MBB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[donho]

  The top 12 minute takers will return for Macon. They have two seniors. Tim Lawrance and Mike Strickland. While getting little time on the floor it is possible to see what they mean to the rest of the players, as Tim and Mike, are front and center for the picture on D3 hoops.  (Great picture by the way)

[2RMCFans]

^ yes, and those 2 lone seniors were also the focus of "the" feature article in last Friday's Richmond Times-Dispatch, which talked about how they both thought about transferring when they realized they would not be starters.  

According to that article, both decided to stay on at R-MC because they loved the school and the basketball program.  Both have been big contributors in terms of morale and off court leadership.  Both want to be coaches themselves one day and they certainly have picked up some good pointers from Rhoades, Davis and Byers.  

R-MC returns everyone but these 2 seniors who practiced as hard as anyone for 4 years to stay mostly on the bench.  Strickland started the H-SC home game (his last) with a 3 and Lawrence ended the game against Cabrini with a 3:  their experience at R-MC says a lot about what's important in R-MC sports.

GO JACKETS!!!!  GO QUAKERS!!!!

[2RMCFans]

Question for all:  do you think we'll be able to get single game tickets if we can't get to the Civic Center until the time of the R-MC/UWSP game?  We hope to get there for Guilford's game, but it's questionable.

[FanJacket]

Does anyone have a link to the Richmond Times Dispatch...my search programs have been corrupted.  Thanks.

[2RMCFans]

fanjacket:  here's a link to the sports section of the paper.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/sports/college/

we just tried to do a search of the archive for the article mentioned above and couldn't find it.  hope you'll have better luck!

GO JACKETS!!!

[donho]

 The article is there. I just finished reading it. Click on college sports window. Picture of UVA football coach to the right of that click on the little arrow next to more> Articles start today and go back to like the 9th of March

[78rmc]

The article is there. I just finished reading it. Click on college sports window. Picture of UVA football coach to the right of that click on the little arrow next to more> Articles start today and go back to like the 9th of March

Here's the link:

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/sports/college/college_basketball/article/RMCB12_20100311-221406/329879/

[donho]

  78 I sent you one.

[78rmc]

  78 I sent you one.

Back at cha!

[FanJacket]

Got the link...thanks for all the help. 

[hasanova]

Question for all:  do you think we'll be able to get single game tickets if we can't get to the Civic Center until the time of the R-MC/UWSP game?  We hope to get there for Guilford's game, but it's questionable.

I don't know this for a fact, but based on what I saw last year and so far this year, it's a session ticket ... that is, same price whether you're two hours early or two hours late. 

[John Gleich]

Ya know, the whole argument of "Williams would have had more losses if they played in the ODAC" might be true... but it might not be true either.

Let's take a look at the final four teams in terms of S.O.S.

Team	SOS Rank	Win %	OWP	OOWP	SOS
UWSP:	11	.846	.588	.559	.578
Randy Mac:	20	.727	.578	.530	.562
Guilford:	127	.929	.522	.530	.525
Williams:	170	1.000	.508	.545	.520

In one sense, one could say that Williams, because they didn't lose* may be the best team in the country, even if they didn't play the best schedule.  No one* beat them... so it can't be said that they would have lose if they played a different schedule.  I made that same argument for teams like Anderson, St. Norbert, etc, who had gaudy records but didn't have gaudy SOS's.  They matriculated up in what has been dubbed the St. Peter Principle after Gustavus Adolphus (of St. Peter, MN) from a few years ago when teams above them lost and they kept rising in the polls.  They really weren't that good... but because others above them lost, they seemed better, even though they weren't playing the greatest competition.  At a certain point, they should have just stopped rising in the polls (the argument I made for Anderson and St. Norbert was at about 15, or so) until they were challenged by a top team.  That argument (up to 15) holds because both those teams had lost a game or two at that point, and not to a top team.  Now, each team can have an off night and lose a game they should win (such as Whitworth losing to Pomona-Pitzer, in my opinion) but if it's two such losses, then it casts skepticism on if their record is really representative of how good they are... when they don't have a great SOS.  If, however, they lose just 1 game to an average team, than that might have been an off night... but I don't think they should matriculate higher than about 15.

All that is to say that Williams is undefeated* so they really might be that great, no matter what their S.O.S.  Now, one might add that they haven't truly been tested by tough competition... so when the rubber meets the road, they won't be as prepared as a team that has played a tough schedule.  Furthermore, if they haven't lost, then they haven't gone through the maturity and learning that a loss provides, such as weaknesses that would otherwise not come to light.


*Of course, however, Williams isn't undefeated... they've actually lost to Randy Mac, so this string of logic doesn't flow fully, though one might be able to say that this victory was, perhaps, aided by RMC's home court advantage.  I'm not necessarily going to take this line myself, but I don't have a dog in that particular fight...  the WIAC had an .80 win percentage this year and the ODAC would have struggled there too!  

Here are some numbers comparisons of the teams:

Team	Off Eff	Def Eff	Avg Poss/Gm	Off PPG	Def PPG
Point	114.6	92.4	129.0	74.0	59.5
R-M	105.1	90.7	141.7	74.6	64.1
Guil	115.8	95.5	140.1	81.7	66.5
Will	122.8	93.2	138.6	85.2	64.5

The Off/Def efficiency takes Points/100 possessions and the possessions are compiled by this algorithm:

Poss = FGA - ORB + T.O. + (.475*FTA)

The possession numbers per game above are the offensive possessions plus defensive possessions and can be used to see the pace at which teams like to play.

Here's another rubric... it looks at FG%, 3P%, 2P%, % of makes and attempts that are 2's and 3's:

Offensive

Team	FG%	3P%	2P%	%A3P	%A2P	%M3P	%M2P
Point	49.5%	36.4%	53.9%	25.1%	74.9%	18.4%	81.6%
R-M	47.7%	37.0%	53.2%	34.3%	65.7%	26.7%	73.3%
Guil	47.3%	37.9%	51.7%	31.6%	68.4%	25.3%	74.7%
Will	52.7%	45.8%	56.9%	38.4%	61.6%	33.4%	66.6%

Defensive

Team	FG%	3P%	2P%	%A3P	%A2P	%M3P	%M2P
Point	41.1%	31.9%	45.9%	34.3%	65.7%	26.6%	73.4%
R-M	40.3%	30.8%	44.2%	29.3%	70.7%	22.4%	77.6%
Guil	40.0%	32.5%	45.7%	43.2%	56.8%	35.1%	64.9%
Will	39.3%	32.5%	42.4%	31.3%	68.7%	25.9%	74.1%

I don't have time for any analysis right now of these numbers... but the SOS DOES need to be taken into account when looking at these.

[Emu435]

Ya know, the whole argument of "Williams would have had more losses if they played in the ODAC" might be true... but it might not be true either.

Let's take a look at the final four teams in terms of S.O.S.

well looking at the final four teams SOS isnt even the argument.  considering that you are leaving out two very tough opponents in EMU and VW.  maybe even arguably hampden-sydney.  so i dont think your argument is convincing at all. 

[Emu435]

and i am not convinced of the number comparison, because of the SOS.  it is true that you would score more points and defensively give up more points; however switch with one of the top four in the ODAC and we would have done the same if not more.  just saying.

[John Gleich]

and i am not convinced of the number comparison, because of the SOS.  it is true that you would score more points and defensively give up more points; however switch with one of the top four in the ODAC and we would have done the same if not more.  just saying.

1.  I'm not a Williams fan and I'm not making an argument for them... just posing a potential argument that might be brought forth for discussion.

2.  I haven't made any conclusions from the numbers I posted.  If you'd like to do so and make predictions based on those numbers, pontificate away.