Popular Post The Wiz Posted April 9, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted April 9, 2019 First some general observations....The one common thread that runs through the entire season...be it the Bills schedule ...the A-10....March Madness or college basketball as a whole is.....parity. The teams at the top are still better but not as dominant....The teams at the bottom are still bad but not as bad ....and the teams in the middle are greater in number and tightly bunched together. Look at the Big Dance....Not only were the spreads very tight but using the variable spread many of those games showed the possibility of both teams winning a particular game. So let's see what I said on Nov 4th in the following 3 posts. (This is something not many prognosticators do.....most just want to forget about their predictions) Posted November 4, 2018 Hi all....This is the official start of my basketball season. For those that are new , this is the first of 2 forecasts....preseason...and after the 8th game. This preseason prediction is based on a Bayesian model....the next one on real data. I use a letter grade system which groups similar teams together. As the season starts to unfold I use the first 8 games to meld the Bayesian model with the real data model gradually integrating the real data with the forecasting tool and drop the Bayesian after the first 8 games (after the SIU game on Dec 5)....btw that is 8 real games....so no Quin or UMSL. As the season goes on and I have more data , I become more accurate ( at least that is the way it is suppose to work). A-10 The Bills.................B+......... NCAA 35% or NIT 80% Dav.........................B+.......... NCAA 35% or NIT 80% Day..........................B............NIT 50% RI.............................B............NIT...50% St. J.........................B............NIT...50% VCU.........................B............NIT...50% GM..........................B- St. B........................B- Mass.......................C+ Rich.........................C+ Duq..........................C LaS...........................C GW............................C- Ford...........................D Variance from this model to the end of the season is 2 notches.....For example....The Bills range starting at B+ is from A to B-. An A is a best case scenario.... we gel quickly and everything falls into place....minimal injuries...our new players develop quickly...we start making shots etc....a B- is a worst case scenario....opposite of above...players don't develop, we lose players to injuries or otherwise, we shoot like last year etc Speaking of last year ....My beginning forecast for last year's Bills team was C+....we finished at C+.....nearly 60 % of last year's preseason A-10 picks finished on the money or 1 notch away. All 14 teams finished within 2 notches. The A-10 overall this year is predicted to finish at B+ among conferences.....this is its historical average since the Bills have been a member. ....and up from last year's low of B. Bottomline....The B+ is a significant jump this year particularly in light of the conference being better too. Finally, barring a catastrophe, the nervous Nellies and hand wringers can breathe a sigh of relief....we will be a good (better than last year) team. Will we be in the post season? We will have a better idea on Dec 6 (8th game}.... In the meantime , it looks promising. Posted November 4, 2018 (edited) Here is an update ..... Projected season record with a B+ finish.............................22-8....NIT ..this does not take into account an auto bid....(1st place finish or A-10 tourney win) ....to the Dance. Best case scenario.... A finish.... (everything goes right)....26-4....NCAA Worst case scenario...B- finish....(everything goes wrong)...18-12...Go home ...again not taking an auto bid (win A-10 tourney) into account or a good showing in the A-10 tourney which could lead to an NIT bid Correction.....These totals are missing 1 win...The program did not count the N Ala win because it thought that it was a D-2 school....which it was....It becomes D-1 this year....The correct figures are as follows.... Projected finish.....23-8 Best case................27-4 Worst case..............19-12 Edited November 5, 2018 by The Wiz Posted November 4, 2018 Another update..... There is a strange quirk in the forecast.....It is not showing a symmetrical pattern of wins and losses.... I am showing we lose 4 going into Feb....we are projected to arrive in Feb at 17-4....Looking good...Heading toward the Dance....and then ....we lose 4 in Feb (3-4 for the month)...and finish the season at 22-8....The good news is those losses are close games and if we are playing decent ( low TOs and half way decent shooting) we can win at least 2...If we are playing well maybe take 3 of those 4....and again be Dancing....However if things do not go well in Feb...we could wind up as bad as 2-5. So why Feb?....Only 2 home games for the month....some difficult road trips against the better A-10 teams...if we are short on depth ...that too could be a factor Bottom line...as Feb goes ...so go the Bills. Toughest game of the year....Houston Easiest game .......N Ala. Toughest A-10 game....St. Joe...Feb 8 Easiest ..A-10....Ford Now let's go from here and see how the A-10 actually did. The first grade is the overall season ending grade. The second grade is the trending grade...How the teams were playing at the end. The final number is the variance....How much the teams varied from the Nov prediction.......even... meaning the team came in on target .......-1 ...missing by 1 step...e.g....B- instead of B. .........................................Overall(season end)...................Trending(End of season)..................Variance from beginning of the season(see chart above) VCU..................................................A-...............................................B+.............................................................+2 Day...................................................B+...............................................B-..............................................................+1 Dav...................................................B.................................................C+..............................................................-1 SLU...................................................B-.................................................A-...............................................................-2 RI......................................................B-..................................................B.................................................................-1 St. B..................................................B-..................................................B+...............................................................even St. J..................................................C+.................................................C+.................................................................-2 GM....................................................C+.................................................C+..................................................................-1 Duq...................................................C.....................................................C-.................................................................even Rich...................................................C.....................................................D+...............................................................-1 UMass...............................................C-....................................................D-..................................................................-2 LaS.....................................................D+.................................................C-....................................................................-2 Ford....................................................D...................................................D-.....................................................................even GW......................................................D...................................................D-.....................................................................-2 Some observations....I thought the A-10 would be better this year ...but it wasn't....It finished at B- That is at the bottom end of its normal range...it has varied over the years that SLU has been a member from A- to B-. You will note that only 2 teams did better than expected....which is why the league was down. Overall , 57% of the teams finished even or within 1 step of their predicted grade....the rest finished within 2 steps....which is the target I set . As noted above the one quirk is that only 1 team did better than expected. Post season wise everyone went pretty much where they were supposed to go. Now let's look at the final report card..... For comparison sake....I am going to add in Nat Champ UVa to see what we need to shoot for in the future...... .........................................................Off....................................................................................................Def ..................................SLU............................................UVa................................................SLU......................................UVa PPG............................F+..............................................C-....................................................A...........................................A+.....1st ITN FG%.............................F+..............................................A-...................................................A-..........................................A+.......5th ITN 3P%..............................F-...17th WITN..........................A+...7th ITN..................................A............................................A+.......4th ITN FT%..............................F-.....2nd WITN.........................A-....................................................................................................... Reb...............................A+...17th ITN............................C-...................................................B+............................................A+...3rd ITN Top 100 ITN STLS...Goodwin....60th Reb.....French....78th Blks....French....65th....Diakite (UVa)....81st Assts....Jerome (UVa) ...36th TO/gm....SLU....C...trending...B-.......UVa ...A+....1st ITN Summary....Our defense and reb compares favorably with UVa...Offense has a ways to go. Here are the top 6 defenses ITN...these are generally determined by using Def FG% 1 Hou 2. Tex Tech 3 Mich St. 4. UC Irv 5 UVa 6 VCU The above table is for anyone who still thinks defense isn't that important. Bottom line....This was a successful year for the Bills even though we under performed. . Projected win total for the regular season was 23....If everything went right ...27...if everything went wrong ...19...This season fell into the everything went wrong and yet we still managed to improve our win total again....we won the A-10 tourney and made it to the Dance. If we can continue to build on our success (it looks like offensive help is on the way) ...Things will look promising for next year. How will we do next year? Since we don't know what our team will look like next year (or the other teams) it is way to early to predict. But check back here during the first week in Nov and I will have my preseason forecast up. Have a great summer everyone....and Go Bills MusicCityBilliken, QUAILMAN, CBFan and 8 others like this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slu72 Posted April 9, 2019 Share Posted April 9, 2019 Tx, Wiz. Everything did go wrong. Had we been able to keep things together I think we might have been a Sweet 16 team. One thing about this year and in the recent past, the one and done approach ain't working all that well when it comes to winning championships. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bills_06 Posted April 9, 2019 Share Posted April 9, 2019 Maybe I am not reading it correctly but why is VCU a -2 variance? Shouldn't VCU and Dayton both have finished better than expected? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old guy Posted April 9, 2019 Share Posted April 9, 2019 51 minutes ago, slu72 said: Tx, Wiz. Everything did go wrong. Had we been able to keep things together I think we might have been a Sweet 16 team. One thing about this year and in the recent past, the one and done approach ain't working all that well when it comes to winning championships. Everything did not go wrong. Had it done so we would never have won the A10 Tournament and get the automatic bid to the dance. The Wiz provides ranges and a lot of valuable information in this report. At the end of the season (statistically) we had gone to the bottom of our range for the year, B-. However that represents the overall results for the whole year. The Wiz also mentioned that by the end of the season we were trending at an A- level (statistically), which is above our starting level for the year. No team in D1 trends steadily upwards the whole season, every team has ups and downs. The important things we did this season were to manage to trend up at the end of the season and win the A10 tournament and the automatic bid to NCAA. This was not a small achievement for this year's team, a reason for feeling good about what we did, not bad about we did not do. The glass half full vs the glass half empty. You appear to be a glass half empty type of person. Your conclusion that "everything did go wrong" is an emotionally based conclusion, not a reality based conclusion. Let me try to explain the difference between the emotional and reality (glass half empty vs glass half full) ways to look at this season's results: Glass half empty (emotional): If we had made to the Sweet 16 level and lost the game, the emotionally driven MBMs would be distraught by NOT having gone to Elite 8 or Final Four level. Glass half full (reality): If we had made to the Sweet 16 level and lost the game, the reality driven MBMs would be celebrating in total disbelief at the miracle of a team with pissed poor FT stats making it that far in the Dance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slu72 Posted April 9, 2019 Share Posted April 9, 2019 Thanks for the psych babble analysis. When can I expect your bill. I guess if I was a glass half full type, I'd say everything went swimmingly because we made the dance. I was thrilled we did. But I also was disappointed that our team in November was significantly different from what it was in March. I think most fans would agree they were disappointed we never got to see what Santos could bring to the party, and how the development of Gordon might have moved us further up the ladder. Again, I'm thrilled as how this year played out, but there's nothing negative about wondering what might have been had certain things not gone south. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Wiz Posted April 9, 2019 Author Share Posted April 9, 2019 2 hours ago, Bills_06 said: Maybe I am not reading it correctly but why is VCU a -2 variance? Shouldn't VCU and Dayton both have finished better than expected? Yes , you are correct ....a typo ....it should be +2 instead of minus 2...Fixed it...Long post ...late night....Thx Bills_06 likes this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bills_06 Posted April 9, 2019 Share Posted April 9, 2019 10 minutes ago, The Wiz said: Yes , you are correct ....a typo ....it should be +2 instead of minus 2...Fixed it...Long post ...late night....Thx Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something. Thanks for the threads throughout the year! Enjoy reading them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old guy Posted April 9, 2019 Share Posted April 9, 2019 43 minutes ago, slu72 said: Thanks for the psych babble analysis. When can I expect your bill. I guess if I was a glass half full type, I'd say everything went swimmingly because we made the dance. I was thrilled we did. But I also was disappointed that our team in November was significantly different from what it was in March. I think most fans would agree they were disappointed we never got to see what Santos could bring to the party, and how the development of Gordon might have moved us further up the ladder. Again, I'm thrilled as how this year played out, but there's nothing negative about wondering what might have been had certain things not gone south. Sorry I have to ask, do you really know the difference between being thrilled and disappointed? Is anything ever good enough for you? When is a team exactly the same in November and the following March at the end of the season? Santos never happened for us, Gordon did not work out. What is so hard about understanding that "what could have been" means "it never was"? How many flying pigs have you ever seen? You could have seen some IF they had wings... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billikenbill Posted April 9, 2019 Share Posted April 9, 2019 Great job, The Wiz! Always look forward to your posts and prognostications. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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