Great Lakes Region

KnightSlappy · December 28, 2011, 04:37:31 PM

Albion tries to mount a furious comeback against Ohio Wesleyan. The Brits were down by 19 with 8:34 to play, but now cut that to single digits with 2:48 left. Looks like it will be too little too late though.

KnightSlappy · December 28, 2011, 04:47:24 PM

Albion could never get it closer than 8, and in the end OWU took the game 78-66.

sac · January 04, 2012, 01:30:52 AM

A couple pretty big regional games on this first day of conference play in the new year.

OAC
Baldwin-Wallace 8-3 at John Carroll 8-2

Both teams are tied in the loss column for the OAC lead with Wilmington and Ohio Northern. JCU has 2 in-region losses, despite a great start BW has racked up 3 in-region losses already. A win for JCU could set up a game for 1st place with Wilmington on Saturday.

NCAC
Wittenberg 8-3 at Maryville, TN 8-5

A rare in-region game for a great lakes team vs the Maryville Scots, Witt has 2 in-region losses with 7 games remaining against Hiram, OWU, Wabash and Wooster. Witt needs this win if they hope to be in contention for pool C status.

MIAA
Calvin 5-6 at Adrian 7-3

Not much of a big time, prime time match-up but probably the most important game in the MIAA on the first night. Calvin is 1-1 in-region, Adrian 1-1. Adrian gets Hope on the road Saturday so this a big week for the Bulldogs, it will dictate how their season will play out a lot.

Presidents Ath.
Thomas More 8-4 at Thiel 7-4

For conference purposes, Thomas More is a game back of Thiel and Bethany. Thiel has 3 in-region losses, Thomas More has 2.

KnightSlappy · January 04, 2012, 02:18:37 PM

We're still a month away from the first set of real rankings, but with non-con play mostly over I thought this would be fun to look at. As it stands right now, my "computer" spits out the Great Lakes Region like this:

1.   Hope
2.   Wabash
3.   Bethany
4.   Ohio Wesleyan
5.   Wooster
6.   Marietta
----------
7.   Wittenberg
8.   John Carroll
9.   Baldwin-Wallace
(a big jump)
10. Thomas More
11. Thiel

Hope only has two regional games in the books, but they could both be wins versus regionally ranked opponents, depending on how things fall out. Wheaton and Marietta both look to have a good chance of being ranked at some point. With the relative few number of games played, Hope has a smaller margin for error.

Wabash looks solid for #2 right now. Their 8-1 regional record doesn't look quite as good as Bethany's 10-0 mark, but their only loss is to Transylvania, who looks solid for the #1 spot in the Midwest at the moment. The LG's hold a win over probably ranked Wooster, and potentially ranked (down the road) Baldwin-Wallace. Their SOS of .639 likely would hold them above Bethany's .512 at the moment.

Bethany's best win was probably against Baldwin-Wallace. Their only loss was an out-of-region road loss to Illinois Weslyean (by three, not a bad loss). They'll likely be held down by a lower SOS (not bad at the moment, but they play in the PrAC), so they'll need to stay relatively blemish free to stay amongst the top three, I think.

I think there's a bit of a gap between Bethany and OWU at the moment. Their SOS's are similar, but Ohio Wesleyan has the opening night loss at Hanover to contend with. The Bishops beat Washington U., who has a really good shot at being ranked in the MW region, but it's an out-of-region game, so that will hardly help them. The teeth of their schedule is still ahead of them with 6 future meetings with the NCAC's W's.

I have Wooster next. The Scots have played a fairly tough schedule, but have lost their two most difficult games (at Wabash and vs. Wittenberg). I don't think the single head-to-head loss to Wittenberg would be enough to allow the Tigers to jump the Scots in the rankings. Perhaps it is, and if so, Wooster could find themselves "falling" all the way to 7th.

Marietta and Wittenberg are very very similar according to my numbers, but the Pioneers won head to had, and so that will keep them above Witt for a while. Similar to what I said above, I don't think the common opponent results with Wooster (Marietta beat Wittenberg, Wooster lost to Witt) is enough to jump up to #5, but then again, who am I to know how the committee weighs such things.

sac · January 05, 2012, 01:35:05 AM

Highlighted games

Adrian 68 Calvin 61
John Carroll 89 Baldwin-Wallace 85
Wittenberg 77 Maryville 70
Thiel 66 Thomas More 64

If anyone wants to decipher the technicals at the end of the Thiel/Thomas More game be my guest. Looks like a crazy finish though. http://www.thielathletics.com/custompages/mbb/201112/HTML/thimbb12.htm

David Collinge · January 05, 2012, 10:45:35 AM

Thiel.edu: Chace McKinney (Boardman, Ohio/Kennedy Catholic) connected on two free throws with 11 seconds to go to give Thiel a three-point lead, 64-61. Ryan Hamm hit 1-of-2 technical foul free throws with two seconds to play to pull the Saints back to within two, 64-62, but following a Thomas More personal foul and double technical fouls issued, Kamram McKaskill hit a pair of free throws to give the Tomcats a four-point advantage, 66-62, with two seconds remaining.

Thomas More refused comment, like it was the King's divorce or something.

Having seen Thiel twice, I can easily imagine that this game was very chippy down the stretch, especially since the personal foul mentioned was TMC's 17th of the second half. It doesn't seem to me that Thos. More got enough free throws out of the scrum, though. They didn't seem to get any from the double technical.

smedindy · January 05, 2012, 11:33:45 AM

If things happen at the same time, the PBP can go out of order, plus the stat keeper may have had fun just trying to enter it all in. May have been some mouthy stuff going on, though you wonder if that was going on through the game and why the ref didn't stop it earlier. Five of TMC's 17 fouls happened in the last couple of minutes.

sac · January 06, 2012, 03:55:25 PM

Saturday's highlighted games

OAC

John Carroll 9-2 at Wilmington 6-5 -- Wilmington isn't even one of the top 4 teams statistically in the OAC yet here they are with the winner of this game sitting in first place by their lonesome. Cinderella's and pumkins come to mind.

bonus game: BW plays at Capital, loser picks up a 3rd conference loss

NCAC

Friday:
Wabash 10-1 at Hiram 8-3 --- Hiram appears to be a really good offensive team, this will test Wabash's defense.

Saturday:
Wittenberg 9-3 at Ohio Wesleyan 11-1 -- On paper they look fairly evenly matched, winner has the potential to be in first by themselves.

MIAA

Adrian 8-3 at Hope 11-1 -- A little different Adrian team than they've played with thus far, this is most likely a game between the MIAA's two best. Should be a big crowd in Holland, with a playoff atmosphere.

PAC

There won't be many big games in this league, aside from Bethany v Thiel. Speaking of which, that game is next Wed night, so both of these teams will be looking for wins to set up next weeks game for the conference lead. Bethany hosts Waynesburg, Thiel hosts Geneva.

sac · January 06, 2012, 04:42:34 PM

Efficiencies thru Wed games for the Great Lakes

OFFENSIVE EFF. Top 10

1. Hiram 113.90
2. Bethany 110.20
3. Wooster 110.05
4. Ohio Wes. 109.84
5. John Carroll 109.80
6. Wabash 109.40
7. Hope 108.21
8. Marietta 108.10
9. Wittenberg 107.63
10. Denison 107.40

Probably wise to note the number of NCAC schools here, it looks like a good offensive league this year.

DEFENSIVE EFF Top 10

1. St. Vincent 86.91
2. Bethany 87.01
3. Wooster 87.43
4. Bald-Wally 92.12
5. Wabash 92.13
6. Hope 92.48
7. PSU-Behrend 93.88
8. Ohio Wes. 94.94
9. Grove City 94.97
10. Thiel 95.59

I tend to think anything under 90 is very good and approaching elite status in D3. Those 4 PAC teams are curious, I think they are mostly there because the rest of the PAC looks pretty bad at scoring points. I'm willing to give credit to the NCAC for being a good offensive league, but I don't really think the PAC is a good defensive league, too many teams bad at scoring efficiently.

OVERALL Top 10

1. Bethany 223.19
2. Wooster 222.62
3. Wabash 217.27
4. St. Vincent 216.54
5. Hope 215.73
6. Ohio Wes. 214.91
7. Bald-Wally 212.51
8. John Carroll 211.75
9. Hiram 211.65
10. Thomas More 210.60

Probably not what people expected to see, I know it wasn't what I expected. First Bethany, its actually pretty hard to dismiss Bethany, they've got good results v BW and IWU and excellent numbers. Wooster... the Scots have 2 losses to what look like two good teams. They've efficiently hammered the teams they were supposed to, that Geneva game may have blown the numbers up some. Its just so odd because they have 2 conference losses already. Lastly St. Vincent, great defensive numbers and a decent 9-4 record but I think they may have played close to the weakest schedule in the region, strength of schedule adjustment would push them out.

A note on Marietta and Hope, both played significantly better MAC opponents, so their numbers are being affected negatively by about 2 points on off. and def. If you want to adjust to reflect results vs 'like' competition Hope is about 219, Marietta 209. That result will calm down as the year progresses, but for now its probably clouding their true performance level a bit.

Strength of Schedule adjustment

I might adjust the top 5 to look like this

1. Wooster
2. Wabash
3. Hope
4. Bethany
5. Ohio Wesleyan

6.....a bunch of teams really pretty even

It will be interesting to see what happens to Wooster and their 'numbers' as the year rolls on, its a pretty odd circumstance. They have played an overall strong schedule.

The bottom 5 teams

Waynesburg 183.95
Geneva 183.74
Westminster 183.72
Olivet 182.86
Franciscan 161.40

Note the lack of NCAC teams (Allegheny would be next if I listed 6). I am pretty convinced Franciscan might be the lowest rated team in D3.

smedindy · January 06, 2012, 05:23:50 PM

Where do those ratings and measures come from? Did I miss a memo?

Hope's SOS is rated #2 overall in D-3 by Massey. Wabash is #27 and Wooster #36. Marietta is listed as #13 in SOS. St. Vincent is #385!

Franciscan is dead last in rating by Massey (#412) and their SOS is near the last (#406). That's REALLY hard to do...

sac · January 07, 2012, 07:40:39 PM

Quote from: smedindy on January 06, 2012, 05:23:50 PM
Where do those ratings and measures come from? Did I miss a memo?

Hope's SOS is rated #2 overall in D-3 by Massey. Wabash is #27 and Wooster #36. Marietta is listed as #13 in SOS. St. Vincent is #385!

Franciscan is dead last in rating by Massey (#412) and their SOS is near the last (#406). That's REALLY hard to do...

Just my own efficiency calculations. Well not my own, its someone else's formula, but I do the grunt work I guess.

sac · January 07, 2012, 07:49:13 PM

Highlighted results

John Carroll 82 Wilmington 64......JCU now alone in first in the OAC.
bonus: Capital 75 BW 69.......BW now with 3 league losses

Wittenberg 57 Ohio Wes. 55........Witt now with wins over Wooster and OWU

Hope 69 Adrian 60......wasn't pretty but effective.

Both Thiel and Bethany took care of bidnezz and won handily, setting up next Wed. nights game for the PAC lead at Bethany.

David Collinge · January 07, 2012, 10:09:01 PM

Quote from: sac on January 07, 2012, 07:49:13 PM

Wittenberg 57 Ohio Wes. 55........Witt now with wins over Wooster and OWU

...both on the road, no less.

sac · January 10, 2012, 12:05:55 AM

This week's big regional games

NCAC

DePauw 8-5, 2-2 at Wabash 12-1, 4-0
or
Hiram 9-4, 2-2 at Wooster 11-2, 2-2

No big head to head games but DePauw/Wabash is always big for these two schools. For standings purposes Hiram at Wooster is probably the 'bigger' game as both schools have 2 conference losses. A third this early would certainly but their backs up against the wall.

OAC

Marietta 9-4, 4-2 at Capital 7-6, 4-2

Loser of this one falls 2 back in the loss column, this race feels like it could come right down to the last couple weekends but JCU is playing the best right now.

MIAA

Albion 6-7, 2-0 at Hope 12-1, 2-0

Winner walks away in at least a share of 1st place, Albion literally stole this game away from Hope in the final minute in Holland a year ago.

Adrian 8-4, 1-1 at Trine 9-4, 2-0

If I had more money and time I'd seriously consider driving to see this game. Both teams should be strong contenders to make the MIAA tournament at least. It's almost a must win for Adrian.

PAC

Thiel 9-4, 6-0 at Bethany 13-1, 5-0

Obviously one of the two biggest games of the year to be played in the PAC, Bethany gets first crack at home. Bethany is right on the edge of being a top 25 team.

sac · January 11, 2012, 09:49:14 PM

Wed. scores

OAC
quite an upsetting night in the OAC, I'm posting all 5 scores just because

Capital 82 Marietta 66
Muskingum 82 John Carroll 69
Mt. Union 49 Bald-Wally 47
Ohio No. 64 Wilmington 60
Heidelberg 76 Otterbein 60

Three teams lower in the standings won tonight, Capital/Marietta and H'berg/Otterbein entered the night tied.

This puts JCU and Capital in a tie for 1st, with Wilmington, Marietta, Ohio Northern a game back in the loss column.

NCAC

A couple upsets in the NCAC, this puts Wittenberg in 1st for the time being.

DePauw 64 Wabash 55
Denison 69 Ohio Wesleyan 66
Wooster 92 Hiram 64
Witt 71 Kenyon 63.....Witt alone at the top

MIAA

Nothing really life changing

Adrian 53 Trine 42
Hope 78 Albion 61

PAC

Thiel 69 Bethany 57

Bethany fell behind 19-5 in the first 10 minutes and just never recovered. Thiel takes over first in the PAC.