hit seven straight three-pointers before Dave McClure came off the bench to get a hand in Barron's face, causing him to heave an air-ball with 1:24 remaining and Duke down by 2 (ESPN's play-by-play calls the shot a 2-pointer, but I was at the game and remember differently). This was by far the loudest I've heard Cameron in a non-conference game. I also had the pleasure of high-fiving Jimmy Barron as he ran off the court, and I have not washed that hand since.
#8 (119.1) March 8 2009 at North Carolina (Duke L 79-71). This was the closer of the two Duke-UNC games last year, and both teams were had worse efficiencies than the earlier matchup. The pace was 13 possessions slower as well. The biggest standout is that the Tar Heels rebounded over 40% of their missed shots, while Duke's offensive rebounding percentage was a dismal 18.8%. Eww.
#6t (121.3) February 18 2004 at Wake Forest (Duke L 90-84). Duke's best team during the Tempo-Free era only lost six games all season, and every time they did, they allowed more than a point per possession. It was Duke's second loss in a week (they lost at NC State earlier) and is perhaps the best lesson for Chicken-Little Duke fans and Duke haters alike, concerning this year's Duke team. Despite the efforts of the media and the common fan, "consistency" just doesn't mean anything. Especially in ACC road games. A team can put up clunkers in consecutive games in January and still get within an Okafor of the national championship game.
#6t (121.3) January 21 2006 at Georgetown (Duke L 87-84). From the second paragraph of that ESPN recap: "That's my child," the elder Thompson said. "I love my child. After all he's had to go through, he deserves this." Duke never led in a classic execution of the Princeton offense, and JJ Redick scored 41 points, and with Duke almost matching the Hoyas' offensive efficiency with a 117.3 rating. Free throws were the difference, as Georgetown got to the line more often than Duke. It is unclear what the elder Thompson said of Duke's destruction of Georgetown in 2009.
#5 (124.5) February 22 2009 vs Wake Forest (Duke W 101-91). Last year was Duke's worst from a defensive standpoint, and it shows in this top ten list. This game was the polar opposite of the game a few weeks earlier in Winston-Salem, a two point loss for Duke in which neither team topped 95 in efficiency. The rematch in Cameron however had a similar number of possessions and basically no defense.
#4 (125.8) February 20 2005 vs Wake Forest (Duke W 102-92). An eerily similar game to the one above, although this rematch played out exactly like the preceding game at Wake Forest (see below); the only difference was the result for Duke. Interesting point about the 2004-2005 Duke team; if you check here, you can see all the factors that were correlated to Duke's defensive performance that year. Interestingly, nearly all the factors are in bold, indicating a significant (at the 95% confidence level) correlation. Duke's defensive performance that year was strongly tied to their opponents' shooting, rebounding ability, turnover rate, and ability to get to the free throw line. Defense was also significantly correlated to Duke's own offensive ability that night, especially on Duke's offensive glass. It should come as no surprise, then, that Duke was knocked off in the Sweet 16 in a game to a Michigan State team that was among the best in offensive rebounding, among other things.
#3 (127.0) January 19, 2010 at NC State (Duke L 88-74). Ah, the inspiration for this post. Duke was outplayed on their defensive end in a big way, and NC State was helped by a healthy 62.7 effective field goal percentage. They also protected the ball, turning it over on just 13% of their possessions, and turnover rate seems to be a relative strength of this year's Wolfpack team. Offensive efficiency, however, has not exactly been consistent for NC State, and while they put up similar numbers against Georgia Southern and UNC-G, an effort like this against a top-20 defense was completely unexpected. I see no reason to see the game as anything other than a fluke for Duke, and while winning at Littlejohn tomorrow will be a tough task, if Duke loses it will not be due to another defensive calamity. For this, in K, I trust.
#2 (127.6) February 11 2009 vs North Carolina (Duke L 102-87). Easily the worst Duke game I have ever attended, as Duke was never really in this game. Unlike some of the other games, this was not a defensive lapse against an otherwise mediocre offense. This was a lashing at the hands of the eventual champs who could not stop two All-Americans from doing whatever they want on the court. Yes, I'm a little bitter that I slept outside in a tent to watch this game. Next.
#1 (131.6) February 2 2005 at Wake Forest (Duke L 92-89). So many surprising things about this list, including the number of home games (4) and the number of Duke wins (4) and the number of appearances by the Demon Deacons (4). There is quite a wide gap between #2 and this game, and Duke almost pulled off the win! This was a collision of elite squads, as Duke finished the 04-05 season with the best defense in the nation, while Chris Paul's team was the #2 offense. Wake's inability to stop anyone came back to bite them in March, as they couldn't shoot their way out of early exits in both the ACC and NCAA tournaments.
To be fair, Wake Forest dominated the the middle 36 minutes of the game and it was only the 3-point abilities of the talented Mr. Redick that brought the game close at the end: JJ hit three from beyond the arc and Sean Dockery made it 90-89 with two seconds left. Taron Downey hit both of his free throws and Redick missed a running three to end the game. Notably, Duke's offensive efficiency in this game was 127.3, and so one must conclude that it was indeed Duke's defense that prevented the win. As the rematch (see #4) showed, home court has a lot to do with the outcome of games like these.
The biggest absence from this top 10 list: games in March. For all of the hate heaped upon Duke for its struggles in the month of March, not once did they make an NCAA tournament exit due to a sudden lack of defense. In fact, the worst NCAA tournament performance is (predictably) the 2007 first-round loss to VCU, which is 27th on the list at 112.0, followed by last year's win over Texas (36th at 109.3). But those games are miles from the ones above, and allowing around 110 points/100 possessions is probably to be expected from some of the elite offenses in the nation. Coach K gets his teams prepared on the defensive end for March, combined with playing non-ACC teams unfamiliar with Duke's defensive style. There are relatively more games in ACC tournament on the list.
I have compiled the stats from kenpom.com from all years into one spreadsheet, which can be found here for your sorting pleasure. Tempo-free stats can tell us a lot about a team that we weren't expecting to hear. This would be not-so-subtle foreshadowing of a future post about Duke. For a further hint, see this and this.
Monday, December 28, 2009
2009 AFC Playoff Scenarios
One year ago, we constructed a popular post about the playoff permutations in the AFC East. This year, a logjam in the middle of the AFC leaves many meaningful games for week 17.
It is possible that five teams could finish 9-7 (Jets, Denver, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Houston). In this scenario, strength of conference record ranks the teams first. This eliminates the Texans and Steelers, since both teams would finish at 6-6 in conference, while the other three teams would finish 7-5. Next, record in common games applies:
Versus NE, OAK, IND, and CIN:
Jets: 4-1
Broncos: 3-2
Ravens: 1-3
This gives the Jets the #5 seed and the Ravens would take the #6 seed thanks to their victory over the Broncos.
A different, crazier, possibility exists. With one week to play, it is possible that EIGHT AFC teams can finish at a mediocre 8-8, which in addition to giving ex-commisioner (and lover of parity) Paul Tagliabue a spring in his step, it brings upon the NFL the full power of the sometimes mysterious NFL Tiebreaking procedures. So what if the stars align and all eight teams finish at 8-8?
The key is that ties within divisions are broken first, with only one team per division advancing:
Within Division:
East: Mia > NYJ (head2head)
North: Bal > Pit (Division record)
West: Den
South: Jax (3-way h2h):
Jax 3-1 vs Hou, Ten
Ten 2-2 vs Hou, Jax
Hou 1-3 vs Ten, Jax
In a multi-team tiebreaker, a head to head sweep would prevail but the teams did not all play each other. Baltimore's win over Denver is irrelevant now.
This lands with the games-within-conference tiebreaker, and an 8-8 Jacksonville would have 7 wins in conference, so they're in.
The remaining three teams would be 6-6 in conference.
The next tiebreaker is record in common games (minimum four), and each team has played NE, PIT, IND, and SD:
Denver 2-3
Baltimore 2-3
Miami 2-3
This, troublesomely, leaves each team at 2-3, causing us to enter the magical land of Strength of Victory. Luckily, in the Everyone 8-8 Scenario, many games have been decided for us.
Denver beat: CIN (11), CLE (4), OAK (6), DAL (10, Play PHI), NE (11), SD (12, Play WAS), NYG (8, Play MIN), KC (4)
Ravens beat: KC (4), SD (12, Play WAS) , CLE (4), DEN (8), CLE (4), PIT (8), DET (2, Play CHI), CHI (5, play MIN and DET)
Miami beat: BUF (5, Play IND), NYJ (8), NYJ (8), TB (3, Play ATL), CAR (7, Play NO), NE (11), JAX (8), PIT (8)
So the games we would know for sure:
DEN: 66
BAL: 47
MIA: 58
The superior record of teams the Broncos have beaten is insurmountable, and so the Broncos would get the final playoff spot.
Meanwhile, the wins by the Patriots (over Houston) and Bengals (over the Jets) would put them both at 11-5 and at 8-4 in the conference. Moving on to record in common games against the Jets, Ravens, Texans, and Broncos:
NE: 3-2
CIN: 3-2
Which leaves Strength of Victory:
NE beat: NYJ (8), BAL (8), HOU (8), BUF (5, play IND), ATL (3, play TB), TEN (8), TB (3, play ATL), MIA (8), CAR (7, play NO), BUF (5, play IND), JAX (8) (71 wins)
CIN beat: NYJ (8), BAL (8), BAL (8), PIT (8), GB (10, play ARI), CLE (4), CHI (5, play MIN and DET), PIT (8), CLE (4), DET (2, Play CHI), KC (4) (69 wins)
So New England would have multiple ways to increase its lead over Cincinnati in the Strength of Victory department next week, while the Bengals will have to wait for everything to fall into place in order to grab the 3rd seed.
In summary, the Great Mediocrity Scenario of 2009 would create the following playoff matchups:
1. Indianapolis (bye)
2. San Diego (bye)
3. New England vs 6. Denver
4. Cincinnati vs 5. Jacksonville
Feel free to point out any errors I have made in the comments.
Update 1: Fixed Ravens-Broncos error pointed out in the comments. I blame NFL.com's difficult to read schedule page...
It is possible that five teams could finish 9-7 (Jets, Denver, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Houston). In this scenario, strength of conference record ranks the teams first. This eliminates the Texans and Steelers, since both teams would finish at 6-6 in conference, while the other three teams would finish 7-5. Next, record in common games applies:
Versus NE, OAK, IND, and CIN:
Jets: 4-1
Broncos: 3-2
Ravens: 1-3
This gives the Jets the #5 seed and the Ravens would take the #6 seed thanks to their victory over the Broncos.
A different, crazier, possibility exists. With one week to play, it is possible that EIGHT AFC teams can finish at a mediocre 8-8, which in addition to giving ex-commisioner (and lover of parity) Paul Tagliabue a spring in his step, it brings upon the NFL the full power of the sometimes mysterious NFL Tiebreaking procedures. So what if the stars align and all eight teams finish at 8-8?
The key is that ties within divisions are broken first, with only one team per division advancing:
Within Division:
East: Mia > NYJ (head2head)
North: Bal > Pit (Division record)
West: Den
South: Jax (3-way h2h):
Jax 3-1 vs Hou, Ten
Ten 2-2 vs Hou, Jax
Hou 1-3 vs Ten, Jax
In a multi-team tiebreaker, a head to head sweep would prevail but the teams did not all play each other. Baltimore's win over Denver is irrelevant now.
This lands with the games-within-conference tiebreaker, and an 8-8 Jacksonville would have 7 wins in conference, so they're in.
The remaining three teams would be 6-6 in conference.
The next tiebreaker is record in common games (minimum four), and each team has played NE, PIT, IND, and SD:
Denver 2-3
Baltimore 2-3
Miami 2-3
This, troublesomely, leaves each team at 2-3, causing us to enter the magical land of Strength of Victory. Luckily, in the Everyone 8-8 Scenario, many games have been decided for us.
Denver beat: CIN (11), CLE (4), OAK (6), DAL (10, Play PHI), NE (11), SD (12, Play WAS), NYG (8, Play MIN), KC (4)
Ravens beat: KC (4), SD (12, Play WAS) , CLE (4), DEN (8), CLE (4), PIT (8), DET (2, Play CHI), CHI (5, play MIN and DET)
Miami beat: BUF (5, Play IND), NYJ (8), NYJ (8), TB (3, Play ATL), CAR (7, Play NO), NE (11), JAX (8), PIT (8)
So the games we would know for sure:
DEN: 66
BAL: 47
MIA: 58
The superior record of teams the Broncos have beaten is insurmountable, and so the Broncos would get the final playoff spot.
Meanwhile, the wins by the Patriots (over Houston) and Bengals (over the Jets) would put them both at 11-5 and at 8-4 in the conference. Moving on to record in common games against the Jets, Ravens, Texans, and Broncos:
NE: 3-2
CIN: 3-2
Which leaves Strength of Victory:
NE beat: NYJ (8), BAL (8), HOU (8), BUF (5, play IND), ATL (3, play TB), TEN (8), TB (3, play ATL), MIA (8), CAR (7, play NO), BUF (5, play IND), JAX (8) (71 wins)
CIN beat: NYJ (8), BAL (8), BAL (8), PIT (8), GB (10, play ARI), CLE (4), CHI (5, play MIN and DET), PIT (8), CLE (4), DET (2, Play CHI), KC (4) (69 wins)
So New England would have multiple ways to increase its lead over Cincinnati in the Strength of Victory department next week, while the Bengals will have to wait for everything to fall into place in order to grab the 3rd seed.
In summary, the Great Mediocrity Scenario of 2009 would create the following playoff matchups:
1. Indianapolis (bye)
2. San Diego (bye)
3. New England vs 6. Denver
4. Cincinnati vs 5. Jacksonville
Feel free to point out any errors I have made in the comments.
Update 1: Fixed Ravens-Broncos error pointed out in the comments. I blame NFL.com's difficult to read schedule page...
Labels:
meh,
nfl,
playoff scenarios
Monday, September 07, 2009
Congrats to Ross Ohlendorf(and belatedly to A.J. Burnett)
On Saturday, Ross Ohlendorf pitched an immaculate seventh inning against the Cardinals. You can watch it here. I'd have to defer to mehmattski on this, but I would bet that it's the first time that an Immaculate Inning has been throw where every strikeout was a dropped third strike.
On June 20th, AJ Burnett threw an immaculate inning of his own. You would think that a blog written by a Yankees fan and a Marlins fan who also follows Former Marlins, would've noticed when a Former Marlin throws an Immaculate Inning for the Yankees, against the Marlins. To our 6 readers and AJ Burnett, we wholeheartedly apologize for not posting about it when it happened.
On June 20th, AJ Burnett threw an immaculate inning of his own. You would think that a blog written by a Yankees fan and a Marlins fan who also follows Former Marlins, would've noticed when a Former Marlin throws an Immaculate Inning for the Yankees, against the Marlins. To our 6 readers and AJ Burnett, we wholeheartedly apologize for not posting about it when it happened.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Immaculate Inning: Daniel Bard
We at Immaculate Inning take a lot of pride in chronicling the rare feat which gives our blog its name; that is, striking out three batters in an inning using just nine pitches. It has only happened 41 times in major league history, but unfortunately we have no idea how common the feat is at the minor leagues. A few years ago it came to our attention that Chris Mason twirled an Immaculate Inning in a AA game. The immaculate inning fires take a while to get stroked with these minor league games, but we are proud to recount the feat of Red Sox prospect Daniel Bard. Major hat-tip to the Projo Sox Blog for bringing the performance to my attention.
Daniel Bard is a 23-year old righthander pitching for the Pawtucket Sox in AAA. He finished last season at AA, retiring 20 of his final 23 batters; that domination has continued into this season, as he sports a 1.69 ERA and has struck out 18 in 10.3 innings. One of those innings, and three of those strikeouts, came against the Rochester Red Wings on April 22. Some video of the immaculate inning can be found here.
The batters were Jason Pridie, Matt Tolbert, and Luke Hughes, the first three batters in the Rochester order. All of them are career minor leaguers, although the 23 year old Hughes appears to be a legit prospect. Pridie appears to go down swinging on three straight fastballs right down the pipe. Tolbert follows the advice of a nearby heckler ("swing!") and misses at three more fastballs from Bard. Some kind of offspeed pitch (curveball) is taken for a strike by Hughes before he swings way late on two fastballs, the second around his eyes. Bard, meanwhile, looks to be rather bored with AAA pitching, and should expect a call up to the majors sometime this season. Regardless of his future, Bard has solidified a place in history with his immaculate inning, and we offer him the highest congratulations!
Daniel Bard is a 23-year old righthander pitching for the Pawtucket Sox in AAA. He finished last season at AA, retiring 20 of his final 23 batters; that domination has continued into this season, as he sports a 1.69 ERA and has struck out 18 in 10.3 innings. One of those innings, and three of those strikeouts, came against the Rochester Red Wings on April 22. Some video of the immaculate inning can be found here.
The batters were Jason Pridie, Matt Tolbert, and Luke Hughes, the first three batters in the Rochester order. All of them are career minor leaguers, although the 23 year old Hughes appears to be a legit prospect. Pridie appears to go down swinging on three straight fastballs right down the pipe. Tolbert follows the advice of a nearby heckler ("swing!") and misses at three more fastballs from Bard. Some kind of offspeed pitch (curveball) is taken for a strike by Hughes before he swings way late on two fastballs, the second around his eyes. Bard, meanwhile, looks to be rather bored with AAA pitching, and should expect a call up to the majors sometime this season. Regardless of his future, Bard has solidified a place in history with his immaculate inning, and we offer him the highest congratulations!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Sweet Sixteen Predictions by Simulation
Now that I've taken a day to recover from watching some 40+ hours of basketball over the weekend, let's revisit the predictions made by my NCAA Tournament Simulator. Here's a link to bracket that I picked based on the highest number of average wins in the tournament. As you can see, the picks did pretty well, landing in the 72nd percentile overall on ESPN. Thirteen of the sweet Sixteen teams were picked correctly, and the bracket lost zero Elite Eight teams over the first weekend of play. The three most notable exceptions were West Virginia, UCLA and Wake Forest. The simulation could not have taken into account how absolutely uninspired these teams would play. It also missed the Western Kentucky over Illinois, since the simulation didn't know about the injury to Chester Frazier.
West Virginia did replace Michigan State in the Most Likely Elite Eight according to the one million simulations. How likely was the first round overall? I wrote a script to count the number of times the simulation predicted the exact first round results in each region:
West = YES! 41733 times!
Midwest = YES! 2325 times!
East = YES! 84894 times!
South = YES! 13648 times!
Overall = Nope. 0 matches.
Upsets of Wake Forest, Utah, and West Virginia at the same time in the Midwest region rarely occurred in the same simulation, and when they did, that simulation did not get one of the other regions correct. In fact, in my pool of 1 million simulations, just 66 produced the correct first round results in three of the four regions. It seems that even if I could have entered all one million simulations, it would not be enough to win Yahoo's Perfect Bracket $1 million. Oh well.
So what do the Pomeroy ratings tell us about the Sweet Sixteen and beyond? To answer that I have two different approaches. One is to simply report the results of the final simulation from Sunday night, the results of which can be found in the data and graphs in this post. Those results are based on the Pythagorean Winning Percentages posted before the first round of the tournament. Four days and forty-eight games (not counting NIT games) later, the rankings are a bit different. How does the added information enhance or suppress the national title chances of each team left in the tournament?
Elite Eight Chances (Click for Chart)
Final Four Chances (Click for Chart)
Championship Game Chances (Click for Chart)
National Title Chances (Click for Chart)
Basically, the inclusion of all the statistics from the tournament games has improved the chances of Connecticut and Memphis winning the national championship, and hurt the chances for nearly everyone else. For Thursday and Friday's games, the teams that most improved were Connecticut (+8.2%), Villanova (+5.5%), North Carolina (+4.5%), and Kansas (+4%). Predictably, the teams that were most hurt by the newer statistics were the immediate opponents of those four teams. UNC-Gonzaga has gone from a tossup (51%-49%) to a more solid favoring of the top seed (55%-45%). The closest game of the Sweet Sixteen now projects to be Oklahoma-Syracuse, with the third-seeded Orange winning 52% of the time.
In the Final Four, Connecticut has actually seen its chances decrease, due to a much higher proportion alocated to Memphis and Missouri, but the Huskies still win the West region in 35% of the one million simulations. From the Midwest, Louisville is still the favorite with a slight edge over Kansas; Michigan State saw a drop in their chances with the inclusion of the new stats. The South is just as open as it was to start the tournament, but Syracuse maintains a healthy advantage, followed by Oklahoma. There is then a huge dropoff between those two and North Carolina and Gonzaga. Finally, the East regional still projects a showdown between Pittsburgh and Duke, with the Blue Devils giving an ever so slight edge (29.00% to 28.28% for Pitt).
The updated stats say that the national title game is less likely to have a representative from the East region, compared with pre-Tourney stats. This is because the four remaining South regional teams all improved their title-game chances, while Duke had the biggest drop of all the teams (from 17.01% to 14.82%). The other half of the title game is still most likely to come from the West, which had Connecticut, Memphis, and Missouri all increase their chances with the inclusion of new stats.
It has, so far, been a tournament small on upsets. The simulator predicts that this trend will continue, with one small exception (#3 Syracuse over #2 Oklahoma), although many of the games project to be very close. One thing that could be improved in the model is the log5 predictions for teams with such similar Pythagorean Winning Percentages. This is one of the things I will be taking a look at in the offseason. In the meantime, it's only two more days until things get kicked off in Glendale, Arizona. Hooray basketball!
West Virginia did replace Michigan State in the Most Likely Elite Eight according to the one million simulations. How likely was the first round overall? I wrote a script to count the number of times the simulation predicted the exact first round results in each region:
West = YES! 41733 times!
Midwest = YES! 2325 times!
East = YES! 84894 times!
South = YES! 13648 times!
Overall = Nope. 0 matches.
Upsets of Wake Forest, Utah, and West Virginia at the same time in the Midwest region rarely occurred in the same simulation, and when they did, that simulation did not get one of the other regions correct. In fact, in my pool of 1 million simulations, just 66 produced the correct first round results in three of the four regions. It seems that even if I could have entered all one million simulations, it would not be enough to win Yahoo's Perfect Bracket $1 million. Oh well.
So what do the Pomeroy ratings tell us about the Sweet Sixteen and beyond? To answer that I have two different approaches. One is to simply report the results of the final simulation from Sunday night, the results of which can be found in the data and graphs in this post. Those results are based on the Pythagorean Winning Percentages posted before the first round of the tournament. Four days and forty-eight games (not counting NIT games) later, the rankings are a bit different. How does the added information enhance or suppress the national title chances of each team left in the tournament?
Elite Eight Chances (Click for Chart)
Final Four Chances (Click for Chart)
Championship Game Chances (Click for Chart)
National Title Chances (Click for Chart)
Basically, the inclusion of all the statistics from the tournament games has improved the chances of Connecticut and Memphis winning the national championship, and hurt the chances for nearly everyone else. For Thursday and Friday's games, the teams that most improved were Connecticut (+8.2%), Villanova (+5.5%), North Carolina (+4.5%), and Kansas (+4%). Predictably, the teams that were most hurt by the newer statistics were the immediate opponents of those four teams. UNC-Gonzaga has gone from a tossup (51%-49%) to a more solid favoring of the top seed (55%-45%). The closest game of the Sweet Sixteen now projects to be Oklahoma-Syracuse, with the third-seeded Orange winning 52% of the time.
In the Final Four, Connecticut has actually seen its chances decrease, due to a much higher proportion alocated to Memphis and Missouri, but the Huskies still win the West region in 35% of the one million simulations. From the Midwest, Louisville is still the favorite with a slight edge over Kansas; Michigan State saw a drop in their chances with the inclusion of the new stats. The South is just as open as it was to start the tournament, but Syracuse maintains a healthy advantage, followed by Oklahoma. There is then a huge dropoff between those two and North Carolina and Gonzaga. Finally, the East regional still projects a showdown between Pittsburgh and Duke, with the Blue Devils giving an ever so slight edge (29.00% to 28.28% for Pitt).
The updated stats say that the national title game is less likely to have a representative from the East region, compared with pre-Tourney stats. This is because the four remaining South regional teams all improved their title-game chances, while Duke had the biggest drop of all the teams (from 17.01% to 14.82%). The other half of the title game is still most likely to come from the West, which had Connecticut, Memphis, and Missouri all increase their chances with the inclusion of new stats.
It has, so far, been a tournament small on upsets. The simulator predicts that this trend will continue, with one small exception (#3 Syracuse over #2 Oklahoma), although many of the games project to be very close. One thing that could be improved in the model is the log5 predictions for teams with such similar Pythagorean Winning Percentages. This is one of the things I will be taking a look at in the offseason. In the meantime, it's only two more days until things get kicked off in Glendale, Arizona. Hooray basketball!
Friday, March 20, 2009
Progression of Final Four Chances
At the Immaculate Inning we've been playing all week with different ways to present data generated by our NCAA Tournament simulation. Here is what I feel is the most dynamic view of things: after every set of games on both Thursday and Friday, I set the probability of the losing teams to "0" and re-ran the simulation. I've then graphed the final four chances of every team, by section. You can see the results below (also click here to view the whole source spreadsheet):
You can click on each tab to view the chart for each region. There lots of interesting in trends in each region. The re-simulations are based on the Pomeroy rankings from Thursday, and do not take into account statistics from the first round games themselves.
South Regional: The story here is the Final Four chances of #1 seed North Carolina. Note that these statistics do not take into account Ty Lawson's injury, and yet UNC has had their chances drop over the last two days. More specifically, they've stayed in about the same place, while four other teams have passed them in Final Four chances. Oklahoma is now the odds-on favorite, their chances jumping tremendously with the upset of Clemson elsewhere in the bracket. That is the story throughout; teams rarely improve their own Final Four chances with a win. Instead it's other teams losing that sends waves through the simulations. Three of the four remaining teams in the bottom half of the regional have a better final four shot than UNC, as does Gonzaga in the top half. Arizona State, meanwhile, has climbed from sixth to second in terms of Final Four chances, because they are favored in their matchup with Syracuse (52%-48%).
East Regional: Not much movement going on here, just some strengthening of chances for the favorites as the upsets just don't come. Remember, Wisconsin was heavily favored over FSU in the simulation, so the Seminoles' overtime loss doesn't have much effect on the rest of the regional. Basically, Wisconsin is now at 9%, having added FSU's original 4% to the Badgers' own 5% chances. Among the remainging teams, Texas has the worst chances, since they could have to go through Duke, UCLA, and Pitt (the top 3 teams, statistically), to make it to Detroit. Pittsburgh has the best chance of winning their second round game over Oklahoma St, while the Xavier-Wisconsin game should prove to be the closest of the second round.
Midwest Regional: One of the biggest jumps of the first round was in this regional-- Louisville is no longer the favorite, but instead Kansas wins the West 25% of the time. This only had a little bit to do with Kansas' win over North Dakota St. As you can see from the graph, the gigantic jump came at 5 PM, when simulation favorite West Virginia went down in an uninspiring performance against Dayton. Louisville, the #1 seed, also reached a Final Four chance of 25% by the end of the day, thanks to the upset of Wake Forest by Cleveland State (an upset we predicted in this post). There seems to be two types of games in the second round-- Kansas and Louisville are 80% favorites, while Michigan State and Arizona are favored at the 60-65% rate. If a Sweet Sixteen berth for a low-seeded, mid-major team is your defnition of "Cinderella," then Cleveland State's 38% chance of beating Arizona is the best slipper bet.
West Regional: Not much going on here, because there haven't been that many upsets. Our model did not see Maryland taking out Cal, but clearly they are a different team than the one which put up very mediocre numbers throughout the season. If Maryland can click their offense to the tune of 1.23 points/possession like against Cal, Memphis is going to be in for a long day. Purdue vs Washington is a coinflip (50.9% to 49.1%) and should be a very good game, while Missouri could have a tough time with Marquette.
Final Four Picture: There are tossups in pretty much every regional now, with Louisville-Kansas joining Pittsburgh-Duke and Memphis-Connecticut in the two-dog races. The South regional is as open as ever, and sees Oklahoma as the most likely representative. A UConn-Pittsburgh final still seems to be the most likely, while UConn and Memphis are the only teams winning more than 8% of the time (both are over 11%). This dynamic should change considerably after this weekend; currently the only major change was the elimination of West Virginia. Gonzaga and Kansas have slipped past Duke and are the fourth and fifth most likely championship teams.
So that's where we stand after the first thirty-two games of the 2009 NCAA tournament. Tomorrow and Sunday I'll be updating frequently with the chances of each team's advancement, and I will follow next week with a new simulation from the Sweet-Sixteen onwards! Till then, may your brackets be less busted than mine!
You can click on each tab to view the chart for each region. There lots of interesting in trends in each region. The re-simulations are based on the Pomeroy rankings from Thursday, and do not take into account statistics from the first round games themselves.
South Regional: The story here is the Final Four chances of #1 seed North Carolina. Note that these statistics do not take into account Ty Lawson's injury, and yet UNC has had their chances drop over the last two days. More specifically, they've stayed in about the same place, while four other teams have passed them in Final Four chances. Oklahoma is now the odds-on favorite, their chances jumping tremendously with the upset of Clemson elsewhere in the bracket. That is the story throughout; teams rarely improve their own Final Four chances with a win. Instead it's other teams losing that sends waves through the simulations. Three of the four remaining teams in the bottom half of the regional have a better final four shot than UNC, as does Gonzaga in the top half. Arizona State, meanwhile, has climbed from sixth to second in terms of Final Four chances, because they are favored in their matchup with Syracuse (52%-48%).
East Regional: Not much movement going on here, just some strengthening of chances for the favorites as the upsets just don't come. Remember, Wisconsin was heavily favored over FSU in the simulation, so the Seminoles' overtime loss doesn't have much effect on the rest of the regional. Basically, Wisconsin is now at 9%, having added FSU's original 4% to the Badgers' own 5% chances. Among the remainging teams, Texas has the worst chances, since they could have to go through Duke, UCLA, and Pitt (the top 3 teams, statistically), to make it to Detroit. Pittsburgh has the best chance of winning their second round game over Oklahoma St, while the Xavier-Wisconsin game should prove to be the closest of the second round.
Midwest Regional: One of the biggest jumps of the first round was in this regional-- Louisville is no longer the favorite, but instead Kansas wins the West 25% of the time. This only had a little bit to do with Kansas' win over North Dakota St. As you can see from the graph, the gigantic jump came at 5 PM, when simulation favorite West Virginia went down in an uninspiring performance against Dayton. Louisville, the #1 seed, also reached a Final Four chance of 25% by the end of the day, thanks to the upset of Wake Forest by Cleveland State (an upset we predicted in this post). There seems to be two types of games in the second round-- Kansas and Louisville are 80% favorites, while Michigan State and Arizona are favored at the 60-65% rate. If a Sweet Sixteen berth for a low-seeded, mid-major team is your defnition of "Cinderella," then Cleveland State's 38% chance of beating Arizona is the best slipper bet.
West Regional: Not much going on here, because there haven't been that many upsets. Our model did not see Maryland taking out Cal, but clearly they are a different team than the one which put up very mediocre numbers throughout the season. If Maryland can click their offense to the tune of 1.23 points/possession like against Cal, Memphis is going to be in for a long day. Purdue vs Washington is a coinflip (50.9% to 49.1%) and should be a very good game, while Missouri could have a tough time with Marquette.
Final Four Picture: There are tossups in pretty much every regional now, with Louisville-Kansas joining Pittsburgh-Duke and Memphis-Connecticut in the two-dog races. The South regional is as open as ever, and sees Oklahoma as the most likely representative. A UConn-Pittsburgh final still seems to be the most likely, while UConn and Memphis are the only teams winning more than 8% of the time (both are over 11%). This dynamic should change considerably after this weekend; currently the only major change was the elimination of West Virginia. Gonzaga and Kansas have slipped past Duke and are the fourth and fifth most likely championship teams.
So that's where we stand after the first thirty-two games of the 2009 NCAA tournament. Tomorrow and Sunday I'll be updating frequently with the chances of each team's advancement, and I will follow next week with a new simulation from the Sweet-Sixteen onwards! Till then, may your brackets be less busted than mine!
ACC Teams in NCAAT: Day 2
Above is a real time progression of the Final Four chances and the number of average wins for the seven ACC teams using my NCAA Tournament simulation. Yesterday there were a number of interesting trends, including the downward trend of Carolina's Final Four chances despite crushing Radford earlier in the day. In fact, they are no longer the favorite to win the South regional. Maryland improved their average number of wins from 0.44 to 1.15, despite the fact that they now have one actual win. This reflects the 15% chance that they will beat Memphis on Saturday.
As we enter Day 2, it will be interesting to see the chances of Boston College, Wake Forest, and Florida St before and after they play their games. It will also be interesting to follow the progression of Duke and Carolina's chances as the number of upsets increases. My next update will be after the 12 PM games. I don't expect there to be much effect on the ACC teams, but some upsets could send waves through other teams' chances (for example, if Stephen F. Austin upset Syracuse, it would solidify Oklahoma as the South regional favorite).
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