MBB: NESCAC

[with age came?]

Hey Midd way to make me "eat my words" -   good road WIN!!  Remember its not how you start but how you finish that counts!!  Amh63 - thanks for the interest - for the most part now I enjoy d-3 more than most d-1 (pros in training) hoops.. The short answer to the Hamilton fan question is Stockwell(trust me an excellent coach) and my Uncle was a relatively well known graduate of that very fine school.

[jayhawk]

lots of speculating about future roles of high school commits
not sure Jack Deutsch is a basketball recruit, or a very smart person who is a solid high school player
Eric Sellew, the 6'7" recruit, (scored 47 and 36 points with 11 rebounds in two last games) started out as a guard and then grew 7 inches, he can dribble penetrate, hit the 3 and score on the inside, perhaps with time will play the 4 position and replace Connor Green
Tommy Mobley, 3 time second team ESPN all MA guard is perhaps one of the most consistent deep ball shooters Amherst may have ever had, in one high school game for Newton North at TD garden where Celtics play he had 7 NBA 3-pointers in a half  -- Good person, who could be instant offense off the benchn.

[P'bearfan]

Bowdoin travels to Clinton, NY to face Hamilton tonight at 7 pm.

Normally I look at the line ups and compare the team stats to identify one or two keys to the game for Bowdoin.  However, after doing the statistical analysis of Hausman's impact I asked the following question: On average, what drives wins for the Polar Bears?

Bowdoin has had a stable line up and rotation throughout the season.  This makes looking at overall team stats a little more meaningful as key players haven't missed multiple games and the playing time has generally been consistent.

The three individual factors that have the most impact on a standalone basis are: # of team assists; # of team Defensive rebounds; Team 3 pt pct.  However, the more interesting question is which of these factors are most important when viewed in combination with each other.  After running several multi-variable regressions it turns out that total # of assists and total # of defensive rebounds combined explained over 70% of the Polar Bear wins.  And the p values for these two factors were very, very small (.001 and .006) indicating that the likelihood that the results are due to chance is very low even given the small data set of 17 games.  When you add in Team 3 point shooting percentage the adj r squared bumps up to 77.8% so that's the next most important factor.  Interestingly, when you add in Hausman's 2 pt FG % (his individual stat with the biggest impact) the adj R squared only increases a small amount to 78.2%.  However, that's a relatively big impact when we are considering a single aspect of one player's overall game.

This is still a somewhat simplified view of the world because it implicitly assumes an "average opponent".  Opponents may have different strengths which in turn means that they keys to success could be different for an individual game (e.g. one team may defend the paint well and the 3 pt line poorly so shooting the trey well might be more important in that game). However, on average the Polar Bears need to move the ball well to find the open man and clean the defensive glass.

While generating assists is fairly straightforward, defensive rebounds are really a less direct statistic.  In other words grabbing a large number of defensive rebounds isn't just about having a height advantage and consistently boxing out.  If a team allows an opponent to drive the lane for uncontested layups they aren't going to be many defensive rebounds to grab. This is why it's important that the Polar Bears play solid overall defense: make all their rotations, communicate on switches and yes, most definitely, box out their man consistently.

Looking forward to the game tonight.

GoUBears!!

[pinseeking1]

Big weekend for Bates that will probably determine their fate in making (or not making) the NESCAC tournament. Pretty tough task when you have Amherst and Trinity making the trip to Lewiston. Maybe today's snow will have an impact as I remember Colby pulling out a big upset in similar circumstances when Amherst made the trip to Waterville in a snowstorm a couple of years ago...

[amh63]

Got to get up early to beat some posters on this board!
After some very warm days, I rediscovered my yard plantings.  Then some snow flurries arrived. Checked my weather apps and see that it is snowing in Amherst....ugh...long trip up to Bates maybe longer.  See pinseeking1 points the snow/ travel "curse" out.  Do not need the stress
Best wishes to ALL the travel teams today...safe travel
Nice analyses P'BearFan.  See that you are becoming the " money ball" man for this board...for the CAC
I almost reached for some dusty statistical analysis books...but believe they are boxed somewhere. Still you maybe on to something here for BB...a method proved most valuable to baseball. Another poster several years ago.. Madz, a Williams fan....pointed out some new approach via a photographic motion analyses that may aid the Pro MBB Kings.
Anyway, me....leave it to the younger smarter generation like you.  Last season, I was chatting with the father of Amherst WBB star Meg Robertson'15, who was going to pursue some career in statistical analysis.
Meg's father is a MIT alum and works there...in one of the labs, I believe. Need to follow up on Meg.
Jayhawks....liked your post.  Was puzzled a bit about several of Amherst's future players, realizing that Coach Hixon has only two tips".  This year's freshmen class, really has two recruits, IMO.  However, I believe strongly that most of the "tips" in CAC basketball do not really need the tip academicially.
Besides playing Bates in their "Hoosier" gym....I know, all these movie references....I have concerns about Tufts in their odd playing place.  Still, MIT won there!  Wonder if Amherst returns home before traveling to Tufts for an early Sat game...at 2PM. 

[Bucket]

lots of speculating about future roles of high school commits
not sure Jack Deutsch is a basketball recruit, or a very smart person who is a solid high school player
Eric Sellew, the 6'7" recruit, (scored 47 and 36 points with 11 rebounds in two last games) started out as a guard and then grew 7 inches, he can dribble penetrate, hit the 3 and score on the inside, perhaps with time will play the 4 position and replace Connor Green
Tommy Mobley, 3 time second team ESPN all MA guard is perhaps one of the most consistent deep ball shooters Amherst may have ever had, in one high school game for Newton North at TD garden where Celtics play he had 7 NBA 3-pointers in a half  -- Good person, who could be instant offense off the bench.

A little surprised that Mobley doesn't start for Exeter, given his reputation. Obviously, they are stacked—7 players going on to play collegiate hoops—so I think this is less of a statement about Mobley and more of a statement on how strong that program is.

[P'bearfan]

From the nothingbutnescac.com website
As we all know, Lucas Hausman '15 is the top scorer in the NESCAC. Bowdoin relies heavily on Hausman's average of 26.7 PPG in conference play. In fact, in their two biggest blowout conference losses against Tufts and Trinity, Hausman has only scored just 11 and 14 points respectively. Conversely, in their two conference wins against Bates and Colby, he scored 42 and then 35 points. On the other side, Hamilton is coming off their first conference win in which they took down Middlebury on a last second layup by Andrew Groll '19. Groll has turned into Hamilton's star in conference play, putting up 11.7 PPG and pulling down 8.7 RPG. Despite Groll's aggressive play down low, I don't see anyone stopping Hausman, and I don't think the Continentals can keep up with Bowdoin's scoring.

Prediction: Bowdoin 79 – Hamilton 65

I'm a big fan of the guys over at NbN.  They do a great job and I look forward to each of their posts.  But when I read today's post I had two reactions:

1) Great prediction - hope they're right

2) this is pretty bad example of cherry picking the data to support your narrative

Yes, the author is correct about Hausman's scoring level in Bowdoin's conference wins but that sample set is very small (only 6 conference games and only 2 conference wins).  Hard to draw meaningful conclusions from that.   

My earlier analysis implicitly assumed an average opponent.  If you evaluate the quality of opponent (e.g.  Bowdoin's point differential vs the opponent's winning pct) you see a very strong negative correlation (r squared of 0.84).  So the single best predictor of a Bowdoin win or loss is how good the opponent is.  In short, Bowdoin has struggled to defeat teams with records over 0.500 this season - regardless of whether they're a conference opponent or not.

If you add in the other factors I evaluated earlier (# of assists; # defensive rebounds; team 3 pt pct) the prediction improves but you run into a multi-collinearity problem b/c assists, def rebounds and 3 pt pct are somewhat negatively correlated themselves with the winning pct of the opponent.  In this case it's hard to say which is the stronger predictive variable.

If you look at opponent winning pct and Hausman's total number of points (which are not themselves correlated at all), the prediction improves from 0.84 to 0.85; you get a similar result if you look at opponent win pct and Hausman's 2 pt FG%.  However in both models the p value of Hausman's stat is 0.07 or 0.08.  With a sample set of only 17 these p values indicate that the very small improvement in the prediction may very likely be due to chance rather than the total number of points Hausman scored or his 2 pt FG %. 

Based on all of this, Bowdoin has a good shot at defeating Hamilton (which has a 0.500 winning pct) if they focus on ball movement and good defense and defensive rebounding.  Against Midd who has a 0.600 record they will need a lot of things to go right.

[jayhawk]

I only saw the first half of one game that Mobley played for Exeter which was at Babson. In that game he did not start but ended playing the vast majority of the first half. Exeter does not provide scores for games. but my understanding is that in a recent game at Exeter he scored six 3 point shots. I am not saying he is the best player in the world but he is a remarkably reliable 3 point shooter who has NBA range. I live in the same hometown as Mobley and he had an impressive career in public school.

[P'bearfan]

I've spent a great deal of time on the quantitative factors that might impact the game.  While I'm clearly a fan of such things, the qualitative factors may dominate this weekend:

-This weekend is a very long road trip - and it's generally hard to win on the road

-Bowdoin relies on 3-4 FY's who presumably have never taken a road trip like this before; not sure how they'll respond

-Not sure who is banged up

Hopefully the Polar Bears will be able to shake off the effects of the bus ride and come out firing!

GoUBears!!

[amh63]

A strange thing happened on the Nescac website Scoreboard! ....for me at least.
This morning, there were Two other games for tonight.  The Middlebury vs Colby game...AND the Bowdoin game at Hamilton...showing a half- hour later start.
Just a few minutes ago the scoreboard shows the Two cited games MISSING.  Yet the women games are still on.  Hope it is NOT a weather/ travel thing or a broadcast thing.

[Old Guy]

A strange thing happened on the Nescac website Scoreboard! ....for me at least.
This morning, there were Two other games for tonight.  The Middlebury vs Colby game...AND the Bowdoin game at Hamilton...showing a half- hour later start.
Just a few minutes ago the scoreboard shows the Two cited games MISSING.  Yet the women games are still on.  Hope it is NOT a weather/ travel thing or a broadcast thing.

Travel thing. Snowstorm in Maine (beautiful clear day here in VT). Colby-Midd game has been postponed till Sunday. Don't know for sure but I suspect that Bowdoin will come over here tomorrow and play us and then head to Hamilton on Sunday - we'll see.

[Old Guy]

Sorry. Colby at Midd tomorrow (Saturday), Bowdoin-Midd on Sunday.

[amh63]

Old Guy....thanks!   The Colby website...men's side shows the postponement.  The D3 hoops site does NOT show the two games. 
Interesting that women's games are still listed.   Amherst's men game at Bates is still listed.  Wow...games on Super Bowl Sunday possible?
Guess it is a wait and see situation.
Latest info on both the CAC and Amherst sies......Amherst vs Bates game at 7.30PM?..now.

[amh63]

Several news items from the Hamilton Athletic website!
First,  Hamilton has made a major upgrade/refresh of their website!
Second.....they have a sense of humor.  There is a picture...across the screen of a Polar Bear walking down the road.  Caption states that weekend Men's BB schedule has been rescheduled.
Would give the SID a plus K..if I could .

[P'bearfan]

Terrible accident on the Mass Pike greatly delayed the Bowdoin team bus (fortunately the team was not involved).  The game with Hamilton has been postponed to 3 pm Saturday.  Bowdoin will play Midd at 1 pm Sunday.

Safe travels to all the NESCAC teams.